Economics

GOP Missed The HMS Beagle

February 2, 2009

Do something. If it doesn’t work, do something else. No idea is too crazy. Jim Hightower There are social conservatives. There are national security conservatives. There are fiscal conservatives. There are ideologues who call themselves conservative but are really either lemmings or traitors. For those who might not remember everything they learned in their ninth-grade […]

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When Will They Ever Learn?

January 20, 2009

Okay, boys and girls. The lesson for today is that, as former VP Dan Quayle reminded us, a head is a terrible thing to lose. Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan may be personally nice people. They may be more or less intelligent. They are not well informed. On a recent edition of the MSNBC show […]

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Wall Street Is Dissing You

January 13, 2009

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson Saving America is decidedly not a priority of Wall Street. That sentence has an intentional ambiguity. America is widely famous for having the lowest savings rate in the developed world. Why? The reason is shoved in our face with some regularity. The problem is […]

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One For All

January 5, 2009

Go ahead. Everyone who doesn’t really know the meaning of the word, shout the word socialism at the top of your lungs. Come on, get it over with because, whatever the untutored may think, the subject of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with that awful word. Anyone thinking that national healthcare is somehow […]

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Get Rich, Not

December 30, 2008

So, you want to get rich. Surprise, surprise. The question is how do you get there. How much are you willing to gamble on your retirement? Everything? Half of everything? How lucky do you feel putting your children’s college funds at risk? Come on now. Be honest. How do you get rich? How do you […]

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Bury Reagan

December 15, 2008

Many will consider this post sacrilegious. They are merely the deluded, the Kool-Aid drinkers. Reaganism has become a religion. Let me be the bearer of bad news. Reagan is dead. Every Republican candidate for president in the recent campaign tried to outdo his rivals in their claims to the mantle of St. Ronny. Now congressmen […]

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What’s Good for General Motors

December 12, 2008

I‘ve heard all of the arguments for the Big 3 going the bankruptcy route. They seem to be ignoring a few facts. First, let’s ignore all of those to whom ideological purity is more important than the economic health of the country. Our economic health has a direct effect on our national security, our perceived […]

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Guess Again

November 17, 2008

Are you getting a little dizzy? I think Hank Paulson was sober at his little press conference but I could be mistaken. Sober or stoned, it doesn’t really matter. He will hold another press conference as soon as he hears another ‘solution.’ The ‘Smartest Man in Washington’ has changed his mind again. Of course that […]

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Missing in Action

November 11, 2008

Strange Bedfellows. A major battle has been going on and we didn’t even realize it. And coming to the rescue is that card-carrying member of the opposition: Bloomberg News. Who woulda thunk it? Bloomberg News has filed both a request under the Freedom Of Information Act and a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve. The issue […]

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The Worst is Yet to Come

November 5, 2008

We’ve been sitting around stunned by the financial crisis. What to do? We don’t trust the experts, and rightly so. They lurch from one answer to another. There is little confidence that they are doing anything more than thrashing around, grasping at straws. Actually, since their starting point is their religious belief in a simplistic […]

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