Pricing mechanisms make for some odd thinking, or thinking of odd things, whichever is more useful at the time. $100 oil. Will this be the iceberg that rips open the prow of our economy? Perhaps I have an odd take on this, but when I look at ‘C’ note oil I still see a bargain […]

The NYT has an article that brings back memories. The ads are filled with images like Volkswagen buses festooned with groovy graffiti, daisies and other power flowers, peace signs, psychedelic drawings in DayGlo colors and hair, long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen (to quote a lyric from the era). Music, too, is being […]

Lawsuits as noted in an earlier post might be the real problem for traders and some bankers unless the government figures out a fix. Now, just unveiled Thursday, comes the “freeze,” the brainchild of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. It sounds good: For five years, mortgage lenders will freeze interest rates on a limited number of […]

The NYT reports that dyslexics form a solid succesfull economic spirit. It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play on their strengths. But a new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is […]

I noticed that parts of the website are very dated and no longer accurate. Since no one is in charge with the time available to make changes such as cactus and pgl, I would like to begin the process to make the changes and come to some consensus of how and what to change. The […]

Motley Fool offers these words and definitions from the Washington Post, which I was not able to find this morning to link. And now, some of our favorite new fake words (courtesy of The Washington Post): Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time. […]

The Finanial Times has some thoughts on free trade for criminals. Here is part of a presentation at an OECD conference on intellectual property rights: The international community is losing the war against counterfeiting and piracy, a booming global industry that is increasingly under the control of organised crime, according to senior officials speaking at […]

The Houston Chronicle reports: Ask Alberto Guimaraes about his vision for Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras in the United States, and he has a list ready:More oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, more U.S. refining capacity, a bigger role in the domestic biofuels market and possibly even Petrobras-branded gas stations.It may be […]

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the derivation of health care plans that I was not aware of. Instead of engaging in a debate on the merits of her proposal, the Republican candidates eagerly rushed to attack it as rampaging big government. It is one more example of why campaigns have left so […]

The New England Journal of Medicine printed an article worth reading about possible impacts of childhood obesity. I like the attitude. Here is the last part: Certainly, we have much to learn about the regulation of body weight. Low-fat diets have yielded disappointing results, and very-low-carbohydrate diets appear to be more effective only in the […]