Dec - 23rd
Embezzlement
Posted at 12:20 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I'm glad I am not the only one that thinks so (cue Gregg Easterbrook)...
Very high pay to Wall Street managers is justified on the grounds that they are financial geniuses with astonishing expertise. Instead it turns out many financial industry managers made basic blunder after basic blunder. The 2008 financial markets crash belies the entire [...]
Dec - 10th
Fixing the Economy
Posted at 9:35 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
Well, I am just glad that the struggling economy is finally behind us. This may be some arm-chair quarterbacking, but this is what I would do to right the sinking economy...
- Buy the auto companies. Yep, let's get in the car business. Let's salvage what they got, and sell them off for parts. GM would [...]
Nov - 13th
Introducing Hassle-Free Foreclosures
Posted at 4:59 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I do not support a bailout of individual homeowners in today's mortgage crisis, nor do I think it is wise for the government to purchase such troubled assets from banks and lending institutions. In either of those two scenarios, the government is attempting to manufacture a soft-bottom for this market. I relate it to the [...]
Nov - 13th
Free Markets In Question
Posted at 9:32 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
So this is what it has come to for President George W. Bush. In the waning days of his two-term administration, following a resounding defeat of his policies at the ballot box, the following headline on MSNBC... "Bush to defend 'free market' system." Well done, sir.
How bad do you have to be as president -- [...]
Oct - 15th
Bailing Out Seniors
Posted at 9:26 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
This is probably going to rain on a few parades.
Aren't the plans set forth by John McCain* and Barack Obama to protect seniors from mandatory withdrawals for their IRAs or 401ks (after age 70, or 59 in the case of McCain's lowered tax rate on any withdrawals from retirement accounts) actually nothing more than another [...]
Sep - 30th
The College Endowment Elite
Posted at 4:12 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I was talking to my wife about this issue last night,* and I'm glad someone else -- in this case, Gregg Easterbrook -- agrees with me. Measuring a university's value with the endowment metric is entirely unfair (as is used in the oft-referenced U.S. News rankings), as it gives smaller schools literally no chance to [...]
Sep - 30th
Iraq 2.0 (or 3.0, if you include the 1991 dust-up)
Posted at 9:13 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
After spending nearly a decade creating the problem, the president has now found it convenient to come out of his hole and demand changes, demand fast action from Congress (including unprecedented power handed to the Executive branch), and to continue to lay out the potential threat that the financial crisis poses on the American people. [...]
Sep - 25th
Bailout Redux
Posted at 10:07 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
I loved this description of the bailout... The American people have been asked to gift-wrap 700 billion dollars to a bunch of people that are either greedy or dumb. Take your pick.
Anyone up for hedge fund tax reform?
Sep - 25th
Bailout
Posted at 8:53 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this way, but the bailout -- any bailout, especially one nearing a trillion dollars -- must include ownership for the taxpayer (in the form of shares of the companies involved). It wouldn't be surprising if many Wall Street firms sour on the deal just [...]
Sep - 22nd
Financials Redux
Posted at 9:21 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
Just to follow-up on last night's half-drunk post ripping the financial industry...
- Just because the wealthiest man in the room is unable to make as much money this year as he had hoped or expected (or wanted to), does not mean the public should cover his debts.
- The U.S. economy would continue without a Wall [...]
Sep - 21st
Financials
Posted at 6:36 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I am too upset right now with the trillion-dollar bailout plan of greed-soaked incompetent unethical financial firms to really express any real thoughts on the subject. (All of this so they can stay in business, keep their jobs, keep their portfolios?!?) Plus, I am half-way to drunk.
But I can say this, and I do believe [...]
Jul - 15th
Liveblogging the Bush Press Conference
Posted at 7:45 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
7:44am
Bush: "We understood what was coming." We just didn't do anything about it.
7:47am
Bush: "Is this a war? Or is this like law enforcement?"
7:48am
Bush: "One front is going better than the other, and that is Iraq. Afghanistan is a tough fight. Afghanistan is reminiscent of what was going on in Iraq a couple years ago."
7:50am
Bush: "I [...]
Jun - 13th
A Lotto Money
Posted at 1:33 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
And this week's sign that the apocalypse may be upon us...* "A household with income under $13,000 spends, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all income." (via kottke)
* This has been previously addressed; ditto.
May - 6th
Yahoo Is A Dot-com Bubble Veteran
Posted at 11:23 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
While reading about the failed Microsoft-Yahoo bid (which may still happen), it was mentioned how Yahoo! has historically overpaid for the acquisitions it has purchased over the years, including nearly 5 billion dollars spent on GeoCities, the personal homepage service (now mostly defunct), in 1999. Ahh, the height of the dot-com bubble.
Graphing the full historical [...]
May - 6th
Gas Tax Holiday Redux
Posted at 10:06 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
I am not the only one who believes that the Clinton/McCain gas tax holiday is a bunch of nonsense. The democratic nominee herself cannot find one economist to support the idea as being even remotely beneficial to the economy.
When pressed by ABC News on this issue, Hillary responded: "I'm not going to put my lot [...]
Apr - 30th
Gas Tax Ruse
Posted at 1:20 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I wanted to opine on this silly temporary repeal of the federal gas tax idea that is being sold by Hillary Clinton and John McCain. It makes little to no sense. In fact, it will end up being detrimental to our economy. It is quite the opposite of taxpayer relief.
Clinton and McCain suggest that the [...]
Apr - 30th
In the News
Posted at 8:24 am | Filed Under In the News
- Listening to Bush, McCain and the republican talk machine, the surge is "working," however April has been "the deadliest month [for U.S. forces] since September."
- The president has received a stay-of-execution (of sorts) with the report that the economy grew at 0.6% in the first quarter, and did not contract.
- And the inventor of [...]
Mar - 14th
Liveblogging the Bush Economics Speech
Posted at 8:43 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
8:44amBush: "Isn't it a good idea for our goods and services to be treated as if they were from Colombia." Including cocaine?
8:46amBush: "My administration is not afraid of dealing with issues." Except health care reform.
8:47amQuestions.
8:50amBush: "Markets respond to the collective wisdom of consumers." We're doomed.
8:51amBush: "I am the kind of guy who doesn't care about [...]
Mar - 13th
Democratic Harbinger
Posted at 9:01 am | Filed Under Uncategorized
How can a democrat not take the White House in 2008? According to a new poll, "for the first time since 1992, a plurality of voters heading into November’s election" say they are worse off than four years ago. That has never bode well for the incumbent (or his party) and is certainly a harbinger [...]
Feb - 1st
Clinton And Obama Wrong On Taxes
Posted at 6:33 pm | Filed Under Uncategorized
I wholeheartedly agree that the Bush tax cut, which mostly helped the wealthy, has had negative effects on the national debt. However, I do not applaud the top two democrats stating unequivocally that the Bush tax cuts should be rolled back, and would be during their presidency. I do not want that, because under Bush's [...]
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