by Calculated Risk on 9/20/2009 11:46:00 PM

From Paul Krugman on financial reform: Reform or Bust

I was startled last week when Mr. Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg News, questioned the case for limiting financial-sector pay: “Why is it,” he asked, “that we’re going to cap executive compensation for Wall Street bankers but not Silicon Valley entrepreneurs or N.F.L. football players?”

That’s an astonishing remark — and not just because the National Football League does, in fact, have pay caps. Tech firms don’t crash the whole world’s operating system when they go bankrupt; quarterbacks who make too many risky passes don’t have to be rescued with hundred-billion-dollar bailouts. Banking is a special case ...

Inferior goods in Japan! From the NY Times: Once Slave to Luxury, Japan Catches Thrift Bug

Across the board, discount retailers are reporting increases in revenue — while just about everyone else is experiencing declines, in some cases, by double digits.

As a result, the luxury boutiques, once almighty here, are reeling.
...
In the 1970s and ’80s, and even as the economy limped through the ’90s, a wide group of consumers spent generously on Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès scarves — even at the expense of holidays, travel and, sometimes, meals and rent.

Now, the Japanese luxury market, worth $15 billion to $20 billion, has been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Futures are off slightly ...

Futures from barchart.com

Bloomberg Futures.

CBOT mini-sized Dow

CME Globex Flash Quotes

And the Asian markets are mixed.

Best to all.