Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified Wednesday before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington. While sticking to his guns that low interest rates he oversaw was not a cause of the real estate bubble, he also estimated that his decisions were correct “70% of the time”.

David Walker, the former comptroller general of the GAO, has said the United States is on pace for bankruptcy. Fiscally speaking, things look really bad. So what should we do? Well, real estate developer Aaron Bistons has an idea and a petition to back it up. Sell Alaska!

Social costs are not being reduced by the bailout, they’re being dispersed: to the taxpayer, to everyone who earns or saves the U.S. dollar and to unborn generations of Americans.

It doesn’t seem like the Fed’s style to send taxpayers a check funded by equity or profits.

I don’t hope for GM to fail, but for some reason, I snickered during this commercial.

Choice quote:

“This is not about going out of business. This is about getting down to business. Because the only chapter we’re focused on, is chapter one.”

As General Motors (GM) inches toward bankruptcy, hear one GM bond holder’s take on the restructuring negotiations. A bond holder is an investor who loans money to a firm or government, and receives recurring interest payments. Bond holders are considered unsecured creditors of a company. In the event of a bankruptcy, bond holders are paid off before stockholders, but not before secured creditors who have claims on specific assets like real estate.

Credit, please stop masquerading as capital. Real capital comes from savings. A person or a government lives within their means, pays their expenses, burns through some money just for fun, and has some cash left over. The remaining sums are called savings. Savings then can be invested, stuffed in a mattress, or used as canvases to turn Andrew Jackson’s sideburns into a chin strap beard. Meet capital.