The presentation. How important?
Today’s front page Chicago Tribune headline reads: “Deal, then no deal.” The USA $770M bailout, an excellent example of how not to sell a concept has been bothersome all week. What immediately comes to mind? What would Saul Bass have done?
SB could present! He could fit the pitch for the occasion. Legend has it that in 1973 Saul asks United Airlines for $1 million for a new identity. A lot of money then. With check deposited SB lines up a theatre, clears out the chairs and replaces them with 200 Barcelona chairs. Then he hires “attendants and pilots” in freshly designed uniforms to seat the attendees. He places examples of the color palette, the ticket counter, brochures, signage, the logo, the airplane. Everywhere.
When everyone is seated the lights dim. The stage lighting warms up and out walks SB dressed for the occasion: a purple cape. He walks towards the podium with signature cane — the cane often used as a musical director’s baton. The stage lights dim. The rest is history. A long-lived identity program.
Research for this post lead to this YouTuber ” bhilmers’s ” school project created as if Saul Bass animated the title sequence for “Star Wars.” The music is “Machine” by the Buddy Rich Band.
Is the bailout a good idea? I am not smart enough to answer that one. But I wish someone would show up who can convince me it is.
9 comments ↓
Well … here is the story. Once upon a time in the Clinton administration, regulatory laws were retracted to open up loans to more people. MORE people = folks that really cannot afford a house.
Add in new risky loans that are based on paying off interest only in the hopes of gaining equity in the future.
BOOM!! More and more loans, great interest rates, and guess what …. inflation. Rising house prices were seen as something good??? Nope. Inflation is BAD. The housing boom was a ballon ready to pop. Sooner or later you run out of ways to get people into houses they cannot really afford.
Many garbage loans became unpayable as adjustable rates, and ballon payments came due. Default …. repossetions, housing starts slow.
Is this really a surprise? Markets will level themselves eventually. People are going crazy as housing prices fall. It was inevitable.
The banking and mortgage problem is the fault of two – the bankers themselves, and people borrowing way too much. We have become a nation of debt. If you borrow from your family, and then do not pay your debts, do you call your family “CROOKS”?
Then again, as mortgage companies swallowed up risky loans by the thousands …. surely they new the risk. Guess what – the big CEO’s made a fortune regardless. They run free. I would like to see these guys stripped of their fortunes. NEVER HAPPEN.
That leaves us with a mess. I favor the bailout not because I think that it is right, but it is necessary. Without it, the cyclonic spiral of doom will hit this country. I gaurantee that. I am worried that if we do not act quickly, the greatest depression ever could be right on our doorsteps. Just as dominoes, we all stand together in line.
Eric “Speedcat Hollydale”s last blog post..35W bridge in Minneapolis
eric, good summation.
and you’re right, we are indeed a nation of debt.
then one thinks about who is going to pay for the bailout. i shouldn’t have been surprised but was when i read not long ago how many of our corporations, i want to say over 60%, pay zero taxes over the past five years.
back to the $700. the figure is an illusion. it’s a spin figure. the pitch. what this post is all about. i guess it’s supposed to “sound” big to make it happen. who knows what it will really cost.
not sure what quickly means. don’t want to rush into a bad plan nor do nothing trying to make a masterpiece. to design a good plan i endorse starting small, then learn, evolve.
regarding “quick”, spoke 6 hours too soon…
Bailout Agreement Reached
Washington, D.C. – 12:30 a.m. Sunday. Key lawmakers in Congress have reached a tentative agreement on a bailout proposal that they expect to roll out to their colleagues for final approval Sunday morning.
There’s no doubt what got us into this mess: GREED – on the part of the people who think they’re entitled to everything without working for it, and by the lenders who cash in on their stupidity.
The bailout is a necessary evil but if it doesn’t include accountability and consequences, and regulations going forward it’s just a bandaid that will come off as soon as it gets wet, leaving us open to more of this infection.
Sams last blog post..Ever heard of Dupuytren’s Disease?
[...] Observer: Observed on 29 Sep 2008 The key question about the US financial crisis: what would Saul Bass do? [...]
The bailout was little more than putting off a recession that was due since the dot-com crash. I, for one, am glad the bailout wasn’t passed in Congress. Not because I want to see people suffer now, but because I don’t want to see them (nor myself) suffer even more in the future.
Recessions are a part of the economy, they’re supposed to happen and when we put them off, we’re simply postponing (and building up) our misery. The real estate bubble (the fake economy boost created with sub-prime loans) was the “get out of jail free” card to bail out of the dot-com crash, and now we’re seeing the results of *that* genuis idea… Let’s not make the same mistake of presuming we can get out of having to face the consequences of our mistakes by throwing money at them (and tax-payer money, no less!).
ah, spoke too soon. again. today nytimes says, “house rejects bailout package, 228-205.
alfonso is right, recessions are part of a cycle which is comforting in a twisted sort of way.
back to the cycle of things. glenn greenwald, salon.com, has an opinion on the government cycle when they wiff one. read the 10 normal principles for how our government functions.
in the meantime returning to creative, now researching a george lois presentation.
Interest rates were also kept unnaturally low so that more people could qualify for bigger loan amounts. Alan Greenspan, the Fed Chairman, was largely responsible for this.
exactly a year ago greenspan defends low rates as his memoir was coming out, “The Age of Turbulence,” because his critics said he established a pattern of “bailing out” Wall Street investors. an interview with lesley stahl on 60 minutes.
Leave a Comment
Alas, yes we moderate comments. Please proceed to add value.