Of course I watched the speech. And read it. It was, after all, a heckuva speech. And of course I had previously seen the omnipresent clips of Rev. Wright, and was deeply disturbed and disappointed.

A friend who has never before sent me a political e-mail sent me one after the speech, urging me to watch it on YouTube. When I expressed some reservations about Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright, she said something wise in response--she asked me to think of the most radical people who I know or knew well; the ones who have had an influence on me. Have they made me more radical or more moderate, she asked. I think for most educated people, the answer to that question is the same. Ask yourself the question.

No surprise, Peggy Noonan wrote eloquently about Obama's speech. It was mostly complimentary, but by no means was it 100% positive...make sure to read her whole column for the (fair) criticisms at the end. Reading Noonan's columns on Obama, you can almost imagine Noonan, one of President Reagan's foremost speechwriters and a giant Reagan admirer and republican, casting her vote for Obama.

I'm not sure if this link to her column in the WSJ will work (you may have to be a subscriber), but as a back-up, either buy the WSJ tomorrow morning or look at Peggy Noonan's website, which should have the column posted by tomorrow morning.

***

I got an e-mail from a very close friend yesterday asking if he could borrow some money. He runs a hedge fund that I thought was doing well, so I was a bit surprised. He was the best man in my wedding and we have been close for almost 20 years; we have done many deals and loans in that time, and all have worked out well. (Who said to never loan money to friends?) He said he needed the loan for four weeks, and asked what interest rate would I charge him. He asked me to quote the interest rate in terms of the current yield on 4-week US Treasury (UST) obligations.

In other words, he wanted me to quote, "UST plus 1.0%" or "UST minus 0.25%." Sensing something was wrong, I immediately called him and said, "If it's just for four weeks, I won't charge you interest; I don't have much cash, but you can borrow it." He got a bit agitated and said, "No, you MUST charge me interest. Give me a quote." So, in exasperation, I finally said, "Fine, UST minus 50 beeps." (i.e., the four-week UST rate less one half of a percent, which equals "50 basis points" or, as they say, "50 beeps.")

"HA!!" he responded, as if I just admitted he was right on every argument we've ever had, "You now need to give me a loan and *pay me* 38 beeps on the money!!"

I quickly caught his point: The four-week UST obligations are now yielding 12 basis points, or 12 hundredths of one percent, so at UST minus 50 bps, I would have to pay him to borrow money from me. I would have guessed before the call that four-week UST obligations were yielding in the neighborhood of 1.5%. Of course, it turned out my friend didn't really need to borrow money, he was just watching with fascination on his Bloomberg monitors on his trading floor, as the yield on the 4-week UST's plummeted...and wanted to get a reaction out of me.

Think about borrowing at an annual rate of 12 bps: On $1,000 that's ten cents per month. Or, on a $1 million loan, that's $100 per month. From an absolute "dollars of interest paid" perspective, it's nice that our government can pay that low rate. But it's also indicative of how scared most folks are of other short-term investments right now...money is pouring into the 4-week UST, driving the yield down, because money managers are too scared to put their money anywhere else right now...that is not a good sign.