Let's be honest: we Heat fans think Mario Chalmers is going to be good because he has a cool name.
In financial news:
The staff and I here at Dos Minutos want to emphasize that the current economic crisis should not in any way affect our day-to-day operations. Also, we would want to caution - Cuidado! - our readers about overreaction to the grim financial landscape. We at Dos Minutos believe that this will all blow over.
To wit: in 2006 I wrote a 25 page paper about a banking crisis in Florida in the 1830s wherein two moneyed groups of white landowners argued about the appropriate amount of legislative oversight needed for the state chartered Union Bank of Florida. At the time, the territory (Florida was not yet a state) had guaranteed the Union Bank's loans in order to encourage consumer confidence and stimulate investment. All this took place in the shadow of Andrew Jackson's somewhat disingenuous war on the United States' National Bank and its director Nelson Biddle, and it was a scenario that played out all over the country, in various states and territories.
In Florida, believing that this government backing of the Union Bank was an unnecessary risk for the territory's future financial prospects, a group of rich, white territorial representatives convened a convention to try to repeal this law. While their argument may or may not have been financially sound, it merits mention that though they were rich, this group was comprised of political outsiders who were not benefitting financially from the bank's growth. The staunchest defenders of the territory's guarantee clearly were - they were composed in large part of the bank's directors and customers.
Though the initial argument on the convention floor to divorce the territory from the bank failed, the losing faction learned to take the argument out to the people, focusing more on anti-government rhetoric and less on factual evidence than they did on the convention floor. Eventually, they swayed public opinion enough to overturn the agreement. It is instructive, thusly, to note that today's argument over regulation/deregulation is certainly not a new one - here is a similar situation nearly two hundred years ago. Also interesting to note - leading that anti-bank faction two hundred years ago: John McCain. Just kidding - we are apolitical here at Dos Minutos.
