There were two especially insightful articles the past few days. One was "Rob Johnson Explains Crony Capitalism" here on HuffPost. The other appearing was "Neel Kashkari's Quiet Path to Pimco" in the New York Times. The first giving a comprehensive and compelling overview of how...

The New York Times in its recent editorial "Taming the Fat Cats" called on President Obama to impose Britain's special 50% tax on all bank bonuses over $40,00 this year. Concurrently Senator Charles Schumer of New York was voicing his outrage that AIG executives have not returned the major portion...

You have probably seen the Television ad. A young girl is given a bicycle set in a white painted rectangle that's, say, 8 by 4 feet. Delighted the young girl happily sits on the bicycle and starts to ride. Barely getting started she is stopped at the white line. "That's...

Acela Express Departs NYC Arrives DC
" 6 00 AM 8 52 AM
" 7 00 AM 9 44 AM
" 8 00 AM 10 49 AM
" 9 00 AM 11 25 AM
etc.

These were the Amtrak trains available to the three...

With 10 percent unemployment and a government determined to stimulate economic growth and put people back to work, what better use for our stimulus programs than building a series of nuclear facilities around the country?

Billions from the stimulus pool are already being designated to accelerate the clean up of...

There he goes again. Our clairvoyant and sage Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi proclaiming for all to hear that "the price is perfect," referring to the current price of oil ahead of OPEC's scheduled meeting later this month. Then, in chorus-like lockstep, other similarly inclined oil ministers of various OPEC...

We are all subject to making right and wrong decisions. But in the world as most of us know it, we are held accountable for the decisions we make. What has become so grating about the financial sector is that all too often these rules do not apply. Win or...

In response to Iran's defiance of the International Nuclear Agency to desist its development, open its nuclear facilities to inspection and to freeze its uranium enrichment, the United Nations took a fateful step. The board of the U.N. nuclear agency voted overwhelmingly to demand that Iran stop building its newly...

Never in my lifetime have I witnessed an America so filled with self-doubt. Doubt about our governing institutions, our schools, our health care, our industrial complex, our financial institutions, of who we are and who we have become. The spirit of fairness and shared destiny has descended into rancor and...

A key and fundamental question was not broached during the fierce interrogation of Treasury Secretary Geithner during Thursday's hearings before Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The contentious subject at hand was the Fed and Treasury's role on the issue of the American International Group's multi-billion dollar bailout. The key question neither...

Late last week the Energy Information Service-advised oil stocks surged by 1.762 million barrels, far more than expected, while the U.S. refinery processing rate sank to 79.7% -- the lowest level in more than two decades. Yet on Monday the price of oil jumped by $2.50 a barrel.

What is...

The oil patch mumbo jumbo continues unabated. Today, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of the nation's largest oil company, Exxon, took a minute or two to instruct us about the reasons for the current price of oil. This is the same personage who, a while back informed us, his customers,...

The relationship between the price of oil and the slaughter that took place at Fort Hood is hardly as far-fetched as it would appear. In an instructive article that was reprinted as an Op-ed in the NY Post on Saturday Nov 7, one Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, Executive Director of...

Steven Chu, our Secretary of Energy in his October 30 post on the Huffington Post "Weatherization: Saving Money by Saving Energy" focuses on the savings that can accrue to those conscious of how to reduce energy/electricity in their homes; insulation, programmable thermostats, efficient windows and the like. "I have...

Perhaps, just perhaps, the opprobrium heaped on Goldman Sachs these many weeks and months has begun to take hold on what had been to date the tone deaf leadership and bizarre rationalizations such as that of Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs Intl. who instructed us last week...

In late 2007 and the early days of 2008 Citigroup announced they were cutting 4200 jobs. This happened shortly after Vikram Pandit, while just six weeks on the job as Citigroup's CEO, was awarded a $26.7 million stock bonus and $3 million in stock options. It also happened as the...

Before the financial crisis, before Goldman was the recipient of billions of Tarp funds, before the financial collapse of September 2008 when even the viability of Goldman was put into question, before the rescue of AIG and their derivative contracts comprising $13 billions that we know about -- that were...

In what should become the template for the banking industry and Wall Street in all its manifestations, Citigroup this week disposed of its oil trading arm, Phibro, selling it lock, stock, and oil barrel to Occidental Petroleum. Along with the disposal goes the $100 mm owed its senior oil trader,...

Ominously, officers of London's Obscene Publications Unit of the Metropolitan Police forced the withdrawal of a naked image of actress Brooke Shields aged 10 (see truncated reproductions) from the newly opened "Pop Life" exhibition at the Tate Modern, one of the most respected museums in the world. This, after...

On June 21st a Huffington Post submission ("Boycott Iran's Oil Immediatley") called for the immediate boycott of Iran's oil. It was a seemingly draconian suggestion that was met with widespread skepticism. After all, what would happen to oil markets without Iranian oil?

Well, on today CNN's State of the...