Year: 2008

We Are Going to Bomb Iran

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Admiral William J. Fallon, the head of Centcom, has been forced out by the Bush and His Evil Minions&trade.

This means we will be seeing air strikes on Iran. My guess would be in September, so as to influence the elections. Wag the dog, baby.

My suggestion for the Democratic candidates, they should make it clear that the AUMF against Iraq does not cover Iran, and as such any order to attack Iran is illegal, even if the order comes from the President.

Furthermore, it should be made clear that there would be courts martial if those illegal orders were executed.

Economics Update

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Oil has hit another new high, driven largely by the Dollar hitting a new low, though there has been some recovery since the Federal Reserve has agreed to issue at least another $200 billion, this time using mortgage backed securities, aka “Worthless Garbage”, as collateral.

I’m not sure that this will make a difference in the strength of the Dollar. It now appears that the United Arab Emirates is seriously considering dumping their dollar peg, which is clearly a step towards Euro denominated oil.

In today’s episode of really bad policy, it appears that Congress is moving toward privatizing profits and socializing losses in real estate, by expanding the loans that FHA insurance covers. Yep, this will work so well, like it did for MBIA and Ambac.

In more general investment news, Bear Stearns is tanking on concerns that it lacks sufficient liquidity to cover potential margin calls. It probably does not help that Moody’s has downgraded Bear Stearns Alt-A mortgage backed securities, more than half of those issued from 2005 through 2007. Ouch.

Subprime’s favorite whipping boy, Countrywide is going down like Elliot Spitzer’s hooker, the Bank of America offer is now a 32% premium, as versus a 9% premium 2 weeks ago, so people are thinking that BoA will just walk away.

In the world of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), we have had downgraded price targets on three Mortgage REITs.

What took them so long.

Finally, in things that make you say, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, we have a report that, 20% of Silicon Valley startups cannot get to their working cash, because they invested it in Auction Rate Securities to get better rates of return, and that market is completely frozen.

US Poised to F*&^ It Up Yet Again With DPRK

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So, the US is now demanding some sort of “clear signal” in order for negotiations to proceed.

The problem here is that there are people in political positions, who I won’t name for fear that they will get drunk and shoot me in the face, who believe that negotiations of any sort are a victory for North Korea, and a defeat for the US, so the directives come down to keep erecting road blocks.

The North Koreans are not crazy. They are secretive, in many ways criminal, largely uncaring about the wellbeing of their population, and paranoid, but they are not crazy.

They honestly believe, and have believed for the last 50 years, that the US is planning a sneak attack against them in the hope of decapitating their regime and taking over their country.

Every time there is progress in discussions, and then the US creates another stupid hoop to jump through, it reinforces that belief.

This is well and truly stupid.

Caucus Delegates ARE Different

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Much has been made about Hillary Clinton’s comment as to the differences between primary and caucus delegates. Josh Marshall has an analysis that shows this is not a meaningless distinction.

Specifically, caucus goers do not select delegates. They select representatives who go to the next level, either county or state wide, and at the end of this process, a delegate is selected.

So, if Obama representatives do not show up at these meetings, it is possible, and completely within the rules, for Clinton representatives to pick up some delegates this way.

Of course, we have Obama supporters whining that it’s not fair, but given that he raised $55 million dollars in February, investing a million or so in making sure that their representatives actually show up to the higher level caucuses would be a good idea.

Oh Crap! I Agree With The Corner on National Review Online

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Specifically, I agree with David Freddoso when he says that a call to return Spitzer donations is patently absurd.

His money is neither the product of illegality, nor is is an attempt to buy access for an illegal or unsavory cause.

His quote at the end is prize:

If their PR pain threshold is low enough, then I suppose the candidates will return the money or give it to charity (perhaps to battered women’s shelters or something). But I’d actually admire any one of them who has the courage to keep the money and say:

“Well, at least this $2,300 won’t be spent on a whore!”

Then again, that may not be entirely accurate. It is being spent on candidates for Congress…

Amusing.

Maybe, Some Accountability

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As a result of the WaMu board decided that bad mortgages should not get in the way of obscene senior executive bonuses, it looks like some major share holders, and possibly some share holder rights groups are looking at trying to remove the board members.

It probably won’t come to anything, the regulations in place in the US make it very difficult for the owners (share holders) of a company to effect management decisions, but it’s a good start.

Many Security Exploits Financial, Not Technical Issue

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El Reg writes about an academic article that calls for making vendors liable for security exploits.

This is a good idea:

In the real world investment in risk avoidance may not be profitable. Security failures often arise due to perverse incentives rather than the lack of suitable technology. For example, credit card firms can rely on business models that push the cost of fraud onto merchants and consumers rather than investing in reducing the problem themselves. That’s because such investments would place them at a commercial disadvantage to their competitors.

Establishing economic incentives for IT suppliers to produce more secure products is arguably an even greater problem because software publishers are not held liable for the shortcomings of their products. These shortcomings may damage consumer faith in ecommerce but fail to effect sales, so a market-based solution in absence of regulatory pressure is difficult to imagine.

Microsoft would be bankrupt in 6 months.

Southern Baptist Agree that Global Warming is Real

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You know, when the Southern Baptist Convention decides to stop being the Republicans bitch on global warming, it’s pretty significant.

Reasons why it’s significant:

  1. They are saying that Al Gore is right.
  2. They are recognizing reality.
  3. They are realizing that their alignment with one political party is harming them.
  4. A realization that global warming is not a plot of the one-world-government liberals.

Give them time. I think it was 1995 when they finally admitted that they were founded to support slavery, and apologized, because slavery was a bad thing.

Climb Down on Latin American Tensions

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Venezuela has reopened its embassy in Columbia

This is another example how Bush and His Evil Minions™ have poisoned counterterrorism operations. Before Bush and his attempts to overthrow and murder Chavez and his invasion of Iraq, this would have been a major diplomatic incident, bit you would not have seen a mobilization on the borders.

There are legitimate “hot pursuit” situations, though this increasingly appears not to have been one, and I’m expecting a Sy Hersh article in the next week or so casting doubt on the provenance of the laptops “captured” in the operation.

Some facts are clear though.

  • The FARC is a terrorist organization that is not much more than organized crime with a veneer of politics.
  • Chavez is a pompous jerk and a lousy leader.
  • As bad as Chavez is, the political classes of Venezuela are all considerably worse.
  • Mending the relationship with Chavez may be one of the bigger challenges facing Bush’s successor, unless it’s McCain, in which case, he’ll invade.

Just When You Think that Drug Companies Can’t Get Any More Contemptible

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Pfizer is going to court to try and force the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) to reveal the names of its anonymous peer reviewers.

They are trying to subvert the most basic principal of scientific journals, the peer review process, and making the bogus claim that “Scientific journals such as NEJM may have received manuscripts that contain exonerating data for Celebrex and Bextra which would be relevant for Pfizer’s causation defence,” for cases involving its Cox-2 inhibitors Celebrex and Bextra.

One hopes that the just slaps them down.

Thoughts on Spitzer

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First, the definitive post on this matter is from Some Guy with a Website. I won’t quote it here, it’s about 4 paras long, but if you removed the F-bombs and the word “stupid”, it would be one sentence.

According to TPM, it appears that Spitzer was not caught as the result of an investigation of the Emperor’s club escort service, but that the Emperor’s club was caught as a result of an investigation of Spitzer.

It appears that Spitzer had a large number of cash withdrawals from his bank account that were not much less than the $10,000 level which would require notification under the law, and so the bank reported possible “structuring”, of the use of smaller transactions to obscure a larger one.

This is a red flag for things like bribery, so the US Attorney’s public integrity division looked into it, and in following the case, determined that there was no bribery, but that he was paying prostitutes.

I do believe that Spitzer will resign, but not until he has cut a deal, which makes sense. If he were to resign now, he would see a no holds barred felony prosecution by the corrupt politicized Bush DoJ with the goal of putting him in jail for decades.

His resignation would be ceding a major bargaining chip to the prosecution. As a former NY State AG, he knows this.

As to the possible prosecution under the Mann Act, it isn’t going to happen when the principals were both consenting, though it may be used as a lever by the prosecution.