Summertime and the livin' is easy, unless you're looking at the economy. With Memorial Day being the symbolic start of summer, I'll be writing a preview of the issues we may face in this Sunday's Seattle Times. But if you haven't already cut the cord to the Internet for the weekend, I'm interested in what you think. Vote in the poll. If I left something out, please write about it in the comments section of this blog. Have a great weekend!

Read on for the best links of the week and the haiku...

As Amazon.com holds its annual shareholders meeting today, let's take stock, so to speak.

I like it that CEO Jeff Bezos ignores Wall Street's short-term gambling demands in order to invest in building a company. Amazon is a major creator of high-wage jobs in Seattle, and doing it in the central city (one can't get greener). It's innovative and creative. (Disclosure: Amazon sells my books, but so do the independent bookstores that Amazon is committed to destroying). I don't like Amazon's lack of corporate citizenship here. Without it from others, Seattle wouldn't be the appealing city for Amazon's headquarters. Amazon treats its warehouse workers poorly. The company has been a tax dodger, more than a little ironic considering its business model wouldn't exist without the taxpayer investment in creating the Internet. It is not forthcoming about its practices, including support for the controversial corporate-power front ALEC, which has taken control of a shocking number of state legislatures.

[UPDATE: Amazon announced it won't renew its ALEC membership].

Bezos told the ever-gullible Thomas Friedman, "I see the elimination of gatekeepers everywhere." Friedman's interpretation: Amazon is "making it easier and cheaper than ever to publish your own book, start your own company and chase your own dream. Never have individuals been more empowered, and we're still just at the start of this trend."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average topped 13,200 as May began. Since then, it's been pretty much all down hill. As I write, the DJIA is off another 1.34 percent to 12,338. Whatever the reality, many people still look at the average as a measure of the economy's health. And while you know I am wary of any simple explanation of most market moves, it's clear that the "greed and risk" mentality of a month ago has been replaced by "fear."

There's plenty about which to be unsettled: The eurozone crisis, the huge gambling loss at the one big American bank that was supposed to be well-run and Facebook's botched initial public offering (although, according to the Wall Street Journal, Morgan Stanley and other underwriters have made a profit of $100 million).

The big enchilada is concern about America's slow recovery slowing even further, along with political paralysis in D.C. Washington actually lost 300 jobs last month, hardly a promising sign if the trend continues into the summer. Unemployment remains at unacceptable, economy-wrecking levels. Then there's China, facing its own slowing economy and a political succession crisis with the downfall of Bo Xilai. Interestingly, fear of an imminent Israeli strike on Iran has faded. And some signs point to housing at least hitting bottom, really, this year.

The business news while I was gone was dominated by two big stories: JPMorgan's loss of $2 billion ($5 billion? $6 billion?) in an exotic derivatives bet gone wrong, and the much-hyped IPO of Facebook, which quickly spiraled into disaster. Here's what they have in common: The mania for unearned riches from foolish behavior. As with peak oil, just because we reached Peak Fool in the housing bubble, it doesn't mean we're out of foolishness. It will just be more costly, whether for JPMorgan shareholders and depositors (and potentially U.S. taxpayers) or those who bought Facebook stock hoping to make a killing.

Facebook is a nice toy for reconnecting with schoolmates or stalking old girlfriends or boyfriends, and Mark Zuckerberg sure looks cute in the now mandatory adolescent uniform of business, but does any sane person believe this is a company that could justify a market cap of nearly $100 billion? It could only do so in a casino economy where idle capital -- and the savings of average investors looking for unearned riches -- can be sucked in quickly before reality intervenes. Only the insiders and sharpies get rich.

Sure, the initial public offering was botched in many ways. But ultimately, this isn't 1999.

I'll be on book tour this week, and barring major breaking news won't be blogging until Tuesday, May 22. As to the JPMorgan debacle, there's a simple answer: Bring back Glass-Steagall.

All week, we've been examining and discussing the competitive challenges facing the Puget Sound ports, especially the two major container ports in Seattle and Tacoma.

Now here's your chance to weigh in on what should be the most important step to ensure the ports' future, and with it essential assets for Washington's trade-based economy. Please vote below, and then comment as you wish because a simple poll never gets at the deeper issues, particularly in such a complicated issue.

Read on for the best links of the week and the haiku:

All week, we've been discussing the challenges and opportunities faced by the Port of Seattle and the Port of Tacoma, which I first wrote about in last Sunday's column. The near-term competitive dangers are well-known: The two ports cannibalizing each other's business while overall market share is falling, as well as the potential loss of shipping to the wider Panama Canal and the port at Prince Rupert, B.C.

Overall, West Coast U.S. ports failed to bring in much new container traffic in the first quarter of the year: Seattle off 0.4 percent, Tacoma 0.3 percent, and Long Beach down 1.3 percent. Prince Rupert added 1.1 percent, but still accounts for only 1.25 percent of all West Coast North American port container traffic. Total container volume for the first quarter on the West Coast didn't grow. Growth remains weak in the U.S. economy and evidence keeps coming out that China is slowing down.

Long-term challenges are even bigger. In the decades ahead, climate change will likely make a year-round northern passage possible. This has the potential to drastically change shipping patterns; then there's the other costs and disruptions that will accompany a warming planet, including rising sea levels.

The Harbor Maintenance Tax is paid by shippers that use U.S. ports. It's used for a federal fund that pays for the dredging of channels. The trouble is that it's not applied to containers that land at ports in Canada and Mexico and then are transported, usually by rail, to the United States. Puget Sound ports argue that this is a loophole that encourages shippers to divert cargo to those foreign ports.

The fund doesn't work to Seattle and Tacoma's advantage as deep-water ports because it's focused on dredging other harbors, even those that see little container traffic. According to one report, one-fifth of all expenditures go to Louisiana alone. That same report, from the Congressional Research Service, said Seattle and Tacoma get about a penny for every dollar that shippers pay in tax. Nor has Congress been strategic or aggressive on using the fund. It might help fund port, highway or rail infrastructure, but it doesn't. America lacks the infrastructure spending or focus that benefits many competing world ports.

The state's congressional delegation has complained and the Federal Maritime Commission has launched an investigation. So far, nothing has changed. Southern lawmakers will be eager to tap the fund to expand their shallow ports once the wider Panama Canal opens.