In Greece, creditors and the government continued their work on a debt deal that would give a haircut to debt holders and set a new interest rate going forward, reducing Greece’s debt level. After hedge funds appeared to be playing a game of chicken by holding out on a deal, cooler heads may have prevailed.

The hedge funds swooped in late, but the banks or other investors that made these loan deals did so knowing full well that they risked a default. That’s true of any loan. There are two sides to every deal. The hedge funds, in fact, took their deal knowing that Greece was on the precipice of default. They’ve just decided to be raging assholes, and threaten to blow up the world if they don’t get paid back. So the idea that hedge funds have an inalienable human right to make this profit is one of the most egregious things I’ve seen in a long time.

When Standard and Poor’s downgraded nine European countries last Friday, they said plainly that European leaders were blinding themselves to the full crisis, ignoring the trade imbalances between core and peripheral Euro nations. But Germany’s Merkel doubled down on austerity, which has created a depression in Greece, with huge risks of default.

Europe has lived in an almost perpetual state of collapse lately, with promising deals followed by despair. This was one of the despair days.

Bloomberg News has another blockbuster story today on the heels of its release of information about Federal Reserve bailouts. Here they have former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson essentially aiding and abetting an insider trading scheme while in office. But will there be prosecutions?

The SEC has told Standard and Poor’s that they may file civil charges over the rating agency’s role in a 2007 mortgage backed securities deal. The formal warning of potential imminent charges, known as a Wells notice, was delivered yesterday.

Both of the provisions quoted will most likely be removed long before the Jobs bill gets anywhere near a vote, thanks to the captive legislators from both parties which makes the whining about it that much more irritating and ludicrous.

You could probably talk to 100 people and get 100 different interpretations of the stock market volatility we’re seeing in real time. The market opened up 1% and then immediately fell to about even. The stock market is not the economy and really shouldn’t be seen as a barometer for the economy.

Laws and rules are for the little people. Especially the ones without guns.

Tax cuts for the rich increase the money looking for returns in financial markets. That’s your retirement the rich are eating with these foolish tax cuts.