Daily Briefing For Thursday, October 3, 2013

Meanwhile, In Other News...

Judging by my Facebook feed, the issue du jour is "Your political party sucks/No, YOUR political party sucks."  Of course, calling this issue one of du jour is rather misleading; I would argue this has been the issue de la decennie. 

So let's talk about other news of equal or greater importance.


IMF: Global Economy In "Epic Scale" Change

Don't get distracted by the story from Tuesday on how metals cratered after the government shut 'er down. (It's since retraced much of that day's losses.)  Instead, consider this warning from the IMF's Christine Lagarde.  In this short article, she talks about the fragility of the world economy.  While opining optimistically about the economies of "advanced" countries, she concedes that 12% unemployment in the Eurozone is still far too high.  In the end, according to Ms. Lagarde,

Because the normalisation of monetary policy affects so many markets and people across the globe, the US has a special responsibility: to implement it in an orderly way, linking it to the pace of recovery and employment; to communicate clearly; and to conduct a dialogue with others.

And there you have it:  We Americans need to manage the reserve currency in "an orderly way" so that the rest of the world doesn't fall into some sort of Keynesian vortex.  Think those people in Washington can influence those people at the Federal Reserve to do that?

Meanwhile, the hyperinflation hawks aren't giving up.  One money guesser says we're looking at a spike in rates sometime in Q4 2014. 


If The Government Is Rebooted, Does It Mean Ann Margaret Is Still Coming?

And by that I mean, are the Feds going forward with their simulated blow up of the electric grid?  From the article:

The SHIELD Act, which is stalled in Congress, is the first serious piece of legislation in many years to attempt to address the vulnerabilities of the power grid in. As previously reported by Off The Grid News, a recent American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) report gave the power grid a “D+” when grading various pieces of infrastructure and public services in the United States.

Our grid is in bad shape and vulnerable to a number of perils.  It needs to be tested strenuously.  Former Congressman Roscoe Bartlett has been sounding the alarm on this subject for quite some time. 


Preparedness Tip Of The Day: A Better Than Average Altoids Survival Tin

If you need a weekend project, here's one option.