Foxholes And Financial Crises Poem by gershon hepner

You won’t find in foxholes an atheist, and
in financial crises there are
no ideologues. Where you can’t understand
what happens when you lower the bar
on freedom of thought, and turn to beliefs
you previously strongly opposed,
for foxholes and financial crises are reefs
where all that was right, you supposed,
is shattered, and you are compelled to consider
approaches you used to reject,
like gods and agendas the prayers in a siddur
to which you once showed no respect.

Inspired by an article on the crisis in Wall Street, “A Professor and a Banker Bury Old Dogma on Markets, ” by Peter Baker, Stephen Labaton and Eric Lipton and written by Mr. Baker (NYT, September 21,2008) :

For the last year, as the nation’s economy lurched from crisis to crisis, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, had been warning Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, that the worsening situation might ultimately force a sweeping federal intervention. A longtime student of the Great Depression, Mr. Bernanke was acutely aware of what could happen without a decisive move. Finally, the moment that called for action arrived late Wednesday. Less than 24 hours after the Fed bailed out American International Group, the giant insurer, it was clear the turmoil gripping Wall Street was only growing worse and that ad hoc solutions were not working. Talking into a speaker phone from his ornate office, Mr. Bernanke told Mr. Paulson that it was time to adopt a comprehensive strategy that Congress would have to approve. Mr. Paulson understood. Reluctant in recent days to send Congress a plan that lawmakers had warned had little chance of quick passage, he had worried that a rejection would only further shock the markets. But during two conference calls Wednesday night and Thursday morning, he agreed that they had no choice.“It just happened dramatically, ” Mr. Paulson said in an interview on Friday. “There was only one way that we could reassure the markets and deal with a very significant and broad-based freezing of the credit market. There was no political calculus. It was overwhelmingly obvious.” Just like that, Mr. Bernanke, the reserved former Ivy League professor, and Mr. Paulson, the hard-charging former Wall Street deal maker, launched what would be the government’s largest economic rescue operation in modern times, one that rivals the Iraq war in cost and at the same time may redefine Washington’s role in the marketplace for years.
The plan to buy $700 billion in troubled assets with taxpayer money was shaped by two men who did not know each other until two years ago and did not travel in the same circles, but now find themselves brought together by history. If Mr. Bernanke is the intellectual force and Mr. Paulson the action man of this unlikely tandem, they have managed to create a nearly seamless partnership as they rush to stop the financial upheaval and keep the economy afloat. Befitting their roles and personalities, Mr. Paulson has become the public face of their team — he plans to appear on four Sunday talk shows — while the less visible Mr. Bernanke provides the historical underpinnings for their strategy.Along the way, they have cast aside the administration’s long-held views about regulation and government involvement in private business, even reversing decisions over the space of 24 hours and justifying them as practical solutions to dire threats. “There are no atheists in foxholes and no ideologues in financial crises, ” Mr. Bernanke told colleagues last week, according to one meeting participant.


9/21/08