My extensive business and legal background causes me to read a wide variety of publications on the Internet every day. I often find very good political analysis on many different business journals that is welcomed balance to the many extremely partisan political blogs out there. Naturally TMV is a excellent alternative to the extremism. Our country has abandoned a reasonably regulated free enterprise system...

The political Quote of the Day is a long quote from a post by Dick Polman that must be read in full. Titled “A Tale of Two Elections,” it looks at the 1991 election in Pennsylvania where a candidate clamoring for health care reform used the issue to stir voters up and win his race. Polman (as usual) doesn’t mince words. He suggests that a)this time health care reform is sandbagging the Democrats...

“What it is ain’t exactly clear,” to continue the line from Buffalo Springfield’s classic sixties tune. Marc Pascal’s recent post here at TMV about the “self-made hell of narcissism, greed, short-sightedness, arrogant ignorance, and an utter lack of a common civility or responsibility for our shared future” in which we find ourselves — largely as a result of decades...

As America’s bankers take a day of rest to honor the precepts of Martin Luther King comes the suggestion of an anomaly in their policy of equal-opportunity bloodsucking. A New York Times editorial finally catches up with the reality that “Retirees Saved the Banks,” a situation described here some time ago under the heading, “The Fed’s Financial Death Panels.” The Times explains...

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I have a Dream” speech in August 1963. This 17-minute movingly religious address was given in front of the Lincoln Memorial to the hundreds of thousands of people gathered at the National Mall in Washington DC. He stated his hope that someday his children would not be judged by the color of their skin but on the “content of their character.” His...

To see an article in China’s state-sanctioned media like this one is rare indeed – and it may signal a real sea-change in U.S.-China relations. Indeed, given the amount of U.S. debt Beijing holds, one might call it downright chilling. For China’s state-controlled Geographic Times, columnist Long Tao, described as a ‘senior strategic commentator,’ writes in part: In 30 years of...

WASHINGTON — In June 2008, before the financial implosions that would come a few months later, I asked two smart financiers who happened to be Republicans about the future of the seemingly shaky American economy. Defying the moment’s conventional predictions that we would somehow muddle through, one of them offered a dire and uncannily accurate forecast. He explained why banks would blow up,...

It has been said that disasters, such as the Haiti earthquake, bring out the best in people. If you have been reading my posts on governmental, U.S. military, civilian and private humanitarian and relief efforts being provided by some wonderful organizations and people to the desperate survivors in Haiti, I hope you’ll agree that this is true. As a matter of fact, while the 2009 recession caused a decline...

I particularly enjoy that the president has called his “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee” a fee. Banks know from fees… Twenty years ago Texas-based banking consultant Bill Strunk convinced banks that they should allow customers overdraw their accounts and charge them a fee to do it. He’s also credited with convincing clients to make checking accounts free to entice more customers. But high...

From the transcript of his weekly address: We want the taxpayers’ money back, and we’re going to collect every dime. That is why, this week, I proposed a new fee on major financial firms to compensate the American people for the extraordinary assistance they provided to the financial industry. And the fee would be in place until the American taxpayer is made whole. Only the largest financial firms with...

WASHINGTON — If you held a contest to pick the worst thing a politician could be called at this moment, my nominee would be Wall Street Liberal. That label has everything. I personally despise the way the noble liberal idea has been devalued, but face it: Conservatives have had great success in discrediting liberalism, to the point that most liberals dare not call themselves by their own name. ...

“If we ignore history, we are bound to bail it out again.” That was the opening note of the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission struck yesterday by its chairman, Phil Angelides, the former state treasurer of California. In an atmosphere that Madame Defarge would have loved, America’s bankers are now in the dock of public opinion, which has been boiling over more than a year after Bush and...

Whatever your view of John Maynard Keynes, or Keynesianism (mine is quite favorable) last week Planet Money did a terrific, brief but wonderfully complete and insightful piece on the origins of his thinking. Their guest: As great figures from history go, John Maynard Keynes should consider himself lucky, at least when it comes to his biography. His biographer, Lord Robert Skidelsky, is one of the best. His three-volume...

Why is it whenever there is a natural or man-made tragedy, Evangelical preacher Pat Robertson uses his television podium to claim God is punishing us for tolerating abortions and homosexuality and in the devastating ruins of Haiti a “pact to the Devil.” Risking God striking me with a bolt of lightening for saying this: Mr. Preacher Man, you are a disgrace to your religion and blinded by your perceived...

One of the long term problems faced by the United States is the issue of the budget deficit and the long term debt that is being compiled. While many try to make it a partisan issue the fact is we’ve had Presidents and Congresses of both parties overspending for decades. Recently spending has soared due to the sagging economy and the argument has been that we need to spend in order to prevent economic...

Don’t expect the Federal and State governments to create many new jobs in the public or private sectors this year or this decade. Don’t expect the Private sector to care about hiring the tens of millions of Americans when new technologies have made many U.S. jobs obsolete, the remaining employees can be coerced to work even harder out of fear, and the other good jobs have been successfully outsourced to...

This is a tale of two countries groping with the complexities of immigration reform. In France, conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a national dialogue on what constitutes a French person’s identity. Liberals in the French Parliament oppose his every move. In the United States, President Barack Obama is quietly securing support from Latinos, in particular, to launch another effort to pass...

Popeye Politics by David Goodloe “That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!” – Popeye the Sailor Man Nearly a year ago, on the day that Barack Obama was sworn in as president, I got phone calls from some friends, e–mails from some others, who expected me to gloat with them over the fact that a Democrat was about to take the oath of office. These friends, you...

WASHINGTON — Reaching agreement on a health care bill is harder in theory than it will be in practice. Between now and the day the measure goes to President Obama’s desk, there will be many crisis points, much posturing and dire warnings of impending failure. There are real differences between the bills passed by the House and the Senate. The last few votes are always the most difficult to...

At a time when the airlines are struggling for survival in the wake of rising fuel prices, the rail revolution in China, and the rail renewal in Europe, is drawing worldwide attention. Experts believe that these developments would immensely benefit the USA which lags far behind in the rail travel sector at present. An earlier CNN report said: “By 2010, the continent’s (Europe’s) rail operators...

It was bound to happen. Like most financially challenged states, Hawaii has slashed its budget so much it has only $5,000 on hand to pay for a million-dollar special election. What caught my attention and what goads me is that this is a special election to accommodate an incumbent Congressman who plans to quit and run for governor. Unless the feds plug the cash hole, Hawaii is faced with only one of its two...

It is now time to seriously ask this question: have Barack Obama and the Democratic party lost a high-stakes — to them and to the country — gamble based on a key assumption? The gamble: that political capital was worth expending on health care reform even to the point of alienating key parts of the winning 2008 coalition. The assumption: that they could risk the political capital, since by 2010 measures...

BEST: An actuary evaluates the likelihood of events and quantifies the contingent outcomes in order to minimize losses, both emotional and financial, associated with uncertain undesirable events. Since many events, such as death, cannot be avoided, it is helpful to take measures to minimize their financial impact when they occur. WORST: A roustabout is a laborer typically performing temporary, unskilled work....

When will public figures espousing particular positions on political issues ever learn to disclose actual or perceived conflicts of interest?

Who’s in charge?: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at a Russian ski resort near Sochi, Southern Russia, Jan. 3. How much influence does Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wield over foreign affairs almost two years from stepping down as Russian president? According to this article from Russia’s pro-opposition Yezhednevniy Zhurnal, Putin regularly steps on President...