Suze Orman on the FDIC versus a shoe-box:

Here’s what Karl Denninger at Market Ticker had to say about her performance:

“If you believe that having 0.27% of the insured base of deposits as a reserve, having lost more than two thirds of the original reserve due to malfeasance and misfeasance, when not one person has been indicted, prosecuted or imprisoned for their misconduct over the previous two years constitutes “well-capitalized, prudently operated and able to meet insurance obligations”…

… you are free to believe that.

I will however strongly suggest that you investigate the facts for yourself before believing Suze Orman playing “mouthpiece” for a clearly-desperate regulatory apparatus that has allowed the wholesale looting of the American Taxpayer to occur – a regulatory apparatus and government, from the top down that will, it appears, continue to rob you blind until and unless you, the people, demand that it stop.

Disclosure: Short the American people, who appear to be as dumb as a box of rocks for putting up with this crap.”

My Comment

The Suze Orman video isn’t alone. The past few weeks have seen an uptick in Polyanna-ish messages about the economy, some of them making distinct swipes at libertarian doom-sayers.

Here’s some positive spin early in May from The Times Online (UK):

“The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said yesterday there were indications that the country was experiencing a “pause in the economic slowdown”.

The multibillionaire investor George Soros echoed the positive forecast, saying that a meltdown of the world’s financial system had been averted. Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, said that some countries had already moved beyond the worst of their recessions.”

That simply echoed what US policy makers were saying early in April:

“Top US officials on Saturday offered reassurances that the worst of the economic downturn is likely over, helped by unprecedented efforts to keep credit flowing, though the recovery will be slow. Two Federal Reserve policy-makers, Vice Chairman Donald Kohn and New York Fed chief William Dudley, both pointed to signs that measures taken by the US central bank are indeed working to help revive the economy”

Note that Kohn was the one who stone-walled Congress when pressed for the names of AIG’s counterparties. What are the chances he’s a disinterested observer? Nil, I’d say…