The Astonishing Story of the Federal Reserve on 9-11
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/09/10/1328813/-The-Astonishing-Story-of-the-Federal-Reserve-on-9-11
Yes, I know that the Fed really isn’t part of the govt, so this really isn’t praise for the govt, but it is an amazing read and remarkably gripping considering it is about banking and mundane things like check clearing. Give it a read, I think you will be surprised, perhaps even shocked, how James Bondian it reads.
I never really gave it much thought, but 9/11 really was a worst-case scenario for the banking system. So much banking is in NYC and in and surrounding the Trade Center that in retrospect the fact that our economy didn’t melt down is a tribute to the largely unseen people making things work. A little sad to me that the heroic work of these unsung heros is tarnished (to put it mildly) by the greedy ‘capitalists’ in Wall Street out to make a buck.
On an unrelated issue I am too lazy to make as a separate blog entry for, anyone notice that Ebola is about to become a huge deal?
It becomes increasingly hard to avoid the tin-hat thinking that, given the number of companies developing an Ebola Vaccine (my dear wife works at the NIH Vaccine Research Center and is in the midst of testing one such vaccine), this is entirely coincidental. It is amazing timing that just as a couple of vaccines are ready for human testing there is an outbreak that looks like it will become an epidemic. No doubt these companies have already seen their stock skyrocket; presuming their vaccines show efficacy (the preliminaries are very encouraging) no doubt many countries will stockpile huge amounts of their vaccine even further inflating their value. I wonder, though, if any of that money will translate to vaccines given to the at-risk population, given that most of those countries have little or no hard currency and some barely have governments.
Also, with the massive increase in the number of people infected, we are performing a giant experiment to increase the transmissibility of the disease, much like that done to ferrets (for those of you who missed it, this paper was briefly censored because people were worried about terrorists using the same technique; here we are doing it ‘naturally’ instead). If you were lacking for reasons to lie awake at night, this should help fill the need.
