Because a company has filed for a patent on patent trolling.
If that weren’t enough, the company in question is…..
….wait for it….
….wait for it….
….wait for it….
Halliburton.
Author: Matthew G. Saroff
They are Irrelevant
Timothy Burke makes a very good point:
It’s schadenfreudey fun to read the ongoing psychotic meltdowns at various far-right sites like the Corner, I agree. But there’s little need to take the really bad-faith conservatives seriously now. For the last eight years, we’ve had to take them somewhat seriously because they had access to political power. You had to listen to the hack complaints about academia from endlessly manipulative writers because it was perfectly plausible that whatever axe they were grinding was going to end up as a priority agenda item coming out of Margaret Spelling’s office or get incorporated into legislation by right-wing state legislators. You had to listen to and reply to even the most laughably incoherent, goalpost-moving, anti-reality-based neoconservative writer talking about Iraq or terrorism because there was an even-money chance that you were hearing actual sentiments going back and forth between Dick Cheney’s office and the Pentagon. You had to answer back to Jonah Goldberg not just because making that answer was arguably our responsibility as academics, but also because left alone, some of the aggressively bad-faith caricatures he and others served up had a reasonable chance to gain even further strength through incorporation into federal policy.
(emphasis original)
I would disagree on two points:
- Schadenfreudey is an offence to the English and German language. I believe, based on my limited German, and some Google, it should be Schadenfreudes.
- The are no seriously good faith conservatives out there. This is simply misplaced optimism. Modern conservatism is, as John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.
Quite honestly, movement conservatism, which I admit is not all of conservatism, has always been so. When looks at William F. Buckley and his spawn, it is all about preserving hereditary privilege, and the feeling of superiority that comes from justifying the unjustifiable.
That’s why you see so much in the way of Racist screeds in the 1950s and 1960s in the National Review, many from Buckley’s own poison pen.
There are also the haters, Delay and Musgrove come to mind, who are simply motivated by hate, and find conservationism the easiest way to find an outlet for their hate.
There are, of course, the inevitable hangers on: people who find personal affirmation on being part of “the movement”, particularly when it is in the ascendancy, but this is largely a social, and not an ideological phenomenon but a social one.
At its core, movement conservatism in the United States believes that nothing can be done to improve anything, and thus, there is no more point in dialog with them than there would be with a turnip.
As to “non-movement” conservatives….I’ve never met any, except for senior Catholic clergy, Bishops and higher, who appear to pine for the days of feudalism, and al Qaeda, who pine for the days of feudalism, but feudalism a few miles further east.
Not Enough Bullets: AIG Edition
So, after it has taken hundreds of billions of dollars from the Federal dole, “AIG sent top executives to a secret gathering at a luxury resort in Phoenix last week.”
This is in addition to AIG execs sojourn in a thousand dollar a night junket in September.
Seriously, firing these execs, particularly under Hank Paulson golden parachute terms, is not enough. They need to go to jail.
This Economy is So Bad
Deaths in Russian Sub Accident
It appears that a fire suppression system activated, and people suffocated before they could don emergency breathing gear.
This may come down to training, as the people on board may not have know how and when to use breathing gear.
Technical error in article: Freon (more likely a similar CFC like halon) is described as a toxic gas. It isn’t, but in high enough concentrations, it can suffocate you, much like a pure Nitrogen atmosphere did at a NASA installation a few years back.
Elections Have Consequences
We how have reports that Obama is looking at reversing over 200 executive orders and other actions of Bush and His Evil Minions™ shortly after taking the oath of office.
It’s a good start.
Camera Failed, My Ass
Ronnie White was accused of killing a police officer, running him down in a stolen truck.
While in custody in the Prince George’s County Jail, he died, in what the state medical examiner ruled a homicide, and the guards in question have re
Now we discover that the camera that is supposed to be used to record every guard’s entry into a cell “malfunctioned”.
Yeah…..right.
Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Prop 8
Wow.
What Has Glenn Thrush Been Smoking?
Because he is reporting that Joe Biden’s role: in the Obama administration will be as “Good Cop”.
Biden? Good cop???? In what universe?
Barack Obama Can Kiss My Shiny Metal Ass
Only a week after the election and Barack Obama is doing something very stupid, if the reports that Obama told Reid that he wants Lieberman to remain in the Democratic caucus are accurate.
Joe Lieberman has always been a hypocrite and sanctimonious, but now he is on Jihad against the Democratic party for defeating him in the primary in 2006.
I understand the desire to keep him in the caucus, but if he is allowed to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee, he will use his powers to inflict damage on the Democratic Party generally, and Barack Obama in particular.
President elect Obama, I would suggest that you buy a clue with some of your left over campaign cash.
I Can’t Believe Obama is Already Sitting Down With an Unpopular, Aggressive World Leader Without Preconditions.
Schadenfreude
Well, it looks like the famous secrecy of Swiss banks has a few holes in it:
ZURICH (Reuters) – UBS AG, the world’s largest bank to the rich, has passed on information about 70 clients to U.S. authorities investigating tax evasion, a move that may undermine Switzerland’s prized bank secrecy, the Washington Post reported.
Heh.
One hopes that a few of them do as much jail time as Wesley Snipes.
Howard Dean Will Not Run for Another Term as DNC Chair
I would like to thank the good doctor for his service in the face of complaints by idiots in the Democratic Party over his 50 state strategy.
Maybe he’ll get a cabinet appointment.
Hank Paulson Needs to Go to Jail
Well, we already know that Hank Paulson is a big fan of large Wall Street banks taking over their smaller brethren, and now it appears that he broke the law to provide an additional subsidy for bank M&A activity.
Specifically, he “reinterpreted” an obscure section of the tax code, by tax code, I mean law as written by Congress, not regulations issued by the IRS, Section 382, which limits the amount of prior losses you can write down when you take over a company:
More than a dozen tax lawyers interviewed for this story — including several representing banks that stand to reap billions from the change — said the Treasury had no authority to issue the notice.
Several other tax lawyers, all of whom represent banks, said the change was legal. Like DeSouza, they said the legal authority came from Section 382 itself, which says the secretary can write regulations to “carry out the purposes of this section.”
Section 382 of the tax code was created by Congress in 1986 to end what it considered an abuse of the tax system: companies sheltering their profits from taxation by acquiring shell companies whose only real value was the losses on their books. The firms would then use the acquired company’s losses to offset their gains and avoid paying taxes.
(emphasis mine)
This is something that Hank Paulson and His Evil Minions&trade have been lobbying to get for years, and anyone who is not a paid shill of the bank is saying that this was illegal.
He broke the law, and he knowingly did so.
You can talk all you want about criminalizing official behavior, but his behavior is plainly criminal.
Economics Update
Let’s start with retail, where the inestimable Barry Ritholtz points us to a pretty picture on the retail collapse from the NY Times (click on image for the NY times article):
I would note that the 4 weeks before November 1 are now firmly part of the Christmas season, and the Christmas season is typically 40% of revenue, and 80% of profits.
In related news Circuit City files chapter 11, this should come as no surprise for the people who have followed this sad tale, as was predicted when they laid off senior sales staff and replaced them with clueless low wage drones while issuing large executive bonuses: (Story dated December 22, 2007)
Circuit City laid off 3,400 workers in March to replace them with lower-paid new hires. This week, it announced the approval of millions of dollars in cash incentives to retain its top talent after the departure of several key executives over the past year. Executive vice presidents could claim retention awards of $1 million each, and senior vice presidents could get $600,000, provided they stay with the company until 2011, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
If you don’t have competent sales staff, then why won’t your customers go to the Amazon and Walmart?
Karma, Neh?
In the world of mortgages, we have Fannie Mae Posting a ecord $29 billion loss for the quarter, which is actually worse than it seems, since the last quarter’s profits were largely from banking losses as tax breaks.
It will likely never see those tax breaks, because a profitable year is so far off.
Yesterday, it was monoliner Ambac, today, Moody’s cuts MBIA. No surprise….dead insurers walking.
Meanwhile, in energy, it appears that the House of Saud is actually adhering to the OPEC oil production cuts, which along with China’s announcement of a $586 billion stimulus package should drive commodities up.
The Russians are hoping that it will work, as falling oil prices seems to indicate a devaluation in the Ruble.
So far, it appears to be working, oil finished the day up $4.52/bbl….Good for them, bad for us.
In any case the Chinese stimulus package has had the effect of driving the dollar down, though I’m not sure why…I just don’t know the underlying theory.
Carnegie Taken Over by Swedish Government, to Be Sold
Finally, we have a report from Calculated Risk on credit crisis indicators:
- Libor down (good)
- 3 month treasury yields down (bad)
- TED spread up a smidgen (a smidgen bad)
They also have a nice scare picture of the Federal reserve balance sheet here:
Basically, it’s how much of the sh%$pile that the Fed owns, and this is fracking terrifying.
Zimbabwe
Well, with the election, I’ve taken my eye off the ball with regards Zimbabwe.
It appears that there are two camps in the Zimbabwe crisis among the Southern African Development Community (SADC), led by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who generally cuts Mugabe infinite slack, and President Ian Khama of Botswana, whose opposition to Mugabe is best described as vociferous.
I agree with Mr. Khama.
In any case, the SADC summit was held, and both parties attended, though Tsvangerai made it clear that he would not sign an agreement just to satisfy mediators, which is a not so thinly veiled swipe at Mbeki’s disasterous involvement in the process.
Of course, while this is all going on, ZANU-PF is still engaged in a broad ranging program of harassment, violence and intimidation….Same old, same old….
In any case, it’s refreshing to see that Jacob Zuma, who had Mbeki ousted as South African president, Zuma says SADC summit must force Zimbabwe deal | International | Reuters
is making it clear that he will not accept Mbeki’s do nothing style:
“As far as I’m concerned SADC must make those Zimbabweans reach an agreement,” Jacob Zuma told Reuters after a speech to the Cape Town Press Club. “They must force them.”
So it now appears that there may be a full summit of the SADC, which is pretty much a recognition that Mbeki is simply not up to the task here.
So they held the summit over the weekend, but which came to nothing.
It appears that there was an offer to “co-manage” the home affairs ministry, but I think that it’s clear that the MDC “co-manager” would have no voice in the matter, which they rejected.
In any case, it appears that Mugabe is now saying that he will unilaterally allocate cabinet positions.
One final note is that we now have confirmation of one of the more bizarre aspects of this whole affair, that the ZANU-PF for signing at altered the prior agreement document
Before any progress can be made the SADC leaders will have to resolve the controversy over the documents that were signed by the three Zimbabwean leaders. In an earlier report The Zimbabwean stated that they had been doctored behind Tsvangirai’s back by Zanu (PF)’s Patrick Chinamasa, MDC-M’s secretary-general, Welshman Ncube and one of Thabo Mbeki’s representatives.
We now understand Ncube had nothing to do with the doctoring and we apologise to him unreservedly. Patrick Chinamasa has admitted to tampering with the documents and to “accidentally” deleting two paragraphs which alter the document substantially.
I’m not sure exactly how you deal with people who see this as a legitimate negotiating ploy, and, short of declaring ZANU-PF a terrorist organization, and while it it is actively terrorizing its populace, this would be a misuse of the statute, I’m not sure what the US can do.
Election Updates
Well, the statistics whiz at fivethirtyeight.com notes that with over 80,000 votes to count, and a 3,000 vote margin, the Alaska Senate race still too early to call it.
In fact the number of uncounted votes has grown to 81,000.
Interestingly enough both Stevens and Begich believe this too, because they are both soliciting donations for lawyers.
At this point, there looks to be some sort of official vote tally in a fortnight.
Minnesota is even closer, with things down to a 204 vote margin, and most of the under votes coming from Democratic leaning precincts, so I think that it is even money as to whether Coleman or Franken wins.
An official count should be finished in about a week, and then you have the state mandated recount.
This is very funny.
There have been any number of Youtube mashups of the scene in the Downfall (Der Untergang), where you hear the original German dialogue, and you see English subtitles about something different (the one about being banned from the XBox network was prize).
Well, Barry Righoltz found this on Youtube, and it’s very funny, at least it’s funny if you do not know German, which I don’t.
2005 Real Estate, With Subtitles
Pause to read the subtitles as needed. You’ve doubtless seen the original ad.
The Question is, What are They Covering Up
The Bloomberg News has filed suit in federal court to require the Federal Reserve to disclose the securities received in what I call it’s sh^%pile for cash program.
The Fed is claiming that it’s, “confidential commercial information,” which is (my guess) lawyer speak for worthless garbage.
The Bloomberg followup story notes that, “The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression,” which is a pretty damn good reason for some openness here.
You have to remember that these programs have created new and not fully understood markets, and that the programs in question are directing money toward entities whose business model is to use information asymmetries to generate profits.
A lack of transferency is not the fox running the hen house, it’s Colonel Sanders running the hen house.