SAR #14156

A new world is in the offing; you are not going to like it.

Wash Your Hands: Why is it that whenever a major corporation commits egregious crimes, the top executives – those paid tens of million a year – turn out not to know what was going on in their companies? GM being the latest example.

Less Is Less: The ECB has reduced the interest it pays – if reduced is the right word for it – to minus 0.1%. Commercial banks will have to pay the bank to keep their money. The idea is that this will encourage the banks to actually lend some money. In the US the Fed pays 0.25% on both required and excess reserves, encouraging them to not do anything so risky as actually make loans.

Peacekeepers: Obama wasn't sure that kicking Putin out of the G-7 was sending quite the right message, so he sent three B-52's on a European vacation, joining the 'repositioned' F-15 and F-16 fighters sent earlier to Lithuania and Poland.

Noted: “The problem is not inflation per se, but when the rate of inflation turns out to be meaningfully higher than what investors thought they’d get when they made their investments.”

Notch: One in five Americans is now on Medicaid.

Dumb Question: “Why Do the Media Give So Much More Attention to Jobs We Lose Due to Environmental Restrictions Than Jobs We Lose Because of the Trade Deficit?”

Star Chamber: In England, two men charged with terrorism will be tried in secret, found guilty in secret on secret charges and then executed in secret.

Carpe Diem: The senate came together in a rare burst of bipartisanship to take the first steps toward privatizing the VA system by letting veterans seek VA paid treatment outside the VA system. 
 
Theology Question: How many Hail Marys did the Irish nuns have to say to gain absolution?