The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

For my home state, Governor David Paterson's budget is a window into the future. Simply put, we are witnessing what happens when New York State ceases to be the financial capital of the world. At the moment the world doesn't really have one as the global economy sorts through massive wreckage. Truthfully, the era of financial centers concentrated in western port cities such as New York or London is a relic.

This had long been been predicted because information technology makes it possible to outsource back office functions remotely and utilize cheap labor. Why pay for New York City real estate and labor when a trader can just as easily play with other people's money from a computer in Dubai? However, until the recent economic catastrophe Wall Street stubbornly hung onto its symbolic trappings as the center of the universe.

In a letter to the Seattle Times Jim Corey of Seattle wrote:

"I am horrified by the war.  Having been a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army ... I am now at my wit's end as to what to do about this catastrophic situation our country and the world is in ...

"A fundamental lesson in all military strategy is to know your enemy, and not be afraid to engage him diplomatically.  It creates the baseline on which to create a solution.  Why won't they be diplomats?"

This is an interesting question and the answer might not be as mysterious as it may seem.  First, this Iraq War was based on lies.  

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

I feel like Count Vitte who served the insipid Czar Nicholas II in the final years of Russia's monarchy. A stupid boy sovereign who believed he was annointed by God. His subjects, the ungrateful peasants and proletarians lost their stomach for a noble war.

Rabble rousers, subversives and opportunists sowing the seeds of dissent and undermining morale. "Peace, land and bread!" Now it's peace, healthcare and raise the minimum wage! Put a mustache and beard on Senator Schumer and he resembles Leon Trotsky! Instead of Lenin's propaganda pamphlets we have blogs. Hillary Clinton might as well be the reincarnation of Vladimir Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya.

The diary below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was arguably the most odious piece of domestic legislation the previous congress passed. President Bush and his party typically cited it as among their "accomplishments" and the media seldom questioned whether it was a good idea.

This "accomplishment" amounted to nothing less than class warfare waged on behalf of the super rich against the little guy. Indeed, it illustrated the sheer indecency of the Republican Party machine and pervasive influence of banks, credit card companies and the financial services industry as a whole.

The diary below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal on May 11th.

I was an avid reader of Bill James' annual Baseball Abstract while growing up in the 1980s. As both a nerd and baseball fanatic, his methodical statistical analysis and incisive prose influenced me almost as much as listening to the Beatles. Perhaps the most memorable essay of James' career was in his 1983 abstract when he wrote about, "The Law of Competitive Balance." Twenty-three years ago I copied words of wisdom from that essay into the spiral notebook I was supposed to use for algebra:

"The Law of Competitive Balance: There develop over time separate and unequal strategies adopted by winners and losers; the balance of those strategies favors the losers, and thus serves constantly to narrow the difference between the two."