Seriously.
Month: January 2009
Another One Bites the Dust
Another Friday, another failed, and seized, bank: 1st Centennial Bank of Redlands, CA
Reports that Gaza Death Toll May Be Lower Than Reported
While my original source, Ynetnews, should be viewed with a jaundiced eye, their report that death figures were inflated is from the respected Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, which as best as I can tell is a well respected center to center-left paper based in Milan.
They quote a doctor as saying that deaths are likely in the 500-600 range (Google translation, original Italian version) , along with indications that a much higher number of the casualties were combatants than has been previously reported.
This is not uncommon following such a conflict, when people presumed dead start heading home.
Additionally, the dynamics in terms of public relations battle would tend create a situation where the Palestinians would be inclined to over report deaths in the first few days.
There is a historical precedent, the battle of Jenin, where the initial reports of casualties were as high as 500 , and eventually were determined to be 52 to 56.
I do not expect to see a 9.6:1 differential between initial and final numbers here, though.
Laurent Nkunda Captured by Rwandan Army
His arrest, see also here, comes as a bit of the surprise, as he was always close to the Rwandan army, and his pursuit of the remnants of the genocidal Hutu Interahamwe militias were certainly in agreement with the Rwandan government.
It appears that this might be some sort of quid quo pro, with Congo allowing Rwanda to send in troops to take out the Hutu militias in exchange for neutralizing Nkunda.
Eurocopter to Offer UH-72 Variant for ARH Contract
After the Army canceled the Bell proposal because of delays and cost overruns and put out proposals for new bids, we are now seeing Eurocopter enter the fray.
As they are already delivering the UH-72A Lakota (EC145) to the US army, they may have a leg up on competitor Boeing.
Bell could reenter the competition too, but seeing as how their helo was canceled following a 4 year day and a threefold increase in development costs, I don’t think that they will.
Rumors that EADS Will Abandon A400M Transport
They have suspended production and the prototype is yet to fly, though the engine has finally taken to the air in the C-130 testbed, and now the Financial Times Deutschland is reporting that EADS is considering walking away from the contract.
I’m not sure how that would work, but EADS is facing some fairly substantial penalties for the delays, and
My guess is that the rumors, and the dire statements made by EADS executives, are an attempt to move negotiations on delays in their favor.
Land-Attack Variant of BrahMos Missile: Fail
The Mach 2.8 290 km missile missed the target, though the rest of the flight profile was successful.
It was originally developed for naval use, and the terminal guidance would be the biggest change.
There are reports that part of this test was to validate it carrying a nuclear warhead, just in case you were wondering if real peace were in danger of breaking out between India and Pakistan.
Here We Go Again
New submissions for the CSAR-X search and rescue helicopter contract.
This thing seems to have been in bid or being contested for like this whole century.
JSF Breaks Nunn-McCurdy Limits
Which means that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is massively over budget.
They have finally gotten to the point where they cannot use accounting tricks to cover this up.
I expect the unit cost to rise sharply now, and be near that of the F-22.
A number of people have been predicting this, most notably the House Appropriations Committee, who have been pushing for more Super Hornets, and the DoD, who were trying to accellerate purchases, doubtless to beat this announcement. (paid subscription required)
Bad Day at the Office
An air-to-air refueling mishap for an Italian AMX attack aircraft.
There appear to have been no injuries, but I rather imagine that the pilot got a healthy ribbing when he got back to base.
H/T Worldwide War Pigs.
Gripen NG Supercruises
On Wednesday, the Gripen NG prototype sustained Mach 1.2 at 28,000 feet without the use of afterburners, though it did use reheat to get to Mach 1.2, and then went full military power to settle to a speed, which it held until it “ran out of test area.”
No idea on how long the test ran, but my guess would be something on the order of 10-30 minutes total.
Top 10 Reasons to Watch Battlestar Galactica
Letterman
Mein Furher, I Can Walk!!!!
It’s kind of anti-cat blogging on Friday, because cats are cute, and evil.
So the evil matches up, but the cute…not so much.
H/T Thin White Duke at by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS for both the picture, and the title.
Props to My Cousin
Who I’ve never met, Dianne Feinstein*, it appears that even though Obama has issued an executive order banning torture, she is proceeding with legislation to make it the law of the land:
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the committee, said that despite the executive orders she still planned to press for legislation mandating a single standard for military and C.I.A. interrogators. Such a law would be harder to reverse than Mr. Obama’s executive order, which he could alter or cancel at any time by issuing a new order.
Cool.
*Full disclosure, my great grandfather, Harry Goldman, and her grandfather, Sam Goldman were brothers.
More Calls for Swedish Style Nationalization
And the press is beginning to cover just how well it worked, and it worked very well….A lot better than what the current free market mousketeers are trying here.
George Soros is pushing for something that it kind of halfway in between the two approaches, and I disagree. Solomon’s division of the baby gets one a dead baby:
The hard choice facing the Obama administration is between partially nationalising the banks, or leaving them in private hands but nationalising their toxic assets. Choosing the first course would inflict great pain on a broad segment of the population – not only on bank shareholders but also on the beneficiaries of pension funds. However, it would clear the air and restart the economy.
That being said, George Soros is right about an awful lot.
DNI Would Minimize Contractors
Adm. Dennis Blair, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, “one of his first duties if confirmed will be to transfer to federal employees any ‘inherently governmental’ work being done by contractors:
Blair said the government should rely on contract interrogators only in special circumstances, such as when a suspect speaks an obscure dialect.
“My strong preference is that interrogators in the intelligence world be a professional cadre of the best interrogators in the business,” Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence during his nomination hearing.
Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said she supported Blair’s call to reduce the intelligence community’s reliance on contractors. She referred to a 2007 Office of the Director of National Intelligence study that found that 27 percent of the intelligence work force is comprised of contractors, and an individual contractor costs the government $80,000 more on average than a career employee.
“I find this unacceptable,” Feinstein said. “Hiring contractors to interrogate detainees and contract psychologists to evaluate [them] is just the wrong thing for the government to do.”
Now if only we can apply this to the rest of the government, particularly the DoD.
Economics Update
Well, it’s official now for the British, they are in recession too.
Not surprisingly, the Pound has tanked and the dollar is generally up on this news.
The Ruble further weakened too.
We also now have ING warning that France’s AAA sovereign debt rating is at risk.
Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, the New York Stock Exchange has lowered its market capitalization requirement for companies on the exchange.
They delisted a record 53 companies last year, and my guess is that they are worried about breaking 100 this year, so they changed the requirement to account for a tanking market.
A more general indicator of economic activity, the rail freight traffic, has fallen sharply.
Generally, the high energy prices of 2008 favored the industry, but when total economic activity falls, so does rail traffic, even as it grows relative to trucking. (H/T Calculated Risk: Rail Freight Traffic Off Sharply in 2009)
In the intersection of banking and real estate, it appears that the regulators of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) are seriously tightening up regulations because they are still engaging in risky activity.
I just want to note that I suggested that this might be an issue in March of last year.
Also, it appears that the inventory and foreclosure numbers are worse than you think.
Banks are not wanting to flood the market, so they are holding back on placing some of their foreclosures on the MLS and delaying foreclosures on properties in default, so there is a “ghost inventory” out there that is not showing up in the numbers.
In energy, oil was up today.
Jeebus, Chuck Todd is Stupid
Talking Points Memo noted the following bon mot at today’s white house briefing:
And Chuck Todd just asked whether Obama would veto a stimulus bill that came to his desk that hadn’t gotten Republican support.
I never noticed this on Olbermann, but Chuck Todd does not think on his feet well….No doubt because he is standing on his tongue.
Early Elections in Iceland
Because the citizens of that nation are experiencing the wonders of Milton Friedman’s theories, and so they want to throw the folks out who created this clusterf^%$, with the attendant demonstrations and confrontations with police.
These folks are Viking stock, and I think that soon to be former Prime Minister Geir Haarde, who is not standing for reelection, realized that his head would be on a pike if he did not call for new elections.
We Need to Take Care of the Overpaid Part of “Overpaid and Incompetent” Too
Floyd Norris notes that the recent collapse of Wall Street may lead to a reduction in pay for bankers of all stripes.
I would further add that this is a very good thing.
He cites a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Financial Industry, 1909-2006, which notes that wages in the financial industry are at an all time high.
One of the authors the recent runup in wages to, “A new era of financial innovation,” and so the “The financial sector became once again a high-skill, high-wage industry.”
Talk about not getting the point. The stock brokers and bankers in 1929 were not highly skilled or intelligent, they had just figured out a scam that allowed them to get paid for putting the rest of the poor house, and the same applies to the investment bankers in 2007.
Banking and investment exploded as a portion of the economy in the late 1920s and 2001-2005 because it became an easy way to take people’s money. There was no real innovation, there was a simply pursuit of personal gain at the expense of the real economy.
Simply put, if you made robbing banks legal, the activity formerly known as robbing banks would explode.
Certainly, there was some additional talent attracted by this money, but the real attraction was that this was easy money for stupid people to make.
And anyone with half a brain, as Andrew Lahde so eloquently stated in his resignation letter could take them to the cleaners:
….. I was in this game for the money. The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America. …..
But the important thing to remember here is that the, “low hanging fruit,” continued to make excellent wages, and obscene bonuses anyway.
Too many people have been failing upward for years because who their daddy and mommy were, and a disproportionate number of them seem to be Harvard MBAs, like this guy.
People on wing pic courtesy of The Big Picture.