Some Real News, Please? Tag-Team Journalism

OMG, it’s a good thing this morning’s column is short and to the point.

Otherwise I would slip and say some really incorrect things about this whole FIFA “scandal” and the latest threats from one of the cast to reveal an “avalanche” of documents revealing….who cares about that?

Here in the real world, I doubt we have even a single reader (out of both) who relies on this as an income source.

I may be wrong, but it’s possible that things like the employment report yesterday, the Challenger jobs cuts coming this morning, and tomorrow’s real Federal report on employment will have a larger impact on people’s lives.

Still, it’s another case study in Tag Team Journalism. 

Just like wrestling, it’s not so much the wrestling (or in this case story) that matters.  It’s the shear pleasure of watching the Tag-Teams which have gathered like so many flies about a story that at it’s core is a steam lump of [redacted].

Dead and Dying in Ukraine

24 dead in the latest fighting in Ukraine.

Granted, that’s not as many as the 73 blown to smithereens by a gas station explosion in Ghana overnight.

The key difference between the stories is this: In the case of Ghana, once a gas station blows, it’s done.

In the case of Ukraine, the escalation path is hardly just begun.

Real News About Spending

The real news is not about fighting in Ukraine, because it won’t spill over into your front yard before dinnertime.

No, it is likely the latest Federal Reserve look at how households were doing in 2014 and some of the economic strings the Fed can pull.

The full household view is 108 pages worth, but likely a better use of your time than the 800th who-cares about soccer.  It may be found over here.  Guts of it?

• Sixty-five percent of respondents report that their
families are either “doing okay” or “living comfortably”
financially, compared to 62 percent in 2013.
• Forty-nine percent of part-time workers and
36 percent of all workers would prefer to work
more hours at their current wage if they were able
to do so.
• Twenty-nine percent of respondents expect their
income to be higher in the year after the survey
than in the year prior to the survey. In the 2013 survey,
21 percent of respondents expected their
income to increase.

That said, there are a number of people who are coming over to our camp  which holds the Fed may talk a tough game but cannot really afford to raise interest rates this year.

Still, if you watch the 10-year over here, you will see that the Fed may actually have to keep the pedal to the metal in order to prevent rising non-government rates from pulling things down.  The fed needs to keep the “free money back door” rates going, though, because if they don’t, there will be hell to pay sooner than later.

Europe is down a tad this morning and there could be some follow-on declines here in our markets with the futures early point down a hundred points.

But since the market rallied a bit this week (up 64 yesterday) this shouldn’t the end of the world.

Due to travel plans this morning, click here for the Challenger Jobs cut report.  The page should be updated at 7:30 Eastern this morning.

A longer report tomorrow…bring NoDoz.