Word: bigs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Making jokes about Barack Obama is the big test for political comedians these days, and like many, Smith did it mostly by talking around him. Obama could never get away with the kind of sexual shenanigans that Clinton did, he mused, because Michelle wouldn't stand for it: "She would impeach him herself!" Obama's election victory was inevitable the minute Oprah Winfrey endorsed him: "There's nothing bigger than Oprah. Oprah can do anything. 'Betcha can't make a black man President.' 'Watch me!' " The joke isn't Obama himself; it's the cultural shift - and the country...
...deft pivot - like a bit on John McCain's befuddlement at how to combat his Democratic foe during the presidential campaign. "How the f___ am I losing? I'm a war hero!" he imagines McCain thinking. "He came this close to saying, 'He's black!' " Ted Alexandro gets a big laugh by harking back to white America's old fears of blacks moving onto their turf: "Not only is Barack Obama our first black President, but it's the end of white Presidents forever. Because you know what they...
...big recession surprises...
Still, an AIG default could have been catastrophic for Goldman, although Goldman claims to have been perfectly hedged against an AIG bankruptcy. "If AIG would have gone bankrupt, it would have affected every institution in the world, because it would have had a big effect on the entire financial system," explains David Viniar, Goldman's CFO. He countered, though, that Goldman would have most likely figured out how to make money trading in such a volatile environment. (See TIME's AIG cover...
...fact, junk. But Goldman realized earlier than most that rot was setting in and famously decided to pull back from the mortgage market. The firm then shorted various mortgage-securities indexes - betting that prices would fall - at the very moment that other firms were still making big long bets on the securities. Goldman avoided losses while other firms infected themselves with the cancerous securities...