Yves at Naked Capitalism relates her experience in “A Curious Meeting at the Treasury Department.” A whole bunch of financial bloggers got to sit down with high-ranking Treasury officials and have their questions answered. As Yves explains …
My bottom line is that the people we met are very cognitively captured, assuming one can take their remarks at face value. Although they kept stressing all the things that had changed or they were planning to change, the polite pushback from pretty all the attendees was that what Treasury thought of as major progress was insufficient.
XX Sean’s note — I would not expect to be invited to such a meeting. For one thing, I’m not high-profile enough — not on the same level as Marginal Revolution, Kid Dynamite’s World, Across the Curve, Financial Armageddon, Accrued Interest and others. Also, because unlike any of them apparently, my question, after listening to the Treasury officials state their case, my question would be: ‘WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?! Why haven’t you reinstated Glass-Steagall? What possible excuse could you have?!”
And that, boys and girls, is why I’m not invited to the nice parties, LOL.
To his credit, Steve Waldman of Interfluidity did give a good response after hearing the Treasury’s spiel on regulatory reform: “I’ve read your bill and I think it’s terrible.” But Yves didn’t report any other pointed barbs by bloggers.
UPDATE: Yves replies to my commentary: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/11/curious-meeting-at-treasury-department.html#comment-63668
In other news, here’s a few things you might enjoy reading …
Why American health care costs so much
Jesse: Ladies and Gentlemen, the United States of America is Insolvent
Zero Hedge: A Massive Drop in Saudi Arabian Oil Exports to the US
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I did not even know of this meeting.
I probably would not have attended if I had been invited, since it is so obviously hopeless, an attempt to reach out to the blogosphere with a ‘pitch’ for a failed reform. Marketing the manipulation?
But I should have not minded having the catering for a gathering like that. I wonder if they had refreshments that were any good.
All these newbie bloggers are being given faces to match the rhetoric that they loved so much to hate. But now that they think of “treasury officials as oh so smart”, they are hoping that next time these newbiew bloggers write about their abominable crimes against the American people, the criticism will be somewhat muted. I think it’s happened already: witness Yves’ fawning account and “dazed” recollection of “how she can’t believe they invited us lowly bloggers”. Wahhh…You are famous already Yves! Sickening….
Good to hear from you, Jesse!
Hi, Sasher.
Yves needs no defense from me, but I’ll give her one anyway. I think you’re putting words in her mouth. Her account was critical of the Treasury department officials. While we can wish the bloggers at the meeting had been more outspoken, they weren’t and that’s their choice. And it probably IS intimidating being in a meeting with a bunch of Washington bigwigs.