Month: September 2009

House Passes the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA)

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It passed on a 253-171 vote.

The bill ends the subsidies that the federal government provides to for profit institutions to make student loans, and has that same federal government make the loans.

As Gail Collins notes:

It would simplify the federally guaranteed loan system, save an estimated $87 billion over 10 years and use that money to increase aid to low-income students, improve community colleges and raise standards for early childhood education.

Let us stop here and recall how the current loan system works:

  1. Federal government provides private banks with capital.
  2. Federal government pays private banks a subsidy to lend that capital to students.
  3. Federal government guarantees said loans so the banks don’t have any risk.

And now, the proposed reform:

  1. The federal government makes the loans.

Wow. You really do wonder why nobody came up with this idea before.

If you need to know what is wrong with the Republicans, you need go no further than the idea that the Federal government should use taxpayer money to prop up big executive paychecks.

H/t Steve Benen.

Adventures in Wankitude

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The latest spin on the attendance at the “912” demonstration from the wingnuts, which implies that they thought that the attendance was anemic, was that the Washington DC Metro was simply unprepared for accommodating “massive” influx of passengers.

You know, less than 80,000 riders on a system that accommodates over 900,000 riders a day is not a big surge.

More telling, however, is that one of the loudest voices complaining about the quality of service is Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX-8), who voted against additional funding to the DC Metro earlier this year.

Votes against funding the Metro, then complains that it lacks adequate resources.

[on edit]
Yes, the Republicans are literally demanding that Barack Obama make the trains run on time.

Sanity Hits Missile Defense Plans

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Click Pictures for full size images
Tehran to DC


Masshad to Washington, DC


Masshad to San Francisco


Masshad to Rome


Masshad to Madrid


Masshad to Istambul


Masshad to Athens


Masshad to Chicago

Obama has canceled plans for missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Basically, they determined that the threat is not there, and the Russians find it provocative, so they are dropping it.

The Russian response is positive, if somewhat muted, probably because they have been aware that the signals that Obama has sent on this issue for some time, and do now want to stir the pot.

Notably, they mention cost a number of times in their official statement.

I think that this is a combination of a number of things:

  • Recognition that there were no real benefits to the system beyond playing to the right wing in Eastern Europe, and to upset the Russians, because it was thought that a hostile Russia would play well for Republicans in domestic politics.
  • The fact that there are technologies that allow for non-permanent installations to serve the same purpose, most notably THAAD and a potentially larger derivative, and various flavor of interceptors based on the Navy Standard, which won’t have the effect of leaving Turkey, Italy and Spain, as shown in my analysis from earlier this year.

In the case of a diplomatic crisis, you can have a THAAD or a ground based Standard interceptor battery in place in less than 72 hours in northeast Europe, and have an Aegis destroyer off deployed near Cyprus, or possibly in the Black sea, in order to protect the southern tier of NATO in less time than that.

This is a remarkably sensible and sane decision, and it appears that SecDef Gates is fully behind this, so I expect Republicans to start screaming “Munich
if they haven’t already.

I think that we will see more support from the Russians on a number of issues as a result.

Economics Update

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Home Builder Confidence

Industrial Production Utilization

Well, we got the inflation numbers in, the CPI rose 0.4% in August and fell 1.5% year over year.

I’m not sure whether to call this a sign of recovery (mild inflation) or of further problems (deflation).

I’d be tempted to go with the former, as both builder confidence and industrial production capacity utilization increased this past month (see pics), but that is from horribly low levels, and objectively, the levels are still horrible.

With UK unemployment hitting the highest level since 1996, would appear to cut the on the down side.

Mortgage applications fell last week, though some of that may come from the 4 day week because of labor day, and they are still well above the trough, though one wonders how long that will last once the tax credit for first time home buyers expires. (More on that later)

In energy, oil rose above $72/bbl on falling inventories.

Currency is getting interesting though, with the dollar falling to a 1 year low, largely on increases in optimism on the economy, but gold hit the highest level since March, 2008 $1,017.65/oz (Troy), and gold generally rises in times of pessimism and uncertainty?

The Baucus Bill is too Lame for Ezra Klein

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If you haven’t followed Ezra Klein, he got hired as a blogger by the Washington Post, and since then, he’s done his level best to show that he’s one of the Beltway Kule Kidz, repeatedly posting about how it’s only those DFH’s* who care about the public option.†

Well, after all this time, Mr. Klein finally looks at the product of his best bud Max Baucus, and even he sees that it is completely inadequate:

  • The coops are divided up state by state.
  • They cannot cooperate for, or write policies for, large companies.
  • They have to bargain with providers individually, so they cannot set payment standards.

What’s more, for all of his show of bipartisanship, he has failed to secure the support of a single Republican.

Can we run a primary against him, please?

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies
†FWIW, they aren’t DFH’s, I am. I don’t just want a public option, or single payer, I want a National Health Service (NHS), because I think that the system is too broken to allow for any potential point of entry for the health insurers.

About Bloody Time!!!!

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If you own a licensed version of MicroFlaccid’s Windows operating system, you have no doubt encountered the nagware program on Windows Genuine Advantage, which serves no purpose but to prevent unauthorized copies of the operating from being installed.

It should be noted that it also frequently locks people out with proper licenses, after they do things like replace a motherboard of a hard drive, and the installation of the upgrade is deceptive, saying that it provides system security, when what it really provides Microsoft with is revenue protection.

Well now, after discovering that the software phones home, a lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft as a purveyor of spyware:

A US lawsuit has alleged that Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), Microsoft’s controversial anti-piracy software, is little better than spyware.

A lawsuit (which seeks class-action status) filed in Washington district court last week also cries foul over false advertising as well as allegations of privacy law violations, Electronista reports. More specifically, the suit alleges that the XP version of WGA was offered to users as a security update rather than as an anti-counterfeiting technology.

WGA phones home to Microsoft daily with IP address and other information on users. The latest lawsuit, like others against WGA before it, takes exception to this behaviour.

The case here is pretty easy to understand, so let’s look at what the program is and does, and compare it to spyware:

What WGA Does Is it Spyware
Does it install on your system without notifying you of what it does? Yes, it calls itself a security upgrade 
                               
Does it contact the “mother-ship” regularly and without your approval? Yes, it does.   
  
                                                            
Does the Removal of the program require extraordinary measures? Yes, the only removal mechanism is reformat and reinstall the system
Does the program have interfere with the system function? Is this intentional? Yes
Yes
 

Dude, you’ve got spyware!

Atrios Nails It

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On the slump in people using airlines:

Obviously the recession has much to do with it, but I do wish it would occur to our great captains of the airline industry that one reason people are flying less is that it the experience has become so incredibly sh$#@y.

Though it is not just the airlines who ascribe to the theory that they must make their product as miserable as is possible for the consumer in order to satisfy Wall Street.

Economics Update

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Retail Sales Chart Pr0n Courtesy of Calculated Risk

Well, Helicopter Ben Bernanke is now saying that, “recession is very likely over at this point,” in a speech at the Brookings Institution.”

This statement, along with the news that retail sales rose 2.7% in August, largely as a result of the Cash for Clunkers program, which actually had a lot more stimulative effect that I would have believed.

What’s more, since the engines of the “clunkers” are destroyed, by pouring abrasive in the motor oil, it means that these cars are gone, as opposed to working their way down the food chain in the used market.

We also have the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s general economic index rising to 18.9, up from 12.1 in August, which gives us two straight months with the index above 0, meaning expansion.

German investor confidence has hit a 3-year high.

So, we have a passle of good news here.

That being said, we are still seeing easing by the central banks, with the Bank of England looking at cutting its rate on bank reserves, the rate that banks are paid to keep their reserves at the BoE, which will make lending a more attractive option for the banks.

We have seen the dollar fall, and the price of oil rise.

House Votes Resolution of Disapproval Rep. Joe Wilson

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7 Republicans crossed lines to vote for it, 12 Dems crossed party lines to vote against it, and 5 Dems abstained.

I am of two minds about the vote.

What he did was clearly a violation of the rules of courtesy for the House of Representatives, and I understand why they felt the need to make sure that there were consequences.

That being said, I think that Congressional courtesy is overrated, and going with British style heckling, and a couple of good fist fights on the floor, might shake up that staid institution.

Is the Daily Telegraph for Real?

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The Daily Telegraph (UK) wringing its hands over a worrisome drop in the money supply, with bank loans falling at a 14% annual rate, and that M3 is falling at a 5% annual rate.

Anyone know the reliability of the Telegraph, because I’m a bit dubious of this assessment, because the Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006., see the graph pr0n courtesy of Shadowstats.com.

The estimated figure looks like a significant drop off in M3, or at least the folks at Shadowstats best estimate of M3, but M2 is stable, and M1 is through the roof, so I’m not sure if all this gloom and doom reporting is warranted.

British financial journalism tends to be a bit more alarmist than that of the US, particularly in The Grauniad*, so I’m wondering how real this is.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

Oh My God!

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KFC’s Double Down Sandwich:

Contents:

  • 1 fried chicken patty
  • 2 slices of cheese
  • 2 slices of bacon
  • Yet another fried chicken patty.

Yep, the fried chicken fillets are in place of the bread, which means, I guess, that it is cool for Atkins folks.

According to the KFC PR flaks, the nutritive…..Value? Is as follows:

  • Calories: 590
  • Calories from fat: 280
  • Total fat: 31g
  • Saturated fat: 10g
  • Trans fat: 0g
  • Cholesterol: 190mg

Great googly moogly. If I ever get one, I will have to wash it down with a can of Jolt Cola.