H/t Danger Room from Wired.com
Hu’s on first.
Month: February 2008
Antidepressants Ineffective?
A study has been released showing that Prozac, does not work better than a placebo for most people.
You can find the whole paper here.
The pattern they saw from the trial results of fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Seroxat), venlafaxine (Effexor) and nefazodone (Serzone) was consistent. “Using complete data sets (including unpublished data) and a substantially larger data set of this type than has been previously reported, we find the overall effect of new-generation antidepressant medication is below recommended criteria for clinical significance,” they write.
Two more frequently prescribed antidepressants were omitted from the study because scientists were unable to obtain all the data.
FDIC
Well, it looks like the FDIC is gearing up for bank failures.
It’s looking to bring back some retirees from its receivership division, and it’s looking for bids from private companies to handle mortgages, commercial loans, and student loans for the failed banks.
They are estimating 100 bank failures over the next 12-24 months, but I think that they are behind the curve.
H/t to Calculated Risk.
Socialism for the Rich
You know the old saying, “Capitalism for the Poor, Socialism for the Rick”, and in that vein we have the large multinational banks lobbying congress for a bailout.
Bank of America is circulating a legislative proposal to create “a Federal Homeowner Preservation Corporation that would buy up billions of dollars in troubled mortgages at a deep discount, forgive debt above the current market value of the homes and use federal loan guarantees to refinance the borrowers at lower rates”.
It’s a bailout for the banks more than anything else, and the author of the article, NY Times reporter Edmund Andrews, notes he irony when he says:
A confidential proposal that Bank of America circulated to members of Congress this month provides a stunning glimpse of how quickly the industry has reversed its laissez-faire disdain for second-guessing by the government — now that it is in trouble.
These folks made their bed, and they had the computers and models, let them lie in it. Any bailout should be to the people at the bottom of the pyramid, not the top.
Mortgage Cram Down Bill Up In Senate
The Republican’ts are threatening a filibuster, and Bush and His Evil Minions™ are threatening a filibuster, but the Senate bankruptcy reform bill is a decent piece of legislation.
Basically, it gives bankruptcy courts the right to modify the terms of a loan on a primary residence, much in the same way that they can for rental properties and vacation homes.
It should keep people in their homes, it will allow things like outrageous fees and deceptive loans to be modified, and it places the burden to a large degree on the purveyors of the toxic mortgages.
Needless to say, the mortgage industry hates it.
No Downgrade for Monoline Insurers….Yet
Standard & Poor’s has decided not to downgrade MBIA and Ambac at this time.
So, the monoline bond insurers dodged a bullet, for now.
I wish that I’d had an hour’s notice. I’d have bought stock, and sold it an hour after.
That being said, I still think that these companies are insolvent.
Hedge Funds Up Stakes in NY Times Company in Preparation for Proxy fight
Two hedge funds have increased their stake in the NY Times company to 19%, and they are agitating for 4 of the 13 seats on the board of directors. (The other 9 seats are controlled by the Sulzberger family by virtue of the two tiered stock structure).
I think that this is the first stage of an assault on the two tiered stock structure.
The strategy of the hedge funds could fall into one of three categories:
- They intend to make enough of a nuisance of themselves to get Times Co. to pay them off to leave.
- They intend to take over and break up the company for profit.
- They intend to take over to change the editorial direction of Times Co.
I think that the last one is least likely.
Why Does Nedra Pickler Have a Job
Yep, everyone’s favorite hack journo, Nedra Pickler, has done the most transparent hit piece I’ve yet seen on Barak Obama.
She gets quotes from Roger Stone, the youngest of Richard Nixon’s “dirty tricksters”, and founder of an anti-Hillary “organization” Citizens United Not Timid (check out the damn acronym).
Note the URL. This is an AP story, not OP/ED. She does this repeatedly.
Embryonic Stem Cells Cure Paralysis
Geron is going to the FDA to get approval to test its stem cell spinal treatment of paralysis, following successful tests in rats.
Needless to say, the Bush Administration anti-science blockhead political appointees in the FDA won’t approve it, but we have only 100 months to wait for them to be swept clean.
Lessig Not Running for Congress
Prediction: Visa IPO Will Fall Short
Visa is expecting an IPO in the range of $15-$19 billion.
I don’t think that they will make even $15 billion.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the IPO will be priced on March 19, with the IPO on March 20.
Yes, I know, I’m the worst prognosticator in the biz.
What’s your prediction?
Credit Crunch May Kill Private Sale of Clear Channel’s TV Unit
Wachovia is suing their own client, Providence Equity Partners, to get out of funding the buyout.
The buyout deal has been restructured, and Wachovia is now saying that it is no longer required to provide the capital.
This is because the credit crunch has made reselling this debt much more difficult, and hence more uncertain.
Boeing Pitches Co-Development Deal on Advanced F-15/F-18 to Japan
Japan wants to purchase F-22s to replace its locally produced F-4 Phantoms, which is nearing the end of its service life, but is looking at alternatives, since congress is showing no signs of changing the laws that forbids this.
As a result, Boeing is making proposals to the Japanese about co-developing an advanced version (paid subscription required) of either the F-15 or F-18.
According to the article, Japan is looking at the F-16 and Eurofighter Typhoon, with the defense minster favoring the latter, though that may be a tactic to get F-22s released to the JASDF.
Economics Update
It looks like the US dollar is trending downward on the expectation of further weakness in the US economy.
And in the late to the game category, business economists are finally predicting a recession.
This is not surprising, as Fed rate cuts are no longer effecting longer term rates, because people are expecting inflation to pick up, and do not wish to be repaid in devalued dollars.
It won’t help that bond insurer Ambac may be downgraded even if it manages to raise $3 billion in new capital.
The problem is that people are increasingly unable to sell their homes, as shown by a 23.4% year-over-year drop in existing home sales. That’s a collapse in the market.
So now, investors are lawyering up to go after corporate boards, on the theory that the guys on the boards are supposed to be professionals and to show a modicum of competence.
Pass the popcorn on this last one.
How Foreclosures Will Create New Slums
The Atlantic has a fascinating article describing how neighborhoods hollowed out by foreclosures quickly become slums.
Unkempt lawns, squatters, etc. lead to a downward path toward unsustainable neighborhoods.
It leads one to wonder if at some points municipalities will use eminent domain to seize and demolish the homes, as has been going on in Detroit for some time.
Not a pretty picture.
Brad Delong Gets it On Walt and Mearsheimer
Brad Delong points to a series of very interesting critiques Walt and Mearsheimer’s book, The Israel Lobby. Specifically, he cites a quote from their original paper, “The mere existence of the Lobby suggests that unconditional support for Israel is not in the American national interest. If it was, one would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.”
This would of course apply to NOW, NARAL, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Humane Society, etc.
They must necessarily be acting against the interests of the US, because otherwise they would not need an organized special interest to bring it about.
It is utilitarianism taken to absurd extremes.
It is the idea that the national best interest is immediately apparent to any policy maker, and so the only time one needs a lobbyist is when one wishes to make the government operate in a member contrary to government interest.
This is tremendously naive at best.
WRAPUP 4-Shame on you, Clinton tells Obama | Markets | Bonds News | Reuters
Hillary Clinton is finally going after Barack Obama’s dishonest right wing attacks on health care reform.
This is going to make any health care plan nigh-impossible if Obama gets elected. Thanks.
Universal Healthcare is more than a core Democratic Party value. It’s essential to save this nation.
What’s more, it will change the dynamic of governance in the US for decades to come, and will create a Democratic majority nationwide for decades to come.
And Barack Obama is campaigning against it, because he thinks that he’s just so awesome that he will get Republicans to support him in slitting their own throats politically.
Many People in US May Owe No Mortgage
2½ months ago, I commented on a peculiar foreclosure case, where the judge had halted a foreclosure because the holder of the title could not be confirmed.
The title had not been properly processed as the mortgage was packaged and repackaged.
Well, it looks like this problem may be far more widespread than previously anticipated:
Joe Lents hasn’t made a payment on his $1.5 million mortgage since 2002.
That’s when Washington Mutual Inc. first tried to foreclose on his home in Boca Raton, Florida. The Seattle-based lender failed to prove that it owned Lents’s mortgage note and dropped attempts to take his house. Subsequent efforts to foreclose have stalled because no one has produced the paperwork.
“If you’re going to take my house away from me, you better own the note,” said Lents, 63, the former chief executive officer of a now-defunct voice recognition software company.
Seven years of no payments on a million dollar plus mortgage for two years, because the creditors cannot prove that they own the mortgage.
They simply cannot find out where the paper that says, “I own the mortgage”, is, and how to assign it to the proper entity.
This means that there may be trillions of dollars in which there is no note, and hence no way to enforce the mortgage.
Things You Do Not Expect Out of the WSJ Editorial Page
It should be noted that the WSJ dishonesty editorial page was one of the prime media outlets enabling this:
Extortion and money laundering are usually the province of gangsters, not Western Congressmen. That changed yesterday with the indictment of GOP Representative Rick Renzi of Arizona on charges that he used his seat on the House Natural Resources Committee to enrich himself through a trail of payoffs on land deals.
…
Bush and His Evil Minions™ Say that Telcos Will Not Cooperate with Surveillance Requests…Except, of Course They Are Cooperating
Yep, McConnell and Mukasey are at it again claiming that intelligence is being lost because there is no Telco Immunity, except of course for this:
But hours later, administration officials told lawmakers that the final holdout among the companies had relented and agreed to fully participate in the surveillance program, according to an official familiar with the issue.
The Telcos broke the law and surveilled people without warrants, startinb 7 months before 9-11, and they would like to be excused, but it is not stopping them from cooperating new.