Sunday, April 6, 2008
APOLOGY
We apologize to readers for technical and editing teething problems which are currently being corrected. .
WHAT MAKES BARACK TICK
Last week former US Attorney General John Ashcroft confused Osama and
Obama and was mocked by the left for his mistakes. Last week, after
writing a lot about the Middle East I did exactly the same in a hurried
article on the way to the doctor which unfortunately escaped the subs
notice. The fact is it is a mistake that any can make. I am a great
admirer of Barack, as I will now call him but I think in terms of
defining the man Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist has, at the weekend
done perhaps the best job I have seen in analyzing the wonder that is
fast becoming a black messiah.
I have selected some key paragraphs from this article as I think they go
closer to explaining what is happening than anything I have read.
The best thing about Barack Obama has almost nothing to do with him as a
person or as a leader .... It's not even the wondrous oratory power or
the charisma or the sweet sense of deeper change overlaid with all kinds
of sparkly utopian futuriffic goodness.
There is, I think, something more. Something richer. And it's rather
startling.
See, I've read the profiles and the liberal fawnings and the intelligent
analysis, the attempted takedowns and the right-wing smears, all the
valiant attempts to dig up something dirty or problematic or frightening
about Obama and his family... attempts that, rather amusingly, have all
failed.
I've read, too, the glut of wonderment, how Obama is this generation's
MLK, how he makes Hillary Clinton's brand of retro cronyist politics
feel like the equivalent of rubbing salt on a paper cut. He is, they
say, that once-in-a-lifetime candidate, a fantastically rare mix of
intelligence, consistency, inspiration, hope, charisma, humanity,
articulation, and an almost shocking lack of manipulation and sheen
(well, relatively speaking), all packaged in a strikingly handsome unit
in whose closet apparently live almost no skeletons at all.
I also nodded in agreement when snark-master Jon Stewart appeared
slightly stunned and taken aback and very nearly jokeless as he pointed
out, following Obama's remarkable speech on race in America, that at
long last, here was a top-tier politician who dared to speak to us like
we were adults. It wasn't just refreshing; after seven-plus years of
humiliating, monosyllabic dumb-guy Bushisms, it was downright jarring.
Initially I thought the most impressive aspect of Obama's run was, well,
how the guy made it this far at all. That someone of his caliber and
obvious intelligence could survive what has become a truly caustic,
brutal political system and still emerge into the international
spotlight as, well, not deeply f-ed-up and insane, not possessing that
creepy demonic gleam shared by so many politicos (hi, Sen. McCain!) that
suggests they've had souls eaten whole by the same scabrous trolls of
greed and war and corruption that birthed two Bushes and gave Bill
Clinton that nearly intolerable aura of ego and slickness.
See, I've long believed that, if nearly eight years of the World's Worst
President has taught us anything, it's that the American political
system has moved well beyond merely deeply flawed and broken and sad,
and is now wholly rotted, ruined from the inside out, a true moral
wasteland barely suitable even for cockroaches and leeches and Rick
Santorum. I thought George W. Bush had actually managed to do the
impossible: make an already defective system truly unbearable, turning
something already gray and murky to turgid and pathetic, toxic to all
decent human life.
And I'm happy to report that the fact that Obama exists at this stage of
the game is proving me very wrong indeed.
But I'll even take it a step further. Because the greatest thing about
Obama isn't really about Obama at all, per se. It's actually about,
well, us.
This is the great revelation: We still got it. The collective
unconscious, the deep sense of inner wisdom, that intuitive knowing that
borders on a kind of mystical proficiency, where millions of people can
actually look beyond rhetoric and media spin and merely feel the
presence of something great in the room? Yep, still there. Who knew?
There's a lot more in this view at the Gate but you get the idea. There
is something very different, different to JFK, different to RFK.
Different to anything we have seen. Perhaps the time produces the man.
Obama and was mocked by the left for his mistakes. Last week, after
writing a lot about the Middle East I did exactly the same in a hurried
article on the way to the doctor which unfortunately escaped the subs
notice. The fact is it is a mistake that any can make. I am a great
admirer of Barack, as I will now call him but I think in terms of
defining the man Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist has, at the weekend
done perhaps the best job I have seen in analyzing the wonder that is
fast becoming a black messiah.
I have selected some key paragraphs from this article as I think they go
closer to explaining what is happening than anything I have read.
The best thing about Barack Obama has almost nothing to do with him as a
person or as a leader .... It's not even the wondrous oratory power or
the charisma or the sweet sense of deeper change overlaid with all kinds
of sparkly utopian futuriffic goodness.
There is, I think, something more. Something richer. And it's rather
startling.
See, I've read the profiles and the liberal fawnings and the intelligent
analysis, the attempted takedowns and the right-wing smears, all the
valiant attempts to dig up something dirty or problematic or frightening
about Obama and his family... attempts that, rather amusingly, have all
failed.
I've read, too, the glut of wonderment, how Obama is this generation's
MLK, how he makes Hillary Clinton's brand of retro cronyist politics
feel like the equivalent of rubbing salt on a paper cut. He is, they
say, that once-in-a-lifetime candidate, a fantastically rare mix of
intelligence, consistency, inspiration, hope, charisma, humanity,
articulation, and an almost shocking lack of manipulation and sheen
(well, relatively speaking), all packaged in a strikingly handsome unit
in whose closet apparently live almost no skeletons at all.
I also nodded in agreement when snark-master Jon Stewart appeared
slightly stunned and taken aback and very nearly jokeless as he pointed
out, following Obama's remarkable speech on race in America, that at
long last, here was a top-tier politician who dared to speak to us like
we were adults. It wasn't just refreshing; after seven-plus years of
humiliating, monosyllabic dumb-guy Bushisms, it was downright jarring.
Initially I thought the most impressive aspect of Obama's run was, well,
how the guy made it this far at all. That someone of his caliber and
obvious intelligence could survive what has become a truly caustic,
brutal political system and still emerge into the international
spotlight as, well, not deeply f-ed-up and insane, not possessing that
creepy demonic gleam shared by so many politicos (hi, Sen. McCain!) that
suggests they've had souls eaten whole by the same scabrous trolls of
greed and war and corruption that birthed two Bushes and gave Bill
Clinton that nearly intolerable aura of ego and slickness.
See, I've long believed that, if nearly eight years of the World's Worst
President has taught us anything, it's that the American political
system has moved well beyond merely deeply flawed and broken and sad,
and is now wholly rotted, ruined from the inside out, a true moral
wasteland barely suitable even for cockroaches and leeches and Rick
Santorum. I thought George W. Bush had actually managed to do the
impossible: make an already defective system truly unbearable, turning
something already gray and murky to turgid and pathetic, toxic to all
decent human life.
And I'm happy to report that the fact that Obama exists at this stage of
the game is proving me very wrong indeed.
But I'll even take it a step further. Because the greatest thing about
Obama isn't really about Obama at all, per se. It's actually about,
well, us.
This is the great revelation: We still got it. The collective
unconscious, the deep sense of inner wisdom, that intuitive knowing that
borders on a kind of mystical proficiency, where millions of people can
actually look beyond rhetoric and media spin and merely feel the
presence of something great in the room? Yep, still there. Who knew?
There's a lot more in this view at the Gate but you get the idea. There
is something very different, different to JFK, different to RFK.
Different to anything we have seen. Perhaps the time produces the man.
BEATING THE BANKS
Now the greater party of Wall Street and Big US banks have been
underwritten, more or less formally, by the Fed the shine is back and
people are clearly recalling those days, a mere year ago when the banks
where pushing one other out of the way to declare greater profits. Banks
as a sector have lost 22 per cent in share value and apparently
investors think that's about as far as they will fall now the
underwriters have been summoned the form of the US taxpayer. Some of
course have lost in excess of $40% but, if one was to look at last
week's bank rally it might be imagined that the worst is over. Banks are
cheap, we hear. This is another reason why gold is struggling, with the
Fed guaranteeing all things, who needs gold. But one year doth not a
cycle make. Just a few weeks ago Lehman brothers, basking in the
security of Federal salvation (after rumors that it was almost exactly
equally exposed to mortgage losses as Bear) were comfortably over
subscribed in a public share offer. Perhaps one should think as follows.
A brown recluse spider bite can cause a nasty early sore then go away.
It may also cause a nasty early sore that grows until it seems to have
eaten half the extremity and created a puss filled yellow, black and red
sore with a attendant hole one could place a golf ball in. And then
worsen.
Bear Sterns might just be a nasty sore that is, as I write being swabbed
the area around it effectively sterilized and the moral medicine is
already coursing through the veins bringing a spring back to the step
and a healthy countenance to the US financial sector.
As reviewed in the pages last week the esteemed Charles Morris has just
published a book that call for a "Trillion Dollar Meltdown" assuming the
"orderly unraveling" of the credit-debt-asset market, a possibility that
few hold hope for. A trillion seems now to be a reasonable figure, the
Savings and Loans payout being somewhere in the $300 billion range.
Following hard on the release of this book came news that Fitch has
downgraded MBIA insurance arm. The future of that orderly unwinding is
tied up with the soundness of monoliners like MBIA, whose insurance arm
is the world's largest insurer of bonds. The downgrade was from AAA to
AA that's three levels. While the banks stock rose MBIA fell $.5%.
That the monoliners have been misbehaving and not attending their duties
has been well chronicled and this is a very large boot yet to drop.
Perhaps it's firmly on the foot and does not conceal a brown recluse
spider. I think it's the brown we should most be wary of but any recluse
spider might be avoided. And so for the moment might the banks. There is
little chance of them making anything like the money there were through
the glory days of this century and the damage done cannot be dispersed
by the magic wave of the Feds wand.
For the Fed is hardly a paradigm of virtue. The bank of last resort,
that it now is, or the taxpayer is, hardly inspires one to consider our
troubles have passed and a new dawn has begun. Morris's book leaves no
doubt. Sub-prime was just the first boulder in an avalanche that will
roil through 2008.
>>
underwritten, more or less formally, by the Fed the shine is back and
people are clearly recalling those days, a mere year ago when the banks
where pushing one other out of the way to declare greater profits. Banks
as a sector have lost 22 per cent in share value and apparently
investors think that's about as far as they will fall now the
underwriters have been summoned the form of the US taxpayer. Some of
course have lost in excess of $40% but, if one was to look at last
week's bank rally it might be imagined that the worst is over. Banks are
cheap, we hear. This is another reason why gold is struggling, with the
Fed guaranteeing all things, who needs gold. But one year doth not a
cycle make. Just a few weeks ago Lehman brothers, basking in the
security of Federal salvation (after rumors that it was almost exactly
equally exposed to mortgage losses as Bear) were comfortably over
subscribed in a public share offer. Perhaps one should think as follows.
A brown recluse spider bite can cause a nasty early sore then go away.
It may also cause a nasty early sore that grows until it seems to have
eaten half the extremity and created a puss filled yellow, black and red
sore with a attendant hole one could place a golf ball in. And then
worsen.
Bear Sterns might just be a nasty sore that is, as I write being swabbed
the area around it effectively sterilized and the moral medicine is
already coursing through the veins bringing a spring back to the step
and a healthy countenance to the US financial sector.
As reviewed in the pages last week the esteemed Charles Morris has just
published a book that call for a "Trillion Dollar Meltdown" assuming the
"orderly unraveling" of the credit-debt-asset market, a possibility that
few hold hope for. A trillion seems now to be a reasonable figure, the
Savings and Loans payout being somewhere in the $300 billion range.
Following hard on the release of this book came news that Fitch has
downgraded MBIA insurance arm. The future of that orderly unwinding is
tied up with the soundness of monoliners like MBIA, whose insurance arm
is the world's largest insurer of bonds. The downgrade was from AAA to
AA that's three levels. While the banks stock rose MBIA fell $.5%.
That the monoliners have been misbehaving and not attending their duties
has been well chronicled and this is a very large boot yet to drop.
Perhaps it's firmly on the foot and does not conceal a brown recluse
spider. I think it's the brown we should most be wary of but any recluse
spider might be avoided. And so for the moment might the banks. There is
little chance of them making anything like the money there were through
the glory days of this century and the damage done cannot be dispersed
by the magic wave of the Feds wand.
For the Fed is hardly a paradigm of virtue. The bank of last resort,
that it now is, or the taxpayer is, hardly inspires one to consider our
troubles have passed and a new dawn has begun. Morris's book leaves no
doubt. Sub-prime was just the first boulder in an avalanche that will
roil through 2008.
>>
BILLION DOLLAR BILL
Let's see, the former first family made a shade under $110 million since
they ceased being the first family. Although the Democratic party might
be showing some Clinton fatigue the speaking circuit, from which
President Clinton made $82 million during the Bush year (yes, they have
been kind) still laps him up and, if his wife was to take the White
House what could William Jefferson Clinton demand for after dinner and
before, for that matter entertainment. The Clinton phenomena is so
unprecedented, outside of Shakespeare, that it's impossible to even
speculate. Well maybe. The speaking circuit was a different business in
the other William's day otherwise Mark Anthony might never have gone to
Egypt. But Shakespeare never dreamt of a king being deposed, not quite
the word, at the high of his popularity by a man who proceeded to ruin
his nation while the former King went around the world collecting vast
sums telling people ... what has Bill told people in the seven long
years. Not a lot. The Prince, Al Gore, has made a lot less but I seem to
remember he has spoken out from time to time and brought matters of
import to the world's attention. Bill knows the money is in
entertainment and being a celebrity. With his wife in the White House,
perhaps only as VP, though I can't see her doing that job again, Bill
can surely double his er ... bill. Let's say $150 million in 8 years in
speeches alone. Book deal another $80 million and we have $110 mil, $150
mil, $80 mil that gets us to somewhere near $330 million if one throws in her salary
and his. The there are "odd" sums of money that find there way into the
Clinton pockets from various interests. Come 2016, as Chelsea prepares
for her first term, Hillary who is emerging as a polished speaker, the
drop the tone to tell a terrible anecdote (often invented) is one of
her great dramatic skills and becoming a land mark part of her
presentation. By the time she's out of office she'll no doubt command
enough to put her in the top, 5% on the speaker's circuit. And so it
goes. This humble man from Arkansas whose wife struggled with grubby
land deals and matters so small even the far right finally tired of
their investigations and moved on to more profound matters, like Monica,
have potential, if they went public, to beat the bank. MAte check yout
maths on this one. It's hard to understand your figures.
they ceased being the first family. Although the Democratic party might
be showing some Clinton fatigue the speaking circuit, from which
President Clinton made $82 million during the Bush year (yes, they have
been kind) still laps him up and, if his wife was to take the White
House what could William Jefferson Clinton demand for after dinner and
before, for that matter entertainment. The Clinton phenomena is so
unprecedented, outside of Shakespeare, that it's impossible to even
speculate. Well maybe. The speaking circuit was a different business in
the other William's day otherwise Mark Anthony might never have gone to
Egypt. But Shakespeare never dreamt of a king being deposed, not quite
the word, at the high of his popularity by a man who proceeded to ruin
his nation while the former King went around the world collecting vast
sums telling people ... what has Bill told people in the seven long
years. Not a lot. The Prince, Al Gore, has made a lot less but I seem to
remember he has spoken out from time to time and brought matters of
import to the world's attention. Bill knows the money is in
entertainment and being a celebrity. With his wife in the White House,
perhaps only as VP, though I can't see her doing that job again, Bill
can surely double his er ... bill. Let's say $150 million in 8 years in
speeches alone. Book deal another $80 million and we have $110 mil, $150
mil, $80 mil that gets us to somewhere near $330 million if one throws in her salary
and his. The there are "odd" sums of money that find there way into the
Clinton pockets from various interests. Come 2016, as Chelsea prepares
for her first term, Hillary who is emerging as a polished speaker, the
drop the tone to tell a terrible anecdote (often invented) is one of
her great dramatic skills and becoming a land mark part of her
presentation. By the time she's out of office she'll no doubt command
enough to put her in the top, 5% on the speaker's circuit. And so it
goes. This humble man from Arkansas whose wife struggled with grubby
land deals and matters so small even the far right finally tired of
their investigations and moved on to more profound matters, like Monica,
have potential, if they went public, to beat the bank. MAte check yout
maths on this one. It's hard to understand your figures.
Friday, April 4, 2008
WHERE TO GO
One of the best sites on the web is Cursor. Fine selection of articles, easy access to the major papers and magazines of the world and the top blogs. In fact if I had to do the stranded on a desert island gig I think I’d go for Cursor as it accesses about 80 per cent of my reading. It is however a mite naïve, suffering I suspect from the Daily Kos syndrome. In 2004, such a long time ago, in fact in 2003, Daily Kos got behind Dean and learned the hard ways of politics when Dean fell, or was pushed, at the post. Then when Dean accepted the post as Party boss the wind seemed to come out of Daily Kos’s sails. Kossack’s could make or break a candidate back then and their endorsement carried big votes and big money.
Cursor never had the political or financial clout, though I note they are raising money at a goodly rate and pray they continue to expand, but they seem to be hitching their wagon overmuch to Obama and are bound to be disappointed. Fact is, even if Obama gets the pre-selection and prevails, which he should given his opponent, McCain, knows nothing of economics, is happy for the war in Iraq to go 100 years and recently said “Basra doesn’t count”, he will disappoint. Or be killed. In fact given the 25% of Americans who must be stark staring mad, they still support Bush, Obama would be best appointing Hillary as VP in the hope the lunatics will have second thoughts about doing him in. Rather like old man Bush going for Dan Quayle, figuring the Dems. would not dare impeach him over Iranamuck and have the nation face the ignominy of a President Quayle. People actually believed that at the time.
But that McCain must know something I’m in the dark over. Basra don’t count. Why, in Gods name, did we go to war.
McCAIN NOR ABLE
But McCain gets away with it. He’s Teflon coated. Like all the Republicans the White House Press Corp. Inc. just can’t love him enough. It got sickening the other day when they went after poor Chelsea over, of all things, Monica’s dress. I mean. What about McCain leaving his first wife dying to head off with a blond streak of misery with a few million bucks in her sky rocket? No attention to his admitted economic illiteracy, his personal life is sacrosanct and he doesn’t give a flying fuck about what should be one of the most important oil centers of the world. It is also a place where US troops might well be dying very soon. Blood and oil, you’d think he'd move there. But the press has dropped Iraq almost completely. Even the serious news reports barely mentioned the battle of Basra so, I guess, McCain is taking his prompts from corporate America. Basra doesn’t matter. If there is no reporting there is no accountability. The Democrats seem to be allowing Iraq to slip from the electoral map as well. I don’t get it. This is a sure fire winner especially in red states where the boys who are dying come from. They should be out in Kansas pounding the pulpits and demanding the boys and girls come home. Trees are falling in the forest and no-one hears.
MOVEMENTS
AP reports Clinton with 250 superdelegates, Obama 218. Overall, Obama has 1,634 delegates to Clinton's 1,500. With Hillary leading with the superdelegates 250 to 218.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar announced her support for Obama on Monday. That followed endorsements by Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Also yesterday former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, the top Democrat on the 9/11 Commission, and all round well known and liked Democrat, endorsed him. This is panning out opposite to how one would have thought at Christmas. Then, if the race got close, one might have expected the old hands to gather around William Jefferson Clinton’s wife. Richardson clearly anguished over the choice but the party heavyweights have thought long and hard and Hillary has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The whole dog and pony show is made for political junkies with states that have never had any say in political anointment - North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, plus Puerto Rico and Guam — being wooed, or about to be subject to love-ins, a process which will not harm the party one bit but adds to the attraction.
Cursor never had the political or financial clout, though I note they are raising money at a goodly rate and pray they continue to expand, but they seem to be hitching their wagon overmuch to Obama and are bound to be disappointed. Fact is, even if Obama gets the pre-selection and prevails, which he should given his opponent, McCain, knows nothing of economics, is happy for the war in Iraq to go 100 years and recently said “Basra doesn’t count”, he will disappoint. Or be killed. In fact given the 25% of Americans who must be stark staring mad, they still support Bush, Obama would be best appointing Hillary as VP in the hope the lunatics will have second thoughts about doing him in. Rather like old man Bush going for Dan Quayle, figuring the Dems. would not dare impeach him over Iranamuck and have the nation face the ignominy of a President Quayle. People actually believed that at the time.
But that McCain must know something I’m in the dark over. Basra don’t count. Why, in Gods name, did we go to war.
McCAIN NOR ABLE
But McCain gets away with it. He’s Teflon coated. Like all the Republicans the White House Press Corp. Inc. just can’t love him enough. It got sickening the other day when they went after poor Chelsea over, of all things, Monica’s dress. I mean. What about McCain leaving his first wife dying to head off with a blond streak of misery with a few million bucks in her sky rocket? No attention to his admitted economic illiteracy, his personal life is sacrosanct and he doesn’t give a flying fuck about what should be one of the most important oil centers of the world. It is also a place where US troops might well be dying very soon. Blood and oil, you’d think he'd move there. But the press has dropped Iraq almost completely. Even the serious news reports barely mentioned the battle of Basra so, I guess, McCain is taking his prompts from corporate America. Basra doesn’t matter. If there is no reporting there is no accountability. The Democrats seem to be allowing Iraq to slip from the electoral map as well. I don’t get it. This is a sure fire winner especially in red states where the boys who are dying come from. They should be out in Kansas pounding the pulpits and demanding the boys and girls come home. Trees are falling in the forest and no-one hears.
MOVEMENTS
AP reports Clinton with 250 superdelegates, Obama 218. Overall, Obama has 1,634 delegates to Clinton's 1,500. With Hillary leading with the superdelegates 250 to 218.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar announced her support for Obama on Monday. That followed endorsements by Pennsylvania Sen. Robert Casey and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. Also yesterday former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, the top Democrat on the 9/11 Commission, and all round well known and liked Democrat, endorsed him. This is panning out opposite to how one would have thought at Christmas. Then, if the race got close, one might have expected the old hands to gather around William Jefferson Clinton’s wife. Richardson clearly anguished over the choice but the party heavyweights have thought long and hard and Hillary has been weighed in the balance and found wanting.
The whole dog and pony show is made for political junkies with states that have never had any say in political anointment - North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, plus Puerto Rico and Guam — being wooed, or about to be subject to love-ins, a process which will not harm the party one bit but adds to the attraction.
IT’S A FIGHT
That’s what the kids at school would gleefully cry if something erupted into a show of knuckles (we were very old fashioned). How we’d (if not actually partipants) would run to watch and cheer those eruptions that never, I am glad to say, amounted to more than a bloody nose. The teachers inflicted the real pain with the canes of which they had fine collections. One, Dogface, the history master's collection ranged from four to six feet long. He’d have you stand before him as he tested each perhaps for the right air or atmosphere, bending the cane, selecting one then returning it to the cane case and then studying thoughtfully as though remembering when Constantinople fell. The whole idea was to increase the tourure, for he figured that his contemplations were more punishment than the blows delivered, ideally and usually to the very finger tips. It was an art, but waiting was not as painful as being caned and there was always the chance Dogface would have a stroke. From memory the masters had another collective case they could select from before, if one was especially honored by the fates, being dragged by the ear, to give the impression of cowardice in front of the other kids and in the hope the tiny victim would burst into tears, preferably before the first strike of the rod. I guess they put away the canes in the late sixties. Dogface, he really looked like a particularly unpleasant bulldog, and in adulthood I could never properly love that breed, would enjoy the coming battle for North Carolina on May 6 as would the school kids. All bar the victim. Barack or Hillary. Joe Trippi figures the primaries will be decided there. Joe has been wrong in the past and Hillary is a strange bird but he makes a convincing argument. The polls are contradictory. Obama mania seems to be waning yet 2,500 tickets to see him in North Carolina disappeared in a few hours when he confirmed his appearance last week. Hillary is still strong in Pennsylvania and it’s hard to see Steelers changing their minds in sufficient numbers at this stage to deliver for Obama on March 28. Indiana, which votes the same day, is a toss up. By May 6 Hillary may be within “coooeee”. Joe says the following; “I really believe May 6 has the potential to be everything." Joe was, amongst many other things, strategist for the presidential bids of former North Carolina senator John Edwards this year and Howard Dean in 2004. "Every day you see increased pressure on Hillary Clinton about why she's staying in, and if she could win in North Carolina it would shut down that kind of talk and open up the possibility she could get there" to the nomination.
"But if he wins in North Carolina," Trippi says of Obama, "I think you're going to see things close up very quickly. You'll see a lot of superdelegates line up behind him." Popular leftist blog 0legend has it that the race is won and Hillary is merely damaging the party by hanging on but the count is close, and the superdelegates may fall her way if, and it’s a pretty big if, she can pull off a win in Sth. Carolina. I wonder if another, white male candidate, would meet the demands of Hillary, that she stand down, or even face them with the delegate count being a mere 100 or so votes. I stole those Tippi quotes from an otherwise indifferent article in USA Today. What was remarkable about it was a few hours after the article appeared more than 2000 readers had written to comment. It’s a fight!
"But if he wins in North Carolina," Trippi says of Obama, "I think you're going to see things close up very quickly. You'll see a lot of superdelegates line up behind him." Popular leftist blog 0legend has it that the race is won and Hillary is merely damaging the party by hanging on but the count is close, and the superdelegates may fall her way if, and it’s a pretty big if, she can pull off a win in Sth. Carolina. I wonder if another, white male candidate, would meet the demands of Hillary, that she stand down, or even face them with the delegate count being a mere 100 or so votes. I stole those Tippi quotes from an otherwise indifferent article in USA Today. What was remarkable about it was a few hours after the article appeared more than 2000 readers had written to comment. It’s a fight!
MORE TOXIC SHOCK
Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University is often cited in these pages as being the foremost critic of US economic policy – if one could use that word to describe the absolute and total mess the clowns and crooks in charge in New York and Washington are inflicting on the nation and perhaps the world. Those that have watched as his terrifying economic predictions fall into place will be thoroughly distressed to discover his colleague and friend Charles Morris – author of several books on financial history and other topics – has just published “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash” – that confirms all our worst fears. We watch hopelessly and helplessly as the entire leveraged system falls apart, proving you cannot manufacture economies from phony house prices and get away with it for long. Charles Morris estimates that the losses from this financial crisis may be as high as $1 trillion:
“$1 trillion is the amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble,” estimates Charles R. Morris and that calculation assumes an orderly unwinding of the US credit market.
Either way Morris had finally put subprime in its rightful place as just one boulder “in an avalanche of asset writedowns that will rattle on through much of 2008.''
Roubini estimated and I reported $1 trillion of losses in February. He points out that this has now become conventional wisdom as George Magnus, Martin Wolf, Goldman Sachs and now Charles Morris are all coming up with a similar estimate.
A trillion dollars is the combined wealth of Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates multiplied by nine. The assets involved include all the suspects this column has noted in the past, subprime and higher graded mortgages, high yield bonds, commercial real estate, credit card debt, leveraged loans the entire family we have come to know so well. The Daddy of the family, credit default swaps is the great unknown. This is the insurance on bond holders and covers, or should cover some $45 trillion against default. That’s where the “orderly” aspect of the unwinding or the melting party of the meltdown may happen. It is the clear and present danger. Morris is considered an authority (by Bloomberg amongst others) on the subject of the complex inter action of the credit system that threatens to send the US economy into deeper toxic shock. For we have long road to how. Morris predicts we will spend 2008 watching this meltdown and therefore I suggest those returning to the market, especially the US market given it PE ratios, do so with extreme caution.
Like this columnist Morris apparently looks to Paul Volker, the man Democratic Presidential candidate Obama Barack has been talking to whose recommendations include forcing loan originators to retain first losses, requiring prime brokers to stop lending to hedge funds that don’t disclose their balance sheets and trading of credit derivatives onto exchanges. In fact shine the ever loving light on the entire game and then when the problem is known face it and begin the vast task of correction.
That this cannot be done under the current administration is now self evident. One searches in vain through Treasury Secretary Paulson’s proposed overhaul l of the regulatory system for references to the public spotlight or and other spotlight save that of Big Brother. Perhaps I missed it. It’s a huge report.
“$1 trillion is the amount of defaults and writedowns Americans will likely witness before they emerge at the far side of the bursting credit bubble,” estimates Charles R. Morris and that calculation assumes an orderly unwinding of the US credit market.
Either way Morris had finally put subprime in its rightful place as just one boulder “in an avalanche of asset writedowns that will rattle on through much of 2008.''
Roubini estimated and I reported $1 trillion of losses in February. He points out that this has now become conventional wisdom as George Magnus, Martin Wolf, Goldman Sachs and now Charles Morris are all coming up with a similar estimate.
A trillion dollars is the combined wealth of Warren Buffet, and Bill Gates multiplied by nine. The assets involved include all the suspects this column has noted in the past, subprime and higher graded mortgages, high yield bonds, commercial real estate, credit card debt, leveraged loans the entire family we have come to know so well. The Daddy of the family, credit default swaps is the great unknown. This is the insurance on bond holders and covers, or should cover some $45 trillion against default. That’s where the “orderly” aspect of the unwinding or the melting party of the meltdown may happen. It is the clear and present danger. Morris is considered an authority (by Bloomberg amongst others) on the subject of the complex inter action of the credit system that threatens to send the US economy into deeper toxic shock. For we have long road to how. Morris predicts we will spend 2008 watching this meltdown and therefore I suggest those returning to the market, especially the US market given it PE ratios, do so with extreme caution.
Like this columnist Morris apparently looks to Paul Volker, the man Democratic Presidential candidate Obama Barack has been talking to whose recommendations include forcing loan originators to retain first losses, requiring prime brokers to stop lending to hedge funds that don’t disclose their balance sheets and trading of credit derivatives onto exchanges. In fact shine the ever loving light on the entire game and then when the problem is known face it and begin the vast task of correction.
That this cannot be done under the current administration is now self evident. One searches in vain through Treasury Secretary Paulson’s proposed overhaul l of the regulatory system for references to the public spotlight or and other spotlight save that of Big Brother. Perhaps I missed it. It’s a huge report.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)