I’m not a professional historian. Neither are you probably. But there isn’t anyone reading this who does not remember the bubble in the stock market during 2005, 2006, and early 2007. And since virtually everyone has these first-hand memories, it should be abundantly clear what we should have learned from them. In those earlier years, market movers on Wall Street were making huge salaries and bonuses...

The California budget package has passed through the State Senate and is currently heading has passed through the State Assembly, with passage expected later today. But as Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters points out, this is only a short term solution as California is now on a 5 or 6 month budget cycle. Some parts of the deal that took money from local governments was taken out of the final package so that...

This just in. Wall Street banks which have paid back federal bailout funds are stockpiling billions of dollars to pay employee bonuses that at the present rate would exceed compensation levels before risky trading plunged the industry into a meltdown last year. It’s business as usual, President Barack Obama said mockingly at his Wednesday night press conference. “With respect to compensation, I’d...

According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, there will not be a vote on health care reform prior to the August recess. Reid seems to be accepting what everyone has already sensed, that it simply is not going to be possible to get a vote before the August recess begins. President Obama doesn’t seem to agree on the subject though, he indicated that he will still be pushing for a vote in the next few...

Ever since a young, dynamic and charismatic President named John F. Kennedy realized that a televised press conferences could be a potent political weapon in talking directly to the American people and communicating substance as well as charisma, it has been a political weapon Presidents have used with varying degrees of success — including some uses of that backfired. Is President Barack Obama now in...

Conspiracy theories know no political boundaries. The assassinations of President Lincoln and Kennedy and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are replete with theories still being debated today. But, the current so-called “birther” flap over President Obama boggles rationality. And, therein rests the problem with all conspiracy theorists: They won’t accept factual documentation. In Obama’s...

Gidget the Chihuahua, Taco Bell star, has died. She was 15 years old. The owner of Studio Animal Services in Castaic says Gidget suffered a stroke late Tuesday and had to be put down. This little dog caused controversy when she appeared in Taco Bell ads with a male voice-over, saying “Yo quiero Taco Bell,” in Spanish: “I want Taco Bell.” It made my whole family laugh to see that cute...

One might wonder, did the exhibition for money, beatings, and slavery of creatures, lead to ‘hey good idea,’ let’s do the same to vulnerable humans? Human slaves of every race, the Scots and Irish tribes and the clans to the British, the underclass of peasant farmers under Rome, the Africans taken by their own kings, the Aztec and Mayans and Inkans, also enslaved by their own kings, modern...

We’ve all heard the same tragic stories. Some of us have even seen it played out. A couple decides to make their lives happier by drinking heavily. It works nicely for awhile. Then one partner sees the dangers and backs away, while the other doesn’t have the will or the ability to do so, leaving his or her mate to mourn a foolish collective error. We’re seeing something akin to that when it...

I am shocked to discover this morning I am a victim of the on-going budget cuts in California’s MediCal system. It seems so simple on the surface but in reality is a life-threatening disaster. I am a diabetic low-income senior. My health is dependent on testing my blood glucose levels to determine the dosages of insulin I require to maintain a normal life. This is achieved by pricking blood from a finger...

Those who have read my prior posts on Mr. Savage are aware that I am far from a fan of his program. I find him highly offensive, homophobic and racist. I think he is a jerk and if his radio show were to vanish from the planet tomorrow morning I would not mourn in the least. However there are some things I like even less than Mr. Savage and one of those things is censorship in the name of political correctness....

Tens of thousands of California’s poor children, welfare recipients and elderly will lose some if not all healthcare benefits as a result of a budget deal to close a $26.3 billion deficit brokered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders. Prisoners will go free, property taxes collected by county governments will be snatched by the state and oil drilling will resume off the Santa Barbara...

Earlier this morning President Obama came out to speak on health care reform so I thought it a proper topic for a posting today. I think it goes without saying that everyone agrees the current system is a mess and needs changes. We are spending billions, if not trillions, of dollars on health care and yet we still have millions of Americans without coverage and millions more with coverage that doesn’t...

by Walter Brasch Marie Antoinette, contrary to popular opinion, never said a solution for the starving masses of revolutionary France in the late 18th century was, “Let them eat cake.” But, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) apparently said something close to it. At a public meeting, one of Grassley’s constituents asked him, “Why is your insurance so much cheaper than my insurance and so much...

It looks like California ‘leaders’ have reached a tentative deal to settle the 2009-10 budget. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders reached a tentative budget compromise Monday to plug a $26.3 billion deficit by making hefty cuts in education, health and welfare services, and taking billions of dollars from county governments. The plan also...

News flash: Anyone who says the health care bills now in Congress are doomed to failure. Or those who proclaim health reform is on the horizon. I say bunk. I have read portions of the versions of the House and Senate bills until the words became blurred as if viewing the world through cataracts. Frankly, I gave up in despair. I came to the only sane conclusion possible: Wait until the House and Senate bills...

Let us now make one of our regular visits to Economist World, a distant world where California’s medical marijuana experiment has apparently become adopted as the everyday alternative to a morning mocha. In a column I wrote yesterday, I pointed out how utterly detached from the rest of us economists have become. And today a number of them, perhaps having stumbled upon a new bud of unusual merit, seemed...

A recent poll shows that support for President Obama’s economic programs is weakening. While 56% still say they think his policies will help the economy that is a big drop from the 72% he had in an earlier poll. He has also seen his ‘tax and spend’ label grow by 11% and six in ten surveyed do not support additional stimulus spending. While clearly 56% is still a solid support level for Obama...

Forty years ago today, July 20th, 1969 and for a instant in time we were united in celebration. I was still a baby when this happened but I have spoken to family members who talk about how everyone was watching and holding their breath. Children watched their fathers cry as they watched a human being step foot on the surface of the moon. Indeed I don’t know that any of us who were not alive that day can...

Of late we’ve been hearing a lot about an economic recovery. No one seems to know exactly when this might come to pass, but those who think it might happen soon all seem to agree it will be a “jobless recovery.” The economy will start to grow again, in other words, but for a variety of reasons this will not occur in tandem with a lot of presently unemployed people going back to work. In thinking...

I have been trying to teach myself graphic design out of a book. It is slow going. Learning things that have many parts combined with abstract ideas take me much reading, re-reading and re-re-reading. I can learn more easily it seems if there are applicable pictures of whatever the learning is… and living poeple actually moving their eyes and hands to make the expert motions so I can see how the body...

The withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from within Iraqi cities is not going too well. Whether it’s a language translation of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement or grandstanding by the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, is unclear. U.S. commanders are complaining their hands are tied defending themselves from attacks by Shiite militias or Sunni insurgents. Skeptics, both those...

Big developments In Iran. Meir Javedanfar, writing on RealClearWorld: The most important takeaway message from Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s Friday sermon in Iran today is that the regime now faces one of the most important crisis since the inception of the Islamic Republic. This is in direct contrast to President Ahmadinejad, who has dismissed the events as marginal and minor incidents. By using the...

People wonder about mothers, human and animal, who walk away from their babies… who refuse and do not nurture their young, who literally walk away, stray out late, leave the child in the bush, in the car, at home alone unable to reach the doorknob and without food… the children cry themselves to sleep, furry or human child, matters not… each needs a mother, her warmth, her regard, her watching...

As President Obama’s personal popularity sinks to the 50-yard line, his landmark climate change and healthcare bills in deep doo doo, the stimulus bill tied up in bureaucratic knots and his continual flummoxing over Bush Administration torture and secret CIA operations, one thing remains certain. The public has an insatiable thirst for the guy. It ranges from the fanatical extreme right fringe which went...