August 2009

Hurricanes taketh away. And then they giveth. With hurricane season now in full swing, heartbreaks for homeowners mean early Christmas for Congress, as the number of federally declared emergencies have spiked higher in this country. That means one thing for elected officials scrambling to hold onto power by using your money to buy votes—loading porkbarrel projects into emergency spending ... read more

Known on Wall Street as the “smart money” crowd that turned quickly dumb due to bad bets during the bubble years, the private equity crowd is now pushing to buy troubled banks, posing new problems for government banking officials whose banking oversight has not been so state of the art. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is meeting today to decide whether to open the door wider to private ... read more

The latest talking points, delivered by top Democrats and echoed in a town hall question to Republican Senator John McCain, is that government-run health care would be good because Medicare is more efficient than private insurance. Not so fast, says Fox News analyst James Farrell:   There are three general points to keep in mind: (1) The Democrats are comparing apples and oranges ... read more

Watch the career changes coming from commodities trader Andrew Hall, head of Phibro, a secretive, profitable trading unit of the embattled Citigroup. Hall may take Phibro to London--literally pull the entire company from its base in the Connecticut dairy farmland of Westport, Conn. and drop anchor in England--if he doesn’t get his $100 mn pay in cash from Citigroup. Hall and Citigroup are ... read more

Two powerful House Democrats have sent a letter to 52 insurance companies asking them to provide detailed information about pay for top executives from 2003 to 2006, and company-funded conferences and retreats, including amounts paid for “lodging, food, entertainment, or gifts” from January 1, 2007 to the present, as well as information about other business practices. Aetna, Cigna and ... read more