The soul can seek and find solace in an achingly beautiful (and sad) thing. (We’ve gone there before, with “The Magic Of MacNeice.”)
The sadness? For our fading country.
The Judge Who Always Knows What’s Right has sent this along:
The Oven Bird By Robert Frost
THERE is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
As I said in “Republicans, Repent!”: “Socialism is secondary to state squandering—and a consequence of it.” The US is becoming more statist than Canada because the American state is accrediting through squandering. (It is also far more authoritarian than Canada.)
In the context of this Christian Science Monitor report, I would imagine that Canadian banks were not compelled by law, under left-liberal government programs, to lend to those unworthy of credit.
“Among industrialized countries, Canada is the only one not to have seen a major bank fail. The World Economic Forum ranked Canada’s banking system as the healthiest in the world in 2008, while the US took the 40th spot. And while Canada’s largest five banks reaped profits of $8.2 billion, the top five US banks lost a combined total of $8.3 billion last year.
Stronger federal regulations and lower leverage ratios borne by Canadian banks have allowed them to weather the global banking storm. Canadian financial institutions didn’t engage in the subprime mortgage lending that sideswiped the US banking industry and forced millions of American homeowners into foreclosure.”
Update (Feb. 22): There are other factors that explain why Canada’s banks are not buckling under. Canada has a stricter, immigration system. A point system. When it comes to legal immigration, it awards pointers for knowledge of the country’s languages: French and English.
The country’s traditional source of immigrants is China. The Chinese are affluent, and, well, unlikely to default on their mortgages. They are not as politically aggressive and voracious as are America’s minority communities. Naturally, Canada does not have a large, identity politicking Hispanic community.
Hooray to a revolt on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade! The magnificent Rick Santelli of CNBC rails against having to bailout mortgage delinquents; reminds “President New Administration” that 90 percent of homeowners in the country pay their mortgages; invokes images of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin rolling in their graves at what the country has become; mentions “moral hazard,” gets the entire floor booing; hollers, “This is America”; restores my faith in this country. Watch Rick rock the floor:
“’The government is promoting bad behavior… do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages… This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama, are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage! It’s a moral hazard” [Via Drudge]
Update II (Feb. 20): The machine goes after The Man, Rick Santelli. Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press primp himself lashed out:
“I’ve watchedMr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so. I’m not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school,” Gibbs said. “I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street. I think the verdict is in on that,” the press secretary said, poking directly at the cable journalist, who reports from the trading floor at the Chicago Board of Trade.
The media machine was even worse. Rick’s colleagues were aghast at his hopeless audacity. Today, anchorwoman Tessa Brewer, a large faced, childish, lip smacking simpleton, attempted to make fun of a trader sitting by Santelli. The venom with which the establishment is going after Trader Joe is the very same bile they reserved for Plumber Joe. The anonymous trader was asked condescendingly by Brewer whether he was having his 15 minutes of fame. The guy remained stoic and serious, and asked the silly sow whether he could get a bailout if the “bets” he places do not yield profit. Rick was quick on the draw: He told his trader buddy that “they are being rude to you,” and went on to stick up for yet another ordinary Trader Joe making a living.
If anyone can locate the YouTube for the last exchange, do send it along. I’ve been unable to find Santelli’s appearance on Hardball yesterday. Mike Barnacle, sitting in for “trickle down the leg” Chris Matthews, told Santelli: “you speak for many, Buddy.”
Here’s Santelli on Today. Some predictable backing down in the face of peer pressure, but he comes up with good, libertarian lines/principles: the government is “legislating your choice away.” “Do not break contract law.” “The market is us, people.” “Give us a tax holiday.” “We are spending money we do not have.”
Santelli also countered on Hardball yesterday the foolish and flimsy argument that bailing out the minority delinquent mortgage holders is justified because, if not done, “the value of your home will decline with his.” Santelli made the point we’ve often discussed in this household: your home is where YOU LIVE. Quit viewing it as an investment; stop borrowing against it. it’s your abode!
Luo Ping, a director-general at the China Banking Regulatory Commission, was speaking at the Global Association of Risk Management’s 10th Annual Risk Management Conventions. Said Mr. Luo: “We hate you guys,” by which he meant Americans, toward whom Chinese are increasingly hostile for trashing the dollar.
“Once you start issuing $1 trillion-$2 trillion, we know the dollar is going to depreciate, so we hate you guys, but there is nothing much we can do. Except for US Treasuries, what can you hold?” lamented Luo. “Gold? You don’t hold Japanese government bonds or UK bonds. US Treasuries are the safe haven. For everyone, including China, it is the only option.”
I suspect dethroning the dollar from its status as world reserve currency would be a wise move. You gotta stop enabling the addict (USA).
