What Caught My Eye Today

Switzerland - As if we needed another sign that the global economy sucks. Switzerland's days as a safe haven for the world's tax evaders are numbered. When will the madness stop? Under pressure from the United States and other troubled economies, the Swiss government announced that it will cooperate in international tax investigations, breaking with a long-standing tradition of protecting wealthy foreigners accused of hiding billions of dollars. Swiss banks hold an estimated $2 trillion of foreign money, and financial services add about 12 percent of GDP to the national economy. $2 trillion? That's a whole lot of money. Though I have to believe that some of it is clean. Austria and Luxembourg said that they would offer more help on tax investigations. Over the past month, leaders have made similar promises in Singapore, Liechtenstein, Bermuda, the British islands of Jersey and Guernsey, and tiny Andorra on the border between France and Spain. Thank goodness, we still have the Cayman Islands.

World Bank - I love this headline--"World Bank urges divided G20 to fix banks". Gee whiz, what a great idea. Thanks for tip, guys. More spending will give only a brief "sugar high" if G20 nations fail to clean up their banks, the World Bank said as economic powers struggled to agree a response to the worst downturn in decades. Remember the good old days when the United States and Europe used to cooperate on all sorts of stuff. Then the Soviet Union imploded, the Cold War ended, and all hell broke loose. Pity. G20 leaders are expected to back a call to as much as double the money the International Monetary Fund has at its disposal to help emerging economies hit by a plunge in global demand for exports and a severing of credit lines. The world economy shrank for the first time since 1945 in the last quarter of 2008, throwing millions of people out of work, and the IMF says 2009 will bring the first annual global contraction for more than 60 years. While financial markets have lately taken some comfort from signs that large U.S. banks may survive without full government takeovers, a solution to the core problem of what to do with a mountain of troubled banking assets is proving elusive. Financial markets are awaiting detailed U.S. plans on that. Good plan. If I recall correctly, it was the collapse of the U.S. financial market that started all this, much to the chagrin of the rest of the world. So yes, by all means, let's have the dudes who created this mess devise a way out of it. Looks like I'm going to have to buy myself a bigger mattress (You know for my new retirement strategy...hiding money under the mattress...tell me you got that.).

China - China's premier didn't say it in so many words, but the implied warning to Washington was blunt: Don't devalue the dollar through reckless spending. Now what could possibly have caused him to say something like that? China is Washington's biggest foreign creditor, with an estimated $1 trillion in U.S. government debt. A weaker dollar would erode the value of those assets. Well, there is that. Analysts estimate China keeps nearly half of its $2 trillion in foreign currency reserves in U.S. Treasuries and notes issued by other government-affiliated agencies. The Chinese government fears that higher U.S. budget deficits from Washington's $787 billion stimulus package could drive down the dollar and the value of China's Treasury notes. You know what they should have done instead of buying all those U.S. Treasury notes? That's right. They should have bought themselves a whole heap load of mattresses.

Job Security - Lawmakers are discussing a plan to link executive pay to the long-term performance of companies. They say change is needed but the intent isn't to micromanage or interfere with the private sector. Can you say -- oxymoron. Call me crazy, but this seems like a rather simple problem. I go to work, I do a good job, I get paid -- A + B = C. If I don't work or if I do a lousy job, I don't get paid (that sort of goes along with the getting fired bit). I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest a radical idea. Manage executive compensation by applying the same principles that apply to us 'rank and file' pee-ons and poof--problem solved.

Guantanamo Bay - The Obama administration stopped calling Guantanamo inmates "enemy combatants" and incorporated international law as its basis for holding the prisoners while it works to close the facility. Rumor has it that we're going to now refer to them as "bad guys". The term "enemy combatant" was adopted by the Bush administration after the September 11 attacks in 2001 to refer to prisoners held under military orders he issued to launch the war on terrorism. Yes, apparently the term "enemy combatant" wasn't covered by the Geneva Convention or any other rules of human decency. The legal structure for holding the Guantanamo prisoners will now be based on laws passed by Congress and, by extension, international law including the Geneva conventions. Well now, that's just crazy. Enemy combatants--I mean, bad guys--don't deserve any legal protection. What type of sick joke is this? Where do these guys think they are? Oh...right. I get it. We're America, and this sort of thing is important to us. I forgot.