Consider Yourself Overhauled

Great Moments In Socialism 48 Comments

As the U.S. Senate moves toward approving Obama’s financial overhaul bill;

I am currently dealing with my own personal crisis, which was generated by reading and analyzing the financial reform bill (conference version) over the weekend.
The bottom line is that I am out of work. This is an unmitigated disaster on several levels, and it looks to me like community banks are going to be failing by the thousands…

More thoughts…

It took me a while to accept the fact that the US was in decline and unlikely to come back. And matter of fact that’s an understatement. It took a huge toll on my pscyhology and put me in a depression for a better part of a year. I drank more, rode my motorcycle without a helmet more, I tried new ventures and business ideas less and immersed myself in video games. But economists are more concerned about reality and truth (unless you are Paul Krugman) and since I’ve been through a tough time or two, inevitably I came out of it.

I’m sure this administration will get things turned around soon. Why, just look at Illinois, where it all began.

Not Waiting For The Asteroid

Media 26 Comments


“There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research. Those of us in public and private research universities care every bit as much about academic freedom as journalists care about a free press.”

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 50 Comments

A lot of people have heard Kate and Anna McGarrigle singing Log Driver’s Waltz in the National Film Board’s short cartoon of the Wade Hemsworth song, but mostly they wrote and sang beautiful music of their own. Here, in an in-studio televised performance, the sisters sing a song, written by Kate, about yearning, and leaving and finding home, called Talk To Me Of Mendocino.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

Beyond Petroleum: We Get Letters

What He Said 15 Comments

From Bryan;

I’m doing some consulting related to the oil spill. Since you posted about Salazar chasing away our offshore rigs, I wondered if you saw the news that the second rig was leaving the Gulf. 2 down, 31 to go.
You know you’re in trouble when businesses consider the US a more hostile environment than Congo.
Also, isn’t it sad that Salazar can get away with a drilling moratorium not because there is a clear threat but because there’s an unclear threat?
His whole memorandum (PDF) is filled with admissions that although the safety record of offshore drilling is good, he just doesn’t know all the risks.
Left unsaid is that BP had to do a lot of things wrong to cause the blowout (see this nifty infographic and the links in it), and BP has a much worse record of risk-taking, safety violations and accidents than its competitors (even the NYT says so.)

Meanwhile there’s a Setback: BP cap in limbo over gov’t questions. 213,000 comments and counting…. Rigzone calls it “a strange turn of events”.

It is unlikely any amount of rational thinking will suddenly engulf this Administration and cause them to allow BP to continue its tests on the cap.
While the decision to continue capturing oil with some spillage (instead running tests that could lead to temporary capping ahead of the relief well) is the most cautious approach, the choice seems to lean more towards public relations risk avoidance by the US than a thoughtful consideration of what is most prudent.
It certainly appears that this was a more unilateral decision made by U.S. and in our minds illustrates that stopping the oil flow as quickly as possible is now not the governments primary objective. Think about this folks – the government had no qualms about BP trying to close the well previously using the ROVs to trigger the shear rams, why are they so concerned about the well structure now? Clearly, the government’s new logic is at odds with what they were previously commanding BP to accomplish.

Video and helpful doses of paranoia here.
Update: Looks like the Rigzone piece was yanked. Good thing I quoted it while I still could….

Hope, Change

The One 22 Comments

And crippling America’s ability to fuel and feed herself – is there nothing that Obama can’t do?

Salazar to Gulf workers: Move to Egypt.
Federal Judge Martin Feldman in late June halted the Administration’s six-month deep water drilling moratorium, saying it was arbitrary, ignored science and underestimated the economic harm to the Gulf region. Last week the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate the ban.
Mr. Salazar’s response is to fiddle with the ban’s details in the hope of passing judicial muster. Instead of banning all drilling deeper than 500 feet, he now bans all drilling by floating rigs (the only equipment that drills in deep water). He also set a firmer moratorium deadline of November 30. The bottom line is that deep water drilling remains off-limits for months to come.

Finance Overhaul Casts Long Shadow on the Plains

Far from Wall Street, President Barack Obama’s financial regulatory overhaul, which may pass Congress as early as Thursday, will leave tracks across the wide-open landscape of American industry.
Designed to fix problems that helped cause the financial crisis, the bill will touch storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus, attesting to the sweeping nature of the legislation, the broadest revamp of finance rules since the 1930s.
Here in Nebraska farm country, those in the business of bringing beef from hoof to mouth are anxious, specifically about the bill’s provisions that tighten rules governing derivatives. Some worry the coming curbs will make it riskier and pricier to do business.

In 2008 I wrote “The accounts of western governments (from the local to the federal) kneecapping the very infrastructure upon which modern metropolitan life depends – including reliable electricity, food production, and the transport of essential goods – are so routine now, one can hardly keep track.” But the pace at which this is escalating has surprised even me.
Related: Americans are noticing.

Reader Tips

Reader Tips 27 Comments

The Chips were a late 50’s doo-wop group from the mean streets of Bed-Stuy, New York. They had only one (minor) hit in their brief career, written by their lead singer when he was in a school for delinquent teens, but it was a particularly catchy one. As my brother wrote, via email:

Though I was never a fan of the doo-wop school of music, this one always gets to me. Starts strong, and then carefully develops it’s theme:

Cow dow hoo-oo
cow cow wanna dib-a-doo
chick’n hon-a-chick-a-chik hole-a-hubba
hell-fried chuck-a-lucka wanna jubba
hi-low ‘n-ay wanna dubba hubba
day down sum wanna jigga-wah
Del rown ay wanna lubba wubba…

Yes, I think we’ve got a strong contender for the theme song of the Ignatieff Summer Tour: here are The Chips charging apace through their 1956 novelty single Rubber Biscuit.
Bounce those Reader Tips into the comments.

Y2Kyoto: Save The Planet

Great Moments In Socialism 21 Comments

Deport an Ethiopian;

Rising consumption today is a far bigger threat to the environment than a rising head count. And most of that extra consumption is still happening in rich countries that have long since given up growing their populations.
Virtually all of the remaining population growth is in the poor world, and the poor half of the planet is only responsible for 7 percent of carbon emissions.
The carbon emissions of one American today are equivalent to those of around four Chinese, 20 Indians, 40 Nigerians, or 250 Ethiopians. How dare rich-world greens blame the poor world for the planet’s perils?
Some greens need to take a long, hard look at themselves. They should remember where some of their ideas came from.

And where they lead. According to this source, repatriating just 14,000 of our Ethiopians could offset the C02 footprint of 4.54 million. If we tossed in the Sri Lankans, we could have our light bulbs back.
So, that population bomb stuff turned out to be a bust, after all. It’s not that you are, but what you are. But, never you mind – they’re right about everything else!
Via.

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