Fannie and Freddie

The first rule of politics: Treat the symptom, not the cause.
From an Investor’s Business Daily editorial : “Overhauling the banking system without fixing Fannie and Freddie is like fighting terrorists without attacking the jihadi ideology motivating them.”

Be adults?

GE’s Jeffrey Immelt on Goldman : ““People need to tone down the rhetoric around financial services and stop the populism and be adults.” That is so 19th century.

The Gulf Spill.

According to a report in the NYT: “Oil company officials were summoned on Tuesday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee to justify offshore drilling and explain how their safety practices differed from BP ’s. The executives told lawmakers that continued offshore exploration and drilling were essential to American oil and gas supplies and to the health of their industry, and that the spill was an aberration.”

Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil said : “We are eager to learn what occurred at this well that did not occur at the other 14,000 deepwater wells that have been successfully drilled around the world.  It is critical we understand exactly what happened in this case, both the drill well design and operating procedures, and the execution of the drilling plans, which led to such severe consequences.  We need to know if the level of risk taken went beyond the industry norms.”

A Benevolent Sense of Life

Tillerson’s statement serves as a counterpoint to an interesting article by Rob Cox and Jeffrey Goldfarb at the the NYT. Why, they ask, the Gulf spill has shaken investor confidence more than the EU crisis. Although they do not use the term, their answer is: Because it is being used to undermine Americans’ benevolent sense of live, that is, the belief man is metaphysically potent. Of course, they also do not say that this is exactly the message environmentalists want the American people to draw.

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