monday

Showing a computer chart to a visitor, Mr. Narang zeroes in on one stock that had recently been a winner for the firm. Which stock? Mr. Narang clicks on the chart to bring up the ticker symbol: NETL. What’s that? Mr. Narang clicks a few more times and answers slowly: “NetLogic Microsystems.” He shrugs. “Never heard of it,” he says.
-Fast Traders are Scrutinized, NYT

"...a quarter of American households have no net savings whatsoever. Even the median net worth of the wealthiest age group, those within a decade of retirement, was just $254,000, according to a Federal Reserve survey conducted when stock values were near their peak and homes more valuable. Meanwhile, the percentage of disposable income being ploughed back into savings is a paltry 2.7 per cent."

The Tax Policy Center calculates that getting budget deficits to 3 per cent of output through taxing only the well-off would see top marginal rates more than double to 77 per cent.
-FT

Speaking of regrettable lines: Why the heck did I bring up my wife in connection with "freedom from porn?" I was trying to say it's a canard that porn somehow harms families, or something terrible and shameful, so I mentioned the other half of my family.
-GWKR

Taken case by case, many of these policy choices are perfectly defensible. Taken as a whole, they suggest a system that only knows how to move in one direction. If consolidation creates a crisis, the answer is further consolidation. If economic centralization has unintended consequences, then you need political centralization to clean up the mess. If a government conspicuously fails to prevent a terrorist attack or a real estate bubble, then obviously it needs to be given more powers to prevent the next one, or the one after that.
-NYT