That’s what they call it when the casino’s comp their “whales” (high rollers) with free chips.  Because they know that once they burn through the free money, they will dig into their own pockets to enable their addiction.
It’s as old as the angler’s practice of chumming the waters to start the fish on a feeding […]

This issue will not go away quietly, as evidenced by the reply to my Meltdown, Part II posting last week.  Our alert reader, Toli, is a perpetual scold with a mission to expose my fallacious insights and conclusions.
Unfortunately for me, he is often better informed and highly articulate on many of these issues.
But not this […]

A highlight of Thomas Woods’ “Meltdown” is his history of currency debasement.
It goes back to Roman emperors, who clipped coins while mandating that the new, diminished coins must be accepted as legal tender.
Of course, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
It’s astonishing to think that not that long ago both our coinage […]

The market got a nice bounce when Ben Bernanke was appointed for a second four-year term as head of the Federal Reserve Board.
Wait for the other shoe to drop…
…when the Fed must once again begin to raise interest rates when we take up the slack in the economy.
Expect the market to get slammed— if and […]

If health care is a right, than surely shelter and clothing are as well.
I am indebted to Craig Karpel’s op/ed in the 8/17/09 Wall Street Journal (p. A11) who takes the heretical view that we are not paying enough for health care…and that it is further a critical growth component in our economy.  And his […]

At the heart of the current debate is the core philosophical issue…
Is there an absolute right to health care?
John Mackey, the savvy and controversial CEO at Whole Foods (aka “Whole Paycheck”) has stirred a hornet’s nest, and incensed his uber-liberal customer base by denying that such a right exists in his Wall Street Journal editorial,  […]

You’d think that with all the sub-prime loan scandals no one would still be working that angle.
Think again.
The FHA,  a product of FDR’s New Deal legislation, is alive and well, and may in fact account for one third of all loan originations this year.
For the seriously credit compromised, FHA loans require 10% cash down, but […]

America is no longer the world’s manufacturing powerhouse.   We’ve subcontracted out that heavy lifting to China.
But we still excel in the softer disciplines–especially marketing and advertising.
But you’d never know it from the ham-handed manner in which the administration is trying to persuade the country to adopt health care rationing.
We have an administration still in campaign […]