Going to school year-round?

I get that it's supposed to be good for K through 12 kids to go to school year round, with breaks thrown in, but geez. Curious if kids will find this better or worse. Chris says they've been doing this in France now for a while, and it seems to work well. I guess those of us who grew up with long summer vacations don't know any better, but it was nice to have 3 months off of school. Though a lifetime off of school isn't bad either.

MSNBC:

Two days before Thanksgiving, the Indianapolis School Board will make a decision sure to heat up discussion around the turkey in just about every home with young children. That's when board members will vote on whether to adopt year-round classes.

If the board approves the measure, Indianapolis pupils would go to school in cycles of eight to 10 weeks, with three to five weeks off after each, throughout the year. That would put them among the growing number of children around the nation who are going to school on so-called balanced schedules.

Indianapolis Superintendent Eugene White said the schedule would add 20 class days every year, giving pupils more time to learn and shorter periods away from the classroom to forget what they've studied. For both teachers and students, the shorter but more frequent breaks will "give them some kind of relief and (allow them to) come back more invigorated," he said.

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NY Times on the 'All Reward, No Risk' bankers

Not that it's a new debate because many of us have been asking this question for a while, but the point has yet to resonate with enough people. There's nothing wrong with reward, but shouldn't that be associated with an equal amount of risk? At a minimum the bankers should have to somehow provide benefit to their customers and that still remains elusive. It will be stomach churning to listen to the new GOP crowd who have probably already written their "I apologize" speeches for Wall Street.

As I keep saying, this is *not* capitalism and it's not healthy for the economy.

In finance, the rough equivalent of A-Rod are top private-equity titans, like Steve Schwarzman and Henry Kravis, or hedge-fund managers, like John Paulson and James Simons. These men risk large chunks of their own money (as well as their investors’) and make calculated gambles they hope will pay off. If they bet right, they get fabulously wealthy; if they don’t, they disappear into oblivion. Teddy Forstmann, a onetime star of the private-equity firmament, explained to Gladwell why he chose that business: “I wanted to be a principal and not an agent.” He wanted to be the talent and to be paid like the talent, assuming he performed.

But unlike hedge-fund guys, investment bankers are not principals. They are agents. And they are at their best when they provide important services to their clients — such as advice on mergers and acquisitions or the capital their clients need to grow — and at their worst when they pretend to be principals, using other people’s money to make bets for their firms that they hope will be eventually reflected in their bonuses.

And yet, somewhere along the line, bankers decided that they deserved to get paid like those quantifiable talents who put themselves or their capital at risk day after day. This is what mystifies me, since, as a group, investment bankers are the most personally and professionally risk-averse people I’ve ever met. After all, in what other business could they make so much money without putting any of their own money on the line? Outsized financial rewards should be reserved for those who take outsized financial risks with their own money or have outsized, demonstrable talent. Investment bankers, by and large, just do not make that cut.

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ABC is using far-right nutjob Breitbart for their election coverage

Why, when networks try to do something bloggy, do they have to so screw it up? Breitbart? Because ABC couldn't find any sane conservative Netroots people to do their election coverage? What about Krempasky? What about Captain Ed? Or Jim Geraghty? And I know there's at least one sane woman in the right Netroots, I've debated her on CNN a number of times but can't remember her name now (she was writing for the Washington Times on the side, if anyone can recall).

But they pick Breitbart? Seriously? If I were a conservative I'd be enraged that ABC thinks Breitbart represents the best of the Republican Internet. Read the rest of this post...

Halliburton failed to test cement mix in failed Gulf oil well

Real men who pack up corporate headquarters and move offshore don't do safety tests. Safety is only for lilly-livered liberals who bother to care about human life and the environment. Safety is simply not macho enough for Halliburton.

Halliburton Co. acknowledged late Thursday that it skipped doing a critical test on the final formulation of cement used to seal the BP oil well that blew out in the Gulf of Mexico.

The company, which was BP's cementing contractor, said that BP at the last-minute increased the amount of a critical ingredient in the cement mix. While an earlier test showed the cement was stable, the company never performed a stability test on the new blend.

The cement's failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified as one of the causes of the April 20 disaster.

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Meg Whitman wants her former housekeeper deported

The Republicans never know when to say when with their nastiness. Even in a crowded field, Whitman takes the art to a new level. Thankfully Californians are going to take a pass on Whitman.

On Wednesday, she appeared on Fox News and took a harder line on Nicky Diaz Santillan, the illegal immigrant who Whitman employed as a housekeeper for nine years. Since the controversy erupted in September, Whitman has said both she and a hiring agency relied on documents that turned out to be false and that she fired Diaz Santillan when the woman disclosed her immigration status last year.

Until now she has declined to comment on whether the former housekeeper should be deported. But Wednesday, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Whitman answered the question head on. "Well, the answer is it breaks my heart, but she should be deported because she forged documents and she lied about her immigration status," Whitman said. "And it breaks my heart. Gloria Allred pulled off a political stunt. And you know what? On Nov. 3, no one's going to care about Nicky Diaz. But the law is the law and we live in the rule of law. It's important."

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Reid opponent Sharron Angle is refusing to speak to the press until after she's Senator - she has no opinion on Iraq or Afghanistan

Watch this video. These are the idiots the Republicans are trying to elect to the highest offices in our country. It's like an army of less intelligent Sarah Palins. As Obama once said, they're actually proud of being ignorant.

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Black Friday in October

Whether the books will be in the black by the end of October remains to be seen, but at least they're making an effort to get ahead with early discounts. The potential problem here is that this has the potential to move up the earnings and show lower results later. That's not even necessarily a problem unless market watchers obsess over the monthly results. One of these days we're all going to move beyond the fixation on monthly and especially quarterly results and start thinking long term but we're far from that point today.

The year’s most popular discount shopping event, referring to the Friday after Thanksgiving, is arriving ahead of Halloween this year, with some promotions beginning this week and others throughout November.

Both retailers who have had tepid sales lately (Wal-Mart Stores, Sears) and those with rising sales (Amazon, Target) are pushing the tradition forward in a bid to snag shoppers’ limited money.

Recession-trained customers are also pushing the stores to offer big deals now or risk losing out to competitors, though there is some skepticism about how significant some of the early discounts are.

The first “Black Friday Now” deals at Sears will be available beginning Friday and Saturday.

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Roubini: Obama prevented a depression but 'US remains on an unsustainable fiscal course'

Noriel Roubini hasn't been quite this negative on the economic future in a while. His Op-ed in the FT is better to be read sitting down. It's easy to look back at the poor economic advice and policy by White House economists but with the Republicans coming to power, there's a serious challenge ahead that needs attention. The choices are limited and the risks remain very high thanks to the GOP preference for playing political games with the economy.

The coming stalemate will only be made worse by the lack of a reason to act on the deficit. The bond vigilantes are asleep, while borrowing rates remain unusually low. Near zero rates will continue as long as growth and inflation are low (and getting lower) and repeated bouts of global risk aversion – as with this spring’s Greek crisis – will push more investors to safe dollars and US debt. China’s massive interventions to stop renminbi appreciation will mean purchasing yet more treasuries too. In short, kicking the can down the road will be the political path of least resistance.

The risk, however, is that something on the fiscal side will snap, and the bond vigilantes will wake up. The trigger could be a debt rollover crisis in a major US state government, or perhaps even the realization that congressional gridlock means bipartisan solutions to our medium-term fiscal crisis is mission impossible. Only then will our politicians suddenly remember that, on top of our federal debt, the US suffers from unfunded social security and Medicare liabilities, state and local government debt, and public pension bills that add up to many multiples of US GDP.

A bond market shock is thus the only thing likely to break the impasse. Mr Obama may take some comfort from the fact that the worst of the coming fiscal train wreck will be prevented by the Fed’s easing. But the risk is he will then preside not over a bout of inflation but a Japanese style stagnation, where growth is barely positive, and deflationary pressures and high unemployment linger.

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Krugman says we're screwed if the GOP takes the House

NYT, Krugman:

Another recent interview by National Journal, this one with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has received a lot of attention thanks to a headline-grabbing quote: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

If you read the full interview, what Mr. McConnell was saying was that, in 1995, Republicans erred by focusing too much on their policy agenda and not enough on destroying the president: “We suffered from some degree of hubris and acted as if the president was irrelevant and we would roll over him. By the summer of 1995, he was already on the way to being re-elected, and we were hanging on for our lives.” So this time around, he implied, they’ll stay focused on bringing down Mr. Obama.

True, Mr. McConnell did say that he might be willing to work with Mr. Obama in certain circumstances — namely, if he’s willing to do a “Clintonian back flip,” taking positions that would find more support among Republicans than in his own party. Of course, this would actually hurt Mr. Obama’s chances of re-election — but that’s the point.

But we won’t get those policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.

I think that's the biggest danger, what I bolded above. Obama "leading from the middle" by caving even more on his promises in order to get something, anything, passed by a Republican House.  His goal?  To be seen as "truly" bipartisan by independents come election time.

In order for Obama to pull a Clinton circa 94, Obama has have Clinton's testicular fortitude.  So far, we've seen nothing to suggest that President Obama, as compared to candidate Obama, knows how to pick (and win) a fight. Read the rest of this post...

OH Sen. candidate Lee Fisher donates remaining funds to GOTV effort

This is a class act that you don't often see in politics:

As of two weeks ago, Lee Fisher's campaign for U.S. Senate was down to $308,631 in its bank account. Sums like that don't last long and replenishing it is a challenge when a candidate lags in the polls. So Fisher apparently decided to put it to good use.

He has given $100,000 to the Ohio Democratic Party for its final, aggressive get-out-the-vote drive. This is according to Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, but the Fisher campaign confirms the donation and says it indeed came from Fisher's campaign account.

Fisher told The Plain Dealer that he is not abandoning the campaign or giving up. But he sees this as the best way to get out the vote, which is the best way for him to win.

Brown described it as an act of courage, statesmanship and generosity.

Fisher is way behind in the Senate race. The incumbent Governor, Ted Strickland, is in a tight race with former Lehman Bros. Executive John Kasich. Getting out the vote is what matters to secure a Democratic win -- and Fisher is doing his part.

We better not find out there that safe Democratic members of Congress hoarded their cash this year -- when it really could have helped. Read the rest of this post...

Biden: 'Compromise is always possible.' Boehner: 'There will be no compromise.'

The long form of the above title is:

Biden: 'We're open to speaking with Republicans. Compromise is always possible.' Boehner: 'There will be no compromise.'

And that's the problem in a nutshell. Let me be more specific — this is not a contradiction or a disagreement. Everyone quoted above is correct.

The Republicans are correct in saying that they will not compromise. And the Democrats are correct in saying that they will compromise.

See — everyone agrees. More on this from Rachel Maddow:



It's almost as though there's a Puppet Master pulling both sets of strings, isn't there. (Hint: Big Money neuters Dems and enables Republicans. It's how Money rolls these days.) The mechanism on the Republican side is easy to see; give some thought to the mechanism on the Dem side. (Hint: Who holds Dem purse strings? And who controls the spending?)

Cripes.

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In third quarter, economy grew at 'sluggish' annual rate of 2 percent

The economy is moving in the right direction but not at the right pace. The reason it's not enough? We need more than 2.5% growth to start adding jobs back to the economy -- otherwise, the unemployment number won't go down, even with 2% growth:

The United States economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, as it struggles to gain any momentum for a sustained recovery.

That estimated number matched the consensus forecasts for the gross domestic product, and is the barest tick up from the second quarter.

Though the recovery officially began in June 2009, growth since then has been tepid, at best. The economy expanded at a 1.7 percent pace in the second quarter, down sharply from a 3.7 percent rate in the first.

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Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's the final weekend before the elections. Tomorrow, Stewart and Colbert are hosting their rally for sanity and/or fear on the Mall. Seems like everyone I know has someone from out of town coming to DC for this event. Now, you know, most of the traditional media won't get this rally. It falls outside of the carefully crafted view of who should engage in American politics.

The President is heading out of town today. First, he's heading to Beltsville, Maryland to do another event on the economy. Then, he's going to Virginia to campaign for Rep. Tom Perriello. That guy has been in a very tough race, but he's been fighting every step of the way. The campaign website is here.

Biden will in Dubuque, Iowa at a rally for Rep. Bruce Braley.

Iowa has a critical election for marriage equality on the ballot. Iowa voters are given the opportunity to retain Supreme Court Justices. Three of them are facing retention votes this year. And, the right wingers want to prevent those three Justices from serving because of their same-sex marriage decision. The haters are in a frenzy over this, led by the National Organization for Marriage. This week, Tony Perkins and Rick Santorum were campaigning with NOM. More here. If you want to help fight NOM, Perkins and Santorum, the Freedom Fund could use some help with its last-minute online ad buy. The Freedom Fund's ActBlue page is here. The haters never miss a chance to fight progress. I hope our side was ready for this one.

Four more days... Read the rest of this post...