Of course, the projected $16.7 billion bonus pool for only the first nine months of this year, is outrageous, but is Goldman to blame or did it simply take advantage of a poorly thought-out and negotiated arrangement by and on behalf of the U.S. Government? Sadly to say, but I believe the latter is mostly correct and that the howls from the same officials who enabled Goldman et al. to make a mockery of the TARP and easy money from the Fed, should be directly at themselves for incompetence.

In announcing its stellar quarterly earnings of $3.44 billion or $4.93 per share, Goldman stated that it was setting aside $11.36 billion for an employee bonus pool, or $386,489 per employee. According to the Wall Street Journal, Goldman is on track to set aside $20 billion for the year or $700,000 per employee. Under any circumstances, such bonus compensation would be considered sensational. But given the actual circumstances under which its profits were "earned", the projected bonuses are reprehensible and unjustified.

No, the only people who benefit from this "usurious" loan under "duress" are the participating bondholders (the "Passive-Aggressive Lenders" or "PA Lenders", for short).

What did Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislators do to prepare for and respond to this crisis? Nothing, nada, zilch. Instead of developing of plan to stem mounting costs, to issue municipal bonds to fund a portion of the shortfall and to temporarily increase tax revenues (with an automatic sunset), the bickering continued and the June 30 fiscal year ended without a budget in place for next fiscal year.

Dunkin' Donuts is the obvious exception to this generality (along with 7-Eleven to a much lesser degree as it is a more direct competitor of Dunkin's transient and sporadic coffee customer), but it has always attracted a different demographic than Starbucks. Why do I make that statement? Because Dunkin' Donuts has been around since the 1950s and preceded Starbucks' existence by decades. Clearly, the two competitors played in different areas. And so it went for most of the 90s and the first few years of this decade. (The same analysis can also be applied to 7-Eleven.)

Please be advised that effective immediately (i) the economic system heretofore known as "Capitalism" in the United States of America shall now be known as "Government Capitalism", and (ii) the following rules, to the extent not already in effect, shall be implemented immediately.

When the Democrats believed that the Bush Administration had illegally tortured prisoners at Guantanamo, they expressed moral outrage, demanded hearings and requested the Justice Department to investigate for possible criminal wrongdoing. And they were entirely right to do so despite Republican objections and Dick Cheney's recent attempts to finger the Democratic Congressional Leadership as completely aware of interrogation techniques being utilized there. That is the nature of a system where the law is supposed to mean something -- people are called to account for their actions under the law.

Not only is that shibboleth completely at odds with empirical economic data, but it masks the very real potential of a weak or non-existent recovery for the foreseeable future. See recent comments by Mohammed El-Erian of PIMCO and David Sokol, chairman of a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary and a top advisor to Warren Buffett. That Kudlow and Cramer blithely ignore the unabated growth of the unemployment rate (notwithstanding the decline in job losses) and the correlative decline in buying power and from underemployment is, minimally, intellectually dishonest and dangerous.

Aside from slumping real estate values, consumer credit continues to shrink and unemployment is expected to crest somewhere over 10% but not until next year. Sounds like eroding buying power to me, but I tend to prefer economic indicators based on facts, not unrealized fantasy. So how can consumer confidence rise so dramatically when home prices are falling so dramatically? A very good question but I doubt they asked it to the 5,000 households comprising the Consumer Confidence Index.

Over the years, the Government has also thwarted efforts to drill for oil offshore or in Alaska due to exaggerated environmental concerns. The result: America became more and more reliant on foreign oil. Meanwhile, the rest of the world continued to exploit their oil resources wherever located, onshore or offshore. So, in effect, this country unilaterally withdrew from the oil exploration business in the most promising areas for development.