March, 2009 archive
Sins in Our Name 0
From the New York Review of Books. Read the whole thing.
The most pernicious evil is evil done in the name of good.
Dream Jog Job
2
“Pay for performance.”
What goddamn performance?
Man, I’d love a job like that, one where I could get even a little bonus, say, just a measly $500k, for destroying equity, running a company into the ground, and generally being incompetent.
Only on Wall Street or in Congress, I guess.
Narcolepsy 0
The wrong time to take a nap.
Earmarks 0
Please make the lies go away:
Only one problem — he never made any such promise. That was John McCain, as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night on Wednesday..
As you’ll see in this video, during the campaign President Obama actually said that while he supported earmark reform, he believed a line-by-line review would show that some earmarks were for good programs and some were for bad programs.
Via Atrios, who documents that the MSM has fallen for this one too.
Twits on Twitter 0
Where I come from, you can’t take a cellular phone into the court house unless you are an employee. I asked one of the guards why, and he said it was because of the cameras and the recorders in the phones, not because of the telephones themselves:
The motion seeking a new trial was filed Thursday on behalf of Russell Wright and his company, Stoam Holdings. It claims juror Johnathan Powell sent eight messages — or “tweets” — to the micro-blogging Web site via his cellular phone.
Via RawStory.
Mark to Market Once More 0
James Saft on Reuters (emphasis added):
“Adjusting” or suspending fair value accounting, even if you swear up and down that this time it’s even more fair will erode rather than build trust and repel rather than attract capital.
(snip)
The problem facing the banking industry is not just solvency on some accounting or regulatory basis, it is solvency on, for want of a better phrase, a solvency basis. Thus banks are unwilling to do business with one another and investors unwilling to lend banks money or invest in them. They do not reliably know who is bust and who is not.
Folks, underneath all the Wall Street double-speak and the complexities of double-entry bookkeeping, this stuff really isn’t rocket science.
The banks are like the guys who keep feeling that radiating pain in their chests and down their right arms.
They’re trying to force the doctor to diagnose it as heart burn, when it’s heart attack.
Stray Thought 1
I commend the Telemarketing Firm whose CallerID says “Telemarketer.”
I’m still not answering the call, but I appreciate the honesty.
Everyone Wants $1,000,000,000. Everyone. 0
Searing Truth 1
Somehow, “Willis Tower” just doesn’t have any ring to it.
“Birthism” 0
It’s not a joke. It’s a bill.
These are the people who put the “nut” in “wingnut.”
It is not good to take a day off from the net to straighten up the house. Coming back and finding all that assembled stupidity all at once is just too much.
Jesus.
Penny Stocks 0
Penny-ante shenanigans.
Poling Place 0
This is cute.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society.” Not. 0
I see that bumper sticker from time to time, usually attached to a beat-up vehicle driven by an old white guy.
My first thought is always, “Drop the stupid S. O. B. down at 56th and Market for a week. If he survives, see if he’s singing the same tune when the week’s over.”
Politeness does not spring from the muzzle of a gun. Bullets spring from the muzzle of a gun.
Field Negro has more.
Still Lying after All These Years 0
“Saddam might . . . strike again”?
Saddam never struck the first time.
Glomarization sums it up:
She left out, “Every time.”
“Mark to Market” Redux (Updated) 0
Proponents of abolishing or modifying the rules say that assets owned by troubled banks have become impossible to value, as the market for these assets have disappeared due to the financial crisis. Uncertainty about what banks such as Citigroup Inc. are worth, they argue, is at the core of the financial crisis.
However, opponents of any changes contend that the rules are necessary because shareholders deserve to understand the troubled state of banks. Banks could provide fuzzy accounting and commit fraud without the standard, they say.
The reason that financial types want to abolish or modify the rules as regards “assets owned by troubled banks (that) have become impossible to value” is that they do not want to admit that those “impossible to value” assets can indeed be valued.
They are bleedin’ worthless.
Tell me, would you buy a share in a “securitized mortgage-based bond”?
Of course not. Neither will anyone else.
In a capitalist system (regulated or not), something that no one will buy is something that is worthless.
As soon as balance sheets are altered to show that that crap is really crap, it will be obvious that the Masters of the Universe who hung their hats on those securitized boxes of air–and their companies–are worthless. Those “assets” have no intrinsic value and are not worth a bucket of warm spit.
So of course the Masters of the Universe want to change the rules.
Lack of transparency is their best friend.
Addendum:
The Huffington Post has more.
[EDITORIAL MODE ON]
(As if it were ever off in these parts.)
Didn’t I call it? These guys couldn’t run a Girl Scout cookie stand. If they did, the customers would get home to find their cookie boxes full of air, even though the balance sheet said “Thin Mints.”
[EDITORIAL MODE OFF]
“Give Him Letter No. 45” 2
Having worked in a complaint department, I have nothing against using standard replies to common complaints. There really are only so many ways to say that “We’re sorry that the train was [late, broken, crowded, going north instead of south–it was awfully hard not to send the “why didn’t you listen to the announcements bozo?” letter to those folks].”
The form letter, though, should match the letter to which it responds. Don’t send the broken air conditioning letter to the I-didn’t-like-the-mustard guy.
So when I notify eBay of a phishing attempt with the subject line, “phishing attempt,” they should respond with something more on point than this:
Thanks for forwarding the suspicious message you received. The email you reported did not come from PayPal or eBay. It was a fake, often called a “spoof” or “phishing” email. (That’s “phishing,” as in “fishing” for personal information.) Our security teams are working to disable any websites it links to.
I knew it was a phishing attempt, for Pete’s sake. That’s why I sent it to you. A simple “thanks for your report” would have been fine. Actually, nothing would have been fine. But a tutorial in elementary how-to-spot-a-phishing-attempt was a bit–er–under the top.
(Ebay’s lame automated responses to the contrary, it’s a good idea to forward such stuff to them at spoof@ebay.com. They do compile the reports and try to get the sources shut down.)
