With thanks to James Surowiecki, I am reviving an old Slate feature.
1) Deals are back! Intel is buying McAfee, banks are merging, and, for the three people in America who care, BHP Billiton is making a $39 billion hostile takeover for Potash Corp. Most mergers and acquisitions are at best a wash, but when Wall Street is humming, America might just sing along.
2) Inflation? Deflation? Double-dip? S&P says there’s a 25 percent chance of a double-dip ; David Rosenberg, who’s usually right about everything, says 67 percent chance . The great thing about this as a cocktail party topic is, since no one really knows, everyone gets to be right.
3) Apparently when Geithner and Treasury invited a bunch of econobloggers in to chat this week—twice!—the ensuing conversations were really boring . How boring? Yves Smith, who could churn out 5,000 words about water evaporating (OK, half that would be block quotes) managed only 1,000 words on this .
4) If Roger Clemens can be indicted for giving false statements to Congress , could Lloyd Blankfein be next ?
5) Aren’t you really looking forward to Fashion Week in New York City ? It feels like we only have it seven or eight times a year. It’s about as special as street fairs.
