Neither of the main Western models has much political credit at the moment. European social democracy promised voters benefits that societies can no longer afford. The Anglo-Saxon model claimed that free markets would create prosperity; many voters feel instead that they got a series of debt-fuelled asset bubbles and an economy that was rigged in favour of a financial elite, who took all the proceeds in the good times and then left everybody else with no alternative other than to bail them out.

Capitalism and its critics: Rage against the machine | The Economist

I enjoyed the rant here as well as some of the attached comments.

You'll notice that a lot of Gen Xer's latched onto bullshit schools of thought over the years, like becoming "South Park Republicans" years
ago, or Ron Paul retard libertarians or 911 twoofers today. You've got
former underground Gen X types like Jim Goad and Peter Bagge shilling
for the likes of Reason magazine. Seems Gen Xers just keep looking for ways to
fool themselves into thinking that really regressive ideas or sucking it up and taking it are somehow statements of individuality when in fact they are utterly conventional, and do nothing to challenge anything. But god forbid they get called hippies.

Emptyage — Generation X Doesn't Want to Hear It

The Iraqi government is to launch a new investigation into one of the most controversial incidents of the Iraq war, after the release of a diplomatic cable alleging that US soldiers handcuffed and executed women and children during a 2006 raid.

The troops were also accused of calling in an air strike to destroy evidence.

As a consequence of this revelation, Iraq refused to allow US Troops stationed there to be immune from Iraqi judicial processes. Therefore, the US made a decision to pull out of the country.

I don't know where to begin with this...

WikiLeaks leads to US withdrawl from Iraq

If you have any doubt that Bank of America is in trouble, this development should settle it.

If BofA fails, its going to be a major economic event.

Bank of America Deathwatch: Moves Risky Derivatives from Holding Company to Taxpayer-Backstopped Depository « naked capitalism

This quote made me laugh out loud:

Oddly, despite the recent rise of the libertarian-leaning Tea Party faction of the Republican Party, no Republican has decided publicly that privacy protection of Americans’ online communications is a winning issue.

Given that the "Tea Party" is supposedly supported by "Libertarians" concerned with individual freedom, and that a number of "Tea Party" supported candidates are in office from around the country, you'd think that "Tea Party" candidates would support clear cut individual liberty issues like the proper extension of warrant requirements to data in the cloud. This is really a no-brainer, as the article lays out:

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act was adopted at a time when e-mail, for example, wasn’t stored on servers for a long time. Instead it was held there briefly on its way to the recipient’s inbox. E-mail more than 6 months old was assumed abandoned, and that’s why the law allowed the government to get it...

But technology has evolved, and e-mail often remains stored on cloud servers indefinitely, in gigabytes upon gigabytes — meaning the authorities may access it without warrants if it’s older than six months...

Leahy’s measure, among other things, would require court warrants to obtain all that cloud data.

Either:
1. The "Tea Party" pays lip service to Libertarian views but doesn't actually support them when push comes to shove.
2. "Libertarians" don't really support individual liberty like they say they do - they really only care about money - low taxes, not personal freedom.

You can talk all you want about how you support individual liberty, but when push comes to shove, if you are not willing to take action, you are not what you say you are.

No GOP Senator Supports Bill to Protect Cloud E-Mail Privacy | Threat Level | Wired.com

17223 users on the wall
17223 users
take 50 spammers down
delete their accounts
17173 users on the wall

MemeStreams now requires a New User Password in order to create an account. If you want the NUP, and you know me, ask, and I'll give it to you.

Although it isn't visible to most users, MemeStreams is flooded with thousands of spam related accounts every day. New users who join have little chance of being noticed by the community because their posts are drowned in a flood of spam. As a consequence, MemeStreams hasn't been growing in a long time.

I think that spam is an important element in the development of social networking sites. MySpace faded from the limelight because Facebook was better protected from spam and scams. On Facebook, you only get messaged by your friends. Not businesses that you may or may not have a relationship with. Facebook has not just killed off MySpace - it has killed off personal email, too. My personal email is now mostly mailing lists and messages from companies that I do business with. Recently, Google+ came on the scene, but it hasn't resonated with users. I suspect that the lack of a feature for privately messaging people is part of the problem. You're supposed to use Gmail, and Gmail has spam.

Spam has certainly had a negative impact on MemeStreams. Putting an NUP in place is the first step toward taking control of this community. Once the spam is totally cleaned out, we'll be able to move toward inviting people who we want to participate and who have an interest in participating.

OK, lets say you bought a house for 200,000. You paid 80% LTV so your mortgage is $160,000.

Nearly 15 million homeowners owe more than their homes are worth; in this group, about half the mortgages exceed the home value by more than 30 percent.

If your mortgage now exceeds your home value by more that 30 percent, your home is worth, at most, $123,000. Its probably worth a lot less then that because you've probably been paying mortgage payments for several years and you're still 30 percent down, but lets stick with the best case scenario.

The hole is $77,000. If you can do a non-recourse foreclosure, you are out $40,000 and the bank is out $37,000.

$40,000 is the most you could ever be out on this home.

Now lets enact the Feldstein plan:

If the bank or other mortgage holder agrees, the value of the mortgage would be reduced to 110 percent of the home value, with the government absorbing half of the cost of the reduction and the bank absorbing the other half.

We're going to bring the mortgage down to $135,000. This costs $25,000.

The bank is out $12,500.
The government is out $12,500.

Now, you sell the house.

You are out $52,000.

$40,000 is the down payment you've already lost, and the other $12,000 is the difference between the mortgage value and the price of the house. (There is a lot of other principal that you also loose that I'm not accounting for here.)

Thats the best case scenario. If the value of the home drops further, you'll owe more. There is no limit to the amount you could owe.

So, lets recap:

Taxpayer looses $12,500 - a total of $350 billion.
Homeowner looses at least $12,000 - possibly more.
The Bank wins - they save $24,500 and their total losses are capped at $12,500!

In other words, as I said this morning, its a massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers and homeowners to the banks. It is extremely negative for homeowners. Feldstein argues that the whole program ought to be voluntary. I can't see any reason why a homeowner would agree to this.

Was this floated as a joke?

RE: How to Stop the Drop in Home Values - NYTimes.com

To halt the fall in house prices, the government should reduce mortgage principal when it exceeds 110 percent of the home value. About 11 million of the nearly 15 million homes that are “underwater” are in this category. If everyone eligible participated, the one-time cost would be under $350 billion.

$350 billion is a lot of money. Although programs like TARP were larger, much of the money was repaid. This won't be repaid. Thats only the first problem with this plan.

If the bank or other mortgage holder agrees, the value of the mortgage would be reduced to 110 percent of the home value, with the government absorbing half of the cost of the reduction and the bank absorbing the other half.

And in exchange for this reduction in principal, the borrower would have to accept that the new mortgage had full recourse — in other words, the government could go after the borrower’s other assets if he defaulted on the home.

This plan is fair because both borrowers and creditors would make sacrifices.

This isn't really fair.

Typically, ones mortgage starts at 80 percent of the value of one's home.

By the time your mortgage is, lets say, 130 percent of the value of the home, you're in the hole by 50 percent.

Right now if you walk away and its a non recourse loan, you are out 20%, and the bank is out 30%.

The most you can ever be out right now is 20%.

Under this plan, they are offering to reduce the size of the hole, from 50 percent, to 30 percent.

The bank picks up 10% and the government picks up 10%. In exchange for this "deal," you agree that the loan becomes a recourse loan.

You are still in the hole by 30%.

If you walk, you are out all 30%. The bank is out 10%. And the government is out 10%.

In other words, the bank benefits from tax payer's largess and things get worse for the homeowner.

Furthermore, if this doesn't work, and the home value continues to drop, there is no limit to how much you can loose.

I'll bet a bunch of fat cats in Manhattan are laughing their assess off about this plan.

(There is some error in this analysis because these percentages aren't all relative to the same amounts, but I think its minor and I will update with accurate figures later.)

How to Stop the Drop in Home Values - NYTimes.com

Computer scientist Dennis Ritchie is reported to have died at his home this past weekend, after a long battle against an unspecified illness. No further details are available at the time of this blog post.

Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011: Computer scientist, Unix co-creator, C programming language co-inventor – Boing Boing