What happened to the heroic, forward-looking rhetoric great leaders are supposed to provide in times of crisis?
FDR gave us “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Churchill gave us “We shall fight on the beaches.”
George Bush cruises in with “This sucker could go down.”
Afternoon update: OUCH. Largest one-day drop on the DOW, ever.
It’s worth it. Warning: NSFW language.
Hat tip, Todd Defren
1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair… just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
I’m a Mets fan, only rooting for the Yankees once the Mets have been knocked out of the running for the playoffs, but this is a bit of a bummer nonetheless:
What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 ended Sunday with Mariano Rivera retiring Brian Roberts on a grounder to first baseman Cody Ransom, completing a 7-3 victory over Baltimore on a warm September night ….. Appropriately enough, the final Yankees player to bat was Derek Jeter.
Farewell, Yankee Stadium. I went there a few times over the years; the first time on a field trip with my Hebrew school class to see the then brand-new team called the Blue Jays play, the last time a couple of years after college to keep my friend Shari company as she (brave girl) made the trek to the Brronx to root for the Red Sox.
Yes, I know, there’s going to be a shiny new Yankee Stadium and the Yankee tradition will continue, but there’s something not quite right about tearing down a ballpark that has been home to so much baseball history.
I’ve been following the chaos in the financial markets pretty closely this week.
Anyone with half a brain knows that upward cycles do not last forever, and yet somehow the banking and real estate industries managed to convince themselves that this time it would be different, aided and abetted by a business-friendly government that didn’t care what happened so long as the economy was “strong”. On every level, from the consumer buying a house they couldn’t possibly afford to the whiz kids who turned those crappy, unsustainable mortgages into a huge stinking mass of debt and derivatives, it was about greed and the desire to have more, now, even if you weren’t sure how you could pay for it, and nobody comes out looking particularly good.
I can’t blame the government for feeling the need to step in and do something, I suppose, but I’m also not happy about their selective elimination of moral hazard from the equation.
Sat. Afternoon Update: Mark Cuban asks:
Does everyone realize how much bigger a disaster last week would have been had Social Security been privatized?
That would have been very scary indeed.