Month: September 2009

Life on Mars

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Click images for full size

When the World Ends, All that Will Be Left are Cockroaches and Australian Surfers

Odd Day at the Playground
The Iconic Opera House

Satellite Image

If you want to see more, your best bet is Google Images, though you can get the proverbial, “rest of the story,” from the Mail Online (and here), BBC NEWS, the CSM, and see this video at the bottom.

Whatever the case, it is clear that the mars analogies seem almost universal.

Holy Crap, the Murders Have Begun in Kentucky

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It looks like one of Glenn Beck’s or Michelle Bachmann’s butt boy fans has decided to murder a census worker:

The FBI is investigating whether anti-government sentiment led to the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery. A law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word ‘fed” was scrawled on the dead man’s chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky. The Census has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, pending the outcome of the investigation.

Speaking as a former “part-time Census field worker”, I think that until the perp is found, the door to door survey should be stopped now.

If you don’t like census takers, fine. No congressman for you.

If there is reduced representation of the crazy parts of the country, then the governance of the country will improve.

Economics Update (a Day Late) (Again!)

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I know that there is a lot of talk about the recession ending, but all the metrics that involve manufacturing real items in the united states, are down, case in point, the AAR’s report on rail traffic, which is down, 17.1% YoY, which is, as Yves Smith notes, down to 1993 levels.

I’m not saying that the rest of the world is not showing signs of recovery, after all the economic powerhouse New Zealand’s economy has left recession, and the $NZ is hitting records, but for the United States, things are not looking better for the rest of us.

Actually, we are seeing some positive movement in US manufacturing, like GM adding shifts at its plants, though this appears to be one part “cash for clunkers”, and one part having to make up for other plants that have been closed.

We are seeing some action though in Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury land, where US Treasuries are up, and hence yields are down, largely on the expectation that the Fed won’t do anything to interest rates.

More importantly, we are seeing evidence that the Fed is looking at winding down its money printing. They are not doing it yet, but the Bernanke and crew are in preliminary discussions with bond dealers to implement reverse repurchase agreements in order to get a trillion dollars or so out of the money that they pumped into the economy:

Central bank officials are discussing plans to use so- called reverse repurchase agreements to drain some of the $1 trillion they pumped into the economy, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. That’s where the Fed sells securities to its 18 primary dealers for a specific period, temporarily decreasing the amount of money available in the banking system.

Well, the intent is clear, though the mechanism is as clear as mud to me.

In the always fun areas of energy and currency, oil rose because the dollar fell to a one year low, $1.4778:€1.000, though this is still about a dime below the peak in early July of last year.

Will No One Primary this Corrupt Son of a Bitch?

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I am referring to Representative Mike Ross, Democrat (hah!) of Arkansas’s 4th Congressional district.

We have always known that Mike Ross is a bit blue dog, and in the pocket of the health insurers the pharmaceutical industry, and now, thanks to ProPublica, we know why.

It turns out that he and his wife sold their pharmacy and related property to pharmacy chain USA Drug in 2007, and paid between $1 million and $1.67 million for the it, which is kind of surprising, when the county tax assessment listed it at $263,000, and an independent assessor retained by ProPublica valued it at $198,000.

This means that he was overpaid for his property, and for “the pharmacy’s assets”, and for a “non-compete” agreement from his wife, Holly Ross, something on the order of $1 million.

What’s more the owner of the pharmacy chain, Stephen L. LaFrance Sr., who has been quoted as saying that, “Universal health care will ruin our health care in America,” maxed out on his campaign contributions to Ross in 2007, the year of the sale.

It’s depressing. Mike Ross is bought and paid for by the medical industry, his biggest donor, and he routinely gets more than 70% in the general, and there is no one challenging him in the primary.

Please, someone run. I’ll through in a few bucks, and list the person on my Act blue page.

[On edit]
Ross issued a non denial denial.

I May Not Be Fasting on Yom Kippur

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Because that pig felching junkie and drunk Glenn Beck has decided to announce that he wants to use September 28th this is a day of fasting and prayers for conservatives, and that is also the daytime portion of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.

My guess is that this a cunning plan for him to claim that “millions were fasting,” because we do that every year.

I have no health issues that would prevent me from fasting.

In fact, giving my gut a 25 hour rest is actually pretty good for me, settles everything down, but I think that there must be something in Halacha* that prohibits even the appearance of listening to that bigoted repugnant moran.

H/t Old Pinko.

*Jewish religious law

Economics Update (a Day Late)

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ABI Graph Pr0n H/t Calculated Risk

The index of leading economic indicators rose 0.6% in August, the 5th straight month, which implies very strongly that the recession ended in July or August.

I don’t really see this as a “recovery for the rest of us.” Even the most optimistic forecasters see a slow recovery in unemployment, and real-estate, which took us down in the first place, looks like it will do so again, this time on the commercial (CRE) side too.

We are seeing mortgage delinquencies hitting 7.58%, up from 7.32% in July and a new record, and AIA’s Architectural Billings Index fell in August, which indicates that future activity is trending down in 9-12 months.

Additionally, the YoY price of CRE fell 27%, and rents are down too, everywhere.

Rents are falling at near rates not seen in nearly a ¼ cedntury on some of the most prestigious streets, 5th and Madison Avenues in New York, the Champs-Elysees in Paris, London’s New Bond Street, and Causeway Bay in Hong Kong,

This is a real problem because the mortgages on these properties are typically 5 years, and if the owner is under water at the end of their loan, they default, because they cannot rollover into a new loan.

Unlike a home loan, the owner cannot just sit tight.

It appears that the currency and the energy markets are concerned about this too, with Oil falling on demand concerns, and the dollar rising as investors look to a safe haven.

Obama to Paterson: Drop Dead

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So, Barack Obama’s people have told New York Governor David Paterson that he should not run for reelection, and to put a cap on this, they have leaked this to the press.

New York State government is supremely dysfunctional, and one of the main reasons is because the Republicans managed to Gerrymander themselves into a state senate majority for a very long time, because everyone on both sides of the aisle were cool with it, so long as they were winners in the incumbent-protection racket redistricting process too.

Now that Republicans have weakened enough to lose their hold on the senate, and now that there are indications that the senate will likely stay lost to them in next few cycles, their former Joesph Bruno is under indictment, we have the spectacle of the what might be the most incompetent Governor in the nation insisting that he will run for reelection, which might very well place Republicans back in the Governor’s mansion when redistricting rolls around in 2012 or so.

Remember When I Said “First Comes the Denial”?

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Here, when I noted that the FHA was flat out denying that increased write-downs on loans would require a bailout?

My response was:

Next should come a statement of health, then a statement of robust health (or some synonym), and then comes the bailout.

Well, here we are, and the FHA is admitting that it will fall below the cash reserves required by legislation, but they are denying that it will require that they increase the fees that they charge on the loans, or that they get a bailout.

Instead they are planning to announce, “Several measures that should help the reserves rebound quickly.”

Yeah….Right, like that will work, though their decision to require future property valuations conform with the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC), will go a long way toward fixing what continues to be a broken system where realtors whipsaw the appraisers, as the FHA is pretty close to the only game in town right now.

H/t Calculated Risk.

FCC Head Calls for Net Neutrality

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FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has now explicitly called for net neutrality, known as the so-called “5th principle” of the Internet, and added a 6th principle, “that providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices,”* and so will be putting a notice of proposed

An interesting comment here is that the American Cable Association is saying that this should be extended to content. They specifically cite ESPN360’s policy of tying the service to ISPs, rather than individual subscribers, and using the rest of channels (ESPN, ESPN 2, etc) on cable (and fiber) to extract a per broadband subscriber fee.

I think that this is a perfectly valid point, and requiring the explicit unbundling of the Internet from the cable channels is, “at the expense of consumers on the one hand and other Web-based services and applications that might seek to compete against them.”

Not surprisingly, AT&T says that net neutrality and 4 (6, sir) 6 principles† should not be applied to wireless providers, but their argument is far weaker than for the cable/fiber optic providers, because the FCC already has extensive rights to regulate radio broadcasts and what are appropriate use of the public spectrum.

The Republicans are against net neutrality too, because they want to continue the policies that left the US in 20th place in broadband penetration, behind South Korea, Singapore, Netherlands, Denmark, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Australia, Finland, France, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Sweden, Estonia, and Belgium, and that’s by the bastardized standard of broadband that the FCC and the incumbents want to use to define “success.”

It appears that the ‘Phants are afraid that this could prevent them from getting campaign donations from the Telecommunications industry, “These new regulatory mandates and restrictions could stifle investment incentives.”

In any case, Nancy Pelosi appears to be 4 square in favor of the change, which means that nothing is going to happen in Congress to stop this, and even the possibility that the FCC’s rule making might actually become law.

*The 4 internet freedoms are, the ability to access content, run any non-network harming application applications, to attach devices to the network, and the freedom to allow competition through reacquiring that vendors provide complete service plan information.

†And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, “O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy.” And the Lord did grin and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats and large chu… [At this point, the friar is urged by Brother Maynard to “skip a bit, brother”]… And the Lord spake, saying, “First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceedest on to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.” Amen.‡

‡Yeah, like I’m going to ignore such a classic opportunity to invoke Monty Python.

They Can’t Do Any Worse Than the Banks

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Noted bond blogger Accrued Interest has penned an analysis where he says that, “Having the Govt. Mandate Pay Packages is a Stomach Churning Concept.”

While I agree that the idea of the government determining pay rates in a private industry is worrisome, there are a couple of important things to note:

  • It ain’t a private industry, it’s owned by the government. With the amount of money that the taxpayer has shoveled into the banking system, both through direct payments, Federal Reserve facilities, and the bailout of AIG, these institutions are as free market as the Tennessee Valley Authority.
  • How could the government do any worse than the banks?

Yes, there is that first sphincter tightening moment when you read the lede, but then you realize that the alternative is handing those chimpanzees in the banking industry an M-2 .50 caliber machine gun and a couple of belts of ammunition.

BTW, I would note that having a government office mandade pay is not my preferred solution.

My preferred solution would be through the tax code, because the government collects taxes pretty well, just ask Al Capone, along with some changes in shareholder rights laws:

  • Higher marginal tax rate, which makes the mega payouts less valuable
    • I’d like this additional money to go to an insurance fund to cover future bubbles, but if someone believes that this would happen, they have the political acumen of Little Orphan Annie.
  • Eliminate the deductiblity of wages above those of the President, plus an equal bonus
    • This also has the effect of taxing overpaying for prima donna athletes, which is a plus in my book
  • It is currently illegal for shareholders to hold binding votes on executive remuneration. Make it legal for shareholders to do so if they choose. I’d use the above Presidential wage line as a limit, since having shareholders voting on the salary of Willie the mail boy is nuts.
    • Note that I am not requiring requiring a binding shareholder vote, just allowing it.
  • I would also add a Tobin Tax on financial transactions on the order of ¼% on all financial transactions, which would serve to damp down some of the more destructive speculation and the massive front-running masquerading as “high frequency trading”.
    • I’d like to see this go to the above mentioned insurance fund, but the Little Orphan Annie comment still applies.

Note that, except for eliminating a specific prohibition on shareholder’s rights, these are all tax changes, and their administration, though not the politics of their being enacted, are simple and straightforward.

Deep Thought: L’Shana Tova Edition

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Received the following eCard from my brother Stephen:

[on edit]
When I shared the pic with folks on the Stellar Parthenon BBs, I got some interesting questions:

JR noted that, “conspiracy can expand to encompass anything you throw at it!”

This is correct, so our conspiracy encompasses Jews….

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims….

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards…..

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards and communists…..

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards and communists and Nazis…..

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards and communists and Nazis and communists…..

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards and communists and Nazis and communists and Black nationalists…..

Our conspiracy encompasses Jews and Muslims and space lizards and communists and Nazis and communists and Black nationalists and racists…..

…… What does this remind me of?

Went to a Funeral

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I went to MSgt Wade’s funeral this afternoon.

Wade led a life in which he made many friends, and helped a lot of people, and made even more people laugh. As his son noted, in the most positive way possible, he was a “goofy bastard,” and a lot of that was because of his sense of deep abiding honesty.

He was a military Chinese linguist, and among other things, lobbied the chain of command or immersion training to be a part of military foreign language training. (Which it now is)

He is also the one who told me that the name I gave one of my cats, Tudza, not only meant “Rabbit,” but was also Chinese slang for gay, which might explain why my fixed since age one cat has a serious catnip problem. (Not really, if cats cared about their names, they would come when called).

One thing that I still have a problem with in non-Jewish funerals is the open casket bit.

I’ve been to about a dozen funerals, with about ¾ being Jewish, and hence closed casket, and I still don’t get the open casket funeral. It gives me the serious willies.