11
Feb
Charlie Wilson died. If there was ever a man destined to have been shot, it was Charlie. He dealt with mercenaries, drug dealers, prostitutes, the CIA, the FBI, the Taliban, Russia, and I would imagine a jealous husband or two. In the end tho, he went out from natural causes. There truly have been very few characters of Charlie’s stature, and looniness, in US history. We need a few more right now.
The absurdity of that movie is how factual it actually is.
11
Feb
President Obama is complaining because the minority party is holding up 200 of his judicial appointments.
That is true. What is also true is some Senators are publicly complaining about the practice:
Well, actually, that’s what Ted Kennedy said in 2005 when Bush did what Obama’s threatening to do now. Another Democrat who had an opinion:
“The president has the right to make this recess appointment, but it’s the wrong decision. It only diminishes John Bolton’s validity and leverage to secure America’s goals at the U.N. John Bolton has been rejected twice by the Senate to serve as our Ambassador to the United Nations. This is not the way to fill our most important diplomatic jobs.”
Well, that was John Kerry complaining about Bush too. Let me look a little further:
It’s an unnecessary result, and the latest abuse of power by the Bush White House. ..
Harry Reid
“It’s sad that even while the president preaches democracy around the world, he bends the rules and circumvents the will of Congress in appointing our representative to the United Nations.”
Frank R. Lautenberg.
On and on it goes. The Democrats were totally appalled at the gall of Bush making a recess appointment. Now, the Democrats are totally appalled that the Republicans have somehow figured out how to do exactly what they were doing four years ago.
Here’s a way to put an end to this abuse.
- During the recess, Obama needs to appoint every single one of the 200.
- During the next recess, Obama needs to appoint every single one of them.
- During the recess after that, Obama needs to appoint every single one of them.
Once the tactic becomes moot, so will all of the unnecessary drama. There’s no point in Obama whining about it like a little kid. It just makes him look petty and weak. He is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Someone needs to remind him of that sometime.
And quite frankly, if his slate of nominees are anything like his choice of White House staff, it would do him more harm than good if he did get them appointed. Republicans shining the spotlight on them then would mean a lot more to the general public.
I have never seen such a muddled mess as what has become of the Tea Party/Libertarian/Republican discussion. Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake.com, and Huffington Post, takes that confusion to new levels. She’s just all beside herself that Tea Partiers aren’t totally enamored with an avowed Libertarian, mainly in her mind because a Neo-Con supported the Libertarian Tea Partier’s son who’s running “strong” as a Republican in a Democrat state. You can read her stuff at FireDog, or the slightly different version at Huffington. Now, without spending one second trying to figure out what Ms. Hamsher’s politics are, she’s making the exact same mistake the Democrats have made for 20 years, the liberals have always made, and the media has tried desperately to convince everyone. She’s assuming that all Republicans are exactly alike and therefore should be one or the other. She’s assuming there is some sort of ethical right or wrong and one will win out because of that. She’s also assuming that they all believe in the same philosophical end-game. That seems to be a common theme on Huffington, and DailyKos, MSNBC, and The White House as well.
The simple answer to how wrong that thinking is, is, well, rather simple. If they were all seeking the same result, and therefore pursuing the same people, then there never would have been the separations in the first place. Muslims, Christians, and Jews believe in the same God, but they don’t believe at all in the same way to be with him. Same here.
Neo-Cons are the ethical branch of the conservatives. They’re the ones concerned with abortion, and enforcing laws that punish people who do bad things. Tea Partiers think the federal government has gone too far in controlling our lives. See an inherent conflict there Jane? Libertarians basically believe in stripping the entire country down to the very basic concept of the Constitution, and limiting the Constitution in the process. They used to be called Anarchists back when the Republican party stood for something other than it does now. OK, so some believe in using government to dictate social norms, some believe in a limited government, and some believe in basically no government. Somehow, Jane Hamsher and a lot of others don’t see a conflict with those three philosophies. So, what they do is look at their overt words and ignore the over-all picture. Sarah Palin is not a Tea Partier, and she is not a Libertarian. She is a Neo-Con to the core. Ron Paul is not a Neo-Con, and he is not a Tea Partier, he’s Libertarian to the core. Now, where it gets real confusing to the Jane Hamshers and Kospeeps is the concept that there is no 100% Tea-Partier at this time. So, what is happening is actual candidates are vying for the support of the Tea Partiers by offering the concepts they believe in that more closely mimic the philosophy of the Tea Partiers. If a Tea Partier wants less government, then it’s going to get completely out of the abortion issue entirely. That bothers Libertarians because it doesn’t say abortions are legal, and it bothers Neo-Cons by not saying abortions are illegal. And to this point in time, not one politician has had the balls to simply state abortion is not an issue the federal government should be dealing with. That’s what the Tea Partiers are looking for right now. That’s what confounds Jane Hamsher, that’s what confounds Ron Paul, that’s what confounds Sarah Palin, it confounds Obama, and it most certainly is confounding the media.
And, the reason we’re discussing this now is it most definitely is confounding the Republican Party at this time as well. And, the reason the Republican Party is in the position it is right now is that WAS the philosophy of the Party when it was conceived. By losing site of that philosophy, it has allowed the Neo-Cons, the Libertarians, and the Tea Partiers, to split the party repeatedly and try to make it what they want it to be. Neither Ron Paul or Sarah Palin represent the philosophy of the Tea Partiers. From what I can tell, their values right now are basically what the Republican Party intended to be in 1840. The very nature of both of these people is that they can never be true Republicans, or Tea Partiers, so long as they expect their party to have some ethical judgments regarding society. It’s just real damn hard to be a politician and say its none of my business. And, until both of these people are willing to put states’ rights above their own ethical judgments, they won’t represent the Tea Partiers. Or me.
I read a little article this morning by David Hunkar at Seeking Alpha. It was pretty staight to the point. It was a synopsis of Forbes’ America’s Best and Worst Banks List. The TARP comment in Hunkar’s article led me to assume that accessing TARP money meant the bank was not as good as it could be. So, I did a little research. This is what I came up with:
Obviously, the TARP tag doesn’t seem terribly relevant in the big picture. Some of the best banks did access TARP, and W Holding, one of the absolute worst large banks on this list, didn’t. So, the conclusion I got is it doesn’t really matter whether a bank got in a jam in 2008 or not, it’s what it did with that and how it’s doing now is all that matters.
Penn State University was checking into the ethics of Michael Mann after it was revealed his hockey stick theory was most likely contrived. They announced their investigation. Obama gave Mann $541,000 in stimulus money to do what he’s always done, no questions asked. Penn State dropped their investigation citing lack of evidence.
Inquiry Report: Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct
5
Feb
Yesterday the headline was jobless claims much higher than expected at 480,000. That helped lead to a sell-off on the markets, pushing Dow below 10,000, again. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when we get today’s headline:
Now, that means more people are filing claims, but fewer are collecting benefits. Of course, Christina Romer at The White House was quick to point out this is the beginning of the recovery with bumps ahead.
It tends to lead me to believe some people have a lot less discretionary spending than they had last month. And, that wasn’t much in the first place.
I’m going to bet the business environment is thinking more like I am. The Dow Jones is tanking again.
4
Feb
But unemployment claims went up, again. They were expected to drop to 460,000. But, they came in at a revised 480,000. That’s about 4% more than expected.
Obama, sensing there might be some bad news, cheerfully told people to not watch the “echo chamber”. That’s cable news to most of us.
Then, the House Democrats passed a $1,900,000,000,000 debt increase.
Then, the Dow Jones tanked. The psychological up of November 5, 2009 is gone, as right at 10k again. The initial report was that was based on European debt. I’m sure the US debt and job outlook didn’t help that much.
However, I don’t think too many people ignored the echo chamber.
I am expecting Obama to go on national television tonight to give a speech to both chambers of the House to blame it all on “a previous administration” and announce his recovery plan has saved another 6.3 million jobs and we should be very happy since it obviously could have been much worse.
And, I’m going to toss in the added factor of Obama being more than willing to piss off our largest borrower by meeting with the Dalai Lama.
That’s just one day. Obama’s got about 1000 left for sure.
One thing everyone has to give President Obaam, he sure knows how to keep people guessing.
In the past, Obama has made it a sort of semi-habit to bow to some foreign heads of state. Most usually, it’s to a head of state that bowing down to means absolutely nothing to. Like, the Queen of England. No other heads of state bows to her. Obama does. Go figure. Last week Obama took it to a new level, bowing to the mayor of Tampa, Florida. Now, at first I really didn’t care too much about the story. It’s not like Obama bowing inappropriately is new or anything.
But, Ms. Iorio was on Fox this morning to discuss the bow. The conversation went something like this. I have to paraphrase because the script’s not online yet:
- Fox: Ms Iorio, why did Obama bow to you?
- Iorio: Because he’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: Yeah, but don’t you think that’s kind of strange?
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: Yeah, but bowing to Mayors is kind of odd dontcha think?
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: I mean, that’s a weird looking picture.
- Iorio: Yes it is, he’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: Did you say something nice to Obama or something?
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: Would he bow to me?
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: Now we’ll look at the mass death and famine in Haiti.
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
- Fox: OK, Pam, we’re off-air now.
- Iorio: He’s very nice. You should meet him sometime.
Now, I can see clearly what the problem here in this picture is. Fox ain’t so smart. Look carefully again at Ms. Iorio.
Done?
Got it? She LOOKS Asian in this picture don’t she? Had to be Buddhist. But, she’s actually Italian. So, I’m gonna guess she’s not Budhhist. Once again, just a matter of Obama not getting proper background info.
But, really, the absurdity of all this is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, on a US military base, feels obligated to show subservience to the mayor of a US city. At that point the miliitary guy standing right next to Obama should have arrested him for treason. I’m not subservient to Tampa. Great town, love it, used to have the best strip joints in the US. But, they do their thing, I do mine. I don’t answer to Pam Iorio or Tampa. It’s just that simple.
The additional absurdity of it all is Obama was in Tampa to announce funding of researching building a train while simultaneously cutting NASA’s balls. Ms. Iorio was thrilled he’s spending $8 billion researching what we already know. She apparently wasn’t too concerned about her constituents who will lose their jobs due to NASA’s cuts.
1
Feb
So goes the year.
| Date | Volume | Adj Close |
| 1/4/2010 | 3991400000 | 10583.96 |
| 1/5/2010 | 2491020000 | 10572.02 |
| 1/6/2010 | 4972660000 | 10573.68 |
| 1/7/2010 | 5270680000 | 10606.86 |
| 1/8/2010 | 4389590000 | 10618.19 |
| 1/11/2010 | 4255780000 | 10663.99 |
| 1/12/2010 | 4716160000 | 10627.26 |
| 1/13/2010 | 4170360000 | 10680.77 |
| 1/14/2010 | 3915200000 | 10710.55 |
| 1/15/2010 | 4758730000 | 10609.65 |
| 1/19/2010 | 4724830000 | 10725.43 |
| 1/20/2010 | 4810560000 | 10603.15 |
| 1/21/2010 | 6874289600 | 10389.88 |
| 1/22/2010 | 6208650000 | 10172.98 |
| 1/25/2010 | 4481390000 | 10196.86 |
| 1/26/2010 | 4731910000 | 10194.29 |
| 1/27/2010 | 5319120000 | 10236.16 |
| 1/28/2010 | 5452400000 | 10120.46 |
| 1/29/2010 | 5412850000 | 10067.33 |
And January didn’t bode too well. But, I wonder how accurate that actually is? Here’s how the last ten years stacked up:
| Year | Begin | January | December |
| 2009 | 9034 | 8000 | 10428 |
| 2008 | 13043 | 12650 | 8776 |
| 2007 | 12474 | 12621 | 13264 |
| 2006 | 10717 | 10864 | 12463 |
| 2005 | 10783 | 10489 | 10717 |
| 2004 | 10409 | 10488 | 10783 |
| 2003 | 8607 | 8053 | 10453 |
| 2002 | 10073 | 9920 | 8341 |
| 2001 | 10646 | 10887 | 10021 |
| 2000 | 11497 | 10940 | 10787 |
That tallies up to four years where if January declined the year declined, three years if January rose the year rose, and three years where January did not reflect the year. The most noticeable being 2001 of course. That comes out at about 70% accuracy. Not too shabby as far as forecasting goes.
This is in reply to some articles I’ve been reading that basically predict another horrid year for the markets, Brian Dolan being today’s. And given Obama‘s very overt anti-business philosphy and agenda, I can’t argue with Brian even though he’s not citing the same thing. I’m still in a buying mode, so that’s fine with me. However, having a job makes buying modes a lot more enjoyable.
