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Acute Analysis

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Any thinking person who watched the recent Jon Stewart-Jim Cramer confrontation could come away with no other conclusion but that it was a complete disaster for Cramer. Not only did Stewart make him look like an idiot, he produced clear evidence that he was also, during his trading days, a criminal.

That’s not how Allessandra Stanley of the New York Times saw it.According to her, Stewart was playing right into CNBC’s hands:

Mr. Stewart made his feelings clear. “I understand you want to make finance entertaining,” he told Mr. Cramer. “But it’s not a game,” he said, using an additional adjective that was bleeped out. “When I watch that, I can’t tell you how angry that makes me.”

Part of Mr. Stewart’s frustration may stem from the fact that while he clearly won the debate, Mr. Cramer and CNBC stood to profit from the encounter. In today’s television news market, that cable network and its stars are like the financiers they cover: media short-sellers trading shamelessly on publicity, good or bad, so long as it drives up ratings. There isn’t enough regulation on Wall Street, and there’s hardly any accountability on cable news: it’s a 24-hour star system in which opinions — and showmanship — matter more than facts.

…

Mr. Stewart kept getting the last word, but Mr. Cramer may yet have the last laugh.

Apparently, CNBC has yet to understand that it stands to profit from the encounter. Its sister network, MSNBC, was told to make no mention of Cramer’s drubbing, and indeed, it was not one of the five things Olbermann thought we might be talking about last night, even though most of us were. CNBC itself has gone silent on the subject, but is apparently none too pleased that Stewart has revealed it to be a naked Emperor.

It is hard to see how Ms. Stanley could come to the conclusion she did. This may be a case of journalistic wagon circling. That might be understandable, if the people she is protecting were real journalists.


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Friday Night Music-The Tokens

Friday, March 13, 2009

Unbelievable that they can still sing this song. According to the youtube entry, this was recorded live in 2008.

There’s an interesting story about this song. It was written by a poverty stricken African who remained poverty stricken for the rest of his life, while the song made millions for the folks who bought the rights for less than three dollars. His descendants managed to rectify the situation a bit, but too late for him:

Millions of dollars in royalties from the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” will go to the heirs of the late South African composer Solomon Linda, who died in 1962. In 1950, when blacks had few negotiating rights under apartheid, Linda sold the song, written in 1939, for fewer than two dollars. His three surviving daughters live in South Africa.

It’s unlikely that the Tokens had anything to do with this injustice, so we are free to enjoy what is the classic American version of this song.


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Stephen Colbert Goes Galt

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I spent all day on trial, and my mind is frazzled, so I’ve given up thinking for the day.

This is worth watching. It is a weird fact that the most nuanced punditry today is on the Comedy Channel. Sorry about the introductory commercial.


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Blumenthal will also be coming to Groton

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I just received word that Blumenthal will be joining Nancy Wyman, Susan Bysiewicz, Dan Malloy and Jim Amann here in Groton on Saturday. It’s not clear if he’ll be here as a potential candidate or in some other role. It really looks like this event will be the kick-off for the gubernatorial campaign.

Place: Groton Municipal Building
295 Meridian Street
Groton
Time: 10:00 AM


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A good idea for Groton

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Today’s Mystic River Press (which is not on-line, so no links), has an article about a local residential designer named Michael Sullo, who has come up with a design to turn what he aptly describes as a “big hole” in downtown Mystic into a public space.

For those not from the area, a little background. Almost an entire block of downtown Mystic burnt to the ground in March of 2000. Downtown Mystic is a major tourist attraction. John Rowland, then governor, rushed down to pledge that he would have the space back to normal within (if memory serves) two years. He was never heard from again.

The site is a strange one. There is almost no land. The old buildings were on a concrete dock that extended over the Mystic River. It’s a difficult spot to build on. There are building codes now. Complicating things further, the owners had no insurance. I was on the Town Council at the time, and the owner basically came to us and asked us to bail him out, using the implied threat that he would do nothing if we didn’t do so. We called their bluff. I suggested we take the place using eminent domain, but several Republicans on the Council almost had heart attacks, so that idea didn’t go anywhere. I can’t remember if I proposed using the place as a public space on the record to the council, but I’ve been saying it to anyone who would listen (and not many do) for years.

After we turned their bailout request down, the owners went in search of someone stupid enough to dramatically overpay for what is essentially building rights over a river. They found someone (actually a group of someones), who gave them a million dollars. In order to recoup their investment, the new owners needed to build very expensive condominiums on top of a retail bottom floor. Problem: absolutely no parking, and no ability to create any. The town kicked in a few spaces, to which the hypothetical rich condominium dwellers would have to walk, but I don’t think it was nearly enough. It’s now been nine years, and the space is still empty, not only an eyesore but a drag on all the other merchants in the downtown area.

Mr. Sullo’s idea looks like a good realization of what I’ve always felt we should do with the space. He envisions a roofed pavilion, in which “concerts and performances like Shakespeare” could take place. Other uses suggest themselves, such as art shows, political events, etc. If something like this were built, the events held there would attract people to Mystic, where they would no doubt spend money in the local establishments. If we do nothing I believe I shall be a very old man before anything occupies that space. If the space were dedicated to this sort of public use there could be no question about the propriety of the use of eminent domain, and I would suggest that the fair market value of that property, in this market, and for a rational buyer, is far less than the million dollars paid by the current owner.

Sidebar: One of the odd things about the above saga is the fact that the council didn’t bail out the former owners. I think the reason we didn’t do it was because they were local guys, and didn’t have insurance, which everyone found offensive. If they had been the Marriot corporation, we probably would have been more amenable. Witness the council’s recent willingness to give a tax break to a hotel developer as an incentive to build a building that had already been built.


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What’s in a word?

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

I highly recommend this column in today’s Times, by David Leonhardt, in which he argues that today’s financial crisis was caused by people who knew they were free to ruin the economy, making big bucks for themselves in the process, because they knew the government would step in and bail them out. In a word, he says they were “looting”. That would be us, the taxpayers that they were looting, by the way.

I was struck by this paragraph:

Mr. Bernanke actually took a step in this direction on Tuesday. He said the government “needs improved tools to allow the orderly resolution of a systemically important nonbank financial firm.” In layman’s terms, he was asking for a clearer legal path to nationalization.

It made me realize how quickly we have legitimized the use of what is, in this very odd country of ours, a loaded word, namely “nationalization”. I think I’ve used it myself, so I’m not criticizing Leonhardt, but it’s testimony to the Republican spin machine that this bogey man word has entered common parlance as it has.

I lived through the Savings and Loan debacle, and as a I recall, failing banks back then were put into receivership. In fact, many banks have failed this year and last, and they have been put into receivership. It’s only the banks that have not yet been put into receivership about whom we use the word “nationalization”. My online dictionary defines the term thusly: “transfer (a major branch of industry or commerce) from private to state ownership or control.” At least by that definition, it’s an all or nothing proposition; if you don’t nationalize all the banks, you haven’t nationalized at all. But if we grant that you can leave some private actors standing, the term still implies a degree of permanency that no one wants and no one is advocating. So why the easy shift from “receivership” to “nationalization”. It certainly harmonizes well with the so far quaint Republican attempts to revive fears of “socialism”.


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Browser Review

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

I had an English teacher in high school who was fond of quoting this line from Alexander Pope:

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, nor yet the last to lay the old aside

She was an old biddy, and perhaps because I disliked her intensely, I have ignored Alexander’s advice, sometimes to my cost. I love new gadgets and I invariably download beta upgrade versions of software that is working perfectly reliably, often with disastrous results.

Not this time, or at least not so far.

Today I downloaded the new version of Apple’s browser, Safari 4.0 beta. At first I felt I had brought on another disaster, but I kept my head. The program was hanging up, but I suspected that a plug-in that I use and love was responsible. Once I installed the new version of the plug-in (I had to use Firefox to get it, since it had put Safari out of commision), the program worked great. Web pages do, as Apple claims, load faster. The ITunes like history browser is cool, as is the Top Sites page, though in truth I’m not sure how often I’ll use that particular feature.

Anyway, highly recommended (so far), at least for use on the Mac. At work, on my pedestrian PC, I’m sticking with Firefox.


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All in One Place

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Scott Bates writes to say that Susan Bysiewicz has now agreed to appear at a gubernatorial candidate’s forum here in Groton on Saturday, joining Dan Malloy, Jim Amann and Nancy Wyman, all of whom had previously committed.

Scott says that means all the potential candidates will be there, but unfortunately Scott is shooting at a moving target, since Ned Lamont has also been making noises about running.

Nonetheless, this puts Southeastern Connecticut in the forefront. It will be the first time all these candidates have appeared together, and it should be interesting.

Place: Groton Municipal Building
295 Meridian Street
Groton
Time: 10:00 AM


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Courtney a “New Democrat”

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Hmmm.

From an email from Joe Courtney’s office:

Today at the White House, Congressman Joe Courtney and other members of the New Democrat Coalition met with President Obama to discuss critical issues facing our nation. The New Democrat Coalition is a group of like-minded moderate Democrats who have joined to seek solutions on issues such as the economic crisis, healthcare, and energy and technology innovation.

The “New Democrats” are the folks who led the fight to “improve” the recent bankruptcy amendments to make them more banker friendly, because after all, at this particular time, there’s no one in the country more deserving of a little love than your friendly neighborhood mega-bank.

Just when we thought we’d captured two out of three branches of government, we see our party at work, rapidly abandoning their president and trying to appease the non-existent middle. If the Republicans are too fixated on appeasing their base, the Democrats are too anxious to stab their own in the back. What we will get from the New Democrats is “responsible” policy positions that will be half measures in a time when only bold action will do. Personally, I prefer the old Democrats like Teddy Kennedy, who aren’t afraid to advocate a truly progressive agenda.


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Thorny issue

Monday, March 9, 2009

Charlie Savage of the Times, who has earned his stripes on this issue, examines Obama’s instructions to the Justice Department that it consult with the Justice Department before relying on any signing statement issued by any of his predecessors. Apparently, Obama felt it was impolitic to pick on Bush alone, so he has required his minions to consult on 200 years of signing statements.

Obama also stated that he would use signing statements himself, though far more judiciously than Bush.

I just watched Keith Olbermann, who opined that Obama has it wrong. In his opinion the president should either sign without comment or veto. The issue is a bit more complicated that that, since, as Savage points out:

.. [L]egal scholars, while critical of Mr. Bush’s use of the device, said that the bar association’s view was too extreme because Congress sometimes passed important legislation that had minor constitutional flaws. They said it would be impractical to expect a president to veto the entire bill in such instances.

As a practical matter, the president is charged with enforcing the law, and like any law enforcement officer, he has a lot of latitude in how he goes about enforcing them. If Obama does as he promises, his use of the signing statement may be non-controversial. What rankled most about the Bush signing statements was the audacity of them-in many cases the claims of unconstitutionality were obviously wrong, with legal reasoning direct from the John Yoo school of “let’s make it up”.

What Obama is now proposing to do with past signing statements is, among other things, a recognition that such statements are merely an expression of policy and have no legal effect whatsoever. What one president can state, another can un-state. Still, it would be best if there were some way to get meaningful and expeditious judicial review of these statements in appropriate cases. If any member of Congress who voted for the bill in question had standing to sue for declaratory relief, the problem would, perhaps, be largely solved.


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