There is nothing to write about in old St Paul right now except the Surprise Spring of 2012. It’s been 80F for days now, smashing old high temperature records by 10 degrees or more. We’re all giddy from the June that fell onto us in March.
Could there possibly be a downside to it? Maybe. It does bring up a few unrelated stories that show us that change, even when it seems to be for the better, has its own ways.
Iran stands today isolated like no nation before, at least since electronic banking became the standard. They have been cut off from Swift, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, so money can’t enter or leave the nation except that which is carried over the border manually. This came in response to their failure to allow an inspection of their nuclear program.
How Iran came to be contained so tightly and so quickly may set a new precedent for dealing with rogue nations. But the process for doing this is not what most people would ever expect.
“I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.” So says Greg Smith, until today the head Goldman Sachs’ equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This relatively young man who was working his way to the top very quickly simply walked off, leaving behind a scathing resignation letter – that he sent to the New York Times.
You can read the entire piece here, and it’s worth the time. There isn’t anything particularly new in it for those of us who have been watching Goldman for years, but the details are chilling all the same. They may be what gets the world moving toward correcting the problems that are not just at Goldman, not by a longshot.
Dave Barry was a kid when the Soviet craft sputnik was launched, sending out a “bleep” through low orbit all around the world. His teacher intoned to the math class that, “From now on, you kids are going to have to learn a lot more about math and science.” Barry added, “As if it was all our fault.”
People around the world are going to have to learn a lot more about economics and banking. This time, however, it really is our own fault. If we’re going to get some control over our lives in something like a democracy we better get moving. Movements like “Occupy Everything!” are a start, but there has to be a lot more attention and education. Fortunately, we have people like David McWilliams and his “Punk Economics” to help – teaching what’s going on with more than a little fun.
Halfway around the world in New Dehli, a conference will be held later this month between developing nations. It’s hard to imagine anything further from the minds of most Americans, and it’s unlikely to make the news. Yet what sources say will be announced could change our economy and standing in the world more than anything else that will happen this year, given enough time. It could mark the moment that China takes its natural next step on the world’s stage.
Economic restructuring always occurs in a Depression as the system that crashed at the start emerges as a different arrangement that looks ahead to the future. It’s a time of great opportunity, sometimes disguised as desperation. That restructuring is taking place in the USofA slowly, but much more rapidly when the sun shines on the other side of the globe. That’s why we should be careful what we wish for in the dead of the night.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 