I'm interning at the department of commerce, and I'll be doing a lot of research soo hopefully that will show itself on my kinda dead blog...

Sorry for the lack of updates, but they will soon be back! Summer is around the corner! I'm currently studying for finals...

Anyways I just read an NPR article on how US law caps the amount BritishPetroleum must pay due to oil leak in the offshore platform. It's at $75 MILLION. That's ridiculous.

I read an article in Time (or was it Newsweek, it was one of them) on how LeT is a much bigger threat than Al-Qaeda. The article claims that LeT is much more sophisticated than Al-Qaeda and that it can develop and execute intricate terrorist attacks. The writer compared their international capabilities to that of Hezbullah. Very interesting article.

I'm on spring break, and I went home (Paris) for a bit then to Prague for 2 days and now I'm back in Paris. While at the airport in Prague, some stupid French f**ks were beating on the US over the Air Force Tanker contract. They said we're afraid to share our military plans with Europe. That we're too chicken. Well let's talk when the French save the US from being overrun by a super power. 

Prague is only good for going out to clubs and what not. The Czech people were really rude, smelled horrible, and their food is disgusting. All in all just go to Prague for a few days and party. 

I think that the bank tax proposed by the Obama administration is a a legitimate tax. The big over leveraged banks made very scary trades ignoring the risks attached to the assets they were buying/selling. They left what were deemed to be highly rated CDOs and other MBSs on their balance sheets. When the crisis hit they were liable for enormous write downs, which prompted the US government (under Bush) to intervene with TARP, TSLF, and the offer to change IBs to bank holding companies. AIG is a losing investment. AIG bought CDS contracts, which, once the crisis hit, forced AIG to put up more collateral and eventually pay the insurance tied to the contracts. Considering that AIG's contracts were with all the big banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc), and they profited when the government stepped in and gave AIG a humongous loan. I believe that their profits stemmed from the governments intervention. Therefore I think that they should pay for the loss that the tax payer has taken with respect to AIG.

(I recommend that anyone interested in the crisis read: 1) Fool's Gold and 2) Too Big to Fail )

Re-elect Bernanke for the Fed Chair. I wonder where we would be if he hadn't been at the helm of our economy. He, along with Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, salvaged our economy from what could have been a much worse recession, a depression. Stop giving him bull and re-elect him.

Gen. McChrystal's notion that the Taliban might play a role in the future of Afghanistan is a step in the right direction. If you don't include the Taliban in the foundation of Afghanistan, you leave the door open for a possible collapse of the government and potentially the a re-emergence of Afghanistan as a terror haven. Its like not including one political party in the USA, you are going to alienate a large group of people which would lead to huge tension and potentially a revolt.