This New England

Will President Obama need to declare a bank holiday to give federal regulators time to start to really clean up the banks? The condition of the big banks is so murky and their accounting so dubious, that the Feds might need that breathing space to start to rearrange things? Like March 1933?

Sadly, the many good community banks in New England and elsewhere in the country don't get enough credit (as it were) for not getting involved in subprime mortgages and mortgage securities and not doing much of the dubious stuff done by the investment banks. Their people often actually know their customers personally!

The "financial supermarket'' idea of the big money-center banks that led the way into this mess looks pretty bad, and the idea of allowing even bigger banks worse.

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The Boston Globe's Peter Schworm had a good story today on how rich kids were doing better getting into expensive colleges these days because of those colleges' need for the money to, among other things, pay for more financial aid for the students from the lower- and middle-income families hurt by the recession.

While the richest places -- the Ivies, Wellesly Amherst, etc., will continue to pursue their need-blind policies, for the other places, upper-income kids will find it easier than in a long time to get into a good college.

As Morton Schapiro, president of Williams College (a rich school), told The Globe: There's ''never been a better time to be a smart, rich kid. And at some schools, you'd don't have to be as smart as you did before. That's what happens in a recession.''

So more embittering class divisions at college? What better place to learn that life is unfair.

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Connecticut lawmakers will extend mortgage-assistance programs to more homeowners. There has been a wave of foreclosures in the Nutmeg State.

There's a little irony here:

Many of the money-center manipulators who promoted the sub-prime mortgages and mortgage-backed securities that touched off the current economic crisis live in Connecticut, mostly in fancy Fairfield County.

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Gloucester, Mass., is debating whether to let a hotel and other non-marine-industrial uses into more of its port area. I hope the locals will bear in mind that a diversified economy is not one that leans entirely on tourism, restaurants and other enterprises that depend on discretionary income but that also protects fishing, shipping and other businesses that pay good middle-class wages.

One of the reasons for the severity of the recession and the long decline in many measures of middle class economic life is over-dependence on low-paying service industries. A working port provides a much more solid foundation than do a bunch of hotels.

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The Northeast Fisheries Science Center reports that gray (photo here) and harbor-seal populations are growing in New England. That's generally happy news because, among other reasons, they're so cute and dog-like. Cute is worth something in this cruel world.

But just because they're cute doesn't mean they're nice. Don't get too close to them. They bite.

For years their numbers declined because of hunting them for their pelts and because they were considered competitors of the fishing industry.

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I hope there won't be riots. Former Bush speechwriter (remember "The Axis of Evil''?) will speak at 6:45 p.m. Wednesday at overwhelmingly Democratic Party-dominated Brown University's List Art Center. He will speak on the future of the Republican Party, among other things. A short speech?

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Painting -- The Runaway Match, by Holbrook Beard (1877).There's a very long tradition, going back millennia, of representing people as other primates. Such pictures remind us of how amusingly close to the "Animal Kingdom'' we are -- indeed, we're in it!

I remember fondly all those pictures from the '20s of monkeys playing poker.

That horrifying attack by the pet chimp on the woman in Stamford, Conn.-- a scandal that has now grown ridiculously to encompass a silly, controversial cartoon in The New York Post taken by some to compare President Obama with a chimp (which innumerable cartoons made George W. Bush look like, too, during his reign) -- is reminder that, well, wild animals are wild animals, even if they're primates, like us.

For that matter, look at how savage humans are.

Having pet nonhuman primates is a dangerous fad, especially among the wealthy, with as many as 15,000 such beasts in captivity in the United States. Mostly, I would think, because they sort of look like us but we can boss them around -- usually. Unless they get mad and try to kill us.

Maybe the primate-pet fad will die with the Gilded Age now ending with a thump.

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From Mark Steyn's latest column:

''If you've been following recent developments in the Netherlands, you'll know that Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, is to be put on trial for offending Muslims. "Look at what you're doing," the sardonic Brit Pat Condell pointed out. "You're prosecuting a man who is under 24-hour protection from attack by violent Muslims. Yet he's the criminal for expressing an opinion."

''Quite. But, while Europe has a high degree of tolerance for intolerant imams, it won't tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance. It is not necessary for Minheer Wilders to be either jailed or forced into exile to conclude that the Netherlands, like many of its neighbors, has already conceded the key point - that Muslims now have the exclusive right to set the parameters of public debate on Islam. ''

 Tags  chimpanzee Conn. Gloucester gray seals Mark Steyn Morton Schapiro Peter Schworm Stamford

Comments

Terrence McCarthy said:

My sources tell me that some of the folks who will show up to hear Mr. Frum speak at Brown think the " Axis of evil " is Frank Rich, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.

Link | February 24, 2009 7:31 PM
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Marvin said:

Love this quote:
As Morton Schapiro, president of Williams College (a rich school), told The Globe: There's ''never been a better time to be a smart, rich kid. And at some schools, you'd don't have to be as smart as you did before. That's what happens in a recession.''

Which once again proves a point I've tried to make for years. The one thing money won't buy is poverty

Marvin

Link | February 25, 2009 8:50 AM
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Beth said:

So you've got lots of middle-class kids taking the toughest courses in high school to help them get into those Ivies, but on their way through high school, their parents are losing their jobs and slowly slipping into poverty. I'm not sure that's a lesson in anything. The consequence and action parts of the lesson are both morphing so none of it makes sense. I feel bad for my kids and others like them who will only learn one lesson -- it isn't worth the effort to try harder. That's the real tragedy.

Link | February 27, 2009 8:49 AM
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