Who Believes In Miracles?

Robert Reich explains that Obama is passionate about reducing income inequality, but his Big Finish is a baffler:

President Obama can afford to do the same with regard to the overriding issue of widening inequality in American society [as he did with his speech on race - see below]. He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening without deriding the rich or castigating the fortunate. Doing so would allow us to understand what he is seeking to do and why, and empower us to seek and do the same.

Uhh, if he is going to explain rising income inequality to the rest is us, he is going to have to figure out its cause and its cure, both of which seem to be mysteries.

The one sure thing - even though both economics and common sense suggests that a constant influx of unskilled workers (whether legal or illegal) cannot be helpful to raising the fortunes of the working class, that can't be mentioned.

As to whether Obama can point out the miserable job done by our public schools, well, maybe.  But castigating the uncaring rich would be the safest course.

THE RACE SPEECH:  Robert Reich mentions as an example of Obama's oratorical prowess his "courageous speech on race. He took America to a higher place by explaining what we all knew and felt but giving it a larger and nobler frame. He educated us in the best sense of the word."

That was the speech where Obama couldn't disown Jeremiah Wright, not the one where he did.  Obama also educated us to the notion that his grandmother was a deplorable racist. I can't wait for the sequel.

Comments

[Fresh Air]

Income inequality is due to technological and economic progress, which maximizes productivity and leverages human capital. It means people can become wealthier than before with less effort. The poor in our society don't get any poorer. Zero is still zero. In fact, with transfer payments and entitlements, arguably the poorest continue to get better off.

Education in this country is free; there is no excuse for not getting it. And education is the No. 1 correlative factor in determining economic success.

Putting all that aside, Zero is going to do all this crap in four years? Like hell. Like never. He may destroy White America (which is his goal, IMO), but it won't last, and from the ashes will come the death of socialism at last in this country. His fantasies of Lifting Up the Brown Peoples are ludicrous, as the people who voted for him will soon find out.

[Ignatz]

-He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening...-

Why doesn't RR get up off his knees (two lame jokes in one) and first establish this 'overriding' issue exists?

100 years ago the poor and even middle class were never far from famine and if lucky were making a couple of dollars a day, while the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts were building the largest homes in our history and buying large chunks of states at a time.
I love lefties demanding we give them our hard earned money to kill their strawmen.

[Thomas Collins]

See LUN for Thomas Sowell's dismembering of the nonsense spewed by the modern pseudo-experts on education. The standards to which students (of whatever income level, race, class or ethnicity) are held is what is key.

[Ignatz]

-Putting all that aside, Zero is going to do all this crap in four years?-

We'll be lucky if he stops at eight.

[Original MikeS]

It seems to me that wherever income equality has become the goal of a society it has resulted in a lower standard of living. Examples of this would be Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union, etc.

On the other hand, wherever a better standard of living has been the goal it has resulted in income inequality.

The moral of my story is that some people can enjoy lounging around their pool even though Bill Gates has a bigger one. Others, it seems, would give up their pool if it prevents Gates from having a bigger one.

[verner]

"He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening without deriding the rich or castigating the fortunate. Doing so would allow us to understand what he is seeking to do and why, and empower us to seek and do the same."

Translation--the poor are poor because they are, well, how do we say this, not as "gifted" as the rest of us, and um....maybe don't work as hard and um....don't send their kids to school and um...please don't call me a bad word!

[PeterUK]

"He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening ".

The kind of sycophancy which goes with a wide stance a tippy toe tapping.

[Porchlight]

The uproar about income inequality continues to baffle me. Why does *relative* socioeconomic status matter more than *absolute* socioeconomic status? If the US has the richest poor people in the world, why is the distance between them and the people at the top such a big deal?

FWIW, Gregg Easterbrook, a liberal, argued in The Progress Paradox that if you factor out immigration, the rise in income inequality disappears. He got severely criticized by the left for this analysis IIRC.

Also I don't trust government definitions of "poor." My friends whose two kids qualify for S-CHIP have a 4 (smallish) bedroom house in an expensive part of town, a car, two cell phones, high-speed internet, a nice desktop & two nice laptops, buy mostly organic groceries, spend disposable income on ebay, gardening hobbies, etc. etc. They live on one-and-a-half salaries (he works full-time, she works part-time out of the house). But they're considered to be in need of government services, apparently. So if they're counted in the numbers of "needy" Texans, no wonder the numbers are skewed.

[clarice]

Reich is dead wrong. The inequality that really matters is the metabolism inequality. How can people like Paris Hilton spend all night every night drinking and eating goodies, doing not a spit of work and stay slim as a reed while others subsisting on lettuce leaves and iced tea and slaving away---well, not so reedy?

And then there are those who garden is very expensive shoes while the rest of us are forced to wear Crocs and flip flops.

[Captain Hate]

Why does anybody give the time of day to the boring utterances of a third rate thinker like Reich? He's just as vacuous as BammerChavez.

[bad]

Obama's taken us to a higher place

WRONG!! I'VE never smoked with the dude..

LOL Clarice, I'm waiting for the day someone blames their excessive debt on trying to dress like the world's greatest example EVAH...

[narciso]

It's Reich, it's Salon, that's epic
'doubleplusungood' fail there, it seemed the stupid was more unfocused the previous
time this game was played. Of course, the CRA revisions and oil speculation was much
more powerful than a mere S&L crisis, with some collateral overseas action.

[Extraneus]

Yeah, PUK, I could almost feel Reich's stance widening as I was reading that.

[Fresh Air]

Just like the mythical 47 million uninsured, most poor people in this country are transient in their wealth status. That's why every immigrant group in American history, save the current one from south of the border, moves up the ladder with each successive generation.

Liberals make my head hurt.

[clarice]

PUK, Reich is about 4 foot 2 inches and his widest stance is still inadequate for the activity you are suggesting.

[Sue]

-He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening

Wow, he is like anduril leading Cecil where Cecil is trying to go anyway but not able to without anduril's showing him the way.

[Frau Jedöns]

Will Arne Duncan recommend Sowell's article to U.S. teachers or will he recommend Bill Ayers' educational debt propaganda? I'm waiting and watching. But not holding my breath...

The inequality carp plays well on the left side of the dial. My little college town went from Republican to Democrat in forty years. The city fathers, mostly mothers, feel that our town *must* have affordable housing so that anyone who works here, can live here. We owe it to ourselves, even if it means some would be taxed out of town. Those left will be able to say, "We town folk care!"

[PeterUK]

Clarice,
Well he could still have B and H tattooed on his buttocks.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

To the Joe the Plumber Ring of Honor add hedge fund manager Cliff Asness

Here's a shock. When hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, and individuals, including very sweet grandmothers, lend their money they expect to get it back. However, they know, or should know, they take the risk of not being paid back. But if such a bad event happens it usually does not result in a complete loss. A firm in bankruptcy still has assets. It’s not always a pretty process. Bankruptcy court is about figuring out how to most fairly divvy up the remaining assets based on who is owed what and whose contracts come first. The process already has built-in partial protections for employees and pensions, and can set lenders' contracts aside in order to help the company survive, all of which are the rules of the game lenders know before they lend. But, without this recovery process nobody would lend to risky borrowers. Essentially, lenders accept less than shareholders (means bonds return less than stocks) in good times only because they get more than shareholders in bad times.

The above is how it works in America, or how it’s supposed to work. The President and his team sought to avoid having Chrysler go through this process, proposing their own plan for re-organizing the company and partially paying off Chrysler’s creditors. Some bond holders thought this plan unfair. Specifically, they thought it unfairly favored the United Auto Workers, and unfairly paid bondholders less than they would get in bankruptcy court. So, they said no to the plan and decided, as is their right, to take their chances in the bankruptcy process. But, as his quotes above show, the President thought they were being unpatriotic or worse.

Let’s be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients’ money to share in the “sacrifice”, they are stealing. Clients of hedge funds include, among others, pension funds of all kinds of workers, unionized and not. The managers have a fiduciary obligation to look after their clients’ money as best they can, not to support the President, nor to oppose him, nor otherwise advance their personal political views. That’s how the system works. If you hired an investment professional and he could preserve more of your money in a financial disaster, but instead he decided to spend it on the UAW so you could “share in the sacrifice”, you would not be happy.

[clarice]

Good for him, Patrick.

PUK, yes he could. And that would accord with standard monograms where the last name intitial is the largest and in the middle.

[verner]

"Also I don't trust government definitions of "poor." My friends whose two kids qualify for S-CHIP have a 4 (smallish) bedroom house in an expensive part of town, a car, two cell phones, high-speed internet, a nice desktop & two nice laptops, buy mostly organic groceries, spend disposable income on ebay, gardening hobbies, etc. etc. They live on one-and-a-half salaries (he works full-time, she works part-time out of the house). But they're considered to be in need of government services, apparently. So if they're counted in the numbers of "needy" Texans, no wonder the numbers are skewed."

Sorry P, but just reading that list makes me want to come over and kick your neighbor's butts. I don't buy that kind of stuff, you don't want to know haow much income tax I paid last month, and I have two kids in college that the government isn't paying a dime for.

Just please don't tell me the deadbeats voted for Obama.

[PeterUK]

Clarice,

So he could,I never thought of that.What a honour for Obama,I'm sure it would catch on in Hollywood...and SF.

[peter]

Clarice, re: gardening footwear; there are two Americas......

[bad]

LOL, Clarice and PUK

[Rick Ballard]

"We town folk care!"

Altruism with OPM. IOW - theft, the core of Hegelian historicism in all of its manifestations. They "care" so much that they are very careful to direct what little personal giving they do to the 'right' progressive causes. Like Planned Parenthood, which successfully kills so many of those "poor" people before they draw that first unfortunate breath.

Reich's a standard issue (D)irty Fascist and has been for his entire life. What's special about this display of the minor league sophism that has been in the public eye for over twenty years? Seems like a real "dog licks dog" story to me.

[clarice]

Here's the thing about insisting on lots of low income housing in expensive areas: For the most part it is to provide the wealthier with a surer supply of help as it drives out the middle class which cannot afford the higher taxes this largesse provides. Moreover, the poorer citizens require a larger share of govt services further upping the tax burden .

Call me cynical, but I remain persuaded that except for the utterly stupid, most very rich people support moves t like this because they want to make sure those gaining on them fall further behind. What fun is it being wealthy, if almost everyone seems to be, too?

[Porchlight]

Just please don't tell me the deadbeats voted for Obama.

Of course they did. It wouldn't make sense otherwise. ;) What self-respecting conservative would consent to staying underemployed for years (the wife's last full-time job, which she quit in 2001, paid 20% more than my current job) so that he/she could qualify for government services? Because believe you me, this woman is very bright with finances, and she makes sure the tax return comes out just right for the S-CHIP people, if you know what I mean.

I know, it's disgusting. The sad thing is that the wife isn't even lazy. She works pretty hard at her web design business and raising her kids. She just won't spend money on day care (oldest kid goes to pre-K which in Austin is only available to low-income families) or health insurance if she can get the gov't to pay for it. Which, obviously, she can.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Well he could still have B and H tattooed on his buttocks.

In 9 pt agate.

[Dave]

Or something. I envision a more equal America where everyone's income is above average.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

PUK, yes he could. And that would accord with standard monograms where the last name intitial is the largest and in the middle.

Oh God I wish I'd said that.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

the core of Hegelian historicism in all of its manifestations.

Poor Hegel. No one reads him(*), everyone blames him for Marx.

* Possibly because he's nearly impentrable in German and the translations suck.

[bad]

he's nearly impentrable

This caught my eye after PUK, Clarice and Peter were so very funny.

I just can't imagine why ...

[bad]

Speaking of two America's, The ever reliable National Enquirer is reporting that Rielle is steamed at being trashed in Elizabeth's after John promised she would not be trashed in the book.

She's demanding a paternity test...

[Jane]

OT: If you haven't read Andy McCarthy today you should. LUN

The WH is using the precise argument it wants to disbar Bybee and Yoo to plead it's case in Demjanjuk v. Holder.

the Justice Department filed a brief in a case called Demjanjuk v. Holder in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Ohio. The brief urges the federal courts to consider the same torture analysis over which Holder is targeting the Bush lawyers with such fanfare. You can read the brief here. [A PDF will have to do: After discussing the Justice Department’s hypocrisy on NRO’s Off the Page, I can no longer locate the brief on the site where I first found it on Sunday.]

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

[bad]

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Trademark it, Jane. It's going to get said a lot....

[laura]

Hey Jane
OT are you wireless.

[PeterUK]

Obama - Change you can't recover from.

[clarice]

Two different offices at DoJ--The Demjanjuk brief is by my old office and I espect no one even noticed the discrepency.

As I sais the other day when the OLC draft memo was leaked--it ain't going to happen..there will be no referral to any bar associations for discipline..If there is , how convenient, that this brief by the DoJ is so on point and compels a rejection of any complaint.

*wink*

[Captain Hate]

The Demjanjuk case has been one of interest to me, particularly how the Justice Department used Soviet input in making their case against somebody from the Ukraine and the Israeli courts determined that his guilt couldn't be proven. I don't believe anybody's ever absolutely identified him as being guilty of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time; anybody thinking that a young person in Nazi occupied territory had a choice about where he would be employed is just delusional. Maybe he is guilty but, given the situation, it can't be proven in this world.

[glasater]

Kudlow is having Lauria on shortly.

[Captain Hate]

Clarice, have I misstated anything? I'll obviously defer to you if there's something I got wrong.

[sbw]

Before explaining why income inequality is widening, can anyone... and this means you Robert Reich, explain precisely why I should be concerned?

If some earn big bucks, they either spend it or invest it. Either pumps the velocity of money and raises the GDP, leading to an increase in the wealth of the nation that, in turn, offers more opportunity for the least of us to participate.

Enforced equality, as we have seen, leads to contraction and wealth destruction, harming precisely those you'd like to help.

[Caro]

Laura, Jane is wireless if you can pick up the "Hastings household."

(Hi, Jane.)

[Old Lurker]

FA gets the bumper sticker this week at 4:04:

"Liberals make my head hurt"

[narciso]

I can't get worked up over the likes of John Demjajuk, pleading any kind of
complaint, I hated when Buchanan took up his cause, and ditto for Traficant. 60 plus years, is enough justice deferred. Of course the likes of Kaganovich or Andropov as well as Honecker died quietly in their sleep, than really does bite. But there's got to be a word greater than chutzpah to
characterize the Justice Department's response.

[Jane]

Laura I am I am.

[Jane]

Caro,

How is life on the water?

[JM Hanes]

"He can connect the dots for us, allowing us to understand why inequality is widening..."

Jeez. We've turned into Babytalk Nation! When the rich get richer, the income gap widens even if the poor are better off than they were before. That's what's fundamentally dishonest about the Social Democrat agenda. In what is emblematic day-late-dollar-short irony, Obama jumps on the distributive bandwagon right when the OECD announces that the bandwagon ain't looking so good:

“Although the role of the tax and benefit system in redistributing incomes and in curbing poverty remains important in many OECD countries, our data confirms that its effectiveness has gone down in the past ten years.

I took a look at the European model in Banana Peels & Gorillas over at Quasiblog last month. Scroll down to This Is Not Your Daddy's Fairness Doctrine.

Porchlight has it nailed. Redistributors don't recognize "absolute socioeconomic status" or even poverty, per se. They talk about "income poverty" which is defined as anything below the median. It's a demographic double whammy on this side of the pond: We have one of the highest median incomes and some of the richest rich. Chart that continuum and you're looking at the Social Dem's worst nightmare. If we were all equally poor, we'd be a Social Dem success.

[Caro]

the rest of us are forced to wear Crocs and flip flops.

Crocs have definitely taken over in the cruising set. Flip flops are out.

How is life on the water? It is wonderful, of course. I have been adjusting the solar panels three times a day which is necessary to run the fridge and my computer. Yesterday the only boat nearby lent me a modem and a booster antenna which I can plug into and pick up an internet connection from shore about a half mile away. The newest fun is Texas Hold Em two nights a week.

[JM Hanes]

Actually, you have to scroll past "This Is Not Your Daddy's Fairness Doctrine" to "Continental Gorillas in Yankee Living Rooms" for the Euro model discussion. I was talking about the push for "equitable compensation" in the first, and where it was headed in the second.

[Caro]

JMH, Porchlight has it nailed. Redistributors don't recognize "absolute socioeconomic status" or even poverty, per se. They talk about "income poverty" which is defined as anything below the median.

I so agree. I have resented that I show up as living below the poverty level while on my small boat. I am content but being used statistically against my will.

[Old Lurker]

Glad to see you're speaking English tonight, Charlie. :-)

[Thomas Collins]

Levity alert! See LUN.

[sbw]

Clarice: the rest of us are forced to wear Crocs

Clarice, if you have a chance to try on honest-to-goodness Dutch klompen - wooden shoes - the regular farmer kind, they are the most comfortable shoes for the garden. A pair of crew socks are all you need. You can order 'em online or, better yet, visit the equivalent of a farm store in rural Netherlands.

[bad]

There is a total hottie at Tapper named Foghorn Leghorn.

I say, I say, I SAY SON!!!!

Dibs

[Extraneus]

I assume you all know that The Manolo is down on the Crocs.

[Rick Ballard]

JMH,

That's a very nice piece. I didn't realize that the OECD used DPI as the basis for comparison. If DPI is the standard that Reich is using then the fact that the low 40% (using "renters" as the qualifier) commits 26% of its income to debt service while "owners" commit 6% will be rather difficult to overcome. (The BEA subtracts personal interest from income prior to arriving at Disposable Personal Income.

OL,

Treasury paid 8% more today at the 10 year auction than they did last month. They paid +6% yesterday at the 3 year auction - and then the Fed picked up another $7 billion of the 3 year today. Pure debt monetization. I'm not going to try a third link in one comment but there's a nice piece in that Free Will up on the top left under "Personal Collection" re the Chrysler theft.

[DavidL]

Barack Obama has made a career of offering explainations. The one has also made it a habit to demonstrate a complete lack understanding. Which to say, there little, if any relationship, between what the problem was, and Obama's explanation for it. Obama can't get past straw dogs.

[clarice]

Capt--Yes, you are wrong:

Many of the original Nazi documents had been captured by the Soviets and after thorough investigation of them by forensic experts were determined to be authentic.

That evidence was used in countless trials without problem.

With respect to Demjanjuk we had overlapping registrations in two different camps for a short period of time.Historians established to our satisfaction that bookkeeping errors (dates for example) were not that uncommon.

For the purposes of deportation and denaturalization it did not matter which camp(s) he was in when because he claimed not to have been a concentration camp guard at all and lying on the visa papers and working for the Nazis was enough.

OSI made a terrible mistake, however, in agreeing to extradite him for trial as Ivan the Terrible because for that purpose it mattered where he was on a particular time.

(That's the short answer).

To give you an idea how thoroughly we vetted those documents--in one trial in which I was involved we had an historian attest to the Soviet capture of those records; we had the affidavit of the Soviet authorities as to where they'd been stored; we had certified translations of the documents;we had forensic experts testifying about the ink, paper, typewriter, photographic evidence and fingerprint on one document alone.

[Neo]

The biggest reason for the widening of income inequality is an interview I saw with a "poor man" in a bread line in NYC. When asked exactly what kind of possession he had at home, they included a color TV, a VCR, a video station and multiple games.

Frankly, this man had achieved the "American Dream" ... so why work any harder ... and the the soup was free.

Those members of our nation and and those in truly poorer nations who are still working hard to find their level of satisfaction are the real problem with income inequality .. they keep working and making more and more money ... which of course must be taken by the government in the name of equality ... in the name of being fair to those lazy doats like the fellow I described above.

[clarice]

Maybe we should rethink this.

It is pure chance that we were born smart enough to good enough families to be able to take care of ourselves..so for those whose dads are just sperm donors or whose intellectual gifts are insufficient to thrive in this modern era, or whose upbringing was so deficient that they lack a work ethic, maybe we should just SHARE more.

OTH if you carry this forward, even those at the bottom of the heap in the US are demonstrably better off than many many many people in the middle and top of a lot of places so maybe we can't really achieve that goal. After all, what's fair?

I mean I do not have Paris Hilton's metabolism or Caroline Kennedy's pots of dough or $550 gardening shoes.
Talk about un-fa-ir.

[Captain Hate]

Clarice, thanks for the explanation; I'm kind of glad not to be on the same side as Buchanan and Traficant.

[rhymin' simon]

It was cinco d mayo why did he not go to Taco Bell or Chipotle instead of Ray's Hell Burger. I know we are living through Hell on earth here now a days. Maybe he just wants to show that he will not try what Bloomberg is doing in New York as far as nutritional content. I thought he may have to add an additional tax because it will lead to some carbon emission.

[bad]

While we're on the subject of groovy footwear, Mr. bad and I have observed that crocs are a frequent choice for the flying public. We assume because of the need to take off shoes for security.

Or they're just really fashionable....

[PeterUK]

Clarice,But you're taller than Reich,not married to Obama,Hilton and Kennedy have the brains of the gardening shoes.What is so bad?

[Neo]

Obama is passionate about reducing income inequality

Isn't this a big warning to anybody with money who even thinks about joining in with the Obama/Geithner Toxic Assets Reduction Plan.

I mean, why should anybody with money not fear that in the end they won't have it any more ?

[verner]

Porch, next time you see the deadbeat neighbor, tell her there's a lady in Nashville who would appreciate a THANK YOU note for all the money she's shelled out paying for her brats healthcare.

And that she can take all those organic veggies and place them into her posterior organic recycling outlet.

And if I ever meet her, I will say so to her deadbeat face.

[PeterUK]

"crocs are a frequent choice for the flying public"

That's because they can be moulded out of Semtex.

[Porchlight]

And if I ever meet her, I will say so to her deadbeat face.

Fair enough, verner! I'll tell her. And I would love to see you tell her off. :)

[Rick Ballard]

"I mean, why should anybody with money not fear that in the end they won't have it any more ?"

Neo,
I'd really like to hear the answer to that from the PIMCO and Goldman-Sachs Partners in Fascism.

[clarice]

PUK, because--following Obama-Reich's argument-- I want to HAVE EVERYTHING. Not just a lot.

If they didn't mean this, they'd see the wisdom of sharing their (and all Americans', all Westerners' , in fact)homes with hard working Indian and Bangladesh and Chinese farming families. Fair is fair.

You're welcome, Capt.

[bad]

Clarice, it's even more unfair than you realize. The gardening boots were $775.

I'm struggling with the unfairness of it all... for Jimmie Choo.

[verner]

And Porch, I would love to tell her off. It would make my day.

[Stephanie]

Wearing crocs on a plane is dangerous. Several kids at the Atlanta Airport have had their feet caught in the escalators and required extensive foot surgery to repair. Seems crocs are tasty morsels that escalators devour by grabbing them between the stairs and the side of the escalator.

Next time you travel, wear athletic shoes.

Neal Boortz' screener Brenda's young son was injured in just such an accident last summer and was hospitalized for several days.

Women with small feet are also at risk. The smaller the crocs, the higher the likelihood of injury.

[Old Lurker]

Rick, ya ain't seen nothin yet on those rate increases.

[Extraneus]

Yeah, Stephanie. The Manolo is also down on the safety of the Crocs.

[centralcal]

Busy day at work today, so I am trying to rapidly catch up and digest this comment thread ...

Several funny (as in howler) comments from our esteemed regulars.

And, bad, I am now off to read Foghorn Leghorn at Tappers (I knew you would dump Dickie . . . you just needed a good man).

[Danube of Thought]

If Fred drives his cab eighty hours a week in an effort to set aside some money for his grandchildren, and Johnny drives his cab forty hours a week so that he can devote more time to fishing, what would Mr. Obama think Fred's income should be relative to Johnny's?

[Extraneus]

Wouldn't that make Johnny disadvantaged, DoT?

[verner]

Since y'all are all over here...be sure to read this editorial from the Hindustan Times.

They don't love Obama, they really don't...

[Rick Ballard]

"what would Mr. Obama think Fred's income should be relative to Johnny's?"

Exactly the same, less the penalty that Fred must pay for taking another work units place for the additional 40 hours. I really need to rework the SoLunar Windmill proposal on the basis of Obanomics. Gotta cut pack on production efficiency and really cut down on the hours of operation between repairs.

[centralcal]

Interesting, Verner . . . very, very interesting. Thank you for the link. The world is looking at Zero and seeing zero?

[clarice]

OT: Noemie Emery has another winner:
[quote]We can all thank Clifford May for having gotten Jon Stewart to say (at least for a while) that President Harry S. Truman was a “war criminal” for, among other things, the two atom bombs that he ordered dropped on Japan.

This is a window into what has emerged as a curious mindset, which seems to believe that a) America’s leaders owe more to the enemy than they do to their allies and people, b) that one can wage war in a fastidious manner, deterring or defeating bloodthirsty people without resorting to ugliness, and c), that anything done by Americans to win a war, end a war, or forestall an attack on the country and the people is wrong.

This began to emerge even before Iraq, George W. Bush, and the issue of “torture,” in the late 1990’s, when the Smithsonian mounted a display of the Enola Gay suggesting the bombing was a matter of race-induced genocide, and forgetting to mention such things as a) the fact that Japan started the war with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, b) the Japanese atrocities against helpless civilians, and c) the thousands and thousands of Allied and American servicemen whose lives had been saved by the end of the war.[/quote]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/NoemieEmery/Lefts-torture-logic-could-kill-you-44445707.html#comments>Torture Logic

[verner]

Read it Clarice. BRILLIANT. Obama is the first president in American history that hates America.

[RichatUF]

Rick-

Wouldn't you run afoul of the Obama Youth Green Corps? I'd hate for you to get sent to the Polar Bear Feeding Project in Barrow.

Also, in re: your 10-year, any thoughts that the rally in oil from its low of 38 a few weeks back, back to 56, is related to the Feds purchases of Treasuries. If the Treasuries are being monetized in a matter of days, fund managers would be parking it in something physical to weather the storm, and the peaker/warmer scam still has to finish playing out.

Would seem to be an awfully quick reaction to what the Fed and Treasury are doing though?

[verner]

C-Cal, the world looks at him and sees fluff and weakness. They think the "blather" over "torture" is ridiculous.

His world peace and friendship tour is a major bust. Only our enemies like him, for obvious reasons.

[Rick Ballard]

OT

Rich - another one for you. Chevron just brought the first Tahiti production on line. Gurgle.

[Danube of Thought]

One of my favorites in the Torture Logic Drama is when we are reminded (very misleadingly) that we prosecuted certain Japanese officers for waterboarding American prisoners, hence the Bush devils should get a dose of the same medicine.

We also executed German spies. I suppose that, to show how even-handed we are, we should have executed our own spies as well.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Dunno about the 10 year/oil play. I think mebbe the contango players are a bit ahead of themselves. GS is calling for $45 June/July. Apparently they want to screw their clients in the bond market for a while longer in order to give Turbo a hand. I wonder what they tell the clients saddled with an 8% one month loss on last month's 10 year auction? They probably have them covered with repos and special "black box" transactions (at just a small, nominal fee).

[pagar]

Has anyone considered that many of us have watched this income inequality theme play out over the past 40 years in Cuba. A land where the average salary is almost nothing. The latest car models are from the 1950s, and everyone is uniformly poor except the Castros seem to show up on Forbes Wealthiest list. I suspect that is a land that Obama considers a role model for us.

[clarice]

I plan on making up for any losses this quarter by shorting Specter.

Seriously, how long do you suppose it will take before we have our first bi-partisan murder in the Senate cloakroom.

[RichatUF]

Rick-

I'm still kicking myself in the ass for not finishing that article for AT, I was working on before the blow up, "The Oil Crisis, Dollar Crisis, and Active Measures". Should revisit it.

Wow, that well is deep. Nice to know that Norway and France have no problems with drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, but the idiot Governor and legislature here in Florida are more worried about solar panels and spoilt views of the Gulf coast, while Obama is stalling on the replacement for the Shuttle (NASA is still without an Administrator), cutting the F22 and missile defense. Crist and the GOP clown corp will probably introduce a state income tax and onshore, non-indian gambling casinos (a suspecion of mine has been some "casino lining" in my small slice of Florida) to finally put themselves out of their misery.

[Mescalero]

Typical obtuse liberal crap. This is but one example of why I stopped reading anything by the less than credible Reich.

[centralcal]

Okay - I am going to go find Senator Sessions web site and donate modestly (because I am not wealthy) to him. I can only gripe and complain so much. I have stopped contributing to the GOP, electing instead to send my money to those who earn it.

It is my small way of supporting voices that echo mine.

I know - this is not the topic here, but I hope others will follow suit.

[RichatUF]

Rick-

I guess my other question would be how much debt has the Fed monetized to date and is there an upper bound?

[narciso]

Doesn't a stock have to have value, before you short it, that's the main problem right there. Ah Rich, tell me about it, the Florida legislature, along with a few others, really does earn the label John Stuart Mill, tagged the Conservatives with; 'the stupid party' Charlie took the stimulus, but they cut programs and raised taxes on everything from cigarettes to magazines. Chain Gang Charlie, figures to scoot over to the Senate before the whole house of cards topples over. Marcos Rubio looks like he'll run too, he has some good
ideas. Probably leaving fmr Bank of America
exec and State Treasurer Alex Sink in the cat bird's seat. Yes, Pagar, it does seem that's what he wants, will he most of it; I don't know, I hope not.

[clarice]

Love this bit:
[quote]Elizabeth Edwards has hit the chat show circuit to hawk her new memoir “Resilience.” Her interview with Oprah airs Thursday. Elizabeth has some important lessons to teach the young women of today. The most important of these lessons is to be nothing like her, though I’m pretty sure that’s not the message she is trying to send.

Typically, when someone whines about his or her circumstances, I take a common sense approach and start by blaming the victim. The fact is that bad things tend to happen to people who make bad, or at least dumb, decisions.
[/quote]

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/05/06/big_hollywood_elizabeth_edwards/

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

Don't forget that there will be a "flight to safety" after GS turns off this thin volume equity rally. That's their big payoff to Turbo as a Friend of Fascism. After yields drop on that totally predictable occurrence the climb is going to be pretty steep. Maybe last months 10 year buyers will get well on the drop from that play.

There are definitely real "green shoots" appearing. I hope the obvious market shenanigans don't crush them.

[Rick Ballard]

Rich,

LIBOR just dropped back under 1% so I wouldn't count much as being monetized prior to last weeks purchase of 7 year paper. Only the 3 year and over buys should really count. The less than 3 year stuff will roll off on refunding.

I'm still puzzling over that Hindustan Times piece that Verner linked. It sure sounds like they've taken the President's measure. With a micrometer. I wonder how long it will take India to get to "If you won't, we will." wrt Pakistan?

[JM Hanes]

Best. Gardening. Shoes. Evah!

I'd tell you how much they cost, but I've been wearing them so long, I can't even remember where I got them.