This comic says a lot. Hopefully a relentless focus on the embarrassing facts to date will keep up the political pressure to urge some necessary reforms and prosecutions. (Hat tip: JM)
And while the risk on traders roar this morning, last night’s Q3 earnings miss and negative outlook from economic bellweather Alcoa goes largely over-looked by the broad market. Alcoa is generally thought a leading indicator for the economy and the market cycle and as shown below is now down 46% since April, but hey, the EU says it can borrow more money to bail out its failing banks…party on. And the recession?
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Pension pain
http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/Prediction-Pain.aspx
Great cartoon!! Although this growing protest (Occupy Wall Street) is only 3 weeks old, it’s looking more and more like something that may well grow into one of those historical “reform” movements the United States is famed for in creating REAL social change, something that could become another example of America’s exceptional ability to “reinvent itself.” For a cogent articulation of the *Occupy Wall Street* protests–including many lines that could be extracted as pithy “sound bytes”–watch the the following 26-minute segment from the Charlie Rose Show of Oct 12 http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11938 [Incidentally, an example of something I extracted from that discussion, which could serve well as a sound byte worth repeating is: “It’s very tough for a politician to lead a parade with nobody behind him [her].” This quickly brings to my mind why an otherwise capable leaders like Obama NEEDS a movement like this in order to EFFECTIVELY make a dent in the persasive financial corruption that has been going on far too long]