Personal Musings category archive

Too long. They should have stopped with the first two words.

What Duncan likes to refer to as the Big Shitpile has gone to graduate school and earned a Ph. D. (Pile It Higher and Deeper), as shown by a bunch of stories in the local rag:

One:

In the latest signs of the U.S. economy’s weakness, reports yesterday showed sharp declines in housing prices but higher costs for almost everything else.

And there was a third dose of bad news, prompted mostly by the slump in housing and rising inflation: Consumer confidence fell to the lowest point since just before the Iraq war began.

Yesterday’s reports raised the threat of a return of “stagflation,” the economic curse of the 1970s, in which economic growth stagnates at the same time that inflation continues racing ahead.

Two:

The United States is on the brink of experiencing a toxic economic mix not seen in three decades: Prices are speeding upward at the fastest pace in a quarter-century even though the economy is losing steam.

Economists call the disease “stagflation,” and they are worried it might be coming back.

Already, paychecks are not stretching as far as they did just a year ago. Jobs are harder to find, threatening to set off a vicious cycle that could make things even worse.

The economy nearly stalled in the final three months of last year and probably is barely growing or even shrinking now. That is the “stagnation” part of the ailment.

Typically, that slowdown would keep prices in check – the second part of the diagnosis. Instead, prices are climbing higher.

Once the twin evils of stagflation take hold, it can be hard to break the grip. Consumers, stung by rising prices and shriveling wages, cut their spending. Businesses, also socked by rising costs and declining demand from customers, clamp down on their hiring and capital investment.

That would be a nightmare scenario for Wall Street investors, businesses, politicians, and most everyone else. They are already looking to the Federal Reserve for help, but the Fed’s job is complicated by the dual nature of the problem.

Three (not that I can get too worked up over the misfortunes of Toll Brothers, who are responsible for some of the ugliest houses I’ve ever seen):

Toll Bros. Inc. today reported a first-quarter loss as revenue fell 23 percent from the same period a year earlier, reflecting worsening conditions in most of the Horsham-based builder’s markets around the country.

Total revenues for the three months that ended Jan. 31 were $842.9 million, compared with $1.09 billion a year ago. The first-quarter backlog of unsold homes was 42 percent lower, however, at $2.40 billion, compared with $4.15 billion, the company said.

So, what does original sin have to do with all this? Fraudulent sales techniques, stupid consumer decisions, stupid business decisions–none of them seem particularly original.

It seems to be a verse in the NeoCon Bible that all regulation is bad and that, somehow, Adam Smith’s invisible hand of the market will resolve all problems and lead to nirvana. Instead, we are closer to Valhalla.

During the course of the last eight years, the Bushies have hamstrung the EPA, OSHA, the FDA, the SEC and any other agency charged with ensuring that businesses comport themselves with integrity.

And we know the results. Just look at the recents successes of the FDA.

Meat recalls. Spinach recalls. Drug recalls.

I won’t even bother to look up stuff for the other agencies. Just one word: Enron.

As I have mentioned before, one of the traits of wingnut thought seems to be the belief that wealth indicates virture. (And the corollary: that poverty indicates sin. That’s why those in economic need don’t deserve health care.)

There is, of course, a fallacy in this reasoning. Hell, there is a fallacy in the whole NeoCon Weltanschauungen, but that’s another story.

And that fallacy is ignoring original sin, or, more properly, imagining that the wealthy are somehow exempt therefrom and will therefore, in following the dictates of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” act with integrety.

Some do, of course. Warren Buffet and George Soros come to mind.

But others do not.

Society needs to deal with them, to protect the common good and the good of the common.

The instrument society has for dealing with them (and for building roads and for defending the nation and for putting the bad guys behind bars and for doing lots of other things) is called (gasp!) Government.

Government is not some evil thrust upon us from outside, as the Club for Greed would have us believe (I have to say, I agree completely with Mr. Huckabee on the characterization of that organization).

Government is the only instrument we have to protect ourselves, as a citzenry, from those who would defraud and delude us.

Government is a necessity for life in a civilized world.

And those who, in order to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, thwart its legitimate function to promote the general welfare betray the public trust.

Fortunately, they are easy to identify. They call themselves “Movement Conservatives.”

(Warning: I violate one of my rules in this post: The rule of not using more than one rhetorical question in a row.)

I got another one of those stupid RNC “surveys” today.

I’ve mentioned them before. I’ve already answered the questions, sealed it up in the business-reply envelope, and will be sending it off tomorrow. (At least they will have to pay the incoming postage; according to the USPS, it will cost them $1.11 to receive the letter. That’s $1.11 they will not be apply to apply to further subverting the Constitution of the United States of America.)

The questions in the “survey” were in the usual style:

Do you favor the forces of truth, justice, and the American way, or do you favor evil librul Democrats?

Yes

No

No opinion

One of the questions, though, caught my eye.

It was something like

Do you favor Republican plans for a balanced budget as opposed to [blah blah blah]?

I could ask myself only, “What the hell planet are these people living on?”

How the heck can they seriously put a question like that on this “survey”? Have they no consciousness of what they have done to the Federal budget during their failed stewardship of the engine of governance?

Or do they seriously believe that their adherents are only listening to what they say, while ignoring what they do?

Or do they figure that their adherents are just too stupid for words?

Also posted on Kos.

It is indeed totally strange that, somehow, the security of the United States of America depends on protecting corporations who broke the law from liability for their acts.

Corporations that obeyed the existing FISA law in implementing wiretapping and eavesdropping were already protected from liability, because, holy moly, they were obeying a law.

The issue here is protecting those who broke the law.

But, given that the Current Federal Administrator contemns the rule of law, we should not be surprised that he chooses to protect the lawless.

Failure. It didn’t work. It isn’t working. It won’t work.

The crucial justification for the s(pl)urge ™, to allow time for the Iraqi so-called puppet government to consolidate its position, has not occurred, is not occurring, will not occur.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said for the first time yesterday that he supported a pause in American troop reductions in Iraq. It was the most authoritative indication to date that the United States will maintain a large force here through 2008 and into the next presidential term.

If you are old enough, you’ve heard it all before:

It’s the Bushie Midas touch. And its results will be with us, yea, unto the third or fourth generation.

Via jdrbunnythoughts.

What Digby said.

I was over here trying to buy some stuff, but all the good stuff is back ordered.

I think that’s a good sign.

Josh Marshall:

I pointed out a while ago that the persons citing Iraqis returning to Iraq as somehow a sign that Bush had done something right was, well, a pile of Bushie crap.

Here’s a little more information which pretty much supports my position:

The Iraqis continue to flee toward Syria, and the number of those who cross the border is much greater than that of those returning home. The motives of those who decide to come back, moreover, are not connected to an improvement in security, but mostly because of the expiration of residency permits and economic difficulties. These are the findings of the latest report from the UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) on the numbers on Iraqi emigration into Syria. The result of the study clearly contradicts the scene depicted by the Baghdad government, according to which a drop in the number of attacks and the level of insecurity is bringing thousands of refugees back home each month.

Ya know, you can wrap the doggy poop up in a box, put fancy paper and a bow on it, but, when it’s unwrapped, it’s still doggy poop.

(Afterthought: Now that Empty Suit is out of the race and his sons are no longer serving America by trying to convince the voters that well-tailored material equals presidential material, maybe they can join my son in serving in the uniform of the United States Army.)

Via upyernoz.

John McCain is a conservative hack.

He’s probably one of the few conservative hacks with some integrity left, but his “maverick” reputation is sorely overblown.

It seems to have more to do with his willingness to actually talk to reporters while not reading from a teleprompter than with his voting record.

So why are the wingnuts so unhappy with him? According to Brendan, who is strong-willed enough to subject himself to right-wing talk radio, Glenn Beck went into full meltdown mode today.

Kojo Nnamdi promised to explore that question on his show today. From the website:

John McCain is public enemy number one to many conservative talk show hosts, who’ve been criticizing his presidential bid with growing intensity in recent weeks. While many of these hosts have audiences in the millions, McCain’s aides say they don’t expect the attacks to hurt them much at the polls. We look at the rift between talk radio and the senator from Arizona, and the role it’s playing in the Republican primary.

So I devoted 32 minutes of my evening to listening to that segment (Realplayer), and, when it was done, I had had a few chuckles and was 32 minutes older.

But there were no answers to the question of “Why is the Republican Party determined to devour its young (or, in McCain’s case, its old)?”

I do have a few stray thoughts, but they are not well-formed enough to stand on their own.

Perhaps it is that he opposes torture, the wingnuts’ Viagra;

or that he can see that illegal immigrants, in addition to being illegal, are also human beings (Oh! I forgot! He sold out on that one. Hack.);

or that he thinks candidates should not necessarily be for sale to the highest bidder (whereas it is a principle of wingnutism that everything is for sale to the highest bidder).

It seems clear that, of the candidates for the Republican nomination, McCain is the one who has the best chance of winning the general election.

He’s a conservative hack, but he’s not an empty suit.

Let’s hope the wingnuts have their way, he loses the nomination, and, for the good of the nation, the Republican Party disappears from political discourse so that the nation can redeem its virtue and save itself from both moral and financial bankruptcy

I just got back from my polling place. No lines–that’s why I chose to go at 10:00 a. m–but one of the poll workers told me that turnout had been pretty good. As I left, three people were arriving.

We shall see what we shall see.

. . . should be fun on Super Tuesday. Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard, Center City Philadelphia, 6 p. m. tomorrow.

Looks like a great day to vote for Obama.

I find it interesting and completely irrelevant that, in the Democratic primary race, Hilary Clinton keeps touting her “experience.”

Now, I do not agree with those who would dismiss her experience as First Lady as irrelevant. Whatever the dynamics of the Clintons’ relationship, it is clear that Hilary Clinton was no Dolley Madison, whose reputation was made on White House parties and dinners.

And before the White House years, she was a successful lawyer, who graduated in the era when, if a woman applied for work at a law firm, she was offered a job as a secretary, whether or not she had a law degree.

“Experience,” in this context, of course, means “managerial experience in government,” as, opposed, to say, experience in leadership, experience in administration, or experience in management.

A critical analysis of American history indicates that experience in government is, at best, an “independent variable” and, at worst, completely irrelevant to performance in the office of President.

In other words, job experience does not make a president. Leadership, integrity, and foresight make a president.

And those qualities are forged by life, not by a job history.

(It’s a long windy post. I suggest you just agree with me, but, if you wish, you can read on.)

I will consider our greatest presidents. They are, as far as I am concerned,

• George Washington
• Thomas Jefferson
• Abraham Lincoln
• Theodore Roosevelt
• Franklin Roosevelt

(No, Ronald Reagan does not make the list. He did far more damage than good, despite Neocon myth-making.)

George Washington had little experience in government. Before the Revolutionary War, he was a successful planter and a so-so officer in the Virginia Militia. He servered in the Colonial Virginia House of Burgesses (the legislature), but had not govermental managerial experience.

During the Revolutionary War, he managed to win two battles: The Battle of Trenton and the Battle of Yorktown. And he would not have won the Battle of Yorktown without the presence of the French fleet in the York River, which cut off the British from any retreat, and a large contingent of French troops.

(He was, however, a wise enough commander to realize that the American revolutionary troops did not have the resources to beat the British is the traditional (at that time) style of pitched battle of massed troops on an open battlefield. He chose, instead, to wage a war of insurgency.)

(Yeah, there were other victories on the battlefield for the Revolutionary army: Saratoga, Cowpens–which was sort of the basis for the movie, The Patriot–and Kings Mountain–but Washington wasn’t involved in them).

He could have been King–or President for Life. And he turned it down. Because, like the rest of the Founders, he feared most that this country would fall into the hands of despots, and he wanted to set the againsts despotism.

Conclusion: Managerial experience in government: minimal.

Thomas Jefferson similarly had limited experience in government.

Like Washington, he served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and also served as Governor of Virginia during the Revolutionary War. He also served in the First Continental Congress for two years, but, frankly, it had little or no purpose except to try to fund the Continental Army.

Yes, he had served as ambassador to France, taking him away from the nation during the early years of the Revolutionary War, and he served as Vice President under John Adams. He served as Secretary of State for a while under George Washington, but had little or no influence; Alexander Hamilton was in ascendancy.

He was Vice President under John Adams. At that time, the Vice President was the person who came in second in the presidential election. As Jefferson and Adams had opposed each other for the presidency, Jefferson had almost no influence or roll in the government. (As part of that election, the Federalist Party enacted the spiritual ancestor of the “Protect America Act.”

As President, he doubled the size of the nation with the Louisiana Purchase, avoided War with Britain (the War finally came in 1812), and engineered the demise of the Federalist Party.

It can easily be argued that his greatest contributions were as a political thinker and as leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, rather than as an elected leader.

Conclusion: Managerial Experience in Government almost non-existent.

Abraham Lincoln was a corporate lawyer. In those days, that meant he was a lawyer for the railroads, the dominant corporations of their time. He served in the state legislature for eight years–a part time post–while he pursued his legal career.

He also served as a Captain–an elected post–of the militia in the Black Hawk War. He served for 90 days and saw no action.

Many consider him to have been the best president in the history of the United States.

Conclusion: Managerial Experience in Goverment: Minimal.

Theodore Roosevelt served a term in the New York State legisture. Later, he ran for governor of New York and lost. He subsequently served on the United States Civil Service Commission, the Board of New York City Police Commissioners, and other boards and commissions, as well as UnderSecretary of the Navy.

He was elected Vice President to President McKinley in 1900 and because president when McKinley was assassinated.

Conclusion: Managerial Experience in Government: High, but complete irrelevant to his election.

Franklin Roosevelt served as a Senator in the New York State Legisture for five years. Later, he served as Assistance Secretary of the Navy during World War I and, a decade later, as governor of New York.

Elected president in 1932, he led the nation through the Great Depression and, because of his commitment to helping persons who were starving and out of work, was hated by Republicans and termed a “traitor to his class.”

Conclusion: Managerial Experience in Government: Moderate.

Whenever I hear a reference to the bank, UBS, I cannot help but think of Martin Mull’s old television show, Fernwood 2Night, on the mythical UBS network, the motto of which was

We put You before the BS.

Still so true.

With apologies to Samuel L. Clemens.

It’s amazing how much money people get for running companies into the ground:

Countrywide Financial said on Monday that Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo, a lightening rod for criticism over the subprime- lending meltdown, is giving up a $37.5 million severance package.

The package is less than a quarter of the money Mozilo collected selling Countrywide stock in 2007 as the company’s shares slumped almost 80%.

The Calabasas, Calif., lender said Mozilo is giving up cash severance payments, post-closing consulting fees and continued perquisites that he was owed in connection with the mortgage lender’s takeover by Bank of America (BAC).

There’s something wrong about rewarding executives for failure.

But in the closed-bubble world of American CEO’s, overpaying incompetence is somehow seen as attracting the best talent.

It seems to be sort of like professional football coaches.

The losers keep being recycled to new teams at higher salaries.

Has anyone else noticed how all the guys in the commercials for Levitra, Viagra, and stuff like that there always have wives who look to be 20 years younger then them?

Gosh, we can’t all be Dennis Kucinich.

From the Wilmington News Urinal. Follow the link for more details:

What started as a road rage incident ended with the arrest of a 58-year-old Brandywine Hundred man on gun charges after he got involved in a fistfight between three men and ordered them to the ground at gunpoint, police said.

Gregg N. Lynch, of the 100 block of Murphy Road, was released on $20,500 unsecured bail Wednesday after being charged with felony aggravated menacing, possession of a firearm during a felony, carrying a concealed deadly weapon and disorderly conduct.

The three men involved in the fight were not immediately charged, Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh of the Delaware State Police said.

“It’s still an active case under investigation,” Whitmarsh said Thursday.

It all started at about 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot outside Dick’s Sporting Goods in the Brandywine Town Center, where the occupants of two cars each claimed the others cut them off.

The three occupants — two teenage boys and a 27-year-old man — stopped and got into an argument that turned physical.

Shoppers called state police.

Before troopers could arrive, Lynch pulled up in a pickup, brandished a Glock 9 mm pistol and ordered the trio to “get to the ground,” police said in court records.

(snip)

“I have every right to have a gun,” Lynch replied, according to the records. “I don’t have to show you anything.”

Troopers who arrested Lynch said he didn’t have that right because his life was not in danger.

(Of course, this means that, if you have gun, you are forbidden to come to the aid of someone who needs your aid–ed.)

Troopers said they found the unloaded Glock, an unloaded 9 mm Baretta pistol and a loaded .22-caliber revolver during a search of his truck.

(snip)

Whitmarsh said Lynch’s brandishing of a gun implied he was going to use deadly force.

“If he’s threatening someone to comply or face deadly force, then he himself has to be threatened with serious bodily injury or death, or be in fear that someone else will face seriously bodily injury or death,” he said.

Lynch never claimed that he was making a citizen’s arrest and made no mention of holding the men at bay until police arrived, Whitmarsh said.

I’m not a big fan of guns. They are dirty, messy, and noisy, and, in the wrong hands, usually result in bad things happening.

I also think that persons who carry guns around with them are generally pretty much asking for trouble.

But, in this case, the gun user ended a confrontation that could have resulted in someone’s getting hurt.

End result. No one got hurt.

And the guy who ended the confrontation gets arrested.

Mr. Lynch may be a crackpot of some sort. I don’t know. He may have broken a law here. But, based on the contents of the news story, he seems to have acted on the side of justice, if not on the side of law.

But, as we know, the law and justice are seldom related.

As far as I am concerned, the district attorney (or whatever they call that position here in Delaware) should drop these charges and find something with which to charge the road rage guys.

From CREW:

Very, very late last night, just before midnight, the Bush administration submitted a filing in CREW v. Executive Office of the President, our lawsuit challenging the failure of the White House to preserve and restore millions of missing emails. We first documented the massive loss of White House e-mails in our April 2007 report, WITHOUT A TRACE: The Missing White House Emails and the Violations of the Presidential Records Act.

The latest filing from the Bush administration raises some very troubling questions that the White House clearly does not want to answer. (The filing from the White House and related documents can be found here.) This is how CREW’s chief counsel, Anne Weismann, described the situation:

With this new filing, the White House has admitted that although it has long known about the missing emails, it did nothing to recover them, or discover how and why they went missing in the first place. The missing emails are important historical records that belong not to the Bush administration, but to the American people. As a result, the public deserves a full accounting and hopefully, now that the matter is before a federal court, we will get one.

Holy two-face, Batman, do you think they might have something to hide?

H/T to Linda.