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Archives for 2008
Your Daily Malkinfreude
What can I say that makes this any better than it already is?
Consider this an open thread.
The Free Market at Work
I guess it is the taxpayers who are going to be taking it in the ass again with another big bailout:
Stocks snapped a five-day losing streak on Wednesday, with the Dow surging nearly 300 points on optimism that a government plan to rescue ailing bond insurers is taking shape and could prevent billions more in credit losses.
The market also drew support from growing confidence that aggressive interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve could help stabilize the economy and support the beleaguered banking sector.
I need to get into this line of work. Make all sorts of crazy big commissions on knowingly bad and reckless business transactions, make the bad decisions on such a scale that the entire economy is fucked if the government does not bail me out, and then take big bucks from the government. All I need to do is hold my head low for a few years after the bailout, and I can get back to business as usual. I guess when they said invisible hand, they meant the one robbing the taxpaying public. Free market, bitches!
The underpants gnomes have to be kicking themselves- why didn’t they think of this shit? Seriously, I understand the benefits of a free market, but this is out of control. Someone explain to me if I am reading this all wrong.
The De-De-Ba’athification
Remember the new law passed by the Iraqi Parliament that dimwitted people like me were linking, hoping it meant that the necessary political reconciliation was starting to take place (and thus the surge was not a total waste of time)?
Guess what. It was bullshit:
“This new law is very confusing,” Awadi said. “I don’t really know what it means for me.”
He is not alone. More than a dozen Iraqi lawmakers, U.S. officials and former Baathists here and in exile expressed concern in interviews that the law could set off a new purge of ex-Baathists, the opposite of U.S. hopes for the legislation.
Approved by parliament this month under pressure from U.S. officials, the law was heralded by President Bush and Iraqi leaders as a way to soothe the deep anger of many ex-Baathists — primarily Sunnis but also many Shiites such as Awadi — toward the Shiite-led government.
Yet U.S. officials and even legislators who voted for the measure, which still requires approval by Iraq’s presidency council, acknowledge that its impact is hard to assess from its text and will depend on how it is implemented. Some say the law’s primary aim is not to return ex-Baathists to work, but to recognize and compensate those harmed by the party. Of the law’s eight stated justifications, none mentions reinstating ex-Baathists to their jobs.
“The law is about as clear as mud,” said one U.S. senior diplomat.
Good times.
We need to just pull out of that shithole, and Petraeus’s plan to slow down the violence has worked, but giving him another Friedman Unit is not going to fix the real problems over there. Especially when he is saying stuff like this:
We think we won’t know that we’ve reached a turning point until we’re six months past it. We have repeatedly said that there is no lights at the end of the tunnel that we’re seeing. We’re certainly not dancing in the end zone or anything like that.
In other words, permanent war, at least until peace breaks out. But we won’t know that it is peaceful until 6 months after it has already happened. Or something.
Operation Dump This Mess on the Next President continues in earnest.
The Economic Stimulus
I am cranky today, so brace yourselves. I am officially sick and tired of hearing about economic stimulus plans, as it is my firm belief there simply is nothing the government can do at this point to stop what we have coming down the road. A 150 billion dollar stimulus is not going to do anything.
What they should be discussing is how we got to this point, and working on reworking the regulations and the regulatory agencies who are apparently asleep at the switch. I am not sure if people remember, but the real damage from Enron was the blind eye turned by the banks and the accounting firms. Once again, when you look at what has happened here, it appears that it wasn’t just a few shady agents writing bad loans- the whole system looked the other way. Everyone figured out how to get theirs and hoped they weren’t the one left standing without a chair when the music stopped.
If I were in the government, and I wanted to do something to make this looming disaster less painful, I would immediately begin to rewrite the rules so it is less likely bullshit like this happens again. Giving people a reason to feel confident about their investments is going to do more for the economy than the 150 billion handouts.
Wingnuts Unhinged
The California Yankee is a touch upset:
Lies, Misrepresentations and More Left-Wing Extremist Propaganda By California Yankee
To paraphrase President Reagan, there they go again.
Associated Press writer, Douglas Daniel has written an article promoting more lies, misrepresentations, and left-wing extremist propaganda trying to revive the loony left’s thoroughly debunked fiction that we were “misled” into war in Iraq by “false statements” and “lies.”
On Yahoo the Douglas article is titled “Study: False statements preceded war.” But CBS News, the ever accurate former employer of Dan Rather, originally carried the article under the headline “Study: 2 Years Of Lies Led To Iraq War. That was too much even for the President Bush hating propagandists at CBS, who toned it down to “Study: ‘False Pretenses’ Led U.S. To War.”
You see- it is the media’s fault for reporting on the studies! As to the actual studies, well, he doesn’t even address them. I am willing to wager a good chunk of change he hasn’t even read them (I know I have not). Instead, he attacks the press for not citing facts he finds comfortable. Why, MR. EVIL AP WRITER, why did you not discuss the Robb-Silberman Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities? HRMM? HRMM? LEFT-WING BIAS! And on an on the whinge goes.
At any rate, what exactly did the studies find?
The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.
“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”
Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.
Bush led with 259 false statements, 231 about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaida, the study found. That was second only to Powell’s 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq and al-Qaida.
The center said the study was based on a database created with public statements over the two years beginning on Sept. 11, 2001, and information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches and interviews.
“The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.
Yeah. That is why he didn’t address the studies. Anyone with half a brain would not find that even remotely controversial. Hell, perhaps we can ask Mr. Yankee to point us to all those WMD we found. Or maybe he can discuss the Office of Special Plans a bit. Or maybe not, as they have already had a pretty bad week at Red State, what with Fred dropping out of the race and all.
BTW- Why is it that everyone with the word “Yankee” in their pen names turn out to be a total wanker?
*** Update ***
Captain Ed finds the real villain- GEORGE SOROS!
Clinton and Wal-Mart
Barack Obama:
“While I was working on those streets, watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart,”
A cheap shot if you ask me. Of course, Wal-Mart is always a good target, and when a candidate has ties to the giant, it plays well to mention it. But let’s look at Hillary’s connection to Wal-Mart, shall we? Factcheck.org:
According to accounts from other board members, Clinton was a thorn in the side of the company’s founder, Sam Walton, on the matter of promoting women, few of whom were in the ranks of managers or executives at the time. She also strongly advocated for more environmentally sound corporate practices, board colleagues and company executives noted. She made limited progress in both areas, but she never voiced any objections to the company’s anti-union stand, they said. But in 2005 she returned a $5,000 contribution to her campaign from Wal-Mart, citing “serious differences” with its “current” practices.
Hillary may not have been able to accomplish her goals, but at least she tried. The attack by Obama was nothing more than an oportunity to link her name to a corporation the left hates. As the NY Sun notes:
Mr. Obama may have missed it, but in his home state of Illinois, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce named Wal-Mart its 2007 corporation of the year. Mr. Obama may have missed it, but Wal-Mart was last year named one of the top 50 companies for African American MBAs by Black MBAs magazine. Mrs. Clinton’s association with the company is something for which our senator should be not attacked but praised.
I wouldn’t go as far with the praise as the NY Sun, but her contributions seem to be worth a lot more than the shot levied at her by Obama would suggest. Wal-Mart deserves criticism for many of its policies, but in the past few years, it’s done pretty well, particularly in the area of environmentalism. In fact, The Weather Channel has named Wal-Mart on of the 10 names you need to know in climate change
In an October, 2005, speech titled “Twenty-First Century Leadership,” Wal-Mart committed to three large sustainability goals: to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste, and to sell products that sustain our resources and the environment. The company set goals of increasing fuel efficiency in Wal-Mart’s truck fleet by 25 percent over the next three years, and doubling it within 10 years; reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012; and reducing energy use at stores by 30 percent.
Operating more than 7,000 stories that generated $345 billion world-wide, Wal-Mart has begun to buy solar power, make its trucks more efficient, sell organic food and cotton, reduce company waste, attempt to bring more sustainable practices to industries as diverse as gold mining and packaging, and the company has gone beyond legal requirements to get potentially hazardous chemicals out of the products on its shelves.
For all its faults, Wal-Mart is doing some good – probably more than all large corporations. An example:
Wal-Mart announced the opening of its second generation of High-Efficiency stores (HE.2) that will use 25% less energy than Wal-Mart Supercenters. […] In addition to saving energy, the new stores will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by lowering refrigerant by 90% […]
The HE.2 series will incorporate several learnings from the HE.1 stores and new technological advances, including white roofs, low-flow bathroom faucets, LED lights and an advanced daylight harvesting system.
All good things, no? And Wal-Mart seems to be doing what they’re doing in spite of criticism, not because of it. Wal-Mart has a long way to go in a lot of areas and deserves criticism. But is it not possible that Clinton’s prodding while serving on the Board of the company had at least a little influence on some of the good they’ve recently done?