These Times: Nobody ever believes anything anybody ever has to say about anything...

...and why should he (or she)?

As an illustration of the Samuel Beckett-esque times in which we live, take a look at this most recent post from the left-leaning economics blogger Yves Smith, in which she reveals that she -- in her capacity as one among a "small group of bloggers" -- was invited to participate in a pseudo-off-the-record discussion with "senior officials" of the Obama Treasury Department. Smith:

It wasn’t obvious what the objective of the meeting was (aside the obvious idea that if they were nice to us we might reciprocate. Unfortunately, some of us are not housebroken). I will give them credit for having the session be almost entirely a Q&A, not much in the way of presentation. One official made some remarks about the state of financial institutions; later another said a few things about regulatory reform. The funniest moment was when, right after the spiel on regulatory reform, Steve Waldman said, “I’ve read your bill and I think it’s terrible.” They did offer to go over it with him. It will be interesting to see if that happens.

Four of us [bloggers of various political orientations from the aforementioned "small group"] had a drink afterward and none of us felt that we learned anything (not that we expected to per se; if the ground rules are “not for attribution” in an official setting, we are certainly not going to be told anything new or juicy). But my feeling, and it seemed to be shared, was that we bloggers and the government officials kept talking past each other, in that one of us would ask a question, the reply would leave the questioner or someone in the audience unsatisfied, there might be a follow up question (either same person or someone interested), get another responsive-sounding but not really answer, and then another person would get the floor. The fact that the social convention of no individual hogging air time meant that no one could follow a particular line of inquiry very far.

My bottom line is that the people we met are very cognitively captured, assuming one can take their remarks at face value. Although they kept stressing all the things that had changed or they were planning to change, the polite pushback from pretty all [sic] the attendees was that what Treasury thought of as major progress was insufficient. It was instructive to observe that Tyler Cowen, who is on the other side of the ideological page from yours truly, had pretty much the same concerns as your humble blogger does.

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Read the rest of this fascinating-if-frustrating post-meeting report at the blog Naked Capitalism.

LATE-BREAKING ADDENDUM:
It occurs to me that I nowhere explained what's "Samuel Beckett-esque" about our "times." Not sure that's really the correct characterization. Well, anyway, you have a lot of men (and some women) in suits talking back-and-forth, everyone politely waiting his turn, statements being made that take the form of answers and questions without always actually necessarily being answers and questions (or even maybe statements), and in the end it's all sound and fury, signifying nothing. Or something. (As it were.)