Year: 2010

Not Gonna Happen……

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Now that financial reform is due to become law, the word is that gadfly for the common folk Elizabeth Warren is the most likely candidate to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPFB, it was originally going to be a full agency called the CPFB).

This is not going to happen.

The Obama administration, particularly Timothy “The Bankers’ Bitch” Geithner, hate her.

She has embarrassed then by publicly reporting on how the TARP has been too easy on big banks, she has embarrassed them by advocating for real reform, and she has embarrassed them by lobbying aggressively for the CPFAB, which the Obama administration does not really want as a meaningful entity, because they actually believe the talking points from the finance industry about the need for “innovation”.

I should note that Something Awful is reporting that Ben Nelson asked for, and got, a veto on the head of the CPFB in exchange for his vote on financial reform, and that Nelson has flatly stated that Warren is not acceptable.

Honestly, I can see members of the protesting Nelson’s as vehemently as Br’er Rabbit asked not to be thrown into the briar patch.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!!

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Woodlands Bank , Bluffton, SC
  2. First National Bank of the South, Spartanburg, SC
  3. Metro Bank of Dade County,Miami, FL
  4. Turnberry Bank, Aventura, FL
  5. Olde Cypress Community Bank, Clewiston, FL
  6. Mainstreet Savings Bank, FSB, Hastings, MI

Full FDIC list

Great Googly Mooogly, back up to 6 banks.

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline (FDIC only):

I would note that are now at the point where the utility of the least squares trendline is diminishing, but I’m keeping it here for historical purposes.

Even a Stopped Clock…………

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And Alan Greenspan are actually correct every so often:

Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan believes Congress should let the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush expire for all Americans in order to address the widening deficit, according to a TV interview airing Friday.

“They should follow the law and let them lapse,” Greenspan told Bloomberg TV’s Judy Woodruff.

The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year. President Obama had promised to make them permanent for families making less than $250,000.

As to Obama’s promise to people making less than 250K, it would necessarily involve deal cutting which would require some sort of very expensive sop to the rich, so just put this in the category of another Obama promise not kept, and let the rich pay more.

The amount saved by folks making less than 250K amounts to just a few bucks a week.

Of course, that is not what is going to happen. Instead, Obama will propose an extension on the lower income tax cuts, and then he will propose tax cuts for the wealthy, basically giving away the store at the start of negotiations, and then the Republicans, and Ben Nelson, and various Blue Dogs, will go and lard it up with more give aways for the rich, most likely give aways on interest, capital gains, and dividend income, and Obama will declare victory, and sign it.

My suggestion would be to make the proposal, and raise the marginal tax rate for folks over 250K, to something on the order of 85% for income over $10 million a year.

Start there, and you may actually get a good tax bill.

Seriously, soaking the rich is good policy and good politics.

Barack Obama Hires Enemy of Healthcare Reform to Manage Implementation

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Liz Fowler, who was a former staffer of Max Baucus, who went to work as a lobbyist for Wellpoint (vice president of public policy), and then came back to Baucus to kill the public option, has has been hired by the White House to implement the regulations for healthcare reform.

Yet more of the criminally naive concept of bringing enemies in to run programs that they did their best to destroy.

Additionally, it makes a joke of yet another of Obama’s promises, to shut down the revolving door between government and industry, because if Ms. Fowler were going through the revolving door any faster, it would look like a Cuisinart set to liquefy.

Economics Update

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Well, it’s jobless Thursday, and the initial unemployment claims number have fallen to a 2 year low, 429,000, though it should be noted that these are seasonally adjusted, and so this number takes into account, for example, GM’s summer shutdown, which did not happen this year, though, as the author notes, the fact that GM is seeing that much business is a good sign in and of itself.

Unsurprisingly, the 4 week moving average fell as well, though continuing claims rose.

On the other side of the coin, we are seeing a number of non-employment metrics weakening, with falling producer prices, foreshadowing incipient deflation, while both the New York Fed and the Philadelphia Fed numbers have softened.

In real estate, home foreclosures rose 38% year over year in the 2ndquarter.

Dick Cheney Has No Pulse

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Dick Cheney just had a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implanted to bypass his failing left ventricle, because his heart was failing.

Because it’s a constant flow device, an impeller that spins at around 9000 RPM, it means that he has no pulse.

It also means that he is in a very, very, bad way health wise.

Realistically, it means that he will either be a heart transplant recipient, or he will be dead by 2011.

I won’t make a prediction on which way that cuts, though my guess is that Dick has been pulling strings to get to the head of the list, but I will predict that when Dick Cheney dies, Barack Obama will be offering an over the top obsequious eulogy calling him a “great American” or somesuch crap within 48 hours of his passing.

Me, I want him to live long enough to die in prison.

I Hate to Wake Up Sober in Nebraska*

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I must have missed the story earlier, but a Federal Judge has stayed a Nebraska law that requires a psychological evaluation before getting an abortion:

A new law that requires all women to be prescreened for possible mental issues prior to obtaining an abortion has been blocked by U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp. The law, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 15th, was challenged by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, who argued that the law was so vague that it would be impossible to correctly adhere to it.

As I’ve said before, notwithstanding the fact that abortion first emerged as a proxy issue about race and segregated private academies, this issue has taken a life on of its own, and we are beyond any compromise on this issue.

*It’s a song by the group Free Hot Lunch.

The Fed Gets Grimmer

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Well, the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have been released, and the already grim predictions that they have made for GDP and employment have become even grimmer.

It’s time to crank up the helicopters, and literally begin dropping money out of them.

I’ve run the numbers for this operation, and it would require fewer than 100 of the whirlybirds to accomplish the task.

And the DCCC Can Go Cheney Themselves Too

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Because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) funds Republicans like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, who has just come out with a campaign commercial touting her vote against healthcare reform.

You can be sure that the DCCC will be funding her heavily, because the first goal of the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional campaign committees is to protect incumbents, and their second goal it to support DINOs.

Note however, that this is throwing good money after bad this year. She is polling horribly, the TPM polling averages have her down by 9 points as an incumbent.

Do your own research, and donate to the candidates you support directly.

</RANT>

Economics Update

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If you believe that small business will be important in any recovery, then the fact that the fact that the NFIB’s index of small business optimism fell.

In employment, job turnover fell in May, indicating that this already jobless recovery might become even more jobless.

There are also signs of weakness in transportation, with the Association of American Railroads Rail Time Indicators falling.

Real estate is grim as well, with non-residential construction forecast to fall 10% in 2010, and home mortgage purchase applications fell to a 13 year low, even with rates being at historical lows.

Finally, in what makes up over 70% or so of the US economy, retail sales fell in June (see pic).

Why You Should not Give to the DSCC

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Because, will throw money at people like Blanche Lincoln, who, now that the primary challenge is done, is once again throwing her lot in with the rich bankers who are in the process of destroying our country.

This time, she and John Kyle, he of the “never need to pay for tax cuts for rich folk,” fame, have introduced an inheritance tax bill that is a big wet kiss for the richest families in the United States:

Their proposal would require Democratic leaders to amend the small-business jobs bill with a provision that sets the estate tax at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption. These amounts will be phased in over a 10-year period and also be indexed for inflation. In addition, inherited assets would be taxed at their worth upon transfer, not when the deceased purchased them.

Of course, because of the way the Bush and His Evil Minions™ wrote his tax cuts, there is no inheritance tax at all this year, but next year, it goes back to 55% and a $1 million exemption, and, quite honestly, the “liberal” proposal is a $3.5 million exemption and a 45% rate.

Of course, when given a choice between giving something to rich heirs, and giving everything to those same heirs, Blanche Lincoln goes with giving money to the useless heir class.

The first broad based tax adopted by the founding fathers was an inheritance tax. They did it because they realized that dynastic wealth was corrosive to the republic.

But Blanche Lincoln needs those campaign dollars, so f%$# the budget and American people.

It goes without saying that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is backing her to the hilt, which is why you shouldn’t give to the DSCC when they come calling.

The NAACP Has Discovered That There Are Racists Amongst the Teabaggers

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

I wonder what took NAACP this long to issue what is a remarkably tepid statement:

“We take no issue with the Tea Party. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement.

“We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,” Jealous said.

This statement is long overdue, and might have been appropriate about a year ago, but now, it is awfully weak tea.

Still, it’s fun to see teabagger heads explode over this is amusing.