Friday, June 4, 2010

News That Has Gone Very Quiet Very Quickly

In no particular order...

H1N1 swine flu
Now the reports say WHO exaggerated the threat, influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Oh really? What a surprise.

Global 'warming' and Climategate
The Gores are splitting, and CBS blames George W. Bush.

Panty-bomber on Christmas Eve last year and terrorists from Yemen (and US military's involvement in that country)
CIA later admitted he was allowed to board the plane under CIA's order. No matter. No one paid attention to that part. All we got out of this shady affair is the pornographic total body scan, thanks in part to the peddling by Michael Chertoff, former Homeland Security chief.

Greece sovereign debt crisis
While Greece decided to sell off national assets to pay the bankers, evil 'speculators' have moved on to the next target, Spain. Italy next? Or France next? I guess they'll need a break before attacking a major country. Maybe take a detour in Hungary?

Heath care insurance "reform" bill actually passed and signed into law
Remember that one, which will force you to purchase insurance you don't want under the threat of fines because it is your right? ('Newspeak' at its best.) Doctors sure seem to remember that well, as an increasing number of them will be calling it quits. Canadians are finding out that the government-mandated health care is not really 'free' of charge. Duh. (Why do they think Newfoundland's minister came to the US for his heart surgery?)

Times Square non-bomber (if you can call that a bomb, you are scientifically challenged)
The news died off even quicker than the panty bomber. As a reward, Pakistan will be targeted by the Obama administration for "unilateral military action".

Second wave of mortgage default due to ARM reset
I don't think that even compares with the much bigger subprime disaster that's coming, via almost insolvent FHA and Ginnie Mae, both of which are fully backed by the US government (i.e. taxpayers).

Goldman Sachs civil and criminal charges
How can they be blamed for what everyone else was doing? By the way, according to Goldman, today's job number was going to be 700K. I guess they were just following the Obama administration's lead (that Friday's job number would be great). How can they be blamed for following Obama?

Audit the Fed
Senator Sanders blinked and watered down his bill in the last minutes to just a slap on the wrist, if that. He blinked on the day of 'flash crash'. Oh it's just a coincidence, isn't it?

'Flash crash' and (unwanted) attention on high frequency trading
Boy this story disappeared so quick. Nothing to see here (which is very true of the stock market - nothing is supporting it but algo bots working in milliseconds), move right along. Nonetheless, the SEC is implementing a new circuit breaker system starting next week, which I suspect will only benefit the high frequency traders more. (More on this later.)

Euro crisis and $1 trillion bailout plan
Remember this? It was announced on May 10 before the markets in Asia opened. The effect of the announcement lasted about 12 hours for euro. The currency closed at about 1.28 (against USD) on May 10. It closed today at 1.1964, the level last reached in 2006, despite incessant central bank intervention in the last 3 weeks.
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North Korea's threat to go on all-out attack
I think it made the headline for a day or two. Poor Kim Jong Il, upstaged by the Israeli navy commandos only days later.

This must be the "new normal", in which one crisis every few days makes a peaceful, easy week. We would only panic when we have more than 3 or 4 reported crises per day. If they are not reported by MSM, we don't care, do we?

Move along, nothing to see here.

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