Student Loan Programs

Here is a little from a NY Times editorial about the student loan program.  Interesting example of how the rules of a particular industry get written. This industry may hit a little closer to home than railroads or shipping. Private companies that reap undeserved profits from the federal student-loan program are gearing up to kill [...]

Tax Day and Corporate Form Bonus

This week’s chapter, about the rise fo the corporate form, playso ut on the backdro of the basic institutional and regualtory background of capitlalist societies. Regulation and economic forces are on everyone’s mind as we survey the landscape in our new post-industrial, post-bubble Great Recession. So, I offer this longish article about Cass Sunstein, the [...]

Right and Wrong

       In “Homecoming” there was a definite breaking of American law.  Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell, Marlo Stanfield, and others were participating in drug trading and assault. To all intents and purposes, what they did was illegal and un-American. Although they operated a drug trade business, few legitimate businesses would operate under the same terms as them. [...]

Where is the Stimulus Money going?

Resources  if you want to dig in deep. Find out how the government is accounting for our tax dollars. Cool graphic of all the money allocated last fall: Tracking TARP money:

My Big Question = HUH?

HUH? Sources: Moody’s Economy.com; Congressional Budget Office; Office of Management and Budget Notes: U.S. Deficit measured in billions of dollars; GDP measured in 2007 U.S. dollars

They Know Something We Dont Know

A little over a week ago I booked a spring break vacation to Cancun, Mexico.  It took me a while to choose which tropical destination I wanted to visit, and then even longer to decide on a hotel in my country of choice. The only reason I finally came to a decision was because there [...]

The Government of the United States

I have heard many US Americans complain about the Government here and its flaws. I dare you to read this post, if by the end of it, you can draw me an organization chart of the Government I am about to compare the US Government to, I shall owe you a home-cooked South Asian meal. [...]

The Enron Elixir

As I’m sure is the case with many of my fellow classmates, a lot of things just bother me when I read The Smartest Guys in the Room.  Maybe the word choice of “bother” is an understatement – let’s go with infuriate instead.   And here’s one of the main things I simply cannot get my [...]

This is the lesson that never ends…?

Are you curious to know how Enron acted after the World Trade Center Attacks on September 11, 2001? Do you want to know how Enron employees behaved in the less than 3 month time span between the attacks and its December 2, 2001 bankruptcy filing?

Torture and American Values

There is a talk next week that I encourage you to attend.  Feel free to blog about it if you like. LEWISBURG, Pa. — Gitanjali Gutierrez, a 1992 graduate of Bucknell University who is serving as counsel for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, will give the talk, “Torture, Guantanamo and American Values,” on [...]

Where is the World Headed?

Within the past year, my experiences and understanding of America and even the world, has taken a turn for the worse. Maybe it is because, as a senior my vision into the real world has been blinded by the Bucknell Bubble, or maybe it is the fact that the world is actually headed in the [...]

Stimulus Package

I am not the most literate person to talk about economy, but with so much talk about the stimulus package I decided to read about it and was intrigued by what happened in Congress this past week. “The Senate approved its bill most along party lines, by a vote of 61 to 37, with three [...]

What is wrong here?

“Retention bonuses” would seem to be bonuses by any other name.  Obviously, public and political scrutiny is at super high levels as we reel from the financial crisis. This little nugget caught my eye about a joint venture between Citigroup and Morgan Stanley: According to the newspaper [The WSJ], not all of the joint venture’s [...]

Useful graphic of Stimulus Bill

This is a useful graphic of the elements of the stimulus bill. To see better, make your view larger by hitting ctrl + in Firefox.  Or, click on link above.

When Governments Fail…

This past Monday, Iceland’s coalition government collapsed amid public outcry of the government’s failure to effectively bail out their broken financial system.  Simply put, Iceland did not have deep enough pockets like the US did to provide some sort of recovery program for its banks and other financial institutions.  Although those are some of the [...]