Frankly

With the UMass students gone for Christmas break there was actually seats in Amherst's Raos this afternoon.

Dragon over the restroom doors in Raos.

It's hard to forgive the role Barney Frank played in the collapse of the housing market with his pig-headed refusal to reform Fannie and Freddie while there was still time to avoid a crash. Yet for all his flaws there was something endearing about Barney, for example I never saw the guy speak that he didn't make me laugh. He was also refreshingly honest, unlike a lot of politicians you always knew where he stood. As he prepares to retire in a few weeks Politico has a nice little overview of his career. Click here.

The manipulation of interest rates by the Federal Reserve is having a negative effect on the retirement income of older Americans to such an effect that Forbes Magazine is calling it a "War on Senior Citizens."

Uncle Sam has been waging an undeclared war on seniors for the past decade. With interest rates at historic lows and with the Federal Reserve (“the Fed”) poised to keep them artificially low for years, senior citizens will be left standing alone at the Great American Debt Dance.

Read more here.

More video has surfaced of the And the Kids show at the Iron Horse earlier this month.