Is it just me or do things seem far too calm the last few weeks?  I mean, we're in the midst of the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression and we've got the stock market up nearly 40% since early March.  Where's the panic?  What happened to the… Read full post »

OK, correlation does not equal causation; but this is modestly humorous.  Over the last century, any time you had a multi-term GOP president (in other words, long enough to do real damage) you had a pretty substantial collapse in the banking industry (i.e., near fundamental economic collapse). &… Read full post »

 We've talked a lot about how we're impressed with the clinical case of chronic amnesia the press suffers from. The symptoms of this malady were on display again during the discussion of the Obama administration's Department of Homeland security report outlining threats from right/… Read full post »

There was a lot of talk about spreading democracy throughout the world for the better part of the last decade.  Efforts met with mixed success, but inspiration can be taken from India's "experiment" with democracy.  The results are in and after more than 50 years of smooth transitions of po… Read full post »

This was the banner on the page of the Huffington Post just moments ago.  Texas' governor Rick Perry just did something that radical Reverend Wright may never have thought about...destroy the union.  Yes, he's threatened to secede.

The press does a poor job of providing context.  This observation is neither unique nor insighful. But, assuming this is the case; we decided to do a quick comparison between actions taken so far by the Obama administration that have caused so much outrage among teabaggers and those of other mod… Read full post »

Today is finally the day when Rick Santelli channels the rage of American tax payers into "tea party" protests around the country.  Given the utter lack of widespread protests in this country over the last several decades (ok, there were some anti-war protests in San Francisco earlier this decad… Read full post »

Moments ago, Ron Paul indicated on CNN that Obama was putting the country on a road toward fascism. Paul is a popular sitting congressman. Coinciding with Tea Parties, a report by the Department of Homeland Security about threats from the radical right, and resolutions in the Texas leg… Read full post »

In a heated discussion with Steve Liesman yesterday morning on CNBC, Rick Santelli revealed that he was "very proud" of the Tea Party Movement that he helped to spawn. In the classic debate, Liesman took the perspective of avoiding systemic risk while Santelli was the continued advocat/… Read full post »

Charles Schwab, the founder and CEO of the Charles Schwab Corporation (NYSE: SCH), provided some simple yet insightful commentary on CNBC earlier this week.  When asked about what the financial services industry needs to do to restore trust among investors and depositors, Schwab put forward the… Read full post »

Bill Hemmer isn't aging backwards.  Apparently, he's just aging and suffering from a common ailment of getting long in the tooth - memory loss.  

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera is working hard to reaffirm CNBC's no-nothing bluster bona fides.  Within the last hour (11am PST) , Michelle (high seas piracy expert that she is) dressed down a shipping industry representative for paying off Somali pirates in exchange for their crews.  

&nb… Read full post »

A couple of months back, I spoke at length with David Axe who is a freelance reporter who has a blog at both WIRED and his own at warisboring.com.  David has huge balls and seeks out the world's most dangerous locations and reports back from there.  I believe he might… Read full post »

Say there was a plan where you could put down as little as 5% toward purchasing an asset and someone else would kick in another 5% to match.  That match would get you up to 10% down.  Then you could borrow up to 90% and buy the asset.  You make a… Read full post »

When the Huffington Post sent in a blogger with a cell phone to a closed event and captured Barack Obama saying, "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a… Read full post »

Many of us heard about the deaths of four Oakland police officers in March after a relatively routine traffic stop went bad.  Two motor (motorcycle) police offers stopped a car near downtown Oakland.  They were killed during that stop.  As the Oakland SWAT team attempted to find and ar… Read full post »

Even during an economic crisis the press will devolve into covering an event that includes the leaders of the 20 most powerful economies of the world in the most trivial of ways.  Based on the coverage, we're not really sure happened aside from Mrs. Obama feeling up the queen, bein… Read full post »

Remember the "Baby Bells" that came out of the breakup of the AT&T telecom monopoly?  Well you heard it here first -- after reality sets in and we finally nationalize the insolvent bohemeths of Bank of America, Citibank, etc. the likely outcome will be a group of smaller "baby banks."

Let's… Read full post »

In Silicon Valley they say that you can start a business with an idea, an engineer, some beer, and an endless supply of pizza.   Seems like the CEO of Dominos has naturally subscribed to that approach.   The company's recent commercials poke fun at the recent string of bailouts th… Read full post »

David Sirota has asked why a double standard exists between coddled bank CEOs and those that head up the nation's auto makers.  I believe a clear explanation exists...and one not based on conspiracy theories.

First, the government can't pull confidence out of the financial sector abruptly or ris… Read full post »

Politico has naturally veered right in the past weeks to months since the election.  "Naturally" because the whole point of the site is to reinforce the on-going political "argument" in D.C.   Going after the existing power base helps to stoke the "argument," but too often, the… Read full post »

 Alexander Hamilton - America's First Financial Blogger

Alexander Hamilton had a lot on his plate as the first secretary of the treasury (so the president has told us), but he did find time to write the Federalist Papers that allowed us to peer into his views and how h… Read full post »

The NY Times online's "Room for Debate" has some great commentary from 4 different economists on the Geithner Government Hedge Fund plan.  (By the way, as much as we complain about the media let's take a moment to celebrate this.  "Room for Debate" is a great way to collect d… Read full post »

Investors may be scared away by congresses actions over the past week, but the three major elements of Geithner's plan seem sensible.  

1. Provide a securitization facility backed by the FED to get toxic assets off the books of the banks.  This is very similar to the Resolution Trust Corpor… Read full post »