Author: Matthew G. Saroff

Someone Sent Harry Reid a Clue

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Unlike with healthcare, where he sat by idly while he allowed Ben Nelson (DINO-NE) to confab with 3 Republicans in the hopes of making the bill bipartisan, this time Harry Reid has said that, “The games of stalling are over.

Basically, he is saying that if Republicans want a deal, they had better talk now, and if not, they will filibuster financial reform, and the ads will go up, the ugly ones in black and white with the sinister music and the gravely voided announcer, in the states of the ‘Phants who are up for reelection in 2010.

I only wish that he had slapped down Nelson about this on healthcare. It would have made for a much better bill.

What Paul Krugman Said

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His conclusion is all too true:

But the fact is that we’ve been devoting far too large a share of our wealth, far too much of the nation’s talent, to the business of devising and peddling complex financial schemes — schemes that have a tendency to blow up the economy. Ending this state of affairs will hurt the financial industry. So?

Until people in power realize that the basic problem with our financial system is that it is too big relative to the rest of the economy, and that it needs to be cut down to size, we will continue to have failures like these.

USAF Decides to Shoot Self in Foot

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Because of delays in the F-35 program, there will be a shortfall in fighter strength for the USAF over the next few decades, so they are looking at service-life extensions for existing F-15s and F-16s, and they have flatly ruled out any purchase of new build legacy fighters.

The idea here is that if they buy them, Congress might be tempted to cancel their white elephant.

BTW, speaking of white elephants, it not looks like the USAF will have to have its other white elephant, the F-22 will have to be escorted by F-15Cs upgraded with AESA radar, since the F-15’s larger antenna size allows for greater jamming capability. Basically, bigger antenna means more AESA modules which means more power and more range, and the AESA functions as a jammer.

Additionally, the F-15, “have the persistence [because of larger fuel loads] to stay there while the [stealthy fighters] are conducting their LO attack”. Note here that the F-15C is about ⅓ smaller than the F-22A, but apparently out-ranges, or at least out-lasts, it.

Your JSF Update

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Carrier Drop test h/t Graham Warwick

First and Foremost, I think that we need to start with the cost escalation of the F-35, with the unit cost estimates having escalated from $113.6 million to 136.2 million over just the past few weeks, which has triggered an official notification of a Nunn-McCurdy breach to Congress, which means that the price has escalated by more than 50%.

In the interest of fairness, Lockheed-Martin is rejecting the Pentagon numbers, and claiming that they will hit, or at least come closer to the original numbers, based on ……… I’m not entirely sure what, possibly reading chicken entrails.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, both Italy and the Netherlands are making noises about scaling back their purchases/commitment to the program, (paid subscription required)with the Italians demanding a larger workshare, and the Dutch wondering if the entire thing is simply too dam expensive.

Note that the Dutch are supposed to participate in the Initial Operational Test & Evaluation (IOT&E), purchasing 2 aircraft, but they have only contracted for one, and they can sell the aircraft instead of participating in IOT&E.

It all hinges on the upcoming elections.

On the brighter side for the program the first F-35 with a full sensor suite has flown, sort of:

The mission system installed for the initial flight includes the APG-81 active electronically scanned array radar, EW system, integrated CNI, integrated core processor and the pilot’s helmet-mounted display. The electro-optical targeting sensor and 360-deg EO distributed aperture system will be added later.

(emphasis mine)

So the most low observable sensor, and the sensor that is supposed to allow the aircraft to compete against more maneuverable aircraft by giving the pilot a 360° field of view around his aircraft are not yet flying.

Finally, we have an analysis showing that the F-16 in 1998 out-ranges the F-35. Basically a 1998 PowerPoint slide for the F-16 gives a 630 NM radius with conformal fuel tanks on a strike mission on a hi-lo-lo-hi profile with the final 50 NM in and out on the deck, as versus a 728 NM radius for the F-35, which only pops below 5000 feet once.

Additionally, the F-16 carries 2 GBU-10 2000 lb bombs + 2 Sidewanders + 2 AMRAAM, while the F-35 carries 2 AMRAAM + 2 GBU-12 500 lb bombs.

If the F-16 is just carrying 2 AMRAAM + 2 GBU-12, and conducts its operations above at 5000 feet or above, it out-ranges the F-35, and that’s without considering that the F-16 numbers include the drag of an external jamming pod, and modern F-16s have internal jammers.

Finally, for your viewing pleasure, some the Jim Lerher’s News Hour has a segment on the F-35 that appears to cover all the bases.

It’s Bank Failure Friday!!!! (a day late)

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And here they are, ordered, and numbered for the year so far.

  1. Amcore Bank, National Association, Rockford, IL
  2. Broadway Bank, Chicago, IL
  3. Citizens Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, Chicago, IL
  4. New Century Bank, Chicago, IL
  5. Lincoln Park Savings Bank, Chicago, IL
  6. Peotone Bank and Trust Company, Peotone, IL
  7. Wheatland Bank, Naperville, IL

Seven Banks, all of them in Illinois, that’s a bit odd.

Full FDIC list

So, here is the graph pr0n with trendline:

The Ultimate Hitler/Downfall Parody

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I was thinking about putting up the Youtube (link), but by the time most of my readers saw this, it would be taken down.

There should be penalties for misusing takedown notices, something statutory, on an escalating scale, since this is only 3:50 of a movie, and a parody, and as such it should be fair use.

I am not suggesting that Youtube be sued, but I am suggesting that Constantin Film AG is breaking the law, and should be subject to sanctions, by issuing clearly illegal take-down notices.

In an interesting irony, this may be the best Hitler Parody ever.

Economics Update

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Well, we have absolutely boffo numbers on the new home sales front, with sales climbing 27% from February to March, though as Barry Ritholtz notes, “In February 2010, new Home Sales reached a record low. Bouncing off of those depressed levels is not a big deal.”

I call a dead cat bounce, with a 3 cushion shot because of the February snowpocalypse, though it is still good news, as is the durable goods order number, which were down overall, but up when aircraft sales are factored out.

As to currency and energy, the reduced fears over Greece following their request for external aid pushed the dollar down, and the housing numbers drove oil higher.

Deep Thought

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Click for full size


Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Lookin’ for adventure
And whatever comes our way

No matter who you are, or what you do, you will never be as cool as a tailless iguana tegu* in diapers driving a car.

Don’t even bother to try.

Thanks to Tiempo at the ShortSkoolBus BBS for the picture.

*A lizard of the genus Tupinambis, it can be mistaken for an iguana, but this is really not fair to either reptile.

The Republicans Will Pick Up Obama’s Senate Seat

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The Democratic candidate for his seat is State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, and as I’ve noted, before he entered politics, he worked at the troubled Broadway Bank as their chief loan officer, as well as being the son of the owner

The FDIC has just seized the bank, so his opponent, Republican Mark Kirk, who has already made much of his involvement with the bank, will doubtless be using this as a club with with to beat Mr. Giannoulias.

Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded

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It appears that after a few years of being the government in Gaza, Hamas is getting complaints that they have sold out:

Hamas, the Palestinian faction viewed by many in the West as a nest of terrorists and Islamic hard-liners, is battling a curious new epithet: moderate.

Fifteen months after a punishing Israeli offensive failed to dislodge Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip, rival resistance groups and some former supporters say the organization has become too political, too secular and too soft.

“People in the street say Hamas has changed,” said Abu Ahmed, spokesman for the military wing of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group in Gaza that complained recently that Hamas had arrested four of its militants as they tried to attack Israeli soldiers near the border. “They’re paying a price for that. People need to know that Hamas is still committed to the resistance.”

You know, when I was in college, I had a number of friends who loved obscure rock bands.

If the band released a record, and it achieved any success, these folks would immediately condemn the band as having “sold out”.

I guess that they were upset because it meant that the band was no longer their secret.

I find this amusing, because this seems to be a very similar phenomenon: success, in this case defined as running the Gaza strip, is “selling out”.

It’s nice to see that some stupidities are universal.

So, Now the Republicans are Blaming Pr0n for the Meltdown

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While it is true that senior enforcement personnel at the SEC spent a lot of time downloading pr0n on their PC’s, this story has been around for years, as ProPublica notes, and the reason that it’s hitting the media spin cycle now is because the Republicans, Darrell Issa specifically, are pushing the story because they want to stop reform.

Basically, they want to say that the failures were because of a few bad apples at the SEC, and pr0n is a good way for them to illustrate this, because pr0n attracts the media, and it is a simple narrative, which attracts the incompetent.

So it’s a win-win for the Republicans who want to side-track reform: It’s a pretty bauble to distract the press with, and they can claim that it shows that government shouldn’t regulate.

Elections Have Consequences, Hostages on the Tarmac Edition

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The US Transportation Department has denied a request for a waiver the “3 hours on the tarmac” rule by Jet Blue, Delta, American, Continental, and USAir.

They had claimed that the crowded skys in New York (Philly for USAir) made delays of 3 hours or greater likely, and they wanted relief, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood (who is, BTW a Republican, credit where credit is due), denied the request, leaving them unsatisfied:*

Five U.S. airlines lost a bid to exempt New York-area flights from a rule requiring carriers to release passengers from planes stuck on tarmacs for three hours.

Concerns that runway construction at New York’s Kennedy airport will lead to excessive cancellations “can be resolved through more careful flight scheduling,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wrote today in denying the request. Passengers “have a right to know that they will not be held hostage.”

LaHood’s three-hour rule, effective April 29, fines carriers up to $27,500 per passenger for failing to give them an option to exit planes sitting on the tarmac. JetBlue Airways Corp. March 4 requested the Kennedy exemption until Dec. 1 when runway work is complete.

The evidence is fairly clear, that this is a way to avoid having to pay to house and feed passengers on flights that should have been canceled, and it is an egregious excess.

Good for Sec. LaHood

*Yes, I know, a cheap rhetorical twist, but it’s all I got.

Greece Grabs IMF/EU Lifeline

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Not surprising considering that the yields on their latest 2-year bond spiked to 11.61%, so they have asked for the activation of the financial rescue package:

Describing his country’s economy as “a sinking ship,” the Greek prime minister formally requested on Friday an international bailout, testing the solidarity of the European Union as never before.

“We drew up a plan, we took difficult and painful measures,” Prime Minister George A. Papandreou said in a nationally televised address. “But the markets did not respond.”

Concerns about the Greek budget deficit — an estimated 13.6 percent of gross domestic product last year — have pushed interest rates on Greek bonds above those of emerging countries like India and the Philippines, leading to talk of a potential default and years of stagnant growth.

(emphasis mine)

Note that as screwed up as Greece is, and it is arguably the closest to 3rd world nation status among the Euro zone members, it ain’t the Philippines.

Part of the reason for the spike is clearly heard panic mentality, but my guess is also that some of the wonderful new instruments that have come into existence over the past 20 years, credit default swaps (CDS) and the like, which make it profitable to bet on a neighbor’s house burning down, and then torching it.

These instruments magnify both risk and volatility, and this is why they need to be severely restricted or banned.

Gaffe: When a Politician Tells the Truth

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Michael Steel’s latest comment, which appears to be driving Republicans crazy, and making Democrats chuckle, yet again:

For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South.

This quote is factually correct. We literally have the memos, reproduced in the writings of folks like former Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips.

But nonetheless, the Republicans are freaking, so, Dave Weigel talks to Republicans, and gets a quote from Bruce Bartlett:

I think it’s too bad that Steele gave Democrats reason to believe that their distorted vision of how Republicans came to dominate the South is correct. It may be his biggest gaffe so far.

(emphasis mine)

Bartlett is upset because this is true.

I Told You So…

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Remember when I said that Blanche Lincoln’s strong proposals on derivatives reform were, just for show?

I said the following:

I’m with David Dayen, this all happened within days of her primary challenger, Bill Halter (Reminder, he’s on My Act Blue Page) releasing ads saying that she was too close to the banking industry.

Everyone on Capitol hill know that her proposals will never go beyond a press release, and that behind the scenes, she will continue to do the big banks’ bidding.

This is just electoral politics, and a full court press from her Congressional Colleagues and the White House.

And sure as the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west, it’s happening.

Before the Republicans even got into the room, Democrats are weakening her proposals, with Gillibrand, Casey, and Stabenow taking point.

It’s what Glen Greenwald calls, “Villain Rotation“.

Basically, when an incumbent needs an electoral boost, they come out with a populist proposal, and then it gets killed by someone else, and when that person needs an electoral boost, they change places.

Charie Crist Gets Lucky

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No, I am not talking about some sort of sordid liaison, I am referring to the fact that his primary opponent in the Florida Senate campaign, Mark Rubio, is is being investigated by the, “U.S. attorney, IRS and FBI,” for misusing Republican Party of Florida credit cards for personal use:

Meanwhile, in a separate inquiry, the IRS is also looking at the tax records of at least three former party credit card holders — former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, ex-state party chairman Jim Greer and ex-party executive director Delmar Johnson — to determine whether they misused their party credit cards for personal expenses, according to a source familiar with the preliminary inquiry.

………

Rubio billed the party for more than $100,000 during the two years he served as House speaker, according to credit card statements obtained by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald. The charges included repairs to the family minivan, grocery bills, plane tickets for his wife and purchases from retailers ranging from a wine store near his home to Apple’s online store. Rubio also charged the party for dozens of meals during the annual lawmaking session in Tallahassee, even though he received taxpayer subsidies for his meals.

I’m kind of hoping for Rubio to win the Republican primary, and Crist to run as a 3rd party candidate, because I don’t see Democrat Kendrick Meek winning any other way.

He’s a good guy, but there are a lot of people in Florida who just won’t vote for a black man.