Quote of the Day/Week/Month/Year

[msj]

Here's a quote related to Obama's above:

"We're all Swedes now" by Nouriel Roubini.

Link

[msj]

It may be necessary to temporarily nationalise some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring. I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.

-- Al Greenspan.

Looks like Easy Al is making up for lost time - hey, even a clock is right twice a day.

[August1991]

Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (aka "Dr Fadl"), 58, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, states from an Egyptian prison:

"Ramming America has become the shortest road to fame and leadership among the Arabs and Muslims. But what good is it if you destroy one of your enemy's buildings, and he destroys one of your countries? What good is it if you kill one of his people, and he kills a thousand of yours?" asks Dr Fadl. "That, in short, is my evaluation of 9/11."

Daily Telegraph

[August1991]

Ben Bernanke, US Fed Chairman:

“This outlook for economic activity is subject to considerable uncertainty, and I believe that, over all, the downside risks probably outweigh those on the upside.”

NYT

[August1991]

Mark Steyn, 49, political columnist:

"Banking is really a kind of demographic shorthand—a means by which old people with capital can lend to young people with energy and ideas. It’s no coincidence that in Japan— the oldest society on earth—the banking sector nosedived just as the demographics headed irreversibly south. Who do you lend to in Germany? Or Scotland? Traditional risk assessment is simply not possible in such circumstances."

Macleans

[August1991]

Stephen Harper, on the war in Afghanistan:

"We are not going to 'defeat' the insurgency. The best we can do is train the Afghans so that they are able to manage the insurgency themselves and create, not a Western liberal democracy, because Afghanistan is not going to look like that any time soon, but at least a government that has some democratic and rule-of-law norms that is moving in a positive direction."

WSJ

[msj]

Barry Ritholtz commenting on whether the current economic malaise should be called the Not-so-great Depression or the Great Recession:

The Not-So-Great Depression moniker is a backhanded jab at the remnants of the now departed Bush administration. Its as if Barron’s is saying that the most fitting legacy for one of the nation’s least popular presidents was that even his greatest screw up was only mediocre at best.

A good quote from the source article itself by Stephanie Pomboy:

The U.S. consumer's legendary lust for credit died with the housing bust. As he vows to live within his means -- or even (children, cover your ears) reduce his debt -- all of Ben's horses and Nancy's men cannot get consumers to borrow and spend.

I do like a good rhyme.

[August1991]

Barack Obama, 3 March 2009:

"What you're now seeing is ... profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you've got a long-term perspective on it," the president said on a day that trading continued to hover under 7,000.

ABC

Stephen Harper, 7 October 2008:

"I think there's probably some great buying opportunities emerging in the stock market as the consequence of all this panic."

Reuters

(The Dow was around 9500 in early October 2008.)

[jdobbin]

(The Dow was around 9500 in early October 2008.)

So Harper's timing was off?

[capricorn]

Barack Obama, 3 March 2009:ABC

Stephen Harper, 7 October 2008:Reuters

This all but gives Ignatieff the green light to follow suit. The fact that Ignatieff said he never owned stocks (and seemed proud of it) shouldn't stand in the way.

[msj]

Well, at least Obama is closer to the bottom than Harper was.

[Peter F]

...to melt down the barrels of machine guns

--Oleg

A great line. I've never heard that phrase before. Is it an Oleg original?

MLW aghan war unwinnable thread post 135

[August1991]

Hillary Clinton speaking in the European Parliament in Brussels:

"I have never understood multiparty democracy.

"It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy."

Reuters

[bush_cheney2004]

Hillary Clinton speaking in the European Parliament in Brussels:

Maybe they miss Condi Rice already......Clinton's verbal gaffes are beginning to add up.

Edited March 7, 2009 by bush_cheney2004

[August1991]

Anonymous US State Department bureaucrat, referring to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit to Washington:

"There's nothing special about Britain. You're just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn't expect special treatment."

Daily Telegraph

[August1991]

N. Gregory Mankiw, Economics professor at Harvard University:

"President Obama's proposal to raise taxes at the top to further cut taxes at the bottom has one rationale: using the coercive power of the state to "spread the wealth around." In addition to the obvious disincentive effects, the policy raises deep philosophical questions. If one citizen of a nation can lay claim to the wealth of his more productive neighbor, shouldn't poor nations have the right to lay claim to the resources of richer nations such as the United States?"

Washington Post Edited March 8, 2009 by August1991

[August1991]

US President Barack Obama:

"In the entire banking sector – we spend every day, myself, Rahm Emanuel, Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Christina Romer, every single day, we will spend at least an hour of my time just talking through how we are approaching the financial markets.

"And part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another – well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine, or this or that or the other. The truth is this is a very complex set of problems and bad decisions can result in huge taxpayer expenditures and poor results."

NYT

Warren Buffet, 78, CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway:

"The economy, ever since we talked in September, we talked about it being an economic Pearl Harbor and how--what was happening in the financial world would move over to the real world very quickly. It's fallen off a cliff, and not only has the economy slowed down a lot, people have really changed their behavior like nothing I've ever seen."

CNBC

[jdobbin]

N. Gregory Mankiw, Economics professor at Harvard University.

It should be pointed out that Mankiw's policy ideas were used by Bush and didn't work. Some policies that Mankiw did suggest like a Pigovian tax or carbon tax were not touched.

Here's another quote of Mankiw's:

"If you were going to turn to only one economist to understand the problems facing the economy, there is little doubt that the economist would be John Maynard Keynes. Although Keynes died more than a half-century ago, his diagnosis of recessions and depressions remains the foundation of modern macroeconomics. His insights go a long way toward explaining the challenges we now confront."

Here is more on Mankiw and Keynes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business...0view.html?_r=1

Mankiw's big issue is with the deficit. It is something he should have been hammering at Bush in the years he was in office.

[August1991]

Henri-Paul Rousseau, ancien président-directeur général de la Caisse de dépôt:

"D’abord, à l’automne la Caisse a été frappée de plein fouet par une combinaison de facteurs qui a créé la tempête parfaite. Je parlerai de chacun de ces facteurs, mais l’un d’eux est le fameux PCAA. À ce sujet je vous le dis d’emblée : la situation du PCAA s’est développée pendant que j’étais premier dirigeant de la Caisse et, à ce titre, j’en assume pleinement la responsabilité."

...

"En fait, la majorité de la baisse de valeur, soit 22 milliards sur les 39,8 milliards, est constituée de provisions, essentiellement dues à la tempête parfaite de l’automne dernier et dues à l’impact des règles comptables applicables à la Caisse."

Les Affaires Edited March 10, 2009 by August1991

[msj]

I love the Obama quote about blogs and nationalization.

Assuming the US doesn't go the Japan route (still a big if at this point) it will be funny to either see the taxpayers lose big on the bad bank idea or see Obama flip flop on nationalization.

As for Warren Buffett - he's a smart guy but I'm not the only one who has problems with his recent take:

Come on, Buffett!

I noted then, as I will now, that it is disingenuous at best for Buffett to be calling this an “Economic Pearl Harbor”. (1) There is no external aggressor. (2) We are more like a drug addict or an alcoholic than a populus being attacked. (3) His metaphor implies we are not at fault - we just need to fight back against the force which is fighting us. In many, many ways this is not an appropriate metaphor. I understand that he is trying to convey a sense of urgency, and a need to put aside our differences to reach a good solution. But the gaping holes in the metaphor are so large that I am left with the impression that he is simply trying to scare us into following the prescription of Obama.

[msj]

I find it fascinating how these ideas can sit and germinate for awhile, and then suddenly become widely recognized.

Blogger Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture, commenting on how the mainstream media are slow (in this case 1 year) to pick up on ideas already dealt with amongst blogs.

Read it here first

Also see Read it here first: NYT Edition for another example.

[August1991]

Charles Freeman, 65, ex-American Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, explains why he decided to withdraw his nomination to the US National Intelligence Council:

The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

Link

[August1991]

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Fed, when asked when the recession would end:

“Well, my forecasting record on this recession is about the same as the win-loss record of the Washington Nationals.”

WSJ

(The Washington Nationals were 59-102 last season.)

[August1991]

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, 68:

"We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried. I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets.''

Toronto Star

[capricorn]

In an interview with Le Devoir on January 14, 2009, Michael Ignatieff said that Bloquists are not traitors or enemies of Canada.

«Les bloquistes sont dûment élus par les électeurs du Québec. Ils ne sont pas des traîtres, ils ne sont pas des ennemis du Canada»

http://www.ledevoir.com/2009/01/15/227507.html

In an interview with Epoch Times on March 9, 2009, Ignatieff speaks of "a deal with people who want to split the country up".

I could be sitting here as your prime minister, but I turned it down because I didn’t think it was right for someone who believes in the national unity of my country to make a deal with people who want to split the country up.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/13408/

Sounds like doublespeak to me.

More about this at http://blog.macleans.ca/2009/03/12/he-said-that/print/