Macro Matters
If you want an excuse to simply tune out the news altogether and remain (blissfully) ignorant, look no further than yesterday’s dueling headlines in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times:
Focus on Obama as Tensions Soar Across Mideast
—The New York Times (5/19/2011)
Gas Prices Fall as Mideast Jitters Ease
—The Wall Street Journal (5/19/2011)
So who’s right?
Search me (I meant, “I’ll have to check with my Middle East sources”).
But at least on this one, I tend to go with whichever view the markets seem to endorse.
With gas at the pump off its highs (admittedly just by pennies), you’d guess that things are stabilizing, however temporarily.
At least, that’s what the consensus seems to think — which is what the markets ultimately reflect . . . or should.
P.S.: Growing up in the Twin Cities in the 1960’s (gasp!), I remember being confused by all the media chatter about “turmoil on the West Bank.”
The University of Minnesota has an East Bank (the main campus) and West Bank (various graduate schools), and I assumed that that was what it was all about (to be fair, I was six years old at the time).
