Final Word from Monday, February 23, 2009
Ben Stein, a Republican economist, told Larry King that he's not surprised that Alan Greenspan would say a temporary nationalization of U.S. banks might be necessary. Greenspan works for someone who is an enormous short-seller of bank stocks, Stein said, apparently with Bill Gross of Pimco in mind. On the other side of the Atlantic, most Czechs are unaware that hedge funds and investment banks have been shorting the crown and talking it down for months. As Goldman Sachs was predicting a rate of Kč 32/euro, it was literally betting against the Czech currency. Traxis Partners of New York told the Wall Street Journal that after a series of false starts in Eastern Europe over the past two years, "now the big one seems to be happening." Czechs are aghast; speculators are rubbing their hands in delight. Politicians like to talk about solidarity in crisis, but some bankers didn't get the memo.[Czech Republic Federal Reserve United States Pacific Investment Management William]
Glossary of difficult words
short selling - sale of securities not owned by the seller, who hopes to buy them back at a later date for a lower price;
Pimco - Pacific Investment Management; hired Alan Greenspan as a special consultant in 2007;
to talk something down - to use comments in the media to try to force the price of something to fall;
false start - an unsuccessful attempt to begin something;
the big one - an informal expression used to distinguish an extremely large event from many others of smaller magnitude;
aghast - filled with horror or shock;
to rub one's hands - a way of showing keen satisfaction;
not to get the memo - to fail to receive the message (usually within a company or government office) about how one is supposed to behave or about what action is to be taken.