One of the on-going arguments across the blogosphere and even the entire world is whether the economic problems of the last ten years are more related to incompetence or basic corruption. I must say, just the last week has offered plenty of evidence for both views. For example, we had this article from Bloomberg yesterday (Tuesday, November 29) about how then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson met with his hedge fund buddies and gave them the first class insider information on his plans to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into “conservatorship.”

When former Goldman Sachs exec Henry Paulson was Treasury Secretary he apparently gave his hedge fund buddies extremely helpful and lucrative secret information about his plans to seize Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac while still assuring the public everything was fine. It’s another reminder the system is rigged.

Journalists have been increasingly targeted at Occupy protests, especially during police operations to evict occupations. The eviction of Occupy Wall Street featured a number of egregious incidents, where NYPD not only did not allow the press to cover the eviction but arrested reporters and photographers for being on the scene. In fact, the day was the worst day for members of the press since Occupy Wall Street began.

There is now a near perfectly even four way split between Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in the Republican Iowa Caucus, according to the most recent Bloomberg poll.

A nation wide pattern, possibly coordinated, has emerged for how political officials are trying to deal with the occupy protest. In the Northern locations the pattern has been to wait until the cold winter freezes them out. In the warmer climates, overwhelming military style police action is being used to forcefully crack down on the encampments.

The Washington Post’s Ombudsman attempts a pull back from WaPo’s rerunning of the Bloomberg expose on the Koch Bros. Shorter WaPo OBM: We can’t disagree with anything Bloomberg Markets said about the Koch Bros illegal activities, but we should have included his paid PR denial even though it didn’t shake the original story, and besides there are lots of other corporate evil doers besides the 4th richest men in America.

Occupy Wall Street was notified by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday that the owner of Liberty Park (which the owner renamed Zuccotti Park) informed the city that there were concerns about health and safety as a result of the nearly four-week long occupation. The CEO of Brookfield Properties, the owner, wrote a letter to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly that also went to Bloomberg and it outlined the key issues Brookfield has with the continued occupation.

Word just came in that the owners of the park have rescinded their request to have the park cleared.

If you read me often enough, you have probably noticed that I tend to check various news and opinion sites throughout the TradMed each morning, after I’ve spent a few minutes reviewing emails and jobs sites. Most of the time, I just shake my head at the various levels of stupidity I find, not being able to quite give it the full YOU HAVE GOT TO BE F*CKING KIDDING ME! treatment so richly deserved. Then there are days like today where teh stoopid is so truly dumbfounding.

The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s is threatening another downgrade of the United States credit rating if the Super Committee doesn’t get results.