Detroit: Nuff said.

An $11M grant to help jobseekers has turned out to serve exactly 2 people, according to an audit in Detroit.

You can't make this stuff up.

First year without a new bank in decades - FT.com

Financial Times (the orange one) is reporting that last year was the first without a de novo bank since at least 1984.

I can certainly understand why nobody is opening banks - from what I read on teh IntarWebs, bankerz is leet eeeevil. Haven't you heard? All those Occupy folks were protesting - banks!!!!! So bankerz must be minions of Satan or something.

What we're finding is that political shenanigans have economic consequences. I'm sure there are solid economic reasons for no new banks, but there's also the pogrom being conducting against those evil "bankerz" one and all.

Goodbye Davy

Monkees singer (I would never say lead singer here) Davy Jones passed away this week of heart trouble. His fans will miss him. I saw the group several times in my misspent yute, and am a huge fan of everything Monkee.

My profile pic (on the right) was taken at Epcot's American Pavilion while listening to Mr. Jones a couple of years ago (that's as close as we could get-bench seats outside).

His show that evening was mostly a narrative about his fame and life, with a few musical moments thrown in. But it was SRO, as was the next one. He could still pack them in and entertain.

I just hope he will be remembered for his talents and not for appearing as Marsha Brady's prom date.

Good interview here.

Update: I got a few comments offline about my lead singer remark. There's no doubt that Davy was a huge part of The Monkees' appeal - heck, Star Trek had to add Walter Koenig to compete! (See Koenig's autobiography for THAT reference). But calling him "lead singer" seems a bit much. Yes, he sang on many of their hits, but so did Micky, and Mike did his share of B-sides and wrote them too. So although I loved the guy's work, and thought him a real talent, let's not tarnish his life by making stuff up.

Example - MSNBC headline: Monkee frontman dead at 66. Okay... he sang, played maracas (red ones), and occasionally the tambourine. I seem to remember the piano (what that the pilot episode?) But FRONTMAN? I guess that's OK.

But at least we keep the administrative & support jobs

News from the higher ed front: Colleges closing STEM programs, nursing, etc. in response to budget cuts. It's all about priorities, folks.

Meanwhile, there's a renewed push for vo-ed these days. Goody.

I wonder if those folks will have to worry about student loans, too.

So we buy cars for the tax breaks now? Volt flops and plant shuts down

GM announces closure of Volt line due to low demand. No doubt they'll fire it back up to fill all those orders for GE.

The best part: they blame the car's slow burn on the ",

Who should we believe? To be, or not to be (in equities)

Link to Buffett here. (buy stocks, worry about inflation)

Link to Stockman here. (hold cash, bubble will burst)

Job growth highest in states with lowest bidness taxes. Yawn.

Who could have guessed, but IBD has actually found that job growth increases when taxes are lower.

Doh!