Today Staten Island’s famous groundhog emerged from his hole and bit New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the hand, drawing blood. How to divine the meaning? Three more months of winter, or imminent spring? My guess is that the groundhog, like the rest of us, has been more preoccupied with the long economic winter. Perhaps he didn’t receive a fat bonus this year. Or maybe biting the hand of a New York billionaire was his way of saying that spring won’t come until someone smacks down the plutocrats on Wall Street. Too bad this isn’t Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. If it was, Bloomberg could relive the pain each day until he saves the world.
UPDATE: In response to David Corn’s post, I’d like to clarify that I don’t equate Bloomberg with the average “TARP-sucking plutocrat.” He has been a good mayor overall, and is responding to the meltdown in brave ways, like calling for higher taxes. But as the founder of the Bloomberg news service, he created a corps of financial reporters who blew the biggest story on their beat. If they’d all been more like the rebellious groundhog and done some digging, or some Wall Street hand-biting (would Bloomberg have let them?), we might not be in this mess.
Image used with a Creative Commons license from israellycool.com
