The Wife and I had a good discussion today sparked by Sunday’s first piece in the New York Times series on debt in America. (And thanks to J Frog for sending me that way today.) I did learn a nice history of the lending industry from the article, in particular the industry’s shift in focus […]
John Yoo got the bulk of the negative publicity for his torture memo, but I’ve read many times that David Addington has been the real advocate for scrapping the rule of law in the Bush Administration. This Bob Herbert column on Addington makes that point better than I can.
Quick hits: Clinton might not have won, but she certainly gets to play kingmaker. She set the pattern for the fall: black people and people under 40 for the O-man, and everybody else for her. Once you add in the masses of lily-white crotchety Republicans and extrapolate that same pattern, it looks like Obama loses […]
What I’ll Miss Least: The transient nature of the city–at least the whitey part of the city. (NW, plus Capitol Hill SE and NE where we live.) I can’t shake the feeling that most people are here just to soon go somewhere else, and thus it’s harder to feel settled here than it has been […]
Ignore my previous dour economic analysis. I just got this in the mail: Dear Taxpayer, We are pleased to inform you that the United States Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, which provides for economic stimulus payments to be made to over 130 million American […]
Two great moments in quotations today, both from men with the power to influence and shape America’s economic and political situation. The first comes courtesy of Aron Wilder, the CEO of HTFC, a small firm that takes loan applications and sells residential mortgages to larger lenders like GMAC. They’re one of many direct players involved […]
Bear Sterns, the biggest player in the subprime mortgage crisis, agreed today to sell itself to JPMorgan for an astounding $2 per share. The deal was set up by the Federal Reserve, which feared that Bear Sterns’ failing to find a buyer would have flooded the market with mortgage-backed securities and ruined more banks holding […]
Quick reaction: I am relieved for America’s role in the world that Rudy Giuliani is out of the race. He was notoriously advised on “World War IV” by none other than Norman Podhoretz, the Iraq war advocate who also wrote last year that he “hopes and prays” for the bombing of Iran. Giuliani’s reputation for […]
One of my favorite movies of the past few years is Traffic, which gives a multifaceted look at the drug problem in the U.S. and all the complexities of tackling it. This article from Rolling Stone has the same effect. It’s long but great: How America Lost the War on Drugs