“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”
Adam Smith
Geithner and his apologists are the credibility trap in action. He epitomizes Obama's failure to reform and address the great financial crimes. While it is is interesting that LIBOR may have been manipulated going back to 1991, what is more alarming is that market manipulation still being committed on a broad scale today. This reminds one of the shocking murder of Kitty Genovese.
Geithner is no innocent anomaly. Obama shows quite a few signs of being a willing servant to the financial interests.
Sandy Weill senses that the tide is turning, and is worried about covering his derrière for the sake of history, and perhaps for the reckoning which may come, rats-and-ships-wise. I have also heard that there is very bad blood between Sandy and Jamie, and this is payback, with more to follow.
It seems almost like a deficiency in the American character that some of these jokers, like Weill, Greenspan, and Cheney, can walk around like big successes, and still be given a public platform and taken seriously when they speak.
If Charles Ponzi were still alive, I would not be surprised if he had his own show on financial television, with an avid following.
I suspect that the LIBOR scandal, as bad as it may be, will look like cheating at cards if the scandal of the metals and financial asset markets is ever fully revealed.
I am beginning to wonder if Mitt Romney has Asperger's Syndrome. Seriously. Besides being a loutish, prep school frat rat.
