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Goldman Sachs did not commit fraud and the insurance company that bought the product that is the subject of a government investigation should have known the risks, Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management, told CNBC Tuesday. “I don’t believe that Goldman committed fraud,” Ackman said. “(ACA) took their own risks. They’re sophisticated investors.” “I don’t think the (Securities and Exchange Commission) has a good case,” he said.

If you're having trouble with Firefox 3.6 freezing up while you're trying to scroll down through a webpage, try going to the Firefox help page and update your Quicktime plug-in software to the latest version. That update fixed the problem for me. EOM

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in a way that could hurt business. The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark. Jackson, however, tried to strike a tone of cooperation in her address Wednesday, explaining that the EPA's new powers to regulate greenhouse gases will be used to complement legislation pending...

This video link has the complete story. The first 2:45 is all advertising. Skip ahead to 2:45 where this news story starts.

A state worker is recovering after a bloody brawl at a union hall. He says members of the local SEIU 1000 beat him up and sent him to the hospital all because he wanted to expose alleged corruption within the union. Ken Hamidi is a state worker at the California Franchise Tax Board. Last night he walked into a union hall in Sacramento for an SEIU local 1000 meeting."We had every right to be here, very simple; it wasn't anything private or anything exclusive," said Hamidi. But Hamidi says the union members did not want him there. "Three, four people...

WASHINGTON -- In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making "immoral" and "obscene" returns while "the bodies pile up."But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. Ledgers tell a different reality.Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure. This partly explains why the credit ratings of some of the...

Only video available. I will add a few of Rep. Ryan's remarks to the thread.

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Europe's single currency traded above the $1.50 level versus the U.S. dollar for the first time in 14 months on Wednesday, breaking through an important psychological barrier that will create added heartburn for euro-zone officials worried the strengthening currency will crimp opportunities for an export-led economic recovery. The euro touched $1.5001 versus the dollar just before 10 a.m. Eastern before temporarily retreating. It resumed its upward march later in the session, eventually notching a high at $1.5022. In recent action, the euro changed hands at $1.5002. See Currencies.

If a government-run health insurance plan winds up in the trash bin when all the debate in Congress is over, it won't be due to any lack of effort on Nancy Pelosi's part.The House Speaker is standing her ground on demands for a government-run plan, even as President Obama's advisers signaled over the weekend that the "public option" is just that -- desirable, but not mandatory in the massive health care overhaul being debated in Congress.The inclusion or disappearance of a government plan to compete with private insurers will leave one of the Democratic power-brokers basking in the credit --...

According to a new report from the Arizona Republic, the Tucson Unified School District is adopting a two-tiered race-based system of administering discipline to all its students: one for African-Americans and Hispanics, and one for everyone else. Mr. Doug McEachern of the Arizona Republic reported on a startling policy adopted by the Tucson Unified School District that appears to create a discriminatory disciplinary system, one based not on which student committed what offense, but whether the student is a member of a recognized minority group. Despite Mr. McEachern's disturbing perspective of the school district's new policy, his report wasn't entirely...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- The executive arm of the European Union unveiled details Monday of its antitrust case against Intel Corp., including internal emails that the commission said showed the chip giant coercing or cutting deals with manufacturers to shut out rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. But Intel Corp. immediately fired back, saying the E.U. Commission "relied heavily on speculation found in emails from lower-level employees that did not participate in the negotiation of the relevant agreements," according to spokesman Chuck Mulloy. The release of the nonconfidential version of its Intel decision comes about a week after details of the...

President Barack Obama can return the U.S. budget situation to a sustainable one without breaking his pledge to not raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday. "We can get our fiscal house in order. We can go back, as a country, to the point where we're living within our means without violating that basic commitment," Geithner told ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "It's his (Obama's) commitment and he's very committed to that." Geithner also said the government would work to unwind its investments in financial institutions and other companies as quickly...