Free Republic

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- While it's hard to predict the markets, when it comes to the month of May, one thing is for certain: You'll hear someone say, at least once, "sell in May and go away." The cliché, which suggests that smart investors should sell off their portfolios in May and only re-enter the market in the fall, has long been part of Wall Street culture, but where does it come from? The saying dates back to old England, when the stock brokers would go on summer vacation in May and not return until September. The original saying was,...

A.I.G. Uses $61 Billion of Fed Loan By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH The American International Group said on Friday that it had already drawn down $61 billion of the $85 billion emergency bridge loan it received from the Federal Reserve two weeks ago, an announcement that startled credit ratings agencies. The emergency loan was supposed to buy the company time to sell its troubled assets in an orderly manner. But the sell-off has not yet begun, and now the insurer faces the additional pressure of trying to sell the businesses at a time when potential buyers are having trouble borrowing money....

<p>In 1931, in the throes of the Great Depression, the state Legislature spent $250,000 to build a livestock pavilion in San Francisco.</p> <p>A newspaper questioned the logic, asking, "Why, when people are starving, should money be spent on a palace for cows?"</p>