No one likes to be double-teamed. However, Dems would be wise to consider just how much they want to "neutralize" Clinton-42, especially if Hillary ends up with the nomination. The GOP are certainly afraid of him - right talk radio is avidly - no, desperately - pushing the "Wild Bill" theme. He's effective.
As far as those saying that confrontation weakens the Democrats, I don't agree, wholly. The candidates need to be vetted. The Press - "the process" - is NOT going to do it, altogether. The GOP are going to do all they can, anyway (and probably many on the Democratic side who meet fire with fire).
Get the "warts" out there. Maybe not at the first, maybe not in the last 24 hours before a vote, but get the "bad news" out there.
There is an old saying, "Bad news doesn't get better with time." If someone was pushing Kerry during the nomination process, his campaign might have been "ready" instead of slack, when the attacks came on him.
That is the great hope of confrontation, afterall, the positive value to conflict. Sure, there are negative aspects to be managed, but we're at the point with the media repeating the "story" that it is getting carried away.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
A Dissent, possibly, on Bill Clinton
No Shame, No Standards Network
AS notes:
The Fox News bigot digs in deeper.
... and what's the surprise?
Rush Limbaugh auctioned off his letter from Harry Reid (condemning Rush's comments about "phony soldiers"), in that disgusting show of turning the shameful into the political so that they can avoid ... humanity. All done with the blessing (and participation) of ClearChannel's CEO, even.
It sets the tone.
Animals.
Stimulus in the Wings
635 Congresspeople consult with 7,666+ lobbyists in record time.
GOP regulars are just waiting for something - anything - that they can paint as tax-and-spend, so that they might squeeze maybe just one more election out of that tired mantra.
Wall Street Gets New High Water Mark for Cowboys
SoGen is reporting a fraud that will easily top what was surely the biggest, when Nick Leeson single-handedly took down the old-line firm, Barings.
If I remember right - and I could be mistaken, Leeson bought more-and-more calls and financed it by selling more-and-more puts. [!!} This guy appears - so far - to have not been nearly so spectacularly brazen ...
Press release puts it at $7.14 billion. I'm so glad that they didn't round down to seven, aren't you? ["We now have an accurate accounting of the fraud" - LOL].
The loss was bigger than the GDP of 64 nations.
The name on this one is Jérôme Kerviel, although the bank has declined to name him. (Like Leeson at the time, his whereabouts are currently a mystery).
NYTimes:
In 1998, Yasuo Hamanaka, once the chief copper trader at the Sumitomo Corporation, was sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to hiding $2.6 billion in trading losses. He admitted to lying and forging documents as his losses snowballed while he bought a million tons of copper over a decade in a bid to sustain prices.
"Apparatus of Lies"
Prior to the removal of Saddam, the Bush Administration "made the case", putting up a website entitled, "Apparatus of Lies", that chronicled the long, long effort to ... corral Hussein.
Now, it appears that there is a similar effort completed for Bush-Cheney ("the 935").
Bush the elder continues to believe, by all accounts, that his son has served "honorably" and that our standing in the world is unaffected by what was done to beat the drums of war once upon a time in America.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
No Man Knows the Measure of His Days
Heath Ledger in one of the most poignant and memorable scenes in the history of American cinema.
Markets Go "Weeeeee!"
Up and Down on Wall Street.
All technical moves today. Market ended up betting on growth-to-come.
STOP PLAYING 'BLAME THE FED', ALREADY
Ben's o.k. He's got an almost impossible job to do, in the current circumstances. "Fed speak" was "invented" for good reasons. The Chairman needs to be a rhetorical contrarian, for the most part, as a way to influence market expectations. "Fed speak" facilitates putting the emphasis on the syllable that needs it, at the time.
Ben started out with all the right moves, getting some structural fixes at least in motion before passing out the candy. Of course, the pressure from Wall Street magnums, like Kudlow, who pine secretly, we may imagine, for Bear Stearns and the mess that they created for themselves, is enormous. Even Greenspan was no match, in his time.
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE
The Fed cannot fix the housing mess alone - they can pass out candy and try to regulate broker-stuff that was never under their regulatory umbrella before, I guess. Meanwhile, lobbied-politicians are intent to bailout the lenders by getting the government (taxpayers) into "jumbo" junk mortgages! For their own part, taxpayers can get bang for their buck investing in some infrastructure projects, right now, though - airports, schools, bridges - which improve the long-term outlook while also helping a stressed sector of the economy not go over a cliff, altogether.
The financial messes still need attention. Bond insurers, most recently, need a non-taxpayer backstop - where's the private capital, eh (does free market theory say that someone will step in)? A capital injection, as part of a stimulus package, for Freddie and Fannie will allow them to buy up stuff on the secondary market, rather than re-financing stuff. Giving financial institutions (banks) a short-term pass on capital requirements will help avoid a credit crunch that is capacity / balance sheet related (the part that is credit quality related is all part of the inveterate credit-cycle and cannot be avoided). The Bush-Paulson plan is weak and is not substitute for giving judges the ability, on a short-term basis, to modify mortgage loan terms.
Without help from other central banks, most likely the Fed cannot fix the energy mess in oil, nor can they address Bush's looking the other way as people's energy costs, including natural gas prices, rose precipitously on his watch (graphs on this already on the blog).
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Bush Papers Over Preadtory Practices with "Literacy" Study Group
GEORGE "I CAN SINK NO LOWER" BUSH
Facts:
- We now know that sub-prime lending didn't expand homeownership.
- We also know that over 50% of all sub-prime loans could have been done at better rates and terms that didn't include "features" like ugly pre-payment penalties.
- There is systematic, not anecdotal, evidence that some brokers targeted senior citizens.
Still, the GOP's leader is out there pretending that mortgage buyers brought it all on themselves.
THE "FAITH WORLD"
Well, Bush is saying he's got those from "the faith world", a term that rolls off his tongue like it was the fifth dimension, on the study group. How could it go wrong?
p.s. The discussion about the vote to cap credit card interest rates at 30% last night is bothering me. If the candidates are saying they don't want band-aides on our problems, then why is Obama's reply that he wanted better than 30% such a problem (unless it was false)?
No Clean Hands
Obama faces his first serious challenge*, to image or otherwise, regarding his dealings with two folks by the name of Rezko, a name that may not come-and-go, depending on how it all falls out.
So far, it is campaign contributions and (what else?) a real-estate deal. That deal doesn't seem to have any particular financial favors for Obama or mysteries (like the Clinton's magical commodities account). It just seems to have been a really bad idea ... at worst, the Rezkos may have lubricated a deal, at fair prices, to get it to go through, as best as I can tell from quite a distance.
The rest of the Rezko's problems? ... a field day for GOP irregulars.
(h/t R. Stein)
*O'Reilly's attempt to do guilt-by-association based on two quotes on Louis Farrakhan (by Obama's pastor in Chicago) may well backfire, yet and is not serious.
Romney's Exhausted Reagan Rhetoric
Trying to tap into Reagan's feel-good, do-nothing soma-era, Romney also has his "One Nation" spiel a la Reagan.
Problem is that he's never been to New Orleans ...
Nor have any of the other GOP hopefuls, so far as I know, as part of their campaigns.
But not Ron Paul.
He's just arrived today in Louisianna. [Who Dat, Who Dat, Who Dat Say They Gonna Beat Ron Paul, Who Dat]
From Obama's Ebeneezer speech:
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion;
Now available for $1 ...Missing or Erased? The GOP's Abiding Nixonianism
After the reveal of which e-mails are missing from official WH records, maybe we need a statistical analysis to determine if there is a non-random pattern in the Sherlock Holmes case of the missing missives.
The Rosemary Woods Memorial Awards, forthcoming.
Zakaria Update: Go Long?
As I recall, Zakaria was for the "go long" option. Now, after dishing both sides of the withdrawal debate, it's not clear he still likes that. For some unclear reason, AS thinks his latest is noteworthy.
Some of the article needs to be cleaned up.
- First of all, "the surge" was quite late, coming to force some 18 months after the key event that spawned it - a perilous and ignominious wait. Rumsfeld should have been dismissed long before the elections and Baker-Hamilton should have been accelerated.
- The US didn't need extra brigades to broker the Anbar Awakening, and the effectiveness of the military effort may be just as much due to strides coming up the learning curve on intelligence gathering and use, than expanded force-structure, per se.
- The CLC's are not all militias ...
- There has already been an meeting of the neighbors and an International Pact. It's a tribute to the Bush Administration's expert soft peddling and downplaying of the handoff, in an effort to control the politics of retreat from their pathetically vehement go-it-alone posture, that Fareed seems ... unaware.
Had Bush ever leveled with the American public about the prospects of the Iraqi effort, instead of pretending that it would be self-financing, not a quagmire, and not much more than $150 billion in total, there may have been a will to soldier on in reasonable ways.
As it is, the only political option left is withdrawal, even if it means cutting muscle. McCain will not get "re-elected" on a platform of upping or extending the Iraqi commitment.
500 points later - How do you feel about GOP "deregulation"
Fed moved its rate (Wall Street is a powerful lobby...and 'free money' is like crack for anyone in finance). But the stressed parts of the economy are almost all tied to the Prime rate, not the Fed rate, so ... poor Ben is still going to get it from all sides. (I think he's doing o.k., he just hasn't learned the art of how to jawbone the market. It's a fault of being a plain-talker ...).
Meanwhile, as you wonder about how the GOP makes America strong, remind yourself just how wonderful the world of deregulation can be (i.e. how much the current sub-prime 'failures' will cost taxpayers and consumers).
Not all deregulation has been abysmal, but the recent past has been like a nightmare. Those poor Californians are still swimming from energy-market deregulation under Bush ... So, every time I hear a GOP candidate pandering with platitudes about unleashing business activity by cutting 'Washington regulation', I feel that I need to check that I still have my wallet ...
WHAT WE'LL FIND OUT TODAY - READING THE MIND OF THE MARKET
We'll find out today why people are selling (or, why they will be buying).
Believe it or not, the fall in the market is consistent with a view that inflation (in combo with the inflation-risk premium) goes up from a long-term rate of, say, 2.5% to 3.5%. Can't fight that with lower fed rates ... the market will bounce, but just a little, until the source of those price rises gets tamed. (Just to be complete, that's a bigger pickup in inflation than is warranted by the weak dollar alone, on my estimates, anyway).
Now, it's unlikely that the view is that "core" growth falls by 1%, but if a lot of people are worried that long-term growth is seriously at risk because of the unsustainability of negative trade patterns, cut-tax-and-spend policies, or lost potential due to permanently higher energy costs, then we ought to see only a muted rebound.
If it's just fears over a sharper-than-expected recession (sub-prime woes), then we also will not see a rebound, until earnings start to provide disconfirming evidence, if any.
So, the only scenario in which we see a sharp rebound is in the case of generalized anxiety over growth or worries about the financial system itself (raised by these bond-insurers who don't have "enough money" based on a "revised" risk model that itself might be wildly incorrect).
AS's Hillary-Apoplexy Intensifies
Morning snark is in AS's Hillary On Bill - a smear attempt ("The happiest day of my life was the day I met my Tremendous Asset.")?
Meanwhile, AS overlooks one of the most inept phrases from his darling, last night:
"I am a proud Christian".
No such thing, right? If there is, it is a political creation ....
ON A MORE SUBSTANTIVE NOTE
I have to give really big props to Obama on the acknowledgment that his health plan has some challenges, in design, not ideology or strategy. That's an indication that he could be open to ways of fixing them.
On the other hand, what Hillary has to say about drug companies worries me. Not that she wants to keep drug prices on the table, but that she has a prescribed solution about how to do it. I'd like to see that she is open to more ways of working on drug prices than the things that she has in mind. I'm partial to Canada's model, from the little I know about it, as at least something to try before reaching for the big medicine, so to speak.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Caging Bill
I was just going to congratulate the Dem regulars for getting Clinton-42 to calm down a bit; but if it is annoying AS, then my instincts may be wrong, because AS is almost a perfectly contrary indicator on all things Clinton.
Flashback, from the NYTimes
By most outward signs, former President George Bush has maintained a cautious distance from Gov. George W. Bush's quest for the White House, seldom making joint appearances with his son and rarely commenting on the election.
But behind the scenes, Mr. Bush is anything but remote. On several occasions between December and May, Karl Rove, the chief strategist for his son's campaign, traveled from Austin, Tex., to Houston, where the former president spends the winter, to give him private briefings.
His friends say that Mr. Bush regularly exchanges calls or e-mail messages with about a half-dozen senior officials in the Texas governor's campaign and that his chief of staff, Jean Becker, is on the phone with Mr. Rove almost every day.
And neither father nor son is shy about reaching out to the other. One close family friend said they usually chatted within 15 to 30 minutes after the end of each of the debates in the Republican primaries.
Where were all the cries of "dynasty" then, when that word really applied?
It wouldn't be such a HUGE inconsistency, except, have you noticed, the right-leaning folks get all upset just as soon as the Left appears to have any form of institutional coherency or consistency, even as they look with hallowed Hyakian reverence on their own proverbial Plymouth rocks.
Don't believe me? Just stay alert and the evidence will present itself to the prepared mind. For instance, did you just notice how horrified AS was this week at entrenched civil rights leadership? Same for the "gay Left establishment"? It's not just AS, who probably comes at it from a unique perspective, it's almost the whole field.
Watching Lawyers Argue
HILLARY'S DEBATE TO LOSE - SHE DID JUST OKAY
Dem debate went o.k. American politics is so relentlessly bland, that some of the exchanges will cause wildfires in the weak minded.
Lot of punches landed.
I wish that John Edwards would listen to what the Republicans are saying on poverty. It would be interesting to hear him take on Huckabee's most recent comments about it, instead of preaching to the choir with the same stuff.
Hillary really fought hardest for making health care her signature issue. She's still winning that, I suspect.
The best ducked punch (and coup) went to Edwards, who brought up the Ronald Reagan quote on the trail most visibly and still got to rise above the others on the same issue during the debate ... {bow}
I think Obama made a mistake saying that Clinton-42 wasn't factual. Bill is too smart not to get the facts. [I'll use "Clinton-42", with its tacit sequencing implied, just to irk AS, who is "slipping" into "the Clintons"]. What he should have attacked is the shading of the facts. [Update: It does appear that Bill did over-reach, with "all the good ideas". Something that Barack did not say.]
I didn't think Obama deflected Hillary's attack on his credibility well, especially after I gave up the Clinton-42 play book (it's an open book for anyone who looks it up) - doesn't everyone read BootstrappingAS? LOL. Example: "The reason, Hillary, that you cannot make sense of some of these parts of the record, is that you tell yourself a story about what something means. Then, you don't seek or accept the explanations offered. So, of course, you remain stubbornly confused and that's why you won't be ready from day one, but behind. I'm trying to bring people past all that." [that's how you bring it].
On the barbs: they both tried them and handled them well. What neither of them did was handle the rebound shot well, either spontaneously or otherwise. One ought to keep one in the pocket ... (e.g., "I spent 5 hours on the case you mention, how many hours did you spend helping Walmart from day one to provide healthcare?").
NO KNEECAPPING - THE GREAT COMMUNICATOR
I came away with a broader sense that Obama does live up to the the high tenor of his message, fairly well. Unfortunately, political debate - real take-the-floor-debate - has evaporated in America, in favor of the 30-second sound bite and Sunday morning talk shows. And that's important to a degree.
Taking and responding to questions in an important political skill, because it is all part of communicating (and ultimately persuading). It's hard to weigh Barack's other, sizable communications skills, which are also important, in a different field of competition, perhaps.
Perhaps that difficulty is what underscores some part of the reason that the support in the field is close.
NEXT STEPS
I think Obama should do the morning shows, just as Hillary did. He has to continue to show he has nothing to "hide".
p.s. if he does, he might want to drop "fulsome" from his characterization of Hillary's own Reagan comments. It's clear form the context he used, but that five-dollar word is ... too expensive and not emotive.
p.s. if you know you are going to be attacked on something, bring your exact quote to the debate. Heck, Hitchens can quote Marx verbatim to keep from getting distorted in the endless rounds of "clarification" that lawyers try to draw you into, until they make a coherent position look inconsistent.