EU version of Who's on first?

To Be or Not to Be?

To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

With the US trapped in depression, this really is starting to feel like 1932

Telegraph.co.uk

The US workforce shrank by 652,000 in June, one of the sharpest contractions ever. The rate of hourly earnings fell 0.1pc. Wages are flirting with deflation.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Comment

"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said.

California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14pc fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19bn (£15bn) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12bn and is $5bn in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene."

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.

Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.

The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s.

"Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2m."

Republicans on Capitol Hill are filibustering a bill to extend the dole for up to 1.2m jobless facing an imminent cut-off. Dean Heller from Vermont called them "hobos". This really is starting to feel like 1932.

Washington's fiscal stimulus is draining away. It peaked in the first quarter, yet even then the economy eked out a growth rate of just 2.7pc. This compares with 5.1pc, 9.3pc, 8.1pc and 8.5pc in the four quarters coming off recession in the early 1980s.

The housing market is already crumbling as government props are pulled away. The expiry of homebuyers' tax credit led to a 30pc fall in the number of buyers signing contracts in May. "It is cataclysmic," said David Bloom from HSBC.

Federal tax rises are automatically baked into the pie. The Congressional Budget Office said fiscal policy will swing from a net +2pc of GDP to -2pc by late 2011. The states and counties may have to cut as much as $180bn.

Investors are starting to chew over the awful possibility that America's recovery will stall just as Asia hits the buffers. China's manufacturing index has been falling since January, with a downward lurch in June to 50.4, just above the break-even line of 50. Momentum seems to be flagging everywhere, whether in Australian building permits, Turkish exports, or Japanese industrial output.

On Friday, Jacques Cailloux from RBS put out a "double-dip alert" for Europe. "The risk is rising fast. Absent an effective policy intervention to tackle the debt crisis on the periphery over coming months, the European economy will double dip in 2011," he said.

It is obvious what that policy should be for Europe, America, and Japan. If budgets are to shrink in an orderly fashion over several years – as they must, to avoid sovereign debt spirals – then central banks will have to cushion the blow keeping monetary policy ultra-loose for as long it takes.

The Fed is already eyeing the printing press again. "It's appropriate to think about what we would do under a deflationary scenario," said Dennis Lockhart for the Atlanta Fed. His colleague Kevin Warsh said the pros and cons of purchasing more bonds should be subject to "strict scrutiny", a comment I took as confirmation that the Fed Board is arguing internally about QE2.

Perhaps naively, I still think central banks have the tools to head off disaster. The question is whether they will do so fast enough, or even whether they wish to resist the chorus of 1930s liquidation taking charge of the debate. Last week the Bank for International Settlements called for combined fiscal and monetary tightening, lending its great authority to the forces of debt-deflation and mass unemployment. If even the BIS has lost the plot, God help us.

______________________________________________

To stimulus or not to stimulus? That is the question...

Yes, We're Open

trish said... I remind you, it's a holiday for federal employees. Not for Bar proprietors.

trish said...

So.

Someone asked me yesterday, "How did the 1812 Overture end up being the July Fourth anthem?

It's a good question.

So I later went Googling and wound up at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

[...]

the overture, written by famed composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, depicts Napoleon's retreat from Russia in 1812, not America's battles against the British, as many might think.

That's right -- at the height of most Independence Day ceremonies, Memorial Day pageantry or other fireworks displays, the "1812 Overture" blares strains of the French national anthem "La Marseillaise" and the old Russian national anthem "God Save the Czar "across our amber waves of grain. But this bizarre twist is not as unpatriotic as it might seem.

The obvious reason why the piece found a home during America's annual firecracker festival is that gunpowder loves company.

"It is one of the few pieces with good musical content that has cannons exploding," says Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and a conductor and music scholar who has written about Tchaikovsky.

[...]


One of the few?

You mean...There are actually others?

Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue

The White House wishes you a Happy Fourth of July.

Not!

Download:

FLVMP43GP

Download:

FLVMP43GP

Obama Everywhere: From Obama's Website

BarackObama.com

A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are often found in dictatorships. The sociologist Max Weber developed a tripartite classification of authority; the cult of personality holds parallels with what Weber defined as 'charismatic authority'.

A cult of personality is similar to hero worship, except that it is propagated by mass media. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of religious or non-political leaders.

Throughout history, monarchs were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Imperial China (see Mandate of Heaven), ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Thailand, and the Roman Empire (see imperial cult) are especially noted for redefining monarchs as god-kings.

The spread of democratic ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of photography, sound recording, film and mass production, as well as public education and techniques used in commercial advertising, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of Political religion.

Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to radically alter or transform society according to radical ideas. Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future couldn't occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, and some leaders may actively seek to minimize their own public adulation. For example, in the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia, Pol Pot's image was rarely seen. On the other hand, in North Korea there exists a very successful cult of personality, which includes actual semi-worship of both the father (Kim Il-sung) and son (Kim Jong-il).

Wikipedia

Immelt Takes a Whack at Two of My Favorites, Obama and China

I feel Immelt's pain but Obama is hopeless. All we can do with him is neutralize him until we get rid of him. China on the other hand is something else again. Everybody is sick of the way they operate, but how about a strategy?

Immelt suggests something that makes a lot of sense. The US should target countries with resources and establish joint ventures with US firms that add value at the extraction sites. The neocolonialist Chinese have made some very sweet deals for themselves and take raw materials to China for conversion. Why not pursue a policy with value added at the extraction point and create an industrial base that is partially in Latin America and the balance in the US.

Everyone wins with that plan except the Chinese.

____________________


Immelt hits out at China and Obama
By Guy Dinmore in Rome and Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: July 1 2010 15:19 | Last updated: July 1 2010 20:33

Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, has launched a rare broadside against the Chinese government, which he accused of being increasingly hostile to foreign multinationals.

He warned that the world’s largest manufacturing company was exploring better prospects elsewhere in resource-rich countries, which did not want to be “colonised” by Chinese investors. “I really worry about China,” Mr Immelt told an audience of top Italian executives in Rome, accusing the Chinese government of becoming increasingly protectionist. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win, or any of us to be successful.”


Mr Immelt also had harsh words for Barack Obama, US president, lamenting what he called a “terrible” national mood and expressing concern that over-regulation in response to the global financial crisis would damp a “tepid” US economic recovery. Business did not like the US president, and the president did not like business, he said, making a point of praising Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, for her defence of German industry. Financial Times

Celebrate Your Independence

Eric Holder is in Afghanistan? Connecting the dots redux.

Taliban did not get the memo.

Dot connecting was quite the thing in DC for awhile but you don't hear much about it lately. It was almost as popular as was talking about what would happen at the end of the day, but that ended as well because at the end of the day, the day ends, but let's return to the dots and Eric Holder.

Why would Obama send Eric Holder to Afghanistan? At first I didn't get it. The dots were unconnected. I was perplexed, but then it hit me. It's obvious. When BP blew the well, Holder's minions were dispatched to the rigs. Obama has been threatening to sue Arizona longer than he has been paying attention to the gulf oil leak. Now Holder is in Afghanistan. Every time something of importance happens the Obama response is to unleash Eric Holder.

We are obviously going to sue the Taliban as nothing else has worked.

With all the suing going on it may make sense to consolidate. A class action suit against Arizona, the Taliban and the Limey assholes running BP, could reduce legal costs and help reduce the deficit.

It is obvious that as Obama is harnessing the power of the best legal minds in the country with Elena Kagan at the tip of the spear, his strategy is becoming more clear. Obama is going to be flexing America's legal muscles. We have showed the World what we can do with our aircraft carriers, investment bankers and Fannie Mae, but the World has seen nothing compared to the shock and awe of American legions of slip and fall lawyers.

Pity the Taliban, the American Citizens of Arizona and the LARBP. At the end of the day, Obama is going to get them, one dot at a time.

________________________



Attorney General Holder meets in Kabul with Karzai, other top Afghan officials

By Ernesto Londoño
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Washington Post

KABUL -- Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials in Kabul on Wednesday amid rising concerns in Washington over the toll corruption is taking on the U.S.-led war effort.

Holder's visit comes at a sensitive time. U.S. lawmakers this week vowed to block U.S. funds for nonmilitary and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan in response to reports suggesting that Afghan officials are doing little to curb widespread corruption and in some instances have hindered U.S. efforts to bring prominent Afghan officials to justice.

On Tuesday, Afghanistan's attorney general disputed that his office's anti-corruption efforts are systematically stymied by political meddling from Karzai's office. Mohammed Ishaq Aloko said the only official who has tried to exert undue pressure on his office is U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry. He said Eikenberry suggested he could lose his job if he didn't pursue a fraud case.

In brief remarks after meetings with Karzai, Aloko and Justice Minister Habibullah Ghaleb, Holder made no mention of the controversies. Instead, he lauded the Afghan government's recent efforts to fight corruption.

"We have watched with interest from Washington the positive steps President Karzai and his cabinet have taken to help improve governance and enforce the rule of law," Holder said. "We applaud President Karzai for his actions and encourage him to continue his efforts, as much work remains to be done."

The Washington Post reported Monday that U.S. law enforcement officials who are partnering with the Afghan attorney general's anti-corruption task force have grown frustrated by repeated instances in which political pressure has derailed investigations targeting senior government officials and other prominent Afghans.

Those allegations and a report about billions of dollars, including aid money, being siphoned out of the country by Afghan officials prompted Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) to announce that she will block nonessential funding for Afghanistan.

"I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that U.S. taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan government officials, drug lords and terrorists," Lowey, who chairs an Appropriations subcommittee that oversees State Department and foreign operations, said in a statement Monday. "Rampant corruption fosters the conditions that threaten the security of our troops and the stability of the Afghan government and economy."

Holder, in contrast, spoke optimistically about partnership initiatives between Afghan and American law enforcement officials in counternarcotics and anti-corruption investigations.

"The support and commitment of the United States to improve the lives of the Afghan people and establishing the rule of law will really outlast any military presence in this country," he said. He did not take reporters' questions.

Earlier Wednesday, insurgents detonated a car bomb outside the gate of an air base that serves as a NATO military hub in eastern Afghanistan and engaged in a gun battle with guards in the latest unsuccessful attempt by militants to penetrate a military compound.



At least eight suspected militants were slain in the attack on Jalalabad air base, Afghan officials said. The Taliban asserted responsibility for the operation, the Associated Press reported.

After the initial blast, NATO officials said, insurgents attacked the base's guards with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms, wounding two.

NATO officials said the air base's perimeter was not breached. "Afghan and coalition forces are always prepared to deal with attacks on this facility," Maj. Mary Constantino, a NATO spokeswoman, said in a statement. "The response this morning was immediate."

The attack was the third such attempted breach of a NATO military installation in recent weeks. A similar assault at Bagram air base May 19 resulted in the death of a U.S. contractor. Three days later, insurgents using rockets and mortars launched a coordinated attack on Kandahar air base, the largest military installation in southern Afghanistan.

Also on Wednesday, a NATO soldier was fatally shot in eastern Afghanistan. More than 100 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan this month, which has been the deadliest for the U.S.-led international force in the nearly nine-year-old war.