The unjust poetics of Stephanie Flanders
Stephanie Flanders, BBC finance correspondent, has not been keeping up:
Think about it. First, everyone in the financial system – especially the banks and bond traders – made a lot of money using complex new financial instruments to lay bets backed by mountains of debt. Then the crisis came, and the bets turned bad, threatening to bring the global financial system with it. Governments around the advanced economies had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars propping up banks and standing behind the likes of AIG, and hundreds of billions more dealing with the global recession which the credit crunch had caused.
Now, economists and traders at some of the same financial institutions have the audacity to look shocked (shocked!) at the amount of debt which has gone onto the governments’ balance sheets. And we know they will punish them with high interest rates if the politicians don’t show how, exactly, they are going to clean up their act. Talk about poetic injustice……
..I’m surprised that non-experts don’t draw the link.
You’ve been reading the wrong non-experts, Stephanie. I spotted the link and have been talking about the poetic injustice for some time now.
Here, here, here, here, here, here and here, for example. Oh, and here and here. I first wrote about it on 30 July 2009.
And I’m not alone.
As I am of WW2 generation and having lived most of my life in Europe/universiy milieui,I find UK media, esp. the press, too biased.True facts are vital.It took an erudite paper,Die Zeit, to praise Brown’s ‘G-20′bank initiative. It took ‘Figaro’,Sydenska Dagbladet, Zuercher Zeit.,Der Standard,et.al. to praise Blair’s ‘new-labour’,which helped Europe from one of ‘defensive stagnation’, (EU comment).French/Ger.Freund.Pakt 1963 is still one to watch. No comment by Merkel re.S&P ratings!!!,ask Mandelson about the DOHA Round and her blocking it in favour
of Russia.The NWR election is a problem; De.receive most money from Greece eventually. Brown is the best man for our economy.