Sep 21, 2008. I'm putting this link: http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/amerman/2008/0917.html on my home page, not because I want to, and not because it is well written. But it pretty well explains the degree of risk that the financial community has created by credit default insurance. Unlike MBS, there are no assets, no income stream, no regulated reserves, just a promise that money will magically appear right when the economy runs out of money.

But before we tar and feather those insurers, let's properly assign blame where it belongs: the Fed and its creators, FDR (created moral hazards in Fannie and Freddie), Burns, Greenspan, Bernanke and all the apologists for the credit-based economy who can see no wrong with creating multiple dollars of debt for every dollar of GDP. Here's another link with the numbers for the hole we've dug (50 trillion in debt - see table L.1 against a 14 trillion GDP): http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1.pdf This level of debt cannot be paid off (think about the proportion of GDP that would be needed, it would eat up the money needed for startups, R&D, etc). The only choices are default (what is looming today) or inflation.

Mar 24, 2007: Here's my web page with what I see as perpetuated myths of global warming: http://shpud.com/myths.html When you find errors, please ping or email. I have already been taken to the woodshed for some and I appreciate the patience of the readers who corrected what I had muddled.

Dec 14, 2003. We've captured Saddam! A big congratulations to our military. Many have sacrificed a lot including their lives to achieve this and I will always remember them.

This is a perfect opportunity to switch to the Afghanistan strategy: a few well protected bases and special forces missions to eliminate specific threats. If the the vast majority of Iraqis want freedom and democracy then they can earn it by keeping the peace, turning in the remaining radicals and building their own government.

Nation-building is mostly liberalism: handouts, price controls, political correctness, and a religious belief in changing people from the top down. We have given the Iraqis the foundation to build a nation, but we can't give them a functioning country, they have to do that themselves