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koganbotPaul Krugman can't make up his mind ("EMU Gets Ostrichized"):
But fortunately I'm not running into Kicking The Can Down The Road this time, not where I'm looking; that was always a problematic metaphor anyway. Not that it's never apt, but the tendency is for it to be appropriated by Fake Adults who look and feel mature when they're ignorantly demanding that we need to ward off inflation NOW, and solve debt problems by immediately cutting spending, etc.
Btw, since Krugman's and Duy's posts, Mario Draghi of the ECB said the board would do "whatever it takes" to save the euro, which some investors interpreted as a hinted promise to buy Spanish bonds. Rates on the ten-year bond went down nearly a point in two days to 6.744, which still isn't very good. In the past you could argue (or someone who knows more than I do could argue) that simply saying you'll buy bonds if necessary will do the trick: rates will fall and the board won't actually have to buy any. But I'd think at this point, for the board to seem credible, investors are going to want to see it actually making purchases.
Or maybe head in the sand isn't the right metaphor — maybe it's deer in the headlights, with policy makers paralyzed as it all goes wrong. Anyway, I'm with Tim Duy: I'm losing confidence in European leaders, which is hard because I had hardly any confidence to start with.And if you click Krugman's Tim Duy link, you get Duy saying:
The devastating train that is the debt crisis keeps rolling right along, currently crashing through Spain's economy.— which of course is an allusion to the venerable Slow-Motion Train Wreck.
But fortunately I'm not running into Kicking The Can Down The Road this time, not where I'm looking; that was always a problematic metaphor anyway. Not that it's never apt, but the tendency is for it to be appropriated by Fake Adults who look and feel mature when they're ignorantly demanding that we need to ward off inflation NOW, and solve debt problems by immediately cutting spending, etc.
Btw, since Krugman's and Duy's posts, Mario Draghi of the ECB said the board would do "whatever it takes" to save the euro, which some investors interpreted as a hinted promise to buy Spanish bonds. Rates on the ten-year bond went down nearly a point in two days to 6.744, which still isn't very good. In the past you could argue (or someone who knows more than I do could argue) that simply saying you'll buy bonds if necessary will do the trick: rates will fall and the board won't actually have to buy any. But I'd think at this point, for the board to seem credible, investors are going to want to see it actually making purchases.
Have You Seen Your Catchphrase, Baby, Standing In The Shadows?
Date: 2012-07-28 09:23 pm (UTC)Syria resurrects 'mother of all' catchphrase
(But note that Ben Franklin's "A full belly is the mother of all evil" makes use of the meaning of "mother" — as a progenitor, similar to "Necessity is the mother of invention" — whereas "the mother of all battles," "the mother of all bailouts," "the mother of all liability claims," etc. completely lack the idea of something giving birth to or causing something else. Rather they seem to be claiming, "This is uniquely big," or some such.)