It’s been an interesting week so far as reaction to the whole Joe The Plumber escapade has heightened people’s awareness of Barack Obama’s agenda.

For the sake of full disclosure, and ensuring people don’t accuse me of taking his words out of context, you can see the full transcript of the conversation between Obama and Joe here. I’m going to focus on one sentence that Obama said:

I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.

One can argue a hundred different opinions on this topic, and there’s been a lot of comments around how this is a Socialist agenda (and many consider this to be pretty obvious). However, the new argument from the Left is that there’s nothing new here that make Obama’s plans more Socialist than we are today. Or more Socialist than we have been for nearly 100 years. I received an email

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to hear (on the New York Times Audio Digest) this story about the Pope’s speech to the US Bishops on Wednesday.
It was an excellent assessment of the lives we tend to live in America where we’ve gotten comfortable compartmentalizing our faiths or belief systems away from the realities of [...]

JPMorgan Chase appears close to closing the deal to acquire Bear Stearns. The arrangement, just 2 days after Bear Stearns stock price dropped 46% in a single trading session, would value the teetering financial services company at about $236 million ($2 per share). The closing price on Bear Stearns stock was $30.85 on [...]

It’s odd how Retail Sales could have the nerve to be up when everyone knows it should be down.  How does it do that?
Simple, really, higher prices where demand is not going to retreat quickly.  Gasoline.  And the stuff that uses it.
The problem is that the only really meaningful measure of Retail Sales (year-to-year) is [...]

I spent most of the afternoon today in meetings, and of course, we don’t touch our Blackberries while we’re focused on the Present (I’m pretty serious about this, Blackberry use means I don’t need to be in the meeting). However, during times between meetings and on breaks, out they come (to the demise of [...]

According to the WSJ, on fears that the US will experience a recession (perhaps due to the possibility of Ron Paul getting elected president), the major Asian indexes fell anywhere from 4-8%.
Evidently Bush’s stimulus package did not impress. Let’s hope this doesn’t create a circular reaction event (US Markets drop, Asian Markets drop, lather, [...]