Monthly Archives: January 2009

Archive of posts published in the specified Month

Equally Reprehensible

President Obama is dead on for blasting the Wall Street firms for paying big bonuses when they are asking taxpayers to bail them out. Such behavior is reprehensible. Not only is this irresponsible management it breeds contempt for our entire

Read More

Understanding Success

I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He has a knack for insights and thinking that most of us miss. The premise is that success is less a matter of IQ and talent and more a matter of culture, opportunity

Read More

Assessing the Markets

Here is how I am seeing the financial markets. The government is wildly stimulating the economic with fiscal and monetary stimulations. There is a huge amount of cash on the sidelines restrained by fear. Everyone is cutting inventories and production

Read More

Wasting a Crisis

“Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant”- James Madison “Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” Obama White House Chief of Staff

Read More

Remember the Hunt Brothers

The Hunt brothers had made a fortune in the oil business, but in the 1970’s they tried to corner the market in silver and ran the price up to $50 an ounce. The bubble burst and the metal fell to

Read More

Faith and Science

I have been skeptical of the claims about global warming and environmental crisis for some time, not because I have any scientific insight, but because so many adherents act like religious fanatics rather than skeptical scientists. A position doesn’t magically

Read More

Now for the Hard Part

The Republicans have rejected the calls for bipartisanship and the Democrats have passed the stimulus package without their help. The Republicans are betting that the package fails and that they will regain power as a result of their stance. The

Read More

The Buy American Fallacy

Obama has promised big spending on infrastructure. This should be a welcome program for the steel industry, but the steel industry wants more; they want strict Buy American provisions. Leading this in Dan DeMicco, CEO of Nucor, the largest American

Read More

In Need of a Common Enemy

With the hated George Bush gone and with the Republican in a solid minority position, we are starting to see the Democrats engage in infighting that was recently rare. Reid spoke against the Burris appointment; Diane Feinstein spoke against Leon

Read More

The Economic Priority

In conversation I have been criticized for placing too much importance on economic policy over other domestic programs and foreign policy. I am guilty. But we can not have wealth to spend on public programs if we do not have

Read More

Empowering Rush

Obama made a strategic error is blasting Rush Limbaugh. It was both arrogant and amateurish. Obama admonished his Republican adversaries, “You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done.” A Republican could counter, “You can’t listen to Michael

Read More

In Praise of the Imperfect

The Fed has made two blunders in its history; the first is the Great Depression and the Second was the Great Inflation that ended with the Reagan-Volcker Recession of 1981-82. In the first mistake the Fed did too little and

Read More

Tactical Success; Strategic Failure

Bret Stephens address at Ahavath Achim Synagogue on Thursday, January 22 claimed that the Gaza campaign was a strategic success. Only 6 Israelis were killed by Hamas (4 others were killed by friendly fire) while 500 or more Hamas militants

Read More

Fire Bill Moyers

CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Mid East Reporting in America) hosted Wall Street columnist Bret Stephens at the Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Atlanta to lecture about the outcome of the war in Gaza. Just the fact that a group like

Read More

Learning The Wrong Lessons from Arafat

The current war in Gaza recalls the Israeli bulldozers smashing Arafat’s compound in Ramallah during the intifada. While condemned widely, Arafat never regained power. And in case one forgot, the terrorist attacks against Israel largely disappeared. Israel’s economy rebounded, tourists

Read More

The Health Care Threat

While health care has grown tremendously as a percent of our GDP this is not necessarily bad. It would be expected of an aging population. It may also be expected of an affluent population able to spend more on medical

Read More

Self Inflicted Wounds

“As we weigh our economic prospects, we need to recall the lessons of the Great Inflation. Its continuing significance is that it was a self-inflicted wound: something we did to ourselves with the bests of intentions and on the most

Read More

The Plague of Al- Qaeda

The old fashioned Medievil ‘plague’ has infected an Al-Qaeda group in Algeria. Do they surrender to seek medical treatment? Apparently several have dropped dead. Living in caves and rejecting modernity, they suffer from poor medical care. Is it divine justice

Read More

Cool Guzzlers

The gasoline price spike of only a few months ago left many gas guzzlers unsold on car lots. So you would expect the rapid decline in gas prices to help move the SUVs off the lot. Yet three factories making

Read More

Born Yesterday

“I was thinking what my life would have been like if I had been born a day earlier. And then I realized I would have asked this question yesterday.” Steven Wright

Read More