Thursday’s Mini-Report

January 17, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* The markets take another tumble: “Wall Street extended its 2008 plunge Thursday, tumbling after a regional Federal Reserve report showed a sharp decline in manufacturing activity and as investors grew concerned that downgrades of key bond insurers could trigger further trouble with souring debt. Each of the major indexes fell at least 2 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost more than 300 points and skidded to its lowest close since last March 16.”

* On the other hand, I’m delighted to have a sensible Fed chairman: “Bernanke is saying, as clearly as he can, that a temporary economic downturn shouldn’t be used as a cynical excuse to pass new long-term tax cuts or to make existing tax cuts permanent. Not only would that have no effect on the economy right now, but it would likely make future economic problems even more intractable. In other words, Bernanke isn’t nuts: he thinks tax cuts reduce revenue and make long-term deficits worse.”

* Dept. of unintended consequences: “Iraqi farmers, desperate to make ends meet while simultaneously facing escalating fuel and fertilizer costs, as well as cheap imported fruits and vegetables, have taken to growing opium poppies. Poppy cultivation is spreading rapidly all across Iraq, but is especially prevalent in Diyala province, where local police and security forces are so preoccupied with the ethnic conflicts among the residents of the region, as well as a tenacious insurgency that brings the war and it’s associated chaos home — suffice it to say that the drug trade is low on their list of priorities.”

* WSJ: “Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he hopes to see the U.S. military presence fall below 130,000 by the end of 2008, a position shared by many senior Pentagon commanders who worry the high troop levels in Iraq are causing growing manpower strains on the army. ‘The surge has sucked all of the flexibility out of the system,’ Army Chief of Staff George Casey said in an interview this week. ‘And we need to find a way of getting back into balance.'”

* I think we can probably safely ignore rumors about Tommy Franks entering politics: “Retired U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was paid $100,000 to endorse a veterans charity that watchdog groups say is ripping off donors and wounded veterans by using only a small portion of the money raised for veterans services, according to testimony in Congress today.”

* The Guttmacher Institute reported yesterday that the abortion rate in the U.S. has declined to about 19 per thousand women of childbearing age. Kevin and Newshoggers take a look at what may be driving the trend.

* Ross Perot was a very strange man when he ran for president in 1992. He’s only gotten weirder since then.

* Fox News’ John Gibson wants to know if his liberal critics still think he’s a racist. The answer, especially in light of his incessant talk about more white people having babies, is an unequivocal “yes.”

* Speaking of Fox News blowhards, the good news is, the AP picked up on Bill O’Reilly’s comments about homeless vets. The bad news is, the AP neglected to mention that there are, in fact, nearly 200,000 of them, whether O’Reilly believes it or not.

* MM: “Today, Media Matters for America President & CEO David Brock issued an open letter to Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, raising serious questions about the on-air conduct of MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews. Given Matthews’ long history of degrading commentary, Brock has urged Capus to protect the network’s trusted reputation for fair and equal coverage and, as Capus himself articulated, ‘continue the dialogue about what is appropriate conduct and speech” on the air.'”

* I like this a lot: “Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) introduced the Caging Prohibition Act of 2008. Voter caging is a practice by which mail is sent to a registered voter’s address and, if the mail is returned as ‘undeliverable’ or if it is delivered and the voter does not respond, his or her registration is challenged in order to suppress voter turnout. This may occur even if the voter has simply moved across a college campus or to another location on a military base, or simply does not respond to what one might assume is junk mail. It is estimated that the practice has resulted in tens of thousands of voters – often soldiers, college students and low-income families – being purged from the rolls.”

* “Liberal Fascism” — to debut at #10 on the New York Times bestseller list.

* CREW wants CNN to dump Ralph Reed from its campaign coverage. Sounds like good advice.

* And finally, I can’t help but think that if Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her: “I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest [sic] state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.” As TP concluded, “Bachmann’s version of the American Dream is apparently working two full-time jobs and struggling to get by.” And she’s “proud” of it.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

Iraqi farmers, desperate to make ends meet while simultaneously facing escalating fuel and fertilizer costs, as well as cheap imported fruits and vegetables, have taken to growing opium poppies.

Subsidized American corporate agriculture at work once again.

The “cheap imported fruits and vegetables” are all American, as a result of the rules imposed by the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003-2004, when they were busy turning Iraq into an American economic colony and made it a market for subsidized American corporate agriculture..

The same thing is what powers most Mexican illegal immigration to the US: NAFTA wiped out trade barriers on agricultural products and the small farmers of Mexico can’t compete with subsidized American corporate agriculture – so they end up gardening your yard here in America.

  • Ben Bernanke seems to understand that enough sh*t has hit the fan that Republican tax cutting BS can be seen for the vote buying scam that it is. In another sign that hell is in fact freezing ver is that Bill Buckley is calling for more government regulation as a result of the current lending crisis.

    I knew Chris Matthews was a freak when dealing with women, but the Media Matters list is disturbing in its length and weirdness.

    Jonah Goldberg needs to commended for inventing his new parlor game. All that “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” was getting so old, and now the Doughy Pantload gives us “Six Degrees of Fascism.” It goes like this: Ronald Reagan was a US president, Reagan gave a speech in Germany, Nazis were Germans, so therefore US presidents are fascists! It’s really a hilarious game to play. Thanks Jonah!

  • Giuliani (and perhaps another Republican candidate) says that the right kind of economic stimulus to soften the coming recession is a cut in corporate income taxes! As if that would put spending money into the pockets of ordinary people anytime soon.

    I’m glad our Fed chairman seems to be more sensible than that, in spite of being a Bush appointee.

    Of course the other mantra that we are hearing is that making the Bush tax cuts permanent will cushion this recession, although they don’t expire until … 2010!

  • “I think we can probably safely ignore rumors about Tommy Franks entering politics..”

    Are you kidding, in the Republican party that’s considered on-the-job training, perhaps even a prerequisite.

  • So when is Media Matters going to go after Glen Beck? Or did they do it already and I just missed it?

  • Pietr Hitzig # 4 – I was wondering why after the Democratic debate ( I didn’t watch the debate itself) he was so complimentary toward Hillary. Then I saw his “apology” at the beginnning of his show. I think he got the message. But I wonder if anyone again will ever say, “I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Period.

    But the overall Hillary attacks are still going strong. And I was very disappointed to see Keith Olbermann take her on the other night. It was just so petty.

    Which is what, for the most part, the coverage of this campaign has become. Not a serious word about issues anywhere. Nothing but the race. And a new fad, which involves parsing and interpreting statements, phrases, words, expressions and movements of the candidates ad nauseum. I’ve gotten so I can’t stand it anymore. How can you devote a whole segment on five different programs to “What did Hillary really mean when she said ‘blah blah,’ and was it racist, and was Obama’s response more classy, slightly less classy, and did Edwards gain or lose support by not offering any criticism, and what should he have said? Our panel of three will take this monumental critical issue on for the next 20 minutes.”

    I mean really. It’s gotten ridiculous.

    Energy crisis? What’s that?

  • “Ben Bernanke seems to understand that enough sh*t has hit the fan that Republican tax cutting BS can be seen for the vote buying scam that it is.”

    yup! you’ve got it! he’s a lot smarter than greenspan was.

  • I was a little surprised Media Matters (Brock) didn’t mention Scarborough, too. His show seems to be modeled on the Howard Stern show. Morning Joe and Willie Geist seem like frat boys looking for weaklings to beat up on, especially women. And Mica Brizinski plays the Robin part, giggling as if to show that women don’t mind a little good natured mysogeny, even if it isn’t so good natured, and it’s non-stop.

  • CB, you’re right, Perot is absolutely delusional. Consider this quote from the article you link to.

    President Bush, Perot says, is a “decent person, but you can’t say the same thing about the people around him.”

    Bush…a decent person….. give me a break.

  • The Dow—wasn’t it at 14,000 back in July—then just a little over 13,000 at year’s end—and now it’s pushing 12,000? Economic stimulus is a farce; all the government is doing is making more “rosy-outlook promises” to shore up a horrifically-overvalued investment system.

    Think about the “promises” made to alleviate the sub-prime mess—and then they turned around and blamed the problem on people who had no business trying to buy a house. People who, had their profit-skimming “lenders” and “realtors” kept the plethora of fantastic promises made—and not arbitrarily created an environment of endlessly-spiraling interest rates, hidden fees, and rapacious penalties that were engineered into the base mortgage itself and never revealed to the buyers—would not be in default, foreclosure, and bankruptcy.

    Why in the gods do you think they tried to completely rewrite the bankruptcy laws before launching the vast majority of these so-called “mortgage plans?”

    To sell a house, rip off the buyer for everything they own by preventing bankruptcy, and then re-market the house—over, and over, and over again. To create a home-buying plan that could net a lender a half-million dollars in pure profit—for a $100,000 home.

    Just like the “payday” loan companies.

    Just like the “company store” model in the old coal-mining towns—keep them in debt forever, thus forcing them further into debt.

    Now, we find the crumbling American economy faced with an administration that, over the course of seven years, has sought little more than to line the pockets of its friends by disenfranchising all others. They “hint” at a tax-free stimulus package of $1.5 billion, but they also hint at the stimulus being geared primarily towards the business sector. Even if this “stimulus” were divided wholly and equally amongst the citizens themselves, it would amount to less than a meager $5 for every man, woman, and child in the country today.

    Happy recession, everyone—here’s your McDonald’s Happy Meal….

  • Liberal Fascism is the most ridiculous far fetched crap to make a buck I’ve ever seen. No wonder Jonah is so defensive about his ‘work’…it comes from another galaxy. Everything he attributes to liberals is exactly what conservatives do. I’ve not read anything good about this book so how it got where it is amazes me.

    CNN-Glenn Beck…need I say more. America’s unregulated greed is killing her. Check this out about the vulture capitalists because they do the same at home…compound interests

    “…This “demon” governs current global relations, condemning most of the world population to living under the sign of debt: i.e., each person born in Latin America owes already $1,600 in foreign debt; each individual being conceived in Sub-Saharan Africa carries the burden of a $336 debt, for something that its ancestors have long ago paid-off. In 1980 the Southern countries’ debt amounted to $567 billion; since then, they have paid $3,450 billion in interest and write-offs, six times the original amount. In spite of this, that debt had quadrupled by the year 2000, reaching $2,070 billion.

    President Obasanjo of Nigeria complained in 2000:
    All that we had borrowed up to 1985 was around $5 billion, and we have paid about $16 billion; yet we are still being told that we owe about $28 billion. That $28 billion came about because of the injustice in the foreign creditors’ interest rates. If you ask me what is the worst thing in the world, I will say it is compound interest. …”

    And people wonder why the housing market falls apart

  • Am I missing something? I can’t find anything about Obama’s electrifying statement about Reagan being the agent of change, far more so than Nixon or Clinton. It’s true, of course, in a literal sense, but it’s clear from the context of his remarks that he’s not critical of the Reagan revolution which gave rise to a quarter century of backwards, reactionary rule in this country. Reagan is the father of the neocon revolution for Chris sakes.

    It blew my mind when I saw the clip. Everyone attacking HIillary because she’s a centrist, and Obama’s an admirer of Reagan? It seemed to be a yawner for Keith Olbermann tonight, and his guest, Huffpo contributor Lawrence O’Donnell. Actually, O’Donnell seemed to think only only the whackos on the extreme left would be taken aback. He said the rest of the Democrats are admirers of Reagan, like the Republicans.

    I sure must be missing something. I feel like I just walked into a Twilight Zone episode.

  • hark:

    How can you devote a whole segment on five different programs to “What did Hillary really mean when she said ‘blah blah,’ and was it racist, and was Obama’s response more classy, slightly less classy, and did Edwards gain or lose support by not offering any criticism, and what should he have said? Our panel of three will take this monumental critical issue on for the next 20 minutes.”

    What you seeing is the expansion of an industry based solely on the manufacture and selling of the US Presidency. It is no different than Christmas being marketed in October and Halloween in September…

    The election cycle has become a major indu$try in a ton of different ways.
    I suspect that even as bad as those debates are, they still draw more viewers than reruns of Gilligan’s island.

    But also:
    It is more rabid this year because of the two main Democrat candidates.
    That is a novel and compelling drama that catches many an eyeball.

    So don’t get too irked up about it…
    You won’t see this kind of excitement again until a white lesbian republican vies with a Chinese transgender democrat.

    And that episode… is still quite a few years away…

  • Every two weeks when I make my 401(k) contribution, I console myself with dollar-cost averaging, which may mean my someday-in-the-future retirement fund might see a nice bump when the market eventually comes back up. Just glad I still have a few years to ride out the cycle.

    I heard that Bush may propose an economic stimulus package that would put a tax rebate into the hands of lower income taxpayers – averaging about $600. Are they kidding? An average of $600? Quick! To the malls!

    Also, for anyone who’s interested, NBC News will have an Edwards interview segment on tomorrow night’s broadcast. Yeah – Friday night – always a night when people are glued to the news.

    Sigh.

  • * I’m delighted to have a sensible Fed chairman: “Bernanke is saying, as clearly as he can, that a temporary economic downturn shouldn’t be used as a cynical excuse to pass new long-term tax cuts or to make existing tax cuts permanent.[…]

    Not so fast with the kudos 🙂 Sure, he’s saying that long-term tax cuts should not be considered. But, do you think passing new long-term tax cuts or making the existing ones permanent is really a likely option at the moment? Even with the limp-spine Dems? In the election year? With the populace damn near electrified at the idea of knocking the GOP off its perch after the past, horrendous, 7yrs?

    He’s pragmatic enough to know that nothing long-term is likely to pass and, if it does, is likely to be repealed the moment the new broom enters the White House a year from now. He may also have Greenspan-ish ambitions to serve past the current regime (“a humble calf suckles from two mothers”, as we say in Polish). He’s certainly not “sensible” enough to be against instituting new *short term* tax-cuts. Enlarging the deficit be damned. Going against common sense and evidence (haven’t we had huge tax-cuts for the rich for several years now? And what have they stimulated? Not US economy at large) — ditto. I think I’ll wait, before I start singing Kumbaya to Bernanke
    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/business/17fiscal.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

    * Dept. of unintended consequences: “Iraqi farmers, desperate to make ends meet while simultaneously facing escalating fuel and fertilizer costs, as well as cheap imported fruits and vegetables, have taken to growing opium poppies.

    Next thing you know… Our dear friends, Afghanistan and Pakistan, will join forces *officially* and nuke the hell out of Iraq (and, if US is still there by then… so sorry; mistakes were made…); can’t have that kind of competition.

  • CHRIS MATTHEW apologizes on air! Will wonders ever cease?

    That’s like the bully who hit you on the head once a week for the past 18 weeks of school apologizing to you the day after the last time he hit you- yeah, right. Of course it’s just some teacher put some pressure on him.

    Expect Chris Matthews to continue to do whatever it is he is told or feels he can get away with to promote sexism, promote racism, turn Democrats against each other, etc. It’ll be the wettest shirts who fall for it when once a week he says that he loves France or that he thinks people should be nice to other people or something. “Oh, shit, he said ‘Hooray for France,’ he must be some kind of moderate.”

  • Hey, the fed chairman is strictly a fictional character. Wouldn’t place a bet on ‘his’ moves or predictions…
    Anyway, do you honestly think the global plutocracy will let anyone or anything interfere with their agenda?
    Take to the streets before it’s too late!

  • The Answer is Orange (@17) said:
    If you used a credit card at JC Penny’s lately, you might want to check your credit report.

    The more data is collected (and *kept on file*, permanently), the bigger the chances that some of it will get “mislaid”. Last year, my bank canceled my credit card and issued a new one, because I had shopped — only once during ’06, but also during the “sensitive” period, when they lost data on thousands of customers — at TJMax. As far as I know, nobody ever tried to steal my credit identity following that fiasco but, sure as sure, it was a pain in the butt to update all other vendors I happen to deal with occasionally, on the change. Especially those, who keep my data on file permanently, “the better to remember you, m’dear”.

    People scream (and rightly so, IMO) bloody murder, when FISA gets further amended, till it protects us not at all. But we’ve — voluntarily and long ago — given away all our privacy, in order to shop (or support a favoured candidate) with the least amount of inconvenience … (“welcome libra, please log on; if you’re not libra, please type in your credit card number instead of a password”)

  • #15 Anne: The interesting thing is that if Bush proposes the $600 rebate to lower income taxpayers, it is a screaming admission that economic stimulus comes from the bottom, not the trickle down supply side nonsense. I do agree, though, that $600 won’t be much more effective at actually stimulating the economy than another Frank Luntz euphemism.

  • Help Hospitalized Veterans and the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes Foundation

    That’s teh group. Never heard of ’em. Always check charities at http://www.charitynavigator.com

    When I asked about Barack Obama, Perot said he admired his eloquence but thought it “a little odd that we would be less concerned about his background than being a Mormon.” Perot was pleasantly surprised when I told him that Obama was a Christian, not a Muslim, and relieved when I informed him that the e-mail Perot (and untold others) received about Obama not respecting the Pledge of Allegiance was a fraud.

    I’d no idea what kind of bullet we’d dodged in ’92. Is there anything worse than a cynic without skepticism?

    For those who don’t click-through

    Abortion rights advocates suggested women may be avoiding unwanted pregnancies, thanks in part to the morning-after pill, emergency contraception that is sold without a prescription to women 18 and older.

    Conservatives, by contrast, [focus on] laws in more than 30 states mandating counseling before an abortion.

    ….Some of the biggest drops in the abortion rate, however, have come in states that do not impose tight restrictions. Oregon, for instance, was rated this week by Americans United for Life as the nation’s “least pro-life state,” yet its abortion rate dropped 25% from 2000 to 2005 — more than any state except Wyoming.

    California also was ranked hostile territory by Americans United for Life, but its abortion rate fell 13%, significantly more than the national average. “Abortion rate” refers to the number of abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age.

    and finally,

    Dear Mr. Gibson,
    It isn’t racist to predict America will be majority Latino.
    It isn’t racist to notice that traditionally Caucasian majority nations are becoming fewer in number.
    It is racist to say, without providing reasons, that this is a bad thing that must be prevented.
    This is clearly showing you favor white people without providing a reason.
    THIS is all it takes to be racist.
    This is what’s wrong with racists who claim to love white people while not hating minorities, in effect; “White power”.
    The philosophy begs the question. What’s so great about white people? ALL white people? ANY white person at random? You don’t favor specific whities having babies… you want ANY of ’em!
    It’s a bit diseased, sir.

  • I heard a pitch on NPR for the corporate tax cuts portion of the economic stimulus package, the person said, “That will put more money in corporate coffers to pay more wages!” I almost crashed from laughing so hard. As if the reduction wouldn’t go directly to the bottom line and out to shareholders… If any additional wages were paid, it would probably go to the CEO’s who “increased” the bottom line. The only incentive to paying higher wages is higher taxes, since taxes are paid on the net income (net of expenses like wages). That’s why the economy did so well during the Clinton years.

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