Best Christmas decorations ever

Brilliant. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Senators in turmoil - majority vote against GOP’s own plan to extend payroll tax cut

Who says the Tea Party only runs the House GOP.  A majority of Republican Senators just voted against the Republican plan to extend the payroll tax cut by cutting the pay of the federal workforce.  It was the GOP's own legislation and a majority of Republicans voted AGAINST it. Reuters:

Republican ambivalence toward any extension of the payroll tax cut was evident in the Senate as a majority of the party's 47 senators voted against the Republican plan.

So a majority of Republicans voted against the Democratic plan to extend the payroll tax cut, and a majority of Republicans voted against even the Republican plan to extend the payroll tax cut.

In other words, the Republicans don't want to extend the payroll tax cut at all.  They want to raise taxes on every single working American. Not just the middle class - if you have a job, the GOP just voted to raise your taxes for Christmas.

What's hard to figure out is what the GOP is thinking here.  Wouldn't Republicans in Congress want to cut taxes for everyone?  Isn't that what they're always telling us they're for?  Or are they making an exception in this case - an exception that might cost the economy 1.5 percentage points of GDP next quarter - simply because this was Barack Obama's idea, and the GOP wants Obama to lose, so they're willing to hold every single working American hostage.

Merry Christmas to you too.

And PS, what to make of Boehner and McConnell?  It seems their word, and wishes, don't mean much in the GOP caucus. Read the rest of this post...

GOP kills payroll tax cut extension to protect rich, chooses to raise taxes on middle class

Here's a statement from the President:

Tonight, Senate Republicans chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans because they refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share. They voted against a bill that would have not only extended the $1,000 tax cut for a typical family, but expanded that tax cut to put an extra $1,500 in their pockets next year, and given nearly six million small business owners new incentives to expand and hire. That is unacceptable. It makes absolutely no sense to raise taxes on the middle class at a time when so many are still trying to get back on their feet.

Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk. Now is the time to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility pay off, and everybody has a chance to succeed. Now is the time to put country before party and work together on behalf of the American people. And I will continue to urge Congress to stop playing politics with the security of millions of American families and small business owners and get this done.

More from AP. Read the rest of this post...

Bloomberg wrong about NYPD being "7th largest army in the world" - try 96th

Earlier today, Gaius wrote about how NYC's Mayor Bloomberg recently bragged that the NYPD was the "7th largest army in the world." (Bloomberg also said "I have my own army," referring to the NYPD.) So I did some research. From what I can find, the NYPD is nowhere close to the 7th largest army in the world. Try 96th.

Ironically, 7th on the list is a little place we like to call the United States of America.  (If you only count active duty troops, the US is second, right behind China, and Turkey is 7th with 620,000 active duty troops.)

New York City has 44,650 police officers, auxilliary police officers, and "school safety agents."

Now look at a list of world's military:

NYC would be 96th on the list, right after Kuwait and right before Croatia, if you count active duty, reserve duty, and paramilitia.

NYC would be 72rd on the list, right after Uganda and right before Portugal, if you only count active duty military members.

Nowhere near 7th.

And the way the NYPD has been behaving against Occupy Wall Street protesters - the way far too many of our nation's police forces (and Montreal) have been behaving - Kuwait and Croatia, sadly, sound about right. Read the rest of this post...

Best gay marriage ad ever

From Australia. Your money back if you don't choke up just a little.

Read the rest of this post...

Michael Bloomberg: "I have my own army!"

Almost Napoleonic, in that madhouse kind of way.

The UK Daily Mail (my emphasis):

Being the mayor of New York City has its perks - and apparently one is having an army at your disposal.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking at MIT on Wednesday about the city's workforce, overreached with his description of the police force which has been lambasted for pepper spraying protesters lining Wall Street in recent weeks.

'I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh largest army in the world,' he said.

A bizarre speech, to say the least. (And no, the NYPD is not the seventh largest anything in the world. He doesn't even have his own facts right.)

Bloomberg also claims he has his own State Department, which if I read this right, is the (ready?) United Nations building:

Referring to the U.S. Department of State, located in the Foggy Bottom neighbourhood of Washington, DC, he added: 'I have my own state department, to Foggy Bottom's annoyance. We have the UN in New York, so we have entrée into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.'

There's more like this in the article; it's well worth your minutes.

A strange man — I guess being a gazillionaire gets to the brain after a while. Definitely Napoleonic. (Image of Napoleon via Shutterstock)

GP Read the rest of this post...

"President" Bachmann vows to close non-existent US embassy in Iran

When people wonder why the political class is such a failure, look no further than the Tea Party's "leader" in Congress.

In light of the British Foreign Ministry pulling all U.K. nationals out of the British embassy in Tehran after students stormed the building in protest, GOP presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann told a crowd in Waverly, Iowa, today that she would close the U.S. embassy in Iran.

One small, tiny note: The U.S. hasn’t had an embassy in Tehran since 1980. Following the Iranian Hostage Crisis, where 52 Americans were held for 444 days, the United States cut all diplomatic ties.

According to reports, Bachmann applauded the U.K.’s move, adding, “That’s exactly what I would do [if I were president]. We wouldn’t have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn’t allow that to be there."

Read the rest of this post...

Japanese nuclear disaster at Fukushima possibly worse than thought

Surprise. Read the rest of this post...

Fox News asks Romney tough questions, makes Romney sad

Of course, let's face it: It's Fox. So there must have been an underlying political motive for their tough questioning of Romney. And in fact, the questions were about whether Romney was really just a faux conservative. And Fox likes faux conservatives about as much as they like Democrats. So, yes, at first blush this might appear to be the first time that Fox has ever actually practiced actual journalism, but it's not.

Read the rest of this post...

US cable providers eye 'usage-based' billing

Here's another industry that is bloated and worthless, thanks to the political class. As expensive as things can be here in Europe, people choke when they hear how much Americans pay for internet/cable/phone services. At home in Paris, our fiber optic 100MB connection also includes free phone calls to 100 countries around the world, plus 140 TV channels for €33.90 per month (around US$45). No limits. Other countries in Europe have faster speeds and better prices.

For Time Warner or any of the US operators to even consider raising fees because people are opting for Netflix is laughable. How about they start providing first world services like people have across Europe (and parts of not-first-world Asia) before they start adding caps and increasing prices? While Obama didn't really say that Americans were lazy, our cable companies sure are. And they only get away with it because of the money they dump into the political world (and the fact that Americans have no idea how much people "don't" pay for the same services, if not better, in Europe). Bloomberg:

Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) and U.S. pay- TV companies, weighing how to profit from surging Internet demand spurred by Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and Hulu, are on the verge of instituting new fees on Web-access customers who use the most.

At least one major cable operator will institute so-called usage-based billing next year, predicts Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York. He said Cox Communications Inc., Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) or Time Warner Cable may be first to charge Web-access customers for the amount of data they consume, not just transmission speed.

“As more video shifts to the Web, the cable operators will inevitably align their pricing models,” Moffett said in an interview. “With the right usage-based pricing plan, they can embrace the transition instead of resisting it.”

For those interested in the subject, here's a great read about the myth of the "network hog" and how it's nothing more than an excuse to raise rates. The real problem is lousy networks.

NOTE FROM JOHN: This is simply the cable companies following the lead of the airlines - how much can we fleece our customers for by charging for luggage, blankets, smiles.  Rather than striving to make more money by being more competitive, less wasteful, and offering customers more, far too many American industries are now looking for the quick, easy buck. Read the rest of this post...

Occupy Montreal protesters "branded" by police with numbers "in" their skin

This is weird and possibly illegal. The police attitude continues to be "whatever it takes to support the 1%." Salon:

“They wrote on my hand with a permanent marker and then after I felt something pointy and metallic scraping across my skin,” wrote protester Nina Haigh on Facebook, continuing:

I immediately asked “What are you doing” and they simply said we wrote on you with a pen and showed me a bunch of various pens in her hand.

I didn’t argue about it and I was unable to look at my hands as they were tied behind my back with zipties. As soon as I was released I looked at my hands and there was no ink on them from a pen. …

This morning we tested my hands under a black light and sure enough there was a number 2! The freaky thing is this is IN my skin, washing my hands and scrubbing with abrasives will not get this off…. perhaps in several months of my skin cells renewing themselves if will eventually fade.

NOTE FROM JOHN: Okay, I'll make the Nazi analogy. Since when is it okay for the government to tattoo the skin of its citizens, against their will, with numbers? No one in the Montreal government did a double take when the cops told them they'd be branding people with numbers scratched on their skin semi-permanently?

And I'm waiting for police to say "bouncers at bars use the same technique to keep trouble makers out." Yes, and the Nazis also used the same technique. Also, I'm not entirely sure it isn't battery for a bouncer to write on someone's arm, but it most certainly isn't appropriate for the government to be branding its citizens like cattle, or worse.

The OWS protesters should return with real numbers written on their arms with black markers, and flash their arms, en masse, to the media for a photo opp - I'd recommend using the real numbers used by the Nazis on their victims, and make sure you're up on the full story of the original victim, so you can share it with the media.  Perhaps this will educate the Montreal police about the wisdom of adopting tactics used by the Nazis.

UPDATE: Via Salon's Justin Elliott we learn that the secret police ink may have a history of health risks. Read the rest of this post...

Taibbi on the SEC & our "parallel, secret criminal justice system"

We've written about this before (here and here), the tale of the judge who "bitch-slapped the SEC" (Taibbi's formulation) for wrist-slapping Citibank (mine) in exchange for forgiveness for crimes no one would specify, or would have to admit to.

Matt Taibbi takes a second look at Judge Rakoff's ruling and finds several notable aspects. The most important is Rakoff's criticism, not just of the SEC, but of the whole system by which the SEC operates (my emphases):

By accepting hundred-million-dollar fines without a full public venting of the facts, the SEC is leveling seemingly significant punishments without telling the public what the defendant is being punished for. This has essentially created a parallel or secret criminal justice system, in which both crime and punishment are adjudicated behind closed doors.

This system allows for ugly consequences in both directions. Imagine if normal criminal defendants were treated this way. Say a prosecutor and street criminal come into a judge’s chamber and explain they’ve cooked up a deal, that the criminal doesn’t have to admit to anything or plead to any crime, but has to spend 18 months in house arrest nonetheless.

What sane judge would sign off on a deal like that without knowing exactly what the facts are? Did the criminal shoot up a nightclub and paralyze someone, or did he just sell a dimebag on the street? Is 18 months a tough sentence or a slap on the wrist? And how is it legally possible for someone to deserve an 18-month sentence without being guilty of anything?

Such deals are logical and legal absurdities, but judges have been signing off on settlements like this with Wall Street defendants for years.

For years. That's forever in DC precedent-setting terms.

Much of Taibbi's piece revolves around how revolutionary (my word) this ruling is and how generally it applies.

First, the ruling rejects the idea that a company can be punished if no crime has been proved or alleged; thus, no judge can bless such a non-transparent deal. This could indeed echo forward — remember, Judge Rakoff isn't offering advice; his ruling itself adds to precedent.

Second, he admonishes the SEC for not considering the public interest primarily. Taibbi:

This issue of whether or not the SEC must consider the public interest in granting these cozy settlements gets to the heart of what OWS is all about. The SEC in this case incredibly argued – out loud, on paper – that it could make regulatory decisions without considering the public interest. ... Translating loosely: “When we decide to let thieving megabank off with just a promise to never do it again, we don’t have to consider whether or not this is in the public interest.”

Taibbi says that "these crappy settlements have evolved into a kind of cheap payoff system" in which small fines are paid.

Quoting Judge Rakoff's opinion directly (again, my emphasis):

As for common experience, a consent judgment that does not involve any admissions and that results in only very modest penalties is just as frequently viewed, particularly in the business community, as a cost of doing business imposed by having to maintain a working relationship with a regulatory agency, rather than as any indication of where the real truth lies. This, indeed, is Citigroup's position in this very case.

What neither mentions is the other payoff, in which the loyal SEC types get their own reward — that sweet job on Thank You Street with Wall Street paying the freight. That's also the "cost of doing business" — where the "business" is institutional bribes that let you skate the Rule of Law.

The crime itself, financial in nature, finances its forgiveness. Or as Hamlet said:

The wicked prize itself buys out the law

Groucho's reply: "Clip me off a piece of that."

GP Read the rest of this post...

Central banks around the world take emergency action... here we go again

I can't wait to find out how many secret deals the US Federal Reserve is dumping into rescuing the banking industry. Many people are saying this emergency action is required to prevent a Bears Stearns-like collapse in the European financial sector. (In particular, at least one person is suggesting a large French bank was on the edge of collapse over the weekend.) The central banks are once again extending cheap (free, really) loans to the banks to help them keep liquidity up so they can continue functioning. It's 2008 all over again.

While this injection of capital by central banks is probably necessary to keep the banks moving, we all know what happened in 2008 when the central banks did this. Taxpayers bailed out the bankers who then used that cash to lobby against reform and mostly stuck to their same old bad habits. Propping up bank accounts makes sense, but until the bankers admit they were wrong and have changed their ways - something they have not been able to do and in fact, still think they are correct and we're ungrateful bastards to even asking - the banks do not deserve being rescued.

Maybe instead of the political class focusing on overblown issues such as union contracts, they ought to be concerned about the contracts for the bankers. How can we possibly be here all over again and not have a clause that specifies, if you take this money, your contracts are null and void immediately? We can't continue to bailout the lifestyles of the rich and famous because the money isn't there. Let the bankers taste real capitalism which does include failure and losing everything. Bailing them out only delays the problem and pushes it out until another day.

So what did the coordinated central bank lending scheme do?

In essence, the US central bank, or Federal Reserve, agreed to provide cheaper dollar funding to the European Central Bank—which can then provide cheaper dollar loans to cash-strapped European banks.

The participation of the central banks of Canada, England, Japan and Switzerland is more of an effort to show that all the central bankers are working together than any expectation that there will be lots of dollar borrowings under their facility.

The goal is to ease the credit crunch in Europe. Lots of European banks make dollar denominated loans, in part because US interest rates are so low. The banks do not usually finance these loans in the way you might think—by lending out the deposits of their retail customers. Instead, the loans are financed by short-term borrowings from other financial institutions.

We are once again deep into a financial crisis that is owned by the banks. The bigger question now is what should the political class do about it besides bail them out? It wasn't sustainable before and this model or rewarding failure is no more responsible now. We need fundamental change and unfortunately the mainstream political class in Europe or the US is probably not able to do this. It's time to quit supporting politicians who talk about change. We need some that deliver real change. Read the rest of this post...

British families eye financial decline under Tory austerity

And to think the tough talk sounded so rugged and convincing to some at the beginning. With an economy swirling down the toilet bowl and a future that looks bleak, it's a wonder anyone still supports the Tories. Brace yourself America, because this is what the Republicans are eager to do. They've already started in some states but a nationwide program would be a death blow to struggling families.

High inflation, cuts and the longest period of wage stagnation on record will see the spending power of the average British family plummet over the next five years, a leading thinktank warned on Wednesday.

An Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis predicted that average incomes, adjusted for inflation, will fall by 3% this year and further in 2012. The director of the IFS, Paul Johnson, said: "In the period 2009-10 to 2012-13, real median household incomes will drop by a whopping 7.4% – a record matched only by the falls seen between 1974 and 1977."

As up to 2 million public sector workers walked out in protest against changes to their pensions, and signs emerged of a potentially damaging rift within the Liberal Democrats in the wake of George Osborne's autumn statement, the thinktank warned that families with children will be worse off in 2016 than they were 14 years earlier as they cope with more than a decade of austerity.

Read the rest of this post...

Home values dropped again most everywhere (except Detroit and DC)

This is a survey of 20 top markets.  Just because you're not listed doesn't mean you didn't drop (or didn't possibly go up in value).  Still, it's not great news all around. Read the rest of this post...

Att Gen asks Americans to report IP violations on their neighbors but not 1 prosecution of Wall Street

Seriously? Not a single prosecution against Wall Street for the collapse of 2008 but he wants people to give a damn about IP violations for Hollywood and the recording industry? Instead of boot-licking for the 1%, maybe he could find some time to prosecute the real trouble makers. Wake me up when there's a Democrat who is significantly different from a Republican so I can vote for real change. What we're getting now is not change and not worthy of support. Wired:

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder urged Americans to fink on their neighbors and report intellectual-property offenses like popping or hawking unapproved pharmaceuticals and downloading music and movies illegally.

The announcement at the White House came as the Justice Department kicked off a public campaign against intellectual-property theft, which like all successful wars against societal scourges, will have public-service announcements on MTV.

“Fortunately, we can all be part of the solution. Anyone who suspects an IP crime can visit cybercrime.gov, fbi.gov, or iprcenter.gov to report suspected offenses,” Holder said. “The public’s proactive attention to these issues can help us to disrupt the sale of illegal goods; to prosecute the individuals, gangs, and international criminal organizations that profit from these activities; and to stop those who would exploit the ingenuity of others for monetary gain.”

Read the rest of this post...