Sometimes I don't know whether to excoriate the Wall Street/Washington axis for its constant efforts at obfuscation – or thank it for all the smoke and mirrors.
Yes, there is something deeply troubling about a culture so utterly dedicated to the manipulation of facts. But then again, these distortions introduce exactly the sort of information gaps that power the most lucrative trading opportunities.
For example, we have recently read that British Petroleum (BP) – mired armpit deep in a cesspool of oil of unknown size and depth, and fully aware that it will be sued continuously unto the next generation – is rewarding loyal investors with a billion-dollar dividend and spending something like $100 million on a public relations campaign to somehow obscure its culpability and rescue its reputation.