Not Just a River in Egypt

It's not the best thing one can do. Denying the truth about one's self. It's not even the worst. It's just something Homo does with a seriously studious attention to detail. What makes that easy, per se, is how much it hurts to acknowledge that we're not really "all that". Even when what we are is one hell of a lot of pretty damn good.

Why that's just not good enough is just about as to hard to pin down as the question for which the answer is 42*. The math is just too fuzzy for folks to follow all that easily...

On Wall St., a Problem of Denial
By JOE NOCERA
Published: September 15, 2008
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(It) is not all that different from what is going on in neighborhoods all over the country. Just as homeowners took out big loans and stretched themselves on the assumption that their chief asset — their home — could only go up, so did Wall Street firms borrow tens of billions of dollars to make subprime mortgage bets on the assumption that they were a sure thing.

But housing prices did drop eventually. And when people tried to sell their homes in this newly depressed market, many of them had a hard time admitting that their home wasn’t worth what they had thought it was. Their judgment has been naturally clouded by their love for their house, how much money they put into it and how much more it was worth a year ago. And even when they did drop their selling price, it never quite matched the reality of the marketplace. They’ve been in denial.

That is exactly what is happening on Wall Street. Ever since the crisis took hold last summer, most of the big firms have been a day late and dollar short in admitting that their once triple-A rated mortgage-backed securities just weren’t worth very much. And, one by one, it is killing them.

[Petty Is as Pretty Does... Why we always gotta go an' get ugly about it?]

I've really wanted to tie this into my personal life, but, eff that. Easy as 'twould be, I think the point of the Times piece is more important right now, near the end of an election cycle. We're in a hole, the United States of America, because our leadership keeps giving carte blanche to Corporations run by puds who just can't get over how lucky they are.

Well, have been.

Well, heh, will continue to be unless we as a Voting Public require some serious Change in Business as Usual.

L8


* Ie, ain't no thing. Homo just don't like admitting that this is all there is. Even when we do, we have to make more of it. It's what makes us so damned charming... {rollin'eyes}