Christopher Hitchens: You Can Take the Liberalism out of the Brain Dead Liberal . . .

. . . but he'll still be brain dead.

"From a playwright, however, one might also have expected some discussion of what the Attic tragedians thought: namely, that tragedy arises from the fatal flaw in some noble person or enterprise."

In the New York Times, here.

And for someone who has concluded that the founders were playing swine off against each other in writing the constitution in the way that they did, the absence of the discussion of Attic tragedy is doubly disappointing.

A hole in his education, and that of his Republican rabbi, perhaps. No one knows everything, not even Hitch. Tragedy at 11.

After QE2 Ends It Continues, But on a Far Less Grand Scale

At least for the time being.

Tom Petruno for the LA Times notes:

The Fed may be slow to consider more stimulus for another reason: It still will be reinvesting the proceeds from its total $2.6-trillion securities portfolio in more Treasuries. And the central bank seems certain to keep short-term interest rates near zero for the time being. So in Fed parlance, policymakers remain very "accommodative" for growth.

Readers are left to wonder just how much money is involved when the Fed reinvests "the proceeds from its total $2.6-trillion securities portfolio."

According to the Federal Reserve, here, the earnings of the Fed in 2010 break down as follows:

The Reserve Banks reported comprehensive income of $81.7 billion in the year ended December 31, 2010, up from the year prior.

Total comprehensive income included interest earnings of $44.8 billion on the federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) mortgage-backed securities (MBS) holdings,

$26.4 billion on holdings of U.S. Treasury securities,

and $3.5 billion on holdings of government-sponsored enterprise debt securities.

In addition, total comprehensive income included interest income of $3.5 billion on loans to depository institutions and others.

The consolidated LLCs contributed to the Reserve Banks’ comprehensive income, with net earnings of $7.6 billion for the year ended December 31, 2010. ...

Net earnings from the [System Open Market Account] portfolio were approximately $76.2 billion; most of the earnings were attributable to interest income on Treasury securities and federal agency and GSE MBS.

So compared to the QE2 program of $600 billion in purchases, the Fed's intention to reinvest the proceeds of about $75 billion annually in like instruments represents a continuation of the program, but scaled back by roughly 85 percent.

Various scenarios for the unwinding of the Fed's massive balance sheet are discussed here.

The Problem with the Public Schools is that the Teachers are Illiterate

From The Wall Street Journal:

"People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively," Mr. McCullough argues. "Because they're often assigned to teach subjects about which they know little or nothing." The great teachers love what they're teaching, he says, and "you can't love something you don't know anymore than you can love someone you don't know."

Much more here.

Under Bair, FDIC Sought and Won Powers Nothing Short of Fascist

With Sheila Bair out after five years, the authors of this piece in Forbes don't exactly call a spade a spade, but their message is unmistakeable nonetheless:

The legislation [Dodd-Frank] granted the FDIC additional powers, including the extraordinary power to liquidate systemically important non-bank institutions.

One nation, under the banks and for the banks, and anyone else large enough to give us a campaign contribution or a job when we leave office.

Working it, as ever.

Joe Nocera Takes a Look at the Passage of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1933

For The New York Times, here.

Glass-Steagall separated investment banking from commercial banking and created the FDIC to protect the latter.

Nocera fails to note how the abolition of Glass-Steagall in our time left the FDIC in place to protect the former, which leaves taxpayers on the hook for the speculative failures of the trading desks of the big banks.

He poo-poos the Republican charge in 1933 that it all amounted to socialism. He's right. It's fascism, and it has gotten a whole lot worse.

Jim Cramer Defends His October 2008 Sell Advice

Here was his advice on Monday, October 6, 2008 on The Today Show:

“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”

The market free-fall had already begun after September 19 when this index was still above 1200. Selling two weeks into this crash was like trying to catch a falling knife. The time to bank one's profits had been after a pull-back from the highs over 1500, at the 1400 or even the 1300 level, not after a "mere" 100 point pull-back from 1200 to 1100. By then the time for action had already passed, over 400 points off the highs on the S and P 500.

"I know I have been castigated for having told people to sell stocks to raise money for anything they might need for five years, a solid attempt by me to really warn people who were counting on stocks for retirement and college tuition when we were at Dow 11,000 and Dow 10,300.

The assumption at the time was that things were bad -- like now -- but that it was worth buying and holding and 'riding it out.'

I didn't think so. I thought it was better to sidestep it and then come back when the coast was clear . . .." (source)

He's now laying out what a worst case scenario going forward would look like this time around, apparently in order to be able to say "I told you so" if we have another crash. 

Liberal Grotesque: Obama and the Cleft Lips

"During the fight over the financial reform bill, the administration consistently took the positions for which the banks were lobbying. Obama and his team were eager to weaken the “Volcker Rule" . . . [B]anks were given massive loans at or near 0 percent from the Fed . . . The administration sided with the banks in keeping the Consumer Financial Protection Agency inside the Federal Reserve . . .."

-- Eric Alterman, here, true believer, who nevertheless saves his real indignation for Wall Street

Incompetent FBI Stormtroopers Raid Address Vacated by Suspect Two Years Prior, Terrorize Renters

The incident occurred in March and is now the subject of a Fourth Amendment lawsuit.

The story is here.

White House Spokesman: "We've created more than 2.1 private sector jobs"

Oh yeah? Prove it!

Here.

David Tyree Stands Up For Traditional Marriage

"You can't teach something that you don't have, so two men will never be able to show a woman how to be a woman."

"This [gay marriage] will be the beginning of our country sliding toward, it's a strong word, but anarchy."

"How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda ... and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country."

Quoted here.

Another One Who Hates Your Mortgage Interest Deduction: Felix Salmon

Here.

By his own admission he wants to spend the $100 billion tax loss expenditure on some big government fantasy of his own, instead of letting you keep it to raise a family in a safe environment of your own choosing where the kids don't have to be exposed to the low lifes who inhabit . . ..

Well, you get the idea.

These people have no use for families. Where the hell do you think the future country comes from?

Pawlenty, Huntsman and Daniels are Not Real Conservatives: They're Bushies

And owe fealty to the family which turned its back on the Reagan revolution:

Huntsman is the second 2012 GOP White House hopeful to meet with the former president. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty visited with Bush at the former president's office in Houston, Texas a few weeks ago.

The meetings raise eyebrows, as many senior political advisers from both Bush administrations still don't have a candidate to support in the battle for the GOP nomination, especially with Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniel's announcement Sunday that he would not make a bid for the White House.

(source)

Jon Huntsman Admires Not Getting Many Things Right The First Time

Lyrics from one of Jon Huntsman's favorite artists, as heard on The Laura Ingraham Show, this morning:

I don't get many things right the first time,

In fact i am told that a lot.

Now i know all the wrong turns ands tumbles and falls

Brought me here. ...

Ben Folds Five, "The Luckiest"

Yeah, that's all we need . . . another president who doesn't get many things right the first time.

The Eerie Way 'Obama' Rhymes With 'Hoover'

From Walter Russell Mead:

Like Obama, Hoover was the child of a broken home with an unconventional background. He was far more widely traveled than most Americans in his day, and his time overseas made him a globalist in his thinking in many ways. His wife (Lou Henry Hoover) was unusually well educated and assertive — at a time when few women went to college, she graduated from coeducational Stanford with a degree in geology. Hoover was an unconventional candidate who came into office on a tidal wave of support.  Hoover, Secretary of Commerce during the Roaring Twenties, had never held elected office before winning the presidency. His campaign went deep into enemy territory, winning over solidly Democratic states in what was still the deep blue South including (like Obama) Florida, Virginia and North Carolina.  Hoover was the great progressive hope of his day — he had supported Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose campaign and was seen as much more forward looking and progressive than the party machine.  He ran on the most diverse presidential ticket until Barack Obama’s own election in 2008; Hoover’s running mate, Kaw nation member Charles Curtis, was the first Native American and the first American with significant non-European ancestry to serve as Vice President of the United States. Hoover continued to burnish his diversity credentials in the White House; he was the first president since Theodore Roosevelt to invite an African American to a White House dinner and he wanted progress on Native American issues to be a hallmark of his administration. Hoover was also deeply concerned about the health of the middle class and the condition of the poor. He was an early backer of the long term, low interest mortgage that became the cornerstone of middle class finance, and he came into office hoping that prosperity would eliminate poverty in the United States.

The similarities in office are just as interesting, here.

Gov. Walker Wins in WI, Supreme Court Smacks Down County Circuit Court Judge as Usurper

As reported here by The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

In its ruling Tuesday, the Supreme Court said it took up the case because the lower court had "usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin Constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature."

The Democrats, the unions and courts in Wisconsin all behaved disgracefully in trying to stop the legislatively elected will of the people to find its expression through the due process which the Republicans followed.

Rush Limbaugh: "Agreement between people does not make something true."

On the show, Friday, June 10, 2011.

States of Disaster Depended on $316 Billion of Federal Stimulus in Last Fiscal Year

And that help for current operations is coming to an abrupt end as the new fiscal year begins on July 1.

The Associated Press reports, adding these staggering numbers on top of the current budget data:

The 50 states have a combined $689.5 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $418 billion in retiree health care obligations.

Read the complete details here.

ObamaCare, Medicare, and Social Security aren't the only back-breakers out there. The individual states have plenty of their own which they can't pay for, either. The whole country is stuck on stupid spending.

4 out of 5 New Mortgages Require 20 percent Down

I'm shocked, shocked, I tell you.

Story here.

Landlords Are Raising Rents!

5 percent this year, and 5 percent next.

Story here.

Quantitative Easing and its Affects in Three Sentences

"[The Fed's] Treasury purchases reduce the quantity of risk free assets, forcing investors to buy riskier assets. Commodities are among those risky assets.

By monetizing the debt, the Federal Reserve is debasing paper money and investors are seeking for tangible assets, things that hurt when you drop them on your foot, as one colorful commentator put it."

-- Marc Chandler, here

Why Quantitative Easing is Here to Stay

It looks like in saving the banks from drowning, the Fed, the dollar, and the country are headed for Davy Jones' Locker.

From Michael Pento:

The truth is that without the ability to fully withdraw prior liquidity the Fed is incapable of significantly raising interest rates. After all, the Fed can't raise rates by fiat. It must sell assets to do so. Similarly, to support the dollar it must take money out of circulation, which is also accomplished by asset sales.

But the Fed's arsenal is no longer stocked with high grade weaponry.

As the rest makes plain, here, its stockpile is full of duds.

Why Hold Bonds in Tax Protected Accounts and Stocks Outside Them?

"Bond coupons are taxed as ordinary income. Stock dividends are taxed more lightly."

-- Brett Arends, here, on a completely different topic.

The Turning Currents of Sarah Palin's Vulgarized Mind

Even after a very long relationship, John Ziegler can't quite seem to put his finger on Sarah Palin's problem in the essay excerpted below. There's hardly a man alive who can diagnose the feminine disease, blinded as men are to women by their own passions, but Jonathan Swift came close: "The current of a female mind stops thus, and turns with ev'ry wind."

Ziegler didn't realize it, but he was on to it, here:

“Hi, John Ziegler, this is Governor Sarah Palin,” said the familiar voice on my phone message. There was a pause. “From Alaska,” she added. It’s typical of Sarah’s underappreciated sense of humor to pretend this needed to be clarified. “I just sat down and watched your movie about 9/11,” she went on, “and it’s unflippin’ believable”—”flippin’” is one of her favorite expressions—”I would like to talk with you about this next documentary. Could you give me a call?”

At this point, Sarah and I had met only once, but we were already developing a bizarre relationship. Over the almost three years that followed, we would often act like friends—while at other times she would act like she barely knew me.  

The Current Shape of the 78 Year Emergency

Robert G. Wilmers, a defender of community banking, doesn't explicitly mention the abolition of Glass-Steagall, but he lays out some of the consequences of that nonetheless, one of which is that the FDIC is now on the hook for the mistakes of speculators, something it was never intended for:

In 1990, the six largest financial institutions accounted for 9 percent of all U.S. domestic deposits. As of Dec. 31, 2010, the six biggest banks accounted for 36 percent of deposits. ...

In 2010, the six largest bank holding companies generated $56.1 billion in trading revenue, or 74 percent of their $75.7 billion in pretax income. ...

The Big Six institutions earned more than 93 percent of the trading revenue generated by all American banks during the past two years. ...

The major Wall Street banks operate under the taxpayer-backed umbrella of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and, as we saw in 2008, the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. To pay for the cost of such protection, legislators and regulators have forced thousands of Main Street banks like the one I run to absorb a larger, more expensive set of regulatory costs, including higher capital and liquidity requirements. ...

Regulators have failed to distinguish between trading activity and traditional banking, or to recognize that the activity of an institution, not its form, should be the proper focus of oversight.

New Rules Needed

Main Street banks are heavily regulated -- and have been for generations -- to ensure their safety, soundness and transparency. A new generation of regulation must now be applied to what has become a virtual casino. ...

Those financial institutions that engage in trading should live and die by the pursuit of their fortunes, rather than impose a burden on the whole economy.

It’s time to disentangle the trading of big financial institutions from their more traditional commercial banking operations and put an end to this unsafe business model.

Make sure to read his entire op-ed at Bloomberg, here.

Will 'Buy and Hold' Soon Mean Just Minutes?

Jack Hough wonders in a fascinating little story about high frequency trading, here, in which we learn that program trading by some estimates now accounts for more than 75 percent of the volume.

Just one of the reasons I remain out.

'High Frequency' or 'Program Trading' is on the Rise in Asia

So says a recent story from Reuters, predicting it will take only three to four years for Asia to catch up to the US:

Japan is the only market that comes close right now to the HFT seen in western markets. ... [T]he proportion of trades classified as high frequency [is] around 30 percent . . ..

High frequency trading now accounts for as much at 70 percent of turnover in US equity markets, where have HFT systems are dealing with up to 2.3 million messages per second in some cases.

Read the full story here.

Quantitative Easing Was 'Cash for Spelunkers'

Jed Graham made the case last November here, and now notes that among other commodities, gold is $200 an ounce higher.

Absent more Fed purchasing of Treasuries, look for commodity price deterioration.

Sarah Palin: The Vulgarian Streak Runs Deep

If Sarah Palin is supposed to represent a resurgent social conservatism, her fascination with all things 'WTF' speaks against it.

I had forgotten this one, which Toby Harnden of The UK Telegraph recalls here a couple of days ago, breezing right over it:

The notion of Mrs Palin as White House kingmaker would have seemed wildly improbable if anyone had raised it before August 2008.

It was then that she was catapulted to international fame by Senator John McCain’s surprise decision to make her his vice-presidential running mate. Her reaction? “Can you flippinbelieveit?!”

Cleaning out the alcohol from the Alaska governor's residence was easy by comparison.

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."

-- Matthew 15:11

Addison on criticism

 

A critick is a man who, on all occasions, is more attentive to what is wanting than what is present.

-- Joseph Addison

The Nine Rebellious Stripes

DE PA NJ CT MA MD SC NY RI

ObamaCare's High Risk Pools Flop, Only 18,000 Sign Up as of March

So says Megan McArdle here:

I've predicted that lots of parts of Obamacare will not work the way they're expected to.  But here's one I wouldn't have predicted: the high-risk pools, which were meant to tide people over until 2013, have signed up just 18,000 people as of March.

There were supposed to be millions of people who were uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions.  We heard lengthy testimony about their terrible plight.  I don't think it's too strong to say that this fear . . . was one of the main reasons offered for the health care overhaul.

Which just goes to show you that fear is a lousy reason to do anything, except run like hell from a bureaucrat wielding a butcher knife against your way of life.

The budgeted amount for the program was $5 billion to cover about 200,000 enrollees until ObamaCare kicks in in 2014, even though the Medicare actuary predicted there would be 400,000 enrollees (doesn't this tell us that we ought to wonder about everything else the Medicare actuary predicts?).

Now they're changing the rules to make it easier and cheaper to sign up for the high risk pools so the regime can say the program is a success. 

Top 5 Radiation Hot Spots of 50 Air Measurement Points Inside Fukushima 20 km Zone

Okuma town is the hardest hit at points 2.5 to 5 km distant from the nuclear power plant:

Koirino 93.9 microSv/hour

Ottozawa 68.4 microSv/hour

Kumagawa 41.2 microSv/hour

Shimonogami 35.6 microSv/hour.

Futaba town, 5 km distant, also has many points with high readings, the highest of which is:

Nagatsuka 30.8 microSv/hour.

The measurements were made June 3 and reported here.

Normal readings would be more like 0.11 microSv/hour.

It's been three months since the tsunami and meltdowns.

A Vote for a Mormon is a Vote for the Flip-Flop as an Acceptable Principle

And Mitt Romney epitomizes this ethos already.

From Warren Cole Smith here:

Mormonism is particularly troubling . . . because Mormons believe in the idea of "continuing revelation." They may believe one thing today, and something else tomorrow. This is why Mormons have changed their views, for example, on marriage and race. Polygamy was once a key distinctive of the religion. Now, of course, it is not. Mormons once forbade blacks from leadership roles. Now they do not. What else will change?

Your Healthcare Future: Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?

Shikha Dalmia chooses door number three:

ObamaCare is the worst thing that could happen to seniors in their old age; inaction is the next and RyanCare is the least bad. As a senior in the making, if those were my only options, I would ignore Democratic demagoguery and take RyanCare in a heartbeat.

ObamaCare, however, I’d avoid like the plague.

Follow the link here to find out why in "Medicare's Least Bad Fix."

Main Street, Obamaville: All Bumps, No Road

From the inimitable Mark Steyn, here:

The American Dream, 2011: You pay four bucks a gallon to commute between your McJob and your underwater housing to prop up a spendaholic, grabafeelic, paramilitarized bureaucracy-without-end bankrupting your future at the rate of a fifth of a billion dollars every hour.

In a sane world, Americans would be outraged at the government waste that confronts them everywhere you turn: The abolition of the federal Education Department and the TSA is the very least they should be demanding.

Cutting Spending: Tea Party's Meession from G-d

As reported by Howard Gold here:

Congress has raised the debt limit 74 times since 1962 so the federal government can meet its obligations.

Usually it’s just a rubber-stamp exercise. But this time a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which swept into power on the back of the Tea Party movement, is preparing to take a stand against too much federal spending and picked the debt ceiling as the battleground.

[Greg] Valliere [chief political strategist of Potomac Research Group] called the 87 freshman Tea Party House Republicans “unlike any group I’ve ever seen in my career. These people don’t give a damn about being re-elected. They feel they are on a mission from God to cut spending,” he told me.

Guarantees Implicit Under Dodd-Frank Hand Big Banks Billions in Borrowing Advantages at Taxpayer Expense

So says John Carney here, calling Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo, among others, our new Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs.

Corporate Cash Reaches New Record Yet Corporate Borrowing is at Staggering Levels

Corporate cash reached a new record of $1.9 trillion in Q1 according to the Federal Reserve's Flow of Funds report. The figure is referenced in discussions here and here, among other places.

But what rarely seems to get mentioned in these sorts of discussions is the debt side of the equation involving all this corporate cash. To cite the growth in cash as evidence that corporations don't need a tax cut and aren't investing simply misses the larger reality which helps explain the phenomenon.

John Carney here points out among many other important considerations that corporations are behaving out of fear just like individuals had when they increased their savings in the wake of the recent financial crisis. Many businesses experienced first hand just how difficult times can be without sufficient liquidity in a situation where no one is lending. Increasing cash should be viewed in part as insuring against a repetition of a similar lending lock up in future. 

Other more extenuating circumstances should also be considered when evaluating the issue of corporate cash. One is Federal Reserve induced low interest rates.

David Zeiler calls attention here to the fact that the current low cost of borrowing is too attractive for corporations not to lock in before QEII ends and the cost of borrowing inevitably rises:

The amount of debt companies have issued this year is staggering. As of May 18, companies with investment-grade ratings had issued $392 billion of bonds, an increase of 30% over the same period last year.

Another consideration is related also to formal government policy, namely that much corporate cash may simply be too unattractive to use for tax reasons:

"Many tech companies have looked to raise capital in the [U.S. debt] market over the past year, for a multiple of reasons, including acquisitions, the maturing of businesses and the inability to tap offshore cash without tax consequences," Keith Harman, a managing director in debt capital markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch told Reuters.

The issue of offshore cash is a significant one. For many companies, offshore money accounts for the bulk of their cash. About 46% of Google's cash is overseas; 90% of Cisco's and virtually all of Microsoft's.

Because of a reluctance to pay the 35% U.S. corporate tax on that money, that cash remains offshore and unavailable for many uses, such as stock buybacks and infrastructure investment. (Microsoft used some of its offshore cash to buy Luxembourg-based Skype earlier this month.)

This suggests that repatriating corporate cash should be a fundamental goal of tax reform in the US. That would mean making it more attractive to keep it here by reducing corporate tax rates.

Come to think of it, why stop there? Why not patriate everyone's cash in the world to America as a matter of formal government policy?

The more cash, the better.

Progressivism: Just Another Word For Fascism

As seen here:

"Reading various online threads, it never ceases to amaze me that advocates of what we will call a more liberal or progressive line of economic thinking inevitably embrace the corporate state [fascism] for solutions."

Palin Proves Again That the Climb Down Into the Gutter Comes Natural to Her

Here it is again on her Facebook page, playing cutesy with the acronym for Obama's "Winning the Future."

Every time she resorts to one of these easy low one-offs she destroys her credibility as a Christian and as a serious political player.

The descent into barbarism continues apace.

Imagine 1.2 Million Mortgagors Not Making ANY Payments in Over Two Years

And about 3 million more who haven't paid anything in over a year.

The story is here.

Looks like judicial foreclosure states only, of course.

The EU Project Has Been an Elaborate Charade from the Beginning

So argues Samuel Gregg, in considerable detail, here:

[T]he economic woes of countries like Portugal, Spain, and Greece have resulted from more than just bad policy. With each passing day, evidence mounts that one dynamic driving the crisis is that of untruth: a disturbing European pattern of fabrication about levels of public spending and debt.

The latest proof for this thesis is the discovery by newly-elected Spanish regional and local governments of concealed debts run up by their predecessors. This contradicts claims by Spain's Socialist Finance Minister, Elena Salgado, that Spain's regions had no "hidden deficits" on their accounts. Spain's business community, however, has long complained about local governments pressuring private companies to do business with them "off the books."

One reason for such behavior is that Spain's government knows that the greater Spain's real overall-public debt, the higher will be the interest-rates demanded by financial markets and the more stringent will be the conditions attached to any "financial assistance package" (i.e., bailout) that Spain might, like Portugal and Greece, eventually need.

Unfortunately, financial sleight-of-hand in today's EU has a longer history than the present turmoil. It's characterized the entire monetary union project from the start.

The rest at the link should not be missed.

Now You Know Why The Dept. of Education Wanted to Procure Shotguns

The "federal business opportunity" placed here on March 8, 2010 was for 27 shotguns for the Dept. of Education.

They probably used them in the recent raid reported here, smashing down a family's door at six in the morning, looking for payment on delinquent student loans.

There's an old saying that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have them.

Shotguns with barrels less than 18 inches long are outlawed. That's why Obama's fascist police state thugs from the Department of Education procured shotguns with 14" barrels.

Think of it as close quarters tutoring.

As we reported here, the IRS got some too, for close quarters audits, and ObamaCare insurance compliance.

What's Wrong With the Republican Party? That Any of it Approves of the Job Obama is Doing.

Over 25 percent is mind-boggling, but even 14 percent approving is nothing short of nutty:

"In May, over a quarter approved of President Obama's handling of his job, but that is down to 14 percent now, a clear indication that any advantage he gained from taking out Osama bin Laden has faded with time."

-- CNN Polling Director Keating Holland, here

Obama Safeguards Student Loans So Much He'll Break Down Your Door to Get to Them

"We be loans and shit."

Story here.

Radiation in Iitate, Japan, is Down to 2.69 Microsieverts Per Hour

Per the June 8th report of environmental radiation in the districts of Fukushima Prefecture, here.

The reading remains the highest of the 13 reporting locations and is roughly 24 times normal for the area.

If You Don't Have the Note Today, You Don't Have No Game

Chris Whalen here shows the regrettable continuity between the problems of today and the 1930s with respect to the legal issues in judicial foreclosure and concludes with the following:

One thing you can depend upon is that there will be no fixing of what is wrong with the US real estate sector until Congress addresses once and for all the issue of delivery of a note as collateral for a mortgage backed security. Unless, and until, we fix the private mortgage securitization market, the housing sector will not stabilize and the chance of further deflation will remain a threat to economic recovery.

My Favorite Homeowner's Front Door Visitor Welcome Sign

"Welcome to our illusion of economic prosperity."

The World, Upside Down

From Joel Miller at National Review, here:

In short, Palin basically got the whole story wrong.

From Robert Allison interviewed by NPR, here:

BLOCK: So you think basically, on the whole, Sarah Palin got her history right.

Prof. ALLISON: Well, yeah, she did. ...

Methinks the professor wants Palin to be the candidate as much as we all want Anthony Weiner not to resign.

The true mother of the child would give it up rather than see it hewn in half.

Finances of the States Still One of the Most Dangerous and Overlooked Problems Today

So says Shawn Tully here, looking at the latest news coming from Meredith Whitney, which is more comprehensive and compelling than before and who is sticking by her guns:

Whitney summons what appears to be the most comprehensive set of data ever assembled on state budgets and debt.

Her conclusion is that the future deficits that need to be closed, either by new taxes or draconian cuts in social services, are far bigger than the official numbers show, and that debt levels, when all liabilities are counted, vastly exceed the official estimates.

Late last year on 60 Minutes, Whitney predicted hundreds of billions in defaults on municipal bonds in the next five years. That controversial call was widely condemned, especially on Wall Street, where the muni market is an enormous profit spinner.

Now, Whitney tells Fortune she never meant to make more than a general forecast. "I never intended on framing the scale of defaults as a precise estimate, but I continue to believe that degree of municipal defaults will be borne out over the cycle. I meant to point out that the state debt problem is a massive headwind for the U.S. economy, second in importance only to housing."

Sarah Palin, Their Only Hope, is So Vulnerable That Both Limbaugh and Hannity Feel Compelled to Defend Her Indefensibly Stupid Caricature of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride

Sad, but true.

This is an indicator of how desperate things really when it comes to finding a truly acceptable conservative Republican candidate for president.

There isn't one, and they both know it.

Good thing for Palin that Anthony Weiner changed the topic.

Let Americans Use Their $15 Trillion in Retirement Accounts to Bailout Housing

John Crudele has mentioned this before, as have I.

Here he is once again in The New York Post:

Which gets me back to my favorite subject: my idea for fixing the economy.

If Washington wants to stimulate the economy without spending money (which it doesn't have) or reducing interest rates (which can't go any lower) or destroying the value of the dollar and stoking inflation (which Bernanke's QE is doing), then it should try my plan.

Change the rules on retirement accounts so that some small amount of the $15 trillion in these plans can be invested in real estate.

Let the Americans who can afford to buy real estate in their retirement plans do so.

Give them tax breaks. Encourage them to move into vacant condos in Florida, Arizona, California and everywhere else.

Get these properties off the books of banks and the federal government.

I'll get back to this another time when I have more space. But someone had better come up with a new idea -- and fast.

You Don't Hear the Tea Party Warning of Civil Unrest, But You Will Hear Democrats

Like James Carville, here:

But Carville said the consequences aren’t limited to politics alone. He warned of heightened risk of civil unrest with the bleak economic picture.

“You know, look — this is a humanitarian — you know, you’re smart enough to see this,” Carville said. 

“People, you know, if it continues, we’re going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it’s imminently possible.”

Congressional Budget Office Puts Fannie/Freddie Bailout at $317 Billion

The regime's Office of Management and Budget says it's $130 billion, net of certain repayments, apparently, totaling $34 billion.

Story here.

"Capitalism Without Bankruptcy is like Religion Without Hell"

Barack Obama sells the former, and more recently Rob Bell the latter. A coincidence?

Seen here, concluding an interesting discussion of the cost of the auto bailouts:

Former chief executive of Eastern Airlines, Frank Borman, once said: “Capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell. It doesn’t work.”

The Decline in Housing Equity to Date is About $7 Trillion

So says TNR here:

To date, the decline in house prices has destroyed nearly $7 trillion in housing equity. And prices are still falling. Homeowners are likely to see another $1 trillion in equity disappear over the next year.

The article is otherwise full of nonsense, recommending deficit spending in the range of $4 trillion per year to boost employment, and blaming the stall speed in job creation on the imminent cessation of the heretofore grandiose spending of the early Obama regime.

Gee, I had no idea that all the jobs ever created in this country were the result of deficit spending. Who knew?

The Special Pleading on Palin's Misrepresentation of History is Getting Ridiculous

Here's what Palin said:

“Part of his ride was to warn the British that were already there. That, hey, you’re not going to succeed. You’re not going to take American arms.”

This makes it sound like the purpose "of his ride" was also to warn "the British." It wasn't. And who wasn't "British" for all that? That Revere warned "the British" after his capture is completely beside the point. Revere tried to bluff his way out of a predicament. Who wouldn't? But to imply as Palin did that the purpose "of his ride" included this warning to "the British" is total nonsense. Had Revere not been captured, he never would have said what he said to the loyalist patrol that detained him. His purpose at that time changed from warning patriots to escaping loyalists.

The fundamentalist minds of Literalville, USA, are parsing away on this, both on the left and the right, for purely partisan reasons. See here and here. It's ridiculous.

If you want historical exactitude, you're not going to get it from Palin, or Bachmann for that matter. Nor are you going to get it from Mr. 57 States Obama. 

Libertarian Swine on David Mamet

A nice Jewish boy realizes he's no longer a brain dead liberal and what do the libertarians find to complain about?

Readers on both sides of Mamet’s current political stance can take issue with his social conservatism. He is, among other things, an unbending proponent of traditional gender arrangements.

Political conservatism presupposes social conservatism, as Phyllis Schlafly pointedly argued here in the wake of the ObamaCare debacle, the most baneful affect of which was the neutering of the Hyde Amendment.

Libertarianism couldn't stand athwart a toy train and yell stop.  

Kish meir Yiddische Tuchus.

Sarah Palin Joins Michele Bachmann in Proving They're No Historians

Sarah Palin evidently insists Paul Revere's ride was meant also to warn . . . the British!

As reported here, along with supporters' shenanigans at Wikipedia.

For the Michele Bachmann flub, see here.

If we have to have a woman for president, why can't we have one more like Margaret Thatcher? Oxford graduate in chemistry, 1947.

Betrayed Marine to SECDEF: Our Values Are Better Than Your Values

As reported here:

"Sir, we joined the Marine Corps because the Marine Corps has a set of standards and values that is better than that of the civilian sector. And we have gone and changed those values and repealed the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy," the sergeant told Gates during the question and answer session.

"We have not given the Marines a chance to decide whether they wish to continue serving under that. Is there going to be an option for those Marines that no longer wish to serve due to the fact their moral values have not changed?" he asked.

"No," Gates responded. "You'll have to complete your ... enlistment just like everybody else."

Florida Couple Foreclosures on Bank of America!

I kid you not!

The story is here.

Don't try this in a non-recourse state.

Robot at Fukushima Reactor 1 Finds Crevice in Floor, Steam and Highest Radiation Yet Measured in Air Pouring From It

NHK World has the story here:

The operator of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says steam was observed coming out of the floor of the No.1 reactor building, and extremely high radiation was detected in the vicinity.

Tokyo Electric Power Company inspected the inside of the No.1 reactor building on Friday with a remote-controlled robot.

TEPCO said it found that steam was rising from a crevice in the floor, and that extremely high radiation of 3,000 to 4,000 millisieverts per hour was measured around the area. The radiation is believed to be the highest detected in the air at the plant.

That's an astounding number, also expressed as 3 to 4 sieverts per hour. See this series of charts to appreciate the significance of the level, which is deadly:

It seems pretty clear that the earthquake damaged the floor of the reactor building, causing the crevice. And it also seems pretty clear that the water which has had to be supplied continually to the core to cool it has been leaking out, along with melted fuel materials, from holes caused in the pressure vessel by the meltdown and out onto the floor and into the crevice. Or something close to that.

A monumental mess.

Obama Owns the Unemployment: 23 of 28 Months at 9 Percent or Higher

Seen here:

[T]he unemployment rate has been below 9 percent for just five months since Obama took office — and three of those months were in the first 12 weeks of his presidency, before his policies took effect.

Follow the history of unemployment graphically here.

Quantitative Easing Explained: 'Back Door' Toxic Asset Relief for the Banks

As remarked elsewhere now and again, but not quite as succinctly as here:

So what did QE achieve once we look at the money flows?

This policy has been replenishing the banks’ coffers though not quite in the Mexican and Savings and Loan manner. Instead of printing money to fulfill nominal commitments, the government and the Fed have been taking toxic credits away from the  financial institutions’ balance sheets. The government and the Fed have been “validating” the lousy credit already created.

And if that’s not enough, banks can borrow from the Fed at extremely low rates and buy Treasuries. The generous spread between these rates is allowing them to record the profits that are rebuilding their balance sheets with no risk or effort.

As of March $2.7 Trillion Held in Money Market Mutual Funds

Seen here:

According to the Investment Company Institute, more than 50 million Americans keep at least some of their assets in money market funds. As of March 2011, in fact, some $2.7 trillion was held in money markets—about 25% of all mutual fund assets in the United States. Equally compelling is the fact that in the 40-year history of money market funds, only two funds have seen their net asset values dip below $1 per share (often called "breaking the buck"). During that same period, in contrast, some 2,800 U.S. banks have failed, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Median Income Declined in Every State in 2009, Except South Carolina, North Dakota, and Washington, D.C.

While South Carolina is known for palmettos, North Dakota is known for oil.

And DC?

Snake oil.

As seen here.

Obama's War on the Middle Class Transfers Wealth to the Rich!

Even the Left agrees: the middle and upper middle classes lost the most in 2009, and they lost it to the rich.

Unfortunately for America, Obama's communist-inspired redistribution of wealth redistributes it from everyone to the rich.

Take whatever he says and always expect the opposite.

As seen here:

The bottom income quintile (households earning $20,453 or less a year) earned 0.5% less on average in 2009 than in 2008.

The 2nd income quintile (households earning $20,454 to $38,550 a year) also earned 0.5% less on average in 2009 than in 2008.

The 3rd income quintile (households earning $38,551 to $61,801 a year) earned 0.8% less on average in 2009 than in 2008.

The 4th income quintile (households earning $61,802 to $100,000 a year) earned 1.0% less on average in 2009 than in 2008.

The top income quintile (households earning more than $100,000 a year) earned 0.3% more on average in 2009 than in 2008.

Unemployment Back Up to 9.1 Percent, Fewest Jobs Created Since September

The story is here with all the numbers.

Way to go, Brownie Commie.

7 in 10 Democrats Sympathize with Communism

According to the latest Gallup Poll, here:

Seven in 10 Democrats believe the government should levy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth, while an equal proportion of Republicans believe it should not. The slight majority of independents oppose this policy.

Recall Ebenezer Elliot (1781-1849):

What is a communist? One who has yearnings

For equal division of unequal earnings.

Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing

To fork over his penny and pocket your shilling.

Why Not Count Bi-Sexual Softball Players as Three Fifths of a Teammate?

That way the team could have three bi-sexuals, which would count as only 1.8 players, 2 heteros and 5 full-on queers and win every time!

A gay softball organization can keep its rule limiting the number of heterosexual players [to two] on each team, but allegations by three players who say they were disqualified from a tournament because they weren't gay enough can proceed to trial, a federal judge said. ...

The organization says it has always considered bisexuals to meet the definition of "gay" for roster purposes, but the minutes [of a hearing] also note that one official involved in the decision to disqualify D2 commented that "this is not a bisexual world series. This is a gay world series."

More here.

Switch Hitters Nullify Softball Victory

"U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled Tuesday that the organization [North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance] has a First Amendment right to limit the number of heterosexual players, much as the Boy Scouts have a constitutional right to exclude gays."

More here. 

If the case goes to the Supreme Court, will she recuse herself?

Growing Schmoeing: Each Dollar of GDP Cost Almost $9.00

Charles Hugh Smith takes a tour of recent public debt and annual GDP and delivers the bad news:

Here are the numbers . . .

Total public debt in 2007 (pre-recession) was $8.95 trillion.

Total public debt in 2010 was $13.53 trillion.

This is an increase of $4.58 trillion.

Add in the 2011 deficit of $1.6 trillion and the total is $6.1 trillion in additional debt in the four years from 2008 to 2011.

GDP in 2007 (pre-recession): $14.08 trillion

GDP in 2008 (recession starts): $14.44 trillion ($364 billion gain)

GDP in 2009 (recession officially ends in mid-2009): $14.12 trillion ($322 billion decline)

GDP in 2010: $14.51 trillion ($390 billion gain)

Let's be generous and assume the U.S. economy continues "growing" at the first-quarter pace of 1.8% for all of 2011: GDP advanced 1.8% in Q1 2011 (BEA). That would add $260 billion to the 2010 GDP, so the GDP at the end of fiscal year 2011 would total $14.77 trillion in nominal dollars. In constant dollars, it might reach back up to 2007 levels, but only if the economy doesn't roll over.

Total up the gains and declines in annual GDP for the four years from 2008 through 2011, and you get $690 billion. That's the total sum of each year's gains for the four years.

That means we as a nation borrowed and spent $6.1 trillion to get $700 billion in GDP "growth."That means we borrowed and spent $8.70 for each $1 of nominal GDP "growth."

America is obviously in this and every other way completely insane.

Read the whole entry here.

The Truth About Student Loans

From Mish, here:

Obama brags about safeguarding student loans. That is like bragging about safeguarding the plague.

Student loans have done four things, all of them bad.

Jack up the cost of education

Make students debt slaves for the rest of their lives

Unjustly hand over huge profits to schools like the University of Phoenix at taxpayer expense

Add to the national debt

The best thing to do with student loans would be scrap the program entirely.

America worships at the altar of a secular god, education. The student loans are the sacrifices offered thereon. The professoriate is the priesthood, which grows fat on the first fruits. And the campi are its churches and cathedrals. The Ivies are the Holy See. And the liberalism taught there is the indulgence of its day. It desperately needs a Luther to nail it to the wall. Perhaps he will be called Bankruptcy.

If Senators Wyden and Udall Weren't Servile Cowards, They'd Tell America the Truth

And the rest of the slaves wonder in amazement at the senators' recent revelation discussed here that the Patriot Act is interpreted in a secret manner in order to hide from Americans their own government's routine violation of their Fourth Amendment rights:

"Today the American people do not know how their government interprets the language of the Patriot Act," [Senator] Wyden said. "Someday they are going to find out, and a lot of them are going to be stunned. Some of them will undoubtedly ask their senators: 'Did you know what this law actually did? Why didn't you know? Wasn't it your job to know, before you voted on it?' "

In an interview, [Senator] Udall said he wasn't even allowed to discuss details about the government's intelligence-gathering with fellow senators unless they go to a secure room in the Capitol designed to thwart eavesdropping.

Where is the real American who has the fire in the belly to tell the truth? The activists cower in fear, the senators cower in fear, everyone it seems is afraid and does NOTHING. Land of the free? What a joke.

Because none of you really believe in anything.

"Preserve, protect and defend the constitution, so help me God"? HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!

Maryland Transit Admin. Officers Illegally Detain Man, Demand ID

And did so citing the Patriot Act, as reported here:

“Listen, listen to what I’m saying. The Patriot Act says that critical infrastructure, trains, train stations, all those things require certain oversight to take pictures, whether you say they are for personal use or whatever, that’s your story,” the officer said.

“So why don’t you have any signs posted to say I cannot take pictures?” Fussell said.

“Our officers have become very sensitive post 9/11 and we’re trying to see that they understand our passengers and citizens also have a right to take pictures,” Wells said.

The officer eventually threatened to take Fussell into custody.

“Do you have Maryland state identification on you?” the officer asked.

“I am not committing a crime,” Fussell said.

“Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time, then I’m going to take you into custody.  Do we understand each other?” the officer said.

Fussell's videos are here and here.

The American Fascist Police State grows and grows . . . under Democrats.

Chicago: Olympic Venue Aspirant Cancels Fireworks Because It's Broke!

Story here.

Venetian Night, a 52 year old summer tradition, was canceled two years ago. Gee, wasn't that a sign already that the Olympic dream was just a pipe dream?

A fitting conclusion to the Daley legacy, and he gets to keep $1.1 million in campaign cash on top of it, plus his fat pension and a security detail.

New Investing Trend is to Not Invest?

I know I'm not, but it is a little hard for me to believe an on-line poll of investors by Prudential which shows nearly 60 percent have lost faith in markets and nearly 45 percent intend never to invest again.

See the pie charts here.

Presumably these are all Prudential customers who actively answered the poll? As opposed to a scientific sample of registered voters?

Of course they could be Tea Partiers set to unleash holy hell on the electorate again, right?

Tea Party sympathy has been running steady at about 33 percent of the electorate for months, and it would be just like them to go on strike. But I suspect that a large number of people who've lost big time -- jobs, houses, investments -- have nothing much left to invest anyway, so they answer accordingly, keeping very little stashed away, if anything. Maybe an insurance policy or two?

Nearly half the country admits it couldn't scrape together $2,000 in a pinch. 

Barry Ritholtz Can't Even Spell Other People's Book Titles Properly

His latest demonstration of illiteracy is here (which I rather like to point out now and again since Ritholtz seems to think he's God's appointed corrector of innumeracy--what's so great about being able to count when you can't read or write, either?):

The Case Shiller chart showing home prices in the 1920s or 30s does not use actual sales data, but are [sic] hypothesized by Prof Shiller in his book Irrational Exuberence.

On the substantive issue, Ritholtz is right to stress that there are problems comparing the two eras since data are not complete for the past in the same way that they are today for many things.

I rather liked one commenter's response to this post, objecting to the obvious straw man argument among other things: 

Mark A. Sadowski Says: 

June 1st, 2011 at 10:19 am

There’s a couple of problems with this post.

1) You’re conflating the claim that residential housing has done worse with the claim that this recession is as bad as the Great Depression. These are two seperate [ah, that would be "separate"] claims and one does not imply the other.

2) The relative absence of mortgages in the Great Depression would have greatly reduced the foreclosure problem relative to our own times.

3) High end real estate in Manhattan [!] in the 1930s was not a proxy for housing nationally.

Grebler, Blank and Winnick constructed a fairly decent index of nominal housing prices nationally (Shiller uses it). It fell 30.5% from 1925 to 1933.

http://www.nber.org/books/greb56-1

In contrast the S&P/Case-Shiller index has fallen 34.0% from 2006Q2 through 2010Q4.

Moreover your claim ignores the fact that there was considerable deflation in everything during the Great Depression. Taking into account the CPI, real housing prices only fell 12.6% from 1925 through 1932. In contrast real housing prices have fallen 40.1% this time around (so far).

P.S. For comparison[']s sake on the 67% decline in housing prices in Manhatten [Manhattan] between 1929Q3 and the end of 1932, consider the city of Las Vegas today. From peak in April 2006 to present housing prices in Las Vegas have fallen 58.4%. Adjusting for CPI the decline in housing prices in Manhatten [Manhattan] in the early 1930s is 57% whereas the decline in Las Vegas today it is 62.7% (so far).

If Ritholtz is so smart, how come it's not called the Case/Ritholtz index?

Now wasn't that fun? 

Housing Price Declines About 6.5 Percent Worse Than Great Depression

As reported here, quoting Paul Dales, senior economist at Capital Economics:

“On the Case-Shiller measure, prices are now 33% below the 2006 peak and are back at a level last seen in the third quarter of 2002. This means that prices have now fallen by more than the 31% decline endured during the Great Depression.”

The article concludes that it is probably even worse than that, if current modest inflation is factored in compared to the  deflation prevalent in the 1930s. 

The Housing Pox-Eclipse

As reported here by Stephen B. Meister, there are currently 2.25 million foreclosures, 1 million repos, 1.8 million more than 90 days delinquent, and 3.8 million legitimate listings. Add to that another 12 million underwater.

There were places like these.

Cities.

They were called cities.

They had lots of knowing.

They had skyscrapers. . .

. . .videos and they had the sonic.

Then this happened.

This Pox-Eclipse happened, and it's

finished. It isn't there anymore.

-- Savannah, Mad Max 3 Beyond Thunderdome

Yeah, Thanks Bernanke

"Interest rates are amazingly low and that, thanks to Ben Bernanke, is driving everything."

"We’re on the verge of a great, great depression. The [Federal Reserve] knows it."

"We have many, many homeowners that are totally underwater here and cannot get out from under. The technology frontier is limited right now. We definitely have an innovation slowdown and the economy’s gonna suffer."

"Any bears out there better be careful because the dividend yields on these stocks look awesome relative to all the other investment vehicles out there. So bears are going to have to find a new way to express their discontent with the U.S. economy."

-- Peter Yastrow, market strategist, quoted here

These guys keep talking their book, which is the Fed's book, which is the politicians' book, until, you know, we vote them out of office. "Don't fight the Fed" is their number one rule.

Why do we have to find a new way to express our discontent? What's wrong with expressing our discontent in the usual way, like we've been doing? You don't want us to march in the streets again, do you? We aren't buying anything, we aren't traveling anywhere, eating out, investing, or working for a paycheck. In short, we're on strike. Howdoyalikethemapples, chump?

The only thing we can do is plant. And wait. And vote. And we're really looking forward to voting again.

Or have you forgotten last November?