Apologies for thin links, I am supposed to be having a holiday and need to be up early to drive from Bailey Island, Maine, to Camden.
HIGHEST-PAID ATHLETE HAILED FROM ANCIENT ROME Discovery (hat tip reader John M)
The Medicare Headline You Didn’t See (and won’t) Bruce Webb, Angry Bear
Analysts: Iraq war ‘partly to blame’ for financial crisis Raw Story
The odd decouple Econonist
Mutual Fund Cash Balances at Five Year Low Credit Bubble Stocks
Florida’s High-Speed Answer to a Foreclosure Mess New York Times
Senior Lenders Moving to Foreclose on NYC’s Stuyvesant Town Wall Street Journal
Antidote du jour:
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Re banana republic in Florida:
The MERS regime has already overthrown the rule of law and the “property” dispensation itself. As we previously predicted, where possible the system’s response to the consequences of this lawlessness will be to double down on lawlessness, to have the bench reflect the criminality of the lenders.
Sure enough, Florida sets up this extra-legal system of pseudo-courts, which, as one of the “judges”* is quoted as openly proclaiming, have the mandate to rapidly process all foreclosure applications to the satisfaction of the banks without reference to the legality of any given case.
Instead, all foreclosure actions are to be subsumed under an extralegal category, as a matter of corporatist policy on the part of a corrupt government, not as a matter of law. These phony courts are there to serve as the transmission belt of this illegal policy.
[*According to the article these are involuntarily “retired judges”. IOW they’re such losers that the private sector had no use for them no matter how corrupt they’ve no doubt always been willing to be.
But now with the mortgage structure blowing up in the system’s face, it’s found a use even for these bottom-feeders.]
So system illegality breeds system illegality, abdication of the rule of law forces further abdication. Or as they probably still have the gall to teach children, you tell one lie and then you have to tell another lie to cover it up.
They keep pumping more and more criminal energy into an already wildly turbulent system.
Attempter is absolutely right!
And BOTH cabals of the duopoly are firmly responsible.
With the “Establishment’s” efforts to ‘stabilize’ the economy,
(naturally via a Top-Down bailout of themselves entirely in line with their supply-side approaches)
They’ve done more to destroy the rule of law and the trust of people in government and its institutions than pretty much anything I can imagine.
The funny thing is revolutions are never started by revolutionaries. They’re started by idiots guarding an obsolete status-quo who are unwilling or unable to allow the adjustments necessary to prevent one.
I’ve been exploring the ideas in this P2P (peer-to-peer) theory and they are worth taking a look at…
“P2P specifically designates those processes that aim to increase the most widespread participation by equipotential participants…P2P processes occur in distributed networks. Distributed networks are networks in which autonomous agents can freely determine their behavior and linkages without the intermediary of obligatory hubs.”
The Political Economy of Peer Production
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499
I’ve been poking around the P2P sites over the last few months as well. I haven’t been systematic about it yet. But I just bookmarked that link.
Apropos of nothing substantive, this is an exquisite time of year to visit Camden, and it looks like you’ll have the perfect day for it. Enjoy!
Bruce Webb’s dim-witted screed talks only about Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI). DOH — I wonder why!
Well, for one thing, the other major part which he discreetly remains silent about — Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) — ran a deficit more than seven times that of HI during 2009. (Table 1 in attached link). Nice cherry-picking, Brucie! How you ever considered a career in government accounting? Mwa ha ha hahhhh …
The radical collapse in a single year of HI’s projected shortfall, highlighted by Webb, is of course due to new assumptions arising from Obamacare. HI’s staggering deficits have simply been shifted onto other pathetic victims — individuals, employers, states. No magic here — just Huey Long’s ageless formula of ‘Don’t tax you, don’t tax me; tax that feller behind the tree!’
Even if Obamacare is not repealed after the coming November Revolution, there’s another $32 trillion of negative net worth associated with the non-HI portions of Medicare and Social Security (Table 5, linked document). More than two years worth of GDP, peeps.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/09frusg/09suppl.pdf
As Yogi used to say — Bruce Webb: naïver than the average bear!
Bruce Webb’s dim-witted screed talks only about Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI). DOH — I wonder why!
Well, for one thing, the other major part which he discreetly remains silent about — Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) — ran a deficit more than seven times that of HI during 2009. (Table 1 in attached link). Nice cherry-picking, Brucie! How you ever considered a career in government accounting? Mwa ha ha hahhhh …
The radical collapse in a single year of HI’s projected shortfall, highlighted by Webb, is of course due to new assumptions arising from Obamacare. HI’s staggering deficits have simply been shifted onto other pathetic victims — individuals, employers, states. No magic here — just Huey Long’s ageless formula of ‘Don’t tax you, don’t tax me; tax that feller behind the tree!’
Even if Obamacare is not repealed after the coming November Revolution, there’s another $32 trillion of negative net worth associated with the non-HI portions of Medicare and Social Security (Table 5, linked document). More than two years worth of GDP, peeps.
http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/09frusg/09suppl.pdf
As Yogi used to say — Bruce Webb: naïver than the average bear!
I’m not sure why we *should* see headlines about an official Medicare report that assumes current law will remain in effect and will accomplish intended goals. Those assumptions are highly doubtful, as are the report’s conclusions. In addition, the report only reflects a moderation in demands on one part of Medicare, not the liabilities of all parts of Medicare.
No actual news here that I can detect. Unless a fantasy projection from the government is news.
I don’t doubt that those who are ranting loudest about debt and government spending exaggerate the liabilities. But even if they are overestimating by a factor of three or four our future burdens, it is still frightening, IMO. Clearly the current path is unsustainable, and as Mish likes to say, things that can’t continue eventually will not continue (paraphrase).
Herbert Stein’s Law — “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
Yes, somewhat predictably, I’m going to say you can apply this little aphorism to almost anything. Eventually, the sun will expand into a red giant and vaporize the earth. Everything in between will also end. We just usually can’t predict *how* and what the exact ramifications will be. Sadly, only fools think Stein’s incontrovertible insight is helpful in the task of proving something (or anything).
Here are some other quotes:
“In the long run, we are all dead.”
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
The world is chaotic and unpredictable. There are many positive feedback loops that temporarily spin something “out of control” and many self-correcting mechanisms that restore what we have anchored as “equilibrium.”
As I’ve said before, I find no utility in rejecting the concept of objective knowledge. I do not lie in bed and question whether the floor will hold me if I stand up. I operate on the basis (and with the axioms) that my perceptions fairly reflect reality and that the principles of logic that have been around for thousands of years are basically sound.
I do think we should make practical decisions after trying to gather as much information as we possibly can. I’d just like to see us all be a little more humble in the face of a challenge (predicting the future) that is clearly and unmistakably beyond our capabilities.
Yes, the entitlement deficit creep is “unsustainable.” Is that bad? Why? And to whom is it bad exactly? There surely must be some group that benefits. These are the questions that must be asked (and aggregated with many other distribution issues on a global basis) before any rational decision can be made about what to do with the “problem.”
From The Raw Story article —
‘Stiglitz and Bilmes estimate that about a quarter of the debt increase the US saw during the first five years of the war are attributable to the war — about $900 billion of a $3.6 trillion rise in the debt. They also estimate that the war added about $10 to the cost of a barrel of oil, amounting to a cost of $250 billion to the US economy.’
This analysis is fine as far as it goes, but too limited in scope. The cumulative drain of 65 years of post-WW II US military empire has systematically starved the US economy of investment, as it incurs an annual excess cost of 4% of GDP for an empire that doesn’t pay for itself.
Like Britain before it, the US is headed for second-string global status as it begins to resemble ‘Brazil without the GDP growth.’
Evidently the US empire won’t fold until the troops come limping home after their paychecks bounce (and after a decisive arse-whipping in Af/Pak).
Where were the macroeconomists while this slow-motion bipartisan disaster unfolded? Kurgman, at least, was busy playing in the Demopublican sandbox, slinging sand at the Repukes with his brightly-coloured plastic shovel.
In 1962 my father taught a summer course at Bowdoin College and rented the cottage at the end of Pott’s Point Road facing Bailey Island. I have often dreamed what it was like to live there.
My father’s family has been in the Casco Bay area for hundreds of years (no joke) and, depending which genealogy you believe, may have beaten Reverend Bailey to Bailey Island.
Basically, in coastal Maine, people fall into two camps: locals and summer people (aka highlanders). Summer people are rich and are in Maine when the weather is nice. Locals (ex the thin layer of professionals, like Bowdoin faculty, lawyers, doctors, and dentists) love the lifestyle and are prepared to sacrifice a lot for it (which often takes the form of cobbling a income together out of more than one job). And don’t forget, the winters and springs here are pretty crappy.
My father’s family was sea people (mainly captains and sea cooks) and farmers. Very old Yankees, but never very distinguished.
No roots in Maine, but it’s a joy to read the last two comments (this is the only blog I whose comments I comments I read). Simple family stories with some hard workers. Reminds me of my parents.
Jump onto Google to check out Bailey Island. Very interesting geography in that area. Never realized how chewed up the coastline is there. One question. What’s the water temp like this time of year? Do some of those inlets warm up pretty nicely?
Normally you have to be nuts or pretty tough to swim in the Atlantic this far north, even in the summer. But this was a very hot summer in the eastern US, and the water here was 65 degrees last week.
Thanks for the info Yves. I am a little disappointed, even though 65 is tolerable for a quick dip. I have heard that the fjords in BC warm up quite a bit in the summer. Thought that might apply to some of the inlets, or a least the deeper recesses of the inlets there on the Maine coast. But I guess the tidal action must be different. Still I enjoyed by Google Street stroll down Harpswell Island Road.
The USA would be wise to default after she’s got her troops home and before China can outgun her.
The Stiglitz and Bilmes piece is a pointless exercise in providing a whining point for Dems in coming election. People are sick and disgusted with this whimpering approach to the nation’s problems. Do Stiglitz and Bilmes argue for an immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq? No. Do they argue that current spending on Iraq is delaying the recovery? No. Do they argue that future military actions in the Middle East, say an invasion of Syria, would foster another bubble? No. I suppose you could say that they are arguing against guns and butter and for a tax increase to finance current military operations, but they don’t say that. The best thing the nation could do for President Obama is amputate the whimpering, whining, leftover, left out, left field left from the Democratic Party. Then there will be room for those Dems who are willing to man up to take the lead. As for Stiglitz and Bilmes, they should focus on advocating northeastern secession. That is only possibility they have for establishing their dream state. Perhaps the NEUSA could team up with Ontario, the Maritime provinces, and Newfoundland to establish the continental northeast nation and the seize Greenland. Thanks to global warming that will be a pretty valuable piece of turf in the future.
Mr. Cheney, are we better off ignoring recent history, and the consequences that will be with us until those who’ve served in the Bush wars have passed? Should every examination of history include policy prescriptions and address every imaginable possibility, no matter how ’03ish?
Its touching that a cyborg would condescend to use the expression “man up,” but please explain how that applies to Their Islamofascist “president”‘s Communist Campaign to Nazify the Socialism by Implementing Mandatory SHARIA Abortions, Gay Lifestyle “Weddings” for Every ILLEGAL Beheaded Mexican, and Pork-Barrel Vegetable Gardens in ALL Stimulus-Funded CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
Much of the examination of the “history” of the Iraq war in the Stiglitz and Bilmes piece is “alternative history”, “what if” speculation on the lost opportunities consequent upon the pursuit of the war. It strikes me as fair to characterize this exercise as posting a whining point for the dems in November.
From the WSJ article on Stuyvesant Town:
At the same time, the lawyer for Mr. Ackman’s group, Edward Weisfelner, argued during the court hearing on Thursday that if the senior lenders foreclose, his clients would be “wiped out.”
Errrrr, yes. That’s what traditionally happens to junior lenders in these circumstances…
Point, match, game!
Sorry, should be point, set, match.
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