The tidetime folklorist wonders why there are tanks in thanks, but wishes all a good holiday.
The Platter: Turkey In The Straw (Bushes not yet on the horizon)
The Bait: The Yum Gonzo Grub (always pushing back, from table to table)
Archive for November, 2009
Thanksgiving’s George T. Platter And Bait
Thursday, November 26th, 2009A Growth Industry
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009In a time of economic disasters, one industry’s growing like topsy: bankruptcy!
The number of filings has increased 35% so far this year.
What with unemployment increasing by more than 40%, this looks like a financial services mechanism with a long-term future.
Gorilla cashes out: “No more lucky Chapter 7s, it’s all Chapter 13s now!”
The 17% Solution
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Our President will go to Copenhagen, bringing with him a promise to reduce carbon emissions “in the range of 17%” below 2005 levels by 2020.
How this is to be accomplished when there is not filibuster proof support in the US Senate for climate change legislation is something our President doesn’t mention.
To be seen to be promising something that can’t possibly be achieved on your watch is what makes climate change negotiations so surpassingly ridiculous.
What’s the difference between Obama’s approach and the infamous “aspirational goals” his predecessor suggested?
One supposes it is in the degree of disingenuousness: Bush was never serious about climate change, but Obama said he was and so far his people think wishing will make it so.
Gorilla thinks: “A prune Danish may be good for regularity in a romance, but it’s a real turnoff when you’re carbon dating in West Virginia!”
Any Celebrations Here?
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Today is the International Day On The Elimination Of Violence Against Women.
Here’s the take in one of Pakistan’s newspapers.
Not much on this in the Post (standard AP story on the UN) or the Times.
Here in America, violence against women includes the easy availability of guns, but also extends to efforts to restrict the right to abortion and contraception.
Somehow these harmful things don’t appear to count when they’re encouraged by the Know Nothing Party, the Catholic bishops, and a few dozen Democratic clowns led by Bart Stupak.
Gorilla says: “Until we say clearly that misogyny is unacceptable in a civilized society, whether that misogyny is promoted by politicians or religious leaders, women will not escape violence in America!”
The String Becomes A Noose
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009Love seems to be better the second time around, at least if you work at the Fed.
The Board of Governors is worried a bit about all the “excessive risk taking” now returning to the US financial system, thanks to the dollar carry trade.
Low interest rates are necessary, of course, but not sufficient to address the banks’ lack of lending and increase in hoarding, nor will it make the slightest dent in unemployment.
For that you need a stimulus package, not monetary policy.
So is another bubble likely? The odds say the Fed are “relatively low”.
Gorilla asks: “As low as they were when the Fed was missing the housing bubble or as low as the Fed doing anything about curbing Wall Street’s power?
Inventory Deficiency Anemia
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Turns out the US economy only grew by 2.8% in quarter 3, or 1.9% if you don’t count reductions in the inventory of unsold goods.
This is anemic growth, certainly insufficient to drop the unemployment rate anytime soon.
As Krugman and others have pointed out, most of the stimulus package GDP impact occurs this year, so the best that can be said about this performance is our economy would have been horrifically off the cliff without the stimulus.
Now, of course, it’s long past time for a second, far larger stimulus, something on the order of $2-3 trillion. Otherwise, it may take a decade before unemployment falls to the merely unacceptable levels of January 2009.
And on what does the current national political discourse obsess? Certainly not the actual US economy!
Oh no, it’s all about deficits (gosh, I thought the Know Nothing Party were convinced that deficits didn’t matter, from the days of Saint Ronnie, they sure didn’t care about them when Bush was doubling the national debt), a falling dollar (of course this is excellent news for the economy, and something we should be encouraging), inflation (currently a fevered dream of bond traders, but not observable otherwise) and fear of Chinese bankers taking away the punch bowl (to mix metaphors, if they do, then they’re shooting themselves in the foot)!
As Brad de Long wisely observes, the deficits right now should be much larger, the deficits from now to 2020 can be handled so long as Congress sticks to PAYGO, and the deficits beyond 2020 will be brought under control by actual health care reform.
Gorilla says: “Time for a swift kick from behind to get those heads out of the sand! Unemployment is the only issue that matters and should be extended to our leaders if they don’t get a move on!”
Pay Up, Play Up, Then System Game
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009So, where’s our fucking TARP money, asks the Fed of the banks we’ve bailed out?
Having survived the “stress” tests, there is naturally curiosity about whether the banks remain adequately capitalized, and therefore able to do things like stop hoarding, start lending, and start paying the loans back.
Gorilla warns: “Remember Lehman Brothers, a well capitalized institution, and look for all the spoons!”
Jobless While Black
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009More than 1 in 3 young black men are unemployed; 30% of young black women are unemployed.
Why? Lack of jobs where urban blacks live, lack of education and skills training in the failing schools urban blacks attend, and the reality, documented in study after study, that even in good times qualified young blacks have no better chance of being hired than a white man just released from prison.
Of course, it’s racial, one needs only look at the efforts of national Know Nothing political leaders, overtly and covertly, to deny the legitimacy of an elected black President and to encourage the belief among whites that blacks and Hispanics are getting special benefits from things like health care reform and the stimulus package. Today’s undeserving “other” is the direct descendant of Reagan’s welfare queen.
Gorilla says: “It’s not about the other, it’s about what we can do to look out for each other, and that begins with the acknowledgment that we need each other!”
Smells Like Infrastructure
Monday, November 23rd, 2009We could be fixing our sewage plants, but we don’t, that would cost money and put people to work!!!, must be socialism!!!, higher interest rates!!!, deficits!!!!, inflation!!!!, all kinds of shit!!!!!!, so some of our rivers now choke with raw sewage and our environment goes down the tubes a little further.
Gorilla thinks: “If only our bog standard politicians would visit the bogs they’ve created!”
The Election That Doesn’t Decide Anything
Monday, November 23rd, 2009Back in Iraq, a snag has developed.
Seems the parliament can’t muster enough votes to override a Vice Presidential veto (and how’d we manage to advise the Iraqis to set up a constitution with a vice presidential veto?), so the election may have to be postponed beyond January.
Still plenty of reassuring noises from our generals that this won’t interfere with the “waterfall” aka the beginning of our orderly withdrawal from Iraq.
Less certain is what this says about the Iraqis’ ability to manage their country, when it’s clear the nationalistic and religious divides still lurk beneath the surface. These really aren’t our problem, they just illustrate what a huge mistake it was to invade in the first place.
Gorilla is a bit confused by all this electioneering: “What happens when the Sunnis come off the payroll? Should we ask Karzai’s brother to pick up the tab?”
