Jerry Bowyer of Tech Central Station writes about a seemingly bizarre disparity. Last week's tsunami caused an enormous amount of death and distruction (150,000 people killed, and five million more homeless), but it made barely a ripple in the world's financial markets:

Tragically, it's because, economically speaking, the people who were washed away were, for the most part, not connected to the rest of the world. They were born, lived and died isolated from the world economy and largely forgotten by it. Their absence didn't affect world markets, because their presence had never affected world markets. Why is this a tragedy? Because if they had been connected to us, I think many of them would still be alive today. If they had spent the last 30 years trading rice or computer programming services or transcription services for dollars, then they would have been able to trade dollars for modern road-building materials, well built buildings and tsunami warning systems.