Wisecrack of the Day

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Wisecrack of the Day

Dave Schuler

February 21, 2012

Comments

This may be old hat but it’s new to me. From Mark Grant, writing on the latest deal for Greece:

How many European Union officials does it take to change a light bulb?

None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are an illusional spin from people that unfortunately know how to add and subtract. Illuminating rooms is hard work. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything Mark Grant says undermines the lighting effort.

3 responses to “Wisecrack of the Day”

Brummagem Joe

February 21, 2012 at 9:31 am

After zero edge got spanked over their employment number nonsense I’d have thought their cred a bit shaky. And Mark Grant has a somewhat exaggerated sense of his own importance. Greece in of itself aint very important (it’s about 4% of Eurozone economy) the danger is contagion so what’s happening here is they’re playing for time so that the larger economies that have exposure to contagion can get their houses in order and ensure their borrowing costs don’t spiral out of control. Beyond the Greek bailout they’ve come up with a reasonably robust set of measures to keep the situation under control and to guard against this happening in the future. As for Greece itself there’s no question they are going to have to get serious about their problems because if they don’t then default is inevitable and default is going to be much worse. Even though the Greek bondholders have agreed to take 30 cents on the dollar and assuming the Greeks do bite the bullet they are still probably going to have an unsustainable level of debt so a revisit is not ruled out but by then (18 months time if things go according to plan) Italy, Spain, etc who were vulnerable to contagion will out of the danger zone and the rest of zone can give some further help without it creating precedents elsewhere.
Dave Schuler

February 21, 2012 at 10:17 am

How much credibility does it require to make a genuinely funny wisecrack?
Brummagem Joe

February 21, 2012 at 12:23 pm

@Dave Schuler:

How much credibility does it require to make a genuinely funny wisecrack?

Except it wasn’t particularly funny. Just a rather labored re-hash of all those How many polacks, paddies (write in whoever you want) does it take to change a lightbulb.