Friday, December 21, 2001



Remora

Limited Inc, like a rattled heroine in a Joan Didion novel looking for nembutal, went riding around the highways of LA for three hours yesterday with a jazz musician from Riverside who had only recently, at the age of 30, received his license. Being the fearless passenger type, we did not flinch at the Magoo like structure we traced as we headed the wrong way on the Hollywood Freeway, going vaguely in the direction of Pasedena when we meant to be going to Venice Beach. However, as the countryside became more, rather than less mountainous, we eventually realized that we were, like so many travellers in California (the Donner party comes to mind), wandering in a labyrinth of our own illusions that had little to do with geographic reality.

This morning, we read with interest the story of the fall of De La Rua's government in Argentina. Of course, readers of this humble rag will remember our predictions on this score from months ago, when the IMF restructured the Argentine debt. As you will no doubt recall (ah, the passages from our column that are no doubt burned into your brains, my dears, like grill marks on a sizzling hamburger), at that time we pointed out that the headline money from these deals is not exactly pouring into the pockets of the Argentine people -- rather it is, by routes that show the true Yanqui ingenuity in devising shifts of wealth that reward the Lord's true husbandmen, those frisky emerging money market manager s we so know and love - cycling to the temperate zone. This fact notwithstanding, Yanqui newspapermen are pretty certain they know what's been happening down South American way: it is the laziness in the blood. Here's the LA Times editorial that revamps our old friend, the lazy Latino, in a little more sophisticated form:

"To reactive the economy, mired in a three-year-old recession, the new government must bring down unemployment, now at a staggering 20%. It must also find a way to manage a public debt of $155 billion while reducing a fiscal deficit that this year hovers around $8 billion. A recent article in an Argentine newspaper illustrates how imperative it is for the new government to overcome the political elite's devastating corruption and inefficiency. According to the story, the Argentine Congress boasts thousands of employees who are known not so affectionately as gnocchi. Gnocchi, you see, are the potato dumplings that Argentines eat on the 29th day of each month, a custom that is supposed to bring good luck. The employees got that nickname because they show up to work only once a month--always on payday. Civil service law prohibits their firing. But if forced to show up more often, they'd have nothing to do."

Notice the contrast between our own fiscal policy, which would never pump money unnecessarily into the system, with those gnocchi. The Lord has truly blessed us is the moral Limited Inc draws from this sad debacle.



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