About iPhone users, or so it seems.
Year: 2009
More Support for Pelosi’s Version of the Non-Briefing
Both former Florida Senator Bob Graham, and current Senator Jay “Spine of Jello” Rockefeller have categorically stated that they were not briefed on waterboarding at the time that the CIA docs implied that they were brief on the procedure.
Graham is significant, because of his obsessive record keeping. This guy has been diarying his meals for something like 20 years, so he is not the sort to “forget” what happened at a specific date and time.
Pat Roberts’ (R-KS) silence on this is deafening.
Impeach Timothy Geithner Today
When he was asked about AIG’s bonus program when it became a scandal, Geithner simply lied about it:
As American International Group chief executive Edward M. Liddy returns to Washington to face Congress today, new details are emerging about how long federal officials were aware of the company’s recent bonus payments to its executives and of how inflammatory the payments could be.
Documents show that senior officials at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York received details about the bonuses more than five months before the firestorm erupted and were deeply engaged with AIG as well as outside lawyers, auditors and public relations firms about the potential controversy. But the New York Fed did not raise the alarm with the Obama administration until the end of February.
(emphasis mine)
The post does note that, “his [Geithner’s] name is not among those of senior New York Fed officials mentioned in the summaries of phone calls, correspondence and other documents obtained by The Washington Post,” but this makes him either a liar, willfully blind, or unconscionably incompetent.
It is crap like this which has led Edolphus Towns (D-NY-10) to call for supervision of AIG to be removed from the New York Bank of the Federal Reserve and moved to a government agency.
Right now these trustees answer to the NY Fed.
It makes sense. The Federal Reserve in general, and the New York Fed in particular, are textbook cases of “regulatory capture“, and what’s more, they are secretive, and opaque.
It does not help that the New York Fed is owned by the banks it is charged to regulate too.
As to AIG CEO Liddy’s testimony today that AIG would pay back the money in 5 years. That’s just a bald faced lie.
Another Obama Campaign Promise Bites the Dust
He is now seeking to block the release of photos of abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s the exact opposite of what he promised, and to do this he has to overrule the decision made last month by the Pentagon to turn over the photos to the ACLU.
It’s only a promise, after all.
5 of Miami 7 Found Guilty
You know, these were the losers who were promised money by an FBI informant to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, and despite the fact that they did nothing but try to extract money from the informant, the Jury convicted 5 of the remaining 6 defendants, one had been acquitted in an earlier trial.
I took 3 tries to get a conviction, there were two hung juries, and I still think that this whole case stinks.
ACLU Challenges Gene Patent
The ACLU is arguing that Myriad Genetics’ holding a patent on two genes associated with various forms of cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2, is not a legal use of the patent process.
I got some training in engineering schools on patents, and it was always made clear to us, by our non-lawyer professors, that a patent was for an invention, not a discovery, and it seems to me that these genes are the latter, not the former, but I’m an engineer, not a lawyer, dammit!*
Among other things, they are arguing not just that the patent should not have been granted, and I agree with that, because at its core IP is an infringement on every one’s rights in order to, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” as it says int he constitution, and it is clear that by patenting a gene, they are not doing this.
Additionally, the ACLU is saying that the way that Myriad is violating the first amendment:
As the A.C.L.U. explored the restrictions on competition that companies like Myriad had put in place — blocking alternatives to the patented tests, and even the practice of interpreting or comparing gene sequences that involved those genes — the restrictions started to look like not just a question of patent law, Mr. Hansen said, but of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech as well.
I’m not sure if that would fly, since, after all, IP has at its core the restrictions of the rights of everyone for a perceived public benefit.
As to the reason as to why the patent examiners approved it?
The decision to allow gene patents was controversial from the start; patents are normally not granted for products of nature or laws of nature. The companies successfully argued that they had done something that made the genes more than nature’s work: they had isolated and purified the DNA, and thus had patented something they had created — even though it corresponded to the sequence of an actual gene.
This is bullsh%$. They are arguing that they can patent a discovery, because it’s hard work.
Here’s hoping that they win, because the current patent regime in the US is hamstringing economic development and innovation in our society, which is the exact opposite of its intended purpose.
*I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!
Economics Update
With all this talk of green shoots, its worth noting that the evidence in the underlying economy does not really indicate much in the way of a recovery, which is why the decline in retail sales in April should come as no surprise.
That’s a big portion of the US economy right there, and what’s not is real estate, which is showing little in the way or recovery either, with foreclosures at a new record in April, though actual repossession of property fell, because the banks are worried about the costs of actually having to take care of the property when they finally assume ownership, along with changes in laws that have drawn out the process in many of the hardest hit states.
The number of foreclosures were up 1% over an already record March, and up 32% year over year.
We also saw a drop in mortgage applications as refinancing slowed with the increase in interest rates.
There is not a whole bunch of economic recovery in the Euro zone either, with industrial output falling more than 20% year over year.
We are seeing some good news on the credit front again though, because LIBOR hit a 2 month low, though in the real world, where it’s lending to real businesses, as opposed to banks, real interest rates, interest minus inflation, are at a 25 year high and it is curtailing all sorts of capital activity.
It also looks like BankUnited may be heading to a headline on Friday Night Bank failures, with a late filing with the SEC saying that they need to raise over $1 billion in capital, because, “the Board of Directors of the Bank entered into a Stipulation and Consent to Prompt Corrective Action Directive (the “PCA Agreements”) with the OTS.” (Office of Thrift Supervision).
In any case, the bad consumer spending figures pushed oil down on demand concerns, and pushed the dollar up as investors fled to safety.
An Unlikely Voice of Reason
Jesse “The Body” Ventura, on Larry King, of all places.
VENTURA: No, I live in Mexico now, Larry. So I do a lot of reading. I don’t watch much TV. This year’s reading, I covered Bush’s life. I covered Guantanamo and a few other subjects. And I’m very disturbed about it.
I’m bothered over Guantanamo because it seems we have created our own Hanoi Hilton. We can live with that? I have a problem. I will criticize President Obama on this level; it’s a good thing I’m not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.
KING: You were a Navy SEAL.
VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.
KING: What was it like?
VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
KING: Even though you know it’s not going to happen — even though before it, you know you’re not going to drown.
VENTURA: You don’t know it. If it’s — if it’s done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. You could do a whole bunch of stuff. If it’s it done wrong or — it’s torture, Larry. It’s torture.
Sorry Jesse, but our nation has a big deficit.
When Cheney is up for waterboarding, we are taking bids, starting at $1 million.
Norm Coleman Looking to Use Campaign Funds on His Criminal Defense
Because, you know, he took bribes from Nasser Kazeminy, and he’s raised a lot of money in his election contest.
He has applied to the FEC for permission to do this.
He’ll likely get it too, based on my understanding of the case law.
I don’t think that this will help, because he is as guilty as hell.
I am so (NOT) Shocked: Social Security and the Sky is Falling Edition
Reductions in employment have reduced receipts for Social Security, which has pushed up the theoretical insolvency date, to 2037, and of course, everyone is running like chickens with their heads cut off trying to figure out how to hand everything to the Wall Streeters who completely f$#@ed the nation as a result.
It is true that Medicare is in trouble, but Social security, not so much.
The Housing Market is Doomed
I know this as a certainty.
How do I know this?
Because Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan has declared that, “we are finally beginning to see the seeds of a bottoming” in the housing industry.
Since he is wrong on everything, I would suggest shorting home builders.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Pledge to NPR
There is a documentary out called Outrage about closeted gay politicians, and NPR did a review, and upper management rewrote it to specifically exclude the names to two politicians, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Senator Larry Craig, from the review, which so outraged the author that he removed his byline from it. (His story had been written with close consultation of his editor)
As Pam Spalding notes, “NPR has no business tossing out the “privacy” card when it couldn’t resist deeming John Edwards’s heterosexual tomcatting newsworthy, underscoring that there were legitimate political reasons for the reporting.”
If I weren’t not giving because of their vociferous opposition to low power local broadcasts, I would not give to them because they have been completely captured by the sensibilities of the “inside the Beltway” crowd.
The Election that Would Not Die
Well, Franken has putting a motion before the Minnesota Supreme Court to direct Governor Tim Pawlenty to certify the election.
This is to prevent him from sitting on the certification as Norm Coleman inevitably drags this through the federal courts, as he would be otherwise inclined to do, because it scores him brownie points for when he runs for President in 2012.
Suckers Rally
So, we have Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman saying that a rapid recovery is highly unlikely, and we have Andy Kessler, in the (web) pages of the Wall Street Journal noting the obvious, that, “You can have a jobless recovery but you can’t have a profitless one,” and saying that this sounds like a suckers rally.
One more bit of confirming data to support this is the fact that the main stream media, in the personage of ABC is writing stories saying that, “There is a growing belief among financial experts that the recession is over.”
It’s not just that these “financial experts” were generally the ones who were wrong about deregulation of the markets and the housing bubble. It’s that these “financial experts” are always wrong.
The cause of this recession is a rot at the core of our financial institutions, and I haven’t seen anyone chopping down trees to prevent “Wall Street Elm Disease” from spreading yet.
I’m not looking for a real turnaround until we start seeing “no end in sight” stories from these “financial experts,” so I call suckers rally.
Snake Oil?
So, Barack Obama has gotten the medical industry to promise $2 trillion in health care savings over the next 10 years, by limiting medical inflation to “only” 4.7% a year.
I think that it’s clear that the medical industry is lying, but I have no clue as to what Obama is up to, except perhaps that this is a preemptive strike to prevent the public option from being discussed…I’m not smart enough to figure out another reason.
Me, I’d bank on the fact that almost everyone hates their insurance company, and wage Jihad against them, but that is just me.
Maybe there is some sort of Obam jujitsu going on here, and I just don’t see it.
Charlie Crist to Run From Senate from Florida
This is not a surprise.
There are two questions here: Will the rabid right wingers shoot down his nomination, and will the whispers about his personal life get louder.
If he gets the nomination, he would be favored to win, though it’s likely going to be an off year for Republicans.
On The White House Correspondents Dinner
Really, I got nothing here.
That being said, Jon Stewart, and his crew at The Daily Show do.
Watch:
Economics Update
The US trade deficit rose in March, to 27.6 billion, on falling exports and the recent increases in oil prices.
Imports fell by $1.6 billion, but exports fell by $3 billion.
We will not be, as the Japanese did, exporting our way out of this trade deficit.
This is one reason why the American Express/CFO Research Services survey has 59% of CFOs seeing more layoffs.
Of course, the fact that nationwide, US home prices fell the most on record, 14% year over year, and the only markets where home sales are rising are where vultures are sweeping in to buy cheap foreclosure properties.
On the bright side, the National Federation of Independent Business’ monthly index of small business sentiment was up for the first time in 4 months.
It appears, however, that credit card company Advanta is not so optimistic. The company, which specializes in credit cards for small businesses, is shutting down its lending operations on June 10, after uncollectible debt exceeded 20%.
They are not shutting down, they are just shutting down all their credit lines, and just taking payments, which is awfully close to shutting down, so the credit cards just become so much plastic.
The deficit is not looking good either, with tax receipts so low that the federal government ran its first April deficit since 1983.
In energy, oil was up today, briefly breaking $60/bbl for the first time since November, before settling at $58.85/bbl.
This, along with banking changes and interest rate increases, is why the ruble is on a tear right now, and the US dollar fell to a 4 month low on comments by a number of experts that the recession is bottoming….Yeah….sure…
Economics Update
It appears that the Fed’s best efforts to revive the housing market through low interest rates may be reaching their limits as mortgage rates and long term bonds climb higher.
Additionally, it appears that the Obama administration is seriously looking at winding down and liquidating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the long term, which would generally push up mortgages issued after that point.
In the long run, I see this as a good thing. Home ownership as a goal in and of itself has driven much of the ills in our society whether it is the housing bubble, or the suburbanization of our society and out energy consumption levels,
In energy, oil fell on inventory growth, but that has not lowered retail gasoline prices, which are up 9% over the past 2 weeks.
In the mean time, the dollar and the Yen both rose, as the stock market decline pushed investors into safe havens.
Commander in Afghanistan Fired
This is odd, but General David McKiernan has been fired as commander in charge of the Afghan theater, and replaced by General Stanley McChrystal.
The claim is that McChrystal, with a special ops background, is better suited to the conflict, but this has unfolded very quickly.
Note that McChrystal is hip deep in the Pat Tillman friendly fire coverup, as well as allegations of torture in Iraq.
No clue as to what is going on here.