We have not yet achieved self-reinforcing recovery. We are heavily dependent upon government support so far. We are on a government support system, both in the financial markets and in the economy.

—Paul Volcker

"Creditors need to take part of the responsibility for their decision to lend to the companies." --Abdulrahman al-Saleh, director general of the Department of Finance in Dubai.”

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
Based on last Friday’s official settlement...

Regardless of the dollar price involved, one ounce of gold would purchase a good-quality man's suit at the conclusion of the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, and today.

- Peter A. Burshre

“A proposal to give banking regulators authority to block accounting standards is 'a terrible idea.'” Paul A. Volcker

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
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“How are you going to regulate systematic risk when you are the systematic risk?”—Senator Jim Bunning questioning Ben Bernanke

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
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"Years of practice enable the trader to act on the instant when the unexpected happens as well as when the expected comes to pass." - Jesse Livermore

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
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“God writes a lot of comedy…the trouble is, he’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny.”—Garrison Keillor

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
Based on last Friday’s official settlement...

INDU: -0.2%
SPX: -0.7%
COMPQ: -0.1%
RUT: -2.5%

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have"--Thomas Jefferson”

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
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There are no secrets to success. Don’t waste your time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for whom you work, and persistence.—Colin Powell

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Where in the world are you going to find these angels for us to arrange society for us?...no other system in the world has lifted so many from poverty as capitalism and free trade...is political greed somehow more virtuous than economic greed? If so, where are the examples in history? -Milton Friedman

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“Extensive participation in the impersonal, transaction-oriented capital market does not seem to me an intrinsic part of commercial banking.”-Paul Volcker

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How do you turn an industry that costs $700 million annually into one that eats $6 billion? Nationalize it, as Congress did airport screening after September 11, 2001.—Becky Akers, Author of TSA: Taxes Spent Absurdly

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
Based on last Friday’s official settlement...

September 8, 2009

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.—Niels Bohr, Danish Physicist

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices based on last Friday’s official settlement...

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” -- Barack Obama, trying to demonstrate the government can do a better job managing healthcare

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One day, we will awake to find that we have socialism. One of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children what it once was like in America, when men were free.

-Ronald Reagan

“American People Demand New Bubble to Invest In!” The Onion.

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Based on last Friday’s official settlement...

“Only a few people knew that debt ratios at major financial firms were 33 to 1 – a lethal level of risk. Nobody knew what Freddie Mac was doing. It was like letting your children play with loaded guns. Sooner or later someone will pull a trigger.”

-- Felix Royathan

“If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.” Dorothy Parker.

Weekly percentage performance for the major indices
Based on last Friday’s official settlement...

July 6th, 2009

“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” - Al Capone 1899-1947

There are two kinds of people who lost money: those who know nothing and those who know everything. With two Nobel Prize winners in the house, Long-Term Capital clearly fits the second case. – Henry Kaufman

June 29, 2009