I still like the Wall Street Journal.
While they often infuriate me with their new editorial policies and slanted news coverage, they still have some of the best reporters and best graphics people out there. I think it’s because so many people over there really “get” economic reporting. Most newspapers have reporters who know the economy and then they have graphics people who know how to draw but the WSJ has graphics people who clearly understand the markets and it brings a lot of fine color to the articles – I can only hope Uncle Rupert realizes what he’s got there and takes care of the rarely-recognized team. Here’s the incredibly useful graphic today that prodded me to mention this:
Isn’t that nice? Notice that we still have that WSJ/Top 1% slant on what’s good for the economy, but it’s a very useful springboard for discussion. I will never forget my meeting at Treasury when I said (and I was joking) to Geithner “So, does the US still have a strong dollar policy” and the Secretary of the Treasury laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair. We are not allowed to quote people directly so I’ll just leave Tim’s answer at the time (Aug 16th) as “no comment.” The Rich (who control this country) do not want a strong dollar – only people who get paychecks in dollars want them to be strong but the people handing them out in exchange for labor are perfectly happy if Treasury Notes are as worthless as toilet paper because they generally run their businesses with debt financing anyway and at no time do they have significant cash assets.
It’s very hard for workers to get their head around this concept. In grade school, we all laughed at the silly Indians who traded Manhattan Island for about $24 worth of beads and trinkets but, like US Dollars, they were plentiful and easy to get for the Dutch traders but very difficult to obtain for the Indians as the Bedazzler had still not been invented. Of course the Indians also had no concept of land ownership so the whole contract was a sham, but that’s an essay for another day. Getting back to US workers – they exchange their valuable labor for essentially worthless bits of paper that are relatively easy for their employers…
