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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 -- [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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. [...]

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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?

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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.

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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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