As in, it's amazing more firms aren't pulling an MF Global. Massive leverage using short term financing, and the whole thing can come crumbling down with relatively small losses leading to the funding drying up.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Monday, November 07, 2011
Elsewhere
Large numbers of US citizens don't have anything resembling "papers," and most of those who do don't carry them and would probably find it hard to locate them in the midst of a stroke. US immigration is a bureaucratic mess, and even people who are mostly doing it right get things "lost in the mail." I'm pretty sure I once worked in a foreign country without all of the appropriate papers due to some miscommunication. I worried a bit, but mostly didn't worry that hospitals would refuse me.
Fetus Police
I do my best to not wish harm on people, but I hope it's the supporters of the Mississippi "personhood" amendment who find themselves navigating a legal nightmare when it's their or their spouse's ectopic pregnancy, or when Officer Friendly declares their bathroom a crime scene due to a miscarriage.
Criminals
This post was slightly flip as I wasn't quite sure how to write it, but I'm making a serious point. There is a narrative out there about how one of the "pathologies" of "young black males" or "urban black communities" or whatever is that those bad people are unwilling to report or act as witnesses about crimes. And, you know, that's probably bad, and also sometimes true for the same reason people aren't too thrilled about being witnesses in mob trials either. But the idea that this is somehow not true for Team Rich Whitey also is pretty absurd. Often aspects of poor and off white communities are portrayed as somehow deviant when they're really perfectly 'normal.'
What Is Wrong With These People
I just cannot comprehend how people would be okay sitting around deciding on who to sterilize.
I was thinking that maybe our current crop offetish fetus worshipers would be less likely to do this stuff, but that's probably wrong.
Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes
I was thinking that maybe our current crop of
If It's Sunday...
One can always come up with some justifications for the weekly GOP Fest that is our Sunday shows. There isn't anything wrong with having a Republican only show during the Republican primary season, but if they do so the focus should be on...Republicans.
And poor John Dickerson got out of bed for nothing.
And poor John Dickerson got out of bed for nothing.
Maybe We Could Hire People To Do Some Stuff
Not nearly as fun as mass unemployment and suffering, but it might produce something of value.
In 1953, as California began its freeway building boom, drivers paid 6 cents a gallon in state gasoline taxes. Adjusted for inflation, that figure would be 51 cents today. The state gas tax is currently 35 cents, and officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission say it would have to be raised to 55 cents to meet today's needs just on city and county roads.
Lunatics
It doesn't take a genius blogger to see what's happening.
Austerity leads to lower growth, which requires even more austerity, which will lead to lower growth...
PARIS (Dow Jones)--French Prime Minister Francois Fillon Monday unveiled the country's second austerity package in under three months including increases in sales taxes, an acceleration of the pension reform and a levy on big business.
...
Fillon said the measures announced will save EUR7 billion in 2012, enabling France to meet its target of deficit at 4.5% gross domestic product with growth at 1% rather than 1.75% as previously forecast.
Austerity leads to lower growth, which requires even more austerity, which will lead to lower growth...
You Know What Somebody Should Try?
Oh never mind.
(Reuters) - Retail sales in the 17 countries sharing the euro fell more than expected in September from August despite some resilience in powerhouse Germany, the EU's statistics office said on Monday, reinforcing concern that the bloc's economy may be heading for a recession.
In the first negative reading since May, sales slipped 0.7 percent in September, compared to the 0.1 percent decrease forecast by a Reuters poll of economists, Eurostat said in an initial estimate. Sales in the 27-nation EU fell 0.3 percent in the same period.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Of Course It Was A Clunker
It may have been stimulus-that-could-pass and and a justifiable could pass extra boost to the ailing domestic auto industry, but of course cash for clunkers was a super expensive program for meager results. The government spent a bunch of money to encourage people to do things that most were going to do anyway, either now or soon. Any incentive program which mostly compensates people for something they were going to do anyway is pretty low bang for the buck.
Has Anyone Tried Austerity?
That would probably work. Because suffering is good. Or something.
The NYT broke the rules here. Austerity isn't causing the downward spiral, it's fixing it!!
That the Greek economy is in a downward spiral from a relentless program of austerity is well known. Greek manufacturing saw one of its sharpest falls ever in October, and this year overall production is expected to contract by more than 6 percent. What has not yet shown up in the official figures, though, is the extent to which the crisis atmosphere has brought the economy to a virtual standstill.
...
Small shops, in many ways the lifeblood of the Greek economy, which relies on domestic demand, are shuttering by the day. And, most acutely, the heightened speculation that Greece might have to return to the drachma has given new impetus to the flood of money leaving Greek banks — money to be deposited abroad, stashed at home or in one’s car and most certainly not spent.
The NYT broke the rules here. Austerity isn't causing the downward spiral, it's fixing it!!
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