Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Subprime becomes prime time lawsuits?

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 […]

Entrepreneurs and image problems

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 […]

Updating design of AB-left hand side

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 […]

Vocabulary lessons, add to spellcheck

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. […]

Crime

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 […]

How Modern Capitalism Really Works

This is from the Oregonian via Division of labor Big Boxes to the Rescue On Wal-Mart et al. in the recent Northwestern deluge: In cases of extreme weather and natural disasters, some of the nation’s largest retailers now behave like municipalities — sometimes better. Retailers have created specialized divisions — or hired outside firms — […]

EMPLOYMENT REPORT

Just a quick follow up on the employment report. Not only did wage growth come in weak, but the prior data was revised down.People had been looking at the downward revisions of the personal income dataand expecting to to see employment revised down. But rather than employment,it was average hourly earnings that were revised lower. […]

employment report

The employment report data continues to imply that the economy is slowly sliding into astagnation scenario. I let others argue, but I do not see how one can avoid that conclusion.

Today is for Brazil

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 […]

Hillary care and Romney care – Romney deserves credit

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 […]