No, Not THAT QE II!!

First, the Trial Balloons

What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is!

--Befuddled spinster Emily Litella, one of Gilda Radner's several characters on the original Saturday Night Live.

Emily Litella comes to mind as the murmuring about QE II is getting louder.

No, not that QE II (pictured above).

Rather, they're talking about another round of quantitative easing by The Federal Reserve.

Because the Fed has already lowered interest rates to zero, its remaining weapon to stimulate an apparently flagging economy is to simply print more money (the fancy name for this is "quantitative easing").

In practice, that's accomplished by buying up new U. S. debt -- debt which the government has been more than happy to issue lately.

First broached on the blogosphere perhaps a month ago, the drumbeat in the MSM (main stream media) is growing discernibly louder the last 10 days or so.

P.S.: Growing up in the Twin Cities, I was confused by why everyone was making such a commotion over the West Bank. By age 8 or so, I finally figured out they were referring to the one in the Middle East.

I thought they were referring to the one across the Mississippi from the East Bank of the University of Minnesota.

SNL on Goldman Sachs

Betting On Its Own Lawsuit??

Best line (to date) about the SEC's fraud case against Goldman Sachs is this nugget from "The Weekend Update" segment on Saturday Night Live:

Goldman Sachs was accused Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission of fraudulently selling mortgage-backed securities to its customers. If convicted, the firm stands to make $10 billion.

Can The Onion top that?

"Really, Wall Street, Really??!!

"Learning to Love Insider Trading"!!??

Want to keep companies honest, make the markets work more efficiently, and encourage investors to diversify? Let insiders buy and sell.

--Donald J. Boudreaux, "Learning to Love Insider Trading"; The Wall Street Journal (10/24/2009)

Goldman Sachs director Stephen Friedman resigned from the New York Fed in May, after The Wall Street Journal reported he had bought more than 50,000 shares of Goldman stock following AIG’s takeover.

--Bloomberg.com (10/29/09)

One of the technology industry's highest-profile executives has become ensnared in an alleged insider-trading case that is shaking the corporate and financial worlds.

--"Ex-Chief of AMD is Linked to Galleon"; The Wall Street Journal (10/28/2009)

One has to conjure up Jon Lovitz' infamous Saturday Night Live character, "The Pathological Liar," to properly respond to Donald Boudreaux's assertion (above) that investors who put their faith in fair markets and "a level playing field" should, well . . . get over themselves.

"The market's perfectly fair to rank-and-file investors right now," The Pathological Liar would say.

"In fact, small shareholders have it too good.

Negative returns on their stocks for a decade?

Zero interest on their savings?

Why, the spoiled jerks. They should be grateful to get any of their capital back!"

"Really, Wall Street, Really??!!

Moving on to CEO pay:

"CEO pay, at 600 times the average worker's salary? Why, the employees are lucky to get paid anything. Make the pay ratio 1,000:1! Better still, 5,000:1. That'll teach 'em who calls the shots.

"In fact, executive compensation now is an insult! Executives should make even more money, by front-running other investors trading their own company's stock before publicly disclosing material news.

"Yeah, that's the ticket. Why should companies have to disclose anything?"

And so on.

About all I can figure out is that, the SEC's recent track record is so abysmal enforcing insider trading laws, it has decided to mount a rear-guard action arguing that insider trading is benign, or -- cue The Wall Street Journal article -- actually good for the markets (and average investors).

To channel another, more recent Saturday Night Live bit:

"Really, Wall Street?? Really??!!