Comments on: Clinton on the bail-out

By: Darryl Cox

Darryl Cox — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 17:56:37 +0000

Maybe I’m impervious to charm because I still don’t find Bill Clinton persuasive or especially engaging. He is a salesman and much of what he extracts from his case and displays for all to see I am not much interested in buying. I wonder, too, about people whose boundaries are so porous that they allow politicians to make them feel as if they are the most important person in the world to them. All salesmen work this angle whether they are pushing used cars or dubious explanations for $700 billion bailouts.

By: c.l. ball

c.l. ball — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:58:08 +0000

Warren Buffet had a succinct summary of the problem in the 2002 annual report that coined the phrase "financial weapons of mass destruction." In short, over-leveraged derivatives are problematic (but so is re-insurance, Buffet's main business) but over-leveraged derivatives that are concentrated among a small set of brokers (Bears, Lehman, AIG) and in which the buyers are tightly linked (e.g., a downturn for one mortgage lender is likely to affect other mortgage lenders) are severely problematic, especially when there is no regular lender-of-last-resort in the derivative or insurance industry to protect otherwise sound institutions from being taken down by spirals created by weak ones. Clinton's "what I should have done" on derivatives is interesting, but as Buffet also noted, their use in individual instances is sensible; it was the macro problem -- large amounts, highly leveraged, opaque accounting, concentrated, cross-cutting ownership -- that created the time-bomb.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:35:49 +0000

on the whole I wouldn’t have thought that clean energy would have soaked up massively more cash.

Depends what exactly he has in mind with “dealing with climate change”, I guess. To the extent that it means shifting toward denser settlement patterns, with a huge devaluation of existing residential, commercial and transportation investments in outer suburbs and exurbs—then yeah, there could be a major long-term stimulus to investment, just like mass auto ownership and the highway system offered (in the other direction) in the postwar period.

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:58:07 +0000

KCinDC – I didn’t catch the bit about the timing, but it is more than possible that he said it as I was trying furiously to scribble notes – Moira is more experienced than me at these things, I think.

iolanthe – it was very mellow. We were sitting around in a circle on comfy chairs and couches in a fancy hotel suite. I don’t recall anyone saying Mr President – but no-one calling him Bill either (again, I may just not have noticed). He came to me afterwards, having spotted my accent, and talked for a minute about Ireland.

By: Steve LaBonne

Steve LaBonne — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:39:58 +0000

From what I’ve seen on Clinton re the shitpile, what he seems to think is most important is to make sure he absolves himself of any responsibility.

That’s my Bill!

A lot the things he says are vapid and/or stupid, as is (in spades) the one about forking over the money now and trying to exert some leverage later. Sebastian at #16 nicely explained his Steve Jobs – like reality distortion field, which causes people to attribute profundity to his sayings.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:20:59 +0000

As someone who works in the energy sector, the one about clean energy and climate change puzzles me. An awful lot of electricity investment needs to happen around the world to meet retiring old equipment and rising demand, regardless of whether we tackle climate change or not. Okay, renewable energy tends to have higher generating costs than thermal energy, so you might be spending double to build windmills rather than a coal plant (these are approximations; the total cost structure depends massively on site-specific factors). But on the whole I wouldn’t have thought that clean energy would have soaked up massively more cash.
Of course if we started shutting down fossil-fuel stations early and replacing them with renewable energy stations that would soak up a lot more cash, but I would have said that there just isn’t the raw materials or skilled staff to do that on a large scale at the moment.

By: john in california

john in california — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:29:12 +0000

From what I’ve seen on Clinton re the shitpile, what he seems to think is most important is to make sure he absolves himself of any responsibility.
Here is a politician who gets it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27yitK32ds&eurl=http://www.iamtrex.com/

And again, Please sign and post Bernie sanders petition as many places as you can.

http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/?petition=Financial_Crisis_1

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:37:14 +0000

“As a disgruntled leftist, I even noticed that on TV. I was totally charmed one time, and only realized ten seconds later that I disagreed with him strongly on the issue. My overwhelming response was “Jesus, I wish that guy were on my side!”.”

Heh, I feel much the same. Anytime I watched him on tv I would think “wow, he has some good points” only to realize they were mostly trash the moment it went off. He really does have scary powers.

By: felix culpa

felix culpa — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:04:22 +0000

Just what a foolish mortal must be expected to say; but Bill is a foolish immortal.

By: foolishmortal

foolishmortal — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:38:17 +0000

Clinton just laid out many of the same points on the Daily Show, and I say, as a non-fan of his speaking style, he was on fire. Perhaps it was the substantive merit of his points that lent force to his case. An old-fashioned and risky rhetorical approach, if you ask me.

By: lemuel pitkin

lemuel pitkin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:14:52 +0000

Those are some exceedingly fine bullet points. Such wasted potential…

By: KCinDC

KCinDC — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:57:37 +0000

Can you comment on this bit from Ezra, which seems crazy to me (and apparently to Ezra):

He also said that Democrats need to pass a bailout quickly, but then "lobby" in the coming weeks for a package of measures to help ordinary Americans keep their homes and protect their investments.

Trying to get something after giving up your leverage doesn't seem like the sort of thing Clinton would be recommending.

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:24:06 +0000

When people talk about Clinton’s extraordinary charm in one-on-one settings, they’re not bullshitting you.

As a disgruntled leftist, I even noticed that on TV. I was totally charmed one time, and only realized ten seconds later that I disagreed with him strongly on the issue. My overwhelming response was “Jesus, I wish that guy were on my side!”.

By: iolanthe

iolanthe — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:43:19 +0000

I’m curious about the protocol here. I know (based on that insightful doco “The West Wing”) that there is what seems to an Australian to be an excessive amount of grovelling and deference to sitting presidents and that ex presidents are still called “Mr President” for some odd reason.

Did this mean you had to stand up and generally be deferential or did you just call him Bill?

By: felix culpa

felix culpa — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:38:28 +0000

I’m not sure you do the event any honour, rather the reverse, by bracketing it with Althouse; perhaps we are intended to see preening and puffery as the structural foundation of the event upon which you comment, and so (very) subtly conveying Clinton’s underlying (pun) character as you witnessed it.
There must indeed be an odd disconnect in finding such power of persuasiveness applied to something you know in plain fact to be untrue (you are the most, surpassing the entire world of distinguished minds and talents, interesting person imaginable). It means by extension nothing, however persuasive, he says can escape suspicion of falsity.

As for Wall Street, I’ve begun to feel related sorts of suspicion. It is a media event. It feeds a fear that lurks under every rock in the garden; that it’s all a sham, and we know it’s a sham, but we have no option but to play along, and have as good a time as possible while we’re doing it. ‘We all know better, but I’m doing not badly, and anyway I don’t have any choice, and I love my iPhone’. Spiraling towards the drain, but a dizzying ride.
Anyway, it feels scripted, Marat/Sade-like. Outrageousness, incomprehensibility, and obfuscation; smoke, mirrors, shouting in the murk, and a hell of a stink. But for all the elaborate choreography it feels like a shell game, nor do I have much reason to reason otherwise.

As someone, perhaps Robert Reich, said: It’s not a crisis of liquidity, it’s a crisis of trust.
Indeed.