Recent Blogs Posts

When I first heard of Bitcoin, I called it “tulip bulbs”, referring to the financial balloon in trading tulip bulbs in the Netherlands in the 1630's. The top of the market was something like 2500 guildhall, but they came back to earth. It doesn't bother me, if people want to thrown money away, but one of the a reasons for government to exist is to stop some people from throwing their money to people who are engaging in fraud.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Government has allowed many people ...

Today I was approached by a guy who works for Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. who was try to collect money for Planned Parenthood. I don’t know how widespread Grassroots Campaigns is, but they regularly have people begging for their campaign do jour here in the Connecticut River Valley.

When I first noticed their canvassers I started to wonder about them, so I interrogated some of them. I asked what percentage of what they collect goes to the group that they name, and all of the ones ...

Even the sharks have to eat, but I prefer to avoid being the food. I won’t even begrudge the sharks who own or work for Bank of America (as Nation’s Bank is now called) or JPMorgan Chase (as Manufacturers’ Hanover Trust is now called) or any other of those pirates and sharks who run banks and insurance companies, but I resent being forced by law to feed them, and that’s what obamacare is about. Obama sold himself to the sharks, and I hope that he got a good price, but I won’t ...

The passage of the Senate bill to end the shutdown brought to mind other confidence games; the whole shutdown was a scam; it was just some troublesome children making life inconvenient for other people. But that scam was nothing compared to the great scams of the past, and Ponzi doesn’t even deserve this much of a mention, but the financial industry has been responsible for some good ones. The insurance crisis that led to the Great Recession was a good one, but it never fooled any except the silliest ...