IBG/YBG: I Be Gone, You Be Gone

It's Sunday evening, and it has been one hell of a long week since this time last weekend. It feels like a month ago, in fact. OldSouth will not dwell on the flood tonight, simply because he needs a break. Business trip tomorrow, departing in the wee hours, with some work to do before an early bedtime.

Jesse always shares the most interesting stuff on the left side of his page, and an elegantly written short essay by James K. Galbraith deserves notice. Written to submit as testimony before the Senate last week, he fingers a basic cultural problem that has come to visit as an economic problem: financial fraud.

Control frauds always fail in the end. But the failure of the firm does not always mean the fraud fails: the perpetrators often walk away rich. At some point, this requires subverting, suborning or defeating the rule of law. This is where crime and politics intersect. At its heart, therefore, the financial crisis was a breakdown in the rule of law in America.

He goes on to quote a bit of code used between the parties: IBG/YBG.

I'll be gone, you'll be gone.

Someone else, somewhere else, at some point in the future will clean up the mess.

In the meantime, we'll be long gone, far away from the failed businesses, ruined pensions, bankruptcies, dreams postponed or lost, boarded-up houses in blighted neighborhoods.

IBG/YBG. Let's make sure we make our tee time, no matter what.

This referenced as the GreatAndGood of Europe stay up all night attempting to staunch the bleeding caused by the crisis in Greece.


They're gathering up (printing up?) some eye-watering amount of money to maintain the fiction that all is well, and under control. After decades of IBG/YBG governmental spending, we are at the point where the mess will not go away. There is no one left to blame, no sleight-of-hand at hand to employ.

We are the someone else, somewhere else, and the future is this week, this month, this year.

IBH/YBH

I be here, you be here.

We all be.....here.

Just announced from the Fed, this evening, a few minutes ago:

Federal Reserve Press Release

Release Date: May 9, 2010
For release at 9:15 p.m. EDT

In response to the re-emergence of strains in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets in Europe, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the Swiss National Bank are announcing the re-establishment of temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap facilities. These facilities are designed to help improve liquidity conditions in U.S. dollar funding markets and to prevent the spread of strains to other markets and financial centers. The Bank of Japan will be considering similar measures soon. Central banks will continue to work together closely as needed to address pressures in funding markets.

Federal Reserve Actions
The Federal Open Market Committee has authorized temporary reciprocal currency arrangements (swap lines) with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank (ECB), and the Swiss National Bank. The arrangements with the Bank of England, the ECB, and the Swiss National Bank will provide these central banks with the capacity to conduct tenders of U.S. dollars in their local markets at fixed rates for full allotment, similar to arrangements that had been in place previously. The arrangement with the Bank of Canada would support drawings of up to $30 billion, as was the case previously.

These swap arrangements have been authorized through January 2011. Further details on these arrangements will be available shortly.

We be here...