Rock on.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Top 10 Birds I Ate This Year
1) Guinea Fowl
2) Partridge
3) Pheasant
4) Duck
5) Wood Pigeon
6) Quail
7) Grouse
8) Turkey
9) Chicken
10) More Chicken
2) Partridge
3) Pheasant
4) Duck
5) Wood Pigeon
6) Quail
7) Grouse
8) Turkey
9) Chicken
10) More Chicken
Vice President YellsAtPeopleOnYouTube
Republicans like Christie because even though he's probably not really a tribal conservative in the contemporary sense, he likes to talk shit about liberals and yell at them.
I'm Voting For Tpaw
This is about as deep a thought as I'll have today:
Our presidential primary system is really stupid.
Our presidential primary system is really stupid.
Don't Piss On My Leg And Tell Me It's Raining
Smart companies stick in sneaky fees so you don't notice, dumb ones announce that they're going to charge you for the privilege of paying your bill.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Clueless Elites
I entered (state) college at a moment of financial crisis. Departments were encouraged (forced) to use mimeographs instead of copy machines. Sure miss that smell!
In September, MF Global Holdings Ltd.'s management sent a memo to the securities firm's 2,800 employees: Start printing on both sides of paper.
Let's Try Something Which Has Never Been Tried Before
More austerity!
At least the new Spanish government is claiming they're going to tax the rich. We'll see.
At least the new Spanish government is claiming they're going to tax the rich. We'll see.
Killadelphia
Yes we have a lot of murders. It's largely members of the underclass killing each other. It sucks.
Fail
While I'm never quite sure how much to blame stupid or evil, the important takeaway of this Krugman column is that the people who run the world have failed to do a very simple thing and in doing so have condemned millions to unneeded suffering.
Stingy Parents
Yes it seems rather obvious that if you pay teachers more you'll probably get better ones. We seem to understand that in every other area of the economy. Perhaps if there was less of a constant drumbeat about how teachers were all history's greatest monsters some better people might be attracted into the profession, also, too.
One things which confuses me greatly is when people with actual school aged children in public schools bitch about teacher salaries. I don't mean complaining about an actual bad teacher, complaining about specifics. I'm talking about the general 'teachers get paid too much' bitching that people to do.
They're looking after your children 7 hours per day 180 days per year. You don't want them to be paid much? Lower taxes for me, then.
One things which confuses me greatly is when people with actual school aged children in public schools bitch about teacher salaries. I don't mean complaining about an actual bad teacher, complaining about specifics. I'm talking about the general 'teachers get paid too much' bitching that people to do.
They're looking after your children 7 hours per day 180 days per year. You don't want them to be paid much? Lower taxes for me, then.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
BARTed
A few people wrote in to say that BART is what it is (mostly a commuter rail system) and it's supplemented by the MUNI, which is true, but the combination isn't quite good enough.
Not picking on SF. Transit isn't perfect in my urban hellhole either, was just pointing to the thinking behind the design of the system. An immense amount of money was spent creating a system to bring people in and out of the city, and less was devoted to moving people around within the city.
Not picking on SF. Transit isn't perfect in my urban hellhole either, was just pointing to the thinking behind the design of the system. An immense amount of money was spent creating a system to bring people in and out of the city, and less was devoted to moving people around within the city.
Hey, People Actually Live Here
For cities that have, at least for the moment, stemmed or reversed decades of declining population, policymakers need to change the focus from "how can we make life better for commuters and encourage more visitors" to "oh, hey, let's make life nice for people who actually live here." BART's a system which was too much designed to bring commuters into the city, and doesn't function well as a "getting around the city" system. It'll probably take a miracle for the money to appear to improve its functioning in the urban core, but it is what they should be thinking about.
San Francisco, specifically, is at its historic peak population.
San Francisco, specifically, is at its historic peak population.
Domino
Without getting into this fully, it provides an excuse to point out that even relatively small amounts of racial bias sprinkled through the system can ultimately lead to rather large difference in outcomes, due to perfectly rational responses by those affected by racism. The basic story is that if you have to work 10% harder to do as well, you're probably going to work less hard. In economist speak, if the marginal benefit is less than the marginal effort you aren't going to bother. The stories of those exceptional individuals who rise above the system are heartwarming, but as a society we compare those individuals with the people who were born on third and narrowly manage to stay there even as they inexplicably and repeatedly try to steal second. When kids born to insane privilege barely manage to navigate their way through their teen and college years, it's absurd to expect a significant number of kids facing racism and other barriers to all hit homers their first time on the field.
Tithe
The CIA tells me Iraq's GDP is $110 billion.
I'm sure nothing could go wrong.
BAGHDAD — The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale of nearly $11 billion worth of arms and training for the Iraqi military despite concerns that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is seeking to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government.
I'm sure nothing could go wrong.
Regardless Of His Intentions, He Ran Off With My Wallet
Reading the NYT especially about MF Global and I get the sense that for whatever reason the lawyers are scrutinizing every article before publication.
All just a big oopsie, really, no one is to blame.
In MF Global’s last days, the brokerage house was frantically winding down trades to shore up its balance sheet and stave off bankruptcy. Investigators are examining whether the firm — as part of that effort — began moving client funds to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, a financial intermediary responsible for closing out some of MF Global’s transactions, these people say.
The new details bolster claims that MF Global was careless with customer money, regardless of the company’s intentions.
...
It is unclear how much customer money was transferred to the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, and whether officials at MF Global knew they were using client funds. Haphazard recordkeeping and the flood of transactions in its final days might have concealed whether MF Global was deploying the customer cash for firm needs.
All just a big oopsie, really, no one is to blame.
Nothing New Here
It's been a mystery to me why so many have seemingly spent so much time trying to "understand" the Tea Party as if it's Shiny And New. Same crazy assholes we've been dealing with forever.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Urban Hellholes -- Less Hellish
Some cities - mine included - still have serious crime problems, but the Escape From New York vision of the near future didn't come to pass.
It's News That He Said It
Fortunately the conventions of contemporary journalism don't require any exploration of the truth of the claims.
This woman could be invented for all I know, but let's assume she's real and not lying, in that she thinks she's communicating something truthfully. I'm not aware of anything in "Obamacare" that could make this actually true, but one problem with the politics of the legislation is that Obama essentially does own "health care" in the United States. For a lot of people, health care (and paying for it) really really sucks. I don't know what her situation is, but granting that she's real and telling the truth as she sees it, it isn't completely crazy to imagine that she's facing a horrible situation and blames "Obamacare" for it. Most of "Obamacare" doesn't come online until 2014, and even super optimistically it isn't going to improve things all that much.
URBANDALE, Iowa -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday warned that President Obama's health reform law could result in the death of ill patients, relating the story of a cancer patient he met Tuesday at a campaign stop in Creston, Iowa.
"She came up to me and she said 'Governor, if you don't get rid of Obamacare, I'm dead," he recounted. "She said they will never take care of me. And that's a powerful testimony by that lady."
This woman could be invented for all I know, but let's assume she's real and not lying, in that she thinks she's communicating something truthfully. I'm not aware of anything in "Obamacare" that could make this actually true, but one problem with the politics of the legislation is that Obama essentially does own "health care" in the United States. For a lot of people, health care (and paying for it) really really sucks. I don't know what her situation is, but granting that she's real and telling the truth as she sees it, it isn't completely crazy to imagine that she's facing a horrible situation and blames "Obamacare" for it. Most of "Obamacare" doesn't come online until 2014, and even super optimistically it isn't going to improve things all that much.
To Restate
The point of this is...there was a way to hand it free money which would benefit all of us and the banksters. I'm partial to the "just drop money from helicopters" way of giving out free money, but there were other ways. The "here's a $20,000 voucher to pay off your mortgage and/or credit card" would have been a way. The point is, the banks would have gotten their money anyway and the rest of us would have benefited too.
I know I'm repeating myself on this issue. It's because people's brains freeze up a bit when you talk about the central bank creating money and handing it out. But that's what they're doing! They're just not doing it in a way which benefits people broadly, they're doing it in a way which benefits rich assholes.
I know I'm repeating myself on this issue. It's because people's brains freeze up a bit when you talk about the central bank creating money and handing it out. But that's what they're doing! They're just not doing it in a way which benefits people broadly, they're doing it in a way which benefits rich assholes.
Obviously The Solution Is
...more austerity.
From cases of newborn babies wrapped in swaddling and dumped on the doorsteps of clinics, to children being offloaded on charities and put in foster care, the nation's struggle to pay off its debts is assuming dramatic proportions, even if officials insist that the belt-tightening and structural reforms will eventually change the EU's most uncompetitive economy for the better.
Propelled by poverty, 500 families had recently asked to place children in homes run by the charity SOS Children's Villages, according to the Greek daily Kathimerini. One toddler was left at the nursery she attended with a note that read: "I will not return to get Anna. I don't have any money, I can't bring her up. Sorry. Her mother."
Too Often Forgotten
The big banks aren't just assholes, they're criminal enterprises.
Save the banksters, save the world!!!
In the U.S., JPMorgan was investigated by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and attorneys general in 25 states for its role in rigging the bids of investment contracts. The bank agreed to a $228 million settlement this year on charges that it conspired to overcharge cities at taxpayer expense, acknowledging responsibility for illegal, anticompetitive conduct by former employees.
In 2009, JPMorgan entered a $722 million accord with the SEC to end an investigation into its role in selling derivatives that helped push Jefferson County, Alabama, to declare the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The bank paid $75 million in fines and restitution and wrote off $647 million it was owed by the county.
Save the banksters, save the world!!!
Skimmers
Martin Wolf:
Of course there's no good conceptual reason why the banks should be these conduits. I could be the conduit. All of the unemployed people in Spain could be the conduit. If the central bank is handing out massive amounts of free money they could hand it out to anyone.
An immense amount of free money has been given out in this crisis. Most of it has gone to the rich assholes who continue to create the problems.
Thus the ECB is determined to fund banks freely, at low rates of interest, thereby subsidising them directly and the governments they lend to, indirectly.
Why lending to banks that use the money they borrow to lend to governments is good, while lending to governments directly is bad, is hard to understand. The only obvious difference is that in the case of lending via banks, the intermediaries may themselves go broke. That makes them unavoidably unreliable conduits. Yet if this complex procedure gets round theological objections to direct financing of governments, those who believe some financing of governments is now needed should be content.
Of course there's no good conceptual reason why the banks should be these conduits. I could be the conduit. All of the unemployed people in Spain could be the conduit. If the central bank is handing out massive amounts of free money they could hand it out to anyone.
An immense amount of free money has been given out in this crisis. Most of it has gone to the rich assholes who continue to create the problems.
Good For Him
Obviously I think he's horrible for wanting to outlaw abortions, but the rapeandincest "exception" has always been complete gibberish, allowing people who support something monstrous to be seen and to see themselves as somehow being less monstrous.
Bring On The Immigrants
The urban hellhole managed to not lose population last decade, due mostly to arriving immigrants.
I didn't realize there was a large (and increasing) Puerto Rican population. Most of the Hispanic residents near my neighborhood are from Puebla.
There's been surprisingly little visible obvious racial animus directed towards the newer minority residents (Asian,Hispanic). Fortunately there are still plenty of black people for the (shrinking number of) white residents to hate!
I didn't realize there was a large (and increasing) Puerto Rican population. Most of the Hispanic residents near my neighborhood are from Puebla.
There's been surprisingly little visible obvious racial animus directed towards the newer minority residents (Asian,Hispanic). Fortunately there are still plenty of black people for the (shrinking number of) white residents to hate!
Tell Me Another One
I suppose two years of a payroll tax cut is better than one year of Making Work Pay, but 1) we don't yet have another year and 2) Making Work Pay was, you know, better.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
When A Cheap, Effective, Safe, Foolproof HIV Vaccine Arrives
They'll do everything they can to make it illegal.
Flat
It is actually the case that (surprisingly) we've had small but fairly steady improvements in public transit over the past decade or so nationally, along with a slight shift in living in more transit friendly places. I'm ready to buy that changing habits has played a small role in this phenomenon, if just a small one.
The Benator Is Retiring
And please whatever deity is out there, do not torture me by putting Bob Kerrey back in the senate.
Spreading
It'll be interesting to see what happens if the basic geographic pattern of poverty that we've believed in for decades (poor black people in cities, poor white people in rural areas, middle class in suburbs, rich wherever the hell they want to be) breaks down.
Mysteries
Why is it that people who have no jobs and no money hate their friends and family so much that they don't buy them presents?
Fortunately we have a solution, applicable to all situations. Austerity! Smell it!
Italian retailers had the worst Christmas in 10 years, consumer group Codacons said, as austerity measures to combat the sovereign debt crisis prompted households to cut spending.
Fortunately we have a solution, applicable to all situations. Austerity! Smell it!
The Suffering Of Other People
Shorter Washington Post:
I think I do have great business idea: poverty porn for our Galtian overlords. Footage of mass misery is just what they need to cheer them up enough to hire another yacht scrubber or two.
We applaud what Monti is doing, even though it will make things worse, and what he really needs to do is stick it to workers and old people.
I think I do have great business idea: poverty porn for our Galtian overlords. Footage of mass misery is just what they need to cheer them up enough to hire another yacht scrubber or two.
Give Us Some Free Money
I suppose we can be cheered the the Galtian Overlords at the Fed might think they should consider doing something about the unemployment situation, but I'm not sure that more policies which, whatever the overall impact, will primarily give more money to rich people deserve all that much cheer.
By The Banks, For The Banks
I don't have any secret line into what goes on in the White House, but I do hold out some hope that a few years later at least a few more people in its orbit are questioning the wisdom of empowering the evil assholes whose main pastime is lighting piles of free money on fire. When they're not stealing houses, that is.
Killing Ourselves On The Path To Prosperity
Sacrificing ourselves on the altar of the banksters.
Soon they'll be as prosperous as we are!
Greece used to have an extensive public health care system that pretty much ensured that everybody was covered for everything. But in the last two years, the nation’s creditors have pushed hard for dramatic cost savings to cut back the deficit. These measures are taking a brutal toll on the system and on the country’s growing numbers of poor and unemployed who cannot afford the new fees and co-payments instituted at public hospitals as part of the far-reaching austerity drive.
At public hospitals, doctors report shortages of all kinds of supplies, from toilet paper to catheters to syringes. Computerized equipment has gone unrepaired and is no longer in use. Nurses are handling four times the patients they should, and wait times for operations — even cancer surgeries — have grown longer.
Soon they'll be as prosperous as we are!
Monday, December 26, 2011
Oh I Guess It's Soon Then
So pretty soon we're going to find out if Iowa caucus is the most important thing ever, if those nice people vote for Mittens, or utterly irrelevant, if they vote for Paul or maybe even Gingrich.
Funny how these things work.
Funny how these things work.
Turn Those Machines Back On
Larry Elliott:
We left the same people in charge of the Great Casino, and they, unsurprisingly, want to keep playing the same games. Nothing significant has been changed.
Trading Places concludes with a bankrupt speculator demanding that he should be allowed to get his money back. "Turn those machines back on," he wails. Policymakers have been trying to find a way of doing that for the past four years. They are still looking.
We left the same people in charge of the Great Casino, and they, unsurprisingly, want to keep playing the same games. Nothing significant has been changed.
The A Team
There isn't one. The contemporary Republican party is pretty well represented by its presidential candidates.
SUPERBUS
I'm curious to what extent these are additional trips and to what extent it's people substituting buses for car travel (or rail where that's an option).
Megabus.com and BoltBus led U.S. curbside bus companies that boosted trips by 32 percent this year as travelers opted to leave their cars behind and surf the Internet while traveling, DePaul University researchers said.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
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