text: By Rob Horning / 28 February 2007
  Also, if confidence alone is what props up markets, the business press becomes implicated in either sustaining or undermining it; virtually everything one reads in it must be considered in that light and the optimism expressed must always be discounted: that means this sort of story about stocks bouncing back today must be held in some suspicion (unless, that is, you don't really care why markets move as long as they move upward) — the headlines are almost always out of step with the information buried in the article. The widely disseminated bias against pessimism has roots in this; it's a crime against the economy (just as it lets the terrorists win if we don't go shopping).
  This WSJ editorial, hoping to forestall rate cuts by the Fed, blames the mortgage-related securities industry and the repackaged subprime loans that have been unwinding lately. You would think they would welcome rate cuts as stimulus, but that would run the risk of boosting inflation (which is bad for those who don't live off wages) and also could spur currency movements and jeopardize the mysterious carry trade — borrowing money at low rates in Japan to invest elsewhere, where rates are higher. According to the NYTimes article:
  I'm sure it's my financial naivete, but the carry trade (like many forms of currency arbitrage) always seems immoral to me, like cheating — it seems weird to make money not for producing anything but for shifting nominal figures around — but I suppose they are taking on a fair amount of risk. When the value is nominal, it can go against you in a hurry.