Contrarian Pundit

The New York Times‘ Louise Story and Gretchen Morgenson, whose work on Goldman Sachs will likely net them a Pulitzer next year, published another bombshell yesterday on how federal regulators orchestrated A.I.G.’s $182 billion bailout on terms even more overwhelmingly favorable to Goldman Sachs and other investment banks than simply recouping their contracts at 100 [...]

Bob Hebert captures the vibe of our current malaise: the futility on display in the Gulf, in Afghanistan, on financial reform, and elsewhere.
President Obama’s top adviser on energy policy, Carol Browner, unintentionally underscored the monumental futility of the response in a comment she made on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“This is obviously a difficult [...]

There are only eight Bay Area banks left to watch from Calculated Risk’s list of problem institutions, after the failures of Tamalpais Bank and Innovative Bank earlier this month. I recently reviewed the serious problems at Pacific State Bank of Stockton. Now we can add another bank to the possible failure watch: Sonoma [...]

McDonald’s scraps composting program because food won’t decompose
Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein: Time Man of the Year!
Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future
Coldplay launches new cologne
Obama opens Red State coastlines to oil drilling