How to Save Your Skin, According to Bankman-Fried and Fauci. By Jeffrey Tucker.
They are enormously frustrating. They both specialize in justifying the small things while systematically overlooking the big picture for which they are wholly responsible. They speak in a passive voice about mistakes made but bounce off that quickly to fob off the blame for the results on everyone but themselves.
What appears below is a kind of composite of them both. It’s written as farce but an oddly realistic one. …
The interview:
“Did you or did you not steal socks from WalMart?”
“It’s an excellent question, and thank you for asking it. So, as I think back on the events under consideration here, we need first to understand the circumstances in which there are many pairs of socks, far more than were being sold, and also a genuine opportunity for a broader and frankly more socially aware distribution of foot covering through the community. This is where we and many others in our enterprise got involved.”
“So you did steal the socks?”
“I do understand the point of your question and it’s a good one. I think most fundamentally, we are dealing with a misalignment of perceptions over collateralized loan obligations, which, under normal conditions, would be satisfied by rehypothecation through various counterparties over which I have no control. That said, it is true that I should have been keeping a closer watch. As CEO, that was my responsibility.”
“Rephrasing, do you have socks that belong to someone else?”
“This really does raise the question of provenance, which, as you well know, can be very complex in mechanized markets where traders are presented with a range of options from futures to securitized derivatives. On the one hand, one can take custody of a basket of commodities but if you look carefully at the terms of services, that is contingent on an estimation of the risk profile over a range of time. In a volatile market, these conditions may or may not apply.”
“Can you give the socks back?”
“Let me be perfectly clear. It is my understanding, and this may not be entirely precise because I do lack access to all relevant data, that there is no question of full liquidity for customers in the US, and I would also like to draw attention to the excellent supervisory role of Japan in this respect. As for my own custodial relationship, given the present situation due to legal proceedings, I’m in no position to effectuate a reallocation of disposition due to my admitted misestimation of liquidity conditions.”
So postmodern, so typical of our current ruling class. They didn’t make America great.
