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geokills
∙∙∙∙☼ º¿° ☼∙∙∙∙


Registered: 05/08/01
Posts: 23,417
Loc: city of angels
Last seen: 4 hours, 34 minutes
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Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story
#9011220 - 09/30/08 11:24 PM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Just wanted to interject this fine on-topic piece in the midst of all this doom and gloom! 
Quote:
From blag.xkcd.com
(Written after sitting in a car for five hours listening to financial news stories.)
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Damn these subprime lenders, thought Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, barely keeping his balance on the wobbling skateboard. We can’t afford more debt. He snapped a grappling-hook- tipped quarrel into his crossbow as the skateboard slowed. When the country owes trillions and is asking for more, its shadowy creditors start calling in favors.
The crossbow twanged, carrying his climbing rope up the side of the Federal Reserve building. As he began his ascent, he reflected on the years past. I inherited a broken system, he insisted to himself. We’re simply doing what’s required to prevent a catastrophe. It’s not my fault.
He tossed his skateboard over the parapet and hauled himself over. He dropped six feet to the roof, landed heavily on the board, and trundled on into the night.
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From her perch in a tree across the street, the blogger watched through her blogoscope as Bernanke disappeared over the wall. She spoke quietly into her radio: “Subject is in the haybarn. The chickens are in danger of roosting.”
“Roger that,” came the reply. “Deploying Agent Harpsichord.”
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Inside, Bernanke moved along the wall like a shadow, elongating and contracting as the light sources shifted around him. In the midst of a sea of filing cabinets, he froze. He sniffed the air, then dropped to his knees, licked the floor, and paused. Yes, he thought, Greenspan was definitely here.
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The blogger had waited five minutes and was starting to get impatient. She picked up the radio. “Situation imminent. Pass the ducklings through the snorkel. Repeat: Pass the ducklings through the snorkel.”
“We are go for mode Sinatra,” replied the commander. “Reticulate core and set throttle to ‘cryptic’. Prepare to jitterbug.”
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Bernanke forced the door on yet another inner office, realizing too late that the light was on inside. The chair in the corner swiveled around, and Bernanke found himself face-to-face with Alan Greenspan. There was silence for a moment.
“You won’t get away with this,” said Greenspan, rising to his feet. “The Fed is subject to general congressional oversight. But you never understood that, did you?”
“Congress sold out the country, not me,” replied Bernanke. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” said Greenspan. He flicked open a switchblade.
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The blogger peered once more into the eyepiece of her blogoscope. She threw the switch labeled “overlay building schematics.” The external view of the building disappeared, but instead of blueprints, she was presented with a green puzzle piece. “This view requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in. Do you want to search for this plug-in now?”
Shit, she thought.
——-
Bernanke, trying not to slip in the patches of blood on the floor, struggled with Greenspan. The older man moved like a snake that moved like a former Fed Chairman who moved like a ninja. At last, Bernanke got a solid grip on Greenspan’s collar and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground.
Improvising a tourniquet from the remains of the snake left over from the earlier simile, Bernanke moved on through the hallways.
——-
The moonlight-bathed roof of the Federal Reserve building fell suddenly into shadow. A pair of night watchman looked up in alarm to see what had occluded the sky.
“Is that …” one whispered to the other, “… is that a blimp?”
——-
Bernanke reached the central vaults, accessed the Gibson mainframe, and began transmitting the requested files to his distant masters. He didn’t hear the gentle thud on the rooftop, the muffled explosive charges, or the sound of the door opening behind him. But at the last minute some sixth sense kicked in. He spun around just in time to see a golf-ball-sized lump of gold rapidly expanding in his vision. It struck him in the forehead, and he collapsed to the ground like a burlap sack full of scrapple.
Congressman Ron Paul retrieved the gold nugget from the floor and returned it to his satchel. “Try that,” he said, donning his sunglasses, “with a fiat currency.” He spun on his heel, cape swirling behind him, and swept from the room.
Read more of these adventures in the thrilling new novel, Ron Paul and the Chamber of Commerce — in bookstores now!
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-------------------- ┼ ··∙ long live the shroomery ∙·· ┼ ...╬π╥ ╥π╬...
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automan
blasted chipmunk


Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
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Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
#9012062 - 10/01/08 04:39 AM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground

Quote:
accessed the Gibson mainframe,
+1 for Hackers reference
nice find, geo
-------------------- No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical. ~ Niels Bohr
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gettinjiggywithit
jiggy


Registered: 07/20/04
Posts: 7,469
Loc: Heart of Laughter
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Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
#9012585 - 10/01/08 09:45 AM (15 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Congressman Ron Paul retrieved the gold nugget from the floor and returned it to his satchel. “Try that,” he said, donning his sunglasses, "with a fiat currency."
Ha ha. Nice!
-------------------- Ahuwale ka nane huna.
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ZippoZ
Knomadic


Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
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that was fucking hilarious!
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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geokills
∙∙∙∙☼ º¿° ☼∙∙∙∙


Registered: 05/08/01
Posts: 23,417
Loc: city of angels
Last seen: 4 hours, 34 minutes
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Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
#13591681 - 12/06/10 05:01 PM (13 years, 1 month ago) |
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While not quite as entertaining as the last piece posted in this thread, it is on topic and current!
Originally posted by Dan Fitzpatrick on StockMarketMentor.com
Bernanke. I admire his beard.
Other than that, I think he is an academic who is booksmart and sounds great. Like a beer commercial: "Sounds great...but less filling."
My favorite quote by Nassim Taleb in his latest book, "The Bed of Procrustes": "Academia is to knowledge what prostitution is to love; close enough on the surface but, to the nonsucker, not exactly the same thing."
Mr. Bernanke has admitted that they did not see 2008 coming. His justification for missing this massive bubble is that they didn't have the capability to monitor Lehman, etc. That logic is laughable. Frankly, the guy ought to be embarrassed. Many respected commentators were yelling at the top of their lungs that there were systemic problems. Brooksley Born (the head of the CFTC at the time) wanted to regulate the derivatives market. But Robert "Pay me $100 million and I'll sit on your board and do my best Sgt. Schultz impression ["I know nothing!"]" Rubin, Easy Al Greenspan, and Larry Summers (who has left Washington and returned to Harvard to write about how to create jobs [true story -- you can't make this up] successfully lobbied against regulation.
Their main argument? "We're a lot smarter than this chick. Listen to us and ignore the ditz with the funny name."
Congress, of course, believed them. (And understandably so -- the derivatives market is quite complex and politicians can be forgiven [or even applauded] for following the advice of the experts. In this case, of course, the "experts" were in waaayy over their heads and too deeply entrenched with the big banking firms on Wall Street. Frankly, there were so impressed with themselves ).
In the end, Greenspan has been soundly discredited; Rubin has retreated to his mansion and remains out of the public eye, and those of you who are attending Harvard know where Larry Summers went.
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So what makes Bernanke more qualified than them to see the storm before it shows up? Well, we're back to his beard.
Other than a nice beard, he's just the latest in a long line of "over edumacated" and inexperienced government bureaucrats who believe that their specific discipline is a Swiss Army Knife -- the right tool for any job.
With so much uncertainty in the current business climate, to believe that monetary policy is the cure for what ails us is sheer folly and hubris.
As the saying goes, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
So are we to believe that this time will be different? Are we to believe that Bernanke will be able to identify the inevitable storm before the clouds appear, thus avoiding the problems inherent in excessive government debt?
Bernanke's overwhelming self-confidence that he'll be able to manage this successfully is quite alarming. We see time and time again throughout the ages the downside of granting substantial authority to someone with a high degree of self-confidence and a low level of experience. It virtually always ends badly.
Seems to me that Bernanke is conducting the most serious and high-stakes experiment in the financial history of the world. And if it's a bust, somehow saying, "Oops. Sorry!" just won't quite capture the moment. [Think "Greenspan". Did you see his testimony before Congress. He essentially said, "There was a flaw in my model." At the end of the day, he left holding his briefcase, and the American People were left holding the bag.]
But again -- nice beard.
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-------------------- ┼ ··∙ long live the shroomery ∙·· ┼ ...╬π╥ ╥π╬...
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