The Last Ephor

Several items of note carried virtually everywhere else. First, Obama's spokesman takes the heat for Teh 0ne breaking his oft repeated campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class: Liberal blogs are completely ignoring this one because: 1. It hasn't happened yet (fair enough) 2. No criticism of Obama is permissable. Similarly, Axelrod made the rounds with the same message: No embed, video here . This one is good because it includes The Man Himself making said pledge. This is just the latest of many broken promises. The crushing moral urgency of closing Guantanamo? The crushing moral urgency of ending "Don't ask, don't tell". The hints and winks and nods that he'd reverse DOMA. Well, no. That one, at least, was made clear in the debates. He specifically said he wouldn't do anything for gays who wanted to get married. He merely hinted and implied that it was important and would, therefore magically change somehow. I'm most bot...

and I now have a foolproof plan to get us out of this financial morass. It's five words long. Tax all foreigners living abroad. Apply that money to whatever we seem to need of late, perhaps even debt relief.

I have been told, facts notwithstanding, that all our economic woes are caused by Phil Gramm. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. How powerful is he? He has caused panic in Iceland : Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. Ireland fends off panic selling and write downs: The legislation allows the government to guarantee the liabilities of six Irish-owned banks up to a total of €400 billion, or $565 billion, nearly 10 times the country's national debt. The reach of Phil is indeed long! Benelux nationalizes Fortis: 80 percent of the value of Fortis has disappeared and shareholders of Fortis have been consistently misinformed, is not willing to live up to its legal obligations to shareholders a...

Text of the bill Earmarks in the bill: - Film and Television Productions (Sec. 502) - Wooden Arrows designed for use by children (Sec. 503) - 6 page package of earmarks for litigants in the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident, Alaska (Sec. 504) Tax earmark “extenders” in the bailout bill. - Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum (Section 308) - American Samoa (Sec. 309) - Mine Rescue Teams (Sec. 310) - Mine Safety Equipment (Sec. 311) - Domestic Production Activities in Puerto Rico (Sec. 312) - Indian Tribes (Sec. 314, 315) - Railroads (Sec. 316) - Auto Racing Tracks (317) - District of Columbia (Sec. 322) - Wool Research (Sec. 325) No way. McCain promised to "make them famous". He better damn well start now. I don't care what side of the aisle their on if they're putting this shit into this bill they ought to be literally tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. Screwing around like this after you've been declaring the nation on the brink of economic collapse is...

Dear Mr. Paulson, Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Duffy Mr. Not Duffy and I am president of Pencader Bank and Trust. We are a modest concern with only one client. Several years ago we purchased the mortgage of a Mr. Duffy of Mayhem Manor in Pencader. He has been dutifully paying his mortgage on time but has, of late, made whimpering noises about defaulting. This has caused our share price to plummet and we may not be able to make payroll in the coming weeks. Please include us in the bailout for the modest sum of the remaining balance on Mr. Duffy's mortgage (see attached). Thank you, Mr. Not Duffy President Pencader Bank and Trust

Everyone is keen to blame everyone else for the current market woes. Jeff Jarvis sums is up in once keen sentence: In this week’s news from Wall Street and in last week’s news convention we are seeing the problems that arise when people who are granted stewardship over our assets — charged with the care of our news or our money — instead think they have ownership of them . Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forgot that the money they managed was not their own. Unfortunately it falls into that gray zone of "government entity but not really government entity". That is, they were privatized but not really. Do we blame republicans or democrats? Kavips would have you believe this is all due to a lack of regulation. He goes on to draw parallels to the crash of 1929. I believe he's wrong for several reasons. The market in 1929 was unregulated. The market of 2008 is so highly regulated financial firms have myriad lawyers to navigate those waters. Consider also that hedge funds,...

In my last post I was lamenting the fact that I cannot get into anything approximating a substantive discussion with people who do not share the same opinions and views that I do. Over at DelawareLiberal, I waded into the fray about corporations and profits with a question: "Please explain how you will tax corporations and not have them pass that cost on to consumers." Makes sense, no? My point is that any tax on corporations turns them into tax collecting agents not taxpayers. To a business, taxes are simply overhead like the cost of raw materials that have to be recouped from customers. Given that the DL crowd has a visceral hatred for corporations (despite the fact that they all seem to work for them) I should have known that there would be no explanations forthcoming. Jason responded with: Duffy asks… Please explain how you will tax corporations and not have them pass that cost on to consumers. Easy. They might not make $11 billion dollars in profit one quarter. ...

I got a call from a recuiter about a position at a bank. It's a BI job (since nearly all of my readers have seen my resume you know that's what I generally do). It was sold to me as a PM job by the recuiter but when I spoke o the client they billed it as more of a tactical role. When I expressed confusion they were confused and asked which role I'd like to be doing I told them that tactical was losing its luster and PM is where I want to be. "Interesting" they said. No indication of "good interesting" or "bad interesting". From there I had two more technical interviews with Infrastructure and BI Champion which makes me assume it was more toward the "good interesting" side of things. Things went well and then went quiet. That's usually not a good sign. I called the recruiter a few days later and he said they were interested and would meet my quote (huzzah!). But...(you knew that was coming didn't you?) they had to rew...

I keep hearing this term. Windfall. Leftists/liberals are enraged by windfall profits. They want to take them away from the recipients and give them to people who will vote for Democrats. As with most things in politics (especially things that annoy liberals) it remains undefined. It is just accepted as fact that any person or entity making a certain amount of money is undeserved or unearned. Since said persons or entities are very wealthy to begin with the government is allowed to take that money in the name of "fairness". They won't miss it after all, they have plenty. I googled for a definition of "windfall" profit. The best I could come up with is this: Windfall Main Entry: wind·fall Listen to the pronunciation of windfall Pronunciation: \ˈwin(d)-ˌfȯl\ Function: noun Date: 15th century 1 : something (as a tree or fruit) blown down by the wind 2 : an unexpected, unearned, or sudden gain or advantage Windfall Definition Money received...

So the dishwasher saga continues. Repairman #2, who does not look like a Bears Superfan arrives. I give him the part and he sets to work in grim silence. Upon dismantling the door to the thing he pulls out the fried circuit board with a grim expression. He gives a harumphing noise that doesn't really sound like that but that's as close as I can get onomonpedically (I made a new word, take that Freeberg!) Him: "That's melted pretty bad." Me: "...." Him: "The door handle is melted too." Me: "um..what?" Him: "The closing mechanism for the handle is right behind the circuit board so you couldn't see it and I guess the first guy didn't take it out so he wouldn't have seen it either." Me: "And how much is that going to cost me?" Him: "The part is nine dollars and twenty seven fifty for labor" Me: "So, because the first guy didn't diagnose the whole problem I'm going to get hit w...

So Monday I'm standing in the kitchen making myself a sandwich. Kids are at school, baby is napping. Wife and I are talking about something or other and I smell the unmistakable acrid odor of burning plastic. I wheel around and see nothing on the stove. Oven is off...where...? My wife sees my dinner plate sized eyes and asks what's wrong. I can answer b/c I have a mouthful of sandwich and I try to gulp down my food while searching for the source of said smell. Dishwasher! Something plastic must be on the element. It's on and I open it. No steam and nothing on the element. The door, however, is very very hot. I close the door and see smoke coming from the vent that is normally reserved for steam. Shit. That is not good. I close it and the panel is dark. No lights, no numbers, no nuttin'. I check the warranty which, of course, expired in December. Fantastic. One phone call to Whirlpool/Maytag/Big Monopoly Appliance Company/Ha Ha Screw You You're Out ...

DV: This one's for you.

De la Where has a rant about wealthy and class envy. As usual, he's oversimplifying things to the point of straw man. So in essence you are saying that I should get over my envy and become that which I despise? That's a clear indication that you despise rich people. Liberals are supposed to be all about nuance but you paint rich people with the broadest brush possible. Are there no rich people who are not worthy of spite? If not, why not? Is there something intrinsically wrong with being rich? That I should reward my self with enormous sums of money and force my employees to be squeezed financially more and more for my own gain? No, there are plenty of rich people who own companies that don't do that. SAS Institute is a prime example. Isn’t that called exploitation? Perhaps that is what angers us, not class envy. Exploitation implies force. Employees are not forced to work in any job or for any employer. Next up is a laundry list of perfidity: I should aspire to ge...

Signs of the coming hedge-fund apocalypse. . So says Daniel Gross. Excerpt: Those same signs suggest that our next bubble is already here, and it's … hedge funds. Let's review the classic warning signs: 1) Public investors are getting really excited when insiders sell, believing they're being cut in on a great deal. 2) Everybody and their mother is getting into the business. 3) As the naive newbies are plunging in, the successful early adapters move on to the next big thing. 4) In the late stages, the investment craze crosses over into the broader consumer culture. 5) My portfolio is in turnaround. #5 notwithstanding, these would ordinarily be very good warning signs. However, he's missing the elephant in the room. Derivatives. The rise of derivatives which was once the subject of a fear mongering report on 60 Minutes is now largely responsible for the mass stability seen in global markets. This IMF report spells out how that works. Essentially, the rise of credi...