Year: 2007

How the Credit Crunch Has Wider Consequences

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It just 86ed a deal to Carlyle Group to sell a cable company.

The bidders could not raise the necessary money.

The Washington Post reported the problems in the sale of Insight Communications, which Carlyle Group purchased for about $2.1 billion in 2005. Bidders including Time Warner Cable, had difficulty getting enough bank financing, according to the report.

Seriously, owning a cable company is about as near as you can come to legalized theft in this country, and Time F&^%ing Warner could not find financing?

Merger and acquisition activity in the US is very close to collapsing.

Odd Ship Concepts

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The DSEI show had someinteresting naval displays from BAE.


This is an 8000 ton (supercarriers are 75,000+ton) destroyer with a rear flight deck for dispatching UAVs. I’d call it more of a UAV tender than a Carrier.


This is a submarine propelled by 8 pumpjets mounted in the tail. It does away with the reduction gear of a direct drive system. If I recall correctly, the Seawolf and Virginia class boats use a single screw/pump with electric drive for much the same reason.

Those gears are heavy, very precise, and hence expensive, and (if anything goes wrong) noisy.


This is a mockup of an air independent propulsion system for submarines. As opposed to using a fuel cell, they are using a diesel generator, which promises to be cheaper.

Gray whale comeback questioned – CNN.com

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A genetic study the Eastern Pacific Gray Whale population has indicated that the pre whaling population was 5x what was previously thought, indicating that the recovery is 5x as anemic as was previously though.

More significantly, it means that the Eastern Gray Whales population of 20,000, Western Gray Whale population is in the few hundred range, is still well below the carrying capacity of their habitat, and that the increasing number of malnourished whales found are an indication of another problem threating their food supply.

The most likely culprit is global warming.

Congress Passes Improved Patent Law

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It’s better, but Bush is implying a veto over the reduced damages.

It’s a little bit better, but the problem with IP abuse continues, and will continue until congress treats Patent and copyright as the public interest law*, we won’t have a good law.

It’s still got to pass the Senate, though.

*The section of the constitution that allows congress to create patent and copyright for a “limited time” has as its justification, “to promote the useful arts and sciences”, and until the law gets back to this, as opposed being an attempt for entrenched players to use the power of the state to coerce excessive profits out of people, we won’t see a good law.

Dollar Drops

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Because of the widespread expectation that the Fed will cut rates, the Dollar has hit a 15-year low.*

This is the conundrum that I’ve mentioned earlier. If the Fed cuts rates, it pushes the dollar down, driving up the cost of imported goods, and hence inflation, and if it doesn’t we see the economy tank.

The dollar is unsustainable high. It’s probably still got at least 15% to fall against the Pound and Euro, and likely 30-50% against the Yuan.†

*Basically, low interest rates send foreign money looking for places with higher return on investment.
†This is just my wild assed guess, based on nothing by my gut.

POentagon Working Group Says That Petraeus is Full of It

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There’s not a hole bunch of love for Petraeus in the halls of the Pentagon.

Maybe they know that he’s destroying hte Army and Marines by sucking up to Bush:

But it’s questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion—or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors—at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

Republican Chooses Reelection Over “Dear Leader” Bush

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Well, Rep. James Walsh (R-Onondaga, NY) is finally taking a stand against Bush on the war.

FWIW, this is his district:

This is upstate New York, Syracuse used to be a manufacturing center, and New York Republicans outside of Long Island are in the mold of Tom Dewey, not Alphonse “Da Woim” D’Amato.

He’s covering his ass. A number of Republicans lost their seats in New York in 2006. Every Republican in New England except for Chris Shays lost his seat in 2006.

The Republican party, and the war are an albatross around his neck, and he’s running scared.