I have published numerous articles concerning the financial train wreck of the Dallas Independent School District.  ONe month into the new school year the Superintendent Hinojosa is recommending laying off 1209  employees including 675 teachers. Seems ther is a $84 M budget shortfall. Such finanical mismanagment has been a hallmark of his administration.  Last year a…

  Paul Newman passed from our midst this weekend, a true class act. Newman as married to Joan Woodward, they had several children, he starred in major league movies, and gave over $150 M away through his charities, a life well lived indeed. Students are aware I am a film buff, check out Cat on …

Here is the best explanation of how the meeting Thursday blew up. Even our intermed text plainly states that accounting pronouncements are a matter of politics. Here is a look at that process.  Ben Franklin said that it was best if the public did not see the sausage maker nor the politician at work, true…

BSC sold to Morgan Merrill sold to B ank of America Lehman CITI about to be Wachovia Wamu sold to Chase Countrywide sole to B of A Goldman gets $5 B from Buffett So exactly who among Paulson's buddies is it that needs all this money? Where were Dodd and Frank on the financed and…

Both campaigns have been promoting the idea that each of them has a better change in mind. Well we have not had to wait for the election for change. The West End of Galveston is gone, period. Ditto for property all the way to Ohio. Merrill, Bear Stearns, Lehman, gone, Morgan and Goldman are now…

Students have surely noted my fascination with markets, and markets are the reflection of the psychology of the population. The stock market picks up on the longer term feelings in monthly and weekly charts, or even the moment to moment feelings in charts from one to sixty minutes. Real estate holders can kid themselves, this…

The old Statler Brotehrs song, the Class of 57 opines that one class member is selling insurance and part time real estate. Back then real estate was a marginal occupation, it simply did not pay enough money nor was there enough property speculation to make a full time career of it. The inflation of the…

Congress is seeking to limit the exec pay of companies that are in the $700 B bailout pool. There is of course widespread support for such a measure, ie, do not reward yourself if you are being subsidized. But what about the big bonuses that were paid to execs at failed firms?  Seems to me taht…

Warren Buffet has bought a stake in Goldman Sachs.  I have had you read his latest 2007 letter to shareholders. IN it he stressed thathe looked for companies that paid him on his invested capital and that had a 'moat' around them, a startegic advantage that other companies could not duplicate. In my opoinion Buffet is…

George Will has his journalistic turban in a wad over the suggestion that Congress should give, loan, whatever money to GM and Ford, while being a consultant ot the Japanese Auto Manufacturers. I began teaching in San Antonio five years ago when the now completed road to the Toyota plant was an already worn out two…