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I posted this over on Eschaton in the comments (in response to: "GOV. LEAVING, WHAT ABOUT WIFE" That's on the teevee (CNN) right now. Maybe not living in New York I've missed something, but I really don't think there's much reason for media focus on her.) but that system doesn't really foster conversation too well, so just so I don't forget it I am re-posting it here:

I really don't understand why the husband's transgressions immediately have people calling for the wife to leave. Isn't a marriage a bond between two people? Isn't that their business? Does visiting a prostitute constitute automatic divorce in the conventional wisdom? Spitzer needs to make things right in his personal life - doesn't he need his wife now more than ever? Don't most vows include the phrase "for better or worse" or something like that? I am making no excuses for the guy - but I would like to think that if something happened like this in my marriage the first reaction wouldn't just be to jump ship - for either party. It seems like a classic American dichotomy - you're either with us, or with the prostitutes. He resigned - it took a little while - but for heaven's sake, let his wife do whatever she sees fit. Maybe she want's to make it (the marriage) work out - for her children's sake - for her sake, whatever. Maybe she loves him to death and she is going to forgive him. Maybe she hates his guts and wants to leave - but really - who business is it now?

Posted on: March 13, 2008 01:31 PM | Link: Mrs. Spitzer | Comments: (0)

It's all true:

"George Bush has been tied to a prostitution ring involving as many as 50,000 women and girls and is expected to resign or be impeached, according to Congressional sources.

The prostitutes, some as young as 13, are among the 1.2 million desperate Iraqis who fled to Syria after Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to the U.K. Independent.

Bush's invasion destroyed the Iraqi government and unleashed a wave of political and sectarian violence that has killed over 1 million Iraqis and forced 4 million to become refugees, according to the UN.

Facing starvation, as many as 50,000 women and girls have been forced into prostitution in Syria alone, according to Hana Ibrahim of the Women's Will Association.

"70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis," 23-year-old Abeer told the New York Times. "The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they'll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available."

Posted on: March 13, 2008 05:06 AM | Link: Bush Tied to Child Prostitution - Resignation or Impeachment Expected! | Comments: (0)

It is the morning of January 22nd - world wide stock markets have been collapsing for 2 days. People are starting to realize that there is "no there there" - as in - there is nothing but paper and promises propping up billions of dollars of construction projects, investments, stocks, bonds, derivatives, etc. The US market was closed for the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday the 21st - so this morning in America should be very interesting.

Quote of the moment:

"The United States is so broke, its people at every level from the Federal Reserve on down don't know whether to shit or go blind. The homeowners cringing in the media rooms of their 5000-square-foot personal family resorts don't know how long they can stay put microwaving pepperoni hot pockets with the default clock ticking." Jim Kunstler

Posted on: January 22, 2008 04:24 AM | Link: And then it all came undone... | Comments: (0)

This is a week late - but this was almost a year early: RECESSION 07.
More to come...

Posted on: January 8, 2008 08:39 AM | Link: Happy New Year | Comments: (0)

Paul Krugman this week asked "How will it all end?"

Here is his latest:

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve announced plans to lend $40 billion to banks. By my count, it’s the fourth high-profile attempt to rescue the financial system since things started falling apart about five months ago. Maybe this one will do the trick, but I wouldn’t count on it.

In past financial crises — the stock market crash of 1987, the aftermath of Russia’s default in 1998 — the Fed has been able to wave its magic wand and make market turmoil disappear. But this time the magic isn’t working.

Why not? Because the problem with the markets isn’t just a lack of liquidity — there’s also a fundamental problem of solvency.

Let me explain the difference with a hypothetical example.

Suppose that there’s a nasty rumor about the First Bank of Pottersville: people say that the bank made a huge loan to the president’s brother-in-law, who squandered the money on a failed business venture.

Even if the rumor is false, it can break the bank. If everyone, believing that the bank is about to go bust, demands their money out at the same time, the bank would have to raise cash by selling off assets at fire-sale prices — and it may indeed go bust even though it didn’t really make that bum loan.

And because loss of confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, even depositors who don’t believe the rumor would join in the bank run, trying to get their money out while they can.

But the Fed can come to the rescue. If the rumor is false, the bank has enough assets to cover its debts; all it lacks is liquidity — the ability to raise cash on short notice. And the Fed can solve that problem by giving the bank a temporary loan, tiding it over until things calm down.

Matters are very different, however, if the rumor is true: the bank really did make a big bad loan. Then the problem isn’t how to restore confidence; it’s how to deal with the fact that the bank is really, truly insolvent, that is, busted.

My story about a basically sound bank beset by a crisis of confidence, which can be rescued with a temporary loan from the Fed, is more or less what happened to the financial system as a whole in 1998. Russia’s default led to the collapse of the giant hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, and for a few weeks there was panic in the markets.

But when all was said and done, not that much money had been lost; a temporary expansion of credit by the Fed gave everyone time to regain their nerve, and the crisis soon passed.

In August, the Fed tried again to do what it did in 1998, and at first it seemed to work. But then the crisis of confidence came back, worse than ever. And the reason is that this time the financial system — both banks and, probably even more important, nonbank financial institutions — made a lot of loans that are likely to go very, very bad.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of subprime mortgages, resets, collateralized debt obligations, and so on. But there are two important facts that may give you a sense of just how big the problem is.

First, we had an enormous housing bubble in the middle of this decade. To restore a historically normal ratio of housing prices to rents or incomes, average home prices would have to fall about 30 percent from their current levels.

Second, there was a tremendous amount of borrowing into the bubble, as new home buyers purchased houses with little or no money down, and as people who already owned houses refinanced their mortgages as a way of converting rising home prices into cash.

As home prices come back down to earth, many of these borrowers will find themselves with negative equity — owing more than their houses are worth. Negative equity, in turn, often leads to foreclosures and big losses for lenders.

And the numbers are huge. The financial blog Calculated Risk, using data from First American CoreLogic, estimates that if home prices fall 20 percent there will be 13.7 million homeowners with negative equity. If prices fall 30 percent, that number would rise to more than 20 million.

That translates into a lot of losses, and explains why liquidity has dried up. What’s going on in the markets isn’t an irrational panic. It’s a wholly rational panic, because there’s a lot of bad debt out there, and you don’t know how much of that bad debt is held by the guy who wants to borrow your money.

How will it all end? Markets won’t start functioning normally until investors are reasonably sure that they know where the bodies — I mean, the bad debts — are buried. And that probably won’t happen until house prices have finished falling and financial institutions have come clean about all their losses. All of this will probably take years.

Meanwhile, anyone who expects the Fed or anyone else to come up with a plan that makes this financial crisis just go away will be sorely disappointed.

Posted on: December 16, 2007 09:43 AM | Link: How will it all end? | Comments: (0)

I have been reading Stephen S. Roach for a couple of years now and I think he is a guy who takes what he does seriously and is pretty good at it. Rumors I have read on the web say he was farmed out to Asia by Morgan Stanley because he was increasingly bearish. I don't know if there is any truth in that, but here is his take on the future:

THE American economy is slipping into its second post-bubble recession in seven years. Just as the bursting of the dot-com bubble led to a downturn in 2001 and ’02, the simultaneous popping of the housing and credit bubbles is doing the same right now.

This recession will be deeper than the shallow contraction earlier in this decade. The dot-com-led downturn was set off by a collapse in business capital spending, which at its peak in 2000 accounted for only 13 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. The current recession is all about the coming capitulation of the American consumer — whose spending now accounts for a record 72 percent of G.D.P.

Consumers have no choice other than to retrench. Home prices are likely to fall for the nation as a whole in 2008, the first such occurrence since 1933. And access to home equity credit lines and mortgage refinancing — the means by which consumers have borrowed against their homes — is likely to be impaired by the aftershocks of the subprime crisis.

Consumers will have to resort to spending and saving the old-fashioned way, relying on income rather than assets even as mounting layoffs will make income growth increasingly sluggish.

For the rest of the world, this will come as a rude awakening. America’s recession is likely to shift from homebuilding activity, its least global sector, to consumer demand, its most global.

There is hope that young consumers from rapidly growing developing economies can fill the void left by weakness in American consumers. Don’t count on it. American consumers spent close to $9.5 trillion over the last year. Chinese consumers spent around $1 trillion and Indians spent $650 billion. It is almost mathematically impossible for China and India to offset a pullback in American consumption.

America’s central bank has mismanaged the biggest risk of our times. Ever since the equity bubble began forming in the late 1990s, the Federal Reserve has been ignoring, if not condoning, excesses in asset markets. That negligence has allowed the United States to lurch from bubble to bubble.

Fixated on the narrow “core inflation” rate, which excludes the necessities of food and energy, the Fed has ignored new and powerful linkages that have developed between economic activity and increasingly risky financial markets.

Over time, America’s bubbles have gotten bigger, as have the segments of the real economy they have infected. The Fed needs to rethink its reckless, bubble-prone policy. Once the current crisis subsides, the economy will require the tight money of higher interest rates — the only hope America has for breaking the lethal chain of endless asset bubbles.

Posted on: December 16, 2007 09:36 AM | Link: And there you have it. | Comments: (0)

I just had to post this here - hat tip to Atrios and HousingDoom

Notice the other smaller sign - Lennar - I guess with a development in the same neighborhood.

Posted on: December 6, 2007 12:08 PM | Link: Sign O' The Times | Comments: (0)

This is a must read - "MBIA Shares Drop After Moody's Says Capital in Doubt".

Some of the richer passages:

"The loss of MBIA's top ranking would cast doubt over the ratings of $652 billion of state, municipal and structured finance bonds that the company guarantees.

"It's Moody's firing a warning shot saying 'you have two weeks, so do something,''' said Paul Berliner, a trader at Schottenfeld Group, which manages $100 million in New York. "The drama behind MBIA and Ambac should be the most important focus for the entire financial sector right now. Everyone should be on the edge of their seats wondering how this plays out.''"

$653 billion at risk! That is more than anyone has owned up to so far, combined, if my memory isn't shot. Shit, meet fan. Of course the market is rallying hard today... ho hum.

Posted on: December 5, 2007 04:09 PM | Link: MBIA Shares Drop After Moody's Says Capital in Doubt | Comments: (0)

Then maybe you shouldn't read this.

A high(low?)light:

"While it is still open for debate as to whether the overall economy will tip into a contractionary state in the coming year, it became more evident this week that the housing recession is morphing into an outright depression. Over the past year, existing home sales have collapsed 21% and at the same time the unsold inventory has risen over 15%. That is a brew for sustained deflation in residential real estate as the supply curve continuously shifts to the right and the demand curve to the left. To think that over the past year we have seen the inventory backlog soar from around 7 months' supply to 10.8 months now — it's unfathomable. Prices on average are off 5% YoY and the inventory situation has worsened materially — to their highest level nationwide in 22 years, having already broken above the worst levels of the 1991 meltdown. We believe another 10% downward move in real estate valuation is now a conservative estimate, and to think of the instability in the credit markets that the first 5% down created; more to come, that's all we can say."

We are in the beginning stages of a kind of thing that only happens 4 or 5 times in a persons life span, if that. This is Merrill Lynch - the guys dying to sell you some stocks - not some left-wing economics professor. Couple the exhaustive Merrill report with this nugget:

"Much has been made of E*Trade Financial’s recent fire sale, in which it sold a basket of asset-backed securities with a book value of $3 billion to Citadel Investment Group for just $800 million. Many have debated whether or not this deal — nominally priced at 27 cents on the dollar — sets a price floor for collateralized debt obligations and other securities tied to subprime mortgages, whose value has been notoriously hard to pin down.

The case has been made, often persuasively, that E*Trade was getting rid of particularly toxic assets while under duress, so the deal is hardly a bellwether for other banks and securities firms.

But here is a point worth considering: Only about $450 million of E*Trade’s $3 billion portfolio was made up of the riskiest kinds of securities — C.D.O.’s and second-lien mortgages — that have made headlines recently.

What was the other $2.6 billion or so? In E*Trade’s own words, it was “other asset-backed securities, mainly securities backed by prime residential first-lien mortgages.”

In other words, E*Trade’s enormous haircut went far beyond subprime.

A large part of E*Trade’s basket of assets was securities backed by high-quality mortgages — loans to homeowners with strong credit ratings and reasonably large equity cushions. That could raise troubling questions on Wall Street about the true value of “prime” mortgage assets, especially when they need to be liquidated in a hurry."

So - I was a tad early in my recession call - but I am going to blame that on the zeitgeist. If you didn't feel this coming you weren't alive.

More foolish predictions - in the face of another rate cut from the fed the dollar stabilizes around this level and actually begins to rebound as the ECB and the UK start to cut their interest rates in the face of the coming global slowdown.

Posted on: December 4, 2007 06:49 PM | Link: If you were worried about the economy... | Comments: (0)

From Nouriel Roubini's Global EconoMonitor:

"The letter by Senator Schumer questioning the $51.1 billion that Countrywide borrowed from the Federal Home Loan Bank system (specifically the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta) has finally revealed the little dirty secret - that was known only to a few insiders and was noticed on this blog a month ago – that Countrywide, the largest US mortgage lender, has received a massive stealth public bailout that has put at severe risk taxpayers’ money. Here is Countrywide - the premier poster child financial institution of the reckless and predatory lending practices of the last few years – getting in severe financial trouble because of its rotten lending practice in subprime, near-prime and prime mortgages – and whose CEO Mozilo is under SEC investigation for potentially illegal activities – now receiving a massive $51.1 billion of public bailout money with little official supervision of such lending. Mozilo is under investigation for his accelerated sales of Countrywide stock under a 10b5-1 plan. Mozilo has made more than $100 million on stock sales this year, while Countrywide shares collapsed more than 50%...

...The lesson of this sad and sleazy episode is that when profits are privatized and losses are socialized we get sleaze capitalism and corporate welfare that becomes public bailout of reckless lenders. All this from a US administration that hypocritically praises every other day the virtues of private markets capitalism. For all of us who do truly believe in free market economies where a variety of public goods are provided by governments and the financial sector is properly supervised and regulate this is not a capitalist system but rather socialism for the rich."

There it is in a nutshell - this situation is a microcosm of what is wrong in the US right now. News about Schumer's letter here.

Posted on: November 29, 2007 09:12 AM | Link: Professor Roubini on Country Wide Financial | Comments: (0)

I don't get any joy out of these stories - I just think you have to know what is out there though so you can plan accordingly. Tonight, as I was in my evening rant about just what the hell is happening around the globe financially and wondering what we might have to do to make a living, possibly in the very near future, my wife asked me how bad did I think it could get. My reply was that nobody knows - but that it would have to be at the least as bad as the S&L mess - and probably much worse. Then I read this:

"The developers of Downtown Dadeland are walking away from the massive mixed-use project in Kendall and handing over the unfinished complex to construction lender Goldman Sachs Commercial Mortgage.

Gulfside Development principals Jackson Ward and Stefan Johansson say they can no longer afford to make payments on the $224 million construction loan and won’t fight a foreclosure suit filed two weeks ago in Miami-Dade Circuit Court.

The project’s failure is the largest yet in the current real estate downturn, which has hit the overdeveloped condo market especially hard.

The development across the street from Dadeland Mall was planned to have 416 condos and 125,000 square feet of retail space in seven mid-rise buildings. Four of the towers were completed this year, but three still need some minor construction work before closings can start. The project was the centerpiece of redevelopment along Southwest 88th Street near U.S. 1.

“If not the largest one, it is one of the largest defaults in all time in Miami-Dade County,” said David Dabby, president of Coral Gables-based real estate research firm Dabby Group.

Defaults during the savings and loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s were generally under $50 million, he said."

I was never good at math - but $224 million is a lot more that $50 million. How many of these projects are out there? At the least hundreds - maybe thousands? Maybe tens of thousands? It would be interesting to see the numbers on these kinds of projects - not just in the US but world wide.

Posted on: November 26, 2007 07:28 PM | Link: One of Miami-Dade’s Largest Defaults Of All Time | Comments: (0)

Added a couple of things to the blog roll today - The Big Picture by Barry Ritholtz and Calculated Risk by these two fellas.

I am not a huge fan of Ritholtz the person - but his blog always has a lot of great info and he is tireless in pumping it out every day.

Calculated Risk is very interesting and required if you want to follow the mortgage mess. I think the authors are more on my plane of thought also.

Posted on: November 8, 2007 11:36 AM | Link: Some new links | Comments: (0)

This crap is getting harder and harder to believe:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- U.S. safety officials have voluntarily recalled about 4.2 million Chinese-made Aqua Dots toys contaminated with a powerful "date rape" drug that has caused some children to vomit and lose consciousness upon ingesting the contents.

Scientists have found the highly popular holiday toy contains a chemical that, once metabolized, converts into the toxic "date rape" drug GHB (gamma-hydroxy butyrate), U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) spokesman Scott Wolfson told CNN.

"Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression or have seizures," a CPSC statement warned.

"Anyone with Aqua Dots at home should throw them out," CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese said. The toy was named toy of the year in Australia and recently made Wal-Mart Store Inc's list of top 12 Christmas toys.

Wal-Mart on Thursday listed Aqua Dots on its Web site as "out of stock online" and had removed the toy from its top toy list as well.

The arts and craft beads, aimed at children four years and older, have been selling since April at major U.S. retail stores as "Aqua Dots" and in Australia under the name "Bindeez Beads."

Toronto-based toy distributor Spin Master Ltd. stopped shipping the Aqua Dots toys and asked retailers to pull them off their shelves, where they had sold for $17-$30.

Posted on: November 8, 2007 05:53 AM | Link: I mean WTF? | Comments: (0)

A truly awful word that somehow has made the leap from courtrooms to every day use in America.

Posted on: October 7, 2007 06:09 PM | Link: Closure | Comments: (0)

Yglesias:

"...they concluded that his Powers of 9/11 Awesomeness must just be too great for the truth the penetrate."

I think "Powers of 9/11 Awesomeness" could be a new comic strip in the vein of "get your war on" by David Rees. It would be funny - if it wasn't all so awful.

Posted on: October 7, 2007 06:02 PM | Link: Yglesias on Press The Meat | Comments: (0)

This is just plain stupid:

"Krueger's data, for instance, show that the average time devoted to dusting has fallen significantly in recent decades. There haven't been any dust-related technological breakthroughs, so houses are probably just dirtier than they used to be."

30, 40 years ago, when I was kid, nobody I knew had a someone else clean their house - that was for "rich" people. Now, most married women work, and one of the things they do with the wages they earn is hire someone to dust. I don't know a lot about these studies, the methodologies, etc. - but come on, stating something like the above, that "houses are probably just dirtier than they used to be" after citing all this "data" is just idiotic.

Posted on: September 26, 2007 05:24 PM | Link: Why are men happier than women? | Comments: (0)

Interesting article "The Four Day Work Week: Sixteen Reasons Why This Might Be an Idea Whose Time Has Come", including this staggering observation:

"133,000,000 workers X 80% who drive alone = 106,400,000 single driver commuter cars each day.

106,400,000 X 32 miles round trip = 3,404,800,000 miles driven to work each day

3,404,800,000 / 21 mpg (average fuel efficiency) = 162,133,333 gallons of gasoline each day

Each barrel of crude oil produces, on average, 19.5 gallons of gas. (It is important to note that other products like kerosene and asphalt are produced from that same barrel.)

162,133,333 / 19.5 = 8,314,530 barrels of oil each day."

Over 106 million people a day drive to work alone in the US every day. Unbelievable!

Posted on: September 21, 2007 09:26 AM | Link: The Four Day Work Week | Comments: (0)

you to read Kunstler:

"Reality commands that we prepare to rebuild our small towns and small cities and downsize our gigantic metroplexes. Reality commands that we get serious about local food production and local economies. Reality commands that we rebuild the kind of public transit that people will be grateful to travel on. Reality commands that we prepare to rebuild our harbor facilities for a revival of maritime trade, using ships and boats that do not necessarily run on oil. Reality commands that we put an end to legalized gambling, in order for the public to re-learn one of the primary rules of adult life -- that we generally should not expect to get something for nothing."

Posted on: September 10, 2007 09:07 AM | Link: Reality commands... | Comments: (0)

This article reads like the details of a criminal organization. Where is the government on this story? Who is in charge of this industry? The housing market is only beginning to crumble - I don't see how Countrywide doesn't go bankrupt.

"Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree" »

Posted on: August 29, 2007 07:51 AM | Link: Inside the Countrywide Lending Spree | Comments: (0)

This is good:

"What farce, then, to give credence to current debate as to whether private equity and hedge fund managers will be properly incented if Congress moves to raise their taxes up to levels paid by the majority of America’s middle class. What pretense to assert, as did Kenneth Griffin, recipient last year of more than $1 billion in compensation as manager of the Citadel Investment Group, that "the (current) income distribution has to stand. If the tax became too high, as a matter of principle I would not be working this hard." Right. In the same breath he tells, Louis Uchitelle of The New York Times that the get-rich crowd "soon discover that wealth is not a particularly satisfying outcome." The team at Citadel, he claims, "loves the problems they work on and the challenges inherent to their business." Oh what a delicate/tangled web we weave sir. Far better to admit, as has Warren Buffett, that the tax rates of the wealthiest Americans average nearly 15% while those of their salaried and therefore less incented assistants just outside their offices are nearly twice that. Far better to recognize, as does Chart 1, that only twice before during the last century has such a high percentage of national income (5%) gone to the top .01% of American families. Far better to understand, to quote Buffett, that "society should place an initial emphasis on abundance but then should continuously strive to redistribute the abundance more equitably."

Posted on: August 6, 2007 05:12 AM | Link: What farce, then | Comments: (0)

Yes - just too busy with work and the summer to post - but here are a couple of headlines I have had open for days:

Countrywide: "Home price depreciation at levels not seen since the Great Depression" which includes the quote: "Company is seeing home price depreciation at levels not seen since the Great Depression"... wow.

And from the LA Times: "Foreclosures in state hit record high"

Posted on: July 27, 2007 11:42 AM | Link: AWOL | Comments: (0)

America. For years, I have been telling people that all America means anymore is "more crap, cheaper". That is hard to quantify, and hard to get your head around sometimes, but a simple chart like the above paints an almost surreal picture - especially if you think that the America of 2007 is a normal environment. We have been living abroad more of less for about 7 years now, the last 2 in Europe. Here is the simple take away - the big downside in Europe is that "things" are more expensive - clothes, toys, stuff for you house maybe, etc. Otherwise - the quality of life overall seems well above what Americans are getting now. Better and free health care, more vacation time, better public transportation, more engaged communities, better consumer rights, fresher and healthier food, etc. Europe has it problems, no doubt. Much of Europe thinks Americanizing their economies and even their life styles is going to improve their lot. I don't think a ten-fold increase in retail space is going to get you anything positive. Unfortunately it seems the groups most interested in America are not "Europeans" per se, but immigrants to European countries - and European politicians looking for quick economic and social fixes. I can understand the lure of America - you can start with nothing and make something (or at least you could in the old days) - and that is a powerful draw for many people who can not get a chance anywhere else in the world. But the America of 2007 is suddenly a broken place, a place out of step with the world. More shopping is not going to fix it.

Posted on: June 25, 2007 07:09 PM | Link: A Chart | Comments: (0)

We are getting ready for the summer sojourn to NJ - so in place of any original thought, I give you these:

Hey baby, what'cha know good
I'm just gettin' back, but you knew I would
War is hell, when will it end,
When will people start gettin' together again
Are things really gettin' better, like the newspaper said
What else is new my friend, besides what I read
Can't find no work, can't find no job my friend
Money is tighter than it's ever been
Say man, I just don't understand
What's going on across this land
Ah what's happening brother,
Oh ya, what's happening my man
Are they still gettin' down where we used to go and dance
Will our ball club win the pennant,
do you think they have a chance
And tell me friend, how in the world have you been.
Tell me what's out and I want to know what's in.
What's the deal man, what's happening
What's happening brother
Ah what's happening brother
What's happening my man
Ah what's happening brother
What's been shaken up and down the line
I want to know cause I'm slightly behind the time.

Posted on: June 4, 2007 11:27 AM | Link: What's Happening Brother | Comments: (0)

I have to agree with that quote from "The Big Picture". They also have some amazing charts, that speak for themselves:

Posted on: June 2, 2007 03:44 AM | Link: "We are not anyway near a bottom in Residential Real Estate." | Comments: (0)

U.S. Economic Growth Weakest in Over 4 Years

The government cut in half its estimate of economic growth in the first quarter, reporting the slowest rate of expansion since the end of 2002.

Before today’s numbers were released by the Commerce Department, it was clear the economy was downshifting from the rapid 5.6 percent expansion of the first quarter last year. But the new data reinforced how significant the slowdown has been.

Growth advanced just 0.6 percent, compared with an initial estimate of 1.3 percent. The chief reasons for the revisions were adjustments to the estimates of imports and business inventories. Imports, which subtract from the gross domestic product, were stronger than the government first thought. At the same time, businesses cut production and accumulated smaller inventory stockpiles.

Despite the adjustments to the growth figures, inflation in the first quarter was essentially unrevised. Prices excluding food and energy, a measure preferred by the Federal Reserve, advanced by 2.2 percent in the first quarter, still above what the central bank has said it considers acceptable.

So - the only sector performing well is exports - not surprising since the dollar is worth shit. Inflation - minus food & energy (only the two most important daily needs - gas and cheese burgers!) - was at 2.2 percent! That is 8.8 annually (Mr. and Mrs. hourly worker, can you feel the money shrinking in your wallet?). And growth is almost non-existent - even with all the war spending.

But there were some revisions to the numbers that economists said they found to be encouraging. Consumer spending, the staple of economic growth for the last decade, was revised higher.

No shit - stuff costs more now!

Most economists agree that the first quarter was probably a low point for the last several years, and they expect the economy has regained some strength in the second quarter.

So why doesn't this article use the word "recession"? And why expect recovery in the second quarter?

This is a mess. We are in a recession, people are out of money for the most part, the housing market is going to collapse in most of the country. The last 18 months of this administration are going to be very, very, long.

Posted on: May 31, 2007 05:16 PM | Link: It's the economy, stupid | Comments: (0)

"The Commerce Department said new single-family home sales rose 16.2 percent in April, ahead of economists' forecasts, though prices fell a record 11 percent in the same period."

Emphasis mine. The media seem to think this story is a positive. The market heading south today tells the true story. The record fall in prices is what matters here - not the percentage rise in sales. The housing market is starting to crumble. Smell the fear...

Posted on: May 24, 2007 04:25 PM | Link: This is good news? | Comments: (0)

Last night's Republican debate:

"John McCain is the only adult on that stage and that scares the living hell out of me considering that he's half nuts too. Wow."

Posted on: May 16, 2007 04:00 PM | Link: Digby! | Comments: (0)

Or in this case a chart - is worth a 1,000 words. The red line? Yes - personal savings. Negative for the first time in the history of the United States. That pervasive feeling of "something not good" happening continues to grow.

Posted on: May 3, 2007 08:35 PM | Link: A picture... | Comments: (0)

recession? Oh - that was me, last week. Here is today's news:

"The euro hit $1.3682, shooting past its previous high of $1.3667 from December 2004, after the U.S. Commerce Department reported that economic growth slowed to a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first quarter, its weakest performance in four years."

That paragraph is part of this headline: "Euro Rises to Record High Versus Dollar"

Ouch to all of us patriots living abroad.

Posted on: April 27, 2007 01:01 PM | Link: Did somebody say... | Comments: (0)

have no idea what they are talking about... and should never be listened to again:

Posted on: April 27, 2007 05:17 AM | Link: These people... | Comments: (0)

I know predictions are for fools, but I just want to put a marker on this. I think the U.S. economy is in a recession NOW - and probably has been since around January 2007. The data will follow, but everything anecdotal that I can see, as it relates to what I do for a living, and through reading the U.S. economic news, is trending down. I would like to look back a year from now and laugh at how wrong this post is - but I don't think I will be doing that... we'll see.

Posted on: April 18, 2007 06:01 AM | Link: Recession 07 | Comments: (1)

"CNN's loss is CBS' election coverage gain: Veteran reporter and analyst Jeff Greenfield is leaving the cable news channel to work as senior political correspondent for CBS News... He's known for his sharp political and media analysis as well as his wry perspective on events."

Hidden behind an AP byline - what kind of sick, demented, person could write such a thing? What he's known for, to anyone with a working brain, is for being an asshole.

Posted on: April 2, 2007 05:07 PM | Link: WOW | Comments: (0)

I don't think people should not be allowed to get rich - but they should at least pay their fair share of taxes (which doesn't seem to happen in the U.S.) and not profit like pigs when most of the world (or their country in particular) is poor. Anyway, and interesting take on the Forbes list:

"By David Walsh – World Socialist Web Sites

Forbes magazine released its annual list of billionaires Thursday. There are now nearly one thousand billionaires worldwide—946 to be exact, according to the magazine’s calculations—and their combined wealth in the past year grew by 35 percent to $3.5 trillion.

The latter figure is larger than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of every nation in the world with the exception of the US, China, Japan and India. The combined GDP of all the countries in Africa, a continent of nearly one billion people, was some $2.3 trillion in 2005. More than a third of the African population lives on less than $1 a day. The combined GDP of South America’s largest trading bloc, Mercosur, whose full members are Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, is $1.1 trillion.

"Forbes 2007 list: Nearly one thousand billionaires in the world, a misfortune for humanity" »

Posted on: March 11, 2007 05:48 AM | Link: Forbes 2007 list: Nearly one thousand billionaires in the world, a misfortune for humanity | Comments: (1)

Usually the daily finance headlines are completely separated from reality - the market goes up or down, and journalists somehow tie the direction of said market into some other headline of the day - when the headline itself should have no bearing on the market at all. Today, when the DOW was down over 500 points at one time, CNN epitomized this phenomenon with this copy:

"News that Vice President Dick Cheney was the apparent target in a Taliban suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan added to the day's worries."

Earth to CNN, and Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer: the day Cheney is blown up by anyone there will be world wide euphoria and dancing in the streets as stock indexes soar. The "near miss" had NOTHING to do with what the stock market did today. Why does the media have to tie these things together?

Maybe what she meant to say was:

"News that Vice President Dick Cheney was not killed in a Taliban suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan added to the day's worries."

Posted on: February 27, 2007 06:06 PM | Link: Financial news | Comments: (1)

sure is funny. I am not supposed to curse here, but Digby can:

"I think he missed the boat here. A much better analogy would be to imagine what would happen if a shrunken little creep like Michael Medved entered a woman's gym naked, blowing kisses through his pathetic 70's porn star mustache. I would bet a million dollars that all the women, including the fat ones, would sooner fuck a corpse than that deplorable racist, sexist, homophobic jerk."

In reference to this completely insane commentary.

Posted on: February 25, 2007 08:03 PM | Link: That Digby... | Comments: (0)

Does it bother you that the Vice President of the United States is a pathological liar? That he might very well be insane? A lot of the below is simply surreal:

CNN Interview with Vice President Dick Cheney:

Q And joining us now, the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney. Mr. Vice President, thanks very much for doing this.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's good to see you again, Wolf.

Q We heard the President mention Osama bin Laden last night in his State of the Union address. Why can't you find this guy?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, obviously, he's well hidden. We've been looking for him for some time. I think the fact is he's gone totally to ground. He doesn't communicate, except, perhaps, by courier. He's not up on the air. He's not putting out videos, the way he did oftentimes in the past.

Q His number two, Ayman al Zawahiri is --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Zawahiri is much, much more visible. Yes.

Q I mean, he's on television almost as much as I am.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't know if anybody is on as much as you are, Wolf -- but he's more of a public figure than Osama is. If you've ever been in that part of the world, it is some of the most rugged territory imaginable. I've flown over it, been on the ground in Afghanistan, Pakistan, up along the Khyber Pass and so forth. And that general area is a remarkably difficult area to get people into -- parts of it have never really been controlled by anybody.

Q Is bin Laden still alive?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think so.
Q And do you think he's in Pakistan, Afghanistan, on the border someplace?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't want to be that precise.

Q Because this is so frustrating to so many people, more than five years after 9/11 -- not only that bin Laden is out there, but that his deputy pops up every now and then on television and makes these threats.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, but look what we have done. We have not gotten Osama bin Laden, obviously, because he's very careful and, say, he doesn't communicate and he's not sort of in direct contact on a regular basis. But we've taken out several times that whole layer of leadership underneath Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri. One of the most dangerous jobs in the world is to be number three in the al Qaeda organization, because a lot of them are now dead or in custody. So we've done a lot of damage to that senior leadership, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and many others, as well, too.

Q The criticism is that you took your eye off the ball by going into Iraq and, in effect, reducing the focus of attention on al Qaeda and bin Laden.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's just not true. I've heard that charge; it's simply not true, Wolf. The fact of the matter is we can do more than one thing at a time, and we have. And we've been very successful with going after al Qaeda. They're still out there, they're still a formidable force, but they're not nearly as formidable as they once were in terms of numbers and so forth. We have successfully defended the country for over five years against any further attacks.

They've tried, we know, repeatedly -- the President talked about it last night in his speech -- we know they tried last summer to capture airliners coming out of the U.K. and to blow them up over the United States or over the Atlantic. There have been numerous attacks that have been disrupted. It's been a remarkable performance by the U.S. military, by our intelligence services and everything else.

If you had asked shortly after 9/11 what the odds were that we could go better than five years without another attack on the homeland, I don't think anybody would have been willing to take that bet. The fact is, we've been enormously successful in that regard. We still, obviously, want to get Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, but we've had great success against al Qaeda.

Q Here's what the President said last night:

"We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict. For America, this is a nightmare scenario."

He was talking about the consequences of failure in Iraq. How much responsibility do you have, though -- do you and the administration for this potential scenario?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, this is a argument that there wouldn't be any problem if we hadn't gone into Iraq. Now --

Q Saddam Hussein would still be in power.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Saddam Hussein would still be in power. He would, at this point, be engaged in a nuclear arms race with Ahmadinejad, his blood enemy next door in Iran --

Q But he was being contained as we all know --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He was not being contained. He was not being contained, Wolf.

Q -- by the no-fly zones in the north and the south.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, the entire sanctions regime had been undermined by Saddam Hussein. He had --

Q But he didn't have stockpiles of weapons of --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- corrupted the entire effort to try to keep him contained. He was bribing senior officials of other governments. The oil-for-food program had been totally undermined, and he had, in fact, produced and used weapons of mass destruction previously, and he retained the capability to produce that kind of stuff in the future.

Q But that was in the '80s.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do; the world is much safer today because of it. There have been three national elections in Iraq, there's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government, Saddam has been brought to justice and executed, his sons are dead, his government is gone and the world is better off for it.

Now, you can argue about that all you want, but that's history, that's what we did. And you and I can have this debate -- we've had it before -- but the fact of the matter is, in terms of threats to the United States from al Qaeda, for example, attacks on the United States, they didn't need an excuse. We weren't in Iraq when they hit us on 9/11.

Q But the current situation there is --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: But the fact of the matter was -- the fact of the matter was that al Qaeda was out to kill Americans before we ever went into Iraq.

Q The current situation there is very unstable.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It is.

Q The President himself speaks about a nightmare scenario right now. He was contained, as you repeatedly said throughout the '90s, after the first Gulf War, in a box, Saddam Hussein.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, he was after the first Gulf War -- had managed -- he kicked out all the inspectors. He was providing payments to the families of suicide bombers. He was a safe haven for terror, was one of the prime state sponsors of terror, as designated by our State Department, for a long time. He'd started two wars. He had violated 16 U.N. Security Council resolutions. If he were still there today, we'd have a terrible situation. Today, instead --

Q But there is a terrible situation.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, there is not. There is not. There's problems, ongoing problems, but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime, and there is a new regime in place that's been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, first ever in that part of the world. They've had three national elections. So there's been a lot of success.

Q How worried are you --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We still have more work to do to get a handle on the security situation, but the President has put a plan in place to do that.

Q How worried are you of this nightmare scenario, that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then in the end, they're going to turn against the United States?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, that's not going to happen. The problem that you've got --

Q Very -- very -- warming up to Iran and Syria right now.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, you can come up with all kinds of what-ifs. You've got to deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is, we've made major progress, we've still got a lot of work to do. There are a lot of provinces in Iraq that are relatively quiet. There's more and more authority transferred to the Iraqis all the time.

But the biggest problem we face right now is the danger that the United States will validate the terrorist strategy, that, in fact, what will happen here with all of the debate over whether or not we ought to stay in Iraq, with the pressures from some quarters to get out of Iraq, if we were to do that, we would simply validate the terrorists' strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task --

Q Here's the Nouri al Maliki --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: -- that we don't have the stomach for the fight.

Q Here's the problem.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's the biggest threat right now.

Q Here's the problem that I see, and tell me if I'm wrong -- that he seems to be more interested right now, the Prime Minister of Iraq, in establishing good relations with Iran and Syria than he is with moderate Arab governments, whether in Jordan or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just think you're wrong, Wolf. He's been working with all of them. They're all in the neighborhood. He's got to develop relationships with all of them, and he is.

Q Because he's a Shia, and these moderate Arab governments are Sunni.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: He's also an Iraqi. He's not a Persian. There's a big difference between the Persians and the Arabs, although they're both Shia. You can't just make the simple statement that he's Shia, therefore he's the enemy. The majority of the population in Iraq is Shia. And for the first time, we've had elections, and majority rule will prevail there. But the notion that somehow the effort hasn't been worth it, or that we shouldn't go ahead and complete the task, is just dead wrong.

Q Here's what Jim Webb, senator from Virginia, said in his Democratic response last night. He said:

"The President took us into the war recklessly. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable and predicted disarray that has followed."

And it's not just Jim Webb, it's some of your good Republican friends in the Senate and the House, are now seriously questioning your credibility because of the blunders, of the failures. All right, Gordon Smith --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, Wolf, I simply don't accept the premise of your question. I just think it's hogwash. Remember --

Q What, that there were no blunders? The President himself says there were blunders --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Remember, remember me -- remember with me what happened in Afghanistan. The United States was actively involved in Afghanistan in the '80s supporting the effort against the Soviets. The Mujahideen prevailed, everybody walked away. And in Afghanistan, within relatively short order, the Taliban came to power, they created a safe haven for al Qaeda, training camps were established where some 20,000 terrorists trained in the late '90s. And out of that, out of Afghanistan, because we walked away and ignored it, we had the attack on the USS Cole, the attack on the embassies in East Africa, and 9/11, where the people trained and planned in Afghanistan for that attack and killed 3,000 Americans. That is what happens when we walk away from a situation like that in the Middle East.

Now you might have been able to do that before 9/11. But after 9/11, we learned that we have a vested interest in what happens on the ground in the Middle East. Now, if you are going to walk away from Iraq today and say, well, gee, it's too tough, we can't complete the task, we just are going to quit, you'll create exactly that same kind of situation again.

Now, the critics have not suggested a policy. They haven't put anything in place. All they want to do, all they've recommended is to redeploy or to withdraw our forces. The fact is, we can complete the task in Iraq. We're going to do it. We've got Petraeus -- General Petraeus taking over. It is a good strategy. It will work. But we have to have the stomach to finish the task.

Q What if the Senate passes a resolution saying, this is not a good idea. Will that stop you?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: It won't stop us, and it would be, I think detrimental from the standpoint of the troops, as General Petraeus said yesterday. He was asked by Joe Lieberman, among others, in his testimony, about this notion that somehow the Senate could vote overwhelmingly for him, send him on his new assignment, and then pass a resolution at the same time and say, but we don't agree with the mission you've been given.

Q So you're moving forward no matter what the consequences?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: We are moving forward. We are moving forward. The Congress has control over the purse strings. They have the right, obviously, if they want, to cut off funding. But in terms of this effort, the President has made his decision. We've consulted extensively with them. We'll continue to consult with the Congress. But the fact of the matter is, we need to get the job done. I think General Petraeus can do it. I think our troops can do it. And I think it's far too soon for the talking heads on television to conclude that it's impossible to do, it's not going to work, it can't possibly succeed.

Q What was the biggest mistake you made?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Oh, I think in terms of mistakes, I think we underestimated the extent to which 30 years of Saddam's rule had really hammered the population, especially the Shia population, into submissiveness. It was very hard for them to stand up and take responsibility in part because anybody who had done that in the past had had their heads chopped off.

Q Do you trust Nouri al Maliki?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I do. At this point, I don't have any reason not to trust him.

Q Is he going to go after Muqtada al Sadr, this anti-American --

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I think --

Q -- Shiite cleric who controls the Mahdi army?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I think he has demonstrated -- I think he has demonstrated a willingness to take on any elements that violate the law.

Q Do you want him to arrest Muqtada al Sadr?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: He has been -- he has been active just in recent weeks in going after the Mahdi army. There have been some 600 of them arrested within the last couple of days.

Q Should he be arrested, Muqtada al Sadr?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: That's a decision that's got to be made --

Q Because as you know, the first U.S. general there, Ricardo Sanchez, said, this guy killed Americans, he has blood on his hands, he was wanted, basically, dead or alive. Whatever happened to that?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Wolf, you've got to let Nouri al Maliki deal with the situation as he sees fit. And I think he will.

Q Do you think he's going to go after the Mahdi army?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: I think he will go after all of those elements in Iraq that are violating the law, that are contributing to sectarian violence. They're criminal elements, they're Baathist former regime elements. All of them have to be the target of the effort. He'll have a lot of help, because he'll have 160,000 U.S. forces there to work alongside the Iraqis to get the job done.

Q Here's the problem that you have -- the administration -- credibility in Congress with the American public, because of the mistakes, because of the previous statements, the last throes, the comment you made a year-and-a-half ago, the insurgency was in its last throes. How do you build up that credibility because so many of these Democrats, and a lot of Republicans now are saying they don't believe you anymore?

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Well, Wolf, if the history books were written by people who have -- are so eager to write off this effort, to declare it a failure, including many of our friends in the media, the situation obviously would have been over a long time ago. Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes, and we will continue to have enormous successes. It is hard. It is difficult. It's one of the toughest things any President has to do. It's easy to stick your finger in the air and figure out which way the winds are blowing and then try to get in front of the herd. This President doesn't work that way. He also -- be very clear in terms of providing leadership going forward for what we need to do in Iraq.

Now, fact is, this is a vitally important piece of business. It needs to be done. The consequences of our not completing the task are enormous. Just think for a minute -- and think for a minute, Wolf, in terms of what policy is being suggested here. What you're recommending, or at least what you seem to believe the right course is, is to bail out --

Q I'm just asking questions.

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: No, you're not asking questions.

Q Yes, I am. I'm just asking --

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Implicit -- implicit -- implicit in the critics --

Q -- your critics are --

VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY: Implicit in what the critics are suggesting, I think, is an obligation to say, well, here's what we need to do, or we're not going to do anything else. We're going to accept defeat. Defeat is not an answer. We can, in fact, prevail here, and we need to prevail. And the consequences of not doing so are enormous.

Q You've said that Iran as a nuclear power is unacceptable.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Right.

Q Are you ready to go to war to stop that --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Come on now, Wolf. You know I'm not going to speculate on something like that.

Q Well, how are you going to stop that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, we've got a policy in place that's I think producing results. We've gone to the United Nations. We've got a unanimous agreement to a sanctions resolution that's now in place with respect to the Iranian uranium program, and we're continuing to work the problem. We want -- we want to solve the problem diplomatically. We'll do everything we can to achieve that. But we've also made it clear that all options are on the table. Now, no administration in their right mind is going to answer the question you just asked.

Q Because you've heard Senator Biden, Senator Rockefeller say they think you need more congressional authorization if you're going to take any military steps against Iran. Do you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate on military steps, Wolf. You can ask that question all day long.

Q All right, there's a lot of good questions -- let's move on to some other domestic issues. The whole notion of your long-time aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- he's in the papers, his lawyer now suggesting on opening day of the trial that he was basically set up by people in the White House to protect Karl Rove, the President's political aide. What do you make of this?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Now, Wolf, you knew when we set up the interview you can ask all the questions you want, I'm going to be a witness in that trial within a matter of weeks, I'm not going to discuss it. I haven't discussed with anybody in the press yet, I'm not going to discuss it with you today.

Q Are you -- but you've --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wolf, you've got my answer. You've got my answer.

Q Have you contributed to his legal defense fund?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I am a strong friend and supporter of Scooter's. I have not contributed to the legal defense fund. I think he's an extraordinarily talented and capable individual.

Q Let's talk about illegal immigration right now because a lot of your conservative Republican base, they're upset at the President and at you for supporting a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants right now. What do you say to them who are worried that you're going to team up with a lot of Democrats and moderate Republicans and pass this legislation?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, we think we need immigration legislation passed, that it would be irresponsible for us not to try to deal with that problem. It's a serious problem. It's very important from the standpoint of the millions of illegals who are already here, from those segments of our economy that depend upon them. But it's also important that we have secure borders and that we have control over our borders. And we've done a lot already to move in that direction. We've doubled or tripled the size of the Border Patrol force in the budget. We've got border security measures adopted in the last Congress. What we need now is a temporary guest worker program, a comprehensive solution that will regulate that flow. I think we can do it. I believe that, in fact, there's sufficient support on both sides of the aisle, and I think we'll get legislation passed.

Q Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good President?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q Why?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Because she's a Democrat. I don't agree with her philosophically and from a policy standpoint.

Q Do you think she will be President then?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I don't.

Q Who do you think will be?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate.

Q It won’t be you?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It won't be me.

Q John McCain.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to speculate.

Q Been rather critical of you -- John McCain -- lately?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, John is a good man. He and I have known each other a long time, and we agree on many things and disagree on others.

Q He said the other day, he said, the President listened too much to the Vice President. Of course, the President bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and most of all the Secretary of Defense. That was John McCain.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So.

Q Want to react?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I just disagree with him.

Q He said, about the former Defense Secretary, "Rumsfeld will go down in history along with McNamara as one of the worst Secretaries of Defense" --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree. You heard my speech when Don retired. I think he's done a superb job.

Q We're out of time, but a couple of issues I want to raise with you. Your daughter Mary, she's pregnant. All of us are happy. She's going to have a baby. You're going to have another grandchild. Some of the -- some critics, though, are suggesting, for example, a statement from someone representing Focus on the Family:

"Mary Cheney's pregnancy raises the question of what's best for children. Just because it's possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father, doesn't mean it's best for the child."

Do you want to respond to that?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, I don't.

Q She's obviously a good daughter --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I'm delighted -- I'm delighted I'm about to have a sixth grandchild, Wolf, and obviously think the world of both of my daughters and all of my grandchildren. And I think, frankly, you're out of line with that question.

Q I think all of us appreciate --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I think you're out of -- I think you're out of line with that question.

Q -- your daughter. We like your daughters. Believe me, I'm very, very sympathetic to Liz and to Mary. I like them both. That was just a question that's come up and it's a responsible, fair question.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I just fundamentally disagree with your perspective.

Q I want to congratulate you on having another grandchild. Let's wind up on a soft note. Nancy Pelosi -- what was it like sitting up there with her last night as opposed to Dennis Hastert?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: I prefer Denny Hastert, obviously. I liked having a fellow Republican in the Speaker's chair. Nancy is now the Speaker of the House. We had a very pleasant evening.

Q But it's different to have a Democrat --

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure, it's different to have a -- but it's the way it has been during most of my career in Congress, so I didn't find it all that surprising or startling.

Q How do you feel?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Good.

Q Mr. Vice President, thank you.

Posted on: January 25, 2007 07:28 AM | Link: The Vice President is insane... | Comments: (0)

Posted on: January 10, 2007 03:01 AM | Link: More like this... | Comments: (0)

It took Rumsfeld five years to realize that he helped orchestrate one of the largest military blunders of all time. Five short years from "go massive" to "go minimalist".

September 11, 2001:

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." CBS News

November 6, 2006:

"Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist,” NY Times

Will this finally be the end of these dinosaurs/neocons? It doesn't seem like it - Bush seniors old fogey crowd is coming out of the woodwork - Baker, Gates, etc. will continue this mess much longer than it needs to be continued. The nearly 3,000 US military dead and the tens of thousands of wounded are on Rumsfeld's hands. Let's hope we don't see another 3,000 before this thing is over. I don't know how Rumsfeld sleeps at night - but he doesn't deserve to anyway. I hope he goes to hell.

Posted on: December 3, 2006 04:23 PM | Link: From massive to minimal | Comments: (0)

" I mean my point of view now as a 50 year old person, when somebody says to me what do I think about Coldplay, what do I think about Franz Ferdinand - I don’t have an opinion about Coldplay, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard Coldplay. I have heard Franz Ferdinand, and they are what, to me, you would call an act. Herman’s Hermits. They’re an entertainment act."

Posted on: November 30, 2006 07:50 PM | Link: "They’re an entertainment act" | Comments: (0)

"I have a real problem with going to work for the sake of going to work. When I have to produce something, I do it... In a way, I work all the time, but I've never disciplined myself or been in a situation that disciplined me into going into an office at 9.30 in the morning and staying there until six o'clock and then going home."

Posted on: November 30, 2006 07:29 PM | Link: I have a real problem... | Comments: (0)

Senator Hagel today in the Washington Post:

"Honorable intentions are not policies and plans."

Us in March, 2003:

"War is not policy. Thoughts and ideas, diplomacy and work are policy. Summers in Crawford, weekends at Camp David and nights spent reading the Bible are not going to help us right now."

The rest of it sounds like what I wrote this past Monday (there is nothing we can do, things will be bad for awhile, other people will act in our absence, staying means destroying the army, etc.). Maybe I should run for Senate? Maybe someone on Hagel's staff reads textonly? Or - wait a minute - maybe Chuck Hagel isn't such a complete fucking asshole as he has appeared to be these last few years and has finally come to his senses now that he has a lame duck President in the Whitehouse and his party just got trounced in the election... maybe thats it. Or maybe he is just laying his reelection groundwork.

(Damn - just broke my no cursing on the blog pledge)

Posted on: November 25, 2006 08:20 PM | Link: Chuck Hagel channels textonly.com | Comments: (0)

Andy Ihnatko doesn't like the Zune. It is quite a rant, and he hits a point that I don't hear many of the Zune critics (myself included) making - that the Zune is all about the "man". Microserf completely co-opted themselves with the music industry, and the DRM sounds absolutely dreadful. I am not wishing ill on Microsoft, but the stupid "iPod killer" crap that wafted through the media was such patent PR baloney that it almost forces you to want to see them fail with this thing.

Read the whole thing for some of the more egregious insanities (Zune Points, doesn't play podcasts, etc.) Microsoft has wrapped up in this fiasco - and for a laugh - the guy could always write.

Posted on: November 24, 2006 06:10 PM | Link: File under "WOUCH!" | Comments: (0)

There is a lot of opinion flying around now in the punditsphere - and most of it makes no sense. 3 more months, 6 more months, more troops, less troops, etc. The game is over. My take below:

What to do in Iraq

Get out – that is the only course of action that can be taken. Things are a mess, things will be a mess for some time. The US staying there can do nothing about that. Staying means more dead soldiers, with no positive side effects. We need to realize that we can not control that part of the world, that we don’t understand the culture, language and geopolitics of the region, that America and Americans are not willing to occupy foreign countries and have their sons and daughters killed for the oil industry.

I am as tired as anyone of the pundits, the government officials - elected and appointed – the military leaders, etc. who think they have an answer or a plan to solve the Iraq “problem”. There is no option but withdrawal. It is not a naïve position - it is a forward thinking, pragmatic, realistic position. There is no central front of a decentralized war. The terrorists are not going to invade America, ever. These ridiculous talking points of fear are just that – simple catch phrases to scare the population into believing impossible events, so that the people in charge can retain power (and in case you haven’t noticed – it didn’t work). Terrorism has existed for centuries and will continue to exist, and we need to fight it with intelligence and cunning, with solid police work, with international cooperation and with forward thinking strategies and better policies. We need to engage the Muslim world, to stop being belligerent and to stop using stupid phrases like “Islamofascism” that do nothing for us but create more enemies.

Will terrible things happen in Iraq when we leave? Sadly, yes – many terrible things - many thousands more will be killed, kidnapped, mutilated, etc. The electricity still won’t work, women will be persecuted, and suicide bombers will blow things up. But this is happening now as it is – and it is the fault of the Bush administration and of their terrible policies – they have to take responsibility, and we also, as Americans, have to take responsibility of our governments actions, even if we completely disagree with them. Things can probably not get any more terrible than they are now (not that the situation will improve anytime soon) – but we have to learn to live with the fact that we unleashed this mess on Iraq, that the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis were killed on our watch. All Iraqis have memories of this occupation and will blame the deaths of their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, etc. on us. That is fact. It will take generations to heal, and real work on our side, but again points to only one course of action – to leave immediately. Staying only prolongs the hurt, hate, and anger that builds against us daily.

The sooner we end this the sooner we can start to heal our military, and the sooner Iraq or whatever survives of that country will stumble to it’s feet. Our commitment should be to the day after we leave, to better foreign policy, to the rebuilding of our military, to better and realistic energy policies, to contrition and reparations, to support for other nations who will no doubt step into the breach at some point, to the UN, etc. Will the price of oil go up? It is going up anyway. Will Iran end up controlling Iraq? Maybe. Will Turkey end up in a war with the Kurds? Possibly.

But even if all or none of that happens, even if in one, two or three years, we need to go back to help the Turks protect their border, or we are asked by a newly sovereign Iraq to help beat back Iranian forces, or the UN asks us to bomb the HQ of the new Iraqi strongman, whatever the scenario – I am not choosing sides or betting on anything or anyone – and I am not going to rule anything out – but when and if something happens that really does need our military to act, by leaving now we will still have a military that can be used as a force again.

So, just to sum up, for those who still don’t seem to get it (which unfortunately seems to be the people in charge and the people who write about them and appear on TV to tell us about them), this war was and is a giant mistake, a disaster of the first magnitude, and there is nothing positive that can happen by prolonging it for even a single day. Most of the world realizes this – the American public realizes this. Now we need our politicians and talking heads to realize it. There have been plenty of dark times in the history of America and the world. We have been living in one of them – let’s end it today.

Posted on: November 21, 2006 05:09 AM | Link: What to do in Iraq | Comments: (1)

From Talking Points Memo:

Was anyone besides me delighted to note that the last two Republican senators to concede were Burns and Allen?

Say goodnight, Gracie.

Goodnight!

Posted on: November 11, 2006 07:21 AM | Link: This is a classic | Comments: (0)

Yes I am happy the democrats won, but all it means is that there is a huge amount of work to do - a giant mess to clean up. I think Rumsfeld's quick exit was about taking some of the news spotlight away from the democrats frankly, and to make sure he is gone before democratic controlled committees could have dragged him into congress to testify.

The sad fact for me is that while the dems are definitely better at some things and by far my side of choice, not much is really going to change until money and television are out of the equation, and we get a third (or more) party into this mess. I would love to see the dems get entrenched enough, with a big enough of a majority, that maybe a few of these progressive types would peel off and become something completely different and new. Maybe it can happen - the netroots were a big part of this election, and I think the future is ripe for real change.