Welcome to this highly evolved and erudite term – you saw it here first! – which I was forced to create because I’ve exhausted all other descriptors — outrage (twice, even), shock, disbelief, audacity, indignation and flabbergasted(ness) …. even getting to the point of becoming “Blogless“.

So, while Blogger really has saved on the therapy bills, we know that therapy only elucidates but does not transform. Hence the un-be-frickin’-lievability pounds on. In this case, the culprit: Credit Default Swaps were unregulated….???????? I mean, I could see how these new securities constituted uncharted territory (=they were “new”) and, as such, the exposure they created for their holders wasn’t fully realized* until it all unwound.

But….COMPLETELY unregulated????????

Free-market purists are so pure they fail to grasp human nature, which is not, of course, purely rational.

Our former flavor-of-the-Administration went on to subtly defend himself….:

But doesn’t every Series 7 person know that ‘past performance is not an indication of future results’? Reference my grasping to define character as being willing to course- correct….sometimes of course than can appear as waffling 😉

I know hindsight is always 20/20 and it’s easier to criticize retroactively than to formulate policy proactively. However, I’m being hard because, in this case being “wrong” has led to trillions….as in, “tr”….of damage worldwide.

Somehow that adage of “asking for forgiveness is easier than asking for permission” just doesn’t seem to cut it here.

In that lame, self-promoting spirit of “I Said It First” (recall I’ve never held back from shameless pandering): Liz Ann Sonders, SVP & Chief Investment Strategist at my beloved employer (and nearly as brilliant and beautiful as me), writes today:

Gov’t to pull a Buffett?
I also think the Fed may have to consider direct investments via preferred shares in banks; kind of like a mega-Warren Buffett, and/or allow financial institutions outside the normal banking system, like commercial lenders, to borrow directly from the Fed via the discount window, with appropriate collateral and with an oversight that those borrowings do indeed get lent out.

Of course, I noted this nearly 1 week ago which feels like eons in light of the unprecedented pace of change bemoaning the financial services industry. But who am I to shamelessly self-promote? I always give credit where it’s due.