The other forgotten war

Danger Room reminds us of another forgotten conflict of ours: Somalia.

Between Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia - and the many other places our military is killing and dying (Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Jordan; Kenya; Kyrgyzstan; Philippines; Seychelles; Sudan; Tajikistan; Turkey; and Yemen), you have to wonder how we find time to bankrupt our financial system.

I mean, I'm all for going after the bad guys where they live - but we need to start winning the wars we have before we go starting any more.

Lock the doors

NASA has published their report on the Columbia disaster's crew.

Although no quantitative conclusion can be made regarding the cabin depressurization rate, it is probable that the cabin depressurization rate was high enough to incapacitate the crew in a matter of seconds.

[snip]

These findings strongly suggest that despite the very dynamic vehicle motion, the [pilot] was still capable of taking appropriate actions to attempt a recovery of the hydraulic pressure by performing a [hydraulic] restart...

...Based on the panel R2 switch throws and the lack of visors being lowered, it is probable that the crew never realized that the vehicle LOC situation was unrecoverable and had become a survival situation.

Out of his league

Oh man, Scarborough gets PUMMELLED by Brzezinski.

This is almost too painful hard to watch.



Almost.

Speaking as a dilettante - I've learned that when you are in the presence of a professional, you ask the best questions you can - and let them inform you.

There's nothing wrong with a challenging follow up, but Scarborough comes across as almost bratty as he tries to show his foreign policy chops in front of a former National Security Advisor.

What a fool.

(H/t TPM)

Text messaging: charging first class fares for a stowaway

I've griped before about how text messaging rates were going up. All the carriers suddenly decide to increase their per-message rates by the same amount - but the NYT does a nice job telling us the rest of the story on text messages.

As in: There is no bandwidth charge to the carrier.

Or, as a more informed writer would put it:

...text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

[snip]

Customers with unlimited [texting] plans, like diners bringing a healthy appetite to an all-you-can-eat cafeteria, might think they’re getting the best out of the arrangement. But the carriers, unlike the cafeteria owners, can provide unlimited quantities of “food” at virtually no cost to themselves — so long as it is served in bite-sized portions.

So long as consumers believe that this service should follow the standard pay-per-use model, the wireless companies can continue to extract fees that are all out of proportion to their costs.

Nice.

Duh

Use revolving doors to generate energy.

Yet another demonstration that there are hosts of good ideas out there.

(Via 13th floor)

Removing all doubt

VP Cheney takes the opportunity to demonstrate that YES, in fact - he is exactly as black-hearted as he appears. Here he is in an interview with Fox's Chris Wallace:

CHENEY: Highest moment in the last eight years? Well, I think that the most important, the most compelling, was 9/11 itself, and what that entailed, what we had to deal with, the way in which that changed the nation and set the agenda for what we’ve had to deal with as an administration.

Ho - freaking - ho.

(H/t to CJR)

HDAM clever

In my previous life, I would spend an embarrassing amount of time reading Soviet Military Power and imagining how this weapon system would fare against that defensive measure.

Danger Room found something that the former me would have called a game changer: GPS based radar suppression.

...in 1958 the U.S. introduced the Shrike, an "Anti-Radiation Missile" that homed in on enemy radar and proved invaluable in the Vietnam War. The modern successor is the AGM-88 HARM High Speed Antiradiation missile, which has longer range and a speed of over mach 2. "No U.S. aircraft has ever been lost to surface-to-air missiles when HARM has been flying cover," Mike Vigue, HARM Growth Manager at Raytheon, told me.

The problem with this type of missile is that it relies on the enemy radar being turned on. Once they spot a missile barreling towards them, the operators can turn off the radar so it has nothing to home in on. So the mission is known as Suppression of Enemy Air Defence or SEAD: you're not likely to kill them, but you can force enemy radar to shut down, making the skies safe for friendly aircraft.

All that changes when you can fit HARM with a GPS module that allows it to accurately pinpoint the location of the radar emitter. The addition means that even if the radar turns off, the missile can still hit it precisely.

Raytheon's upgrade is called HDAM, for HARM Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses Attack Module. It's being built for the Air Force. And it incorporates both GPS and an inertial measurement unit with a fiber-optic gyro.

Call me a weapon-geek, but that's just cool.

It's probably a cliche by now...

...but for my money this is the quote of the financial crisis:

The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One

They oughta put that in marble letters in front of the SEC headquarters.

(Via CJR's The Audit which nabbed another one about a regulator who wasn't asleep - they were awake and busily helping a bank disguise their bad balance sheet.)

Happy Holidays!

Thanks for nothing, American dream

Calculated Risk had a post awhile ago with this observation:

One of the tragedies of the housing bubble was that some people were enticed to buy a home before they were really ready to be homeowners, and others to extend themselves too far. Many of these people are now soured on the wonders of homeownership, and they will not be buyers for an extended period of time. Only the passage of time will salve their wounds. There is nothing anyone can do to convince them to buy right now. I've seen this behavior before in California after previous (and much smaller) bubbles - and I believe we will see it again now.

CR is talking about this as a factor supporting a long drought in home sales, but this hits on one of the more infuriating aspects of this whole mess to me.

One of the fundamental social pressures of this country is that you are supposed to settle down and buy a home. Sure, plenty of people don't buy real estate, but anyone who chooses not to is going to have to have a ready justification every time the subject comes up. Slow, steady pressure. Oh, you're not planning to get a place of your own? Oh.

So you have millions out there who are now in forclosure. They reached for the brass ring everyone said they wanted, the one their broker/banker assured them they could have - and now they are ruined.

Sure, some of them were foolish, even greedy. But you have bankers and brokers who are supposed to be smart enough for both parties. Where it's a case of smart people selling crap loans to fools - I know where my sympathies lie.

Via CJR, I read the Miami Herald's account of mortgage fraud which details some truly shocking acts of fraud (one broker who asked a client to sign a stack of "loan documents" in the back of their car  - one of which turned out to be a deed transferring ownership of their house to the broker). The Herald's focus is on how little the state regulators did to stop rampant criminal behavior - and I'm sure the horror stories they list are not the nationwide norm.

But look at the underpinning behavior - a broker in it for their commission, who puffs up the loan so it can be sold. Buyers of that loan who don't bother to check anything on the paperwork. This kind of crap ruined lives. Any normal underwriting of a loan would stop these bad deals. The people who thought they suddenly could afford a house would be told no - but at least their situation wouldn't be made exponentially worse.

The people who believed what they were told bought houses - and then lost them. Before, their finances were merely lacking - now they have a foreclosure on their credit history. Maybe their kids get to own a house, but a good many of them won't get to own anything now.

That's just sick.

Senator Franken?

The admittedly partisan Campaign Silo is reporting that Al Franken has pulled ahead in the MN recount.

Coleman's plan of challenging ballots like this:

-appears to be failing.

That a ballot like this was challenged shows you the nature of Coleman's tactics - drop Franken's total so the tallys will show your guy ahead. Win in the media and put pressure on your opponent to drop out.

This tactic founders when it meets something like Minnesota's incredibly open recount process. (Not surprisingly, the canvassing board was able to rule that the voter had indicated a preference for Franken.)

Viva transparency.

FU Sarah!

A co-worker of mine is having what I can only describe as a hellish month.

It began with attending a memorial service for an associate who was killed in Mumbai. It then escalated to their own father dying a few days ago.This morning their spouse was laid off.

I have no perspective to offer on any of these events. My heart goes out to them - and then I run out of things to say. Events like those... I mean - what can be said?

So I'll restrict myself to a truly minor item that served as a chaser for their lousy December: A biblically bad customer experience they just had with PayPal. 

The situation is this. My co-worker is wrapping up their father's online presence and one part of it is a PayPal account. Having logged in as their father - they had been unable to find an option to delete the account.

So they went to a customer support chat session with something called Sarah:

(Now, what follows is plenty bad - but picture the mindset of this person as they begin this task.)

Sarah - PayPal :
Hello, I'm Sarah and I'm here to answer your questions about PayPal. Even though I'd like to be a real person, I'm not. I'm programmed to answer your questions. How can I help you?

You :
I am logged in as my father who died [on this date] I would like to close the PayPal account that is in his name.

Sarah - PayPal :
Sorry, but your phrase is too long and I will not be able to perform a full analysis. I would be very grateful if you could try to make it a bit shorter and more concise.

You :
I died and would like to close this account.

Sarah - PayPal :
I recommend you speak to a real person about it as soon as possible.

You :
How can I contact a real person?

Sarah - PayPal :
Even though I'd like to be a real person, I'm not. I'm programmed to help you with basic customer care issues.

You :
What is a phone number I can call?

Sarah - PayPal :
I'm not sure I've understood. Could you please rephrase your question? I apologize if you can't find the information you seek by speaking with me. Please enter a new question, visit the Help Center or Contact Us.

[Chat ends]

----------------

Just as an FYI - the Help Center contains no link that mentions closing an account - and the most prominent item on the Contact Us page is another link to Sarah.

Yes, it is possible to get a phone number by clicking the Call us link at the bottom of the page, but if you are not logged in it takes you to a log in screen. Really though - what bot can't respond to "Please give me a phone number" ??

Because of my ready access to bureaucratic culture - I can give a fair description of how this non-response came about.

CorpType 1: And if it asks for a phone number, which number do we give them?

CorpType 2: None.

CorpType 1: None??!

CorpType 2: None. Because there are any number of numbers they might have to dial. Could be billing, could be security, could be any of our myriad subdivisions. We don't want to route them to the wrong number.

CorpType 1:  Can't our subdivisions transfer people to the right place if they did?

CorpType 2: No, why do you think we're building a chat module?

CorpType 1: Shouldn't we do something about our phone systems?

CorpType 2:  That's someone else's project. Besides, it would probably cost too much.

What I especially like is when you attempt to exit the chat, you are given this:

Sarah - PayPal :
I've just opened the right page for you.

Before we continue, was this helpful?
Yes
No

*Click 'no'*

You :
No

Sarah - PayPal :
I may not have understood your question. Can you rephrase it? Anything else I can do to help you?

---

You know what you can do for me? You can develop a security flaw that causes the downfall of the company that deployed you.
That's what you can do for me.

Look - It's bad enough the modern world has given us outsourced call centers

Thanking you for your patience. How am I helping you?

IVR systems:

Listen...to...all...seventeen...options...before...making...your...selection.

 but now we've reached the point where companies expect us to talk to a script-bot?

Memo to the corporate world: If you are not a human being, you should not pretend to be. If you are conversational, your users will expect to converse. If your script cannot handle conversation - people will just get pissed off.

More to the point, if you have a contact us page without a phone number - you tell me you'd rather I speak to a bot.

They just kept heading for the cliff—because that was what they were paid to do

The NYT (via CJR) writes another monster with its newest addition to its The Reckoning series:

On Wall Street, Bonuses, Not Profits, Were Real

...While top executives received the biggest bonuses, what is striking is how many employees throughout the ranks took home large paychecks. On Wall Street, the first goal was to make “a buck” — a million dollars. More than 100 people in Merrill’s bond unit alone broke the million-dollar mark in 2006. Goldman Sachs paid more than $20 million apiece to more than 50 people that year, according to a person familiar with the matter. Goldman declined to comment.

CJR's Ryan Chittum has the logical reaction:

Let’s stop right there and just ponder that for a moment. It wasn’t just the CEO making $20 million a year at Goldman. Fifty people did. Incredible.

I'm sure the Wall Street types will call this kind of outrage "class warfare," but think about what this kind of incentive does to performance:

Get yours - and screw the long run.

I'm hoping the newest crop of Wall Street people spend some quality time staring into the abyss. They might learn something.

AIG OMFG

Bloomberg via CJR:

The U.S. rescue plan announced in November, the government’s second effort to save AIG, covers only its most troubled credit-default swaps, about 20 percent of the $377 billion on the insurer’s books as of Sept. 30. Under the plan, a new government-backed entity will acquire collateralized debt obligations with a face value of $72 billion that had been insured by AIG swaps. An initial transfer of $46.1 billion of CDOs was announced on Dec. 2. A second fund bought troubled residential mortgage-backed securities with a face value of $39.3 billion, AIG said on Dec. 15. Wider losses may cast new doubt on whether the federal funds will be enough to prop up AIG, the biggest U.S. insurer by assets.

Why do I get the feeling that AIG is a rattling lynchpin holding back a financial catastrophe?

Betting against your own side

That same WaPo article, The Crash - What Went Wrong: Frenzy, details a perfect example of a bank using a Credit Default Swap to bet against its own losing assets.

Wachovia had CDOs that were doomed, so it looked for a sucker who would sell it a CDS:

It came up with people like Donald S. Uderitz.

[snip]

Uderitz had once worked for Wachovia. In spring 2007, a Wachovia affiliate approached Uderitz with an attractive offer. The affiliate wanted to buy a kind of insurance from Uderitz's fledging company that would protect the bank against losses on $10 million worth of bonds from a deal called Forge CDO, which Merrill had sold in April 2007. Wachovia would pay Uderitz $275,000 a year for the protection, under a contract that would last until 2053, a healthy stream of income for what was presented as a low-risk transaction. The Forge bonds were rated AA, one step below the highest grade, but still considered unlikely to default.

Wachovia requested that Uderitz post $750,000 to secure his pledge to pay if the bonds defaulted. Wachovia promised to hold it in a separate account and return it once the contract expired. On May 30, Uderitz wired the cash and thought he could sit back and collect more than 40 years of monthly payments.

He thought wrong. On June 18, less than three weeks after signing the documents, Wachovia sent the first of repeated requests for millions in additional collateral, several just a few days apart. One arrived by e-mail on Thanksgiving eve.

Uderitz had already posted nearly $9 million. Now the bank wanted another $550,000. On Thanksgiving morning, Uderitz got up early, put a turkey in the oven and headed to his office to deal with the nightmare. Nearly one-fifth of his investors' money was now frozen in this supposedly low-risk deal.

When Uderitz refused to pony up more cash, Wachovia declared him in default and seized the collateral. Uderitz has since sued Wachovia, alleging that the contract was a sham to "squeeze us out of the trade and steal our money." Wachovia has countersued, seeking the rest of the money that it says is due.

[snip]

Uderitz has a less legalistic view. "They were obviously having some major, major problems," he said. "I think there had to be a conscious shift in their thinking: Go get collateral from whomever we can. We have to save our ass."

Financial judo, courtesy of lax regulation and no transparency.

Nice.

The wisdom of Standard & Poor

CJR snags a WaPo article with the quote of the day:

In hindsight, we now know all mortgage-backed securities perform fine or they all default at the same time.

-Richard Gugliada, Standard & Poor's managing director for structured finance

Wisdom like that is worth whatever Wall Street paid for it.

Golden parachutes Über Alles

CJR's Mr. Chittum spots another nice one out of WaPo:

The Washington Post has a nice scoop today that the executive-pay provisions of the bailout law are basically unenforceable.

Too perfect

An Iraqi gets to tell President Bush how he feels:

Were it not for the Secret Service - I expect there would be a line forming to do the same thing.

Late edit: Reuters has the reporter's translation:

This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog!

Peanuts

Change is hard. This is a mantra of my profession. People don't like new things. Rather, people don't like to have new things thrust upon them. If I choose to try something new, I'll stick with it - even if my choice is bad - because it was my choice. But make me change - I'll start resenting it before it happens.

Since I only have time to focus on a few things in a given day I prefer the overwhelming majority of my environment to stay the same.

Fortunately, big changes in life don't come along that often.

Well - one just came along.

Having resigned ourselves to putting our children in daycare, E and I were very fortunate to find one we genuinely loved. Aside from providing a great environment and investing in our kids - our day care's biggest strength has been its teachers.

The first two teachers to get our attention there were a mother and daughter, BB and YY. Both of them amazed us with their dedication, creativity and (frankly) their affection for our kids. Day care is one of those things you have a hard time feeling good about. I always think of that line from Black 47:

Me little dears, dry up your tears - your parents are too busy making money.

Especially early on - watching your kids cry and reach for you while you walk away and leave them there...

I mean, you feel like a criminal.

Daddy!! Daddy!!

The rational part of your brain says they'll be fine in five minutes - but there will be a part of your mind that will never forgive you for leaving them.

Having really excellent teachers made that ritualized abandonment a lot easier. They would tell you how your kids were playing with their freinds right after you left, that they'd had a great day. These are things you need to hear. And it was great to have people who made a point of telling you.

The next time, you'd be able to say: I'm leaving my kids with great people. This is good for them.

And it is.

YY was the teacher in the baby room - and she watched over both our kids until they were toddlers - something I'm profoundly greatful for. I learned an awful lot about parenting from YY - she gave us advice on getting my son to bed, how to let him learn by trying (and failing) to do things - and basically just reassure me that what was happening with my kids wasn't unique - it was just kid's growing up.

One of the stand out moments I had with YY:

I'm picking up the boy and he has a full-on meltdown. Fall to the ground, screaming hissy fit - and I've no idea how to even begin to deal with him. I try reasoning with him, bribing him, guiding him towards the car - nothing is working. Finally, I just grab him and go. YY's there and picks up all the clothing items the boy's cast off, and walks with me all the way to the car.

At the car, the boy's no better off, I have to physically pin him to the seat and strap him in. All the while he's crying and shrieking at me to the point where I'm convinced YY's thinking of calling family services.

She doesn't. She gives me the boy's things and says "You did that exactly right. Sometimes nothing works - so all you can do is remain calm and do your best."

To have some validation while you're in the depths of parental doubt is priceless beyond measure. Coming from someone who is a professional, it's like a weight is lifted off your shoulders.

And before I go too off track here - what I did right or wrong was irrelevant. My point is what YY did. She took the time to reassure me after I'd gotten the boy strapped in. Plenty of teachers would have said "Rough day. See ya" or just left. Some wouldn't have walked with me at all. YY saw a kid and their parent in a rough spot and chose to help both of them.

By now, people have noticed I keep talking in the past tense - so I'll cut to the obvious point. YY has left our day care.

She'd had her own child not too long ago and was caring for them on the job in what seemed to be an ideal arrangement. Work and spend time with your baby. After some time YY discovered their baby had a peanut allergy. For reasons that defy my understanding - the yard around our day care is littered with peanut shells - and peanut allergies are not something you take risks with.

I certainly don't know what discussions took place - but it was clear YY's child faced an unacceptable level of risk at our day care.

So YY left. A major upheval at our day care - and a terrible loss. By all accounts she and her daughter are doing well. I'm really happy that she can still pursue a career in child care and take care of her child as well.

BB, YY's mother, wasn't sure if she'd leave when YY left. I certainly couldn't blame her. I mean, if you could spend time with your family doing work you all enjoyed - I mean, why not?

(My family - there would be blood - but BB and YY genuinely seem to enjoy each other. *grin*)

My son had moved into BB's class and just adores her. Days when BB wasn't going to be at school, my son would brood and say "I don't like school" but really we knew - he just missed BB. Watching BB work, you can see why YY is such a great teacher. Serene, patient and able to redirect him towards something productive with just the merest suggestion.

The boy tells me all kinds of things he learned from BB at school. It's gotten to the point where he'll take off his shoes and run into her classroom without even saying goodbye. I'm left there waving to empty air, because he's off to have some fun with BB.

BB introduced us to the 1-2-3 method, which (I kid you not) revolutionized discipline in our house. I never get enough time to chat with BB in the mornings (drop offs are usually just insane) but she never tires of sharing her latest favorite anecdote about our boy. When you miss most of your child's day - stuff like that is priceless. BB is sharing for the best of reasons, because she enjoys the stories.

Years ago, the entire day care went on a field trip and BB was like a paparatzo, following around my boy and snapping pictures. She gave them to us and they're still some of my favorite pictures of him. How many teachers do that? Someone with real joy in their work.

----

So lately, it's becoming clear that the pull to leave our day care is getting too strong for BB. I'm not privy to all the reasons, but I've sensed her joy has more than a touch of weariness in it. She still sends out lovely accounts of our child's day - and always has a smile for the kids.

But it's clear that something has changed. I don't know and I don't need to know all of what went into her decision, but she will be leaving our day care in a week and a half.

We're so fond of her, the boy especially - he's had discussions of how he wanted to bring her along when he went to kindergarten. He was all worked up when I told him she wouldn't be able to come.

I watch him eagerly run into BB's classroom these days and I just feel awful.
There's that part of the brain again - swimming upstream - telling me that this will be good for him. He's a kid, he's resilient. But that other part is the stronger current: He's such a sensitive boy. Like his dad, he spends a lot of time thinking things over.

And just like me - he doesn't like what he loves to change.

Our day care still has great teachers - BB's classroom will be taken over by a truly remarkably lady (she who introduced me to pounding nails into pumpkins as a recreational activity).

But BB will go - and the boy will not understand. And telling him how small things can lead to big changes will not help him

Beware of he who would deny you access to information...

... for in his heart he dreams himself your master.

The Fed is resisting Bloomberg's "Show-us-AIG's-books" FOIA lawsuit.

They're as much as admitting that disclosing the bank's position will scare investors:

Banks oppose any release of information because that might signal weakness and spur short-selling or a run by depositors, Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group, said in an interview last month.

Nooo! They say - don't show the public how screwed up we are. We want them to let us keep their money.

Admitting fault - after being caught red-handed

Hedge funds get a $50 billion dollar dose of bad news...

(via Reuters)

Bernard Madoff, a quiet force on Wall Street for decades, was arrested and charged on Thursday with allegedly running a $50 billion "Ponzi scheme" in what may rank among the biggest fraud cases ever.

[snip]

Madoff told senior employees of his firm on Wednesday that "it's all just one big lie" and that it was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme," with estimated investor losses of about $50 billion, according to the U.S. Attorney's criminal complaint against him.

[snip]

On Thursday, two agents for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation entered Madoff's New York apartment.

"There is no innocent explanation," Madoff said, according to the criminal complaint. He told the agents that it was all his fault, and that he "paid investors with money that wasn't there," according to the complaint.

The $50 billion allegedly lost would make the hedge fund one of the biggest frauds in history.

Madoff could get 20 years. He's 70, it'd be a shame if he couldn't serve out his term.

Corruption scorecard

USA Today answers Robert Grant's challenge with a listing of per capita public corruption convictions

North Dakota leads the nation with 8.3 per 100,000.

Followed by

• Lousiana - 7.7
• Alaska - 7.5
• Mississippi - 7.3
• Montana - 6.2
  

Dang. Illinois didn't even make the top 10.
What does a state have to do to make it to the top?!!

Ketzel Levine's last act

NPR's laying off staff- including Ketzel Levine:

[Levine] debuted on [December 8th]’s Morning Edition a series on “how Americans are surviving the economic downturn” and “said that if editors allow it, she will make a final installment of the series about the experience of losing her own job.”

Talk about going down swinging.

Here's hoping her editors give her the green light.

Bombshell

The NYT has a fascinating article called Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb, by William J. Broad.

It's about a new book detailing the prolilferation of the atomic bomb.

They have a great graphic:

and this little zinger:

The book says, for instance, that China opened its sprawling desert test site to Pakistan, letting its client test a first bomb there on May 26, 1990

That'd be eight years before they went public.

Funny to think that in a world where sensors can detect any nuclear event - there is still room for an emerging nuclear program to hide: behind the borders of a known nuclear state.

It casts new light on the reign of Benazir Bhutto as prime minister of Pakistan

I'll say. Wow.

The Big Three's new ad campaign

(via the Big Picture)

Now, all we need is an ad like this for the banking industry as well.

Viva Fitzgerald

Governor Is Held in Inquiry Into Filling Obama’s Seat

By MONICA DAVEY

Published: December 9, 2008

Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested and charged with corruption, including an allegation that he conspired to profit from appointing a senator to succeed Barack Obama.

What is it with Illinois Governors?

Oh... never mind.

Late edit: Correcting Fitz's name.  Oops.

A question of priorities

CJR's Mr. Chittum's got another great observation:

And I’d like to zero in on this paragraph from the Journal:

Now that Archway is bankrupt, all its assets will be divided among creditors, including those with health claims. Archway bankruptcy documents list liabilities of $143 million and assets of $92 million.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say workers’ health claims ought to be paid before just about any other debt. Why aren’t they?

Yeah, why not?

Yanking the financial rug out from under your employees, the people who gave you years of their lives is one hell of a betrayal.

Ditto for pensions. The worker provides years of labor, the employer puts money away for the worker's future compensation. A good deal for both parties.
After the labor has been provided - the employer welches out on the money, but the employee cannot take back their labor.

Yoink!

Militarily significant

Via the Long War Journal:

Taliban raiders destroyed another NATO supply column at a shipping terminal in the insurgency-wracked Northwest Frontier Province. The latest attack has caused Pakistan to shut down the NATO supply route through Peshawar.

The Taliban launched an attack on the Bilal Terminal on Peshawar's Ring Road early Monday morning Pakistan time. More than 50 vehicles laden with supplies destined for NATO were destroyed after a Taliban force stormed the compound and burned the vehicles, a senior US intelligence source told The Long War Journal. The size of the Taliban unit is unknown.

[snip]

The attack at the Bilal Terminal is the third such strike in two days. Early Sunday, the Taliban destroyed more than 160 NATO vehicles, including an estimated 60 to 70 Humvees, in two separate attacks on the Portward Logistic Terminal and the Al Faisal Terminal in Peshawar. An estimated 200 to 300 Taliban fighters stormed the Portward terminal, while the size of the attack force at the Al Faisal Terminal is unknown.

[snip]

A US military spokeswoman described yesterday's attacks in Peshawar as "militarily insignificant." More than 70 percent of NATO supplies destined for Afghanistan move through Peshawar.

I mean, I'm sure military spokesperson would know more than I, but the destruction of over 150 vehicles would seem to matter.

IPod Touch + VOIP = iPhone?

Crave seems to think so.

Santa? Vampire 06 requesting supply drop, over

Vampire 06 is the nomme de guerre of an American soldier in Afghanistan. His job is to train Afghan National Army troops, kill the bad guys - and survive the total insanity that is the US military.

He writes a blog called Afghanistan Shrugged. In his Dec. 3 post, he's fed up with the mail not getting to his base (a Forward Operating Base, i.e. a place that gets shot at on a regular basis).

Fearing that the current mail situation will impact his troop's Christmas - he appeals directly to the man in the red suit:

I think I have a better chance of Santa actually dropping into the FOB with his reindeer and delivering the mail than my team getting it through the system.

Santa, if you're reading this: LZ is marked VS-17 ORANGE.  We'll pop smoke when we here the jingle bells, you ID and we'll start supressing known rocket sites.  Tell Rudolph it's a blackout FOB but redlights are cool.  Watch the eastern ridgeline we take fire from there a lot.

(H/t to Danger Room. They posted a link to Vampire 06 talking about always drinking the Chai. Read that and just kept going.)

Vampire's no Hemmingway, but give the guy a break - people are shooting at him, his REMFs are giving him stupid orders and pretty much everyone back here has stopped noticing that there's a war on.

Reason #41 why I watch 30 Rock

41) Liz Lemon screaming stuff like:

Suck it, you whittling IHOP monkeys!

Ah, poetry...

Coolest YouTube trick

(Courtesy of Dynagirl)

Open a YouTube video right to the part you want by adding variables to the URL.

Rockin'!

Screw the iPhone

I want one of these:

The last nail in the coffin...

...of blaming the subprime mortgage mess on the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA).

I give you (or rather The Big Picture gives you) Governor of the Federal Reserve System, Randall Kroszner:

Some critics of the CRA contend that by encouraging banking institutions to help meet the credit needs of lower-income borrowers and areas, the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending. We have not yet seen empirical evidence to support these claims, nor has it been our experience in implementing the law over the past 30 years that the CRA has contributed to the erosion of safe and sound lending practices. In the remainder of my remarks, I will discuss some of our experiences with the CRA. I will also discuss the findings of a recent analysis of mortgage-related data by Federal Reserve staff that runs counter to the charge that the CRA was at the root of, or otherwise contributed in any substantive way, to the current subprime crisis.

[snip]

...we found essentially no difference in the performance of subprime loans in Zip codes that were just below or just above the income threshold for the CRA. The results of this analysis are not consistent with the contention that the CRA is at the root of the subprime crisis, because delinquency rates for subprime and alt-A loans in neighborhoods just below the CRA-eligibility threshold are very similar to delinquency rates on loans just above the threshold, hence not the subject of CRA lending.

 There's a whole speech online, a (massive) report, and a music video.

Okay, not a music video - but there should be.

Health care: what we're up against

dday has a nice post provoked by this WaPo article:

U.S. 'Not Getting What We Pay For'
Many Experts Say Health-Care System Inefficient, Wasteful

By Ceci Connolly

Talk to the chief executives of America's preeminent health-care institutions, and you might be surprised by what you hear: When it comes to medical care, the United States isn't getting its money's worth. Not even close.

"We're not getting what we pay for," says Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. "It's just that simple."

"Our health-care system is fraught with waste," says Gary Kaplan, chairman of Seattle's cutting-edge Virginia Mason Medical Center. As much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent today does nothing to improve health, he says.

Mumbai: Nothing new except the number

Here we go again.

 

This time, we don't have a gunman - we have gunmen.
Instead of a determined amateur - we have determined combatants. And there are international consequences.

Sadly, virtually everything else is the same.

The breathless live reporting is over - and we can get to the facts of what happened.

The Mumbai gunmen, once described as merciless professionals flawlessly executing their plan, are now becoming mortal with emerging reports of missed targets and improvised tactics.

There will be a lot said about how these men have done something unprecedented.

• 1972 Lod airport massacre: three gunmen massacre 24 people and wound almost eighty before security forces stop them.
  
  
• 1973 Attack on Pan Am 101: Five gunmen destroy an airliner using phosphorus bombs. 32 are killed and the gunmen escape in a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner.
  
  
• 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks 18 people killed, almost 140 wounded.

Like the Mumbai gunmen, these men in these attacks sought to kill others until they were dead.
Their specific motivations, weaponry and training are beside the point.

They came ready to fight - and it took awhile for the security forces to get organized.
In the intervening moments - the gunmen killed anyone they could find.

At Lod, Rome and Vienna - security forces were there in minutes. All of these attacks took place in areas that had on-site security.

In the case of Mumbai - that interval was 60 hours. Mumbai security forces are (by all accounts) not well equipped.

The Mumbai gunmen picked targets that would not have significant on-site security. They killed who they could - and went to ground until they were overwhelmed.

Much will be made of their use of technology - but if the reports are accurate, they were keeping in contact with each other and listening to what the news was saying. Both of those activities stem from having access to portable communications and wireless.

What's my point?

There will be a lot of useless speculation about hotel security and police weaponry. We'll talk about security guards, metal detectors - all of it might help in other situations - but not against these guys.

These are guys who decide to pick up guns and go kill people. They will walk through your detector and kill your guard. You need a good phone and a working cellular backup. Strong doors and floorplans on file with the police might not be a bad thing either.

But the fact is -
If these guys get into your country, the body count will be determined by what target is picked, who is there, and how fast security forces can get there with numbers and firepower.

In these sorts of situations - you're hoping these guys pick a high value target - because it will have security and communications on site.

These whack jobs pick some isolated spot - there's no telling what they can do before somebody can call the cops.

Those two nutters in North Hollywood lasted 44 minutes. If their goal had been bodies instead of cash, that interval would have been more than enough for an American horror show.

Picture Mumbai's 10-man crew in this country (or any country), fanning out to 5 schools in some metro area.

And you just know somewhere, some group of madmen is watching the Mumbai coverage on television and taking notes - so they can do something worse.

Messed up.

Late edit:

Bruce Schneier says what I wished I'd said:

If there's any lesson in these attacks, it's not to focus too much on the specifics of the attacks. Of course, that's not the way we're programmed to think. We respond to stories, not analysis. I don't mean to be unsympathetic; this tendency is human and these deaths are really tragic. But 18 armed people intent on killing lots of innocents will be able to do just that, and last-line-of-defense countermeasures won't be able to stop them. Intelligence, investigation, and emergency response. We have to find and stop the terrorists before they attack, and deal with the aftermath of the attacks we don't stop. There really is no other way, and I hope that we don't let the tragedy lead us into unwise decisions about how to deal with terrorism.

We can't build fortress America, nor would we want to. The charlatans who push this or that "security device" are missing the point. The crazies need to be ferreted out before they pull the trigger. Outside of that, there's good emergency response and little else. 

(H/t Danger Room)

As good a reason as any...

The Daily WTF tells a marvelous story about the following equation:

 Bureaucracy
 +
 Technical ignorance
= Unquestioned dogma

It's only funny because it's true.

The corrupt leading the blind

(H/t to Mr. Chittum again)

A "devastating story" out of the AP concerning the current administration's blind eye to the mortgage crisis.

The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

Sure, sure...there are always warnings about every scenario - so this is hardly-

Except, these weren't just pundits theorizing - these were regulators spelling out a list of recommendations that would have met this mess head on.

• Regulators told bankers exotic mortgages were often inappropriate for buyers with bad credit.
• Banks would have been required to increase efforts to verify that buyers actually had jobs and could afford houses.
• Regulators proposed a cap on risky mortgages so a string of defaults wouldn't be crippling.
• Banks that bundled and sold mortgages were told to be sure investors knew exactly what they were buying.
• Regulators urged banks to help buyers make responsible decisions and clearly advise them that interest rates might skyrocket and huge payments might be due sooner than expected.

Federal regulators were especially concerned about mortgages known as "option ARMs," which allow borrowers to make payments so low that mortgage debt actually increases every month. But banking executives accused the government of overreacting.

Naturally, there were people asking the government not to enact these regulations. Any of these names sound familiar?

"An open market will mean that different institutions will develop different methodologies for achieving this goal," Joseph Polizzotto, counsel to now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers, told U.S. regulators in March 2006.

...

The proposal "appears excessive and will inhibit future innovation in the marketplace," said Mary Jane Seebach, [Countrywide Financial Corp.'s] managing director of public affairs.

...

"It is not our role to be the regulator for the third-party lenders," wrote Ruthann Melbourne, chief risk officer of IndyMac Bank.

Nice.

Incompetent in any context

CJR's Ryan Chittum highlights a WSJ piece nicely detailing the obvious double standard when it comes to federal bailouts.

For their part, banks have found lots of causes for their predicament aside from their own failings. The crisis, they have argued, is down to an impossible-to-predict perfect storm, predatory hedge funds, panicked investors, unrealistic accounting rules and economic changes that emerged so quickly there was no way to be prepared for them.

If only. The reality is the crisis is due to bad lending and investment decisions. And those, after all, form the core of the banking business. In auto terms, it’s as if banks designed cars that suffer from catastrophic mechanical failures, or can’t be driven during snow storms.

Barry, Barry, Barry...

The NYT's David Barstow dumps all over Barry McCaffrey.

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex

In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity.

The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles.

Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.

Four days later the general swung into action. He sent a personal note and 15-page briefing packet to David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, strongly recommending Defense Solutions and its offer to supply Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles from Eastern Europe. “No other proposal is quicker, less costly, or more certain to succeed,” he said.

Thus, within days of hiring General McCaffrey, the Defense Solutions sales pitch was in the hands of the American commander with the greatest influence over Iraq’s expanding military.

“That’s what I pay him for,” Timothy D. Ringgold, chief executive of Defense Solutions, said in an interview.

General McCaffrey did not mention his new contract with Defense Solutions in his letter to General Petraeus. Nor did he disclose it when he went on CNBC that same week and praised the commander Defense Solutions was now counting on for help — “He’s got the heart of a lion” — or when he told Congress the next month that it should immediately supply Iraq with large numbers of armored vehicles and other equipment.

Of course, it gets worse. Read on.

(H/t Attackerman)

Flash of recognition

These days, I don't listen to the radio much. For music, that is. I listen to plenty of news and radio shows - but the idea of rolling the dice on some music station in the hopes that some software algorithm and I will hit it off just seems like a waste of time.

Which means precious little new music makes it into my head these days. My sister in law forwards the occasional new band or song - but she's about my only regular vector for new culture.

Three years ago, I was listening to NPR and their house music critic was discussing some bands they felt were ones to watch. I remember pulling into my driveway - in my usual distracted state - and they critic was cycling through crap, crap, and - well, more crap.

I remember it was just me in the car and about the time I normally reach for the keys to switch things off - I heard this song.

And it rocked. Soaring lyrics. Rich, symphonic backgrounds.

One of those moments you just sit there and wait until the music is done with you.

They only played a verse or two - and the best I could remember was the the band had some slavic name. Totally struck out on the web search, couldn't spell the name right I'm sure. Rrrgh!

It had a name with something like 'votch' in the name. I tried a few variants, no luck. Frustrating as all hell. The internet, and iTunes - and I can't identify or acquire the music I wanted.

Couldn't let it go, though. My memory is pretty good, so when it fails, it gets really obstinate. Ironclad recollection of details that won't help me in a search engine. Maddening.

It's been rattling around my head for years - I ended up using 'votch' as part of the name of a clan of bad guys in my gaming campaign - couldn't do anything else useful with it.  Like a sliver in the mind. Rrrrgh!

Until last night. I'm watching TV at stupid o' clock in the morning and there's a commercial for (of all things) a video game.

And they're playing the song.

Hold your grandmother’s bible to your breast
Gonna put it to the test
You wanted it to be blessed
And in your heart
You know it to be true
You know what you gotta do
They all depend on you

And you already know
Yes you already know
How this will end

Sung by a man channeling Morrissey who's fronting some classically-trained gypsies.

At last.

Too small to fail vs. too big to be trusted

CJR's The Audit highlights an interesting fact of our current banking mess, courtesy of Washington Monthly:

According to FDIC data, the failure rate among big banks (those with assets of $1 billion or more) is seven times greater than among small banks. Moreover, banks with less than $1 billion in assets—what are typically called community banks—are outperforming larger banks on most key measures, such as return on assets, charge-offs for bad loans, and net profit margin.

One reason community banks are doing so well right now is simply that they never became too clever for their own good. When other lenders, including underregulated giants like Ameriquest and Countrywide, started peddling ugly subprime mortgages, community banks stayed away. Banking regulations prevented them from taking on the kind of debt ratios assumed by their competitors, and ties to their customers and community ensured that predatory loans were out of the question.

That isn't just little guy schadenfreude, either. That's just one byproduct of a useful symbiosis: a lender who protects the money they lend - also protects the consumers they lend to.

Small banks aren't inherently more virtuous than large banks - they just don't have the means to sidestep their financial obligations like the big boys. Damn good thing, too.

CJR is pointing out that the failing banks that were too big to fail are merging. So whenever and however we get out of this mess,  we run the risk of having fewer banks that are even bigger that their too big to fail predecessors.

Chittum's closer is dead on:

There’s a serious conversation that needs to take place about the consolidation in our economy—especially in finance. If something is too big to fail, it should be disassembled to the point where its collapse would no longer endanger the rest of us.

A-men.

Told you so

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
-Pres. Thomas Jefferson, 1802

(H/t to Planet Money Blog)

Is this really happening?

With the total collapse of capitalism nigh, I'd like to take this moment to just say:

The new version of Cosmic Encounter looks SOoOooooo good.

I know what you're thinking:  

They're really releasing a new version of Eon's classic game of alien politics?

Yes! Or at least, it sure looks like it.

FF's website is listing components and showing visuals like they're really going to do this.

 

 

I mean - I've been burned before... (Avalon Hill, you are SO on my bad list) but the bits look good.

Stacking spaceships (smart). I'm betting the massive board in the picture won't be in the real set, but it looks like they've recognized that there's not much point in crowding things up.

Come December (Assuming I'm not living under an overpass, eating government-surplus horsemeat) I'm gonna score me a copy of this.

Whoo-hoo!

Naming rights

Hot on the heels of "We flew to Washington in private jets to beg for money" are Citigroup and AIG's latest examples of contempt for their situation: Naming rights contracts (H/t to 13th floor).

Citgroup is paying the NY Mets $400 million dollars over two decades to name their stadium.

And:

Citi isn't alone: Imploding insurance giant AIG is paying the British soccer team Manchester United $125 million for the privilege of having its logo appear on Man U's uniforms. That, despite the fact the firm is standing largely thanks to a $150 billion lifeline from the U.S. Treasury. 

Here's the best punchline on this I've seen so far:

"A friend of mine joked they should put 'US Treasury' on the front of their uniforms," said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan watchdog group which is outraged by the expenditures.

It depends on what you mean by sellling short

CJR has just a torrent of good bits out there today.

• OMG, the guys you see in the news everyday? idiots. 
• If you're having trouble solving the crisis of the uninsured crisis - blame the victims!

but the WSJ piece on Morgan Stanley is such a great illustration of the toxic effects of the Credit Default Swap. CJR just hits the high points, but even in those you see the tendrils of the CDS bursting through.

They're talking about short selling - hell, everybody is.
We keep hearing corp execs whine about short-sellers. They've managed to get regulation in place to prevent some of it

Not that it will help.

Short selling is this:

• Company X is selling its stock at $3, and I belive it's going to tank.
• I go to someone holding stock in Company X and say "Can I borrow 100 of your stock shares for 24 hours?"
• An investor loans me the stock. (I owe an investor 100 shares of Company X)
• Then I sell those 100 shares for $2.50 bucks each. (I have $250 bucks and still owe an investor 100 shares)
• It's a bargain! People snap them up.
• Then - my premonition comes true - and Company X's stock price falls to $2.
• I snap up 100 shares at $2 a pop. (I have 100 shares with $50 left over)
• I give the investor back their 100 shares and keep the $50.

Money for nothing.

Well, almost. If the price didn't drop - I still owe the investor back their shares. Having sold at $2, I have to buy 100 shares at $3 a pop. I lose $100.
If the stock goes up in value - I'm really screwed.

The new regs stopped something called naked short selling - which is shorting a stock without having closed the deal to borrow shares first. This shorthands the up-front transaction.

• I sell 100 shares of company X for $2.50 - and having agreed to the transaction, I'm asked to provide the shares.
• I don't - but I say "I'll get you those shares as soon as I can."
• At some later time, I get those shares and get them to the buyer.
• If I can't- the buyer can walk and no money changes hands.

Assuming everyone's behaving themselves - this is a fast way to get a trade done.
When people aren't behaving themesleves - it can be a way to screw with the market.

For example:

• I loudly announce to the world I'm shorting 2,000 shares of Company X!
• Investors get the impression something is wrong at Company X and begin selling.
• I get buyers for the shares I offer, but since I'm doing a naked short - I tell the buyers to wait until I get them.
• They wait, the shares keep dropping and I fail to deliver the shares.
• The buyers walk - no money changes hands - but my naked short just helped Company X's stock lose value.

This is evil - and rightly regulated.

Stopping the naked short forces short sellers to risk their money - which will engage their natural aversion to losing money. Yes, they can still take positions that screw people. But since they can get screwed by going short on healthy companies, the market will eat the fools and the smart investors will make money on companies that are overvalued.

Then there's the Credit Default Swap. This is the nuclear weapon of short selling.

A high value bond transaction is insured up to its full value by someone who does not hold the bond.

I pay a small premium for a CDS on a billon dollar bond that I think will fail. It's not my bond and (absent my buying a CDS) it failing would normally not affect me.

Since I did pay for a CDS (say $10 million annually) if it fails, I get a billion dollars.

That's just sick.

Let's say that premium is paid out in installments over the year (by quarter, let's say) and I buy the CDS on the billion dollar loser right before it tanks.

I've paid $2.5 millon dollars in CDS premium - and now somebody owes me $1 billion US.

Really sick.

Yes, if the loser bond manages to stay afloat, I keep paying CDS premium (and wasting money) - but I can stop paying - cancel the CDS - at any time.

My risk is nowhere near the $1 billion I stand to get paid if the bond fails and I can (and probably would) start shorting the bond issuer's stock to help make that company fail.

Meaning - if I feel Company X not looking so good, the normal course of action would be to get out of their stock with caution.
Now, with the CDS - I buy CDS's against bonds they've issued - then LOUDLY shout to the heavens that I have to short Company X because I understand their forthcoming balance sheet is going to suck.

I don't just bail out anymore - I take out insurance and try to damage as much as I can on the way out.

That's unbelievably sick.

And that kind of betting is why this mess we're in is so massive.

The skinny on Citi

NYT's Floyd Norris writes a great summary of what's going on (and not going on) with Citigroup - and the larger mess as well.

Here's a great bit on the Fed backing Citi's assets:

...not all the details ha[ve] been worked out. The assets in question — described by the government as “loans and securities backed by residential real estate and commercial real estate, and their associated hedges” — must be valued at current market value before the guarantee kicks in, but the government and the bank have yet to agree on those values.

That phrase “associated hedges” captures the fact that Citigroup, like many others, had sought to insure itself against losses with a variety of transactions, including the purchase of insurance, only to learn that the losses were overwhelming those who had promised to pay.

Worth a read.

All bets (should be) off

I love this.

People like Steve Eisman will hate this - but I love it.

Chris Whalen (writing on The Big Picture) is pointing out that the total tonnage of Credit Default Positions out there is horrifyingly huge. Then he makes the logical deduction on what can be done about it.

Start with the $50 trillion of so in extant CDS.

Assume that as default rates for all types of collateral rise over next 24-36 months, 40% of the $50 trillion in CDS goes into the money.  That is $20 trillion gross notional of CDS which must be funded.

Now assume a 25% recovery rate against that portion of all CDS that goes into the money.

That leaves you with a $15 trillion net amount that must be paid by providers of protection in CDS.  And remember, a 40% in the money assumption is VERY conservative.  Could easily be 60-70%.

Q: Does anybody really believe that the global central banks and the politicians that stand behind them are going to provide the liquidity to fund $15 trillion in CDS payouts?  Remember, less than 10% of these positions are actually hedging exposure.  The rest are speculative.

My answer is that we pay the hedge positions at face value, but the specs get pennies on the dollar of the face of CDS.  And the specs should take the pennies gratefully and run before the crowd of angry citizens with the torches anbd pitchforks catch up to them.

Exactly.

If you're using a CDS to legitimately hedge against money you have personally committed - your CDS keeps its value. You risked principle, and paid to protect it - your principle is protected. Or at the very least, you're last in the "who gets screwed" line.

If you just bet that bond X will default and paid a pittance in CDS premium - you do NOT get the full value of somebody else's principle in a buy out.

You get practically nothing, or nothing - and shut the hell up about it.

The world simply does not have the money to pay out on betting vehicles like CDS - somebody has to get screwed - and my vote is for people who were buying fire insurance on burning houses they didn't own.

They get screwed first.

Oh, and the guys who let them buy that insurance? - you're up next.

In the loop

I realize there is a glut of jokes about how irrelevant Pres. Bush seems these days, but I'll just share these two headlines:

• Sun Nov 23, 2008 4:56pm EST
  White House says unaware of any Citigroup rescue talks
  ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Sunday she knew of no talks going on between banking giant Citigroup and the federal government for financial aid.
  
  
• Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:06am EST
  U.S. rescues Citi with $20 billion capital
  NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has bailed out Citigroup Inc, agreeing to shoulder most of the potential losses on $306 billion of high risk assets and inject $20 billion of new capital, in its biggest rescue of a bank yet.
  

Ready on day one

No, not Obama - his stimulus package.

ABC is reporting that Congress will try to have it ready for signing on January 20, 2009.

Looks like Stein's not the only one freaking out.

(H/t TPM)

I'm with Josh Marshall on this one:

This is really going to be a titanic struggle. It would be fascinating, even fun to watch it unfold if it weren't that all our futures depended on the result.

Stein vs. Cavuto

(H/t to digby, of course)

Here's a rather surprising exchange between two avowed conservatives (well, okay an avowed conservative and Neil Cavuto, who merely plays one on tv) over what kind of bailout needs to be done.



Stein (who, yes I realize can be comically wrong in print) is advocating for a full blown, massive stimulus package - and is willing to shout down Cavuto to do it.

Stein: We need to bail out the auto companies, we need to have a massive stimulus package. This economy is about to fall off a cliff.

[snip]

Cavuto: Going the other way and spending like crazy will somehow get us over the guilt that stems from [not intervening in] the [great] depression?

Stein: It's not guilt. It's keeping people alive, Neil.

Watching Stein's and listening to the urgency in his voice makes me think he's spent the last few days staring into the abyss. He's freaking out.

Good news, Detroit

Bloomberg's saying the Fed is weighing options to save Citigroup

Citigroup Inc. and U.S. regulators are in talks to limit the bank’s potential losses on more than $100 billion of toxic assets after the stock’s plunge last week sparked concerns about the company’s fate, four people familiar with the matter said..

[snip]

The holdings that may be guaranteed are a portion of the $400 billion pile of mortgages, bonds, auto loans and corporate loans that Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit pledged in May to shed within three years, the two people said. While the amount to be covered under the plan is under discussion, the talks are focused on about $100 billion to $200 billion of the assets, they said.

“If anybody’s too big to fail from the financial system’s point of view, it’s Citi,” said Brian Barish, president of Cambiar Investments LLC in Denver, which manages about $6 billion and doesn’t own Citigroup stock. “The government doesn’t need to be in this to make money. If they lose a few bucks on this, but save the system, it’ll be worth it.”

I'd bet the fix was always in for the big three getting their cash. But if the Fed is going to save Citi to the tune of over a hundred billion in loans/guarantees/what have you - they'd be hard pressed to justify not throwing a measly 25 billion to some automakers.

I mean, at this point - $25 billion dollars is chump change.

Democracy index

I'd read an article by Heather Gerkin awhile back that finally sank in - particularly this part that she added on the Election Law Blog:

I have recently proposed that we create a Democracy Index, ranking states and localities based on how well they run elections. Without good data on how the election system is performing, voters learn that there's a problem only when an election is so close that the outcome is in doubt and reporters devote the time necessary to investigate what actually happened. That's a bit like measuring annual rainfall by counting how often lightning strikes. The Index would help us assess the problems that occur routinely, before they cause what Rick Hasen has called an "electoral meltdown." Moreover, it would allow voters to reward strong performance. Right now, voters lack the information they need to differentiate between a bullet dodged and a well-run system ...

Makes an awful lot of sense to me.

Rather like a public-facing rating system for restaraunt cleanliness. We assume the place we go to is decent - but we have no information to base that on.

Underachievers thrive on that kind of a system. My sister used to tell me horror stories of her ride alongs with restaurant inspectors. After she was done, I asked her what happened to the places that were bad, but not bad enough to be shut down.

She laughed. "They keep doing what they're doing. After all, from their perspective - they passed."

I imagine there are any number of localities that are teetering on the edge of failure - waiting for a close election to burst into the news.

It'd be nice if they were in the spotlight before the next election, no?

Blot doesn't seem like the right word, congressman

...I think the word you're looking for is homicide.

(via DoDBuzz)

It must be the worst nightmare of every CIA director — the agency ignores its own rules and regulations and kills innocent Americans, and then the people in charge of the operation lie to Congress and cover up what happened.

The nightmare has apparently come to life and it became public today when Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) announced that a report by the CIA’s own inspector general found that agency officers apparently ignored standing rules and regulations governing when they could shoot at aircraft in the drug war in Latin America. The lapses led to the death of at least 10 innocent civilians, Hoekstra said, including two Americans, Veronica “Roni” Bowers and her daughter, Charity, in April 2001. They were missionaries in Peru heading home when the CIA ordered a Peruvian Air Force jet to shoot down their plane. The shoot down was part of a joint U.S.-Peruvian anti-drug program that began in the mid-1990s. CIA officers worked with Peruvian pilots to spot planes believed to be carrying illegal drugs.

“It is a blot, a dark stain, a sad day for CIA,” Hoekstra told reporters this morning. “The CIA knew about repeated serious issues with this program, but took no corrective actions, which could have prevented this needless tragedy. Making matters worse, the inspector general found continuous efforts to cover the matter up and potentially block criminal investigation.”

Killing your own because you couldn't be bothered to spare them.

Worse than a blot, I think.

Adu-lation

Freddy gets his first goal for the US men's team.

Good on him. Nice to see hard work pay off.

Scoreline - November 19, 2008
USA: 2
Cooper 54'; Adu 69'

Guatamala: 0

Better still was Guatemala being sent home. Awww.... poor widdle no-hope team. Maybe 2014 will work out for you. Who wants a cookie?

Altidore? Stud, again. Donovan? Jozy called, he's in your spot.

Pity Citi

CJR's Ryan Chittum is betting Citigroup is about to have one of those seismic events that makes everyone change their stationary.

Weighing down [Citigroup's] shares has been the Treasury Department's decision last week not to buy troubled assets from banks. Citigroup's balance sheet includes battered securities and loans that many investors hoped could be offloaded to the government.

What's sad is that Citigroup has already gotten billions from the government - so it's not like Paulson changing tactics stiffed them. You wonder how many troubled assets they have - and just how troubled they are.

Whoa

Attorney General Collapses During Speech

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey collapsed during a speech Thursday night and was taken to the hospital after he failed to regain consciousness. There was no immediate word on his medical status.

Mr. Mukasey, 67, who took over as attorney general one year ago after the resignation of Alberto R. Gonzales, was giving a speech on national security to members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal affairs group, when he lost consciousness at about 10:20 p.m.

Around midnight, a Justice Department spokesman said in a statement that Mr. Mukasey was “conscious, conversant and alert.”

Late Edit: In the (impossibly unlikely) event that anyone is getting news from this site. Mukasey's doing better now. Nothing to see here folks - Move along.
(Via TPM)

A win for the end user

(Via the NYT)

A number of retailers and manufacturers have a gift for holiday shoppers: product packaging that will not result in lacerations and stab wounds.

The companies, including Amazon.com, Sony, Microsoft and Best Buy, have begun to create alternatives to the infuriating plastic “clamshell” packages and cruelly complex twist ties that make products like electronics and toys almost impossible for mere mortals to open without power tools.

Impregnable packaging has incited such frustration among consumers that an industry term has been coined for it — “wrap rage.” It has sent about 6,000 Americans each year to emergency rooms with injuries caused by trying to pry, stab and cut open their purchases, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Long overdue.

Justice delayed - but justice nonetheless

Federal Judge orders the release of five Guantanamo prisoners

When you're looking for a handout

You should probably not step out of a private jet first:

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post twists the knife into the carmaker CEOs, who were busted in Congress yesterday for flying their corporate jets to Washington to ask for a government handout. They couldn’t even “jet-pool” as one congressman mockingly suggested.

It must be hard to be shameless when there's so much to be ashamed of.

While I honestly have no idea if the economy will get worse or better if the Big Three get $25 billion dollars - it is damn near impossible to tell the difference between the undereachieving, undeserving suits that cratered the auto industry - and those who cratered the financial sector.

Wall Street banks got their handout and now we will be treated to an endless parade of corporations whose balance sheets could use a cash infusion.

The corporate titans are long overdue for their share of the suffering - and even if all they have to do is sell their collectible car museum so they can keep the private island, I think I'm not alone in thinking that their employers could find better things to do with the millions they pay these schmucks.

(H/t to TPM and CJR)

For Detroit, when it rains, it pours

(Via the NYT)

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California ousted Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan from his post as chairman of the influential Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday, giving President-elect Barack Obama an advantage in his plans to promote efforts to combat global warming.

By a vote of 137 to 122, House Democrats ended Mr. Dingell’s nearly 28-year reign as his party’s top member on the committee. Besides installing a committed environmentalist as head of the energy committee, the outcome also removes one of the auto industry’s best friends from a key leadership post.

Looking forward to those hearings....

Mark your territory

My new cube-neighbor, RM, unpacked yesterday. I suppose they're not truly my new neighbor - they'd been relocated there weeks ago - but the boxes are gone, so it's now official.

In CorpWorld - changing desks is a highly choreographed affair. Some time before the appointed day, you will receive Moving Instructions. These will inform you of a range of time when you can expect Moving Boxes to arrive in your work area. You are to use these boxes to pack up your desk by such-and-such date. You must label your things, lest they be delivered to God Knows Where.

Tape (essential to this task) is neither mentioned, nor supplied. Despite this, with a fair amount of scrounging, on the appointed day at the appointed hour - Personal Belongings have been duly boxed up and are sitting on your old desk. Sometime between now and tomorrow morning, they will be picked up by unseen forces and delivered to your new desk.

Then you unpack. Or, if you are RM - you don't.

Totally understand. Work is a bigger deal, and really - half the crap I have at work could vanish and I'd never miss it. I'm literally surrounded by weeks worth of discarded paper in three inch stacks.

RM lets their stuff sit in boxes - until they need something. Boxes get opened, one at a time until there's a row of cardboard boxes yawning open like post-industrial flora.

Again, like I have anything to say on this. My place is a pit that threatens to spill out onto the floor with every breeze or tremor.

So, yesterday - RM has at last had it with the state of things. Boxes are emptied, flattened and discarded. The resulting stuff is sorted, stacked up, filed and vanishes into drawers and cabinets.

RM's desk is spotless.

In contrast, my desk looks like it's been carpet-bombed with 11x17 paper.

That tears it - I grab everything I haven't touched in weeks and ball it up into a torso-sized mass and fling it into the recycle dumpster.

I do this three times. Then I pitch all the empty beverage containers. Put pens in drawers, stack notepads. Take down stuff I'd taped to the wall for some reason.

It's feeling good. For the first time in months, I can see all of my desktop. No longer the crappiest desk in the pod! Whoo-hoo!

-------------------

This morning, I'm in late. I'm rushing to make a 9am meeting - and down the hall I see BD. BD's my other neighbor. They're the one whose desk was always clean.

BD looks like he's seen a ghost. Asks how I'm doing, in an overly-restrained way.

I'm good, running late. Gotta go. He leaves.

Odd. I get to my desk and it hits me. Our fourth pod-mate, V, was laid off while BD was out.

BD just walked into a pod with three clean desks.

Whoops.

I find BD, "Just cleaning up."

They grin. "Had me goin' there."

I go back to my desk, unstack some paper, and scatter a few things.

To whom it may concern: Someone still works here.