D'oh of the Day

Foreign profits of U.S. firms could help at home, economists say: "As policymakers desperately search for ways to give the sputtering economy a jolt without deepening the nation's budget deficit, some economists say an answer lies with the more than $1 trillion in U.S. corporate profits that reside overseas."

Mandatory Clusterfuck Analysis

Nobody breaks it down like James Howard Kunstler.

The toils of summer are bygone now. The days grow shorter and America stands in the darkling road of its own prospects like a dumb animal frozen in the blinding light of approaching fury. The White House must be a strange place these days with the management of the USA turned over to astrologasters, alchemists, prayer-wheel spinners, fakirs, viziers, necromancers and other visitors from occult realms unaffiliated with the dominion of reality.
One of these characters, Ms. Christina Romer, at a luncheon celebrating her departure as chief of the White House Council of Economic Advisors (i.e. readers of spilled goat innards) even blurted out that she had no idea what's been going on in banking and business and how come America can't be more like it was in 1999. Don't cry for Christina. A cushy chair awaits her at the Hogwarts Berkeley outpost where she can repose in a trance of unknowing until California slides into its own tar pit of default and disintegration....

Response to a comment: Trickle-Down Piss

posted by Ilyse Kazar

A good buddy on Facebook commented on my post about today's VA and NJ governor races:

I wonder if it really Obama - that has people voting R - versus just how bad the economy is. Think we may not be finished with bad economic news (commercial real estate) And Americans want instant fixes - without them paying for it

I think people realized full well how bad the economy already was, and sensed how bad it might get, when they voted in November '08. I think people were hot to see some very tangible things done that directly benefited them. I think people were absolutely ready, in fact, would have cheered from the sidelines, to see the robber barons go down hard.

I also think people understood that fixing Dubya's mess was gonna cost and would not be a free lunch.

When we were on the purported precipice of complete economic meltdown, the people would  have been sobered by the need to pump a trillion dollars of funny money into the system, that will cost us so much as we move forward. But if the money had gone as deferred loans directly to keep real people in their homes, thereby ...

• saving whole neighborhoods from the sad loss in property values and crime and desolation that has resulted from foreclosures
• staving off the costs that we have yet to even calculate in feeding free lunches and offering other services to homeless children and families
• helped folks keep their jobs or find new ones quicker (it's nigh impossible to keep a job or walk into an interview like a positive fresh-faced prospective employee, when one is hungry and homeless)
• kept mortgage payments (preferably re-financed ones) coming into the banks that were crying they were collapsing because of mortgage defaults
• providing a way for the government to at least partially recoup our money when those homeowners get on their feet 

...  then folks could say, well, we can see the real benefits of this costly bailout in front of our eyes. They would have been sobered but not angered at so much money going down a stinking sink-hole while nothing changes in their towns and cities, nothing improves for their families.

Ditto if the money had been put directly into financing small businesses, to create or save jobs and help re-stimulate the Main Street economies.

I haven't noticed any revival of Main Street. I haven't seen the reversal of Reagan's trickle-down theories that have held sway in this country, to a huge extent, ever since 1980. The only thing I've seen is more piss trickling down on the little guy.

Bogus Unemployment Numbers are Nothing New

--posted by Ilyse Kazar

David Leonhart reminds us that

The national unemployment rate has risen to 9.5 percent, the highest level in more than a quarter-century. Yet it still excludes all those who have given up looking for a job and those part-time workers who want to be working full time.

And let's not forget that the unemployment figures also do not include small business owners whose businesses either are not supporting them with adequate income or who have had to close up shop.

Mind you, this has always been the case. Only those eligible for unemployment benefits are counted as "unemployed". This leaves out ...

- the underemployed
- starving small-biz owners
- the homeless
- the long-term unemployed whose benefits have expired

During good times, perhaps these four groups of people are a very small proportion of the working (or wish-I-were-working) public. But during hard times like these I would think the percentage is signifcant since far more people might, for example, need to fold their business, or not be able to secure new employment before their benefits run out.

The Obama administration has begun creating "real" budgets by throwing out the bag of tricks that has been used in the past to make overly optimistic projections. This was a good and important change. Now it's time to start providing us with "real" unemployment figures. I'd wager it's around 15 percent now and climbing.

News Analysis: Sarah's Lapse of Facts

Ah, Sarah. We knew you were cooking something up. [I believe a free account on washingtonpost.com is necessary to view this].

Palin's editorial attacking President Obama's cap-and-trade plan is terribly misinformed and/or purposefully misleading. Unfortunately, in today's infopropegainment (one of my favorite Jon Stewart words) news style, Sarah Palin gets a lot of air time, and as much cannot be said of her opponents.

 First, some general points.

We must remember that this is a woman who does not believe that humans are causing global warming. Her arguments for further use of dirty energy sources is tainted by her inaccurate concepts.

It's also significant that Sarah Palin is building a base founded on controversial issues in what I consider to be her early campaigning for the 2012 Presidential Race. It is classic Republican campaign strategy to be against taxes (although their actual track record tends to suggest otherwise).

Let's break down her arguments, shall we?

"The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet... So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year."

The Cap-and-Trade (TRADE, not TAX) plan generates $650 billion in federal funds over the course of seven years, $80 billion of which will be contributed towards middle-class tax cuts. [1]

"Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs."

The proposal would create jobs in a new rapidly growing clean energy sector. The proposal promises that new jobs created will not be outsourced [2- pg 100]. Pew reports that between 1998 and 2007 job growth in the clean energy sector has progressed at nearly three times that of the economy in general -- even though the government has favored making financial contributions to fossil fuel energy over green alternatives [3- pg 3]. The report goes on to say that by giving clean energy a boost through President Obama's plan, new lasting jobs (this is significant because we know that fossil fuel is non-renewable) will be generated. This projection is supported by Pew's research on state energy programs. [3- pg 40-41].

"In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America."

Projected cost of the Alaskan Highway Pipeline project is over $20 billion and will not begin producing revenue until 2016 [4]. Obama's plan begins producing revenue in 2010. The pipeline plan will only further entrench our economy in an extremely harmful energy culture whose days are numbered. While natural gas is preferable to coal in emission levels, it still is not clean. Environmental impacts of actually building a 2,140 mile long pipeline to Canada and then distribution pipelines from there is yet to be determined.

"We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats."

The 2000-acres only refers to the land on which the rig supports actually touch the ground. The actual area affected would be much greater due to multi-directional drilling technology - "horizontal production wells" [5]. Plus, drilling crews need to build roads through the nature reserve to bring them to drilling sites, and then carry very heavy equipment along these roads which harms the ice shelf.

The Energy Information Administration reports that there is a 95% probability that ANWR contains 5.7 billion gallons of recoverable oil [6]; that would fuel the USA for less than a year at current rates.

Bottom line, Palin's arguments are simply inaccurate.

---

Citations:

1. Samuelsohn, Darren and Bravender, Robin. "Obama's draft budget projects cap-and-trade revenue." Scientific American. 02/26/2009. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cap-and-trade-obama-budget>.

2. EPA FY 2010 Budget Overview -- <http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/asset.aspx?AssetId=757> [PDF]

3. The Pew Charitable Trusts. "The Clean Energy Economy." June 2009. <http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Clean_Economy_Report_Web.pdf> [PDF]

4. "Alaska Highway Pipeline". 2009. <http://www.jobmonkey.com/oilindustry/html/alaska_highway_pipeline.html>

5. "ANWR Arctic Technology". <http://www.anwr.org/techno/drilling.htm>

6. Energy Information Administration. "Potential Oil Production from the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge". <http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/arctic_national_wildlife_refuge/html/execsummary.html>

---

Further Reading:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cap-and-divident-not-trade

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/

http://environmental-economics.blogspot.com/2007/09/carbon-tax-cafe-standards-and-cap-and.html

no-pay gigs on craigslist.org

just a sampler from this morning's postings:

--Popular CEll Phone Blog Seeks Contributors
We are looking for individuals to blog about their current and past experiences with cellular devices and wireless carriers. This is a great opportunity for a new blogger, or an experienced blogger.

--Recording Studio Assistnat/Intern (Dumbo)
A professional recording and mixing studio is looking for a part-time intern/assistant. The position is unpaid.

--Camera man interested in taping celebritys for TV show?
Established TV show looking for Camera man who would be interested in taping a Television show with celebrity's in Manhattan. The show consist of a live band, host and celebrity's. Please send in your availability, if you have a camera or not, a little bit about yourself and a photograph. Looking for hungry camera man who wants to be in this business on a high level. No gimmicks. But a little work is involved.

--Seamstress for new clothing line
Hello, I'm Tracy. Iam looking for a seamstress who can sew Maternity clothing. This is a new clothing line I'am producing. The pay wouldn't come until later, so I'm looking for an eager, driven business person as well. My goals are to go far with my idea.

--Event Production Intern Needed for Tomorrow & Sunday!! (TriBeCa)
Fashion & Trade Event tomorrow and Sunday!!
We will need 1 and possibly 2 interns to help with the production of the event and setup and breakdown. You will be assisting the marketing manager and the event producer with any tasks needed. If you want to get some experience in event planning/production this is for you! Fashion students are also welcome! There will be 11-13 designers that you may be able to network with and maybe even speak to about future opportunities! (No promises!).

--Music Video Directors (Union Square)
All you need to participate is the will, the time, and the means to create a short music video and deliver it by the end of September. The style and content (barring illegal activity and porn) are entirely up to you. NO PAY for anyone (including the organizers), but lots of good vibes.

Answering the Writing Tutor Ad

OK. The only way I can deal with this process of seeking paying work in June 2009, is to turn it into words on paper. (Words on screen sounds just awful, doesn't it?)

I answered an ad on craigslist.org for a writing tutor. A guy who was brought up in India and who now works in the Financial District in downtown Manhattan as a software engineer, wishes to bring his written English from "quite good" to "like a native English speaker/writer."

Went to meet him yesterday. This would be for a couple of hours of work a week -- a fact that was pretty clear from his ad. The poor guy now has to wade through EIGHTY responses that he received within an HOUR of posting his little ad. Poor me had to sit there at my age, asking only $20 per hour, going over the top to qualify myself. Never mind being published since the age of 13, or the national writing award in high school, or the honorable mention from the press association, or fifteen nonstop years doing the sort of business and technical writing he is interested in perfecting. I am up against 79 other persons, some of whom quoted $10 per hour.

There is no room for self-righteousness, O Ye Comfortable Ones

There are those in our country who are expressing denial, disbelief or, worst of all, self-righteousness regarding the awful plight of so many Americans. I have seen sentiments ranging from "You made your bed, you sleep in it" to "the reason jobs are being lost is because people believe Democratic scare tactics and are not spending money -- spend your money folks!" This is in utter blindness to the cold hard fact that so many of us have none to spend and cannot even pay the bills.

Today in my World Wide Meanderings I came across the full "Meditation XVII" by John Donne. This piece contains a very famous phrase, but is so beautiful it deserves a full read and then a mulling-over.

It gets to the crux of my own innate sense that what happens to one of us happens to all of us; that the mistakes made by one of us have been made by all of us; that where each one of us remains open to growth of understanding we each can bring all of us along; that where one of us remains willfully blind we none of us can see. Donne's quaint and beautiful Jacobean prose still resonates so powerfully, these 386 years after he quilled them:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.

What He Said

Frank Rich in Sunday's New York Times:

PRESIDENT Obama did not offer his patented poetry in his Inaugural Address. He did not add to his cache of quotations in Bartlett’s. He did not recreate J.F.K.’s inaugural, or Lincoln’s second, or F.D.R.’s first. The great orator was mainly at his best when taking shots at Bush and Cheney, who, in black hat and wheelchair, looked like the misbegotten spawn of the evil Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Such was the judgment of many Washington drama critics. But there’s a reason that this speech was austere, not pretty. Form followed content. Obama wasn’t just rebuking the outgoing administration. He was delicately but unmistakably calling out the rest of us who went along for the ride as America swerved into the dangerous place we find ourselves now.

Worth reading the rest!

The Only Idea That Makes Any Sense

There may be a bailout plan that both Liberals and Conservatives could live with....

For the past week I have found myself wondering why nobody has been talking about saving the credit markets by means of making good on delinquent mortgages. This seems such an obvious fix, and I was gratified to see the idea written up by Jonathan G.S. Koppell and William N. Goetzmann ("The Trickle-Up Bailout") in today's Washington Post. I would think it an easier sell to Conservatives for the taxpayers to loan money to private citizens with real property as the collateral, as opposed to merely throwing freshly printed dollars at bad paper.

But there are two enormous additional benefits to the idea that are not mentioned in the article. First, by slowing or stopping the rate at which homes are being vacated, property values in American communities will stop hemorrhaging and perhaps even recover to some extent. Second, by taking action to prevent wide-scale homelessness and destitution as a result of the mortgage crisis, America would not only be in concordance with our fundamental sense of humaneness, but will also spare itself untold further costs, which I also have not heard considered in the ongoing debates.

A worker without a home is unlikely to hold his or her job for long and we will see unemployment costs rise. Families without anywhere to go will need shelter. Children dispossessed of their homes, with unemployed or severely financially distressed parents, need free school lunches, medical services, and, it is likely, more educational and psychological/emotional support from society at large.

Bail out Wall Street alone, and our next crisis will be a scenario reminiscent of the depths of the Great Depression, complete with caravans, shanty-towns and mass hunger. Loan money to homeowners, and not only are the taxpayers more likely to see some return on their money but we will avert to a huge extent the costs that nobody is talking about. And just maybe feel a lot better about our collective character as well.

And we were supposed to do What with Social Security?

Now let me get this straight --

Conservative Republicans have cried for years for that the American system of Social Security should be drastically altered to allow folks to "make their own decisions with their own money" and invest in the stock market rather than pay taxes into the kitty. I guess the idea is that if you make an unusually bad investment with your retirement money your eventual impoverishment in old age is your own damned fault and you can live in the dark and eat cat food.

And now we're being told that the taxpayers must bail out the markets or folks' pensions and retirement funds will be severely affected.

So, which is it? That taxes protect the right of our nation's elderly to live out their lives in decent conditions, or that folks have the right to choose, and will bear the responsibility of having chosen, their own investments?

Journalist of the Day: re Mr Smith goes to Washington

The best article I've seen thus far explaining McCain's decision to land in D.C. (one can see the orange jumpsuit, the deck of the aircraft carrier, the Mission Accomplished banner ... oh, wait, that was that other macho American) and then pretend to have been acting in the interest of The People ...

Frank Rich in today's NYT. Warning, Rich is pissed. Perhaps not appropriate material for folks who prefer their politics air-brushed. Here's a sample:

The question is why would a man who forever advertises his own honor toy so selfishly with our national interest at a time of crisis. I’ll leave any physiological explanations to gerontologists — if they can get hold of his complete medical records — and any armchair psychoanalysis to the sundry McCain press acolytes who have sorrowfully tried to rationalize his erratic behavior this year. The other answers, all putting politics first, can be found by examining the 24 hours before he decided to “suspend” campaigning and swoop down on the Capitol to save America from the Sunnis or the Shia, or whoever perpetrated all those credit-default swaps.

To put these 24 hours in context, you must remember that McCain not only knows little about the economy but that he has not previously expressed any urgency about its meltdown. It was on Sept. 15 — the day after his former idol Alan Greenspan pronounced the current crisis a “once-in-a-century” catastrophe — that McCain reaffirmed for the umpteenth time that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong.” As recently as Tuesday he had not yet even read the two-and-a-half-page bailout proposal first circulated by Hank Paulson last weekend. “I have not had a chance to see it in writing,” he explained. (Maybe he was waiting for it to arrive by Western Union instead of PDF.)

Quote of the Day

The inimitable Tom Wolfe on the obsolescence of Wall Street:

The Exchange is already an anachronism, like Broadway. Everything is done by computer today. Hanging out on the Floor of the Exchange is like hanging out at OTB.

Read the rest of his Masterful answers to the question, "Where are the Masters of the Universe now?"

Laugh or cry: Scary Treasury Press Conference

Dana Milbanks video-chronicles a press conference led by Assistant Treasury Secretary Phillips Swagel, in his Washington Post column Washington Sketch.



I'd not been familiar with Milbanks' vids before I clicked thru to this one. At first I laughed out loud at this because I thought it was parody. Honestly. Then I sampled a few other of Milbanks' pieces only to realize THIS WAS REAL.

Be scared.

another day another dime dropped

A startling sign of how bad the economy is -- according to the New York Times folks anxious for money to pay the bills and buy baby formula have begun breaking the oldest code in the 'hood: "Crimestoppers" tips are pouring in at record numbers.

This seems a measure of economic desperation beyond anything I've yet heard of in my 5 decades walking the planet.