Damn, there is a snark gap, and the Brits have all over us in the US.
Year: 2008
Economics Update
If there is any major difference between the US and the European response to the financial crisis, it is that the Europeans have their sh$# together relative to the US.
Britain was already taking equity stocks in banks this morning, and any sensible action by the Treasury department still appears to be weeks away, so it’s not surprising that the dollar is down relative to European currencies.
It is a vote on the confidence that investors have in the relative competencies of the governments involved.
Or maybe it’s the fact that the markets realize that the foreign exchange markets are subject to supply and demand too, and with the central banks of the industrialized world are shoveling dollars out their doors, with the Fed being the most aggressive.
I think that the goal was to lower interbank lending rates, which it appears to have done for a while, at least.
It appears that the markets are still seeing a recession, as commodities are generally down though oil ended up, above $80/bbl, today.
The bit of disturbing news is that it appears that the Treasury is
using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $40 billion in junk mortgage securities, which is the wrong thing to do.
It’s why the even the knuckle draggers at the White House are moving from buying the sh#$pile to buying the banks that need recapitalization.
This is what the Swedes did, though they added a lot of F&^% you to bank management that we are unfortunately leaving out.
Expect to See this Number a LOT in the Near Future
Trillion
Joerg Haider Finally Did Something to Make the World a Better Place
He died in an auto accident. It appears that Austrian anti-immigration activist was speeding.
I’m pretty hard-ass on immigration, but this man was just a bigot and demagogue, and he leaves the world a better place by leaving this world.
The Upside of the Financial Meltdown
Conservatives losing elections, in this case the nasty bit of putrescence that is Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
He was hoping for an outright majority, they currently hold a minority government, and now it looks like the Liberals and the NDP would have control of a minority government.
At the very least, it would prevent the Conservatives from holding an outright majority.
We’ll know tomorrow evening.
Viktor Yushchenko Calls Snap Elections in Ukraine
Fissures in the “Orange Revolution”.
The short story is that Ukranian President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko are on different sides of the ideological divide.
Yushchenko thinks that they should do everything possible to piss off the Russians, so that they will attack, and Tymoshenko looks at Georgia, and though she hates Russia too, she saw what happened in Georgia, and thinks that needlessly tweaking their nose, and overt hostility to the large Russian ethnic minority in Ukraine is stupid, and will not be to the benefit of the country.
Basically, Tymoshenko is saying that she is not opposed to wars, “just stupid ones,” to quote the next President of the United States and Yushchenko is approaching the issue with the calm demeanor of the current President of the United States.
Speaking from experience here, let me advise the Ukrainian people that having a leader with a messiah complex is a double plus bad thing.
Morgan Stanley Is Not Dead.
Kind of like that old man in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
We had Moody’s looking at downgrading Morgan Stanley’s debt, followed by their stock tanking, so their Mitsubishi UFJ was demanding more favorable terms to make a capital infusion, which led to
the Treasury department offering a promise protection to the Japanese investors, which means that group of government acronyms was just about ready to seize them.
After much hand wringing, and many attempts to make a buck off the situation by people not directly involved in the deal, they sealed the deal today.
One of the consequences of the collapse of the Japanese financial markets in the 1990s is that many of the companies are cash rich. They had to be to survive 15 years of very tight credit.
We may see a lot more of this for Japanese entities as a result.
They Have Emails
And the US Attorney prosecuting Ted Stevens wants them:
Even as Sen. Ted Stevens’ corruption trial nears an end, federal prosecutors are still asking for correspondence between the Alaska senator and his wife, Catherine, as well as e-mails she may have sent to 37 people connected to the couple’s home renovation and other gifts the senator may have received.
Stevens’ legal team filed a motion over the weekend asking that a judge intervene and prohibit the government from subpoenaing thousands of documents from Catherine Stevens’ law firm, Mayer Brown. They’re looking for conversations between her and anyone with a U.S. Senate e-mail address, as well as documents relating to anything of value given or provided to Stevens, his wife or his daughter, Lily. That includes “any documents relating to diamond earrings,” according to the motion.
Yeah, this guy is as pure as the driven snow.
That being said, the prosecutors are lucky that Stevens is not just guilty, but unbelievably guilty, because they have run a piss poor case.
Big Surprise, IP Monopolists Pull Numbers out of their Tuchus
One of the frequent refrains about the “costs” of “piracy” is, “750,000 and $200 to $250 billion”.
Well Aris Technica took a look at this number to figure out where it came from, and the answer is: Nowhere.
The Commerce department did a study recently, and said, “$60 billion,” but the authors admit that this is a guess, based from data collected from self selected respondents who are overhwelmingly tied into IP intensive business models.
All they could show on their own was $23 billion.
Of course, $23 billion ain’t chicken feed….That’s what 50 days in Iraq?
OK, So Electric Eels Embedded in Your Fat is Creepy, but..
OK, so the electric eel squicks me out, but stem cell and DNA technologies to cure male pattern baldness,* I find that cool and hopeful.
*That is a really old pic on the right hand side of the blog.
Quote of the Day: Gail Collins
Remember how we used to joke about John McCain looking like an old guy yelling at kids to get off his lawn? It’s only in retrospect that we can see that the keep-off-the-grass period was the McCain campaign’s golden era. Now, he’s beginning to act like one of those movie characters who steals the wrong ring and turns into a troll.
During that last debate, while he was wandering around the stage, you almost expected to hear him start muttering: “We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precious.”
She owes me a screen cleaner.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Krugman R’lyeh wagn’nagl fhtagn! Aaaaiiiiii!!!!
As, at best, a very junior member of the Occult and Hermetic Order of the Shrill, I would like to offer my congratulations to the most senior member of this sacred order, Paul Krugman, who has won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
When I heard it on my clock radio, I pumped my fist and shouted.
Technical Advinces for Supersonic Business Jets
Truth be told, this article reads more like a press release than anything else, and the real development that all of these aircraft programs needs is a change in regulations, which currently prohibit supersonic flight over land.
Army Looking at Dumping ARH
This is not a surprise, given that Bell Helicopter Textron’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter has proved to be a complete clusterf%$#, “Army officials acknowledged Tuesday that they are weighing alternatives to Bell Helicopter Textron’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter in anticipation of an upcoming Defense Department decision on the troubled program.”
This Will Be at Least a Decade Late, and Underperform
It looks like India is looking at developing a medium fighter aircraft in the 20 tonne range.
Considering the fact that its light fighter, the Tejas, is something like 15 years overdue, and that the indigenous engine, the Kaveri, has been abandoned, I do not see this as the start of a pleasant story, particularly given the fact that they are looking about integrating stealth features, which implies that the program will be particularly ambitious.
It’s already starting off on the wrong foot, as they have stated that it is their intent to use two Kaveri engines to power the aircraft.
Boeing Awarded $18.6m Follow On Contract for Dual Combustion Ramjet (DCR) Engine
Theoretically, at least, this program is a precursor to a Mach 6 missile.
I say theoretically because the first two tests ended in failure.
I Wonder if Some of Those Tranch 3 Options Will Go to Japan
Because Eurofighter is pushing very hard to win Japan’s F-X contest.
The leading contenders are the Typhoon, the Super Bug, and an F-15E variant.
The Japanese already operate the F-15, and have assembled C and D models, and Australia uses the F/A-18E/F, which gives both aircraft an advantage.
The Typhoon’s advantages will come down to supercruise, an area where the Japanese have expressed interest, and frontal radar cross section, where the F-15 variants lose, but the Typhoon and the Super-Hornet have an advantage.
As an interceptor, the Typhoon is clearly superior, at least if fitted with an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar.
Given its relatively feeble air-to-air capabilities, I can’t see the JSF being used in air defense.
Tranche 3 Typhoon Orders Still in Flux for Member Nations
the member nations are looking at splitting their orders for 236 Typhoons into two sub tranches, with the second having an AESA radar.
Also, it looks as if the member nations will be granted permission to export their purchase options to customers outside the consortium, in order to reduce pressure on their budgets.
Is it just me, or have the costs for procuring combat aircraft become way to much?
Rolls-Royce Looking at 2017-18 Cert for Open Rotor Engine
RR expects to be able to certify its RB2011 open rotor engine in the next 9-10 years, which is a fairly aggressive schedule, when one considers the issues of noise and certification for a completely new type of engine. (paid subscription required)
In addition to noise issues, fan shrouds make conventional turbofans typically quieter, there are also issues such as bird strike and blade loss that have not been addresses from either an engineering or a regulatory perspective, and all these issues are non-trivial.
Defense Video Pr0n: Sikorsky X2 Edtion
Care of The DEW Line. Stephen Trimble took a video of the Sikorski promotional video with his moblie