Month: January 2010

Saab Auto to Survive

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I think that the folks at GM have finally realized that they could either close down the company, pay the costs for that, and secure the undying enmity of a lot of potential future customers, or sell it to someone for a bag of magic beans.

In this case, “someone” is the Dutch sports car manufacturer, and the magic beans are $74 million in cash and $326 million in preferred shares, which, for a company that can manufacture about 100,000 cars a year, is a pittance.

I’ve always liked the cars, though I’ve never owned one, and I think that this is a positive.

Economics Update

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Well, the news has been pretty good today with the American Trucking Association Truck Tonnage Index rising in December, and the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rose sharply in January, while across both ponds, the UK GSP rose in the 4th quartter opf 2009, indicating an possible end to their recession, and Japanese exports rose for the first time since the Lehman collapse.

I will note that ex-consumer confidence, these could be temporary blips from the need to restock inventories.

In the old standards of oil and currency, oil fell, largely on concerns about a downgrade on Japanese sovereign debt, while the dollar was mixed, up vs the Euro and Pound, but down vs. the Yen, and I’m just confused about that.

Mostly, I think that the markets are holding their breath waiting for the Fed’s meeting this week to finish.

More College Republican Bull Sh%$

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Remember James O’Keefe, he dressed up like a pimp, and got those videos of ACORN helping him and his “Ho” buying a whore house.

I believe that at the time, I thought that I didn’t have much to add, and besides, College Republican guerrilla theater bullsh%$ just wasn’t particularly interest, so I limited my self to the bill of attainder that Congress passed.

Well, James O’Keefe has now taken College Republican antics straight to the felony level, by attempting to wiretap the office of Senator Mary Landrieu with three friends, Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan.

They pretended to be phone repair guys, and they tried to tap phones, so it appears to be a clear case of, “entering federal property under false pretenses with the intent of committing a felony,” which can get you 10 years, and if they have more evidence of tapping equipment, then the jail time can go to 20 years.

Oops! It’s all fun and games until someone puts an eye out, I guess.

The kicker on all this, Robert Flanagan is, “the son of William Flanagan, who is the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Louisiana.”

Any wonder what political discussions are like in the Flanagan house?

Do you wonder, just a little bit, if maybe Flanagan the elder might be inclined to make politically motivated prosecutions? Do you wonder even a little?

This is why the decision not to review the illegal political hirings at the DoJ was a bad idea.

It sounds hopey-changey to let bygones to be bygones, but what this means is that the legal toxic waste that are Bush DoJ hires remains on site.

Sent to My Senators, Re: Bernanke (Please Vote No)

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I sent them the following:

I am writing to ask you to vote against reappointing Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Additionally, I am requesting that you support a filibuster of his nomination.

While I believe that he is a very talented economist, I believe that his outlook, and his prior performance, make him unsuited for continued service in this position.

First, and most importantly, he has made it clear that he will not move on unemployment if it means moving away from a 2% inflation target by the Federal Reserve.

His statements saying that his goal was to preserve, “the anchoring of inflation expectations,” is simply dangerous and wrong in the midst of the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

By expressly stating that he will choose to ignore the 2nd mission of the Federal, the maintenance of full employment, he has shown himself to be ideologically unsuited to the post.

Given that unemployment is at 10% by the U-3 measure, or 17.3% by the more representative U-6 measure, and there is little if any indication that there will be significant improvement in the jobless rate this year, this is short sighted and destructive.

Additionally, his fierce opposition to reforms of the financial system, particularly his opposition to the Financial Consumer Protection Agency (FCPA) shows that he is out of touch with the need to protect consumers from predatory institutions marketing dishonest financial instruments.

His suggestion that the Federal Reserve would fulfill this role, when it had that role pre-crisis, and refused to act on credible evidence of fraud and deception, is simply nonsense.

This is further compounded by his position on transparency at the Federal Reserve, where he is clearly stonewalling every effort for investigators to understand the nature of the financial meltdown of 2008.

The unwillingness to come clean on the failures that might have happened at the Federal Reserve Board and the regional banks means that there will be no meaningful disclosure, and without disclosure, no lessons will be learned, and this cycle will be repeated, particularly given his record of being an enthusiastic cheerleader for the housing bubble, and the associated dodgy mortgage bubble, before they popped.

The primary argument for his reappointment is that if he is not reappointed, it will somehow shake the financial markets, and trigger another disaster.

This analysis assumes two things:

  1. That he has been thoroughly captured by Wall Street, and so the large investment banks are demanding that he kept to serve their interests, and not those of the people.
  2. That he is simply indispensable, and as Charles de Gaulle said, “The graveyards are full of indispensable men.”

If there are lessons to be learned from Alan Greenspan’s disastrous tenure, it is that the “Greenspan Put”, where the expectation of bailout created moral hazard that led to reckless behavior, and that the “Rock Star” Fed Chair is to be avoided at all cost.

I followed up with a phone call to both offices.

Economics Update (a Day Late)

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So, we now have some idea just how much the new home buyer tax credit artificially inflated the market, because existing home sales fell 16.7% from November to December.

Since existing home sales are recorded at closing, and in order to qualify for the tax credit, the sale had to close before the end of November, this (seasonally adjusted) number shows that just anemic residential real estate is.

In overseas central banks, the Bank of Japan has kept its benchmark rate at 0.1% (effectively 0%) as they continue to fight what is now a nearly 20 year long deflationary spiral.

In energy, oil was up slightly, while in currency, the US dollar fell slightly.

The Boys from Brazil

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Or maybe Crawford, TX, and Bush’s pig farm.

OK, so this picture is captioned, “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, also known as Joe the Plumber, right, appears with Arkansas Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Conrad Reynolds.”

Does Mr. Reynolds look familiar, as in Boys from Brazil familiar?

The Republicans are cloning George W. Bush.

Tekeli Li!!!! Tekeli Li!!!! Tekeli Li!!!!

shiver

H/t Jollyreaper at the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS for the catch.

Oh, For Pete’s Sake!!!!

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Well, I’m listening to Olbermann, and Barack Hoover, or maybe it’s Herbert Obama, I’m not sure which, is suggesting his latest bold initiative: A domestic spending freeze, which means that, with inflation, it’s a domestic spending cut.

So, is actually trying to screw up the economy and get a Republican House, Senate and White House in 2012?

Unemployment is still rising, and he’s so eager to pander to Republicans, who would hate him even if he were white, that he’s determined to play Herbert Hoover, and cut the budget in the middle of a recession.

I’m beginning to think that he’s actually Mitch McConnell’s evil twin.

[on edit]


Original Courtesy of Quentin Tarantino, with typography by mdaisey

This has been confirmed by the Washington Post, and Maddow had White House advisor Jared Bernstein on, he said that they won’t freez/cut everything, just the bad and wasteful stuff ………… During a recession……… With unemployment still climbing ……………

And they are going to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff because it works so f%$#ing well in Congress today.

Seriously, I have to evoke Samuel Jackson from pulp fiction again, because the idea that they will “only” cut the wasteful stuff projects the idea that they are trying to f%$# me like a bitch because they think that I am stupid.

Hell, it’s an insult to the intelligence of Sarah Palin.

Olbermann vs. Stewart

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Jon Stewart called out Keith Olbermann, complete with a Special Comment style rant, and to his credit, Keith Olbermann included the whole bit in his broadcast, and replied, “You’re right, I’ve been a little over the top lately………Sorry.“

I count it as manning up, though his one complaint, that he wants to be interviewed by Stewart, is completely legitimate. It would be a lot of fun.

(8:18)

What the Hell is it With South Carolina

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First they start the Civil War, then there is the entire Confederate flag thing, which is followed by the Governor who makes the phrase, “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” suspect, and now we have their Lieutenant Governor, and candidate for Governor calling for a eugenic program to exterminate poor people:

GREENVILLE – Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to “feeding stray animals.”

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better,” Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.

I know Southerners of all stripes, and whether they are young or old, or conservative or liberal, they are generally very offended by what they see as the insinuation that Southerners are somehow stupid as a people.

They are correct, of course, there are some stupid people in any group that you define.

That being said, electing Andre Bauer to any office, including dog catcher or head of the PTA, would tend to reinforce that unfortunate stereotype.

Tefillin of Mass Destruction

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Click for full size


You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes

—Deuteronomy 6:8

So a plane was diverted to Philadelphia on a New York to Kentucky flight because of concerns of the straps and boxes that a Jewish Teen was wearing as he prayed:

Jewish teen’s prayers spark airliner scare
Flight is diverted after religious item is mistaken for a bomb, police say

updated 9:18 a.m. ET, Fri., Jan. 22, 2010

PHILADELPHIA – A Jewish teenager trying to pray on a New York-to-Kentucky flight caused a scare Thursday when he pulled out a set of small boxes containing holy scrolls, leading the captain to divert the flight to Philadelphia, where the commuter plane was greeted by police, bomb-sniffing dogs and federal agents.

The 17-year-old on US Airways Express Flight 3079 was using tefillin, a set of small boxes containing biblical passages that are attached to leather straps, Philadelphia police Lt. Frank Vanore said.

You know, the guy wearing Tefillin is among the people least likely to be an Islamic bomber.

Now This is An Interesting Phenomenon

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The Dallas, TX alternate weekly, the Dallas Observer, has the story of a guy with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt from the collapse of the real estate bubble (and short sighted greed, but I repeat myself) who is now earning money by suing debt collectors who contact him and forget to cross their “i”s and dot their “t”s:

………

He [Craig Cunningham of Northeast Dallas ] leans forward to lift some paperwork out of a plastic tub on the coffee table. The phone rings, and he answers with a soft voice. It’s just a friend, and soon he hangs up. He’s waiting for a particular type of phone call—one from a representative of a debt collection agency or a credit card company, whom he’ll try to ensnare like a Venus fly trap. It’s not unlikely that Cunningham’s next call will be from a bill collector, since he’s between jobs—except for being in the Army Reserve—and owes $100,000 in debts.

While most Americans with unpaid bills dread the collector’s call, Cunningham sees them as lucrative opportunities. Many collection and credit card companies, intentionally or not, violate little-known consumer rights laws, and Cunningham’s favorite pastime is catching them doing so and then suing them. In fact, it’s a profitable side job.

Call it ironic, but the only house on the block that appears to be the foreclosed end to some sad financial story is in fact the home of one of the debt collection industry’s emerging and persistent threats. Cunningham calls himself a private attorney general—someone who files private lawsuits in the public interest. Debt collectors call him a credit terrorist.

………

I do not think that he is a terrorist, but I do think that Mr. Cunningham is a slime, not because he’s using the small print to make money from, and avoid debt, that is, after all, the game, but because he went and used things like student loans in his attempts to juice his credit score [go to the full article] in an attempt to become wealthy without really working.

I know that some would argue that becoming wealthy without work or other productive activity is the American way, but it’s slimy, and if it is the American way, then the American way over the past 30 years has become slimy and parasitic.

The way that he gets money is that the the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which forbid debt collectors from violating federal or state laws, and provides for statutory damages for each instance, so if a collector threatens to garnish wages in Texas, where it is illegal, they are liable, even if the caller is in Butte Montana or Bangalore, India.

So, for example, when a collection agency started leaving pre-recorded messages on his mobile, a violation of the, and refused to stop when he asked, while refusing to show that the bill (a tiny Comcast bill), both violations of the TCPA and FDCPA, and the collection agency has

CMI has countersued Cunningham, and even asked the court for a protective order from Cunningham: “Plaintiff Craig Cunningham (herein “Plaintiff”) has filed suit against a business, Credit Management, LP (herein “CMI”), and twenty-seven (27) of its employees in their individual capacities,” reads the motion for a protective order filed in Northern District of Texas in December 2009. “Defendants move for a protective order to protect Defendants from the annoyance, oppression, undue burden and expense of objecting and responding to improper, repetitive and irrelevant discovery requests.”

In December, Cunningham was called in for a six-hour deposition, the longest he’s ever sat through, at which the lawyers printed out pages of his online comments to accuse him of acting like a lawyer. Plus, CMI insists that they didn’t violate any laws and that Cunningham is acting in bad faith. Although the company already offered Cunningham money to settle the case, Cunningham refused, asking for much more than the “industry standard,” as Cunningham calls it, of $3,500.

“If they don’t pay a bunch of money, if they don’t feel pain, they will not change,” he says.

A big win in his case against CMI could go a long way toward clearing Cunningham’s debts—if he ever chose to pay them, that is.

“I took outsize risks, and I got burned,” he says. “When myself and some other fellow small investors were losing their assets, nobody cared.”

Up until now, everything was about making easy money for Cunningham. Now, it’s about justice—or at least what he sees as justice.

He’s right about that point: All those people who scream about how the small print, and the rule of law, matter for the small debtor, seem to think that it’s somehow evil to expect large debtor and their agents.

I see courts being more amenable to claims like Cunningham’s in the future, and that is not a bad thing.

H/t The Big Picture.

US Military 1 – Jesus 0

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Click for full size


Picture h/t Dating Jesus

Remember Trijicon, the company that was busy painting targets on the back of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan included references to Christian bible verses on the optical sites (don’t call them sniper scopes) that are being used by our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Well, while the Army may have downplayed the importance, the Marine Corps, made it clear that these markings would materially effect their current and future contracts, and so the “Scopes for Jesus” company has agreed to stop engraving the bible references, as well as providing tools to remove the references on their existing sights:

Trijicon, the gunsight maker that has imprinted Bible verse numbers on its scopes, has announced that it will no longer imprint the verses on the sides of scopes intended for the U.S. military, and will also provide clients with the kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

An ABC News report earlier this week revealed that the Michigan-based company, which has a contract to provide up to 800,000 scopes to the U.S. military, prints references to New Testament chapters and verses in code next to the model numbers of its scopes. The scopes are used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by U.S. allies in those countries, and for the training of Afghan and Iraqi troops.

There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it.

My original post on this.