Only heaven is higher than Everest.

So, Sony is going to release the movie called ' The Interview ' after all. The movie is about 2 journalists from the US who are recruited to assassinate Kim Jong Un, President of North Korea and ends with blowing off his face. North Korea was not amused and threatened retaliation. Sony's computers were hacked and all the data, including emails between executives, private details of employees and unreleased films, were released online. Hackers also referred to 9/11 and warned that anyone going to see the movie would be risking his life. Sony decided to pull the movie from all theaters but was criticised by Obama because apparently this was against freedom of speech. Being a lawyer the gasbag must be aware of the law that prohibits threatening the president of the US so there is no reason why North Korea, which sees the US as its enemy, should feel grateful for a threat to its president. The US blamed North Korea for the hack but they denied it and then the internet in North Korea crashed for a day. It does not matter if the US is not responsible because Pyongyang will blame the US anyway. At the moment the US thinks it is invincible. Its economy grew by a scorching 5% in the third quarter, the Dow Jones is up above 18,000 for the first time ever, unemployment is down and the dollar is stronger against all currencies. On the other hand Russia is facing a deep recession, emerging market economies are slowing down and China is having to spend on infrastructure to stimulate growth. Greece is in crisis again and the anti-austerity party, Syriza will win if a general election becomes inevitable. If Greece is forced to leave the Euro it could set off a collapse of markets. A strong dollar, making imports cheap, and optimism about the economy could encourage US consumers to spend on borrowed money and we could have a repeat of 2008. Our Reserve Bank Governor has been warning of another market crash because of a build up of asset price bubbles because of massive amounts of easy money injected into world markets by the bond buying programs of the US and Japan, with the EU poised to follow. After licking its wounds for a couple of years Wall Street banks have managed to dilute the Dodd-Frank law that was to prevent trading in exotic securities with depositors' money. The clause was written into the act by Citigroup. With this the problem of institutions ' too big to fail ' has returned but next time it maybe too big to fix as well. The US may feel that it is ' exceptional ' and too big to fail but it must remember that when you have scaled mount Everest the only way is down.