The Enron Canary

Interesting Op-Ed piece in the Guardian (home page) today, comparing the practice of hiding debt that brought down Enron to our current situation. And while I'm on the topic, there was an outstanding article in Der Spiegel on Tuesday, also on the current financial crisis. The latter article is pretty lengthy, but I think very much worth reading.

The US press has done an adequate job of explaining the mess, though as I've commented earlier, I have seen no one explicating why the number is 700 billion rather than 600 or 800 billion dollars. My sense is this is the first plane load of fire retardant to be dropped, not the plane load. And the pork larded into the bill that passed angered me. However, if you are relying on one news source, or god help you, if you're relying on television news, this must make no sense at all.

There are many people who pay closer attention to news than me, and who understand the background of topics like economics, international relations, politics and so on better than I do. But when Caribou Barbie can't name a single news source she reads, and then later claims, oh what I meant to say was The Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, I throw up... my hands, I mean. My hands. I read The Times, too. And the Economist. And the Guardian, and The Telegraph, and der Spiegel, the Corvallis Gazette-Times (hurts to admit that one), The Oregonian, The Washington Post, The LA Times and (sometimes) the Globe and Mail. And that's just off the top of my head. If I were to go through my e-mail and my feeds, I expect that list would easily double.

People, this stuff is free. The few seconds your eyes skim over advertising pays for your access to nearly endless news. Turn off the goddamn tube. I'll bet Palin could name a dozen TV shows she watches.

And to get back to my starting point, many of the best news sources for US news are not from the US. They're from England (The Guardian, The Telegraph, The BBC), Germany (Der Spiegel) and Canada (The Globe and Mail).

Turn off the idiot box. Explore your world. Read.