Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson called the financial crisis now plaguing the world economy a "once or twice" in a 100 years event, even as he warned Thursday against imposing too-strict regulations to prevent a repeat calamity.
The translation for this is, "I made my money because the SEC and the CFTC were muzzled, so I could use deception and extortion to get money out of the average working Joe's pocket, and this should not change, because I have relatives."
Paulson is an idiot. While the financial crisis we're having right now mirrors the stock market crash in 1928, almost 80 years ago, the fact is that these fiscal implosions have gotten more common as we have backed off regulation, and before 19289, they happened every decade or so.
The reason that nothing has happened in the past 80 years is because of the regulations you dispise, and the reason that it is happening now is because of the slow deregulatory movements from about 1975-2001, and the rush to deregulate since then.
Janet Napolitano as head of DHS. Which means, I guess that she won't be challenging McCain in his run for reelection to the Senate in 2 years, which is a bummer, she could beat him, and it means that the Dems won't have a check on districting in Arizona.
By "business considerations", I think that they mean that her role in the Superior Bank of Chicago, which pretty much created the subprime lending model, and then failed in 2001.
My guess is that they (correctly) figured that this would engender a destructive media circus.
This is a good thing for Congress and the nation. Dingell has been doing exactly what the Big 3 (Big 2½) wanted for 50 years, which is why they are in such a mess.
He was such a lapdog that he never did what they needed, just what they wanted.
Well, the obvious lede is the unemployment numbers, with the weekly new unemployment claims, which are a very noisy metric, and continuing claims, which are not, beinb positively ghastly.
Weekly numbers rose to 542,000, whichn is the highest since mid 1992, and well above the estimate of 502,000 and continuing unemployment claims hit 4,012,000, up 109,000, the highest level since 1982.
Meanwhile, corporate governance analyst Hodgson said that Whittle's deal -- nominally a retirement, but treated as a severance -- is all too typical of golden parachutes: "If you and I decided to retire, we might get what's left of our 401(k). But for some reason the rules seem to be different for executives. They get severance even though they're retiring. There's no logic to it at all."
These guys need to be tattooed with verses insulting Mohammad, and parachuted into a Taliban camp.
The decision reversing the 1998 case which allowed things like risk hedging strategies, the "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Washington, voted 9-3 that patents should be limited to 'physical objects or substances' and not be awarded to 'abstractions' like a bank's risk-hedging strategy."
Thiw will doubtless go to the Supreme Court, but this is fundamentally a good decision:
In its 132-page decision, the court said a patent can cover a "process that transforms a particular article to a specified different state or thing by applying a fundamental principle" but cannot cover the principle itself.
This is, I think, a response to the fact that the Supreme Court consistently reversing the court, and an understanding that they can no longer subscribe to the theory that everything should be patentable.
So far, Franken has gained 41 votes relative to Coleman, though both have lost total votes, with 279 votes being challenged by one side or the other, and 18% of the votes counted.
It will likely come down to the challenges, and it will be very close.
I think that there are a number of things that may trump Dingell's seniority (He's the longest serving Dem in Congress).
He has been awful on global warming, because he's the Big 3 (2½) auto makers' bitch.
The recognition that one of the reasons that the Big 3 (2½) auto makers are in such bad shape is that the Congress never took steps to move beyond the 1970s CAFE regulation, because Dingell is Big 3 (2½) auto makers' bitch.
There is also, I think, a desire for a bit of a shakeup, to better reflect what is now a relatively young Democratic caucus in Congress.
The vote was a secret ballot, so there is little chance for retribution.
Waxman's ability to count votes is legendary, and the mere fact that he is challenging Dingell makes people wonder if he already has this sewn up. If so, they do not want to be on the losing side.
BTW, the proximate cause of the piracy is that because there is no government in Somalia, fishing fleets from various nations have strip mined the waters off the coast, leaving fisherman with no other means of support.
When you hear claims that the New Deal made the depression worse, they often come directly or indirectly from the work of Amity Shlaes, whose misleading statistics have been widely disseminated on the right.
...
Krugman then goes to show that Shlaes is suggesting that actions based on Keynes theories failed to contain unemployment in the 1960s.
Yes, I was unaware of the historically high unemployment rates in the 1960s too.
Just go read... A few hundred words, and he destroys her.
I've posted occasionally on the FCC's rules process on white space, space between channels that is currently unused, or more accurately unallocated.
A number of people, including me, feel that if this bandwidth should be made available to unlicensed users, much in the same way that Wi-Fi is, because it promises better bandwidth, greater penetration, and better range.
The complicating factor is that it has been used, largely almost completely illegally by the wireless microphone industry.
As a result, I've attracted the attention of the above mentioned gentleman, who deals in said microphones, and we had a bit of discussion on the matter.
He mentioned that, "There are no handheld military RF communication devices that do what he [Telco Expert Harold Feld, who is a friend] claims." (emphasis mine)
By what he claims, he means using "sense and avoid" to avoid interfering with other devices sharing the spectrum.
I find his argument complete bullsh^%, because I have personal knowledge of vehicle mounted communications systems in various stages of test and deployment, JTRS comes to mind because I had to package components when I worked a military contract, but he was insisting on "hand held."
Researchers here are developing new, handheld, wireless radios fitted with a single processor chip that is embedded with algorithms for compressing as many as 5 simultaneous, stealthy conversations into the same time and frequency slot and then, on arrival, untangling them.
Equally importantly, while in transit messages and data packages are seemingly hopelessly mixed – to the point of sounding like static. The chance of intercepting even the digital gibberish is unlikely since foes or potential adversaries don’t have the receiver technology to sort through such high levels of interferences.
....
They also are working to discover what’s necessary and what’s not, allowing them to take computing short cuts and use new techniques to increase performance and efficiency. Such advances in signal processing have allowed researchers to reduce the amount of “overhead” or needless digital instruction in the protocol that is not voice traffic. “Protocol overhead” as part of the total message has decreased to 20% from 50%. That is a key strategy for freeing room for more transmissions. Phase three is to conclude in June with demonstration of up to a 20-radio network. By the end of 2010, researchers expect to have completed design and implementation of a full-waveform protocol and hardware for a brick-size radio.
It's from the minds of DARPA, and it's here, it's real, and it's on a chip, and here is a video: (4:24)
The they will give the Sirius Cybernetics Corp marketing division a run for their money in the, "first up against the wall when the revolution comes," sweepstakes.
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.
....
To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.
Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.
....
So it has been for the Grand Old Party since the 1980s or so, as it has become increasingly beholden to an element that used to be relegated to wooden crates on street corners.
Ouch!!! Reading further it appears that her problem with the Religious right is that it is insular, nativist, and so is hostile and frightening to the majority of the population who are not a part of this. Well put
That's how 24-year-old Josh Fry of West Virginia described his preference for John McCain over Barack Obama. His feelings aren't racist, he explained. He would just be more comfortable with "someone who is a full-blooded American as president."
...
Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.
Maybe she's just pro bigotry, and since it's no longer acceptable, at least not in the Washington Post OP/Ed pages to call the President-Elect a n*gg*r (yet), she just needed someone else to hate.
It's circular firing squad time, and unlike in 1964, there are no moderates left to target....
I'm going to get some popcorn.
*It was a typo, then I realized that I was funnier by accident than I was on purpose.
Not surprising, considering that she was apprehended by the Pakistani ISI, and, along with three children were handed over to American authorities about 5 years ago, and held with recourse to...anything. (JFGI)
I have no knowledge of what was done to her, but it is unquestionably clear that she was held by Pakistani and/or US authorities over that period, and I'm sure that it was not a tea party.
Right now it can be done on a vacation home, recreational boat, etc., but not on a primary residence, but Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) is bringing back a change in bankruptcy law to change this.
According to reports, this will be a priority of Obama, but we are hearing that about a lot of things right now.
This is a very good law for a number of reasons:
Modifying mortgages is cheaper than foreclosure.
With mortgages sliced and diced 6 ways from Sunday, it is currently impossible to get consent from the holders of the mortgages to renegotiate the loans.
It punishes the players who created the bubble.
The cost to people taking out mortgages is minuscule, on the order of 25-75 basis points (¼-¾%), which should not make a significant difference in home affordability.
It makes the use of arcane financial instruments on home mortgages less certain, and hence less likely.
He had told his parents that he wanted to leave Calvary Temple, the Pentecostal church in Sterling the family had attended for decades. But church leaders were blunt with his parents: Throw your son out of the house, or you will be excommunicated. And so that December two years ago, Gary and Marsha Foster told Rob that he had to leave. They would not see him or talk to him.
It's repulsive, and if subjected churches to the same level of fiscal accountability as other non-profits, it's clear that he would be in jail for that
It's nice that Krugman was there when George Will started spewing the standard talking point of the Republicans about the Great Depression, that Roosevelt made it worse because investors went on strike.
The reality is, that the economy clawed its way back because of the New Deal, and when Roosevelt eased up on the fiscal gas in 1937, everything went down again.
In 30 seconds, he showed Will that he did not know what he was talking about.
What worries me is that most days, Krugman would not have been there.
The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."
It should be interesting.
If he doesn't reverse this one in the first week he's sworn in......
*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."
Average house prices are down to $300,000, a level not seen since 2003, and I would note, as Rich Toscano does, that in a down market, expensive houses shift the average upwards, so the number to look at would be $/square foot, which is probably down even further.
Even if the square foot price is not down, this is Argentina meltdown lower.
The US closed the base in 2006, so certainly the space is available, and the Russians could pay in cash, though the Russian ambassador was as flummoxed as the rest of the people at the diplomatic luncheon.
As to where this will end up, I tend to think that between the gentle ministrations of Gordon Brown and the International Monetary Fund, there is a pretty good chance that the Russians will end up with both Keflavik and a naval basing agreement.
There are doubtless a more than a few people with steam pouring out of their ears right now, and it sounds like the good doctor just painted a target on Obama's back.
IMHO, Obama deserves to catch grief over this. It's clear that he figured that he wanted Lieberman in the tent pissing out, but he's been in the tent, pissing in, for the past 4 years.
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