The real start of the conflict in Lebanon was the governmen, “included outlawing Hezbollah’s phone network, and sacking an airport security chief with alleged links to the group”, and now these moves have been reversed.
Not a good day for our guys in Lebanon.
The H1b program as it is now structured is a bad program, because it is used primarily to get low cost work, as opposed to its stated purpose, which is to allow the employment of people with unique skill sets.*
In any case, the Democrats have decided that an increase in the H1b limit, because the Dems have tied this to comprehensive immigration reform, and the Republicans can’t go along with that, because their base is a bunch of racists.
*The fix is actually pretty simple: Make the fees high enough that any H1B hired would be more expensive than a citizen or permanent resident. At that point, the fraud stops. You could auction off slots to set a price.
It’s good policy, though I would go further and make the rich pay for the whole war, and good politics, because it forces Republicans to vote against veterans benefits or vote for a ½% increase on taxes for couples earning more than $1 million.
Heh.
The Fed has decided that it will begin to examine ways of dealing with asset bubbles.
This contradicts with Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan’s dictum that, “it was in practice impossible to identify bubbles before they burst, and attempts to prick them by raising rates were likely to do more harm than good.”
Another well deserved nail in the coffin of Ayn Rand’s buddy’s reputation.
In search of increased returns, pension fund are diversifying into commodities.
If they are right, poor people starve. If they are wrong, people lose their pensions.
Life is good, huh? This is what deregulation defined as privatizing profits and socializing debts get us.
Home sales in Maryland fell more than any other state in the union in Q1 2008.
WooT!
Same as it ever was.
Routinely using drugs to pacify deportees, in violation of international law and human decency.
No evidence of medical problems, or of severe behavior, just convenience.
John Stewart v. Doug Feith.
This is ugly….fish in a barrel, children’s crusade, New Orleans Saints.
This makes a baby seal being clubbed look like Chuck Norris taking on a jillion Ninja.
Part 2
Yep, Schwarzenegger is proposing borrowing against lottery future earnings to balance this year’s budget.
What the Governator is doing is exactly what destroyed the Ottoman Empire, the sale of revenue sources in order to fund the current budget, with the inevitable crash.
Of course, as a Republican, he wants the crash, it’s the whole wanting to reduce the government, “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”, and insolvency works just as well as everything else.
I would hope that at some point, the voters of California come to their senses and repeal proposition 13.
The CPI rose less than expected 0.2%, though there was a huge delta in food, about 0.9%, 2.5% and 11% annually rates.
Look at my earlier posts on this issue, and you’ll see that the real inflation is far closer to 11% than it is 2.5%.
This has, for reasons unclear to me, led to the UD dollar strengthening in overseas markets.
Year over year foreclosures in the US are up 65%, and between the banks discounting these properties, and the builders discounting new homes, we have a way to go to bottom.
In investing, the dispute between Clear Channel, which had a deal to sell itself to a private equity firm, and the banks, who were trying to get out because they had no expectation of being able to resell the debt, has been settled. The buyout is now at 36$/share, as opposed to the earlier $39.20/share, so both sides took a haircut to get the deal done.
Still this indicates that the credit markets are still frozen.
Finally, we are back to the monoliner insurers. with MBIA and Ambac’s losses making the ratings agencies nevous.
If the ratings process was an honest one, they would have lost their AAA status over 6 months ago.
Seen around the blogs.
Verizon’s joining the LiMo Foundation (Linux Mobile)
Some people were expecting them to go with Google’s “Android”, but there are some reasons to go LiMo:
According to my friends in the biz, Verizon is the most locked down of the carriers….We’ll see how it proceeds.
I can’t believe that I’m agreeing with a regular contributor to the National Review’s “The Corner”, Jim Manzi, but I do.
The guy is a moron though, in the last ‘graph he claims that because Harvard employees (professors) give to Dems, the institution should not be tax exempt.
He is spot on when he calls Harvard a tax exempt “Hedge Fund”.
But he runs the numbers:
Receipts = $2 billion of operating revenue + $7.3 billion of investment income + $0.6 billion of gifts to the endowment = ~$10 billion.
Operating costs = ~$3 billion.
Profit = $10 billion – $3 billion = ~$7 billion.
This explains why Harvard’s net assets increased about $7 billion in 2007, from about $35 billion to about $42 billion.
This actually segues nicely into my previous post on executive compensation. Just how much is too much anyway?
If Harvard never generated another penny in investment, tuition, or gifts, they would be able to continue to operate for 12 years.
Too much is too much, and by making income (and donations) tax deductible, we are subsidizing “too much”.
I clearly understand how Harvard is the most egregious case of endowment abuse, but once we have determined that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed, we are, as the joke goes, just haggling over price.
This is a a good start on a very serious problem, and pay of Dutch executives is on the order of 1/4 that of US executives.
The Dutch finance minister, Wouter Bos, sent a bill to parliament to crack down on this, and I agree with his sentiments:
“I believe cohesion in society is not served by inexplicable inequalities,” Bos said at a recent seminar of center-left politicians, held at a country-house hotel north of London. “Public support for entrepreneurship around the globe is eroded if you let this continue, and this is not in the interests of our economy or entrepreneurship.”
His proposal would place a 50% tax on golden parachutes in excess of €500,000 (about $800,000), and, “would increase by 15 percent the employer tax contributions to company pensions for executives who make €500,000 a year or more.” (Not exactly clear on the specifics of Dutch pension law, so I would appreciate an explanation here)
In our system of economics, wages are very much a zero sum game, with a fixed pool of money for compensation, and the mega-compensation that exists takes money from everyone else.
I remember once running the numbers on Michael Eisner’s $550 million pay package in the mid 1990s. It came to something like $6000 for every employee of Disney, and had that money been distributed to the employees, there would have been a payback in terms of less turnover and a higher quality employee that would have increased profits.
Of course, they find some rich guy, in this case Ad Scheepbouwer, who got a €1 million ($1.6 million) bonus to argue that it will create an environment unfriendly to entrepreneurs:
Scheepbouwer argues that the Dutch government now, with its proposed limits, is encouraging a climate that penalizes entrepreneurs.
“For really talented and really exceptional performers this is not a very attractive place,” he said. “It is not accepted that people are outside the normal. The only people that are accepted outside the normal are musicians or football players.”
The my answer:
This is another toxic export of the American capitalism model, where highly compensated executives sit on each others’ boards of directors, and vote each other raises.
Unfortunately, the article does not give much in the way of specifics, but my guess is that a lot of this is politics, as the Democrats benefit if the bill passes into law, or is vetoed by bush.
Absolutely crushed Tony Raimondo, and will face Mike Johanns to replace Hagel, who is not running for reelection.
Kleeb has an uphill battle, but it looks to be a good year for Dems.
Another Northrop-Grumman Press Release:
Northrop Grumman KC-45: Why We Won – Development Cost
Highlighting Reasons the U.S. Air Force Selected the KC-45 Tanker as Best for Our Men and Women in Uniform
WASHINGTON – May 12, 2008 – The U.S. Air Force found Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE:NOC) bid to build the next generation of aerial refueling tankers superior to Boeing’s in four of the five most important selection criteria. Despite this fact, the losing bidder wants the Government Accountability Office to overturn the Air Force decision to award the contract to Northrop Grumman even though the Air Force conducted what even Boeing described as a fair, open and transparent bidding process. Here is another reason Northrop Grumman won, drawn from a list of facts included in a redacted version of a protected Air Force selection document.
Development and Production Costs
When the Pentagon considers proposals from defense contractors, one of the key elements of its decision is whether the project can come in on time and on budget. Acquisition planners will frequently take cost estimates provided by the prospective contractor and either raise or lower them, based on the U.S. Defense Department’s assessment of whether those cost predictions are likely to be accurate.
For the system development and demonstration portion of the program, the Air Force concluded that Northrop Grumman was at “low risk” of coming in over budget or not meeting its production timetable, while Boeing was rated “moderate risk.” Many of the reasons Boeing was rated a higher risk than Northrop Grumman are redacted for business competition reasons, but Air Force guidelines state that a “moderate risk” rating would occur if “Some difference exists between the offeror’s proposed cost/price and the government’s probable cost/price that is not reasonably explained.”
A key reason why the Air Force could assign lower development risk to Northrop Grumman is that Northrop Grumman has already built, flown and tested a prototype refueling tanker. In all, the Northrop Grumman tanker has flown 73 flights and spent more than 200 hours airborne. The KC-45 team has also conducted a successful fuel transfer test from its boom to an F-16.
By contrast, Boeing’s aircraft hasn’t been built, and exists only in its design phase. The proposed new boom also has not been built, tested or certified. Boeing is also late on delivering a different version of the KC-767 tanker to both Italy and Japan.
For the production portion of the contract, the Air Force noted that, for the Northrop Grumman offer, “Substantially less funds required to develop and buy the first 68 in support of Air Force tanker recapitalization efforts.”
The Air Force also said it “Estimated Northrop Grumman as … less than Boeing in out-year production,” meaning that it believes Northrop Grumman’s production costs would remain lower than Boeing’s for the life of the contract.
In the document explaining its decision, the Air Force noted that “Northrop Grumman’s more advantageous cost/price proposal was a discriminator” in picking Northrop Grumman. The KC-45 offered more capability at a lower unit cost than the KC-767 to provide the Air Force with the best value.
About the KC-45
The KC-45 Tanker aircraft will be assembled in Mobile, Ala., and the KC-45 team will employ 48,000 American workers at 230 U.S. companies in 49 states. It will be built by a world-class industrial team led by Northrop Grumman, and includes EADS North America, General Electric Aviation and Sargent Fletcher.
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.
(emphasis mine)
Lately, Boeing has had an record of over budget, behind schedule, and under performance that boggles the mind, and NG is just pointing it out.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, there are concerns that one of the crucial interest rate indices, the LIBOR, is not accurate because the member banks are not accurately reporting interest rates.
It now appears that the , “benchmark interest rate for at least $347 trillion of derivatives and 6 million U.S. mortgages” will be modified to address these concerns. (Yes, that “t” after the $347 is correct)
The British Bankers’ Association, which is responsible for reporting the rates, has, “report based on discussions with member banks to its independent Foreign Exchange and Money Market Committee.”
There are estimates that the reported rate could be as much as 30 basis points too low, or about 10%.
The cease fire in Sadr City appears to be holding for the moment in Baghdad, though if I were a US military man, I would be rather concerned at the report that someone, probably a Mahdi Army member, fired a surface-to-air missile at at a helicopter before things settled down.
This was likely not a lone combatant making this decision. This was likely a conscious decision made as a warning to the US that the militias have resources that could mean that air operations over the Baghdad slum will no longer be quite so easy.
For some context, I would suggest that this article from Think Progress goes a long way towards explaining Muqtada al-Sadr’s popularity. Money quote:
One of the central elements of the elder Sadr’s program (and now of Muqtada’s) was a distinction between the “silent clerics” (represented by Sistani and the Najaf establishment) — bookish sorts who stay remote from the lives of their people — and the “speaking clerics” who take part in the suffering and struggle of the Shia, as Sadeq did. And here the “silent clerics” once again stayed silent while Shia were crushed in Sadr City, of all places, while medical care, food, and shelter are being doled out in Muqtada’s name. It doesn’t require any math to see that Sadr benefits politically from this.
North Korea has 18,822 pages in 314 volumes regarding its nuclear program, and for once the US envoy is saying something positive.
The largest stumbling block in negotiations with the DPRK has not been the paranoid and secretive rulers in North Korea. It has been the batsh&% insane folks at the top of the Bush administration, who think that peacefully settling disputes is capitulation.