Month: July 2010

Hungary Passes The Bank Tax

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Hungarian parliament has passed a law assessing a ½% levy on banks assets.

Needless to say, the banks are having a conniption over this:

Domestic and foreign banks doing business in Hungary have complained about the tax as well. Erste and Raiffeisen, two banks based in Vienna that have branches in Hungary, estimate they would have to pay €40 million and €35 million, or $52 million and $45 million, respectively.

“This tax is a quick-win measure, and only that,” said Juraj Kotian from Erste Group Bank in Vienna. “It does not provide any sustainable support for budget consolidation.”

The European Banking Federation called for a “profound modification” of the tax, saying it was a discriminative levy that would cause losses at some lenders and hamper economic growth.

This tax, which includes a levy on insurance companies as well is raising hackles for the same reason that Malaysia’s imposition of capital controls was vociferously attacked during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, because the market participants are terrified at the thought that this might work.

After all, Hungary is a very small fish in the overall EU economy, so if this tax fails, the impact is minimal, but if it is successful, then you can see an explosion in such taxes, just as you saw nations ignoring the IMF and imposing their own capital controls following Malaysia’s relatively mild recession and quick recovery.

If this becomes a more general practice, then it starts eating into 7 figure banker bonuses, which is not what the bankers want.

My prediction is that this will shrink the finance industry significantly in Hungary, and with the generally bloated and parasitic industry cut down to size, the Magyar republic will outperform its neighbors.

My earlier post on the attempts by the EU and IMF to browbeat the Hungarians into being the bank’s bitches is here, and my advice to them remains the same: back away from joining the Euro and set about leaving the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

This is a Stupid Idea

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Boeing is proposing a C-17 variant with a 4 foot narrower fuselage, the theory being that if it is too expensive to operate, this model will be a bit cheaper, though it won’t be able to carry (1) Abrams tank or (2) Bradley IFVs, though it could carry Stryker class vehicles.

Unless this is some sort of idea to get some more pork through the US Congress, this is a stupid idea.

While the reduction in takeoff weight, as well as an increase in installed thrust, it will still be outperformed by modern turboprops, and in terms of economy per ton mile, low wing commercial freighters will be cheaper to operate, as well as being about 50kts faster.

It just doesn’t make sense.

What BTD Says

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There seems to be a push by the blue dogs and DINOS to try to make some portion of the disastrous Bush tax cut permanent.

Of course, most the Republicans won’t vote for it unless it keeps tax cuts for millionaires, and so it needs liberal Democratic votes to pass.

Well, the the blogger formerly known as Armando has this right, the best course of action absent some major concessions from the Blue Dog types is to do nothing, and let taxes go up, particularly the inheritance tax, which will pay for the loss of revenues this year in about 18 months if it returns to its old levels:

But it is not for progressive Dems. In short, to hell with Baucus and Reid on this issue, Progressives can get what they want by simply making sure nothing happens. They have the bargaining power now. Time to use it.

All that needs to happen for the taxes to be repealed is to do nothing.

Doubtless, the Obama administration will twist arms over this, since he promised people making less than $¼ million a year that he would not raise taxes, but he also promised to support a public option, to get us out of Iraq, repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and have a serious look at torture and other war crimes by Bush and His Evil Minions™.

I don’t see any reason for liberals in Congress to go out of their way to support Obama on bad policy promises if he won’t fight on good policy promises.

How Does Shep Smith Keep His Job?

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I’m not suggesting that he is a bad journalist, but rather that is s frequently a square peg in Fox News’s round holes, as was the case over the past few days when he pointedly did not become a part of the baying pack of Foxholes.

I imagine that he must feel some days a lot like Oskar Schindler must have felt.*

In any case, here is a video of Mr. Smith saying that, “we did not and do not trust the source,” referring to professional bigot Andrew Breitbart.

H/t TPM.

*Yes, I know, Godwin’s Law.

Cry Me a F%$#ing River

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The presidents of 2 of the big banks, Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd Blankfein, and Jamie Dimon at JP Morgan Chase were not invited to the signing of the financial reform bill, even though other bankers,chiefs of, “Citigroup, Bank of America, Barclays, and Morgan Stanley.”

They are reportedly fuming over this.

Considering what you folks have gotten from the taxpayers, and your vociferous opposition to any substantive reform, Mssrs. Blankfein and Diamon should count themselves lucky.

If I were President, I would have taken my inspiration from Vlad Tepes in dealing with these ingrates.

And Now the Truth Comes Out

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And the Obama administration is now falling all over itself to apologize to Shirley Sherrod.

Not panicking in the first place, and getting the facts right would have been better, but I think that what happened is that they realize that they are now looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.

The problem is not that they are looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards, it is that they are a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.

Not only is it bad policy, but it is bad politics, because, as Josh Marshall notes in his “Bitch slap theory of electoral politics, because it makes the voters think that, “Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.”

I’m waiting for the the response from Stewart, Letterman, and Leno.

Olbermann Was Good This Evening, But He Was Not At the Top of His Form

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I think that invoking L’Affaire Dreyfus was a bit over the top.

His refrain on Obama is that his administration is ill serving him, which IMNSHO, is profoundly is wrong.

As I am wont to say, the Cossacks work for the Czar.

Still, Keith’s advice to stop making nice is the right one, and his invoking the line from The American President, you know, the one that goes, “I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job,” was a good bit.

But it doesn’t get my blood pumping like the older stuff, and I’m not sure if he’s changed, or I have, or maybe the times have changed. I don’t know which.

OK, This is Jim Crow Bigotry in Israel

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No other way to explain this.

An Arab man in Israel, Sabbar Kashur, hooked with a unnamed Jewish woman in Israel, and told her that he was Jewish in a successful attempt get into her pants.

When she discovered that he had lied to her about his religion, she filed rape charges, and today, he was convicted of rape by deception and sentenced to 30 months in prison.

Men lie to get into women’s pants:

  • I’ll respect you in the morning.
  • I’ve never been married.
  • I’m a stockbroker.
  • This car is a loaner, my Porsche is in the shop.
  • It’s just heat rash.

Certainly, I do not think that what Kashur did is right, but it is clearly not criminal either.

I cannot see any reason behind the fact that the Israeli prosecutors and the Israeli judiciary pursued this as a criminal matter beyond bigotry.

The Kimberly Process is a Bad Joke

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The process, intended to prevent the sales of diamonds that are mined by entities, largely guerrilla armies, who systematically violate human rights, better known as “Blood Diamonds.”

Well, the Kimberly Process has now allowed Zimbabwe to sell diamonds from its Marange diamond fields.

Not only has the diamond mining there been rife with allegations of human rights abuses, included killings and forced labor, but the proceeds go directly to support the cronies in Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF:

Zimbabwe has been denied formal approval for its Marange diamond exports since evidence began to emerge around 2008 that the military had overrun the area to take control of the fields and organize smuggling of diamonds across the nearby border with Mozambique. Human rights activists say they suspect that profits are being used to finance the political and military elite around President Robert Mugabe.

Seriously, any certification of diamonds by the Kimberly Process, or the World Diamond Council, are simply not credible.

Such a Good Idea For Obama and Clinton to Back Blanche Lincoln

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The latest poll has Blanche Lincoln down 25 points to Republican John Boozma, but not to worry, Lincoln’s campaign says that their internal numbers have her down by only 9 points:

You know it’s hard out there for an incumbent Senator when she has to stave off bad news by releasing an internal poll showing her down by nine to her Republican challenger. But that’s exactly what Sen. Blanche Lincon (D-AR) has done, attempting to respond to yesterday’s poll showing her down by 25 points to Rep. John Boozman (R) with numbers of her own showing her losing by a lot — but not as much.

According to Lincoln’s numbers, Boozeman leads the race 45-36 with 18% undecided. A third party candidate draws 6% of the vote. The survey of 700 voters was conducted June 22-24 and has a margin of error of 3.7%.

The rule of thumb is that undecideds break for the challenger by at least 2:1, which gives us a 57-42 blowout, and the the average other polling shows Lincoln down by over 20 points.

This was foreseeable, but you know how it is, Washington insider and incumbent protection Über Alles.

Yet another reason not to give to the DSCC, they will doubtless waste money on her, and that is throwing good money after bad.

Curry Will Save the World

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Case in point, it reduced greenhouse emissions from the digestive tracts of ruminants, like cows and sheep:

Curry spices could hold the key to reducing the enormous greenhouse gas emissions given off by grazing animals such as sheep, cows and goats, scientists have claimed.

Research carried out at Newcastle University has found that coriander and turmeric – spices traditionally used to flavour curries – can reduce by up to 40 per cent the amount of methane that is produced by bacteria in a sheep’s stomach and then emitted into the atmosphere when the animal burps.

Working rather like an anti-biotic, the spices were found to kill the methane-producing “bad” bacteria in the animal’s gut while allowing the “good” bacteria to flourish. The findings are part of an ongoing study led by Dr Abdul Shakoor Chaudhry at Newcastle University.

It also means that when you have lamb or beef curry, it’s already marinated.

Cowards.

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When people talk about DFH* bloggers hating on the Obama they seem to think that its all about Obama being a pragmatist. It isn’t about his being a pragmatist.

It’s about his, and his people being abject cowards, who soil themselves when someone on the right wing shouts out a lie.

Case in point, Shirley Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, who was just fired for a yet another deceptively edited video from professional bigot Andrew Breitbart.

You see, she gave a talk about how when she was working helping farmers, when the first white farmer came to her for help, the thought crossed her mind was not to help, because they were white, but she realized almost as soon as the thought hit her that it was wrong.

Well after excerpting 30 seconds out of a 45+ minute speech (see below), so that Fox News could go “Oh noes! N*****s are trying to take over America.”

The response of the Secretary of Agriculture was to fire her before any real facts came out.

I am with what Digby said:

“Her decision ‘rightly or wrongly” will be called into question” because some right wing hitman put out an edited tape that makes her sound as if her point is the opposite of what it is, so she had to be fired.

They are telling wingnuts everywhere that all they have to do is gin up a phony controversy (especially about a black person, apparently) and the administration will fire them so as not to shake confidence that they are “fair service providers.”

This is sheer cowardice.

This is what pisses people off.

Video after break

*Dirty F%$#ing Hippies.

Bloody Morons

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So, the Senate, now that Byrd’s temporary replacement has been sworn in, but they got it wrong.

They extended benefits through November. You should have extended it only to October, and then jam up the Republicans when they vote against it just before the election.

I understand that Congressmen don’t like to be in DC in October of an election year, but being there to vote for an unemployment extension is the best campaigning that you can do.

US Broadband is Now So Bad……

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That even in the phony metrics commissioned by the US incumbent carriers, the United States is no longer in first place:

The United States has lost the top spot in Nokia Siemens Networks’ annual broadband development index, the Connectivity Scorecard, to Sweden.

The Connectivity Scorecard is, as Stacey Higginbotham reports for GigaOM, a favorite measure of the telecom industry, since it paints the America in a particularly favorable light.

It’s gotten so bad that even when using the bogus metrics favored our the telco incumbents who took billions in government dollars and gave us nothing, we still cannot win.

It’s time to stop bribing the monopolists, and start actually instituting real regulations that require real performance.

Economics Update

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Well, if consumers are 70% of the economy, the fact that the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence index numbers fell to a nearly 1 year low.

This, along with a falling consumer price index, which indicates that a deflationary spiral may be nearer than we would like, are not good news.

Additionally, notwithstanding heroic/stupid efforts to prop up the housing bubble, home builder confidence has hit a 15 month low.

On the brighter side, Moody’s survey of commercial real estate prices is rose in May, and the National Association for Business Economics’ latest survey of employers is showing that employers are looking to hire more than they were a year ago, though admittedly, that is not saying much.

I Really Cannot Wrap My Head Around this

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As much as I rag on the Washington Post, there is some reporting of real value amongst the dross, including Dana Priest, who, along with William M. Arkin, have published an extensive investigative report on the burgeoning world of the American security-industrial complex:

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

Basically it points to a picture of a state security apparatus run amuck, where there are so many players, generating so much analysis, from so many sources, that it is impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, or as Glenn Greenwald notes:

So it isn’t that we keep sacrificing our privacy to an always-growing National Security State in exchange for greater security. The opposite is true: we keep sacrificing our privacy to the always-growing National Security State in exchange for less security.

(emphasis original)

More than ever, we need to ensrhine into the constitution something analogous to the the Swedish concept of Offentlighetsprincipen (openness), because right now all that our paranoia is generating is a massive trail of profiteers/contractors without generating much in the way of security.

It should be noted that reigning in this will not be easy. You can be sure that when the budgets are in jeopardy, the various wings of the state security apparatus will come up with scary stories to subvert any effort at real reform, and the current administration is terrified of being labeled, “soft on fillintheblank,” so they do not have the inclination to even bend the curve.

I’ll be going through the story, and the supporting material, to see if I have anything to add.

Worst Defense of Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner Ever!

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I’m with The Bloodhound Gang, on Banks,
Burn Motherf%$#er, Burn!

John Talbot is suggesting that Geithner’s scheme to save the banks is dependent on their ability to screw retail consumers and small business consumers:

And this is where defeat of the nomination of Elizabeth Warren becomes critical for Geithner. For Geithner’s strategy to work, the banks have to find increasing sources of profitability in their business segments to balance out their annual loan loss recognition from their existing bad loans in an environment in which they continue to recognize new losses in prime residential mortgages, commercial real estate lending, sovereign debt investments, bridge loans to private equity groups, leverage buyout lending and credit card defaults.

The banks have made no secret as to where they will find this increase in cash flow. They intend to soak their small retail customers, their consumer and small business borrowers, their credit card holders and their small depositors with increased costs and fees and are continuing many of the bad mortgage practices that led to the crisis (ARM’s, option pay deals, zero down payments, second mortgages, teaser rates, etc). American and Banking Market News reports this week that the rule changes in the financial reform bill may lead banks to start implementing fees that had essentially disappeared from the industry early in the new millennium, such as fees for not meeting minimum balance requirements on a checking account, or reinstituting fees for certain online banking transactions that are currently free or charging to receive a paper statement or to talk to a live teller as Bank of America’s CEO has recently proposed.

Let me be clear here. Mr. Talbot does not endorse this strategy, and he supports Ms. Warren as head of the CFPB, he is explaining what he believes the calculus of the Geithner/Summers axis.

So, he is saying that in addition to actual taxpayer funded bailout, he is saying that Geithner and Summers see a back door taxpayer bailout as the only way to save the banks.

The thing is that the costs here, if Mr. Talbot is right, are enormous.

Excessive bank charges, won’t just generate excess profits, they will also reduce economic growth and tax receipts, since consumer spending and small business is where growth comes from, and this is where they will be extracting their money.

I do hope that he is wrong, because for this to be their strategy means that we do have a bunch of Republicans in all ways that matter, running the White House economic policy.

My guess is rather less tinfoil hat.

I think that Geithner has never in his life thought outside of the “what is good for Wall Street” box, and that this, juxtaposed with what appears to be an antipathy towards women in the field,* has led to yet another one of his petty and self destructive vendettas.

At least that is what I hope.

If John Talbot is correct, then these Cossacks Republicans work for the Czar, who knows what they are.

*I do not think that Geithner, who has spent his entire professional career getting ahead by kissing up, has only come out strongly against two people that I know of, Elizabeth Warren and Sheila Bair, both of whom lack a Y chromosome.