A ranting Brit

A bit of an impressive rant from England:

Now we know why they don’t call themselves ‘police forces’ any more. But they aren’t ‘services’ either, for they certainly don’t serve us or do what we want them to do, preferring to arrest us for defending ourselves. The criminals, who are cunning without being intelligent, all know this.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025695/UK-riots-Police-water-cannon-plastic-bullets-After-50-years-lavish-welfare-state-earth-What-abject-failure-says-Peter-Hitchens.html#ixzz1V6Erdk8v

Rising to the top

From the MailOnline: Narcissists rise to the top because people mistake their confidence and authority for leadership qualities.  This helps explain a lot about the world around us.

How smart is the president?

From Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal:

I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

Is this past week the time in which the median voters have started to acknowledge that the emperor has no clothes?

High praise not deserved

I occasionally review books, and sometimes they come with endorsements from famous economists. Most of the time those endorsements are deserved, but every once in a while a book that is mediocre at best, or something that never should have been published at worst, arrives with a dusk jacket full of glowing words of praise from well-known economists. I am reading on such a book now. Obviously none of the big-name economists who recommended it had read it--the target audience of the book was not professional economists. So why did they endorse it? Do they not worry that actions like this might reduce their credibility? Or is credibility of economists based only on research ability, so that a string of poorly-advised endorsements does not harm?

I suspect that the reason that this book got the undeserved praise is that the endorsers either know the author or want to be nice to the publisher. One thing that bothers me about this is that it tilts the playing field toward those who already have arrived and makes it more difficult for talented but unconnected authors to break through. I have read excellent books by little-known authors--not a lot, but they do exist. I have also read a number of forgettable books by authors with reputations.

The king of ranters

Nobody writes rants like Mark Steyn.

The Treasury crowed that Fiat had agreed to pay a whopping $560 million for the government's Chrysler shares.Wow! 560 million smackeroos! If you laid them out end to end, they're equivalent to what the federal government borrows every three hours. That's some windfall! In the time it takes to fly Obama to Toledo to boast about it, he'd already blown through the Italians' check.

A small bit of a longer piece that no single excerpt can do justice to. Read the whole thing. As someone who occasionally writes rants, I am awed at the skill of Mark Steyn.

The scary thing is he is probably right about the three hours.

Is anyone really this stupid?

I get a lot of Nigerian scam letters, some of them well done and some not very well done. This one is in the not well-done category. Are there really people who would send money after getting this?

United Nations Assisted Program
Directorate of International Payment
United Nations Liaison Office - Africa

To The Attention Of Beneficiary,

This email is to notify you about the release of your outstanding payment which is truly $2.500,000.00 Million Dollars The Federal Government scheduled a time frame to settle all foreign debts which includes Contract/Inheritance/Lottery (Sponsored by Microsoft and Shell Petrolum Lottery) and other international loans. News had it that over the past, numerous individual(s) who happen to be impostors (claiming to beindividuals, banks and organizations) are claiming to release numerous sums of fund via numerous ways.

You have two options to receive your payment which is either a Pin Based ATM card or Certified Cashier’s Check. You are advised to select one out of the two options on how you wish to receive your $2.500, 000.00 Million Dollars through ATM card or Check which will be shipped via Ups Express Shipping Courier Company and would get to you within 2 to 3 working days at most.

DO NOT SEND MONEY TO ANYONE UNTIL YOU READ THIS MASSAGE:

The actual fees for shipping your ATM Card/ Check is $125.99 Dollars but because Ups Express Shipping Courier have temporarily discontinued the C.O.D which gives you the chance to pay when package is delivered for international shipping as stated on their

We had to sign a contract with them for bulk shipping which makes the fees reduce from the actual $125.99 Dollars to $98.99 Dollars nothing more and no hidden fees of any sort! You are advised to contact the dispatching officer responsible for the shipping of your Check or ATM Card with the following information for shipping of your payment through Check or ATM Card.

Contact: Mathew Benson

United Nation Dispatching Officer

E-Mail: ( deleted )


Phone Number : deleted

Make Sure you provide him with the following information:

1,Your full Name.
2,Your Address where your payment will be dispatch to you:.
3,Home/Cell Phone:.
4,Preferred Payment Method (Check or ATM):

The dispatching officer will provide you with instructions on how you are to make the payment of $98.99 Dollars only for the shipping of your ATM Card or Cashier’s Check. Remember that you are not paying any fees extra no matter what. Once again note that the actual Ups Express Shipping Courier Retail Price is: $125.99 Dollars Your Price (Because of our contract signed): $98.99 Dollars ($27.00 Dollars Savings!)

Respectfully,

Dr. Gee Pascal
UN Envoy (African Region)

Buyers' remorse

I liked this conclusion to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, though I think he is being a bit too optimistic:

Slowly, the nation has recovered its poise. There is a widespread sense of unstated embarrassment that a political majority, if only for a moment, fell for the promise of an untested redeemer—a belief alien to the temperament of this so practical and sober a nation. 

I know people who still cling to the belief that we have a redeemer as POTUS.

A double dose of Bush?

Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal:

But there's something else that has led Mr. Obama to his falling poll numbers. When FDR followed the disaster that was Herbert Hoover, he took a new and different path. The government would now hold a new place in the daily American reality. When Ronald Reagan followed the disaster that was Jimmy Carter, he took a new and different path. The federal government would be pushed back from its intrusions on Americans. But when Barack Obama took over after the disaster that was George W. Bush, he did not, in terms of the most pressing domestic issue after unemployment, take a new and different path. He spent, just like Mr. Bush, only even more. It was as if he were saying, "You think Bush broke the bank? I'll show you what a broken bank looks like." This isn't a departure, it's a doubling down.

(I am not sure that FDR actually did take a much different path than Hoover, but at least he made the public think he was taking a different path. Hoover was an interventionist who had great faith in the ability of government to make the world better, and so was Roosevelt.)

Noonan seems to be suggesting that Obama will not be seeking re-election in 2012. Will others pick up that idea and start asking whether Obama will run in 2012, as so many are asking if Palin will run in 2012?

An IRS horror story

From the Seattle Times:

"I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — 'I don't have anything, why are you auditing me?' " Porcaro recalled. "I said, 'Why me, when I don't own a home, a business, a car?' "
The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her.
"They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area," says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle's G.A. Michael and Co. "The auditor said, 'You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle."
"They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money."
Seriously? An estimated 60,000 people in Seattle live below the poverty line — meaning they make $11,000 or less for an individual or $22,000 for a family of four. Does the IRS red-flag them for scrutiny, simply because they're poor?
....
Driver quickly determined the IRS was wrong in how it was interpreting the tax laws. He sent in the necessary code citations and hoped that would be the end of it.
Instead, the IRS responded by launching an audit of Rachel's parents.
"I was floored," says Rob Porcaro, 59. "I get audited now and then in my business, so I've been through it before. But to have them go after me because of my daughter, well, I've never heard of anything like it."

A big loser

The Wall Street Journal has an article about a man who lost over $100 million in Las Vegas.

During a year-long gambling binge at the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in 2007, Terrance Watanabe managed to lose nearly $127 million.

Should we feel sorry for him?  Las Vegas exists to separate fools from their money. "The money you bring to Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas."

The center of the earth

Al Gore's new mantra seems to be "Drill, Baby, Drill." Do you see anything wrong with this clip?



People are learning science from a guy whose worst grade in college was in a natural science course.

On the excellence of public schools

The public schools are in the very best of hands. Clearly the people who run them know what they are doing:

Zachary’s offense? Taking a camping utensil that can serve as a knife, fork and spoon to school. He was so excited about recently joining the Cub Scouts that he wanted to use it at lunch. School officials concluded that he had violated their zero-tolerance policy on weapons, and Zachary was suspended and now faces 45 days in the district’s reform school.

Buyer's Remorse?

From Charles Gasparino in the New York Post, an article about how Obama did not turn out the way that those very smart senior executives on Wall Street thought he would:

The execs who had such hopes for the president are now wondering fearfully just how radical he really is.

Plus there is this bit of humor at the end:

The funniest story I've heard lately came from a former Wall Street executive and longtime Democrat who anxiously recounted a recent conversation with Obama.

The executive said he told the president that he's at a disadvantage because he's relatively inexperienced in economic matters during a time of economic crisis. "That's why I have Valerie," came Obama's reply.

"Valerie" is senior adviser Valerie Jarrett -- a Chicago real-estate attorney and one of Obama's closest friends, who has deep ties to the Windy City's Democratic political machine.

Now you know why Wall Street is so nervous.

Some people who get paid a lot of money for being smart did not see what was obvious to the hicks in the hinterland.

How not to reduce bastard births

Found via a HotAir link to Bookworm, an article in the Daily Mail explains the results of a British program to reduce out-of-wedlock births:

A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving.

The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex.

But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the programme, at a cost of £2,500 each, were 'significantly' more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programmes who were not given contraception and sex advice.

A total of 16 per cent of those on the Young People's Development Programme conceived compared with just 6 per cent in other programmes.

Why are politicians creeps?

Mark Steyn's explanation of why politicians are creeps:

The more the citizenry expect from the state, the more our political class will depend on ever more swollen Gulf Emir–sized retinues of staffers hovering at the elbow to steer you from one corner of the fishbowl to another 24/7. “Why are politicians so weird?” a reader asked me after the Sanford press conference. But the majority of people willing to live like this will, almost by definition, be deeply weird. So big government more or less guarantees rule by creeps and misfits.

In praise of Jimmy Carter

Holman Jenkins has words of praise for President Jimmy Carter in his Wall Street Journal column:

In Mr. Carter's day, bankruptcies were scything through the railroad sector, hurtling toward a rendezvous with nationalization. Conrail, an amalgam of failed Northeastern lines, had already been taken over and analysts foresaw a $300 billion bill (in today's dollars) in the likely prospect that Washington would soon have to operate the rest of the nation's freight railroads.
...
Rail executives and economists had been arguing since the 1920s, when competition from trucks and planes began to emerge, that comprehensive federal regulation had only distorted the industry's pricing, driven away investment, and made competitive adaptation impossible.
...
It still took some doing on Mr. Carter's part. When the bill stalled, a hundred phone calls went from the White House to congressmen, including 10 by Mr. Carter in a single evening. The bill essentially no longer required railroads to provide services at a loss to please certain constituencies. It meant going up against farmers, labor, utilities, mining interests, and even some railroads....

The return of gold?

As the U.S. debt grows, gold seems to be creeping back as an international reserve. See QandO, a blog I know little about.

If inflation starts to creep up, the interest rates will also rise. Servicing the U.S. debt is not a big deal now because interest rates at the short end are near zero. What happens to the interest costs if those interest rates rise to five or six percent?

One of the weaknesses of the Bush administration was that they never planned for what would happen after the military toppled Saddam Hussein. Have the economists in the Obama administration thought about what will happen when interest rates return to normal levels?

How do you justify this spending?

From money.cnn.com:

Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.

Economists think that government expenditures should have some kind of justification. I wonder how one constructs a justification for the money spent on Chrysler. I can not see how one would do it.

And this:

"While we do not expect a recovery of these funds, we are comfortable that in the totality of the arrangement, the Treasury and the American taxpayer are being fairly compensated," said the official.

Political spin only goes so far. This statement is absurdity.

The Obama administration may come out looking very badly when this is all (Chrysler and GM) finished.

Would you buy a Chrysler?

Kausfiles.com at Slate.com doubts the wisdom of Obama's intervention in Chrysler and slams reporting in the New York Times:

NYT's Sanger and Vlasic, with what must be willed credulousness, describe how President Obama's "hard line" on Chrysler gives him and his "team" the "leverage" they will need going into the GM negotiations.

That appears to be the part left out of the Obama administration's self-aggrandizing deal spin: Who is going to buy the New Chrysler's cars? Consumers "in new markets around the world," say Sanger and Vlasic, with a straight face.

P.S.: It's one thing to politicize the reorganization of a prominent failed firm, leaning on private investors and making up new rules--if it works, are voters going to complain? It's another to engineer a slow-motion calamity.

Some commentators like to talk about no one being above the law (i.e., when the Bush Administration is being examined), but I have not read much about no one being above the law when Obama decided to rearrange contracts for Chyrsler bond holders. If respect for the law is good in the first case, why not the second?

Update: More on Chrysler on bondholders from Megan McArdle here and here.

I think most of the people enthusing about this actually recognize that in other countries, when the government uses the banking system as a slush fund to reward its constituencies, this generally turns out badly--and makes the banking system a lot more frail.

Also, there was an comment at National Reviews Corner blog about the agility of hedge funds:

This administration has made it quite clear that they can't be relied upon to honor contracts or legal precedents and if I can't know what the rules are before the game starts then I'm not going to play.

The unasked question

There has been a lot of comment and commentary about the decision of Arlen Specter to switch parties. The one question I have not seen raised is why does a 79-year old man think he should continue being a senator. Doesn't the time come for the old to step aside and make way for the new? No eighty-year old is as mentally sharp as they were when they were 6o. Can anyone take a senator like the senior senator from West Virginia seriously?