30th
Updating My Dictionary
Don’t mind this post. I’m just marking it as the day Obama officially made “hedge funds” and “speculators” into four letter words. Way too broad a brush, but not without reason. From his announcement of Chrysler’s chapter 11 filing:
Now, while many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively, I have to tell you, some did not. In particular, a group of investment firms and hedge funds decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.
They were hoping that everybody else would make sacrifices and they would have to make none. Some demanded twice the return that other lenders were getting.
I don’t stand with them. I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities. I stand with Chrysler’s management, its dealers, and its suppliers. I stand with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars.
I don’t stand with those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices.
…
it was unacceptable to let a small group of speculators endanger Chrysler’s future by refusing to sacrifice like everyone else.
Update 5/7: Bill Gross makes the same point, though better and, you know, waaaaaay more listened to than little old me:
2009 is a similar demarcation point because it represents the beginning of government policy counterpunching, a period when the public with government as its proxy decided that private market, laissez-faire, free market capitalism was history and that a “private/public” partnership yet to gestate and evolve would be the model for years to come. If one had any doubts, a quick, even cursory summary of President Obama’s comments announcing Chrysler’s bankruptcy filing would suffice.
…
If the cannons fired at Ft. Sumter marked the beginning of the war against the Union, then clearly these words marked the beginning of a war against publically perceived financial terror.
