Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Congressmen need to "get things done"
This from John Hoeven (R-NorthDakota) on C-span. We have to get things done. The two things he wants to get done are the transportation bill and the farm bill. Both of these are pure pork. We could dump them both and save $30-50 billion, just this year. None of this ten year savings baloney, we could save $40-50 billion THIS YEAR.
The transportation bill sends maybe $15 billion a year of federal gasoline tax money to the 50 states for road building and commuter rail projects. Better to let the states fund just the projects they need. Let the federal gas tax expire. If the states need more money, let them raise the state gas tax. We would be better off with out a federal transportation bill.
And we would be better off without a farm bill. Maybe family farmers needed federal price supports back during the Great Depression, but not anymore. Farms are mostly run by corporations like Archer Daniel Midlands, and corporations don't need subsidies. Plus, why should farmers get federal payouts? Why not retailers and manufacturers and loggers and miners and telephone companies and airlines and truckers and everyone else in the country? Why should farmers get something that nobody else gets.
With luck, a bunch of new Congressmen will turn up in Washington and refuse to "get things done".
The transportation bill sends maybe $15 billion a year of federal gasoline tax money to the 50 states for road building and commuter rail projects. Better to let the states fund just the projects they need. Let the federal gas tax expire. If the states need more money, let them raise the state gas tax. We would be better off with out a federal transportation bill.
And we would be better off without a farm bill. Maybe family farmers needed federal price supports back during the Great Depression, but not anymore. Farms are mostly run by corporations like Archer Daniel Midlands, and corporations don't need subsidies. Plus, why should farmers get federal payouts? Why not retailers and manufacturers and loggers and miners and telephone companies and airlines and truckers and everyone else in the country? Why should farmers get something that nobody else gets.
With luck, a bunch of new Congressmen will turn up in Washington and refuse to "get things done".
AdvertisementFail 2
TV commercial now running. Woman comes into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator. Inside is solid ice. Solid ice fills the door trays, the shelves, everything. The woman, barefoot and dressed in a filmy nightgown, takes a broom handle and starts chipping ice out of the the middle refrigerator shelf. If the lighting had been a little better we could have seen thru the filmy nightgown.
Ah, this is an ad for frost free refrigerators.
Wrong, they are selling jugged ice tea.
Ah, this is an ad for frost free refrigerators.
Wrong, they are selling jugged ice tea.
Meet the Press does gay marriage
David Gregory assembled a fine panel of lefty newsies and they talked about gay marriage this morning, Obama and gay marriage, gays and gay marriage, never heard so much talk about gay marriage.
Does anyone (voters in particular) really care? Especially as marriage is a matter of state law anyhow? The president doesn't have much control. Unless he wanted to lead a crusade to amend the Constitution. Which probably would fail, cause Constitutional amendments need a super majority which just ain't there this year. States are split on it, some have recently legalized it, others (North Carolina!) have recently outlawed it.
This voter cares about jobs, the economy, and the deficit. Gay marriage is a distraction from the important issues.
Does anyone (voters in particular) really care? Especially as marriage is a matter of state law anyhow? The president doesn't have much control. Unless he wanted to lead a crusade to amend the Constitution. Which probably would fail, cause Constitutional amendments need a super majority which just ain't there this year. States are split on it, some have recently legalized it, others (North Carolina!) have recently outlawed it.
This voter cares about jobs, the economy, and the deficit. Gay marriage is a distraction from the important issues.
JP Morgan takes a hit
On Friday Jamie Dimon, honcho of JP Morgan Bank, admitted to taking a $2 billion dollar loss. That's quite a chunk of change. The Washington regulators, itching to take control of all banks, are howling for yet more regulation to go on top of Dodd-Frank.
Why? You would think loosing $2 billion would sting anyone hard enough to prevent them ever doing it again. Why turn our banks over to the tender mercies of federal bureaucrats? Anyone think bureaucrats are smarter or more honest than bankers?
Still secret, is just how Morgan lost all that money. Presumably they were buying and selling things, and the price moved against them. Either things they bought dropped in price, or things they sold short rose in price. But we don't know what those things were. Stocks? Bonds? Greek bonds? derivatives? credit default swaps? Mortgage backed securities? Sub prime mortgages? something else?
Jamie Dimon turned up on Meet the Press this morning talking about it. He admitted to still being a democrat, which made me wonder about his judgement. David Gregory was too clueless to ask Mr. Dimon just what things Morgan bank took that loss in.
Then Gregory turned the show over to some regulators who urged a total take over of banking "to prevent systemic risk".
By which, they probably mean the risk of a huge bank failing and tipping the economy into depression. That happened in 1929 and again in 2007. In 1929 Keynes had not published yet, and the Federal Reserve and the rest of the government let the stock market crash unhindered. In 2007 the government rushed in, spent $1 trillion to support the losing players, and the market still crashed and we haven't gotten out of Great Depression 2.0 yet.
If you really think this is a problem, the answer is simply to break up the biggest banks into smaller banks. Pass a law saying that the big banks have to pay extra taxes. Pretty soon all the big banks will spin off enough divisions to make themselves small enough to become virtuous small banks exempt from the extra tax.
Why? You would think loosing $2 billion would sting anyone hard enough to prevent them ever doing it again. Why turn our banks over to the tender mercies of federal bureaucrats? Anyone think bureaucrats are smarter or more honest than bankers?
Still secret, is just how Morgan lost all that money. Presumably they were buying and selling things, and the price moved against them. Either things they bought dropped in price, or things they sold short rose in price. But we don't know what those things were. Stocks? Bonds? Greek bonds? derivatives? credit default swaps? Mortgage backed securities? Sub prime mortgages? something else?
Jamie Dimon turned up on Meet the Press this morning talking about it. He admitted to still being a democrat, which made me wonder about his judgement. David Gregory was too clueless to ask Mr. Dimon just what things Morgan bank took that loss in.
Then Gregory turned the show over to some regulators who urged a total take over of banking "to prevent systemic risk".
By which, they probably mean the risk of a huge bank failing and tipping the economy into depression. That happened in 1929 and again in 2007. In 1929 Keynes had not published yet, and the Federal Reserve and the rest of the government let the stock market crash unhindered. In 2007 the government rushed in, spent $1 trillion to support the losing players, and the market still crashed and we haven't gotten out of Great Depression 2.0 yet.
If you really think this is a problem, the answer is simply to break up the biggest banks into smaller banks. Pass a law saying that the big banks have to pay extra taxes. Pretty soon all the big banks will spin off enough divisions to make themselves small enough to become virtuous small banks exempt from the extra tax.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
Avengers
Went to see it last night. The Jax Jr theater was pretty full even though this is the second weekend the Avengers has been in town. For a Marvel Comic movie, it's not bad. There are some good bits, like the incredible Hulk grabbing the snooty villain by the shirtfront and proceeding to pound him into the floor, wham , wham,. wham. SHIELD's flying base looks pretty good when making like a naval air craft carrier and floating in the ocean. Then the lift fans turn on, water cascades over the hull and the whole thing becomes airborne. So far pretty convincing. Then the bad guys attack at 30,000 feet and blow off one of the four lift fans. You would expect the thing to list into the missing fan, but it doesn't. The 3-D is OK and it runs for a couple of hours.
Not bad, better than the Fantastic Four movies, but I'm not sure why it broke box office records on opening week. It didn't seem THAT good to me.
Not bad, better than the Fantastic Four movies, but I'm not sure why it broke box office records on opening week. It didn't seem THAT good to me.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Downton Abbey At the beginning
I missed the early episodes on cable, but trusty Netflix just delivered a DVD with the first two episodes. I watched one last night. Pretty good. Great sets, costumes, scenery. Mediocre sound recording. Dialog from a number of characters was unintelligible to me, due to mumbling mixed with strong Brit accents. Makes the story hard to follow when you can't follow the dialog. Some plot points totally obscure. The Grantham's, or perhaps the Abbey, are burdened with "entaille" some kind of medieval legal deal that causes unhappiness, gets talked about a lot, but I have no idea what it actually means. Mary Grantham has an unsuccessful date with a young Duke of somewhere-or-other. Lots of footage of the couple tiptoeing around the third floor servant's quarters in the Abbey, for reasons unkown, unless the Duke is looking for a spare room to have sex in. Which seems out of character for 1912 upper crust Brits. The romance doesn't work out, the Duke leaves early, to the annoyance of Earl Grantham, but the reasons for the breakup remain obscure to this Yankee viewer. Doesn't seem to bother Mary too much.
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