10-20/21-2008

10-21-08--“Right now,” said Mr. White, the head of the American National Socialist Workers Party, “we’re facing the potential of a half-black candidate financed by Jewish money going up against a white candidate financed by Jewish money, who are both advocating the same policy. So you’ve got two terrible choices.” ... There have been sporadic reports throughout the country of Obama signs vandalized with swastikas, windows smashed at local Obama campaign offices and racist pamphlets dropped on doorsteps. Overt and thinly veiled racist comments about Mr. Obama have been caught on camera at rallies, and a Republican women’s group in California — the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated — has made headlines for a flier that showed Mr. Obama’s face on a faux food stamp that also included watermelon and fried chicken. NYT A19

--The characters [on “Family Guy”] ambush Nazi soldiers in an alley and steal their uniforms so they can travel without drawing attention. Putting on an overcoat, Stewie notices a McCain-Palin campaign button affixed to the lapel. NYT A18

10-20-08—“The landscape’s changed, said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University professor. “I think we’ll see a big turn in the US position [at upcoming international financial summit]. ... We certainly would prefer that market principles have an important bearing [on policy]. But I don’t think we can blow them [European officials] off as we might have a year ago.” WSJ A4

weekend update

10-19-08—Suddenly, Europe Looks Pretty Smart. NYT WK 1

--FBI Struggling to Handle Wave of Finance Cases. NYT A1—too busy w/ voting fraud

--When it comes to the topic of aging, [Catherine] Denuve is known for saying (to quote loosely), “You choose either your face or your fanny.” NYTSM 34.

10-18/19-08--“You won’t let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State.” Sarah Palin—WSJ A9

10-18-08--Asked how many members of Congress she would describe as “anti-American,” [GOP MN Rep. Michelle] Bachmann replied: “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America. I would like to see an expose like that.” NYT A15—too busy w/ voting fraud

--10-17-08—GOP Donor Is accused of Overcharging Pentagon. NYT A12—but not vote fraud

Sunday paper

10-11-08--The new approach, which would have government inject capital directly into the nation’s banks, is on that administration officials had publicly opposed until just a few days ago... The surprising turnabout by Treas. Sec. Paulson has raised questions about whether he squandered valuable time by trying to sell Congress a plan that he and other administrations had failed to think through in advance. It also raises questions about whether the administration’s deep philosophical hostility to government ownership in private companies aggravated the financial crisis by delaying rescue action.—NYT A1

--Britain overreached imperially. The US has been doing it financially. ... Right now, it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to ask whether 2008 will come to be seen as the first year of a distinctly non-American century.—NYT WK1

--This guy [GWB] is basically a bum who became president of the United States. –Oliver Stone, NYT AR1

--The major spy character [in LeCarre’s new novel A Most Wanted Man] ...is Guenther Bachmann. Not Smiley: much rougher, more desperate, not a bit worried about doing evil in defense of good because nor it’s 9/11 evil, not Soviet evil. –NYT BKR 10

--Have you been wondering why Republicans have suddenly stopped talking about “family values”? Could it be because a divorced John McCain chose as his running mate a stay-at-work mom who hid her last, unplanned pregnancy... and who has a pregnant, unwed teenager with a self described “**** redneck” of a boyfriend who “does want kids”... and n ex-brother-in-law who tasered her nephew, and a husband with a DUI who loves his country so much he joined a secessionist party? All of which leaves the GOP clinging to one remaining family value—the shotgun wedding! All previous values are null and void because “life happens.”--Doonesbury

10-10

10-10-08—The White House announced steps to speed the transition process for the next administration. WSJ A1 –good riddance to bad rubbish

--[US] Joint Chiefs Chairman is Pessimistic on Afghanistan. NYT A11—hey what’s the loss of another country compared to the destruction of global capitalism?

--US Failing to Promote Math Skills, Study Finds. NYT A15 hard to count all those dollars

--What had been a [GOP] disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.—NYT A29, David Brooks, conservative columnist

first Sunday in October

10-05-08--The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature. That ignorance is restraining.—Horace Engdahl, secretary of the Swedish Academy which awards the Nobel prize in literature, NYT Wk3

--Until we get our financial act together, our motto is going to be: “Swedish spoken here—or Arabic or Chinese or German.”—Thomas Friedman, NYT WK9

—In Raleigh, executives at RBC Bank canceled the parachuters that were supposed to spear at the grand openings of its new headquarters, saying it was not an appropriate time to have people jumping off a bank building. –NYT A16

hoosier hysteria

10-03-08--Many events in Washington, on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country have led to what has been called the most serious financial crisis since the 1930s. But decisions made at a brief meeting on April 28, 2004, explain why the problems could spin out of control. The agency’s failure to follow through on those decisions also explains why Washington regulators did not see what was coming.

On that bright spring afternoon, the five members of the Securities and Exchange Commission met in a basement hearing room to consider an urgent plea by the big investment banks.

They wanted an exemption for their brokerage units from an old regulation that limited the amount of debt they could take on. The exemption would unshackle billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments. Those funds could then flow up to the parent company, enabling it to invest in the fast-growing but opaque world of mortgage-backed securities; credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders; and other exotic instruments.

The five investment banks led the charge, including Goldman Sachs, which was headed by Henry M. Paulson Jr. Two years later, he left to become Treasury secretary.

A lone dissenter — a software consultant and expert on risk management — weighed in from Indiana with a two-page letter to warn the commission that the move was a grave mistake. He never heard back from Washington. ...

In letters to the commissioners, senior executives at the five investment banks complained about what they called unnecessary regulation and oversight by both American and European authorities. A lone voice of dissent in the 2004 proceeding came from a software consultant from Valparaiso, Ind., who said the computer models run by the firms — which the regulators would be relying on — could not anticipate moments of severe market turbulence.

“With the stroke of a pen, capital requirements are removed!” the consultant, Leonard D. Bole, wrote to the commission on Jan. 22, 2004. “Has the trading environment changed sufficiently since 1997, when the current requirements were enacted, that the commission is confident that current requirements in examples such as these can be disregarded?”

He said that similar computer standards had failed to protect Long-Term Capital Management, the hedge fund that collapsed in 1998, and could not protect companies from the market plunge of October 1987.

Mr. Bole, who earned a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Chicago, helps write computer programs that financial institutions use to meet capital requirements.

He said in a recent interview that he was never called by anyone from the commission.

“I’m a little guy in the land of giants,” he said. “I thought that the reduction in capital was rather dramatic.”—NYT A1, A23

--...this is Homer [Simpson’s] first vote in a presidential general election. “It’s time for a change, he says to an electronic voting machine. But ... the machine records the vote (multiple votes, actually) for John McCain, then tries to swallow Homer when he disagrees. “This doesn’t happen in America,” Homer exclaims. “Maybe Ohio, but not in America!”—NYT A20

--Sunspots are Fewest since 1954, but Significance is Unclear—NYT A21

--Sen. Obama has advertised in Indiana for months, and until recently Republicans have ridiculed those efforts. On Tuesday, the RNC made its first advertising buy in the state, a 10-day, $740,000 purchase, after polls showed a statistical tie in a state Mr. Bush won by 31% in 2004. –WSJ A15

Oct. 1

10-01-08--Even worse, from the French perspective, Americans are reckless optimists, incurably blind to the tragedy of life, to the weary convolutions of history and thus to the need for lengthy August vacations and financial regulations. NYT A12