Markets CRASHING daily! The B-i-e-b-s!! Olympic swimmer jillionaires!!! Welcome to Business Insider.

I try to avoid reading Business Insider as much as possible since its level of intellectual sophistication and journalistic integrity make it the Breitbart of financial reporting--about on par with Zero Hedge for a near-analogue. The founder of Business Insider, of course, is a known fabulist of near-Trumpian proportions, Henry Blodget, who is best known for flogging stocks he personally described as "crap" during the height of the dot-com bust. He was banned by the US Securities and Exchange Commission from the industry and hit with charges a total of $4 million in penalties.

Over the years, he's largely continued along the same path, founding Business Insider as a shrine to financial yellow journalism. Examples abound. The Columbia Journalism Review describes Blodget's creation quite accurately:

What business press readers always lacked but never really needed was a tabloid sensationalist to hype up mundane markets and business news. Who would have ever thought Henry Blodget would be the guy to fill this void?

There are a couple of things to expect when reading Business Insider or Blodget’s tweets: ALL CAPS. Words like “scariest,” “startling,” “doomed.” Headlines that tells you “Here’s why X is happening.” Stock photos. Lots and lots and lots of pithy posts, some of which stretch the truth.

CNBC doesn't fare too poorly on sensationalism, but Business Insider takes it to a new level. There's obviously a lot on non-business stuff in there as well that would fit well with the National Enquirer:

But the problem with sensationalism, of course, is that it feeds on itself. It’s hard to grab people’s attention when you’re always grabbing people’s attention. And you end up misleading people and undermining your credibility by saying stuff like “Horrible jobs report shocks market, stocks tank,” when stocks aren’t really tanking at all. There’s something about the ultra-Darwinian nature of the Web, with its brutal economics, that makes this stuff all the more tempting. When a click’s worth virtually nothing, you’ve got to get an awful lot of them to make ends meet. You do that by using superlatives, all caps, silly slideshows about “15 Ways Justin Bieber Is Taking Over The World , girlie pics, etc.

Aside from ever-increasing sensationalism, there's also the question of basic competence reporting on business-related matters. As the Olympics are ongoing, it was perhaps inevitable that it would cover the sporting event. Blogging about Singapore's Joseph Schooling defeating the legendary American swimmer Michael Phelps in the 100m butterfly event by winning gold, it notes that the nation awards a SGD 1,000,000 prize (Business Insider: that's the abbreviation for Singaporean dollars since most of your staff probably don't know that). Which is all well and good for Singaporean athletes if so. But how much is that in gool ol' US dollars according to the Business Insider?

As Stefanie Loh of Seattle Times Sports notes, Schooling just became a millionaire in Singapore. That's because Singapore tops the rest of the world in prize money for winning a gold medal. According to Fox Sports Australia, athletes who win Olympic gold medals get paid 1 million Singapore dollars for their achievements (roughly $983,000 American).

The accuracy of this claim is on par with the one about Ted Cruz's father being involved in the assassination of JFK. Going by the prevailing exchange rate from a more reliable source, the current USD/SGD rate is 1.346 Singaporean dollars to 1 US dollar as I write. So, what Schooling will receive in US dollar terms is actually 1,000,000/1.346 = USD 742,942. That's quite a difference from what the Business Insider claims, huh? A commenter noted over two days ago that the exchange rate used was wrong, but such is the ineptitude of this site that it has not been corrected.

Do people actually take Business Insider seriously? Its staff's limited understanding of finance--led by Blodget himself--is evident. Their already-limited understanding gets worse the farther away you get from the US to hardly obscure places like Singapore--one of Asia's centers of finance. Sure it has its readers, but so do Breitbart, Zero Hedge etc. in the same way Donald Trump has voters.

There are apparently lots of people who prefer their news laced with pandering and sensationalism--this is the Internet, after all. Business Insider worsens matters by lacking basic knowledge of what they write about. If you don't understand something as simple as exchange rates, then there is little else you should be writing about concerning "business."

UPDATE: The apparent source of confusion for the Business Insider blog post is from the article linked to, which the BI blogger cannot understand:

Those looking for a bigger payday might want to look into pledging allegiance to Singapore, which offers gold medal-winning athletes $1 million Singapore dollars ($A983,000) under its Multi-Million Dollar Awards Program.

This coming from [hint, hint] an Australian website, $A983,000 obviously does not mean US dollars but rather Australian dollars. While I am horrified by this level of financial illiteracy, I am utterly unsurprised to find it in the Business Insider. That's all she wrote for Blodget wanting his site to be taken seriously.

Three-breasted aliens do program trading! (But even Rita Skeeter will shut up if you pay her enough.)

Regular readers will note that I am actually discriminating about the news outlets I feature despite the wide range of topics on offer. For instance, I will never, ever knowingly excerpt from the Business Insider founded by pump-and-dump specialist Henry Blodget. Call me radical, but the platform of a barred securities trader may not be the best source of information about business. I am not fond of its brand of hucksterism. Another whipping boy around these parts is the British Daily Telegraph for similar reasons With its sensationalist headlines regularly forecasting the end of the commerce as we know it, I have justly labeled it as yellow financial journalism. Its grasp of finance is pretty poor, too.

However, all is not always economic doom and gloom with the Daily Telegraph. Just as with Blodget, conflicts of interest are rife at the Daily Telegraph. Recent revelations by its former chief political commentator Peter Oborne reveal that this fearless publication may pull punches--for major advertisers, that is. You see, British bank HSBC has confessed to helping clients dodge taxes. In the modern world of banking, that's unexceptional. What's more newsworthy, though, is that the Daily Telegraph did its best to bury the HSBC tax-dodging story in its pages. So much for journalistic integrity. From the Beeb:

The chief political commentator of the Daily Telegraph has resigned from the paper, accusing it of a "form of fraud on its readers" for its coverage of HSBC and its Swiss tax-dodging scandal. Peter Oborne claimed the paper did not give due prominence to the HSBC story because of commercial interests. Newspapers had a "constitutional duty" to tell readers the truth, he said. 

An analysis by the Beeb's David Sillito indicates the political economy of modern newspapers. As their readerships decline--whether folks read less or obtain news from other outlets--the source of newspaper revenues is tilting away from readerships and more towards advertisers. There is, as a result, more pressure to cater to the latter's concerns as opposed to some hoary notion of the public's right to know:

Amongst responses from journalists and news executives it's described as "eye-popping", "stunning", "explosive" and from professor Jay Rosen at New York University "one of the most important things a journalist has written about journalism lately". The Daily Telegraph is accused of a "sinister" betrayal of its readers.

Stories about HSBC, Tesco and China are said to be placed or sidelined for commercial reasons. But this is not just a parting swipe at an employer by a disgruntled member of staff, it's an explosion of anger about an issue that is worrying journalists across the industry. Newspapers are in a state of crisis. The Telegraph has seen its print sales drop by around half over the last 10 years. 

Peter Oborne's own account reveals the level of editorial tampering at this newspaper:

This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.

Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraphjournalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale.

The sensationalism is also explained well: its financial news is, in effect, the economic equivalent of hoaxes about three-breasted women. It's tabloid fare masquerading as news designed to draw the attention of the ignorant and impressionable:

Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits. On 22 September Telegraph online ran a story about a woman with three breasts. One despairing executive told me that it was known this was false even before the story was published. I have no doubt it was published in order to generate online traffic, at which it may have succeeded. I am not saying that online traffic is unimportant, but over the long term, however, such episodes inflict incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper.

To make a long story short, the Daily Telegraph is crap. Regular stories--those about poor sods not lucky enough to be major advertisers--are subject to tabloid-style sensationalism. Meanwhile, advertisers are above such treatment. Why the heck would you waste your time and money on this garbage? PT Barnum would be proud, but I do not subject my readers to such drivel. If you want a side helping of science fiction and fantasy, though, you know where to get your financial news.

While I am partial to Latin conspiracy theories which surpass the limits of credulity, I must tell you there are even more outlandish crackpot conspiracy theories out there to captivate the feeble-minded. Among the most fantastical flights of fancy is the so-called "Global Depopulation Policy" supposedly foisted by the United Nations to reduce population growth in poor countries. Aside from developing country groupings at the United Nations like the G-77 never mentioning let alone protesting this nonsense, people with too much free time have spun it a number of ways. Among other alleged means the CIA / NSA / military industrial complex / Trilateral Commission / Club of Rome / Rand Corporation / Goldman Sachs / Carlyle Group / [insert your favorite Master Organization for Global Domination here] use to depopulate poor countries are:

• civil war
• famine
• introducing AIDS to the African continent
• introducing the Ebola virus to the African continents

Apparently, this nonsense has quite a following, otherwise it would not persist after all these years. Witness this open letter by some guy who claims the British government is out to kill him for Zimbabwe to stop bowing to the wishes on the UN and other agents of global domination:

Zimbabwe was forced into the Global Depopulation Policy in 1978, when the World Health Organization deliberately infected a large number of people with the HIV virus (a bioweapon developed by a cooperative effort between American and Soviet scientists working for the military-industrial complex) under the cover of a smallpox immunization program. As a result, the total fertility rate decreased from 7.3 children per woman in 1980 to 3.4 today, the mortality rate increased from 9 to 15 deaths per 1000 people, and life expectancy for men went down to 44 years and for women to 43 years (from 60 in 1990), the lowest in the world. The HIV/AIDS infection rate in 2001 reached an astounding 34% of the population aged 15 to 49 years and it currently stands at 16%. Given that the population of Zimbabwe is not projected to grow at all over the next 30 years, even though the crude birth rate is twice as high as the crude death rate, one can only surmise that your government is allowing the UN to subvert your people’s reproductive rights and abilities through chemical sterilization programs that are administered under the pretext of improving child and maternal health

Actually, the truth is not out there but right in your face: GET A LIFE. The Man is not keeping you down, but your own delusions. 

[Non-]DISCLOSURE: Despite expressing "attitudes of elegant despair on subprime globalization," be wary since I may actually be a double agent for the running dogs of capitalism who pull the levers of the world economy. Additionally, these posts may be mind-altering distortions conceived by the Syndicate as I help prepare the Earth for eventual alien takeover. I may also be a wanted man since at least eighty (at last count) governments have marked me for immediate liquidation.

There are few things more pathetic than a consumerist automaton who lives to shop. This American disease has spread around the globe under the guise of various euphemisms--"economic efficiency," "free trade," "globalization," and so forth--but its symptoms are unmistakable. Today's Exhibit A is the phenomenon of "Black Friday," or the day after Thanksgiving when US retailers supposedly break even for the year and offer mega-deals to entice the American shopping classes.

Which would all be well and good if these mega-deals weren't as fake as the American Dream: to engineer "40% off," most retailers work backwards to come up with a suggested retail price (SRP) that the product is rarely if ever offered at:

The common assumption is that retailers stock up on goods and then mark down the ones that don't sell, taking a hit to their profits. But that isn't typically how it plays out. Instead, big retailers work backward with their suppliers to set starting prices that, after all the markdowns, will yield the profit margins they want. The red cardigan sweater with the ruffled neck on sale for more than 40% off at $39.99 was never meant to sell at its $68 starting price. It was designed with the discount built in. 

Being ever-so-gullible, the Yanquis lap up these frauds and are even willing to sacrifice life and limb joining the thronging masses. Witness reports of injuries and fatalities incurred by them last Friday in that all important life cause of, er, availing of larger "discounts":

• In Chicago, a police officer shot a suspected shoplifter driving a car that was dragging a fellow officer at a Kohl's department store. The suspect and the dragged officer were treated in hospital for shoulder injuries. Three people were arrested, reports the Chicago Tribune
• A shopper in Las Vegas who was carrying a big-screen TV home from a Target store on Thanksgiving was shot in the leg as he tried to wrestle the item back from a robber who had just stolen it from him at gunpoint, reports the Las Vegas Sun
• At a southern California Walmart store, a police officer's wrist was broken as he tried to break up a fight between two men in the queue outside; there were two more fights over goods inside, reports the San Bernadino Sun
• A 23-year-old man was doused with pepper spray and arrested after he allegedly attacked a police officer responding to an argument over a television at a Walmart in Garfield, New Jersey, reports the Star-Ledger
• Despite Walmart's pledge to overhaul its crowd-control measures, scenes of mayhem such as this one were apparently filmed at a store in Fort Worth, Texas
• Two arrests were made after a man was stabbed in an argument over a parking space at a Walmart in Virginia, reports local television station WVVA

Americans enjoy styling themselves as exemplars for the rest of us unenlightened colored peoples, but why the hell you would you like to be so shallow and live lives so pointless is beyond me.

"I am the Great MADURO", etc., etc.

[NOTE: For those unfamiliar with the "Beavis and Butt-head" reference, see here and here.] If this is an example of socialists taking over the "commanding heights" of the economy, I am at a complete loss for words. To me at least, toilet paper manufacturing as a strategic sector bog-gles the mind, but it may make sense in Venezuela. It is no big secret that the Chavistas have nationalized broad swathes of the Venezuelan economy. Supply problems? Central planning will solve them, free market be damned. From Economics 101, I was taught that price controls and import controls create rather than alleviate goods shortages. Apparently this stupid bourgeois logic holds no water in modern-day Venezuela. Silly me. Instead of relenting on government controls to remedy the supply situation for various goods including toilet paper, the ultimate solution apparently involves nationalizing these enterprises lock, stock and barrel. You got it--TP users of Venezuela, unite!

On Saturday, Vice President Jorge Arreaza announced the "temporary occupation" of the Paper Manufacturing Company's plant in the state of Aragua. The aim, he explained, is to review the "production, marketing and distribution (of) toilet paper [...] The People's Defense from the Economy will not allow hoarding or failures in the production and distribution of essential commodities," the vice president said. 

By the "People's Defense," Arreaza was referring to a government agency created on September 13 by President Nicolas Maduro to "defeat the economic war that has been declared in the country," according to a report from state-run ATV. This group is charged with looking at inefficiencies across various industries in the nation, including foods and other products, and taking action presumably in the South American nation's best interests.

For what it's worth, Venezuela's leaders see a conspiracy to hoard toilet paper--presumably to, ah, dump them when prices have risen sufficiently:

But the government has said private companies aren't doing their part, accusing them of hoarding their products in hopes of selling it later at a higher price. They've also suggested the problem is tied to a broader conspiracy. "There is no deficiency in production," Commerce Minister Alejandro Fleming said in May according to ATV, "but an excessive demand generating purchases by a nervous population because of a media campaign."

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. To paraphrase Marx, the TP expropriators have been expropriated (or something like that).

I think it's Hollywood's fault: In any number of action/spy/suspense/thriller movies, there is a good chance that they will depict some kind of shadowy secret organization that really runs the world--usually to fulfil nefarious ends. (You can't sell movies if they were a bunch of do-gooders, can you?) One version of this storyline is that little-known but powerful masterminds get together to plot the global future to suit their purposes. Another version is that well-known public figures in politics and business are ultimately networked to an organization that decides the fate of the world that put them in places of power.

During the years of Bush the Younger, the evil organization du jour was of course the Carlyle Group. With the ebbing of American military adventurism, however, it has receded from the public eye (for now). Bereft of that military-industrial complex, conspiracy theorists have been left with more traditional bogeymen to ponder when their minds naturally wander into evil machinations being hatched.

Given that we now have a Democratic presidency, it's about time the conspiracy theorists revived the Carter-era Trilateral Commission [TLC] whose American component of a North America-Europe-Asia triad was composed mostly of Democratic instead of GOP operatives. Given Obama's seeming penchant for mounting drone attacks, engineering computer viruses, and invading Internet privacy, it's about time someone asked on whose behalf be did all of those things. I was rather amused by the Straight Dope's take on the subject matter:

The TLC's first executive director was Zbigniew Brzezinski, and such well-known figures as Walter Mondale, Caspar Weinberger, and Paul Volcker have been members. Also on the rolls at one time, mainly because the commission needed some representation from the South, was the then-governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. The prospect of spending hours cooped up with the likes of Walter Mondale would probably send most of us screaming for the exits. But Carter was an impressionable sort who found both the commission's meetings and its members deeply fascinating. He got chummy with many of the latter and appointed more than a dozen to posts in his administration, including Cyrus Vance, Michael Blumenthal, and of course the redoubtable Brzezinski.

This short guided tour of shadowy organizations thus brings us to the eponymous Bilderberg Group. Just as the Carlyle Group is named after the hotel its members prefer to meet at, this one is named after the venue of their first gathering. In terms of membership, however, Bilderberg resembles an older Trilateral Commission. Whereas the TLC is an North American-European-Asian gathering, a more apt name for Bilderberg would be the "Bilateral Commission" since its was intended to be an American-European gathering. But hey, it bears mentioning that the Bilderberg Group was formed in 1954--the world's powers were rather more Western then.

No matter, though. Recently, the Bilderberg Group meeting in London became an occasion for the crackpot conspracists to have a jamboree. Yes, they were partying like it was 1954 as they pondered what sort of dark machinations were being plotted in sequestered grounds...

More than 100 of the world's most powerful people are at the former manor house near London for a secretive annual gathering that has attained legendary status in the eyes of anti-capitalist protesters and conspiracy theorists. The guest list for the Bilderberg meeting includes Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. British Prime Minister David Cameron is due to drop by Friday.

 

The Bilderberg Group was set up in 1954 to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War. Named for the site of its first meeting — the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland — the forum for prominent politicians, thinkers and business leaders has been held annually at a series of secluded venues in Europe and North America.

I honestly doubt whether the Bilderberg Group is anything but a slightly less transparent World Economic Forum-style gathering where self-important VIPs are willing to spend top dollar to feel ever-so-important hobnobbing with other poo-bahs. While protesters at WEF events are of course ubiquitous, I believe that conspiracy theorists are less prone to ascribing dark, romantic connotations to what is ostensibly an "economic" meeting that videotapes most of its events. Let's just say that the reality of a bunch of guys talking about non-tariff barriers and other dry topics doesn't quite capture the fancy of the conspiracy set used to a steady diet of faceless characters known to viewers only by the plumes of smoke emanating from their tobacco pipes. Lemme put it this way: Do you think a runt like Paul Krugman could be cast in a Tom Clancy film adaptation? I didn't think so.

And so the "mystique" continues. Actually, the delusion is mutually reinforcing: On one hand, the erstwhile secret society members delude themselves into thinking they actually have a hand in shaping the global agenda while gathering with fellow Masters of the Universe. On the other hand, the conspiracy nutters actually buy into the idea that that's what really happens at these gatherings.

In the end, that's probably all the truth out there to be found.

Oops, I may have spoken too soon when I mentioned that the US would not seek to antagonize China by excluding it from an Asia-Pacific FTA. This is just a brief follow-up to a recent post I made pooh-poohing prospects for an expanded Trans-Pacific Partnership composed of APEC member countries.

First, after dilly-dallying a bit, PM Yoshihiko Noda now says Japan will join the negotiations:

Japan's decision to join talks on a trade deal spanning the Pacific marks a major boost for the US bid to shape the new order in Asia, but it will likely mean longer, rockier negotiations...The move by Japan, announced by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda just before heading to Honolulu, leaves China as the conspicuous outlier in the emerging trade deal which will now encompass more than one-third of the global economy.

Second, it may be or likely is the case that Japan--a heavyweight with a complex domestic political economy similar to the US--will further complicate negotiations. Think of the WTO Doha Development Agenda and its non-completion due to the ever-expanding number of members and their different agendas. We even have the Stone Age fear of US automakers and Japan Inc [?!]:

But Japan's political leaders decided that "it is a strategic agreement to ensure that Japan is part of the rule-making process," said Michael Green, a Japan expert who was a top aide to former president George W. Bush. Green, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University, said US trade negotiators are likely nervous as they must now contend with a "large and sophisticated and complicated counterpart.""It may complicate the negotiations in the short-run by having the third largest economy entering, but it also makes the TPP a much more credible pillar for an Asia-Pacific-wide free trade agreement," he said.

The United States has said it wants to move quickly to wrap up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but many observers believe that the deal will take years -- especially now that Japan is involved.

While the United States has saluted Japan's decision to join the talks, a number of US lawmakers and industries are haunted by bruising trade negotiations with the Asian ally in the 1980s. The American Automotive Policy Council, which represents General Motors, Ford and Chrysler, said that a free trade agreement with the land of auto giants such as Toyota would devastate a recovering Detroit. "Providing preferential trade benefits to Japan, while they continue to embrace closed-market policies, would only serve to undermine the competitive gains made by American automakers," said Matt Blunt, the council's president. US automakers had initially fought against a US free trade agreement with South Korea, which was approved last month by Congress after marathon talks and concessions to Detroit.

American automakers have kept trying to sell their crapmobiles--often oversized left hand-drive vehicles in an RHD country--but haven't learned their lesson is all I have to say about the latter.

Third, China is indeed coming around to being excluded from the process despite after all being an APEC member country:

But the trade pact also has a political dimension. Chinese media have characterized it as a way to isolate the growing power, although a senior official, Yu Jianhua, said in Hawaii that China would consider the pact if invited.

Fourth, here's the most galling part. In a recent speech at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hillary "Internet Freedom" Clinton recycles her freedom 'n' growth schtick in describing the rationale for expanding TPP. Not exactly China-friendly talk, eh?

There is new momentum in our trade agenda with the recent passage of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and our ongoing work on a binding, high-quality Trans-Pacific Partnership, the so-called TPP. The TPP will bring together economies from across the Pacific, developed and developing alike, into a single 21st century trading community. A rules-based order will also be critical to meeting APEC’s goal of eventually creating a free trade area of the Asia Pacific.

The United States will continue to make the case that, as a region, we must pursue not just more growth but better growth. This is not merely a matter of economics. It goes to the central question of which values we will embrace and defend. Openness, freedom, transparency, and fairness have meaning far beyond the business realm. Just as the United States advocates for them in an economic context, we also advocate for them in political and social contexts.

While I appreciate the mom, apple pie & Guantanamo Ghraib sentiment, there are two big troubles with this shtick. Let's start with founding TPP member Brunei. It is an absolute monarchy with next to no press freedom. Do you think it's appropriate for Johnny-come-lately USA to dictate to Brunei what standards TPP member countries should be held to, or the other way around? Next let's move on to Vietnam. Returning to the AFP article...

Critics say that communist Vietnam's membership weakens the US message that the deal is about fundamental freedoms.

You don't need to ask Freedom House about that one.

Message to Hillary Clinton: Save it for the next Sarah Palin rally, girlfriend (even if you should not personally deliver the message if you knew any better). Nevertheless, why do certain folks keep thinking that this schmaltz pass without notice?

UPDATE: Reuters has more on China and the TPP. As an important aside, shouldn't news agencies point out that the TPP is a preexisting FTA instead of one that is just coming into fruition due to US-led efforts fer crying out loud?

China is not part of these trade talks, and views them warily. The differing views were captured on Friday in a politely pointed public exchange between top American and Chinese trade officials.

Asked whether China would join the TPP, as the talks are known, a Chinese official, Assistant Commerce Minister Yu Jianhua, noted that no invitation had been sent to Beijing. "If one day we receive such an invitation, we will seriously study" it, Yu said.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk responded that the trade deal "is not designed to be a closed clubhouse. All are welcome. But it is also not one where you should wait for an invitation."

Also:

A commentary in China's state-owned news agency Xinhua said Washington was using the trade deal as a way to enhance its influence in Asia on its own terms. "The United States' primary reason for actively promoting the development and expansion of the TPP is to raise its leadership in the Asia-Pacific region," Xinhua wrote.

"The United States does not want to miss a golden opportunity with the economic development in the Asia-Pacific, and at the same time it hopes to install a fixed set of rules to guide changes in the region's future political and economic structure."

Like in the US, right-wing nutjobs spewing conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen here in the UK. On the train home while perusing the Evening Standard--a publication that veers to the right, mind you--I came across the following hackneyed plan for Gordon Brown's triumphant return to British politics after presumably being ousted in the next electoral contest. In classic conspiracy theory fashion, it implicates a lot of individuals, institutions, and wild insinuations (scroll to the end of Simon English's column) -

Conspiracy theory of the week, far Right-wing nutters' department:

Gordon Brown has long been lined up to become the next top dog at the International Monetary Fund — such speculation has been fended off by government officials since at least 2005 when he was still Chancellor. The IMF has been critical of the amount of debt Britain is carrying but has so far resisted truly sticking the boot in because Brown remains tight with all the people who matter at the financial watchdog.

At the election there is a hung parliament but the Conservatives are clearly the biggest party and Brown decamps to Washington in a huff. Then, after a reasonable period of grace, the IMF suddenly decides that Britain's debt levels are unmanageable, especially given the incoherent policies being followed by the new government. Britain loses its triple-A rating and is plunged into crisis.

In a state of panic, the Tories call another election in an attempt to increase their grip on power so they can push through tougher, debt-reduction policies. They lose, and Labour are back in, with Brown pulling all the important strings from his new position.

Even Gordon wouldn't be that tribalist, you say. It's just a theory.

If these nutters are right, you'd better watch your back, Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (Maybe it's high time that DSK versus Sarkozy conspiracy theories appeared as well to keep those with tabloidal tendencies on their toes.)

You have to be pretty bad to outdo the CNBC flunkies who pollute cable TV with their endless hype about the US stock market and America in general when the truth is that neither have exhibited any progress in about a decade. However, there is worse. I began to wonder about who exactly Ambrose Evans-Pritchard was after his endless sensationalist features as international business editor of the Daily Telegraph. As a financial reporter, I was even more astounded to read him proudly confess that he was a "technical dolt" while stating that he did not know why a high put to call ratio could be a contrary indicator. (In typical fashion, he wrote this in a blog about China leading the world into depression.) Anyone with a search engine could figure this simple thing out; I was thus puzzled why a person working in finance would say something so foolish.

Digging further, we learn about Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's sordid past inventing others' sordid pasts as the pied piper of Clinton conspiracists in that president's heyday. It turns out that, in his previous iteration, he is most famous for writing an "expose" of Bill Clinton published by none other than Regnery of John Kerry-and-loincloth fame entitled The Secret Life of Bill Clinton. The Amazon review sums up this sensationalistic piece of trash:

Evans-Pritchard's exposé of Arkansas's favorite son is indeed scathing: he documents the then-governor's drug use and consort with prostitutes (primarily in the company of ne'er-do-well brother Roger); innumerable lies to friends, staff members, and the people who empowered him; numerous infidelities; blackmail--the list goes on and on. Evans-Pritchard claims that, because he is not an American citizen, he is not "beholden to any political or financial interest in the United States," and he does not "hang on lips of official sources," nor does he "fear the loss of access in Washington, or the blackball of [his] profession"; in other words, he ain't afraid to call 'em like he sees 'em. And although many of his seemingly wild claims and accusations are substantiated by thorough notes and appendixes following the text (including copies of original FBI documents), you're never quite convinced of the author's theories. Whether or not you come to believe, as Evans-Pritchard does, that "Arkansas was a mini-Colombia within the United States, infested by narco-corruption"; that--because of William Jefferson Clinton--"you can sniff the pungent odors of decay in the American body politic"; that the president's "actions and character ... have engendered the most deadly terrorist movement in the industrialized world," you will most certainly be entertained and enlightened by the dirt this British muckraker has uncovered. You may not be an F.O.B. [Friend of Bill], but after reading this book, you may not mind so much.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is the Kitty Kelley of financial reporting as he goes about his business in the same breathless manner whether writing about Clinton or call options. While creative writing may be to others' style, I have to give grudging credit to the CNBC crew--they may be cheerleaders to the bone, but at least they know what a put-call ratio is. Plus, they aren't likely to write about Tim Geithner conspiring to ruin the world economy with Ben Bernanke while wearing a loincloth and smoking crack in the company of prostitutes and Roger Clinton as state troopers fired by Sarah Palin stood guard.

If you take this guy seriously, I have some fine Regnery publications for you to read. What a joke.