Comments on: Bill Gross: Let the Monolines Sink

By: joelunchbucket

joelunchbucket — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 22:44:00 +0000

Its more like Boss hog in the Dukes of Hasard

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:36:00 +0000

Wall Street doesn’t even have the equivalent of Barney Fife! Top to bottom, the system is highly corrupt, unregulated and unaccountable, like an insidious mafia that morphs cancer-like into every aspect of American lives!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Fife
The public lives of lawmen Andy Taylor and Barney Fife are featured in episodes involving the apprenhension of criminals, the receptions of visiting dignitaries, or the state’s inquiries into the management of the sheriff’s department. Midpoint in the series’ run, Barney takes a job with the Raleigh Police Department and leaves Mayberry.
Barney is often overly analytical and alarmist about benign situations, such as the modest Mayberry crime scene. He takes a minor infraction, blows it out of proportion, and then concocts an elaborate plan (sometimes involving inept civilians, like Otis Campbell or Gomer Pyle) to resolve it. This only inflicts mass chaos for Andy to quell. Despite his failings, Barney is passionate about law enforcement, regularly spouting off penal codes and ordinances to thugs and jaywalkers alike.
An emotional powderkeg, Barney easily projects panic, despair, fear or other extreme reactions. He has what he describes as a “low sugar blood level”. He is smug and self-confident until a real-life situation surfaces, wherein he becomes flustered. Outwardly “a man of the world”, Barney is truly naïve and easily duped. Though constantly warned by Andy, he falls for countless scams.
One major comedic source is Barney’s lack of ability with a firearm. After numerous misfires (usually a Colt or Smith & Wesson M&P .38 caliber revolver), Andy restricts Barney to carrying only a single bullet in his shirt pocket, “in case of an emergency.” The bullet always seems to find its way back into the pistol, where, predictably, it is accidentally discharged. The accidental discharge of Barney’s pistol becomes a running gag:

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 17:01:00 +0000

Your thoughts ring true. Extend your logic to the CMBS and the assets they support in the shadow banking market that are owned by REITs and you will better understand we are flerting with absolute depression, as bad as 1930.

I would like to hear solutions that Mr. Gross would suggest for this monumental mess. I for the life of me have not a clue other than to short the REITs.

By: s

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:36:00 +0000

Notwithstanding Gross constantly talking his book — he is dead right about the finance based economy. The US got confused somewhere along the way: it is the real economy that innovates and Wall Street provided the capital grease to get them there, not the other way around. Somewhere along the way, the parasites began the siphoning process.

By: Hubert

Hubert — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:45:00 +0000

Yves,

did you see this in yesterdays FT ?
Lex on Monolines: “Through a hedge backwards” – Looks important to me.
what do you make out of it?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/51d374e4-d51e-11dc-9af1-0000779fd2ac.html

By: tom a taxpayer

tom a taxpayer — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 09:40:00 +0000

Here’s a way for Ambac and MBIA to solve their problem. Tell Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and all the other Mismanagers of the Universe to go pound sand. Why? Because like any insurer, the insurer does not have pay claims when the claimant has acted recklessly or fraudulently.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:08:00 +0000

Re:

It is as if Barney Fife, television’s Sheriff of Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show, promised to bring law and order to the entire country.

The modern US financed-based economy has a striking resemblance to Barney Fife, guaranteeing global prosperity without the productive industrial-based firepower to back it up.

GREAT stuff there! Makes me wanna whistle like Andy!