Missing hikers found

Called for rescue on their cellphone. Look: I’m glad they are safe, but volunteers found them after an hour most of which, I suspect, was spent hiking up to them. I don’t know the circumstances, but I’ll speculate that they went into the woods unprepared to spend the night and probably lacked a compass and a map. If I were Czar, I’d let buffoons like this spend the night out on a warm August night before ordering out the troops.

Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein lawyers up

It seems to me that there’s nothing wrong with a wealthy man hiring the best, if most expensive, lawyer in the land if the feds are sniffing around. If I had his money, I sure as hell wouldn’t hire me, just for appearances sake.

FCC kills off “fairness doctrine”

It only took from 1987 but still, it’s a good thing.

Would-be home buyers spooked by stock market volatility

Well for sure. That said, buyers with cash don’t seem all that concerned, so Greenwich will probably survive. The rest of the country? Ugh.

Bank of America shrinking rapidly

No longer “too big to fail”?

Death trial for Chesire murderer to proceed

And Dr. Petit may attend, according to the presiding judge. I completely understand the father’s desire to see these scum put to death- I would demand the same thing myself – but I wonder whether we as a state must oblige a victim’s thirst for vengeance? There’s no way these horrible people will ever be executed because Connecticut doesn’t execute anyone – we should, but we don’t, so we’re going to spend millions of dollars on a trial plus twenty years of appeals, subject jurors to the horrors of the crime, all for naught. Both defendants offered to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences with no possibility of parole and, death penalty or not, that’s effectively what will happen.

Chris Shays makes it official

He’s running for Senate. He’s not my cup of tea, so to speak, but Connecticut’s a liberal state, the man is honest, and Republican control of the Senate would rid us of various obnoxious Democrat committee chairmen, so I’d vote for him.

Aw, now even I think this is unfair

Obama’s vacation reading list is released and he’s being criticized for being a lightweight. The poor guy reads dense, heavy security briefings, position papers etc. all year. Vacation time is for candy bar reading – kick back and enjoy a good story and even Obama deserves that chance. By the way, I was curious about his choice of crime stories, Bayou Trilogy, so I ordered it for my Kindle ($9.99 for all three stories). I’m through two of them and they aren’t bad. Not great, to my taste, but entertaining.

As an avid reader, I don’t begrudge the man some easy, entertaining books. The real world awaits him soon enough.

Obama will issue statement at 2:00 on Libya

To offer Kadaffy safe passage to the Vineyard and guest privileges at the golf club of his choice.

Time to trade up again, my friend

Carl Icahn made $535 million last week. Years ago I sold a really nice couple a starter home. Then he joined Icahn and moved on up to a mansion. But really, is 10,000 sq. ft. still sufficient? Let’s go again, pal.

A job training program that might actually work

And Obama is considering it.  The typical job training program stuffs a number of poor souls in a large room and teaches them nothing. The results are dismal and have been for decades – a complete wast of money.

Down in Georgia some years ago they tried something different: unemployment benefits would continue while people worked for free at any business that would have them. At the end of two months, the companies can hire them or send them back, no obligation, no costs incurred. Results: 20% are hired directly, another 40% find work with other firms. Not perfect, but a great success rate nonetheless.

My father found work on Wall Street during the Depression by offering to work for free for a firm for a month. By the end of his first week, he was hired. These days, minimum wage laws and other regulations prevent that but by Georgia labelling the workers “trainees”, they found a way around the regulations.

And Obama seems to endorse the Georgia approach. It’s not a cure-all, but it sounds like a smarter way to address unemployment than most other ideas I’ve heard, so good for Obama. It will cost money, but so does sustained unemployment, and I hope we try it. As an aside, this is why we should let all our states serve as laboratories for problem solving. Some ideas will fail, some will succeed and can adopted nationwide. More efficient than a one size fits all experiment imposed fom Washington.

Chasing the market down

Happens in rich California housing markets too. Not just a Greenwich phenomenon.

If Hurricane Irene hits Florida Friday, will it ruin Obummer’s vacation?

Zeroing in on Florida and predicted to gain strength.

Interesting senate candidate in Ohio

The state’s treasurer is challenging the incumbent.  Josh Mandel served two tours of duty in Iraq, cut millions from his department’s spending, forced a rollback of property taxes and seems quite popular throughout the state. All this at 33 years old. Someone for political junkies to keep an eye on, certainly.