Simon Johnson has a rundown of the serial failures that are the legacy of the SecTreas, and it deserves your eyeballs.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Economics Update
Well, it’s jobless Thursday, and the initial unemployment claims number have fallen to a 2 year low, 429,000, though it should be noted that these are seasonally adjusted, and so this number takes into account, for example, GM’s summer shutdown, which did not happen this year, though, as the author notes, the fact that GM is seeing that much business is a good sign in and of itself.
Unsurprisingly, the 4 week moving average fell as well, though continuing claims rose.
On the other side of the coin, we are seeing a number of non-employment metrics weakening, with falling producer prices, foreshadowing incipient deflation, while both the New York Fed and the Philadelphia Fed numbers have softened.
In real estate, home foreclosures rose 38% year over year in the 2ndquarter.
Dick Cheney Has No Pulse
Dick Cheney just had a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implanted to bypass his failing left ventricle, because his heart was failing.
Because it’s a constant flow device, an impeller that spins at around 9000 RPM, it means that he has no pulse.
It also means that he is in a very, very, bad way health wise.
Realistically, it means that he will either be a heart transplant recipient, or he will be dead by 2011.
I won’t make a prediction on which way that cuts, though my guess is that Dick has been pulling strings to get to the head of the list, but I will predict that when Dick Cheney dies, Barack Obama will be offering an over the top obsequious eulogy calling him a “great American” or somesuch crap within 48 hours of his passing.
Me, I want him to live long enough to die in prison.
Senate Breaks Filibuster, Passes Financial “Reform” Bill
Well, Obama has yet another piece of paper that is far less impressive than it appears on which to affix his name.
Not only is it weak tea, but Timothy “Goldman Sach’s Bitch” Geithner will be central to drawing up the regulations that will make real day-to-day effects of this bill.
So I am a “glass half empty,” kind of guy on this.
I Hate to Wake Up Sober in Nebraska*
I must have missed the story earlier, but a Federal Judge has stayed a Nebraska law that requires a psychological evaluation before getting an abortion:
A new law that requires all women to be prescreened for possible mental issues prior to obtaining an abortion has been blocked by U.S. District Court Judge Laurie Smith Camp. The law, which was scheduled to go into effect on July 15th, was challenged by Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, who argued that the law was so vague that it would be impossible to correctly adhere to it.
As I’ve said before, notwithstanding the fact that abortion first emerged as a proxy issue about race and segregated private academies, this issue has taken a life on of its own, and we are beyond any compromise on this issue.
*It’s a song by the group Free Hot Lunch.
The Fed Gets Grimmer
Well, the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have been released, and the already grim predictions that they have made for GDP and employment have become even grimmer.
It’s time to crank up the helicopters, and literally begin dropping money out of them.
I’ve run the numbers for this operation, and it would require fewer than 100 of the whirlybirds to accomplish the task.
And the DCCC Can Go Cheney Themselves Too
Because the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) funds Republicans like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, who has just come out with a campaign commercial touting her vote against healthcare reform.
You can be sure that the DCCC will be funding her heavily, because the first goal of the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional campaign committees is to protect incumbents, and their second goal it to support DINOs.
Note however, that this is throwing good money after bad this year. She is polling horribly, the TPM polling averages have her down by 9 points as an incumbent.
Do your own research, and donate to the candidates you support directly.
</RANT>
Economics Update
If you believe that small business will be important in any recovery, then the fact that the fact that the NFIB’s index of small business optimism fell.
In employment, job turnover fell in May, indicating that this already jobless recovery might become even more jobless.
There are also signs of weakness in transportation, with the Association of American Railroads Rail Time Indicators falling.
Real estate is grim as well, with non-residential construction forecast to fall 10% in 2010, and home mortgage purchase applications fell to a 13 year low, even with rates being at historical lows.
Finally, in what makes up over 70% or so of the US economy, retail sales fell in June (see pic).
Why You Should not Give to the DSCC
Because, will throw money at people like Blanche Lincoln, who, now that the primary challenge is done, is once again throwing her lot in with the rich bankers who are in the process of destroying our country.
This time, she and John Kyle, he of the “never need to pay for tax cuts for rich folk,” fame, have introduced an inheritance tax bill that is a big wet kiss for the richest families in the United States:
Their proposal would require Democratic leaders to amend the small-business jobs bill with a provision that sets the estate tax at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption. These amounts will be phased in over a 10-year period and also be indexed for inflation. In addition, inherited assets would be taxed at their worth upon transfer, not when the deceased purchased them.
Of course, because of the way the Bush and His Evil Minions™ wrote his tax cuts, there is no inheritance tax at all this year, but next year, it goes back to 55% and a $1 million exemption, and, quite honestly, the “liberal” proposal is a $3.5 million exemption and a 45% rate.
Of course, when given a choice between giving something to rich heirs, and giving everything to those same heirs, Blanche Lincoln goes with giving money to the useless heir class.
The first broad based tax adopted by the founding fathers was an inheritance tax. They did it because they realized that dynastic wealth was corrosive to the republic.
But Blanche Lincoln needs those campaign dollars, so f%$# the budget and American people.
It goes without saying that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is backing her to the hilt, which is why you shouldn’t give to the DSCC when they come calling.
The NAACP Has Discovered That There Are Racists Amongst the Teabaggers
I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!
I wonder what took NAACP this long to issue what is a remarkably tepid statement:
“We take no issue with the Tea Party. We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a statement.
“We take issue with the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements. The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,” Jealous said.
This statement is long overdue, and might have been appropriate about a year ago, but now, it is awfully weak tea.
Still, it’s fun to see teabagger heads explode over this is amusing.
The Only Reason to Read the Washington Post
Preach It Brother
Preach it Dylan Ratigan!
This is righteous, and anyone who loves this country needs to listen to it, and then repeat it from the rooftops whenever the Republicans mindlessly spout their talking points.
H/t Digby.
Leave Them Kids Alone
Specifically, I mean Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston.
Whether or not they get married or not, they are just a couple of kids who had kids way before they should have, and notwithstanding her mother and his soon to be mother-in-law, it’s none of our f%$#ing business.
I wish them the best.
That is all.
Military Budgets
Matthew Yglesias comes to a stunning realization on the military budget as juxtaposed against their financial crisis:
The thing about military spending that I don’t think is properly understood is the extent to which if it’s not necessary it’s truly wasteful. Building a mag-lev train from Chicago to Milwaukee would be a “waste of money” but if you did it, the resulting train would still be useful to people and lead to some increased value. But a tank you don’t need just does nothing. An extra brigade of soldiers consumes resources and doesn’t produce anything. Of course if your tanks and soldiers produce “Nazis don’t conquer Europe” then it’s valuable indeed. But if you don’t need them, you really don’t need them.
(emphasis original)
Matt was talking about Greece and Turkey, but looking at the bigger picture makes one wonder why the biggest debtor in the world, the United States of America, is well served by spending nearly as much on defense as the rest of the world combined.
A Public Service Message from Chris Rock
Warning, some F-bombs, so not entirely safe for work.
French National Assembly Votes to Ban Burqa
The vote to ban face coverings in public places with only one no vote, and it now goes to the Senate, where passage almost certain.
I have actually lived in a place where face coverings were briefly banned, I discovered this when we had issues with Halloween masks one year, for reasons completely unrelated to religious observance.
As I stated a few months ago, I have some mixed emotions here.
First, there is already an extant ban on masks in public, so the law, with its €150 fine for wearing the veil seems to be gilding the lily. Simply by enforcing the existing ban on masks in public places could achieve the same effect.
That being said, criminalizing coercion by family members to wear the garb, the law calls for €30,000 fine and up to a year in jail, does seem to be an unalloyed good.
Of course, you really don’t have good guys on either side.
On one side you have right wing nativists, and on the other side, you have a profoundly medieval mindset which sees the subjugation of women as a core value.*
If there were only a way for both sides to lose this battle.
I don’t think that women should be wearing the burqa anywhere in the world, but I am still conflicted as to whether this needs to be put into law.
*In the interest of fairness, I consider the Jewish Heredim, the ultra orthodox, to have a, “profoundly medieval mindset which sees the subjugation of women as a core value,” as well.
Unambiguously Good News
For the first time since the 3rd quarter of 2008, State tax receipts rose in the 1st quarter of 2010.
The obvious bit of good news here is that increasing tax revenues means that there is more hiring (income tax) and buying (sales tax), but there is another significant effect.
49 states, all of them but Vermont, are required by their constitution to run balanced budgets, and what this has meant is that the state governments have had to act like 49 little Hoovers, cutting budgets and staffing in the midst of the worst downturn since the great depression.
The turnaround in tax revenue means that the spending cuts can stop, which removes a drag to those state’s economies created by budgetary retrenchment as well.
There is No Room for Compromise on Abortion
The same folks who bought you the draconian restrictions on abortion in Barack Obama’s healthcare bill are now lobbying to ban federal coverage for all forms of birth control.
Let’s be clear here, this is not about meaningful policy. They just want to punish women for having sex:
Polls suggest the majority of Americans would support such a policy. But the Daily Beast has learned that many conservative activists, who spent most of their energies during the health-care reform fight battling to win abortion restrictions and abstinence-education funding, are just waking up to the possibility that the new health care law could require employers and insurance companies to offer contraceptives, along with other commonly prescribed medications, without charging any co-pay. Now the Heritage Foundation and the National Abstinence Education Association say that, like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, they oppose implementation of the new provisions.
This why there is no meaningful space for discussion for these people.
They use terrorism against doctors, they are working to make birth control unavailable at pharmacies, and now they are trying to exclude birth control from prescription coverage.
Enough is enough. These people are not the opposition, they are the enemy.
H/t Atrios
When Calls Harry Reid You a Wimp………
You have a very serious problem:
In an interview on Friday with Jon Ralston, one of the top political reporters in Nevada, Reid was asked for examples of things he disagreed with Obama on. Reid said there are multiple things. When asked for a further explanation by Ralston, Reid’s answer came down more to process and style, rather than substance.
“I think that he is on many occasions — I shouldn’t say on many occasions, on a few occasions — I think he should have been more firm with those on the other side of the aisle,” said Reid. “He is a person who doesn’t like confrontation. He’s a peacemaker. And sometimes I think you have to be a little more forceful. And sometimes I don’t think he is enough with the Republicans.”
Ralston asked Reid for an example.
“Health care,” Reid responded. “That went on for many months. And I think much of that early on scrimmaging was done in the Senate itself, and the White House didn’t come in until later. Now, we came up with a great product, and I’m sure he can look back and say I was right, but boy for me down in the trenches, I know it was a time when I wanted a few folks in the White House behind me.”
Ralston then suggested that Reid was saying Obama wasn’t strong enough.
“He’s a very strong man. He’s calm, he’s cool, he’s deliberate,” Reid responded. “But as I just said, I think sometimes he — I would like him to be more confrontational. He isn’t, that’s who he is. My saying this isn’t gonna make him that way. I know who he is, and I understand him.”
Harry Reid just called Barack Obama a wimp, though I think that he pointedly stayed away from calling him a “bitch”. (The strong man comment)
Seriously, it’s time for an intervention with Barack Obama.
We need to send him for a few weeks to the Betty Ford Mike Ditka clinic.
This is a Big F%$#ing Deal
A panel of the 2dd circuit court of appeals has ruled that the FCC’s indecency rules, calling the vague and a violation of 1st amendment rights:
In a sharp rebuke of the Bush-era crackdown on foul language on broadcast television and radio, a federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government’s near-zero-tolerance indecency policy as a violation of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.
………
The case was triggered by unscripted expletives uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows earlier in the decade, and the court’s decision calls into question the FCC’s regulation of foul language and other indecent content on the public airwaves.
………
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals did not have the power to strike down the 1978 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the FCC’s right to police the airwaves for objectionable content. But it reversed the aggressive stance the agency took starting in 2004 that found even a slip of the tongue that got by network censors was a violation subject to fines for the stations that aired it.
The court said that policy on so-called fleeting expletives was “unconstitutionally vague” and created a “chilling effect” on the programming that broadcasters chose to air. The court echoed complaints from network executives that the FCC’s standards were nearly impossible to gauge, noting that the agency allowed the airing of the f-word and s-word in broadcasts of the World War II movie “Saving Private Ryan” but not in the PBS miniseries “The Blues.”
Word up.
Now a special master has to be appointed, because when stations appeal fines, because there is always the implicit threat that the FCC will “lose” license renewal applications when the fines are appealed.