February 2009 archive

The Great Republican Depression

Yesterday it really hit me. It wasn’t one thing. It wasn’t a certain number or graph, and you won’t find any in this essay. It was the zeitgeist. It was seeing the look on peoples faces. People’s faces who have been briefed, people’s faces who truly understand this stuff.

We are in deeep shit.

The financial crisis is not just a financial crisis…it is a FINANCIAL CRISIS!!!

The problem, as far as perception and understanding goes, is that Bush manufactured crisis after crisis. Cried wolf at the drop of the hat. Over and over and over in order to plunge the nation into fear and thus docility and made ‘us’ controllable. Heck Bush even had a fear meter, the Terror Alert System, where he could communicate to us how afraid we should be. When it was politically advantageous for him. Experts were trotted out, ‘paid’ experts in the case of the Military Analyst scandal, to scare us into docility as Bush pushed his purely political and ideological agenda on the world. As he tortured and murdered and had the NSA spy on us to make sure we were docile. And spied on journalists, to make sure that the nominal Guardians of Truth were docile as well. The upshot of all this Wolf yelling was, as is the moral of the story, that we became inured to fear mongering at the hands of government pronouncements.

So at least for me, when the talk of a new great depression started a while ago, I discounted it….at least somewhat. I have stopped doing that now.  

Obama to Cantor: Grow Up

For those of you who have watched “Prime Ministers Questions” on cspan and wished we had a similar format here in the US, yesterday that wish sort-of came true. President Obama held a “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House and invited congressional leaders, union representatives, industry leaders and others to talk about the difficult task of our country’s fiscal challenges. After they had met in small groups on topic areas, Obama made some remarks (transcript) and then opened the floor for questions/comments. It was an interesting back-and-forth.

But I was particularly interested in this (just the first 35 seconds of the video):

Docudharma Times Tuesday February 24

Senator Richard Shellby Of Alabama

Decides That Wild Wing Nut Conspiracy Theories      

Are True That Tin Foil Hat

Must Be A Little Tight




Tuesday’s Headlines:

U.S. Clears Path to Bank Takeovers

Symbol of hope as Iraq’s looted and gutted national museum reopens

Shock as Olmert fires his key negotiator

Legionnaires on defensive: legendary force faces claims recruits were abused

Farming policy: an end to French hypocrisy?

Darfur rebel leader vows to topple President al-Bashir

For Rwandans, Fragile Acts of Faith

For Pakistan’s Swat residents, uneasy calm

Governor of Mexico’s Chihuahua state downplays attack

‘Those I hoped would rescue me were allied with my abusers’



Richard Norton-Taylor

The Guardian, Tuesday 24 February 2009


Britain’s role in the secret abduction of terror suspects came under intense new scrutiny with the return to the UK of Binyam Mohamed yesterday after more than four years in Guantánamo Bay.

Senior MPs said they intended to pursue ministers and officials over what they knew of his ill-treatment and why Britain helped the CIA interrogate him.

In a statement released shortly after he arrived in a US Gulfstream jet at RAF Northolt in west London, Mohamed said: “For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence.”

Once inside the terminal building he met his sister for the fist time in more than seven years and in the most emotionally charged moment of the day they both cried and hugged.

North Korea ‘plans rocket launch’

North Korea has announced that it is preparing to launch a rocket carrying a communications satellite.

The BBC

It did not give a date for the launch, but said it would mark a great step forward for the communist state.

Correspondents say the statement is Pyongyang’s clearest reference yet to what neighbours believe may be the imminent test of a long-range missile.

When it tested the Taepodong-1 missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite in orbit.

In July 2006 it test-fired the three-stage long-range Taepodong-2, but the missile failed shortly after launch.

North Korea’s move comes amid heightened tensions with South Korea, and with Pyongyang pushing for a top spot on the agenda of the new US administration.

Alaska reach

The announcement came in a statement from the national space agency, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

 

USA

U.S. Pressed to Add Billions to Bailouts



This article is by Edmund L. Andrews, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Mary Williams Walsh

The government faced mounting pressure on Monday to put billions more in some of the nation’s biggest banks, two of the biggest automakers and the biggest insurance company, despite the billions it has already committed to rescuing them.

The government’s boldest rescue to date, its $150 billion commitment for the insurance giant American International Group, is foundering. A.I.G. indicated on Monday it was now negotiating for tens of billions of dollars in additional assistance as losses have mounted.

Separately, the Obama administration confirmed it was in discussions to aid Citigroup, the recipient of $45 billion so far, that could raise the government’s stake in the banking company to as much as 40 percent.

David Brooks- Concern Troll

The New York Times, February 23, 2009

I worry that we’re operating far beyond our economic knowledge. Every time the administration releases an initiative, I read 20 different economists with 20 different opinions. I worry that we lack the political structures to regain fiscal control. Deficits are exploding, and the president clearly wants to restrain them. But there’s no evidence that Democrats and Republicans in Congress have the courage or the mutual trust required to share the blame when taxes have to rise and benefits have to be cut.

All in all, I can see why the markets are nervous and dropping. And it’s also clear that we’re on the cusp of the biggest political experiment of our lifetimes. If Obama is mostly successful, then the epistemological skepticism natural to conservatives will have been discredited. We will know that highly trained government experts are capable of quickly designing and executing top-down transformational change. If they mostly fail, then liberalism will suffer a grievous blow, and conservatives will be called upon to restore order and sanity.

It’ll be interesting to see who’s right. But I can’t even root for my own vindication. The costs are too high. I have to go to the keyboard each morning hoping Barack Obama is going to prove me wrong.

So why does this guy still have a job anyway?

In a move of breathtaking and remarkable callousness even for a soulless greed driven banker, JP Morgan announced yesterday that it was slashing it’s dividend 87% from 38 cents to a nickle a share-

JPMorgan slashes dividend

By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:15am EST

NEW YORK (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), the second-largest U.S. bank, slashed its common stock dividend 87 percent on Monday, a surprise move by a lender considered among the strongest in the U.S. financial sector.

The bank also said it has been “solidly profitable” this quarter, and that the outlook for the three-month period is “roughly in line” with analyst forecasts. Shares rose 5.5 percent in after-hours trading.

JPMorgan said its decision to lower its quarterly dividend to 5 cents per share from 38 cents will save $5 billion of common equity a year. It hopes the lowered payout will help it pay back the $25 billion of capital it got in October from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program faster.

So why do you think Jamie Dimon is so anxious to pay back the TARP Funds?  Out of a sense of patriotism and the goodness of his heart?

Maybe it has something to do with this-

Geithner May Have Little Leeway on Executive Compensation Rules

By Matthew Benjamin, Bloomberg

February 20, 2009

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his staff will have little leeway to dilute the executive pay rules enacted by Congress for banks getting U.S. government aid, according to legislative and compensation analysts.

The new rules force the top five executives at banks receiving at least $500 million from the Troubled Asset Relief Program — such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — and the 20 most highly paid employees at those firms, to forgo cash bonuses. Incentive pay will be limited to stock that is restricted until bailout funds are repaid. The language went beyond guidelines the Treasury previously issued for future recipients of “exceptional” aid.

Jamie Dimon is willing to shaft his shareholders so he and his fellow parasites can keep sucking down their obscene salaries.

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

Circular Rainbow

Unlock your mind

Words and images

wrapped in sounds

and silence

tracing a pathway

from here to there

beginning to end

With any luck

or perhaps skill

meaning is transferred

from me to you

and learning

emerges

The transaction

transpires

free of charge

to anyone

who is open

to the experience

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–January 2, 2009

Late Night Karaoke

Southern Rock

Why I deleted Jawad Diary

In the Jawad case, bush team filed a motion to stay habeas shortly before Obama was sworn in as president.

The ACLU, defense counsel for Jawad, filed its response on in mid February or this month.

There were two reasons i thought that the Obama DOJ had once again accepted or adopted Bush’s position on this issue.

(1)  The ACLU issued a press release saying that despite Obama’s EO stopping military commission proceedings, “the government is moving forward.” I interpreted government as Obama not bush, given the earlier reference to Obama  in the same sentence:

ACLU Opposes Justice Department Efforts To Throw Out Case Challenging Illegal Detention Of Guantánamo Prisoner Mohammed Jawad (2/18/2009)

Despite President Obama’s executive order halting military commission proceedings, the government is moving forward with a last-minute effort by the Bush administration to deny Jawad his right to challenge his detention in federal court until after the commissions case against him is complete.

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/d…

(2)  In the ACLU brief filed in February 2009 or same date as the press release, the ACLU says it asked the government to withdraw its motion, but the government refused, saying that it was still working out the process for these cases. I interpreted this as obama DOJ because Bush is gone. (footnote  8)

“Mr. Jawad’s counsel have twice asked the government to withdraw the Motion.  The government’s lawyers have refused.  As the basis for their refusal, counsel for the government cite “the process of assessing how it should proceed in these cases.”  Email Exchange, Frakt

Decl. Ex. D.  But that is not the basis for the government’s Motion before this Court, and the government has not moved to modify the Motion.  The Court should not entertain this post-hoc justification if it is raised by the government.  Cf. Goldring v. District of Columbia, 416 F.3d 70,

77 n.4 (D.C.Cir. 2005) (argument raised for first time in reply brief is untimely (citation omitted)); Ark Las Vegas Rest. Corp. v. NLRB, 334 F.3d 99, 108 n.4 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (same).  In any event, there is no justification for additional delay.  While the new administration may have the best intentions in reviewing Guantanamo detentions and seeking to avoid the many and grievous mistakes of its predecessor, the law applicable to the government’s alleged basis for Mr.

Jawad’s detention has not changed, nor have the facts in his case.  There is no other historical context of which counsel are aware in which the executive branch took upon itself-and asked the judiciary to approve-the authority to declare a constitutional “time out” to decide how the executive wished to proceed, whether with a civilian criminal trial, a military trial or some unspecified third option, while it continued to detain prisoners.  To permit this kind of delay

would, effectively, permit the government to detain by fiat, not by law, and thus evade the Suspension Clause.”

Someone raised a question in the DK posting comments of how did we know this was the position of the Obama DOJ accepting once again the Bush position stated in papers filed by Bush.

I said i would doublecheck, intending to dig out from my notes the links i had for media articles on this case. What i found is the media articles were just reposting the ACLU press release.

Thus, I did not have the confirmation i thought i had, and so i deleted the diary.

I will be calling the ACLU tomorrow and hopefully i can reach one of the attorneys on this case to confirm.

When i do, i will repost.

sorry, for posting and deleting here too.

   

Obama Defers Habeas, Defends Bush’s MCA

Last year, in Boumediene v. Bush, the US Supreme Court held that foreign prisoners at Guantánamo have a constitutional “privilege of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of their detention” promptly. Guantánamo prisoners, like Mohammed Jawad, filed a habeas corpus petition (pdf file) to challenge their imprisonment. Now, the Obama Justice Dept. wants to impose another requirement of no habeas corpus relief until after a military commission trial. In fact, our government says no harm in delay? Guantánamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed is now being released to Britain. He was “beaten by US guards right up to the point of his departure”. Medical examinations last week revealed he has suffered many injuries, including organ damage, bruising, stomach problems and severe damage to ligaments.  

Not Your Grandfather’s Depression

Headline (albeit a small one) in Sunday’s LA Times: “20% in Los Angeles County Receive Public Aid.”

Headline in Sunday’s Nashville Tennessean: Homeless Kids Flood Shelters and Schools.

Headline on the cover of this week’s The Economist: The Collapse of Manufacturing.

Paul Krugman noted on Saturday that the current situation bears resemblance to the Great Depression. Maybe this is no surprise to some of us. But I can’t help thinking it’s worse.

Be the change

If you knew that you would be alone,

Knowing right, being wrong,

Would you change?

Would you change?

If you knew that you would find a truth

That brings up pain that can’t be soothed

Would you change?

Would you change?

Are you so upright you can’t be bent?

If it comes to blows are you so sure you won’t be crawling?

If not for the good, why risk falling?

Why risk falling?

If everything you think you know,

Makes your life unbearable,

Would you change?

Would you change?

How bad, how good does it need to get?

How many losses? How much regret?

What chain reaction would cause an effect?

Makes you turn around,

Makes you try to explain,

Makes you forgive and forget,

Makes you change?

Makes you change?

Tracy Chapman, Change

Four at Four

  1. The Guardian reports the Consumer exports are behind 15% of China’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    The full extent of the west’s responsibility for Chinese emissions of greenhouse gases has been revealed by a new study. The report shows that half of the recent rise in China’s carbon dioxide pollution is caused by the manufacturing of goods for other countries…

    About 9% of total Chinese emissions are the result of manufacturing goods for the US, and 6% are from producing goods for Europe. Academics and campaigners increasingly say responsibility for these emissions lies with the consumer countries.

    The LA Times reports of Bubbles of warming, beneath the ice. “Methane (CH4) has at least 20 times the heat-trapping effect of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). As warmer air thaws Arctic soils, as much as 55 billion tons of methane could be released from beneath Siberian lakes alone… That would amount to 10 times the amount currently in the atmosphere.”

    “Today, 20% of Earth’s land surface is locked up in a deep freeze. But scientists predict that air temperature in the Arctic is likely to rise as much as 6 degrees Celsius, or 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century. That is expected to boost the emission of carbon compounds from soils.”

    And just to underscore the point — Climate change lays waste to Spain’s glaciers, reports The Guardian. “The Pyrenees mountains have lost almost 90% of their glacier ice over the past century… ‘It has become obvious that the ongoing trend of worldwide and fast, if not accelerating, glacier shrinkage … is of a non-cyclic nature'”.

Four at Four continues with Obama deficit optimism and Republican governors stupidity, sunken treasure, and Comet Lulin.

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