A couple of days ago David Brooks wrote a very clear eyed critique of Mitt Romney in the NY Times. Brooks, who normally comes down on the Republican/Conservative side, writes a revealingly titled op-ed piece "Thurston Howell Romney"
Romney's recently exposed video marginalizing large swaths of the American electorate only serves to reinforce his (mis)understanding of "most folks".
Read on Lovey

The RNC was quite a spectacle. Not unexpected was the amount of false and misleading statements, especially from the under cards at the convention. Paul Ryan stands out as having the most swings-and-a-miss with the facts. Santorum and Christie came off the bench and whiffed at accuracy too.

Again, thank you FactCheck.org for taking the time to square what was said and what is. From its home page FactCheck  you can select the batting averages for Romney, Ryan, Santorum ("profoundly misleading" and Christie on the left side. Clint Eastwood's loopy soliloquy doesn't deserve mention.

Untangling some of the spurious political rhetoric

After an extra long hiatus, I saw a piece in the Sunday Aug. 19 NY Times that seems quite useful. It takes recent comments about Medicare from the Romney/Ryan ticket and holds then up to scrutiny. Truth and accuracy are often casualties of politicians' rhetoric and this editorial does a nice job of sorting things out regarding Medicare.
Worthwhile reading: Truth and Lies About Medicare

Much has happened since my last post over a month ago.
Facebook's IPO fizzled, Groupon's downward spiral reaches new depths, Europe's hope that fiscal austerity would foster growth is revealed for the magical thinking it is, real discussion about the abandonment or truncation of the Euro is heard, JP Morgan Chase looses billions on a market hedge ..... quite a spring!

Is there no good news throughout the land?
Yes, at least two.

From the south, Eckerd College minted a tent full of terrific new grads. Some of the grads were in my WHGC as freshmen four years ago and it was nice to see then taking their diplomas. (Eckerd alum, remember WHGC?)

From the north, my niece was a hands-down hit delivering an address at her Harvard graduation ceremonies.(Uncle pride)
Jacqueline Rossi at Harvard

I'll take up the Facebook, Groupon, et.al. news soon.

The latest about Groupon

 As Alice once said, "Curiouser and curiouser!"

Like the Republican presidential candidates who provided endless comedy material so too is Groupon a target-rich topic for financial head shaking.

The latest installment of Groupon's excellent adventure is CEO Andrew Mason's admonition to employees that the company needs to grow up ...... while he was drinking beer.

You can't make this up!
WSJ story

Mitt Romney: Etch a sketch or quantum theory

Pointing out the sorry state of the Republican presidential candidates has become too easy and quite frankly too disheartening. So I largely stopped. However, there was a very clever piece in the NY Time two weeks back by David Javerbaum who finds quantum theory in Mitt Romney's politics. Previously I thought of Romney as akin to tofu; while tofu takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with, Romney holds the convictions of whomever he's talking to.

Javerbaum offers a much more sophisticated critique. In case you missed it:
A quantum theory of Mitt Romney
Enjoy!

More on Groupon

Following up on my last post about Groupon's restatement of its financials is the SEC following up on Groupon.
SEC probes Groupon
From the WSJ comes this story about the SEC considering whether to investigate Groupon. Could it be just the "growing pains" of a newly public company, a company with negligible governance, or something else?
Continues to be a very interesting story, for all the wrong reasons.