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Journalism and other myths.

Small Ripple, Big Waves

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Bad news has been roiling financial markets for some time.  It’s hard to stay on top of what has spooked investors recently and how important it might be.  A sense of fear and at time panic drives much of the news.  But last week a few things happened that might just be the worst news we have seen since the meltdown of Lehman in 2008, the event that plunged the financial world into crisis.

Two things have happened that have investment houses running for the exits very rapidly.  The first is that Spain appears to be in need of a bailout, the largest European economy to hit a key threshold yet.  The second is that a weak US jobs report has bid up demand for safe US treasuries to a dangerously high level.

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Election Economics, Pre-Summer

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As the months roll by, we have more data rolling in as we close in on the November election.  Despite some reason for optimism at the start of this year, there is no doubt that the economy is stalling again – making Obama’s job more tenuous.

How bad is it?  We won’t know until we get there, but the latest job figures show that we’re treading water.  It could be worse – we could be drowning.  Whether that’s a good enough case politically won’t be known for a few more months.  But so far we know the economy is not a good bet.

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Union

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Memorial Day started as a commemoration of the hundreds of thousands killed in our Civil War.  It was a war that started because the nation could not tolerate being half free and half slave-owning any longer.  What won the day was one nation, once assembled, which could never pull apart.  Perpetual Union is now sanctified in blood and taken as a given.

While we pause to remember the sacrifices of those who came before us, Europe is deep into their own process for understanding what Union means to them.  It has been in the works for perhaps 200 years, or 2,000 if you want to start with Rome.  The bloodshed has been grave and terrible.

Does it really come down to stark choices like this for Europe?

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IPO – I’m Pissed Off

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MF Global, while crashing and burning, lost $1.6 billion – at least that’s what appears to be missing.  JP Morgan, for reasons they don’t quite understand, lost $3 billion – by the most recent estimate.  And now Morgan Stanley has lost at least $18 billion – but this doesn’t count because it was Other People’s Money (OPM).

There has been no bigger joke on Wall Street than the Facebook initial public offering (IPO).  From the beginning up through the sorry slide it’s on today, nothing has worked.  There is even a likely Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into revised earnings information that somehow wasn’t shared with the public – but a few insiders had a peak at.

If you ever needed proof that big investment banks are nothing but leeches sucking the life out of our economy, Facebook’s IPO is it.

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Greek Drama, New Act?

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I admit it, I’ve been slow to write about Greece again.  There is news on the Greek crisis every day that is worth writing about, and yet somehow it all seems the same as two years ago.

But then along came Alexis Tsipras, who at 37 is likely to be the next leader in this odyssey of debt.  Outside of Greece he and his “Coalition of the Radical Left” are not well known, which is only reasonable.  They aren’t that well known in Greece, either.  What matters is that he is playing his hand perfectly and may well stand up to the big banks of Europe after June 17th.

Will this former youth organizer for the Communist Party be successful, not just in winning power but leading his nation away from disaster?  It seems unlikely, but if it happens it will be one Hell of a story.

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