Month: April 2009

Douglas A. McIntyre:

Wells Fargo (WFC) indicated that it made about $3 billion in the first quarter of the year and declared its buyout of the deeply troubled Wachovia to be a success. Wells Fargo (WFC) said that the low cost of money from the government combined with a surging demand for mortgages was all the medicine that it required. …

Oddly absent from the discussion of how well Wells Fargo did is why the government was in the midst of testing bank balance sheets at all. The experts at the Treasury had been thrown off the scent and consequently had missed the fact that there was not need to test what is already working well. The same holds true for the Geithner plan to take toxic assets off bank balance sheets. It is academic now. What banks are earning from the difference between the cost of capital and the income from lending is now great enough for the banking system to be self-sustaining again.

Oh dear.

This helps. A reader writes:

I live in Kansas and have several family members who fit the mold of these Tea Partiers. The sense I get from them is much like what I felt after the 2004 election – absolute disbelief that this country could make such a decision. The reason that my relatives are so concerned is that Bush stood for everything they truly believed in – US primacy, nationalism, God (the Christianist version), guns, no gays, no illegals, where criminals get a fair trial before we hang them. In their mind, Obama repudiates all of that.

These rallies are an effort by a group that feels highly marginalized to find some comfort in the company of others with similar beliefs, and to express their fear and frustration over what they see happening to their country. At least, that’s why my uncles and grandparents will be there.

I agree that it’s a tantrum, but not over the issues you mention. Their issue is far more about their world-view than any one of these policy concerns. In their minds, this is the “conservative” equivalent of the Watts and Stonewall demonstrations. And when you (and others) dismiss these concerns as “adolescent, unserious hysteria,” it only hardens their resolve. What will make this go away is time, and the realization that America has “survived” the threat posed by a President who represents so much that they find threatening.

It does make much more sense when you see it that way. If you’re concerned, as I am, about the reach of government, you might think that Bush’s supension of habeas corpus, claimed right to suspend the First and Fourth Amendments and authorization of torture would have concerned them. But nah. If you’re concerned about spending and borrowing, you might imagine they’d have been in the streets against Bush in 2003, instead of rallying behind him. If you’re concerned about pork, then the obvious culprits were the Bush Republicans. If you’re concerned about spending, then you’d be campaigning against Medicare, Medicaid, and defense spending. But they’re having an ostensible tax revolt just after the Democratic candidate offered, against his party’s liberal base, a tax cut for middle class Americans! And they have taken up revolt against government spending at the very moment that even conservative economists think a little relaxation of fiscal discipline does more good than harm.

The whole thing is mystifying unless you see it as a tantrum designed as therapy. I’m just waiting for them to get serious about the debt and start proposing real spending cuts that will actually do something. That’s a tea-party I’d happily join. When is it scheduled?

More gems from Ross here and here.

From their website:

Being ahead of your time is never easy. As a community, you understand the importance of being progressive. It's not just a word. It's how you live your life. And as an insurance company, we work hard to live up to that name. It's how we think, and how we treat our customers. So while you're here, check out how far we've come, and more importantly, where we're heading.

Scott Horton's take on Leon Panetta writing that CIA officers “should not be investigated, let alone punished” for torture:

Leon Panetta’s promise of absolution is being implemented—by way of cover-up. And the Eric Holder Department of Justice is complicit at every step along the way.

Four British teens appear to compete for the world's worst music video. Hang in for the choreography:

LGF transcribes one (the video is here):

Woman: [Shouts] “Burn the books!” [applause]

Man: “I don’t think you were serious about that, were you?”

Woman: “I am too.”

Man: “Burn all the books?!”

Woman: “The ones in college, those, those brainwashing books.”

Man: “[laughs] Brainwashing books?”

Woman: “Yes.”

Man: “Which ones are those?”

Woman: “Like, the evolution crap, and, yeah…”

I guess we're getting warmer.

The problem in a nutshell:

It seems safe to assume that YouTube’s traffic will continue to grow, with no clear ceiling in sight. Since the majority of Google’s costs for the service are pure variable costs of bandwidth and storage, and since they’ve already reached the point at which no greater economies of scale remain, the costs of the business will continue to grow on a linear basis. Unfortunately, far more user-generated content than professional content makes its way onto the site, which means that while costs grow linearly, non-monetizable content is growing geometrically as compared against the monetizable content that YouTube really wants and needs to survive. This means less and less of YouTube’s library will be revenue-contributing, while the costs of delivering that library will continue to grow.

First tea-bagging, now this. The right might want to consult Urban Dictionary the next time they pick a name.