Is it really a risk if you know you can't fail?

Is it really a risk if you know you can't fail? Kevin Phillips of the Wall Street Journal writes:

"risk has been off-loaded by wealthy Wall Streeters onto taxpayers. He says the government’s actions in the recent financial crisis — especially the Fed’s backing of $29 billion of Bear Stearns assets and lending directly to Wall Street firms — show government will bail out financial players when they get into serious trouble. Risk, he says, has become “socialized,” while rewards have been privatized."- WSJ

If the government continues to reward firms who assume too much risk by "bailing them out" where is the incentive for them not to take on so much risk? There isn't. If every time I decided to take a chance and knew in the back of my mind that if things did not come to pass I would be helped back on my feet by an outside party then is it really a risk? Thats what businesses do, they succeed or they fail. Stop interfering and let free markets take their course. Further down the "Road to Serfdom." Here is the link to the entire article.

4,000

Here is a link to a mosaic made from the photos of the 4,000 U.S. service men and women killed in Iraq. It depicts the man who is responsible for sending these people to their deaths and the man who has been quoted as saying that he has no problem keeping our troops there for another "100 years" if he is elected president. Another 100 years? We have lost on average 800 troops per year for the last five years. With that said, another one hundred years would bring, using history as a guideline, another 80,000 American deaths. That brings the total to 84,000 deaths assuming consistency. Sounds like a great idea. I bet you can make a pretty large mosaic with 84,000 faces. See here.

Jim Cramer or Cosmo Kramer on Bear?

3-11-08: "Bear Stearns is fine."

Hurry up in the there!

"Honey, I know you have to go. I'll be right out..." and then two years passed.

Shortcomings of curricula.

In my numerous years of education starting in the New York City public schools, continuing onward to a private catholic High School and closed out by attending arguably one of the best universities in the country, how on earth have I never come across this masterfully presented, history making, ode to the written word that is Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail? Shame on you teachers, professors and institutions who I am still financially indebted to! I believe a refund is in order.

A quarter of a century

If Hillary Clinton goes on to win the election this coming November and remains in power pending some unforeseeable circumstance through 2013, that will mean that 2 families will have held the highest seat of power in our government for 24 consecutive years, beginning with G.H.W. Bush in 1989. Anyone with half of a brain can recognize that fact with some simple arithmetic but what does this say about our nation on so many different levels of thought? I can spend the rest of my week analyzing that simple idea from every angle: culturally, socially, democratically, politically, economically and so on but I'll leave it up to you to contemplate this disturbing realization about the state of our nation.