The daily Heartbreak: Digital Minister Boni and visionary network integration

Heartbreak of the day:  Minister of Digitalization Michal Boni on TV this morning discussing how network and IT system integration will be marshaled to solve a protest between the government and doctors about prescription writing rules.

The 2012 comeback: a little rowdiness & raucousness in Polish politics

One of my leading predictions for 2012 :  a return of all-out rowdiness and disorder in Polish politics. Some might have even missed it.

Find that underwhelming considering how common rowdiness and disorder are in Polish politics?  Let me add this little note:  it will happen without the opposition really even having to say a single word on policy.

Poland’s government is three days into the new year and has already opened several fights within its own ranks while leaving the windows open for the neighbors to listen in. Uncharacteristic.

Beholden to trading terminals – the financial news bias

Here’s a little discussed flaw in financial journalism – an area  of journalism with the chutzpah to consider itself to be above having a news-skewing bias.

And it is this:  if your news service is tied to a trading terminal, you are beholden to the type of journalism that provides value for traders. And value for traders is a simple equation built on increased volumes and increased spreads.

So you go for the market mover EVERY TIME. No matter if it is there or not. No matter if the calm investment story is more compelling than the dramatic trading story.  And you make it as market moving as you can. Drama trumps news judgment.

And to make matters worse, you have to beat your competitors for price-moving drama.  Because what kind of newswire are you if your competitor offers bigger price movements for their traders than you give yours?

Today I attended the briefing at which

Palikot, Tusk and First Principles

I haven’t seen Prime Minister Donald Tusk beaten on the public arena in ages. So it was all the more surprising to see him beaten at his own game and right on the forum – a major government policy speech leading into a new-four-year term – where his game is the best game going:  the laying down of first principles.

But it happened.

What I have always admired about Tusk is

Find a high-paying job for Napieralski. Fast. For everyone’s benefit.

I am going to propose something vile, unsavory and downright dirty.

And I am going to propose it for the public good.

I propose the broad promotion of dark corners lobbying and behind-closed-doors deal making. I propose channeling corporate and other money to high-paid well-placed lobbyists who schmooze with Polish legislators round the clock. I propose opening Parliamentary doors to corporate big-wigs drawing big salaries to wine and dine MPs.  I support government subsidies to get such a fledgling dirty lobbying industry on its feet.

And here’s why: 

Releading Polish market news

Now that I have had my excessive rant about how technical analysis has taken over equity market reporting in Warsaw, I can proceed to what is really the very very simple answer.

Technical analysis has started to wag Warsaw’s dog

Technical analysis of markets has taken WAY WAY too strong a hold over the Polish media and I think, in turn, over some of its readers.  To the point where some people are nearly reading the fate of the world through the eyes of market technicals. (To go straight to my slamming of deputy PM Pawlak, scroll to the bottom).

The Poetry of Jerzy Hausner

With a tip of our hat to our mentors at Slate.

They call it the Dismal Science, economics. But, as we were convinced in a recent conversation with Monetary Policy Council member Jerzy Hausner in a mountain hideaway, it need not be conducted devoid of the humanist touch.

For Jerzy Hausner has infused his policy view with his poetry. And vice-versa.

The poetry of Jerzy Hausner, quoted below, is an open door to where the humanist soul meets the hard data then faces the simple policy option:  to adjust rates or not to adjust rates.

Forced to turn the baffling plethora of economic inputs into a binary decision, Hausner speaks to the edges of things, tests boundaries, seeks a trigger and asks the timeless questions:  When does a line become a path? When does a signal constitute a message?  And when is it justified to act?

Is this media dog chasing its tail or is this media tale chasing the dog? Belka & assoc. for IMF

Has this gone from the comic to the grotesque or from the grotesque to the comic?  Cause I’m losing track.

The media continues to live and breathe trumped-up hopes that a Pole will replace the tarnished Strauss-Kahn at the IMF, gleefully building on the extremely shaky foundations that got the story going in full.

Career path from Blog entry to IMF chief; riding Polish awe of foreign press to the top

Hand this one to the journalism schools. We need a case study that the kids can learn from. Totally irresponsible news spiral on a supposed Belka candidacy for the post of IMF chief to replace Strauss-Kahn.

Based on a BLOG entry, Poland lived and breathed its hopes that NBP chief Marek Belka, a former IMF heavyweight, might take the post.  At the same time, Poland may have set a new record for the fetishization of foreign opinions concerning Poland.