Follow-Up Thursday

HR3: “Ok ok, we’ll take that word out if you’re going to get pissy about it. Damn feminists and liberals! We’d better get some concessions in return!” It’s still a bad bill that should not become law.

Banking Corruption: Oh yeah, JP Morgan knew Madoff wasn’t quite legit, problem? Elizabeth Warren still needs to head the CFFB, and to hell with Timmy Geithner. Did you know that the highest paid guy at Bank of America is still Angel Mozilo? The same guy whose business practices cost B of A billions of dollars last quarter alone?? It sure would be nice if someone would enforce the law regarding foreclosure fraud.

I felt a disturbance in the Force, as if a million wingnuts’ heads exploded and were suddenly silenced: The Obama administration is investigating whether the Health Insurance Reform bill can be used to require insurers to provide — not just cover, but provide freecontraceptives and family planning services!

On the Tea Party: Excuse me, I seem to have fallen into some alternate universe where George W. Bush is talking sense, and more or less agreeing with Howard Dean. Does the letter J exist in this universe?

On the Economy: Google got 75,000 job applications in one week because the economy is soooo good, right? At least demand for temps is up (pro tip: I’ve gotten job offers working at temp agencies; they’re a good way to earn a little money, get your feet wet, and maybe end up in a working interview!). On the whole, the employment situation is still “a lighter shade of gray.” The number of people using food stamps is up 14% from last year. So yeah, there’s a teensy disconnect between Wall Street and Your Street.

Will of the People: We want alternative energy, and the jobs we hope will be created by it, and the lower power/fuel bills, and just maybe the cleaner world. This is one of those “excuse me, the center is way off there to the left” moments.

On Education: You know, maybe teachers would do a better job if they had a decent curriculum to work from! Oh, now that’s crazy talk; everybody knows a really good teacher re-invents the wheel every semester…..

In Closing: Republicans hate puppies; they hate the environment too (Nixon was a dirty hippie!!) homeless shelters sometimes break up families; anchor babies; Weird Al; China; and VW is trying to win me back after making the Jetta look like ass:

New Years Health Resolutions?

Alright, I do know that it’s not exactly the 1st. But by now, some of you who had health, weight, or fitness resolutions for the New Year are starting to wonder if it’s really worth the effort. For you, I present these items.

Maybe your resolution was just to “eat healthier.” Well, one of the few things just about every health and nutrition expert can agree on is that fruits and vegetables are healthy — and most of us eat too few of them. And by “most of us,” I mean everybody from vegans (who often eat lots of grains) to paleo eaters (who are likely to eat handfuls of nuts and lots of meat). If you were unimpressed by the thought that eating more of them could make you “prettier,” perhaps you would like to know that it is also linked to a lower risk of dying from ischemic heart disease.

I’ve been an advocate of weight bearing exercise for years, and I like this article from BlogHer. I admit, I hate the picture. I know it was selected to be all non-threatening and get ladies used to the idea that they can lift without looking like, oh, I dunno, Gladys.* But as the article says, emphasis mine:

I lost inches everywhere – my thighs went down an inch each, my waist an inch and a half – and I lost 7% body fat. The jeans I am wearing today are a full two sizes smaller than the ones I was wearing 2 months ago. And I’m pretty sure I don’t look like any of those muscle-bound gals in the bodybuilding competitions. At least, no one has said the word “bulky” in my presence. This combination of heavy lifting and high-intensity intervals is the closest thing to a fitness miracle I’ve ever found.

If you aren’t ready to buy weights, there’s always body weight exercises like push-ups and squats. In fact, there are many regimens designed for use without any equipment more complicated than a chair.

Maybe instead of lifting weight, you want to lose weight. There’s this L.A. Times item on whether we can blame the obesity epidemic on excessive carbohydrate consumption. Nobody could blame you for wanting to lose weight; after all obesity is blamed for 16,000 extra deaths annually and $7000 in lost productivity and medical costs. Want to be horrified? Check out this infographic from Men’s Fitness:

Obesity
Via: Medicalcoding.org

Seriously, don’t give up on the New Years Resolution right now.

In closing: pre-existing conditions; a horrifying read; even more amusing given the source; bubble; science, or future made for TV movie; damn straight; overwhelming support for a handful of sensible “gun control” laws (including enforcing the ones on the books); they laughed at me when I suggested China could foreclose; banks can’t even follow the law when dealing with one another; I’ve known people who weren’t this bright; and shrimp farming.

*Make no mistake. This woman worked very, very hard for hours every day to get this look. I can’t say I know whether she uses any hormones or not. She is to be admired for her dedication. However, most women I know don’t want to look quite so muscular. And trust me, even working at my level means just forget woven shirts.

Revisiting the BAMTOR Principle

Banks Always Make Their Own Rules, and this has been a banner week for demonstrating it!

You’ve heard of course about the lady who arrived at her second home to discover new locks and all her stuff missing, including her late husband’s ashes, right?

What about Deutsche Bank agreeing to pay a bunch of fines for helping wealthy Americans dodge their taxes?

Arizona and Nevada are both suing Bank of America over loan adjustments, and the Nevada AG has evidence that B of A has engaged in massive deceptive trade practices.

In California, Wells Fargo has been forced to admit that “pick a payment” was a bad idea and strongarmed into modifying a whopping 15,000 homeowners (sounds much more impressive if you say $2 billion in mortgages, doesn’t it?).

Meanwhile, the federal agencies that should be regulating the banks and protecting the citizens are protecting the banks from the citizens. The Federal Reserve has actually blocked new foreclosure regulations.

Even MarketWatch suggests that the banks have pulled on over on all of us.

We don’t just need rules for Big Banks, we need them to be forced to follow the law. Put a few bankers in jail, and I imagine the rest will be more likely to resist criminal activity.

In Closing: less American Pie; when Pat Robertson says to decriminalize pot, you know the War on Drugs is a failure; duh; security threat; Schneier; look, there’s never going to be a “get out of the security line free” card, so stop wishing for one!; gee, whoda thought?; good idea, wish somebody thought of it during the Clinton Administration; and idiot motorists drove through wet cement, getting stuck and delaying a project that would have been open in time for Christmas until probably Easter. Hope they’re real proud of themselves.

On Being a Responsible Consumer

I grew up in a household that values the power of the consumer. I have never crossed a picket line. My father refused to so much as ride in a Mercedes because of what the company did in World War 2, before he was born. I’m not sure, but I think when Mercedes bought Chrysler, he sold his 10 year old New Yorker in favor of a Ford. He had purchased it used. I have at least forgiven VW for things done over 60 years ago.

Alright then. Just about the time that Wal-Mart (mostly) rehabilitated it’s corporate image, Target got itself in hot water with the liberal/progressive communities with ill-considered campaign donations, and stayed there after some Halloween ads that were considered in poor taste by Parent-Americans. Ok, fine, looks like Wal-Mart has moved to be the lesser of two evils, at least until the other day when they “teamed up” with the Department of Homeland Security to “catch terrorists” (remember, terrorists do “suspicious” things). Clearly, no officials from the DHS have ever actually been inside a Wal-Mart.

So where am I supposed to shop? Albertsons apparently wants to get rid of unions; is it alright to shop at Smith’s or Von’s? Will it be acceptable next week? Even if I could afford to shop at Whole Foods, there’s still the scandal surrounding their purchase of Wild Oats. I could go down to the farmer’s market, but unlike those amazing markets in cities like San Francisco, there’s just not a whole lot available. This of course assumes that the vendors at my local farmer’s market aren’t practicing the exact same contemptible business practices of the worst factory farms. “Hey Mr. Farmer! You don’t mind if I drive on out to your farm and see if your workers are legal before I spend $3 on onions, do you??”

And now I’m supposed to get rid of my Amazon.com account because they decided that the rest of their clients were more important than one controversial one? Screw that!

Since I am clearly not allowed to shop anyplace convenient or close, that means I’ll be using a bunch more gas: do I buy it from the guys who polluted Alaska, the guys who poisoned the Gulf of Mexico, one of many that is stirring up Middle East unrest, or the Venezuelan “dictator”? How do I reconcile my bigger “carbon footprint” with avoiding businesses whose practices I don’t like? Do I buy the electric car from Japan, or the American one that unlocks all my doors and puts my life in danger every time I put it in park?

Things get even worse if you want to boycott products by a certain company. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Proctor and Gamble has done something you disapprove of: here’s everything you must avoid if you want to vote with your wallet! You’ll have an easier time getting by without Colgate-Palmolive’s products. If you decide you won’t give money to P&G, Colgate, or Unilever, give up any hope of cleanliness. Ever. We’ll just call you Pig-Pen. Unless you prefer “Dirty Hippie.”

And let’s not get started on banks! Even if you are willing to endure the hassle of changing banks, the only way to be sure your new bank won’t be taken over by one of the big players is to give up and bank with a “too big to fail” institution and just live with the BAMTOR Principle. It’s worse with mortgages: you can’t control who buys the note, you can’t control who your servicer is, and you may not be able to stop them from claiming you owe money even if you don’t.

So how exactly am I supposed to “vote with my wallet”?

I’m deadly serious about this. It has literally gotten to the point where I cannot avoid doing business with companies I don’t like. How can I possibly stick it to the Oligarchy when I can’t go a day and a half without giving them my money or using their products and services?

When Ted Kaczynsky starts to look sane, the nation has gone crazy.

In the Shorties of Madness

What’s Your Angle: In what I fervently hope will be the last thing I have to say about Sharron Angle ever, Angle announces that she won’t be answering any questions asked by the pesky [local] media until she is a Senator, darn it. And Channel 8? You are so not invited to her Election Night Party, so there! Listen sweetie, if you don’t want people asking you questions in public, don’t be a public figure.

Let common sense prevail: Did you know that something in your body is very likely subject to a United States Patent? Good thing that big corporations haven’t figured out a way to charge you for that. Anyway, it looks like the United States may revisit the idea that my genes and your genes can be somebody else’s intellectual property.

I keep saying this: sugary drinks are not good for you.

Fail: When trying to steal copper from a vacant home, make sure the power is in fact off first. Oh, and leave the kids at home rather than sitting in the car waiting for you.

They’re mad as hell: and worse yet, they think they have some right to hurt or even kill you if you dare to disagree with them and their vision of a Utopian past-future. I’m beginning to wonder if my “liberal” respect for life — endorsed by the 10 Commandments and Jesus himself! — might need some retooling in the face of reality.

It’s the fraud, stupid: That’s the short version. It’s starting to look like the various state Attorneys General don’t like the BAMTOR Principle and may even hold banks accountable for their criminal actions, even if the SEC merely thinks the law is some sort of a suggestion.

I realize you may never need to know this: Table Etiquette for Formal Dinners in Japan.

This could turn out badly: So most people aren’t willing to relocate for a job anymore. More to the point, they can’t relocate for a job because they can’t sell their house for anything close to what they paid for it (advantage to renters?). At what point will job seekers decide to take the job and walk away from the house they can’t afford without work?

Looking forward to it: a long overdue re-work of Power90, a follow-on to Insanity, and more details on P90X MC2.

Ezra is correct again: Since most people retire because they have to rather than because they want to, raising the retirement age is a really dumb idea.

Urine Drug Tests Must Stop: a woman had her newborn taken away because she foolishly ate a bagel with poppy seeds on it. Why do we tolerate businesses, schools, and government entities making decisions about our lives based on such an inaccurate test?

Bloody Romans: “I don’t get nothin from the government!” Except of course for my mortgage interest deduction, student loans, unemployment insurance, Social Security, VA benefits, Medicare, G.I. Bill benefits….

Clearly deregulation is the answer: after all airlines would surely keep planes in good repair all by themselves if there were no pesky regulations requiring it.

Nothing left for me to say: Comrade E.B. Misfit said it all.

A reason to encourage absentee voting: nobody to harass you at the polls for being too brown.

Hope you are having fun: at the ColbertStewart rally.

Blast from the past: old computer equipment ads.

And last but not least: at least they are honest about it!

So remember to vote this Tuesday if you haven’t already. And remember my handy tip for voter initiatives, just say no.

Shorties in the Sky

Impressive: America needs roughly $2,200,000,000,000 in repairs to things like roads, tunnels, bridges and the like. You don’t suppose doing something like that might result in some kind of fiscal stimulus?

Stick to feeding the poor and preaching peace: young people increasingly turned off by the hateful political crap spewed by many churches.

Do Not Grope the Pilot: He would also like you to not take naked pictures of him, and moreover he would like you to assume he is not a terrorist.

Is it time to resign yet?: Senator John Ensign (the guy who isn’t Harry Reid) raised a whopping $18,000 last quarter. Unfortunately he had to shell out over a half million dollars in legal fees.

Color By Numbers: There are more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. You don’t really believe that’s because the overwhelming majority of crimes are committed by black people, do you? You don’t suppose that there could be just a wee tiny bit of racism going on?

I Dare you?: D.A.R.E., encouraging children to put their parents in prison and themselves in foster care, all for the unworthy goal of the long since lost “War On Drugs.” Heck, we couldn’t even win the “War On Drugs” by re-destroying the #1 opium producing nation in the world!

Go Ahead, Make the Case for Medicare For All: Some insurance companies are threatening to stop writing policies if they are forced to follow the law in 2011 instead of a largely theoretical future date of their choosing. Yeah, you just go on and do that, suckers. In the meantime, the Feds are taking on Michigan Blue Cross for stifling competition in a way that raises prices. Nice to see them the Feds actually giving a darn about normal people over corporations for a change.

Obligatory Items on the Economy: Reich’s Perfect Storm; donations down 11% at the top 400 American charities; the problem with the economy so that absolutely anybody can understand it.

No Woman Should Have to Put Up with This Crap:Some students and the Yale Women’s Center board complained after pledges were videotaped last week, chanting about necrophilia and a specific sexual act.” Pledge activities have been suspended, but as far as I am concerned, some wealthy young [insert offensive plural noun] needs to get suspended or expelled. Let them explain to their daddies and mommies what they did on videotape and why. “Boys will be boys” my ass!

Password protection for your internet connection is a good idea: “Deputies arrested Candice Miller only after they raided the wrong house. Investigators busted into the neighbors’ house suspecting they were sending child porn. Turns out Miller’s neighbors didn’t secure their wireless Internet connection.”

The Difference Between Theft and Piracy: boils down to what you’ve got afterward.

If Only: Myth Busted! Can we move on to where you were born?

Smart people drink more: Alcohol consumption correlates with intelligence.

I guess I know what I’m wearing tomorrow: purple. Relevant.

It’s less annoying than air travel: record number of riders on Amtrak.

No I don’t really need this: but a pizza cutter shaped like the Enterprise is still pretty cool.

I promise it’s the only thing I’ll say about it here: (But expect a post over at BridgetMagnus.com about foreclosures later) Ladies and gentlemen I present the dumbest thing anybody has said about a moratorium on foreclosures! “For instance, in Cleveland, where there are over 18,000 vacant homes, lives Millie Davis who recently earned her Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from Cleveland State University and just bought her first home – one that had fallen into foreclosure and sat abandoned for years. Had a blanket moratorium been in place, that sale would have fallen through — not only deferring her dream of homeownership but leaving neighbors on the block to stand by and watch as their property values continue to plummet.” Now then first of all her Master’s degree couldn’t possibly have less to do with the situation. I’ve got one of those myself and a fat lot of good it’s done me. Second, I don’t think anybody is talking about going back and examining the paperwork on homes that “sat abandoned for years.” That is all water under the bridge. The priority right now is to make sure that the banks or other entities that are foreclosing on homes a) have the legal right to do so and b) follow all the applicable laws when they do it (and they probably don’t). Failing to find this out now could result in millions of homes that can’t be sold at all because nobody can prove who really owns them. Oh, and c) “vacant” and “foreclosed” are two different things, which is something I would have expected the Secretary of HOUSING and Urban Development to know.

And one last thing: great descriptions of things on TV.

Do Not Panic

Yesterday, two elementary students were injured when a nutcase wearing black and spewing nonsense about the President opened fire with a gun.

Mark my words, by Monday some parent will be insisting that outdoor recess be abolished as “too dangerous.” The argument will be nothing more than “What if something like this happens again?? Better safe than sorry!”

But before we start herding all the children into the gymnasium, let’s look at some facts. According to these guys, there are over 38,000,000 elementary school students in the United States. The nice folks at the Census (plus my pocket calculator) say it’s only 37,811,132. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just say 38 million. This doesn’t include high school students.

Now then, how many students have been injured by guns at an elementary school? This is sufficiently rare that a Google search for “elementary school gun” turns up a collection of stories of kids expelled for having guns, toy guns, water guns, BB guns, stories of gun scares, etc.. Add the word “injured” and yesterday’s item fills most of the first page. If we go to Wikipedia’s page on “school shootings”, we find that in the last three years exactly 34 people have been killed in school shootings, including incidents on college campuses and high schools, including faculty and other adult victims. In fact, there have only been 27 school shooting incidents on elementary, middle, junior high, and grade school campuses in the United States ever, including yesterday.

So, we have a literal less than one in a million chance of being shot at school. You have more chance of dying today in a car wreck than being involved in a school shooting ever.

By way of contrast, an American child has a one in 3 chance of being overweight or obese, putting them at increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and a host of other life shortening problems.

You want to play the “won’t somebody think of the children” card? Send them outside for recess. Let them go play.

In Closing: Could you pass the citizenship test?; People other than me are calling the foreclosure mess fraud (perhaps the BAMTOR Principle will crumble and people will go to prison?); if everybody eats there then how come I never see them?; disconnected; demented; decline of business casual (it’s all your fault!); and smell like a monster.

Follow-Up and Vegas Miscellany

In a way I wish I had waited until today to write The BAMTOR Principle. By some weird coincidence a bunch of other people have also noticed that Banks Always Make Their Own Rules that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the law. It turns out that many people knew that Wall Street was selling mortgage backed securities that were destined to fail. But what HuffPo didn’t bother to point out is that what those banks and brokerages did was in violation of the law. This blatant double standard — “laws are for little people” — will continue until the Feds start putting people in jail, levying huge fines against individuals who signed off on breaking the law, and states sue for the right to prosecute violations of state law.

In light of this, the banksters have the chutzvah to say that breaking up “too big to fail” institutions would create more risk. Yeah, more risk for their jobs.

As far as the economy goes, it turns out that 74% of Americans agree with me that regardless of what the government says about GDP, we are still in a recession. It’s getting more obvious that the numbers are being gamed. But don’t expect any administration in the near future to start talking about what inflation, unemployment, and GDP really are, because then we would all understand what deep doo-doo we are standing in and probably vote a lot of bums out.

Of course you need to be careful about voting bums out, as Christine O’Donnell and Nevada’s own Sharron Angle illustrate. Congruent Angle? Sorry I’m running out of Angle jokes.

And that brings me to an armload of local interest items. Let’s start with the spectacular view from the Cosmopolitan. Down the Strip a little bit, be careful about sitting by the pool at CityCenter’s Vdara, or you may experience their unique “death ray.” If you are planning on getting off the Strip, you will want to at least look over these amusing tips. One of the restaurants I visit regularly has been reviewed again, and I only recognize two of the things they were served. I haven’t talked a lot about it, but I am keeping an eye on the case of Erik Scott, killed in broad daylight by Metro in front of a Costco in one of our most yuppified neighborhoods. By the way, last week’s CSI did a great job of addressing it and not addressing it.

In Closing: electromagnetic spectrum; lies your teachers told you; cheap food costs dear; abortion does not have dire emotional consequences; Israel cannot have its cake and eat it too; people don’t like health insurance reform because it didn’t go far enough!; True Mud; a few words on taxes; Professor DeLong nails the Republican view of America; have we tried the simple stuff first?; Jack LaLanne is 96 (was I the only one who noticed Drew Carey’s homage in the blue “speed suit”?); and medical ignorance.

The BAMTOR Principle

There’s a story I first heard told some years ago by Cokie Roberts. Perhaps you weren’t aware that both her parents were in the United States House of Representatives. Not at the same time, of course: her father was elected; upon his death her mother was nominated to take his vacated seat, and she was later re-elected several times in her own right. After she had been in the House for a while, she decided that she would like to have a condo in Washington where she could stay while Congress was in session. So she went down to the local bank to apply for a mortgage. She began to question some of the documents that were required of her, and the mortgage officer said they were required by federal law because she was a single woman applying for a mortgage. Rep. Boggs calmly replied something to the effect of “No dear, it’s against a federal law that I helped write!”

The BAMTOR Principle isn’t something that happens when language-challenged super-heroes get mad: it stands for Banks Always Make Their Own Rules. It was true in the mid-70s when Rep. Boggs tried to get a mortgage — how many women simply sighed and handed over the illegally-requested materials? Nothing has changed for the better.

This week GMAC, under it’s new identity as Ally Mortgage, announced that they were halting foreclosures in 23 states. A quick search revealed to me that those 23 states included every state where a foreclosure has to actually go in front of a judge, and many states where they must pass under the Sheriff’s eyes, but no states where it’s a simple matter of a Trustee’s Sale. The obvious conclusion is that their documents will not pass legal muster — but who cares if all you have to do is file papers with the County Recorder and have a sale?? It’s obvious to many observers that they failed to follow the law, in spite of “company policy” that they follow the law, and that this pattern of not giving a **** about the law has persisted for some number of years. Nor are they the only mortgage company with this problem.

Perhaps you’ve heard that Wells Fargo is trying to avoid the responsibility of selling homes they may or may not have the actual right to sell? Most people buy a home assuming that it is theirs and they can sell it to somebody else someday, but that might not be true here; regardless of how many places buyers initial the “bank addendum,” I smell a future lawsuit, particularly when the buyer’s mortgage company gets involved. No wonder banks prefer cash offers.

This brings up another interesting point of law that the banks don’t care to follow:

Now this little problem can be solved by title insurance, right? Well, guess what, some title insurers have exited the business, some others are starting to write policies with meaningful exceptions when they can’t go to the courthouse and find a clear chain of title. Oh, and Wells is trying to steer you towards their title insurer. What do you think the odds are that their title insurance policy doesn’t have exceptions?

A Federal law called RESPA says they can’t actually make you use their title company, but in practice good luck using any other title company. This particular fear is a little overblown because title companies use three standard policies, but the point is taken.

Nor is real estate the only realm where banks ignore the law. Earlier this month, remember that Goldman Scahs decided to graciously close down the proprietary trading unit that the financial services reform bill prohibited. And let’s not forget that back in the 90’s, the Citibank/Traveller’s merger was allowed go ahead most of a year before the actual law allowing such a merger was passed. There was barely a peep from regulators, who assumed that Congress would bend to the bankers’ wills.

When they can’t just outright break federal law without repercussions, they bend it. New rules on bank fees? Let’s just make some new fees!

Nor is it just Federal law that banks choose to ignore; they are perfectly willing to bypass state law as well. Bank of America (and Countrywide before them) has a nasty habit of foreclosing on the wrong house, mostly in Florida. As someone who lives in a neighborhood with a bunch of similar street names and its fair share of foreclosures, I can’t help but wonder if I need a better alarm system. Here in Nevada, we have a number of laws that banks choose to ignore, but since they are “federally regulated” I am told I have to take my complaints directly to the Comptroller of the Currency in Houston. Senator Ensign’s office was particularly condescending about it; if the lady I talked to could have patted me on the head through the phone, she likely would have.

The worst thing about the BAMTOR Principle is that Joe and Jane Average don’t really have a way to enforce good behavior with their wallets. Go ahead and try to open a checking account with a small, local or regional bank; perhaps you haven’t noticed that those smaller banks are disproportionally being shut down by the FDIC and sold to other banks that range from “huge” to “too big to fail.” Assuming you aren’t one of the millions of people who are “underwater” on their mortgage, sure you can get a new mortgage, but you can’t stop that mortgage company from selling your mortgage right back to the company you were trying to avoid!

Go ahead, feds. “Mull new rules.” The Bad Boys of Banking will just find new ways around the ones they don’t like until such time as the feds are willing to take a “tough love” approach, holding bankers responsible — putting people like department managers in jail or fining bankrupting sums of money where appropriate — and breaking up any institution so big that its failure would harm the economy.

In Closing: how abortion protests kill babies; add Michelle Obama and most of the White House Staff to the list of P90X people; where can I get one of these?; Good Samaritan; A question like “How to Lose a Million Jobs” will certainly get your attention; “Super-Rich Get Richer“? Oh good, I know everybody was worried about them; a fascinating read; “luck is not a business model“; more evidence that the insurance companies are doing all they can to subvert “reform“; fewer people working in 36 states, unemployment rises in 27 states, Nevada is still leading the pack; maybe they ought to read what Jesus really said someday; an interesting way of looking at things (h/t Calvin’s Mom); Sharron Angle is only a symptom of the craziness of American Politics; why fiscal stimulus isn’t working; and the Fed is trying to decide if — if! — they need to do more to fix the economy. Well, guys, look at today’s political cartoons and you tell me.

Oh yeah, and happy Autumnal Equinox.