Franken and Lieberman again.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Remember Parker Griffith, the DINO Congressman who turned ‘Phant today? (link)
Well he, donated $1,500.00 to Howard Dean in 2004.
He also donated a grand to Harry Reid in 2003, and $500 to Evan Bayh in 2006, and $500 to Harold Ford in 2005.
And yes, I am banging my head against the keyboard over this.
For the other three, I can kind of get, but for Howard Dean, the candidate from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party?
I is confused.
Economics Update
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H/t Barry Ritholtz
New home sales, effect of tax credit h/t Barry Ritholtz basic graph h/t Calculated Risk
H/t Calculated Risk
So, we have another revision of the GDP numbers for the 3rd quarter, and the GDP number falls again, down from an initial estimate of 3.5% to the first official figures of 2.8%, and now it has been revealed that the GDP grew at just 2.2%. (top pic)
The more accurate data that comes in, the worse the news.
As an aside, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis always does this, that is to say that the numbers get worse when better data comes in, which implies a systemic problem that needs to be fixed.
On the other hand, the UK initial numbers were revised in the opposite direction, with a contraction of -0.2%, up from the initial estimate of -0.3%.
The news from down under is not grand either, with the New Zealand economy’s GDP missing forecasts.
Still, the Philadelphia Bank of the Federal Reserve’s State Coincident Index looks better (bottom pic), with at least marginal levels of growth in 1/3 of the states.
On the other hand, we had some good news in real estate, where the National Association of Realtors has reported existing home sales rose 7.4%, to the highest level since February 2007:, though even the NAR admits that this is largely due to people rushing to buy houses before the home buyer tax credit expires.
As both CR and Barry Ritholtz note (2nd pic), this a function of changes and/or perceived changes in tax policy, so December will give a real picture of where the housing market is.
It should be noted that a remarkably unpleasant milestone was passed though with, the number of mortgages in national banks, which report to the OCC, reporting that for the first time ever, over one million mortgages were in foreclosure in the 3rd quarter.
Additionally, we are seeing signs of problems among small banks and businesses, with more small bank TARP recipients not paying dividends [on edit: a clarification, they are not paying dividents on their RARP money, so they are technically in default], and small business bankruptcies are up 81% YoY in California.
In energy, OPEC kept oil production levels flat, but has promised to more rigorously enforce the current limits, which is a de facto (but rather small) cut in production, which drove oil higher, even though the dollar rose on the surprisingly strong home sale report.
Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish
What Republicans Said About Griffith in 2008
So, a DINO who said that he would not vote for Pelosi as speaker in 2010, Representative Parker Griffith (AL-5), just made it official and declared himself a Republican.
My guess is that he expects the ‘Phants to win in 2010, and in any case, he won a 52-48 bright red district, and so his reelection is easier.
The Democrats should run the ads that the Republicans ran against him in 2008……over……and over……and over again.
Now to get the rest of the Blue Dog coalition and New Democrats to leave the party……If only 1/3 of them lose reelection as ‘Phants, the Dems stay in control, and the party doesn’t have to deal with those reactionary corporatist whores.
[on edit]
It looks like the Republican running for the seat,Les Phillip, is staying in the race too, so expect a primary fight.
[another edit]It looks like the DCCC dropped $1,076,370 on this moron in 2008.
Seriously, nice job Rahm Emanuel and Chris Van Hollen, this one stinks almost as bad as spending millions to muscle out Christine Cegelis and run the hapless Tammy Duckworth up against Pete Roskam in 2006.
News Flash: Bernanke is an Idiot
The Kaplan Test Prep Company Washington Post actually does some reasonably good news gathering now and again, even if their OP/EDs are complete crap.
Case in point is this history of the Federal Reserve’s mis-steps in dealing with the housing bubble and the related sub-prime debacle.
Their lede is a speech that Bernenke gave in 2007, where he, “Assured the bankers and businessmen gathered at the Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue that their prosperity was not threatened by the plight of borrowers struggling to repay high-cost subprime loans,” because, most banks were not involved at all with sub-prime lending, which was false, and transparently so:
He was wrong. Five of the 10 largest subprime lenders during the previous year were banks regulated by the Fed. Even as Bernanke spoke, the spillover from subprime lending was driving the banking industry into a historic crisis that some firms would not survive. And the upheaval would shove the economy into recession.
Just as the Fed had failed to protect borrowers from the consequences of subprime lending, so too had it failed to protect banks.
(emphasis mine)
So, it’s clear that the Fed, and Ben Bernanke were clueless, but it gets worse:
A warning ignored
In January 2005, National City’s chief economist had delivered a prescient warning to the Fed’s board of governors: An increasingly overvalued housing market posed a threat to the broader economy, not to mention his own bank and others deeply involved in writing mortgages.
The message wasn’t well received. One board member expressed particular skepticism — Ben Bernanke.
“Where do you think it will be the worst?” Bernanke asked, according to people who attended the meeting, one in a series of sessions the Fed holds with economists.
“I would have to say California,” said the economist, Richard Dekaser.
“They have been saying that about California since I bought my first house in 1979,” Bernanke replied.
This time the warnings were correct, and the collapse of the California real estate market would bring down the nation’s fourth-largest bank, the largest casualty of the financial crisis.
(emphasis original)
This is egregious enough that one of Bernanke’s most stalwart supporters, Paul Krugman calls him out, with charts:
The point is that there was indeed a huge CA bubble in the 80s, which burst painfully. Nor was this an obscure bit of knowledge: in fact, people like Calculated Risk and yours truly were quite explicitly using the great California bubble of the 80s as a model for what was going to happen nationally.
This whole episode makes me think considerably worse of my former department head.
(emphasis mine)
Bernanke was saying that there had never been a housing bubble and crash in California, despite the fact that there had been one that popped and bottomed out just 10 years before.
This man should not be in charge of a pastry shop, much less the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States of America. I’m not sure how he even became the head of the econ department at Princeton….He seems far to feckless for that.
Another Snow Day
Yesterday was given, seeing as how the snow on Saturday was a December record, and a near all time record, about 20 inches, but they actually did a good job clearing the streets, so I figured that the kids would be in school today….Not happening.
Tomorrow is the last day of school before Winter break, and I have no clue as to whether or not they will have class tomorrow, but it doesn’t make sense for them to do so now.
Slavery is Legal in the United States Again
The Supreme Court has refused to rule on an appellate case that not only declared that, “torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use,” but also ruled that anyone unilaterally declared an enemy combatant is not a “person” under the legal definition of the law.
This is quite literally the identical legal reasoning behind the Dredd Scott case:
“Another set of claims are dismissed because Guantanamo detainees are not ‘persons’ within the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act – an argument that was too close to Dred Scott v. Sanford for one of the judges on the court of appeals to swallow,” he added.
The Dred Scott case was a decision by the United States Supreme Court in 1857. It ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants — whether or not they were slaves — were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States.
And still, Obama is appointing sane conservatives to the bench, only to see them filibustered and delayed by the ‘Phants, because sanity has a known liberal bias.
Not feeling hopey changey right now.
H/t naked capitalism.
Good News For Me (I Hope)
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H/t Calculated Risk
We just had a report in the New York Times that there has been a recent upsurge in temporary employment.
Seeing as how I’ve been doing contract (temp) technical for 16 years now, hopefully this means that I am a bit closer to ending my coming-up-on-6-months stint of unemployment.
Mexico City Marriage Equality
Same Sex marriage is now legal in Mexico City, but the bigoted “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) still stands in the US Senate.
Elections Have Consequences: Aerial Cattle Car Edition
The Transportation Department has now forbidden airlines from keeping passengers on a plane for more than 3 hours while it waits on the tarmac.
This is a long overdue change.
And yes, I realize that there appears to be some dissonance from my prior post, lambasting Obama and His Stupid Minions™ on cutting another taxpayer funded giveaway to AIG fat cats.
The thing is, Obama is not every special interest’s bitch, just the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) sector.
Airlines are not part of FIRE, so they don’t get a pass.
More Change We Can’t Believe In
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Well, isn’t that special?
Kenneth Feinberg, AKA the “pay czar”, has folded like wet broccoli on AIG salaries:
Feinberg said the insurance company also will be allowed to pay the employee incentive payments worth about $4.3 million, made up of an annual long-term restricted stock grant worth about $1 million and a stock grant valued at about $3.3 million on the grant date.
That’s just marvelous.
Maybe we should return to the days of Dwight Eisenhower, and raise the maximum marginal tax rate to 91%, it would help deal with the pillaging parasites.
More Evidence that the Healthcare Bill Won’t Benefit Us
The stock prices for health insurance, for profit hospital chains, and pharmaceuticals rose sharply on the news that the Senate succeeded in cloture.
They see the bill as a win for us, which makes it a lose for the rest of us.
Economics Update
More bad news in real estate, with commercial real estate prices falling to a 7-year low, and the latest figures on home prices showing a year over year decline of 7.8%.
More generally, the Chicago Bank of the Federal Reserve’s economic index rose slightly in November, from -1.02 in October (indicating growth below the historical trend) to -0.32 (indicating growth below, but closer to the historical trend).
We also had good news in Japan, where exports rose sharply.
In treasurys, bond prices fell, as investors moved into US equities.
To move into those equities, foreign investors bought dollars, which drove the dollar, and the rising dollar drove oil down.
Quote of the Day
All other things being equal, the progress of the health care reform debate is looking good for me personally because I had invested heavily in futures contracts on cross-party histrionic nonsense.
Man, does he have me pegged, and he’s never even heard of me.
Saab Not Dead Yet.
Rule 1 of this blog:
Never miss a chance to invoke Monty Python
Well, it looks like the Saab automobile manufacturer may be back from the dead, with Spyker reentering negotiations, and there are nibbles from other firms. (also here)
There are two paragraphs of note in the story:
Spyker said Sunday it has submitted a renewed offer including an 11-point proposal addressing issues that arose during the due diligence process.
……
GM—which had previously entered talks with Spyker after a deal with Swedish luxury car builder Koenigsegg collapsed last month—had set an original deadline of Dec. 31 to seal a deal.
My guess as to what this means is that GM is spend a lot of time dicking with potential bidders, either in terms of an unwillingness to allow the transfer technical rights and data to the prospective bidders, or in terms of financial issues, particularly in terms of the dealers and access to GMAC financing for those dealers.
Unlike Pontiac or Saturn,* Saab, small though its sales are, has the advantage that it actually has a devoted and nigh-fanatic following who are willing to pay a premium for the product, and so there are companies, particularly in the very end super car field, who are interested in purchasing it, because it gives them a way to go mass market with some of their more esoteric technology.
If there is a mass market car company that will implement things like friction stir welding on its models to go with an all aluminum body at a reasonable price, it would be Saab, and I can see how a supercar manufacturer like Spyder, or Koenigsegg, might use the interplay between the low-volume hand made autos and the (relatively) high volume Saab to create a sort of “technical echo chamber” to move the implementation of this technology along.
*Actually, Saturn did too in the mid 1990s, with people literally going on vacation to their manufacturing facility in Spring Hill, Tennessee, but once GM realized that people loved their cars, they spent the next 10 years doing their level best to piss off employees and customers, because if Saturn could make cars that people liked, it would put too much pressure on the rest of GM.
Too True
Now go to his web page, and buy his stuff
Someone Else Who Tries to F%$# Us Like a Bitch
I’m not kind of bummed that I riffed on that scene in Pulp Fiction yesterday, because there are so many people who want to f%$# us all like a bitch.
Case in point, Verizon, who is claiming to the FCC that charging exorbitant cancellation fees should be supported because it helps the poor:
Verizon defended its early termination charges for cellphone contracts Friday, telling federal regulators that the high fees help the poor by making it more affordable for them to access the mobile internet.
The Federal Communications Commission asked the nation’s largest wireless carrier earlier this month to explain why it had raised the fees for breaking a mobile phone service contract to $350 for its smartphones. In a response that gave no ground to an increasingly active FCC, Verizon said the fees were a necessary and good way to subsidize expensive smartphones so that users don’t have to pay for the hardware up front, so long as they sign a two-year contract.
That arrangement “enables many more consumers, including those of more limited means, access to a range of exciting, state of the art broadband services and capabilities (.pdf),” Verizon VP Kathleen Grillo wrote. “The company’s pricing structure therefore promotes the national goal of fostering the greater adoption and use of mobile broadband services.”
Verizon raised the fees in November, with a $10 discount for each month of the service contract fulfilled for smartphones. Even so, if a customer cancels on the last day of their 2-year contract, they’d have to pay Verizon $120 for early termination.
It appears that in Verizon’s eyes, we all look like bitches that they really really want to f%$#………Without Lube.
What John Said
John Aravosis, that is:
President Obama doesn’t seem to lack the will to fight on matters of principle, rather, he seems to lack the will to fight on anything.……
…
…We know that when you fight for something in politics, you can very often win. But if you don’t fight, you’ll never win. We are upset at the President and the Congress because no one fought for the public option, for the President’s own campaign promise. (As David Gregory rightly noted to David Axelrod during the same broadcast.)
(emphasis mine)
We are not angry because he refused to fight for our own values, we are angry because he has refused to fight, period, full stop.
It’s not the morals, or lack thereof. It’s the cowardice.
Virgin Unveiling
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So, Virgin Galactic has unveiled its SpaceShipTwo space tourism ride.
You can see a cheesy video at the bottom.
RQ-170 Sentinel Revealed
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RQ-170
What are the fairings on top are for, maybe antennae?
So, I was wrong, when I suggested that there was no reason for the USAF to be flying a stealthy UAV in Afghanistan and that someone was Photoshopping a Burt Rutan project.
I was wrong.
The configuration is interesting, because while it is clearly low observable, the location of the exhaust is fairly conventional, rather than discharging on top of the wing, which implies that, despite it clearly being a LO design, it’s not a “LO is the be all and end all of the design” vehicle like the F-117 and B-2 are.
The USAF has now admitted to fielding the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV in Afghanistan as well as the fact that it was developed at Lockheed Martin’s Skunkworks.
It appears to have been developed in response to the diplomatic brouhaha that resulted from the interception and forced landing of an EP-3 at the beginning of the Bush Administration.
It should be noted that the RQ designation means that it is unarmed, (paid subscription required) and the linked article also gives a reason for the USAF to deploy a radar evading UAV to Afghanistan:
“Don’t get enamored with current conditions,” [Air Force deputy chief of staff for ISR, Lt. Gen. Dave] Deptula cautions. “We don’t know what the future will bring.” While operations in Afghanistan will be “more complex than ever,” the future is “not only going to be about irregular warfare.”
Beyond 2011, the Air Force’s first priority and the destination of the next dollar to be spent “if I were king for a day,” Deptula says, “would be for long-range [reconnaissance and] precision strike. That’s the number-one need.
The “black” Sentinel was seen in 2007 at Kandahar, Afghanistan. Two photographs surfaced this year via the Secret Defense Blog.“We cannot move into a future without a platform that allows [us] to project power long distances and to meet advanced threats in a fashion that gives us an advantage that no other nation has,” he notes. “We can’t walk away from that capability.
It’s all about the Benjamins. The USAF is deploying this to Afghanistan because they think that it will help them in their budget fights against other services.