I’m a free markets guy.  I believe in the power of millions of transactions from millions of parties to drive the direction of an economy or in the case of the stock market, the valuations of America’s companies.  I’m struggling these days because I’m finding myself not trusting the stock market.  The ideas of manipulation, corruption, high frequency trading, Fed intervention, etc. are all in my mind these days.
A recent Yahoo Tech Ticker post discussed what they called a “zombie market”.  The post describes a market driven higher by very …

A quick administrative update.  I’ve cancelled the email list that I’ve been running for some time – note: you can still subscribe to the site via email through the main link on the top left – I’m referring to the separate email list.  It cost me $20 a month and really didn’t add any value except to make my RSS subscriber count look better.  So, I’m saving some money now, but my count went down about 300 subscribers   Hopefully, I’ll build it back up soon!
Thanks as always for …

This weekend is potentially an historic weekend.  Whether or not it’s a good weekend depends on your stance.  To help you iron out your stance, check out the article from the other day on whether or not health care is a right.  Be sure to read the comments of the post.
On to the reads…
Jim Rogers says another recession is coming (SHTF) I think it’s debatable whether the first one is over!
Caterpiller (CAT) says that the health care bill will cost them $100 mil the first year (Business news)
Moody’s fear social …

If you’ve ready anything about the losses on the books of the government housing entities like Fannie & Freddie, the losses are over the $200 billion market for the last couple years.  In recent years, we’ve had a massive increase in FHA loans potentially sowing the seeds for massive losses in coming years (2011-2013).  The overall picture is one of subsidized housing and massive losses in the public sector.  Since losses are just plugged with tax payer dollars, the result is taxpayer funded subsidized housing.
If we move to the health …

In a shocking, but not so shocking article for those of us who continue to yell about the broken economy of the United States, CNNMoney talks about the insanely low levels of retirement funds for most Americans.
A few highlights from the article:

The percentage of workers who have less than $10k in retirement savings grew from 39% to 43% in 2010
Workers who have less than $1k jumped to 27% from 20%

Factor in unemployment, health care costs, the fact that most Americans are underwater on their homes, insane debt levels, the government …

With health care all over the media, I figured let’s get some discussion going here.  The primary issue at the core of much of the health care debate is whether or not health care is an entitlement or a right.
If you believe it is an entitlement/right, then what about food & housing?  Education?
Please add your thoughts in the comments below.

America… The land of the free unsustainable.  There was a good article recently on the length of unemployment benefits from the Washington Post.  Incredibly, you can now collect unemployment benefits for just under 2 years.  Yes, 2 years.  Through a number of extensions (no thanks to that rich, hateful Jim Bunning from Kentucky of course!), the government has made it easier to be without a job for up to 99 weeks.
The morality of the legisation can be debated.  The sustainability (along with the numerous other government programs these days that …

The following question has been debated for years:  What you should do with your money? Work on paying off your mortgage or invest the money in stocks?  Most people go the stocks route since the mortgage rates these days are so low, and people are still buy into the mentality that over time stocks will always bring a nice return.
I was listening to Dave Ramsey the other day and he actually made some pretty interesting points about this whole debate.  They are:

If your home were paid off, would you borrow …