“A review of travel and financial records showed that Gov. Mark Sanford did not spend public money improperly when he visited his mistress”, the chief of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Reginald Lloyd, said this afternoon.

Thank goodness Governor Sanford’s fornicating was fiscally lawful!

But it shows you that there are hardly any limits to the perks, fringe benefits, and global sex romps that can be had on the taxpayer’s dime by our elected officials…

From the Wall Street Journal:

Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost

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Andrew LoGalapagos Hedge Funds & Andrew Lo(http://hedgefundblogger.com) I like Andrew Lo's thoughts below, this is exactly why hedge funds will emerge stronger than ever after the crises. Our industry is a rapidly evolving organism which adapts 4x quicker than the banks and 50x faster than the government. Here's an excerpt from a FT article which Dr. Lo helped produce:___________________Hedge funds are the Galapagos islands of the financial services industry. So at least says Andrew Lo, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who has pioneered the application of evolutionary biology to markets.According to Mr Lo and many of his acolytes, markets are not efficient, as had been assumed by academics for the past generation, but rather they are adaptive, with participants following Darwinian rules. After periods of relative stability they will undergo periods of intense change as ...