Smarter than I

From today's billmon.org:

In his brilliant analysis of financial bubbles, Manias, Panics and Crashes, the economist Charles Kindleberger talked about a common tendency for desperate speculators to latch on to some shred of hope in the last stages of a market collapse - usually by convincing themselves a potential action or a pending event will salvage the situation.

During the 1929 stock market crash, for example, rumors that the Rockefellers and the Morgans were going to step in and rescue the market ("organized buying support" was the magic phrase) were enough to trigger a brief rally following Black Thursday. Unfortunately, it quickly became clear such support was entirely mythical, leading to Black Monday - up until 1987, the worst day in stock market history.

Well, it appears to me the June 30 transition in Bahgdad has emerged as the equivalent of "organized buying support" for our Gambler in Chief and his band of suckers. They've pinned an enormous amount of faith on the idea that the new interim "government" will be seen by the Iraqi people as something other than what it is: a slightly repackaged collection of the same exile politicians we've been coaxing or bullying into doing our bidding for the past year.

(sigh)