It's just my opinion, I could be wrong

Some quick thoughts, nothing too in-depth: - Good speech, as expected, but... is it just me, or does the empty rhetoric sound more obviously empty and dishonest now? I mean, politicians usually do a pretty good job of disguising it, especially in meticulously-prepared speeches, but there were a few parts where I thought even marginally-informed people might be groaning and thinking "oh, common...". Maybe just my take, though. - Carbon credits bit was kinda funny; liked the joke about it being the thing the country needs right now. I mean, regardless of if you think pandering to the global warming cult is a worthwhile thing for our government to be doing with our money or not, you'd have to agree that imposing additional crippling costs on our few remaining industries in the middle of a recession when we're desperately struggling to preserve the limited viable private-sector industries which are left is the last thing the country needs right now. It was nice to have a...

Apologies in advance if this is long and boring, but I figured since I've been thinking about it for a while, I should write down what I would do to smooth out the natural down-cycles of the economy, if I were so inclined, with the minimum amount of "bad" effects. This is not to say that I think it's necessarily what the government should be doing (although I'm getting inclined to think so), but assuming that it's the goal, here's the "correct" way to do it, as far as I can think of to date. First, background on why I'm thinking the government should be doing something. Since roughly 2000, we have been in a worldwide credit bubble, which has inflated the valuation of virtually everything. Now that the bubble is correcting, asset values are returning to normal (and will probably overshoot normal), and personal spending has decreased substantially, probably below "normal" in a steady economy. Now, increasing the personal savings rate ...

On today's episode, we have the Democratic legislature of California, who could not get the necessary three votes from Republicans to pass their budget. This is primarily due to the massive tax hikes and temporary non-solutions, although it is notable that one Republican said he would vote for the measure (giving enough votes to pass it) if the legislature only added a provision to stop paying themselves when the state had no budget: a proposition which was apparently rejected by the Democrats as too onerous. But wait, it's gets dumber. Tonight, apparently, the Democrats are preparing to stage a "lock in" of the state Congress, until another Republican capitulates to their bullying and votes to pass their load of garbage they call a budget. So, if I understand correctly: they think that by using pressure, intimidation, and physical confinement for a couple of days, they can force someone to abandon their principles and essential betray the state? Yeah... I'm sure ...

So California has a budget proposal which is currently being debated, and since I still live in California, I feel like I should be paying attention to what our local idiots are doing now. And by idiots, I mean our idiotic "leaders" who nominally have the best interests of the state in mind as they over-spend the state into financial oblivion. Anyway, the latest budget proposal has many hair-brained schemes, doesn't close the budget gap, and primarily relies on federal bailouts to keep the spending party going (for a real solution, see my "zero-day budget" idea which I blogged about a while ago). The LA Times had an opinion piece about businesses being a big winner in the budget proposal, at the expense of normal people, at a time when the budget is in peril, and only added to buy Republican votes; the author was obviously not a fan. What the change does, per the article, is this: Under the proposed changes, companies would no longer be required to pay state ta...

Today the NY Times had an article about how America is following in Japan's footsteps in creating a lost decade of economic activity by trying in vain to prop up failed banks and the housing market. While I agree with the premise, I have to take small issue with their conclusion, which was that the US wasn't throwing enough money away. To wit, to quote from the article: Only in 2003 did the government finally take the actions that helped lead to a recovery: forcing major banks to submit to merciless audits and declare bad debts; spending two trillion yen to effectively nationalize a major bank, wiping out its shareholders; and allowing weaker banks to fail. Aside from nationalizing a major bank (which they probably felt they needed to do to keep lending subsidized), what did they do? Let's see, they: - Forced banks to realize their bad debts and deal with the consequences - Wiped out the shareholders of public banks which were insolvent - Let insolvent banks fail Hm... I w...

War court asked to examine Gaza war This is kinda interesting; I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, it's just kinda interesting in a circuitous manner. As described in the article, the international court can bring charges against any citizen of a country which is a signatory to the court, and prosecute crimes which occurred within territories of the same. Now, the facts of this case are: - The Palestinian Authority, which claims legal authority over the Gaza strip, despite having no de-facto authority there or government presence there, has asked the court to investigate war crimes that may have occurred there by Isreali troops during the latest incursion into Gaza - The debate currently is if they have standing to ask for an investigation; if they do, an investigation could follow - Isreal is not a signatory to the court, so the court cannot prosecute Isreali soldiers or citizens, but if they find they have standing, then they can investigate the actions of Hamas ...

The government's current plan for "saving" the banks got me thinking. See, the current plan goes something like this: instead of dumping more money into the black hole of insolvency that is most of the large banks who took enormous risks chasing leveraged returns during the housing bubble, we'll get private investors to do so with their money. How exactly do we do that? By essentially providing insurance that when they sell the worthless assets, they will be worth as much as the banks sold them to the private investors for. "But wait a second," you might ask, "how is this different from the government just buying those worthless assets at face value, or just giving money to the banks directly and cutting out the middle man?" It is a good question: the end-result would be the same, the colossal waste of public money would be the same, and the effect on the economy (hint: all bad) would be the same. However, like the giant derivatives debacle which h...

Originally, I was going to title this "... Will Fail", but that would be misleading. The goal of the massive pork wasteful spending plan isn't to help the country, as many politicians claim; rather it is designed to give special-interest handouts to Democrat supporters and push the Democrat agenda, at the expanse of the country. To this end, I believe it will be a success, just like the original New Deal was a success at pushing a largely socialist agenda on the American people during a time of crisis. Why am I convinced this plan is not even an attempt to help the country? Read on... First, I would recommend reading this blog post , which describes in fairly good detail why the original New Deal was a complete failure at helping the US economy. To quote from a quoted article, In 2004, a team of UCLA economists concluded that the policies of the New Deal, which suppressed competition and kept unemployment in the range of nine to 16 percent, actually prolonged the Great De...

So I saw a link to this article , explaining what a "bad bank" was. Only, I initially read the headline as "bad idea" bank, which I thought was actually much more indicative, descriptive, and factual (so I was somewhat disappointed with the actual piece, which was fluffy, misleading, and not particularly interesting). So, here's my revision. :) Obama's 'bad idea' bank: What it is, how it would work and its potential drawbacks By me February 6, 2009 As President Obama's administration considers its next step to help a troubled economy, one of the ideas being considered is the creation of a "bad bank" to help the financial sector. Here are answers to some of the key questions that surround the proposal. What is a bank? A bank is a place where people put their money and, in exchange for the bank's use of the money, earn interest. Banks use their customers' deposits to make loans, usually to big corporations, and as collateral for b...

Side note: I usually dislike Rush Limbaugh, and find him overly right-wing for my tastes, but I do like his characterization of the gigantic pork wasteful spending package currently being inflated by both parties in Congress as the "porkulus" bill... kinda has a if not nice, extremely accurate ring to it. Anyway... I hesitate to say "the" sad think about the enormous waste bill, as in fact there are many, many sad things about it. For example, it's sad that we're going to flush such an incomprehensibly gigantic amount of money down the toilet of special interest payouts. It's also sad that Congress is so corrupt, that even as a few voices of sanity can be heard proclaiming that the bill is a gigantic waste, the contemptible "financial conservative" Republicans are busy adding their own corrupt worthless scum pork to the bill. Surely some people must be also sad for future generations of Americans, who will either pay for this colossal waste wit...

So I was up insanely early this morning (illness, sleep schedule hosed, not important), and I caught Meet the Press on TV. One of the panels had John Kerry and another Senator from Taxes (Republican), and they were talking about the pork spending bill. Now, normally I'm pretty much with the Republicans on their thoughts: the Republican Senator sounded like she "got it", and John Kerry came off as a liberal pushing his agenda (which, of course, he is). However, I have to say (as shocking as this was to me), that I found myself actually agreeing with Kerry about how the government should handle the banks and their "toxic assets" problem. First, as an aside, let me say that the term "toxic assets" is misleading and disingenuous; the near-worthless mortgage securities which banks have on their books would better be termed "unrealized gambling losses", as that both better conveys their actual genesis, and doesn't make it sound like they were n...