Thoroughbred horses are unique creatures.  They are born and bred to run.  Animals usually compete for food, territory or sex.  But a thoroughbred horse is one of the few creatures that ache to competitively race.

 

Boaz Weinstein is such a horse.

 

Weinstein was a top Wall Street trader for Deutsche Bank AG.  I say was, because his operations at Deutsche ground to a halt and he has left the building.  He is off to start his own hedge fund.

 

Too bad for Deutsche.

 

These days, it's too easy to brand everyone on Wall Street a Gordon Gekko.

 

That is dangerous thinking.

 

Sure, those of us outside the financial world reel with the billions lost in our 401K's and the billions of our taxpayer dollars spent to prop up failing banks, et al.  We get angry at the expensive resorts visited by those now on the dole.  We wonder why we are expected to prop up banks when they attempt to buy new corporate jets.

 

All of that anger is righteous.

 

But be careful of that righteous anger, before your emotions take over and you do something you'll regret.

 

Our capitalist system is under threat by the government.  Since the government has decided to be a major player on Wall Street with big wads of sweaty taxpayer money, they have positioned themselves to be the jockeys riding the thoroughbreds.

 

Thoroughbreds like Weinstein.

 

Weinstein was a chess master at the age of 16.  He once was challenged by a fellow employee at Deutsche to play a game "blindfolded."  100 employees watched as Weinstein sat with his back to the board and beat his Russian colleague in roughly two hours.

 

Weinstein also likes to play poker and blackjack.  After Friday closing, he and his colleagues could be found in one of the boardrooms at Deutsche playing high-stakes poker into the night.  He would occassionally travel to Las Vegas with some MIT grads and work the blackjack tables. 

 

He knew how to keep count.  Blindfolded.

 

This is a man, by all accounts, who loves taking high-stake financial risks.  He is good at it.  He made billions doing what he loves to do.  And when things came crashing down, he put on his best poker face and tried to figure it all out.

 

Of course, that wasn't easy when .gov decided to step in and save the day.  Well, save some days, but not others.  Rescue Bear Stearns, but let Lehman Brothers fail.  And so it goes with .gov.

 

Boaz Weinstein was a top-notch trader, but he just couldn't figure out the rules anymore.  And Deutsche Bank AG didn't feel like waiting.

 

Our capitalist society needs people like Boaz Weinstein fiercely running towards the finish line, without .gov as his jockey.

 

We all know .gov doesn't know anything about thoroughbred horse racing.

 

And when thoroughbreds like Boaz Weinstein win, we all win.  People like him put the money in our 401K's.

 

Don't forget that.

 

 

 A young woman in Southern California birthed eight babies last week.

 

Humans were never meant to have litters, but that is just what happened in fantasy land.

 

The story gets curiouser and curiouser. 

 

She is 33 years old and already has six children, the oldest seven, the youngest two.  She lives with her parents in a two or three bedroom house.  She has no evidence of a husband or boyfriend.  There is no evidence this woman currently has a job.

 

What shook the earth on the Left Coast to the point that someone thought this was a good idea?

 

Miss Suleman and her parents insist that this is a wonderful thing, a blessed thing.  Of course, this is after her mother indiscreetly told the media that she was exasperated with her children-obsessed daughter. 

 

Now Miss Suleman's father is telling the media that they have a huge house somewhere else, someplace the media will never find them. 

 

Amazing, considering the grandparents who will house 15 children (including the infantile mother) were reported to be in dire financial straights recently, having declared bankruptcy and walked away from a home.

 

Walked away from a house.  Does that mean they defaulted on their mortgage?

 

As I shake my head, I try to determine who will pay for it all. 

 

Well, Governor Schwarzenegger already has his hand out, begging on the steps of the Dome.  His state wants to build a bullet train connecting Anaheim, Los Angeles, Fresno and San Francisco, and eventually including Sacramento, San Diego and Oakland.

 

We will call this Amtrack II, The Boondoggle Returns.

 

Arnie's state also uses taxpayer funds for stem cell research.  That's all in a state's perrogative, but when Calfornia comes knocking at my door, asking me for money, I want to kick the Terminator all the way back to his sandy beaches.

 

In the end, I suspect Congress will fill Arnie's coffers until they runneth over. 

 

What else is to be expected from a gaggle of botoxed politicians, who after giving billions of taxpayer dollars away to anyone with a hard luck story and a tin cup, gave each and every one of themselves a raise of $4,700 for fiscal year 2009?

 

What else is to be expected when we have a Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, who tells us he cannot follow directions on a tax software programme designed to complete tax returns?  I really chuckled over that one.  I've been using Turbo Tax for years.  I have no master’s in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University.  I was able to follow directions very well.  I have to wonder what went so awry with Geithner that he could not get online help to resolve any questions he may have had regarding his tax liability, when the software programme prompted him every step of the way and the IMF repeatedly told their employees they would have to pay all taxes on their own. 

 

I guess Turbo Tax is only for dummies.  People with an elite education in economics can't seem to figure it out.

 

But, hey!  It was a mistake!  Anyone could have done it!  Had anyone other than Geithner done it, the IRS would have been on him like the plague.  But a few mea culpas and Geithner gets the job running a department who will, in turn, leave a taxpayer who owes the IRS with nothing but a cardboard box and a toga once they are done with them.

 

What a great segue into our next stellar appointment, Tim Daschle, the man who missed paying close to $250,000 in back taxes.  He's expected to receive the nomination for Health and Human Secretary.

 

The new morality states that anything that was wrong in the Bush Administration must be made right in the Obama Administration.

 

Right now, it would seem the new morality is no morality at all.  The new morality looks away when they see something immoral, and play their part to help pretend it was never a problem in the first place.

 

Brings me back to Miss Suleman and those 14 kids in an alleged two, possibly three bedroom home.

 

I'd really like to know who is paying for all those diapers, formulas, pins, teething rings x8, and all those clothes and food that growing childen need to become strong.  Not only the infants, but the other six children ages two to seven.

 

I'll keep up with this story.  I want to see what Obama's Hope and Change holds in store for her and her family.

 

In the meantime, I have to wonder....

 

How much is this new morality going to cost the rest of us?