More Thread

You all talk too much.

Evening Thread

So important news of the day is that Steve King thinks Obama is blacketyblackblackblackblackBLACKBLACKcountBlacketyblackula.

Happy Hour Thread

Enjoy.

Executive Order Shmorder

Now:

President Obama's deficit commission is likely to delay a vote, originally set for Wednesday, on a plan to rein in the soaring national debt, according to congressional sources.

As commission chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson huddle one-on-one with other members in hopes of assembling a respectable majority, sources said Tuesday that a vote later in the week is looking more likely.

Then:

Furthermore, 14 out of 18 votes needed to report recommendations, and recommendations must be reported to Congress by December 1, 2010.

Preznit Giv Me Slurpee

Oh boy.

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama told GOP leaders behind closed doors Tuesday that he had failed to reach across party lines enough during his first two years in office, a senior administration official told CNN.

...on the twitter chucktoddler sez:

Gibbs confirms Cantor statement that POTUS admitted he could have reached out more but Gibbs said GOPers did not offer any similar retort

Wankers of the Day

OFA.

Occurs to me that it's been awhile since someone has won the coveted WOTD award.

#Fail

They're moving the goalposts of course, but lets cheer on the likely failure of the catfood commission. We should remind the worst person in the world, Maya MacGuineas, that the point wasn't to come up with ideas. Ideas are easy. The point was to come up with a plan that was broadly acceptable, with enough to placate both sides.

SOTU It Is?

I guess I had some small hope that post-election Obama would come out swinging on the economy and try to ram through something that might actually help. Oh well. Maybe state of the union?

The People's Business

I suppose there isn't much point in the House actually trying to do something useful only for it to go die in the Senate, but a schedule like that doesn't exactly convey the message that they comprehend that there are a few wee problems at the moment.

Neither does a slurpee summit.

Let's Pretend

Nobody cares about the deficit, least of all Republicans in Congress, yet everyone pretends otherwise.

What Fresh Hell

Having that feeling I used to get during those periods before major congressional recesses, just hoping they'd hurry up and go the hell home before they did more damage.

Obviously there are some good things they could do, too, so in the spirit of bipartisanship I will cut off my hand.

Debtors' Prison

What Digby said.

Overnight

Fake Deficit Reduction Idea Thread

enjoy

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

My Basic Point Still Stands

But apparently proposed freeze would not cover congressional staffers.

Parental Backup

A post like this always gets some pushback with people giving their "I lived in DC on under 30 grand with student debt and no parental support" stories which is why I conceded that it's possible to do, but I think 20somethings at the time and in their memories often underestimate the degree of parental support they actually receive. At one end you have people whose parents just give them large and direct cash subsidies, at the other you have people with no living family members or anyone else to help them, but there's a whole range in the middle who get parental support in various ways. You know, a generous cash gift at Christmas. A bit of help with needed car repairs. Paying for plane flights home for the holidays. Parental support also comes in the form of just providing an insurance policy in that if you choose a lower real wage "important" job as a congressional staffer over a higher wage one elsewhere and your career is truncated prematurely when your boss loses re-election, someone is there to smooth the transition to your next endeavor. Moving is expensive too. Some people have a bit of a parental social safety net and some people don't.

Stepping On Own Message

The administration has long been very bad at consistently articulating their "need more spending now, need to cut deficit later" two track message, but as Scarecrow suggests it's not clear they're going to bother to try anymore.

V-Chip Wasn't So Bad

Even though nobody uses it, but the pointless gimmick era of the presidency is apparently here.

Class Self-Selection

Obviously congressional staffers are only a small part of the federal workforce, but the dirty little secret of Washington is that the country is run by poorly paid 25 year olds. Washington is an expensive city. Low level staff jobs really don't pay enough* unless you have some sort of parental support and backup, and of course such jobs are stepping stones to other careers in various corridors of power. In other words, only people of a certain class will tend to take such jobs and move into positions of real power.

*They might pay enough that you can afford the austere life in the several roommate flophouse, if you don't have tens of thousands of student loans to repay, but these just aren't high paying jobs given DC rents.

Occasional Reminder

You know what else will decrease the deficit? More jobs.

Criminal

Holder doing criminal investigation over insider trading. Something.

But Will He Pay?

Anyone predict Christie will demonstrate his awesomeness by not paying his bill to the Feds?

Also, Bad Santa

With several thousand municipalities trying to deal with legitimate church/state separation issues and the reality of multiculturalism, it's inevitable that some will do something stupid when trying to deal with quasi-religious holidays like Christmas. But, if they don't, just make stuff up!

It's The Economy Stupid

I don't quite believe as much as some that elections are entirely won or lost on the state of the economy, but cutting federal pay in real terms is anti-stimulus at a moment when no other stimulus is likely to pass. Also, too, unionized public workers are part of your base, and such.

We'll Be The Bad Guys So They Don't Have To Be

So awesome.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans to announce a two-year pay freeze for civilian federal workers later Monday morning, according to an administration official, the latest White House move intended to demonstrate concern over sky-high deficit spending.

...

While a pay freeze will make only a small dent in the federal deficit, it represents a symbolic gesture toward public anger over unemployment, the anemic economic recovery and rising national debt. By announcing it on Monday, the president effectively will preempt Republicans who have been talking about making such a move once they take over the House and assume more seats in the Senate in January.

Well as long as we preemptively do what they are planning to do then we won't have to negotiate...

Modern Capitalism

Haven't bothered to look up the details, but in a BBC report on the Ireland bailout I was informed (rough quote) "there is a plan for private investors to be responsible for losses due to financial crises starting in 2013."

Morning Thread

Cause we can never have too much thread.

Overnight

RIP

Sunday Night

enjoy

So What Was It

So what was that policy? Saying there was general agreement within the economics team is not the same thing as saying that they had united around some policy proposal that the communications team could reasonably sell.

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Ireland

Their $113 billion loan bailout could be used to give every single resident $25,000.

The Great Game

My 5 second takeaway from the latest wikileaks is that we spend an enormous amount of resources doing mostly pointless but still somewhat offensive stuff just so we can keep up the whole spy vs. spy nonsense, then cover it up.

The Jobs Are Too Damn Few

And the people whose job it is to think about how to solve such problems have basically punted.

Sunday Bobbleheads

This Week has 4 rich white people.

Face the Nation has Huffington, Woodward, Edmund Morris, and Ron Chernow.

Meet the Press has Durbin and Kyl.

Document the atrocities!

Morning Thread

Saturday Night

It's alright.

Dinner Thread

Roast pork and potatoes here. Nom, nom, nom.

Afternoon Thread

Survivalist thread?

Very Silly Irish People

The patriotic thing to do is give all your money to rich banksters and then thank them for your suffering.

Destroying The World

It is remarkable that all serious people agree that the best way to deal with struggling economies is to plunge them as deeply into recession as possible and steal money from poor people to cover the bad debts of billionaires.

At Least The War Is Over

And all the peeance and freeance is there.

BAGHDAD — A second exodus has begun here, of Iraqis who returned after fleeing the carnage of the height of the war, but now find that violence and the nation’s severe lack of jobs are pulling them away from home once again.

Second Cup?

Don't mind if I do.

Evening Thread

I Have Not Turned On The Teevee

But I bet if I do I will see images of people shopping.

Afternoon Thread

Lunch Thread

Enjoy your leftovers.

The Difference

Perhaps there is a lesson here.

“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Barton today. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”

Not Quite True

Krugman (read the whole thing) writes:

And Milton Friedman was wrong: in the face of a really big shock, which pushes the economy into a liquidity trap, the central bank can’t prevent a depression.

I think the "helicopter drop" could still probably work, but relying on a failed banking system as conduit can't.

Also, Al Gore Is Fat

And such.

When Ms. Peck, now 75 and a caretaker to her husband, moved here 40 years ago, tidal flooding was an occasional hazard.

“Last month,” she said recently, “there were eight or nine days the tide was so doggone high it was difficult to drive.”

Larchmont residents have relentlessly lobbied the city to address the problem, and last summer it broke ground on a project to raise the street around the “u” by 18 inches and to readjust the angle of the storm drains so that when the river rises, the water does not back up into the street. The city will also turn a park at the edge of the river back into wetlands — it is now too saline for lawn grass to grow anyway. The cost for the work on this one short stretch is $1.25 million.

Wakey, Wakey

Thanksgiving Evening Thread

burp

Hamp'd

Treasury blessed predatory lending program.

Being Aware Of Internet Traditions

One Big Giant Mess

And no one has any idea how to fix it.

For some reason I doubt "punishing the responsible parties" will play a major role.

Happy Thanksgiving

Late Night

Annual turkee tradition tomorrow.

DeLay

Seems ancient history now, but the DeLay thing was one of the early "things only liberal bloggers care about" while being lectured by our betters in the Village that this was all the work of a partisan (read: Democrat) prosecutor trying to criminalize politics.

The Bug Man Endeth

The twitter tells me that Tom DeLay was just convicted of stuff only crazy liberals took seriously.

Nobody Tell Lou Dobbs

Day after day he would rail against the evils of the movie "Bad Santa," unaware that it wasn't a movie about the real fake entity known as Santa Claus but instead about a mall Santa.

Sequel might be on its way. This is the best news for our side in the War in Christmas yet.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

Congratulations, Richard!

You had my support from the beginning.

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Ireland Logic

As far as I can tell it's borrow a bunch of money to shore up the banking system, and then cut spending and destroy the economy so that people will be willing to lend you the more money you're promising to not need.

Or something.

Let's Just Have a Do Over For The Whole Decade

Well, for the rich and powerful who run everything anyway. It's distressing that there has been massive foreclosure fraud and no one will actually be charged with "fraud," they'll just be asked politely to clean up their act enough so we can go back to pretending not to notice.

AUSTERITY NOW

Here's how Ireland plans to lower dirt onto itself from inside the grave.

But It's A Unicorn

Harold Meyerson takes a look at the German economy, which actually shouldn't exist given the standard theology of the Econ.

All In

Judging from reports of the press conference, Ireland is going to double down on the awesome policies it has had which are working so well.


AUSTERITY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

Thursday Is New Jobless Day

Except when it's Wednesday. 402k new lucky duckies. Actual almost good news!

Morning Thread

by Molly Ivors

Matt Taibbi, why do I love you so much when you make me want to slit my wrists?

You've heard of Too Big to Fail — the foreclosure crisis is Too Big for Fraud. Think of the Bernie Madoff scam, only replicated tens of thousands of times over, infecting every corner of the financial universe. The underlying crime is so pervasive, we simply can't admit to it — and so we are working feverishly to rubber-stamp the problem away, in sordid little backrooms in cities like Jacksonville, behind doors that shouldn't be, but often are, closed.

PS. What the hell? I need a drug to recover from that article.

Your Liberal Media

What, Jim Hoft was busy?

Finally

Friends of mine have some success.

Long hard slog.

Tuesday Night

Another holiday almost here.

Happy Hour Thread

Enjoy.

Go Roland

There could be quite a few people on the ballot for the Chicago mayoral race.

These Are Not Good Projections

Fed thinks unemployment will be around 9% all next year and near 8% at the end of 2012.

Go Bristol!

I gather there are a bunch of conservatives doing what they can to ensure a Bristol Palin victory on Dancing With The Stars. I assume they're doing this because they imagine it will piss of liberals. It really won't.

Modern Warfare

Apparently it involves killing some bad guys and handing over giant bags of cash to other bad guys in hopes of achieving some sort of karmic balance.

Modern Capitalism

Apparently it involves letting super rich people light hundreds of billions of dollars on fire, and then taxing poor people so they can afford to have a second bonfire.

Just A Few Million Innocents

And fortunately there's that radiation proof wall between the North and the South ensuring that only the bad North Koreans are affected.

Random Thought

There are certainly days when it seems like nobody in charge has any idea what they're doing.

And After You're Done Giving $25K/person To The Banksters

Please make sure to make the suffering more profound and intense.

(Reuters) - Ireland should gradually lower unemployment benefits and cut the level of its minimum wage in order to boost employment, the International Monetary Fund said in a paper released on Monday.

Yes that will work. God I've come to loathe (most) economists.

IMF on Ireland, 2006:

• The outlook for the financial system is positive. That said, there are several macro-risks and challenges
facing the authorities. As the housing market has boomed, household debt to GDP ratios have continued to
rise, raising some concerns about credit risks. Further, a significant slowdown in economic growth, while
seen as highly unlikely in the near term, would have adverse consequences for banks’ non-performing loans.
Stress tests confirm, however, that the major financial institutions have adequate capital buffers to cover a
range of shocks.

Disconnect

I'm repeating myself somewhat, but I think it's quite horrifying that we live in a time of extended and ongoing 9.6% unemployment, and what our media elite spend all day every day talking about is the fact that we need to cut Social Security benefits.

FAIL

Morning

I'm so old I can remember pretending to be a Taliban leader was more of a 'get killed quick' rather than a 'get rich quick' scheme.

Sadly not a deleted scene from 'In the Loop'

Oy!

For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement....

United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor.

Apparently, they also mistook the gentlemen as the Taliban-representative of a large bank.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

This seems appropriate (NSFW if the volume is up).

Uh, Boss...?

Unemployment benefits and the debt ceiling?

Monday Night

enjoy

Random Thought

Pretty sure that at about $25k per person, Ireland would be better off writing checks to its citizens than lighting $120 billion on fire giving it to the banks.

Scams

Identity verification systems do nothing but...verify identity. Past performance is no guarantee of future terrorist activity.

The Queen of the Village

Sometimes their lack of self-awareness is cute.

More Commenters Like This Please

I don't know if Boilerguru is a pardoy or merely sent from heaven to keep me entertained without having to go to the Inqy web site, but this was a pretty good entry:

The sooner Harrisburg chokes off the funding to Philly the better. Philly needs to cut salaries and pensions for all the city workers, reduce or eliminate state aid to the city, eliminate WIC and state welfare programs. Business's that are stuck in Philly that employ people paying the ridiculous city wage tax need to be provided state tax intensives to move out to the burbs. As someone who has never nor will ever ride public transportation - a huge reduction of state funds into this area would also be refreshing.

Allow Philly to be 100% responsible for themselves - the rest of us in the burbs have 100% zero use for that garbage dump of a city. I live 5 miles outside the city and havent' set foot into the city for over 5 years.
Today, 3:36:42 PM
– Reply – Moderate

I don't care if people like the urban hellhole, but I am endlessly fascinated by what they imagine is wrong with it.

Happy Hour News

Obviously the important news of the day is the scary announcement of a Buffy movie remake. Not that the original movie was any good, but the teevee series of course has a fan or two.

But What Are They Standing In The Way Of

I have no doubt that Republicans will destroy the economy in order to return them to power if given a chance, though I have to ask: what exactly are blocking? The only thing I'm aware of us is the small business tax cut plan. I don't think that's a horrible idea, but it isn't going to save the economy.

It's A Wonderful Lie

Aside from factual issues, I have no idea how Beck's brain blender processed It's A Wonderful Life like that.

Austerity At Home

Pennsylvania's new GOP overlords are going to do their best to destroy the state, and most don't have any love for Philly.

At some point we should stop making fun of the French and realize that we're doing it wrong.

FranceAndGermanyWillDie

Of course it isn't just Tom Friedman. It's been conventional Village wisdom for as long as I can remember that continental European countries are DOOOOOOOOOMED unless they destroy their welfare state and put the free market fairy in charge of everything. At some point maybe Tom Friedman should wonder how Germany manages to be a high wage net exporting economy with all the socialism.

Hedgies

FBI has raided 3 huge funds, and market participants are concerned that our Galtian Overlords at Goldman might get ensnared.

I predict small civil fines with no admitted wrongdoing all around.

Own Goal

Yes the Right will exploit this, as everything, for their own stupid ends, but it really should be obvious to our overlords that taking pictures of and fondling peoples' genitals aren't really acceptable security measures.

Bike Rage

Entitled driver syndrome is a wondrous thing to behold.

Heckuva Job

Foreclosure fraud is scaring people away from buying real estate. As it should.

Insolvent

All along there's been a failure to really come to terms with the magnitude of the financial disaster and of the culpability of the Very Serious People in charge. In the beginning it was all the fault of poor minorities who used their immense political power to force banksters to give them loans they couldn't afford, then when the crisis really hit it was just a wee 'liquidity' problem which could be easily solved with a couple trillion dollar gift from the Fed.

And we left the people responsible in charge, because, well, nobody could have predicted, without considering the fact that this is what the people in charge will continue to do because this is what they know how to do.

The powers that be thought the economy would turn itself around and some of these problems would evaporate. But it didn't and they didn't and that light at the end of the tunnel no longer appears to be just around the corner.

Does This Remind You Of Anything Else

Felix Salmon:

When a residential property bubble as big as Ireland’s bursts, there will be always enormous bank losses. But because those losses haven’t materialized yet, everybody in Ireland and the EU is sticking their heads in the sand, pretending that they’re never going to arrive at all.

The best-case scenario, then, is that the EU bailout will kick the Irish can three years down the road. But in implementing the plan, Ireland’s banks will effectively be nationalized and any future mortgage losses will have to come straight out of these bailout funds. Which aren’t remotely sufficient for such a task. If the spike on mortgage defaults comes sooner rather than later, this particular bailout package could prove to be very short-lived indeed.

But They're Our Greatest National Treasures

Banksters have some problems.

The top 35 US banks will be short of between $100 billion and $150 billion in equity capital after the new Basel III global bank regulations are imposed, with 90 percent of the shortfall concentrated in the biggest six banks, according to Barclays Capital.

The Week Ahead

How many references to "Cyber Monday" will it take to make me shoot my teevee.

Morning and Stuff

It's really quite remarkable that all the mortgage scamming was going on and no one complained. With all the lawyers around, you would think that someone, somewhere would have said something.

Late Night Thread

Rock on

Evening Thread

enjoy

As For Who's Next

We probably know...

Bailing Out Ireland

So who's next?

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

More For More

Given the realities we've created, I don't think cheap on street neighborhood parking permits are wrong. Even in the urban hellhole cars are somewhere between very useful and necessary for a lot of people. But, yes, the first permit per household should be cheap and the rest should be expensive. I'd argue that they should a lot more expensive.

Sunday Bobbleheads

Face the Nation has Secretary Clinton and Admiral Mullen

This Week has Mullen

Meet the Press has Clinton and Jindal

Document the atrocities!

Morning and Stuff

Shoes

Steve Benen wants to know why folks trying to actively make America weaker are not being called out.

If a major, powerful political party is making a conscious decision about sabotage, the political world should probably take the time to consider whether this is acceptable, whether it meets the bare minimum standards for patriotism, and whether it's a healthy development in our system of government.

Seems newsworthy to me.

Evening Thread

Have fun

Even More Thread

My lunch was enjoyable. Still decent weather here in the urban hellhole.

Lunch Thread

enjoy.

What About Lieberman

I gather most sensible people think that John McCain made a wee error in selecting Palin to be his Veep candidate, but I've never really read anyone seriously try to explore what would have happened if his personal first choice, Lieberman, had been chosen. I know Kristol and the gang told him that the lunatic right wouldn't accept him, but I'm just not sure that was true. At that point in time Lieberman was still pretty good at pissing off liberals, and that's mostly what they want...

Con

That rhetoric is just what they regularly acknowledge, that the Greenspan commission was a con, and that the buildup of the Social Security Trust Fund was just a way to raise taxes on poor people in order to cut taxes on rich people who have no intention of having their taxes increased in order to pay it back.

"Security"

Teh Crazee response to any failed attempt to blow up an airplane is to assume that everybody in the future who gets on an airplane may attempt to blow it up in the same way that failed. It's been unfortunate that The Crazee happen to be in charge of the TSA, but there it is.

One wondered what they were gonna do in response to the failed undie bomber attempt.

Turns out, they wanna look underneath, or, failing that, feel up your undies.

This seems to have hit some kind of tipping point. Taking off the three year old's shoes makes people safer apparently, but having some bureaucrat completely mess with the "don't let any stranger touch you there" lesson crosses the WTF? line.

Fallows has been writing about the idiocy of security theater in commercial aviation for some time.

Late Night

BFF

Gulf State Community Bank, Carrabelle, FL get eated.

Happy Hour Thread

It's Friday. Start a bit early.

Getting In My Way

Normally I appreciate on location film shooting as I think it can provide a great deal of genuine atmosphere to a film, but judging by all of the NYPD cars around I gather that my urban hellhole is just a fake NYC.

License To Steal

Really nobody should consider buying a house now. The whole system is fucked.

The companies have opened wide their wallets for lobbying and are flying top executives to Washington for one-on-one meetings with lawmakers. They are holding briefings for key staffers, including an event last week that drew more than 60 aides. And they are blanketing Congress with white papers, memos and other documents that lay out their arguments.

The focal point of their efforts is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, the controversial, privately run electronic database that is used by practically every lending institution and investment company to track the transfer of the ownership of mortgages as they are packaged into securities and traded at lightning speed around the globe.

Surge

Just after the '06 election, a very chastened George Bush responded to the election losses of his party and the tremendous unpopularity of the war in Iraq by... increasing troop levels.

Nothing To See Here

I'm reasonably sure that if I showed up in a court with forged documents claiming ownership of Wells Fargo I'd be heading off to jail fairly quickly.

Going Forward

We still might get one more unemployment benefits extension, but then I imagine that's it.

Unless the banksters finally get around to lending money to John Galt so he can fund his perpetual motion machine I'm really not sure what's going to save things.

Nice Country You've Got There

And pass my plan or I'll blow it up and take most of the world with it.


Can the person who thought appointing Simpson was a good idea please quit?

Changing The Subject

I don't know how to convince Villagers that nobody gives a shit about the deficit, but they do care about having jobs and not getting thrown out of their homes.

Probably someone will announce a new Gingrich-Kerrey deficit commission tomorrow.

Messaging Matters When All You Have Is Messaging

I'm certainly in the "actions speak louder than words" category, or more specifically the "results speak louder than actions and words" category, but the fact is that before the election the Democrats failed to present a coherent agenda and thus far after the election they've failed to do that as well. We can quibble about how many seats an awesome post-Labor Day messaging and agenda strategy would have saved, but it's certainly incorrect messaging doesn't matter at all, especially when it's all you've got.

They Didn't Consider That?

Of course increasing the retirement age would spike disability claims, and not just semi-fraudulent ones. There are plenty of people at that age who can work if they find a precise job match to their skills/needs and employers willing to accommodate them, but who are genuinely disabled.

Instead We Will Ask Each Citizen To Sell A Kidney

Because it's only right.

The Irish government has insisted it will not raise the country's low corporation tax rate in return for a European Union-led bail-out.

Deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan said the 12.5% rate - much lower than the EU average - was "non-negotiable".

More seriously, they should just default. Tell the continent to bail out its banks directly if they want.

Putbacks

I'm surprised it took this long, but now one of the mortgage insurers has decided it shouldn't be on the hook for fraudulent loan originations.

Default

It cannot be said enough that bailing out "Ireland" is really about bailing out its creditors. It's dumb.

Morning Thread

by Molly Ivors

80's nostalgia edition.

Overnight

enjoy

After All We've Done For Them

The amazing thing about the banksters is that despite all we've done for them, and continue to do, many of them are still probably basically insolvent.

Time to ponder a little trickle up, idiots.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

Burning The Whole Place Down

3 month unemployment benefits extension failed to pass House (needed 2/3 to get through given how it was done).

Anyway, I wouldn't be repeating myself so much on what the administration has done wrong if they'd signal some way forward. They haven't.

Philly Style

My mayor.

At Least Maxine Waters Knows What's Going On

I get the sense that our political culture tends to treat her like the crazy aunt, but she knows the deal with the banksters and the useless regulators.

The regulators kept saying they understood the issues, but Waters asked the fundamental question, “If you can understand it, why can’t you do anything about it?”

Treasury has done nothing, the OCC has done nothing. There is no accountability for the rich and powerful whatsoever.

Things I've Learned

All the banksters are utterly corrupt, including the ones we partially own, the regulators don't know anything and don't care, and this is the system Treasury has put its faith in.

huzzah. time for lunch.

Not Such A Great Idea

I'm reasonably sure that a big reason car free people like me use car sharing is because of the occasional need to carry some things. That doesn't mean car share cars need to be giant - I usually get a Prius though occasionally get a pickup if I really need to carry a lot - but not sure what the advantage of bicycle replacement vehicles is.

Unless You Fix This

Zach Carter is twittering a House hearing on the mortgage mess. As one Rep. said, 4 million more foreclosures are projected over the next couple of years. I don't know how the administration, and especially the assholes at Treasury, expect the economy to rebound when that is happening.

In our meeting, Obama said the best way to fix the housing market was to fix the economy. Fair enough, except you can't fix the goddamn economy without doing more and the executive has tools available to improve the housing situation that don't need President Snowe's approval.

Because It Pisses Off Liberals

Basically any issue liberals rally around will garner denial and opposition from conservatives. That's really what animates them.

They're On To Me

The teabaggers have figured out my plans.

First, they took on the political establishment in Congress. Now, tea partiers have trained their sights on a new and insidious target: local planning and zoning commissions, which activists believe are carrying out a global conspiracy to trample American liberties and force citizens into Orwellian "human habitation zones."

At the root of this plot is the admittedly sinister-sounding Agenda 21, an 18-year-old UN plan to encourage countries to consider the environmental impacts of human development. Tea partiers see Agenda 21 behind everything from a septic tank inspection law in Florida to a plan in Maine to reduce traffic on Route 1. The issue even flared up briefly during the midterms, when Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes accused his Democratic opponent of using a bike-sharing program to convert Denver into a "United Nations Community."

Thursday Is New Jobless Day

439K new lucky duckies. Still high.

Morning

I guess it's no surprise that the health insurance industry funneled $86 million to various groups in an attempt to derail health care reform, even though they promised Obama they would wouldn't work against reform. Actually, is anyone surprised by this?

Green Jobs

This piece by Mark Mills in Forbes is at least interesting, but his analysis carelessly confuses various systems and so his conclusion don't follow logically. I was going to write a longish(er) post about his errors, but suffice it to say that (putting aside some nitpicking about labor productivity) he fails to draw distinction between the US economy and the global economy.

The obvious flaw in Mills analysis is that nations trade surplus goods, and a cleantech manufacturing boom in the US can employ a large number of Americans without necessarily requiring that they are all working to generate domestic energy. In fact, when you go one step further and acknowledge that over the next century the global economy will transition from fossil fuels you recognize that the nations that invest in their domestic industries will benefit by exporting technology and goods.

If Mills wanted to make a simple case from first principles against the economic benefits of various cleantech technologies, he'd probably be better off focusing on energy return on energy invested (EROEI). Of course, given that increasing global demand, falling reserves, and declining EROEI of novel fossil fuel sources, cleantech still doesn't come out looking so bad.

Of course, one doesn't get to write columns for Forbes without be a wrongheaded contrarian. Full disclosure: I work in solar R&D and am not an economist.

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

Trade Not Being Offered

Instead what's being offered are Social Security and Medicare cuts and higher regressive taxes in exchange for tax cuts for rich people.


What a deal!

Teabagging Republicans

One point I haven't seen made anywhere is that the teabaggers have made any Republican cooperation with Democrats impossible. The teabagger policy agenda is mostly incoherent, but what really pisses them off is any perception of cooperation with that man in the White House or his allies. It's why Orrin Hatch is probably going to get teabagged in 2012. It isn't because he isn't conservative enough, it's because he occasionally does (or at least did) work with Dems on things and he was Ted Kennedy's buddy.

HAMP'd

Progress I guess.

That's Where The Money Is

The other fantasy is that if you pass some sort of plan which gets Social Security in surplus for the next 75 years according to the SSA then you get credit for "saving" Social Security and that the issue will be then off the table until the end of time. What will happen in practice is that the trustees will inevitably make minor and completely reasonable tweaks to the assumptions underlying their projections so they can once again have the trio of "nightmare," "middle ground," and "everything's awesome" scenarios, with the middle ground scenario showing problems at some point in the future. Then the pain caucus will be back to tell us just how much granny needs to starve and Wall Street will return to siphon up all the money into their gaping maws.

It will never end.

Can't Tie The Hands Of Future Congresses

Yes it's possible to implement things which are hard to get rid of, but one reason these commission are so idiotic is that you can't force future members of Congress to do what you want. The idea that members in 2025 are going to remember what Alice Rivlin said in 2011 let alone stick to any kind of blueprint is absurd. Instead of worrying about a hypothetical future we should be worried about the present, a present with some very pressing problems that maybe somebody should do something about.

Our Great Commissions

Apparently 'deficit reduction' is just Washington code for increasing taxes on poor and middle class people and cutting taxes for rich people.

Resentment

It might not get her to the White House, but perfectly channeling conservative identity politics victimhood is a large part of Palin's schtick. It works quite well for her.

Do Something

California's next budget catastrophe is just another reminder that this economic crisis is not over. It was never over. It's distressing watching our political system being absolutely unable to even come close to dealing with the problems we face.

Austerity

I really don't think you can overestimate the impact of failing to extend unemployment benefits. We're watching the system fall apart.

Truly Bizarre

For obvious reasons Appropriations is the committee everybody wants to be on.

Broke The Contract

As for the bailout, HAMP was what the administration offered to get people on board with authorizing the second half of the TARP funds.

HAMP was supposed to help the little guy, not rich people.

HAMP became a government blessed predatory lending system.

Shocker

Rich guy thinks it was great that all the rich guys got a bailout.

How Many Thieves

While I'm guessing banks mostly failed for the obvious reasons, I also bet some people downloaded some cash once the end was near.

(Reuters) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) is conducting about 50 criminal investigations at U.S. banks that have failed since the start of the financial crisis, the Wall Street Journal said.

Morning Thread

Snap Judgment

This sounds like a pretty good idea, though I don't know enough to judge it relative to the alternative.

For The iTunes Generation

Here's that Beetles band everyone is talking about today.

Some Days I Get Angry

The appropriate fix for the foreclosure crisis - principal reductions through various possible means - was always obvious. And they didn't do it. And now everyone is paying the goddamn price.

#fail

Bankster Madnes

Dday and emptywheel cover today's hearing.



The administration failed to back cramdown and turned HAMP into a government blessed predatory lending problem. So, yes, policy failure also too and such.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Stealing All Their Money

I don't know enough about the Tax Foundation's methodology to have any opinion, but while they're officially "non-partisan" they're also not exactly left-leaning. And, yes, California is a "donor state" as higher income states tend to be.

Grill The Bird

My Thanksgiving the past few years has involved 2-3 scrawny heritage turkeys, but one of them always goes on the grill. Add some smoking chips.

Greg and Marty

From my long years of watching them, their loyalties are to team R more than they are to sensible (even by their standards) policy.

A Glorious Paradise

With the underwhelming but over reported news that iTunes now will sell you Beatles albums, I was reminded of that brief shiny moment when Napster ruled the world. It's true that with a bit of work you can still find just about anything on the internets for free if you want to, but Napster was something else entirely. For a brief moment in time, the entire world, or at least college kids with broadband, shared the entire music catalog.

Not justifying the 'not paying for stuff' aspect, but there was also glory in the 'able to find rare stuff that you couldn't find otherwise' part of that. It was a moment.

Print A Bunch Of Money And Stop

I didn't make it all the way through my graduate monetary economics course, but one thing I do remember from it is the policy prescription for a country dealing with hyperinflation caused by governments being a little bit too fond of running the printing presses in order to pay their bills. Basically the idea is have one last trip to the printing press and print a massive amount of money so you can, in fact, pay your bills, and then...stop.

We don't have hyperinflation, of course, and if anything deflation is the concern, but the point is that sustained inflation requires a sustained increase in the money supply. One giant helicopter drop wouldn't cause sustained inflation.

Destroying The System Completely

Dday has a bit more on the fraudclosure report. One wonders how many times the banksters will nearly destroy the economy before anyone except desperate homeowners suffers any consequences.

We will continue to suffer for their sins until they are purified.

The Only Measure That Matters

It's quite sad that if the stock market hadn't gone back up we'd be hearing a lot more about just how bad the economy is and elites might be prompted to do something about it, like light giant piles of money on fire or whatever they deemed appropriate. But 9.6% unemployment, no big whoop.

If Things Were Better They'd Be Better

There is a weird unwillingness to admit that maybe they got the policy wrong too. It's one thing to argue that they got the best they could get out of Congress, though I think that's a dubious claim too, but I think if I traveled back in time to January of 2009 and explained to them where the economy would be in November of 2010 and projected to be in December of 2011 they probably would have done some things differently.

Probably He Should Just Go Galt

The parasite bureaucrats have failed to appreciate and compensate him for the genius of his perpetual motion machine and have denied him the health insurance that he is obviously due.

You Think?

I suppose we could always just bail them out for the third time.*

Widespread problems in how U.S. lenders documented foreclosures could spark a wave of legal challenges resulting in massive losses to banks and serious new troubles for the housing market, a federal watchdog warned on Tuesday.

*Everyone pretends not to remember, but the Fed did what TARP was originally supposed to do, eat big shitpile, then the Treasury lent them a bunch of money and also ate AIG.

Morning Thread

by Molly Ivors

Channel some anger:

Overnight

Rock on

Evening Thread

enjoy

Don't Talk About Unemployment

During exchanges on the twitter, it occurred to me that even Republican challengers didn't for the most part run on the bad economy/unemployment. They ran on issues more separate from peoples' lives (stimulus spending, deficit) and on being the great defenders of Medicare. Our political press isn't putting jobs front and center, and neither are our politicians.

Well the unemployed are all losers anyway, so there's that.

The Wage Is 2 Damn Low

I don't expect all politicians to be super smart, but I thought it was pretty much universal common sense that delivering on jobs if you're in power was basically the most important thing. If the projections below are anything close to correct, then it means that at the end of 2011 we'll have had 32 months of 9.0%+ unemployment.

Maybe somebody should do something.

Also, More Tax Cuts

As predicted, austerity is driving Ireland and Greece into hell. I don't know why they don't default..er... restructure.

Grim

Philly Fed Survey of Professional Forecasters:

	Real GDP (%)		Unemployment Rate (%)		Payrolls (000s/month)
	Previous	New	Previous	New	Previous	New
Quarterly data:
2010:Q4	2.8	2.2	9.6	9.6	114.1	86.6
2011:Q1	2.3	2.4	9.4	9.5	159.3	104.2
Q2	3.1	2.7	9.3	9.4	190.7	144.3
Q3	3.0	3.3	9.0	9.2	189.9	139.8
Q4	N.A.	2.9	N.A.	9.0	N.A.	170.6
Annual data (projections are based on annual average levels):
2010	2.9	2.7	9.6	9.7	-45.2	-56.1
2011	2.7	2.5	9.2	9.3	143.8	105.5
2012	3.6	2.9	8.2	8.7	N.A.	N.A.
2013	2.6	3.0	7.3	7.9	N.A.	N.A.

On Repeat

Some days my pontificating even bores me, as I have nothing new to say but a need to repeat what I've said a million time in hopes that somebody hears me. What we need first and foremost is... jobs. Ideally we have people passing awesome legislation to help achieve that. Since that is apparently impossible, we should have politicians talking about the awesome legislation they would like to pass and pointing fingers at the people who are preventing it from happening.

Change The World

I said this months ago, and I have no idea why Dems didn't craft their own tax cut plan and proceed to run on it. All tax cuts now and forevermore shall be called the "Bush tax cuts" it seems.

Jobs

All the Very Serious People spent years laughing at silly Japan and their "lost decade" and how stupid they were and blah blah blah, when the truth was that the economy of Japan was never all that bad. The dirty little secret is Japanese unemployment peaked just above 5.5%. The horrors!

But Then You Don't Save Any Money

Saying that "the Affordable Care Act haven’t really sunk in yet" is another way of saying that the assumptions used to calculate cost savings to the government of increasing the Medicare eligibility age are quite wrong. Shifting old people out of an efficient insurance provider into an inefficient one that they pay for with government subsidies isn't sound policy.

Out Of Touch

Most of the country must think DC elites - journalists, politicians - are completely insane for talking about "the deficit" right now. Polls show that nobody gives a shit about the deficit, but I don't need polls to actually tell me that. Get a goddamn clue.


...as Rotwang says, the only appropriate response is "WHERE ARE THE JOBS?"

Wakey, Wakey

Very Short Movie Reviews

Kick-Ass was actually really good.

And They're Back

Congress returns tomorrow. Not optimistic they'll do anything good, and worried they'll do something awful. I'll just remain in crouch position until the final quack.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy.

Expect The Worst

As Steve says, any White House planning that doesn't assume the worst from Republicans is at best pointless.

Sunday Bobbleheads

Face the Nation has Rand Paul and Chuck Schumer

This Week has Lindsey Graham, Kent Conrad, Madeline Albright, and some asshole CEO from the catfood commission.

Meet the Press has Axelrod, McCain, Saint Greenspan, and Newt Gingrich.

Please kill me. Then document the atrocities!

Morning

I really don't think the Catfood Commission gives two shits about raising the retirement age 40 years from now. What they're really after is means testing Social Security. If that happens, 40 years from now Social Security will be little more than a welfare program for the elderly.

Evening Thread

How About Those Deficits?

The funny thing about the federal budget deficit is that it's never a problem during Republican administrations. Only during Democratic ones.

Jonathan Chait argues:

The deficit may not account for all or even most of the Democrats' political predicament, but it is certainly an element of it.

How big an element?

A CBS News poll about the 112th Congress taken after midterm elections finds that 56% of the respondents want the focus to be on jobs and the economy and only 4% on the federal budget deficit.

Like A Little Boy On Christmas Morning

That's how the leader of Operation Rescue, the famous anti-abortion group, described his feelings about the new Republican House.  What present to open first?

Katha Pollit  (via Digby) lists some of those presents for you.  She also points out:

When the 112th Congress convenes in January it will have at least fifty-three additional antichoice Republicans in the House and five in the Senate. Some of the newcomers are particularly extreme: Senator-elect Rand Paul and incoming Representatives Mike Fitzpatrick and Tim Walberg oppose most common methods of birth control, in vitro fertilization and stem cell research, and join Marco Rubio and Pat Toomey in opposing abortion even for rape or incest; Toomey supports jailing doctors who perform abortions. Supporters of reproductive rights are looking at the most hostile Congress since abortion was legalized in 1973.

Never mind if the vote was about the economy. What we will get is something rather different.

Afternoon Thread

Nobody Could Have Predicted

Email from Newsmax tells me about Obama's "plan to drastically weaken Social Security benefits even further."

Overnight

enjoy

Friday Cat Blogging

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

It Was All Just A Dream

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza of the blogger Q & A

Stolen from Joe's facebookpage.

Your Liberal Media

Still not liberal.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Blood Sucking Puppet Master

At some point the distinction between being an anti-Semite and just regularly employing anti-Semitic dogwhistles and promoting anti-Semites starts to disappear.

Re-Foreclosure

Yes it's such a good thing we left these guys in charge of everything.

Hundreds — and possibly thousands — of Massachusetts homeowners are facing back-to-back foreclosures as lenders realize there were problems with property titles the first time around. Those lenders, often unable to obtain title insurance, are opting to start from scratch with what is being called a “re-foreclosure.’’

...

Not all tenants enjoy such an outcome, however, and those who receive notice of a re-foreclosure often are confused.

“They are weirded out,’’ said Zoe Cronin, a staff attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services, which provides legal representation to low-income people. Cronin said she knows of about a dozen recent re-foreclosures. “I’ve met former owners [who are] saying, ‘What is this? I got a letter saying I own my house again,’ ’’ she said.

Missing The Point

I see people in various places suggesting that there are some good things in the catfood commission report so Teh Left should embrace those things, blah blah. But good things and good ideas are easy to come up with! I don't need the blessing of Simpson and Bowles. The point of the catfood commission was to come up with a package, one which both sides might hate a bit but which would ultimately be good so maybe people would hold their noses and pass it. If 14/18 commissioners sign off Congress is supposed to (they don't have to, but they've kind of agreed to) have an up or down vote on the whole thing. There's no picking and choosing allowed, and if picking and choosing is allowed there's no point in starting with that piece of crap.

Legalizing Fraud

I don't know if there's any truth to this, but...

Of Course Results Matter

But if you don't have results and the only thing you have is "remember how bad those other guys are" then you get what happened in this past election.

On Nov. 2, could anyone fill in the blank of this sentence: If you return Democrats to power, they will _________.

Or, at least: If you return Democrats to power, they will try to ______.



I couldn't, and I pay attention.

The Plan

As we all occasionally forget, it's important to remember that all of the Social Security reform talk is about letting rich people steal from the Social Security trust fund.

Morning and Stuff

Friday Cat Blogging from Rome. Scooters are a bonus.

Thursday Night Thread

Was out talking politics and new media with college kids basically too young to remember life before tubez.

Driving Miss Nancy

Stay classy Rush.

Happy Hour Thread

Enjoy.

Well If It Hurts The Stock Price Of Cisco

Maybe austerity isn't such a good idea after all.

Fix The Economy

Here's my unsolicited advice for the administration and the Dems: fix the goddamn economy. At least outline a plan to fix it. If Republicans won't pass it, blame them.

Alternatively, you could not fix the economy and try to get credit for "cutting the deficit" or some other crap that no one actually gives a shit about, least of all teabaggers or Republicans.

Worst Ever

I obviously expected nothing good from the catfood commission, but as Mike says it's far far worse than even I imagined.

Final Push

Final day of pledge week. Consider a modest contribution if you can afford it. If you can't, don't!

Kaplan Test Prep Daily

Obviously it's nothing new in the world of conglomerate journalism, but something like the WaPo has unique power and prestige which it is employing fully in order to increase profits in the profitable bits of its empire.

Unemployment

Aside from the, you know, helping people who need it part, yanking unemployment benefits will have a contractionary impact on the broader economy. If they fail to extend unemployment benefits...oy.

Um I Have The Facts

And my political rhetoric is that the catfood commission cuts taxes for rich people and pays for it by getting rid of the EITC.

Deficit Hawks

I think the subject of this email I received just now says it all:

George Stephanopoulos' Blog: Sen. Conrad: Extend All Tax Cuts; Time to Get 'Serious' About Deficit

I Have A Good Idea

Let's cut the deficit by drastically lowering tax rates on rich people.

Morning and Stuff

Haven't gone into the weeds yet, but it sounds like the recommendations of the Catfood Commission move us a whole lot closer to a flat tax.

Later Evening Thread

Evening Thread

enjoy

Progress

Until this report, congressional leaders were really unwilling to speak about catfood commissions except in highly abstract terms. Pelosi:

Our nation is facing two challenges: the need to create jobs and address our budget deficit. Any viable proposal from the President’s Fiscal Commission must strengthen our economy, but it must do so in a fair way, focusing on how we can effectively promote economic growth.

This proposal is simply unacceptable. Any final proposal from the Commission should do what is right for our children and grandchildren’s economic security as well as for our nation’s fiscal security, and it must do what is right for our seniors, who are counting on the bedrock promises of Social Security and Medicare. And it must strengthen America’s middle class families–under siege for the last decade, and unable to withstand further encroachment on their economic security.

Owning It

What the hell were they thinking.

The leaders of President Obama's deficit commission on Wednesday offered an ambitious plan to rebalance the federal budget by curbing increases in Social Security benefits, slashing spending on most federal operations and wiping out more than $100 billion a year in tax breaks for individuals and businesses.

My emphasis.

..The foxnews.com headline is "Obama Debt Panel Eyes Cutting Social Security, Home Deduction."

So Awesome

Bowles-Simpson proposes getting rid of the EITC, about the only thing we do for the working poor.

The Democratic Party Self-Destruction Act

That's what Bowles and Simpson have submitted

This Is The Awesomest Plan Ever

Fortunately it might be so hideous even the Dems will reject it.

The plan would reduce Social Security benefits to most future retirees — low-income people would get a higher benefit — and it would subject higher levels of income to payroll taxes to ensure Social Security’s solvency for at least the next 75 years.

But the plan would not count any savings from Social Security toward meeting the overall deficit-reduction goal set by Mr. Obama, reflecting the chairmen’s sensitivity to liberal critics who have complained that Social Security should be fixed only for its own sake, not to balance the nation’s books.

The proposed simplification of the tax code would repeal or modify a number of popular tax breaks — including the deductibility of mortgage interest payments — so that income tax rates could be reduced across the board. Under the plan, individual income tax rates would decline to as low as 8 percent on the lowest income bracket (now 10 percent) and to 23 percent on the highest bracket (now 35 percent). The corporate tax rate, now 35 percent, would also be reduced, to as low as 26 percent.

My emphasis.

The End Of The Catfood Commission?

I'm hoping that this rather hasty and too early press conference means it's a big nothingburger.

Twitter rumors say they'll put the home mortgage interest deduction on the block. Yeah, that'll pass.


...yes, they're proposing cutting scheduled Social Security benefits. But it's just the commissioners, not the 14/18 required for any action.

...also raising the retirement age. This guys are awesome, someone should elect them to something.

Do They Even Report Them Anymore?

According to icasualties.org, there were 50 US troop deaths in Afghanistan last month. Do these even get reported in the basic national news sites (cnn, nytimes, etc.) anymore? Or am I just guilty of tuning them out myself most of the time? Serious question.

Weird People

This all sounds pretty dumb to me, if for no other reason than the fact while Congress can vote to tie its hands, it can also always vote to untie them. Yes, given the veto and other things it such a regime could be somewhat difficult to undo, but still.

More than that, it's all just so cowardly. Want to cut things? Tell us what you want to cut.

Banksters

Another day, another bit of corruption which screws desperate people.

Good thing we left these guys in charge of everything.

Such Optimism

I was trolling the internets for some 2008 articles about the economy and housing prices. It's incredible how much optimism there was. You know, housing prices have already hit bottom, etc. The light at the end of the tunnel is so often just around the corner in the financial press.

Trendy

Many bogus "trend" stories are mostly harmless and easy to spot. But this one is about demonizing potential victims of domestic violence. Awesome!

Just A Few More Friedmans

I'm sure the next 6 months is critical.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has decided to walk away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the Afghanistan war in an effort to de-emphasize the president's pledge that he would begin withdrawing U.S. forces in July 2011, administration and military officials said Tuesday

We'll Take The Money

I don't know how DOT plans to distribute these funds, but I bet even my incoming Republican governor would take them.

Thursday Is New Jobless Day

435K new lucky duckies.

A bit better, but still high.

Fall Fund Raiser

Now would be a good time to chip in, if you haven't already. I get the feeling this place is going to be more important than ever in the coming months and even years. The big shitpile hasn't gone away and Atrios has a way of explaining things that even people without a degree in economics can understand. We need more of that.

Not to suck up or anything.

Overnight

enjoy

Owe No Senior Citizen

I wonder what campaign they ran when we were spending hundreds of billions in Iraq.

Afternoon Thread

enjoy

Truth

David Corn is twittering some event somewhere, and quotes Matthew Dowd saying this:

If econ. creates 150K jobs a month for the next two years, he loses.

The world is too complicated to make such predictions, but I think the underlying point is one that is lost on people, that "150K jobs a month" is not nearly enough job growth. So, yes, we can cheer monthly jobs reports that are >0 and find signs of hope in jobs reports that are at 150K, but this is still not enough. It has to be better than that for things to get better.

Pledge Week

Thanks to all who have contributed so far to help keep this pub operating. I'm oddly bad at thank yous, not because I'm not grateful but because I'm somewhat embarrassed by peoples' generosity. Not sure if that makes any sense, but there it is. But, anyway, thank you!

Can This Be True?

Most news reports make it seem like judges nixing foreclosures based on crappy or fraudulent paperwork is a relatively isolated thing done by near rogue judges who fail to understand that in 2010 the banksters are the law.

It is not the only case that has big banks worried. Spinner and some of colleagues in the New York City area estimate they are dismissing 20 to 50 percent of foreclosure cases on the basis of sloppy or fraudulent paperwork filed by lenders.

Ignition Interlock

I don't have any problem with such systems to prevent drunk driving, but I still feel like we go about the drunk driving thing completely wrong most of the time. We need to make it easier for people to drink without needing to drive, and make it easier for people who did drive and then drink more than they should to find their way home through some other means. Obviously some of this involves my master plan to move you all to Manhattan, but as that might take a little time there are smaller steps which can be taken. I'm sure many of you are familiar with places that don't allow overnight parking and will ticket and tow. Even in places with decent mass transit, the systems shut down too early. Very small changes to zoning mandates could put that neighborhood bar, now across an 8 lane road with no crosswalk, within reach of that neighborhood.

A big reason people drink and drive is we put bars in the middle of giant parking lots far away from any human habitation. I'm not sure what they expect will happen, but I think the consequences are pretty predictable.

Heckuva Job

At least he pissed off some liberals.

NEWARK, N.J., (AP) — NJ Transit owes the federal government $271 million for the Hudson River rail tunnel that Gov. Chris Christie scrapped last month.

The Most Popular Politician In America

If I only got my information from Chuck Todd's twitter feed that's what I'd think. But he's not even that popular in New Jersey (he's not unpopular, just not particularly popular).

The Quinnipiac University Poll finds Christie's job approval rating at 51 percent, with 38 percent disapproving.

But only 24 percent think he'd be good in the White House, compared to 61 percent who don't think so.

Morning Thread

I'm wondering just what will be voted on in the lame duck session.

No Quick Way

Ok, so can we work on a not so quick way?

More Thread

Have fun.

Happy Hour Thread

enjoy

There's Nothing I Hate More Than Trains

I'm worrying that all of my SUPERTRAIN posts have helped to convince Republicans that opposing rail in any form is on the list of things that piss of liberals.

Perhaps They Sould Be Airlifted Out

I've long been a bit confused about the apparent lack of innovation in designing roads and remedies for dealing with accident scenes quickly. Perhaps there isn't much to be done with an overturned trailer, but the time cost of these kinds of backups is absolutely immense.

Also, Too, And Such

There are good and rather obvious reasons for having municipal or single contract residential trash collection which I really don't see being outweighed in any way by the free market fairy. There are huge potential externalities to both trash and trash collection. I don't want multiple trash collection days on my street. I don't want to increase the number of trash collection vehicles on my street. They're noisy and they block traffic. I don't want people to fail to pay their trash collection bill and dumb their trash elsewhere. It's also impossible to figure out how service duplication would in any way reduce costs. It's obviously more efficient to have one truck serving a given neighborhood.

Not Over

In the blogger meeting, Obama said that the best way to help housing problems is to help the economy. That might be true, but the economy isn't being helped, and mortgage delinquencies are increasing. It's time to think of things the executive branch can do that don't require the approval of presidents Snowe and Collins.

Wilson's Enemies

Indeed they included Fred Hiatt's crayon scribble page and much of the rest of the media.

Losers

Nothing more to say.

It's really tiring.

When Radio Was Going To Save The World

Sam posted up the audio from the first Majority Report show, which I was a guest on roughly weekly for as long as the show was on. It's interesting thinking back to just how important Air America seemed at its launch. I was pretty horrible on that first show. Whether I was any good any other time I'll leave for the judgment of others. My advice for people appearing on radio is go into the studio. It's much easier to do a good job than if you're doing it by phone.

I still think more liberal radio would be a good thing, and as Air America was plagued by corrupt and bad management from the start its viability as a business model is still not clear, but I don't think people think the relative lack of liberal radio is as important as they did 6-7 years ago (rightly or wrongly).

Anyway, just reminiscing here. Please consider a modest contribution to this humble blog.

All You Need Is Monetary Policy

Well I've never bought into that (unless monetary policy includes helicopter drops as option), but once upon a time Bernanke was pretty convinced. And, you know, he's failing. He is not doing the job he is supposed to do. People are suffering. Unemployment is at 9.6%.

Morning and Stuff

It will take at least another day until I adjust to Standard Time.

War

Perhaps I'm a wee bit slow to the realm of conspiracy theorizing, but this just seems like yet another play by the monied class. Stupid? Perhaps. Simpler explanation is, as every economist should understand, "responding to incentives."

Early Evening Thread

The Result Is The Same

I don't know if it matters if Kocherlakota is stupid or evil, but in any case he is at least asserting something there really is no evidence for. At a bare minimum, we have lots and lots of residential construction workers who aren't doing a lot of residential constructing at the moment. I'm not expert in such things, but I think it's reasonable to imagine that the skill set and job desires that many of these people have would make them a good match for a lot of infrastructure building projects. The point is, we could put them to work.

As for people who may actually be relatively unemployable, we could also stimulate the economy by, say, giving them lots of money despite the fact that they are unemployed. Alternatively, we could let them be foreclosed upon and become homeless and broke, and whine that there's just nothing we could do because, you know, STRUCTURAL.

Banksters

I've tried but really don't know how to inject fraudclosure in the political press. The rest of the press is covering it, but the political reporters just don't seem to think it's an issue.

LOS ANGELES - Grocery store owners William and Esperanza Casco were making enough money to stay current on their mortgage, but when JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered a plan that reduced their payments, they figured they could use the extra cash and signed up.

The Cacsos say they never missed a subsequent payment, so they were horrified when the bank decided the smaller payments weren't enough and foreclosed on their modest Long Beach home.

Lame Duck

So... will the unemployment benefits extension be passed?

Sunday Bobbleheads

Face the Nation has Senate Majority Leader McConnell and James Clyburn.

This Week has Senator Majority Leader Rand Paul and Mike Pence.

Meet the Press has Senate Majority Leader DeMint and President Elect Chris Christie.

Document the atrocities!

Perspective

Speaking of broken records, Krugman on governance by slogan.

And thrifty Philadelphian Ben Franklin, on financing the Revolutionary War by running the printing presses, a de facto system of progressive taxation.

One way to think of economic history is as a series of battles in in the Forever War between creditors and debtors. When either side wins too many battles in a row, catastrophe results.

Late Night

Folk On.

Saturday Night Thread With Cat Blogging

Good Luck Texas

You'll need it.

Some Republican lawmakers — still reveling in Tuesday’s statewide election sweep — are proposing an unprecedented solution to the state’s estimated $25 billion budget shortfall: dropping out of the federal Medicaid program

.

Afternoon Thread

Had some lamb noodle soup in Chinatown.

Other People Need To Suffer

Some people are just stupid, and some people would do quite nicely with a bout of deflation and badly with any inflation, but for many people arguing against doing anything to help the unemployment situation the reason is simply that some people must be punished and suffer for our sins. And by "our," I mean the sins of extremely wealthy banksters.

Rules

After they get rid of all the liberals on MSNBC, 5 years later journalists will still refer to it as the liberal home of Joe Scarborough.

The Stupidest Fucking Idea Ever

Yesterday I said that once upon a time it was impossible to float certain ideas into the mainstream discourse, such as the fact that the Iraq war was the stupidest fucking idea ever. It wasn't just a joke. Back then, the only acceptable anti-war position was "the UN should give its blessing." I think they let Janeane Garofalo on a couple of times to be a bit more anti-war, but that's about it. And then there were crazy angry people writing blogs. But nobody listened to them.

Morning

So is the "actual liberals allowed on the teevee" era coming to an end?

Silly Liberals

Don't you know it's not the whether but the who? When WILL you understand the rules?

--Molly Ivors

Overnight

enjoy.

The Hungry Hungry FDIC

4 more banks.

Evening Thread

Rock on

Hope

I'm not sure we have much more than that for the economy. Maybe it will magically turn around without anymore nudging, but I really doubt it. I used to assume governors were practical enough creatures that they'd accept whatever money the feds threw at them, but now we don't even have that happening. I'd like to think Obama could get everyone to rally around a large infrastructure spending bill, but if isn't going to happen in the lame duck session it isn't going to happen. Probably the lesson learned is "people hate spending" when the real lesson is "people hate being poor and jobless and being chucked out of their homes by bailed out banksters" who, apparently, were deserving.

Afternoon Thread

Fortunately this blog has no ethical standards.

It's On

Such fun.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bank of America says it won't buy back bad mortgages from high-profile investors who say defaults are being handled improperly and homes are not being foreclosed on fast enough.

And Buchanan?

So Olbermann is suspended for making political contributions. I think that's a mostly dumb policy, though they're entitled to have such policies.

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest," it says. "Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee."

Did Pat Buchanan get approval for his?

Contributor	Occupation	Date	Amount	Recipient
BUCHANAN, PATRICK MCLEAN,VA 22101	SELF/COLUMNIST/WRITER	7/29/06	$1,000	Mountjoy, Richard (R)
BUCHANAN, PATRICK MC LEAN,VA 22101	POLITICAL COMMENTATOR	5/31/05	$250	Allen, George (R)
BUCHANAN, PATRICK J MCLEAN,VA 22101	SELF/AUTHOR/WRITER	12/26/07	$500	Schiffer, Paul R (R)
BUCHANAN, PATRICK J MR MCLEAN,VA 22101	SELF EMPLOYED/POLITICAL COMMONTATOR	3/12/08	$250	Jones, Walter B Jr (R)
BUCHANAN, PATRICK J MR MCLEAN,VA 22101	SELF EMPLOYED AND VARIOUS MEDIA COM	4/21/05	$250	America First National Cmte (3)