Year: 2008

Boeing Back to Square 1 on 737 Replacement

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While the 737 is a good plane, there is a reason that Airbus does better with the A320, it entered service a full 20 years later, and so its basic design is more modern.

To its credit, Boeing has been looking at a replacement for the 737, but now it’s back to square 1, as they have disbanded the 737RS (replacement study) group(paid subscription required)

The the project did not show the sufficient performance improvements to justify the capital costs of a new airframe.

They were looking at a roughly 10% reduction in costs, and felt that they needed 20-30% cost reduction, so something like incorporating Pratt’s GTF into existing airframes makes more sense for now.

Why the Credit Crunch is a Very Big Thing

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The always thoughtful Nouriel Roubini wonders, “How will financial institutions make money now that the securitization food chain is broken?”

In the good old days, you made money by originating a loan, and then collecting revenue from it, but today you make money by originating and then reselling the loan.

The resale, and the fees involved in what Roubini calls it “originate & distribute”, model generate your profit.

The kicker is that but the new model appears to have broken down:

This food chain of fees on top of fees is now broken: securitization of mortgages, that was running at the annual rate of $1,000 billion in January of 2007, was down 95% to an annual rate of $50 billion by January of 2008. So the process of generating fees and commissions is broken.

It’s really scary, because these companies, by which I mean investment banks and a lot in the way of commercial banks, increasingly look to have no business model at all. The model until mid 2007 was “make income out of securitization fees rather than by holding the credit risk”, but no one trusts securitized debts any more.

What’s more, it’s clear that the flight from these instruments is a rational act by the market. What’s more, it is reasonable to expect, even in the absense of regulatory reform, that these instruments will not be accepted by the market for the next decade, the time that lessons stay learned in Wall Street.

So, somewhere north of 20% of our financial industry has no reason to exist any more.

No, Make That Hell No!

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Publius makes an an argument that the realities of votes and politics require that the Democrats keep Joe Lieberman in his chairmanship on the Homeland Security Committee.

While his arguments are logical, they are also wrong. They are predicated on the idea that he generally votes with the Dems, and this is really not true. He votes with the Dems when it does not matter, so he voted against Alito, and voted for Cloture.

If he is the 60th vote for cloture, he will not vote for cloture, because as he has already made clear, he is intent on extracting vengeance against a Democratic party that he feels has betrayed him.

As to whether you allow him to caucus with the Dems, that’s their business, but he should not be chairman of anything significant, particularly homeland security, which has been politicized, and needs to be de-Bushified.

Any authority that he is granted will merely serve his petty vendetta.

Republicans Want to Steal from the Poor

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It looks like that will be one of the conditions set down by the Senate Republithugs to allow the bill housing bailout to the floor.

Senator Dodd’s bill also creates a housing trust fund with resources from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build or preserve rental housing for extremely low and very low income people. Senator Shelby wants those funds to be used to pay for the new FHA program instead.

I’m not sure what upsets me more, the ‘Phants balancing the budget on the back of people who are closest to being homeless, or the fact that I’m not surprised by their venality and evil.

Bush’s Evil Minions&trade at HUD Ignored Allegations of Corruption

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Captain Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Captain Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.

It appears that when career staffers at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development noticed that contracts were going to unqualified, but politically connected, contractors, in what appeared to be a highly irregular process senior management ignored their warnings.

Who could imagine that HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson and His Evil Minions™ would let out contracts on the basis of politics….Oh wait….he said this on tape in a speech….Never mind.

Bush and His Evil Minions&trade Can’t Even Convict Guilty People Without F%$#ing it Up

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As is to be expected, the defense attorneys in the Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, et al trial are making a number of motions to dismiss. It happens in any trial. It’s what defense attorneys are supposed to do.

This time however, they make a fairly good point, specifically that the convening authority is illegitimate because it’s head acted inappropriately (the equivalent to this in a civil trial would be along the line of a juror talking to an attorney involved in the case).

Seems like they are half way there, because the presiding officer has already removed Brig. Gen. Thomas W., “What, Me, Ethics?” Hartmann from the case for his inappropriate behavior.

The five defense lawyers representing the so-called high-value detainees, who face the death penalty if convicted, argued in a 127-page motion that military commission rules require the legal advisor to provide “neutral and objective” advice.

The lawyers cited testimony that last summer Hartmann urged prosecutors to target “sexy” cases and those in which American blood was shed, hoping to boost the tribunal’s image as the presidential election approaches.

….

The defense motion said Hartmann had steered Guantanamo prosecutors away from other cases and toward the five defendants in hopes of racking up high-profile convictions.

Seriously, they screwed up the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein too, turning one of the more detested figures in the Arab world a martyr.

On the up side, there is no way that these trials start before the elections now.

Wanktacular Financial Press Coverage

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They are just discovering that commercial real estate may be dropping too.

Commercial real estate typically lags residential in a downturn, and it’s been heading down by all standard measures for 6 months, and now, they are finally getting around to saying that there might be a risk of downturn?

Seriously, the ads realtors run do f&^% up coverage, because the papers and cable networks are so dependent on it.

Signs of Progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, They Are Entering the Modern Financial System

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Specifically insurance fraud, but it’s only the contractors, who have conspired with insurance companies to stick it to the tax payers.

It’s basically kickbacks. The contractors negotiate their own insurance deals, which are over priced, and they get commissions from the insurers:

KBR Inc., one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, paid the insurance giant AIG $284 million for medical and disability coverage under the Defense Base Act, a reference to the federal law mandating the insurance. Due to the way KBR’s contract is structured, this premium, along with an $8 million markup for KBR, gets billed to the taxpayer.

“Out of this amount, just $73 million actually goes to injured contractors, and AIG and KBR pocket over $100 million as profit,” Waxman said.

Lovely.

Don’t Cry for Me Italy, You May Have Silvio Berlusconi, but We Have George W. Bush

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Silvio Belusconi has appointed Mara Carfagna, a “32-year-old former Miss Italy contestant and television showgirl”, to the post of equal opportunities minister in his cabinet, with the expected results, she is rejecting a gay pride march in Bologna in June, “gay prides are pointless.”

It appears that she thinks that there is no anti-gay bigotry in Italy.

A real candidate for Olbermann’s “Worst Person’s” segment.

I Get Letters

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So I get this in my in box. It is not, as Bullwinkle says, “fan mail from some flounder”, though I think that some intellectual floundering definitely present.

Note that I have permission to reprint, and the only changes have been to email addresses.

#####@aol.com <#####@aol.com> Sun, May 18, 2008 at 8:28 AM
To: me

From an AOL address…How utterly appropriate

Since taking over Congress two years ago, everything has GOTTEN WORSE.

First, of course, it’s not been two years, it’s been 11/3 years. Congress came in on January 2007. It’s only 1½ years from the election, so now we know that you can’t count.

Gas is skyrocketing, and they campaigned and told us they would stabalize prices.

Actually, gas prices were not an issue in the 2006 elections, it was war and corruption. In fact the only people who are claiming that they can control gas prices are the Republicans, both through John McCain’s (and to her shame Hillary Clinton’s) gas tax holiday, and through the two months (most likely case the 6 months quoted is best case) that are under the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The economy is failing and all they want to do is take more in in TAXES.

The economy is failing because our deficits are catching up to us. We need to balance the budget.

Furthermore, the economy is failing because the velocity of money is slowing….Rich people spend more slowly than poor ones, and so you want to get money going further down the scale.

The spending cuts instead proposal means throwing retirees out into the street and downsizing our military to the size of that of Norway. You arguing for that?

Republican profligacy, as evidenced by Ted Stevens’ bridge to no where, and Dennis Hastert’s road project to inflate the value of his land are Republithug innovations, thank you very much.

It’s why we are seeing a breakout in inflation, which is higher than reported.

The common theme is that President Bush is the problem.

He is a large part of the problem. His solution to the credit crisis is to eliminate oversight and regulations over financial institutions, as the abandonment of basic regulations was not what screwed this up in the first place.

While many of these problems go a long way back, starting with baby steps under Jimmy Carter, and proceeding to spring under Reagan, it’s clear that Bush has been long opposed to doing anything about this, and he is still largely trying to wish the problem away.

With the veto pen, and Mich McConnell being willing to filibuster a burp, there are limits to what can be done under our system.

Is president Bush a god or something.

Only to you guys, though I’m sure that when he leaves power, your worship will end. At that point, to paraphrase Richard Widmark you will be blaming the Eskimos.

Seems like the Dems have no clue what or how to do anything.

Truth be told, I’m not too happy at their relative lack of success in getting through their agenda, but the bulk of the Democratic members of Congress have limited experience with being in the majority, and they seem to be doing better month by month, albeit very slowly.

Oh by the way, dont think that the 57 STATES mentioned by Obama will go away. It is clear, Obama was referencing the 57 Muslim states. HGMMMMMM……I wonder what was on his mind when he made that comment.

Well, since you haven’t read the full quote, where he says that he won’t make it to Alaska and Hawaii, but will hit all the other states, it’s a brain fart on numbers, particularly since there aren’t 57 Moslem nations. To quote the Republican president Abraham Lincoln*, “It is better to stay silent and let people think you are an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt,” as there are roughly 40, Wiki has 37, Majority Islamic nations.

The dems are certainly making this a better country, YEAH RIGHT.

They are trying, which is more than I can say for Republicans. I mean this in a very literal way.

I went to school, and served in the SGA Senate with, (convicted of corruption) Tony Rudy and Brian Darling (of Schiavo Memo Fame), classic modern movement conservatives, and I actually had fairly good social relationships with them.

They honestly believe that government is an unmitigated evil, and that government programs, even when they work, are evil, so their goal is to break stuff so that it does not work.

It’s why, after 38 years of Democratic rule in the house, you had corruption defined by a few bounced checks and one guy splitting salaries with ghost employees, where with the Republicans you had representatives preying on little boys, and an explicit pay-for-play bribery system.

It’s harder to be an honest Republican, because the only reason you are in government is money, power, and getting your way.

resp Paul P

Back at you.

BTW, you might want to use the comments instead in the future. I do read them.

*There are some disputes on the source of the quote. It has variously been attributed to Lincoln, Twain, and Franklin.

Calling for Offentlighetsprincipen

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In their never ending quest to avoid public scrutiny, Bush and His Evil Minions™ have introduced a new form of restricted information, Controlled Unclassified information.

Basically, the goal here is not to protect information from enemies, but to keep it from the public, and particularly FOIA requests.

The more I learn about government classification, the more that I think that we need to enshrine the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (Openness) in our constitution.

Basically, it says that all government documents are open, except those covered by the following, and only by the following:

  • the security of the Realm or its relations with a foreign state or an international organization;
  • the central finance policy, monetary policy, or foreign exchange policy of the Realm;
  • the inspection, control or other supervisory activities of a public authority;
  • the interest of preventing or prosecuting crime;
  • the public economic interest;
  • the protection of the personal integrity or economic conditions of private subjects;
  • the preservation of animal or plant species.”

This list are the only reason, and, “Secrecy is limited to a maximum time of 70 years (when relating to individuals that is 70 years after the person’s death).”

Given the tradition of secret government in the US over the past 60 years, I think that the list in the US should be more restrictive, as we have a long tradition of bureaucratic figleafs to keep the American people in the dark.

Texas Attorney General Does Not Think that N***ers Should Vote

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Once again, we have a wingnut trying to prove massive vote fraud, and once again, despite his best effort he cannot find anything, this time in the wingnuttiest of states, Texas.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, a ‘Phant, entered office pledging to, ” root out what he called an epidemic of voter fraud in Texas”.

Net result: 26 prosecutions, almost all against blacks and Hispanics, because in Texas, it’s a crime for darkies to vote.

In 18 of the 26 cases, people were prosecuted for neglecting to put their name on the envelope when they carried it to the mailbox for someone else.

They did encounter some real vote fraud in the remaining cases, it appears to be about a dozen votes, no doubt Bigot Abbot will use as justification to aggressively pursue voting while dark prosecutions.

McCain is Short on Cash

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So it looks like he will be relying heavily on party money to make up the difference.

Of course, that means less for Republicans at every level down the chain.

I’m so not crushed by this.

Here’s hoping that Obama does not opt into public financing in the general. He should not, McCain has already shown that he will break the campaign finance law that he wrote without a 2nd thought, so he simply can’t be trusted.

Krugman on Reducing Travel Energy

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He makes a very good point, that getting people to buy cars that get better gas mileage is the easy part of this.

The hard part is getting people to drive less too, since we have engaged in policies that have subsidized choices that require driving over the past 50 + years.

In many places, with far spread suburbs, public transport is far less efficient than it is in denser areas, and there are a lot of people living in suburbs, particularly in far suburbs, who are going to experience a very bad time as a wrenching change to lifestyle is made.

As for me, I’m about 5¼ Miles from the terminus of the Baltimore Subway, so I’ll do OK, I can bicycle to it.

I End Up on Some Odd Mailing Lists

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I get email from the “Minaret Foundation” a, “A free market Muslim perspective on economics, democracy, terrorism and Middle East conflict”, because I asked some questions via email regarding an article on the Medieval sugar trade.

Now I find this in my inbox, because I guess someone did a Technorati search on me.

Needless to say, trip to Iran is not on my agenda.

Religion & Media 2008 Thu, May 15, 2008 at 7:11 PM

Reply-To: Religion & Media 2008
To: ############

The Second International Conference on Religion and Media will be held in Tehran and Qom, Iran, from November 9th to 12th, 2008. We cordially invite all media researchers and scholars, representatives from diverse religious traditions, professionals and students involved with the subjects of the conference to attend and submit a paper. Further information could be found at conference website: http://www.religion-media.ir/

A few scholarships are available to partially subsidize the costs of participants with selected papers.

Sincerely,
Mahdiye Tavakol
Conference Coordinator

IRIB University,
Niyayesh Highway, Vali-e-Asr Street,
Tehran, Iran.
Tel: +98 21 22652238
Fax: +98 21 22652238
rm2008@religion-media.ir