steve graves

The Seduction of America

Astoundingly well said, but I must digress on one point - that's it's not too late. Clearly the momentum not to face the music is so overwhelmingly strong that by the time our boom box of denial runs out of batteries it will be - too late. Perhaps Obama, as his presidency prematurely slips away, will have an epiphany? Not likely, but he's an intelligent man so we can at least hope. Perhaps.

Good Bank, Bad Bank: Is There Any Other Way Out of the Crisis?

Yeah you're missing something - something quite incredibly obvious and fundamental. The root of the problem may have been sub-prime mortgages, it's true, but the idea that can now somehow gobble up this sub-prime debt and magically mend the global financial crisis is almost ridiculously naive. Sub-prime may have been the catalyst, but the contagion has spread throughout our over-leveraged financial system and into the economy as a whole. Commercial real estate is collapsing, jobs are being shed at record pace, derivative markets are coming unravelled, the so-called 'shadow banking system' has been completely obliterated, etc. It's like lighting a match to burn down a house; once the house is on fire the match becomes irrelevant. And blowing it out won't do a damn thing to save the house.