The usual commentary on Greece includes one of two memes:
1. The Greeks are lazy, entitled twits.
2. The Greeks hid the size of their deficit spending from buyers of their debt.
My riposte to both is the same: so what?
Neither was unknown to the lenders, just as it was not unknown to the subprime lenders of 2005 that those applying for loans had no income, no job and no assets (so-called "NINJA" loans.)
Further, while it does appear to be an accepted fact that Greece did hide the size of their deficits it was the very banks that lent them money that were involved in the hinky derivative deals used to hide them!
I'm not quite sure why either of those claims leads to some sort of culpability toward those lenders for the loans they extended. They clearly believed, despite actual and constructive knowledge of the size of the Greek government and the behavior of both the government and its citizens that the loans they were making were "good investments" and "reasonable risks."
Reality is that when you make a bad loan the loss happens at the point you make the loan. You may not recognize the loss for some time, but it has occurred because the borrower cannot pay and your funds are gone, now residing in the borrower's hands, at the moment the loan is extended.
There have bee many stories in the last couple of days that Greece has said "it won't default." Uh huh. I posted the CNBS interview with their finance minister yesterday -- go listen to it, then decide for yourself whether you think they're going to borrow more money to pay back what they don't have.
Remember, folks, it's all contained.
Bear Stearns. Bank collapses, markets dive, then recover. They recover a lot, in fact -- the rally is fast and furious, and "everyone" believes that the economy is fine, subprime will not do anything bad to the economy as a whole nor the banks, and it'll be ok.
How'd that work out?
The same warnings we had then we have now -- in durables, consumer confidence and other in-your-face knowledge being willfully and intentionally ignored and lied about, such as the claimed "gains" in employment.
Bubbles inflate when you pump up an asset price on the bogus, delusional expectation of something that can't (and thus won't) happen.
They don't burst when the actual event fails to come to pass -- they burst when people figure out they've been had, which is always before the mathematically-certain terminal date.
Sleep well.
So now we know we gave up known terrorists for...... a deserter.
The Army has decided to charge Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was released by Taliban-aligned militants last year in exchange for five Guantanamo prisoners, with desertion, according to a former military intelligence officer.
The official Army line is that no decision has been made. I ain't buying it.
What I am buying is that the Obama Administration is doing their level best to suppress this finding by any means possible. But the UCMJ isn't one of those things that is supposed to be subject to civilian review on a micro level. That is, while the civilian government passes the UCMJ (in that the authority for it flows from same) on a case-by-case basis it is not discretionary within the purview of the executive -- including the CIC.
It was quite clear a long time ago that this happened; Bergdahl allegedly mailed home his uniform and personal effects before he deserted his post. That evidences intent and premeditation; one simply doesn't know when one is going to be legitimately captured, you see.
I don't care if you like our President or not -- giving up both money and five known terrorists we have captured for a man who deserted is outrageous, and the man responsible for that decision -- President Obama -- is unfit for office.
Period.
