Cheery quote of the day…

 fisticuffs  Comments Off
Aug 122010
 

Bertrand Russell, writing in 1938:

“At the time of the Tokyo earthquake, the inhabitants of that city turned upon the Koreans living there and massacred them, not because they supposed these harmless folk had caused the disaster, but because terror and misery made them wish to massacre somebody. We and the French spread terror and misery throughout Germany in the years after the armistice; they could not massacre us, so they turned upon the Jews. It was a gesture of insanity; but if, as I firmly believe, terror and misery caused the insanity, it will not be cured by a further dose of the same poison.”

Same goes for Iraq/Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, same goes for Palestine. Same goes for Wriggles whenever he sees another dog.

Treasury Secretary Kicks Off PR Pitch For New Financial Reform Law

 bad things  Comments Off
Aug 032010
 

“Our system allowed too much freedom for predation, abuse and excess risk”, said Geithner, whose career began at Kissinger Associates in Washington, where he worked for three years before joining the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department, and became director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001–2003) at the IMF. Then in October 2003 he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    Kissinger Associates.
    Council on Foreign Relations
    IMF
    President of the Federal Reserve.
    Treasury Secretary.

This, from the New York Times, February 2009:

Mr. Geithner, who will announce the broad outlines of the plan on Tuesday, successfully fought against more severe limits on executive pay for companies receiving government aid. He resisted those who wanted to dictate how banks would spend their rescue money.

If that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.

What was it Geithner said once? “Most consequential choices involve shades of gray, and some fog is often useful in getting things done.” You know what else likes fog? Monsters, rapists and war. And landscape painters, of course.