It came as a shock – the pleasant kind of surprise that sent the stock market soaring to levels not seen in a long time. The January employment report, released last Friday, showed a growth of 240k jobs last month. It was good news for everyone, but especially for President Obama. The story of the first three years of his Presidency has now been written in the job reports:
One year down, two years back up. We’re back to even and working to get ahead.
Modern finance has seen many innovations in the last 20 years. The Black-Scholes-Merton theory promised risk-free investment if it was properly hedged, or insured through market based options. That spawned a whole new category of investment in derivatives, or re-selling of insurance that nearly anything might go wrong. There were always new places to put money through the last generation as new concepts of “investment” were created. But through it all, there was one constant: there is a time value to money, which is to say that money today is paid for tomorrow plus a little bit more – call it “interest”.
No longer. Debt from large, secure nations is being sold at net negative interest rates, meaning that those with money are actually paying to lend it. Money today is worth less than money in the future. The implications of this are staggering.
“Just say ‘No!’.” Drugs have not been discussed frankly and openly in US politics since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 was passed. The framework passed then set up five categories or “schedules” of drugs based on their medical use and potential for abuse and how they would be regulated. Over the years laws that reinforce this regulatory structure have been passed and criminal penalties raised and lowered, but the basic concept has remained solid.
Since that time, however, many changes have occurred on the fringes of “drug” use in the US. Tobacco use has been banned from most public places and drinking ages were raised to curb their use. Prescription drug abuse has become an epidemic. Caffeine consumption has roughly tripled and is now available in high purity. Even marijuana, criminalized since 1937, has become de facto legal in several states.
Treatment programs are available for anyone who wants to stop using any of these “drugs”, but some of them have to watch out for the laws that stand in their way. Is it time to completely revamp how we regulate and criminalize “drugs”?
There is a deadline – March 20th. There is a plan – 70% default, much higher than what’s been suggested before. The Greek Crisis has everything it needs to conclude after two and a half years standing on the edge of a cliff. Left to negotiate is whether or not Germany will have a man in place in Athens to oversee the Greek budget process as what the Guardian calls a kind of “Viceroy”. It probably won’t fly but it does beg the question, “What if we had a German overseer to our budget process here in the US?”.
Nevermind, there have been enough diversions. At the EU summit this week the details should be finalized and the process for bailing out Greece will be in place. The world can move on to other worries. There is even the chance that the European Central Bank (ECB) will have some authority to print more Euros shortly.
Don’t care? You should. This is very important news to the US for astonishing reasons. The bigger problem, brewing for generations, is that we have lost control over our currency and have no chance to get it back unless Europe gets its act together.
The air was heavy with only a slight chill weighing down the slushy footsteps down the sidewalk of Seventh Street. It wasn’t exactly a crowd that slipped past the Ice Bar at Moe’s along the route of Saturday’s parade but there was a thin inkling of the start of Winter Carnival, about as relaxed as this warm winter itself. Hands waved as a couple talked through a “What can you expect?” disappointment in the wimpy Winter.
Once inside we all started chatting, the Carnival spirit of a crowd coming more from huddling and the determination to make our own fun than the reality outside. Slithered from their winter coats this couple was older and somewhat dignified. He was balding and round-faced in an open smile, she was dark haired, elegant, and the kind of thin that comes naturally and not from a gym. As is typical in Saint Paul, they slid right into a half-serious bar chatter that was a friendly gauge as to what neighbors across town really think. “This year, just about anything can happen, I guess,” it started with the weather. But it quickly ran to politics, at least of a sort.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 