[PEN-L:1304] from SLATE magazine

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

snippets from SLATE magazine's survey of the front pages of major US
newspapers:
>Everybody leads with yesterday's bad day in the financial markets. The
headlines speak of a world crisis, and USAT, the WP, and the LAT headers
refer to the Dow's drop of 357 points. The NYT headline opts instead to
state that the DJ was off 4.1 percent. But none of the big type mentions
what USAT has in its second paragraph--this wasn't even in the Dow's top 20
bad days. ...

>... Russia's troubles have made it clear to other countries that IMF
bail-outs are probably not in the offing for them and might not work
anyway. ...

>Perhaps the scariest feature of the market turmoil served up by the papers
is the realization that for all their new analytical tools, those in the
business are no more capable of cognitive significance than in the days of
ticker tape. Thus, the WP quotes one "chief equities trader" saying, "If
you can withstand the pain and you've chosen good stocks, you should come
out okay," and USAT has another "strategist" saying, "We could rally from
this, but a lot of damage has been done." <

the last suggests that the stock market "experts" deserve less respect than
the athletes who explain that they won the game by "trying hard and
believing in God," etc.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html