Tuesday (YAWN) Non-Fed Links
Yeah, yeah, no change from the Fed QE/ZIRP blahblahblah. I am sick of the incessant Fed watching . . . Its become so predictable and boring. (We are due for a major shake up from them one of these days!)
Meanwhile, here are the more interesting reads that caught my eye today:
• The Long View of China’s Currency (NYT)
• Robert Shiller: Seven More Years of Hard Times? (Project-Syndicate)
• Worst Over in Global Poll Pointing to Reduced Market Returns (Bloomberg)
• Richard Bernstein’s unusual take: Non-US groups reaped fruits of Bush tax cuts (FT.com)
• Goldman whacked: Egged on by hedge funds, Oliver Stone turns on Goldman Sachs (Economist)
• Taxing Sin: A Win-Win for Everyone? (Capital Gains and Games)
• Matt Taibbi: BP’s Shock Waves: How the oil giant’s catastrophic spill in the Gulf could trigger another financial meltdown (Rolling Stone)
• Woody Allen on Faith, Fortune Tellers and New York (NYT)
• Ouch! Can You Really Break Your Penis? (Scientific American)
• 500 Years of Science, Reason & Critical Thinking (modern-science)
• Inside the Lennon/McCartney Connection (Slate, Part I Part II, Part III)
What are you reading?
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September 21st, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Well, I have certainly given it the old college try to break mine, fortunately without result. But, still, OUCHIE !
September 21st, 2010 at 5:20 pm
“Ouch! Can You Really Break Your Penis?”
From the link:
‘We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap.’
OH KAY.
I’m surprised the only thing he broke was his penis.
September 21st, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Seven contributors (including Yves Smith form NC) give their take on this “recovery”. Lots of good user comments following each. Well worth reading…
==============
NY Times
Room for Debate
Updated September 21, 2010 11:44 AM
Is This What a Recovery Feels Like?
The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research said on Monday that the recession is over. In fact, the recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009. While many economists have long been saying that the recovery has begun, this news does not fit with how a great number of Americans see the overall economy, let alone their own situations.
If June 2009 was when the economy reached its low point, do Americans need to adjust their expectations about what the recovery means for their future? And should we now be less worried about the so-called W-shaped recovery?
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/20/is-this-what-a-recovery-feels-like
September 21st, 2010 at 5:28 pm
The Scientific American link reminds me of the Elaine line on Seinfeld when they were in The Hamptons: “I don’t know how you guys walk around with those things.”
September 21st, 2010 at 5:50 pm
http://revoltoftheplebs.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/shut-up-youre-disturbing-the-elite/
September 21st, 2010 at 6:15 pm
for all you Adam Carolla fans-
“Adam Carolla Uncensored: Legalize Drugs, Cut Taxes, Drive Through Red Lights!”
Have the cops start serving the fucking people. To protect and serve, not hand out chicken shit tickets and annoy… I want the cops to focus on crime instead of being little money collectors raping everyone’s fucking wallet . . .Clear out the fucking prisons with all this fucking consensual crime shit, you know prostitution or victimless shit—drugs…You’re selling mushrooms at a Phish concert, what the fuck do I want you in our prisons for?
(warning- Libertarian views are expressed in this interview- some of you may become enraged or dizzy)
September 21st, 2010 at 6:18 pm
FLASH: Lawrence Summers is out at the end of the year.
DUH. Why wait????? More damage to do????
Hey, little Timmy, you’re next.
Too late.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:25 pm
No yawn — Summers is purportedly stepping down. But not until after the elections, at which point it will be way too late for the entire Democratic party. I think he just didn’t want to look like a quitter after the bloodletting actually occurs.
Amazing how he runs everything he touches into the ground.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Obama’s Key Economic Aide Plans to Leave by End of Year
White House economic adviser Larry Summers announced plans to leave his job by the end of the year
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39294570
Good Riddance …. unfortunately he goes back to Harvard to corrupt another wave of MBAs and econonmist or preach revisionist accounting of his accomplishments in gov’t.
Larry Summers was one of the co-conspirators along with Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Phil Gramm that rammed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that allowed derivatives to be unregulated on an unsuspecting US public. This directly led to the blow up of AIG which ended up causing the Federal Government (the taxpayer) billions and billions of dollars.
September 21st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
About Summers:
Tweedledee is calling him back from tweedledumland as the corporatocracy plans to swirch figurehead front men (and women). This is all so predictable that it is getting downright boring.
Hi Hoffer. There is somebody (Doug Hoffer) with your surname running for office around here (Vermont). Is he related to you? If he is, I will support him.
Cheers
September 21st, 2010 at 6:46 pm
unfortunately for economists we are robots
http://www.financialpost.com/news/features/predictable+economists+think/3541885/story.htm
September 21st, 2010 at 6:46 pm
make that we arent robot
September 21st, 2010 at 6:49 pm
the greatest heist ever?
wall street screwed up. needed a big bail out or they kill the economy. was a heist of blackmail?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/20/tarp-bailout-banks-wall-street
September 21st, 2010 at 6:50 pm
how to fix the economy?
http://ctmirror.com/story/7736/study-says-investments-roads-and-schools-not-tax-breaks-will-fix-economy?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+StatelineorgRss-EconomyBusiness+%28Stateline.org+RSS+-+Economy+&+Business%29
September 21st, 2010 at 6:51 pm
the latest trade war? the race to devalue!
http://www.businessinsider.com/wake-up-theres-a-trade-war-going-on-and-the-wto-is-powerless-to-stop-it-2010-9
September 21st, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Loved the Zero Hedge tweet. They have some good posts, but a very fatalistic view that will cloud their judgement. I think Ritholtz is neutral, Zero Hedge uber-perma-bear and we need a uber-perma-bull that looks at the bright side of everything to have a neutral view of the world. Cheers!
September 21st, 2010 at 7:29 pm
I’ve been reading The Big Picture, actually. Thanks. Say, I’d love for Barry, Steve B, Hoffer, Mannwich and the rest of the crew to check out a cool way to stay on top of topics of interest. It’s a great web curation feature. Check out the quick demo: blip.tv/file/4109250
September 21st, 2010 at 7:30 pm
I am wondering if this Richard Bernstein’s unusual take: Non-US groups reaped fruits of Bush tax cuts (FT.com) and offshoring explain the collapse the US economy has been going through
September 21st, 2010 at 7:35 pm
>> Bush tax cuts
Everyone, let’s please stop calling that a tax cut.
In a “tax cut” where everyone gets $1, then everyone’s purchasing power rises by an equal amount.
And if you get $1 but I get $2, my real purchasing power went up — while yours went *DOWN*.
It *was* a tax cut for the rich. For 99% of us, it was a tax increase. Remember that.
…
Worse, since Bush and the GOP kept increasing spending anyway, your purchasing power was continually reduced. So, the biggest recipients of GOP largesse, banksters and MIC contractors, can afford luxuries you can’t because they got $2 instead of the $1 given to you.
September 21st, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Barry,
You need some cheering up so I’ll give you this ‘way out there’ info I just stumbled on. It will give you a good laugh if nothing else. But, hey, who knows? It could knock the stuffing out of our ‘kill everyone that doesn’t bend over’ foreign policy based on our big bad nukes.
The story:
During the cold war, Eisenhower had a meeting with the intelligence agencies to find out what direction Russia would go after Stalin’s death (1953). Well, nobody knew. So operation skyhook was born (high altitude ballons to monitor Russia from above and find out what was going on). Russia started knocking down the balloons and this embarassed Eik. The U2 was developed as a consequence. When the U2 got knocked down, the SR71 (100,000 feet agl plus high and faster than most missiles) was next at bat. So what does all this have to do with UFOs?
I’m glad you asked. It turns out that as all this high altitude spy stuff was being devloped, the UFO flap began. The CIA saw a golden opportunity according to recently declassified documents. The CIA figured that if the Russians thought they were seeing little green men in UFOs, the USA wouldn’t be fingered for spying on Russia. So-o-o-o the CIA, which had (and HAS) a HEAVY infiltration into the news media began pushing stories on UFO sightings as a psyops here (great cover for secret Air Force flight tests) and abroad to confuse the Russkies. No, they weren’t making this stuff up. There were lots of ‘kooks’ out there seeing flying saucers. It was just a matter of getting the media to pay attention. After all, the CIA was busy, busy, busy in Guatemala, France (lsd tests on a whole village), Greece, Italy (killing parliament members and blaming it on commies to get people to hate commies), Africa and, of course, Iran. Any loud press about extra-terrestrials was a great distraction from our skullduggery.
But along the way, they had some ‘difficulties’. It turns out that US Air Force pilots were ‘seeing things’ too. So, it seems, there was something out there that wasn’t ours or theirs. This ‘problem’ was, from the CIA’s point of view, a PR problem. They figured (along with the Air Force) that ‘they’ hadn’t showed any offensive capability so the best thing to do was to tell the reliable witnesses to shut up or be ridiculed, sent to a shrink and ,horror of horrors, lose their military pension. The spy program over Russia and high tech aircraft development in the USA would continue using the UFO cover as a disinformation distraction tool.
But now, on September 15, 2010, a group of Air Force officers has announced that at a press confernece on September 27, 2010 they will show proof that the US Air Force is lying about UFOs.
SO WHAT? BIG DEAL! Lying is what they do and have always done. It’s all in the name of ‘national security’, right?
WRONG. These folks claim that disk shaped craft have been observed in close proximity to nuclear weapons locations in England shining some kind of light on the weapons silos. Said weapons were disabled at the same instant the ‘lights’ were trained on the silos. Furthermore, the group claims that the Air Force has had numerous nuclear weapon obsevation and/or disabling actions in the USA by UFOs for several decades .
Bullshit, you say? Suppose it’s not bullshit? Suppose we aren’t number one anymore? Just imagine what that would do to Wall Street. Just imagine what the world reaction would be if ALL of everyone’s nukes were disabled? China would be INSTANTLY number one. Whithout nukes, they can beat he stuffing out of ANYBODY.
If this is more CIA psyops, it’s beyond me what they hope to accomplish. But I do admit it is great fun imagining Blankfein or Bernake trying to convince little green men to buy derivatives or submit to central bank policy. And the heartburn that Petreaus would experience would require gallons of maalox. Gates would need a ton of preparation H.
September 21st, 2010 at 7:57 pm
pension fraud?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/business/18pension.html?hpw&pagewanted=all&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+StatelineorgRss-TaxesBudget+%28Stateline.org+RSS+-+Taxes+&+Budget%29
September 21st, 2010 at 8:06 pm
- PROTIP: writing a negative online review of the hotel you’re currently staying in may come back to haunt you.
- http://gizmodo.com/5643274/travel-tip-dont-write-a-bad-online-review-of-the-hotel-youre-currently-staying-in
September 21st, 2010 at 8:33 pm
BR…this “Non Trader” is doing OKAY…reading your Blog and Links to Sites from the people you Link To!
I’m up about 50 % because I held on to the good stuff I owned ..(only about 4 stocks) and when my 401-K/IRA got TRASHED in the MELT DOWN..I lost about 10% …before I got out and transferred to my own control…(switching managers) which WAS NOT EASY…by ANY MEANS.
Read All your Posts and your Contributors…and …so far…your site has SAVED ME MONEY…GROWN ME MONEY!
But, as I’ve said since posting to your site as a “Newbie”…I am NOT A TRADER…tend to be “Long Term/Value Investor.”
But, reading your site daily and your “Think Tank” and “Book” Links….I’m doing “pretty okay.” Better than CD’s or MMK’ts….where I could have had ALL HOLDINGS INTO.
However…I do have SOME CD’s and a BANK MMF…that gives me what the FED GIVES that I KEEP FOR SAFETY…because there’s NO WAY I would want ALL MY MONEY “put to work” in this CRAZY MARKET SCHEMING.
So it’s a LITTLE HERE…SOME THERE…and a LITTLE LESS THERE.
CAN YOU SAY: DIVERSIFICATION!
September 21st, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Some more stuff to ponder:
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a number of ex-Soviet Army personnel came forward and began discussing their involvement in similar incidents in that country during the Cold War era. One of those events occurred on October 4, 1982, near the Ukrainian town of Byelokoroviche, when a disc-shaped UFO apparently hovered over a nuclear missile base for an extended period. At one point during the encounter, a number of nuclear missiles suddenly activated—without authorization from Moscow or any action being taken by the missile launch officers—and were preparing to launch! Had they done so, World War III would have very probably been underway. Fortunately, after 15 seconds, the anomalous activation ceased and the missiles returned to stand-by status. A subsequent investigation by the Soviet government discovered no equipment malfunctions that would have explained the event.
September 21st, 2010 at 8:36 pm
And here is the link to the reuters story.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS166901+15-Sep-2010+PRN20100915
September 21st, 2010 at 8:36 pm
A Majority of Americans want deficit cut even in tough economy
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68K31T20100921?
A Majority of Americans OK Allowing Tax Cuts for Wealthy to Expire
http://www.gallup.com/poll/142940/americans-allowing-tax-cuts-wealthy-expire.aspx
Democrats Re-Establish Narrow Edge in Party Affiliation
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143009/Democrats-Establish-Narrow-Edge-Party-Affiliation.aspx
Large Majority of Americans Thinks Country Needs Viable Third Party
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143051/Americans-Renew-Call-Third-Party.aspx
Rasmussen Reports survey: Most Americans Support Palin Views
http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1424608
…Ok… Guess which one doesn’t belong? Go on, guess? (hint: RASSMUSSEN SURVEY) OK, you got it?
http://elections.firedoglake.com/2010/09/20/large-majority-of-americans-thinks-country-needs-viable-third-party/
Majority Thinks GOP Has Moved Right Since Obama Took Office
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143027/Majority-Thinks-GOP-Moved-Right-Obama-Took-Office.aspx
Democrats Re-Establish Narrow Edge in Party Affiliation
http://www.gallup.com/poll/143009/Democrats-Establish-Narrow-Edge-Party-Affiliation.aspx
September 21st, 2010 at 8:58 pm
MATT TAIBBI….is Always an Interesting Read…Hyperbolic or Not…depending….
—–
BP’s Shock Waves
How the oil giant’s catastrophic spill in the Gulf could trigger another financial meltdown
by Matt Taibbi
It was sickening enough when British oil giant BP set new standards for corporate scumbaggery in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, turning the Gulf of Mexico into its own personal toilet and imperiling entire species of wildlife in an attempt to save a few nickels. But with the Gulf geyser finally capped, there’s still a way for BP to cause an even more unthinkable disaster: an AIG-style, derivative-fueled financial shitstorm. If the company decides to declare bankruptcy — a very real possibility with these bastards — it could trigger chaos in our casino system of finance, underscoring the insane levels of leverage and systemic risk we have left in place, even after the global economic crash of 2008.
The first serious whiff of trouble came on June 15th, when Barack Obama manned up and went on national TV to tell the nation that he wasn’t going to let BP worm its way out of this one. “We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused,” he declared, vowing to push BP to set aside $20 billion to clean up its mess and compensate victims.
Get your dose of Matt Taibbi’s commentary on the Taibblog.
That sound you heard the very next day was Wall Street’s collective asshole slamming shut in terror. If the government was seriously going to stick BP with the tab for the worst environmental disaster in America’s history, then there was suddenly a real chance that one of the most lucrative moneymaking machines the world has ever seen could go bankrupt. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned from the disastrous implosion of AIG, there is no such thing anymore as a giant company dying alone.
MUCH MORE AT……….
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/204277#
September 21st, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Woody Allen has aged so much that to see the photo and read the link to his article was …well..sort of depressing. I know in his early 70′s he is just looking his age….but he was the YOUNG RADICAL in his early days..and his Movies and journey captured something of a certain time in America.
Alas…we all grow older…and some age differently from the rest.
It was a very interesting read…..
—–
Woody Allen on Faith, Fortune Tellers and New York (Link in your Original Post)
Retropection is good…and good to hear it from those who are “passing older” because they do have some views that are interesting to put into things for our “thoughts/thinking/reflection.”
September 21st, 2010 at 9:41 pm
‘We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap.’
Kiddies, this is why if someone tells you to go take a flying f*ck, you take a moment to consider the consequences.
I offer the link below as a counterpoint to the link on “500 Years of Science, Reason & Critical Thinking”-
http://www.27bslash6.com/foggot.html
September 21st, 2010 at 10:02 pm
@AGG Says:
September 21st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
About Summers:
Tweedledee is calling him back from tweedledumland as the corporatocracy plans to swirch figurehead front men (and women). This is all so predictable that it is getting downright boring.
———–
That some are thinking we could get WORSE than SUMMERS is scary!
But, throwing bones to the Left that was “Trashed” to get them to the poles in November…by “teasing” is kind of the way politics works these days.
He really admired “Reagan”…but then we know that Reagan had “many handlers” and he (Reagan) was a magnificent Figurehead! Most of his term he had early Alzheimers …..so it was (as usual) the HANDLERS who have the INFLUENCE…and maybe, not so much, the FIGUREHEAD who gets in there.
At least there’s some anecdotal observation evidence to support that from “long time voters” who’ve watched the FIASCO unfold ….Decade after Decade…….
Perhaps too cynical over Summers Departure. He did have a contract with Harvard to keep his Tenure if he only left to serve the Govt. for 2 years…and so he’s only trying to keep his Tenure (his SS/Medicare/Pension/Retirement) by leaving the Obama Administrations.
Progressive Dems might find this a HUGE OOMPH to get them to the polls, though. The ones that don’t understand what Summer’s TENURE hiatus was about that “He SERVED the PRESIDENT.”
What will come next? WHO WILL COME NEXT. Wait until after Mid-Terms. Good folks are vying for Summer’s Job…but someone will “come out of a hat.” Won’t please many…but will be chosen for that reason? ????
September 21st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
yeah Woody Allen-
nothing like having an affair with your adopted step daughter and then divorcing your wife and marrying her (well he was in LOVE)
so it’s ok I guess-
Farrow and Allen parted after Farrow discovered a sexual relationship between Allen and her adopted daughter Soon-Yi. During the subsequent custody battle involving Farrow’s and Allen’s three children, Farrow filed charges that Allen had molested their daughter Dylan, then seven years old. Allen has adamantly denied the charges. A doctor concluded that Dylan “either invented the story under the stress of living in a volatile and unhealthy home or that it was planted in her mind by her mother” because Dylan presented the story inconsistently.[22] The charges were dropped to avoid subjecting the child to a court trial, although a judge called Allen’s conduct “grossly inappropriate”. Farrow ultimately won custody of the children. During the public fracas, Frank Sinatra allegedly contacted Farrow with an offer to have Allen’s legs broken, a courtesy Farrow wrote of in her 1997 autobiography What Falls Away.
but he’s a movie making genius- so it’s all good- he deserves a pass (I hear all the movie star’s love him- and why not?)
September 21st, 2010 at 11:56 pm
I don’t see your name, but I am pulling for you :)
Real estate bubble-bursting prediction Nobel win?
——————————————————————————–
By Maggie Fox, Health
and Science EditorPosted 2010/09/21 at 6:01 am EDT
WASHINGTON, Sep. 21, 2010 (Reuters) — After zooming up impossibly fast, making homeowners millionaires in just a few years, real estate prices crashed in a classic bubble. The shock caused credit markets to freeze and banks to stop lending.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre68k1c9-us-nobel-predictions-economics/
September 21st, 2010 at 11:58 pm
A few reactions to BR’s links :
Seven more lean years? Yes, I am in Grantham’s (and apparently Shiller’s) camp there myself. Secular bull in US equities starts around 2016, after the all greater fools are washed out near the bottom and the apparatchniks at BusinessWeek loftily announce (tweet?) the Death of Equities again. On the other hand, Barry recently posted his demand that people use some quantitative system to establish their beliefs rather than merely arguing by assertion (that killjoy), so I suppose I’m on thin ice there.
Oliver Stone wacking Goldman can only serve to dilute the more substantial criticism that firm deserves. Maybe he’s on their payroll?
Matt Taibbi – once again a previous poster has put it better than I – always worth reading, no matter how hyperbolic.
Reading that NYT piece on the Woodman (hat-tip to Bill Murray there) made me feel more sympathetic towards Allen than I have in years. Why are frank expressions of religious scepticism still so rare in the US, when we all know how common it actually is? As for comments about his aging, he has been doing so for decades and was famous for being a nebbish as a young man, so why the surprise?
If I clicked on that penis-breakage link, I am quite sure I’d faint at some point, so I’ll skip it.
As for BR’s question about what we’re reading…Michael Hudson is an economist who hits on the head an issue I’ve struggled with since college – how can we distinguish between genuinely productive economic behavior and the kind of parasitic (lots of historical baggage with that word, I know) financial transactions that are zero-sum at best but usually outright destructive of real wealth-creation?
IMHO, Hudson is the sort of left-winger who’d make Castro look like Lee Kwan Yew if he actually ran a country, but who is brilliant as a critic :
http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson09202010.html
September 22nd, 2010 at 8:18 am
you know, instead of that SciAm gawk-piece, maybe more of us should understand this http://machinedesign.com/article/calculate-deflection-in-stepped-shafts-the-easy-way-0608 ,by Jessica Shapiro, first..
for, if we had, that dude, at the min., would have been far less likely to take a ______ ____ .
September 22nd, 2010 at 8:51 am
We had this patient who suffered penile fracture after running across the room and trying to penetrate his wife with a flying leap.
Any chance we can find out more about this guy’s technique. This may require an addendum to Kama Sutra
September 22nd, 2010 at 8:24 pm
It’s called Peyronie’s disease (spelling may not be correct). I’ve had it. I’m not, and never have been, an acrobat. It hurts.