Friday
20Nov2009

Recession Over.....

Reading the headlines across online news sources today I found some conflicting reports. Many confirm that the recession is over! Wall Street seems to be doing quite well with the Dow Jones sitting happily at just over 10,000 points and firms reporting a stable recovery (top executives are even taking home bonuses higher than they were a few years ago). However, this month unemployment is up in 29 states and 13 sit above the national average of 10.2%. A record number of mortgages, 9.64%, are delinquent, mostly in California and Florida. This begs the question: what standards do we use to assess the health of our economy? The stimulus package has had a noticeable impact on the financial markets but those living on Main Street are still suffering. Perhaps this is all part of the ebb and flow of the economy (we have suffered worse recessions) but one might wonder at what cost to the average citizen are we willing to resuscitate a seemingly flawed system?

Thursday
19Nov2009

China: explanation for human rights abuses that "one can understand"

I heard the following portion of an interview today on NPR. From a human rights standpoint, it's not encouraging...

Click to read more ...

Thursday
19Nov2009

The Need for Tolerance

Even if America is not polarized, it certainly feels that way.

Click to read more ...

Tuesday
17Nov2009

Brother, Can You Spare Two Votes? 

Here's an interesting chart determining if there is any relation between unemployment and midterm election results from our friends at the New York Times.:

 

Unemployment Chart

If my quant 1 homework has taught me anything, it appears that no relationship exists. The only thing we can take away from it is that if a president wants to gain ground in Congress he has to do two things: (1) be impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice, (2) start an interminable war in Afghanistan.


Monday
16Nov2009

The truth about Medvedev's recent State of the Nation speech

About a week ago, something quite surprising happened in Russia. Dmitry Medvedev gave his State of the Nation speech, the equivalent of the State of the Union speech in the US. So far, you probably don't see what the fuss is about...

Well, the content of that speech was so surprising that I remember reading the BBC article and wondering if I wasn't in some sort of dream, and a good one at that! I won't bother giving an extensive summary of a nearly 2h long speech,  but the BBC article can be found here.

Today I found an interesting analysis of that speech (from a Russian), telling me that my initial feeling of a dream wasn't too far from the truth. In essence, the speech "sounded" like great changes were about to take hold of the country, but it seems to be all an elaborate scheme that was started two month ago.

Next week (not sure which day), Putin will have a speech in front of the United Russia congress, which should offer some additional details about the "reforms" to be undertaken.

Monday
16Nov2009

Interesting Blog

Darren Rippy, a student in the TJPPP master's program, has a new blog. He is a fiery Democrat looking for converts in a purple state and is a lucid blogger. He also loves a good argument so I recommend leaving a contentious comment.

Monday
16Nov2009

Update: Madoff Trustee Was Right

The Madoff trustee was on the right side of the law, according to a decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. As I said in an earlier post, the Madoff trustee did not seek clawback claims against investors who had received less from the scheme than the amount they initially invested. Now, the 5th Circuit has made it clear that the receiver (like a trustee) in the Stanford case cannot seek such claims against investors, unless he claims some wrongdoing against them—which he’ll have a hard time doing...

Click to read more ...

Monday
16Nov2009

I Know Right

In 1996 Barry Goldwater, the patron saint of American Conservatism, joked with Bob Dole, the most exciting politician to come from Russell, Kansas, that they now comprised the liberal wing of the Republican Party. Though the anecdote is more fodder for a dime-a-dozen obituary than real political analysis, it may have been more prescient than once thought. Schisms in the Republican Party are becoming more apparent as the Tea Partiers continue their Grand Inquisition...

Click to read more ...

Friday
13Nov2009

Nuclear Waste to Yucca Mountain: Politics Trumping Science.

WILKERSON--Have you ever wondered why a site in Nevada was chosen as the nation's first and only long-term nuclear waste dump (which has been delayed indefinitely...not a speck of nuclear waste has made its way to the multi-billion dollar tunnels at Yucca)?

Click to read more ...

Friday
13Nov2009

Motivate the base AND gather independents!

WILKERSON--“As C.S. Lewis once remarked about the faith vs. works debate: ‘It does seem to me like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.’ Winning parties motivate their base and win independents — as McDonnell and Christie both did...”

Click to read more ...