2010 – The Year in Review – As seen from the Bleachers – Part I: January – June

2010 – The Year in Review – As seen from the Bleachers – Part I: January – June

As a professional journalist, it is my job to stay informed about important news stories and trends, so you don’t have to. This week, as I have done every year since this blog’s inception in 1975, I take stock in the people and events that shaped our world over the past 365 days.

[Editor’s note: For those of you following the Jewish calendar, look for my special Rosh Hashanah “You won’t believe what the Goyim world did to our people this past year” Edition, to be published at sundown on September 28, 2011, the start of the Jewish New Year. – TEJ]

Consider this my Holiday gift to you – a week late, sorry. Blame it on the Post Office. Here is the annual View from the Bleachers’ Year in Review – 2010 Edition, or as I like to call it VFTBYIR-2010E, for short.

Oh, just one thing: Pay no attention to the subtle and repeated placement of gratuitous links to previous VFTB articles scattered throughout this week’s post. My tech person told me search engines like that sort of stuff. Hope you don’t mind. Let’s get started, shall we?

January: Avatar smashes box office records as the biggest grossing movie of all time (not to be confused with Cannibal Holocaust, which gets VFTB’s vote for grossest movie of all time).  Thanks to Avatar’s amazing 3D effects and unprecedented profits, Hollywood begins unleashing a tidal wave of 3D films for 2010, including Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Rocky XXXVII and Oscar-buzz, early odds-on favorite for Best Picture, Jack Ass 3D (right).

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Great News: Wall Street is Back in Business!

Great News: Wall Street is Back in Business!

rich bankers

Thank goodness that annoying “Recession” is behind us. I can hardly even see it in my sideview mirror. It’s been a little over a year since the floor dropped out of the economy. and institutions once considered too big to fail, like Lehman Brothers, did just that.

In the midst of the near collapse of our financial system, there was a lot of finger pointing.  Politicians and Economists argued lax oversight and inadequate regulations of many financial instruments (like sub-prime mortgages and Credit Default Swaps) were to blame.  (more…)