A good friend of mine sent me a link to a small story last week, something that deserves a little attention, post-factum. The Bloomberg piece is about J.P. Morgan Chase winning a bid to be the lead underwriter on a $400 million bond issue by the state of Massachusetts. Chase was up against Merrill for the bid and won the race with an offer of a 2.57% interest rate, beating Merrill's bid of 2.79. The difference in the bid saved the state of Massachusetts $880,000. Afterward, Massachusetts state treasurer Steven Grossman breezily played up the benefits of a competitive bid. "There's always a certain amount of competition going on out there," Grossman said in a telephone interview yesterday. "That's good. We like competition." Well ... so what, right? Two banks fight over the right to be the government's underwriter, one submits a more competitive bid, the taxpayer saves money, and everyone wins. That's the way it ought to be, correct?
It's more of a lesser of two evils, like Obama going up for the presidency against McCain...
Society still loses, we just feel better getting to choose who is raping us, I guess.
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