The patron saint of pool skatin'

You may have seen this elsewhere by now as it appeared at Barry's Big Picture blog yesterday, but it's worth mentioning again here in case you missed it or were looking for some added context.

In a New York Times story from Sunday, it was learned that, since most of the stagnant water has been removed from the swimming pools of foreclosed homes in California's Central Valley in what had proved to be a very effective breeding ground for mosquitoes over the last two summers, the empty pools now offer a veritable smorgasbord of options for skateboarders, some of whom credit the former chairman of the Federal Reserve for their good fortune.

Some skateboarders use realty tracking sites like realquest.com and realtor.com to find foreclosed houses with pools, while others trawl through satellite images from Google Earth.

On the Web site skateandannoy.com, where skaters trade tips about how to find and drain abandoned pools, one poster wrote about the current economic malaise. “God bless Greenspan,” the post read, “patron saint of pool skatin’.”

What this indicates about the understanding of monetary policy by the skating community and the public at large is unclear, however, what is clear is that The Maestro now has one more ignominious label to add to his growing collection after a tumultuous period that has seen his reputation plunge faster than either stocks or home prices.