Tuesday morning News Roundup
- ACORN has been blamed for a lot of the country’s woes lately. Well, it just so turns out that Senator John McCain attended an ACORN rally back in 2006.
- The stock market rallied over 900 points yesterday (largest one day jump) behind the news of the European Union and Britain buying up bank shares and securing intra-bank loans. The United States, never wanting to restrain raw capitalism, has been resistant to make such a move. By the way, no matter how much the stock market smiles upon the latest moves, we still have to fix the underlying problem. We need jobs. We also need the housing market to stabilize. None of the moves that I’ve seen so far have addressed either of these two issues.
- Congratulations to Paul Krugman. He has won the economic Nobel Prize. I have read his recent book, Conscience of a Liberal and it is outstanding. Krugman explains in easy-to-understand terms why the 1950s and 1960s were so successful in the United States. He also explains why we’re having the problems we are having today. Mr. Krugman explained patterns of worldwide trade during the late 1970s and 1980s. Again, congratulations to Mr. Krugman.
- Congressman Tim Mahoney (Democrat in Florida) has agreed to pay off his former mistress whom he fired from his staff. In case you’re not familiar with this story, Congressman Mahoney replaced Congressman Mark Foley when he resigned from Congress after it was discovered that he had solicited several of the young pages. I have no problem if you have a mistress. That is between you and your wife and, of course, your mistress. If you’re going to indulge in this type of activity it’s probably best for you not to be in Congress. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has called for an immediate investigation.
- Is it finally time for more regulation on Wall Street?
- One of the biggest problem I had with the $700 billion bailout is that there were no clear signs that anyone knew what to do with this money. Well, $250 billion appears to be earmarked to buy a significant portion of nine troubled US banks. European countries agreed to buy up their banks with the condition that CEOs had to step down. I see no such condition in this American proposal. Mirroring the European agreement, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has been given the task of guaranteeing interbank loans. I wonder how our money gets protected in these loan guarantees?
- Late Friday night, we found out that Governor Sarah Palin was guilty of using undue influence to try to fire Mark Wooten. To prove that she is as modest and as humble as the Bush administration, Governor Palin declared that she was exonerated. Nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe we, as Americans, should take some time out and introduce Governor Palin to the truth.
- Finally, the New York “football” Giants lost to the Cleveland Browns on Monday Night Football. This season is becoming more and more confusing. The New York Giants looked invincible through their first four games. They were playing excellent football on both offense and defense. The Cleveland Browns has looked relatively awful all year. They really haven’t been able to do anything right. They slapped the Giants around like they were the defending Super Bowl champs. As Chris Berman says, “That’s why they play the game.”
