Words:

From dictionary.com

Ne·gro
n. pl. Ne·groes Often Offensive
1. A Black person. See Usage Note at black.
2. A member of the Negroid race. Not in scientific use.

Usage Note at black:

Usage Note: The Oxford English Dictionary contains evidence of the use of black with reference to African peoples as early as 1400, and certainly the word has been in wide use in racial and ethnic contexts ever since. However, it was not until the late 1960s that black (or Black) gained its present status as a self-chosen ethnonym with strong connotations of racial pride, replacing the then-current Negro among Blacks and non-Blacks alike with remarkable speed. Equally significant is the degree to which Negro became discredited in the process, reflecting the profound changes taking place in the Black community during the tumultuous years of the civil rights and Black Power movements.


posted by Quiddity at 12/30/2008 02:56:00 PM

New Microsoft patent!

It appears that Microsoft is looking for a continuing revenue stream similar to what cellphone companies get.

From Computerworld:

Microsoft specs out 'pay as you go' PC scheme
Files patent for metering hardware capabilities but admits overall cost 'may be higher'

Microsoft's plan would ... monitor the machine to track things such as disk storage space, processor cores and memory used, then bill the user for what was consumed during a set period.

Overall costs 'may be higher'. Hmm.

From Channelweb:

1. The Road Has Run Out On Microsoft's Traditional Software Licensing Business Model.

For years, big businesses have bought costly Microsoft software licenses that provided them a pathway to free upgrades. The problem is Microsoft either never delivered a viable upgrade or businesses underestimated the heavy cost of upgrading beyond the software license.

Not delivering a viable upgrade can be a problem.

Also, these bullet points from the ChannelWeb article:

2. The Pay As You Go Model Makes Microsoft The Sole Toll Taker.
3. Microsoft Wants Your Credit Card.
4. Google Is Eating Microsoft's Breakfast, Lunch And Dinner.
5. Microsoft Wants To Control The Horizontal And Vertical Of Your Internet Experience.

Lots of amusing comments at the Computerworld comment thread for this story.


posted by Quiddity at 12/30/2008 08:30:00 AM

Parallels?

Steve Benen, writing about the Bush administration and OSHA: (emp orig)

By all appearances, this administration barely wants OSHA to even exist, so I suppose it stands to reason that Bush political appointees would gut the agency and turn to lobbyists to help guide OSHA's decision making.

And adds:

Indeed, it's hard to count just how many regulatory agencies have, under this president, effectively been run by the business interests it was supposed to be regulating.

Isn't that exactly what happened with the financial business?


posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2008 09:33:00 AM

Ed Gillespie on Bush:

Over at RealClearPolitics, he writes: (emp add)

Myths & Facts About the Real Bush Record

Myth 1: The last eight years were awful for most Americans economically and President Bush's deregulatory policies caused the current financial crisis.

Reality:

President Bush's time in office is ending as it began, with our economy under stress. The recession President Bush inherited as he entered office ran through the attacks of September 11, 2001, but during the recovery that followed, and due in no small part to the tax relief President Bush worked with Congress to provide, this country experienced its longest run of uninterrupted job growth - 52 straight months, with 8.3 million jobs created.

This reflected six consecutive years of economic growth from the Fourth Quarter of 2001 until the Fourth Quarter of 2007. From 2000 to 2007, real GDP grew by more than 17 percent, a remarkable gain of nearly 2.1 trillion dollars. This growth was driven in part by increased labor productivity gains that have averaged 2.5 percent annually since 2001, a rate that exceeds the averages of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. In the same period, real after-tax income per capita increased by more than 11 percent, and there was a 4.7 percent increase in the number of new businesses formed.

The gross numbers were good (GDP, labor productivity) but they were not shared. And per capita is an average, not a median figure.

Essentially, the rich got richer, but labor didn't get a slice of the productivity-gains pie.


posted by Quiddity at 12/29/2008 09:18:00 AM

This pretty much settles it:

From Newsmax.com (h/t Conservapedia):

Top Scholars Confirm Truth of Christianity

Thursday, December 25, 2008 7:22 PM

LOS ANGELES — A new survey recently showed that 70 percent of people in Great Britain doubted the biblical account of the birth of Jesus Christ, but they are “gravely mistaken,” says Ted Baehr, a professional scholar and theologian.

Christianity is true as well as historical, factual and “intellectually sound,” said Baehr, who founded The Christian Film & Television Commission ministry in 1985.

“Top scholars, historians and experts have confirmed that the Bible is the most historically and intellectually reliable ancient text in the whole world, including the Bible’s account of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles and disciples who wrote the New Testament documents,” Baehr said.

He cited the work of numerous top scholars, historians and experts, such as C.S. Lewis, Gary Habermas, F.F. Bruce, William Lane Craig, John A.T. Robinson, John Warwick Montgomery, Bruce Metzger, Simon Greenleaf, Stuart C. Hackett, J. Gresham Machen, Ronald Nash, Edwin Yamauchi, Craig Blomberg, John Wenham, Lee Strobel, Paul Maier, and N.T. Wright.

“These people are wonderfully astute thinkers, investigators and writers,” Baehr said. “They have refuted all of the important lies, half-truths and silly comments against Jesus, His apostles, the Bible, and Christianity made by non-Christians and even by some allegedly former Christians.”

“Not only can you have complete faith in the New Testament documents and what they say about the virgin birth, divinity, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and teachings of Jesus Christ,” Baehr said, “but you can also rely on what they say about non-Christian places, people, and events, such as the names and titles of Roman government officials.

“Jesus is both God and man,” he said. “He was born of a virgin, never sinned in his life, died for our sins, and rose on the third day. Turn away from your sins and faults, believe in Jesus and his teachings, and be baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

posted by Quiddity at 12/28/2008 06:00:00 PM

Mail was delivered on Sundays:

Until 1912.

According to Gary Wills (in his book Head and Heart: American Christianities) Sunday mail delivery was stopped in 1912 as one of the final acts of the Third Great Awakening.


posted by Quiddity at 12/27/2008 01:09:00 PM

A seven minute tutorial on Quantitative Easing:

Here. It might work if the economy is stable, but flat. It's not clear that it will work in an economy that hasn't yet accounted for all the losses from a bursting bubble (amplified by financial derivatives).


posted by Quiddity at 12/25/2008 02:23:00 PM

Rick Warren on sex and evolution:

From his December 2005 interview on Larry King: (emp add)

WARREN: Well, again, I would just say I think to me the issue is, is [being homosexual] natural? Is it the natural thing? I mean here's an interesting thing I have to ask. How can you believe in Darwin's theory of evolution and homosexuality at the same time? Now think about this.

If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn't reproduce and you would think that over thousands of years that homosexuality would work itself out of the gene pool.

That, of course, is invalid reasoning. There are lots of reasons why a species may contain the potential for homosexuality (or "non reproducibility") within the genes.

One possibility is that during periods of overpopulation and food scarcity, a number of non-reproducing offspring are born. In a generation, that would result in a greater food-to-animal ratio and increased survivability of the species. Studies of mice have been revealing. In situations where there is significant overpopulation, researchers discovered that there were noticing (often for the first time), male-on-male sex.

Or sometimes a fraction of the population is simply non-reproducing but helping the rest of the group with their offspring. This is often seen in bird species where all sorts of arrangements are found.

Ten years ago there was a documentary (The Life of Birds, especially episode 9, "The Problems of Parenthood") by David Attenborough that showed some remarkable situations: birds kidnapping a newborn, two males and one female (but only one male mates). Attenborough's point was that there can be many modes for survival and species success. One male and one female can work, and is the preferred arrangement for isolated, non-social animals. But where there a species exists in groups, many other situations can prevail.

Warren speaks of science like a tenth grader. Knows a little, but not enough.


posted by Quiddity at 12/23/2008 07:48:00 PM

Rick Warren on sex:

From the Beliefnet interview: (actually, clarifications offered a few days later by Warren)

God, who always acts out of love and does what is best for us, thought up sex. Sex was God’s idea, not ours. Like fire, and many other things God gave us, sex can be used for good, or abused in ways that harm. The Designer of sex has clearly and repeatedly said that he created sex exclusively for husbands and wives in marriage. Whenever God’s parameters are violated, it causes broken hearts, broken families, emotional hurt and shame, painful memories, and many other destructive consequences. There would be so STDs in our world if we all played by the rules.

The more you learn about Warren, the weider he gets.


posted by Quiddity at 12/23/2008 01:36:00 PM

Rick Warren: Don't bother trying to improve the world

From the Saddleback Church's What We Believe webpage: (emp add)

ABOUT SALVATION

Salvation is a gift from God to man. Man can never make up for his sin by self-improvement or good works – only by trusting in Jesus Christ as God’s offer of forgiveness can man be saved from sin’s penalty. Eternal life begins the moment one receives Jesus Christ into his life by faith.
---
ABOUT ETERNAL SECURITY

Because God gives man eternal life through Jesus Christ, the believer is secure in salvation for eternity. Salvation is maintained by the grace and power of God, not by the self-effort of the Christian.

Warren is in the tradition of Luther and other Protestants who believe in salvation through faith, not salvation through works. That doctrine is derived from St. Paul's writings (mostly Romans). Speaking of St. Paul, it's strange that he's taken seriously because none of his doctrine has been "validated" by God or Jesus. In the Bible most prophets have exchanges with angels or God, and that's where doctrine begins. But none of that happens with Paul except for a cryptic self-reported exchange with Jesus. Yet his epistles are seized upon by Protestants for doctrinal guidance.


posted by Quiddity at 12/22/2008 08:04:00 AM

Rick Warren on Terri Schiavo:

From Hardball with Chris Matthews: (excerpts)

MATTHEWS: What do you do in that situation, after four or five years of sitting in a room with a person, in this case, 15 years of being in a room where he knows, when he goes in that room, there is not going to be another person in there? What do you do for hope?

WARREN: Well, my first question is, I wonder why [Michael Schiavo] is in a hurry to pull the feeding tube on her. In the first place...

MATTHEWS: Fifteen years is a hurry?

-----------

MATTHEWS: You say the husband has moved on, but he is still the guardian. Is this a case where we have the wrong guardian? What is it? Let‘s try to fix the system.

WARREN: Well—well, I‘ll just tell you, frankly, I doubt his veracity in the things that he said. I would question why he is in such a hurry.

-----------

MATTHEWS: So why is he doing this, do you think?

WARREN: I have no idea. Well, I don‘t know. There‘s 1,000 reasons could you speculate. What if she came back out of the—out of this state and had something to say that he didn‘t want said?

posted by Quiddity at 12/20/2008 07:04:00 PM

Obama chose Rick Warren for the invocation ...

... because Jerry Falwell wasn't available.


posted by Quiddity at 12/18/2008 07:49:00 PM

Idiot to deliver the invocation at Presidential inauguration:

Forget, for a moment, Rick Warren's opposition to stem cell research, his support of California's Proposition 8, or his advocacy of invading foreign countries and assassinating foreign leaders. This should be enough to disqualify him for any role in guiding the nation:

WARREN: If you're asking me do I believe in evolution, the answer is no, I don't.

Denying evolution is a denial of all of science. Evolution is tied to chemistry, physics, geology, and biology. Evolution isn't some sort of isolated set-aside, purely textual theorizing, independent of the rest of science.

Amasingly, Warren doesn't know his Bible. For those who care, here is the exchange he had with Sean Hannity that got a lot of people talking:

“Well, actually, the Bible says that evil cannot be negotiated with. It has to just be stopped,” the Southern California pastor responded before being cut off by another question.

“By force?” Hannity asked.

“Well, if necessary,” Warren replied.

“In fact, that is the legitimate role of government. The Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers. Not good-doers. Evildoers,” Warren added, referring to Romans 13.

Warren takes Romans 13 to be supportive of a government (i.e. the United States) punishing "evildoers" that are not under the dominion of said government. But that a misreading of Romans. Here are the passages relevant to the discussion: (NRSV)

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4 for it is God's servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience.

Warren is looking at the second part of verse 4:

(NSRV)
[The governing authority] is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer.

Or put another way (NASB)
[Government, or a ruler] is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.

Romans 13 is entirely about the relationship between people, including "evildoers", and their governing authority. "Evildoers" who are not subject to that governing authority, especially other governing authorities, are not at issue, at least in Romans 13.

Warren does what many a deceitful pastor does: Makes false claims by deliberately misreading the scriptures to a credulous congregation.


posted by Quiddity at 12/18/2008 10:10:00 AM

This is why the stock market surged today:

From the NYTimes: (emp add)

• The Federal Reserve entered a new era on Tuesday, setting its benchmark interest rate so low that it will have to reach for new and untested tools in fighting both the recession and downward pressure on consumer prices.
  
  
• ... the central bank said it had cut its target for the overnight federal funds rate to a range of zero to 0.25 percent, a record low, bringing the United States to the zero-rate policies that Japan used for six years ...
  
  
• ... the Fed bluntly declared that it was ready to move to a new phase of monetary policy in which it prints vast amounts of money for a wide array of lending programs aimed at financial institutions, businesses and consumers.
  
  
• The central bank acknowledged that recession is more severe than officials had thought at their last meeting in October.
  
  Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, has already outlined a range of unorthodox new tools that the central bank can use to keep stimulating the economy once the federal funds rate effectively reaches zero.
  
  
• All of the new tools amount to printing money in vast new quantities, and the Fed has already started the process. Since September, the Fed’s balance sheet has ballooned from about $900 billion to more than $2 trillion as the central bank has created new money and lent it out through all its new programs. As soon as the Fed completes its plans to buy up mortgage-backed debt and consumer debt, the balance sheet will be up to about $3 trillion.

And there's this:

“At some point, and without knowing the timing, the Fed is going to have to destroy all that money it is creating,” said Alan Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, said the central bank. “Right now, the crisis is created by the huge demand by banks for hoarding cash. The Fed is providing cash, and the banks want to hoard it. When things start returning to normal, the banks will want to start lending it out. If that much money is left in the monetary base, it would be extremely inflationary.”

So why are we giving the banks any money at all?


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2008 01:40:00 PM

Reaction to today's Fed meeting:

At the blog But Then What:

Well you can kiss the Fed Funds rate goodbye as a tool of monetary policy. In case you haven’t heard, the Fed announced that its new target rate was 0% to 0.25%. Why they didn’t just say zero is beyond me but I’m sure there is an obscure reason.

So now clear the boards for quantitative easing or to put it another way the Great Experiment. Remember, we are in the realm of theory now. I’m sure this is very exciting to those who have been writing papers about all of this for the past 30 years but personally I’m a little worried. I hope they know what they’re doing but experiments rarely go well the first time.

posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2008 01:30:00 PM

The incompleteness of Reuel Marc Gerecht:

Gerecht, responding to criticism from Andrew Sullivan about his support for torture, writes:

... if you had been confronted on 7 September 2001 with a captured Khalid Shaykh Muhammad or Abu Zubaydah and you knew that a major, mass-casualty terrorist strike was about to go down in the United States, and you had plenipotentiary authority for the nation's security, you would not have used any physically coercive techniques against the gentleman?

Of course, as Kevin Drum notes:

... we've tortured a steady and sizeable stream of people who were either decidedly small fish or else just completely innocent.

That's because they are suspects. But Gerecht takes it beyond that baseline situation with his special knowledge that:

... you knew that a major, mass-casualty terrorist strike was about to go down

How convenient that he stops there. Notice that he didn't write:

You knew that a major, mass-casualty terrorist strike was about to go down involving hijacking commercial airlines.

Or:

You knew that a major, mass-casualty terrorist strike was about to go down involving hijacking commercial airlines and piloting them into buildings.

Because those scenarios diminish the "need" for torture (which doesn't work anyway) and are actually more likely to be encountered. If the intel is so vague that all it is that an unspecified major strike is about to go down by unspecified people, then everybody shold be tortured. Russians, Taliban dudes, Al Qaeda recruits, men on the Cairo street, the Green Bay Packers, Democrats, et al.

Right now, as you are reading this post, there are some people thinking about striking the United States. They're dreamers and misfits and losers, but hey, that's just about all you need for Gerecht to approve a full-scale torture program. For Gerecht, the less you know, the more he supports torture, as long as there is the minimalist requirement that something is being planned, which is always the case.


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2008 12:51:00 PM

Shoe cartoons:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.9, 10, 11, 12


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2008 10:19:00 AM

The failure of the press:

Regrettably, there hasn't been enough coverage of Rod Blagojevich or Caroline Kennedy this month. The press should remedy this situation by saturating the airwaves and the print media with heavy coverage of Blagojevich's hair and Kennedy's days growing up in Camelot.


posted by Quiddity at 12/16/2008 09:30:00 AM

Hard to see the Senate Republicans seriously filibuster the auto bailout bill:

They will probably do something. Something to appeal to their base. But actually stopping the bill from passing carries too much risk. Republicans would then own whatever fallout that would ensue, which could see GM and Chrysler go down in flames. As it is, a half-hearted filibuster allows the Republicans to say, should the auto bailout not succeed in the months ahdad, "I told you so."

UPDATE: To my great surprise, it appears that the Republicans will kill the auto bailout bill.

UPDATE2: Looks like the bailout is dead. Not that the Republicans "killed it" via a filibuster (at least not yet), but more in the fashion of a failed compromise. The fallout from this could be huge.

Maybe I'm wrong, but this auto bailout - however you feel about it - strikes me as a really big story. Yet there hasn't been a whole lot of media or blog attention. This week has been all about that corrupt Illinois governor, which is not all that interesting, at least on a national policy level. If the big three (or two) stop for a while, we could see 15% unemployment.


posted by Quiddity at 12/11/2008 08:15:00 AM

Screw this, let AIG die:

At Calculated Risk:

AIG: A Black Hole?

American International Group Inc. owes Wall Street's biggest firms about $10 billion for speculative trades that have soured ...

The $10 billion in other IOUs stems from market wagers that weren't contracts to protect physical securities held by banks or other investors against default. Rather, they are from AIG's exposures to speculative investments unrelated to insurance, which were essentially bets on the performance of bundles of derivatives linked to subprime mortgages, commercial real-estate bonds and corporate bonds.

From the comment thread at CR, this, apparently from behind the WSJ paywall:

"The Federal Reserve, which lent AIG billions of dollars to stay afloat, has no immediate plans to help AIG pay off the speculative trades."

No immediate plans. That's a relief.


posted by Quiddity at 12/10/2008 09:28:00 AM

Crazy Ben:

From The Big Picture:

The Federal Reserve is considering issuing its own debt for the first time, a move that would give the central bank additional flexibility as it tries to stabilize rocky financial markets.

Government debt issuance is largely the province of the Treasury Department, and the Fed already can print as much money as it wants. But as the credit crisis drags on and the economy suffers from recession, Fed officials are looking broadly for new financial tools.

Ritholtz comments:

There are going to be screams about this.

The Fed’s balance sheet is a shambles, blasting from 900 billion to more than $2 trillion since August alone.

posted by Quiddity at 12/10/2008 06:35:00 AM

"Should Obama reappoint Bernanke in 2010?"

Asks the Mortgage Insider. Of course not. One reason? This (from a New Yorker profile):

In 1999, the height of the tech stock bubble, Bernanke and a colleague gave a presentation at a conference, arguing that the Fed should “ignore bubbles and stick to its traditional policy of controlling inflation.

Bubbles cause huge misallocation of capital. It also creates winners and losers in a completely random fashion. Or worse, since the naïve investor is usually the loser when a bubble expands and then pops.


posted by Quiddity at 12/09/2008 01:58:00 PM

Where right-wing radio is headed:

On his show today, Sean Hannity was going after Deepak Chopra. This is excellent news. Maybe the high approval ratings for Obama (79%), means conservatives will look for enemies in obscure nooks and crannies.


posted by Quiddity at 12/09/2008 01:45:00 PM

Shorter Paul Blustein (some knucklehead writing in the Washington Post today):

We must stop moves towards protectionism because of the experience Smoot-Hawley has taught us:

Failure to freely trade with Europe and Asia in the 1930's meant that we had to wait until World War II to get out of the Depression, through expanded government spending and vigorous trade with countries like Germany and Japan.

Wait a minute, how much low-tariff trade was there during World War II? Hardly any. Oh well, may as well pretend that tariffs are bad since free trade continues to weaken labor, and that will get me printed in the Washington Post.

posted by Quiddity at 12/07/2008 04:26:00 AM

Shorter George Will:

I will scare you with tales of "reactionary liberals" wanting to reinstate the fairness doctrine, but without citing a single person or action taken towards that end. That's because fact-free conservative paranoia is an American tradition.

posted by Quiddity at 12/07/2008 03:53:00 AM

Listening to Detroit talk about the auto industry:

For an interesting perspective on the problems with the Big Three automakers, you could spend some time listening to Detroit's sports radio station WXYT. It's mostly sports, but recently callers to the station have also been discussing the potential bailout of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Unlike a standard-issue talk radio show, which is likely to be conservative (or liberal), the demographics of a sports station is probably more representative of the city it serves.

The callers are pretty reality-based. And they are not just line workers. Callers have been dealers, suppliers, and salespeople. They criticize the corporate leadership. They see some problems with the current structure (e.g. too many product lines). But they think that Detroit is being unfairly treated - especially compared with the financial firms that got tons of money with hardly any oversight. They are also puzzled at the alacrity with which hundreds of billions was given (or pledged) to the banks but not to the automakers, since they see a collapse of the Big Three leading to a massive economic decline.

There's also a fair amount of pride in that city. You hear claims that the workers are doing a good job and that many cars have quality/reliability that is comprable to those manufactured by Toyota, Honda, et al.

There's a clear understanding that the companies will have to contract. That there will be pain, even with a bailout. And that it will take time to recover.

CODA: For those of you who follow the hapless Detroit Lions football team (currently 0-12), there is an interesting parallel. William Clay Ford Sr. owns the team and has done a terrible job. He's hired cronies and let them mess up for years, partly because he is insulated from the failures due to his secure financial situation and a don't-care attitude. Consider the record of GM Matt Millen:

Over seven seasons under Millen's leadership as team CEO, the Detroit Lions owned the NFL's worst winning percentage (31–81, .277), have never had a winning season, have never finished higher than third place in the NFC North, and have not played in any post-season games. Despite this record of total failure, Millen received a five-year contract extension at the start of the 2005 season

Lions fans have been screaming for most of this decade, demanding new management and coaching staff, but nobody at the top pays any attention. This year the team may end up with a winless 0 - 16 record, which would be unprecedented. Some fans actually think that that would finally wake up Ford Sr. to finally fire coach Rod Marinelli. As if 1 - 15 wouldn't be enough.

RESOURCES: A lively blog critical of the Lions is The Wayne Fontes Experience.


posted by Quiddity at 12/07/2008 12:52:00 AM

"Prove, prove, prove!"

That's how Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg once characterized the attitude of Holocaust Deniers. They (the deniers) demand that everything be proven, and don't accept standard assumptions about how the world works. For instance, even if Jews were rounded up in France and sent east on trains, do we really know that they ended up in Auschwitz? Maybe the train disappeared into a wormhole. Or entered a tunnel to the center of the earth. Etc.

That's pretty much the mindset of those who are challenging Obama's status as a naturally born U.S. citizen. They don't believe it when the state of Hawaii says his birth certificate is legitimate. Or that there is a confirming notice in the local newspaper. After all, how do we know that any so-called "evidence" isn't just a bunch of recently created forgeries? More proof is needed. And should more proof emerge, then that can be challenged in a similar manner. There is no exit for the doubters.


posted by Quiddity at 12/05/2008 09:25:00 AM

Amazing pictures of clouds over Greenland:

here


posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2008 06:00:00 AM

Michael Gerson's joke of the day:

... Obama's appointments reveal something important about current Bush policies. Though Obama's campaign savaged the administration as incompetent and radical, Obama's personnel decisions have effectively ratified Bush's defense and economic approaches during the past few years.

[The appointments indicate] that Bush has been pursuing centrist, bipartisan policies -- without getting much bipartisan support.

posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2008 02:37:00 AM

Pastor who helped get 'under God' in Pledge dies:

Died on Thanksgiving Day. He came from Scotland. Excerpts:

The Rev. George Docherty, credited with helping to push Congress to insert the phrase "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance, has died at 97.

Docherty, then pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, just blocks from the White House, gave a sermon in 1952 saying the pledge should acknowledge God.

He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and was unfamiliar with the pledge until he heard it recited by his 7-year-old son, Garth.

"I didn't know that the Pledge of Allegiance was, and he recited it, 'one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,"' he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2004. "I came from Scotland, where we said 'God save our gracious queen,' 'God save our gracious king.' Here was the Pledge of Allegiance, and God wasn't in it at all."

There was little effect from that initial sermon, but he delivered it again on Feb. 7, 1954, after learning that President Dwight Eisenhower would be at the church.

The next day, Rep. Charles G. Oakman, R-Mich., introduced a bill to add the phrase "under God" to the pledge, and a companion bill was introduced in the Senate. Eisenhower signed the law on Flag Day that year.

More at the Washington Post: (emp add)

Without mentioning a deity, Rev. Docherty said, the pledge could just as easily apply to the communist Soviet Union: "I could hear little Muscovites recite a similar pledge to their hammer-and-sickle flag with equal solemnity."

Then as now, legal scholars questioned whether a reference to a deity in a patriotic pledge violated the First Amendment separation of church and state. In recent years, there have been several court challenges to the phrase.

But Rev. Docherty remained unmoved. The phrase "under God" could include "the great Jewish community and the people of the Muslim faith," in his view, but he drew the line at atheists.

"An atheistic American is a contradiction in terms," he said in his sermon. "If you deny the Christian ethic, you fall short of the American ideal of life."

Damn right. American atheists should be stripped of their citizenship.

A contrary view can be read here.

Of interest:

One reader [of the Post story] asked whether Rev. Docherty was a U.S. citizen when he urged the change to the Pledge of Allegiance that elicited such First Amendment controversy. No, he was not; he became a U.S. citizen in 1960.

posted by Quiddity at 12/03/2008 01:59:00 AM

The End is Nigh:

Over at NRO's The Corner, there is a post by Andrew Stuttaford that cites (positively) blog posts by Brad DeLong, Matthew Yglesias, and Kevin Drum.


posted by Quiddity at 12/02/2008 06:36:00 AM

Hank Greenberg rattles the tin cup:

In the WSJ, Greenberg, formerly the chairman and CEO of American International Group (AIG) writes: (excerpts, emp add)

AIG Needs a New Deal

To date, the government has shown everything but a consistent approach. It didn't give assistance to Lehman Brothers. But it did push for a much-publicized and now abandoned plan to purchase troubled assets. The government also pushed for a punitive program for American International Group (AIG) that benefits only the company's credit default swap counterparties.

The Citi deal makes sense in many respects. The government will inject $20 billion into the company and act as a guarantor of 90% of losses stemming from $306 billion in toxic assets. In return, the government will receive $27 billion of preferred shares paying an 8% dividend and warrants, giving the government a potential equity interest in Citi of up to about 8%. The Citi board should be congratulated for insisting on a deal that both preserves jobs and benefits taxpayers.

The government should instead apply the same principles it is applying to Citigroup to create a win-win situation for AIG and its stakeholders.

The role of government should not be to force a company out of business, but rather to help it stay in business so that it can continue to be a taxpayer and an employer. This requires revisiting the terms of the federal government's assistance to AIG to avoid that company's breakup and the devastating consequences that would follow.

The Citi rescue was widely criticized for being a sweetheart deal for shareholders and executives, and it was generally conceeded that the government could have done better (perhaps through an outright purchase). In any event, the Citi rescue is now being used by people like Greenberg to argue for similar shareholder bailouts of other troubled firms.


posted by Quiddity at 12/02/2008 05:38:00 AM

Shorter Ben Bernanke:

I will make the Yield Curve dance to my tune!

Good luck with that.


posted by Quiddity at 12/01/2008 10:27:00 PM

The Black Friday hype:

Which this blog commented on, has a fuller exposure at the New York Times: Media and Retailers Both Built Black Friday. Excerpt:

It’s convenient to point a crooked finger ... at some light coverage of some harmless family fun. Except the coverage is not so much trite as deeply cynical, an attempt to indoctrinate consumers into believing that they are what they buy and that they should be serious enough about it to leave the family at home.

Media and retail outfits are economic peas in a pod. Part of the reason that the Thanksgiving newspaper and local morning television show are stuffed with soft features about shopping frenzies is that they are stuffed in return with ads from retailers. Yes, Black Friday is a big day for retailers — stores did as much as 13 percent of their holiday business this last weekend — but it is also a huge day for newspapers and television.

In partnership with retail advertising clients, the news media have worked steadily and systematically to turn Black Friday into a broad cultural event. A decade ago, it was barely in the top 10 shopping days of the year. But once retailers hit on the formula of offering one or two very-low-priced items as loss leaders, media groups began to cover the post-Thanksgiving outing as a kind of consumer sporting event.

It ends with:

[Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst for the NPD Group, a market research firm] said that in his 32 years interviewing consumers in malls during the holiday season, he had never heard what he did this year. “People really have no idea what they want,” he said.

What was the "hot item" for 2008? The hot toy? There didn't appear to be one this time. E.g. Tickle-me-Elmo.

RELATED:

A worker trampled to death when customers stormed a Wal-Mart for bargains on the day after Thanksgiving had no experience in crowd control and was placed at the entrance because of his hulking frame ...

... the worker, Jdimytai Damour, was 6 feet 5 and 270 pounds, making the trampling all the more stunning. He was killed when a crowd estimated at 2,000 strong broke down the electronic doors in frantic pursuit of bargains on big-screen TVs, clothing and other items.

posted by Quiddity at 12/01/2008 09:38:00 PM

Why is an unescorted cruise ship anywhere near Somalia?

In the news:

A luxury cruise ship carrying passengers between Rome and Singapore came under attack from Somali pirates as it sailed between Somalia and Yemen on Sunday.

The Nautica, an Oceania cruise ship, was carrying 690 American, British and Australian passengers and a 386-member crew when two small fishing boats tried to intercept it.

The ship's captain, Jurica Brajcic, began evasive maneuvres when the pirates were about 1,000 yards away from the ship and managed to avert the attack.

The ship was probably headed to, or from, the Suez Canal. But given the situation, it seems foolish to go unescorted in that area or not to hew close to Yemen.


posted by Quiddity at 12/01/2008 03:50:00 PM

Did you watch ABC's This Week roundtable?

Great set of commentators:

• George "The New Deal prolonged the Depression" Will - doing his usual schtik.
• Tori Clarke - former Pentagon spokswoman under Bush - today praising Amity Shlaes' book that said the New Deal was a mess.
• Matthew Dowd - chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney '04 presidential campaign - who said that Obama must inflict real pain on liberal/Democratic interest groups (as part of not doing what's best for Democrats, but what's best "for America").
• Donna Brazile - not the most effective spokesperson for the Democrats.

All in all, great balance. Kudos to ABC for bringing out prople to argue against the just-elected president's economic proposals.


posted by Quiddity at 11/30/2008 07:52:00 PM

Tony Blankley on health care: "get sick and die"

You remember Blankley? He often appeared on the McLaughlin Group and for a while he was the editor of the Washington Times.

Currently, he's the designated conservative on the Left, Right, & Center political wrap show produced by Santa Monica's NPR station KCRW (and syndicated nationally).

This week the topic was The Future of Capitalism: Which Way Now? (mp3) that focused mostly on the financial crisis, but also broader trends like a national health program. Nineteen minutes into the discussion there was this exchange:

BLANKLEY: (skeptically) How do we need to change the social contract that we have, merely because we've had a financial panic? There's no need to change the social contract.

MILLER: Tony, there are 50 million people without heath care coverage. There are 25 million people who have coverage that is worthless.

BLANKLEY: Well there used to be 250 million people without health care coverage for goodness sake. They never had health care coverage until 1965, .

MILLER: Most of the the rest of the advanced world doesn't let people go bankrupt when they get ill. That is wrong Tony.

BLANKLEY: You can say that with elevated tone, but it doesn't make it correct.

MILLER: You think it's right that people should go bankrupt because they're ill in one of the richest countries in the world, Tony? C'mon!

BLANKLEY: I will come on and I will say that I predict that within 30 years we will not be able to guarantee health care for everybody because as you know, Medicare alone is somewhere around 40 trillion dollars in unfunded liability. We can't afford it. We're going to do what we've always used to do when we got old, which is we will get sick and die. And I plan to do that.

Allowing the citizens to get sick and die really cuts down on health care costs. It zeroes out the budget item, allowing for further tax cuts (or bailouts) for the rich. More people should know about this excellent conservative policy position.


posted by Quiddity at 11/30/2008 08:58:00 AM

Retail sales down 2.8% in October, up 3% Black Friday:

That doesn't sound right. Perhaps it's got something to do with gasoline purchases (part of October, not part of B.F.?).

Still, it seems odd.

BE AWARE: The +3% figure comes from ShopperTrak, a firm that takes foot traffic and then extrapolates to sales. They have an uneven record. If memory serves, they've released boffo numbers for Thanksgiving weekends that don't square with final store reports or credit card figures.

If however, the U.S. comsumer is still spending like mad - even in the wake of tremendous losses in 401Ks and actual and pending layoffs - you've got to wonder what it takes to cool the spending impulse.

Also, the ShopperTrak number seems to be the only one driving the news this weekend.

UPDATE: It appears skepticism is justified.


posted by Quiddity at 11/30/2008 01:05:00 AM

The answer is "pretty soon"

Maureen Dowd writes:

[James Macpherson] pioneered “glocal” news — outsourcing Pasadena coverage to India at Pasadena Now, his daily online “newspaperless,” as he likes to call it. Indians are writing about everything from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags. [...]

I wondered how long it would be before some guy in Bangalore was writing my column about President Obama.

Interesting to see that after a couple of decades of outsourcing non-journalism jobs, newspaper writers are just now pondering the effects of cheap non-domestic labor on their industry - especially now that internet video feeds are practical.

Welcome to the wonderful world of free-trade globalization where jobs paying $30-40K are eliminated here, and (Hi Brad DeLong!) someone somewhere else is getting paid a pittance.

OF NOTE: DOwd tells us that at the cyber-newspaper Pasadena Now, the going rate is $7.50 for a thousand words. Dowd's column this week was 770 words. If she's paid accordingly, that's $5.77 for her column. Multiply that times 52 weeks and Dowd would be pulling down a whopping $300 a year.


posted by Quiddity at 11/30/2008 12:12:00 AM

Robert Rubin bash-a-thon:

Great fun.

• The Big Picture: Rubin: ‘Nobody Was Prepared’ for Crisis of ‘08
• Working Life: Robert Rubin: Coward Or Liar--Or Both?
• Naked capitalism: Mirabile Dictu! Rubin Takedown by the Wall Street Journal!

posted by Quiddity at 11/29/2008 05:18:00 PM

Amity Shlaes: "Workers should not be paid much"

There's an argument going on between Paul Krugman and Amity Shlaes. In the Murdoch-owned WSJ, Shlaes pens "The Krugman Recipe for Depression".

Krugman responds.

Over at The Big Picture, an observation: "Krugman vs. Shlaes — Not A Fair Fight".

The Shlaes is mostly against big government spending, but also writes this:

High wages hurt corporate profits and therefore hiring. ...

... lawmakers are considering new labor legislation containing "card check," which would strengthen organized labor and so its wage demands. Because employees continue to pressure firms to spend on health care, without considering they may be making the company unable to hire an unemployed friend.

... raising wages may take away jobs in the private sector ...

Labor is an actor in the marketplace and there's no reason it, alone, should not bargain for the best deal it can get. For Shlaes, corporate profits are not to be touched no matter how high the get. Instead, labor is supposed to bear the brunt of whatever sacrifices that are needed to bring about an economic recovery.

UPDATE: George Will's Sunday column basically repeats Shlaes essay, with the bonus feature that Will deliberately ignores what Krugman told him on television about why 1937 was a bad year (FDR eased up on New Deal policies and went for balancing the budget).

AND ... Will touts Shlaes with this line: (emp add)

In "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," Amity Shlaes of the Council on Foreign Relations and Bloomberg News argues that government policies, beyond the Federal Reserve's tight money, deepened and prolonged the Depression.

Shlaes of Bloomberg News!


posted by Quiddity at 11/29/2008 04:45:00 PM

These people are worthless:

It's been 24 hours since the huge Citi bailout has been announced. A bailout that involves the Treasury, FDIC, and Federal Reserve, and which has major implications for government spending and budgeting. Yet so far, there has been absolutely no mention whatsoever (negative or positive) over at NRO's The Corner blog.

Instead, they're talking about: what would be Bill Buckley's 84th birthday, abortion, Happy Hour in Britain, Hugo Chavez, the National Review fundraiser, and other critical issues of the day.

ALSO: Not a peep over at Time magazine's blog of the year, Power Line.


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 08:55:00 PM

$7.4 trillion:

The U.S. government is prepared to lend more than $7.4 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, to rescue the financial system ...

... as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.

How about that?


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 09:57:00 AM

Still true:

Troubletown cartoon, from a few weeks ago:

posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 09:22:00 AM

The banks are insolvent, the system is corrupt:

That's the take-away from the Citi action this weekend.

TO ELABORATE A BIT: Until now, it wasn't clear (at least to me) how bad a shape the banks were in, both here and abroad. While some banks, especially smaller ones, are probably okay, the really big ones are in a state where they cannot operate without government help. They are, for all intents and purposes, bankrupt (even if the technical definition does not apply, as some assert).

The way out of this mess is to really nationalize the banks, not dribble money here and there with the hope that they will grease it out. Global Financial News says:

In general, there's no sense of finality here, of the government stepping in and taking charge of the situation. Instead, Treasury seems to hope that with $20 billion and some loan guarantees it will be able to help Citi muddle through for the time being. I suspect that it might end up disappointed.

As to the corrupt. Citi is now trading at six dollars, a 50% jump on the bailout news. Why? Because the shareholders are going to be protected from their folly.


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 09:07:00 AM

Blog comments on the Citi bailout:

• Economist's View has a good selection of excerpts (actully, almost full blog posts) by Paul Kedrosky, Yves Smith, James Kwak, Robert Reich, John Jansen: The Citigroup Bailout
• Tom Lindmark at But Then What: Citigroup Sets The Bar Higher For The Next Round
• Ian Welsh at Firedoglake: Citigroup bailout: leaving the incompetents in charge
• Global Financial News: Citi’s Underwhelming Bailout

posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 01:48:00 AM

Is he going to be okay?

What will the Citi bailout mean to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. He has a has a 4.9% stake in the company.


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 01:44:00 AM

Did I get this right?

It would appear that in exchange for purchasing $27 billion in Citi preferred stock, the taxpayer is on the hook for absorbing the losses on $260 billion of Citi's worst paper.


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 01:03:00 AM

If you're this wrong, shouldn't you resign?

Bloomberg:

Bernanke Tells New Yorker He Underestimated Housing Meltdown

Nov. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said he underestimated the impact subprime mortgages would have on the economy, according to an interview to appear in the New Yorker magazine’s Dec. 1 edition.

“I and others were mistaken early on in saying that the subprime crisis would be contained,” Bernanke said. “The causal relationship between the housing problem and the broad financial system was very complex and difficult to predict.”

Plus, he's lying when he asserts that the problem was "uncontained subprime". The problem was much wider than that. He's giving a polite version of "That damn Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae were the cause of our problems".

Bernanke, resign now!


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 12:32:00 AM

The executives keep their jobs:

Treasury, Federal Reserve, and FDIC:

... the U.S. government on Sunday entered into an agreement with Citigroup to provide a package of guarantees, liquidity access, and capital.

... Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will provide protection against the possibility of unusually large losses on an asset pool of approximately $306 billion of loans and securities ...

Citigroup will comply with enhanced executive compensation restrictions ...

WSJ:

The government is not expected to require any management changes, as that was seen as potentially being too destabilizing.

ALSO: After this, it's hard to see how Detroit misses out on a bailout.


posted by Quiddity at 11/24/2008 12:08:00 AM

We need a law:

Everytime there is a story like this:

WSJ: Government to Guarantee $300 Billion in Citigroup Assets

... Citigroup will have an extremely unusual arrangement in which the government agrees to backstop a roughly $300 billion pool of its assets, containing mortgage-backed securities among other things. Citigroup must absorb the first $37 billion to $40 billion in losses from these assets. If losses extend beyond that level, Treasury will absorb the next $5 billion in losses, followed by the FDIC taking on the next $10 billion in losses. Any losses on these assets beyond that level would be taken by the Fed.

It should be accompanied with this quote and picture:

"Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem."
Ronald Reagan, 1981.

And, to be fair, for any Citigroup story, a big mention of Robert Rubin's role in steering the company in recent years:

In 1999, affirming his career-long interest in markets, Mr. Rubin joined Citigroup. ... Consolidation of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services as practiced by Citigroup under the direction of Rubin has been implicated in the subprime mortage crisis.

He sparked controversy in 2001 when he contacted an acquaintance at the Treasury Department and asked if the department could convince bond-rating agencies not to downgrade the corporate debt of Enron, a debtor of Citigroup. Rubin wanted Enron creditors to lend money to the troubled company for a restructuring of its debt; a collapse of the energy giant might have serious consequences for financial markets and energy distribution. The Treasury official refused.

posted by Quiddity at 11/23/2008 09:28:00 PM

Just a reminder:

From June 2005:

posted by Quiddity at 11/21/2008 09:37:00 PM

"Why doesn't Obama calm the markets by announcing he won't raise taxes?"

Asks Sean Hannity on his show today.

That's a good, sensible question. Aftter all, how else will we get out of (what Hannity calls) the "Obama Recession"?


posted by Quiddity at 11/20/2008 02:35:00 PM

During this financial and economic crisis, it's almost as if we don't have a president:

Where the hell is Bush?

Apparently doing yeoman work here:

posted by Quiddity at 11/20/2008 07:53:00 AM

Did you feel that?



Barry Ritholtz is suggesting now (!) going into -2x NASDAQ 100 funds.

Whoa!


posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2008 01:33:00 PM

Will the Big Three automakers go belly-up?

It's looking more and more like they're headed for bankruptcy (of whatever stripe is unclear). That's partly a reading of the tone of the debate, along with the matter of money and time. Inaction by Congress or the Treasury before the end of the year could trigger a collapse. If that happens, there would be a further deterioration of the economic situation, leading to a very slow economy in 2009.


posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2008 11:39:00 AM

Lavish:

The New York Post today:

... a bailout would be a mistake.

For starters, the Big Three are run as inefficiently as ever. Lavish contracts granted to the United Auto Workers, for instance, put GM on the hook for more than $70 an hour per worker.

Dean Baker, yesterday:

GM Auto Workers Are Not Paid $70 an Hour and It Matters

The New York Times told readers that GM's autoworkers are paid $70 an hour (including health care and pension). This is not true. The base pay is about $28 an hour. If health care cost per worker average $12,000 per year, that adds in another $6 an hour. If the pension payment takes up 25 percent of base pay (an extremely high pension), that gets you another $7 an hour, bringing the total to $41 an hour. That's decent pay, but still a long way from $70 an hour.

How does the NYT get from $41 to $70? Well the trick is to add in GM's legacy costs, the pension and health care costs for retired workers. These legacy costs are a serious expense for GM, but this is not money being paid to current workers. The person on the line in 2008 is not benefiting from these legacy costs.

It would be helpful if the NYT could get its numbers straight. It certainly can affect public support for a bailout if they are led to believe that autoworkers are paid much more than is actually the case.

posted by Quiddity at 11/19/2008 07:27:00 AM

The $81.78 outrage:

On ABC's World News Tonight, Charlie "no bias" Gibson introduced a segment on the plight of Detroit this way: (I have the audio and may post it later)

On Capital Hill today the chief executives of the big three automakers made their pitch for a $25 billion taxpayer bailout. That would amount to eighty-one dollars and seventy-eight cents for every man, woman, and child in America.

All that money ... it's outrageous! And Gibson helpfully provides, not a Cato-approved flat-tax formulation, but an even more scary head-tax figure. That's something everyone can understand, even Joe the Plumber.

Kudos to Gibson for not doing that for those other expenses like the two-trillion Iraq War, hundreds of billions bank bailout, $85B AIG rescue, etc. Only bailouts that help millions of workers deserve the "we're pickpocketing your wallet" head-tax number.


posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2008 06:45:00 PM

Well, that was shitty:

42-13


posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2008 10:08:00 AM

Question:

Off the top of your head, can you name anything the Clinton Global Iniative has done?   (The AIDS initiative does not count.)

It/he has received a lot of money from foreign governments and wealthy individuals. But for what? The mission is to

"strengthen the capacity of people throughout the world to meet the challenges of global interdependence."

Which is extremely vague. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the CGI was a way for governments to shovel money to Bill on the mistaken impression that he still matters in American politics. Bill certainly isn't going to say no to wads of cash and it helps stroke his ego, but if the Clinton Foundation didn't exist, would it make any difference?

If you read what they're about, much is "business-oriented". It's got a Tom Friedmanish odor:

In 2007, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) focused on expanding its successful model to engage new audiences in tackling global problems with practical, innovative solutions.

Almost as if it was headed by a moderate Republican, which is basically what Bill Clinton was, and remains today.


posted by Quiddity at 11/18/2008 08:53:00 AM

The Great Depression didn't result in all the Detroit automakers going bankrupt:

But this financial crisis may. And things got really, really bad during the Great Depression. So why is Detroit more fragile this time around?


posted by Quiddity at 11/17/2008 09:05:00 PM

Some another time, this would be funny:

Instead, it's pathetic. Tom Friedman:

Now is when we need a president who has the skill, the vision and the courage to ... pull us together as one nation and inspire and enable us to do the one thing we can and must do right now:

Go shopping.


When President Bush told us to go shopping after 9/11, he was right.

A commentator at Dean Baker's blog:

Friedman's personal fortune is based on his wife's inheritance of a shopping center owner and management company, General Growth Properties, whose share price has fallen from $40 to 40 cents. No wonder he wants people to go shopping.

posted by Quiddity at 11/16/2008 08:25:00 AM

The "Obama Recession"

Media Matters: (emp add)

On the November 11 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Sean Hannity again suggested that President-elect Barack Obama is to blame for the decline in the stock market and said of Wall Street's performance: "Wall Street keeps sinking. Could it be the Obama recession: The fear that taxes are gonna go up, forcing people to pull out of the market?" Hannity is not alone among conservatives in the media in referring to an "Obama recession" in purported explanation for the state of the stock market. As MSNBC's Chris Matthews noted on November 12, radio host Rush Limbaugh "says the recession isn't President Bush's fault. It's the fault, catch this, of the president who hasn't yet taken office. It's an 'Obama recession'; that's what he's calling it."

Here's the thing. If it's an Obama Recession because he won the election,

that means the country voted for it

posted by Quiddity at 11/15/2008 01:05:00 AM

Peter Schiff vs. idiot market commentators:

Shiff, totally correct about housing and the economy, was disputed and ridiculed over the last couple of years. A collection of segments where Shiff appeared on Fox is here (10 min YouTube).

Shiff is a Ron Reagan / Ron Paul guy and favors less government spending. Whatever you may think of that, his remarks on housing and credit were correct.


posted by Quiddity at 11/14/2008 08:08:00 PM

Congratulations, Dow Industrials!

You shot up in three hours from 7973 to close at 8835, an increase of 862 points, or 10%.

All people watching from the sidelines are encouraged to jump into equities now, since all the financial bad news is behind us, this holiday shopping season is sure to be boffo, and Detroit will resume selling big-profit SUVs once again.


posted by Quiddity at 11/13/2008 02:43:00 PM

Wall Street Journal gets far right wing editor for the news pages:

Gerard Baker will be the new deputy editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal. See him narrate an uncreative Hannity-like over-the-top video where he "praises" Obama The Messiah here (6 min YouTube). It's on the level of the snark you find at NRO's The Corner.

Will the Financial Times (or the New York Times) edge out the WSJ if the Journal continues down the Murdoch trail?


posted by Quiddity at 11/13/2008 06:57:00 AM

Ten terrible weeks:

The stock market went down hard today, but that was following a recent rally (of sorts). The really interesting tumble was that which took place in the 10 weeks from 15 August to 24 October, seen most vividly in the tech-heavy NASDAQ. It dropped 36.57% (901 points) in that short period of time. If you watched the morning shows, several financial advisors were telling people not to sell throughout that time. (If people had sold late September, they would have "only" lost 16% from the 15 August level.) Remember, by 15 August the NASDAQ had already dropped from its 21st cehtury high of 2810 (week of 2 November) to 2452, in a wobbly path where it lost 13% over ten months - during which it was becoming clear that there were serious problems in the financial area, with housing, and a likely recession for the year.



The standard-issue "buy and hold" advice, so freely offered during the market turmoil, may have added to lots of peoples' pain.


posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 05:12:00 PM

Listening to Limbaugh:

Is Rush about to have a stroke?

Since the election, he's been talking veryveryfast and with a much more acid tone. Almost as if he's hopped up on speed.

Before the election, he spoke in a more normal (for Limbaugh) radio-host voice. But now, he's up half an octave and almost seems as if he doesn't have much to offer his listeners except a "performance" of a barely-coherent incredibly angry man.


posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 10:39:00 AM

Troubletown comics:

Political cartoons, updated every Wednesday. One frame from this week's cartoon is, as they say, right on the money:

UPDATE: The "D word" is spoken by a Wall Street bigfoot: (emp add)

The economy faces a slump deeper than the Great Depression and a growing deficit threatens the credit of the United States itself, former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead ...

"I think it would be worse than the depression," Whitehead said. "We're talking about reducing the credit of the United States of America, which is the backbone of the economic system. ... I see nothing but large increases in the deficit, all of which are serving to decrease the credit standing of America. ... I just want to get people thinking about this, and to realize this is a road to disaster. I've always been a positive person and optimistic, but I don't see a solution here."

Calculated Risk comments:

So far most of the Great Depression discussions have been phrased in terms of "worst since". Whitehead has taken the next step - however I think "worse than" is extremely unlikely.

posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 09:20:00 AM

Joe Lieberman supported Norm Coleman this year:

If you check Coleman's campaign website, you will find several entries where Lieberman supported him.

Just like in 2000, Lieberman's squirrely behavior may help a Republican narrowly win office.

Lieberman apparently also supported Susan Collins, but that race was non-competitive (final result 61% to 39%). But Joe's support of Coleman over Franken may make the difference in terms of giving Democrats clout in the Senate.


posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 08:04:00 AM

Can we do something like this with health care?

Looking up the Pendelton Civil Service Reform Act, one reads: (emp add)

Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act

The United States Civil Service consists of all appointive positions in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of the Government of the United States, except positions in the Uniformed Service. (5 U.S.C. § 2101) The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (ch. 27, 22 Stat. 403) of 1883 United States federal law established the United States Civil Service Commission, which placed most federal government employees on the merit system and marked the end of the so-called "spoils system." The act provided for some government jobs to be filled on the basis of competitive exams.

Drafted during the Chester A. Arthur administration, the Pendleton Act served as a response to President James Garfield's assassination by Charles Julius Guiteau. The Act was passed into law on January 16, 1883. The Act was sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, Democrat of Ohio, and written by Dorman Bridgeman Eaton, a staunch opponent of the patronage system who was later first chairman of the United States Civil Service Commission. The most famous commissioner was Theodore Roosevelt (1889-96).

The law only applied to federal government jobs: not to the state and local jobs that were the basis for political machines. At first it covered very few jobs, but there was a ratchet provision whereby outgoing presidents could lock in their own appointees by converting their jobs to civil service. After a series of party reversals at the presidential level (1884, 1888, 1892, 1896), the result was that most federal jobs were under civil service. One result was more expertise and less politics.

It was in their own short-term interest to lock in a job, but by doing so changed its status for the better over the long-term. Brilliant!

Maybe employees could be ratcheted into an expanded Medicare (through a process advantageous to the employeer in the short term, with payback through an agreement that leads to long-term reform)

Actually, you could use a rachet mechanism in other areas, like carbon-credits.

Why doesn't legislation use more Game Theory when its being crafted? Especially for solutions that might be best implemented gradually over a period of time.


posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 02:14:00 AM

Shorter Tom Friedman:

If wishes iPods were horses autos,

Beggars would ride.

If turnips were watches,

I'd wear one by my side.     (In fact, while riding in a cab in India, I heard they're working on that very thing right now.)

posted by Quiddity at 11/12/2008 12:23:00 AM

A Google screw up?

If you went to Google this morning, you saw the following logo (aka "doodle") in comemoration of Veterans Day:

But later the same day, you saw this: (noticed elsewhere)

What happened? Isn't Google supposed to be perfect?


posted by Quiddity at 11/11/2008 08:28:00 PM

Y'all know what I'm talking about:

Crony capitalism -

Crony capitalism is a pejorative term describing an allegedly capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between businessmen and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.

UPDATE: Hey, look what Dean Baker wrote the day after my post:

Are Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson Crony Capitalists?

The media should be asking this question. After all, they are trying to hide which banks are in trouble and refusing to give out information about who is borrowing from the Fed. This is exactly the behavior that the IMF and widely cited economists denounced when it was done by the East Asian countries during their financial crisis in the late 90s. Are these practices now good economics because our government is doing them?

posted by Quiddity at 11/10/2008 07:39:00 PM

Price target:

From GM shares hit 62-year lows after broker downgrades (emp add)

Shares of General Motors Corp tumbled 24 percent to 62-year lows on Monday after analysts downgraded the automaker, citing cash levels that may fall below the minimum needed in the first quarter of 2009.

Analysts including Barclays Capital to Credit Suisse also warned that while government aid would decrease the risk of a bankruptcy for the No.1 U.S. automaker, any assistance would come at a significant cost to existing shareholders.

Barclays cut GM to "underweight" from "equalweight" and lowered its price target for the stock to $1 from $4. It said GM is expected to end 2008 with $13.3 billion in cash and fall below its minimum the $11 billion to $14 billion in cash needs during the first quarter.

Deutsche Bank cut GM to "sell" from "hold" and lowered its equity value to zero from $4, saying GM may not be able to fund its operations beyond December.

Forget Chrysler, this GM situation is an even bigger problem.

UPDATE: Just checked the quote for GM and noticed that the market cap is just under $2 billion.


posted by Quiddity at 11/10/2008 10:42:00 AM

Shorter David Broder:

The first weekend after a historic Democratic victory - giving them firm control of the Presidency, Senate, and House, along with a big agenda for the many serious problems facing the nation - it's time to write about five promising Republican governors.

posted by Quiddity at 11/09/2008 05:01:00 AM

Not stating the obvious:

Jonathan Chait, in a post-election essay writes:

Among the intelligentsia, a handful of thinkers have started to argue that the failure of the Bush administration calls for a rethinking of conservatism. But the most powerful institutions of the right--Fox News, talk radio, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the major right-wing think tanks--remain firmly in the hands of conservatives who see the events of the last eight years as a vindication of their ideology.

What do Fox News, The Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal have in common?

FN, WS, and WSJ aren't everything, but they comprise a pretty big piece of the media pie.

And let's not forget the New York Post (regional, but sets the tone for many right-wing radio shows, especially Hannity).


posted by Quiddity at 11/09/2008 04:39:00 AM

A connection with the past:

Obama gave his victory speech in Grant Park on Tuesday. About Grant Park:

The city officially designated the land as a park on April 29, 1844, naming it Lake Park. When the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago in 1852, it was permitted to enter along the lakefront on a causeway built just offshore. The resulting lagoon became stagnant, and was largely filled in 1871 with debris from the Great Chicago Fire. In 1896 the city began extending Grant Park into the lake with landfill.

On October 9, 1901, it was renamed Grant Park in honor of Galena, Illinois resident, American Civil War General and United States President Ulysses S. Grant.

posted by Quiddity at 11/09/2008 04:29:00 AM

Already started:

Joe Gandelman writes: (emp add)

At a time when Republicans are pondering Senator John McCain’s decisive loss in the Presidential race against Democratic Senator Barack Obama and looking to assess what went wrong, a noisy battle is raging between McCain’s Veep pick Gov. Sarah Palin, the McCain camp and, some suggest, a more furtive campaign by supporters of former Gov. Mitt Romney to define Palin.

In an important sense, the no-rest-for-the-weary timing of this symbolic Republican battle with implications for 2012 is not shocking. Obama himself came under immediate attack from talk radio and Republicans via email almost nonstop since Wednesday morning (with one host running audio of Reverend Wright). So the end of a campaign now means a new one IMMEDIATELY begins — so an excruciating two year presidential election campaign has now morphed into to a dentist-drilling four-year one.

Look at this from the front page of hannity.com:

posted by Quiddity at 11/08/2008 06:07:00 PM

Life imitates The Onion:

The Onion had fun with the cover of this week's edition, deliberately ignoring* Obama's win and, instead, headlining the win of a district alderman:

Which is very much like this story:

Newspaper in Terrell, Texas, doesn't think Obama's win was any big deal

At least that's the impression many readers got when they opened their copies of Wednesday morning's Terrell Tribune to see an inch-high headline saying, "Jackson defeats Schoen".

Seems the paper's editors decided the local county commissioner's race was a bigger deal for their readers than the election of the first black president in American hsitory.

Not only did the Tribune not put Barack Obama's election on Page One -- there was, according to Byron Harris of WFAA-TV (Channel 8), "no story devoted to the presidential victory" anywhere in the paper.

Publisher Bill Jordan had this to say to readers who complained that the paper should have preserved this historic moment:

"We run a newspaper, not a memory book service. We covered the local commissioner's race. We thought that was more important."

Terrell, population 13,606, is labout 30 miles east of Dallas.

* actually, it appears the edition was set-for-print on election day or before, so they may not have been ignoring an Obama (or McCain) win. But it's pretty clear that was the impression they were trying to make.


posted by Quiddity at 11/08/2008 09:05:00 AM

conservapedia.com is still batshit crazy:

From the Obama page:

3rd paragraph
The October 2008 crimes against Academy Award winner Jennifer Hudson's family highlight Obama's record against law and order, as he voted against making it a crime in Illinois "for convicts on probation or on bail to have contact with a street gang". The person of interest in the murders of Hudson's mother, brother, and 7-year-old nephew is the estranged husband of Hudson's sister and a convicted felon who had violated his parole conditions. "'We've got 75,000 gang members - that's almost six gang members to one police officer.'"

4th paragraph (emp add)
Obama is the first person having ties to a known terrorist to gain control over America's nuclear weapons. Author and blogger Jack Cashill compared the writing style of Bill Ayers' 2001 memoir, Fugitive Days, with Barack Obama's earlier 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, and came to the conclusion that Ayres had ghostwritten Dreams.

8th paragraph
Doctors from the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons have stated that Obama uses techniques of mind control in his speeches and campaign symbols. For example, one speech declared, "a light will shine down from somewhere, it will light upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will say to yourself, 'I have to vote for Barack.'" The doctors observe that "Obama's logo is noteworthy. It is always there, a small one in the middle of the podium, providing a point of visual fixation ... [that] resembles a crystal ball, a favorite of hypnotists."

further down
Many observers have criticized Obama's campaign for its incivility. For instance, John McCain's wife Cindy noted that Obama is running "the dirtiest campaign in American history."

That hypnosis charge by the AAPS is for real. Full 25 October 2008 press release is here.


posted by Quiddity at 11/07/2008 09:38:00 PM

Good idea:

In an Ezra Klein post about what to do about Lieberman, one commentator wrote:

... wouldn't it be cool if Obama were to appoint Lieberman to some office that he'd have a hard time turning down, so that he would give up his Senate seat, and then Obama could fire him? Wouldn't that be cool?

posted by Quiddity at 11/07/2008 02:52:00 PM

Over at the National Review, they've just now gotten upset at the relentless pro-Wall Street press:

Andy McCarthy endorses these remarks by a reader:

When stocks were up pretty big on election day, the headline I saw was "Stocks cheer likely Obama victory."

Midway though the day Wed as things had turned modestly negative, it was "Stocks taking profits on Obama's win," putting a positive connotation ("profits") on negative news.

Market bears and skeptics of Rah-Rah capitalism have been griping about the "profit taking" term for decades. Over at places like NRO, they never complained during that time. But now they do. What took them so long?


posted by Quiddity at 11/07/2008 08:35:00 AM

Right-wing radio already trashing Obama:

I was going to write about the next-day reaction, but Joe Gandelman already did it.


posted by Quiddity at 11/06/2008 10:01:00 AM

GOP leader:

Atrios writes:

The GOP should be fun to watch. It'll be weird seeing them without an obvious leader/figurehead. In my adult lifetime they've only really been like that during the brief period of the 2000 Republican primary, roughly between Newt's resignation and the choosing of W. I mean, is it going to be McConnell? Hah. Boehner? Hah. Mittens? Huckabee?

What about Lamar Alexander?

He's moderate (at least by Republican standards). He's a Bush Senior kind of guy. He won reelection this year by a huge margin (look at the election results by county - its amazing). He's from Tennessee, which may be important since so much of the GOP is southern-based. He's run for president twice, which makes a politican less provincial in outlook. He was born in 1940, which is too old for any more presidential ambitions but old enough to be the éminence grise of the party.

From a purely politics angle, Alexander might be the kind of guy to heal and reorient the GOP.

  Lamar!  




posted by Quiddity at 11/06/2008 08:09:00 AM

Those bad auto sales:

The 32% declind in auto sales is certainly a sign that the recession is here, but it's useful to note that for the reporting period (Jul, Aug, Sep) the price of gasoline was also very high.



So maybe Detroit won't be in such bad shape going forward (although it will still be rough for the car makers).


posted by Quiddity at 11/05/2008 10:57:00 PM