by cactus Bush as a Great Man – The New Meme Let’s say, hypothetically, GW had had a cause these past eight years: reducing auto accident fatalities. Let’s say he also set forth a plan that greatly increased the amount of funding to the state highway agency. But there was a catch – states only […]

rdan (again stealing a post from Robert’s musings) What does “Earn” mean I read Ad Man: ” Those of us who sit above the $250k income threshold are too small in numbers to affect his appeal. What I do resent is that under an Obama administration, money we’ve work hard to earn (through the meritocracy […]

rdan About 1 minute in, the first warnings of trouble go plop, and the scene explodes upon the screen. How prescient and universal a notion.

JS Kit is finished preparing Haloscan conversion to their format. Conversion will take place automatically over the next weeks. I will convert next week as JS Kit provides much greater moderation control and more versatility for the comment section. I am not sure how rss feeds will be affected for comments, but JS Kit looks […]

rdan My sentiments about buying locally translate to where I spend my dollars…there is room for both small business and big boxes, but we all vote with dollars. If not careful, I sometimes forget the paint returned at no charge, or the thoughtful advice and knowledge from the local paint and wallpaper store, or the […]

ataxingmatter Linda Beale makes a statement: The International Banking Association wants more tax goodies from Uncle Sam–for branches of foreign banks. The idea seems to be that anything that has been done for domestic banks ought to be available to them too–even when it is Treasury’s decision not to enforce a clear statement of Congress […]

by cactus The Smartest Morons in the Room Back when Enron imploded, I was wondering to myself about the motivation of some of the players. I can understand the greed and fraud, and the looking aside when fraud was being perpetrated. I like to believe that I would never get caught up in that, but […]

rdan SEC. 125. CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT PANEL.(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—There is hereby established the CongressionalOversight Panel (hereafter in this section referred to asthe ‘‘Oversight Panel’’) as an establishment in the legislative branch.(b) DUTIES.—The Oversight Panel shall review the current stateof the financial markets and the regulatory system and submitthe following reports to Congress:(1) REGULAR REPORTS.—(A) IN GENERAL.—Regular reports […]

rdan The NYT describes the beginning role of the committee and chairman Elizabeth Warren to follow the money, in addition to GAO report. …“You can’t just say, ‘Credit isn’t moving through the system,’ ” she said in her first public comments since being named to the panel. “You have to ask why.” If the answer […]

by cactus Passing on Corporate Taxes to Consumers and the Bail-Out There seems to be relatively irrational belief among many conservatives that corporate taxes are simply passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. It leaves out the obvious – if companies felt they could simply raise prices, they’d do it whether there […]