Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

Month: December 2008 Page 5 of 9

Madoff=Wall Street

Paul Krugman is dead on, here:

Yet surely I’m not the only person to ask the obvious question: How different, really, is Mr. Madoff’s tale from the story of the investment industry as a whole?

The financial services industry has claimed an ever-growing share of the nation’s income over the past generation, making the people who run the industry incredibly rich. Yet, at this point, it looks as if much of the industry has been destroying value, not creating it. And it’s not just a matter of money: the vast riches achieved by those who managed other people’s money have had a corrupting effect on our society as a whole.

[ . . . ]

But surely those financial superstars must have been earning their millions, right? No, not necessarily. The pay system on Wall Street lavishly rewards the appearance of profit, even if that appearance later turns out to have been an illusion.

Consider the hypothetical example of a money manager who leverages up his clients’ money with lots of debt, then invests the bulked-up total in high-yielding but risky assets, such as dubious mortgage-backed securities. For a while — say, as long as a housing bubble continues to inflate — he (it’s almost always a he) will make big profits and receive big bonuses. Then, when the bubble bursts and his investments turn into toxic waste, his investors will lose big — but he’ll keep those bonuses.

O.K., maybe my example wasn’t hypothetical after all.

It’s worth a couple of minutes to read the whole thing (especially the part about the bipartisan corruption).

Update: Naturally, the Madoff investors want a bailout, too.

American Values: Nothing Wrong With Homosexuality Being a Crime

I knew that the Vatican opposed the UN statement calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality, but until Silence’s comment here, I had no idea that the United States apparently couldn’t bring itself to stand along side the civilized world in calling for an end to such idiocy:

Sixty-six countries signed a joint statement in support of LGBT human rights, which was tabled at the United Nations General Assembly today (18 December 2008). The full list follows below.

The most surprising non-signers were the United States and South Africa.

So what, right?  It’s not like it’s a big problem.

“Some international human rights instruments have, of course, been interpreted to include sexual orientation, but this is not the same as the explicit prohibitions that exist concerning discrimination based on race, nationality, gender and so on.

“Currently, 86 countries (nearly half the nations on Earth) still have a total ban on male homosexuality and a smaller number also ban sex between women. The penalties in these countries range from a few years jail to life imprisonment. In at least seven countries or regions of countries (all under Islamist jurisdiction), the sentence is death, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and Pakistan,” said Mr Tatchell.

We should be so proud.

Friday Notes: Cold & Rainy Edition

The bitingly cold part of DC winter came a lot earlier this year.  I blame that, in advance, for my increasingly bitter mood over the next three months.

Majel Barrett, Gene Roddenberry’s wife – and voice of Star Trek ship computers – died yesterday.  I had no idea.  She just finished up the voice work for the upcoming movie a few weeks ago.

~

Here’s another illustration of why South Carolina is one seriously screwed up place that no person should have to live in, voluntarily.  Short version of the story at the link: batshit insane South Carolina state politician thinks he’s entitled to his seat, despite losing the election, and the South Carolina legislature appears to be considering giving it to him.  I am not even half joking when I say we should set up an Underground Railroad system to help kids escape from that whackjob state.
~

Speaking of batshit insane and kids who don’t deserve it, here’s a story about three undercover cops who bumrushed a 12 year old girl on her front lawn, calling her a prostitute and generally manhandling her.  She fought back, of course, and her parents finally got the police to release her.  You know what comes next, right?  The girl is arrested for assaulting a police officer.   Full story and court case (against the police officers) here.   Great job, guys.

~

BoingBoing DDOS’d itself.  Amusing.  (And if that isn’t reason enough to follow the link: more Iraqi Shoe Tosser Animations!)

~

It’s not the most technical of explanations, but this is still a neat walkthrough of how Google Earth images are constructed.

~

We’re coming up on the ten year anniversary of the adoption of the Euro.  Nice summary history of it here, along with a look at the impact of the adoption of the Euro on Ireland.  A few of you will have noticed (quite painfully, in some cases) that the Pound and Euro have been dancing around parity, lately.  I wonder if Brown’s brave enough to change course and move Britain onto the Euro in such a chaotic economic time.

~

James Fallows has a meandering – but quite informative – interview with one of China’s top bankers.  The take away?  “Be nice to the countries that lend you money.”

The Dangerous Decency of Whistleblowing

One of the reasons I’ll never hold a job requiring a security clearance is my strong belief that people like Thomas Tamm are doing the right thing.  When the system itself is corrupt, the doing the right thing sometimes requires you to step outside the system.

What Would This Administration Know About “Conscience”?

The Bush Administration gives civil society the finger one more time, on its way out:

The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health care workers — from doctors to janitors — who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

Why don’t we extend this to police, too? Or the military? Or utility workers? If they don’t like what you’re doing, too bad, no protection/service/electricity for you!

WTF is Wrong With SmartBike DC?

From an email I just received:

Dear SmartBike User:

Due to the presidential inaugural events on January 20, SmartBike service at some stations will not be available for the period of January 16 through January 22. The following stations will be closed:

Foggy Bottom

Farragut Square

McPherson Square

Metro Center

Gallery Place

Judiciary Square

Please visit www.smartbikedc.com for further updates.

We thank you for your understanding and appreciate your cooperation.

Your SmartBike DC Team

No, you really don’t have my understanding.  What in the world requires you to shut down operations for an entire week?  Inauguration Day would be lame enough, but the whole week?  I’d have called and/or emailed to ask Smartbike about this before I posted, but given that they’ve ignored my previous calls and emails, I thought I’d just not waste the time.   It’s a shame that such a valuable operation is so poorly run.

Update: As usual, Washcycle has some useful information.  Looks like WABA is working to secure permission to run a bike valet service come inauguration day.

Keep It Cool

Midweek Makeover: The Beat Remains the Same

Not exactly a cover, tonight.  Or even a traditional mashup (did I just say “traditional mashup?”  Eesh.).  Rather, it’s yet another cultural intersection piece.  The first video is from Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit, and the song is Choli Ke Peeche (What’s Behind that Blouse?):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X4_YZJWWO4[/youtube]

Lyrics here, while you watch.  Seriously, check them out – it’s hot.  It’s about asking what the other will forsake for her, and her desire for him.  Which brings us to the “cover”, the product of some enterprising young person with musical tastes that extend beyond Bollywood:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVMxjaM2YQ&feature=related[/youtube]

I think it works pretty well, no?

Well

that didn’t take long.

(Completely earned, though.  Good to have such a clear example that Obama’s okay with some kinds of bigotry.)

The Threat of the UAW

The Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson has a must-read piece on the United Auto Workers union, and why hating unions holds a hallowed place in Republican ideology:

[B]y the early 1950s, the UAW had secured a number of contractual innovations — annual cost-of-living adjustments, for instance — that set a pattern for the rest of American industry and created the broadly shared prosperity enjoyed by the nation in the 30 years after World War II.

The architects did not stop there. During the Reuther years, the UAW also used its resources to incubate every up-and-coming liberal movement in America. It was the UAW that funded the great 1963 March on Washington and provided the first serious financial backing for César Chávez’s fledgling farm workers union. The union took a lively interest in the birth of a student movement in the early ’60s, providing its conference center in Port Huron, Mich., to a group called Students for a Democratic Society when the group wanted to draft and debate its manifesto. Later that decade, the union provided resources to help the National Organization for Women get off the ground and helped fund the first Earth Day. And for decades after Reuther’s death in a 1970 plane crash, the UAW was among the foremost advocates of national health care — a policy that, had it been enacted, would have saved the Big Three tens of billions of dollars in health insurance expenses, but which the Big Three themselves were until recently too ideologically hidebound to support.

Narrow? Parochial? The UAW not only built the American middle class but helped engender every movement at the center of American liberalism today — which is one reason that conservatives have always held the union in particular disdain.

That’s all true.  And it’s an important reminder for people like me, a liberal who generally holds unions in low regard.  Unions are hardly the entire solution to labor’s problems, but they’ve earned a prominent seat at the table.

Page 5 of 9

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén