Saturday, September 20, 2008

Blogger block

There was a time I was hard pressed to limit output on this blog to less than three or four posts a day. Finally it came down to a more reasonable post every day or two. Just lately even that output has slipped. Even worse is an increasing failure to even visit, never mind comment, on the other blogs I’ve enjoyed so much.

Now this is not intended as a piece of self-absorbed reflection, but is consistent with my tendency to over analyse. Sure I have come to the ‘do or die’ end of a project I’ve been working on, but that never interfered before. There is a mild depression bought on by the ills of season change and a less than satisfactory domestic situation, but I’ve worked through all that before.

I’m thinking, given a penchant for predictive models and half understood economics, watching events unfold around the world, it is almost like (along with others like Lindsay) I’ve already said it. Now it seems like the time for observation, to watch as predictions unfold.

As the insanity unfolds its almost like the critter caught in the glare of oncoming headlights, frozen in fascination. Like the season change, which invariably stresses my poor, long suffering sinuses, the long predicted political/economic pendulum swing brings its own stresses.

Of course it is always darkest before the dawn and coldest with the first rays of a new day. So it is, it seems, with a shift in these longer cycles. For me, a progressive I hope, we are leaving a long period of conservative darkness and the egress carries its own cost. There is far too much to comment on, far to much idiocy, and there is no real satisfaction in being a Jeremiah.

Some of the key idiocy assailing me today:

  • Senator McCain claiming a mantle of change and enshrining Bush policy. Even worse that same presidential aspirant confusing Spain as a South American country.
  • Australia’s discredited conservative establishment arguing their imagined impoverished backgrounds. I will blog on this one in the next few days.
  • Canada’s Conservative government going into election arguing a full entry into the free market world, just at a time when that edifice is collapsing all around them.

I suppose it is a matter of personal perspectives, but when these are people who aspire to lead, surely we should expect some sort of realistic world view from them.

 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

McCain's flub about Spain is pretty scary. He's sounding more erratic and befuddled than even George Bush did. No way McCain wins this election.

I guess the Canadian Conservatives aren't reading the US papers. I just hope the voters are.

Time and energy for blogging ebbs and flows, Cart. And so do the political winds. I'd say it's about time for the breeze to start blowing from the progressive side.

Cartledge said...

McCain's Spain is enough to want to make you leave the planet...
Maybe I've been puffing too hard toward the progressive side. It's been a long time coming.

lindsaylobe said...

There is currently history in the making on the NY bourse as none of the big 5Investment Banks remain !!

Maybe there is one but that will be unrecognizable very soon.

Those 5 top Wall Street firms that have dominated our financial world have now ended their reign very abruptly!

Both Goldman Sachs (which largely avoided the consequences of the sub prime fiasco) and Morgan Stanley have concluded there is no future in remaining in investment banking. They have correctly concluded the model has been shattered by investment disillusionment and a realization it’s unsustainable.

Hence the Federal Reserve has approval their application to become fully fledged Banks and ends an era spanning almost 75 years when Congress first separated them from other traditional deposit-taking lenders and provided the means for them to continue as security traders. The Federal Reserve Board met at 9 p.m. yesterday and I understand their decision was unanimous

in just a few weeks we have seen Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc entering into bankruptcy and a hastily convened sale of Merrill Lynch to the Bank of America.

Be in no doubt this indeed is the end of Wall Street as we knew it.
The model is now dead in the water, as is the most outrageous salary packages and bonuses the world has ever seen. The top 5 paid bonuses in 2007 amounting to $37 billion.

So I think it will make fascinating reading for future generations of MBA students who will discover in amazement that such foolishness could ever be perpetuated.

Hopefully it is also the end of an era of foolishness, but its consequences will linger on in the shape of the shadow of that mountainous debt for future generations.

Whoever wins the white house will have to deal with its consequences for a very long time.

Best wishes

D.K. Raed said...

I know just how you feel. I've been so preoccupied with tactile things that I've also let the virtual blog world slide. Things are unfolding fast, and yet they are really the same old things, same old issues. We sure got ourselves front row seats to the drama this time!

Just a thought: is it possible your sinus problem is an allergy to fools?

Cartledge said...

Lindsay, ain't it grand being an observer :)

"an allergy to fools?" DK, you are probably right...