Money For Nothing

Had a really odd experience in the taxi ride home tonight.  After we had driven off the driver asked me (in Chinese, of course) if I could speak Chinese.  I said not really, that my Chinese is very bad.  He asked where I was from and I said America (Meiguo).  “Ah, Meiguo!” he said excitedly, which he followed up with something that sounded like “Leering papers bang, bu hao!” (These last two words mean “not good.") I had absolutely no idea what he was trying to say, so I replied that I heard him but didn’t understand him.

“Ummm… uhhhh… Leerung Burse Bang.  Uhhhh… bank!  B-A-N-K!” I said “Yinhang ma?” (You mean bank?) He responded in the affirmative.

It was just then that I realized what he was trying to say:  Lehman Brothers Bank.  In other words, since I was American and the collapse of Lehman was the precipitating event in the financial mess he was saying “Lehman Brothers Bank is bad!” He was getting confused on the middle word, which we all know is an abbreviation for “brothers” but to him looks like “bross.”

People in America buy homes they can’t afford, Iceland goes bankrupt, and a Chinese cabbie forms a bad opinion of Lehman Brothers.  It’s a strange world we live in, my friends.

“It’s a strange world we live in”. Could not agree more. People (not only Chinese cabbies) have access to more information, but are generally not really able to put it all together in a coherent fashion.

You aren’t one of those “the govt made banks lend to immigrants and brown people and that’s what caused this mess” people are you? Please say you aren’t. Don’t drink their kool aid, do a little digging.

Come on, Haze.  I realize I can see the stretch marks from Stalin’s cock around your mouth, but your assertion that government meddling in free markets is absurd on its face,

I just wanted to know if that was your viewpoint or not, apart from the subject of blowjobs if possible. Sometimes its hard to tell if your being facetious or not.

In case of the latter, make sure to research sub-prime default rates through history, Bush administration’s record of enforcement of financial markets (incl a key head-in-the-sand 2006 decisions) and the non-regulation of the CDS market.

If the former, my apologies for jumping the gun but at least you got to bring up sucking cock.

It is a strange world. Beijing cabbies know about Lehman Bros collapse, and someone shows up to blame Bush for it.

I’m blaming conservative economic philosophy. Supporting that argument are the terrible decisions made by the Bush administration, and their inaction in terms of regulatory oversight.

Lee sounded like he was using the tired, debunked conservative argument that it was all the fault of Dems who forced the ‘guvmint’ to loan money to brown people. I was trying to argue against that argument, not pin the blame 100% on Bush.

Good job hazehead.  Now get back to work.

Don’t fret lad, I can multitask just fine.