Oh Crap!

The Japanese have just raised the nuclear alert level of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to 7, the highest possible level, and only reached once before, at Chernobyl:

Japan is to raise the nuclear alert level at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to a maximum seven, putting the emergency on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Nuclear safety officials had insisted they had no plans to raise the severity of the crisis from five – the same level as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979 – according to the international nuclear and radiological event scale.

But the government came under pressure to raise the level at the plant after Japan's nuclear safety commission estimated the amount of radioactive material released from its stricken reactors reached 10,000 terabecquerels per hour for several hours following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country's northeast coast on 11 March. That level of radiation constitutes a major accident, according to the INES scale.

This ain't an attempt to corner the market on glow in the dark watches, this is serious.

OK, so Maybe This is the "Quote of the Day"

Courtesy of Paul Krugman, aka the Shrill one:

But if you ask me, I.d say that the nation wants - and more important, the nation needs - a president who believes in something, and is willing to take a stand. And that's not what we're seeing.

Word!

Not as funny as the other one, but far more profound.

Quote of the Day

From a discussion thread on Matthew Yglesias post:

Jasper_in_Boston 1 day ago

Matt: the president's rhetoric about the economy has been off key since, er, February 2009. This is nothing new. Instead of conservatives worrying that he's a secret Kenyan Shariast, I think liberals should be worrrying he's a Grover Norquist deep implant.

DonxWilliams 1 day ago in reply to Jasper_in_Boston

Not really -- there are strong differences between Obama and Norquist.

For example, Grover Norquist thinks we have too many black people locked up in prison:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/08/MNVK1IS92I.DTL

Heh.

And Now the New York Times Condemns the Sellout

Notwithstanding their coverage of the foreclosure crisis, and the malfeasance of the mortgage services, which has largely focused on the hardships of the well to do (unsurprising given the nature of the New York City real estate market), the editorial board understands that there has been fraud and bad behavior all around and they understand that proposed settlements are sellouts to the big banks that service mortgages:

Americans know that banks have mistreated borrowers in many ways in foreclosure cases. Among other things, they habitually filed false court documents. There were investigations. We’ve been waiting for federal and state regulators to crack down.

Prepare for a disappointment. As early as this week, federal bank regulators and the nation’s big banks are expected to close a deal that is supposed to address and correct the scandalous abuses. If these agreements are anything like the draft agreement recently published by the American Banker — and we believe they will be — they will be a wrist slap, at best. At worst, they are an attempt to preclude other efforts to hold banks accountable. They are unlikely to ease the foreclosure crisis.

………

But the gist of the terms is that from now on, banks — without admitting or denying wrongdoing — must abide by existing laws and current contracts. To clear up past violations, they are required to hire independent consultants to check a sample of recent foreclosures for evidence of improper evictions and impermissible fees.

The consultants will be chosen and paid by the banks, which will decide how the reviews are conducted. Regulators will only approve the banks’ self-imposed practices. It is hard to imagine rigorous reviews, but if the consultants turn up problems, the banks are required to reimburse affected borrowers and investors as “appropriate.” It is apparently up to the banks to decide what is appropriate.

While it appears that the OCC, which has a history of acting on behalf of the finance industry rather than the public,has been at the core of the most egregious giveaways, it is also clear that the most of the machinery of the federal government, at least those portions directed by Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, are doing their level best to ensure that there are no real consequences to what in a sane regulatory environment would be felonies involving people being sentenced to extended stays in "Club Fed".

Instead, it increasingly appears that the Feds will be negotiating a sweetheart deal that will include provisions to make actions by the state attorneys general, and possible private torts difficult, if not impossible.

It's nice that the "paper of record" has finally noticed this.  People like Yves Smith have been screaming about this for months.

Jon Stewart Says It All…

There Should be a Nobel Prize for This!

I really wish that I had half his wit.

I guess that this bit of genius is all about the fact that they are dealing with a very real sadness:  Glen Beck could make their writing a lot easier. 

When Beck was on a roll, they could finish writing the script by lunch, and adjourn to a coke infused orgy with transsexual prostitutes in the afternoon.

Or maybe they just played games on their iPhones in the afternoon.

Sharon and I Had Some Us Time Today

Both kids went to the Kings Dominion amusement park on a USY junket.

We had a date to get some coffee at the now re-opened Java Mamas coffee house, went to Barnes and Nobel to pick up some books for the kids, and then she went shoe shopping with a friend.

Gawd, we are dull.

We Are Officially a 3rd World Nation

We have now become a place where 1^st world nations send their manufacturing to in order to avoid regulation.

Case in point, Ikea's factory in Virginia pays ⅓ as much and engages in policies at its US plant that are scandalous in Sweden:

When home furnishing giant Ikea selected this fraying blue-collar city to build its first U.S. factory, residents couldn't believe their good fortune.

Beloved by consumers worldwide for its stylish and affordable furniture, the Swedish firm had also constructed a reputation as a good employer and solid corporate citizen. State and local officials offered $12 million in incentives. Residents thrilled at the prospect of a respected foreign company bringing jobs to this former textile region after watching so many flee overseas.

But three years after the massive facility opened here, excitement has waned. Ikea is the target of racial discrimination complaints, a heated union-organizing battle and turnover from disgruntled employees.

Workers complain of eliminated raises, a frenzied pace and mandatory overtime. Several said it's common to find out on Friday evening that they'll have to pull a weekend shift, with disciplinary action for those who can't or don't show up.

………

Some of the Virginia plant's 335 workers are trying to form a union. The International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers said a majority of eligible employees had signed cards expressing interest.

In response, the factory — part of Ikea's manufacturing subsidiary, Swedwood — hired the law firm Jackson Lewis, which has made its reputation keeping unions out of companies. Workers said Swedwood officials required employees to attend meetings at which management discouraged union membership.

………

The dust-up has garnered little attention in the U.S. But it's front-page news in Sweden, where much of the labor force is unionized and Ikea is a cherished institution. Per-Olaf Sjoo, the head of the Swedish union in Swedwood factories, said he was baffled by the friction in Danville. Ikea's code of conduct, known as IWAY, guarantees workers the right to organize and stipulates that all overtime be voluntary.

"Ikea is a very strong brand and they lean on some kind of good Swedishness in their business profile. That becomes a complication when they act like they do in the United States," said Sjoo. "For us, it's a huge problem."

Laborers in Swedwood plants in Sweden produce bookcases and tables similar to those manufactured in Danville. The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a minimum wage of about $19 an hour and a government-mandated five weeks of paid vacation. Full-time employees in Danville start at $8 an hour with 12 vacation days — eight of them on dates determined by the company.

Additionally, there are allegations of racism at the plant, claims, "That black workers at Swedwood's U.S. factory are assigned to the lowest-paying departments and to the least desirable third shift."

This sounds an awful lot like the textile plants in Bangladesh where the exits are chained shut, and workers die when a fire breaks out, doesn't it.

You set up a factory, and you bring in local managers, with the local attitudes, and then you push them to meet difficult numbers, and surprise, they revert to the standard labor behavior that you see in south central Virginia, only worse, because they know that their bosses will not feel any blow-back, because they are thousands of miles away.

Sorry, But These Numbers for a Launcher are Too Good to Believe

I smell snake oil, not LOX/RP-1

Elon Musk, is claiming some mind boggling figures for SpaceX's new heavy lifter:

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, plans to build a commercial heavy-lift rocket that will carry more than twice the payload of existing large rockets at one-third the cost. That would lower the price of delivering cargo to low-Earth orbit to the long-sought, and so far mythical, $1,000-per-pound range, the company's founder and chief designer announced today.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the Falcon Heavy--made up of three Falcon 9 core stages powered by 27 upgraded Merlin engines and generating a combined 3.8 million pounds of thrust--will be ready for its initial test flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., late next year or early 2013.

So he is claiming that his launcher will have a cost per pound to LEO ⅙ that of existing systems, and that he can have it ready for launch next year.

If you look at the prices quoted, they simply do not make sense internally either.

A quick perusal of the Wiki reveals that the Falcon 9, which is basically the Falcon Heavy core less the strap on boosters, puts 9,900 kilos into LEO for 44 to 49.5 million dollars, while the Heavy will put 53,000 kilos in LEO for 55 and 95 million dollars.

How do you manage to put 5½ times as much payload up for only 10-90% more?  My guess is that you don't.

The answer is you don't, not unless you come up with a way to bend the laws of physics or of manufacturing.

The Falcon Heavy will have 30 engines, 9 on each strap-on, 9 on the 1^st stage, and 1 on the 2^nd stage, so even if ¾ of the cost of a launch (the number is typically well under half) would be those 30 engines (it's probably less), the cost per engine would be on the order of 1¾ to 2½ million dollars each, which is very cheap.

I don't see how these cost targets can be met.

Sikorsky X2 Wins Collier Trophy

Click for full size

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Demonstrator


Commercial variant


Assault and utility


Search and rescue


Attack

The award of what is arguably the most prestigious award in aerospace is well deserved.

They have validated that their advancing blade concept helicopter can work, and work without the workload or vibration issues that bedeviled its predecessor in the 1980s, and they have done so on a relative shoestring.

It appears to have most of the advantages, and none of the disadvantages of tilt-rotor technology.

Gripens Make Combat Debut Over Libya

In the grander scheme of things, this may not count for much, but start seeing the phrase "combat proven" in future PR for the diminutive fighter.

It's Bank Failure Friday!!!! (on Saturday)

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

27. Western Springs National Bank and Trust, Western Springs, IL
28. Nevada Commerce Bank, Las Vegas, NV

Full FDIC list

And here are the credit union closings:

7. Mission San Francisco Federal Credit Union, San Francisco, CA

Full NCUA list

 
Well, things seem to be slowing down, which is a good sign.

So, here is the graph pr0n with last years numbers for comparison (FDIC only):

Yes, He Caved.

So they managed to cut a "deal", where he made bigger cuts than Boehner originally wanted, forbade abortion funding in Washington, DC, among other idiocies, including high speed rail. (You can see a more complete list and an impassioned critique here)

Seriously, how can someone be such an incompetent negotiator (Reid and Obama together, but Obama is where the buck stops) that you give more than he initially asked for?

This is Trippy

Like wow, man. Psychadelic

Ian McKlellan, backed up by the Fleshtones, reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 20.

This is trippy.

Dumbledore Gandalf doing sonnets.

H/t Susan D.

F%$# No!!!!!

Well, the good folks at Google™ Adsense™ have done it again.

The put up an ad from right wing lunatic asylum Newsmax, redirecting to a poll asking what the reader thinks about the concept Donald Trump as president.

Somehow or other, I do not think that my blog is fertile ground for the brain damaged hackery that is Newsmax, but to the degree that I get paid (a fraction of a penny) for someone seeing the ad, better my pocket than Joseph Farah's.

Of course, if they did something better suited to my rantings, I might get a few more click throughs, and hence a bit more filthy capitalist lucre.

In any case, my apology to my reader(s) for your having to see "The Donald" and his hair.

My standard Google™ Adsense™ disclaimers below:

Please note: once again, that I do not vet, nor do I endorse any ad that appears on my site, and I reserve the right to mock both the ads that appear on my site, as well as the advertisers.

Also, please note, this should be in no way construed as an inducement or a request for my reader(s) to click on any ad that they would not otherwise be inclined to investigate further. This would be a violation of the terms of service for Google^™ Adsense^™.

Mortgage Settlement Talks Bifurcate

The Feds and the state Attorneys General have separated their settlement talks with mortgage servicers and banks:

Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said the reported side settlement between mortgage servicers and federal regulators will in no way affect the ongoing investigation he is leading along with 49 other state attorneys general.

Several media outlets are reporting that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Federal Reserve are engaging in talks with mortgage servicers and that agreements could be signed as early as next week.

"A separate settlement by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will not affect our investigation," Miller said in a statement. "The settlement neither preempts, nor impacts our efforts. State attorneys general will continue to work together unabated with a broad coalition of federal partners."

My guess here is that, notwithstanding AG Miller's attempt to come up with a weak deal, see Yves Smith's coverage for more information, is that the OCC's proposed deal is too weak for even him to follow up on.

Additionally, they may be attempting to distance themselves from the manufactured sh%$ storm about Elizabeth Warren advising them.

Of course, if you are an optimist about this, and I am not, it could be that the AGs realized that the two efforts were incompatible, since a federal settlement is primarily about looking at future behavior, while the Attorneys General are charged with investigating and pursuing prior and ongoing wrongdoing.

My guess is that there is some political heat being generated, both from the teabaggers who are crying, "leave Britney the big banks alone," and people interested in property rights and the rule of law, who want criminal prosecutions of what is fraud and theft an an almost unimaginable scale.

H/t Yves Smith.

Hoo Boy!

One of the things that gets turned off if there is a government shutdown is FHA loans:

I was hoping not to have to write this particular piece, but it seems I may have no choice, so here we go with housing.

What happens to today's housing market without FHA loans?

Right now FHA loans are about 20 percent of the overall mortgage market (purchases and refis) and 40 percent of purchase applications.

Compare that to around 11 percent of the overall market during the last shutdown in 1995. For the nation's big public home builders, it's far more of an impact, according to analysts. 

This basically means that the housing market shuts down for the duration, because if 40% of home buyers can't buy, the remainder will be able to extract even more in the way of lower house prices.

House prices have fallen 7 straight months, but prices are sticky in the short term, so you will have the housing market freeze.

If Obama Had Either the Brains or Guts……

He would use what now appears to be the inevitable government shut down to show people just what they would be missing if the federal government went away.

My guess is that he will instead choose to make sure that the brunt of any shutdown falls on the poor and minorities, because that's how he rolls.

People With Too Much Free Time…

OK…

I understand how this can be done cheaply with modern video editing software, but I don't get why.

H/t Neo at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Barack Obama Just Came Out Against the Separation of Church and State

In Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, the Supreme Court ruled that a taxpayer had no standing to sue when a state provided tax credits that were directed towards supporting religious schools.

I was appalled, but viewed this as a result of decades of 'Phant vote court stacking.

What I missed was the fact that the Obama administration, despite the fact that there was no need to because there was no equivalent federal law, filed a brief in support of tearing down the wall between church and state:

The Obama administration’s brief supporting an Arizona law which creates a tax credit system which substantially benefits religious schools is inexplicable and deeply disappointing. Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn (Nos. 09-857 and 09-991), to be argued on Wednesday, November 3, does not involve a federal law and did not require any participation by the Obama administration. Yet, the Solicitor General’s office filed a brief for the United States which argues that taxpayers lack standing to challenge a state tax program which subsidizes religious schools and that this does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is exactly the brief that would have been expected from the Bush administration, but disturbing to have come from the Obama Justice Department.

A state statute allows Arizona taxpayers to receive a tax credit of up to $500 on a dollar-for-dollar basis for donating to a student tuition organization (“STO”). Arizona’s largest STOs (as measured by the amount of contributions) each limit scholarships to certain religious schools. The largest restricted scholarships are to students attending Catholic schools in the Phoenix diocese; the second largest restricts scholarships to students who attend evangelical Christian schools. Although the statute required that STOs not discriminate on the basis of race, color, handicap, familial status or national origin,” it did not specify eligibility requirements. Thus, individuals would receive a tax credit if they made a contribution to an STO and they could designate their money for an STO that supported only schools of a particular faith.

………

Since the Reagan administration, conservatives have sought to eliminate the notion of a wall separating church and state. It is sad and very troubling to see the Obama administration lending its support for this effort.

One of the things that you hear in liberal circles frequently is that Ronald Reagan would be too much of a flaming liberal for today's Republican party.

Looking at Barack Obama, I'm beginning to think that my assessment of him as a Reagan Democrat is too charitable: He is a Reagan Republican.

The irony here is that Ronald Reagan was easily the least religious president of the past 50 years, of course.

Economics Update

It's Jobless Thursday, and initial unemployment claims fell by 10,000 to 382,000, with the 4-week moving average of initial claims, continuing claims, and emergency claims falling as well.

When juxtaposed with stronger than expected retail sales figures for March, the economic news is generally pertty good, though the fact that home prices continue to crater, falling for the 7^th straight month, indicates that real estate is not done with its correction.

The Ongoing Libyan Clusterf%$#

First, it appears that since the US has dropped its lead position, NATO does not have enough attack aircraft, and now the British are talking about sending in trainers and advisers to help the rebels:

Britain is to urge Arab countries to train the disorganised Libyan rebels, and so strengthen their position on the battlefield before negotiations on a ceasefire, senior British defence sources have indicated.

The sources said they were also looking at hiring private security companies, some of which draw on former SAS members, to aid the rebels. These private soldiers could be paid by Arab countries to train the unstructured rebel army.

So, we are talking about a major escalation of involvement, one, by the way, which is not called for in the UN Security Council resolution, including the use of mercenaries.

This is not going to end well.

Someone Needs to Open Up a Can of Whup Ass on the Krauts

The periphery in Europe is experience contracting GDP and a debt crisis. The most recent case is that of Portugal, which is now asking for an EU bailout.

Unfortunately the conditions of the bailout are always the same Teutonic prescription:

• Austerity budgets, which hike taxes and cut spending.
• Paying off the banks that lent the money to the governments at 100¢ on the dollar.

The problem that this creates is:

• Social instability.
• Further GDP contraction, which increases debt load relative to the GDP.
• Declining tax revenues.

The prescription for these problems is:

• Austerity budgets, which hike taxes and cut spending.
• Paying off the banks that lent the money to the governments at 100 ¢ on the dollar.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

The problem here is two-fold, and they are both of German origin:

• The Germans have never gotten over their bout with hyperinflation in the 1920s, and so feel that inflation is the only battle to fight.
• This also, at German insistence, got baked into both the Euro and the European Central Bank (ECB), which has no mandate to do anything by keep inflation low.  Unlike the Fed it has no mission to minimize unemployment as well.
• There is a complete unwillingness by the EU and the ECB to allow for hearcuts on the bondholders, which (surprise) appear to largely be the German banks.

This  is why, on the basis of spiking commodity prices, driven largely by the Libya conflict, the ECB has just raised its benchmark rate.

The thing here is that there is an awful lot of pain being inflicted to support German philosophy^*, as well as supporting the bad debts of their banks, which would be insolvent by any realistic evaluation of this debt.

When someone big enough^† finally tells the German banks to go pound sand, things should get interesting.

^*Which, according to my physicist brother, is also why quantum mechanics such a pain, the the formative texts were written by Germans, who felt an obligation to be obscure and confusing.
^†And I don't mean Spain big. If the new government in Ireland gives a 50¢ haircut to the bond holders, the Germans will have a banking experience to rival our S&L crisis of the 1980s.

Fox Fires Glen Beck

His TV show contract will not be renewed in December, and the definitive word on this comes from the Grauniad,^* "Glenn Beck will be missed after he leaves Fox News – by satirists."

I guess cratering ratings, and fleeing sponsors mean something, even to Roger Ailes' Fox News.

^*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It's nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, "The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad."

Woo Hoo!!!!!

Natalie just got into the Lansdowne High School magnet program!

She was #3 on the waiting list, and now she's in. 


She's going into Lansdowne's "Academy of Arts & Communication," which is a concentration in theater, vocal, and instrumental music.

Great, Another Recount………

In the JoAnne Kloppenburg - David Prosser race for Wisconsin state Supreme Court Justice, Kloppenburg is ahead by around 300 votes out of the 1.5 million cast.

Prosser is clearly a horrorshow.  He's cursed at and threatened the chief justice, he's explicitly stated that he will enable Scott Walker's political agenda, and he was part of an all-Republican ruling on recusals and campaign contributors that flew in the face of a US Supreme Court ruling, so I really hope that Kloppenburg wins in the end.

That being said, absentee ballots, Wisconsin has fairly liberal absentee voting laws but no early voting, could swing it.  Republicans tend to push absentee ballots hard.

The politically savvy thing to do right now would be to start calling for Prosser to give it up, the uncertainty is bad for the state, as is the cost of the recount, but I cannot bring myself to do this:  I remember these same arguments in 2000 and Bush v. Gore, and I cannot say them.

In any case, what's good for the state, and what's good for the taxpayer never gets in the way of any Republican's quest for power, so why bother asking.

Alan Greenspan, STFU!

Ayn Rand's most successful apostle^* is back at it again saying that regulations are causing all of our financial problems, and gives us this bon mot:

The problem is that regulators, and for that matter everyone else, can never get more than a glimpse at the internal workings of the simplest of modern financial systems. Today’s competitive markets, whether we seek to recognise it or not, are driven by an international version of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” that is unredeemably opaque. With notably rare exceptions (2008, for example), the global “invisible hand” has created relatively stable exchange rates, interest rates, prices, and wage rates.

With notably rare exceptions, Abraham Lincoln enjoyed the play Our American Cousin.

As Paul Krugman observes, the level out outright cluelessness shown here is mind boggling, though the best response comes from Henry Farrell, who holds a "With notably rare exceptions," contest that is hysterically funny.

^*No, really, he actually hung out with her and was a part of regular meetings in her apartment.

Neil Barofsky Opening Up a Jar of Whup Ass on Timmy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner

Yes, it's from a week ago, but it's a must read:

TWO and a half years ago, Congress passed the legislation that bailed out the country’s banks. The government has declared its mission accomplished, calling the program remarkably effective “by any objective measure.” On my last day as the special inspector general of the bailout program, I regret to say that I strongly disagree. The bank bailout, more formally called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, failed to meet some of its most important goals.

From the perspective of the largest financial institutions, the glowing assessment is warranted: billions of dollars in taxpayer money allowed institutions that were on the brink of collapse not only to survive but even to flourish. These banks now enjoy record profits and the seemingly permanent competitive advantage that accompanies being deemed “too big to fail.”

Though there is no question that the country benefited by avoiding a meltdown of the financial system, this cannot be the only yardstick by which TARP’s legacy is measured. The legislation that created TARP, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, had far broader goals, including protecting home values and preserving homeownership.

These Main Street-oriented goals were not, as the Treasury Department is now suggesting, mere window dressing that needed only to be taken “into account.” Rather, they were a central part of the compromise with reluctant members of Congress to cast a vote that in many cases proved to be political suicide.

Just go read the it.

Kaine to Run For Virginia US Senate Seat

With Senator Jim Webb retiring after one term, former governor Tim Kaine has announced that he will be running for his seat.

His most likely opponent is former governor, former senator (Jim Webb beat him), and blithering idiot George Allen, Jr.

Kaine will lose for a number of reasons:

• George Allen will not engage in the self immolation, like his "Macaca moment" and the unseemly scramble at damage control.
• He is not following on the coat tails of very his very popular predecessor when he ran for governor, Mark Warner.
• The base is simply not excited or motivated as it was in 2006.
• As head of the DNC, he was very much a water carrier for Barack Obama, who has continuously blasted, and demoralized,  the base.

Notwithstanding the fact that the announcement of his candidacy pretends that Barack Obama does not exist, he cannot run away from the fact that he was Barack Obama's man at the DNC, brought in to expunge the successes of Howard Dean (2010 worked out so well).

I'm not saying that Obama per se  is an albatross around his neck, I am saying the reality is that he is a FoB (Friend of Barack), and any attempt at distancing himself will just hurt him in the campaign.

Your Government Reigning In Meaningless Speculative Arbitrage

And surprise, surprise, it's Sheila Bair's FDIC that has put a stop to this bit of cheating.

All things considered, I think that as a rule of thumb, if Timothy "Eddie Haskell" hates a policy, like protecting consumers, or hates a person, like Sheila Bair or Elizabeth Warren,^* you can be pretty sure that it's a good policy or person, or at least that the policies/people are better than Geithner and his policies.

Case in point,the FDIC levying a fee on a form of bank arbitrage that had banks profiting at taxpayer expense:

The introduction of a new insurance charge on overnight borrowing by banks in the US has led to the collapse of a profitable arbitrage opportunity that financial groups have used to rebuild their balance sheets after the financial crisis, traders say.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which guarantees deposits at US banks, on Friday began levying the charge on funds borrowed by banks in the overnight money markets.

The move is part of a plan to rebuild the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund after the failure of more than 350 banks since 2007. The charge is based on the risk rating of the borrower, but is believed to be about 15 basis points for larger banks.

In response, banks are abandoning trades in which they borrowed in the overnight Fed funds market – often from government-controlled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – at about 10bp-15bp, then deposited the money at the Federal Reserve at an overnight rate of 25bp.

Some dealers estimated these trades could have allowed banks to lock in profits of about $200m since late 2008, when the Fed began paying overnight interest of 25bp on so-called excess reserves.

“What some banks now face is that the FDIC has just ‘taxed’ the arbitrage that they have been playing,” said William O’Donnell, strategist at RBS Securities.

Understand this: the taxpayers own Fannie and Freddie, and the Federal Reserve, so this was basically free money for the banks to be the banks.

I'm sure that Geithner is mad as hell about this, because it's shut down another way for banks to extract money from taxpayer money to firm up their balance sheets, but our esteemed Treasury Secretary can talk to Bender.

It's nice to know that someone in the Obama White House, even if it is someone that they would rather not have there, is actually doing things that prevent this sort of looting by the financial industry.

^*Have you ever wondered why all of Timmy's sworn enemies always seem to be women? I wonder some times.

Last Week's Employment Data

Click for full size

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Employment-Population ratio h/t Paul Krugman

So the federal unemployment numbers came out on Friday, and employment rose by 216,000 and the unemployment rate fell to 8.8%.

This is good news, employment actually rose by more than the natural growth of the workforce, about 175K, but this still means that it would take about 13 years for the 8 million people who have lost jobs to become employed again.

When one looks at the employment population ratio (see graph Pr0n) and you can see that it  has the lowest that it has been done in a decade, so a lot of the falling unemployment numbers are people leaving the workforce, whether it is early retirement, going on disability, or just giving up.

It's still basically a jobless "recovery".

The Real History of the Boston Tea Party

I love me some good history

It appears that the Boston Tea Party, i.e the dumping of tea in Boston harbor, was not about "Taxation Without Representation," but rather about tax cuts without representation.

The issue at hand was the fact that the East India Tea Company was granted a specific exemption to the tax on tea, which allowed them to drive it's small "Yankee Trader" competitors.

So here is a note to the Teabaggers out there, it ain't about taxes, it's about sweetheart deals to big business.

In your face, Dick Armey and the Koch brothers.

H/t Crooks and Liars

A Party Without a Death Wish Would Beat Them to Death With Their Own Pancreas

But all we have is the Democratic Party, so now that the Republican Party has formally proposed abolishing Medicare and Replacing it with vouchers, so I expect that they, and Barack Obama in particular, will spend the next few months negotiating with themselves before capitulating.

E.J. Dionne asks a question:

And you wonder: Will President Obama welcome the responsibility of engaging the country in this big argument, or will he shrink from it? Will his political advisers remain robotically obsessed with poll results about the 2012 election, or will they embrace Obama’s historic obligation — and opportunity — to win the most important struggle over the role of government since the New Deal?

They will shrink from their responsibility, even though it fighting for Medicare is an unalloyed political winner for them.

This has been another answer of simple answers to simple questions.

And He is Calling His Base C#$% Suckers

On the day that Barack Obama decides to formally announce his candidacy for President, he decided to kick his base in the teeth by dropping real trials for terrorism defendants, and going with the Guantanamo kangaroo courts:

The Obama administration, ending more than a year of indecision with a major policy reversal, will prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other people accused of plotting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks before a military commission and not a civilian court, as it once planned.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced on Monday that he has cleared military prosecutors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to file war-crimes charges against the five detainees in the Sept. 11 case.

Mr. Holder had decided in November 2009 to move the case to a federal civilian courtroom in New York City, but the White House abandoned that plan amid a political backlash.

The shift was foreshadowed by stiffening Congressional resistance to bringing Guantánamo detainees into the United States, and by other recent steps clearing the way for new tribunal trials.

Expect more of this.  Barack Obama thinks that doing the wrong thing just to piss off your base and pandering to your enemies^* is somehow "grown up" behavior.

It's going to be a long f%$#ing campaign.

^*They aren't his opponents, they are his enemies, and his treatment of them as principles opposition is stupid.

He's Officially Running

Yes, leave me off your mailing list

A while ago, I demanded that my email be removed from the OFA list, so I did not get the email blast announcing the fact that Barack Obama is officially running for reelection.

I'm just glad that I live in Maryland, because if my vote counted here, I might have to vote for him again.

Thankfully, my vote does not matter, so I don't have a moral dilemma:  I can write in Howard Dean.

Brilliant!

Specifically, Jurassic Port of Brilliant at Breakfast is brilliant in his (or her) assessment of the current Republican crop of Republican Presidential candidates.

It's a rundown of the top 10 candidates in the race, and you should read it.

A pearl to get you started, about Sarah Palin, "She does to the English language what Catholic priests do to 12 year-old altar boys," but you have to read the whole thing.

Download This Before It's Scrubbed From the Net

Yeah, not funny…Right.

This video, "Conspiracy Theory Rock, was shown once on Saturday Night Live, (link is to higher quality Youtube with embedding disabled) but it is never shown on reruns, because Lorn Michaels says that it is "Not Funny."

You know, I guess if Robert Smigel cut a new one with my paymasters at GE & NBC, and detailed how they used their media power to produce propaganda for their parent firms, I might not find it funny either.

And the Winner for Best April Fools Prank of 2011 Is…

Click for full size

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Heh

The US Army:

In a fingertip-to-the-brim nod to its American frontier history, the Army is changing hats again - returning to the tumultuous days of the horse Cavalry in the wild west and adopting a dark blue Stetson as the official headgear for the current force of 1.1 million Soldiers.

"We figure the Stetson will be popular with the troops," said Sgt. Maj. Bob S. Stone, Army Uniform Board headgear task force president. "It's been a while since we have changed the headgear, so it's time. Plus a Stetson is functional and down right American."

But reminiscent of the controversial switch from the garrison cap to the black beret, the Army faces opposition from one community deeply opposed to losing its special identity with the Stetson - the Armor branch.

"Why in the heck are they doing to us what they did to the snake-eaters?" asked one officer familiar with the board's deliberations. "If you ain't Cav, you ain't ought to be wearing a Cav hat. That just ain't right."

The Pentagon is generally the last place I would expect a good sense of humor, so props to the US Army.

Republican Terrorists Blow Up Police Officer

OK, it's Irish Republican Terrorists who did this.

This is the first of a continuing series Fox News Headlines.

Seriously, have you ever spent 5 minutes reading their headline ticker?

I do not mean to diminish the senseless and tragic death of Ronan Kerr, nor the impact on Omaugh, which saw a horrific bombing by the so-called "Real IRA" 13 years ago, but I was waiting for service with a channel tuned to Fux Snooze today, and it got me pissed off.

Meh!

Sharon^* had a conference today so I took the kids to a movie.  Because of the schedule, we saw Hop.

It's not even worth a write up. 

It was completely unmemorable, with a standard "Santa Claus faces an evil elf revolt" and "Two slackers come to responsibility" themes intertwined.

It was simply unmemorable and inoffensive, and you already saw most of the good bits in the coming attractions.

^*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

Deep Thought

H/t DC at Stellar Parthenon.