The temps here on this side may have dropped but summer is definitely heating up. The front page of the Times this week carried the first, most unflattering picture of Barack Obama to date.  Absent the sparkling eyes and Pepsodent smile, a still image of unprecedented, un-presidential exhaustion stared back.  No wonder. 

With nary an admission of guilt or suggestion of foul play, Goldman got their proverbials rapped, albeit lightly.  Settling civil court charges for misleading even the most sophisticated investors (including British taxpayer owned RBS), their $550M fine for errant ways surely does sound like a lot to normal ears.  But on the back of the $15B they scooped, this penalty of some 3% has all the sting of a rounding error.   Metaphorically however, it is supposed to draw an important line under this reality TV episode.   Meanwhile, Goldman stock actually rose on the penalty news, tidily dispensing with that pesky fine.  It's been a sweaty palm time on the Street but that's all over now that derivatives will be harnessed to the weariest extent possible.  Fundamental change in the US banking industry?  Well, we won't be having an identical crisis but it's unlikely we won't have a suitably cataclysmic, market rocking, game changing, life altering, fundamental throttling oopsie again anytime soon now darn it.

And BP thought about exhaling when the temporary cap to the spill seemed to fit the bill when it passed a 48 hour stress test until another sharp intake of breath was required.  Apparently, BP execs were called in to explain the part they played in the unpopular release of the supposedly near-death-from-prostate-cancer-Libyan-bomber-prisoner who was implicated in the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie disaster. What?  Scotland denies any link but David Cameron is flying over to Washington anyway to see for himself what he might look like after 18 months sitting in the big chair.

And then Apple chimed in with an emergency news conference to announce that actually, "We're not perfect and neither are our phones".  There were apologies from Steve for the iPhone4's ADS (Antennae Deficit Syndrome) but any suggestion of what would have been an unprecedented recall were squelched with the promise of some free iPhone (rubber-baby-buggy) "bumpers".  That's three crises averted.  And while all that glitters is surely not gold, shifts in sediment and even silicon indicate cracks in cast iron perspectives. Summer doldrum's?  I think not.

Deborah Gale

Expatriate Living