This from Alan Abelson @ Barrons *Tis' The Season To Be Wary* [subsrciption only]
The deep freeze. No, no, we're not about to do a reprise on the credit collapse back in 2008-2009. Hey, this is the season to be jolly. The freeze we're talking about is neither financial nor metaphorical but climatic—the real thing, that dumped who knows how much snow on Northern Europe, grounding thousands of flights, making life miserable for any poor souls who had to get out and about, and further constraining the populace's shopping impulse, already chilled by the cold winds of economic austerity.
Do you need any greater evidence of how desperate folks are than the dispatch from Berlin that told of how two men dressed as Santa Claus strolled into a supermarket, whipped out a pistol and robbed the joint? Although the report of the incident is lamentably shy of details on motive, one can only assume the faux Clauses were among the involuntarily idled, obviously short of means and unable to face the p
