Year: 2009

My Congratulations to Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader McConnell, and President Palin

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You know, we all thought that we elected FDR or JFK in 2008, but it appears that we elected Herbert Hoover instead:

This recession has taught us that we can’t return to a situation where America’s economic growth is fueled by consumers who take on more and more debt. In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control. We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations – exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world.

(emphasis mine)

Unemployment is, 10.2%, 17½% if you use U6, which the metric that most closely matches the numbers used to arrive at the 24.9% level during the Great Depression, and he thinks that it’s time to cut the deficit.

It’s the wrong prescription, and notwithstanding polls, people don’t vote on the deficit, they vote on the economy, and except for little Timmy Geithner’s friends in wall street, the economy has consistently gotten worse, and it will continue to get worse as Obama plays to Wall street, and not Main Street.

H/t the artist formerly known as Armando

New F-35 Maneuver : The Death Spiral

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Compare and Contrast

Well, we have yet another report that the F-35 well over budget and behind schedule:

Reports prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency for Defense Department officials show that Lockheed and other contractors are months late on deliveries of test airplanes and components for future production aircraft.

The program is even farther behind on testing, and the reports say Lockheed could exhaust its development budget within a year.

Problems cited in the documents, obtained by the Star-Telegram under the Freedom of Information Act, support a recent Pentagon assessment that F-35 development will require two more years and billions of additional dollars.

That’s not the death spiral part. The death spiral part is that many of the partners are looking at deferring or canceling purchases on the basis of the schedule slips and price increases:

In a long-awaited decision, cabinet’s national security committee was due to sign off on the $16 billion purchase before Christmas.

But defence budget pressures and Defence Department concerns about Australia becoming the lead foreign customer for the initial production models of the F-35 fighter are expected to force a postponement until the new year of a government green light for the acquisition.

As the budget numbers come out, you will see reductions or orders, which will drive unit price up, which will lead to reductions of orders, rinse, lather, repeat.

Pictures: Kliper Space Module

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Models at the Paris Airshow


With an associated “space tug”


Escape tower system


Orbital module separation


Full size mockup


Lifting body configuration


Configuration:
1-Reentry capsule; 2-Docking section; 3-Docking port; 4-Service module

Mat Rodina, aka Stanislav Mishin, generally posts on issues of Russian diplomacy and economics, with a generally nationalist bent.

I find it a good read, because I think that helps one understand some of the Russian concerns out there, though I frequently disagree.

Well, this Tuesday, he went looked at space technology, and posted about eh Kliper spacecraft, which has been proposed to replace the Soyuz. (see also the wiki)

Given the experience of the space shuttle, where the juxtaposition of solid boosters and a cryogenic fuel tank in parallel to the vehicle have led to disaster, the fact that the configuration sits atop, as opposed to astride, the tankage, much like the Dyna-Soar concept is probably a good thing.

On the other hand, the fact that it also has a cargo capacity of roughly 1000 kg is to my mind a mistake. The shuttle showed that mixing manned and payload functions in a single launch is uneconomical.

It’s propulsion includes a service module which is not returned from orbit, much like the current Soyuz or the Apollo capsules.

The Kliper has had a number of different concepts over the years, winged, lifting body, and something called a “hybrid version”, according to Buran-Energia.

Pictures are from the Wiki, or Buran-Energia.

Update on the Fed Audit

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Alan Grayson on the Bill

On Tuesday, we were getting reports from there was a conspiracy afoot to emasculate the bill in the dead of night, using an amendment put forward by Representative Mel Watt (D-NC) wherein the GAO could “audit” the Fed, but could not actually get detailed information. It actually made the Federal Reserve less transparent.

Yves Smith rather colorfully, and very accurately described the amendment as, “Tantamount to saying you are permitted to operate a strip club as long as the patrons are prohibited from looking at un or underclad bodies.” (heh)

What followed was a bit of theater, where the opponents of the audit, rolled out economists who argued that the audit proposal was destructive, but neglected to mention their own financial ties to the Federal Reserve:

But far from a broad cross-section, the “prominent economists” lobbying on behalf of the Watt bill are in fact deeply involved with the Federal Reserve. Seven of the eight are either currently on the Fed’s payroll or have been in the past.

The Fed connections are not outlined in the letter sent around to committee members on Wednesday, but are publicly discernible through a review of their resumes, which are all posted online.

It should also be noted that the publishing staff of almost every significant economic academic journal has similar conflicts of interest with regard to the Federal reserve.

Well, despite the best efforts of the Federal Reserve, and Barney Frank, and Mel Watt, the Paul/Grayson audit bill was passed by the House Finance Committee by a vote of 43-26, 15 Dems voted for it, in addition to all the Republicans.

Hopefully, this will progress further, but my guess is that the knives will be coming out on this.

Major props to Ryan Grim of HuffPo, he’s the author of the HuffPo links here, who has been on this like white on Rice.

Bye-Bye Ukraine

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Both Sweden and Finland signed on to the new northern natural gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, meaning that in 2012, Ukraine will no longer be the only way for Russian gas to make it to Europe.

This means that gas transit fees to the Ukraine, and the price of natural gas sold to the Ukraine, as well as the gas that is “lost in transmission” (stolen) are all likely to decrease.

In the short term, it means that the Russians want to make sure not to honk off anyone with short term gas disruptions, hence the recent agreement between the two government to waive penalties for Ukraine buying less gas than agreed to in their contract, because they don’t need to when they are an IMF economic disaster zone.

I think that the new pipeline may be why the Azeris are talking about selling their gas to Asia, particularly the Chinese, rather than Europe right now too.

They realize that the Ukrainian pipeline is likely decreasing utility in the future, and they can hook into the Russian system in fairly quickly once the northern pipeline is completed, so having the option to selling to Asian markets is a plus.

More Ass Covering by the Fed

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Once again, the Fed discovers consumers in order to forestall an audit, and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency taking over their purview.

This time, the Fed is going after fees on gift cards.

Seriously, is there anyone with two brain cells to rub together who does not understand that the Federal Reserve was hostile to the idea of actually enforcing consumer protections until Congress started about auditing it and taking away some of its enforcement power.

Blue Dog Walking

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Rep. Allen Boyd (FL-02), a prominent Blue Dog who voted against the Stimulus and the Healthcare Bill, is trailing state Senate Minority Leader Al Lawson in the primary, with Lawson leading 35%-31%.

Understand that the rule of thumb is that undecideds currently break about 2:1 for the challenger, and Boyd knows this, so he is already running ads in the district.

To be fair, this is not a Blue Dog in a solidly Democratic district, McCain got 54%, but it’s been a Democratic seat for decades (there was a guy who switched mid-term, and he got defeated the next election), and the congressional seat went Democratic by over 20 points.

I think that the district, and the nation, can be better served by someone less inclined to be reflexively right wing.

Of Course It’s Rahm

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I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

The House Hispanic Caucus is blaming Rahm Emanuel for the efforts to completely exclude illegal aliens from the health care system.

While I understand the argument that illegals should not get taxpayer money, to the degree that they participate in the plan, it lowers the cost for the rest of us, so this is literally cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

Rahm Emanuel, and the Obama White House, are shocked (see pic), shocked, to find that there are people accusing them of race baiting on this bill.

Well, it’s not surprising, Emanuel has been demagoguing the immigration issue, with the help of his DINO friend, and clay headed quarterback Heath Shuler for years.

It took a revolt of the House Hispanic Caucus to stop him last time.

Rahm Emanuel’s modus operandi has always been to sh%$ on Democratic core constituencies wherever possible, and this has Rahm’s fingerprints all over it.

What’s more, looking at a time-line of his career, it’s pretty clear that if Rahm wants it, it’s bad for the Democrats.

Wrong!

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Nancy Pelosi is now saying that any financial transaction tax must be internationally agreed on:

Any tax imposed on financial transactions would have to take effect internationally to keep Wall Street jobs and related business from moving overseas, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday.

“It would have to be an international rule, not just a U.S. rule,” Pelosi said at a news conference. “We couldn’t do it alone, we’d have to do it as an international initiative.”

This is wrong on a number of levels:

  • There is already such a tax in the UK, and it has been there for years, and London’s “The Street” still rivals Wall Street.
  • The US had a tax on stock purchases well into the 1960s, and it did not chase investors over seas.
  • The idea that much of the financial industry would go elsewhere is a bad thing is simply misguided. Above a certain proportion of GDP, it becomes a source of parasitic loss, and detracts from our economic well-being.
  • If we wait for international consensus, it will never happen.

I’m just saying.

Zimbabwe Update

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The big news is the political fight over a bill to reform the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which after much conflict, was finally passed by Parliament.

What likely led to this meeting of the minds was evidence that the incompetent and corrupt management of RBZ Director Gideon Gono was driving away potential donors and foreign investors.

That being said, I do not think that the RBZ bill was why China has signed an $8 billion investment deal.

In any case, Gono was last seen attempting to strong-arm banks into lending to expropriated farms, which is not surprising as the ZANU-PF is stepping up its farm seizures for corrupt bureaucrats program.

In any case, the unity government is holding cabinet meetings again, which is a good sign, I guess.

Of more significance is the fact that Botswana President Ian Khama is calling for new elections and explicitly blaming the ZANU-PF for the lack of progress.

It’s nice that someone involved the SADC “Enable Mugabe Program” is pushing back.

Additionally, we are starting to see protests in Europe against the SADC’s support of Mugabe: Zimbabwe Vigil has petitioned the EU to suspend all aid to members of the SADC, which is a start.

More significant, though may be the fact that PM Morgan Tsvangirai is to meet with Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, current chairman of the AU.

This is a positive development for a number of reasons:

  • Gadaffi won’t run like a scared kitten at Mugabe’s accusations of being a “neocolonialist stooge”, because, after all, Ronald Reagan tried to kill him, and he blew up Pan Am flight 103.
  • As head of the AU, he words have a lot of influence.
  • As an oil exporter, his dollars have a lot of influence.
  • Gadaffi is very interested in getting credibility on the world stage, and by taking on Mugabe aggressively, he gets that credibility with almost no risk involved.

So, after massive smuggling, murders by the authorities, and forced labor, the Kimberley Process decides against suspending Zimbabwe’s certification as a being not “conflict diamonds”, despite a
report from their own investigators saying that they should be suspended.

This reveals the Kimberly process a complete and utter joke, and on queue, once the threat of suspension is lifted, the New Reclamation Group Ltd. mining company sweeps in with a contract.

There is a promise by the Zimbabwe government not to export diamonds until measures are in place to prevent abuse, but I don’t trust this very much, if it comes from the Prime Minister’s office, then it means nothing, and if it comes from Mugabe, it’s a flat out lie.

Of note, The Rapaport Group and the RapNet Diamond Trading Network have announced that they are “implementing an immediate trading ban on all diamonds from Zimbabwe due to severe human rights violations in Marange,” and Leber Jeweler Inc. has announced the same.

Meanwhile, outside of the diamond trade, things continue apace, with Mugabe and the ZANU-PF planning to introduce a law which would require that foreign owned companies be majority black owned. Note: not even the majority locally owned, this is determined by the pigmentation of the equity holders.

ZANU-PF has become the party of Apartheid in Zimbabwe.

We also have continued use of the state security apparatus to intimidate the opposition, with the head of the national trade union being arrested on trumped up charges, as well as the increasingly bizarre trial of deputy agriculture minister-designate Roy Bennett.

What do we have on the case of Bennett, we have a judge who made statements at the trial of the chief witness against Bennett that indicate bias. This is important because this witness, Peter Hitschmann, has recanted his testimony and alleged that it was extracted by torture.

We also have the police presenting weapons that were not seized from Bennett’s house as evidence, and that the Defence is has a request to have the police log books on this matter made available to them, and the police, as well as the attorney general, are vociferously fighting this.

The Crazy Will Not End

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A 52% Of Republicans believe that ACORN stole the election for Barack Obama in 2008.

This is not going to end well. These people are even stronger than the folks who claimed that Ross Perot stole the election for Clinton in 1992.

One needs to understand the difference between the opposition and the enemy, and understand that you cannot negotiate with the former.

Unfortunately, you can count the former in without running out of fingers.