More Random Barking Weekly Roundup

• Remember -- the Cossacks work for the Tsar.
  -- Paul Krugman; Nobel Laureate, Economics, and You're Not



• Timmeh !! and Tubby Larry !! Really do Care About You. (Snicker)



• Harvey Peckar, Artist and Human Being, passed away this week.



• Robots Do What Robots Do, Far Beneath The Sea.



• Lindsay Lohan, Girl and Semi-Pro Alcoholic, is going to jail (Yawn).



• Goldman-Sachs, The Vampire Squid of the Wall Street investment world, agreed to pay a half-billion-dollar settlement to the U.S. government and the SEC in the civil fraud case filed a month ago.

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Random Barking

The Catfood Commission

It just struck me this morning: There's a Commission organized by the President to cut the Federal deficit. It's co-chairmen are former Republican Senator Alan Simpson from Wyoming, and Erskine Bowles, still a Director at Morgan Stanley, a Wall Street investment firm.

Other members are, well, from the Financial community -- the same sad sack of loser banks and investment firms which were handed free money to remain afloat after the Crash in October of 2008. Like Morgan Stanley.


Erskine Bowles, Member Of An Old-Money Family, And Friend

They're recommending a number of things be done to reduce the deficit, which increases the size of the real Monster In The Closet, the National Debt (not having invaded Iraq would have been a good place to start -- Ooopsie; Lil' Boots already snuck that one in, didn't he? Bless his tiny white cotton socks).

The concern among some is that the "changes" they recommend are all aimed at making ordinary people pay for the -- the American form of the "new Austerity" measures which European governments are placing on their own citizens.

Among the things being considered are "changes" to the Social Security system, which amount to cutting or otherwise limiting benefits. A number of commentators have dubbed Little Erskine and Alan's advisory group the "Catfood Commission" -- a metaphor for penury and poverty, because the end result of reducing Social Security benefits to many current and future Seniors, and those on SSI disability, will be to force them to eat cat food: Their Social Security checks won't allow them to buy real meat or fish.

The thought struck me... The President has, in sum, done a less than stellar job with the Economy. The Rightists and Democrats in Congress (more members of the Little Village On The Potomac than representatives of the People) have dithered and made deals and dithered some more.

The end result is that Obama's administration may have screwed the Democrats' chances to hold on to both Houses of Congress -- meaning he may be a one-term President. Hope? Who knows what that was; just another failed dream.

The country, with the help of the Little Rupert Fun Truth Jesus Network; Little Glenn Beck, five years old; Lard Boy, and the screeching Teabag minority, will eventually be handed back to the Rightists.

You thought we had fun during the Go-Go, Lil' Boots Bush years? Wait until you see the America of President Palin. Or President Huckabee. Or President Gingrich. There'll be so much more fun to come. Wonder who we'll invade then? North Korea? Yeah; that'll show those Red Chinese who's boss...

If you elect politicians who are stupid, who are ideologues, who talk not with restraint and reason but the passion and certainty of the fundamentalist -- then you get a government that rules from ignorance, "purity" and "faith". We just had a decade of that.

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Our Lords At Play In The Fields

How Brightly They Do Shine

"It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed." —Kin Hubbard, Offered As The "Quote Of The Day" On The Big Picture Website, July 10, 2010

Barry Ritholtz, whose blog I look at frequently, is an investment advisor whose take on America's class of super-rich occasionally rotates between gently mocking derision and moderate envy.

I've never been able to figure out what prompts him to gravitate in one direction or another, but I think the idea is that in his universe, it's no sin to be rich -- but it is if you were dishonest and rapacious about it.

If the quote above, gracing Barry's website this morning, was posed to him as a choice, Barry wouldn't be voting for Poverty. Quite the opposite. Neither would the poor little guy above (How's Poverty working out for him, by the way?). The happy people above don't have to choose wealth; they're too busy shopping.

While that kind of choice would hardly be news (most persons would choose physical comfort over penury), for the kind of world he lives in, Barry understands it's those with money to invest who butter his bread. Just something to keep in mind.


Barry Ritholtz: Good Head For Da Numbers, Dis Guy

Barry's a smart guy, believes as strongly in free-trade capitalism as one can, believes that business is about psychology and competition; and feels that predicting in advance the tidal shifts of money washing around in the markets is The Great Game, and it's all about Making The Right Call, because that's what other people pay him for: He's a principal in a modestly-sized investment advisory business in New York, and he blogs about the kinds of data, the solid (and suspect) numbers, and utterances and divinations of Big Names in the financial world.

Apparently, Barry and his Firm do rather well (God forbid it should be otherwise), and while I don't like the fish tank Barry's chosen to swim in or many of its other creatures, as a former financial analyst Dog, I can appreciate the idea of making decisions based on the most reliable data, and because he seems more fact-based than not I at least pay attention to his take on things.

It's my guess that Ritholtz feels too much of the Free Markets' decision-making is based on misleading interpretation of data provided by government and business, and poor analysis of the real data that is available -- all of which obscures what is really going on behind the curtain. I can appreciate that.

And, he's been critical of the greed and excess that effectively destroyed America's Middle Class, and has so heavily weighted The Game in favor of our Masters Of The Universe©. Barry was sounding skepticism, and then an an alarm, about the Markets and the underlying derivative/real estate Mambo long before the crash.

He's even written a book about it, Bailout Nation. It's a good book, and I recommend it. It's not a Manifesto, and it focuses on what happened in the last days of the Lil-Boots Bush regime, and the early days of Obama's administration -- and how the U.S. Government has effectively paid taxpayer's money to save failed financial organizations led by greedy, sociopathic losers; hence, the 'Bailout' in the title.

[Please Note: Those are my characterizations of the times and events, by the way, not Ritholtz's. His research is solid and his occasionally acerbic observations are worth the price of admission. Buy the book; you'll learn things.]


Cover Of Bailout Nation (via SamSederShow)

To sum up: I appreciate Ritzholtz' drive for accuracy, and seeking better fact-based methodologies for sussing out market trends: Again, it's what he's paid for. At the same time, I don't much care for the industry he's a part of; it's my right to wrinkle my nose and growl at it, deep in my throat, as much as it's his right to jump in his particular tank and swim.

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Barry and his family are in The Hamptons for their Summer vacation. The fact that you may not know or care where the Hamptons are is an indication of your Wal-Mart-shopping, Beer-Swilling, Mall-trolling, Fox-News-believing, worker-bee, Drone-peasant status.


For You: Trip To Cardiovascular Surgeon You Can't Afford
Is Not Included

The Hamptons are an area that encompasses the eastern end of New York's Long Island, and above that, across the Long Island Sound, the south shore of Connecticut. It's a fabled place of summer fun for the wealthy, and a tradition for the East Coast's Hereditary (and Noveau) Rich -- just like Taking That Second Job, and Wondering How To Tell The Kids We're Losing Our Home are for the rest of us.

The actual Wealthy -- Old-Money Bluebloods and the Mega-Noveau Riche Hedge Fund Managers, Pop-Rock Starz Of The Moment, and Hollywood Mega-producers -- own homes there. There are no McMansions for these people,who manage the architects and designers they hire, and are concerned with "getting it right". They don't have to live within a construction budget imposed on them by a loan officer, and don't have to (Ca-Ching!) refinance to upgrade. They can afford what they want, right away.


The Bright Spot: Global Warming's Rising Sea Levels Will Put
All These Places Underwater In The Next Few Decades, Or Sooner

The less (but still respectably) rich who can't afford a Second Residence (not yet; but we have hopes for them; yes, we do) can lease a home in the area for the three-month Season (for some high-end properties, the cost is over $100K per month), then return to their co-op apartments in the West Seventies or trendy lofts in Soho and TriBeca.


Rich Hamptons Girlz, Partying With Their Kind Until Dawn

And, Barry is there, in the thick of it all. He blogs about it -- as much to proudly announce Je sui Arriveste!, as to report the season's activity an indicator that America's Elders and Betters have started 'living large' once again. The fear of appearing to be too conspicuous in their consumption -- of being heard to grunt too loudly at the trough -- seems to have abated since the 'unpleasantness' of 2008.

Out here in the playground of the rich and famous [Barry tells us], the schism between the two Americas is about as clear as one can ever see.

[Please Note: The photos below are not part of Ritzholtz' blog post. They, and their captions, are part of Before Nine and added as visual counterpoints.]

The slowing economic growth may be what most people are focusing on, but the brutally apparent trend here is on luxe spending. Conspicuous consumption may have had its setbacks the past few years, but it's on full display out here.


For Them: So Pretty, And Softshell Crabs A La Stone Creek;
And, The Best Cardiovascular Surgeons Money Can Buy

We went to several very nice, quite pricey restaurants. In Quogue, the Stone Creek Inn on Tuesday night at 8:30 was jammed. The parking lot was a teenage boy’s wet dream: Bentley GTs, Maserati Quattroportes, Ferrari SuperAmerica (dude, what was with that ugly gray?). Out here, 911s are de rigeur, and MB S550s are cars you give the nannies; they all get parked in the back. The restaurant was filled with beautiful people wearing designer clothes, oodles of jewelry (middle aged white guys should never use the word bling).

Oh, and way too much plastic surgery — everyone had a kinda surprised look on their faces.



2009 Maserati Quattroporte (Top); 2009 Bentley Continental
GT (Bottom); Barely Legal Mistresses, Always Optional

On Wednesday night, Starr Boggs in Westhampton Beach was jammed. It was a different crowd — more family, less “fabulousness.” Perhaps it had something to do with their prix fixe only menu (Sun, Tue, Wed) — both joints are 5 stars, but Starr Boggs cost about half of Stone Creek, where I didn’t get the sense that anyone ordered from the prix fixe menu.

...I found it particularly notable that the mid-line restaurants were only half filled; the action was all higher end places...

At East End Jet Ski, the girl who worked there said they had been reasonably busy. BTW, if you are thinking about dropping $5,000 on a waverunner, spend $75. Its great fun for a half hour, but I am less sure I would want to spend a summer on one . . .

Regardless, whatever disinclination to spend the wealthy may have had in 2008 and early 2009, it has been banished here.

We're defined by our choices and actions. I guess, with all due respect, we choose to invest our lives in what we believe most important -- the wealthy (certainly, those Ritholtz describes) have already done that. It's about, you know -- bread, and butter, and all that.

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Art In The Service Of... Well, Something

A Teaching Moment About Business And Life
(Anthony Meek / Acme Illustrators)

Acme Illustrators (shown via The Big Picture) is a business doing, well, illustration.


Acme Sez, This Ain't 1933: Government Is Not Your Friend

Anthony Freda, the individual who created the Trompe l'oil chalkboard at the top, recently had a show at the Trifecta Gallery in Las Vegas, entitled "Work Makes You Free". I'm not sure whether this is an ironic title or not, but Freda has a good technique.



Much of Acme's current work for publications and websites appears to support the various themes which Business so dearly loves to believe: It's a Hard World; When The Going Gets Tough; If You Can't Stand The Heat; Save Your Pennies (And Give Them All To Us).



As an artist, I can understand doing things necessary to keep the lights on, but I'm always reminded of the work of some Italian and German designers during the mid-1930's, and the beautiful covers of Forbes, the Free Market's brochure magazine during the same period: Great work, but in service of what?

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Just So You Understand

Robert Reich -- former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, former Wall Street Executive and not without his detractors for being too cozy with the Masters Of The Universe -- wrote a column recently which noted that the chances we have begun the second fall of a 'Double-Dip' Recession is very likely.

In June the nation added fewer jobs than necessary merely to keep up with population growth (private hiring rose by 83,000 after adding only 33,000 jobs in May). The typical workweek declined. Average earnings dropped. 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. The states are running an anti-stimulus program (raising taxes, cutting services, laying off teachers, firefighters, police and other employees) that's now bigger than the federal stimulus program. That federal stimulus is 75 percent gone anyway. And the House and Senate refuse to pass another one. (The Senate left Washington for the July 4th weekend without even extending unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans now running out.)

Then, Bob added, Wall Street and the other biggest global banks, meanwhile, are making piles of money betting against government debt all over the world. These were the same banks and financiers, remember, that were bailed out by government not long ago. But now they're demanding fiscal austerity, and politicians are once again doing their bidding - cutting deficits in every rich economy that should now be doing the reverse.

What he's saying is, the same financial institutions which nearly created a Second Great Depression are doing the same thing Goldman-Sachs did: Betting government efforts at Recovery will fail, and the Markets will fall. When they do, huge sums of money -- more money; always more and more -- can be made in both short-selling stocks, and the buying them when their prices drop low enough.

Now, the same financial institutions and global banks are demanding that governments follow policies of austerity -- cut spending, cut support to its citizens; reduce budget deficits. But this isn't prudence, which I could agree with -- it's like keeping medicine from the sick; it's stupid, and benefits only a small number of people. Natürlich; doch immer aber natürlich.

Those same financial institutions and global banks, saved from imploding and closing their doors by U.S. and European government intervention (though the configuration in the EU is a bit different) are creating exactly the climate for markets, and stock prices, to fall, so they can reap future profit, unfortunately by limiting government support and stimulus (jn the form of things like extending unemployment benefits) just when people -- human beings -- most need it.

And in an election year, it's advantageous for the Right to make Democrats appear to be even bigger failures than they are -- right or wrong, accepted wisdom is that a failing economy is always blamed on the Party In Power. A hard choice, to force Americans to suffer; but it's all in the cause of bringing the Republicans back into prominence, so I guess that's okay, then.

This wasn't how the Great Depression was managed. In fact, economists and financial analysts like Reich, Ritholtz and even Paul Krugman are beginning to say that, catastrophic as the Great Depression was, the fact that it was so bad guaranteed enacting a set of banking and financial reforms that limited the greed and manipulation of the Banksters and their buddies which had created the Crash.

What they're saying is, maybe it would have been worth it, to have had a second Great Depression -- just to gain control over the Big Boyz again, and achieve a few more generations of peace. I'm not sure -- but I understand the sentiment that made them say it.

The Bailout kept another Depression from occurring -- but it only pushed the debt which created it a bit further into the future. The Banksters learned nothing. And all this ain't over, in case you haven't guessed.

As Barry Ritholtz noted recently, in the Crash of September and October, 2008, "Banks were not allowed to suffer the fate that all insolvent businesses are supposed to. This was a terrible error, the greatest financial tragedy of the 21st century. That they were allowed to survive mostly intact is the result of the excess influence they have on a corruptible congress and a misguided Federal Reserve."

P.S.

Did you know that over half of all the Federal U.S. currency ever printed and placed in circulation was created since Mr. Bernanke became Cairman of the Federal Reserve? I didn't.

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Youth Conservatives Rage Against The Machine

 

Elena Kagan; First Day Of Confirmation Hearings 

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- At the U.S. Capitol yesterday, some fifty self-described D.C. "youth conservatives" protested against the nomination of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court.

"We're, like, just very upset that this kind of person is, like, going to be on the Supreme Court?" said Britney Hollingsworth, 20, a student at Georgetown University and president of its local chapter of Campus Young Republicans. "I mean, oh-kay; Hell-o?? I mean just, like, you know, look at this person. She's just won't do, at all."

 

Some Of Fifty Young Conservatives, At The Capitol

"Most of these, uh, kind of people, you know?" added Caroline Wilksberry, a 19-year-old Freshman at Brown University, "They just don't represent us, you know, mainstream Americans? I had my driver bring me down here today, you know? Because I saw her [Kagan] on television and just thought, you know, 'Ugh'. I mean, she's so tacky. Plus, she's part of a liberal conspiracy to make us all, just-- " Wilksberry waved one hand in the air -- "like, peasants!"

"Rully, rully true," Hollingsworth said. "I mean, I don't want this Kagan person on my Supreme Court. Let's just, you know, like -- put it right out there, you know? Let's just 'speak truth to power', okay? She's, like, not like Chief Justice Roberts, or Justice Kennedy, or even Justice Scalia or Justice Alito. I mean, they're Catholics and all, but they're on the right side. Kagan's just not, you know, 'batting for the team'."

 

At George Will's House In Georgetown For The Protest After-Party

"Not the actual girls' team, added Wilkesberry. Were the protesters implying that Kagan was gay? "Oh, dear; I wouldn't know about that," Hollingsworth responded. "I think Carrie -- and don't let me, like, put words in your mouth, or anything -- what she means is that Kagan's, like, you know -- like, 'not mainstream'." Then, were they commenting on the fact that Kagan, 50, is Jewish? Both young women responded in the negative.

"That's just so unfair, you know? What an awful question," Hollingsworth said. "We, like, have tons of Jewish friends and stuff. My father's accountant is Jewish; I mean, they're like, fine, okay? I've even been to that thing they have at Easter, which isn't Easter. I was in Tel Aviv -- okay, just to change planes; but, I mean, still." "Me too," added Wilksberry. "I've changed planes there." "Was that when you and Kiki went to Davos?" Hollingsworth asked.

   

Other Youth Conservatives Relax In New York City 

"No, that was that 'Spring Arab Thing'," Wilksberry responded with a giggle. "Anyway -- we just think Kagan is a tacky socalist. They need a lot more spa days -- and Kagan could stand some exercise -- 'Boot camp for you, girl!' And she was the legal-something for Harvard; I know, but it wasn't like she went there, but because they hired her, okay? Hell-o? And she denied the military to do its constitutional duty to serve and protect, you know; or whatever that scandal was that she did. Plus -- oh! oh! Here's something --" 

"I so totally know what you're gonna say!" Hollingsworth added. "Totally," Wilksberry said. "Okay. Okay -- I know, okay; I know a guy at Yale whose family's groundskeeper was, like, some Communist? Or who went to some twelve-step program they have for Communism, or something? And he told this guy I know that he had seen Kagan in, like, Nicaragua or Cuba or someplace, in 1970!!" Wilksberry paused, smiling. "I mean, there you are!" "They should, like, be asking her about that in there," Hollingsworth said, pointing in the general direction of the Capitol.

   

Steven Prescott Kingsford VI, Near The National Mall

When it was pointed out that Kagan would have been nine years old in 1970, the two women, and a number of other Youth Conservatives in earshot, gave hoots of derision. "Hoot! Hoot! That's the liberal media for you," said Steven Prescott Kingsford the Sixth, a Sophomore at Princeton. "If you do an analysis of every legal interpretation Kagan has ever made, you can see she quotes radical extremists and Communists. And if things go much further this way in America, I guess we'll just have to hire a bunch of these fundamentalists to run things for a while and get people like Kagan off our backs."

"Hoot!" added Edward Biddle Barrows, who accompanied Kingsford from Princeton, where both are on the university's Lacrosse team. "The ladies here," Barrows said, gesturing at Hollingsworth and Wilksberry, "Are perhaps too polite to say; but, Kagan just doesn't measure up to service on the high court. Not in any way."

   

Barrows, And Friends, In George Will's Basement At The Protest After-Party

"It's like promoting your cook to become your business manager," Hollingsworth said. "Not that such people like that can't, you know -- whip up one hell of a meal on short notice. But to do an investment analysis, or make a decision involving, like, you know -- big stuff? Well, they're just not up to it." Flipping her blonde hair fetchingly, Hollingsworth smiled. "Kagan should just realize her limitations." "When you have to hire persons," Kingsford added, "they have to be adequately trained; have some seasoning. They have to be -- the right sort. Kagan isn't; not trained, not seasoned, and not right."

"That is so right on," Wilkesberry said. "I'm not going to stand by and watch the interests of people who matter in this country be compromised by a woman who dresses like a Sunday school teacher in Bar Harbor."

 

"Decide Between Buying 200,000 Forested Acres In Western Canada,

And Investing In Bonds? Above Her Pay Grade!"

"Sweetie, she couldn't teach Sunday school," Holligsworth responded, and the party of Youth Conservatives laughed before going off, as they noted, "for cocktails". A protest after-party was held at George Will's Georgetown home, where the Youth mingled with the likes of Will, Red State's Erik Erikson, newly-married Megan McArdle (trailed by son, Megalon, and his wranglers), and a special-surprise guest appearance by Charles Krauthammer's hair colorist. 

Kagan completed her questioning by Senators as to her qualifications for a position in helping to shape the legal basis for American society. Red State later claimed Kagan had been seen buying a book on Marxist political theory in the "Gay and Lesbian" interest section of a local McBorders. In fairness, it should be pointed out that Red State also believes Jonah Goldberg's tome, Liberal Fascism, is as important a book as Rand's The Fountainhead, or the two metric tons of Ezra Pound's unpublished anti-Semitic writings.

 

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Move Along; Nothing To See Here

Cartoon By Mr Fish (Harper's Magazine Online, August 7, 2009)

MSNBC's Economics reporter Dylan Ratigan occasionally posts at The Big Picture, the market / financial blog operated by Barry Ritholtz.

Ratigan effectively stood beside the shiny, new Financial 'Reform' legislation and lifted his hind leg in an Op-Ed piece on Ritholtz' blog, entitled "Wall Street Reform: Politicians Lie, Media Applauds, America Suffers":

It means that the same people who brought you these horrible changes — rising wealth discrepancy, massive unemployment and a crumbling infrastructure – have now further institutionalized the policies that will keep the causes of these problems firmly in place.

Meanwhile, all involved in the facade try to pretend that this should be considered a success because, gosh, real financial reform is just too hard and those crafty banksters will just outsmart us anyhow... Real and lasting financial reform is actually quite easy to implement — and the last time we had a crisis of this magnitude, we kept the banksters in check for 70 years.

And I believe as we head towards election time with leaders whose only plan for creating new jobs is a few more workers manicuring soon-to-be even bigger Bankster bonus-fueled estates coupled with a few more government handouts, this lesson will be learned once again.

At the same time, Economist Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times that the central bankers of today are getting it terribly wrong -- and that the result will be to drag out the legacy of the Go-Go, 'Lil' Boots' Bush years (i.e., the slow destruction of what's left of America's Middle Class) for another decade.

In 2008 and 2009, it seemed as if we might have learned from history. Unlike their predecessors, who raised interest rates in the face of financial crisis, the current leaders of the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank slashed rates and moved to support credit markets. Unlike governments of the past, which tried to balance budgets in the face of a plunging economy, today’s governments allowed deficits to rise. And better policies helped the world avoid complete collapse: the recession brought on by the financial crisis arguably ended last summer.

But future historians will tell us that this wasn’t the end of the third depression, just as the business upturn that began in 1933 wasn’t the end of the Great Depression. After all, unemployment — especially long-term unemployment — remains at levels that would have been considered catastrophic not long ago, and shows no sign of coming down rapidly. And both the United States and Europe are well on their way toward Japan-style deflationary traps.

In the face of this grim picture, you might have expected policy makers to realize that they haven’t yet done enough to promote recovery. But no: over the last few months there has been a stunning resurgence of hard-money and balanced-budget orthodoxy.

Krugman noted in another column this past Friday that central bankers and conservative politicians (primarily in Britain and Germany), determined to create long-term stability by reducing budget deficits, to cut government spending and to reduce stimulus to their economies; are short-sighted and foolish.

...So saying that we need to focus on the long term, and not worry our little heads about trivial short-term issues like the highest long-term unemployment rate since the Great Depression, may sound like wisdom — but it’s actually folly...

[John Maynard] Keynes had it right:

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that, when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.

The future will probably be composed of (1) high unemployment; (2) home prices continuing to decline as their value "resets"; (2) tight credit; (5) wages are flat for those who have jobs -- expect 2-3% increases at best for up to ten years.

And, unless no one notices, in the wake of financial uncertainty, no money to spend on public projects to replace infrastructure, climate-related shortages in power and water, comes political instability -- abroad, certainly, but here in America as well.

And when the gap between those who did so well, and those who continue to suffer is large enough, there's a lot that can happen.

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Just Change The Channel

2.5 Million Gallons Of Oil Per Day

An undersea robot, operated by British Petroleum and doing Things, "bumped" into the cap which BP had (very expensively) placed over their broken, gushing oil leak a mile below the surface of the Gulf Of Mexico, knocking the cap all higgeldy-piggeldy.

Before the cap was placed, the open pipe was allowing 2.5 million gallons of crude oil (that's 45,456 barrels per day at 55 gallons per barrel -- c'mon, people; do the math) under extreme pressure, its source being more than six miles below the surface of the ocean, to pour into the Gulf.

After the cap had been placed some two weeks ago, the device allowed BP to siphon off some of that 45,000 barrels, but not a great deal -- the flow of oil into the ocean was cut by about a third.

Now, we're back to 2.5 million gallons per day, again. But that's not the horrific part.


Obligatory Leavening Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Oil Rant

The Horror is that in America's last remaining flagship newspaper, the New York Times, this little set of factoids doesn't even rate a headline. It's buried in the back pages of their online edition. In the business section.

Most comments made by media, political or environmental figures about this disaster that I've read or heard tell us that the full costs and effects of this "spill" may not be known for decades. Meanwhile, for teevee and print media, and everyone who doesn't live on The Gulf, it's all part of the daily landscape now, and can be ignored: Yep; oil's still gushin' out down there; oh, well -- hey; looky here -- I can buy a box set of 'MacGuyver' DVDs now...


Nine Out Of Ten Gorts Say, Your Civilization's Priorities Suck --
And The Tenth Gort Wants To Reduce Earth To Radioactive Slag

Just because it isn't a pair of collapsing skyscrapers or an alien spacecraft landing on the Washington Mall doesn't mean it should be buried below the fold with advertisements for hemorrhoid treatment creams.

But, I'm only a Dog, and no one listens to me.

UPDATE: BP now says that the robot "bumped" a vent on the cap, and that the cap itself had to be removed to effect repairs. The cap has now been replaced and is again diverting a few less gallons more oil.

Well, then everything's all right. Whew. I thought for a moment we had a real crisis on our hands.

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Random Barking

Bark Bark Bark Bark. Bark Bark.

In case it's escaped your notice, the intent of efforts dealing with the worldwide financial crisis have not been to solve the situation, only to shuffle debt, forestall a kind of mathematical inevitability, and slow the fall.

This isn't entirely a criticism. You wouldn't like the kind of sudden, precipitous collapse we think of when when imagining the 1929 Crash of the U.S. stock market; America would look a great deal like rural Bulgaria a few months after that. It's human nature -- no one really wants to live in a Yurt and watch children play with toys made of dried animal dung.

However, if you actually look at what American and European financial mavens are doing, it amounts only to arresting the speed of the drop, because the underlying problem which created all this -- a gigantic bubble of debt, built right here in the USA -- is still there.

And frankly, having a pause, a slower rate of fall, is beneficial to those who have, more than those who do not -- because, bless their big peasant hearts, they don't have the exposure that the wealthy do. There's much less cushion between those who don't, and the hard asphalt of the street. They just don't have the headaches that come with ownership and wealth; they couldn't be expected to understand all of that.

However, it isn't a conspiracy. Businesses and financial institutions want to put off the day of reckoning as long as possible, as they frantically search for someplace to dump the debt, or slowly transfer it from corporations and banks to governments without anyone noticing.

And, naturally, those with money and property will take advantage of the pause to arrange their portfolios in anticipation of... whatever comes next.

No one knows precisely how much debt is hiding out there; some estimates are $50 to 60 Trillion Dollars. But, it's all bad paper owned by financial institutions, pension funds and banks -- investments with a claimed valuation hundreds of per cent more than they're worth. The banks can't admit how worthless they are, or allow them to be properly valued, because -- here, and in Europe -- those banks would fail almost instantaneously. Bang.

In America, $1.53 Trillion of that debt bubble has been transferred to the government, meaning the People. Some of the liability of the Banksters was transferred, deferred, and made to disappear. If you watch enough commercial teevee, the advertisements for cars and clothes and travel and The Good Life Waiting For Us All are supposed to soothe and convince most people that "everything's the same as it always was". Only, it isn't.

European banks, who were just as greedy and short-sighted as their American counterparts, can't do what they did. The debt bubble is still sitting on their books; it can't be transferred to the governments of a half-dozen countries as it was in the U.S. Those same half-dozen countries also spent themselves silly during the Go-Go, Lil' Boots Bush years, too -- Greece, Spain and Ireland are good examples.

The plan of the European banks and governments is to transfer the pain to their citizens: Austerity, slashing budgets; everyone will have to get along with less -- fewer police, fewer teachers; lower pay for public-sector jobs; more "Privatization" and more Opportunities For Speculators and Foreigners Business. No more month-long vacations and good retirement income, fewer health benefits and public welfare.

And, the Europeans blame us... and they have a point.

At some point, Fate will bring us The Check -- probably in the form of a threat from the Chinese, or a financial crisis in some country like Bulgaria or Monaco which threatens to unravel the entire global banking system. A little like waiting for Franz Ferdinand's assassination to trigger a general European war: Some Damn Thing In The Balkans.

I recommend buying your wheelbarrows now, to transport bales of currency in, because the Hyperinflation accompanying a value collapse (this whole crisis is about value, you see) will make Germany in the Winter of 1922 look like a Debutante's Ball.

Think of Our Current Life as a bit like the Cold War -- Americans and Russians, aiming hundreds of missiles with nuclear warheads at each other, and the rest of the world. A brushfire war in one spot could end up triggering a Global Thermonuclear Exchange, and then we all end up living in radioactive Yurts watching mutant children play with toys made from old currency.

I'm starting to sound like a Leftist Glenn Beck, so I'll stop here before I begin barking wildly about giving money to a gold brokerage company.

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Alan Furst: A Kind Redux

Author Alan Furst is about to release his newest novel of espionage on the cusp of the Second World War, The Spies Of The Balkans. He will be appearing at The Bookstore, a block or so from the West Portal Muni station in San Francisco, at 7:00PM on Tuesday, June 22nd.

I'll be there, to listen to the man read an excerpt, buy the book and have it autographed. I hope they allow reading Dogs.

I'm doing something now that I don't like to do, which is repost an earlier piece from January about Furst and his writing. But I've put in two twelve-hour days, back-to-back, and don't have the energy to do a completely new take on this good writer -- even though I can't think about him without The Story that's included.

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Something about the times we're living through made me remember a scene from one of my favorite Alan Furst novels, The World At Night: In June of 1940, Parisian film producer Jean Casson finds himself remobilized into the army, part of a cinematography unit documenting what ends up as a massive defeat, and on the road walking back to Paris, in that order.

As Casson watched, the country died. He saw a granary looted, a farmhouse burned by men in a truck, a crowd of prisoners in gray behind barbed wire.

One night, he bumps into an old man, drinking something yellow out of a bottle, which he shares around a campfire with Casson. They talk, obliquely, about the coming occupation.

“We’ll all live deep down, now,” the sculptor said, throwing a stick of wood on the fire. “Twenty ways to prepare a crayfish. Or, you know, chess. Sanskrit poetry. It will hurt like hell, sonny, you’ll see.”

Casson has spent his life in the milieu of exclusive, wealthy Parisian society -- not quite Ancien Regime, old-monied nobility, but right next door. He found a niche in film production, made some money at it; but, assigning motive and direction to characters in a script was much simpler than determining where ethical, even moral, boundaries are in his own life.

Casson's story is where he draws those lines, and to what or whom he owes his allegiances. Furst is very good at presenting his character's search, warts and all.


Alan Furst

I admire Furst's writing, and enjoyed World At Night -- and a sequel, Red Gold -- among his ten novels of living in a Europe during the mid-thirties, and espionage, on into the Second World War. I recommend his work without reservation; it's good (You can see an interview with Furst here, talking about his 2008 release, The Spies Of Warsaw).

And, I only have one Alan Furst story: In 2006, with the release of his then-newest novel, The Foreign Correspondent, Furst was scheduled to do make a brief appearance at Stacey's Bookstore, an institution on Market Street since the 1930's; it closed in 2008, a victim of The Crash.

He appeared on the second floor at the back, with windows overlooking the street and a perspective that reminded me of a narrow Gustave Callibote painting of a Paris street seen from a second-floor balcony (the trunk of a tree; a circular iron grate around its base; a glimpse of a pedestrian).

There were thirty or so people there, at one o'clock in the afternoon on a workday in midweek. Furst seemed slightly preoccupied, but read the opening segment of his book easily in a warm contralto. When it was over Furst answered questions, then signed copies of the book.

Stepping up, I mentioned to Furst that I'd particularly enjoyed The World At Night, and the sequel, and particularly liked the Jean Casson character; would he make any other appearances in another book?

Furst took my copy of Foreign Correspondent and looked at me as if stung. "No!" he said, with emphasis. "I had a bad relationship with my publisher at the time, and was locked into a contract. They 'suggested' to me that I write a sequel with Casson in it, and that's why I wrote Red Gold, under protest. It wasn't a happy experience for me."

I was surprised at his response, but added quickly that even so, it was a good read; I'd enjoyed it. Furst, who had bent down over a table to sign my copy of his newest, remained in that position and turned his head to look up at me.

"Thank you; that's very kind," he said quietly, then turned his head back to my copy of the book, and signed it.

Ever since then, when I've wanted to say Hey, pal; know what? You're an idiot to someone without being so blunt, I use that line -- a soft emphasis on the word 'kind', which indicates the comment is anything but sincere, and an assumption that the listener is too ignorant to comprehend the subtlety of the insult -- or, not; in which case the point is made, anyway.

But, fortunately or unfortunately, I don't have to spend time with Furst; I just buy and read his books. He's a good, even gifted, writer; his evocation of Europe on the edge of the abyss of nazi domination and occupation, and of people who resisted it, is brilliant.

Here's a tip: You can find good, used copies in hardback or paperback of any of Furst's work, some even signed if that's your thing, by ordering them through Alibris.com, or ABEbooks.

These bookselling services list inventory held by secondhand booksellers, who were having a hard time competing with McBorders or Burned & Ignoble even before the economy tanked. Want to buy books? Use either or both of these services. You'll wait a few days -- it won't be instant gratification -- but it's worth it.

Of course, Alan won't receive a dime from these sales -- but the secondhand booksellers of America will; I'm really fine with that. And, isn't that gesture, well... kind?

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