Archive for January 1st, 2009

Let The Games Begin

The 111th Congress convenes on Monday. If you are in any sort of business, in fact if you are a citizen of this country or you happen to be a citizen of the world and believe that what happens in the U.S. has more than a passing impact on you then you might want to […]

The Euro And The Economic Landscape-Two Sober Assessments

Here are a couple of thought provoking articles from the Telegraph.co.uk, just in case you start burning out on football. The first is by the always interesting Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and it talks about the first ten years of the Euro. Assumed to be doomed to failure by many, the Euro has survived and prospered and […]

Russia Cuts Off Ukraine’s Gas

In case you missed this, the war of words between the Ukraine and Russial over the formers gas supply from the latter culminated in Russian cutting off the Ukraine today. The ostensibly centers around a pricing dispute between the two although political tensions have been high for years and certainly played a part. The gas […]

Did The Fed Do An About Face On GMAC?

Not that it makes a whit of a difference, but for the record, the GMAC note exchange program failed rather miserably to reach it goal of converting 75% of its debt to preferred stock. The company announced yesterday that about 59% of the debt had been tendered. Nevertheless, GMAC has attained bank holding company status […]

Don’t Feed The Animals

Zoos almost universally have a sign that warns against feeding the animals. The point being that you destroy the natural fear animals have of humans and can cause them to begin to expect food from humans. We might be inadvertently causing the same sort of behaviour with our embrace of government intervention in the economy. Exhibit 1 […]

Microsoft Forgot About Leap Year

I’m no techie so if I’m off base some of you are more than welcome to correct my view, but how in the world does a software programmer at Microsoft forget that 2008 was a leap year? It seems that Microsoft’s portable media player, Zune, froze up all over the world yesterday. The problem? According […]

Adios 2008

Time is a precious thing and the years pass too quickly. We are all allocated too few. Thus, I am always reluctant to say goodbye to one and unlike many others, I’m not inclined to say that it’s good to see 2008 pass into history. It was, no doubt a rough year, but as I reflected […]