The sadness of the Japanese tragedy struck me today in an article 'Yen Climbs to a Record Against Dollar*.' The yen got to a low of 76.32 Yen for a dollar on Wednesday. The previous high was within 0.25 of 80 yen per dollar. In other words, the Yen was more dear in dollars than it had been since WWII. It took more dollars to buy them. This suggests that the Japanese were selling their dollar assets in a time of crisis to buy things at home; this brought home to me their troubles and struggles.

*Wall Street Journal, page C1 March 17, 2011.

Death in Venice, Wall Street style

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has an interesting discussion about Murdoch and his papers' relationship to the rulers of democracies and China. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has been the philosopher of American capitalism but has not been so successful as a practitioner. CJR looks at how this happened which is why 'the philosopher' is now in play as a takeover target by Murdoch. I wish that CJR had, in looking at Murdoch, looked at the influence the WSJ claimed he had on Michael Powell, when head of the FCC, in blocking the sale of a satellite property to Dish Network; it ended up being bought by Murdoch's DirectTV at a lower price.