The economic world's pretty messed up right now.
Financial markets are like Grimace-clones in a pogo-stick race across a cambodian minefield. You never know what Grimace giblets look like but you're pretty sure they're gonna be ugly.
But on to more important issues.. If you're not already aware, the chinese milk scandal (that's still overshadowed by the clumsily-propped-but-still-collapsing American financial system) has spilled over into a childhood staple that is...
the Rabbit sweet.
I've been chomping down these suckers for years and NOW someone tells me they're responsible for kidney stones ?! Were the warning labels printed in invisible ink on that novelty paper that is also edible ? (which is highly suspect now that I think about it - I've never seen 'paper' in any of those food-pyramid diagrams)
Since I mentioned the financial markets, here's an interesting story that's now emerging.
10 months ago - the average Wall St banker (there were 186,000 of them) received $201,500 in bonuses each despite the subprime mortgage fallout.
now - the treasury is looking to 'tax' EACH American (there're almost 304m of them) $2,000 in order to buy out these financial institutions so that they can 'repair' the mess that these very bankers got them into in the first place.
This moral hazard situation encourages wrong behaviour - if there's always a safety net below, you're more likely to reach for the top swing in the trapeze, even if it's your first day.
So why am I supporting the bailout ? Because I'm not in America. While it's true that the world is more tightly interlinked now, the winds have been blowing east to Europe and Asia for some time. The bailout is not going to do much to change this shift in economic might but I reckon it will make the terrorists less 'angry' at the rest of us. After all, I don't think all the terrorists combined would have been able to hit EVERY American up for $2k. Do you ?
Ah well, with great power comes great responsibility, and apparently, at a great price. This Op-Ed probably says it all. And while I'm tempted to mention the obvious comparison of costs of war in iraq looking for fictional WMDs (almost $5k per iraqi!), I'll just end this post with a Nelson-esque "Haa HA!"
