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Protecting retirement

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Two videos for your edification. One in which Chris Matthews takes Congressman Eric Kantor (R) to the woodshed, and one in which ABC exposes McCain’s hypocrisy on economic issues.

I’m posting them just for fun, but also to point out that in both, these Republicans argue about the fact that they are trying to save people’s retirement. Yet McCain has espoused exactly the type of Social Security Privatization that Bush was pushing. I can’t speak to Kantor’s position on that, but since Republicans are pretty robotic on this issue, it’s probably fair to say that he would support it if he could get away with it.

If we had such a system the events of recent days would not only have destroyed value in the average 401K, which at the moment is supplemental to Social Security, it would have destroyed value in the typical “social security” account as well. In fact, the typical account, if we assume it performed as well as the market as a whole, would have increased in value not at all between the day Bush entered office and today. Well, take that back. Accounting for inflation, the 21 point rise in the past 8 years probably represents a loss. (See here and here).

Herewith the videos. Enjoy Matthews skewering Kantor:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ympnzk9_b8M[/youtube]

And ABC skewering McCain:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ympnzk9_b8M[/youtube]

Filed in Economics, Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)

The meltdown continues

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

When I arrived home today I grabbed the front section of the New York Times, one of several that had been delivered while we were gone. I had already read part of the Times Reader edition this morning, so I quickly realized I was reading yesterday’s paper, and I was struck by how quickly the financial meltdown is proceeding, and how unpredictable it has become.

First, as an aside however, I must say I got a kick out of the headline in the Times’ Paper Edition, which I didn’t see on-line yesterday: Wall Street in Worst Loss since ’01 Despite Reassurances by Bush. I suppose it’s considered good form to credit the titular President with some sort of influence, but does anyone really think that people on Wall Street ever credited Bush with any actual knowledge about economic issues? Willingness to serve their interests, yes. Expertise or even good amateur instincts, no. In any event, who are you going to believe, your eyes, or a village idiot who says this:

Appearing briefly in the morning before reporters in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush characterized the recent events as short-term market adjustments that would have a limited effect on an otherwise sound economy.

“I know Americans are concerned about the adjustments that are taking place in our financial markets,” Mr. Bush said at a ceremony to welcome the president of Ghana.

He added: “In the short run, adjustments in the financial markets can be painful — both for the people concerned about their investments, and for the employees of the affected firms. In the long run, I’m confident that our capital markets are flexible and resilient, and can deal with these adjustments.”

As John Maynard Keynes said, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” And many of us may indeed be dead before the repercussions of eight years of madness have played themselves out. In any event, it’s not hard to see why the market, not to mention the treasury secretary, took little comfort from the presidential bromides.

But, to go on to my main point. While perusing Tuesday’s Times I read Joe Nocera’s article, On Wall Street as on Main Street, a Problem of Denial. The article is excellent, and Nocera is a good writer, but the situation is so chaotic that he can’t be blamed for getting a big one wrong. He stated that the government had decided, see Lehman situation, that it was no longer willing to bail out financial institutions. By this morning, of course, that statement was inoperative, since the government did, in fact, ride to the rescue of A.I.G. Washington Mutual will be the next big player to collapse, and who knows if we taxpayers are going to be paying for its mistakes as well.

We are headed toward a financial meltdown of a sort unprecedented in my lifetime, a fitting good-bye present from the worst president in American history, a man who has a pattern of leaving monumental messes behind him for other people to clean up. He ruined several companies in Texas and now has ruined the entire United States of America. One question remains. Is Bush our latter day Herbert Hoover, or does he play the role of Calvin Coolidge, to McCain’s Hoover?

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Phil Gramm, visionary creator of a coming depression.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

As I pointed out recently, I first wrote about “credit default swaps” in February, after becoming convinced that, though I don’t completely understand them (and maybe nobody does), that they are a bad thing indeed. In the post to which I’ve linked I noted that AIG, the big financial player that is probably going to collapse next, is in trouble because of credit default swaps. I find today that these swaps both contributed to Lehman’s collapse and will be a prime cause of market fallout resulting from Lehman’s collapse.

One might be interested therefore, in finding the person responsible for these instruments and doing one of two things with him: 1) Draw and quarter him; or 2) Make him the next treasury secretary. This being the United States, which do you think is the most likely?

And what role does [Phil] Gramm have in the current banking crisis? As David Corn reports today, when Gramm was the Republican chairman of the Senate banking committee, he was an anti-regulatory crusader whose actions blazed the trail for the sub-prime meltdown:

[E]ight years ago, Gramm, then a Republican senator chairing the Senate banking committee, slipped a 262-page bill into a gargantuan, must-pass spending measure. Gramm’s legislation, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists, essentially removed newfangled financial products called swaps from any regulation. Credit default swaps are basically insurance policies that cover the losses on investments, and they have been at the heart of the subprime meltdown because they have enabled large financial institutions to turn risky loans into risky securities that could be packaged and sold to other institutions.

As Bloomberg reports this morning, the unregulated market for swaps is at the heart of the Lehman failure.

It is widely expected that Gramm will be McCain’s treasury secretary. This is of a piece with the way in which things work in Washington. You are not a serious thinker about Iraq unless you had a major role in creating and supporting the Iraq disaster. Only those who have been consistently wrong are believed to have sufficient expertise to solve that crisis. It stand to reason, then, that the person who created the conditions that led to an economic disaster should be in charge of fixing that disaster. As always, of course, like with his Iraqi-expert compatriots, he will admit to no prior error and will his prescription for recovery will be more of the same. Paul Krugman says Gramm is just the man to lead us into a depression, but what does he know? A man whose been consistently right has no credibility in this country.

UPDATE: Apparently AIG’s collapse is imminent.

Filed in Economics, The Real McCain | | Comments (1)

Dueling Philosophies

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Two Storefronts, Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

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All very confusing

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Iraq is our ally, at least I believe it is.

Israel is our ally. In fact, according to Sarah Palin, we should never ever second guess anything it chooses to do.

So why has the Iraqi Parliament just revoked legislative immunity for a member of that Parliament who had the temerity to visit Israel, and why is the State of Israel “described as an enemy of the State of Iraq in Iraqi law” and why is merely visiting Israel a felony in Iraq?

Things have come to a rather sorry pass when we are spending our blood and treasure to prop up a government that is a sworn enemy of one of our closest allies. Our foreign policy is incoherent, but what else is new.

Filed in Iraq | | Comments (0)

Possible Hiatus

Sunday, September 14, 2008

My wife and I are going to Maine tomorrow, and will return Wednesday. I don’t know if we’ll have internet access, so it’s possible there will be no further posts until then.

Filed in Uncategorized | | Comments (2)

Will McCain’s heart keep beating?

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Yet another Robert Greenwald film. I make no apologies for posting all of these, because 1) he invites everyone to do so, and 2) it’s important that this stuff get out. In this day and age, people absorb information through video better than through the written word. I won’t get into whether this is good or bad (okay, it’s bad, but it’s a fact of life).

This is an issue that has acquired additional relevance, because we now know that if McCain is elected, his successor will be the most uniquely unqualified person to ever stand in the line of succession. She is an unprecedented combination of ignorance, incompetence, corruption, bigotry and cronyism. She makes George Bush look like a Renaissance Man.

McCain managed, with the help of a compliant press still largely enamoured of his “straight talkin’ maverick” image, to finesse the issue of his health last spring when he “released” 1100 pages of medical records to selected members of the press corp who were not allowed cell phones, the internet, copiers, or computers to assist them. It was a classic case of Republican obfuscation. This is an issue that should be revisited. Who knows, now that the press seems to be emerging from the state of denial into anger at the way their affection has been cast aside, it will look at this issue anew. The point made in the video is absolutely true: the American people have a right to know if the man who is asking for a four year job is reasonably likely to die or become disabled in the middle of his term.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvesa49zSIM[/youtube]

Filed in The Real McCain | | Comments (2)

Always a downside

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Zippy mourns the passing of the Bush Era (click to make it legible):

Filed in Humour | | Comments (0)

Has Al Qaeda been defeated?

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Juan Cole, who usually knows of what he speaks, says that Al Qaeda has been defeated:

It is a dangerous thing for an analyst to say, because obviously radical Muslim extremists may at some point set off some more bombs and then everyone will point fingers and say how wrong I was.

So let me be very clear that I do not mean that radical Muslim extremism has ceased to exist or that there will never be another bombing at their hands.

I mean the original al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda as a historical, concrete movement centered on Usama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, with the mujahideen who fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s at their core. Al-Qaeda, the 55th Brigade of the Army of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the Taliban. That al-Qaeda. The 5,000 fighters and operatives or whatever number they amounted to.

That original al-Qaeda has been defeated.

Usamah Bin Laden has not released an original videotape since about four years ago. There was that disaster with the cgi black beard. There was the old footage spliced in by al-Sahab. But nothing new on videotape. I conclude that Bin Laden, if he is alive, is so injured or disfigured that his appearance on videotape would only discourage any followers he has left.

The entire article is a must read. Among other things, Cole asserts that an increased presence in Afghanistan, something that Obama has been pushing and Bush and McCain have now embraced, will be counterproductive. The Taliban, he says, are not interested in international terrorism, though they might, again, provide safe harbor to those who are.

Obama’s sabre rattling on Afghanistan is, in my opinion, the worst position he has taken. I can understand why he’s done it, but it will, if he is elected, come back to haunt him if he follows through.

So, according to Cole, despite ourselves we have “defeated” Al Qaeda”, though in fact Al Qaeda’s own weaknesses probably had a lot to do with its demise. But this is a victory that we’re not likely to hear much about. Like any inept parent, Bush/McCain etc. need a bogeyman to keep people frightened, so they will do what they’re told. If we declared victory it would be all the harder to justify the continued expense of the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures.

Filed in Empire | | Comments (0)

On to Iran? Maybe not right away.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

A reader (I assume he’s a reader) passed along this story (Israel asks U.S. for arms, air corridor to attack Iran) from an Israeli Newspaper, Haaretz.com, the essence of which is that the Israel was seeking U.S. cooperation to clear the way for an attack on Iran, but that the U.S. refused, buying Israel off instead with more defensive weapons. The reader suggested that we might be in for a November or December surprise, based, I guess, on this paragraph:

At the beginning of the year, the Israeli leadership still considered it a reasonable possibility that Bush would decide to attack Iran before the end of his term.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in private discussions, even raised the possibility that the U.S. was considering an attack in the transition period between the election in November and the inauguration of the new president in January 2009.

The article implies that this possibility has vanished. Apparently, Bush wants to consolidate the victory in Iraq that only he and McCain can see. I suppose, as well, that it would have been difficult for even Bush to maintain the myth of Iraqi sovereignty were the U.S. to open Iraqi air space to allow the Israelis to attack the Iranian government with which the Iraqis have brotherly relations. It seems likely, as well, that an attack on Iran through Iraq would fan the violence in Iraq back to pre-surge levels. (For the record, there is still plenty of violence in Iraq).

For once it may be the case that Bush is doing the right thing, although probably much against his own will. This situation illustrates the way we have, in Iraq, been working at cross purposes to ourselves. Saddam was never really a threat to Israel, except when he was pushed to extremes. He acted as a counterweight to Iran, and it didn’t cost us anything. If and when we leave Iraq, we will leave a country that will, if the present leadership persists in power, rush into the arms of Iran. That wouldn’t really matter very much, if we could develop a mature and nuanced position toward Iran, but we seem incapable of doing that.

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