Wednesday, October 05, 2011
Evening Thread
Local sports franchise is playing rounders in some sort of competition, so I'll outsource to Pierce.
Uh..
I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure the basics of Halal and Kosher slaughter are essentially the same - slit throat and bleed without stunning.
In a chapter on "cultural jihad," Geller covers subjects like "The Islamic/Leftist Alliance," "The Mosqueing of the Workplace," and "the Islamization of the Schools." There's also a section on "Secret Halal Meat," in which she highlights "numerous explosive revelations" about "the little-reported fact that much of the meat in Europe is being processed as halal and yet sold without the halal label." Geller declared this to be "a little-known strike against freedom" and that "we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered by means of a barbaric, torturous, and inhuman method: Islamic slaughter, the cutting of the animal's throat without stunning or any other form of mitigation for the animal's pain." Geller went on to assert that it "appears clear" that "some of this halal meat is going to public school lunch programs."
I Believe That Carsharing Is The Future
Not everywhere, of course, but in urban hellholes where cars are still useful things but where significant numbers of people don't use a car for a daily commute they both provide both direct benefits to their customers and indirect benefits by taking cars of the roads. Cars take up a lot of space, and reducing their numbers in urban hellholes, preferably with carrots rather than sticks, should be a policy goal.
So I do think they should be thought about as a serious policy issue. Should for profit carsharing firms, for example, be allowed to have reserved on street spots? I think yes, but also think that there should be well thought out conditions for such arrangements. Personally I have not thought out what those conditions should be, but obviously just letting anyone incorporate as a carsharing firm and grabbing city parking spots wouldn't be optimal.
A regulated monopoly would be justified if there were significant economies of scale. I'm not sure it's desirable or necessary, though allowing regulated competition with interoperability between companies mandated might be. Perhaps a common membership fee, with individual firms competing otherwise (price/availability/etc).
Anyway, I haven't thought this through in detail, but, yes, urban hellhole policymakers should think these things through.
So I do think they should be thought about as a serious policy issue. Should for profit carsharing firms, for example, be allowed to have reserved on street spots? I think yes, but also think that there should be well thought out conditions for such arrangements. Personally I have not thought out what those conditions should be, but obviously just letting anyone incorporate as a carsharing firm and grabbing city parking spots wouldn't be optimal.
A regulated monopoly would be justified if there were significant economies of scale. I'm not sure it's desirable or necessary, though allowing regulated competition with interoperability between companies mandated might be. Perhaps a common membership fee, with individual firms competing otherwise (price/availability/etc).
Anyway, I haven't thought this through in detail, but, yes, urban hellhole policymakers should think these things through.
It's Just About Fairness And Equal Treatment
If one really rich guy gets free money, well then they should all get free money.
(via)
Zygi Wilf, the Vikings’ principal owner, said he was only asking for equal treatment with the Twins, who moved to Target Field, which was publicly financed. The sum the Vikings are willing to spend on the stadium is among the highest contributions of any N.F.L. team to a new stadium, Wilf said.
(via)
The Solution Is Obvious
Give a few hundred billion more in free money to rich people and, above all, ensure the salaries and bonuses of those responsible are maintained at their current levels.
Also, too, austerity.
Also, too, austerity.
Get A Life
Nothing against gadgets and even gadget love, but...
Anger?
And, uh, isn't this a good thing?
"It was quite disappointing. I think there is going to be a lot of anger from users expecting something big bold and quite exciting after a long time of waiting from the iPhone 4.
Anger?
And, uh, isn't this a good thing?
"Maybe he wants to bring other people to the forefront by letting others speak on his behalf," said Gregory Roekens, chief technology officer at marketing firm Wunderman.
"But in terms of style, it was underwhelming. People were expecting iPhone 5, but instead it's almost fixing the weaknesses the previous phones had.
The World Is Run By Idiots
I made a joke about this thinking on Twitter yesterday, but I was premature. Cameron actually claims to believe that in order to grow the economy everybody needs to spend less.
Contracting our way to expansion...
...apparently the speech has now been revised.
Still 100% wrong.
Prime Minister David Cameron is set to tell British households to pay off their credit cards as he warns that the only way out of the current economic crisis is to deal with debt.
Contracting our way to expansion...
...apparently the speech has now been revised.
David Cameron will now say that:
"The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That's why households - all of us - are paying off the credit card and store card bills."
The section released to the media yesterday read:
"The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households - all of us - paying off the credit card and store card bills."
Still 100% wrong.
WAAAAHHHH
I doubt donors gave gifts intended for massive legal bills for a corrupt bankruptcy proceeding.
LEAVE THE DONORS ALOOOOOONE!!!! We don't want them to know we're taking all their money.
One donor who made a $2 million donation, Goldsmith said, had already responded that he made an "unrestricted gift, and the [Orchestra Association] kept writing back to say thank you for your restricted gift."
The orchestra contends that all $120 million or so of its endowment is restricted by donors' wishes to remain in the endowment, and is therefore unavailable to creditors as part of the bankruptcy. The legal theory under which the pension fund is operating is that perhaps up to $20 million in endowment gifts came with no clear instructions for their use and that the fund, as the largest creditor in the case, is entitled to the money as part of the bankruptcy process.
Anne M. Aaronson, the association's bankruptcy attorney, said she learned only Monday that donors were being contacted. She expressed concern that they were being pulled into the case and suggested that this course of action was "harassment or a vindictive act against the" association.
LEAVE THE DONORS ALOOOOOONE!!!! We don't want them to know we're taking all their money.
Time For More Austerity
Because it's working great.
Oops:
There isn't even any coherent theory why austerity "should" be working. It's just...1) suffering 2) ?? 3) profit!!!
The UK economy grew by 0.1% between April and June, less than the 0.2% estimated previously.
Output from the service sector grew by 0.2%, compared with the previous estimate of 0.5%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
Oops:
The upshot is that the economy hasn't grown for nine months (the economy contracted by 0.5 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year).
There isn't even any coherent theory why austerity "should" be working. It's just...1) suffering 2) ?? 3) profit!!!
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Funny Thing Is
Beck exhorting his minions to get all of their cash out of the banks probably would be a successful attack on Wall Street.
Looking For Statutory Authority In All The Right Places
This commenter has another idea. The Fed can just put all of us on the payroll! And, no, I have no idea if there's authority for that either.
My Campaign To Give You Free Money
No I don't really know the most legally sound way of giving away free money. If there isn't one, perhaps somebody should campaign on it?
HAMP'd
The Obama administration had total control of this.
Even aside from bleeding heart concerns about desperate homeowners, or even quaint concerns about due process and similar, many of us have been trying to tell them that without doing something about the now-messed up housing market, the economy would not recover. And by messed up I don't mean "lack of perpetually rising prices," I mean misaligned incentives between originators, servicers, and investors which would ensure a giant clusterfuck.
Documents obtained by ProPublica – government audit reports of GMAC, the country’s fifth largest mortgage servicer – provide the first detailed look at the program’s oversight. They show that the company operated with almost no oversight for the program’s first eight months. When auditors did finally conduct a major review more than a year into the program, they found that GMAC had seriously mishandled many loan modifications – miscalculating homeowner income in more than 80% of audited cases, for example. Yet GMAC suffered no penalty. GMAC itself said it hasn’t reversed a single foreclosure as a result of a government audit.
Even aside from bleeding heart concerns about desperate homeowners, or even quaint concerns about due process and similar, many of us have been trying to tell them that without doing something about the now-messed up housing market, the economy would not recover. And by messed up I don't mean "lack of perpetually rising prices," I mean misaligned incentives between originators, servicers, and investors which would ensure a giant clusterfuck.
They Actually Have No Idea What They're Doing
One thing that is important to remember is that the Galtian Overlords who run our financial system have made it perfectly clear that they're completely incompetent. More than that, there's no reason to think they actually have any clue what policies would be good for their businesses. They support policies which Team Galt support, because that's what a good Galtian does, but, you know, Galtian Utopia would not actually be very good for their businesses.
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