Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Economics Update
Well, the Federal Reserves Open Market Committee (FOMC) has spoken, and it has kept its benchmark rate at effectively 0, and repeated its statement that the rates will remain low for an extended period.
Not an unexpected development. After all, the economy still sucks.
In real estate, mortgage applications fell overall, but home purchase applications rose. This is probably the interplay of rising rates versus the expiration of the home purchase tax credit.
In the real world, the American Trucking Aassociation’s Trucking Tonnage Index rose in March, indicating that there is something positive going on.
In the world of sovereign debt, the US Treasury 5-year bonds’ yeild rose to 2.54%, though compared to the yield on 2-year Greek bonds, which are now over 20% (!), it’s pretty cheap money.
Also note that in the continuing euro zone meltdown, Spain’s debt rating was cut S&P.
In energy and currency, oil rose on the news that the FOMC’s posture is unchanged, and the dollar rose on continued Euro zone problems.
The Republicans Cave on Finance
The Senate has agreed to start a debate on the financial reform package.
What the Republicans were angling for was a pre-approved package, with back room Ben Nelson(DINO-NE)-type deals cut in secret, so that they would get what they wanted without their finger prints on the deals.
Please sir, can I have some more?
Well, now it looks as if the bill will be in flux on the floor, which means that the sellouts will have to be public, as will voting in opposition to some of the amendments to strengthen the bill.
Harry Reid has hung tough, and the Democrats have been effective in painting Republican obstructionism for what it is.
This needs to be the rule, not the exception.
You Idiot, You Were the One Slowing It Down!
So now Angela Merkel is complaining that the rescue package for Greece is moving too slowly:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday Greece’s international bailout must be accelerated for the sake of the entire euro zone, as the far bigger Spanish economy suffered a credit rating downgrade.
Yo! You Moron!!!!! The person who has being doing all that She can to slow walk this rescue is one, “German Chancellor Angela Merkel.”
I understand that the German public does not like the idea of bailing out Greece, but you pandered to, and encouraged, that sentiment relentlessly, unlike some of the members of your cabinet with whom you clashed, who have accepted the truth.
I hate this, “Why are you slowing down because I’m laying across the tracks,” act.
A Personal Anecdotal Economic Data Point
On Monday, I sent out an update of my resume including my brief stint as a tech writer (also here).
Basically, it needs to be included, because I want to plug the hole in my employment history, so something with “2010” in it is useful, but I don’t want to get a bunch calls from recruiters who do not look past the key word search calling me with technical writer positions,* so I listed my title is listed as, “Developer/Writer.”
It is true and accurate. “Developer” was my official title, and writer was what I did, but by avoiding the dreaded term “technical writer”, I won’t trigger a keyword search.
In any case, on to the data point:
I got a very strong response to my resume mailing,† perhaps 50% more responses by phone or email that happened with my last resume drop in October 2009.
So, I do have a sense of things picking up.
BTW, if you want to look at my resume, you can see it, as well as an 8 page complete CV that covers everything back to college, here.
*At least not ones from out of town. I’m not willing to travel to be a tech writer, but I’m willing to commute daily to be one.
†I use a shell account at Panix.com, who I highly recommend, and I have a whole series of Unix scripts that allow me to send a few hundred emails, or do a mail merge into an email, with attached files, with each recipient getting an individualized “To:” header. (I.e. no BCC:) If you are interested, drop me a line, and I will send them to you.‡
‡And there is no need to tell me that it’s ugly C shell script. I already know this.
I’m Henry VIII I Am
Well, not exactly, but it appears that my 2 weeks on Doxycycline has given me gout in my left big toe.
One of the triggers for gout is a sterile digestive tract, which the drug has delivered in spades.
I went to the urgent care clinic, and after a bit of a wait, got a quick diagnosis from the doctor.
I’m on Indocin, which is basically industrial strength Ibuprofen, and Colchicine, which is some weird stuff derived from the Autumn crocus.
The instructions for Colchicine say, “Take 1-2 tablets every 2 hours until pain stops, or nausea-vomiting-diarrhea.”
I just the Wiki on Colchicine. Great googly moogly. This is nasty stuff, as in a fairly potent cellular toxin when used to excess..
I’m taking my meds, and another acidophilus to deal with the “sterile digestive tract,” and heading to bed, thank you very much.
Economics Update
More good news, with the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index rising in April, and home prices falling in February.
I bet you are wondering how home prices falling in February is a good thing. Well, it’s simple, it fell month to month, but rose on a year over year basis, for the first time since December, 2006.
It may mean that things are bottoming out.
Certainly, it’s better than the alternative.
Still, the financial crisis looks to remain with us for some time, with Greece and Portugal’s sovereign debt downgraded by Standard & Poors, with some of Greece’s debt now rated as junk bonds.
Unsurprisingly, this has led to a flight to safety and concerns about the recovery, which has driven the dollar higher and oil lower.
The Meth Lab of Democracy
You know, maybe legislators should engage in a mental exorcise known as a Jon Stewart test
Arizona, of course, Stewart makes the comment about 1 minute in.
As Wyatt Cenac notes, the authorities are just looking for suspicious behavior, like, “Gardening or burping white people’s babies.”
I so want one of his writers as a speech writer if I ever run for office.
Good Politics, Good Policy
Click for full size
Even the right-wing Belo Corporation journalism cancer known as the Dallas Morning News
And the Mooney Times
Media Matters has a large selection of newspaper front pages, and it looks like Mitch McConnell’s ploy to kill financial reform is not playing in Peoria.
The lede is all about the filibuster, and how the ‘Phants are doing their best to kill and slow-walk the process, even in reliably right wing newspapers.
Here’s hoping that the Dems notice, and double down on making the Republicans do this again, and again, and again, and again.
Keep up the good work.
Do not compromise on financial reform, you already have, make them crawl to you, and scatter some broken glass in their path.
A Neat Piece of History
An article from Time magazine from June 5, 1933 about the creation of deposit insurance:
Through the great banking houses of Manhattan last week ran wild-eyed alarm. Big bankers stared at one another in anger and astonishment. A bill just passed by both houses of Congress would rivet upon their institutions what they considered a monstrous system of guaranteeing bank deposits. Such a system, they felt, would not only rob them of their pride of profession but would reduce all U. S. banking to its lowest level. They saw their deposits which they had spent a lifetime to build up and protect with their good names confiscated by the Government to pay for the mistakes and dishonesty of every smalltown bankster.
Don’t think that our masters of the universe believe anything different than that these masters of the universe believed.
They always believe that they are good, and noble, and brilliant, and that it’s always someone else’s fault.
Failing by Design
So, after releasing an ambitious plan to reign in the exotic insurance-like financial instruments known as swaps, Blanche Lincoln is saying that she thinks that the proposal will not survive the Senate:
Senator Blanche Lincoln said she isn’t sure her plan to make banks wall off their swaps-trading desks has enough support to become part of financial-regulatory overhaul, while calling the provision effective change.
……
“I don’t know if I have the votes” for the provision, Lincoln said today. When the measure comes to the floor for debate, senators could vote to remove her plan, Lincoln said.
Let’s be clear, Senators don’t say things like this about proposals of theirs that they want to pass, they say it about proposals of theirs that they want someone else to kill.
Lincoln is trying to present herself as the liberals’ great white hope in the primary, but it’s just a pose, which is why the US Chamber of Commerce is doing a TV ad blitz for her.
Do not be deceived: She is owned by Walmart, the big banks, the health insurers, and the rest of those pig felching rat bastards.
Stephen Colbert Answers the Question
The W0rd is: Straight to Video
You see, the teabaggers are accusing of Lindsey Graham of making nice with the Democrats because he is being blackmailed because he’s gay.
Colbert’s solution, Lindsey Graham needs to release a heterosexual sex tape.
It’s a reasonable suggestion, but I’m not sure that making such a tape is even remotely possible.
What Digby Said
When one looks at the effects of campaign finance reform, one state has moved further and faster than all the others in embracing public financing of candidates for the state house.
That state is Arizona, which just implemented their Stalinesque “Show Us Your Papers,” Hispanic bashing immigration law.
When the Bigots Lose Tom Tancredo………
You know that they have gone too far:
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo — the same guy who said we should send the president back to Kenya and said a Supreme Court nominee is part of the “Latino KKK” — said this weekend that the new Arizona immigration law goes a little too far.
“If I had anything to say about it, we’d be doing it in Colorado,” Tancredo told Denver news station KDVR. But, he said, “I do not want people here, there in Arizona, pulled over because you look like should be pulled over.”
We live in very strange times.
Buck Fen …… (Nelson, that is)
So, the Senate attempted to begin debate on the financial reform package, and the vote failed by 57-41, with Ben Nelson (DINO-NE) voting with the ‘Phants.
Reid voted “no” as well, but included a motion to reconsider, which is a parliamentary trick to get a do-over.
Still, the most effective thing that the Dems could do right now is to take action against Ben Nelson.
If they start taking real actions against recalcitrant members of their own caucus, it makes it that much easier for them to deal with the Republicans, because they won’t get knifed by the Liebercrats.
OK, This IS a Sign of the Apocalypse
The yield on 2 year Greek government bonds jumped 300 basis points (3%) to 13.522% over the past day.
To place this in perspective:
Greece’s two-year borrowing costs are now higher than those of Argentina, at 8.8 per cent, and Venezuela, at 11 per cent, two countries that have been shunned by many international investors because of the mismanagement of their economies.
This is not a collapse of Europe. What this appears to be is a classic bank run.
This doesn’t make it a potentially life threatening disaster for the George Bailey’s of this world.*
*I’m using It’s a Wonderful Life for illustrative purposes only. I never liked the film, and pretty much no one until it fell out of copyright, and TV stations around the US started using it as cheap filler.
Oh Dear Lord, This is Real!!!!
So says Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, as well as a number of news sources.
We are so due for some sort of divine smiting right now.
I Hate Doxycycline
Even after getting corrected instructions from the Pharmacists, this medication sucks.
I’m not sure why, but I’ve felt generally achy lately, been sleeping awfully, I’ve felt fuzzy and unfocused, I’ve been throwing up a lot,* and the first joint of my left big toe is painful, hot, and swollen, so I’m hobbling around.
After some Googling, I determined that these are not that uncommon side effects, and I thank my stars that I am not taking this sh%$ for some chronic condition like acne.
Thankfully, I have only one pill left to take tonight, and then I am done.
Thank God.
*Yes, that incident in the Barns & Noble was so much fun, luckily I basically† made it to the bathroom before losing my strawberry smoothie.
†None escaped my mouth.
Unbelievably F%$#ing Stupid
Let’s look at the targets and paths, shall we?
Pakistan
North Korea
Iran
Well, we now have SecDef Robert Gates saying that the U.S. has conventionally ballistic missiles in deployment:
Responding to a question from NBC’s David Gregory on the ability to deter nuclear armed rogue states, Gates said: “We have, in addition to the nuclear deterrent today, a couple of things we didn’t have in the Soviet days… And we have prompt global strike affording us some conventional alternatives on long-range missiles that we didn’t have before.”
This is f%$#ing insane.
Incoming ballistic missiles, whether with nuclear, conventional explosive, or kinetic warheads, all look the same from launch until the moment of impact, and so are very likely to trigger a nuclear counterstrike.
I’m with Noah Shachtman on this one:
The Obama administration is poised to take up one of the more dangerous and hare-brained schemes of the Rumsfeld-era Pentagon. The New York Times is reporting that the Defense Department is once again looking to equip intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. The missiles could then, in theory, destroy fleeing targets a half a world away — a no-notice “bolt from the blue,” striking in a matter of hours. There’s just one teeny-tiny problem: the launches could very well start World War III.
………
The Pentagon mumbled all kinds of assurances that Beijing or Moscow would never, ever, never misinterpret one kind of ICBM for the other. But the core of their argument essentially came down to this: Trust us, Vlad Putin! That ballistic missile we just launched in your direction isn’t nuclear. We swear!
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld couldn’t even muster that coherent of a defense. [Though the juxtaposition of, “Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld” and, “Coherent,” is generally a losing battle anyway.]
“Everyone in the world would know that [the missile] was conventional,” he said in a press conference, “after it hit within 30 minutes.”
(emphasis mine)
So, you will know after a missile hits the target whether or not it is a decapitating nuclear strike aimed at you.
Somehow, this is not reassuring, particularly since if we have a tool like this, we would likely use it on an at least annual basis.