It’s been quite a year in the economy. 70% of all Americans think the economy is going badly according to a CNN poll, with unemployment the biggest concern of a solid majority. By a 7-1 margin Americans will tell you this is a bad time to find a “quality” job, by a recent Gallup poll – the worst figure they’ve ever seen. But 2011 was a year in which there was solid growth in the total number of jobs, even if they aren’t quite what people are hoping for.
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Journalism and other myths.
Imagination
Darkness falls quickly, long before dinner. The evenings are deep and reflective, times that make body and soul a bit weary. Deep Winter, just before the Solstice, is a time for imagination and possibility more than making something happen.
Into this darkness plunged the news that the “Dear Leader” of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, has died suddenly. The world has reacted with a mild panic, stock markets tumbling as they contemplate the possibility of more uncertainty ahead in the region. This was especially true in South Korea, a nation that only recently completed the leap from developing nation to the developed world.
This may not seem like a time of “Romance” in the way that anyone typically uses the word, but the imagination of the moment demonstrates what a new Romantic Era is like, good and bad, far better than nearly anything else.
When Failure is an Option
Jon Corzine’s appearance before the House Agriculture committee was a yawner and yet breathtaking. By candidly not pleading the 5th Amendment the testimony was completely lacking in fireworks. But the substance of it, pleading whatever amendment gives you the right to say “I dunno”, left everyone cold. As much as $1.2 billion is missing from MF Global – but Corzine has no idea where it is.
As the poster child for more financial regulation, MF Global has a lot to teach. It was nowhere near “Too big to fail”, but it was big and messy. This will highlight the laws we have in place and what happens when failure is an option.
Fueling the Future
News stories on the economy are full of many subjects that would have seemed strange to American readers just a few years ago – European banking, the developing world, clever financial instruments, and so on. There is one word that is strangely absent, however – “Recovery”. This once prominent term has apparently been banished from reporting, possibly because no one believes that there is such a thing anymore.
That’s not to say there won’t be a Recovery, but as is typical of a credit-meltdown fueled Depression there has to be a Restructuring first. Money and labor and all the other resources you can name have to start going into areas that are going to be productive in the new economy that replaces the one that crashed and burned back in 2008. Barataria has led some discussion on how jobs appear to be shifting rapidly, a sign of Restructuring, but there are some fascinating things happening that show how much our world is changing.
Some of those stories come from the world of oil, the mysterious black gunk that fuels the world.
Catching Up
December is a month of Advent – preparing, catching up, and waiting. There has been a lot of economic and political news lately, most of it not incredibly bad. Some has even been good. Let’s celebrate the season and the thin coating of snow on the ground by catching up with the unfolding stories.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 