Globalization Not Much Fun on Wall Street

Hello! Listening right now and just wanted to check out your blog. Welcome to the blogging world.

Sent by ironic1 | 2:34 PM ET | 03-05-2007

what is your opinion of kate winslett, the austrailian actress? after seeing "holy smoke" and "eternal sunshine", i feel she is the finest actress i've seen.

Sent by dave | 3:00 PM ET | 03-05-2007

Helen Hayes, Julie Harris,Lee Remick, Geraldine Page, Jo Van Fleet--(had more names, but I'm having a senior moment)Glenn Close, JESSICA TANDY

Sent by Irene Perin | 3:29 PM ET | 03-05-2007

Actually I'm shipping money to overseas markets as fast as I can. With the Bush administration's destruction of fiscal policy, and the likelihood of getting a new fiscal framework many years away then the one thing for certain is that the US Dollar will continue to fall relative other currencies.

Moreover, the world is awash in liquidity--debt is cheap--and one needs to be in equities. The only play left is to invest in a number of overseas markets and sectors, be careful about exposure, buckle down to survive the volatility, and in the end rest assured that in addition to nominal returns, you at least get the relative increase in purchasing power against the dollar.

Among the other things lost during the Bush years is New York as the World's capital of finance. 22 of the last 26 initial public offerings of at least $1 billion in market capitalization have taken place in overseas markets. So we must invest overseas to access the widest possible number of companies--and we must access the widest possible number of companies to find the best ones.

So get used to thinking about overseas markets, they are the future.

Sent by Brunswick | 5:58 PM ET | 03-05-2007

My first e-mail to you, so let me start with a general compliment: I listen to TOTN a lot and very much enjoy the good work of Neil Conan and all involved.

Re: Tuesday's episode...I'm a working class person with absolutely no stocks, no bonds, no portfolio. I consider such things (1) Expensive and (2) Gambling. I've long felt that stock market reporting is at best irrelevant to average working people (since broadcasters never explain the meaning behind those nightly numbers), and at worst insulting inasmuch as numbers that please the rich may well cause considerable suffering for those less well off. Moreover, a report on NPR's "On The Media" this past weekend entitled "Bull&%#@ Market" (please see http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/03/02/03) made that exact case, as in the following excerpt:

"DEAN BAKER: There's a tendency to talk about the stock market like it's the home team, so that when the stock market's up we should all be out and celebrating; when it's down, this is bad news, we should all be dour and glum. Well, actually, for many, perhaps most of us, the stock market isn't the home team. Most people own little or no stocks; 75 percent of the public has less than 25,000 dollars in the stock market. That includes the 401Ks that they may have, if they have them. So for them, you know, if the stock market's down, it's not necessarily bad news; it could even be good news."

Your 3/5 discussion seemed geared only toward those currently playing the market and questions of how much they might gain or lose as things become volatile. I'd like to hear a different discussion, one more about how, say, a sudden 40-point drop on Wall St. might matter to us "common" non-stock- or bond-holding folk, if, indeed, it matters at all. If you examine "Wall St. volatility" any more, I hope you will consider this point of view, because I find the premise of most coverage...that when a bunch of people with enough money to take financial chances lose some of it when an unpredictable system doesn't play out as desired, this somehow should be "bad news" to me and other working-class folks who invest instead in basic necessities like rent, utility bills and insurance payments...to be highly questionable.

Thanks for considering what I've written. Keep up the good work! I'll try to "join in the discussion" with you sometime. Best wishes, Steve Zarate (pronunciation: rhymes with "karate") in Athens, Ohio

Sent by Steve Zarate | 1:33 AM ET | 03-06-2007

re:project for excellence in news journalism -- I think that the reason the news on the web is "flat" is because it is all the same news. --- anna nicole, britney spear....who cares what britney spears has done with her hair? I want my news from independent sources.. I am so so tired of seeing the same thing on every station and on every newspaper.

I get our local newspaper, but it seems to rely heavily on the web anyway -- (were in dayton Ohio, its a cox paper.)

I also read the political blogs...
and guess what? I'm 40something, not in my 20's...

Sent by Linda P. | 2:17 PM ET | 03-12-2007