Publisher's Note: This is the fourth in a six part series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take...
POLITICS
Eureka! Gold!
Yesterday I wrote in this column that we had taken a position, as advisor, in a couple of gold stocks -- Newmont Mining and Homestake Mining. It's been over 20 years since I've traded gold stocks -- doing it again took me back to my earliest days of trading, back in...
Social Security and the Stock Market
Recent fluctuations in the stock market have been used by some liberal politicians as a reason why Social Security should not be privatized. What if someone invests retirement money in the stock market, instead of in Social Security, and then retires at a point when...
Que Pasa, Senor Bush?
If you thought ethnic pandering disappeared from the White House with the silverware and the Clintons, think again. Last weekend, President Bush proudly delivered the first White House radio address in Spanish. "Republican strategists" -- media-hungry hustlers who...
The Evil of Animal “Rights”
Scientists are closer than ever to finding cures for AIDS, cancer and other deadly illnesses. But more research and testing are needed and much of it must be done on animals. But will it occur? Not if the animal "rights" terrorists plaguing Huntingdon Life Sciences...
Politically Correct Racism vs. Justice Thomas
Ebony, a monthly black magazine, puts out an annual list of the "100+ Most Influential Black Americans." First, the magazine's criteria. Influential means, "1. Does the individual transcend his or her position and command widespread national influence? 2. Does the...
About Face on the Market
Yesterday I wrote in this column, "So many people are so totally hypnotized by the "don't fight the Fed" mantra that it wouldn't surprise me to see a brief rally here, back toward the highs achieved two weeks ago. Maybe a narrow defensive index like the Dow Jones...
The U.N. versus “Human Rights”
Nothing could show more clearly the United Nations' lack of commitment toward curbing human rights abuses than its absurd refusal to re-elect the United States to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. This diplomatic slap in the face was compounded by the fact that the...
America’s Amnesia
Arthur M. Schlesinger wrote in "The Disuniting of America": "History is to the nation ... as memory is to the individual. An individual deprived of memory becomes disoriented and lost, not knowing where he has been or where he is going, so a nation denied a conception...
At Least the FED Didn’t Blow It
At least the Fed didn't blow it. The FOMC's 50 basis point rate cut yesterday gave the markets just enough oxygen to keep breathing until further evidence of a deteriorating economy necessitates the next rate cut. It could have been worse. And based on the fact that...
We Are All “Drop Outs”
Hats off to Jackson Toby, who wrote in the Weekly Standard what few have dared to say in the past three decades: "Let them drop out." He argues that too many students are finding nothing but frustration and resentment at being trapped for hours every day in high...
On Race Relations, Color Me Confused
I'm confused. Director Spike Lee calls racism America's "No. 1 problem." So he makes a film called "Bamboozled," which argues that white network executives intentionally put on the worst images of blacks. Yet, when Lee asked to use seldom-seen "racially insensitive"...
“Big Oil” and The High Cost of Demons
Since it has long been known that the best defense is a good offense, it should not be surprising that politicians who have created an economic mess should begin loudly denouncing somebody else as the cause of the public's problems. Last year, the problem was a sharp...
California’s Green Profiteers
Last week, a quarter of a million Californians had their power cut in a new wave of rolling blackouts. As one official admitted, "This is the situation everyone feared. Here it is May 7, and we already have rolling outages." This is only a warm-up for the summer, when...
Wal-Mart is Wal-Smart
The world's biggest retailer proves the New Economy isn't just for tech companies. To be at the leading edge of the New Economy, a company doesn't have to make semiconductors or optical networking components, or even map the human genome. As much as anything else the...
The Executor’s Song: Part 3, Performing Triage for the Estate
Publisher's Note: This is the third in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their own...
Diversify Your Portfolio with Tech’s Leaders
Jack Welch, the retiring CEO of General Electric, may be the greatest corporate manager of all time. I'm not comparing him to inventors or entrepreneurs who created great things out of nothing, but as a manager who can run a business, develop talent and consistently...
Estate Planning: Part 1, An Unhappy and Burdensome Task
Author's Note: This is the first in a series of personal finance columns on the subject of being the executor of an estate. These columns are based on my own personal experiences in this regard. Individuals should consult a professional advisor and take their own...
Lost in the Dark
A week ago I wrote here that the NASDAQ's highs of Wednesday, May 2, marked the closing bookend of the NASDAQ's fabulous bull run that carried it 35.6% from the bottom on April 4. So far I've been right. From May 2 through yesterday's close, the NASDAQ has dropped...
“Don’t Ask, Do Tell” to Advance Missile Defense
President Bush's speech on ballistic missile defense (BMD) is a reaction to "the Kyoto complex," where he made a big (and the right) decision (getting out of the protocol) without consultation. Now on BMD, he's all consultation and no big decision. Acting much like...
Missile Defense Critics Go Ballistic
Talk about quick. It would take more time for a missile to get here from North Korea than it took critics to fire off the same tired arguments against missile defense following President Bush's recent speech at the National Defense University. What those arguments...
A Golden Opportunity?
Once again we're faced with a market that doesn't want to go up, but doesn't want to go down either. Since last Wednesday's high on the NASDAQ -- which I said was the closing bookend on the NASDAQ's spring rally -- the markets have all been in consolidation. Yes, the...
Bush’s Push for Missile Defense Must Defuse Incoming Rhetorical Bombs
Here in the US, opposition to national missile defense (NMD) falls into four categories. Critics complain about its potential cost, its alleged unworkability, its putative damage to international relations, and its supposed irrelevance to the real threats to the US....
Why Fiber To The Home (FTTH) Is Inevitable
For the past few years, telecom companies have been working diligently to provide us with pseudo-broadband internet connections over copper (DSL) and cable (cable modem). I use the term "pseudo-broadband" because the existing telecom infrastructure can only provide...
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