Congress

Help to Defeat the Mindless Trader Tax

There’s a petition online to oppose the so-called Trader Tax bill (H.R. 1068, also known as the “Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street’s Bailout Act of 2009“). James “Rev Shark” DePorre (a professional trader and columnist for TheStreet.com) has collected over 30,000 signatures and over 60,000 letters and emails have gone to congress so…

Guess How Many Millionaires in Congress?

Since Congress is suddenly so interested in discussing and regulating what other people make, let’s discuss the financial condition of our hardworking, selfless Reps. Take a guess what percentage of Congress are millionaires…I’ll give you a jumping off point:  1% of the total US population are millionaires. You probably figured that Congress probably had between…

When Its Time To Raise Rates, Will Bernanke Have The Stones?

An article in Bloomberg raises some very interesting questions and I though I’d open up the discussion on these three: 1.  Since Bernanke has clearly chosen Keynes over Friedman, pumping in liquidity with the belief that inflation will be held in check, will this “end in tears” as Fed historian Dr. Allan Meltzer believes? 2. …

March 12th: Balance Sheet Amnesty Day?

What’s the story with March 12th? Basically, the thinking out there goes something like this.  Congress is planning to take a look at possibly easing the Mark-to-Market accounting rules, giving US banks a fighting chance at making it through this period. From the Washington Post: A House Financial Services subcomittee has scheduled a March 12…

Items That Almost Made the Stimulus Bill

With almost a trillion dollars up for grabs, congressmen and women from every state took the opportunity to shove through some of their constituents’ pet projects they’ve been sitting on for years.  Yes, the bill is pretty bloated, and many of the items have nothing to do with current economic stimulus. Unfortunately, there were some fairly…