Bookie-Client Confidentiality

I have a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell:

Data reported in the news media and other sources show that the prices, or spreads, on California CDS wrongly brand our bonds as a greater risk than those issued by such nations as Kazakhstan, Croatia, Bulgaria and Thailand. The perception ofrisk could adversely affect the price of our bonds when we go to market. That makes the CDS market important to our taxpayers. That is why I want to fully understand the municipal CDS market in general, the market for California CDS, and [Goldman-Sachs'] role in these markets.

Lockyer is feeling the heat, but then again, anyone stupid enough to take the job of California State Treasurer deserves to roast in his own juices. California doesn't need Goldman-Sachs to ruin its prospects for funding and recovery; the majority of Californians have already mastered the art of economic destruction, and had been hard at work long before this Depression began to manifest.

The ship's going down, and they're arguing about the position of the deck chairs.

Negative Rights

This is, unfortunately, not the worst of it (links to .PDF):

JUSTICE GINSBURG: But I really would like you to answer the question that you didn't have an opportunity to finish answering, and that is: What other enumerated rights? What does the privileges and immunities of United States citizenship embrace?

MR. GURA: The unenumerated rights, Justice Ginsburg?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The popular wisdom is correct: anyone can grow up to be a Justice, Senator, or President. Anyone.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- The story is slightly aged, but it's probably still fresher than the last packet from Telkom.

- "Muskelkraft Flieger" would also make a great rock-band name.

- They're trying, but without a towel and large, friendly letters reading "DON'T PANIC", this is going nowhere fast.

- Having decided to take my chances without the above, I'd like to have one of these instead. (With video goodness.)

- Evidently, we're just not modeling hard enough; pass the chicken entrails and bones, please.

- Speaking of financial modeling...

"Time? What time do you think we have?"

Obama isn't an 'A' student, and he definitely doesn't know much about history...

In one of his first major decisions on trade policy, President Obama opted Friday to impose a tariff on tires from China, a move that fulfills his campaign promise to "crack down" on imports that unfairly undermine American workers but risks angering the nation's second-largest trading partner.

The decision is intended to bolster the ailing U.S. tire industry, in which more than 5,000 jobs have been lost over the past five years as the volume of Chinese tires in the market has tripled.

It comes at a sensitive time, however. Leaders from the world's largest economies are preparing to gather in Pittsburgh in less than two weeks to discuss more cooperation amid tensions over trade.

The tire tariff will amount to 35 percent the first year, 30 percent the second and 25 percent the third.

Although a federal trade panel had recommended higher levies -- of 55, 45 and 35 percent, respectively -- the decision is considered a victory for the United Steelworkers union, which filed the trade complaint.

Hey, here's an idea: how about deliberately angering the largest creditors of the United States with a tariff, then following it up with yet another bond-auction? Obviously, China isn't worried about our ability to repay the staggering amount of debt that the Federal Government has accumulated, so why not?

The spread between AA-investment grade corporates and 10- year Treasuries was 2.07 percent today. The average for this year has been 3.151 percent.

The U.S. government is concerned about overall demand for Treasuries, not appetite from individual countries, said David Dollar, the U.S. Treasury Department’s economic and financial emissary to China.

“The interest rate on long-term Treasury bonds is at a very low level by historical standards,” Dollar said at the World Economic Forum meeting yesterday in Dalian, China. “That says that the market has confidence the U.S. will get the fiscal problem under control.” The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have spent, lent or committed more than $12 trillion in a bid to revive the economy and credit markets.

Very interesting, Mr. Dollar. (I realize that this is beginning to sound akin to a Bond script.) As much as we would like to believe that you are not defrauding the American taxpayers, that isn't what we've heard from our sources in China!

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China's green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed's recourse to "credit easing".

"We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again," he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

"If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies," he said.

In all seriousness, I'm having a difficult time imagining a more historically predictable or utterly asinine way of handling a severe market-correction.

Now, I would like to attribute as much of this behavior to either good-natured ignorance or old-fashioned congenital idiocy, but the limit of this behavior is fast approaching deliberate, calculated evil, as I find that the collection of "our best and brightest" on Capitol Hill cannot or will not drop the pitched slap-fight over non-issues to address the debt. Indeed, they seem to be doing everything within their power to not only avoid it, but to exacerbate and accelerate its arrival.

The hour is later than you think.

WTS: Choppah, LNIB

It's a nice gesture, but that's about as far as it goes:

State officials estimate the giant two-day yard sale being held at a state warehouse will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. In addition to clearing out office products, the state is also selling unclaimed property from state parks and items confiscated by law enforcement, said California Department of General Services spokesman Eric Lamoureux.

The prison department contributed dental chairs and surplus prison shirts and jeans.

"This is a win-win for the state and for shoppers," Schwarzenegger said in a statement Tuesday announcing that a selection of items also would be sold on eBay and Craigslist. "Together we are eliminating waste and providing great deals in this tough economy."

Quick math check: being excessively generous and estimating to a cool one million fiat-bills, out of twenty-six billion dollars of debt, that comes to four one-thousandths of one percent of the total state debt.

I'm really glad these modern, forward-thinking politicians are on the job, or else the Peoples' Republik might be in real trouble.

Perhaps we should send unicorns and rainbows

As the saying goes, the truth will out:

Britain's violent crime record is worse than any other country in the European union, it has been revealed.

Official crime figures show the UK also has a worse rate for all types of violence than the U.S. and even South Africa - widely considered one of the world's most dangerous countries.

What a devastatingly obvious result: disarming an entire nation, flooding it with third-world immigrants that have zero desire to assimilate into the native culture, and cracking down on the native citizenry in ways that would make the old Soviet Politburo green with envy creates a perfect environment for criminal activity.

Don't think it won't happen here.

Shocked! Shocked!

Evidently, the "increased transparency" in governance has been extended to assertions made while under investigation:

The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee came to the defense of the National Security Agency today, saying that the federal agency didn’t commit flagrant abuses in its program to intercept American’s phone calls and emails — but stopped short of denying that the agency had overstepped its bounds or broken the law.

To quote Rick, "I don't mind a parasite. I object to a cut-rate one." One would think that the least Pelosi and Feinstein could do would be to share a successful strategy for working the press on their respective denials. Pathetic.

But wait, there's more!

Meanwhile, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized Attorney General Eric Holder, for refusing to declare that the warrantless wiretapping program started under the Bush administration is against the law. Holder testified before the committee today.

“I was disappointed by Attorney General Holder’s unwillingness to repeat what both he and President Obama had stated in the past – that President Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program was illegal,” Feingold said in a statement. “For an administration that has repeatedly stated its intention to restore the rule of law, this episode was a step backward.

I suspect that realizing the importance of the case, they are rounding up twice the usual number of suspects.

The week in review

I wandered out of my den this last week (all the way up to Portland, in fact), and I'm forecasting at least another six weeks of bureaucratic incompetence, hysterical hand-wringing, and breathless hype regarding, well, everything.

Some days, it just does not pay to go outside.

Stuff your tea and crumpets

The Sons of Liberty they ain't:

But a funny thing happened en route to a visually pleasing Tax Day protest. The National Park Service said the tea party protesters didn't have the proper permit to dump their bags.

So instead of a raucous visual demonstration, all that was left were images of the tea party packing up their boxes of tea on a cold, soggy day in D.C.

Doh!"

We have a million tea bags here, and we don't have a place to put them because it's not on our permit," said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party.

Fight the power, folks, but next time check your permits before acquiring 1 million tea bags.

I've had a few brief discussions amongst friends and acquaintances over the last week or so regarding the April 15th Tea Parties; I remained largely ambivalent about the protest until today, as I was only mildly curious about the turn-out both locally and nation-wide.

I have to say, I am not impressed. When you folks get serious about this, you know where I am.

The Eye of the Hurricane

"I believe it is peace prosperity for our time."

World leaders on Thursday heralded the G20 summit as the day the world “fought back against the recession” as they put on a show of unity that lifted global markets and mapped out a new future for financial regulation.

Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, host of the summit, said the meeting marked the emergence of a “new world order”, as he unveiled what leaders claimed was a $1,100bn package of measures to tackle the global downturn, including support for lower income countries and a $250bn plan to boost the international money supply.

The Dow crested above 8,000 today, and gold is almost below $900 per ounce: opportunity knocks.

Carving away the self-lauding double-speak, the various appointed representatives agreed to inflate the the money supply, which as has been mentioned before, does absolutely nothing to alleviate market-correction or compounding failure that is systemic to the fiat-currency banking structure. Indeed, the only thing that continued government-endorsed credit-expansion does in a correction is prolong the correction, and this will be no exception.

It would seem that Chamberlain's ghost still haunts Downing Street.

"There was no comment from the White House."

Yet another of minion of Caesar balks at rendering unto the State:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently corrected three years of tax returns and paid more than $7,000 in back taxes after finding "unintentional errors"—the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

The Kansas governor explained the changes to senators in a letter dated Tuesday that the administration released. She said they involved charitable contributions, the sale of a home and business expenses.

Sebelius said she filed the amended returns as soon as the errors were discovered by an accountant she hired to scrub her taxes in preparation for her confirmation hearings. She and her husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge in Kansas, paid a total of $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest to amend returns from 2005-2007.

Best quip thus far:

"We know now that Obama really isn't Jesus... Jesus could build a cabinet."

Czech please!

Perhaps they just needed to have more confidence in their economic recovery:

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- The collapse of the Czech government threatened a new setback for the European Union’s stalled governing treaty, distracting the bloc’s leadership just as President Barack Obama presses for bolder European steps to confront the recession.

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek is set to tender his resignation today after losing a March 24 no-confidence vote, raising a new hurdle to passage of the treaty by lawmakers in Prague. A setback there may undercut a referendum in Ireland, the only other country that still hasn’t ratified it.

The defeat also hamstrung the Czech government midway through its six-month EU presidency, opening a political vacuum in the run-up to European Parliament elections and a battle over top EU appointments in June.

Naturally, this does not hamper the normal operating-procedure of the EU in any way whatsoever. Maybe. Probably.

Czech President Vaclav Klaus, 67, a self-professed EU “dissident,” will pick a new prime minister or dissolve the parliament if efforts to form a government fail. Klaus said on Feb. 19 he was “not ready to answer” whether he will give his final approval to the treaty if it makes it through the Senate.

I'm sure this turn of events is breaking hearts in Ireland at this very moment.

Crows, Gold and Three-Card Monte

The Mogambo Guru offers up yet another keen insight:

Although Mr, Zuckerman does not mention me directly, he says, “For years, big gold fans were fast-moving traders and so-called gold bugs, a crowd of bears ever-convinced that the underpinnings of global economies and markets were set to crumble” which not only describes me to a freaking T, but is exactly what happened!

He also describes me pretty well, too, when he says, “Gold has disappointed some investors because it hasn’t been a home-run investment despite continuing financial ills” which is also the fault of the Federal Reserve, which is on record as saying that “the Fed stands ready” to dump as much gold onto the market as is needed to keep its price from rising.

And the reason they are openly manipulating the price of gold, which is the advice of former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, is because they are concerned about the price of gold rising, which is a clear signal that inflation is raging because the Fed is a bunch of money-maddened morons and the economy is in Big Freaking Inflationary Trouble (BFIT) because of them and their mismanagement of monetary policy with their ridiculous neo-Keynesian econometric stupidities! Hahahaha!

Following news today that the Federal Reserve is going to print promissory-notes until the presses glow red-hot, gold has jumped almost thirty-dollars an ounce.

Jim Cramer, who has evidently never read the story of "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby" and suffered for it, sang the praises of Bernanke this morning on CNBC regarding the $1.2 trillion inflation of the money supply and expects to see long-term growth in the near-future as a result of the purchase of the worthless Treasury bonds.

I feel sorry for the guy, but then again, I don't have my own show on CNBC (nor do I want one), and I suspect before long he will have developed a keen appetite for corvus a l'Orange with thinly-sliced chapeau, served with nothing but the economic establishment's finest whine.

Another record wheat-harvest...

"Bread lines" are a capitalist pig-dog myth! Our workers do not stand idly for want of bread! However, there is a small wait for the ingredients:

Venezuela's public finances are unravelling, with oil prices at $40 a barrel, while the national budget is calculated at $60 a barrel. Inflation is running at over 30 per cent, yet with the new measures Mr Chavez is seeking to ensure that his core support, the poor, can still fill their shopping baskets with food.

"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act," said Carlos Osorio, the national superintendent of silos and storage. "For the government, access to food is a matter of national security."

Production quotas and prices have now been set for cooking oil, white rice, sugar, coffee, flour, margarine, pasta, cheeses and tomato sauce.

Unfortunately for the people of Venezuela, Chavez is in the position to hold power as long as he has a taste for it.

I wouldn't hold my breath if you're waiting for him to give it up peacefully, Venezuela. Lo siento.

Update: Evidently, in addition to other economic difficulties, Venezuela is experiencing a shortage of salesmanship:

Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.

The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."

Well, it's not quite as embarrassing as addressing the People having forgotten to zip up your fly, but it's uncomfortably close. When one's economy is suffering due to adherence to a failed economic model, it's understandable that others might be hesitant to explicitly apply that model to their own economic policy.

Marxists world-wide should look forward to an international comedy-tour headlining an Obama/Chavez ticket; they'll die laughing.

One-two! And through and through, the inflation went snicker-snack!

They left it dead, and with its debt, they went galumphing back!

RIGA (Reuters) - Latvia's four-party ruling coalition collapsed on Friday and the president called for talks to forge a new government to tackle a deepening economic crisis.

The coalition's fall, the second European government to succumb to the financial crisis, adds to the economic problems of the small Baltic state, which last year had to take a 7.5 billion euro ($9.43 billion) IMF-led rescue loan last year.

This is the second government to fall in the face of the financial collapse, and I am doubtless it will not be the last.

Change au jus

In which Chef Obama and his sous-minions serve up a heaping platter of "Bait-and-Switch Surprise":

The Obama administration fell in line with the Bush administration Thursday when it urged a federal judge to set aside a ruling in a closely watched spy case weighing whether a U.S. president may bypass Congress and establish a program of eavesdropping on Americans without warrants...

The Obama administration is also siding with the former administration in its legal defense of July legislation that immunizes the nation's telecommunications companies from lawsuits accusing them of complicitity in Bush's eavesdropping program, according to testimony last week by incoming Attorney General Eric Holder.

That immunity legislation, which Obama voted for when he was a U.S. senator from Illinois, was included in a broader spy package that granted the government wide-ranging, warrantless eavesdropping powers on Americans' electronic communications.

The commentary pretty well writes itself here. Perhaps if the Left looks suitably pathetic, Obama will throw them a towel to clean up with, and throw in a few bucks for a cab-ride home.

Don't worry, he still respects you, and he'll call you later.

Reverberating disquietude

Keynesian economic theory failure gave the thread of monetary policy a good jerk (insert Bernanke joke here), and now the whole sweater is starting to unravel:

While Barack Obama was being sworn in to office on Capitol Hill yesterday, the people of Iceland were starting the first revolution in the history of the republic. The word "revolution" might sound a bit of an overstatement, but given the calm temperament that usually prevails in Icelandic politics, the unfolding events represent, at the very least, a revolution in political activism.

Four months after the collapse of Iceland's entire financial system, no one has accepted any responsibility. Our currency has lost more than half its value, rampant inflation has already eaten up most people's savings, property values have dropped by more than a third and unemployment is reaching levels never seen before in the life of our young republic. The fault is clearly shared between the business elite and the government, which failed to regulate the newly privatised financial sector, allowing a few incompetent and egotistical business tycoons to gamble with the nation's fortune. And yet neither the government nor the bankers – who, by the way, seem to have disappeared into the cold thin air – see anything wrong with their own behaviour.

And while Iceland is an excellent microcosmic example of what can be expected as the correction takes its course, it is not alone:

The financial meltdown has become part of the real economy and is now beginning to shape real politics. More and more citizens on the edge of the global crisis are taking to the streets. Bulgaria has been gripped this month by its worst riots since 1997 when street power helped to topple a Socialist government. Now Socialists are at the helm again and are having to fend off popular protests about government incompetence and corruption.

In Latvia – where growth has been in double-digit figures for years – anger is bubbling over at official mismanagement. GDP is expected to contract by 5 per cent this year; salaries will be cut; unemployment will rise. Last week, in a country where demonstrators usually just sing and then go home, 10,000 people besieged parliament.

The United States has avoided the worst of it so far, but that in itself is a small comfort: the damping effect of the Federal government's interventionist policy prevents a swift correction of accumulated mismanaged assets, just as that same interference amplifies existing and/or expanding "bubbles" in the economy. When the good times were good, we enjoyed a level of opulence unseen since the halcyon days of Palatine Hill.

However, to draw on thermodynamic law and popular wisdom, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Predictably, unfortunately, and inevitably, the crash will mirror and match the meteoric rise of the economy pound-for-pound, inch-for-inch, and the very same Statist high-priests that kept the economy from correcting itself will keep the correction from clearing the detritus of failed institutions to make way for new growth.

Strangely enough, it is not all that different from the Federal government's forest-management policy in the western United States: unmitigated growth and fire-suppression until a "critical mass" stage, wherein a devastating, yea, holocaustic inferno consumes the entirety of the diseased and dying forest, causing otherwise healthy trees to explode from the heat and sterilizing entire swathes of wilderness.

I am willing to bet that the recovery will take a similar course: decades.

When in doubt, empty the clip

- Andrew Wyeth, 1917-2009.

- "I'll take 'Things That Cost $33' for $100 trillion, Alex."

- I'm hoping this gets here before the incoming administration does something rash. Hubba-hubba.

- "The truth is together with unfunded liabilities and promises to our retirees we're in the hole for over $59 trillion. We need to understand this truth before we can move forward with any new proposals."

Public employees, or privileged aristocracy?

And yet, some people continue to ask why I wrote-in "Ron Paul" for President:

U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ) and Ron Paul (R-TX) announced yesterday they will continue their bipartisan efforts to block an automatic pay raise for Congress, and have introduced legislation to block the nearly $4,700 raise scheduled to take effect next year.

Paul, whose congressional district includes parts of Fort Bend County and much of Cinco Ranch, said turning down the raise would demonstrate a commitment to fiscal responsibility...

The new legislation, H.R. 156, introduced yesterday has already garnered 57 co-sponsors, including another Katy-area congressman, Republican Michael McCaul.

In 1989, Congress passed a law that provides lawmakers with an automatic pay raise every January unless they vote specifically to reject the raise.

Wow, a guaranteed salary increase every year sounds fantastic, but how much are they making now?

As of January 1, 2008, the annual salary of each Representative is $169,300. The Speaker of the House and the Majority and Minority Leaders earn more. The Speaker earned $212,100 during the 109th Congress (January 4, 2005-January 3, 2007) while the party leaders earned $183,500 (the same as Senate leaders).

A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it. Congress sets members' salaries; however, the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a change in salary (but not COLA) from taking effect until after the next general election. Representatives are eligible for lifetime benefits after serving for five years, including a pension, health benefits, and social security benefits.

Now, supposing that Congress performed its Constitutionally-mandated duties for the entirety of its time in-session, a prevailing wage would not be an objectionable thing, in my opinion. However, not only does Congress largely fail at its job, it does so under the assumption that it alone can fool all the people all the time. Unfortunately for them, that just ain't so:

Only 11% of voters give Congress good or excellent ratings, while 54% say the legislature is doing a poor job. Though low, the latest numbers are a slight improvement from December, when just nine percent (9%) gave Congress good or excellent ratings.

Additionally, just 11% say Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in the United States recently, down from 13% last month. Most (59%) take the opposite view. However, another 30% are undecided at this point.

The number of voters who believe members of Congress are corrupt also has increased. While 36% of voters say most members of Congress are corrupt, 41% disagree. Last month, those numbers were 34% and 39% respectively.

As Representative Mitchell put it, the situation (and specifically, the raise) is "unconscionable". Now, if I didn't believe that the majority of the Congress elected to have their consciences surgically-removed years ago, we might have some sort of ethical leverage against them. Instead, they act with the foresight and cunning of a migrating wildebeest-herd, and even though odd member may be savagely disemboweled by angry constituents from time to time, the majority lives to spend another day on the Beltway's lush savannah in a quasi-conscious stupor.

I do not expect the bill to succeed, as Congress has little reason to halt spending for any reason. Even the massive outcry against the first $700 billion bail-out was largely ignored, and the incumbency-rate has not suffered for it, despite the then-imminent election.

Ordinarily, I'd propose a more advanced solution at this point, but it seems that with the frenzy regarding a new "New Deal" from the Obama administration, we are long past the point of graceful recovery. Instead, I propose that one cut their consumption of taxed goods and services as much as possible, substitute goods that may be bought in-state for ones that may be purchased over the Internet without taxation, or barter. Grow a "resistance garden", as is often suggested at the Survival Podcast.

We don't need them, and I think it's about time we showed them the truth of it.

Stick this in your change-purse

Hope & Change 0, More-of-the-Same 2009:

Obama made both announcements on Monday, saying that his picks "bring the integrity, depth of experience and tenacity that the Department of Justice demands in these uncertain times." The soon-to-be-appointees: Tom Perrelli for associate attorney general and David Ogden for deputy attorney general.

Campaign rhetoric aside, this should be no surprise. Obama's selection of Joe Biden as vice president showed that the presidential hopeful was comfortable with someone with firmly pro-RIAA views. Biden urged the criminal prosecutions of copyright-infringing peer-to-peer users and tried to create a new federal felony involving playing unauthorized music.

Where is your Obamessiah now?

If y'all will excuse me, I need to make some popcorn for the weeping and gnashing of teeth that will presently be heard from the college campi nation-wide.

(Hat-tip: The Agitator)