New York Times

• Hedge Funds Try to Profit From Greece as Banks Face Losses (Bloomberg)
• Spain Doubles Target in Debt Auction, Yields Down (Reuters)
• Italy 1-Year Debt Costs More Than Halve at Auction (Reuters)
• Obama to Propose Tax Breaks to Get Jobs (WSJ)
• GOP Seeks to Pass Keystone Pipeline Without Obama (Reuters)
• Debt Downgrades to Rise ‘Substantially’ in 2012, Moody’s Says (Bloomberg)
• Petroplus wins last-minute reprieve (FT)
• Geithner gets China snub on Iranian oil as Japan plans cut (Bloomberg)
• Fed officials split over easing as they prepare interest rate forecasts (Bloomberg)
• Draft eurozone treaty pleases UK (FT)
• Premier Wen looks at the big picture (China Daily)
• US Foreclosure Filings Hit 4-Year Low in 2011 (Reuters)

Everyone's favorite oracular-orifice-of-the-oval-office may perhaps have met his match (if not in real terms, in rhetoric) as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Warren Buffett call each other's bluff...again. As reported in Time's Swampland, the cantakerous Kentuckian said that if Buffett was feeling 'guilty' about paying too little in taxes, he should 'send in a check'. The flim-flam improves though, as Buffett mocks the 'Buffett Rule Act' that enables the rich to donate 'extra' money on their tax form as a "policy only a Republican could come up with" and then goes on to lay down the gauntlet, pledging to match one-for-one all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. "I'll even go three for one for McConnell", Buffet pronounced (with a metaphorical white glove to McConnell's face) noting that he was not worried about the bill. So there it is, Republicans only have to donate $50 billion toward paying down debt to bankrupt Buffett.

Poor, poor Federal Reserve.

I'm not talking about Al Gore ... I'm talking about the guys who actually invented the Internet

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Once upon a time,...

When it comes to corruption, cronyism and general muppetry in Washington D.C., the only real question is 'where does one start?' Yet one has to start somewhere to conclude with a list of the ten most corrupt and despicable marionettes in D.C. Which is precisely what JudicialWatch has done in its annual compilation of the "Top 10 Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington D.C." for 2011. And confirming what everyone knows, that both the left and right are merely irrelevant names for the same general social affliction, or should we call it by its true name - wealth pillage - the split is even between democrats and republicans. In no particular order, the winners of 2011 are...

While we’re not bubbling over with optimism, we believe the New Year will be anything but boring. 

Score one more for freedom of speech (and leaking of documents so secret only 3 million people have access to them). We are trying to discover just why the Air Force has resorted to this drastic move (and having hosted a few WikiLeaks docs ourselves, curious to see if we fall in this latest black list).

Did Goldman Sachs dissemble and equivocate in its responses to the New York Times? Based on these responses, the answer is yes. Treasury Secretary Geithner may wish to keep that in mind the next time he looks to Goldman Sachs for his answers. Mr. van Praag states “Starting in the mid-90s, we bought credit default swaps from AIG to protect our firm from the risk of a decline in the value of risk we had assumed on behalf some of our clients, (i.e. assets to which we had exposure).” Near the end of his email he again mentions “CDOs from our clients” (emphasis added). His email never once mentions that the problematic CDOs requiring collateral calls from A.I.G. that precipitated its liquidity problems, the one’s referenced in the report, seem to be chiefly 2004/5/6 vintage CDOs. Goldman underwrote the Abacus CDOs on its own list, and Goldman also underwrote CDOs that featured prominently and in large portion on the lists of French Banks SocGen and Calyon as well as Bank of Montreal and Wachovia that also hedged this risk using CDSs with AIG.

I sent this Op-Ed proposal to the New York Times on Friday. Perhaps they will print it. If so, I will donate the proceeds (don't they pay you $450?) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Better late than never.

In an interview with MarketWatch's Jon Friedman, Janet Robinson, CEO of embattled former media titan and now merely distressed media company scrambling to plug debt covenant holes, New York Times, has announced that she has had it with other members of the evil, speculative media world.

In an interview with MarketWatch's Jon Friedman, Janet Robinson, CEO of embattled former media titan and now merely distressed media company scrambling to plug debt covenant holes, New York Times, has announced that she has had it with other members of the evil, speculative media world.

Developing story: per executive editor Bill Keller online commentary.

Good way to alienate the remaining 10 internet readers