2009 archive
No Maxima. Minima. (Updated) 0
Nissan cutting 20,000 jobs (more than 8% of its workforce):
Must be that pesky UAW again. Oh, wait.
Addendum:
The Booman has a detailed analysis.
Stimulating Hope 0
DougJ at Balloon Juice:
As Duncan puts it, “Alienating Their Base.”
(Aside: I actually wrote this post before I read Duncan’s, but I had set mine to fire off in the wee hours.)
Drink Liberally 0
Tuesday, Triumph Brewing Company, Chestnut two blocks from Front, Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p.
I just checked the weather forecast. I might actually make it this week.
Terry Schiavo Redux (Updated) 2
Crusading against the facts of life and death in Italy. The lady in question has been in a coma for 16-years.
The usual crowd of fantasists insists on keeping the empty shell of her being “alive”:
But, in a moving interview with the Observer, Eluana’s father Beppino said last week that the doctors were carrying out his daughter’s wishes by allowing her to die. “If she couldn’t be what she was (before the accident in 1992) then she would not have wanted to live”.
Addendum:
Commentary from P. Z. Myers, via the Canadian Cynic.
Toxity 0
What it means in the world of “toxic assets” (emphasis added):
The financial institution that owns the bond calculates the value at 97 cents on the dollar, or a mere 3 percent loss. But S&P estimates it is worth 87 cents, based on the current loan-default rate, and could be worth 53 cents under a bleaker situation that contemplates a doubling of defaults. But even that might be optimistic, because the bond traded recently for just 38 cents on the dollar, reflecting the even gloomier outlook of investors.
(snip)
The bond is backed by 9,000 second mortgages used by borrowers who put down little or no money to buy homes. Nearly a quarter of the loans are delinquent, and losses on defaulted mortgages are averaging 40 percent. The security once had a top rating, triple-A.
What was happening is simple. Financial institutions were issuing funky mortgages to everybody they could rope in, without doing credit checks due diligence, so they could turn around and sell these bonds.
They didn’t want the mortgages. They wanted to sell the bonds.
And the ratings agencies, which were paid by the issuers of the insecurities, gave this junk the highest ratings. As long as everything was going up, everything kept going up. “Intrinsic value” had nothing to do with it.
The whole scam makes Bernie Madoff look like a piker.
No, I am not alleging conspiracy. I am alleging criminal greed, negligence, and immorality, all hidden in three-piece suits and Bentleys.
Just as “negligent homicide” is a real criminal charge, so too should be “negligent marketing.”
But the bozos who did this will not be going to jail. After all, they have three-piece suits and Bentleys.
The family that lost its house and its possessions and gets caught shoplifting a loaf of bread–it’s gonna be the Big House for them.
(Aside: If you believe in “market capitalism” in any form, non-regulated, deregulated, or regulated, that bond is worth 37 cents, because that’s what someone was willing to pay for it. Where S&P gets 87 cents I cannot imagine.)
IHT story via Harry Shearer.
Bump-and-Gen 0
Well, if PECO can call their trash-to-steam plant “trash to cash,” I guess this might be “smash to cash”:
(snip)
The ramps – which cost between £20,000 and £55,000, depending on size – consist of a series of panels set in a pad virtually flush to the road. As the traffic passes over it, the panels go up and down, setting a cog in motion under the road. This then turns a motor, which produces mechanical energy. A steady stream of traffic passing over the bump can generate 10-36kW of power.
Mythbustin’ 0
Click and learn. A nugget:
Oh really? I’m sure they’d love to have a presentation on that at the next meeting of the American Economic Association. Maybe the senator could use that opportunity to explain why a dollar spent by the government, or government contractor, to hire doctors, statisticians and software programmers is less stimulative than a dollar spent on hiring civil engineers and bulldozer operators and guys waving orange flags to build highways, which is what the senator says he prefers.
Via Susie.
Rule of the Lawless 0
Big Brother was (and probably still is*) listening in. From On the Media:
Follow the link to hear the story or listen here:
______________________
*This is not directed at Mr. Obama, but rather at the strongest force in organizational dynamics: inertia.
Stimulus Analysis Overstimulated 0
Calm down all ready, suggests the Booman.
Frankly, I do not think we have a 24-hour news cycle, not here in politically-oriented Blogistan (left or right).
We have a 24-hour hysteria cycle.
Not every event in every day is the life or death of the Republic, for heaven’s sake.
The Cost of Unemployment Compensation 0
This is just screwy: Pennsylvania started moving its umployement compensation to debit cards. The hook: you get your payments weeks faster than if you opt for checks or direct deposit.
And guess what?
You get to pay for the privilege of getting unemployement benefits with fees to the ATM card issuer (some outfit called ACS State & Local Solutions Inc.):
Yes, fees. Fees to withdraw unemployment benefits. Fees to transfer. Fees to learn that besides being out of work, you’re broke.
(snip)
The unemployment debit card touts one free withdrawal per month at Wachovia or PNC Bank.
Bank elsewhere or more often, and you’ll pay $1.50 for the privilege of getting your money. Maybe more, depending on “surcharges.”
Weather Weirdness (Updated) 0
Two days ago it was 22 Fahrenheits.
Today it’s already 62 Fahrenheits.
Addendum:
It seems to have topped out at 66 Fahrenheits.
Kitchen. No Girlfriend. 0
And no “My Girlfriend’s Kitchen” any more. (It also appears that the company has been gobbled up by someone else.)
Closed. Kaput. All gone.
Delaware disappeared from their list of locations.
When I first saw the business and looked it up on the inner tubes, my gut reaction was, “Yeah. Right. People are really going to come to this here storefront and cook a week’s worth of meals and take them home with them for the week.”
Morning Joke 0
This morning, Joe Scarborough was on Weekend Edition Saturday. (You can listen to the interview here.)
Among other things, he bleated about not expecting Obama to take off the gloves so quickly, as if, somehow, Mr. Obama was being gratuitously partisan.
Combating intransigence requires firmness.
In observing Republicans in their natural habitat, one must watch their actions and discount their words.
Scarborough left out the part about the Republican Party’s party-line intransigence, their insistence on demonstrating fealty to their corporate masters and to clinging to the policies of de- and non-regulation, tax cuts for the rich and big business, and tolerance of lawlessness, so long as it is the rich who are acting lawlessly, policies that have not just failed, but that have proven inimical to the safety and welfare of the nation and its citizens.
Then there’s that Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.
Yes, quite the upstanding little group of folks.
Once again, disregard their words and watch their actions.
Republicans define “bipartisanship” and “compromise” as getting what they want the way they want it.
Nothing else does for them.
Q. E. D.
Don’t Give a Hoot 4
A bit of a fuss down the road over a new Hooters (emphasis added):
Marc Clymer, president of the Meadowood Civic Association that represents the neighborhood behind the shopping center, echoes those concerns.
If it were named Scooters and everything else were the same, there would be less fuss. Hooters is really rather innocuous compared to any Delaware beach in July.
The fuss about Hooters had more to do with its name than with the activities.