That’s 29 in the past 13 months.
I guess that they have discovered it’s less fun to be anvil than hammer.*
*Quoting Goethe: Du mußt Amboß oder Hammer sein (“You must be Anvil or Hammer”)†
†OK, I’m actually quoting Patrick McGoohan’s marvelous serise, The Prisoner. I’m not that literate.
First, it appears that the current credit crisis is now being recognized by some media outlets, such as the New York Times, as not being limited to subprime borrowers. Of course the story misses the fact that it’s not just mortgages, and the story that they use to illustrate the problem is a, “a computer engineer at Lockheed Martin who makes a six-figure income and had a stellar credit score in 2004, when he refinanced his home in Northern California to take cash out to pay for his daughter’s college tuition”, who is the last person we should think of bailing out.
He understood the issue, and took the loan anyway.
As to the general, and ongoing, credit meltdown, we have yet another New York Times story, this leading off with Sailfish Capital Partners, a hedge fund that is being liquidated.
The pair, both fixed-income specialists, quickly raised $1 billion for their flagship multi-strategy fixed-income fund, according to investor documents. Assets grew steadily, reaching $1.2 billion by the end of 2005 and $1.5 billion by the end of 2006, when the fund returned more than 12 percent. In July, the fund sat atop almost $2 billion, and exhibited relatively low volatility — a key factor for institutional investors.
But July proved treacherous. As the credit markets seized up, Sailfish owned seemingly safe top-rated investments, including mortgage investments, that suddenly plummeted in value.
Illiquidity will get worse, and this is one of what will be many stories,
And then we have Warren Buffet offering to buy the good assets of the bond inurers and so give them a capital injection (see also Also here).
Basically, he wants to buy the good stuff for pennies, and leave the sh%$pile for the monoliners to deal for later. Buffet ain’t dumb, this is thinking vulture capitalism.
We are starting to see adulatory coverage of the (very boring, but generally safe)municipal bond market, though I wonder what happens to resale value of the bonds if the monoliners go belly up before Jimmy Warren Buffet gets his hands on those assets.
Finally, we have the federal budget deficit more than doubling, which means that we have to borrow even more foreign money and more downward pressure on the dollar.
F-35 STOVL nozzle in action:
I’m hearing the fat lady warm up.
That’s what the election worker said when she opened the door about 5 minutes ahead of voting starting, and saw 12 of us waiting.
My guess is that she thought it was a lot of people. I know that she is a regular, I saw here in the previous primary and the general.
In my Maryland, in addition to the Congressional primary (and some unopposed judges in my district), you vote for the candidate, and 4 women and 3 men delegates.
One of the men was my friend Noel, who was uncommitted, who I voter for.
This meeting was supposed to be about a potential endorsement, and Edwards has already had a meeting with Clinton.
My guess is that it is scheduling, since even if John Edwards has made up his mind, he wants to have met with both candidates.
Here.
Al Wynn, very much a creature of the PG county machine endorsed Obama.
My guess is that this is simply covering the bases.
Hillary Clinton is maintaining that Patti Solis Doyle exit as campaign manager was not a firing or shakeup.
And in related news, Senator Larry Craig says that he is not Gay.
Seriously, I understand that these lies are de regeur, but this convention insults our intelligence.
For what this news is worth, it will help her in Ohio, though I’m not sure how much.
Over at Will Bunch’s Attytood, an interesting point is made:
But the timing of this strikes me as just a little bit too much of a coincidence here. The likely unraveling of Guantanamo is Bush’s worst nightmare. A legitimate criminal trial under American laws of jurisprudence would expose the worst of the Bush-Cheney torture regime, including waterboarding techniques, and have a result that nobody in this debate wants: Making it impossible to gain real justice against the 9/11 planners, because of inadmissable evidence.
A quick trial under military rules, and a speedy execution, is the only long-shot hope for Bush and Cheney for making the worst of the torture nightmare that they’ve created go away. That said, this new push for an execution is likely to rally more opinion around the world — the death penalty has been abolished or is not used in most civilized nations — against the United States; at the risk of appearing cynical, I doubt this decision would be announced if Mitt Romney and his famed “double Guantanamo” move or if Rudy Giuliani were still viable candidates.
But as today’s articles note, it is unlikely, with appeals and the like, that any conviction and death penalty could be carried out as quickly as January. That lays the problem on the lap of the next president — regardless of whether it’s McCain, Clinton or Obama — who would have to either affirm the military tribunals, or else declare on the first day of their presidency that one of their first officials acts will be to overturn a death sentence for a 9/11 mastermind.
These are sick evil bastards, and I’m not referring to the 911 terrorists.
While I’d like to know what is going on, if just for my own selfish voyeuristic edification, my initial reaction is that this is typical public radio bull#$@! politics. If someone wants to enlighten me, feel free.
In perusing the pages of WYPR and Marc Steiner’s blog, it appears that things are not developing in a kind manner regarding the cancellation of his show.
The President’s message about the cancellation has been updated so that it actually mentions the name “Marc Steiner”, and Steiner has a blog post suggesting that WYPR is attempting to minimize public input, and another which mentions that he’s hired on one of his WYPR producers has been hired on to his production company, The Center for Emerging Media.
In the middle of all this, WYPR has pushed back its membership drive from February to April, largely, I think, in the hope of it all blowing over.
Well, it looks like we’ll have to choose between the folks who poisoned Prince William Sound, and the average American driver, because we have a threat from Chavez to cut off oil shipments over Exxon lawsuit filed in London.
How a company based in the US files suit in the UK, over actions taken in Venezuela is beyond me.
FWIW, Venezuelan oil is not fungible. It’s a “sour” crude, and refineries have to be set up to refine it, so this would be a hole in the world oil supply.
At least that is how I read a statement that says that he would , seek a military presence in Iraq for “years” but pledged in an interview aired Sunday that he would not establish permanent bases.“
He wants Iraq forever, but he does not want it to be an issue in the general.
I made a post on Barack Obama’s policies regarding the stimulus package, and Barack Obama’s and specifically his advisor, Austan Goolsbee’s position on the low income heating assistance program.
Dr. Goolsbee took exception to my post in the comments, and has granted me permission to reproduce it as a post, which follows:
This is totally bogus. I have never opposed LIHEAP as a program and neither has Senator Obama (who has voted many times to fund the program). The only objection to the program–in the CNBC clip and in all previous discussions–is trying to use LIHEAP as a stimulus program. Because there is an application process, it won’t get out the door quickly. Obama’s stimulus plan would cut checks for low income people that are BIGGER than the LIHEAP checks and would send them the money right away.
Proof that I support LIHEAP just not as a stimulus, see the debate over stimulus is the NY Observer of January 24
“For the most part, Goolsbee had little to take issue with. He had a much bigger problem with the Clinton plan’s call for $25 billion in emergency energy assistance for families facing skyrocketing heating bills. Goolsbee’s criticism of this component was consistent with his major beef with Clinton’s entire stimulus plan, which is that it would take way too long to enact, and therefore wouldn’t provide for any real stimulus at all.
Here’s Goolsbee’s critique: “It is a very detailed program. It is a very good program that people are familiar with but it just isn’t a stimulus. It is for winter heat and by the time this thing gets through we’d be talking about next winter. Two, it’s a five to 10-page application process which is significantly onerous.
He added, “After convincing the people to apply and getting them to fill out the application process, you then have an evaluation process, so this will take many months if not a year to get out the door.”
Note: there were some apostrophes that were munged by haloscan that I corrected. Otherwise it is as posted.
It appears that the Washington State Republican committee is doing its level best to fix the result of their caucuses.
The State Republican Party declared a victor with only 87.2% of the votes counted, despite the fact that the spread between McCain and Huckabee is only 1.8%.
The reason given by the Chair of the state party?
Maybe it would have been safer if I hadn’t said anything. But it was an exciting and historic day for the state and I thought if I was confident about what the outcome would be I should share that with the people who had gone out to their caucuses.
Huckabee is protesting and sending lawyers, additionally, he’s evoking the USSR in this matter:
I would also note that this is just plain stupid. It potentially takes a couple of delegates from Huckabee, but he makes it a cause celebre for Huckabee supporters, shoots holes in McCain’s “straight shooter” myth, and is the easiest possible way to split the party.
Why, yes, I am feeling some glee regarding the discomfort that this is causing!
This is obviously not a good sign for the campaign. It indicates some level of disarray and rebuilding within the campaign.
Besides, they should have gotten rid of Mark Penn first.
The cost of bond insurance has skyrocketed, in some cases increasing the cost of borrowing by over 100% as a result of the credit crunch.
This means that new roads, sewer systems, schools, etc. are likely to be delayed.
As if falling house values, and hence falling property tax revenues were not enough of a cross for local and state governments to bear.
This is not good, but nothing ever is in the Middle East.
The Israeli defence minister warned today that armed forces were preparing for a broad offensive against Gaza in response to rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns.
Netflix goes exclusively Blu-Ray for high def.
Boy, did I get this one wrong.
The trials will be under the Any trials would be held by military tribunal under the terms of the Military Commissions Act, which is a mistake.
As representatives of the military say in the case, “Relatively little amounts of evidence will be classified,” and to use unfair and widely ridiculed courts at Guantanamo is a further stain on the reputation of the US.
I believe that Bush’s goals of this is two fold, to help the Republican presidential nominee in the general election, and to attempt to ensnare his successor in the military commissions quagmire, so as to avoid war crimes charges against himself.
These cases are, or should be, a …dare I say it… a “slam dunk, and they can, and should, be conducted in US courts under US rules, not phony courts under Gulag rules.