http://issuesblog.com Blather on business, pontification on politics, & mutterings on miscellanea Wed, 30 Jul 2008 03:53:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Or, to be more correct, at least part of the system. Some of the time. First, there was the Emperor AG and Premier Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, getting his, and a reasonable person could hope he's got still more coming to him, given the pompous hypocrisy of the crusades ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/07/29/nice-to-see-again-that-the-system-works/ In a post yesterday, (just below), I mentioned the difficulties in the Pakistani stock market, and the related destruction at the Karachi stock exchange. I contrasted, in a brief and cursory manner, the market there (and the reaction to its fall) to the market here in the US (and the ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/07/19/that-monetary-hammer-i-mentioned/ (The excitable investors, that is, not Pakistanis in general) Clues can be found in a Marketwatch article from yesterday evening: EMERGING MARKETS REPORT Investors riot in Pakistan as market tumbles Benchmark down for 15th straight session; loses 27.5% this year so far By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Popular anger over tumbling equity ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/07/18/the_unsophisticates/ Based on the events of Friday afternoon, I'm reminded of the only phrase I can recall from Nancy Reagan's tenure as First Lady: "Just say no". About an hour before Wall Street closed for the week, I got a call from an old friend who's an equity analyst for an east ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/06/15/prognostication-perils/ In an item in the May 5, 2008 WSJ, I saw the "Fund Track" column, by Daisy Maxey, entitled "Democratic Booster Blue Fund Group Has Been Singing the Blues Lately" The focus of the story was on a small Washington DC based fund that's done poorly of late. Blue Fund Group is ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/05/06/stupid-investment-theses-moronically-executed/ Via a WSJ email alert of a few minutes ago: NEWS ALERT from The Wall Street Journal April 14, 2008 Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi appeared to clinch Italy's national election Monday, making it likely that the media mogul will return as prime minister for a third time. Berlusconi's center-right Freedom People party was set ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/04/14/whats-italian-for-chutzpah/ This question might apply both to the Marketwatch website and to the principals in the Clear Channel LBO saga (details at Dan Primack's always enjoyable peHub). First, though, Marketwatch - their blast email message a bit ago, was entitled: Clear Channel Communications: Judge orders banks to fund $19 billion buyout As this is ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/03/27/too-clever-by-half/ A conspiracy of dunces, that is, spreading conspiracy theories. Shockingly, to me as I'm sure it is to you, this one comes from a guy who's a buddy of Ron Paul, ("R", TX). Via Dan Primack's PE Week Wire: The candidate is Murray Sabrin, a university professor who once ran on the ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/03/04/psst-theres-a-conspiracy/ ...to one of my favorite sites, Going Private. Among the best written and most enjoyably read sites I frequent, the only problem I'd cite is that its author doesn't have time to write several posts per day. And when she must, for a variety of surely-good reasons, let extended periods pass ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/02/13/happy-second-birthday/ It just occurred to me what using my now-several-months-old laptop reminds me of. It's a reasonably beefed-out Thinkpad, with plenty of memory, and (ahem) it came preloaded with Microsoft Vista. I stifled my instinct to reload it on day one, thinking that the naysayers on Vista were simply disgruntled... well, disgruntled ... http://issuesblog.com/2008/01/28/now-look-im-no-msft-basher-but/