Here comes the rolling tide of intervention on a massive scale. Just days – or even hours – away from certain implosion, the central planners game up the stock market on a promise that will have all the beggars and leeches waiting in line impatiently, all night long. U.S. stocks rallied the most in six [...]

Putnam closed its Prime Money-Market Fund. Putnam Investments LLC closed its $12.3 billion institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund yesterday and plans to return all cash to investors. The fund, which was valued yesterday at $1 a share, experienced “significant redemption pressure,” the Boston-based company said in a statement. In other news, Bloomberg just reported [...]

A source calls me to say that people are lined up outside a Wamu bank in Lake Oswego, Oregon this morning. A Portland news station is there, but so far, no news on the web. A TV reporter was going around asking frantic people, who are afraid of losing all their money, “What about the [...]

The great Motown producer-songwriter, Norman Whitfield, passed away. “Norman Whitfield was one of the most prolific songwriters and record producers of our time,” fellow Motown veteran Smokey Robinson said in a statement Wednesday. “He will live forever through his great music.” Whitfield wrote, usually with Barrett Strong, and produced such era-defining hits as “Grapevine,” “Ain’t [...]

The Federal Reserve will provide a two-year loan, take 79.9 percent of the New York-based company’s stock and replace its management because “a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility,’” according to a statement by the central bank late yesterday. It’s reassuring to know that the Feds will [...]

This is a photo of my friend Sheryl, as we had breakfast in a bar in Southeast Ohio one Sunday. Believe me, the backdrop was not planned.

As of 4pm EST today, the Reserve Primary Fund revalued its Lehman holdings as worthless, causing its net assets to fall below $1 a share and exposing its investors to a loss.

Since the time is (still) ripe, I’ll give a heads-up to a couple of slightly-dated articles co-written with Eric Englund. General Motors and the Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Wall Street Fannie Mae: Another New Deal Monstrosity I’m very pleased that both of these articles are still getting much, much airplay around the ‘Net.

And all of the government’s other mumbo jumbo. Along with the whirlwind of financial tsunamis (a favorite MSM word), America’s favorite store, Best Buy, is a great indicator of where consumers are headed concerning their spending patterns. Despite the spin on the company’s financial performance, Best Buy stores – ones in my area that have [...]

“Pasta is a bowl of sugar, briefly deferred.” A excellent introduction to evolutionary fitness, the paleolithic diet, fighting the sugary seductions of modern life, and the heroic Art DeVaney, whom I have linked here on many occasions. This article asks, “Is functional exercise better than the gym?” Generally speaking, what people are doing in the [...]