Last June there seemed to be a series of unfortunate and, as of yet, unexplained series of incidents where babies at a local hospital were caused a birth injury. One doctor was involved with all the births, and most of the victims are working with personal injury attorneys to seek some type of redress.

The incidents first came to light when medical specialists were called in from other medical practices to treat injuries done to the newborns.  One incident would have passed without notice, but there were seven all together.

When asked at the hospital about the details of the incidents the hospital referred all questions for information to its attorneys. The hospital commented that birth injury is very serious and they truly regret any unfortunate incidents, but the personal injury attorneys and the media were to direct all questions to the hospital’s attorneys.

Questions, too, were directed at the parents of the newborn infants.  Some were willing to speak on the record, and they had accusations against the doctor and hospital that, if true, can be very serious and even involve negligence.

This is not the first time this hospital has been under investigation, but the last time any investigations for birth injury at this hospital were nearly thirty years ago.

A number of the parents have retained personal injury attorneys, and they have sent notices in the form of letters to the doctor involved as well as the hospital.

Some of the parents spoke out and accused the hospital of not having enough staff on duty, of not being prepared for certain types of emergencies and also not having thoroughly investigated the doctor’s credentials who is being blamed for all seven of the incidents.

The doctor has retained his own attorney and is now speaking only through the attorney. It appears from independent investigations that the doctor has had a number of claims filed against her in the past, but has never been accused of anything that can be considered criminal.  Her attorney has refused to answer questions for the media, but has been talking to other attorneys who have been retained.

Experts say that the parents of the injured newborns were smart to get the medical treatment needed for their infants, but also to seek out personal injury attorneys, because it is believed that at least with a number of the infants that the damaged caused is permanent and may involve life long care for those injured babies.

It was quite a ride up yesterday.
Never in my time doing online stock trading has there been anything like it. Of course, it was a record increase, so it’s all history.
It is really a matter of confidence. If most of us believe that the markets have been stabilized, then stocks will con-tinue to perform to the upside.  If not, then this will only be a temporary rise. The panic has not reached the retail level yet, but last week it was close. Perhaps last week was the bottom.
Now, for anyone involved in online stock trading, there is the question of what stocks and opportunities are out there.  Some companies have suffered real losses, and even if the stock market indices ratchet upward, there is no guarantee that the businesses that have lost so much capital can recover and prosper.
I pulled out my research from last week and looked through it. I had looked into a number of market sectors, with the idea that sooner or later a bottom would be reached, and that there were solid investments to make.
I looked again at the financial sector.  Now that the US government is going to be buying stocks in large banks, some of those might prove interesting. My focus, however, will be on those banks that were never in any danger of folding, because they had not been involved in making or holding any sub prime paper.  There are a few of those. 
This kind of makes for a strange situation.  Should I buy into the well managed banks, which were never in trouble, and most likely won’t be in trouble.  Or do I buy into the larger banks that will be partially owned by the govern-ment?  Will the “government” banks actually be unfair competition to the ones left in the free market?  That could be. And if so, their stock prices will remain depressed.
It was quite a ride up for the markets, and it will probably go up again today.  I just wonder how long the upside will be sustained, given that a plan of some sort has to eventually show results.  I guess there is that window where the confidence will remain high due to a grace period, but if it becomes clear that confidence is still low, things will begin to sell off again.
Only time will tell on this.  We are in totally uncharted territory.  Some fortunes have already been made, and more will be made.  It’s just going to take paying attention to a lot of detail.

Jack and Maria decided to go ahead.  One morning I got a call.  They were in Merrillville filing bankruptcy.   I was very sad about this.  I had talked with them at length, and went over what John Winston had advised me, and they were not going to go this route.  Why, I don't know.  They had expanded their business at a rapid clip by buying some competitors.  The competitors business was not all it was supposed to be.  One business had cooked the books, and the money that was supposed to be there was not.  They were suckered.  Jack and Maria had hired a lawyer, John Winston, who tried to save them, but they didn't seem to be interested.  I went to visit Jack and Maria one week later and they didn't show up at the restaurant.  I went to their house, and it was dark.  Their business never reopened.  Later, some of their creditors showed up in town looking for them.  They owed them money big time.  In fact, Jack and Maria owned everybody money.  The sheriff got involved, and eventually we all found out that Jack and Maria had been stealing money from their own business.  They had disappeared.

I had someone knocking on my door last evening, and wondered which neighbor needed to borrow some tea or some lunch bags, or maybe I was getting my vacuum cleaner back.  But it was Charlie, one of the nephews of my neighbor Emily.  He is the helpful one and very polite.  He looked his old charming self, but something was different about him.  When he reached up to scratch his head, I saw it…he did not have on his favorite thing in the world; that Los Angeles Lakers cap his Dad gave him.  He told me why he was visiting so late.  He was on a mission to find his cap.  He couldn’t remember what happened to it.  Since he always wears that cap, I know he was puzzled about what he did with it.  He reminisced about his day, all the places he had gone and could think of no place where he would have taken off his cap, except either here in my place or at his Auntie’s place.  Since he did come over and helped me rearrange the cans in my walk-in pantry, that where I sent him, and where he found the cap on top of the canned tomatoes.