Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to form a joint quick reaction force with a, “joint command and be based permanently on Russian territory.”
It does not appear to be a particularly large force, it looks like perhaps a brigade, but it does imply an upgrade to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which appears to be an attempt at a counterweight to NATO.
Russia and India now have an in-service date for their joint next generation fighter program, the PAK-FA, 2017.
This simply is not going to happen that soon, particularly when India is still unsatisfied with the level of technology transfer, and they haven’t yet agreed on the number of crew (Russia wants a single seater, India a 2-seater).
They may have a demonstrator, at a maturity level of the MiG MFI, or the BAE EAP in the next 5 years, but the former never saw production, and the successor to the latter the Typhoon, did enter service until more than a decade after it rolled out.
If this ever enters service, I’d my guess is that it would be closer to 2025 than 2017.
And the P-80 was 180 days from proposal to first flight……
In this case, it’s the Marine Corps, who have found a disaster besides the EFV, the Growler, which is basically a stunted version of the Jeep Cherokee designed to fit in the cargo bay of the V-22 Osprey.
It’s supposed to serve for basic transportation, and to tow a trailer for a mortar.
As Paul McLeary notes, “Well take a look at the vehicle and tell me if you would want to tool around IED alley in Afghanistan in this thing.” (Emphasis Original)
In addition to being dangerously exposed in combat areas, it’s cost has skyrocketed:
The inspector general report said that the average cost of a single Growler has risen 120 percent, from about $94,000 when the contract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehicle with mortar and ammunition trailer has grown 86 percent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000.
It turns out that part of this has been the Marines adding features, “air suspension … a new cooling system, power steering and power brakes, along with a beefed-up General Motors engine…,” of which only the air suspension would be considered crucial to the mission (it allows the vehicle to squat to fit in the Osprey).
Note that this contract was awarded in 2004, when it was clear that a thin skinned vehicle would not be acceptable in current conflicts.
It’s one of those orginary stories that might raise some bigger issues. The US Navy has retired the last S-3B Viking from fleet service.
This means that there is no dedicated fixed wing anti-submarine aircraft in service any more. This is more than just a story about the retirement of an aircraft affectionately known by its crew as “the Hoover.”
Given the expansion of capabilities of non nuclear submarines, such as air-independent propulsion (AIP) , improvements in anti-ship missiles, and the reports that the Russians have been working on a low cost “hybrid” nuke boat, I would think that submarines are more of a threat to the CVBG than they have ever been.
I really can’t say anything beyond that it is completely work safe, and don’t drink anything while watching this.
So says yet another person who just writes better than I do, John Cole of Balloon Juice.
In the Wall Street Journal (!), Paul Romer is suggesting something rather similar to my proposal, you know, the one where I suggest amputating the financial industry:
Everyone agrees that the United States urgently needs a few good banks. Turning bad banks into good banks is a difficult and risky way to get them. It’s simpler and safer to start entirely new banks.
In this context, “good” means a bank with assets and liabilities that are easy to value using market prices. At a good bank, officers, regulators and investors can be confident about the value of the bank’s capital.
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The government has $350 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds that it can use to encourage new bank lending. If this money is directed to newly created good banks with pristine balance sheets, it could support $3.5 trillion in new lending with a modest 9-to-1 leverage. Right out of the gate, the newly created banks could do what the Fed has already been doing — buying pools of loans originated by existing banks that meet high underwriting standards.
This sounds an awful lot like what I was suggesting.
BTW, it also appears that Timothy Geithner is backing away from the bad bank idea, and looking at having equity shares that have votes, as opposed to preferred stocks.
He’s fighting this kicking and screaming, but the banks are insolvent, and need to be nationalized or otherwise cut loose.
When one of the more prominent villagers suggests that Obama find his inner Eastwood, and tell the Republicans to frack off, in The Washington Post no less, something rather odd is going on.
So we have the new, official jobs report, Oh My God!!!
The unemployment rate went up to 7.6%, and 598,000 jobs were cut, the most since 1974, and it happened across all sectors.
Barry Ritholtz looks at the number in more detail, and finds (excerpting):
Except for the jobs report, it’s a slow news day, which is kind of like saying, “Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
Then again, I expect at least one bank closing shortly after I shut down for Shabbos, because Friday is bank regulator seizure day (cue Prince Spaghetti Day ad).
The good news is that it looks like the SEC and Treasury are denying any plans of suspending mark to market.
Going back to mark to model would be like pouring gasoline on a the bonfire of the fraudulent.
One odd thing here is that the Federal Reserve appears to be walking away from expanding its Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility (TALF) program, a sh%$ pile for cash givaway lending program, to include consumer credit derived instruments.
Not sure what is going on here, but it would seem to me that this might be one of the better ways to throw money at the problem.
Meanwhile, oil fell on the jobs reports, and the dollar was mixed, up against the Yen, down vs the Euro, and flat vs. the Sterling.
On July 30, 1974, Art Buchwald, with permission of Theodore Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), made a column of the book, “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!”
It appears that Mr. Geisel sent his friend Buchwald a copy of the book and replaced “Marvin K. Mooney” and with “Richard M. Nixon.”
Buchwald wrote, “It sounded like fun so I asked him if I could reprint it” with the suggestion that it be read aloud.
Needless to say, do not have the writing chops of either the late Mssrs. Geisel or Buchwald, but this has to be shared.
At the bottom, is Keith Olbermann’s special comment from last night, saying the same.
“Richard B. Cheney will you please go now!
The time has come.
The time has come.
The time is now.
Just go.
Go.
Go!
I don’t care how.
You can go by foot.
You can go by cow.
Richard B. Cheney will you please go now!
You can go on skates.
You can go on skis.
You can go in a hat.
But
Please go.
Please!
I don’t care.
You can go
By bike.
You can go
On a Zike-Bike
If you like.
If you like
You can go
In an old blue shoe.
Just go, go, GO!
Please do, do, do, DO!
Richard B. Cheney
I don’t care how.
Richard B. Cheney
Will you please
GO NOW!
You can go on stilts.
You can go by fish.
You can go in a Crunk-Car
If you wish.
If you wish
You may go
By lion’s tale.
Or stamp yourself
And go by mail.
Richard B. Cheney
Don’t you know
The time has come
To go, go, GO!
Get on your way!
Please Richard M.!
You might like going in a Zumble-Zay.
You can go by balloon . . .
Or broomstick.
Or
You can go by camel
In a bureau drawer.
You can go by bumble-boat
. . . or jet.
I don’t care how you go.
Just get!
Richard B. Cheney!
I don’t care how.
Richard B. Cheney
Will you please
GO NOW!
I said
GO
And
GO
I meant . . .
The time had come
So . . .
Richard WENT.”
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
I got a bit of tech help, and costomized my favicons.ico, so now, on tabs, bookmarks, and the URL bar, you can see me in all my bad hair glory as a 16 x 16 pixel thumbnail.
I wish that I still had that much hair.
The head of the Agriculture committee, Collin Peterson (D-MN-07) is proposing that credit default swaps be treated like the insurance that they are. Here is money quote(PDF):
(h) LIMITATION ON ELIGIBILITY TO PURCHASE A CREDIT DEFAULT SWAP.—It shall be unlawful for any person to enter into a credit default swap unless the person would experience financial loss if an event that is the subject of the credit default swap occurs.
…
EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall be effective for credit default swaps (as defined in section 1a(34) of the Commodity Exchange Act) entered into after 90 days after the date of the enactment of this section.
Basically, what this is saying is that you can’t buy insurance on something unless you actually benefit from it.
This was discovered a long time ago, specifically 263 years ago, when the British Parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act of 1746:
In 1746, Parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act, requiring anyone seeking to collect on an insurance contract to have an interest in the continued existence of the insured property. Thus was born the insured-interest doctrine. The indemnity doctrine, which precludes a buyer from insuring property for more than it’s worth, soon followed. The point of these rules is to limit insurance contracts to trading existing risks and not to create new risks by giving buyers of insurance incentive to destroy property. The doctrines have been part of insurance law in both England and the United States (which in 1746 were colonies under English common law) ever since.
Unfortunately, it appears that the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota only intends for this regulation to be temporary, but it’s a good start.
It should be permanent though, there is a reason that this adopted so long ago.
We now have credible reports that Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke seriously twisted the Bank of America CEO’s arm to get him to finish the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, so Merrill may not be entirely his fault, but Countrywide, a morass of fraud, bad banking, and incompetence is.
He needs to go, so that those who would be like him will think twice before being so profligate.
Well the Zimbabwean parliament finally passed the constitutional amendments to enable a power-sharing government, though cabinet positions are still not set, and a number of MDC and human rights activists remain detained.
Governments in the west have softened their rhetoric, for a while, at least, but are maintaining the sanctions against Mugabe and senior ZANU-PF officials.
As to whether things are going to get better, the fact that Robert Mugabe’s wife just seized a farm, from a judge on Zimbzbwe’s high court….Damn….It takes stones to steal from a judge in broad daylight, so I’m not expecting things to turn better at any time soon.
In the meantime, Cholera is continuing it’s Zimbabwe concert tour, with the WHO saying that cases have broken 65,000.
I’m not sure if I am a realist, or a pessimist, but I don’t think that things are going to turn out well for the people of Zimbabwe.
Remember when I said yesterday that The Devil is in the Details regarding Obama’s pay limits?
Well, ProPublica is all over this…..The bullet points:
Oh, well, it was nice believing that something would be done for a few minutes.
The TARP watchdog committee is now saying that Hank Paulson and His Evil Minions™ overpaid for TARP assets, and that they paid $274 billion for assets worth $176 billion.
This was not an oversight. This was what Paulson wanted.
He was looking at bailing out his budget at taxpayer expense, because to him, bailing out overpaid Wall Street pukes was job 1….Mission accomplished.
It appears that Moody’s is reviewing the credit ratings of hundreds of billions of dollars of Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS).
These are like residential mortgage backed securities, only they are for things like malls and apartment buildings, as opposed to houses and condos, and they are following the same path as the residential MBS, which is, as Calculated Risk notes, “First the reviews, then the downgrades, followed by the bank write-downs, and then more reviews …”
The Senate just voted to add a $15,000 tax credit for home buyers to the bailout program.
It’s a bad idea, which Dean Baker correctly calls it a house flipping subsidy.
Won’t happen though. They hate him for some reason.
We now have a report that the UK government demanded that court proceedings detailing torture be suppressed because the United States on Wednesday was threatening to end intelligence cooperation if the details were releases:
Two senior British judges accused the United States on Wednesday of threatening to end intelligence cooperation if Britain released evidence about the alleged torture of a Guantanamo detainee.
The judges quoted lawyers for British Foreign Secretary David Miliband as saying the U.S. government, by reviewing intelligence cooperation, “could inflict on the citizens of the United Kingdom a very considerable increase in the dangers they face at a time when a serious terrorist threat still pertains.”
According to the ruling from High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Lord Justice Lloyd Jones, Miliband’s lawyers said the threat had existed for some time and was still in place under President Barack Obama’s administration.
(emphasis mine)
If you think that your behavior is egregious enough that you need to threaten allies to keep it away from public view, that’s a pretty good sign that you should not be doing it in the first place, and that you should be looking at criminal prosecution of the perpetrators.
