George W. Bush gave his first speech since leaving office. It was in Alberta, Canada, where nearly 2,000 people paid $3,100 per table for ”Conversation with George W. Bush.” If you figure there were ten guests per table, invitees were paying over $300 for dinner with the former President. I don’t know how much Bush was [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Finance’
February 20, 2009
Linda Chatman Thomsen – Call Girl or Fall Girl?
Linda Chatman Thomsen recently resigned as the Director of the Division of Enforcement for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a kind of “Sheriff of Wall Street.” She worked her way up in the division, carving notches in her gun for her part in the Enron and Martha Stewart cases. Wall Street complained Thomsen was too hard [...]
February 16, 2009
The Tiger Team
A quick update on the Tiger Team post from February 7. Quick, because there isn’t anything to say except the good folks over at DOT must be pretty busy “. . . getting ready to distribute funds and developing common reporting standards to track the highway, road, bridge, transit, rail, aviation and other intermodal [sic] investments.” They haven’t had [...]
February 7, 2009
The Tiger Team
I am concerned with how much money the “TIGER team” will keep in the DOT’s budget and how much will actually be sent to the states. When you dump a bunch of money into a government agency and tell them to spend it, there is a temptation to spend on spending. If it takes money [...]
January 24, 2009
The White House – Blog Post – President Obama delivers Your Weekly Address
Here’s one item on the President’s agenda I can check on myself. I can’t really influence spending, but I can see if there is a change in how government employees spend public money. I’ll give it about three months and see if there has been any change in the way our agency spends money.
We’ll launch [...]
January 9, 2009
Larry Flynt Asks For $5B Porn Bailout
I imagine he’s just being Larry Flynt. But I also imagine there are some in Congress giving this serious consideration.
Larry Flynt Asks For $5B Porn Bailout
Day to Day, January 8, 2009 ·
The Adult Video Network will hand out long-awaited awards at its Adult Entertainment Expo Thursday in Las Vegas. But even a popular trade show [...]
December 20, 2008
The Euro
I once paid 99 cents for one Euro. Today, I would have to pay about 45% more for the same thing. I don’t think the exchange rate is going to improve anytime soon.
1 EUR
=
1.44017 USD
Euro (EUR)
US Dollar (USD)
1 EUR = 1.44017 USD
1 USD = 0.69436 EUR
December 15, 2008
The Top 10 quotes of 2008
I got this from an Associated Press story from December 14th, and though I would add my own two cents worth to each.
The Top 10 quotes of 2008, as compiled by the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations:
1. “I can see Russia from my house!” — Comedian Tina Fey, while impersonating Alaska Gov. Sarah [...]
December 4, 2008
More Bad News
The European Central Bank just cut the “leitzins” interest rate by three-quarters of a percent to 2.5 percent. This is equivalent to the rate of interest the Federal Reserve plays with in America to try and control the economy. The Bank of England, the Swedish Riksbank (and for sure others soon to follow) are also dropping interest rates. [...]
