» Posted by Martin Weil on June 30, 2009

Three Cups of Tea - an astonishing story of one person making a difference in a very dangerous, and important, region of the world. After finishing the book, you can support Greg Mortenson's heroic efforts here.

» Posted by Martin Weil on June 18, 2009

Morningstar has a great summary of questions anyone should be able to answer in the event of a death or disability of a spouse. Tops on the list: "Whom to contact?" 'Where is everything?" and "Which assets to tap first?" If you or your spouse do not know the answers, now would not be too soon to get up to speed.

» Posted by Martin Weil on June 10, 2009

From the NY Times

» Posted by Martin Weil on June 02, 2009

Speaking at the Morningstar investment conference, John Bogle [founder of Vanguard and indexing champion] says the best investing advice he ever got was when, as a young man working as a "runner" in a brokerage firm, a fellow runner--"who was probably the same age I am now"--told him the secret:

Nobody knows anything.

» Posted by Martin Weil on May 29, 2009

Then there are the derivatives. There, Clinton pleads guilty. Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, opposed regulation of derivatives as they came to the fore in the 1990s, and Clinton agreed. "They argued that nobody's going to buy these derivatives, we'll do it without transparency, they'll get the information they need," he recalled. "And it turned out to be just wrong; it just wasn't true." He said others share blame, including credit-rating agencies that underestimated the risk. But he accepts responsibility as well. "I very much wish now that I had demanded that we put derivatives under the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission...That I think is a legitimate criticism of what we didn't do." He added: "If you ask me to write the indictment, I'd say: 'I wish Bill Clinton had said more about derivatives. The Republicans probably would have stopped him from doing it, but at least he should have sounded the alarm bell.'"

From the Sunday NY Times.

I have said from the outset that the CFMA (Commodities Futures Modernization Act), product of Senator Phil Gramm and the Enron lobbyists, and signed into law by Bill Clinton, were, along with the gross negligence of the ratings agencies, the chief enablers of this entire credit crisis.

GOP, anyone like to step up to the plate for your share in this?