That’s what I feel like saying to the well-paid talk show hosts from left to right– creating partisan fear-mongering to drive up those “dials” (insider term for a performance marker similar to ratings, only immediate) be damned! NOW is the time to help listeners actually UNDERSTAND what is happening to the economy.
In other words, the so-long-ago-apparently-forgotten-on-both-sides-of-the-partisan-divide burden on broadcast radio to serve the public good as part of their deal to make a huge profit– should be every broadcaster’s top priority!!
Guess though, as usual, I’ll be alone in that!
Anyway, for today I have so-far found this (also on HUFPO):
“Everyone’s in a hunker-down mode,” said Joseph Patterson, president of fixed income manager Patterson Capital Management. “They’re trying to preserve capital.”
What does this mean for everyone else? For starters, as Treasury rates fall, the rate at which banks lend to each other, known as the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, has gone up. The three-month LIBOR, a short term rate, opened on Sept. 29 at 3.88%, the highest level since January. Three-month Treasury bills traded at the passbook savings-like rate of 0.66%. The difference between the two, known as the TED spread, is the highest it has been in five years. Essentially banks are paying more to borrow and are turning around raising rates for their customers.
