The sticky notes at the front of the page

for my 3 MPs (no, not my MP3s...)

Blogroll has moved to a new page. It was just too huge (close to 1000 blogs in Bloglines) and helps the page load time tremendously. Blogrolling.com just sucks, and Bloglines has too much. Oh, and I have updated Blogrolling.

Have a nice day!

Saturday, August 23

The Associated Press: Wall Street bailout aid questioned at Fed event  

Jeaninie Aversa writes:

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — Do Washington policymakers listen too much to Wall Street? A possible bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, on the heels of similar action involving investment firm Bear Stearns, seems to send a loud signal to financial companies that the government will clean up their messes.

That's the feeling of some analysts and academics here Saturday, the final day of a high-profile economics conference. The Federal Reserve's handling of the worst financial crisis to hit the country in decades spurred much debate.

"The Fed listens to Wall Street," said Willem Buiter, professor of European political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. "Throughout the 12 months of the crisis, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Fed is too close to the financial markets and leading financial institutions, and too responsive to their special pleadings, to make the right decisions for the economy as a whole," he wrote in a paper presented to the conference.

Critics like Buiter worry that the Fed's unprecedented actions — including financial backing for JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. — are putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars of potential losses. They also say it encourages "moral hazard," that is, allowing financial companies to gamble more recklessly in the future.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, who spoke to the conference on Friday, defended the Fed's actions, saying they were "necessary and justified" to avert a meltdown of the entire financial system, which would have devastated the U.S. economy.

Yet, Bernanke also acknowledged that mitigating moral hazard is one of the critical challenges policymakers face as they weigh steps — including strengthening regulation — to make the financial system better able to withstand shocks down the road.

"If no countervailing actions are taken, what would be perceived as an implicit expansion of the safety net could exacerbate the problem of `too big to fail,' possibly resulting in excessive risk-taking and yet greater systemic risk in the future," Bernanke said.

Save the corporations, fuck the people.

Because you know if that the little people's actual wages actually start increasing a bit, the Fed's going to do their part to zero that out, "to fight inflation", but refuse to do anything when corporations have record earnings when that itself is enough to cause inflation. But the little people don't have the influence that the big corporations have.

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Sunday, August 10

8/08 Administrivia  

Some changes on the left column, I'm no longer #1 google for Bryan Price, so I thought I'd acknowledge that, updated Sparx's weather to his current location, added a box that searches this blog only (Google custom search, needs a bit of jazzing up though), and took out the Blog Map since that didn't seem to be working anymore. Oh, and took out the Kinja add link, since it seemed to have disappeared as well.

Love my behind the scenes changes so that I can change this template without republishing everything in Blogger.

Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 8/10/2008 12:10:00 PM    0 comments Links to this post

Everybody’s Business - A Familiar Tax Tune, but It’s Not Mine - NYTimes.com  

Maybe Ben Stein isn't was stupid as I thought he was after Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I agree, and I'm surprised that even if he thinks this, he put it down in black and white.

Ben Stein writes:

The question is simply this: Do we want to step up to the plate like responsible people — I hate to say this, but the last responsible people who actually did this were named Bill and Bob (Clinton and Rubin) — and shoulder our responsibilities? Or do we just kick the can down the road a bit and leave the mess for our children and their children?

And if we do raise taxes, should people who are barely getting by pay them or should people who are getting by very nicely pay them?

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Wednesday, June 18

Absolute nonsense  

I was listening to the Neal Boortz and he was going on about how the gas price was the Democrats fault, and that we should be drilling off the coast of Florida and in ANWR.

The facts.

If we started drilling in ANWR and off the coast of Florida, it would take ten years before a drop of gasoline from it would hit a gas tank.

Even McCain's own senior adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin:

acknowledged in a conference call to reporters that new offshore drilling would have no immediate effect on supplies or prices.

But he added: "There is an important element in signaling to world oil markets that we are serious."

(via)

If Mel Martinez would vote for drilling off Florida, you can bet that Florida would have a new freshman senator when he runs for reelection.

The oil industry is already sitting on tens of thousands of leases that are not being actively pursued.

The sum total of what is possible to get out of drilling Florida and ANWR doesn't even come close to making America independent of the Middle East for oil.

Neal Boortz has a problem with the Democrats now in power that are blocking the drilling. My thought is, President Bush has had 6 years of the Republicans in power and he's an oil man. Why now?

As a Floridian, I have an issue with drilling off the coast of Florida due to the combination of tourism and hurricanes. If a hurricane takes out the drilling platforms and pipelines and fouls the beaches, is the federal government and/or the oil companies going to pay for fixing them? It could take years to get the beaches back in shape, driving tourism out of Florida, and therefore bankrupting Florida.

And ANWR? Its full name is Alaskan Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Does it really make sense to be putting in the infrastructure to enable drilling there?

There is not guarantee that the oil pumped from ANWR and Florida would stay in the US, and instead be shipped to the Asian continent, which is currently going on.

It is a crock.

Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 6/18/2008 04:54:00 PM    2 comments Links to this post

Tuesday, May 20

What Freudian Stage Are You In?  

You Are in the Genital Stage of Development

According to Dr. Freud, you've reached the genital stage of development. Whatever issues you may have had in your childhood have been resolved. You don't have any hang ups, and you are able to function as a stable adult. You are the model of being well-adjusted, and you are able to balance your life beautifully.

Permanent link posted by bytehead @ 5/20/2008 09:44:00 AM    0 comments Links to this post

Tuesday, May 6

Poll: More disapprove of Bush than any other president  

Poll: More disapprove of Bush than any other president:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush is handling his job as president.

"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup Poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said Keating Holland, CNN's polling director.

"Bush's approval rating, which stands at 28 percent in our new poll, remains better than the all-time lows set by Harry Truman and Richard Nixon [22 percent and 24 percent, respectively], but even those two presidents never got a disapproval rating in the 70s," Holland said. "The previous all-time record in CNN or Gallup polling was set by Truman, 67 percent disapproval in January 1952."

…

President Nixon's disapproval rating in August 1974 stood at 66 percent

The poll also indicates that support for the war in Iraq has never been lower. Thirty percent of those questioned favored the war, while 68 percent opposed it.

…

The numbers on the Iraq war come on the five-year anniversary of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment on board the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, when he proclaimed that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended."

…

I'm shocked! I'm just shocked I tell you! </sarcasm>

(via Whatever)

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