The House Dems are now trying to call the public option Medicare Part E, as in “Medicare for Everyone”.
They should have done it months ago, and they won’t be able to make it stick, but it’s worth a try.
Year: 2009
ouch
Russian Woman Gives Birth to Giant Baby:
Russian woman, Svetlana Tagantseva, 28, a resident of the city of Samara, gave birth to a very large baby. The newborn, who looks like a six-month-old boy, weighs 6.75 kilos (15 lbs). The baby boy is 62 cm [24 ½ in (!)]tall.
Doctors of a local maternity hospital say that they have never seen such a large newborn in their entire life.
Svetlana was last seen brandishing a hammer and anvil and mumbling about her husband’s genitals.
Yet More Fed Ass Covering
Gee, I guess that they aren’t done with trying to pretend that they care about the ordinary folks, because the Federal Reserve has now issued pay guidelines for banks, allegedly in an attempt to reduce risk.
I’ve had multipule posts about the Fed doing this so that they can keep or expand their regulatory purview, including that essay that I sent to the WaPo, and they just keep doing it.
Well, at least it makes my essay that much more timely.
Accountability on Wall Street, My Ass!!!
Have you heard the latest? John Meriwether is setting up a new hedge fund.
Just who is John Meriwether, you ask?
Why he is a noted hedge fund manager, he:
- Established Long term Capital Management
- Which imploded in 1999, threatening to take down the entire financial system, until Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan used the Federal Reserve to bail his ass out.
- Established JWM Partners.
- Which he closed 3 months ago after losing 44% of his investors’ money.
So, after all that, he’s STILL in line to get to play with billions of dollars of other people’s money, and skim 2% of the principal, and 20% of any profits (HAH!!!) that he might earn.
Will no one rid us of these parasites?
I’m not suggesting murder, but I am saying that if I was on a jury, I would vote to acquit.
Congress Passes Limits on Military Aid to Pakistan
Basically, after the clusterf%$# that was support for Pervez Musharraf and His Evil Minions™ by George W. Bush and His Evil Minions™, where military aid to Pakistan went to parts unknown, Congress has placed restrictions on military aid to ensure that it will go to fighting the Taliban and al Qaeda, and not to building up the military for a war with India…And yes, maybe it will reduce graft a bit too:
Military payments to Pakistan must be in the interests of U.S. national security and mustn’t “affect the balance of power in the region,” according to a provision attached to the defense authorization bill passed yesterday by the Senate.
The restriction comes as the Pakistani army continues its biggest offensive against militants in the northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan, where 28,000 soldiers have been deployed to fight guerrillas blamed for 80 percent of terrorist attacks in the country.
It’s about fracking time that we made it clear to Pakistan that we would not be supporting another useless and bloody war with India.
Economics Update
Click for full size
Unemployment Chart Pr0n Courtesy Calculated Risk
Adjusted vs. Nonadjusted Claims Courtesy of J. Bradford DeLong
10 Year SA vs NSA, H/t The Reconstruction
It’s what Atrios calls “New Jobless Day,” and initial claims rose by 11K to a seasonally adjusted 531,000, but the 4-week moving average, which I consider to be a better metric, was basically flat, falling by 750 to 532,250, and continuing claims fell 98K to 5.92 million.
BTW, look at the graphs of the seasonally adjusted vs the non-seasonally adjusted numbers on the right.
I’m not sure how well the adjustments work in the current crisis, but it does smooth out the numbers somewhat, but you can clearly see some artifacts, January 2009, of the adjustments.
It’s even clearer in the bottom graph which goes back 10 years: Seasonal adjustment generally works, except when it doesn’t.
There is a potential cloud on the horizon from China, where authorities are starting to talk about reducing their economic stimulus package because of inflation concerns.
There is a possibility that a reduction in stimulus may have an oversize effect, particularly since official Chinese economic numbers are pretty Mickey Mouse.
If this is the case, it might put a further crimp in world trade.
In any case, the Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose for the 6th straight month in September.
Calculated Risk: Apartment Rents “Plunge” in the West: also means that house prices have to fall to get back in line with rent to own ratios
In any case, the unemployment numbers drove oil prices down slightly, to $81.19/bbl, and the dollar strengthened slightly vs the Euro and yen.
Now With Whale Penis Leather Seats
Click for full size
Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition
Just when you think that the world cannot get more crassly commercial, we are told that a Russian armored car manufacturer has created the Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition, which has:
- Whale-penis leather upholstery.
- Gold Plated bulletproof windows.
- A Tungsten exhaust system.
- Diamond and ruby encrusted gauges.
As well as a Kevlar skin, because, if it’s an armored car, you want a Kevlar skin.
Great googly moogly.
H/t Marginal Revolution.
Ich bin ein Berliner*
Rich Germans start campaign for higher taxes
*Yes, I know, this is bad German.
Too True
H/t The Big Picture
Economics Update
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Unemployment by State, h/t Calculated Risk
Architectural Billings Index, h/t Calculated Risk
Permanent Layoffs, h/t macroblog, which led Calculated risk to note that that it’s not a jobless recovery, it’s a “job-loss” recovery
The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, a collection of “anecdotal” data (it’s really more than “anecdotal”, but you know economists) about the economy, was released today, and it shows that the economy is stabilizing, with that data showing either flat, or slight upticks, in economic activity.
We also got the state by state unemployment report for September, and it is ugly. (see bottom pic)
In real estate, mortgage applications fell sharply on higher rates, and the Architectural Billings Index rose, but remained below 50, indicating further contraction in nonresidential construction
The news in the Far East was pretty good though, with the decline in Japanese exports slowing to a 10-month best, and China’s GDP growing by 8.9% year over year, though Chinese statistics are always somewhat suspect.
In energy, oil rose to a 1-year high, $81.37/bbl, and the dollar weakened to a 14 month low, hitting $1.5014:€1.0000, so the buck and a half barrier is broken again.
It’s Away!!!!!
Click for full size
I really look way too much like this Starwars dude
Yes, I know it was Red 9 who said that, but I look more like the fat pilot
Did you know that the Washington Post is having a, “America’s Next Great Pundit,” contest?
Well, I’ve heard of it, basically, after submitting an article, and going through a series of “run-offs” with other winners, you get a 13 article gig for the Post online at $200 an article.
You are supposed to start with an essay of less than 400 words and a bio/sales pitch of less than 100 words.
After one abortive attempt (it was too much about me, and I do not write well about me), I ended up revisiting some of my posts on recent Federal Reserve ass covering on consumer protection, where the Fed discovers that, in order to avoid getting boned in the battle between regulators in the new banking system, they need to pretend that they care about consumer protection.
You know, it’s tough to imagine the Washington Post OP/ED hiring me, but they could do worse, by picking….Hmmmm…..I’ll get back to you on that.
In any case, I can’t publish this essay here, at least not until I get the news about whether it has been rejected or not, because the contest requires that, “I certify that I have perpetrated no fraud or deception in connection with my entry, that my Opinion Essay and my Paragraph above are my original work (created solely by me solely for participating in the Contest), and that neither my Opinion Essay nor my Paragraph have been published previously.“
This is subject matter that I have written about before, but it is a completely new essay, and until the folks at WaPo tell me, “Sorry Charlie,” I can’t publish it here.
Then again, my regular reader(s) have already read most of the statements and the thesis, only spread around about a dozen short posts, with hyperlinks.
Which is true, I haven’t
Wanker of the Day
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.
Boone, speaking to the newly formed Congressional Natural Gas Caucus, complained that the Iraqi government has awarded contracts to foreign companies, particularly Chinese firms, to develop Iraq’s vast reserves while American companies have mostly been shut out.
“They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world … We’re entitled to it,” Pickens said of Iraq’s oil. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars.”
Because the Iraqis asked us to invade, create a civil war, and set off a chain of events that killed somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 of them, all while driving another million of so out of the country.
I’m not sure what it is about the oil bidness, but it does appear that they attract more than their share of sociopaths: T. Boone Pickens, Dick Cheney, John D. Rockefeller, the bin Laden clan, the royal families of the UAE and Kuwait, and (of course) the House of Saud, just to name a few.
Thought of the Day
Potential Deal on Iranian Nuclear Material
It looks like they will ship most of it to Russia, where it will be further processed, and shipped back to Iran for their reactors.
It’s not a done deal, but it’s a nearly done deal.
Change I Don’t Believe In
So, it now appears that the Obama administration is promising to restrict pay for senior executives at the big banks that got TARP bucks:
Responding to the growing furor over the paychecks of executives at companies that received billions of dollars in federal bailouts, the Obama administration will order the companies that received the most aid to deeply slash the compensation to their highest paid executives, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.
Under the plan, which will be announced in the next few days by the Treasury Department, the seven companies that received the most assistance will have to cut the cash payouts to their 25 best-paid executives by an average of about 90 percent from last year. For many of the executives, the cash they would have received will be replaced by stock that they will be restricted from selling immediately.
The devil is in the details, and I simply believe this to be political theater.
There will be loopholes large enough to drive a truck load of cash through. I do not know what they are, but I believe this to be the case.
Barack Obama and Geithner/Summers have been steadfast in their continued support of Wall Street fat cats, and I do not expect this to change.
Why I Love Al Franken*
He demolishes a wingnut “expert” on healthcare from the Manhattan Institute.
H/T Blue Texan at Firedoglake.
*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.
Hoocoodanode?
So it turns out that the industry gave us the phony property assessment to qualify for home mortgages is low fraudulently employing the tax credit for first-time home buyers:
The Internal Revenue Service is examining more than 100,000 suspicious claims for the first-time home-buyer tax break, another sign of potential trouble for the soon-to-expire program.
I am gobsmacked that realtors and mortgage brokers might game the system.
Deep Thought
I was talking with Sharon* about her special education consulting and advocacy business today, and told her about some friends of mine who raise Morgan horses, who would front load purchases before a given year, and then end load purchases after the end of the year, so as to create a profit every 5 years or so, because otherwise the IRS would call it a hobby, and would not allow them to deduct expenses from other income.
Then I told her that this was completely different from her business.
Then I thought about it, and told her it was completely the same as her business: Both people have to shovel loads of horsesh$#, only hers comes from school administrators.
BTW, if you kid has unmet special education needs, you want to contact her, she’s a pit bull, Or maybe a Tazmanian Devil, for her clients…..
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Damn.
My daughter’s purse, which had her inhaler and phone, was stolen at school.
We’ve filed a police report.
Josh Marshall Wonders
Why Senator David Vitter is the only politician in Louisiana of either party who is unwilling to condemn the actions of Keith Bardwell, Justice of the Peace for Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana, who refused to marry an interracial couple.
It’s because he’s a bigot.
This has been another episode of simple answers to simple questions.