Economics and Satire

THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: Swift, from Wikipedia.

I was preparing a series on the economy when an interesting and quite funny exchange developed and it reminded me of my own observation: If you take yourself seriously as a professional, never attack a satirist. Even a mediocre satirist has the advantage as one of his [I use this grammatically as the first person singular and anyone who thinks it makes me a mysoginist has the problem in his brain, not mine, and I am too old now to care if it is politically incorrect] characteristics is that he does not pretend to take himself seriously. I'll start with a famous example.

Jonathin Swift, illustration, once became fed up with a contemporary astrologer named Partridge. The Partridge took himself very seriously and had a number of gullible followers. Here is a short description of him: "Partridge undertook to himself the task of reforming astrology. His program for reform involved eliminating the elements derived for the medieval Arabic tradition in favor of a return to Ptolemy."

Swift finally became too irritated when Partridge attacked the church with which he was affiliated or at least respected. At this point, Swift published a few articles, all talking about the impending death of Partridge and then finally Partidges' obituary.

People crowded around Partridges' house day and night offering condolences, weeping, even as Partridge himself was trying to sleep or was telling them to go home. Finally, in complete anger, Partridge published a short article attacking Swift and laudly proclaiming that he, Partirdge, was still alive.

Swift countered by publishing an article lamenting the passing of the late Partridge and expressing indignation that someone is now pretending to be the late, great, Partridge, spoiling his name and reputation. After that, Partridge was history.

Now for the present: recently a "personality" on CNBC, Jim Cramer, who can be described as a madman giving hypercaffinated stock tips or analysis, had a modest by loyal following. He went on a blithering rant recently attacking Obama for the bailout of the failing banks, ignoring the fact that all of our economic problems result from greed and deregulation, starting from the Reagen Presidency, and going wild buring the last Bush Presidency. At any rate, the rant was so wierd that Jon Stewart featured it and made fun of it.

So far, so good. But Cramer was not content to let it rest at that. He turned around and attacked Stewart, defending himself. Stewart then started to play other clips from Cramer, such as advising that investing in Bear Sterns was a good idea -- a week before it collapsed. All of these clips and such are available on youtube so there is no point in going into more detail. The point is, this Cramer should be washed up -- unless the publicity he got by being humiliated generates curiosity. He then appeared on Stewart's show and Stewart did the best serious interview I've seen since the days of Terkel. It is on comedychannel.com and worth watching. Cramer was glad to leave with his life.

For the most part, politicians tend to make themselves ridiculous. Ari Fleisher recently defended the Bush administration by saying the threat from Saddam Hussein to the United States was real. In a follow-up, Gaffney, another Republican, said that Saddam was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombings! Since he was with serious broadcasters and not satirists, he managed to escape without much ridicule, but these are such obvious straight lines and openings they are hardly worthy of satire. The guy who threw the shoes at Bush was sentenced to three years in prison by Iraqi operatives. No sense of gratitude whatsoever. If he worked for the Bush administration and done that to anybody Spanish Speaking, he would have received a medal of honor as did Paul Bremer who turned Iraq into an enen greater disaster than in was.

And then, even blaming anyone other than God for the 9/11 attacks is absurd. The WTC was constructed to be a taller building that the Sears Tower in Chicago and that's why God destroyed it. Now, some British insurance company bought it and intends to rename it the Willis Tower. Either people will ignore the name change or something horrible is going to happen. You heard it here, folks.

Bernie Madoff (pronounced made off, who would give their money to a guy with a name like that?) stated he was "ashamed." Awwww. I heard one individual complain that he lost Millions to Madoff. Awwww, and what an ASS! If money meant brains, it would not have happened.

We have also learned that there were Bush/Cheney Assassination squads that reported directly to them and that operated overseas. And we thought Nixon's "Plumbers" squad was corrupt?

I'm waiting for prosecution of most of the people in the Bush administration. There is enough evidence, both internal and overseas, to put all of them away for a long time. I wonder if it will happen.

Steele, the Chair of the Republican National Committee gave me much to wonder about. Why pick him? I'm trying to imagine the Republican thought processes (I know, bad idea). "Hip Hop" Republicans? The lines write themselves. I can imagine it went something like this "We gotta appeal to more stupid people. I know, let's get ourselves a black guy -- it worked for the Democrats. And they know how to be republican. Look at Clarance Thomas! Yeah." Just recently he said that abortion should be a woman's choice. Oops! "Lets give him a little more time. If he keeps screwing up, we'll find another black guy, yeah."

Anyway, now I'm going to turn my attention to a coupel Nobel Prize winners in Economics -- you should have the information.

Keynes Lives!

THE ABSURD TIMEs

Illustrations: Top, Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize in Economics. This illustrates the fact that the inane days of Milton Friedman are over. During his days of huge influence, every discussion I had with one of the morons ended with them saying "You just don't understand Economics." Now, I do understand Economics. All it took was a world-wide crash.

Second: One of you sent this: illustrates nicely the "flat earth" approach of "supply-side" economics.

***************************
From the campaign: McCain starts off one of his speeches with "My fellow prisoners,...." Is he having flashbacks? No one on his campaign notices at all. Then his crowds start yelling "terrorist," "kill him," and so forth, and McCain just smiles. Finally, one woman called Obama "an Arab," and that was just too much. I mean, you can't let things get outta hand. McCain shook his head and said "No, he is a decent person."

They sent Sarah to drop the first puck at a Flyer's game in Plilly. This really show how out of touch they are. According to Bob Ueker, they boo kids at Easter Egg hunts. They have booed everyone except Kate Smith while she sang "God Bless America." I can't trust such an organization in the White House. Total lack of reality.

Here's another article:

********************************

The Fannie/Freddie Flat Earth Theory

October, 14 2008

By Dean Baker
Source: t r u t h o u t

Dean Baker's ZSpace Page
Join ZSpace

For the last month, most of the world has been watching the Wall Street gang drowning in their own greed as they threaten to pull the rest of us down with them. However, while we have been distracted, the Flat Earth Society has developed its narrative to explain the crisis.

In the Flat Earth version, the real villains in the story were the public/private mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Prominent Congressional Democrats like Senators Charles Schumer and Chris Dodd, and Representative Barney Frank, are cited as accomplices. According to the Flat-Earthers, the problem wasn't sleaze bag bankers pulling down tens of millions a year pushing predatory loans to people who didn't understand them; the real problem was Congressional Democrats, who wanted the government to help the poor and minorities buy homes.

Before addressing the Flat Earth argument, I should be very clear that I have long been a harsh critic of Fannie and Freddie. They committed a colossal mistake by failing to recognize the housing bubble. It is understandable that you could miss an $8 trillion housing bubble if you drive a bus or sell shoes for a living. It's a little harder to accept this sort of mistake from companies that own or guarantee trillions of dollars of mortgage debt.

I first warned that the collapse of the housing bubble would lead to serious problems for Fannie and Freddie in the fall of 2002 , before they began to move into the risky mortgages that were the immediate cause of their collapse. When almost all you own is mortgage debt, and the mortgage default rate rises to several times its normal level, it is virtually guaranteed that you're going to face serious problems. Obviously, Fannie and Freddie's venture into more risky mortgages in the years 2005 to 2007 worsened the problem.

While no one should shed any tears over the collapse of these two giants - the top management and shareholders got what they deserved - it is equally ridiculous to lay the blame for the financial crisis on the shoulders of Fannie and Freddie.

The underlying problem was the housing bubble, which Alan Greenspan allowed to grow unchecked and, arguably, actively promoted. The bubble was accentuated by the willingness of banks to ignore normal prudential standards in issuing mortgages and to make loans that they knew could not be paid off by the borrowers. And, of course, leveraging themselves to the sky guaranteed full-fledged disaster

Banks would issue these loans because they knew they could dump them into the secondary market where securitizers would peddle them off to suckers all round the world. This is where Fannie and Freddie came in. They purchased many of the junk mortgages issued by banks in the years 2005 to 2007. According to the Flat-Earthers, this makes Fannie and Freddie the cause of the current crisis.

There is one basic problem with the Flat Earth story: Fannie and Freddie jumped into the junk mortgage market because they were trying to keep pace with the private issuers of mortgage-backed securities. Fannie and Freddie made a conscious decision to dive into the junk in order to protect their market share, which was being seriously eroded by the aggressive tactics of private giants like Citigroup and Merrill Lynch.

The market share of Fannie and Freddie. in the years 2004 to 2007, never came close to its level before the junk market took off. According to data from the Federal Reserve Board, Fannie and Freddie securitized $315.2 billion worth of mortgages in 2002, accounting for 50.1 percent of the new mortgage debt that year. In 2006, they securitized $276.0 billion in mortgages, giving them a market share of just 34.8 percent.

Fannie and Freddie's conduct was despicable. Their decision to dive into the junk certainly contributed to the further expansion of the bubble and worsened the pain from its eventual collapse. However, they were followers, not leaders. They didn't cause the bubble and the subprime craziness. This train had already left the station. Fannie and Freddie's crime was going along for the ride.

Fannie and Freddie could have instead played a positive role in this crisis. Suppose in 2004 or 2005 one of these mortgage giants issued a statement warning of the dangerous over-valuation in many housing markets across the country. Instead of easing mortgage standards, imagine that Fannie or Freddie announced that it was tightening its rules for mortgages in the most over-valued markets, requiring nonborrowed down payments of 20 percent, or even 30 percent, in order to protect against anticipated price declines.

This action would have produced howls of outrage from builders, realtors, and other big beneficiaries of the housing bubble. It also would have led to headlines and possibly some serious analysis of the evidence for a housing bubble. It may have saved the country from much of the pain it is now suffering.

But this sort of step would have required real courage and leadership, traits rarely found in high positions in Washington, or on Wall Street. Fannie and Freddie should be blamed for following the herd off the cliff. They stand out as especially big sheep. But only the Flat-Earthers could make them the main villains in this story.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of "The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer" (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.

---