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Financial Regulation

• You know, for the past couple of years or so, I have heard so many supposedly smart and connected people say, uh, "It's almost impossible to recognize a bubble when you're in it" when the subject of our last el-grande bubble of real estate comes up. You know, the housing bubble I recognized in maybe '02, that 90% of others were 'blindsided" by, including geniuses like Greenspan, Bernancke, 99% of the banks in the WORLD, rating agencies, investment houses, insurance companies, 75 % of the American public, and, of course, Fannie/Freddie, the black hole for the right side of my pay stub. But, for the past almost year, I've heard many smart and connected people tell me that the safety of bonds and bond funds are in a bubble. They were in a bubble last summer, and they are more than certain about that, it seems.
  —by avmed on Sun, 21 Feb 2010 02:58:30 PM)
  
  
• Seems like the term "Bubble" in relation to any asset class is this years equivalent to 2007's term "a perfect storm". It's a great term for cocktail party conversation but it isn't particularly useful in assessing an investment strategy. A bubble is only recognized in hindsight. People were predicting a real estate bubble as early as 2000. It wasn't until 2008 that the prediction came true. Every asset class with returns that exceed the long term averages is potential bubble. If you
  —by florida insurance adjuster on Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:44:12 PM)
  
  

About Healthcare

• Interesting read and I certainly sympathize with your worries about personalized medicine and how it fits with the economics of health care. Our little start up (http://www.dynemobiosystems.com) is in the personalized medicine domain. Our feeling is that by helping pharma find the right patients for their drugs we can bring the over all cost on both the development and delivery end down. I see a bright future for personalized medicine. But the current Modus Operandi is not the way forward.
  —by Ian on Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:35:21 PM)
  
  

Edward Luce on Obama

• At the end of "The Wizard of Oz," Dorothy comes to the revelation that if she ever goes looking for her heart's desire again, "I won't look any further than my own backyard."President Obama is hoping that his visits to backyards around the country fulfill his heart's desire: keeping Democrats in control of the House and Senate in the midterm election.To that end, he's holding "backyard chats" this morning in Des Moines and this afternoon in Richmond, Virginia."We've been trying to do more of these,"Mr. Obama said yesterday at a backyard event in Albuquerque.
  —by Todays News on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 09:19:01 AM)
  
  

Polarization in Politics

• I dunno, it seems to be simple calculus to me. Democrats were always in favor of middle class tax cuts, so that aside what is the extra cost in a two year extension of millionaire tax cuts? 140 billion. For that they got 56 billion of unemployment extensions and reduction of payroll tax. All in all not a bad deal considering the alternative of doing nothing at all. Politically, the Republicans have a problem in forcing this issue.
  —by Alfonzo Barill on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 08:25:00 AM)
  
  

Tell the Iraqi and Afghani people that we're 'better than most.' 100,000+ dead Iraqis because of our war that should have ended up with Bush and Cheney sent to an international war crimes court.
—by Dana Kollmorgen on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 06:15:11 PM)

Atlas Shrugged

• Where on earth did you ever get the idea that Ayn Rand philosophy advocates or accepts actions that harm others? That is blatantly opposite of her philosophy. Minor correction. While the whole 18 year saga of getting this film produced may have involved costs approach $20 million dollars, the film itself only cost about $10 million dollars to make.
  —by honestann on Sat, 9 Apr 2011 08:21:07 PM)
  
  

Kissinger, the Realist

• [...] Originally Posted by Cael I thought the bit about how China took control of the US economy was very ironic. Mind you, they seem to have made a bollix of it. But, the Chinese play a long game. Maybe they know what they're doing. Particularly as it seems the US is going to be forced to withdraw from Africa and South America, and leave them to the Chinese to exploit. Well known, the deficits are funded by recycled Chinese money, which is made by selling to the US. The Chinese always play the long game. They ingratiated themselves with Clinton (when the Neo Cons were savaging him they funded his campaign) then as Bush trashed the economy (the twin deficits, the tax cuts helped his plutocrat chums & family) with help from the neo con loopers & the Randian Greenspan. Here's Kissinger on them - he writes about Wei- encirclement of another, looks like that's what they are doing to the West, especially the US. Kissinger, the Realist | The Hagar Review [...]
  —by All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - Page 5 on Thu, 26 May 2011 12:16:33 AM)
  
  

The Tony Blair Memoirs

• I see Tony Blair is warning the Arab leaders concerning the so-called 'Arab Spring'. He goes on about this and he goes on about that but seems to say nothing about what some feel is the real issue; the worth of the dollar. For those who don't know, Hussein was interested in abandoning the petrodollar and demanding that Iraq's oil be bought only in Euros, raising the value of the Euro and lowering the value of the dollar. Ghaddafi went one better, proposing that he and other African countries create a new currency, the 'gold dinar', and insist that their oil be bought using only those, thus potentially not so much threatening to lower the value of the dollar as its complete destruction. America's poodle Tony Blair was happy enough to pack British people off to war in Iraq to defend the American dollar, yet oddly there's not a word about this I can see in his new book, 'The Journey'. How strange.
  —by Kent Cars on Thu, 9 Jun 2011 08:42:36 AM)
  
  

The Straddler

• I agree with your point here of Mr. Brooks. I have a friend that is a big fan of Mr. Brooks and I just couldn't put my finger on what it was about him that bothered me. It may have been too close to my face as this seems to be a common trait of several of the current crop of writers and talking heads, I feel Mr. O'Reiley is in there with them.
  —by Terry McGraw on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:06:10 PM)
  
  

The War in Libya

• Would you have wrote this same article about Bush intitiating the Iraq war? Keep in mind that the Constiution says that Congress must DECLARE war, not merely issue an authorization, as with Iraq.
  —by Angel on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:35:36 PM)
  
  

Or are you just another bullshit Republican opportunist?
—by Angel on Thu, 23 Jun 2011 01:36:37 PM)

The Sophistry of Jon Stewart

• My favorite part of the interview was when Wallace played a clip of a raunchy Comedy Cebtral roast of Pamela Anderson, as if to make some moral point against Stewart's network. This from the host of a program that airs on the same network as Family Guy. My view is that of course FOX has an agenda. Whether it's the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, Family Guy, Glee, Avatar, American Idol, or the Simpsons, the agenda of FOX is to make money.
  —by Harold N on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 10:30:49 AM)
  
  

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