These meditative NYT bulletins from the slaughterhouse are beginning
to resonate peculiarly with me. I imagine a surgeon ducking out of
the OR, saying - in a neutral tone emerging from a neutral countenance -
"Well, the R cells of John's liver now have an average metabolic rate
of 2.7." After I thank him for the encouraging news and he disappears
down the corridor, a tough old nurse says, "He means that your brother
is dead."
It's a mellow evening on a late summer Sunday; not so far away there are
neighborly petit bourgeois families broiling steaks, having martinis,
or bestowing upon themselves some other modest celebratory bonus of the
good life, who I suspect would be acting quite differently if they had an
old nurse around to interpret the platitudes issuing forth from New York.
Do they let the old nurses out only after the EKG goes flat?
I get no kick out of seeing all this doctored language. Who needs the
cavalry when all these spin doctors are here to bill and coo?
valis
> Russia's Crisis Reveals the Ugly Side of Globalization
>
> By JOSEPH KAHN
............................................
> When he served in the Commerce Department during the first Clinton
> administration, Garten was a leading proponent of America's global push.
> Today, he sees the dark side of the trend. "Nobody ever said that
> globalization was just a great thing, that it only means economic progress
> for everyone," he said.
...............................................
>
> So far, Russia's internal problems have had only a marginal effect on
> earnings of companies in the United States. Republic New York, BankAmerica
> and Lehman Brothers are three financial institutions that have already
> acknowledged some Russia-related losses. Several high-risk hedge funds took
> serious hits and others may follow. Steel companies, paper producers,
> chemical producers and others dependent on commodity prices are also made
> vulnerable by Russian deflation.
>
> But if the direct losses are relatively minor, the indirect cost, including
> the toll on investor psychology, is immeasurably large. Investors have
> already begun to treat "global" as a bad word.
....................................................
> After faring relatively well in the summer selloff, shares of large,
> internationally oriented companies are getting slaughtered. "Globalization
> is starting to work against us," said Byron Wien, chief U.S. investment
> strategist at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "The international luster is
> tarnished." ........................................
