TGIF – Sell in March and Go Away?

Also, Chelsea and Beau Biden were in response to betting who will be President in 2032.  Since there are hundreds of possibilities and a historical inclination for families to repeat in politics, they were the two that came to mind with a slightly higher than average possibility of making the cut.  

Berkshire I have to go through tomorrow, always like to read what Warren is thinking. 

History by HG Wells is a great one I forgot about, the perspective of reading what one of the World's most intelligent and well-read man of 1922 thought about the World at the time is incredible:

THE STORY of our world is a story that is still very imperfectly known. A couple of hundred years ago men possessed the history of little more than the last three thousand years. What happened before that time was a matter of legend and speculation. Over a large part of the civilized world it was believed and taught that the world had been created suddenly in 4004B.C., though authorities differed as to whether this had occurred in the spring or autumn of that year. This fantastically precise misconception was based upon a too literal interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, and upon rather arbitrary theological assumptions connected therewith. Such ideas have long since been abandoned by religious teachers, and it is universally recognized that the universe in which we live has to all appearances existed for an enormous period of time and possibly for endless time. Of course there may be deception in these appearances, as a room may be made to seem endless by putting mirrors facing each other at either end. But that the universe in which we live has existed only for six or seven thousand years may be regarded as an altogether exploded idea.

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… The United States have taken the railway, the river steamboat, the telegraph and so forth as though they were a natural part of their growth. They were not. These things happened to come along just in time to save American unity. The United States of to-day were made first by the river steamboat, and then by the railway. Without these things, the present United States, this vast continental nation, would have been altogether impossible. The westward flow of population would have been far more sluggish. It might never have crossed the great central plains. It took nearly two hundred years for effective settlement to reach from the coast to Missouri, much less than halfway across the continent. The first state established beyond the river was the steamboat state of Missouri in 1821. But the rest of the distance to the Pacific was done in a few decades.

If we had the resources of the cinema it would be interesting to show a map of North America year by year from 1600 onward, with little dots to represent hundreds of people, each dot a hundred, and stars to represent cities of a hundred thousand people.

For two hundred years the reader would see that stippling creeping slowly along the coastal districts and navigable waters, spreading still more gradually into Indiana, Kentucky and so forth. Then somewhere about 1810 would come a change. Things would get more lively along the river courses. The dots would be multiplying and spreading. That would be the steamboat. The pioneer dots would be spreading soon over Kansas and Nebraska from a number of jumping-off places along the great rivers….

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… Such were the overpowering expectations that President Wilson raised. How completely he disappointed them and how weak and futile was the League of Nations he made is too long and too distressful a story to tell here. He exaggerated in his person our common human tragedy, he was so very great in his dreams and so incapable in his performance. America dissented from the acts of its President and would not join the League Europe accepted from him. There was a slow realization on the part of the American people that it had been rushed into something for which it was totally unprepared. There was a corresponding realization on the part of Europe that America had nothing ready to give to the old world in its extremity. Born prematurely and crippled at its birth, that League has become indeed, with its elaborate and unpractical constitution and its manifest limitations of power, a serious obstacle in the way of any effective reorganization of international relationships. The problem would be a clearer one if the League did not yet exist. Yet that world-wide blaze of enthusiasm that first welcomed the project, that readiness of men everywhere round and about the earth, of men, that is, as distinguished from governments, for a world control of war, is a thing to be recorded with emphasis in any history. Behind the short-sighted governments that divide and mismanage human affairs, a real force for world unity and world order exists and grows.

Wells wanted his headstone to read "I told you so, you damned fools" but he was cremated so I think I'll be using that one when I go…

Good morning!

Trillions/Jabob – Wow!  That's what I thought might happen from the G20 but, since it's on CNBC and not the WSJ yet, I don't know if we should believe it yet.

Kidding/Newbie – Yes, humor is a difficult thing in a multi-cultural environment where no one can see you smile.  Let's certainly not make fun of other Members – for any reason – except Cap and Flips, of course.  

Programming/Monkey Boy – I'm never offended but I may become indignant, which all goes back to my general proclivity to think more of the commoners than you seem to.  The ends are only limited by our vision and you can choose to have a narrow and dismal one or an expansive and positive one and you need to choose your leaders well because their vision will determine which path we take.  If you only believe our race is capable of low social achievements with a tendency to regress, then you can excuse all sorts of awful behavior towards the cowering masses who do nothing but hold you and the other "special" people back.  If on the other hand, you believe that anyone is capable of success if you give them the right motivation and opportunity, then you have an obligation to be a better person yourself – so sure, I forgive you for your view of our "most probable path" as you are just as weak as those you choose to look down on.  As the saying goes – "Whether you think you can or think you can't – you'll probably be right."  I'm glad you had a chance to express yourself in life (and the fact that you take it seriously when I say I guess you missed the 60s speaks volumes on it's own) and I guess you want me to be proud of how you have evolved to the point where you deny that opportunity to others because, obviously, they could never benefit from the opportunities you've had because YOU ARE SPECIAL!  

Clinton/Roro – Oh give me a break on that one.  Do people EVER check the facts or do we just believe whatever crap they repeat on Fox 10 times?

 

The bill that ultimately "repealed" the Act was brought up in the Senate by Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and in the House of Representatives by Jim Leach (R-Iowa) in 1999. The bills were passed by a Republican majority, basically following party lines by a 54–44 vote in the Senate^[15] and by a bi-partisan 343–86 vote in the House of Representatives.^[16] After passing both the Senate and House the bill was moved to a conference committee to work out the differences between the Senate and House versions. The final bill resolving the differences was passed in the Senate 90–8 (one not voting) and in the House: 362–57 (15 not voting). The legislation was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 12, 1999.^[17]

In reality, the repeal involved only one provision of the Act, the one preventing the same holding company from controlling both a commercial bank and an investment bank.^[18] Proponents argue that repealing this provision had little impact on the financial system and even helped restore stability during the financial crisis.^[18][19][20] Ten years later, detractors condemned the partial repeal for reestablishing conflict of interest within the financial industry and fostering "too big to fail" institutions that led to the housing market collapse and its associated financial crisis.^[21]

The banking industry had been seeking the repeal of Glass–Steagall since at least the 1980s. In 1987, the Congressional Research Service prepared a report which explored the cases for and against preserving the Glass–Steagall act.^[14]

What was Clinton supposed to do – veto it for show against an overwhelming majority vote?  This is the "smoking gun" on which the Conservatives seek to hang the blame for the entire Financial Crisis on Bill Clinton, even though "no one saw it coming" until 2008 – 7 years after he left office.

Good one from the Daily show: 

My, my Roro – so you got the slanted news from another source.  You have my humblest apologies and it's totally legitimate for you to ignore the circumstances of Clinton's involvement and pin the blame for the Bush catastrophe on him as he did happen to be President 8 years earlier (during the greatest economic boom of our time) and we'll also ignore the fact that he last major Financial collapse occurred under Bush's Daddy.  I don't give a crap about your personal political leanings – I care about an even-handed discourse on this site so when you put up 4 or 5 paragraphs of anti-Clinton propaganda that USUALLY comes direct from the source at Fox, forgive me for not realizing it trickled down to whatever source you do rely on.  It's hard to tell as you don't use links to cite your sources but "muzzlers of Brooksley" has really made the rounds in Mirror On America, The Seattle Times, Economic Blog, BizJournals, Automatic Earth, etc.  

What do you want me to do – defend Clinton?  That's kind of pointless as his achievements were spectacular and if you don't think he was a good President, especially in light of comparison to the one before and the two after him – then, no matter how "open" you are to a real discussion – I very much doubt there is anything I will be able to say to change your mind.  It's interesting that you feel I'm trying to "label" you when all I did was disagree with your premise and cite a fact about the repeal of Glass Steagall, which was the entire premise of your attack on Clinton and outrageous conclusion that he did "more to serve the interests of the top 1% than any Democrat or Republican ever did."  Sorry but this is my site and if you want to write things that are completely ridiculous then you can expect to have them challenged.  

1999 NYTimes article on Glass Steagall:

The measure, considered by many the most important banking legislation in 66 years, was approved in the Senate by a vote of 90 to 8 and in the House tonight by 362 to 57. The bill will now be sent to the president, who is expected to sign it, aides said. It would become one of the most significant achievements this year by the White House and the Republicans leading the 106th Congress.

 

Administration officials and many Republicans and Democrats said the measure would save consumers billions of dollars and was necessary to keep up with trends in both domestic and international banking. Some institutions, like Citigroup, already have banking, insurance and securities arms but could have been forced to divest their insurance underwriting under existing law. Many foreign banks already enjoy the ability to enter the securities and insurance industries.

''The world changes, and we have to change with it,'' said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who wrote the law that will bear his name along with the two other main Republican sponsors, Representative Jim Leach of Iowa and Representative Thomas J. Bliley Jr. of Virginia. ''We have a new century coming, and we have an opportunity to dominate that century the same way we dominated this century. Glass-Steagall, in the midst of the Great Depression, came at a time when the thinking was that the government was the answer. In this era of economic prosperity, we have decided that freedom is the answer.''

 

The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.

''I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010,'' said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ''I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.''

Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ''seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.''

''Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,'' Mr. Wellstone said. ''Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.''

Oil/Burr – It's very interesting because they pick and choose which facts to focus on to excuse prices.  First of all, they ignore WTIC as what should be a mitigating factor on US prices out of hand.   According to this logic, gasoline in Saudi Arabia should be $4 per gallon, not $1 because they should pay the prevailing Brent rate – ignoring the fact that they have a strong local supply.  2nd of all, "Global Oil Demand Growth has Rebounded" shows nothing of the sort, we "grew" after a decline and that growth has dropped to near zero anyway.

Then they use 3 troubled countries with declining production vs what is still 3Mbd of OPEC spare capacity.  I have no idea where the OECD Inventories chart comes from, we're certainly not seeing that in the US but, again, OCED inventories are about 7Bn barrels so down 75M, even if correct, is 1%. 

Notice that the claims "demand is booming in Asia and the Former Soviet Union" have no charts, no figures, no statistics.  Why is that?  Inventories are low?  What???  That's obviously not true in the US and here's the best supply and demand charts I can find (they don't have an OECD inventory and I can't find one either, which is strange):    

How about the fact that our US Energy Cartel has removed as much refinery capacity voluntarily as we lost in Katrina at this point?  

Reagan/JMM – He has better PR people than Jefferson, who was the victim of a recent smear campaign to taint him as the father of illegitimate children.  That's because you can't have people revering Jefferson, who spent his life fighting against the very Kleptocracy this nation has become.  

Dollar/Lincoln – Yes but you have to view it in it's own little vacuum.  KO makes $100 Euros overseas and reports $134 Dollars in earnings, up from $128 last quarter (4.6%) and their PE remains the same and the stock goes up 4.6% but now you have to buy the stock with your devalued Dollars in competition with people who are buying them in Euros and see their reported (in Dollar) earnings go up, even thought the price of the stock, from their perspective (priced in Euros), remained the same. You are, in essence, at a buying disadvantage to people in other countries with your weak and unwanted Dollars to be traded for stocks which are, in effect, commodity items themselves.  

Roro/DC – I really don't know, I read it back and can't figure out what triggered it but I've lost interest already.  ZZ also taking it way too personally and I have work to do so done with politics for now.  

Good point Exec but I do think we have to participate a little, even if we think it's an awful idea.  Overall, I'd rather be patient.  

Will your kid be taught that climate change is a hoax?

 

One revelation from the recent Heartland Institute document leak is that the group is crafting a K-12 curriculum to teach kids that global warming is “controversial.” Heartland officials have confirmed this. So is climate change set to join evolution as the next big classroom controversy?

 

Things do seem to be trending that way. Joshua Rosenau spends most of his time defending the teaching of evolution in schools for the National Center for Science Education. But a few years ago, he noticed that the teachers he was doing workshops with were far more interested in learning how to talk about global warming. “They were getting pressure from their own communities, from parents,” Rosenau says. “And they were looking for help on how to deal with this issue.”

 

At the moment, it’s still unclear how frequently spats over climate change actually break out in classrooms. There are some 17,000 school districts around the country, and there’s no set curriculum for climate science. In some states, students might first encounter the topic in middle school; in others, it might show up in high-school earth science, or biology. “The main things we’re looking at right now are state standards and textbooks,” says Rosenau, whose organization is only beginning to gather data on how climate science actually gets taught. But even that’s an imperfect metric — a state-approved textbook might lay out basic climate science clearly, but there’s no guarantee teachers will use it.

 

Now, let’s say a skeptic group like the Heartland Institute wants to stir up doubts about mainstream climate science in the classroom. Could they actually succeed? Heartland’s president, Joseph Bast, recently told the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board that he wants to promote a curriculum that urges teachers to question climate science. “Many kids get to watchAn Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore over and over again and they pass that off as scientific construction,” Bast lamented. (The Heartland Institute did not respond to a request for comment.)

Town near Fukushima: