You can count the number of people who went to jail over the 2008 financial crisis on one hand. Which is strange considering the U.S. loves to put people away in jail. But as one author discovered in his most recent book, having the right connections and a big enough bank account, can protect you from even the worst crimes.
When you think of economists, you might think of policy pundits arguing ideas on how to fix the country’s stagnant economy. But that’s only part of their job. Most of the time, their job boils down to decision-making, and how to make the best decision based on your particular circumstance.
Practical people often pooh-pooh fiction reading as a time wasting dalliance, dominated by a Marxist coloring of the world. However, fiction readers were given a scientific reason recently for spending hours absorbing fanciful figments of someone’s imagination.
“It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future,” says a proverb often attributed to Yogi Berra. Imagine the world of freedom, or lack of it. Who could foresee the technologies that make our lives so rewarding and convenient? The same technologies have us all under the government’s giant microscope. Thankfully, the brave have turned the microscope around.
The faces of the Detroit bankruptcy are the thousands of pensioners whose promised benefits are suddenly part of the restructure negotiation. When Motown filed for Chapter 9 last July, the city had $11.5 billion in unsecured liabilities. The vast majority of this was pension and health care benefits owed to retired city employees. The images …
If you don’t have the angst out of your system concerning Wall Street banksters, Government Sachs, and the Affordable Care Act, settle in with Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia to make your blood boil one more time. Investors should be reminded of 2008 as they shrug their shoulders and put their money back in the stock market. …
In 1985, Irwin Schiff wrote in what has become a classic book, How an Economy Grows and Why It Doesn’t, a pictorial introduction to basic economics. Now his sons are taking up where he left off.
The stock market hovers around all-time highs, and right on cue, individual investors are starting to get back into stocks. They are tired of earning nothing in money market funds or bank CDs. Ben Bernanke’s zero rate siren song has enticed reticent investors ashore all in the name of stimulating the economy and putting people …
If the Spy Briefing Club is about anything, it’s about the freedom of thought. Most of us take the freedom to think what we want for granted. We shouldn’t. The thinking reader should study the history of thought to fully appreciate our freedoms and be on the lookout for those who wish to take them …
The race issue in America never seems to go away. We were reminded again last week when celebrity Southern chef Paula Deen was raked over the coals for using a racial epithet sometime in her past. Her tearful plea for those of us without sin to “cast the first stone” may have resonated with average …