Foreign powers calling the tune on the US economy

... foreign central banks now are in a position where they can influence, through their asset allocation, the allocation of credit inside the US economy.

... says Brad Setser.

Right, left and centre

I told my brother that I find Hillary more scary than Sarah. He replies:

You understand that she scares me because of the fundamentalism and reported vindictiveness. As for her daughter being up the spout, my complaint is that the social conservatives and left-wing social engineers claim to have all the answers to raising my children, yet can't get their own houses in order. At least liberals pretend to be more understanding of the weaknesses of others.

On the right wing here, we have, off the top of my head:

Jimmy Bakker (evangelist) - caught stealing, cheating on taxes, and convincing religious young girls that he should have sex with them

Ted Haggard (anti-gay evangelist) - caught doing heavy drugs and having sex with a male prostitute

Larry Craig (outspoken anti-gay senator) - caught trolling for gay men in an airport

Mark Foley (right wing congressman) - caught trolling for underage congressional page boys

Sarah Palin - see the above

Karl Rove (I believe the grandson of one of Goebbel's propaganda minions) - engineered Bush's victories and the anti-gay marriage movements in 2004, plus the outing of Valerie Plame, covert CIA agent. Married, but well-known in Washington circles as liking the underground gay sex clubs.

Rush Limbaugh (very right-wing TV radio voice) - drug addict. He got probation for obtaining the drugs. His housekeeper went to jail.

Dick Cheney (VP) - strongly supported the anti-gay movement, which got voters out, while his own daughter is gay.

Tammy Faye Bakker (evangelist and ex-wife of Jimmy, now deceased) - both evangelist husbands went to jail for tax evasion and theft, yet she managed to publicly cry her way through both trials, and got off scot-free.

Jimmy Swaggart (evangelist) - caught hiring prostitutes

Jeb Bush (former governor of Florida, brother of Pres. Bush) - kept the hard-line anti-drug line, except for his addicted daughter. His wife was caught trying to smuggle jewelry through customs.

I could go on, but you get the point.

My observation, and supported by some conversations with southern Baptists, is that the draconian rules that they want to impose on society are for everyone else, to keep them in line. I don't like, nor need, that kind of government.

All I'm looking for is a FISCAL conservative.

And by the way, whatever happened to "moral suasion"? Why does everything have to be banned or compulsory?

For example, I've always thought that aborting inconvenient children is very wrong, and the "they haven't developed nerves yet" argument is irrelevant hooey - we all went through that stage and it doesn't make killing any better if the victim is unconscious (even Peter Pan woke up the pirate first). And maybe US demographics, like here in Britain, would be very different if the slaughter of the innocents hadn't happened - but we are all bending under the weight of a thousand daily coercions.

As I said to my brother: And I trust that you and all Americans who understand theConstitution will remember to keep telling the State to s*d off.

A modest disposal

Disposing of 28 million cluster bombs will cost £30 million, it says here. I have a better suggestion - there's still time to arrange it, and it could turn a profit:

The only issue is, who would feature as the Guy?

Sell in May and go away

The truth of the adage is borne out yet again. Perhaps we're approaching fair value at last?

The "All Clear" sounds on Google Chrome

It seems that Google has amended the User License Agreement on its new Chrome web browser (htps: James Higham, Wolfie). And City Unslicker likes it because it's "open source".

Sarah Palin and the sisterhood

I've been looking around the internet for Giles cartoons - our family, like so many others, used to get the compendium annually. What I'm looking for (WILF, as schoolchilden have been Pavlovised to write in their exercise books these days) is one of the typical family home scenes, with the cats glaring loathingly at one another from their lairs and perches.

I am reminded of these cats when I read women columnists about Sarah Palin. They bray about strong women and bleat when one turns up. No, I don't suppose Palin is at all a saint, but the Presidential elections are, in my view, entirely correct to focus on strength of character, and general policy direction. No human being - not even Dr Kissinger - has full information and understanding of every situation he (or she) (or s/he, if you're going to do the full Greenham Common on me) may encounter. That's what advisers are for. What you want in the Chief Executive (and potential replacement) is a decision-maker.

Funnily enough, men don't have a hangup about strong women. We just want them to carry us upstairs:

Ideally, they won't eat us afterwards.

But this ain't good enough for Eve's sisters. Apparently, Palin's a baaad mother because her teenage daughter is up the duff (remember that, everybody who's been in a similar situation); it doesn't occur to these sexist critics that if teenage girls weren't genetically programmed to be (for a crucial moment) just that bit quicker and more devious than their mothers, the human race would have fizzled out long ago.

Julia Hartley-Brewer is the political editor of the Sunday Express. As an avowedly "card-carrying feminist" and atheist, she is confused by Palin (and, as a new mother herself, honest enough to be utterly confused in the abortion debate). She opines:

Although I don't share Palin's views on abortion (see last link above), I admire her courage in choosing to bring a disabled child into the world. I can't help wondering though whether Trig deserves more than a part-time mum with a breast pump in one hand and a Blackberry in the other as she tramps along the campaign trail.

Multi-tasking? Right to work? Or back to "Kinder, Küche, Kirche"? (Well, not Kirche, obviously.) J H-B (mother and working journalist) wishes her well and at the same time is "glad she's not my "mom.""

To her credit, Suzanne Moore is a bit less confused.

See, strong women are not a new thing, or a Left thing. If my mother hadn't been strong, she wouldn't have survived an attempted strangling by a crazed American GI trying to take random revenge for the death of his buddy - and to cap it, she went to his CO the next day (because otherwise the man might have repeated the attempt with another victim, probably successfully).

Nor would she, a young lone woman, have taken two horses and fled into Germany from East Prussia, where a raping and murdering Communist horde was sweeping through the country. And survive, like others in those chaotic days, by stealing from the ships in the harbour at Hamburg (though her sack turned out to be full of tobacco; she bought a pipe).

After her marriage to a British solder, there was communal living in a Nissen hut with heating from a fire in an empty white-spirit drum, and the austerity Fifties; and as an Army wife, a move to new family quarters about every six months, we worked out later. Not new new, of course - I can still remember the swarming cockroaches in the kitchen cupboards at Willich.

Strong? Don't make me laugh. The strength of women isn't demonstrated by swarming up the greasy pole of office bureaucracy (and legislating for extra handholds, and complaining about frangible ceilings); it's proved in much more gutsy ways than that. And ask any copper which sex they'd rather face in a fight (or look at King Stephen and Matilda).

By the way, all this talk of men being competitive and women co-operative is balls. A female friend is quite emphatic that women bosses are far worse. Recent research shows that verbal bullying (so common in girls' schools, and among the predominantly female staff in the British education system) does more long-term damage than the physical kind.

Jealousy!

And the cats continue their spiteful staring-match.

"Marmite" exists, probably

My brother (why are my wife and family all cleverer than me ?) tells me that "dark matter" is implied in all the modern cosmological models, it's just that no-one knows what it is: "At one point, they thought it was neutrino flux, but that doesn't account for enough energy. Maybe it's The Force." I await further information.

Meanwhile, Professor Brian Cox (billed by the Sunday Express as former drummer for D:ream - keyboards, according to the Mail) did a broadcast last night on the Doomsday Marmite Machine and explained that it's all about trying to find the giant and unstable Higgs particle. Even if successfully created in the device, its existence will only be confirmed by the myriad better-known particles into which it disintegrates - only the intense pressure of the early Universe was capable of sustaining the so-called "God particle."

In the Sunday Express article today, the seemingly perma-upbeat (if only we all had his secret) Cox tells us that there are 12 sub-atomic particles, yet I could have sworn that the TV programme listed 16 in a four-by-four arrangement - Cox struggled to recall the last one, which turned out to be the gluon.

Irrelevantly (perhaps), some shots of the Large Hadron Collider remind me of a wonderfully atmospheric scene in "Alien":

Sarah Palin - seriously

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.
These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated” her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.
When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit, exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As Governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as “AGIA” that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned “as a private citizen” against a state initiaitive that would have either a) protected salmon streams from pollution from mines, or b) tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on who you listen to). She has pushed the State’s lawsuit against the Dept. of the Interior’s decision to list polar bears as threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for President; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being President.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there’s a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

CLAIM VS FACT
•“Hockey mom”: true for a few years
•“PTA mom”: true years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
•“NRA supporter”: absolutely true
•social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, BUT vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
•pro-creationism: mixed. Supports it, BUT did nothing as Governor to promote it.
•“Pro-life”: mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down’s syndrome baby BUT declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation
•“Experienced”: Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
•political maverick: not at all
•gutsy: absolutely!
•open & transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
•has a developed philosophy of public policy: no
•”a Greenie”: no. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
•fiscal conservative: not by my definition! •pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
•pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
•pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla’s history. •pro-labor/pro-union. No. Just because her husband works union doesn’t make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS?

First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name (Anne Kilkenny + Alaska), you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "Bad things happen when good people stay silent". Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But, I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that’s life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

CAVEATS

I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending & taxation 2 years ago (when Palin was running for Governor) from information supplied to me by the Finance Director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: did I adjust for inflation? for population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall--they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000", up to 9,000. The day Palin’s selection was announced a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-90’s.

Anne Kilkenny August 31, 2008

(htp: my brother)

Sarah Palin jokes circulating on teh interweb

The following are little known facts about the new vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin was to walk out to the singing of Angels, but convention organizers thought it might come off as showing off.
Sarah Palin’s suit is made from 100% dead liberal skin.
Sarah Palin doesn’t actually have an accent, it’s distortion from her telepathic broadcast directly into your brain.
In 2003, the US considered deploying Sarah Palin to Iraq as a 1-woman commando squad, but wanted to make it a fair fight.
As head of Alaska’s Nat’l Guard, Sarah Palin taught troops in a training exercise to scare a grenade into not exploding.
Sarah Palin believes in change, too. She takes it from your pockets after striking you dead.
Sarah Palin wears three quarter length sleeves to keep from getting blood on her clothes when she kills liberals.
Glasses sales are up 150 percent since Sarah Palin became nominee.
The diamonds in Sarah Palin’s earrings were crushed with her very hands.
Sarah Palin’s use of the word “Haberdashery” will bring it back in style.
Sarah Palin loves opening up a can of whoop-ass.
It’s not over until Sarah Palin says it’s over.
Sarah Palin wants to be President but is too kind to cut in front of John McCain, so now we get her for 16 yrs!
Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North.
Queen Elizabeth II curtsied when she was introduced to Sarah Palin
Sarah Palin’s image already appears on the newer nickels
Sarah Palin wants you to LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!!
Sarah Palin’s enemies are automatically added to the Endangered Species List
Sarah Palin as VP increases Depends sales among scatological frightened Democrats
When Sarah Palin attends ritual blood orgies, she always brings the most delicious ambrosia salad
Death once had a near-Sarah Palin experience
Sarah Palin can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves!
Sarah Palin was not flown to Ohio in charter jet- she ran as part of morning workout.
Alaska is sunny half the year and dark half the year because Sarah Palin needed the reading light, then wanted a nap
Sarah Palin begins every day with a moment of silence for the political enemies buried in her yard.
Sarah Palin got Tom Brady pregnant, and then left him.
Sarah Palin drives a Zamboni to work.
Sarah Palin was kicked off Survivor for killing a man and eating his entrails.
Sarah Palin is actually Kaiser Sose.
Sarah Palin can divide by zero.
Sarah Palin always beats the point spread.
Sarah Palin once bit the head off a live Osprey snatched from the air as it tried to fly off with a fish she caught.
Sarah Palin uses French Canadians as bait to catch giant king salmon.
When Sarah Palin booked a flight to Europe, the French immediately surrendered.
Sarah Palin plays Whack-a-Mole with her forehead, and always gets a perfect score.
Sarah Palin knows who was on the grassy knoll.
Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.

How much further can the pound slump?

"Credit crunch will last another 18 months"

HBOS (aka the Halifax) has caught up with me:

Britain’s credit crunch will last for at least another 18 months, according to the head of the country’s biggest mortgage provider.

Andy Hornby, chief executive HBOS, said the economic squeeze would continue until house prices in the United States began to recover, which he does not expect to see until 2010.

If both of us are proved correct, I may then take my financial services business out of hibernation. I've spent the best part of 10 years trying to stop my clients throwing away their money, so I hope they'll believe me when I suggest that "the dark days are gone, the bright days are here," as Bobby Hebb put it (I love the Feliciano version).

Especially if the US economy begins to be run the Sarah Palin way.

His Dark Materials don't exist

My theory: there is no such thing as dark matter, so the Large Hadron Collider won't find it.

Albert Einstein found a better way to describe observable phenomena, and another Einstein will one day improve the theory to include the effects for which the existence of dark matter has been postulated.

Time for the stockmarket to smell the coffee?

Michael Panzner reproduces a graph that implies a possible 25% fall on the Dow, factoring-in a little overshoot.

A new theory of the Big Bang

13.7 billion years ago, an ape-evolved creature supervises the last stages of construction, before testing the Large Hadron Collider.

Your money - no hiding place in the Crash

I've spent some time trying to find out where's a safe place for any little wealth you and I might have. Looking at the Great Depression for a precedent, Jesse suggests it's more a game of cat-and-mouse, or fox-and-geese. No "fire-and-forget," then: we will have to keep looking, thinking and acting. (htp: Michael Panzner)

Palin for Prez?

If her words are her own (and her delivery certainly is), I think I've heard a potential future first woman President of the USA, and it's not Hillary. Is it too late for McCain and Palin to swap?

P.S. I notice Donal Blaney is thinking the same.

The financial brakes are on

Mish argues that CPI inflation is now overstated because it ignores house prices, with the result that real interest rates should be viewed as high already.

Avoid using Google Chrome?

Some think so.

Shale oil - are we ready for it?

After the recent oil price rises, is shale oil now economically viable, or not?

No paper tiger

Shortly after the Ossetian excursion, Putin tranquillizes a tiger. Could he be sending a message over to the south-east?