What's a Trillion Dollars Worth Anyway?

Been lots of posting on the move by the ECB last night.  Looks like the euro went up against the dollar on the initial news and then fell back later in the day (hat tip - Krugman).


I think Felix Salmon captures why here:

Europe Growth Forecast Chart

Nice interactive chart for seeing the growth forecast in europe.  The 'PIGS' look like you'd expect them to (bad).  I was a little surprised by France's high unemployment rate.  Here's the link to the chart (where you can actually play with it).



Hat tip: Barry Ritholtz

Big Content Win

This is pretty technical, but one easy way to understand it is that it means my brother-in-law is right: Selectable output control is going to go away.  Big content is actively looking for ways to close the 'analog' hole.  And based on this piece in Arc Technica, the hole just got smaller:

After almost two years of deliberation, the Federal Communications Commission has granted Hollywood and cable companies permission to shut down analog streams to HDTV equipped home theaters. The geek term for this is "selectable output control" (SOC)—until now forbidden by the FCC. The Motion Picture Association of America requested a waiver on the SOC ban in May of 2008, arguing that without it, Hollywood studios could not securely offer consumers pre-DVD released movies on television.


So, here's the deal: