Richard W. Sitnik of Hudson says bankers don't have money to give back to the U.S. taxpayers. ...more

April 15, 2009

Confidence in the wisdom of the custodians of the economy has taken a big hit this year. The people in charge of our investments and our taxes no longer seem so conservative, so diligent or so smart. ...more

December 20, 2008

The Federal Reserve announced today a radical plan to buy massive amounts of short-term debt in a dramatic effort to break through a credit clog that is imperiling the economy. ...more

October 7, 2008

Dear AARP: Thank you for your invitation, which showed up in the mailbox shortly after my 50th birthday. ...more

July 27, 2008

I Want It, I Need It, I've Got To Have It We wouldn't care how much the unionized groups, such as police, fire and teachers, make and keep asking for yearly if we eliminate all fees and property tax and increase the sales tax. ...more

July 4, 2008

It's the stuff of western dramas where rugged men went looking for it in the mountains. It's the glittering metal used in fancy jewelry, the highest honors for sports and the bars tucked away in heavily secured safes. These days, gold's appeal as a safe-haven investment has carried it to record prices. ...more

January 9, 2008

I have missed a number of commission sessions, but I do read the papers and watch television for news of local and state issues. One of them is the issue of state officials using pension funds for questionable investments. A short time before Enron went under, along with $7 trillion of the national market, the state administration bought $300 million of Enron stock with pension funds of the teachers retirement fund and $300 million from the firemen and police funds. They became worthless. Nothing happened; it was just a blip on the assets and liability charts. Just recently, it came to light that administration had also bought risky stock with other portfolio funds that affected local governments. When a rush to withdraw half of those portfolio funds occurred, the state closed those funds to preclude further erosion of that portfolio. As I understand it, Mr. Stepanovich, a significant member of that committee, has resigned. The question remains: Who will be held accountable for making those risky investments? ...more

December 22, 2007

A Bloomberg article recently published in many Florida outlets used broad generalities, gross overstatements and outdated information to report on the Florida Retirement System (FRS) pension fund. ...more

December 14, 2007

Recent efforts to hammer out a proposal to temporarily freeze interest rates on certain troubled subprime mortgages have brought up an interesting quandary. Is it the government's job to intervene in what is in part a crisis wrought by greedy lenders and naive and imprudent borrowers? Agreed, the government should not bail out financial irresponsibility, but sometimes there's no alternative. Those opposed to any government initiative to rescue the market before 2 million loans adjust to a higher interest rate –– and borrowers are stuck with payments they cannot afford –– are forgetting that the ripple effect of not doing anything could seriously hurt the general economy. ...more

December 3, 2007

Upon hearing a discussion on how badly the Democrats were handling the current government, I listened to the specific details. ...more

October 14, 2007