Author's posts
Dec 31 2009
Pulling out all the stops: These go to eleven.
Plan A
When it was discovered that certain investment bankers had shot themselves in the chest using a shotgun of exotic financial products, and that these same bankers were parabiotically connected to the entire financial system of the Earth, i.e., their blood-funnels were permanently attached to the face of humanity, massive cash infusions were said to be necessary to prevent the expiration of all due to the carelessness of a few. We were all going to die, so it was said, even though the medical report remains unavailable to this day, and the patient is said to have been stabilized and resting comfortably in ICU.
Dec 31 2009
Pulling out all the stops: These go to eleven.
Plan A
When it was discovered that certain investment bankers had shot themselves in the chest using a shotgun of exotic financial products, and that these same bankers were parabiotically connected to the entire financial system of the Earth, i.e., their blood-funnels were permanently attached to the face of humanity, massive cash infusions were said to be necessary to prevent the expiration of all due to the carelessness of a few. We were all going to die, so it was said, even though the medical report remains unavailable to this day, and the patient is said to have been stabilized and resting comfortably in ICU.
Dec 31 2009
Booman is of two minds, like a tree in which there are three birds.
Booman the politico makes some recondite point that is also not easily understood by the lay person.
What brought people together into progressive blogging communities and networks was related to policy (the invasion of Iraq, torture, illegal surveillance, regressive taxation, bad environmental policy) but also other things (a one-sided corporate media, incompetent government, and lack of meaningful and effective resistance by the Democrats). But notice something. The progressive blogosphere rarely if ever engaged in serious policy debate about legislation pending in Congress. Insofar as it was discussed at all, it was normally opposed. And that kind of blogging can be habit-forming. What was appropriate when the Republicans ran everything is carried over and used against the Democrats.
Dec 24 2009
Imploding households rescue Treasury debt!
Well. Never count the Americans out…for the full count. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7…just pause right there, on seven, and wait 9/10th of a sec! Because we are getting up off the mat, and we are going kick some serious economic ass. Adrienne!!!! Just when you thought there were no regular buyers left to buy our Treasuries in 2009, just when you were fretting about how we’d explain to the rest of the world that we’d be defaulting on sovereign debt in 2010, well, someone did buy our Treasuries in 2009. Check it out:
Dec 24 2009
Magic 8-ball says affirmative, negative,and non-committal things.
Pictured above: Tim Geithner on NPR with Michelle Norris.
NORRIS: You know that businesses are spending again. The administration has been asking the banks to try to free up more money for small business in particular. And I want you to help me understand something because on one hand the administration is telling the bankers that they need to take fewer risks, that they need to deleverage, that they need to have higher capital reserve. And at the same time you’re also telling them that they need to lend more money. Those two things don’t seem to square.
Sec. GEITHNER: It is very important that we work with Congress to pass legislation that can put in place financial reforms that can prevent the next crisis. So it’s pretty important in the future we build a more stable financial system. We constrain risk taking in the future. But right now the real risk we face is that banks are not lending enough and not going to provide the capital businesses need to grow for the economy to strengthen going forward.
NORRIS: So it’s okay for them to take risks right now?
Sec. GEITHNER: Absolutely. Right now the real risk is that the pendulum having been too soft and easy on the lending side. Right now the risk is that banks overcorrect or that supervisors overcorrect. And that’s something we need to work against, lean against, because, again, the strength in recovery will depend in part on credit being available to businesses across the county.
What a confidence booster. Geithner doesn’t see any job growth until Spring–we just lost half a million more jobs last week. His plan has been to take over toxic gambling losses in exchange for cash so the banks have no need to deleverage and can take more risks.
Dec 23 2009
Meteor Blades has done more for this place, both emotionally and
intellectually than the rest of us combined. Is he the be-all-end-all of our discussions? Fuck no! Never has been. Never tried to be. But his history and knowledge are rich. Will I call him out? Bet your fucking bottom dollar. But fer rizzle, as antagonists go, Meteor Blades?
Seriously?
That’s like calling out Fred Biletnikoff as a wide-reciever.
Jesus. More later.
update: because this diary is a total waste of community neuronal space, I’m deleting shortly. we can do better. yes, we can! and if you elect me president….single payer public health option for all! out of afghanistan!
Dec 21 2009
How do you think it feels down in steerage?
Ian Welsh is in an agitated state of irritation!
So very glad to hear your opinions. Unlike most of the morons who think Obama/Bernanke/Paulson/Geithner did the right thing, I predicted almost everything that happened to the economy, in many cases years in advance, and I sure as hell don’t think so.
But what do I know. Unlike the people who call the shots, I have a consistent record of being right far far more than chance would allow. Therefore, as with everyone else who called their shots right far in advance I have no say, but have to listen to morons who didn’t call it right tell us how they had no choice but do stupid things like not nationalize banks, not force banks to actually increase lending, not force bondholders to take a haircut, not institute massive progressive taxation and not pass a health care bill which is a massive giveaway to the medical industry of the US.
Great.
I hope all you morons who think there was no other choice but to do what has been done enjoy the right wing populist backlash that Obama and the Dems, by doing the wrong things over and over again, have made virtually inevitable.
God I wish Canada wasn’t right next to America. Being in a dingy attached by a chain to the Titanic, while the Titanic is run by morons cheered on by fools is immensely depressing.
Funny. Among econ-bloggers I like to read, he’s the relative optimist! To me, a decade of economic malaise and a mere right wing populist backlash sounds relatively survivable in comparison. Any room in that dinghy for steerage class?
Dec 21 2009
Hair-splitting purity tests, my ass.
There’s a coalition of “progressive” unity-schtickers lamenting the sudden loss of support for the President and his policies. United we stand, divided we fall, they say, and all that crap we have been hearing since well before Democrats took Congress. These Democratic appeasers are united behind a person and party, not the issues, and therefore take issue with those who prefer the “principle” to the “man” or “tribe.” To them, people like myself are purity trolls, like Republican Tea-baggers, regardless of what the tribe stands for. Thus, they will tolerate any and every thing, as long as it’s served up on a plate.
This rapid loss in support for Obama has occurred for several reasons. First, this was a very important election after eight years of neoliberalism on acid. Second, due to a certain psychological pre-eminence of various crises at this particular time in history, we have been keenly aware of the importance of all this promise for hope and change, including the specific issues and policies that would indicate change. Third Barack Obama has signaled in all major areas of crisis, from warfare (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and now, Yemen), the political crisis off giving welfare to deranged profit-takers ($12 trillion dollars and counting to casino gamblers), social welfare (this fucked health care bill), the Unitary Executive and civil rights (blocking judicial activity surrounding Bush era war crimes, torture, human rights, etc.), to environmental degradation (Copenhagen), and boy howdy that’s a lot of signals, that his promises of hope and change are full-on bullshit. If you want to call questions of war & peace, basic human rights, clear-cut questions of law, rampant and encroaching crony capitalism and fascism, and environmental crises “purity tests,” be my guest, you retarded fucking gink, but it shows zero intellectual honesty.
Dec 19 2009
Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike on Yemen
It’s official. Obama ordered a brand new spanking fresh kill of his very own, in Yemen. In US Presidential jargon, he’s been made.
On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.
The Yemen attacks by the U.S. military represent a major escalation of the Obama administration’s campaign against al Qaeda.
The main trouble with the “Al Qaeda” cover story is that the attacks are aimed at Shiite rebels.
Among other things, this is a signal to Iran. The more things change…
(update: I removed the word “terrorists” for my cut and paste title from ABC news, for obvious reasons, ie., just because we attack someone does not make them terrorists.)
Dec 18 2009
Obama teaching…
Herr Doktor Professor President Barack Obama clarifying how “the long arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice” is really just a best-fitted line based on statistical inference. “Please note that although it may look as if some data points don’t at all fit the inferred trend, the ‘arc of history’ does not bend on its own,” he asserted. “Legal scientists assure us that we can rigorously identify certain points as ‘statistical outliers.’ “No matter how imperfect…” he paused for effect, “excluding those outliers by such scientifically and legally valid means vastly increases our confidence in the fit of Dr. King’s famous function.”
Said one brimming undergraduate after the heady lecture, “I’m like so aspiring. It’s amazing how he can so totally account for 99% of the variance in all of human history based on the principle of enlightened self-interest and some statistical thing-a-ma-jig. The legal science of humanity is just plain poetry. It gives me a thrill up the leg.”
No matter how imperfect….
Dec 18 2009
Bank CEOs Pledge to Push for Re-Regulation
In later comments, one CEO elaborated as follows:
There’s a yawning chasm between what we say and what we do. It’s unconscionable.
How big is this disconnect? Well, say you had a choice between measuring it in angstroms or light years…take a guess!
It’s absolute, two-faced hypocrisy.
Let me give you an example: On one hand I’ve got Barney Frank’s balls in a vise, which I guess is why he’s always raising his eyebrows at everything we say, and on the other I’m drawing upon every inch of will power not to burst out laughing in the President’s face when he asks us to comply with greater lending and restraining our bonuses. I mean, he can’t be serious. And we know he’s not. That’s what makes it so hard not to laugh. Remember how Tim Conway used to crack-up Harvey Korman when he’d go off script? God forbid that Lloyd Blankfein starts busting up, because it’s contagious, ya know? That man is a riot. The White House publicly said Blankfein showed contempt for the President in refusing to come to the last meeting, but privately they asked him not to come because of that comment about “doing God’s work.” He even had the President laughing his guts out with that one. And the President knows that’s no way to run a meeting to dress down us “fat cat bankers.” I loved how the Wall Street journal played up the meeting as a no amenities, all business and brass tacks sort of thing: “The executives were served glasses of water — and nothing else -” as if we’re not milking it for all it’s worth, but that’s just Axelrod’s attention to detail. The President himself is damned good at keeping a straight face, but I’ve $300 million bucks that says we’re gonna make him laugh again, with or without Lloyd.
Dec 17 2009
Evil does exist in the world
h/t gqmartinez @ correntewire.com
The capacity of human beings to think up new ways to kill one another proved inexhaustible, as did our capacity to exempt from mercy those who…[couldn’t afford it.]
I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds…
I- like any head of state- reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend [the profits of the ruling classes].
Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights – it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.
It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.
And that is why helping farmers feed their own people – or nations educate their children and care for the sick – is not mere charity.
Let me make one final point about the use of force…
–Obama’s Nobel speech on vaporizing the poorest innocents at home and abroad