Ignore That Man Behind the Curtain

Utah Business Magazine periodically has roundtables of leaders from a particular industry to discuss the issues facing that industry, to confirm with each other how great things are going, and to provide copy to fill white space in the magazine. This month it's banking leaders discussing subprime mortgages. They seem to think the subprime mess won't affect Utah much and may have already passed through. Of course there apparently wasn't anybody from Citigroup to talk about the 900 local jobs Citi is cutting due to its multi-billion dollar losses. And there apparently wasn't anyone there from Bank of America to explain how BOA intends to manage having to swallow Countrywide Financial in order to cover its own losses in that train wreck (Does anyone else remember First Security buying up American Savings & Loan? Is First Security still around?). And although Jeff Thredgold from Zions does most of the heavy lifting in the article, he is strangely silent about how Zions is going to handle having to pull Lockhart Financial back onto its books and how many other such booby traps are out there.

These guys aren't analysts. They're just the dance band on the Titanic.