Do your job competently and zealously.
Mary Gade, regional administrator of U.S. EPA Region 5, was fired for trying to keep dioxin out of the environment in the Midwest.
Dow is more important to Bush and His Evil Minions™ than children dying of cancer, I guess.
I’m using the beta version of blogger to post now, which has “Scheduled post publishing”, which allows one to post to a future date, and it will hold the post until that time.
I’ll use it for Saturday posts. Frequently, I wonder if it makes sense to post something non time critical on a high news day, and this way, I can just send it over to Saturday, when I do not post.
For example, I physically posted this on Friday at…6:11 pm.
It looks like BAE Systems may have been lax with its oversight of classified materials on the JSF program.
Of more concern appears to be that the Defense Security Service, which is supposed to supervise defense contractors, did not do it’s job well.
In fact it barely did its job at all.
It’s better than the Senate version, but still favors the lenders and homebuilders too much.
Thankfully, they were able to prevent the Republicans from adding amendments to make it even worse.
In his latest post, he thinks that Barack Obama gave too much credit to the Republicans in his Fox interview.
I agree with him on that. The ideas in question have been floating around in academic circles, and have been proposed by politicians on both sides for years.
What I disagree with is his classification of emissions trading as a successful policy.
Emissions trading is not a success relative to a tax of some sort.
They’ve never been shown to be more effective than a tax on emissions, they reduce revenues available to government, and they are more difficult to administer, which increases the regulatory load, and hence costs to taxpayers.
Additionally, if you think that mortgage backed securities are a morass of corrupt arbitrage, just wait until Wall Street gets its hands on actual dirt.
Carbon trading is a solution, it’s just a bad one.
This is a major step, because reinstating the judges fired by Musharraf required a supermajority.
One wonders if the Supreme Court there will now rule on the legality of his election as president of Pakistan.
He’s a cameraman for al Jazeera, and he was held for 5 years without charge.
The government claimed, “a significant amount of evidence, both unclassified and classified, which supports continued detention of Sami al Hajj by U.S. forces.”
If that were true, why would he be released now.
Disgraceful.
Seeing how it’s Bush and His Evil Minions™, my question is why they would move against practices they call “deceptive and unfair”.
Deceptive and unfair is what Bush and His Evil Minions™ do.
My guess is that there are moves to restrict this in congress, and that this is primarily a way to get in front of these.
That’s the effect anyway, the actual bill would prohibit contractors from participating in CIA interrogations.
The bill would also require the CIA to follow Pentagon rules and to disclose all detainees to the Red Cross.
Needless to say, Bush will veto.
Brown and Labor actually got fewer votes than the Lib-Dems.
The aftermath of Tony Blair, selfish triangulating politics, which will have a similar effect on Labor that Bill Clinton did on the Dems 1n 1994.
I’d like to see the Lib Dems hold their 2nd place position, or even hit 1st place for the parliamentary elections, but I put their chances at slim and none, as they have been unable to capitalize on the fact that they are the only major party to call for an immediate pullout from Iraq.
They are the sad sacks of UK politics.
We’ve been hearing more and more about how the bonuses for short term profits encouraged leverage and risky investments, and now BOE governor Mervyn King has joined the fray:
Mervyn King yesterday laid the blame for the credit crunch squarely at the door of commercial banks, criticising their excessive pay packages and risky lending.
The Bank of England governor also told the Treasury select committee he was unhappy that excessive pay in the City attracted too many young people away from careers elsewhere.
Speaking as data emerged showing that the credit crunch had hit retail sales, consumer confidence and mortgage lending hard, King said he hoped the banks would learn the lessons from the crisis and rein in their pay structures and be more responsible in their lending.
“Banks have come to realise in the recent crisis that they are paying the price for having designed compensation packages which provide incentives that are not, in the long run, in the interests of the banks themselves, and I would like to think that would change,” King said.
Of course, Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan would argue that the pay schemes were innovation, and a good thing.
I am so glad to see him alive to see his reputation melt away like that of the wicked witch of the west in the Wizard of Oz.
Well, we just got a jobs report that shows just how screwed up our statistics have gotten, with non farm jobs falling by 20,000 but the unemployment rate went down, which just does not work.
Additionally, the so called birgh death corrections are completely bogus:
+45k construction jobs v 37k April 2007
+8k jobs were added in financial activities versus 1k last April.
+72k in professional/business services versus 48k last April.
+83k in leisure/hospitality (95k last April).
The idea that construction and financial added 53,000 jobs in April comes from somewhere west of the planet Skaro.
The financial press is uncritically applauding, of course.
In energy, oil is upto over $116 for the first time in a few days, but gasoline is down, not hitting a new record for the first time in 17 days.
Meanwhile, the Fed and other central banks are pouring yet more money into the frozen financial system. The Fed is allowing more types of bonds in its trash for cash auctions, but it does not appear to help. The LIBOR, from which much of the adjustable rate loan rates are derived has been largely unmoved.
It’s pushing on a string, as I’ve said before, because it’s a solvency crisis, not a liquidity crisis, as I’ve also said before.
The is still strengthening a bit, but I’m a bear long term, but I’m a bear on everything.
In more pushing on a string news, the US treasury is offering 0% on its inflation protected savings bonds.
A small distinction, mypost of 4 March had was about TIPS, not inflation protected savings bonds, just in case you are wondering if I’m repeating stuff.
Finally, in real estate, 63% of home sales in San Diego are short sales and REOs, which means that either the owner has sold for less than they owe, or it’s been foreclosed on.
And to no one’s surprise, they are saying that there has to be a runoff between Tsvangirai and Mugabe.
No surprise here. The amount of vote fraud for Mugabe to win was simply not possible, but the amount to take it to a runoff, not so much a problem. 47.9% Tsvangirai, 43.2% Mugabe.
The opposition is saying, with decent justification, that they won outright, and are threatening not to participate in the runoff, which would give Mugabe exactly what he wants.
I would note that while Mugabe is promising to respect the results of a runoff, the fact is that a fair election and a fair campaign are simply not possible while Mugabe and ZANU-PF continue their campaign of terror and intimidation against the MDC.
UN voices reluctance to act on Zimbabwe – International Herald Tribune
And in the same old, same old category, South Africa is the major stumbling block to the security council doing anything.
I expect this to continue until Thabo Mbeki leaves office. He’s a bigger cheerleader for Mugabe than GW Bush was for the Yale Baseball team.
That’s the hed on the article in the The Washington Independent, and it’s a good three word synopsis of the superstition and hysteria that is the anti-vaccination movement.
See my earlier posts on the subject here, here, here, and here.
Nope, we’re not talking about the southern state, but the birthplace of Josef Stalin.
We are having problems. It appears that NATO is warning Russia not to interfere in Georgia, and Russia is warning NATO not to interfere in Georgia.
Fundamentally, this is an outgrowth of NATO’s disastrous policy of expansion, which was driven by post Berlin Wall euphoria and the lobbying of the various national defense industries, who saw a move to NATO as being a way to sell some expensive toys to the former Warsaw Pact nations.
Before the fall of the USSR, one of the conditions that Russia placed on the reunification of Germany was that NATO expand no further eastward. The fact that it has, and that the countries added no use for NATO but as a sword against Russia, contributes to the current bellicose and paranoid nature of Russian foreign relations.
I believe that this was made from parts manufactured at or around the end of the USSR, but this does represent a serious dedication towards Russia rearming.
Basically, think B-1, only faster (Mach 1.05 or so down on the deck) and bigger.
This is the one with the wiring that does not massive hand rewiring to work, which is what caused the delay in the deliveries of the super jumbo.
About bloody time.
It’s called the Home Ownership Preservation Loan program.
Looking at the program, I think that it is directed primarily at the people who should have known better, mortgage lenders and home builders, with benefits “trickling down” to ordinary programs.
So once again, we see socialism for the fat cats, and capitalism for the tax payers.
As Tanta of CR notes, this would be at little cost to the government, at least if the borrower does not walk away from the home, and there are incentives to prevent that, but the lender (more accurately the holder of the loan) may not be willing to make the concessions to qualify.
If the borrower is at low risk of default, why should the lender take a haircut, if it they are at high risk, do they want to be at the behind the US Treasury in line?
Tants’s take, and mine, is that it’s PR more than a serious program.
The FDIC proposal from their web page:
Home Ownership Preservation Loans
The FDIC is proposing that Congress authorize the Treasury Department to make loans to borrowers with unaffordable mortgages to pay down up to 20 percent of their principal. The repayment and financing costs for these Home Ownership Preservation (HOP) loans would be borne by mortgage investors and borrowers. This approach is scaleable, administratively simple, and will avoid unnecessary foreclosures to help stabilize mortgage and housing prices.
This proposal is designed to result in no cost to the government:
- Borrowers must repay their restructured mortgage and the HOP loan.
- To enter the program, mortgage investors pay Treasury’s financing costs and agree to concessions on the underlying mortgage to achieve an affordable payment.
- Treasury would have a super-priority interest — superior to mortgage investors’ interest — to guarantee repayment. If the borrower defaulted, refinanced or sold the property, Treasury would have a priority recovery for the amount of its loan from any proceeds.
- The government has no continued obligation and the loans are repaid in full.
Mortgage Restructuring:
- Eligible, unaffordable mortgages would be paid down by up to 20 percent and restructured into fully-amortized, fixed rate loans for the balance of the original loan term at the lower balance. New interest rate capped at Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate.
- Restructured mortgages cannot exceed a debt-to-income ratio for all housing-related expenses greater than 35 percent of the borrower’s verified current gross income (‘front-end DTI’). Prepayment penalties, deferred interest, or negative amortization are barred.
- Mortgage investors would pay the first five years of interest due to Treasury on the HOP loans when they enter the program. After 5 years, borrowers would begin repaying the HOP loan at fixed Treasury rates.
- Servicers would agree to periodic special audits by a federal banking agency.
Process:
- Mortgage investors would apply to Treasury for funds and would be responsible for complying with the terms for the HOP loans, restructuring mortgages, and subordinating their interest to Treasury.
- Administratively simple. Eligibility is determined by origination documentation and restructuring is based on verified current income and restructured mortgage payments.
Funding:
- * A Treasury public debt offering of $50 billion would be sufficient to fund modifications of approximately 1 million loans that were “unsustainable at origination.” Principal and interest costs are fully repaid.
Eligible Mortgages:
Applies only to mortgages for owner-occupied residences that are:
- Unaffordable – defined by front-end DTIs exceeding 40 percent at origination.
- Below the FHA conforming loan limit.
- Originated between January 1, 2003 and June 30, 2007.
Basically, the Swiss have been operating F-5E/Fs in 1976, and they are looking towards replacing them.
In the competition were Boeing (F/A-18E/F), Eurofighter (Typhoon), Dassault (Rafale), and my favorite SAAB (Gripen).
Boeing has now pulled out of the competition, even though they would appear to have a leg up, as the Swiss already operate the F/A-18C/D. The official word was that their withdrawal was based on “Thorough review of Switzerland’s requirements for partial replacement of its Tiger fighter aircraft,” which I tend to agree with.
The F/A-18 is about two sizes larger than the F-5, and would require modifications to the facilities to accommodate their size.*
My guess would be that SAAB is at an advantage in this competition:
One wonders if the Swiss would be interested in the base C/D model of the Gripen, or if they would want the upgraded variant.
Considering their needs, I would expect them to go with the lighter original, as I’ve said, they do not need the payload/range, which is already far in excess of the F-5s that are being replaced, though the AESA radar might be a part of an upgrade.
*It probably did not help when, earlier in the competition, Boeing claimed that it would kick ass in short field capabilities relative to the competition.
While the aircraft does take off in a remarkably short distance from an aircraft carrier, that involves the use of catapults and arresting gear.
With the lowest power to weight ratio and highest wing loading of the competitors, they may have had representatives of the Swiss government laughing in their face.