Goldman Sachs and the Market Maker Conundrum
The weekend is close at hand, which means after-work drinks, family get-togethers, and plenty of complaints about politicians and Wall Street bigwigs. This time around, the politicians and the financial world clashed on Tuesday when a Senate panel grilled several Goldman Sachs executives about questionable practices involving shorting investments that were offered to their clients. Most [...]
Who is Scott Brown?
By now, you probably know that Scott Brown, a Republican, won the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy in a huge upset of an election in Massachusetts the other day. Being an avid reader of Dinner Topics, you also know that as a Republican replacing a Democrat in the Senate, the Democrat’s supermajority in [...]
Supermajority and filibusters
With two Democratic senators1 announcing their decisions not to run for re-election, the Senate is faced with the possibility that its Democratic supermajority may disappear. There will be plenty of talk in the next year about supermajorities with the 2010 elections coming along, so you need to be prepared to understand some of the lingo and [...]
Health care bill voted on again?
It’s Christmas, but Dinner Topics won’t take a break. In fact, with a family dinner likely scheduled for today, you need us now more than ever. The big news story of the past couple days is the Senate’s approval of the health care bill. Here’s where you want to make sure you don’t get confused. [...]
At 34 hours, health bill a longer read than Harry Potter
It’s true that politics are tough to talk about at parties, and often it’s wise to keep one’s political opinions at bay, but this is just too good to pass up. Regardless if you are a Republican, Democrat, or somewhere in the middle, this piece of information is a telling tale of bloated government tactics. [...]
