Quote of the Day (Sarah Gordon, on the ‘Overweening Power’ Behind the Last Recession)

“The failures which led to the [2008 financial] crisis were more of behaviour and character than of financial instruments or processes. The tales of casual greed and of ordinary people misled and deceived by irresponsible bankers are familiar. But there was one element to the crisis that I have seen repeated in many different forms: overweening power. In the business world this breeds all sorts of crises, from the personal to the systemic.”— Impact Investing Institute Chief Executive—and former business journalist—Sarah Gordon, “Making Sense of the City,” Financial Times, March 9-10, 2019

As it was a dozen years ago, as outlined by Ms. Gordon, so it is now—except that the “overweening power” was exercised not by a group of “irresponsible bankers” but by one individual, placed far higher.

In August 2019, Alex Shephard of The New Republic accurately predicted what might happen if a recession arrived during the last year of the President’s first term (though he missed the particular circumstance—COVID-19): “Not a disciplined, unified response to a crisis from this White House; instead, an unhinged president issuing feeble edicts from his bed, many of which could cause a sputtering economy to spiral.”

Quote of the Day (Paige Glotzer, on the Real Origins of Baltimore’s Struggles)

“Going back to the 19th century, there’s a long history of Baltimore officials trying to cordon off what areas of the city black people could live in. A lot of policies grew out of that, like where roads, highways and schools were built….Housing segregation set Baltimore up to be one of the hardest hit cities in the subprime housing crisis. That was because a lot of the lending that spurred the crisis was predatory, based in long-time policies of housing segregation. That meant cities such as Baltimore had many areas that had very high foreclosure rates. Especially after the recession, the city really did lose a lot of its tax base and people not only lost their jobs like so many others across the country, but also lost their homes. We’re still dealing with the impact on having so many people, especially African Americans, have their wealth wiped out through foreclosure and housing segregation.”— Paige Glotzer, a former Baltimore resident and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, quoted in Mahita Gajanan, “Long Before Trump's Tweets, Baltimore Had Become a 'Target.' Here's How Segregation Helped Create Its Problems,” Time, July 29, 2019 

For any reader who might nod in agreement with Donald Trump about Baltimore being a rodent- and crime-ridden city, even being the Democrats are fools to rush to the city’s defense, you might want to start by understanding how the city got to this sorry point, through a little bit of history—a subject I suspect the President never has studied much. Paige Glotzer’s reflections are an excellent place to begin.

After that, you might be interested in seeing which other cities are rat-infested. Guess what? Quite a number are in red states the President won in 2016—though it is unlikely you’ll ever hear him allude to this.

Finally, you might want to know about at least one force responsible for the rodent problem: son-in-law Jared Kushner’s own company.

Surprise, surprise!

Quote of the Day (Yves Smith, on How the 2008 Crash Led to Trump)

“Why do you think we have Trump? I mean, even though he did a big bait-and-switch, as we all know, there were a lot of people that lost their homes, their community wasn’t what it used to be, particularly if they lived in the Rust Belt. And then you have these people on the coast saying, ‘Oh, they should go get training. It’s disgusting.’ I mean, let them eat cake is let them get training. What you hear from these coastal elites: People over 40, even over 35, are basically unhirable. Are you gonna train them? They’re gonna waste their time thinking they can get a new job? I mean, that’s just lunacy.”—Financial blogger Yves Smith, explaining the impact of the 2008 Crash on American politics, interviewed by Noah Kulwin, “Yves Smith on Why We Didn’t See the 2008 Crash Coming,” New York Magazine, Aug. 6, 2018

Lunacy--or the blindness of Wall Street's Democratic allies.