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(An annual 9/11 message from EMac) Ok, those who know me understand I detest all things self-referential. My family gets an allergic skin reaction from any such behavior, including those who take themselves seriously. Treacly emotion, not for us. Even a Hallmark card puts us in a diabetic coma. But I can't help it, not today. Like too many other towns in the New York area, the 9/11 ... read more

You won’t need a microscope to see what President Barack Obama ignored in his speech on health reform before a joint session of Congress last night. To a huge ovation from lawmakers, President Obama kicked off his speech by saying that "I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.” The very same lawmakers who know full well that the ... read more

“A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours.”—Milton Berle Lost in the talk about the exploding number of government czars--nearly three dozen in all--are the soaring number of government task forces, committees and commissions, government bodies that conduct meetings upon meetings overseen by officials who started talking when Jimmy Carter was still in the White ... read more

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