MOsanthrope

There was a time, Garrison Keillor laments, when conservatives were “pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships.” We’ve come a long way from Teddy Roosevelt’s square deal to government as corporate benefactor. Despite […]

Filed under: Politics, Finance, U.S., Ethics

This is a lovely trend:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - Delta Air Lines will move to terminate its pilot pension plans Monday, attempting to shift responsibility for the future benefits to the federal agency that guarantees such payments.
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The government agency that could be stuck with plan, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., did not have an […]

Filed under: Politics, Finance, Business, U.S.

Those of you with money in the stock market may want to take a looksee.

Filed under: Finance, U.S., Economy

Billmon can make a good read of even a desiccated subject like skyrocketing gold prices as an economic indicator.

Filed under: Finance, U.S., Economy

It’s a good day, if you’re one of the wealthiest Americans:

Example: let’s say your wealth puts you in the top 1/100th of 1 percent of all Americans. That’s about 28,000 people in the U.S. These people, on average, make around $2 million every five days, which is what the average American earns over the course […]

Filed under: Politics, Finance, Business, U.S., Economy

Last night, Crooks and Liars sent me off to read this story about a retired school teacher who came face to face with Homeland Security when he decided to pay down his credit card debt:

They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent […]

Filed under: Politics, Finance, U.S.

Late last week, the administration trotted out the Vice President to, as rorschach put it, “call upon the proletariat to give up their caviar and start behaving responsibly“:

“The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work,” Cheney told a conference here exploring how to encourage […]

Filed under: Politics, Finance, U.S., Economy

While listening to wealth management advisor David Simons on KMOX this afternoon, I learned of a scary economic development:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The first auction of 30-year U.S. Treasury debt in more than four years this week saw high demand from pension funds, pushing down longer-maturity bond yields and reviving questions about what the yield […]

Filed under: Finance, U.S., Economy