Quotes of the day

We want social returns, as well as financial ones. When you look at the major financial institutions, you have to realize there is greed involved.--Sister Nora, the Sisters of St. Francis

I completely agree, Sister Nora, but greed also infects non-financial institutions, including governments and charities and church.--Cav (who may have more cross-institutional experience than Sister Nora)

Jay-Z is releasing a new line of T-shirts in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement Friday via his Rocawear clothing label, but he doesn't plan to share any of the profits with the protesters.--Kimberly Nordyke

There are all sorts of forms of honest grafts that congressmen engage in that allow them to become very, very wealthy. So it's not illegal, but I think it's highly unethical, I think it's highly offensive, and wrong.
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For example insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.
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They do. The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is-- is considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that's market moving information. And if you can trade stock on-- off of that information and do so legally, that's a great profit making opportunity. And that sort of behavior goes on.
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It's really the way the rules have been defined. And the people who make the rules are the political class in Washington. And they've conveniently written them in such a way that they don't apply to themselves.
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If you were a senator, Steve, and I gave you $10,000 cash, one or both of us is probably gonna go to jail. But if I'm a corporate executive and you're a senator, and I give you IPO shares in stock and over the course of one day that stock nets you $100,000, that's completely legal. And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs. --Peter Schweizer

All of a sudden [a congressman] from a background maybe in law, maybe in some other unrelated business area, all of a sudden is picking winners and losers in the market.--Jack Abramoff, disgraced Washington lobbyist

How then can we explain the high and persistent levels of long-term unemployment during this recession? One clearly important factor is the extension in July of 2010 of unemployment insurance to cover workers who have been out of work for 99 weeks instead of having their payments end after 6 months of unemployment. Studies have shown that many unemployed find jobs just about when their unemployment payments expire, after 6 months of collecting benefits under the old system. It does not require any complicated economic analysis to conclude that the extension of unemployment payments to 99 weeks will encourage many individuals to remain unemployed after 6 months of unemployment, although they would have found jobs under the old rules. They will turn down jobs that may not be as good as those they had before becoming unemployed in order to continue to collect unemployment benefits. For that reason I opposed the extension to 99 weeks in my post on 7/25/2010 Should Unemployment Compensation be Extended?.
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Long-term unemployment may also partly be the result of uneven employment opportunities and uneven prospects for housing prices in different states and regions of the US. States like California, Nevada, and Florida that had major construction, jobs, and housing booms in the years before the onset of the recession suffered the largest hits to employment and to housing prices. Unemployed workers in such states may be reluctant to move to states where more jobs are available at good wages since they may be involved in foreclosure litigation and other issues related to the depressed housing market. They may also turn down jobs that pay much less then the unusually good wages they had during the boom times to continue to collect unemployment benefits for up to 2 years.
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Other factors are also involved in the sharp rise in the number of workers unemployed for over 6 months. Yet overall they do not justify the conclusion that many unemployed individuals are unable to find jobs because the American economy has too little demand for their set of skills.--Gary Becker

We're running out of guys there [in the defensive secondary]. [College quarterback and NFL receiver Julian Edelman] stepped in and made a nice hit there and a made a nice tackle on [LaDainian] Tomlinson. You never know. It's a long season. We have a lot of games left. Who knows who will be playing where, but I know one thing: These guys are tough, mentally and physically. They'll stand up to the challenge and give their best. That counts for a lot. The game's not too big for them.--Bill Belichick

There’s so many things I’ve learned from him over the years about mental toughness. His ability to stay even-keeled through the wins and the losses. I remember the year that we went undefeated, you never would have thought we were undefeated. You would have thought we were 0-16 the way that he coached us. The last two weeks have been rough, but he never lost faith in us or confidence in what we were doing. He just said ‘Look we just gotta do better.’ He doesn’t ride those highs and lows and he comes in every week with a goal in mind. All the guys who play for him really appreciate that and appreciate his consistency and appreciate the way that he listens to the team as well.--Tom Brady

How Muhammad Wilkerson doesn't get that [dropped] ball is beyond me. For Brady to go in there and fight for that ball was a great sign of how tough that guy is. I know what goes on in those piles. It's a dark place. A lot of things are done I can not speak of. Kudos to Brady.--Tedy Bruschi

Victories since Oct. 23: Tebow 3, Tom Brady/Michael Vick/Philip Rivers (combined) 2.--Peter King

Historically, investors have assumed 25% to 30% of student loans bundled into their bonds will default. But today they are baking in between 30% and 40% default rates among the current crop of graduates, said Chris Haid, a director in asset backed trading at Barclays Capital. Even those assumptions are a best guess and defaults could ultimately go higher if unemployment rises, Mr. Haid said. This analysis translates into some surprising insights for students and policy makers. For example, in the current economy, it may make more sense to enter a technical college than to go to law school. Not all lessons from the bond market are so counterintuitive. The most important, in fact, is a slight twist on a maxim most students know from childhood: stay in school, just not too long.
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In recessions, law school graduates have a harder time finding work than other graduates from professional programs and are more likely to default on their student loans.--Matt Wirz

When you see a guy in a loan made in 2005 that is still in school, you throw that away.--Rubin Bahar

I’m amazed that in a park full of revolutionaries, there are large contingents that can’t throw away their own trash.--Jordan McCarthy, a member of the protesters’ sanitation team

I am amazed that she is amazed.--Cav

Photo links here and here.