Weekend Tids and Bits

NAKED TRADING  is giving the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro strong second thoughts, and it’s not about knowing for certain which traders are really going long and which are going short. It’s about folks who are licensed to trade on an exchange renting their access to clients. Clients pay to shave fractions of a second in executing trades. The SEC worries that it’s like renting a license to drive, fly an airplane or practice medicine, and that naked trading, along with other schemes, is tilting the playing field to favor sophisticated investors who make money by trading huge volumes of securities on minimal price differences.

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NAKED MISDEMEANOR? Maybe so in Springfield, VA, where a 29-year-old man was arrested by police after a woman and her kid walked by his home and saw him naked inside. With a potential year in jail riding in the balance, the case seems to turn on intent. If the guy intended to be seen, it’s indecent exposure. If he didn’t intend to be seen, it’s not. Lawyers are researching to fine points of Virginia law on whether letting it all hang out without closing the curtains get you hung out to dry.

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FEDS FINDING BETTER THINGS  to do after a directive that says busting folks using pot in the 14 states that allow medical marijuana isn’t a good use of time. That’s a change from the Bush administration, which said never mind state law, a joint is still a ticket to the federal joint. Look for this to mushroom into a major state-rights issue as cash-strapped California seriously considers legalizing and taxing pot across the board, which would remove the medical-use-only fig leaf and update “Just Say No” to “Just Pay The Tax.”

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BUNS TO BOOBS has to be the name for a procedure that takes fat liposuctioned from an overspreading bottom and uses it to enhance an under-blooming top. An uplifting report on msnbc.com says a Miami surgeon pioneered the technique that takes the fat from where women don’t want it and puts it where they do. No implants need apply.  No word on whether the procedure gets points for using a renewable resources or other recycling kudos.

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REST IN (SHARED) PEACE may be coming to Britain, which over the centuries has started to acquire more dead bodies than available burial space and is trying to make the idea of shared graves take wing in London. Seems the earliest tenant is dug up and reburied deeper, making room for the newcomer. There are, as they say, some marketing issues.

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Have A Great Weekend!

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A Real Stimulating Stimulus

For young folks, getting stimulated usually involves a Significant Other or a Significant Fantasy. For those of us getting Social Security Checks, it involves the Obama Administration and the New York Times.

Can we do better? Yes we can!

Some might find President Obama or members of his administration cute, but the Good Grey Lady of Times Square? Good God, has it come to that?

What it’s come to is that the Obama crowd and the Times are on opposite sides of the debate on how best to stimulate Social Security recipients. Many of us are still fully capable of telling what stimulus should be applied where and when, but Dr. Obama seems to think that $250 in government stimulation will work better than private stimulation.

True, with a Senior Discount, $250 might actually pay for reasonably classy stimulation, maybe even near Times Square, but that’s not the view of the New York Times. The Times harrumphs in an editorial that the $250 proposed because inflation fell and there won’t be a Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment this year is just politics:

“The Obama administration has called for an expensive crowd-pleaser of dubious effectiveness: sending every Social Security recipient an extra $250,” says the Times.

The crowd the Times is worried about Obama pleasing is the 57 million or so Americans who get Social Security checks and whose politics have matured from the age of All You Need Is Love to the current Baby Boomer theme -- You Screw Us and We’ll Screw You At The Polls.

Which is why the Obama administration, which includes strong vote-counting ability among its core talents, proposed the stimulus. And it’s also why the Times is upset, since doing anything that smacks of market-oriented, vote-driven politics makes the Times Politburo nervous.

As long as this debate goes on, nobody wins. The Obama administration isn’t pumping some $13 billion into the economy under the cloak of Senior Stimulation, the New York Times isn’t advancing its agenda, and seniors are left, at best, with do-it-yourself stimulation.

So here’s a proposed better way:

Every single adult member of the population will be issued a $125 voucher. The voucher itself will be worthless unless it’s combined with another voucher. Then it will be worth $250.

What the holders of individual vouchers will do to persuade other holders to combine is up to their sense of social responsibility, not to mention their imagination, libido and patriotism.

The Obama administration will be happy because even more than $13 billion will be pumped into the economy. The Times will be happy because everyone will be treated “from each according to his ability to each according to his need.” And seniors will be happy because for a change, they’ll get laid instead of screwed.

Call your U.S. Representative today!

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