Maybe Brazil: Urban Larson, manager of the F&C Latin American Equity fund, believes Brazilian banks may emerge among the winners from the global financial crisis. His comments follow the Brazilian Central Bank's approval of the merger between Banco  Itau and Unibanco; Brazil's seco...

One wonders if Bernie Madoff is going to get his own wing in hell. Heartbreaking, just heartbreaking....

Erik Loomis points to this article in Tuesday's New York Times regarding Bolivia's lithium reserves and their location at the nation's famous Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. He expresses concern that the extraction of lithium would have a harmful impact on the region...

Some people grow; others just  mutate. Dick Armey fits ino the latter category: I remember well when Armey referred to Barney Frank as Barney "Fag." How bad was his self-awareness? Let me put it this way: a man who chose to call himself Dick (neither Richard, nor Rick, Rich, nor Rick...

I'm currently in the Huntsville, Alabama area visiting my brothers and my mother. My mother is in hospice care with congestive heart failure and we do not know exactly how much time she has left. Mercia is in Brazil visiting her family. Life throws some unintentionally cruel, but nonetheless bru...

It's hard for me to like Cristiano Ronaldo. Granted, he's a gifted player, but I'm an Arsenal fan and he plays for Manchester United, so it's akin to a Red Sox fan saying nice things about Derek Jeter. In addition, I can't stand his diving; it's a blight upon the game and a d...

In case you were wondering, the right-wing in this country is butt stupid....

If you have ever attended a performance of the gifted, but prickly and idiosyncratic pianist, Keith Jarrett, and wanted to hear more of his bizarre vocalizations,  this mp3 file is for you: Keith Jarrett as he should be heard ....

Please, dear God, just GO AWAY! A couple of clarifications for this butt-stupid cretin: They're called Israelis, not the Israel people. You're an American (much to our embarrassment), not an America person. As for your comment that media was not on the front lines covering WWII, are you so m...

 . . . It becomes well nigh impossible to determine how throughly awful the Bush administration has been, especially as indicated in this oral history of the Bush White House, which one hopes will only be augmented as time goes on. What truly stunned me were the words of Kenneth Adelman, a mem...