You know that someone has jumped the shark.
We have 36 nations in Iraq like I have 36 cars (I have 2½),
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
“Small Price” Jeebus!!!
This is why these folks need to be removed from power. Watch the clip. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Dumbphuquistan) is saying that he does not care about our troops dieing.
It’s clear that’s what he meant, and no amount of weaseling changes this.
Major Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo
Via BBC News.
Subprime meltdown finally affects beer drinkers
It’s a wonderful headline for this Asia Times article, but there is some real meat and potatoes if you scroll down a bit.
…
He relates, “In 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS] was faced with an awkward dilemma. If it continued to include the cost of housing in the Consumer Price Index, the CPI would reflect an inflation rate of 15%, thereby making the country’s economy look like a banana republic. Worse, since investors and bond traders have historically demanded a 2% real return after inflation, that would mean that bond and money market yields could climb as high as 17%.”
Yikes! What to do, what to do, what to do whattodowhattodo? “The BLS’s solution was as simple as it was shocking: exclude the cost of housing as a component in the CPI, and substitute a so-called ‘Owner Equivalent Rent’ component based on what a homeowner might ‘rent’ his house for.” Hahaha! The government resorts to lying! “Wow! Why didn’t we think of this before?” they are heard to ask among themselves.
Fortunately for the government, it worked. “The result of this statistical sleight of hand was immediate and gratifying,” Mr Hardaway writes, “for the reported inflation index quickly dropped to 2%”, down from the real, and horrifying, 15% which was due “in part” to the drop in rents caused by speculators wanting to “offset their holding costs by renting out their homes while their prices skyrocketed, thereby flooding the market with rentals that pushed down the cost of renting a house or apartment.” Hahaha!
You can almost hear the contempt in his voice when he says, “While the BLS was correct in assuming that this statistical ruse would fool the average citizen into believing that inflation was only 2% (and therefore be willing to accept a meager 4% return on his bank savings), what is remarkable is that the ruse also fooled the bond traders, and apparently continues to do so, leading analyst Peter Schiff to describe these supposed savvy bond traders as the ‘hormonal teenagers of the capital markets’.”
Putting it all together, he concludes, “The present subprime credit crisis can be directly traced back to the BLS decision to exclude the price of housing from the CPI. It is now clear that the ‘benign’ inflation figures reported over the last 10 years” were, (using my awesome editorial powers to insert my own words for special emphasis), “A big stinking load of lying crap by the corrupt Federal Reserve and the despicable government (except Ron Paul).”
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This subterfuge has not just been about housing. It’s everywhere in the BLS statistics, and it’s used to shortchange pensioners and to mask the real decline in standard of living for the median worker in the US since the early 1970s.
How the Credit Crunch Has Wider Consequences
It just 86ed a deal to Carlyle Group to sell a cable company.
The bidders could not raise the necessary money.
The Washington Post reported the problems in the sale of Insight Communications, which Carlyle Group purchased for about $2.1 billion in 2005. Bidders including Time Warner Cable, had difficulty getting enough bank financing, according to the report.
Seriously, owning a cable company is about as near as you can come to legalized theft in this country, and Time F&^%ing Warner could not find financing?
Merger and acquisition activity in the US is very close to collapsing.
I’m Off Until Saturday Evening
Jewish High Holidays: Rosh Hashanah.
Posted via sms from my mobile, so it may take a while to hit my blog, sorry.
Israeli Aircraft Struck Targets in Syria
U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week – New York Times.
Don’t know what was hit, or why, though my guess would be that it’s Hesbolla related. If anyone knows anything, contact me.
Countrywide Mortgage is Going Down
Well, it looks like Countrywide is looking for its second cash infusion in as many weeks.
They are going to collapse like wet broccoli, or the taxpayer is going to bail them out….
Odd Ship Concepts
The DSEI show had someinteresting naval displays from BAE.
This is an 8000 ton (supercarriers are 75,000+ton) destroyer with a rear flight deck for dispatching UAVs. I’d call it more of a UAV tender than a Carrier.
This is a submarine propelled by 8 pumpjets mounted in the tail. It does away with the reduction gear of a direct drive system. If I recall correctly, the Seawolf and Virginia class boats use a single screw/pump with electric drive for much the same reason.
Those gears are heavy, very precise, and hence expensive, and (if anything goes wrong) noisy.
This is a mockup of an air independent propulsion system for submarines. As opposed to using a fuel cell, they are using a diesel generator, which promises to be cheaper.
Two Soldiers Who Wrote NY Time Op/Ed Dead
Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora have been killed in Iraq, along with a number of troops serving in Iraq, wrote a scathing editorial for the New York Times, that called into question all of the rosie scenarios given by the right win.
Breaking: Indonesian Earthquake and Tsunami
Earthquake appears to be in the high 7s, and the Tsunami appears to be mild, about 2 feet or so.
Gray whale comeback questioned – CNN.com
A genetic study the Eastern Pacific Gray Whale population has indicated that the pre whaling population was 5x what was previously thought, indicating that the recovery is 5x as anemic as was previously though.
More significantly, it means that the Eastern Gray Whales population of 20,000, Western Gray Whale population is in the few hundred range, is still well below the carrying capacity of their habitat, and that the increasing number of malnourished whales found are an indication of another problem threating their food supply.
The most likely culprit is global warming.
Congress Passes Improved Patent Law
It’s better, but Bush is implying a veto over the reduced damages.
It’s a little bit better, but the problem with IP abuse continues, and will continue until congress treats Patent and copyright as the public interest law*, we won’t have a good law.
It’s still got to pass the Senate, though.
*The section of the constitution that allows congress to create patent and copyright for a “limited time” has as its justification, “to promote the useful arts and sciences”, and until the law gets back to this, as opposed being an attempt for entrenched players to use the power of the state to coerce excessive profits out of people, we won’t see a good law.
Dollar Drops
Because of the widespread expectation that the Fed will cut rates, the Dollar has hit a 15-year low.*
This is the conundrum that I’ve mentioned earlier. If the Fed cuts rates, it pushes the dollar down, driving up the cost of imported goods, and hence inflation, and if it doesn’t we see the economy tank.
The dollar is unsustainable high. It’s probably still got at least 15% to fall against the Pound and Euro, and likely 30-50% against the Yuan.†
*Basically, low interest rates send foreign money looking for places with higher return on investment.
†This is just my wild assed guess, based on nothing by my gut.
More Evidence of the Surge Working
Iraq insurgents attack Petraeus’s headquarters. That must be progress, because it clearly indicates that the resistance is in its last throws.
Olberman Beats Billo in 25-54 Demographic
Though Fox has a lock on the Geriatric set that advertisers don’t want to sell to. Dat here.
Maybe the folks at MSNBC should get a clue, and program some people around him who aren’t whiny right wing nut jobs like Tucker Carleson.
POentagon Working Group Says That Petraeus is Full of It
There’s not a hole bunch of love for Petraeus in the halls of the Pentagon.
Maybe they know that he’s destroying hte Army and Marines by sucking up to Bush:
But it’s questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion—or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors—at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.
OpenOffice.org Gets a Boost from IBM
IBM is a full participant, and had donated some Lotus Notes code to the effort.
Then again, I currently use Lotus Notes at work, I’m not sure if that’s a help.
Oh Damn
Kevin Everett, tight end for the Bills, a break between the third and fourth vertebrae,.
The surgeon says he’s likely to have at least some paralysis.
The NFL needs to police players using their heads for tackles.
Republican Chooses Reelection Over “Dear Leader” Bush
Well, Rep. James Walsh (R-Onondaga, NY) is finally taking a stand against Bush on the war.
FWIW, this is his district:
This is upstate New York, Syracuse used to be a manufacturing center, and New York Republicans outside of Long Island are in the mold of Tom Dewey, not Alphonse “Da Woim” D’Amato.
He’s covering his ass. A number of Republicans lost their seats in New York in 2006. Every Republican in New England except for Chris Shays lost his seat in 2006.
The Republican party, and the war are an albatross around his neck, and he’s running scared.