Month: September 2008

Because Palin is a Lazy, Uninformed, Idiot

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Well it appears that the final details of the debate have been negotiated, and after much whining, I’m sure, the McCain campaign got a bubble for Palin:

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

Biden will still destroy her, the only question is whether she loses it on stage, and if she does, whether Sarah “Barracuda” Palin goes after him with a knife or a gun.

I mean, after, this woman got completely Pwn3d by Charlie Gibson, which is like being gored by Bambi.

Economics Update

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Again, the elephant in the room, the Paulson, “Let’s give it to the American Taxpayer without lube,” plan is not included here.

First, let’s start with the continued deflation of the housing bubble, with home prices down 5.3% in July as compared to the previous year.

This one reason that retailers are forecasting an absolutely dismal holiday season.

It also appears that the Paulson plan, or at least whatever is making its way through Congress is not getting a vote of support from the bond market, with money still fleeing to treasuries, and the spreads between them and short term “safe” private debt remaining historically high.

It’s the same with the dollar, which is up a bit vs. yesterday’s bloodbath, but still weak.

Of more concern are indications that we are seeing a run on hedge funds.

In any case, oil prices are down a bit from yesterday’s hysteria, settling at $106.61/bbl, and retail gasoline is down again.

Comedic Genius

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This guy owes me a whole box of screen cleaners

Obama to Nation: “F$#@ this sh#@, I’m outta here”

September 19, 2008 at 12:21 am · Filed under political humor

In the wake of an epic financial meltdown that threatens to derail the U.S. economy for years, Barack Obama announced he was ending his run for President of the United States, declaring to a stunned nation, “Man, this is bullsh#@.”

In a boisterous and hastily-called press conference, Obama detailed his reasons for the decision. “I was prepared to fight global warming, reform the health care system, repair our crumbling roads, create a 21st century electric grid, find Bin Laden, end the war in Iraq, and bring peace to Israel and the Palestinians. But now you tell me I have to clean up the worst financial mess since the Great Depression too? One that’s going to plunge our economy into a recession for most of my administration while I take the blame? F$#@ that. That’s f$#@ing ridiculous. You guys clean up your own sh#@. I’m outta here.”

….

Read the rest, in all its profane glory, at the link.

Update: Dodd Bill Does Have Bankruptcy Changes

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According to Politico.com:

Among the major provisions Dodd is adding:

  • Authority for bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure. This was considered a poison pill in a housing bill that passed Congress earlier this summer, but it has gained much more currency now that Washington wants to bail out Wall Street.

Two snaps up to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut.

Lawmaker Pushback on Paulson’s Plan

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I think that it’s clear that Paulson’s plan will be subject to sagnificant modifications in the legislative process with the Democrats seeing a need for new and stronger regulations, an equity stake in exchange for the bailout, and seeing serious questions raised by the portions of the proposed law that prohibit judicial review.

Of course, if I were them, I’d also be flipping out over the idea of Treasury hiring the Wall Street firms who f%$#ed up in the first place to manage the assets once they are purchased.

I would also note that some Congressmen want some sort of mortgage aid to distressed homeowners to be a part of the plan. (IMNSHO, allowing bankruptcy judges to handle this is the best, cheapest, and most efficient way to handle this).

I should note that the the Wall Street boys hate the idea of restrictions or equity stakes, but they have always wanted, to quote Dire Straits, their , “Money for Nothing”.

It does appear, however that the White House and the Congress are narrowing their differences.

Bailout Plan Appears Even More Sweeping than Proposed

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First, let’s note that under his proposed plan, Paulson can buy non-American, non-mortgage assets, which sounds an awful lot like some of this money will go to benefit UBS, where Phil “Mr. Congeniality” Gramm, sits on the board of directors……Funny that, huh?

Furthermore, the $700 billion quoted is low. The real reckoning of the cost of the plan is $1.8 Trillion:

  • The $700 billion of this plan
  • $50 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund
  • The Fed discount window loans.
  • $10+ billion of Treasury purchases of mortgage backed securities (MBS)
  • $144 billion in MBS purchases by Fannie and Freddie.
  • $85 billion loaned to AIG
  • $87 billion in repayments to JPMorgan Chase for loans to Lehman Brothers
  • $200 billion for Fannie and Freddie from the Treasury
  • $300 billion from the FHA to refinance bad mortgages
  • $4 billion to communities to buy and resell abandoned homes.
  • $29 billion to JPMorgan Chase’s to pay them off for taking over Bear Stearns
  • $200 billion made available through the Fed’s Term Auction Facility

Someone is getting a haircut, and it ain’t Wall Street executives.

Bailout Plan Opinions

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Atrios

Deep Thought

Any member of Congress who looks at the plan to give Hank unchecked power to transfer $700 billion from the Treasury to his friends’ companies and has any reaction other than ‘You’ve got to be f%#@ing kidding me’ does not deserve to hold office.

Krugman opposes the plan, at least in the form presented by Henry Paulson, though he is more receptive to Chris Dodd’s version, which requires equity from the firms rescued for buying their part of the big sh$#pile.

Sebastian Mallaby, who normally favors economics for the benefit of rich folk, hates the Paulson plan too.

Brad DeLong is of a similar mind to Krugman.

In The Nation, William Greider calls the Paulson plan a, “historic swindle.”

Dean Baker, as is his wont, gets into some fairly specific proposals in some depth, which which I agree.

Robert Reich is less specific, but he does add one specific proposal: allowing primary mortgages to be modified by a bankruptcy judge, with which I also agree.

As for me, I will merely note that Henry Paulson holds hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares on Goldman Sachs, and the idea that he get a blank check to work this is therefore nuts.

Watching Krugman on Olbermann

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Just a thought watching him: He’s a really smart guy, but he is profoundly uncomfortable and awkward on television.

Republicans who are drooling morons get some coaching do the dance on TV, and folks like Krugman don’t.

It’s not fair how much this effects our discourse, but maybe we should set up some sort of liberal org to coach people to do the gasbag bit more convincingly.

Economics Update

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Once again, the big story is the bailout, which I will not cover here, it gets its own posts, though I will be dealing with some of the market effects of the proposal, which can be viewed as positive, if you are an optimist, or negative, if you are me.

First, the US dollar took it’s biggest hit vs. the Euro in 7 years, because of concerns that this bailout will end up being so expensive that it will debase the currency, and as a result, crude oil climbed the most ever, more than $25/bbl before settling at the end of the day at $120.92/bbl, up $16.37.

You can view the price in oil as a belief among traders that the economy, and hence demand, will be recovering, or you can believe that traders think that this plan will push the dollar over the edge. I think that the contemporaneous fall of the dollar indicates the latter.

The increase in prices appears to be a part of a more general rebound in commodities, though retail gasoline continued its downward path, but gasoline tends to lag oil by a few weeks, as it is actually a manufactured final product, as opposed to a raw material.

In either case, it appears that The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is not taking a close look at oil trading as a result of the volatility today.

The Chicago Fed sees more signs of a recession, reporting a drop in economic activity.

Finally, it there are indications that investors are just beginning to see US treasuries the same way that they did during the Japanese meltdown…You know…the one that lasted fifteen years.

Honestly, if that happens to the US, it will be much worse, because we lack the safety net of Japan.

The Truth About the Surge: It’s Ethinc Cleansing

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A study of satellite imagery, finding vacant houses by the absence of lights noted that ethnic cleansing was essentially complete by the time that the surge began, and is in fact a major reason for the reduction of ethnic violence. (see here and here)

“Our findings suggest that the surge has had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved,” Agnew’s team wrote in their report.

(emphasis mine)

Heck of a surge, Davie.

So Sambo Beat the Bitch!

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That’s what Sarah Palin is reported to have said about the end of the Democratic primary fight this year, among other bits of casual bigotry:

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

FWIW, this does not surprise me.

While I have very little in the way of first hand recollections of bigotry in Alaska, (I actually have fond memories of living there, I left there just before I turned 7 in 1969), my mother occasionally related a story about her brush with movie making, specifically a movie called Joniko and the Kush Ta Ta, which was a fairly standard wilderness adventure, where a kid has to travel a great distance in a boat to get help for an injured man, and faces an Tlingit* equivalent of a demon known as the Kush Ta Ta (or maybe it’s his imagination) along the way.

In any case, the child actor playing Joniko, Tony Tucker Williams, broke his arm, and they needed a stunt double, and somehow or other my mother got a call, there were only about 400K people in the state at the time, so it was a small place, from a local working for the production, asking if she knew of a “breed” about 12 years old or so who could work as a stunt double, as the “full bloods” weren’t photogenic.

These attitudes are not, or at least were not, that common in the late 1960s, and I don’t imagine that the oil wealth entering the state has helped, if the House of Saud is any example.

*Don’t call a Tlingit an Eskimo, it would be viewed in the same manner as someone calling a Spaniard a Frenchman, which is to say not well at all.