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Friday, May 27, 2011

Hell has a special section for Serbian butchers. The Rat finally comes out of his hole.

BTW it was the United States who finally intervened and stopped the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia and received no thanks at all from the rest of the world. Some say the Serbians coughed him up for membership in the European Union. Membership indeed...





http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304066504576347290876555476.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop

Greece on the brink.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576343053520121080.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Friday, May 20, 2011

From Peter Wallison...


In a May 3 note to clients, Michael Cembalest, the Chief Investment Officer of JPMorgan Chase, revised his 2009 account of what caused the financial crisis. Under the general heading of “Retractions,” he wrote:

“US Agencies played a larger role in the housing crisis than we first reported. In January 2009, I wrote that the housing crisis was mostly a consequence of the private sector… However, over the last 2 years, analysts have dissected the housing crisis in greater detail. What emerges from new research is something quite different: government agencies now look to have guaranteed, originated or underwritten 60% of all “non-traditional” mortgages, which totaled $4.6 trillion in June 2008. What’s more, this research asserts that housing policies instituted in the early 1990s were explicitly designed to require US Agencies to makhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife much riskier loans, with the ultimate goal of pushing private sector banks to adopt the same standards.”

Cembalest’s account (see pages 3 and 4 of the attached paper) cites the forensic study by Ed Pinto of AEI and my dissent from the majority report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

He concludes: “As regulators and politicians consider a wide range of actions designed to stabilize the global financial system, some reflection on the role that policy itself played in the collapse would seem like a critical part of the process. It’s not clear that it is.”

Read the full report here.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

From Greg Mankiw's blog re: the stimulus bill. Thanks to Dr. Rothman for pointing this out.



Summary from the paper referred to on the blog: Our benchmark results suggest that the ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs. State and local government jobs were saved because ARRA funds were largely used to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment. The majority of destroyed/forestalled jobs were in growth industries including health, education, professional and business services.



http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2011/05/evaluating-arra.html

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

R.I.P Newt Gingrich for President.


The dirty b*stard served his wife with divorce papers while she was in the cancer ward. Real prince eh? Now he violates Reagan's 11th commandment for Republicans.
Good bye and good luck.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576325600063166340.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_t

Sunday, May 1, 2011

THE VICTORS!!!

I did not win the Alumni Golf Tourney this year. I lost by a shot to these folks...from left grad students Justin Britt and Avery Long and their friend John Campbell who owns Chanello's pizza here in Greenville. Missing from the photo is Todd Howell, my habadasher from Coffman's Men's Wear. I have begged him to play for three years. He finally does and beats me. First-time starters and bastards all and they knock the King off his Throne. The winning score was 14 under.

In the first picture I look like Jack Nicholson as the Joker in Batman. In the second picture I look like the Pillsbury dough boy with John Daly pants. Hey, that's show biz baby!