It's duct tape and string, independently,
1 But Larry began explaining the capital injections, the ring fence, and other features he must have gleaned from our press release. He had nice things to say about our plan, but I knew more than about it, and I knew it was nothing to get excited about.

"The details don't matter," I said. "it's duct tape and string."

2 Hassan lifted up his shirt and a bandage to show a reporter the wound from the bullet. His account, and those of other Shiite Turkmens, could not be independently confiremed.

What do the phrases here mean? Thanks

Question

It's duct tape and string, independently,
1 But Larry began explaining the capital injections, the ring fence, and other features he must have gleaned from our press release. He had nice things to say about our plan, but I knew more than about it, and I knew it was nothing to get excited about.

"The details don't matter," I said. "it's duct tape and string."

2 Hassan lifted up his shirt and a bandage to show a reporter the wound from the bullet. His account, and those of other Shiite Turkmens, could not be independently confiremed.

What do the phrases here mean? Thanks

Answer

My opinion is that the speaker saying "It's duct tape and string" means the details do not matter. Is this an article? If you provided a link we could be more helpful.

Answer

Duct tape and string are things that are commonly used to temporarily fix things. If you are doing a temporary patch, the details of how you patch it up are usually  insignificant. He is admitting that what they did is a 'stop-gap' measure, and therefore didn't matter much.
2: is quite literal. He had a bullet wound that he showed to the reporter. He, and other Shiite Turkmens (an ethnic/religious group, I assume) like him had apparently told stories of how they got those wounds. Those stories (or more likely the scenario in which they were wounded) had not been independently corroborated.

Answer

Also, independent confirmation is where two or more sources of evidence, that are
not dependent on each, other produce the same pattern. In other words, Hassan's account could not be regarded as entirely true because witnesses were either giving conflicting accounts, of there was a lack of witnesses. WHEW again!

Answer

Your English must be something else to be reading texts like these :). Fantastic!

Answer

So, we have to look at the first statement from a capitalists', or a bankers point of view. A "capital injection" is an investment into a starting company to give it a starting boost into the market. "Ring-fencing" is to render any assets "restricted", like transferring funds to off-shore bank accounts. The implication here is that the venture that the man is talking about is a flimsy one, or it is bound to fail at some point, and he knows this. Larry is the one who is optimistic about the venture and he had many good things to say about it from what he gathered from the ventures' press release. The man speaking tells Larry that the details of the venture do not matter because it is destined to fail. *** Gary is right, duct tape and string are things we use for temporary fixes for broken things around the house. By the man saying "it's duct tape and string.", it is a type of slang that is referring to "the venture being held together by bad policies that will eventually cause the venture to fail". WHEW!

Answers · 6

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