I really can’t speak to the qualities of Atlas Shrugged, though I did read Rand’s treatise The Virtue of Selfishness, and found it extremely unpleasant, both from the writing and the underlying philosophy.
As such, I find this bit from South Park (1:13) funny.
However, current, and likely soon to be former, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko ischallenging the election in court.
I don’t think that the is going anywhere; the margin was 3.5%, and about 900,000 ballots, and the balloting was by all reports well observed by outside entities, and you can’t steal that many votes if you are watched.
Remember when I said that I had an interview for a short term position?
They decided to fill it internally.
Capital One charge-off rates, H/t Calculated Risk
Well, the New York Federal Reserve Bank just released its Empire State Manufacturing, Index, and it rose more than expected, from 15.9 in December to 24.9 in January, though I have no clue as to how the numbers went up:
……The details of the report were mixed. New orders slowed to 8.8 in February from 20.5 in the prior month. Shipments inched lower. However, inventories were flat in February after 17 straight negative monthly readings. Employment was positive for the second straight month……
I’m a little bit confused, but it appears that what we are seeing here is almost entirely stronger inventories, so as been noted before, it appears to be an inventory bounce.
In consumer credit, things appear to be moderating, in that default rates for the major card companies did not increase last month, or more accurately they didn’t rise last month for major credit card companies, except for Capital One, whose charge off rates rose from 10.14% to 10.41% in January. (See chart pr0n)
In real estate the National Association of Home Builder confidence index rose last month, albeit from an amazingly unambiguously crappy 15 to startlingly unambiguously crappy 17, where 50 is neutral.
In England, inflation rose sharply in January, to a 3.5% annual rate, which really isn’t scary at all, and additionally it should be noted that much of this was driven by the VAT (sales tax) increasing from 15% to a 17.5 as that stimulus measure expired, as shown by the fact that the, “CPIY rate of inflation, which strips out the effect of indirect taxes, fell from 2.8 per cent in December to 1.9 per cent in January.”
I just want to say, once again, that low inflation is a part of the problem, and another parts are the inflation hawks, both among regulators and among bond investors.
In currency, the dollar fell on reduced concerns about the Greek financial meltdown, which increased risk appetite.
I am not sure why investors had reduced concerns about Greece though. (I’ll get to the Greek crisis in more detail later)
Additionally, we have a report that the Bank of Japan is planning more quantitative easing if the Yen strengthens to OJ May Expand Easing Should Yen Reach ¥87:$1.00.
In any case, the falling dollar had commodity traders buying oil, which drove the price higher.
Reports from the Indiana Election Division say that she wasn’t even close.
So, the State Democratic Party will select a candidate.
Here’s hoping for the Mayor with the unspellable name, Jonathan Weinzapfel, he, at least, seems to be a real Dem.
It’s $8 billion in loan guarantees, but if you run the numbers, and assume a 4% interest rate savings as a result of the loan guarantees over a 10 year period, the new reactors are due to come on line in 2017, but they will be late, because they are always late, then you get about a $3.85 billion [(1.0410-1) x $8 billion] subsidy for the Southern Company to build two new reactors at their Vogtle plant.
Actually, the payback time is likely closer to 30 years, which means that the US government is actually paying Southern to build the plant, but depending on how you count it, it’s a f%$# load of money.
Well, we may now have a reason as to why Bayh announced when he did, because he wanted the party to select his successor, which, my guess, he found preferable to the possibility someone who is not a right wing preening DINO (i.e. Blue Dog) getting the nod:
On a conference call with county Democratic Party chairs this afternoon, Sen. Evan Bayh and Indiana Democratic Party Chair Dan Parker declared that not having a Democratic primary to find a replacement for the retiring Bayh would have its upsides, according to a source who was on the call.
It appears that he wanted the party apparatus to select someone from their “deep bench,” which means, I guess, that he was looking at another right wing F%$#.
Unfortunately, no one thought about Tamyra d’Ippolito, who now appears likely to have the required signatures in time to get on the ballot, and it’s likely that the Republicans are helping:
Tamyra d’Ippolito, a cafe owner who has been seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat currently held by Evan Bayh, just told TPMDC that she does have the minimum number of ballot-petition signatures need to get on the ballot for the Democratic primary. If her petitions do in fact work out, that would seriously complicate the efforts by the party to pick a new candidate to replace Bayh, the retiring incumbent Democrat, on the ballot this November.
……
I asked d’Ippolito about the possibility that Republicans may have given her a hand. Erick Erickson, for example, personally encouraged his Indiana readers to sign her petitions. “God bless him, because anybody can sign the petition,” said d’Ippolitio. “Republican, Democrat, independent, teabag person, any registered voter with a warm pulse can sign.”
D’Ippolito was not specifically aware of Republicans who signed her petitions in order to cause problems for the Democrats, but she didn’t have a problem with it: “I have no way to know that for sure, but I’m sure that is happening. It’s common sense, I think that would be realistic.”
Late Update: After telling TPM that she already had the necessary signatures collected, d’Ippolito is now denying to Greg Sargent that she has them yet, saying instead that she would have them in time.
This makes Bayh either incompetent or malevolent, you choose. He either tried to be cute about it, and got bitten, or he was just being a dick.
Here’s hoping that D’Ippolito has some problems with the signatures, because in addition to having worked for Lehman, her business, where she is also living illegally, is facing eviction.
They have captured the Taliban’s military chief and 2nd in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi, Pakistan:
The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.
The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.
(emphasis mine)
After 911, he was running around for about 6½ years under Bush. Obama got him after only a bit more than 1 year.
<tinfoil hat>I’m beginning to wonder if Bush and His Evil Minions™ made a political decision not to capture bin Laden because it kept people scared, and scared voters are Republican voters.</tinfoil hat>
Of course, Shell is based in Holland, where those socialists Dutch people allow for the owners of a company to vote on matters of importance to their investment, but still the fact that Royal Dutch Shell felt compelled to curbe pay to upper managment is a good thing:
Royal Dutch Shell Plc
said it was overhauling its pay practices for top management, including a pay freeze for its chief executive, Peter Voser, and a limit on bonuses, after a shareholder revolt last year. The head of Shell’s remuneration committee said salaries for Voser and Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry, which are 20 percent lower than their predecessors’, were being frozen until 2011.
Directors will not, this year, be allowed to award management bonuses if they fail to meet pre-agreed targets.
Top management received bonuses for 2008, despite not hitting targets, prompting 60 percent of Shell investors who voted, to oppose the 2008 remuneration report.
Hans Wijers, Chairman of Shell’s Remuneration Committee told investors in a letter, a copy of which was published on Shell’s web site on Tuesday, that he wanted to “demonstrate appropriate restraint in the current economic environment”.
I still think that a non-binding “say on pay” is weak tea, but it managed to shame a huge company into doing the right thing, so it is an improvement.
I’m not saying that it was a result of anything that I did, but he is now arguing that our economy needs “modestly higher inflation,” though he is talking more about problems in the Euro zone, as opposed to those in the US.
He does include the US though when he talks admiringly of a paper by Olivier Blanchard which notes that with higher inflation, a central bank has more room to cut rates before hitting the zero bound.
I would also note that he is still talking about rather modest inflation; a 4% instead of 2% target, while I would go for 6-8% for the next 3 years.
Seriously, the good folks at Citi are planning to start selling, “derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis.”
That’s right, they are creating instruments that will allow people to bet against our financial system, and win if they, or their friends take it down:
Credit specialists at Citi are considering launching the first derivatives intended to pay out in the event of a financial crisis. The firm has drawn up plans for a tradable liquidity index, known as the CLX, on which products could be structured that allow buyers to hedge a spike in funding costs.
(emphasis mine)
Seriously, if our forfathers understood the need to prevent this sort of casino gambling masquerading as insurance when the parliament passed the Marine Insurance Act of 1746, no that’s not an error, taking out insurance on something in which you have no interest in the continued existence of the insured property has been illegal for 264 years, because otherwise, people do things like take out insurance in their neighbor’s house, and then burn it down.
These people are terrorists under the (admittedly lax) standards of the PATRIOT act and its successors, and they should be pursued as such, with all the jurisprudence that Dick Cheney wants for suspected al Qaeda members.
H/t Felix Salmon, who crystallizes the basic point rather clearly:
We learned in the crash of 1987 [and 2001, and 2008, me] that when financial markets start selling products which insure a portfolio against catastrophic loss, the very existence of those products can destabilize the market and make it more prone to crashing. And, of course, we learned that such insurance has a tendency not to get paid out on exactly when it’s most needed. But heaven forfend that the market should ever learn from its mistakes.
We need hand cuffs for dishonest and delusional bankers today, or we’ll need pitchforks, torches, tar and feathers for all bankers tomorrow.
As much as it pains me to say, who watches the Sunday gasbags so I don’t have to, is completely correct when he says that Dick Cheney’s interview on ABC’s This Week is an admission that he committed war crimes:
CHENEY: I was a big supporter of waterboarding. [. . .]
KARL: And you opposed the administration’s actions of doing away with waterboarding?
CHENEY: Yes.
This is an admission of guilt under the conspiracy laws as they currently stand, though, President “Hopey Changey” and his Attorney General, Eric “Hold of on Prosecutions” won’t do anything about it, because ………… Hell, I don’t know why, and it pisses me off.
I would note that inaction not does make Holder, and Obama accessories in crimes against humanity.
There is an affirmative requirement to investigate and prosecute under the treaties.
As a result of the blow-back from their spate of problems and associated recalls, Toyota is considering US automaker style incentives to move its cars.
They are talking about the various “invoice pricing” and “rebate” programs, and this is a bad thing, because they push down resale value.
One of the things that drives people to Toyotas is the fact that depreciation is much less than in similar American cars.
If they go the rebate programs, they won’t get out easily, and they lose one of their market advantages.
As today is a holiday in the United States, it was a fairly slow news day, but over the weekend, we got a report on house prices in the UK, and the asking price rose at the fastest rate in 3 years, of course, the whole problem with the real-estate crisis was the disconnect between ask and offer, so I’d wait for sale prices to rejoice.
In real estate in the US, delinquencies on commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) jumped in January.
On the brighter side, Japanese GDP grew strongly, largely on capital spending driven by exports.
In currency and energy, the Euro hit a 9 month low on the mess that is Greece, while crude oil was basically flat, up 6¢/bbl.
They had elections for President, and in the first round, current President Viktor Yushchenko was completely blown out, and the top vote getters, Russian friend Viktor Yanukovych, and current Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko went to a runoff.
Well, Yanukovych won the election, though Timoshenko is still contesting the election.
As a result, investors are avoiding a Ukrainian debt issue like the plague as a result, because:
It’s a mess.
Must watch Penguins of Madagascar fight Dr. Blowhole.
Well, when I wrote about the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a major actor in the military wing of Hamas in Syria, I suggested that it was not a result of is day job, where he worked in textiles, and gave the three alternatives as the Mossad, a dispute internal to Hamas, and the consequence of some sort of kinky sex.
Well, I think that we can rule out the last two:
Dubai police released names and photographs of 11 suspects they say took part in the murder of a senior Hamas official there last month, and separately detained two Palestinians in connection with the killing.
The suspects, who entered the emirate from a number of European Union countries, carried out the assassination, Dubai Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said at a press conference today. The suspects included six British passport holders, three Irish, one German and one French, Tamim said. Dubai will submit their names to Interpol for arrest warrants, he said.
Hamas would not have used so many people under different passports.
It’s odd though that Hamas was so caught off guard by this.
He was the lead singer of “The Knack”
I liked their song, my Sharona, and heard it a lot my first year in college.
I also liked the “Alvin and the Chipmonks” version.
Here is the song, it’s refreshing how minimalist the video is.
Interesting, his brother is Attorney Geoffrey Fieger, attorney for Jack Kevorkian, and a political gadfly in Michigan.
It appears that the statement that Harold Ford never paid nor filed New York State income taxes is, to quote former Nixon Press Secretary Ron Ziegler, “Inoperative.”
What they meant to say is that this April will be the first time that Ford has filed his taxes as a New York State resident.
Play him off, bugs
Heh.
In related news, Evan Bayh has decided to retire. He said he wants to spend more time scolding his family for moving too far to the left.