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LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 20, 2009
Eric Rall has a very thoughtful and well written piece on Dean’s World about what economic depressions really have been, can be, and how — maybe — they do and don’t come to an end.
It would be a good thing to read if your economic history is anywhere as weak as the vast majority of people in, uh, politics, economics and journalism.
Posted in Gelt, Past is prologue | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 19, 2009
The Chicago tea party — born of a trading floor harangue by a CNBC business editor?
They’re screaming about this, by the way.
Posted in Gelt, Politics and Poker | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 12, 2009
A blog called Zero Hedge says “the world almost came to an end” last September — and we’re hearing about it just now:
LiveLeak has caught a scary moment of previously undisclosed insight by Paul Kanjorski where he reveals some facts that have not been captured by the media previously. At 2 minutes and 20 seconds in the video below, Democratic Representative Kanjorski explains how the Federal Reserve told Congress members about a “tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars.” According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occurred over the period of an hour or two. And it gets worse. Kanjorski paraphrases the following disclosure by Bernanke and Paulson:
On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11am the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn’t be further panic out there.
Urk. Well, I guess that did work, after all. But all in all, it’s surprising that The End didn’t really come then, or around then, or before now, at least not in the form of a run on financial institutions, for the simple reason that a who-o-o-o-o-ole bunch of money that used to be there no longer was, or shortly would no longer… be. As in “no longer be.” Concludes blogger Tyler Durden:
Interestingly, Kanjorski, and likely more and more Democrats, are starting to shift to the camp that more time is needed to make a correct decision this time (which may explain Geithner’s decision to postpone the “bank-rescue” announcement by one day to Tuesday), instead of rushing into another half-baked plan. Very scary stuff.
Too much leverage, folks — in a lot of ways. Hat tip to stock market maven Jerry Coleman, my dad.
Posted in Gelt, Nuvo-Techno, Stragety | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 11, 2009
Howard Stern made hundreds of millions of dollars to “legitimize” Sirius satellite radio. If you ever wondered how such numbers could be justified as a business matter, well, guess what — they couldn’t. At least not with that business’s own money:
Sirius XM, which never turned a profit when both companies were independent, is laden with $3.25 billion in debt. Its business model has been dependent, in part, on the ability to roll over its enormous debts — used to finance sending satellites into space and attract talent like Mr. Stern (who was paid $100 million a year) — at low rates for the foreseeable future until it could turn a profit. . . .
Sirius XM owes about $175 million in debt payments at the end of February that it is unlikely to be able to pay.
$100 million for Stern. Of course that can’t be justified, unless the only risk being taken is taken by someone else. Like a bank.
And, of course, that bank isn’t really risking all that much. If it fails, or threatens to, why Uncle Sam will just bail it out, right?
Guess who’s $100 million that ends up being?
UPDATE: “I remember my dad looking at the stocks a few years ago and saying that Sirius’s only viable business plan was to be bought by XM, and XM’s only viable business plan was to hope for some kind of miracle.”
Posted in Gelt, Medialites | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 10, 2009
Or something like that. I took a couple of days to visit with my parents in their southern Florida home. It was worth 
coming down here just to be the second-youngest person for miles around; I would be the youngest but my kid brother came along, too (it was his idea actually). My parents are just kvelling over having us here and I’ll say this much: Nice weather sure is… nice.
Even with all the electronica around I think it’s easier to ignore what’s going on in Washington from here, though not what’s going on on Wall Street — my dad is plugged in as long as “the mockit” is open. Well, and these days those two things are pretty firmly connected to each other.
I have to tell you, though, I was so inclined to like a lot about Barack Obama, all things considered. In a way, I wasn’t even too unhappy with this hard and radical shift rightward on a lot of national-security and secrecy type issues, which while they make great fodder for Instapundit (and appropriately so — meet the new boss, yada yada yada), also moved Obama more in my direction on most of those things. The fact that all this infuriates Obama’s “progressive” supporters makes it kind of fun, too. Why, they literally can’t win for winning!
And, the cynicism and hypocrisy of it all? Well, come on, folks! The only people shocked and surprised by that are the ones who not only thought Obama was the new JFK, but think that by virtue of his display of phenomenal cynicism and hypocrisy, he demonstrates that he isn’t the new JFK!
Come on, folks!
But I may just end up utterly unable to get past the “stimulus” bill. I thought this Obama was a fellow I would disagree with politically, and perhaps very fundamentally, and critically, but that he was someone I would be able to respect. And I am looking at this swollen, irresponsible, reckless “stimulus package” and I cannot believe that something so radically and obviously bad for the country is about to be rammed through Congress and begin the process of generating the largest, ugliest economic sucking sound in the history of Keynesianism.
Imagine an Administration that in two weeks manages to make the profligate fiscal irresponsibility of government during the Bush years look, well, bush league.
What a drag. And tomorrow afternoon I leave the palm trees behind, too, and play out the rest of winter in New York. It could be a longer, colder one than it even seemed.
Posted in Gelt, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 7, 2009
Item:
As far back as 2007, salmonella-laced products were shipped by a Georgia peanut company that knew the peanuts probably were tainted and sometimes after tests confirmed that contamination, inspection records show.
Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers’ health.
For fifty points: Does this report, if true, make us more skeptical of the claim that the free market leads to safer consumer outcomes? Or does it makes us more skeptical of the claim that regulation and government leads to safer outcomes?
Do we say that consumers assume — incorrectly — that something wouldn’t even be on the market if it were dangerous, because “the government wouldn’t allow it”?
Or do we say this goes to prove we need a bigger, better FDA, because businesses are overall pretty comfortable with poisoning some percentage of their customers as long as the revenue keeps coming in?
Posted in Gelt, O Mores!, Stragety | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on February 3, 2009
Roland Dodds wants to know: “Do any Democrats pay taxes?”
Well, not the rich ones who are in politics, it appears. And why should they? It’s not as if tax evasion is slowing down any of their political careers or anything.
It’s different when you’re on the side of the angels, after all. Ever see a cat with a halo and a harp trudging over to H&R Block? I thought not.
UPDATE: It’s a growing refrain.
NEW UPDATE: Scott Ott reports that they’ve got it figured out now:
Just minutes after two of President Barack Obama’s nominees withdrew today over failure to pay their tax obligations, the president reportedly requested and received from the IRS the official list of wealthy Democrats who have filed accurate tax returns, and whose accounts are paid up. . . .
From now on, the White House said, the nomination process will start with a “white list” from the Internal Revenue Service.
Posted in Gelt, Lex scripta, O Mores!, Politics and Poker | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 8, 2009
There’s so much so wrong here:
U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon had court security arrest Morgan County [Alabama] Sheriff Greg Bartlett after dramatic testimony from skinny prisoners about paper-thin bologna and cold grits. The hearing offered a rare look into Alabama’s unusual practice of letting sheriffs pocket money left over from feeding inmates.
The sheriff, who showed no emotion when his arrest was ordered, had testified that he legally kept as personal income about $212,000 over three years with surplus meal money but denied that inmates were improperly fed. . . .
Clemon said the Alabama law allowing sheriffs to take home surplus meal money is “probably unconstitutional” in certain cases, but his ruling was limited to the finding that the court order was violated. It didn’t address whether the law should be overturned.
“He makes money by failing to spend the allocated funds for food for inmates,” Clemon said. . . .
Sheriffs in 55 of Alabama’s 67 counties operate under the system allowing them to make money operating their jail kitchens. The law pays sheriffs $1.75 a day for each prisoner they house and lets the elected officers pocket any profit they can generate.
Come on. What country was this really in? Hey, do they mean Soviet Alabama?
Posted in Gelt, Oppression | 4 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on January 3, 2009
It’s interesting to me that we see far more anger from Old Media folks aimed at bloggers, etc., than at Craigslist, even though Craigslist has done far more economic harm to the newspaper industry than bloggers, who probably add eyeballs rather than (as Craigslist does) subtracting them.
Very interesting indeed. Craigslist hasn’t only destroyed conventional classified advertising, which was inevitable — a more natural use of the Internet is hardly conceivable. It’s probably really done in giveaway papers such as the Village Voice, whose recent layoffs of franchise players indicate nothing so much as the classic death spiral, that lived above all on (increasingly politically incorrect anyway) backpage ads for sleazy “exotic” services. These supposedly generated $80,000 a month for the Voice in the good times.
For such outfits, the highly publicized “crackdown” at Craigslist is too little, too late. Too bad.
Posted in Gelt, Medialites, O Mores! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 29, 2008
Bruce MacEwen’s Adam Smith, Esq. blog quotes from an interview in Barron’s in which a major (multi-billion-dollar) potentional investor in Madoff’s hedge fund smelled fraud after an exasperating several hours of stonewalling by the “great man” and walked away without investing.
You’ve got to read these quotes to believe how bright, how flashing, how garishly obvious the warning lights were — if only you, as a hedge fund manager or other financial fiduciary — would stop worrying about not looking cool, do your job and ask the questions.
Posted in Gelt, Homo sapiens, Sisyphus | 1 Comment »
