Obama & The Bankers

Well, the President recently met with the executives of the "too big to fail" banks, and then he met with the executives of the "if you can't swim, the hell with you" modest to small banks. Of the latter, within the past year, a good many have not been able to swim, and they have indeed been let to "go to hell," and have failed, including one recent failure here in Cleveland, where the bank traces its history well back into the 1800s. In fairness, the Obama Administration took over the policies towards the banks, both large and small, of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson of the Bush Administration. Now, in more fairness, the Obama Administration can't claim they inherited all of these policies. Yes, they inherited an economy on the very brink of another Great Depression, but they didn't have to go along lockstep with the Bush Administration on banking policies. That is something they chose to do on their own. If we see "real" banking reform, with the "too big to fail" entities brought down to size, I will gladly give credit to the President and all those associated with it.

As the President noted in some televised remarks a few days prior to his meeting with the "big" bankers, whose salaries and bonuses are indeed "too big," Americans are angry at the bankers. These folks are now trying to pay themselves even more, when they should be thankful that the public didn't come, drag them outside, and string them up, like the criminals they are! Yes, I said "criminals," for what they did to this country and millions of Americans was out-and-out CRIMINAL! They brought the country to its very knees, and it will be quite some time for the ship to be righted again, if ever, and the lives of many Americans will NEVER be the same.

Lest we forget what they did to us! Don't let that happen!

WORD HISTORY:
Gall-There are two, possibly distinct, words here. I say "possibly," because they may actually be related, but that is uncertain. First, "gall," as in "gall bladder," meant "bile," or "yellow substance." It traces back to Indo European "ghol/ghel," which meant "yellow, gold," and also continued in Greek "khole," and Latin "fel."* Old Germanic continued with "gallon/gallam, and this developed as "galla/gealla" in Old English, the form being dependent upon the regional dialect. Close English relative, German, has "Galle," and another close relative, Dutch, has "gal." The use of this word to mean "boldness," in the sense "impudence," (as in "He had the gall to say such a thing") supposedly developed in the 1880s in America, but it also meant "effrontery/bitterness" (as with a verb form in "I was galled by the events," as bile is bitter) going back to the 1200s. Now secondly, "gall= a sore spot," or the verb, "to make sore by chafing," could well be the same word, as often times sores have a "yellowish" color, and they certainly can make you "bitter." Some linguists believe this meaning goes back to Latin "galla," which meant "a swelling on a plant," (one source also says Latin used this for "a sore spot on a horse") but others point to Low German "galle," which meant "sore/sore spot." Still others feel that the Latin and Low German forms come from are two separate words/meanings. It is more than a little confusing. What gall!

* Greek and Latin are both Indo European languages related to English, but further down the family tree, although English and the other Germanic languages picked up (usually referred to as "borrowed," by linguists) a number of words from both, and more so in the case of Latin, gave (usually referred to as "loaned," by linguists) some words to those languages' vocabularies.