With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Federal Budget our Dear Leader the Obamanator proposed recently, you occasionally hear the solution mentioned but it is rarely discussed and Congress turns it’s back (for example by voting unanimously to keep entitlements off the table when considering how not to bankrupt the country).  It [...]

UPDATE 05 March 2009: I would add that in light of what seems an unbelievable overextension of their balance sheet by writing hundreds of billions of dollars or more in Credit Default Swap (CDS) contracts they could not even remotely begin to conceive of being able to honor in the event, it would [...]

UPDATE:  4 June 2009 – Freedom House and some other organizations have released a report, Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians (pdf) that captures the ideas expressed here so I guess it is now official.
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I have been meaning to write about this for about 5 years, but the installment of the Obama administration with what should [...]

Foreclosure statistics were reported this morning on CNBC and were just dismal.  In California, where things were just absolutely out of hand in 2006 and 2007, with 800 sq. ft. closets selling for $500,000, foreclosures are up 100% compared to last year and 500% compared to the year before.
They had some clown on to comment [...]

In listening to some congressional idiot talk about aid to the auto makers, I was struck by their determination in insisting that this is not a bailout but a bridge loan.  There is a grain of truth in this I suppose.  When the commercial paper markets seized up, financing oprerations would have become very difficult [...]

UPDATE:  28 October 2008,  3PM Central.  Well That was wrong.  Stocks broke out the TOP of the wedge rather than breaking out the bottom and falling through the table.  Never fight the Fed.  The Fed is expected to set rates at or below 1% tomorrow afternoon.  Of course this in itself is nearly unprecedented; for [...]

You cannot make this stuff up.  When asked about the windfall profits tax being discussed by the geniuses on Capitol Hill Senator Christopher Dodd basicall backed congressional review of the profits of every business in the United States of America.
Dodd:  “Anything over 8-10 dollars a barrel profit is very good, everyone knows that.  The level [...]

It is amazing how much nonsense is thrown around by people on CNBC.  Dennis pleading with the president of NYMEX to raise margin requirements so speculators cannot take such big positions.  Congresspeople talking about curbing speculators (see below).  Can we really so stupid as to blame the messenger rather than attacking the causes?
It is very [...]

Though it seems counter intuitive, the best thing the Fed can do for the health of the American economy right now would be to announce an immediate inter-meeting 50bp rate hike, perhaps after telegraphing it for a few days first.  The immediate effect would be to inflict massive losses in oil and other commodity speculation [...]

This morning on CNBC, former Dallas Fed President McTeer made a very important point about the recent history of the Fed.  If you look at the fact that Crude Oil has just jumped by well over $10/bbl since yesterday mornings imprudent comments by ECB Governor Trichet, and that the Euro is now stronger against USD [...]

While I am ranting, let’s just get our view of the fed off our chest as well.  As I write, July 2008 Crude is trading over $133 per barrel.    Are you kidding me?  Metals are now surging as well.  Commodities are going through the roof, and it is this more than anything else that [...]

It seems that we have really entered a new era. At the time we were worrying about Y2K, it seemed like purchasing power was rising for us as consumers. The Costcos of the world were making shopping cheaper, computing resources were becoming cheaper, electronic devices were becoming cheaper. Nearly everything was becoming [...]

After seeing the interview with Nancy Pelosi today, my stomach flipped. If she said INNOVATION AGENDA again one more time I was going to throw my TV out of the window. This is a person clearly out of her depth. In her defense, I doubt there are 2 people in all of [...]

President Bush illustrated just how weak and, well, really bad he is as the nation’s leader in his 2007 SOTU address. I am not talking about the troop “surge” (maybe it should be called a surgelet, also too little too late), but about the crass political support he gave to ethanol. Ethanol? [...]

Not only do democrats pine to roll back the recent Bush tax cuts, but I seem to recall at the time that they actually wanted to RAISE taxes. Yes these mental giants, intellectual titans like Ted Kennedy, thought that placing an additional burden on the country might help us fight our way out of [...]

I saw an interview on Fox with Senator Byrd. He demonstrated what for democrats seems to be a terminal inability to comprehend anything about economics. Decrying the budget deficit, he pins the blame squarely on the Bush tax cuts. Does anyone remember 2002? The corporate credit markets had basically seized [...]

How can one possibly object to the idea of Personal Savings Acccounts as part of Social Security overhaul? Well there is one reason, though it isnt the one you hear from democrats. The idea of an ownership society is a laudable one, visceral protestations of the democratic rank and file notwithstanding. But [...]