Michael B. Duff

Authorities in the city once lauded as having the best police in Mexico seem unable to stop the violence despite sending soldiers to storm quiet suburbs and raid cartel safe houses as military helicopters fly overhead.

"And then I learn from Digby that some of these same people just love Paul Ryan’s budget plan — a plan that calls for a huge increase in public debt over the near term, offset by hypothetical spending cuts four decades from now. "Okay I take it back. Maybe Ryan's plan COULD pass, as long as he keeps pushing those spending cuts back.

Man, I wish I had some nuclear secrets.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Adults shows 75% say the unwillingness of politicians to reduce government spending is more to blame for current state budget crises than the unwillingness of taxpayers to pay more in taxes. Only 13% take the opposing view and blame taxpayers’ unwillingness to pay more to the government. Another 12% are undecided.

No way this thing could pass, but at least Ryan understands the scope of the problem.

The consensus was similar in an afternoon panel discussion on the decline of the American middle class. “He said jobs were going to be his No. 1 priority—there’s a huge disconnect between Washington and what’s going on out in the country,” nominal Obama supporter Arianna Huffington said. “The president’s economic team kept talking about a ‘cyclical’ problem. Larry Summers said jobs were a lagging economic indicator. All these things are simply wrong. The president put all his trust in the wrong economic team—an economic team that didn’t understand what was happening.”

Funny when it premiered. Kind of darkly funny now.

"Congress is fixated on credit and special favors for unionized firms, and that wont sustain or support faster growth. A huge help in moving toward a stronger economy for small business owners would be to “do no harm”. But Congress continues to pass and propose legislation that increases the cost of running a business and create huge uncertainty about future costs. The small business sector of the economy is improving, there is a pulse, but it is weak. Washington is applying leeches and performing blood-letting as a cure."

Want.

BP does not care what you think you are entitled to. Laws are for little people.

This article seems to be bringing out the curmudgeon in everybody this week, as a 24 year old college grad talks about his decision to turn down a $40K job and stay with his parents. My generation just thought the world owed us a job. This guy thinks the world owes him a FUN job. I'm not quite as angry about it as the rest of the bootstrap crowd. Finding a job that fits your career can be tough. But taking that time is a luxury. It's a luxury that your parents buy for you, just like they buy your first car and pay for a good college. Kids with rich parents can gain experience on internships that poor kids just can't take. I put this in the same category. So if you can afford to give your kid this job search time, great. But at least teach them to be humble about it.

Also called High Frequency Trading (HFT) or ‘black box trading,’ automated program trading uses high-speed computers governed by complex algorithms (instructions to the computer) to analyze data and transact orders in massive quantities at very high speeds. Like the poker player peeking in a mirror to see his opponent’s cards, HFT allows the program trader to peek at major incoming orders and jump in front of them to skim profits off the top. And these large institutional orders are our money — our pension funds, mutual funds, and 401Ks.

"They’re rigged – at least short-term. This intent of these shenanigans is to drive price the other way – that is, if the huge contract bid side shows up, the real intent of the participant is to sell, and his sell offer is up above. He’s looking to drive price a few ticks into his resing order, taking those funds from smaller and slower players who can’t possibly compete with this."

This is why I think the Fed and others have been fine with the recent market plunge. The only issue for them is they absolutely need gold, silver and other commodities to collapse as well. Bernanke cannot have the S&P500 at 850 and gold at 1,200 and announce QE2. Gold would surge to new highs and it would look horrible. This is why so much emphasis is being placed on getting gold and silver to retreat in a major way via propaganda pieces and also likely surreptitious selling behind the scenes. While there has been a decent pullback, it is nothing close to what they need and I am particularly impressed with how well silver is hanging in. I think this is due to a run on physical silver by investors and the dearth of government or central bank stockpiles to sell in the shadows.

The hoard, which was valued at 3.3 million pounds ($5 million), includes hundreds of coins bearing the image of Marcus Aurelius Carausius, who seized power in Britain and northern France in the late third century and proclaimed himself emperor.

"The power of unconditional love. I mean, there is no power on earth like unconditional love. And I think that if you offered that to your child, I mean, you’re 90 percent of the way home. There may be days when you don’t feel like it — it’s not uncritical love; that’s a different animal — but to know you can always come back, that is huge in life. That takes you a long, long way. And I would say that every parent out there that can extend that to their child at an early age, it’s going to make for a better human being."