Z-Day: February 24, 2009

The Dow dropped 250 points today, bringing it to 7,114. Could it drop that much again tomorrow? Probably. But it doesn't need to.

It only needs to lose another 115.

And then...


But let's keep our heads here, panic is what the Zombies want.

It's hard to say where the epicenter of the outbreak is going to be. There's been some amateur speculation among leading experts (my sock monkey and myself) that it will begin in Chicago, where people already have a sort of lifeless shamble to them. I blame Blagojevich for stealing their hope. Anyway.

Monkey, however, suggests that the more likely ground zero is actually going to be in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. If this is the case, then Z-day will occur totally unnoticed, with only slightly more exposed viscera than is usual. Let's all hope Monkey is right, but I'm afraid that there's only a distant chance of a sock filled with cotton batting being right about something this complicated.

But that's all that really needs to be said. You all know the score by now. Remove the head, destroy the brain, don't get bled on,use the buddy system. And hey, remember to keep score. There's no reason this can't be fun.

The Curmudgeon Factor

From Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, in 50 minutes, I landed fully five pages of notes on the stimulus bill. This is significant, bear with me.

I have a grading system for my professors; a bad lecture nets about .5 to 1 page; an average lecture gets 1 to 1.5 pages. A very good lecture, one that I learn a lot from, typically runs 2-3 pages. Obey gave me five, and they're not all talking points, which is pretty cool. I'm not going to summarize. I'm just going to give you all my notes, all at once, exactly as they appear in my 30% post-consumer materials notebook. Deal with it, sissies.

--------------------------------And GO --------------------------------------------

1 year ago, major business leaders had concerns re: world economy & wanted to start working on an anti-recession package to address next 2 years. Package started at 60 billion, size limited by presidential disapproval and was eventually dropped.

Came to White House attention in Sept. that there was a worldwide credit emergency, congress needed to organize a response. Initial bank bailout did prevent a collapse, even with mistakes in transparency and accountability.

Second response began in November with election of BO; congressional response to president's requests.

How it works: when consumer spending drops, the economy shrinks prompting layoffs, which feeds back into decreased consumer spending. Positive Feedback Loop.

In next 3 years, 3-3.5 trillion dollar hole is expected in purchase power. Package is an attempt to stop up that hole.

Most economists expected a recession and increased unemployment over the next 2 years. W/o intervention, unemployment expected to reach or breach 11%. Some of this will happen even with the package, and it will get worse before better. 2-3 year schedule before improvements should be expected.

Obey agrees w/ Paul Krugman in that package isn't big enough. It's 800 billion to patch a 3.5 trillion hole. Even with economic multipliers, it's only expected to help out as much as 1.5 trillion if all goes well. Was passed too small as a compromise to republicans.

35% of package as tax cuts directed toward middle class, nerfed due to compromise.

Monetary infusion to "create or save" 4 million jobs through infrastructure investment and allocation.

State budget stabilization provided to prevent state cutbacks on services, same w/ medicare. Will still happen, but not as badly as if nothing had been done.

Increased unemployment comp, food stamps, baby-kissing, etc.

the Problem: from WWII to 1973, economy grew but growth was more evenly distributed. Began tipping toward upper class in 1980-1981, that trend hasn't reversed as yet. Result is that purchase power is too heavily concentrated to be valuable; needs to be redirected to people whose purchasing supports more diverse industries.

Funding education is funding an economic equalizer, other investments made in growth industries like healthcare.

Fed reserve cutting interest rates won't help with a collapsed housing and auto market. Real necessity is reinvesting to help US auto makers regain competitive tech edge; if they don't do it, they're done.

Complaints about deficit spending: deficits will be higher if we don't address the problem.

This bill, all by itself, is not enough to fix the problem or brace the country. More is coming, but it's being done in other sectors because appropriations doesn't have the subject-matter expertise.

We need to have an eye towards a more equitable distribution of societal benefits when economy has been rebuilt; can't allow the current trends to continue.

This isn't perfect, it may not even look good but it's the best available under ugly circumstances.

QUESTIONS

What is driving the partisanship over this?

-finds repub reaction distressing, but not a new problem. In the House, rep caucus decided to follow Henserling (R-TX), and Old Guard Reaganite, and "drive them crazy". Idea is to make Obama take all the heat, make the dems own every scrap of the bill.

How has the political atmosphere changed over time?

-Used to not be TV cameras in the House, which means speeches used to be persuasive and directed at someone else. Now they're rhetorical, directed at the audience. Pollsters are new too; used to be that only the big guns had them. Increases confrontational nature. Newt Gingrich showing up in 1978 did damage to bipartisanship with training tactics; used to be Vietnam era democrats that were the nasty ones, but now you're seeing that on the republican side. Rush limbaugh isn't helping. Economic establishment puts much more money into public policy now than it ever used to.

-How does House feel about fairness doctrine?

Not a "snowball's chance in hell" of passing senate. He may support it, "But I'm used to losing arguments."

-Auto bailout?

Makes him crazy that they have to help them, but can't agree that it's not necessary. Been trying to push auto makers to be competitive for 30 years. Hates it, but sees auto bailout as necessary.

------------------------------------Stop --------------------------------------------

I hope you got something out of that. I'll pull something out of it later, when I'm not trying to eat Macaroni.

Dorkish Coolness

U.S. House Representative Dave Obey will be visiting us tomorrow. And when I say "us", I mean just my Presidency class. I may spend a lot of time disagreeing with him, but he's an influential character and a very successful politician. This will be interesting, and I promise to put all my notes here when it's over.

Cracked.com: Potty-mouthed Prophets.

Dan O'Brien wrote this back before the election. It's pretty alarming how accurate it is.

OBAMA: The Hope-osphere, located in the heart of Chicago-
DOB: Oh shit you’re gonna build it.
OBAMA: -will be constructed of several thousand tons of solid, reinforced titanium, cooled and bent into the shape of a perfect-
DOB: How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA: -sphere. In between those bars, 400,000 sheets of sound-proof, bullet-proof, hatred-proof glass will be brought in from-
DOB: How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA:… and at the center Hope-osphere, the source of power will be the Truth-Core, where inspiring Hope-Lava will flow, like a river, through-
DOB:How much is this going to cost?
OBAMA: I think if you take a look at these hope-figures and my hopeulations, you’ll-
DOB: But how much…
OBAMA: You can’t really put a price on hope.
DOB: Give it a shot.
OBAMA: $850 billion.
DOB: Wow.
OBAMA: But, once you convert that price to Hope Dollars, I think you’ll agree that-
DOB: Wow.
I got up to leave.

It's even more alarming when you read the rest of the article. How much more of this is going to come true before 2012?

Bwah ha ha!

Just as I thought, the Democrats really are dumb enough to give me an additional $8 per paycheck! Now nothing can stop me from bringing this horror to the world:



Now granted, I'll have to save up for my Incredible Hulk Abomination Blaster for about two months, but it's actually possible now, thanks to my additional allowance.

Or maybe I should save it. If I'm in a position where $8 is considered "help", I may not be in a good position to go around spending that "help" on infrastructure-destroying Abomination Blasters.

Another box of Nutty Bars couldn't hurt though.

Two God-Awful Essays and My Own Opinion, Volume 1: Israel

Patricia Berlyn arguing against a Palestinian state.

Rosemary Shinko arguing for a Palestinian state. The clumsy formatting isn't my fault here.

Both of these essays appear in a book that I was required to buy for my International Relations class. Both essays come across as simplistic, heavyhanded and ignorant of the reality of the situation. It's unfortunate that professors regard this sort of thing as a starting point. Why can't we start with the complex reality, and work our way toward understanding from there rather than a position of inherent, provoked bias? A quick opinion on a conflict this old isn't helpful in any way.

All that said, my provoked, biased opinion is that a two-state solution would be just fine provided that there is a groundswell of sudden and unprecedented civility between Palestinians and Israelis. Getting good leaders won't do it because a democratic public won't vote for a leader who's out of step with them. One of the limitations of a democratic nation is that policy can only move as fast as public majority feeling allows, which isn't very fast when there are ancient grudges involved. This change really does have to happen at the grass-roots level before it can happen in the policy arena.

That means a cease-fire that actually gets obeyed to give the people enough time to cool the hell off. Islamic extremists are dedicated to not allowing that to happen, and that is always to the detriment of Palestine, not Israel. Without crackdowns on terrorist activity and arms smuggling, a cease-fire in the policy realm won't matter. That's why Israel occasionally bombs smuggling tunnels and assaults the West Bank, but without the cooperation of the PA it isn't enough to hold the situation in place. And, with the repeated international condemnation of these security maneuvers, it's impossible for Israeli security forces to maintain a preventative presence in the area, counterinsurgency style.

The result of that is the constant flux between buildup, attack, counterassault, withdrawal, buildup ad nauseum. It would help Israel to have international support for their security measures, but that would be easier to get if they favored a more proportional response than they do now, and while they haven't been given much reason to change, a solid strategy in this sort of situation is really based on the least amount of force necessary, not overwhelming force. It's very hard to get to that understanding when you have towns that are being attacked by smuggled or home-made rockets every day.

As for the Palestinians, they need to cut political and real ties with jihadis, who they may feel are fighting for them but are really genuinely hurting their cause. It may feel good to sling rockets at people you hate, but it isn't always constructive and that's certainly the case here, because violence only matters if it can actually change the situation wether by magnitude or direction, and that has not been demonstrated in this context. Mutual non-aggression here has to start with the PA becoming very tough about halting terrorist activity. And as stated, without a miraculous swell of mutual good-will and understanding at the ground level, that won't happen.

So the answer isn't an absolute, til-death-do-us-part position, and it shouldn't be. It's a categorical "no" for the Palestinian state as the situation stands now, with the understanding that if and when the situation changes, that "no" can be re-evaluated.

Oh come on.

That's it, shut it down. What a joke.

I've never been so happy to have Republicans around so that somebody is pushing back against this porkfest.

Obama is going to need to learn how this "Chief Executive" thing works a whole lot faster than he currently is. Stop telling me how the country voted as if it's an excuse, stop denigrating people's doubts about your pet project, stop handing important things off to a cluster of old guard democrats who are dumber than soap .

Tell the democrats what you want in the bill, and not to put in anything else. Then you can lean on your electoral win with some credibility, and it'll be okay that you do.

Don't resort to scare tactics, explain how the bill will fix the problem and then, somehow, explain away the research of the Congressional Budget Office. Then you can play off doubt as "nameless, unreasoning fear" instead of having press conferences that can be summed up by phrase "run for your lives!"

Even a Telegraph staff writer says his inexperience is showing.

I don't actually like this. Get it together dude, you're my president now.

Eesh

$3.2 million is a lot of money if you're from Africa. It's even more when you're from Somalia, where running across a dead cow is considered an economic boon of Hollywood proportions.

The owners of a Ukranian freighter paid that sum for the release of the freighter, crew, and contents. Now given that the contents include a number of military assets like tanks and grenade launchers and guns, the Ukranians probably paid much less than the ship alone was worth, let alone all the stuff inside it. Which is good, because that means pirating jackasses won't be rolling around Somalia in stolen armored cavalry vehicles. I'd call that part a win.

What I'm more ambivalent about is just where that $3.2 million is going to go. I can assure you, it won't go anywhere that will make civilization very happy. It's been speculated that these pirates might be loosely associated with Islamic terrorist groups, and that seems pretty likely. But it wouldn't be necessary for there to be a problem, because they're pirates. They're not really savory people, even if they aren't befriending jihadis.

But that's damage done in Africa, and not the Ukraine, and the Ukraine will never have to cope with whatever hell gets unleashed, and that's why they made the payment.

Let's hope they start arming the crews. For Africa.