A Rant In Contravention to All the Idiotic Market Rhetoric

The dumbest and most annoying (and most consistently wrong) bearish mantra emanating from quotable analysts that the financial press loves to parade before us is "the consumer is tapped out." How many months and years have we been hearing that the consumer is tapped out? In what will hopefully be a refreshing change, in that we won't have to hear this gibberish any more, the bears are formulating a new rationale for our impending economic doom. Scratch all that about the consumers, actually it's the banks that are tapped out! So because a few large banks got drunk on securitization and underwriting fees and have to write-down assets that won't trade because nobody knows how to value them, the economy is going to be starved of capital? Hmm. Ok, I get that maybe Citigroup might reign it in a little, but why would the First National Bank of East Jesus stop lending money? Or why would a bank stop lending to buy container ships or truck engines or cement mixers just because lending money to poor people to buy overpriced homes proved to be a bad idea? There is no reason to believe that all banks will cease to engage in banking and that all investment projects will be viewed the same as housing. There is just no sense to this.

Oh, and how much of a frankfurter is Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf for using such sensationalist rhetoric with his reference to the Great Depression? Last I checked, there wasn't 25% unemployment, the money supply wasn't shrinking at a rapid pace, and we weren't sticking it to our global trading partners (not yet at least). This economy looks nothing like the economy of the 1930s and while he might defend himself that he limited his comparison only to housing, he should be smart enough to know how the phrase "Great Depression" carries broadly ominous symbolism, especially when wielded by the irresponsible half-wit media, and should not be blithely bandied about. I guess bankers sometimes need to break out of that measured, sober stereotype once in a while and do something kah-ray-zee!