By John Truman Wolfe

Scott Rasmussen is one of the country’s foremost pollsters. In my opinion he is the best.

Rasmussen is smart: he surveys “likely voters,” as opposed to just those of voting age. He conducts a daily presidential tracking poll in which he tracks the approval and disapproval – essentially the popularity – of President Obama.

He conducts this poll every single day.

The President’s poll numbers and popularity have essentially been falling almost from the day he took office. However towards the end of last year, when Obama agreed to extend the Bush tax cuts, his poll numbers started to improve. This lasted a couple of months and then they slowly turned against him again. Read more »

by John Truman Wolfe

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is a fancy name for a financial instrument that is really nothing more than a bet on whether a loan will be repaid or not. They are wagers placed by bankers and other pinstriped bookies made in an enormous floating casino with virtual crap tables in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

In the simplest terms, credit default swaps are wagers as to whether or not some entity – a government or a corporation – will repay a loan in the manner in which they have agreed.

Governments and corporations borrow money by issuing bonds, which are promises to pay – IOUs.

Here is a simple example of how a CDS might work: The country of Greece (like virtually all governments on this debt ridden planet) spends more than it rakes in in tax revenues. To cover the short fall, it borrows. It does this by selling government bonds of one kind or another. Read more »