Month: August 2010

No Big Surprise

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The Annual Report of the Board Of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance And Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds is out and Social Security is just fine, and healthcare reform has improved Medicare’s financial picture.

This is not a surprise. If you follow this at all, and possess the math skills required to engage in basic counting, and are not demagoguing this for political advantage, then you already know this.

Of course, the conditions that I have stated rule out 95% of the reporters, 99% of the pundits, and 101% of the Republicans out there, (someone must be hitting the button twice) so we still get the “youngsters will never see social security” bullsh%$.

Economics Update

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It’s jobless Thursday, and initial jobless claims rose again, by 19,000 to 479,000, with four-week moving average increased by 5,250 to 458,500, and continuing claims fell by 34,000 to 4.54 million, though a lot of this may be people running out their string on normal benefits.

I would note that this number has been bouncing between 450K and 480K for a few months, and that this number is around 100,000 more than is needed for a recovery in employment.

Meanwhile, in central bank land, the Bank of England kept its benchmark rate at ½%, effectively 0%, and it’s asset purchase program, aka quantitative easing, aka printing money, remains essentially unchanged.

Finally, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit an all time low, 4.49%. (!)

OK, This is a Harsh Takedown

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Stephen Colbert, playing along with Laura Ingram’s literary conceit that her book, The Obama Diaries, is real, absolutely destroyes her and her book.

When he says, “I’ve read a fair amount of this book, and I know he’s not supposed to be a dumb guy, he’s a great orator, but this writing is terrible,” he’s telling Laura that she cannot write for sh%$, for example.

Ouch.

Google and Verizon Hammer Nails in Net Neutrality’s Coffin

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My guess is that Google has given up on the timid Obama administration, and Obama’s timid FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, who falls over when the incumbent players say “boo”, so Google is throwing in the towel, and is negotiating with Verizon to pay extortion money to insure that it doesn’t get shut out of the telcos last mile:

Google and Verizon, two leading players in Internet service and content, are nearing an agreement that could allow Verizon to speed some online content to Internet users more quickly if the content’s creators are willing to pay for the privilege.

The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.

Why is Google throwing in the towel?

Well part of it may be because Verizon is a major player in mobile phones, and they don’t want to be locked out:

People close to the negotiations who were not authorized to speak publicly about them said an agreement could be reached as soon as next week. If completed, Google, whose Android operating system powers many Verizon wireless phones, would agree not to challenge Verizon’s ability to manage its broadband Internet network as it pleased.

Or maybe it’s because all this hopey changey crap is nopey change crap:

Since the court decision, involving Comcast, in April, the F.C.C. has been trying to find a way to regulate broadband delivery, and that effort has been the subject of a series of private meetings at the agency’s headquarters in recent weeks. At the meetings, officials from the nation’s biggest Internet service and content providers, including Google and Verizon, have tried to reach a consensus on how broadband Internet service should be regulated in light of the decision. Those meetings continued this week, apart from the talks between Google and Verizon.

Yes, you have a group of people doing bad things, and destroying a public resource, and even though you have the authority to regulate, all you have to do is redefine broadband, and you are good to go, you are working to, “reach a consensus on how broadband Internet service should be regulated.”

That’s like banks trying to reach a consensus with bank robbers.

The incumbents are not valued members of the community, they are parasites who use an accident of history to attempt to act as highwaymen.

It’s not tough to reregulate this sh%$. You can’t now because a few years back, your Bushco predecessor made it so:

The F.C.C., meanwhile, favors a level playing field, but it cannot impose one as long as its authority over broadband is in legal doubt. It has proposed a solution that would reclassify broadband Internet service under the Communications Act from its current designation as an “information service,” a lightly regulated designation, to a “telecommunications service,” a category that, like telephone service, is subject to stricter regulation.

It’s very simple. Make a new finding. The old one was a payoff to the telcos for campaign bucks, warrantless wiretapping, and a failed free market ideology.

Make that ruling, and then, when you have a big stick, you can get to the rule making.

First, get a firm grip on their balls, and then negotiate.

Remember, we are dealing with The Phone Company here, and to quote Lily Tomlin, “We don’t care, we don’t have to…we’re the phone company.”

They may be essential, but they aren’t allies.

Then again, I’m being an optimist. If you look at the Obama administration’s actions, whether they be healthcare, financial reform, the Employee Free Choice Act, etc., it’s clear that their MO is to talk about reform, and then to give the malefactors what they want, so this could be by design, rather than by incompetence or cowardice.

In either case, treating the Obama Administration, and their FCC Chairman as the enemy and a bad faith player still gives activists the best policy, so I would suggest that this is what net neutrality activists do.

Avoid the veal pen conference calls, and light fires under them.

Economics Update

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Well, in the “why do they do this any more” department, we have the ADP private employment survey, which predates the official US DoL figures by all of 2 days, saying that private payrolls will increase by a rather unimpressive 42 thousand.

The total figure will be much worse, of course, since the US Census is still shedding the temporary workers they hired for their 2010 enumeration.

On the GDP front, it appears that the inventory data which contributed to a large portion of recent GDP gains was wildly over optimistic.

On the other hand, the Institute for Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing index rose in July rose to 54.3 from 53.8, beating expectations, in June, and mortgage applications, including purchase applications, rose again.

When Alan Keyes Calls You Crazy………

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You are completely batsh%$ insane:

“The 14th Amendment is not something one should play with lightly,” Keyes said in response to a question from ThinkProgress at the Tea Party Express press event today. “Lindsay Graham used the term — as people have carelessly done over the years — referring to the 14th Amendment as something that has to do with ‘birthright citizenship’ and we ought to get rid of ‘birthright citizenship.'”

“Well, let me see,” Keyes added sarcastically, “If citizenship is not a birthright then it must be a grant of the government. And if it is a grant of the government, it could curtail that grant in all the ways that fascists and totalitarians always want to.”

This is like Keith Richards telling you that you do too much drugs.

H8* Amendment Declared Unconstitutional

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Federal District Court Judge Vaughn Walker has ruled that California’s anti-gay marriage initiative is unconstitutional:

A federal judge in San Francisco struck down California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage on Wednesday, handing a temporary victory to gay rights advocates in a legal battle that seems all but certain to be settled by the Supreme Court.

Wednesday’s decision is just the latest chapter of what is expected to be a long legal battle over the ban — Proposition 8, which was passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote — and proponents were already promising to appeal, confidently predicting that higher courts would be less accommodating to the other side than Vaughn R. Walker, the judge who issued the ruling.

You can be sure of that last bit.

While I cannot speak to the proclivities of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, I know that they are a rather liberal circuit, but that is it, but I am aware of the proclivities of the Supreme Court, and I cannot see this ruling surviving there.

My assesment of the court:

  • Scalia has publicly stated his position, even before hearing a case in numerous public speeches.
  • Alito and Roberts chomping at the bit to throw red meat to the “cultural conservatives.”
  • Thomas wants to find an ethnic group to crap on.
  • Kennedy being of an age where gay marriage squicks him out, notwithstanding his opinion striking down the criminalization of gay sex in Lawrence v. Texas.
  • Between Sotamayor and (almost certainly on the court by the time that this is heard) Kagan, there is at least one vote, and probably 2 votes there for “Civil unions is good enough,” which is, after all, Barack Obama’s official position.

What worries me is that if Roberts has the votes, he will cast the broadest net possible, as he did in the Citizens United and Heller, and so do his level best reinstitute the criminalization of homosexuality, and probably take a big hack at Roe v. Wade.

It’s a good decision, and I support it, but I think that the ratf%$#ers on the Supreme Court will do whatever they can to turn this to evil.

What needs to be done now is to put Scalia on his back heel. He has prejudged the case, and has admitted it in public, so he must recuse himself.

Of course, he won’t, not unless the pressure placed on him forces him to.

We need to go after him the way Scientology went after judges they targeted, though obviously no one should drown his pet dog.

I am saying that it is clear that on numerous occasions, in numerous public events, Antonin Scalia has stated that his mind is made up on gay marriage.

As such any rudimentary understanding of legal ethics mandates that he recuse himself, and that Antonin Scalia does not posses even a rudimentary level of legal ethics, so unless there is a constant drum beat pointing out this fact, he will sit on the case with no intention of reviewing either the facts of the law fairly.

*Proposition 8=H8=Hate, OK?

Why the Chinese Will Continue to Eat Our Lunch

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Because they understand what is going on, and they are willing to do tough things to make sure that things don’t blow up in their faces:

China’s banking regulator told lenders last month to conduct a new round of stress tests to gauge the impact of residential property prices falling as much as 60 percent in the hardest-hit markets, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

Banks were instructed to include worst-case scenarios of prices dropping 50 percent to 60 percent in cities where they have risen excessively, the person said, declining to be identified because the regulator’s requirement hasn’t been publicly announced. Previous stress tests carried out in the past year assumed home-price declines of as much as 30 percent.

(emphasis mine)

The Chinese understand that the purpose of stress tests is to identify problem institutions, not to reassure markets, so they will thoroughly investigate their banks, and then probably jail senior management at some of the worst run institutions.

It might be painful, but it gets ahead of the events, as opposed to our method, extend and pretend, which means that when future problems occur, the Chinese have better options available to them.

I guess that the leadership of the PRC aren’t worried about being called “Socialists,” because they call themselves socialists.

Economics Update

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We have a fair amount of news, most of it bad, with consumer spending and personal income flat, pending home sales falling sharply in June, and the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing survey falling more than expected, though the latter still indicates (rather anemic) growth.

Additionally, we have the Wells Fargo/Gallup survey of small business sentiment hitting a new low, while personal bankruptcy filings rose 9% in July.

As to the good news, we have…

We have…

We have…

We have…

Ummmm…A survey of economic mood in Europe hitting two-year high?

Primaries Tonite

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Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas, with the updated results here.

The only remotely close race was the MI governor’s race. The rest of the races, congressional and gubernatorial, were not even remotely close on the Dem side.

As to the ‘Phants, I really don’t care, but you can click on their tool too.

Obama Administration Goes Full Eric Blair*

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Or maybe Franz Kafka.

You see, last month, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights were retained by Nasser al-Awlaki, “the father of Obama assassination target (and U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki,” to get a court injunction to keep him from being killed by the U.S. government..

The government’s response was declare Anwar al-Awlaki a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” which meant that lawyers could not represent him without a special license from the government.

George W. Bush never asserted a right to assassinate American citizens, and they never used Treasury Department anti money laundering legislation to prevent lawyers from representing someone pro bono in a case to prevent their assassination:

Left with no choice, the ACLU and CCR this morning filed a lawsuit on their own behalf against Timothy Geithner and the Treasury Department. The suit argues that Treasury has no statutory authority under the law it invokes — The International Emergency Economic Powers Act — to bar American lawyers from representing American citizens on an uncompensated basis. It further argues what ought to be a completely uncontroversial point: that even if Congress had vested Treasury with this authority, it is blatantly unconstitutional to deny American citizens the right to have a lawyer, and to deny American lawyers the right to represent clients, without first obtaining a permission slip from Executive Branch officials (the Complaint is here). As the ACLU/CCR Brief puts it: “The notion that the government can compel a citizen to seek its permission before challenging the constitutionality of its actions in court is wholly foreign to our constitutional system” and “[a]s non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting civil liberties and human rights, Plaintiffs have a First Amendment right to represent clients in litigation consistent with their organizational missions.” The Brief also argues that it is a violation of Separation of Powers to allow the Executive Branch to determine in its sole discretion who can and cannot appear in and have access to a federal court.

Obama’s positions on national defense and surveillance indisputably worse than those of George W. Bush’s.

Bootnote:
After stonewalling for weeks, the Treasury Department granted a license once the ACLU and CCR filed a separate lawsuit against the denial of such a license, probably because they want to assert the right again, even if it is just for a few weeks to f%$# with the ability of some guy to get proper legal counsel.

I am so writing in “Howard Dean,” in the 2012 general.

*George Orwell’s real name.

Normally I Don’t Comment on Local Rulings of Local Landmarks Preservation Commission

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Only this time, it was the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission ruling that the location for the Islamic center and mosque in lower Manhattan is not historically significant, allowing for construction to proceed.

This puts them on a higher moral plane than Abraham Foxman’s ADL, but considering his recent history, the geriatric leader of the ADL does not set a particularly high bar.

The FBI Gets Stupid

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Click for full size


J. Edgar Hoover can bite my shiny metal ass!

This bit of FBI stupidity is a pretty good indication of how the current IP regime, and what people think the current IP regime is is a clusterf%$#:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken on everyone from Al Capone to John Dillinger to the Unabomber. Its latest adversary: Wikipedia.

The bureau wrote a letter in July to the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia, demanding that it take down an image of the F.B.I. seal accompanying an article on the bureau, and threatened litigation: “Failure to comply may result in further legal action. We appreciate your timely attention to this matter.”

The problem, those at Wikipedia say, is that the law cited in the F.B.I.’s letter is largely about keeping people from flashing fake badges or profiting from the use of the seal, and not about posting images on noncommercial Web sites. Many sites, including the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, display the seal.

Other organizations might simply back down. But Wikipedia sent back a politely feisty response, stating that the bureau’s lawyers had misquoted the law. “While we appreciate your desire to revise the statute to reflect your expansive vision of it, the fact is that we must work with the actual language of the statute, not the aspirational version” that the F.B.I. had provided.

I can understand if it’s some smart ass blogger telling J. Edgar Hoover, “Bite their shiny metal ass,”* but this is a post of the seal on a damn encyclopedia.

Morons.

*Somehow, I don’t think that the G-men are coming after me, and neither does the New York Times, who also reproduced the seal.