"[T]he broad impact of the recession is clear in hundreds of thousands of new cases across the judicial system, including people challenging their real estate taxes, home foreclosures, contract disputes and family offenses."

"There’s a kind of perverse joy that comes from watching a truly awful movie musical."

"Looking at these, you would hope to achieve a low lefthand starting point (low cost), a high righthand point (high longevity), and a thick line (lots of doctor visits.)

The USA line looks like it was drawn by someone who got the instructions backwards — a very high lefthand starting point (huge cost), a mediocre righthand point (middlin' longevity), and a hairlike line thickness (scanty doctor visits, less than 4 per year.)"

"There are a number of ways to “solve” mazes but there’s a wide scope for you to be as straightforward or as clever as you like with this challenge (tip: I’d love to see some clever/silly solutions!). Your “solvable?” and “steps” methods could share algorithms or you might come up with alternate ways to be more efficient in each case. Good luck!"

"This “highly sophisticated investor” argument has been used by Goldman, other banks and a remarkably high number of journalists (in my opinion just repeating the crap they have been fed by their sources) as a way of getting the banks off the hook. But it is a fundamentally flawed argument. The CDO bonds that AIG insured were rated AAA. If you have to be a rocket scientist to understand the investment and if anything short of perfect analysis of the bonds means you will be blown up – then by definition the bonds are not AAA."