Alkahest

Okay, commenting on global finance is really not my usual shtick, but I’ve got to agree with Barry Ritholtz that there’s something odd in this NY Times article on China’s role in the U.S. housing bubble.  The article describes Ben Bernanke’s 2005 theory that a savings “glut” is driving up the demand for American to [...]

I wonder if the N&O would print this?
Dear Editors,
I have read with some alarm your recent stories describing a dramatic change to our way of life.  Specifically, I refer to those stories of our poor benighted multi-millionaires and billionaires who are having to downgrade their lifestyle in response to the crash of the financial markets [...]

Two weeks ago as Obama won a resounding victory both in the country as a whole and even more decisively in California, Californians also passed Proposition 8.  Prop 8 was an amendment to the California constitution that defined marriage as an institution between one man and one woman.  With the passage of Prop 8, 18,000 [...]

Still not official from the Election Board, but the AP has canvased all of the counties and found that there aren’t enough provisional ballots for McCain to overcome Obama’s 13000+ vote lead.
Amazing

My mother tells a story about my first day in first grade (and sadly, I’m more likely to remember stories of my childhood than the actual childhood).  I go off to school, probably all 70s style - plaid pants, mop haircut, etc., and when I come home she asks me about school.  In particular, how [...]

Polls just closed on the West coast.  With that, everyone calls Washington, Oregon and California for Obama - Obama wins!  And I’m heading to bed.  I would still like to see who wins NC.  It looks like it’ll be close, but we should know in the morning.  If I’m doing really good, I might stay [...]

I headed over to the polling place to vote this morning.  As of 8:30am or so, there were no lines at our precinct.  But then, that’s not too surprising for a small precinct in a non-populous county.  Chronological observations:

It’s raining, but the fall colors are wonderful.
There were a fair number of cars parked at the [...]

Like a lot of other people, I’ve been pretty stressed out recently.  Nothing too terrible is going on for me personally, but I’m concerned about the U.S. financial situation, I’m concerned about how that will affect me and my company (if at all) and I’m concerned about the current political happenings in part since I [...]

Okay, this is probably the last of the foreseeable posts on the Wallstreet bailout - and probably the most serious.
I spend the last week extremely pissed off about the bailout. Here were a bunch of idiots absurdly inflating the price of housing, with other idiots actually loaning them money to do so, more idiots [...]

As a public service announcement, I am hereby warning the people I know that in light of the bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and the entire freaking banking system, all of which will cost tax payers about $1 trillion, the next person that tells me that deregulating markets will provide a solution to [...]