10 misc thoughts to catch up on the news.

1. The NCAA is a cesspool of assholes.  They break the rules when investigating an enormous -- re: a decade of violations coming off a previous decade of violations -- case against the University of Miami.  To compensate for their own fouls, they tap lightly on the feet of Hurricane athletics.   Meanwhile they break the rules while investigating the Reggie Bush case, and try desperately to hide it all, unrepentant.
2. After losing a couple of players for the season in practice on Monday, USC is down to 40-something scholarship players available to play against Utah.  Again, all thanks to the NCAA's cesspool of assholes.
3. The real message sent to USC: Cheat better, by pretending to be post-scandal remorseful of a lack of diligence of what had been going on around you.  We've had multiple major infractions cases involving the dreaded "lack of institutional control" on multiple programs, and all have resulted in light taps at the feet of said programs.
4. On the heels of a disappointing September jobs report -- hey, remember that thing called sequester cuts? -- with the October government shutdown and threat of the debt ceiling, I have read that the October jobs report will be terrible.  Macroeconomic Advisers previously suggested that a 2-week shutdown would result in a 0.3 percentage point drop in GDP for Q4, followed with a recovery by 0.3 pp in the following quarter.  Another economist has suggested it'll be a 0.6 pp drop.  I'm inclined to believe the latter because the debt ceiling and budget issues were merely put off until January / February.  Business owners and companies are going to be wary of hiring until both are resolved.
5. The narrative that financial shocks are harder to recover from, is only half true.  The speed of recovery from the 2008-2009 recession is faster than the one following the brief, shallow 2001 recession.  The issue here, is that financial shocks result in deeper drops.  For instance, if the economy of Fakestan has 100 jobs, drops 50 then recovered all 50, from its nadir, it will have gained 100% increase in jobs.  But if Fakestan lost 75 jobs then recovered 50, it'd have gained 200% employment, but it'd still be short 25 jobs from its peak.  Well, we're Fakestan and we're a ways away from getting back to the peak in early 2008.
6. If you think the US is in dire straits economically, think about Greece's nearly 28% unemployment rate.  Worried that the US might become Greece?  Don't.  The only reason why we'd become Greece is if we closed the central bank, passed a balanced budget amendment, brought back the gold standard, and to top it all off, eliminated regulation.  In other words, allowed Ted Cruz and his gang to take over.
7. The easiest way to bring stability back to the economy and trust in the US, is to kick out the Tea Party.  Their actions are causing young Americans to question Democracy.  Say hello to Anarchy.
8. The federal ACA exchange is an unmitigated disaster, not because of all the errors in the system, but because no one seems to know what the problems are, making it impossible to resolve.  And, if the problem is related to the backbone architecture of the system, then it'll need to be reworked from the ground up...no simple fixes and definitely won't be completed before the deadline to sign up.
9. If the federal exchange is flawed from its architecture design, then Democrats actually have a giveaway for a 6-month mandate delay, available for the debt ceiling / budget fights in Jan/Feb.
10. Apple is dying.  Or at least the market is not convinced.  On a day where they introduced all the new widgets (sans wristwatch) everyone had come to expect, their stock price drooped while Google's fluffed up a teensy bit.  It no small part, their future