Brace for Sordid Tales of Waste

From a friend who works in a local scientific lab comes word of the kind of economic stimulus that might have been better spent building, say, a truly world-class miniature golf course, or perhaps drilling for oil in the men’s room of the county court house.  While either of these ventures might at least have created a few new jobs, the government has instead chosen to buy an MRI scanner for $1 million-plus and give it to a lab that has no budget to hire a technician to operate it. Our source notes that the lab already has an MRI…

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Goldman Heating Up, but Will It Spread?

We thought it would be a good time to look in on our favorite bellwether, Goldman Sachs (GS), since the extraordinarily well-connected banking firm’s shares have been sharply on the rise lately. As long as this is the case, it makes a stock market selloff most unlikely. GS has rapidly emerged from a funk after having spent nearly a month in purgatory – its penance for a wilding spree that that culminated a penny above an important…

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Don’t Be Fooled by Gold’s Tired Look

Gold futures eased lower yesterday, apparently too tired for the time being to continue treading water. The Comex August contract settled at 927.40, down a little more than one percent on the day.  If you’re a long-term investor looking to do some bargain-hunting, however, we’d advise waiting for even better prices, since it looks as though the futures…

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Savor These Days of Trashy News

We ought to savor the luxury of fleeting times such as these, when Matters of Consequence have been shoved off the front page by the sordid and the salacious. A Burmese python got loose in a Florida home yesterday, strangling a two-year-old. Should the pet’s owner, the boyfriend of the toddler’s mother, be charged with endangerment? Tune in to Larry King…

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