by John Holbo on October 5, 2008
I’m sure there’s nothing to this so-called ‘financial crisis’ that wasn’t explained adequately in that classic Sutherland instructional video, “The Wise Use Of Credit”. If not, then in that companion volume, “What Makes Us Tick”.
We have a friend who travels on business to India a lot. He was discussing how maybe next week isn’t the best week to be away from home because if the whole system melts down he’ll get stuck in Bangladesh, with the airlines unable to buy gas for the planes because money has seized up globally. Getting back to Singapore would be like a cross between Burmese Days and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Not that he really thinks that. It’s just that everyone is thinking that. I mean: it almost definitely won’t happen.
I’ll just talk nonsense for a while. Because: what do I know? I praised Scott Morse’s art a couple weeks ago. Since then I bought a new collection of his stuff, Scrap Mettle
[amazon]. You can check out this preview from his upcoming Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! . (If you missed my first post and don’t know who Scott Morse is, you can read his wikipedia entry, or check out this site. I linked to his blog above. He’s done animation stuff and other stuff.) [click to continue…]
by John Q on October 5, 2008
We’ve all been strictly enjoined to avoid schadenfreude in the current crisis, and indeed few are likely to escape unscathed. Still I’m struck by a couple of examples of historical irony
* Ten years ago, I was debating representatives of the Dutch bank ABN-AMRO, who were pushing for the privatisation of Australian Capital Territory Electricity and Water (ACTEW). A couple of days ago, the Dutch operations of ABN-AMRO were nationalised
* British Bank Northern Rock was nationalised following a run by customers seeking to withdraw their money. Now, seen as safer than its competitors, it is being forced to limit deposits.