Michael B. Duff

Ha! One of my favorite kooks has just been quoted in a Congressional hearing. I think this is a pattern. Lone, obsessed guys turning themselves into subject matter experts and setting up shop on the Internet. Now that the internet has connected everything one nerd with OCD can out-think an army of Princeton professors. Michael Burry is the obvious example, but I'd put Karl in the same category.

"What is important about the latest Wikileaks release is the reaction these revelations have caused in the realms of government, media and corporate power in America—a collective reaction that I for one found startling, not to say frightening. To me, it revealed a New McCarthyism that transcends mere party affiliation and ordinary political divisions, and glides off into a realm of hatred for the individual—an enforced moral acquiescence, whereby a truth spoken is a truth that must be shut up, regardless of the cost."

Jon Stewart's audience laughing at the Fed? I'll call that progress.

This really surprised me. I knew the middle class tax cuts would be preserved but I didn't think the Republicans would be able to preserve tax cuts above $250,000. I thought there might be a millionaire tax compromise. Nothing's over until a bill is passed, but I'm surprised to see Obama caving so soon.

When President Bush panicked on live television in September 2008, ushering in an era of bailout economics as unpopular as it has been ineffective, the backlash was inevitable, even if the exact form it would take was unpredictable. In our new era, you can smother an American political strain only for so long.