Westboro Baptist Ruling And NY Fed Primary Dealers

The Supreme Court ruled today that Westboro's anti-gay protests at military funerals are constitutional 8-1.  Justice Alito was the lone dissenter.  While Westboro'a protests at military funerals are pathetic and insensitive, in George Will's words, "sensitivity is overrated."  The Court made the correct decision for once.

Have you ever wanted to know the theory behind why the Fed purchases Treasury bonds (i.e. QEII) ?  Check out this visual.  I prefer Zerohedge's explanation:

So for those still confused by terms such as "money printing", "open market operations", "outright monetization", and "Weimar hyperinflation", this brief and concise clip is for you. And once you see it, forget everything, because what QE2 has done has been precisely the opposite: rates have gone up, but the Fed does not care - as everyone now knows, the Fed's only true goal was to provide Primary Dealers with the capital to bid up stocks. End of story.

Want to know who the the NY Fed's, the one that actually buys securities and bonds, Primary Dealers are?

List of the Primary Government Securities Dealers Reporting to the Government Securities Dealers Statistics Unit of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

BNP Paribas Securities Corp.
Barclays Capital Inc.
Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
Citigroup Global Markets Inc.
Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
Daiwa Capital Markets America Inc.
Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
HSBC Securities (USA) Inc.
Jefferies & Company, Inc.
J.P. Morgan Securities LLC
Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated
MF Global Inc.
Mizuho Securities USA Inc.
Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated
Nomura Securities International, Inc.
RBC Capital Markets, LLC
RBS Securities Inc.
SG Americas Securities, LLC
UBS Securities LLC.

All the big banks are there except for A.I.G. and Bank of America.

Did You Know that even the most liberal of politicians can skirt ethic rules.  Take Chris Dodd, normally congressmen are not allowed to be lobbyists for two years after leaving office.  That didn't stop him though:

The former five-term Democratic senator announced yesterday he accepted a job as head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

If you want to watch Ron Paul highlights from Bernanke's testimony before the bi-annual Congressional hearing, you can here.  I haven't gotten a chance to watch it so I can't judge yet.  I also can't upload it up on the blog yet, but I plan to soon.

I will end with another great Zerohedge quote:

for all those calling for a hike in the SEC's budget, we suggest the following contrarian thought experiment: let's cut its budget to zero and see how long before anyone notices.

Judging by the S.E.C.'s super close relationship with Wall Street that gives them all the leverage they need to get around regulations, I doubt anyone would notice.