masaccio

The giant investment banks like to pretend they are high class, but every once in a while you see them for the ass-lickers they are. Take this article in the New York Times, describing the efforts of the big finance companies to woo newly rich tech people as clients. Goldman Sachs took one of these guys for a factory tour of Tesla and to see a screening of the last Harry Potter flick. There are a lot of people who will make a bunch of money as a new round of IPOs for Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga hit the market, and the insiders will get rich. It won’t just be the top dogs, either. There will be plenty of money going to developers and even (gasp) administrative assistants.

The oligarchy in the US includes a large number of people in the financial business who have had their way with our government, which has refused to hold them accountable for the destruction of our economy and the hopes and dreams of millions. Not satisfied with taking and keeping all the money, now they want to elect one of their own president. As evidence, take a look at the donors to Mitt Romney’s SuperPac, Restore Our Future.

Mitt Romney is a winner in a party of losers.

Economists who think human beings are strictly rational decision-makers should get out more. But, it looks just like Mitt Romney.

Given his steady support of Mitch McConnell, it’s a fair guess that Lamar Alexander truly believes that democrats and the people they claim to represent are not entitled to govern. Or, as Corey Robin puts it: “Submission is their first duty, agency, the prerogative of the elite.”

Why does Sarkozy make it a priority to please the unelected Americans at S&P?

Stop buying things that don’t give you real pleasure. Save the money. You’ll need it when the oligarchs crash the economy again.

The good life: a foreign land to economists.

Robert Samuelson confuses taxing the rich with slavery. Coincidence? Nipping at the sherry again? You decide.

As we grow older, every year brings physical and mental changes. Some are positive, we are stronger, taller, wiser, more experienced; others less so. Not every Christmas is an unmitigated delight. But one thing goes forward, the layers of memory that add up to a rich life.