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OfflinegeokillsA
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Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story
    #9011220 - 09/30/08 11:24 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Just wanted to interject this fine on-topic piece in the midst of all this doom and gloom! :tongue2:

Quote:

From blag.xkcd.com

(Written after sitting in a car for five hours listening to financial news stories.)

——-

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.

——-

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.”

——-

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.

——-

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.”

——-

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.

——-

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!





--------------------

--------------------
··∙   long live the shroomery  ∙··
...π╥ ╥π...


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InvisibleautomanM
blasted chipmunk
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Registered: 09/18/03
Posts: 8,272
Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
    #9012062 - 10/01/08 04:39 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

Quote:

and hurled him through the fourth wall, knocking you to the ground




:ilold:

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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Invisiblegettinjiggywithit
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Registered: 07/20/04
Posts: 7,469
Loc: Heart of Laughter
Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
    #9012585 - 10/01/08 09:45 AM (15 years, 3 months ago)

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! :cool:


--------------------
Ahuwale ka nane huna.


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InvisibleZippoZM
Knomadic
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Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: gettinjiggywithit]
    #9013152 - 10/01/08 12:32 PM (15 years, 3 months ago)

that was fucking hilarious!


--------------------
PEACE

:mushroom2:zippoz:mushroom2:



"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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OfflinegeokillsA
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Last seen: 4 hours, 34 minutes
Re: Federal Reserve Skateboard - A Short Story [Re: geokills]
    #13591681 - 12/06/10 05:01 PM (13 years, 1 month ago)

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.

===================

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.

:strokebeard:


--------------------

--------------------
··∙   long live the shroomery  ∙··
...π╥ ╥π...


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