Holy Mary and the Financial Meltdown

Here’s an email exchange between me and my cousin Andy about McCain’s lame reaction to the financial meltdown, which I had already been forced to concede was lame, just because it really was lame. The excerpts from my email are in italics. Andy’s responses follow them. Severe irony warning.

Yup, that was pretty lame on McCain’s part, calling for the Cox decapitation, accusing him of betraying the public trust, with no evidence offered whatsoever. Fortunately Sarah Palin will be there to steady him when he has one of these fits as President. It’s just that he is so passionate about combating evil in the world, that he sometimes gets a little carried away.

Absolutely. It just demonstrates his wisdom in choosing a down-to-earth, steady-as-she-goes running mate to help strike a balance between his moral passion and actual fact. The efficacy of small-town common sense, without any distracting knowledge of high finance or foreign policy.

This whole financial meltdown deal is really weird. This thing that keeps being repeated is that these complicated financial derivatives are so complex that nobody on Wall Street understands them. Really? Wow! I heard today somewhere, for example, that some of the things they did was to bundle the principle and the interest and the balloon payment of a home loan, all into different packages that were bought and sold separately. And that is just the bare beginnings of the kinds of shenanigans they have been up to.

Not to be overly pedantic, but I think you meant the bundling of “principal” along with all the other goodies in those arcane incomprehensible financial pinatas. But maybe not. It probably works either way.

So McCain is right to be so righteously angry about it all, but that’s no excuse. I would like to know what his prescriptions are for this deal? I’d like to know Obama’s, or anybody’s. I have no idea whether or not Paulson is doing the right thing, nor does anyone else, I gather. It’s like the derivatives, too complex for the mind of puny humans to comprehend.

I fail to see that it’s up to either McCain or Obama to come up with a detailed prescription. Some things you have to leave to the guys in charge, who at least have access to all the discernible facts and conceivably know more or less what they’re doing.

Looks to me like sort of a hail-Mary pass, but sometimes when it’s fourth down and goal to go and you’re behind and the clock is running out that’s the only alternative. And occasionally you actually connect.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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