O.K.... obviously not "all" the news.
(*CHUCKLE*)
Check inside this thread's Comments Section to see what I consider the latest news/opinion "must reads."
Oh... and as always... feel free to share your links and observations!
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24 comments:
http://www.lvrj.com/news/36367204.html
Remember! Even global cooling - perhaps especially global cooling - is just another sign of global warming!
(*SNORT*) (*SMIRK*)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,469164,00.html
Just... (*SIGH*) (*SNORT*) (*CHUCKLE*)
BTW... I strongly urge anyone interested in "global warming" to subscribe to the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Cooler Head's newsletter via:
http://www.globalwarming.org/node/538
BILL
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a1MsoPDHjFS4
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4460aa54-cc6f-11dd-acbd-000077b07658.html
I was chatting with one of the drunk'n Irish relatives earlier this morning...
(Actually, she's one of the generally sober Irish relatives and she and her family are actually "Irish-Canadian.")
...and she mentioned she and her husband (Drunk'n Kevin!) were thinking of buying a winter home in the Tampa-Sarasota area.
I told her to wait till next year - summer '09 at least.
Folks... stagflation's a'com'n!
(I'm betting by next summer oil will be between double and triple the price it is now and that the Canadian dollar will once again be worth more than the American dollar - perhaps as much as ten percent more, perhaps even higher.)
These morons in Washington (and New York) are bound and determined to destroy our currency in a (doomed to fail, to backfire, to make things worse rather than better) attempt to inflate us out of our recessionary/debt problems.
God help us...
(*SIGH*)
BILL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122954346309915189.html
-- ...the nation's most populous state struggles under a budget deficit that officials say could balloon to more than $40 billion over the next two years.
"California's fiscal house is burning down," State Treasurer Bill Lockyer said in a statement. --
(*DRIPPING SARCASM*) Nah... NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT, FOLKS... keep walking... nothing to see here... (*SMIRK*) (*SHUDDER*)
* BTW... not that anyone besides perhaps Anthony would be interested in reading the following...
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14343
...and to be honest I doubt even he will have an interest, but if anyone does actually take the time and makes the effort to look into the issue of pension promises already made by US state governments it might become clearer to you why I'm so damned gloomy about our future prospects as a nation.
(*SADLY SHAKING MY HEAD*)
BILL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122956332371616791.html
Rob. If you're browsing, definitely check out the above link and read the op-ed.
By and large... I disagree with the WSJ on this one.
EXCERPTING AND COMMENTING:
-- Under the proposed rules, card issuers would be barred from changing borrower interest rates on existing balances in almost every case. This would limit the ability of banks to raise rates on those who fall behind on their payments or who see their credit profile worsen. --
Hmm. Actually, I believe that for those who use credit cards as other than monthly (interest free) loan vehicles the rate of interest in effect when the debt was accrued should be the rate of interest paid - certainly no more. (*SHRUG*)
As for those who fall behind...
Simple enough. Cut off further credit. These folks now have to pay off their debt - compound interest accruing - at the prevailing interest rate at the time the "loan" was made.
Oh... and as to worsening credit scores... as long as the debt is being paid according to term to the card issuer in question then their only remedy is to withdraw further credit as their customer's overall financial picture worsens. Raising the rates on FUTURE borrowing is fair and reasonable - with both parties able to "take it or leave it" regarding new terms applying to new (future) debt. However, penalizing a borrower who has not defaulted with respect to EXISTING debt and EXISTING repayment schedules and interest rates seems preposterous on the face of it.
-- That might sound good if you're those borrowers, but for everyone else it will mean higher rates even if you treat credit responsibly. If the banks can't raise prices on the riskiest borrowers, they will either limit to whom they lend or raise rates on everyone -- or both. --
The Journal acts as if there's only one party here. (*CHUCKLE*) The consumer can always say no! Heck, I choose not to have a "fee" card. I also choose not to use revolving credit as an interest accruing loan. (The bank/card makes money off purchase fees - kickbacks from those who accept my card as "same as cash" money.)
BUT... for the sake of debate let's assume I was an ass and had credit card debt. If the bank/card decides they're gonna raise interest rates applying to NEW purchases my remedy is... to stop using their card. (*SHRUG*) Simple! No one is "forcing" me - or anyone else - to be a chump. (It's called free enterprise - closely linked to free will!) (*WINK*)
-- Card companies are also likely to reduce rewards programs and other perks -- which would also affect everyone with a credit card. --
Again... for a supposedly capitalistic defender of the free market and the free individual, this particular Journal editorial writer sounds as if he's never heard of the term COMPETITION.
Hey... if I'm not satisfied with the perks my existing card offers... (*SHRUG*)... I'll shop around for another. Just based on usage kickbacks (again, fees paid by those who accept credit cards to the card issuer) I'm confident my business will always be valuable to the credit card companies. There will ALWAYS be competition for my business. (*SHRUG*)
-- Widespread access to credit without annual fees on most cards is a real boon to most consumers. --
Yeah. (*SHRUG*) And like I've already explained... the credit card companies/banks are making money off MY spending/usage - it's not like they're doing me a "favor." They're making PLENTY of money of me at a 1%/2%/3%/4% kickback from whomever I'm patronizing who's accepting my card as "same as cash" payment.
-- Yes, people do sometimes get in over their heads. --
Yes. So perhaps banks/card issuer had better restrict credit REASONABLY... perhaps for the average person a few grand, perhaps even $5,000 or $10,000, as opposed to Visa giving Joe Blow a $20,000 credit limit and Mastercard giving Joe Blow an additional $20,000 credit limit and... oh... by the way... handing out multiple Visa cards and Mastercards to the average individual/couple giving them far more access to easy credit than is prudent. (*SHRUG*)
-- ...for the vast majority of Americans who use their credit cards responsibly, credit cards provide a degree of financial flexibility unheard-of in most of the rest of the world. --
YES! And I want to keep it that way! The best way to ensure this is to not allow the system to blow sky high based on unsustainable debt ratios!!! (*SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
Anyway... (*SHRUG*)
Anyone differ with me and support the Journal's view?
BILL
File Under: A Man After My Own Heart
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2008/12/18/against-lower-mortgage-rates
-- There's really no fundamental reason why Americans could and did become so comfortable with the concept of the million-dollar house, even while the average household income remained stubbornly in the five-digit range. And there's no fundamental reason either why most families should essentially have to use one full-time salary just to pay the mortgage, and rely on a second full-time salary to actually spend and live on. If you're looking at affordability in terms of household income, you're missing the fact that many households have had to take on extra jobs just to afford their homes. --
BINGO!!!
This is actually one of those columns that's not really written for cutting/pasting excerpts. The actual focus of the article is on the absolute idiocy of artificially low interest rates and the idea that government policies should actually be pushing REINFLATION of the same housing bubble we've just experienced.
Follow the link. Read the op-ed. It's well worth your time. (*WINK*)
BILL
File Under: Makes Sense To Me!
http://www.openmarket.org/2008/12/19/the-real-auto-bailout-a-six-point-plan-for-regulatory-relief/
EXCERPTING:
Here’s what the auto companies really need - a reduction in the regulatory burden placed on them by Congress. These burdens have placed Detroit at a competitive disadvantage because a lot of them are aimed at eliminating the sort of vehicles that Detroit has proved adept at designing and marketing.
Repeal the CAFE requirements. They restrict consumer choice by insisting that fuel economy take precedence over safety, and impose restrictions on design that reduce the competitive advantage of Detroit automakers.
Allow automakers and, indeed, all firms to repatriate foreign profits without having to pay a double tax. This will provide a much needed injection of funds. No other country handicaps its manufacturers in this way.
Suspend particulate matter regulations emanating from California that prevent the automakers selling high-mileage diesel-powered cars that sell well in Europe and meet all European emissions requirements. This will immediately reduce fuel usage and reduce unnecessary research and design costs.
* by Iain Murray
Yo, Barker! Are things crystal clear to you yet?
What's your point, Rob?
MORE IMPORTANT... (*GRIN*)... who do you insert hyperlinks within the body of a comment box posting...?
(*WINK*)
BILL
My point is that Sarah Palin, who harped constantly on Barack Obama's relationship to a university professor who was a "terrorist" forty years ago, turns out to have a much, much closer relationship to a woman who turns out to be a drug dealer operating today. Can you say "White trash?"
I'm surprised I had to 'splain that one you.
How to embed a link is what I tried to show you that other time. If you will remember that attempt, each time I typed the formula it becomes a link, and then you couldn't see it. Best you look it up in the "help" section like I did.
Rob. Even for you that's ridiculous.
(*SNORT*)
Parents (well... referencing Western norms...) don't pick their children's in-laws to be.
(*SNICKER*)
Dude. Seriously. Why not try to gain and share actual knowledge of import as I do?
(*SHRUG*)
Thanks for the email on hyperlinking! I'll try it!
BILL
Palin is finished, Bill. Wassilla has, what? 6,000 people in it? This woman's son traveled with the Palin family on the campaign trail as part of the nuclear family tableau. And she don't hardly know her. Is that what you want me to believe? The other grandmother of her daugher's (out-of-wedlock) baby. Right. dYou betcha! Go on, Bill. Dream your crazy dream of "the Real America" and conservative glory days to come.
Honestly, I overestimated you. I didn't think you'd defend this guilt by association double standard (as compared to Obama-Ayers).
(*SHRUG*)
Rob. You've got Palin on the brain.
(*SNORT*)
Anyway, thanks for sharing. Not exactly what I consider news worthy of focus, but to each his own.
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
You're right that Palin shouldn't be "news worthy of focus." But, unfortunately, due to the ignorance of a large segment of the American electorate, she is.
If the subject of persons with whom Obama has some tenuous association is newsworthy, then so are persons with whom Palin can be associated.
If it weren't "newsworthy" I wouldn't be able to link to it.
What you choose to focus on is all ephemera. That is, it's news today; by tomorrow it has morphed into something completely different.
As I've said before, it's clear that NOBODY understands the economy and its fluxuations well enough to control it. It's exactly like global warming according to those who blame it all on the sun in that respect. You can talk about what you think it's doing; you can measure some of what you know it's doing; but for the most part you're just guessing; and in the end you can't do anything about it anyway.
Here is an analogy of the economy for you. You can't tell the players, even with a score card.
Rob. You're on the wrong blog!
(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
No, no... I'm not asking you to censor yourself. I'm simply pointing out that your natural target isn't... err... me.
(*SHRUG*)
Remember our discussions concerning Obama and Tony Rezko over at RT "back in the day...?"
(In case your memory needs a jog, I was an early proponent of the view that there was little or no "there, there.") (*SHRUG*)
Present day...? Do you see me posting about Blagojevich...???
(*SNORT*)
Heck... if you recall I wasn't even all that fazed about Rev. Wright. (*SHRUG*)
Rob. I know you tend to flail in all directions and see "class enemies" lurking in every shadow, but please... (*CHUCKLE*)... try and focus.
(*SMILE*) Hey. Like I say. You're free to rant on about Palin or anything else you find newsworthy. All I'm saying is that if your intention and desire is to get into a debate about Sarah Palin's daughter's boyfriend's mother...
(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
...there are other blogs better suited to such debate.
(*SHRUG*)
BILL
P.S. - Oh... and... (*HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER*)... thanks for the... err... analogy. (*CHUCKLE*) (*WINK*)
No. You are the one, over on the other blog, who insisted that the choice of Palin as candidate for VP made McCain "the odds-on favorite" to win the election.
And you have supported her as a viable future presidential candidate with the same lack of understanding that made you believe that Giuliani had a real chance of winning the GOP nomination. You focus too much on "facts," which are local and temporary phenomena, and fail to develop any skills in the area of pattern recognition.
You seek the turn of events that makes Palin grandmother of a baby whose other grandmother has been caught running a meth lab as an isolated "fact," which is irrelevant to the rest of Palin's story. But it's not. It's part of a pattern, which also includes many other things, some of which I have written about elsewhere.
It is comparable in impact, perhaps, to Rudy seeking the GOP nomination with a "pro-choice" record: wasn't gonna happen.
You keep telling me to focus on facts. But facts are not of primary significance: signs are more important. And the meth lab is a sign.
NOTE: the word "seek" in my prior comment should read "see".
And... speaking of getting back to all the news (and opinion!) (*SMILE*) that's fit to share...
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=314582096700459
Excerpting...
-- ...a recent front-page article in the Washington Post, under the headline, "How HUD Mortgage Policy Fed the Crisis." The piece correctly fingers HUD for helping fuel risky lending at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But the newspaper starts its analysis in 2004 (in fact, the first sentence begins, "In 2004 . . . "), making it seem as if the Bush administration crafted "affordable housing" policy and created the subprime market. The Post knows better. --
* NO DOUBT!
-- The Bush HUD merely continued a politically correct policy launched by the Clinton administration. For the first time, President Clinton ordered HUD to set quotas for Fannie and Freddie to buy huge portions of Community Reinvestment Act loans and other low-income mortgages made to borrowers with poor credit. The Post failed to mention this key fact. By 2000, fully half of the mortgage giants' portfolios consisted of these risky loans, most of them subprime mortgages. In effect, the Clinton HUD set a time bomb that would explode years later with the collapse of home prices, which happened to occur on Bush's watch. --
* Yep.
* STILL... let's not forget that Bush came into office in 2001 with Republicans controlling the House at that time till January 2007 and with Republicans controlling the Senate for most of this period. (*SHRUG*)
* Nope. Neither Bush nor the Republicans get a pass from me. Yet... this is no excuse for blatant media politicizing - along partisan lines - and revisionism as concerns how this story is being reported.
-- At the same time, HUD pressured the federally subsidized giants to lower their loan-to-value ratios and other underwriting requirements to accommodate minority borrowers. HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo even admitted that the administration was mandating a policy of "affirmative action" lending (his words, not ours). --
* (Rob. As you may recall, even RAG was honest enough to point this out in a posting at RT several months ago.) (*SHRUG*)
-- And it was Clinton who initially spread the subprime rot to Wall Street. To help Fannie and Freddie reach their "affirmative action" lending quotas, HUD in 1995 let them get affordable-housing credit for buying subprime securities that included loans to low-income borrowers. Less than two years later, Freddie partnered with Wall Street investment banker Bear Stearns to issue the first securitizations of low-income CRA loans. --
* Try saying "Robert Rubin" five times in a row as loudly and as fast as you can. (*SNORT*) (*RUEFUL CHUCKLE*)
-- There's even a press release still available on the Web that memorializes the historic deal, which dumped hundreds of millions of dollars in the risky loans on the market — a down payment on the hundreds of billions that were to follow. The Post left all of that out of its story, even though the deal marked the beginning of the boom in subprime securities. --
* Yep. (*SIGH*) The Post left all that out...
-- Of course, providing such background to readers would ruin the impression that Bush and Republicans were responsible for the crisis, an impression the Post and other liberal media elites hope will stick in the public's mind and become conventional wisdom. And conventional wisdom, once galvanized, is a powerful thing in Washington. Whole agendas and coalitions are built around it. --
* Yep. (*SIGH*)
-- The Post also provided just one side of the data in its story. The paper said that Bush "ratcheted up" the affordable-housing goal for Fannie and Freddie, from 50% to 56%. But it left out the fact that the previous president, the liberal Democrat, institutionalized the quota and ballooned it up to 50%. Which move do you think had a greater impact on the subprime market? --
* Obviously the former; but again... let's not simply shrug at Bush COMPOUNDING the problem rather than fixing it. (*SHRUG*)
-- A recent story in the Associated Press was equally tendentious. It blamed Bush for not cracking down on loose lending standards that had become the norm in the mortgage industry, while completely ignoring the systematic dismantling of those standards during the previous decade under Clinton. --
* Par for the course. Shoddy, dishonorable, unprofessional journalism is nowadays often to be confused with the rule rather than the exception. (*SIGH*)
-- Reality check: "Government intervention" is what planted the seed to this whole crisis. As we've noted, Clinton in 1995 revised CRA regulations to pressure banks into adopting "flexible" lending standards to increase minority homeownership. In a 1,389-word story, AP cited that easily verifiable fact not a single time. --
* 1995. Yep.
-- Make no mistake: It was Clinton who forced banks — most importantly, Fannie and Freddie — to go into the subprime market to serve the targeted populations that HUD and other Clinton banking regulators wanted them to serve. In effect, the media are blaming Bush for Clinton policies. Whoever controls the debate in Washington controls the truth. Right now, it's Democrats and their press courtiers. And so far, they've managed to shade the truth about the root causes of this epochal financial crisis. --
* (*SIGH*)
BILL
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=314582265558716
Excerpting...
-- ...more evidence of the decade-long cooling trend is shoveled off the Strip... --
* New Slogan: What Melts in Vegas Evaporates in Vegas! (*CHUCKLE*)
-- The white powder even dusted Malibu as a winter storm hit parts of California. --
* Clarification: They're talking REAL snow - not cocaine! (*GIGGLE*)
-- ...said David Deming, a geology professor at the University of Oklahoma..."The mean global temperature, at least measured by satellite, is the same as it was in the year 1980. In the last couple of years, sea level has stopped rising, hurricane and cyclone activity in the Northern Hemisphere is at a 24-year low and sea ice globally is also the same as it was in 1980." --
* Damned stupid facts...! (*SMIRK*)
-- Speaking of rising sea levels, is Al Gore smarter than a fourth-grader? James O'Brien, emeritus professor at Florida State University who studies climate variability and the oceans, thinks not. "When the Arctic Ocean ice melts, it never raises sea level because floating ice is floating ice, because it's displacing water," he points out. "When the ice melts, sea level actually goes down. I call it a fourth-grade science experiment: Take a glass, put some ice in it, put water in it, mark level where water is. . . . After the ice melts, the sea level didn't go up in your glass of water. It's called the Archimedes principle." --
* Do NOT try this experiment with single malt scotch!!! (Blended scotch... ok.)
-- Global temperatures stopped rising after 1998 and have plummeted in the last two years by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius. The 2007-08 temperature drop was not predicted by global climate models. It was predictable by a decline in sunspot activity since 2000 and by a cyclical ocean-current phenomenon known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. On CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" recently, Jay Lehr, a senior fellow and science director at the Heartland Institute, was asked by the host what he considered the dominant influence on Earth's climate. "Well, clearly, Lou, it is the sun," Lehr answered, adding that "if we go back in really recorded human history; in the 13th century, we were probably seven degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now." --
* As Homer Simpson would say... "DOH!"
-- Lehr considers global cooling to be the real threat, part of a natural pattern as we continue coming out of a period known as the Little Ice Age. "If we go back to the Revolutionary War, 300 years ago," he said, "it was very, very cold. We've been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period. And now we're back into a cooling cycle." --
* Hmm. Perhaps if we simply ignore history it'll go away? (*SARCASTIC SHRUG*)
-- The Associated Press claims that the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since Bill Clinton's second inaugural. But after it was discovered that NASA's James Hansen, Gore's chief scientific ally, had been fudging the numbers, the agency was forced to correct its data. The 10 warmest years turn out to be, in descending order: 1934, 1998, 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, 1953, 1990, 1938 and 1939. --
(*SIGH*)
BILL
The quote you posted about floating ice cubes is unbelievably stupid, for reasons some of which are mentioned here.
Simply put, most of the arctic melt-off will not involve "floating ice."
Speaking of rising sea levels, is Al Gore smarter than a fourth-grader? James O'Brien, emeritus professor at Florida State University who studies climate variability and the oceans, thinks not. "
Can you, btw, post something in which Al Gore is quoted as saying that the melting of floating ice will raise sea levels? You attack him above as stupid for having said that without providing any proof that he has, in fact, said that.
Even the very elementary information site to which I linked above explicitly points out that floating ice does not affect sea level.
re: Rob; December 22, 2008 12:03 p.m.
(*CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
No. Seriously! Bravo, Rob! You actually went to the trouble of doing some research! I'm PROUD of you, buddy!!! (*WINK*) (*BACKSLAP*)
Still... (*SMILE*)... did you happen to notice the DATE of the piece you cited? 11/22/05. Indeed, the piece actually states, LAST REVISED 11/22/05.
(BTW, I point this out not so much to critique the source, but as a teaching aid for you personally. Beware scientific reports that are years out of date... along with hotel and restaurant reviews! (*GIGGLE*)
Anyway... moving on to the actual critique...
What exactly do you find... err... "stupid?" (You DO believe in... err.. buoyancy... right...??? Displacement...?)
(*SMILE*)
Cutting to the chase... what exactly do you FACTUALLY disagree with that I posted? Be specific. I'll gladly research any claims you choose to advance and share my findings. (*SHRUG*)
re: Rob; December 22, 2008 12:20 p.m.
Yes, Rob, floating sea ice melting will not increase sea levels. (But for what it's worth, while browsing the research it turns out that some scientists actually do theorize otherwise.) However, be that as it may, melting glaciers and land-based ice sheets breaking off and falling into the sea and then melting will increase sea levels.
(Are we on the same page science wise on this particular fact?)
As to what Al Gore said or didn't say...
I don't have his book. (*SHRUG*) Therefore I'm relying upon online googling. This is the sort of stuff I find.
BILL
What I found stupid was the suggestion that Al Gore does not realize that the melting of ice already floating in the sea will not raise the sea level.
I don't think that the physics of bouyancy has changed since 2005, or that the fact that dark land will absorb more heat than white ice pack, should the white ice pack melt, has changed since 2005 either.
Congratulations, btw, on the successfully embedded link in your last comment.
Please be aware, however, that if it melts it won't raise the level of discourse on your blog.
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