Economic Snapshot

So, there was an amusing email sent around the office today, and i think it really grasps everything that is going on in the economic and investment world at the moment…

**THESE WORDS OF WISWOM ARE FOR INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL USE ONLY!!**

If you had purchased $1,000 of Delta Air Lines stock one year ago, you would have $49 left.

With Fannie Mae, you would have $2.50 left of the original $1,000.

With AIG, you would have less than $15 left.

But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all of the beer, then turned in the cans for the aluminum recycling REFUND, you would have $214 cash.

Based on the above, the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

 

Cheers to that.

Picture of the Day; September 30th, 2008

Ah yes, her foreign policy experience.

Notes on the Law from Law School

It is perhaps fitting that my first post from within the law school premises relate to the Supreme Court. Though I’ve yet to actually deal with the Supremes in any of my classes, I nonetheless find this little tidbit about our favorite punching bag to be depressing. And scary. As usual.

Of concern to McCain’s campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin’s interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how “infuriating” it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

Two points. First, any VP candidate from a major party should know enough about one of the coordinate branches of the Federal Government to name one meaningful policy debate (well, legal debate) it has found itself in. That she didnt know does not merely suggest ignorance of legal decisions, but rather ignorance of topics in American history. While many many cases find themselves wallowing in the obscurity of the debates that go on in the country’s law reviews, a great number of them still punctuate great social movements in the United States. Dred Scott, Brown v. Board of Ed, and Lawrence v. Texas (just to name a few) had huge impacts on the national issues of slavery, segregation and gay rights. My second point is that in light of her shocking ignorance of the court cases, it highlights her own religious fundamentalism that the only case she does apparently have an “informed” opinion on is Roe. Not a surprise.

Anyway, this all assumes that this rumor of the gaffe is true. If not, forget everything I said.