Tadahiro Matsushita, the Japanese official leading a recent crackdown on insider trading, died yesterday in what police concluded was a suicide. Mr. Matsushita's investigation, which Bloomberg reports was not yet complete, led to the resignations of Nomura Holding's chief executive officer.

With the government reducing its stake in AIG, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Neil Barofsky had a telephone conversation about how taxpayers have fared in the bailout.

A German court will rule tomorrow on the legality of the European Central Bank's new bond-buying program.

With the ECB set to start buying sovereign debt, investors' bets on European bonds are looking pretty smart.

Deutsche Bank will cut costs by $5.8 billion in order to meet new regulatory capital requirements, the bank said.

Carl Icahn called the board of directors at Navistar International, the truck and diesel engine maker, a “poster child for abysmal business decisions and poor corporate governance.” Navistar answered that despite Mr. Icahn's “unproductive tactics of threats, attacks and disruption,” the board knows what it's doing.

Court bailiffs in Hong Kong evicted Occupy protestors from HSBC headquarters.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner finished ninth in the 50 to 54 age group at a recent triathlon.

There's a 4 percent chance Ron Paul is the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to Morgan Stanley (via Business Insider).

Canadian banks! Hiring amid cutbacks at financial firms elsewhere.

Freedom from the tyranny of helmets! (Gucci Little Piggy)

The Observer got an alarmed email from a reader, whose thoughtful daughter sent her our article on the proposed bike helmet legislation, which the reader does not like one bit. Her email, cleverly titled "Will mom opt for civil disobedience?," expresses some serious concerns about the possibilities of being forced to wear a helmet, and the reason such legislation does not make sense.

I am a life long liberal who has been riding bikes, without a helmet, since before you were born. I have been riding my bike in NYC for years and now ride more than ever, thanks to the wonderful new bike lanes.

A helmet law would interfere with my riding and is just one more intrusion of unnecessary government regulation into personal life. Don't give me free emergency room care if I have an accident but don't make me wear a helmet. 99% of bike accidents do not involve head injuries and most bike helmets fit so badly they would not help anyway. Wearing a bike helmet is uncomfortable, hot, irksome, cuts off hearing, and discourages biking, which is what should be encouraged.

You young fogies are such wimps, and it is this type of unnecessary regulation that drives people to Ron Paul, god forbid.

It is true that all on-the-record bike riders at The Observer wear bike helmets 99 percent of the time, namby pambies that we are, but we also respect the freedom of others to do as they choose with their safety and well being.

Meanwhile, the folks at Streetsblog dug up an interesting study showing that cities that require bike helmets also tend to be less safe for bikers. That does not mean that bike laws make things less safe, though. It could be the counter, in fact, where these laws are implemented to try and make already more dangerous streets safer.

Still, the fact remains, bike helmets may save lives, but they do not prevent accidents, which are the real problem, and which have been in decline, even as bike ridership has quintupled.

As for Ron Paul, we doubt cyclists would run into his arms considering the city's growing bike network was overwhelmingly financed (roughly 80 percent) through federal funds. Try and find a private contractor who would pony up for that.

Lo and behold, there were emails from supporters of Ron Paul, the L. Ron Hubbard of Libertarians, currently running for President. Which isn't too out-of-the-ordinary. Except, well, there were a few of them. Today is apparently some kind of Ron Paul Day of Email Action. Everyone from the New York Times to The Daily Beast to The Texas Tribune to us are getting them.

We counted about fourteen or fifteen of them, all with some variation of the same message: THE MEDIA IS NOT COVERING RON PAUL.

Some were fairly nice and well-mannered:

By blacking Paul out the media is essentially giving voters less options for a president because most people that would vote for him if they actually knew his views, don't even know he is still in the running. Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Some were very astute and kind of sad:

Will you please cover Ron Paul. I wish you would be fair.
Why be in the media if you don't report? - Ryan

Some were ill-informed, and these had all-caps missives in them:

As the media it is your duty to report all the canidates. Not just the two that pay you to report on them.
START REPORTING RON PAUL AS A GOP CANIDADTE NOW!!
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!!

And here this writer would like to note that neither President Barack H. Obama nor Governor Mitt Romney have ever given me money, but they—like Ron Paul—are more than welcome to donate to my Portable Air Hockey Table Kickstarter fund, if any of them so desire to have the air hockey table of their dreams (press coverage not included). Also, like emails from Baby-Boomer-aged relatives, THE PEOPLE will not be listened to if they don't turn off that Caps Lock.

One that was sent a few times was a form letter with the subject line "Support True Journalism" which informed this newsroom and the email's other, like, 200 recipients, that we should all reconsider our chosen profession because we don't cover Ron Paul enough:

To be quite frank, if I were in a position where I executed such obvious and deliberate betrayal of my professional integrity, I would be ashamed to the point of reconsidering in my chosen profession.

We feel this way about letting Carl Pavano off the hook every day of our lives. Not being a sports reporter in Minnesota, there's not much I can do, and having been blackballed from the Stupid Pet Trick Training Industrial Complex for ratting out their secrets (Ritz crackers), this writer just doesn't know if there's another profession he can consider. As for not being a politics reporter, well, today, we won't let that get in the way.

We checked in with Google Trends to see just how much people want to read about Ron Paul:

That's search engine traffic for the last 30 days. That's less than half than Romney, and a little more than half compared to a candidate who just dropped out of the race, and about five times less as much as people want to read about Katy Perry.

So why do Ron Paul's supporters think their candidate needs to be paid attention to? Polls! And not just polls conducted by RonPaul.com, but polls conducted by the AP! Look for yourself and see:

Except, well, not really. If you go into the AP's polling data (Rasmussen requires a login), the 44% was an answer yielded in a question asking if the election were between Paul and Obama, the same question that is asked of all the candidates, which yielded votes against Obama in the 40-44% range with regards to each of the Republican candidates. In the same poll, the question asking which of the Republican nominees respondents would want to see take the nomination, Romney had 29%, Santorum had 16%, Gingrich had 13%, and Paul, interestingly, had 19%. This is why Paul followers should get excited, right?

Wrong. The question was asked of Democrats and Republicans. One reason results of those questions are skewed is because Democrats want to see the most ready-to-lose candidate face off again their party's. And poll results like these are commonly skewed by politicians like Paul to work in their favor, and stir up feverish excitement in their supporters, whose candidate has yet to receive proper press coverage, according to them.

This is the same Ron Paul who Time gave their 100 Most Influential People plaudit to, who pulls hundreds of Google News results per day. But Paul supporters, still not satisfied, have taken up in arms against media inboxes everywhere.

So, this one's for them. Besides the obvious influx of traffic that—forget trolling—simply writing about Ron Paul supporters will earn this website, it is worth it, not to consider the cause this small, loud contingent of people want paid attention to above other causes on a campaign of irritability, but to consider the small, loud contingent of people who do the spamming themselves: Ron Paul supporters.

This is the fundamental issue with Ron Paul's grassroots campaign: Their efforts exceed the meaning of those efforts. They make a better story than him. Why is that?

In an era when a simple idea like Occupy Wall Street—one requiring far less money than the Paul campaign, with a far more abstract position—can spread so quickly to so many places around the world, at some point, Paul supporters should ask themselves if their candidate has done as much for them as they've done for him. Or, in short-hand: Why? 'Cause it ain't the media. We, for the record, are right here, and hear you loud and clear. The problem is: You're drowning out your cause.

Fix that. And you can start by laying off the email. Like everyone else in America with an inbox, we just delete most of it, anyway.

RONPAULEMAILSTORY@observer.com | @weareyourfek

(Photo: The Daily Show)

Last night on The Daily Show, Mr. Stewart suggested that Mr. Paul gain some weight (it worked for New Jersey governor Chris Christie) or change his opinions. The media's bored with his consistency.

At the beginning of the interview, Mr. Stewart asked Mr. Paul was feeling the love from the people and he sarcastically responded, “Oh, all the time, especially the media, they really love me.”

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 14, the Texas congressman is a dominant newsmaker in only 27 campaign stories while former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is a dominant newsmaker in 85 campaign stories without even being a candidate, according to PEW Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which defines a dominant newsmaker as someone featured in at least half a story.

Mr. Stewart asked Mr. Paul why the media would ignore a candidate that ran in 2008 with a strong showing in addition to coming in a close second in the Ames Straw Poll.

“I think it’s two things,” Mr. Paul said. “I think one is, some people don’t want to hear the message ‘cause it’s a threat to them because I’m a threat to the establishment. Some, though, they just flat-out, they don’t understand what freedom is all about.”

(Photo: The Daily Show)

Noting the attention lavished upon candidates who accuse each other of “flip-flopping,” Mr. Stewart suggested that Mr. Paul dramatically change stance on some key campaign issues. Or, failing that, he should gain weight because “they all seem to love Chris Christie.” Or Mr. Paul should get a tour bus like Ms. Palin’s (left).

Nonetheless, Mr. Paul was confident.

“You don’t always have to convince immediately 51 percent,” he said. “You do need a hardcore people who understand the message.”

For the rest of the interview, go here and here.

Perry.

The riots in London seem finally to have subsided, but strange things are afoot stateside this week, so much so that we’re starting to wonder if Mercury, which went retrograde Aug. 3, is currently doing to the entire planet what it once did so publicly to Jeremy Piven. (Also, when does the statute of limitations on that joke run out?)

It all started last weekend, even before the city was deluged with cloudbursts of biblical proportions, when Texas governor Rick Perry threw his 10-gallon hat into the G.O.P. ring just as votes were being counted in the Iowa Straw Poll—an event that sounds like it involves blue ribbons for accurate jelly bean counting but that is actually a significant temperature-taking exercise for 2012 Republican voters. On Saturday night, the poll handed a slim but decisive victory to Michelle Bachmann, the woman Tina Brown recently dubbed “The Queen of Rage” on the cover of Newsweek (alongside a wide-eyed photo that would give Steve Buscemi nightmares), and on Sunday, milquetoasty Minnesota governor and “Obamneycare” coiner Tim Pawlenty dropped out of the race. Meanwhile, everyone pretty much ignored Ron Paul.

In other public slights, Steve Jobs earned an enemy in Marty Markowitz when the ailing tech mogul failed to respond to the borough president’s whimsical iPad video pleading for an Apple store in Brooklyn. Mr. Markowitz announced that Mr. Jobs and his company won’t “reach the big-time” until they land in the city’s most Safran-Foer-rich district, but seeing as Apple survived last week’s stock market free-fall with barely a dent, we think Marty needs to fuggedaboudit (at this point he’d have better luck buying a black market baby, and even then there’s no guarantee they’d get a spot at the new Grace Church high school). George Soros is being sued by his ex-girlfriend Adriana Ferreyr after reportedly making her eat dinner at the kids’ table. And Arianna Huffington may finally be hitting a paywall after solicitations for free HuffPo graphic design submissions from readers prompted widespread outrage.

More evidence of universal chaos: Lady Gaga will design the seasonal window displays at Barneys (flank steak will make a perfect coat for Santa!), someone paid $70,000 for a tour of Facebook’s headquarters—an honor we suspect any U.P.S. delivery man bearing Mark Zuckerberg’s new Adidas sandals from Zappos gets for free—and a “flash mob” looted a Maryland 7-11 without even throwing in any hastily conceived choreography for good measure. In addition, New Yorkers despondent over the crashing economy flocked to city landmarks to take their own lives (two suicide attempts—one at Rockefeller Center and one on a Statue of Liberty-bound ferry—were, happily, thwarted by first responders), an unidentified body was discovered floating in Niagara Falls, and on Thursday in Tulsa, Okla., a man climbed a 300-foot tower and, while showing no signs of jumping, he has refused to come down for five days (he did, however, order a cappuccino).

With all signs pointing to an astrological system gone horribly awry, maybe it’s a good thing that New York police spent last weekend practicing riot drills on Randall’s Island. Like the state lotto constantly reminds us, hey—you never know.

• Moody's downgraded Ireland's credit rating five notches and said more downgrades could come if the country didn't figure out how to deal with all its debt. [WSJ]
• If Ron Paul proceeds to hector the pants off Ben Bernanke in his new role as congressional Federal Reserve overseer, he'll be following a long-established tradition of berating central bankers. [NYT]
• It sounds ridiculous, but someone's asking the question: Could the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit an all-time high next year? It's theoretically possible! [AP]
• Congress has passed the tax cut extensions. [Reuters]
• New York required foreclosure mills to certifiy the validity of their paperwork following revelations that some foreclosure paperwork was not valid. They are not really doing this. [Naked Capitalism]

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

His campaign to audit the Fed picked up steam as the central bank deployed trillions in emergency loans in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Paul's bill gained the support of 320 of 435 members of the House and a portion of the measure ended up in the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul enacted this year.

Here are some things Ron Paul, who has introduced legislation to dismantle the Federal reserve, has written about the central bank: "I think the system of Fed domination must come to an end"; "Ending the Fed would be the single greatest step we could take to restoring American prosperity."

It should surprise few people then that Mr. Paul intends to expand the role of the committee he will lead. From The Daily Paul, a pro-Paul blog:

Many people have never heard about that Subcommittee, and Paul says in the past it has been concerned with "commemorative coins." However, Paul says he will use it to impact monetary policy. Paul doesn't believe that this new position alone will result in the elimination of the Fed, which he has championed for quite some time, but he will use the position as another venue to criticize the Fed and call more attention to its drawbacks.

Poor Ben Bernanke. His quantitative easing has drawn the ire of experts; one in six Americans wants to get rid of his workplace entirely; and now the guy who has done more than anyone to demonize American central banking is going to trot him in front of Congress and ask some mean questions. He just can't catch a break.

C-SPAN viewers, on the other hand, are in for a real treat. Paul and Bernanke -- we just can't wait for the sparks to fly.

mtaylor [at] observer.com | @mbrookstaylor

But hiding out and keeping quiet scarcely befits the leader of a movement of would-be revolutionaries—which means that sooner or later, Dr. Paul will have to speak up again. Even if he has settled the civil rights controversy for the moment, he still has some explaining to do.

As a lifelong libertarian who seems stuck on a strict standard of ideological purity, he may or may not espouse that creed’s most extreme positions, like his father, Representative Ron Paul. If he does, then even many Republicans may think twice or three times before they vote for him. If he doesn’t, then he may find himself in a quarrel with many of his old comrades, his father and his own past statements. More than once, Rand has said that he generally agrees with Ron.

So considering Dr. Paul’s background, extremism is a reasonable concern—and the only way to find out what he really believes is for him to start answering a lot of questions.

What do libertarians believe? On some issues, such as abortion, they are divided. But on gun control, for instance, the libertarian platform indicates that they believe in no restrictions whatsoever on gun ownership, no registrations or background checks—in short, no statutory or regulatory effort to prevent convicted criminals, registered sex offenders, suspected terrorists, illegal immigrants or anyone else from getting their hands on firearms, including anything from a 9mm to a SAM missile launcher.

Some Americans may not consider such absolutism to be loony, but very few would favor abolishing all background checks or all of the existing restrictions on automatic weapons.

What voters in Kentucky and elsewhere will learn, when they look more deeply into the movement from which Dr. Paul emerged, is that libertarians believe in very little government. They seem to feel that the kind of state suited to the 18th century would serve America just as well today. So they would do away with all legal restrictions on wages, hours and working conditions, including the minimum wage and the ban on child labor. If your boss refused to pay you at the end of the week, the government would do nothing—and you would have to sue.

Under a libertarian regime, every protection that modern Americans take for granted would disappear, leaving us to the mercy of fate, corporations and economic cycles. No more laws stopping air and water pollution, no more regulation of food and agricultural safety, no controls on advertising cigarettes or alcohol to children. (The libertarian society would be paradise for E. coli bacteria, the oil industry and Joe Camel.) No more Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, public schools, national or state parks or farm subsidies of any kind; no more federal support for scientific research into clean energy or curing cancer or AIDS or any other disease; and in fact, no more federal money for education at any level, from Head Start to state colleges, universities and graduate schools.

Is this the “message” Dr. Paul is bringing us from the great minds of the Tea Party? Maybe so, if they mean what they say about balancing the budget without raising taxes. But for Dr. Paul, there is at least one exception to the hard-core dogma. You see, he is against cutting Medicare payments to physicians—at least while he’s still practicing ophthalmology. He should explain that, too.

jconason@observer.com

This afternoon, it was back to reality.

“I’m not likely to get much recognition in there,” said Paul as he walked out of security gates at the Xcel Energy Center, where the Republican National Convention is being held. He had gone in for an interview with CNN.

Since the Republicans still want nothing to do with him, and won’t let him speak, he had no more business there.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he added. “When I’m back in D.C., I get a lot of recognition from members of Congress who want my endorsement and want my support, to help out, because they are in tight races and they know the grassroots Republicans are interested in what I’m saying.”

Paul walked passed an Italian restaurant where ‘O Sole Mio’ was playing ad nauseam and waitresses were handed out free samples of sausage and peppers. He went on. “If they were smart they would try to study why the young people like what I’m saying. I mean, their party is getting smaller--they need young people getting in--and at our rally last night, we had 15,000 of them.”

Paul said he thought choosing Sarah Palin as a running mate was “a pretty shrewd move on McCain’s part. Evangelicals like her,” he said. “By having her on the ticket and having [Senator Joe] Lieberman as a speaker and then maybe a Secretary of State means he’s appealing to everybody.”

Despite some stories about efforts by the McCain camp to win Paul’s endorsement, the congressman still did not find McCain especially appealing. Asked if he would vote for McCain, he said, “No, I don’t plan to.”

It looks maybe a little more dramatic and meaningful than it actually was.

After I spent a while watching the conflict unfold -- young people taunt cops and make a display of forceful disorderliness, cops make arrests, eventually -- and conducted interviews with participants, I still didn't know what it was about.

The real victims, of course, were the delegates who couldn't get into the locked-down hotel for Tom DiNapoli's ice cream party.