Haircuts happen to holders of the debt of failed or failing companies

I've seen a number a short pieces on how stupid Trump's comment about US debt holders taking a "haircut" was. In those pieces there is commentary about how it is normal for debt holders to sometimes take pennies on the dollar.

No one has noted that this only happens if you own the debt of a failing enterprise. Something Trump has s great deal of experience with. He managed several large businesses into the ground.

He has proven again and again that he can build a brand, that he is a great marketer--but he has never proven that he can perform as a manager.

He wins the nomination and he immediately thinks about the steps he would take when he has turned the US into a failed enterprise. He is planning on turning our nation into a bankrupt.

The political and financial press don't seem to be able grasp how telling this one comment is.

Rorschach Blot Candidate

He's a babbling fool. Yet he says things that his voters can latch on to... He makes no sense. He speaks in some sort of rambling stream of consciousness and people hear what they most want to hear.

They are hurting and he offers to hurt. That the ones that get hurt are not the ones that hurt them is of no consequence. He makes hatred okay.

He makes their anger and their hatred okay. He gives them permission to hate.

He is not the most interesting man in the world. He is the most dangerous man in the world.

He may well be our next President.

This baldly states the obvious

This piece makes one statement that has been echoing in my head for weeks now. Hillary Clinton is "simply not a progressive..."

That is the root cause of the problem her campaign cannot solve.

She may win anyway, but stagger into the general election weakened with a complete lack of enthusiasm from the progressive wing (which now includes the Miilenials).

Many of us will grit our teeth and vote again for the lesser of the two evils. The Millenials will probably just not vote.

How nice...

Oh wow! Another fine.

The people that misled investors haven't been fined a dime. Morgan Stanley will pay the fine and deduct it from their taxes and the U.S. (and New York) will probably end up owing Morgan Stanley a refund on federal and state taxes.

The monetary penalty assessed has no impact on Morgan Stanley and the Morgan Stanley personnel that executed this scheme get to keep all the money they made in the scam.

Fraud pays and pays exceedingly well.

There is 0 incentive to not do this or something like it again. Looking at how this has played out... Why would anyone even hesitate? The profits from the fraud were immense for everyone in the fraud ecosystem. Only the investors lost. And, in U.S. (and presumably New York) law there are really no protections for investors. They must sue to recover and they law provides little ground on which to sue.

Money for nothing and chicks for free indeed.

The next scam is probably underway. And the crooks know they won't go to jail and they won't have to give the money back.

Selling worthless garbage has never been so good.

Leaves no option but impeachment

I'm not from Maine, but from what I've read there are impeachment proceedings already in motion.

This action, which shows signs that this man is mentally ill, leaves the Maine legislature with no options.

They have to impeach LePage. Or have him removed from office as being mentally unfit to serve (not sure what the Maine constitution provides for...).

While I'm not a mental health professional I'd say he's showing clear signs of being insane.

I disagree and would bet Bernie does too...

Bernie Sanders did exactly as well as he needed to do in Iowa. It absolutely doesn't matter whether he actually won or not. The delegate counts are minuscule and won't affect the outcome in the convention at all.

What matters is that he came out of Iowa with momentum. He is, according to everything I've read, going to take New Hampshire fairly easily.

Look what has happened since Iowa.

The Quinnipiac poll now shows him within the margin of error nationally against Clinton. Clinton is continuing to have to play defense. The media is now not ignoring Sanders. He just got his shot on SNL and looked pretty darn good according to what I've read. He is continuing to play offense, but is remaining true to his original message. Clinton seems to be floundering in terms of message. Her surrogates are beginning to sound almost insane (Madelaine Allbright is quoted as saying there's "special place in hell for women that don't support each other...&quot . Clinton has now been forced to make a pledge to not ever cut Social Security benefits. Just as she was in the past forced to abjure the TPP and the Trans Canadian pipeline.

The Sander's campaign is just moving on. Much as it has done from the very beginning. Don't sweat it. Let Iowa recede in the rear view mirror.

A statistical dead heat is always a victory...

You really want to bang this particular drum?

This was (according to the MATH you refer to) a tie.

If you have any doubts about this please refer to any Intro to Statistics textbook.

Nate Silver was not predicting this outcome and you know it.

And you'll be there helping to circle the wagons?

It is not reported on

I used to travel overseas often and the difference in the covers of even standard magazines like Time and Newsweek in London or Caracas--not to mention all of the other publications.

At least back then (this was around 12-15 years ago) journalism was still being practiced outside of this country.

What almost no one realizes is that the what America does simply isn't reported here.

And when it is reported it is softened with terms like "collateral damage". You could make a list of the terms we've come up with for our routine violence. Since we can't see it, smell it, hear it--well those terms suck the impact from what America does.

The funny thing is that many of us still think we're the good guys--even while we're doing things that would have impressed the SS.

If we had journalists that had any interest in doing their jobs who worked for news providers that had any interest in reporting even a fraction of the actual truth we might begin to question what our leaders are doing in our name.

But for now, we are the country that dispenses summary justice from the sky and imprisons people without trial or charges in Guantanamo and black sites we don't even know about.

We're a long way from being the good guys now.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that we're producing creatures like Ted Cruz as presidential candidates when our current President is addicted to drone warfare.

A very moral, thinking person

I feel a kinship with her.

I left the Catholic church at the age of 13 after a four year intellectual journey that started when I discovered the Inquisition.

I found a reference to it in a juvenile historical novel and went over to the adult section in the library and found a book about the history of the Inquisition. When I went to the desk to check it out the librarian refused to let me check it out.

I was blessed with a mother who was a study in contradictions. She was a harsh prude about anything having to do with sex. But I was not reading about or wanting to read about sex. I was reading history. She called the librarian and told her to let me check out anything I wanted.

As I entered my teens with my faith profoundly shaken we moved to Colombia. I was confronted by deep, epidemic poverty the likes of which I'd never seen in my life. The source of any poverty is extremely complex, but overpopulation in the campesino class was a key factor. There was a nascent program to promote family planning through educations and distribution of free condoms and in Bogota, oral contraceptives.

This was the late 60's and liberalism was making rapid gains everywhere, but especially in Latin America.

To stifle this movement (it was not only in Colombia, but throughout all of Latin America) Pope Paul VI decided to tour Latin America. He actively preached against the family planning movement and told these poor ignorant people that if they tried to take control of their own reproductive lives that they would go to hell.

The movement collapsed overnight. Suddenly, those going into the vast shanty towns ringing every major city in South America could (literally) not give away condoms or birth control pills.

I left the church in disgust and have not ever gone back.

But I didn't have the courage of this young lady. She has organized to spread what she has discovered.

How I admire her.