#collapse

The American share of the crisis began with grossly improper mortgages provided to wholly unqualified borrowers, all directly caused and encouraged by government distortion of and interference in the market. The government’s market deformation and market intervention was in turn the result of two factors: political favouritism and Leftist ideology, on the one hand; and upon the other, corruption: the blatant cooption of such Friends of Angelo as Mr Dodd and of such bien-pensant Lefties as Mr Frank. The stability and efficiency of any market is directly proportional to the amount and trustworthiness of market information. The Yank Congress, for blatantly partisan and ideological reasons, gave out false information to the market, pushing lenders into making bad loans and giving out, with the appropriate winks and nudges, that Fannie (will Americans ever realise how that sounds) and Freddie, imperfectly quangoised, were ‘really just as good as the Treasury’ and were in any case ‘too big to [be let] fail’: which, as it happens, was untrue. Similarly, this moronic mantra of ‘too big to fail’ was chanted desperately and loudly to drown out the warning sounds of various financial institutions on the brink and of the automobile industry. Incomprehensible sums of public money were thrown at these corporations so that they could avoid bankruptcy, and have succeeded only in privatising profit whilst socialising risk. ↗

— G.M.W. Wemyss

#economics #global-economic-crisis #money

My thoughts are free to roam back to the way she leaned her head on my arm for a split second, as if wishing she could let herself go, let herself lean farther. But she didn't, and I can’t help but respect her for that, even I know her strength is false, propped up by the shaky girders of Old Man Jack. One day soon, those girders will collapse, and her world will crumble, and I know I have to be there when that happens. ↗

— Jasinda Wilder

#colton #crumble #falling #falling-into-you #free

I was just thinking... isn't it lucky that we decided to become co-editors? If one takes a blow to the head, the other can fill in. If the other's lung spontaneoulsy collapses, the one can fill in. It's a perfect system once you think about it." ~Will Landsman ↗

— Gabrielle Zevin

#comedy #head #memoirs-of-a-teenage-amnesiac #spontaneous #comedy

I think those autoworkers whose industry would have collapsed if the president hadn't intervened are certainly better off. ↗

— David Axelrod

#better off #certainly #collapsed #hadn #i

Recently released government economic statistics covering 2010, the first year of real recovery from the financial collapse of 2008, found that fully 93 percent of additional income gains coming out of the recession went straight into the wallets and purses of the top 1 percent. ↗

— Eric Alterman

#collapse #coming #covering #economic #financial

Gladio had been necessary during the days of the Cold War but, in view of the collapse of the East Block, Italy would suggest to Nato that the organisation was no longer necessary. ↗

— Giulio Andreotti

#block #cold #cold war #collapse #days

An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen. ↗

— Irving Babbitt

#collapse #day #his #lazy #most

I couldn't hold it together today. George Clooney asked me if I was OK, and I practically collapsed. I couldn't stop crying, I had to go off sobbing like an idiot. ↗

— Candice Bergen

#clooney #collapsed #crying #george #george clooney

Man steps on an ant when he can't catch the fly. ↗

— Bill Gaede

#economic-collapse #environmentalism #extinction #gaede #globalization

Initially charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest I was held for 36 hours, was beaten by cops and made to stand spread eagled against the cell wall for 12 hours with no food or water, until I collapsed. Everyone was strip searched on the way in. ↗

— John Blair

#arrest #assaulting #beaten #cell #charged