Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Copyright © 2010 Frank Lynch.
Me: Frank Lynch Home These are my mundane daily ramblings.
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How were they to know? So Charles Prince and Robert Rubin testified today that they were basically ignorant of how bad Citibank's assets were, and all their underlying risks. You know, I believe they probably were; but I also believe they had a lot of highly paid people working for them who should have been more diligent in discerning how fragile the assets and portfolios were; and that since they didn't, they (the people who should have known) were negligent and over-paid. And that upper management at Citicorp and a host of other financial firms were negligent in paying them so much, and themselves over-paid. That's the sense I get from all these non-admissions.
I've been reading ECONned, Yves Smith's feel-good book book about the melt down, and her early chapters are an indictment of the economic theories that underlaid everyone's confidence in the markets, and how truly intense the risk is: assumptions that a diversified portfolio is immune to taking a nose dive, limitations of assumptions, underserved confidence in models that lead one to disregard events as mere outliers, and so on. I've had convwrsations with our financial advisors about this stuff, and made the mistake of not thinking independently enough. I think they are earnest people, but I have strong misgivings about the quality of the advice that was in their in-boxes, and hence delivered to us. So far it feels like a description of anarchy, and I'm up to chapter six... as in, don't trust rapid rises in asset value, be more conservative. And it makes sense when you see that the riskiness of market positions has been understated since so few understood the risks. Not sure where the book will wind up, but it's a damning read. (And if you want to tell me about the new Michael Lewis book, one of Ezra Klein's commenters points out that Lewis overstates his own prescience.) Maybe my Catholic is showing? Last night, Jon Stewart opened his show with a bit on the Pope and the child abuse scandal:
I personally didn't think it was funny: it's not just shame over the behavior of my former church, but I just don't think pedophilia and sexual abuse is a topic for humor. Some of my reaction also has to do with what I want out of his show: his post-Bush ventures into acerbic commentary, a la Mark Twain on King Leopold, are fine as they are, but as the last thing I see before I go to bed, I want to laugh, not feel desparation. Your mileage may vary. 
If not a maverick, then McCain's a used car salesman. (Apologies in advance to used car salesmen, I'm not being fair to you. At least you have Paul Dooley in Breaking Away.) So John McCain says he never considered himself as a maverick. (No, it's not an April Fools joke.) And Steve Benen finds ample evidence otherwise, and notes that this is how McCain branded himself. ("I'm John McCain, and I approved this ad.") Here's what McCain said:
Most bloggers aren't including that second part, and I think it's helpful to include it. It doesn't undermine Benen's point that McCain deliberately branded himself as a maverick, but it calls into question both sides of his advertising: as he ran for President as well as afterwards. Remember how many Republicans had misgivings about McCain? For instance, Santorum's overheard conversation on a train that he'd sooner support Obama or Clinton over McCain? So long as McCain positioned himself as a "maverick," without that "Country First" mantle, he gave Republicans queasy feelings. And that "Country First" motto wasn't there from the get go, it was a late adoption. What I think we're left with is a politician who doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to handle himself... Think of those gaffes in the debates, his rush to support Georgia against Russia, his failure to bat away silly questions from his audience... The "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" guy. He doesn't know what he's talking about, plain and simple. And he may even be a liar. If I were a Republican, I'd buy the town's band uniforms from someone else, in spite of the vapor ware hopes he brings the town. Too bad for Arizona he has too few credible rivals.
It's not just the RNC that has expenditure issues, it's also happening with Florida's GOP. And Crist is calling for a federal probe. Extravagant credit card use, shell corporations, golden parachutes...
Butler? Is that, like, Arthur Treacher? More than a bounce for Obama over health care. Monday night in Perry, NY, I had a chance to get back online and noticed that Powerline's John Hinderaker had, again, paid too much notice to the daily shifts in Rasmussen's Daily Presidential Approval Index. On Sunday the 28th, Hinderaker claimed that improvements in Obama's approval score were "significant but short-lived." Oddly: it stood at -16 as Hinderaker wrote that, and although it had improved to -8 after the health care bill's passage, it had been as low as -21 dureing the week before the bill passed. So at least some of the bounce was still there when he wrote. Hinderaker just willfully ignored it. As I've said before, people shouldn't get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae of this poll: even though it's a three-day rolling score, it's not as smooth as a typical three-day rolling percentage, because it's a difference score, and thus fluctuates more. But where are we today, about a week later? If the bounce ever truly dissipated, it's oddly back: Obama's score is now -9 again, a statistical dead heat with when it was -8. Writes Rasmussen (no permalink, but the constantly changing commentary is here...):
Rasmussen goes on to note that Obama's approval ratings are more negative among independents and Republicans than among Democrats, but there's no surprise there. What is noteworthy is that the "strongly disapprove" figures have improved from 44% to 41% in a week... A small change, perhaps, but on a base of 1500 likely voters it's statistically significant, and probably did not all come from Democrats. So one could reasonably hypothesize that "strong" disapproval among independents and Republicans is eroding; and the erosion of strong negatives may mean lower turnout in the fall. Just a hypothesis, I don't have Rasmussen's internals to review. DISCLOSURE: I work for Abt SRBI. My company does polling. My comments should not be construed as representing those of my employer. Flammable moods. We all know that politicians need to mind their words; thanks to last August's town halls and the exhortations for more and more visible displays of anger, it's a tinder box out there. And we've seen the results, what with madmen shooting holocaust museums and Pentagon security, and flying planes into IRS buildings. As well as the various incidents of vandalism on the offices of Democratic members of Congress. But now it's morphing in two directions I never would have expected. In an expression of basketball feelings, the Indianapolis Star ran a photo of Duke's coach Mike Krzyzewski, childishly marked up with moustache, horns, scrawled words, and a bullseye on his forehead. And they've apologized to the coach. There's two things that irritate me. One, that the paper bothered to include a bullseye in its childish expression of rivalry. (The moustache and scrawled words were enough...) Two, that they felt a need to apologize: it seems to have been for the whole exercise, not just the bullseye, because later editions completely replaced all the pen marks. I only saw one comment which singled out the bullseye... But I would hope no one thinks we're at a point where there's fear that this clearly intentionally childish expression would incite anyone to target the coach. We're not there yet, are we? (HT to Romenesko.)
A urologist with a heart of gold. A Florida urologist has posted a sign dissuading Obama
How very clubby he wants his practice to be. After all, it's not that he got into medicine in the interest of helping people, he just wants to be around his own, er, "kind." You know, the sort who voted for John McCain, a senator who's reversed himself on a dozen or so positions since returning to the Senate after his failed bid. That's the sort, a man whose convictions are skin deep. I'm not shocked by this doctor's intolerance — in the sense that I find it conceivable — but I'm sure disappointed to see it actually occur. Shame on him. UPDATE: Steve Benen has more, on the doctor's limited understanding of what's actually in the law. Conservatives aren't content with history. We all know about the efforts of the Texas school board to give greater emphasis to the accomplishments of conservatives, excise Abigail Adams, and so on in the text books, but it's not limited to text books:
I'm not unfamiliar with this phenomenon: they didn't win the elections, so they're scraping every bit they can to redirect the hearts and minds of Americans. And in doing so, they're denying that there's even a common base of facts that can be agreed on.
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