A Fine Line Between Satire And Reality

I know this one has been kicking around the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, but I dig it out every couple of days and have a good laugh.

 

I must say, for satire, this one does come a little too close to the truth for comfort.

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7 Comments for this entry

  1. NVmike says:
    December 1, 2007 at 7:54 AM

    It’s funny because it’s true!

  2. twist says:
    December 1, 2007 at 11:31 AM

    NVMike-

    I’ve thought as I’ve snickered that this was as good an explanation of the subprime problem as I’ve seen anywhere.

  3. John M. says:
    December 1, 2007 at 12:06 PM

    Yes it’s funny, but there are serious implications. Hat tip to V for sending along this link.

    “Florida Governments Reject Idea of Accepting Losses on Pool”, by David Evans, Bloomberg, December 1, 2007.

    School districts, towns and cities across Florida were cut off from their money after the State Board of Administration, manager of the Local Government Investment Pool, halted withdrawals Nov. 29 to stem a run on the fund. Participants pulled out almost half the pool’s $27 billion in assets after learning it held $1.5 billion of downgraded and defaulted debt tainted by the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.

    Boy, there have got to be a lot of municipal and regional treasurers sweating it this weekend, and not just in FL.

  4. John M. says:
    December 1, 2007 at 12:13 PM

    … and it’s already spread to MT:

    “Local governments, schools pull money from state investments”, AP / Bozeman Daily Chronicle, December 1, 2007.

    HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Local governments and school districts have pulled $266 million from the state’s Short Term Investment Pool this week over concerns about investments in sub-prime loans.

    ‘‘We are currently experiencing large withdrawals by local governments,” state budget director David Ewer told the Legislative Audit Committee on Thursday. ‘‘We’re seeing significant withdrawal based on a fear factor.”

  5. longwaver says:
    December 1, 2007 at 1:43 PM

    The next shoe to drop? Maybe cutting off the income for the insurance companies will clue a few more folks into the “solvency concerns”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7w3vkZcNX6E&refer=home

    Nov. 29 (Bloomberg) — California, the largest borrower in the U.S. municipal market, sold $1 billion of general obligation bonds without insurance, joining a growing number of issuers questioning the value of buying such coverage.

  6. tc says:
    December 1, 2007 at 2:23 PM

    Wow! Makes you wonder how those crappy investments got into the Florida fund. It seems like this whole mess has been kept in the air by the powers that be for a year or more now, and it gets played down so much in the media. Makes you wonder if they have spent the last year getting their corrupt elected crony friends to unload their crappy investments on public employee retirement funds, etc, while they stash their hordes in Bermuda.

  7. sandman says:
    December 1, 2007 at 11:17 PM

    tc: you see way too many conspiracies.

    Occam’s razor guides you to the truth on this one. They saw “safe” ratings on the investments and jumped in. If you believed that RE only went up, then there was nothing to sound the alarms. Until now.

    It’s not the “good ol boys” passing the buck, it’s just stupidity. Government is, was, and always will be great at that.

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