Arkady's Thoughts

Reading the news has replaced for me the need to watch late night comedy, I get all the humor one could handle plus a dash of fright and terror.  In today's NYT piece , we learn of our dear leader's new brilliant idea; price fixing!  That is right folks, where the brilliant minds of the Soviet Politburo and the crack team of the Nixonian administration have failed, our Harvard Law School graduate (where are those pesky transcripts?) decided he has figured it out all out.  The president’s bill would grant the federal health and human services secretary new authority to review, and to block, premium increases by private insurers , potentially superseding state insurance regulators. The bill would create a new Health Insurance Rate Authority, made up of health industry experts that would issue an annual report setting the parameters for reasonable rate increases based on conditions in the market. Nice.  Let's pretend that America is just stupid enough to forget th...

In a surprising and underhanded way , yesterday after the market closed the Federal Reserve raised the discount rate from .50% to .75%!  Before we get into what this means, the fact that a major policy change was announced just before the third Friday of the month leaves much to be desired.  This is because all third Fridays are option expiration days and the market always reacts violently to any unexpected decision from the Fed.  Although today's market open looks rather timid overnight futures were showing significant losses and I bet some people who were positioned long were thinking of creative ways to water board Bernanke and set fire to the Federal Reserve building. So what is the discount rate?  This is the rate that the central banks charge for doing business with the member banks if the member banks need cash.  If you were to imagine the entire Federal Reserve structure it is a giant pyramid.  On top sits the main Federal Reserve and under h...

It looks like the CRU email hacking set off a chain of events that are proving to be cataclysmic for the Global Warming alarmists.  Two back to back reports have not only confirmed what many skeptics have been thinking, but threaten to unravel long held beliefs that have been accepted by some as gospel.  Still, even to this day many cling on to the idea that human caused Global Warming is rooted firmly in science and some politicians like Howard Dean/Al Gore go far as to disparage and insult those individuals who believe that global warming is nothing more than a political ploy to garner more power and influence.  So for those people who still insist that humans are the cause of global warming due to science, for you consideration is the following:  Phil Jones admits that there has been no global warming since 1995 .  This is rather critical not only because Phil Jones played a crucial role as part of the scientific team to research GW, but because the IPCC ...

Kudos to Glenn Beck for pursuing the question as boldly as he did, because this one is a bit of a shocker.  Medina has been making noise in the polls suggesting that she could be a viable candidate in the Texas governor's race, but I surmise that this surge in the polls will be very short lived.  Below is an interview with Glenn Beck, so listen for yourself. The question poised by Beck should have been a softball and instead Medina flopped so badly I think she made Buckner look like a genius.   There are two major problems with this particular revelation.  First and foremost, why in the world does every single Constitutionalist carry so much tin-foil baggage with them?  Ron Paul is constantly surrounded by Truthers and now we discover that Medina has not reached a conclusion herself, which is basically a resounding YES.  Sure she is not submitting her name on petitions a la Van Jones, but with this tremendous flop of an answer, she...

Reagan changed the country in multiple ways and is regarded to this day by conservatives and Republicans as the best president America ever had.  Reagan's legacy is easy to admire given his eloquent and charming ability to present and convince the public that smaller government is better.  However his policies have created some confusion among politicos and has left many people preaching and pushing for Reagan style policies while failing to understand the underlying economic principles.  I will try to present to you that Reagan's policies were eclipsed by a much larger and powerful force and unfortunately according to the data, Reagan's legacy consists mostly of rhetoric and little substance.  While the Reagan revolution inspired many to appreciate the free market and love small government it also inspired a legion of economically ignorant individuals.  Let us begin with the positive impact Reagan had on human activity.  Through several tax reform...

There is something oddly perverse and disgusting about this display as the House Democrats narrowly pass a 1.9 trillion dollar increase to lift our debt ceiling.  No Republican and a handful of Democrats voted against raising the limit, but it passed 217-212.  Even with the understanding that the only way our country can survive is to roll our debt over, why would anyone in the right mind cheer for this?  What is there to celebrate over further enslaving future generations over mistakes made today?  Mistakes that should never have happened and opportunities to fix and reverse requiring just a bit of bravery and responsibility.   Republicans have completely blew it over several decades in acting as the party of fiscal responsibility, but the Democrats have completely lost all shame and rationale.  Instead of humbly and apologetically passing a bill to extend our bankrupt country our representatives cheer knowing they bought themselves a few more month...

This topic may sound mundane, but understanding the history behind this controversial act is important to absorb as talks about it's reinstatement heat up.  Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 by the Gramm-Lichey-Bliley act and has been blamed by many as the primary cause of the 2008 Housing Crisis.  Recently John McCain and ex-Fed chairman Paul Volcker proposed the return of Glass-Steagall along with many Democrats and prominent bloggers including Karl Denninger of Market Ticker fame.  However without examining the history of Glass-Steagall and the cause of it's existence can lead to needless legislation and shift the conversation away from the true root cause of our financial system. To begin with, we need to zoom back in time to 1933 during the midst of the Great Depression.  We know tensions were running high, people were angry and rightfully demanded retribution.   Starting with Herbert Hoover and continuing with FDR, banks and Wall St. were ...