Bloomberg Wins, the Fed Chills, the Senate Pays Up, and

New York, New York, home of the ambitious. Billionaire Bloomberg gets another term as New York City's mayor, term limit laws having been properly adjusted to smooth his way. Meanwhile Andrew Cuomo, New York's attorney general, is making his own political moves in the form of suing Intel for violations of antitrust law.

In looking at the allegations, one could argue that Intel has every capitalistic right to reward and manipulate the customer base in favor of its own products. AMD, the smaller chip competitor, is perhaps peeved, but it's not truly Intels place to create a happy market for all. You could also make the case that AMD's building of a new chip manufacturing foundry in New York makes Cuomo's dubious effort even a bit more dubious.

Finally, you could wonder if this is the exact right time to engage in tearing down a particular company. We are, after all, smack dab in the middle of pretty sloppily attired economic times. Why now Mr. Cuomo?

Keith N. Hylton, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, said that Mr. Cuomo could benefit politically by taking such a prominent stand on behalf of local workers and consumers. “An attorney general is understood to be an aspiring governor,” he said. “They are politicians, and they want to be on the gravy train for big cases.”

During the news conference, Mr. Cuomo said that thwarting Intel’s abusive actions was important to consumers and businesses worldwide. “It is not just about New York,” he said.

(N.Y. Times)

We're thinking it's all about New York, for Mr. Cuomo.

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Mickey (as in Mouse) is going to go all hardcore on us, which is odd, because we were pretty sure he was the manliest, toughest, most hardcore fake living mouse ever. Can he get any harder, any badder? Badass Mickey? Let's just hope he does not go all the way street, and be the Vanilla Ice of mice, wording it to our mammas.

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Blow the trumpets. The Lords of Washington have spoken:

After nearly a month of gridlock, the Senate voted unanimously to extend unemployment benefits for some 1.3 million jobless Americans expected to lose benefits by the end of the year.

If, as expected, the House adopts the Senate version of the bill, it means workers in all states will be eligible for an additional 14 weeks of federal unemployment benefits. In states with unemployment rates higher than 8.5 percent, workers will be able to extend their federal unemployment benefits a further six weeks.

(Christian Science Monitor)

This is awesome news for those who are unemployed, and one marvels at the unanimity, but frankly, the same enthusiasm should be shown in working out healthcare legislation. It's that serious.

It probably would have also made sense for most stimulus to be funneled directly to each state to use to fill budget gaps, as opposed to dubious building projects, but  little late for that now. Just seems like there would be a lot less people out of work RIGHT NOW, if budgets were not so tight.

Somewhat related to that, it amazes how the Arizona legislature would rather throw people out of work in an effort to close a budget gap, rather than impose a small tax that nobody will even notice they have to pay. While low taxes are really good, zero taxes via total unemployment and lack of income is even worse; it's very bad for the voter and the economy.

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The Fed cut interest rates to near zero last December and has pumped more than $1 trillion into the economy to tame a severe financial crisis and the deepest recession since the 1930s.

Now that the economy is starting to recover, financial markets are increasingly wondering when the Fed and other central banks around the globe will begin to remove the extraordinary economic support they have provided.

(Reuters)

When the Fed stops trying to heal our inflated economy by inflating the economy, when they start to tighten up monetary policy, that's the exact moment when you should be sitting there with short positions in gold.  The smug or delusional (as all gold enthusiasts are one or the other, when not both) enthusiasm for that product far exceeds its true value, pumped and hyped like every other product on earth. We've gone, essentially, from an inflated housing market, to an inflated oil market (last year) to now an inflated gold market. Short of the type of doom posited in the 2012, there is no reason to be up to your buttox in gold.

In any case, the Fed has decided to keep rates at virtual zero until that exact moment when the economy is trending in the right direction, and so long as inflation does not come a loitering. This is probably the right thing, keeping borrowing cost low, and we are sure the reluctance of banks to make any dubious loans will keep things in check this time around.

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This will probably annoy some... the first lady making a cameo on Iron Chef in her continued promotion of healthy eating. If it annoys you (still seething over last year's political losses, or gloating over Republican wins in N.J. and Virginia yesterday), or you find room to be snarky, then it's a good time to examine your priorities and outlook.

The first lady came through the door of the South Portico in a pumpkin-orange dress with teal blue shoes and short sweater, announced the secret ingredient and talked to the chefs about getting children to eat vegetables.

“It’s important for these kids to have a hands-on experience,” she said. “And now we’re expanding the tours of the garden to any public school children that come to Washington, D.C., and we’re doing those on a regular basis, and it’s been just a wonderful educational addition.” She suggested that the chefs might want to consider cooking some of the exceptionally large sweet potatoes in the garden. “We are sweet potato lovers,” she said, “especially the president.”

(N.Y. Times)