Sunday, March 22, 2009

Finger on the Trigger

It strikes me that one of the most overlooked statements made by President Obama recently was his answer to a question on investment bankers or AIG at the town hall meeting in Costa Mesa, California.

He said something like, "they have a explosive belt around their waist and they have their finger on a trigger, threatening to set it off and bring everything down. And what we have to do is carefully talk them out of that."

Really? Portraying the Wall Street denizens as, basically, terrorists is quite interesting. I really wasn't expecting it, and I've been trying to figure out why he would have put it that way. Since it was an improvised answer, I think it may reflect a deeper and perhaps normally unspoken thought.

Probably it was just supposed to be a funny, catchy through-away image. But could it possiby reflect what he is hearing from the financial sector, those who have supported him very generously as a politician recently. That they are threatening to set the whole economy ablaze if they don't get their way? Is that why he seems to be largely giving them their way, via Geithner and Summers?

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