What the Media Was Worried About – March 2022

The big stories for the month were Ukraine and inflation.  There were several potential headline-grabbers relegated below the fold during the month.  Let’s get to it.

War

Massive sanctions, asset freezes, and divestiture of Russian stocks.

Germany meme: “So the world wants Germany to raise a huge army, march through Poland, and maybe fight the Russians?  Are you sure?”

Russians seize Ukrainian nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

Cascading press releases of companies cutting ties with Russia in one way or another.

Russian stocks and ETFs holding Russian stocks halted.

Ukraine/Russia is a rare case of war between two countries with McDonalds

Russia is firing on civilians

Potential ceasefire on 3/16 doesn’t happen

Inflation

Babysitting rates skyrocket

Oil hits $130 – gasoline prices rise

Nickel hits $100,000 per metric ton on LME, blowing up WisdomTree’s 3x inverse nickel ETF – If you have a $100 margin call, it’s your problem.  If you have a $1 billion margin call, it’s the broker’s problem.

Uber adding a fuel surcharge

Sports

MLB Lockout ends – DH coming to National League!

Tom Brady un-retires

First 15 seed ever to reach Elite 8 is St. Peter’s

Headlines that Would Have Dominated the Watercooler Any Other Time

The city of Fresno lost $400,000 to a vendor email compromise scam – recovered $2,000

7.4 Earthquake in Japan

Omicron BA.2 identified

Tornado in New Orleans

Supreme Court nominee hearing begins

Hunter Biden laptop story confirmed by New York Times

Nature is Trying to Kill You

Parachuting spiders will drop from the sky across the East Coast of the US

WTF?

Will Smith slaps Chris Rock live on stage at the Oscars

Just a bonkers news month.  Will Smith (WILL SMITH!!!) slapping Chris Rock (Chris Rock!?!?!?!) on live television (!) at the Oscars!!!  Exclamation point.  And that story only had legs for a couple of days!

True to form, news stories featuring PARACHUTING SPIDERS made it look like giant facehugger spiders would be hunting via airdrop this summer.  There was a part of me looking forward to carrying a flamethrower all summer, but it looks like it’s actually just normal baby spider leaving the nest behavior instead.

April’s headlines were pretty tame by comparison so next post will not be nearly as exciting.