on their be-haves

Now the government's financial 'rescue' (re-regulatory) plan's process re-begins: The Newest (USD$700B) Deal has finaly been passed by the U.S. Congress (Senate: 74-25; House: 263-171); then Nancy Pelosi & Dubya Bush signed the ensuing bill into law.

Early on in this financial & political imbroglio, current Treasury Sect'y Paulson said: "Normally, I don't like to regulate things." (He did; I heard him.) Imagine, then, how 3 continuous decades of Republican freemarketers infesting the government & its appointed bureaucracy must feel doing this - why, it's almost like engaging in the bogus 'class-war' they always accuse anybody favoring regulation - of!

But now it's about to be their daily-duty (as a reasonably well-paid job); for decades they've let their own buddy-bankers run free while making them a bundle & wrecking the banking system; but now they get to slowly tie them up again in necessary regulatory knots. How tightly? How closely are you watching? Many slip-knots have been made on their be-haves.

Of course, they'll get to (temporarily) keep the result of all those miss-B-gotten, fantastic derivatives & cry on each other's Hong Kong (methode francaise ou italien) pin-stripe-suited shoulders, that they got taken for a dime on the dollar. They'll still get to keep their bespoke suits in which they will someday be all-too-decently buried.

(I won't, even tho I, too, have these same silk/wool Hong Kong-made pin-striped suits, bought at Building 19, a MA salvaged-lots store-chain back in the peak-'80s, when I worked in high-tech marketing communications.)

- Bill Costley (03 OCT 08 Santa Clara CA)