In previous posts, my friend Jake and I were arguing over whether the banks would repay TARP money.  A few weeks ago, the banks wanted to, but the Treasury wouldn’t let them.  It looks like yesterday the government gave the green light for some of the banks to pay back the money.  It also looks [...]

Social Security is more bankrupt than we thought.  A few months ago I wrote a post, Weapon of Mass Wealth Destruction, where I explored how social security is a terrible investment.  The Social Security Trustees Report came out today, and we found that the condition of Social Security and Medicare is worse than expected.  Americans certainly [...]

In my previous installment of the Baracktile Dysfunction series, I said the following: I would prefer that the government get out of the picture, and the market can sort things out.  When centralized economic systems fail, it is proof that they don’t work.  When a capitalistic economic system fails, it is proof that the system [...]

My friend, Jake, made the following comment on a post I wrote a while back called Baracktile Dysfunction 2: I have been impressed with the measures taken to see that private capital replaces public capital in these industries as soon as possible, although time will tell whether this ends up to be the case. I [...]

Warren Buffet once called derivatives weapons of mass wealth destruction.  Of course this didn’t stop him from piling money into them.  Whenever you go to a casino, it seems like there is an overabundance of retirees gambling away their nest eggs (or social security).  Who wouldn’t?  If it is likely that you might die in [...]

Can someone who supported Barack Obama tell me how his plan to correct our economy is any better the George Bush’s plan?  It seems like the only answer that either of them can come up with is to spend trillions of dollars to nationalize failing businesses.   The following quote from an article by Peter [...]

From New Mexico, to Colorado, to Maryland, my google news alert for school lunch flooded my inbox with stories this week about various schools across the country that have enacted policies that disqualify students from receiving school lunch if their accounts are unpaid.  As you would expect, most of these articles are mostly about the [...]

If you’re like me, you are probably counting down the days to when Barack Obama takes over.  It is a common myth that many trends start in California then spread across the country.  For example subprime lending was rampant in California first, and it fell apart there first.  Well while everyone was enjoying the holidays, [...]

Where the first Great Depression was epitomized by the migration of Dustbowl ihabitants to California, the not-so-great depression that is unfolding before our eyes will probably be characterized by bankrupt Californians relocating to states that haven’t been so improvident.  I am tempted to go buy an orchard, so that I can have some work for [...]

The recent economic crisis is reminding us that, unfortunately, our economy is still inextricably overdetermined by the scarcity of resources.  Despite all of the Icarian efforts and intentions of Wall Street bankers to invent infinite risk mitigating financial instruments, their wings of wax could only get them so close to that symbol infinite resources.  I [...]