Suitably Flip

NY-20 Results Thread

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Polls closed at 9:00, but 30 minutes later, only 1 of the 10 counties shows us anything and they've got a scant 2% of precincts reporting.

For what it's worth, those several voters broke for Scott Murphy (D) over Jim Tedisco (R) 72-28.

Via Drew at Ace's, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has been busy lowering expectations today.

(White House Spokesman Robert) Gibbs echoed pretty much the basic Democratic talking points analysis/spin of the race: “Republicans have a significant voter registration advantage -- 71,000 more voters are registered Republicans than are registered Democrats.

“Kirsten Gillibrand was the first Democrat to hold NY-20 in 28 years when she upset then-Representative John Sweeny in 2006. Sweeny faced significant ethical issues. Even though Obama won the district in 2008, it had previously been solidly Republican. President Bush won NY-20 in both 2000 and 2004. In fact, NY-20 was one of only six districts in New York State voting for President Bush in 2000, and one of only nine supporting him in 2004.”

The Albany Times-Union has the latest numbers.

Update (9:40):  Much more now.

Essex: Murphy (58-42, with 47% in)
Greene: Tedisco (56-44, with 58% in)
Rensselaer: Tedisco (52-48, with 20% in)
Saratoga: Tedisco (58-42, with 25% in)
Washington: Murphy (57-43, with 85% in)
Warren: Murphy (56-44, with 45% in)

Update (9:43): Via Hot Air, the Saratogian offers the district-wide totals.

With 63% of precincts in, Tedisco leads by 4 votes (46,969-46,965).

Update (9:45):

With 68% in, Tedisco's lead expands to 856 votes (51,415-50,559), still less than 1%.

Update (9:50):

With 71% in, Tedisco leads by 951 (54,201-53,250).

Roughly 1/3 of the remaining precincts are in Saratoga County, where Tedisco is running 10 points ahead.  Fewer (but still a lot) are in Columbia County, where Murphy is running 12 points ahead.  Still very much up in the air.

Update (9:55):

With 81% in, Tedisco leads by 1,050 (63,197-62,147).  Still a lot of precincts in Saratoga and Columbia yet to come in.  The only other region with meaningful uncounted votes is Delaware County, where Tedisco is running 6 points ahead.

I'm going to give the edge to Tedisco, but by a nose.  Should be well under 1,500 votes (out of roughly 150,000) when all is said and done.

Update (10:05):

With 83% in, Tedisco leads by 1,112.  All remaining precincts come from those three counties.  Extrapolating from the vote shares in those counties thus far, the remaining precincts would increment the votes like so:

Saratoga: 1,186 net votes for Tedisco
Columbia: 1,069 net votes for Murphy
Delaware: 218 net votes for Tedisco
Total: 335 net votes for Tedisco

That'd give Tedisco the win by 1,447.

I don't how many provisionals, absentees, or other special votes are not reflected in tonight's reported totals.

Update (10:12):

With 96% in, Tedisco leads by just 102 votes (a slug of Columbia precincts just reported).  Still 14 precincts to go in Saratoga (Tedisco country) and 8 in Columbia (Murphy country).

Update (10:16):

Insane. With 97% in, Tedisco leads by 30 votes (0.02%).  11 of 19 remaining precincts are in Saratoga.

Update (10:18):

With 99.5% in, Murphy now leads by 252 votes.  All 3 remaining precincts are in Saratoga.

Based on the rest of the county's results, those precincts would give Tedisco just 68 net votes.

Update (10:20):

With just one precinct to go, Murphy's lead drops to 81 votes.

Update (10:40):

With 100% reporting, it's Murphy by 65 votes.

With thousands of absentees (not to mention months of exciting court battles!) to wade through, this is as close to a dead-heat as imaginable (50.02%-49.98%).

In other words, you can quit holding your breath.

Somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 military and absentee ballots remain uncounted, according to the Associated Press, and overseas absentee ballots will continue be accepted until April 13. In short, no winner will be declared any time soon.

Longest-Serving Fed Official: Suck It Up, It's Not That Bad

(I'm paraphrasing, slightly.)

It seems to me that sober assessments like these, from people in a position to know, go a lot further toward stemming irrational economic doomsaying than let's-cry-together websites from the federal government.

The U.S. economy should find its footing around the middle of the year even after another “significant” contraction in the first quarter, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Gary Stern said Tuesday.
...
His tenure, the longest of any current Fed official, spans the chairmanships of Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

“One of the things I’ve observed coming out of the last two recessions is that there’s always a lot of concern about (how) ‘this is a very fragile recovery’” and worries that “if the Fed doesn’t do just the right thing…the whole thing will collapse again,” he said, leading to talk of “double dips, triple dips.”

Stern knows from experience how hard it is to spot the trough of a business cycle. Recalling his days as the Minneapolis Fed’s research director in 1982, he said that he told the Minneapolis Fed’s directors that there was “no sign of the recession ending” in November of that year. Of course, the National Bureau of Economic Research eventually determined that the recession did in fact end that
same month.
...
Stern disputes comparisons between the current economic downturn and the Great Depression. ... For those of us who were around for ‘80-’82 and ‘73-’75, what’s happening in the economy and a lot of the rhetoric that goes with it rings more familiar,” he said.

Trillionometer Check

Now at 12.8 and rising, the cumulative trillions thrown into emergency pork, "stimulus" and social spending are about to surpass U.S. GDP.

Are we done arguing about the $0.00016 trillion in AIG bonuses yet?

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Update:  Whoops, there's another $2.2 trillion.  That brings us to an even 15, comfortably above U.S. GDP.

Annual planetary output is currently around $70 trillion.  At this rate, the cost of government programs addressing the financial crisis should pierce that some time in the fall of 2010.

I ♥ the 70s

If you do too, then get ready for an Empire State retro-extravaganza.

This state was getting overcrowded anyway.

New York's ruling Democratic trium virate took a giant generational leap backward yesterday to the destructive days of John Lindsay, Abe Beame and Nelson Rockefeller.

The budget created by Gov. Paterson, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is a monstrously bloated, tax-and-spend plan that, in one fell swoop, reverses a three-decade-long effort to strengthen business and prevent taxpayers from fleeing the state.

The wrecking ball of a new state budget, approved in Kremlin-like secrecy by the troika, also ranks as one of the biggest betrayals in process and substance by a governor in New York history.

How monstrously bloated, you ask?

A Big Apple family of five with a combined income of $450,000 will end up shelling out at least an additional $5,200 a year more under the budget agreed to by Gov. Paterson and legislative leaders.
...
They'll fork over $4,320 extra in state income tax alone thanks to the "millionaire's tax," which whacks households earning over $300,000 with a 1 percent hike.

The Post reached that number by adjusting their taxable income with $3,000 in deductions for their three children, and the $15,000 standard deduction.

As steep as their new bill is, their more affluent neighbors will be hit even harder. New Yorkers who earn over $500,000 will see their personal income tax rate jump from 6.85 percent to 8.97 percent.

Lamented a prescient econo-political blogger last November in re the tax implications of the new power structure in Albany...

New York's nearly superlatively punitive tax scheme is - amazingly - the product of a legislature whose upper house has been in Republican hands almost exclusively since the late 1930s.  While Democrats have long-controlled the State Assembly, the State Senate was New York's final GOP holdout once Client #9 became Governor.
...
Albany's screwy political architecture means the power in each house is unusually concentrated in the hands of the majority (something Senate Democrats and Assembly Republicans have historically lamented in unison).

In all likelihood, this handover thus heralds a dramatic shift toward even more liberal economic policies in New York State.  Perhaps now we can finally win back our #1 ranking from New Jersey as the worst business tax climate in the country, having wallowed at 2nd worst for the last few years.

For a sense of how much economic damage this might inflict on American business generally, consider the fact that the 40-some Fortune 500 companies based in New York City alone account for well over a trillion dollars in annual income (roughly the GDP of Brazil).

State Senate Dems undoubtedly salivate at the thought of this bottomless piggybank which they can now use without obstruction to fund their bloated adventures in big government.  Past experience has given us little reason to assume they'll stop to consider the impact of increasingly punitive taxes on job creation, the value of investment portfolios (retirement accounts) that hold stock in large companies, or the general health of the state economy, already nearly crippled by a tax scheme that gives capital and successful businesses every incentive to relocate across state lines or overseas.

Let There Be Light. Soulless, Earth-Raping Light

Gaia weeps.

Do as I say, not as I do? Seems like former Vice-President Al Gore may be embracing that motto as evidenced Saturday night with the environmentalist’s failure to turn off the lights of his Nashville home for “Earth Hour.”

Drew Johnson, president of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research —the same organization that also found Gore’s home consumes 20 times more electricity than the average household — told Yeas & Nays that Gore’s Belle Meade-section mansion did not go dark during the global campaign’s designated hour between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Johnson did admit that although it wasn’t as bright as can be,  Gore did have on “a dozen or so” floodlights on his trees, a light shining on his address number, and a noticeable “bluish glow” from his powered-on televisions and computers coming from inside his house.

“It was very noticeable compared to the fact that even the streetlights on his street were off for the hour,” Johnson said. He also added how ironic it was that Nashville was one of the “official” U.S. cities of “Earth Day.”

HT: Hot Air

Brits Poised To Join 18th Century, Eschew Primogeniture

I predict Silas follows suit by the end of the season, making Michelle crown princess.

The prohibition on British monarchs marrying Catholics, and the primacy of princes over princesses in regal succession would become relics of history under an endorsement from U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday.

Mr. Brown said he wants to change Britain's rules of succession, ending both the 321-year-old religious ban and the practice of primogeniture, in which the right of succession belongs to the eldest son.

England's 1688 Bill of Rights prohibits heirs to British throne from marrying "a papist," a rule designed to protect the power of the Church of England.
...
"I think in the 21st century, people do expect discrimination to be removed," Mr. Brown, who was traveling in Brazil Friday, said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

HT: The Corner

Saving the Markets From Free Marketeers

Regrettably, Bush opened the door to this Alice In Wonderlandish reasoning when he said, "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," leaving Joe Biden free to burrow a little further down the rabbit hole.

Vice President Biden, echoing President Franklin Roosevelt's famous admonition about saving capitalism from capitalists, urged world leaders on Saturday help "save the markets from free marketeers."

Biden made the remarks while speaking Saturday at the Progressive Governance Conference in Vina del Mar, Chile.

The assembled leaders "have to, in a sense, save the markets from free marketeers right now," Biden said in remarks released by the White House.

If we slide much further into the abyss of central planning and wealth confiscation, we may need to save democracy from the Democratic party.

Deign To DREAM

Look at you, taxpayer.  Not only are you a banking and insurance magnate, but you're about to become a bountiful philanthropist too.

The shamnesty crowd is ready to roll again. The illegal alien college tuition discount bill known as the “DREAM Act” has been reintroduced — with bipartisan support, as usual:

Congressmen Howard Berman (D-CA) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), announced the reintroduction today of the DREAM Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. This legislation will restore the States’ rights to determine residency requirements for higher education benefits - giving states the option to provide in-state tuition. The American DREAM Act seeks to facilitate access to postsecondary educational opportunities for immigrant students in the United States who currently face barriers in pursuing a college education.

Should it pass, never again will a taxpayer be able to survive a Senate confirmation hearing, given the troubling "distraction" of their history of paying illegal immigrants.

I guess Obama's predilection to appoint non-taxpayers was shrewder than we thought.

Hey, the SarbOx Knee-Jerk Worked Out Pretty Well For Everyone

So this sounds like a swell idea.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner plans to propose today a sweeping expansion of federal authority over the financial system, breaking from an era in which the government stood back from financial markets and allowed participants to decide how much risk to take in the pursuit of profit.

The Obama administration's plan, described by several sources, would extend federal regulation for the first time to all trading in financial derivatives and to companies including large hedge funds and major insurers such as American International Group. The administration also will seek to impose uniform standards on all large financial firms, including banks, an unprecedented step that would place significant limits on the scope and risk of their activities.

Neologism Of the Day

Flump.

"... And If It Stops Moving, Subsidize It."

Reagan was on to something.

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin.

A Cardin spokesman said the bill had yet to attract any co-sponsors, but had sparked plenty of interest within the media, which has seen plunging revenues and many journalist layoffs.

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible.

Moron More On the Notre Dame-Obama Kerfuffle

Why do we have Phil Donahue weighing in, anyway?  If we're looking to septuagenarian alumni talk show hosts for guidance, wouldn't Regis be a slightly less outdated fount of insight?

Previously:  Second Coming of Christ To Deliver Appropriate Commencement Address

Specter Torpedoes Card Check

And then there were 59.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) announced Tuesday he will oppose card check, giving an apparent death blow to the most important congressional issue to organized labor.

Specter made the dramatic announcement in a floor speech. His opposition means Democrats can count on a maximum of 59 votes to move the bill forward, one short of the 60 required to clear Senate rules.

Meanwhile, the price of our Card Check futures contract plunged 34% on the news.

"Remember Smoot-Hawley"

Wisdom from down-under.

In times of crisis, the U.S. loves a rallying cry. “Remember the Alamo.” “Remember the Maine.” “Remember Smoot-Hawley?”

Ok, “Smoot-Hawley” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but Kevin Rudd, prime minister of Australia, suggests it is just the rallying cry needed to keep the global financial crisis from morphing into the 1930s redux. That protectionist tax, enacted in 1930, was in the eyes of many financial experts a low point in U.S. economic history. (Those who are not history buffs can read up on it here.)
...
After Rudd’s speech, one thing was clear: If he is ever looking for a second act after Australian politics, Wall Street would be happy to have him. “Why don’t we have him?” wailed one prominent attendee at the conference after Rudd’s speech. Rudd also got high marks from embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who said, “The prime minister is A+ on these issues. If we followed his advice we’d be in a better position.”

Color Me Snubbed

Cor blimey.

The New Econoblogger A-List

It's the invite everybody wants to have gotten: were you invited to join Treasury's econoblogger conference call? Clusterstock, Dealbreaker, and Paul Kedrosky found the golden ticket in their inboxes, and Brad DeLong asked a question -- although one would hope that Treasury would be talking to him informally anyway.

As for the list of people who didn't get an invite, they include John Hempton, Yves Smith, and me; rumor has it that obvious names like Mark Thoma, Nouriel Roubini, Tyler Cowen, and Calculated Risk weren't invited either, but I haven't checked. Certainly the call seems to have been very short; if many econobloggers did get the invites, they quite possibly -- like Kedrosky -- didn't get them in time.

Here's Clusterstock's abbreviated liveblog of the call.

Market Buoyed By Twin Mediocrities

Hey, 4% is 4%, so I won't quibble.

The mixed housing news (existing home sales up, but prices down) was a significant upside surprise to the market, as were (apparently) the newly released details of the latest iteration of the Treasury's banking stabilization plan.  The trillion dollar initiative plans to use both public and private money to scrape the remaining toxic assets from banks' balance sheets - laudable in theory, but one has to wonder what private investors in their right minds would invest their money alongside the federal government's at this point.

Retroactive bonus confiscation, contract nullification, threats of system-wide pay caps, and other unprecedented (at least in this country) interventionism argues rather fiercely against throwing in with Uncle Sam.

If the terms are sufficiently favorable to the investors, then sure, the risk of spending the rest of your life under Nancy Pelosi's thumb may be justifiable.  But that incremental required favorability will necessarily make the deals worse for the banks on the other side, making the plan less likely to succeed.  Either that, or the "public partner" (i.e. the taxpayers) eat the difference.  Bottom line - the federal government has proven itself an unpredictably toxic business business partner, a condition under which any plan that relies on a public-private capital partnership would seem suboptimal.

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Okay, I quibbled.

Oh, La Vache

Qui est le President?

Translated from Le Figaro:

Barack Obama wrote to Jacques Chirac

The U.S. President has just sent a letter "very sympathetic" to Jacques Chirac, in the words of the latter. "I am confident that we can over the next four years working together in a spirit of peace and friendship to build a safer world," writes George W. Bush's successor to Nicolas Sarkozy's predecessor. In mentioning the word "peace," Obama makes implicit tribute to the action of the former French President who opposed the war in Iraq. A U.S. intervention which the future U.S. President had opposed as a Senator [sic], in a vote in Congress [sic].

Quelle gaffe.

HT: Gabriel Malor, who notes that the actual President of France, "Nicolas Sarkozy, who has been trying for months to get a sit-down with President Obama is not amused."

Madoff Employee Finds Unblown Whistles To Blow

If accurate, this seems to implicate a whole lot more people.

Not Since Big Ern vs. Munson...

...has such an epic bowling gauntlet been thrown down.

I really think he should accept the challenge.  He could steer the Pay-per-view revenues to the Special Olympics and probably fund the next century of games.  Could be a good PR move in what's otherwise been a woefully impolitic month.

Second Coming of Christ To Deliver Appropriate Commencement Address

*Sigh*

President Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and the recipient of an honorary doctor of laws degree at the University of Notre Dame’s 164th University Commencement Ceremony at 2 p.m. May 17 (Sunday) in the Joyce Center on campus.

Mr. Obama will be the ninth U.S. president to be awarded an honorary degree by the University and the sixth to be the Commencement speaker.

This is a coup for my beloved alma mater, I suppose.  I just hope they suppress the urge to rededicate the Jesus statue in His honor.

Announcing Launch of American Civics Exchange

Quoting from our press release...

American Civics Exchange Announces Public Launch

Online Futures Market Enables Participants To Hedge Exposure To Political Events

NEW YORK, March 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Civics Exchangecorp, Inc. announced today that it has launched The American Civics Exchange, the first US-based commercial market for political futures. The Exchange enables traders to hedge and speculate on political risk through derivative contracts based on the outcomes of underlying events, including increases in tax rates, enactment of "card check" legislation, increases in minimum wage rates, enactment of "cap and trade" legislation, and other legislative, regulatory, and legal outcomes.

The ability to offset exposure to such events using contracts traded on the Exchange will enable risk managers and investors to reduce unwanted risk and protect themselves from adverse political outcomes. All contracts that trade on the Exchange are binary in nature, meaning they settle at $0 or $100, and are fully cash-collateralized, eliminating any counterparty, credit, or clearing risk.

The Exchange's initial launch consists of a "play money" market for prospective participants and interested members of the general public. This launch will be followed by the roll-out of the "real money" market, which will be open only to eligible contract participants (as defined in the Commodity Exchange Act). The play money market will continue to operate parallel to the real money market and will remain available to individuals not eligible to trade in the live market, members of the press, academic and policy researchers, and other interested parties. In coming weeks, the Exchange will phase in additional collaborative and community-based tools for trading and research.

Philip "Flip" Pidot, one of the founders and the CEO of the Exchange, said, "The inauguration of a new Presidential administration and the unprecedented legislative and regulatory changes being considered in response to the financial crisis have only magnified the bottom-line impact of public policy decisions. For the first time, businesses and individuals have a market-based solution to hedge against these uncertain political risks."

The American Civics Exchange operates as an Exempt Board of Trade pursuant to federal law and CFTC regulations. Users can register accounts and trade through the secure online trading platform located at http://amciv.com.

Requests for additional information can be directed to info@amciv.com or (646) 257-2426.

John Campbell (R-CA) On Bonus Confiscation

Rep. Campbell apparently isn't a fan of the federal legislature wielding its tax authority to nullify valid contracts.

I firmly opposed and voted “no” on HR 1586. Let’s first understand exactly what the bill does. It imposes a 90% federal income tax on any bonus paid to any employee of any company that has received over $5 Billion in federal rescue funds. ... The tax would only apply to people with total joint incomes over $250,000 or single individuals with income of over $125,000. When combined with California Income taxes which now top out at 10.55%, this can be a tax just short of 101% of the income.

Under this law, a bank teller at Wells Fargo could receive a bonus of $1,000 for doing a great job. If that bank teller was married to a physician who made $175,000 and they had some additional investment income, that bank teller would pay a tax of $1,055 on the bonus of $1,000 that they received for doing a good job. This is horrible!
...
You may or may not realize it, but embezzlement income is taxable today, but at normal rates. So if you steal money, you will not have a tax higher than normal. You may be forced to give the money back because you stole it, but it will not be taxed away from you. This bill makes a bonus from Bank of America a more egregious offense under the tax laws than bank robbery.

All of this was caused because we nationalized companies that are created to make a profit. Throughout time, governments have shown themselves to be particularly inept at such an enterprise. This is another example of why.

Friday Photoshop

Veronica Corningstone must have had a hand in this.

“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” [Special Olympics Chairman Tim] Shriver said on “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes."

President Barack Obama made his difficult week worse Thursday by saying his poor bowling skills are “like Special Olympics or something,” an athletic competition for people with disabilities. His spokesman quickly said Obama hadn’t intended any offense.

Massive Sleeper Cell Uncovered In Wilton, CT

I guess that means we're now state sponsors of terrorism, to the tune of $150 billion.

Here a Trillion, There a Trillion

Seriously, let's just stop counting.  It's just getting too depressing.  No one likes counting 12 zeroes.

At capacity, we as a country are able to crank out about 14 of these trillions each year.

The long-term average ratio of government spending to GDP is about 20%, meaning at full capacity, we float a little less than $3 trillion in government spending each year.

In the first two months of the Hopenchange Times, we've thus far committed to spend an incremental $6-7 trillion or so.  At this rate, we'll hit the 11th zero within the next few weeks.

No one wants that.  And there's no reasonable expectation that we can stop this spending train, so your best bet is just to close your eyes and stop counting.

If Carter heralded Reagan, then Obama must be heralding some kind of gamma powered mechanical Reagan, with freeway on-ramps for arms and a heart as black as coal...

Sign Of the Times

Or, in this case, the Post.

THE FAMILY THAT OWNS THE Washington Post newspaper has been selling shares in the parent company in earnest in recent months. Donald Graham, the chairman and chief executive officer of Washington Post Co. (ticker: WPO), has sold tens of millions of dollars worth of stock in the past year through a series of trusts he oversees for his relatives.

In the process he has decreased his control of the company's publicly traded class B shares to 3.2 million shares, or 33.8%, from 3.4 million shares, or 35.2%, last February.

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Luí Le Chéile Thú Féin, San Diego

The St. Patrick's Day Speech Massacre:

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.

It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.

Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."

A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself for inviting everyone to the party.

The "Too Ambitious" Straw Man

Obama just delivered a press conference discussing his proposed budget.  Of his critics, he again laments the "some" out there who believe his plans to be "too ambitious".  This is a nifty way to dismiss the grave and genuine concerns of the some who know well that Keynesian stimulus doesn't work (and, on a large scale, can make things much worse), who know that raising tax rates will stymie growth and prolong malaise, and who recognize that the trillions of dollars already committed to ostensible stimulus are primarily comprised of unrelated social programs and pet projects, stretching over a decade and hurriedly enacted under the fog of emergency.

Contrary to the implications of the "too ambitious" framework, critics of the President's budget don't quibble with the size of his ambition, believing his theses to be sound, if just a bit too grand for their taste.  They believe the levers are being pulled the wrong way.

Throwing water on a grease fire, shaking a crying baby, peering slack-jawed into the barrel of a gun that won't seem to fire... these are also poor ideas likely to take a situation from bad to worse.  If you find yourself being yelled at for hosing down a thousand grease fires, shaking a thousand babies, or peering dumbly into a thousand gun barrels, these aren't examples of cynical bystanders naysaing the grand ambition of your endeavors.

If - despite all historical evidence - you really believe that this time your repudiated methods are going to work out, better to at least argue the point, rather than dismissing dissenters as lacking your unflappable capacity to do several ill-advised things at once.

The Man With the Golden Pajamas

Still stuffing money in your mattress?  That's bush league.

In the Change Times, your sleepwear is the preferred place to stash your cash.  The only problem is that it doesn't offer much security if you happen to be wearing those pajamas when the feds show up to arrest you for your involvement in government corruption.

Semantics: Our Most Powerful Weapon In the War On Terror

We have nothing to fear but "man-caused disasters".

Actor, Activist, Andy Garcia Look-a-Like Dead At 62

Bummer.

I am terribly saddened to report that the great actor and political activist, Ron Silver, died this morning at his home in New York. Ron was 62 and had been bravely battling esophageal cancer for the last two years. He leaves two children, Adam and Alexandra, his parents and his two brothers, as well as countless friends and admirers.

The Queen Won't Be Getting Any DVDs

Good to know.

Happiness By Congressional District

The three keys to happiness: making lots of money, living in California, and being represented by a Republican.

Who knew?

The High Cost Of Perpetual Nannyism

Azi Paybarah takes a look at the nearly $3 million that the previously-term-limited Mike Bloomberg has spent to date on his bid for a bonus round of mayoralty.

I’m combing through the numbers now, which campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson cautioned me could change by Monday’s deadline. So, as of now, here’s a few highlights: Among the expenses were four payments totaling more than $365,000 on “voter development” by the Washington-based Strategic Telemetry Inc. He’s spent $50,000 on print ads in Manhattan Media, $110,000 on Internet ads through Connections Media LLC, and$119,233.98 on “furniture” from The Switzer Group in Midtown. There’s also $3,406 spent on the Somos El Futuro Inc., a group comprised of Hispanic state lawmakers.

Earth: Too Big To Fail

It seems Geithner has finally seen the counter-Keynesian light.  You can't enrich yourself by taking money from one pocket and putting it in the other (particularly when the hand facilitating the transfer is a governmental hand with governmentally sticky fingers).

Scott Ott's exclusive peek at the new plan may sound far-fetched, but it's got sounder economic footing than its predecessor.

Just a day after U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposed increasing U.S. contributions to his former employer, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by $100 billion, he offered another plan to increase funding for NASA space probes to search for life, and sources of bail-out cash, on other planets.

“Let’s face it,” said an unnamed Treasury source, “Earth is too big to fail. We can all boost funding to the IMF, but at some point that’s like scooping water out of a bucket to fill the same bucket. The fundamental problem is that Earth is a closed economic system. To rescue the global economy we need help that’s literally out of this world.”

Be Careful What You Wish For, Lefty Bloggers

King o' Netroots Daily Kos may have mixed emotions about its candidate winning the Presidency.  In the months since Election Day, the site's traffic has dropped precipitously.

This effect is (predictably) observable to some extent among all political blogs, but it's notably more pronounced among the leftosphere, as its edgy, ankle-biting angst is suddenly less edgy and less relevant, now that their favored pols have their hands on all the levers (and yet, hoperiffic panacea still eludes us).

Compare, if you will, the same Alexa reach chart for Daily Kos and everyone's favorite righty megablog, Hot Air.

While DKos has typically boasted 2-4x Hot Air's traffic, they've drawn roughly even in recent months, with HA outpacing its leftward counterpart every day over the last week.

Admittedly, this observation is facile and possibly self-evident.  There's a reason that Rush Limbaugh first achieved national prominence in 1993, and that Fox News found an immediate and plentiful audience when it launched in 1996.  Among angst-ridden media, no one has much use for the majority opinion.

That said, I'm sure Markos will continue to do just fine.  The folks I'm really concerned for are the Olbermanns, Maddows, and Mahers of the world, the outermost-orbiting satellites of the far-left who are just barely hanging onto cultural relevance as is.

How about we pity-elect a few cursory Republicans at the midterms, just to sustain some measure of raison d'etre for these hard-working purveyors of hard left media dogma?

There Are Some Things Money Can't Buy...

For everything else (including momentous diplomatic snubs), there's Amazon.com.

The total cost of the DVDs of 25 classic American movies President Obama gave to Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the customary gift exchange, if ordered through Amazon:  $320.48 (an average of $12.82 per flick).

That would've been enough to qualify for free Super Saver Shipping, assuming he checked "Group my items into as few shipments as possible."  Add a few more bucks if he sprung for gift wrapping.

(For those of you keeping score at home, we're spending 5,000 times as much on pig odor research in Iowa "to get the economy moving again.")

Serves Brown right, though, for giving our President a homemade gift of glorified driftwood that probably didn't cost a dime.

Limey cheapskate.

House Takes Up Urgent Business

With a burn rate upwards of $18 billion an hour, I think we're all glad Congress has finally taken the time to deliberate and duly honor Pi Day.

Honestly.  Anything that keeps them away from the purse strings...

With the world swirling about it, the House took a moment Thursday to honor pi, the Greek letter symbolizing that great constant in mathematics representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

An irrational number that has been calculated to more than 1 trillion digits, pi is a concept not totally foreign to today’s Washington. But in this case, the goal was to promote efforts by the National Science Foundation to improve math education in the United States, especially in the critical fourth to eighth grades.

Rounded off, pi equates to 3.14, hence the designation of March 14 as Pi Day under the resolution. Informal celebrations have been held around the country for at least 20 years, but Thursday’s 391-10 vote is the first time Congress has joined the party.

Monday is Flavor Flav's AND Erik Estrada's birthday.  Maybe that'll be cause enough for another honorary roll call and sop up a few more minutes.

For posterity, the 10 unpatriotic arithmophobes (all Republicans, naturally):

• Jason Chaffetz
• Jeff Flake
• Dean Heller
• Timothy Johnson
• Jeff Miller
• Randy Neugebauer
• Ron Paul
• Mike Pence
• Ted Poe
• Bill Shuster

(HT: Hot Air Headlines)

A Taste Of Things To Come

For those who've failed to learn the lessons of the behavioral effects of taxation from Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, one need look only to Zug.

The tidy towns and mountain vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely setting for an oil boom.

Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barack Obama's tax-seeking administration.

In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes' drive from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on farming until it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War Two.

It still has a chocolate-box old town with views over a lake to the high Alps, but is now surrounded by gleaming corporate offices -- including commodity trader Glencore and oil refiner Petroplus -- shopping malls and housing developments.

Local authorities say about 13 percent of full-time jobs in Zug canton are in the raw materials sector.

Over the past six months companies including offshore drilling contractors Noble Corp and Transocean, energy-focused engineering group Foster Wheeler and oilfield services company Weatherfield International have all announced plans to shift domicile to Switzerland.

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An Hourly Rate That Would Make Ashley Dupre Blush

As noted this morning by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the combined cost of the stimulus and omnibus spendgasms amounts to roughly $1 billion for every hour since the 111th Congress took over.

“In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus,” McConnell says. “To put that in perspective, that’s about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour—most of it borrowed. There’s simply no question: government spending has spun out of control.”

Of course that tally doesn't include the interest costs associated with the new spending, nor the true cost of the stimulus bill's sticky new programs that are unlikely to be quashed in coming years.  If you include the CBO's estimates of these costs, the $1.2 trillion becomes something closer to $4 trillion.  And since Congress has only been in session for 27 of those 50 days (and only several hours on each of those 27 days), one could argue Congress is frittering away your money at a rate of more than $18 billion per hour on the job.

Here, as ever, insights from the Gipper seem germane:

"It's been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

Mere Hint Of Reduced Uncertainty Enough To Extend Huge Wall Street Rally

If the market abhors uncertainty, then in the current political climate, the market pretty much abhors life itself.  As we've cruised through countless versions of TARP, TALF, and trillion dollar guesses about both how to stabilize the economy and how to push through unprecedented social programs under the guise of economic stabilization, the markets have responded predictably, with multi-thousand point slides in the Dow and stock valuations rooted not in economic fundamentals, but an ugly mix of fear of guessing at what the federal government's next guess might entail.

Yesterday, with the (seemingly unremarkable) one-two punch of a surprise profit from Citi during the first two months of the year and an indication that the uptick rule would return, we saw a gargantuan broad-based rally.  Many predicted this "bear market rally" would prove fleeting, possibly giving up a significant portion of those gains in the following session.  (And just 90 minutes into the trading day, that could still come to pass.)

But so far, the major indices have all managed to push higher today, following comments by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner last night that:

...he wanted to make it "compelling" for banks to cleanse balance sheets of toxic assets and in coming weeks would set up details for financing bad asset sales.

If that's considered incremental certainty about the bank stabilization plan, then it illustrates just how opaque things had become, thanks to the barrage of hastily devised and jettisoned plans, not only to address the crisis itself, but to rewrite the rules of how the American economy is permitted to function.

Don't get me wrong - I'll take it.  Thanks to the 1.5-day rally, the Dow is off a mere 16% since the new administration took office, a significant improvement from the 21% decline we'd incurred 36 hours ago.

Shrinkage

Alas, the world was in the pool.

The World Bank's pronouncement over the weekend is sobering:

The global economy is likely to shrink this year for the first time since World War Two, with growth at least 5 percentage points below potential.

If gross world product is on the order of $50 trillion, that's $2.5 trillion of real economic output foregone as a result of this financial and economic crisis -- in just one year.

Heartache: Superwebified POTUS With 400K Twitter Followers and 6 Million Facebook Friends Not a Blog Reader

Via Politico, the tech-savvy CIC even eschews older-fangled gizmos like the one dubbed the "idiot box" by one of his Presidential predecessors.

As he settles into his new job, Mr. Obama said he spent much of his time reading briefing books, but still tried to stay in touch by perusing newspapers and thumbing through weekly newsmagazines. But he said he did not watch much television, except basketball games.

Mr. Obama rode to the White House partly on his savvy use of new technology, and he has a staff-written blog on his presidential Web site. Even so, he said he did not find blogs to be reliable, citing the economy as one example.

“Part of the reason we don’t spend a lot of time looking at blogs,” he said, “is because if you haven’t looked at it very carefully, then you may be under the impression that somehow there’s a clean answer one way or another — well, you just nationalize all the banks, or you just leave them alone and they’ll be fine.”

A cynical sort might offer the alternate explanation that by confining oneself to entrenched print media outlets (safe from the corrupting influence of Rupert Murdoch and non-graduates of Columbia J-School who have the occasional audacity to crassly debunk credentialed media forgeries), one's able to avoid the pesky cognitive dissonance that stems from encountering a less strictly regimented range of opinions and analyses.

That's why I hate cynics.

Truly Shocking Quote Of the Day

"I don't want to get it coming and going.  I don't want to get the federal raised, and then the state raised, and then the phone tax raised, and the television tax raised, and the city tax... bug off me!  ... There's real people out here, trying to keep it together."

A few short months ago, who'ulda thunk a farcical leftward bastion such as Whoopi might be heard railing against the sweeping tax hikes required to underwrite America's unprecedented socialist adventures?

If it weren't for Joy Behar promptly ushering viewers back into a blunt daytime stupor, one might mistake this for a intelligent program.

(Probably) Not If I Can Help It

The Observer weighs in on Bloomberg's prospects to get on the Republican line as he campaigns for the first of his potentially endless mayoral terms beyond the two that everyone believed to be the limit.

Manhattan Republican chair Jennifer Saul is not expected to make a decision in the next few days about whether to allow Michael Bloomberg to run in their primary. "We will do our screening process before the assembled district leaders and members of the executive committee," said the organization's executive director, Jason Weingartner. "A vote will take place afterwards." Those screening meetings historically have taken place in the first week of May, which means that the potentially tie-breaking decision of Saul and the committee—she would be the third of the five city chairs to approve Bloomberg's participation in the G.O.P. primary for mayor—may not be made for weeks.

As one of those district leaders, I'll certainly be delighted to hear what hizzoner has to say (assuming he comes in person to make his case), but I can't say I'll be going in favorably disposed.

A Democrat until he first ran for mayor eight years ago, Bloomberg conspicuously disavowed his nascent Republican status in 2007 (amid rampant rumors he was exploring a self-financed, half-billion dollar bid for the Presidency), saying:

“I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party,” he said in a statement issued while he was in California delivering political speeches. “Although my plans for the future haven t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our city.”

In the current political environment, I'm loath to advocate against anyone who wants to participate in Republican politics.  But in light of Bloomberg's history of calculated party shifting, his jaw-dropping track record of nanny statism, and his correct acknowledgment that his policies have not been in keeping with any brand of Republican (nor, frankly, even mainstream Democratic) ideology, rolling over for sake of notching up an electoral win (an admittedly rare event, as no Manhattan resident has any Republican representation at any level of government) seems nearly as cynical as the mayor's penchant for expedient party affiliation.

As noted, I'm not making up my mind before hearing his argument (and my opinion may well carry minimal weight during the screening process anyway), but shame on Bloomberg for fooling us once in 2001.  In the words of our erstwhile President, "Fool me... we can't get fooled again."

Paper Of Record Clears Something Up

Illegal immigration, it turns out, is not legal.

[A New York Times] editorial on Feb. 22 stated incorrectly that unlawfully entering the country is not a criminal offense. It is a misdemeanor for a first-time offender.

(HT: Power Line)

The Fruition Of Hope

The February employment report, put out today by the Labor Department, showed unemployment swelling from 7.6% to 8.1%, with the loss of 651,000 payrolls.

That means our Savior-in-Chief saved nearly 142 million jobs during his first full month on the job.  He only pledged to "create or save" 2-4 million, so this has to be seen as one of the more significant achievements in political history.

I admit I was late to the Obama bandwagon, but count me on board.

(HT: Jack M., for the pilfered sarcasm)

Obstruction Of Reduction Of Mortgage Deduction

Now, if they'd only look into thwarting the income tax hike, the capital gains tax hike, the carried interest tax hike, and the oil and gas tax hike, we'd be getting somewhere.

President Barack Obama is meeting strong Democratic Party resistance to his proposal to reduce tax deductions enjoyed by upper-income Americans and could be forced to drop or modify the idea.

Mr. Obama in his budget blueprint last week proposed a cap on itemized deductions for mortgage interest and charitable donations to help pay for his health-care overhaul. The plan would cost wealthier taxpayers about $318 billion in new taxes over 10 years, according to government estimates.

But after objections from Democratic lawmakers, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner appeared to suggest at one point Wednesday that the administration was willing to consider dropping or modifying the proposal.
...
Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), the Senate's top tax writer as chairman of the Finance Committee, told Mr. Geithner he was especially concerned about paying for expanded health coverage with a deductions curb that "has nothing to do with health care." He added: "I'm wondering about the viability of that provision."

Flight 1549 - Animated Reenactment With Real Audio

Cool.

(HT: Brutally Honest)

Previously:
Sully Speaks
Video Of US Airways Flight 1549 Hudson River Crash Landing
Hero On the Hudson

Scumbag Acknowledges Paternity

John Edwards, who literally tried to cash in on the recurrence of his wife's cancer during his Presidential bid; who - to his dubious credit - claimed he didn't know how sick she was when he was diddling his videographer on the side; and who pawned off the paternity of his lovechild with the woman on a moronically loyal, married campaign aide; has finally acknowledged he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby.

(HT: Ace)