Nathan Lustig

That is a subheading from the August 1st Economist article called Crunch Time: A difficult Summer for the White House and it sums up how I feel about the Obama Administration so far.  I did not vote for him (or McCain), but I had hoped that he would live up to his “post-partisan” rhetoric during [...]

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With the stock market looking toppy and the unemployment rate still on the rise, the “green shoots” are starting to look rather brown (or more like a mirage) and some are calling for a second stimulus.  For now, leave the ridiculous fact that only a tiny percentage of first stimulus has been spent so far [...]

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I just watched The Smartest Guys in the Room, a documentary about the rise and fall of Enron.  I have a special interest in Enron, as I margined my entire stock portfolio and shorted it in my 10th grade mock stock competition for a few days, but relented to my partners advice that it couldn’t [...]

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In 2001, President Bush decided to lower the estate tax as part of his tax cuts and stimulus after 9/11.  The death tax, as some call it, is a tax on people’s estates valued over a certain amount.  In 2001, the limit was $675,000 and anything over that amount was taxed at 55%.  The Bush [...]

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London’s Telegraph had an interesting story over the weekend about an innovative program that Flint, Michigan is using to combat its huge drop in population.  The article, titled US Cities May Have to be Bulldozed to Survive, explains that the program’s goal is to demolish tracts of vacant housing and return the land to nature, [...]

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In an apparent crackdown on online gambling, the US government froze $30m in online gambling winnings of around 27,000 people.  In the past, the government had only gone after gambling processors and betting companies.  Some how, legislation banning online gambling was attached to the Patriot Act following 9/11, forcing all of the online gambling sites [...]

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