The Editor\'s Edge

No Joke

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:36:59 +0000

It’s obvious from the fight that’s going on in Congress over whether to even form a Consumer Protection Agency and where to put it that American consumers have a major problem: Namely, that collectively they don’t have even one pocket deep enough for Congress to fit in. This is in stark contrast to the banking industry’s [...]

Tone Deaf

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:10:11 +0000

What, you might ask yourself, would cause a health insurance company coming off a quarter where it had multi-billion dollar profits to slam individual policyholders with rate increases up to 39%? Well, let’s see. Maybe the insurer is headquartered on Mars and is unaware that a debate to reform the health care system has been raging in [...]

Dirty Little Secret

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:17:23 +0000

I was originally going to headline this piece “Run, Sarah, Run.” But then I realized what a joke it was—and a one-liner at that—so I had to turn to something else to fill the space. And then I thought: How about the American Council of Life Insurance’s February 3 statement regarding life settlement securitizations, which uses the [...]

Dodd Dodders

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:45:35 +0000

By this time we all know how very very difficult it is to get anything done in the U.S. Senate, so it is not surprising that Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., was upset about President Obama’s proposals regarding banks—what businesses they can or cannot be in under certain conditions and how big they should be. One can [...]

Not A Peep

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:29:39 +0000

Funny how one election has thrown everything up in the air. Of course I’m talking about the election of Scott Brown as the Republican senator from the bluest of states, Massachusetts, on January 19. The result has been that Democrats of all stripes are running scared, while Republicans can’t stop crowing about the renewed vigor that [...]

Dear President Obama…

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:43:52 +0000

I know you are probably getting tons of advice from all corners about what you should do now in the aftermath of the upset election of Scott Brown, a Republican, as a senator in the bluest of states, Massachusetts. You, and we, are hearing from the punditocracy that it was a repudiation of your overreaching agenda, [...]

A Job For Simon Cowell

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:37:12 +0000

I’ve never been a regular viewer of ‘American Idol,’ but whenever I did watch it, Simon Cowell, the ruthlessly acerbic judge, was the one whose comments I waited for, along with millions of other watchers. I mean, nobody but the dimmest of couch potatoes perched on the edge of their chair thinking, “Gee, I wonder [...]

Just One Word

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:38:08 +0000

In an age where millions of people get off on conveying their thoughts in 140 characters (not words) or less, the art of crafting a one-word description of anything seems like a next logical step. So if, after witnessing the U.S. Senate during the month of December, you were asked to describe that legislative chamber in [...]

Blood Is Boiling

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:57:10 +0000

My blood started boiling as I read a Dec. 15 article in the New York Times coming in to work about how executives of three large banks—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup–did not show up at the White House for a meeting with President Obama that was to deal with getting these institutions to make more loans [...]

Going Public

Steve Piontek, Editor-in-Chief — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:43:43 +0000

So rarely do I find myself agreeing with anything Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has to say (actually, I don’t think it’s ever happened) that I feel compelled to recognize a gesture of his with which I feel in complete agreement. Coburn likes to play the spoiler and I believe that was the impetus behind his introducing [...]