Fueling an Even Bigger Public Safety Problem
on Nov 15, 2009 in Social Conditions In a press release issued last Thursday, organizations representing state chief executives and fiscal officials had nothing good to say about the outlook for municipal finances: "NGA, NASBO Say States Will Continue to Face Fiscal Difficulties in...

The Financial Body Count
on Nov 14, 2009 in The Retirement System In 2009 alone more than 120 banks have failed. We've also seen the collapse of large financial institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns. According to the most recent reports, it appears that the Federal Housing Adminis...

Not Factoring in the New Reality
on Nov 13, 2009 in Economics Since the S&P 500 index bottomed on March 9th, the S&P 500 retail sub-index has gained 77 percent, outpacing the well known bellwether by 15 percentage points. Meanwhile, from March through the end of last month, the Census Burea's index...

The Headline Says It All
on Nov 12, 2009 in General Headline writers often have it rough. They have to capture the essence of many words with a few, while ensuring that little is lost in the process. The tone must be consistent with the accompanying report or commentary, yet have...

Hard Times and Bad Behavior
on Nov 12, 2009 in Social Conditions Although scientists or statisticians might disagree, I reckon that if certain trends are now apparent in countries and cultures around the world that were not really in evidence before the financial crisis struck, then it's probably a good bet that..

Less than Meets the Eye
on Nov 11, 2009 in Economics It's early in the trading day, but the bulls are already charged up by apparent good news out of China. According to Bloomberg, production rose 16.1 percent from a year before, the most since March 2008, the statistics bureau said...

'The Good News Is Still Less Bad News'
on Nov 10, 2009 in Economics Even though they create more than half of nonfarm private gross domestic product and employ half of all private sector employees, small businesses have borne a disproportionate share of the broad dropoff in demand and cutbacks in bank lending. Moreov...

Not Music to Most People's Ears
on Nov 9, 2009 in Social Conditions . When it comes to pets, some creatures don't quite cut it. It's one thing to have a dog, a cat, a fish, a bird, or a hamster, because these animals are, for the most part, kind of cute and...

In-Your-Face Influence Peddling
on Nov 9, 2009 in General Based on how slowly financial reform is going, how few people and firms have been punished for indiscretions that helped bring about the worst financial crisis this century, and, most of all, how much public money has been thrown its...

'The Least Bad of Many Bad Choices'
on Nov 7, 2009 in Debt It's not quite Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief -- in fact, it's more like two -- but it seems that at least some mainstream media types have stopped drinking the Keynesian Kool-Aid. They are beginning to accept that an exponential...