Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Whoda thunk?
That Rod Blagojevich would be the smart governor when it came to making Senate appointments?
Can I recommend something for reading if I haven't finished it yet?
Yeah, if it's Paul Volker's report on financial reform. Volker's advice carries a lot of weight with President Obama -
(Hang on a sec. First time on my blog that I get to write that. Feels great.)
to which I say "Thank you Hay-zoos." Anyway, read the report at Barry Ritholtz's place and you'll probably be able to say "I knew that was coming" three or fourmonths weeks days hours after Tim Geitner is confirmed and he hauls Obama's reform plan up to the Hill.
Help yourself to thoughts in the comments if you finish first.
(Hang on a sec. First time on my blog that I get to write that. Feels great.)
to which I say "Thank you Hay-zoos." Anyway, read the report at Barry Ritholtz's place and you'll probably be able to say "I knew that was coming" three or four
Help yourself to thoughts in the comments if you finish first.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sunday night random thoughts
Insomnia isn't fun, but other than that it's been an interesting weekend. In no particular order (except the first)....
Obama's arrival in Washington: I only caught a little bit of the festivities on Saturday, but the speech from Baltimore reminded me again that Obama doesn't see his history as a community activist only as a way to get elected. He's going to carry this into the White House as a way to decide and execute policy. Anybody have a guess on how that is going to play out? Are people going to stay engaged for four or eight years? Will he be able to be effective if they don't? And is this going to be an Obama thing or is it something we're going to start expecting from elected officials at every level? I don't know. There are a lot of comparisons between Obama and FDR because of their populist communication styles, but the differences in communication and the media are so huge that I don't feel comfortable using FDR's experience as a template for what will happen to Obama.
Speaking of comparisions...there was a little bit of symbolism in the train trip that I didn't hear any of the cable news idjits mention. Obama may have followed the same path as Lincoln to come to Washington in January 1861, but Lincoln had to sneak into the capitol wearing a disguise to avoid slavery supporters who had threatened to kill him. Seeing Obama follow that route without hiding from anyone may not have been intentionally symbolic, but it wasn't lost on me.
Football playoffs: This is why I missed the O-Show. There's a longer post about what the Cardinals trip to the Super Bowl means for a die-hard Phoenix sports fan like yr. obt. svt., and I'll write it as soon as I can get my head around the fact that the Arizona Cardinals are going to be in the Super Bowl.
But this was a great game. The Cards aren't just going to the Super Bowl - they've become a breathtakingly exciting team to watch. Larry Fitzgerald is a freak of nature, and its great that he'll get the stage he deserves. But how incredibly great is it that the Cards are making it to the championship because they paired Fitzgerald withGrandpa Simpson Kurt Warner? A young, hotshot quarterback (like, say, Matt Leinart) would (did) send Fitzgerald on deep routes and try to put the ball on his numbers because young hotshot QB's want to win on their abilities. But that kind of play turned Fitzgerald into just a better-than-average receiver when Leinart wasn't intercepted.
Kurt Warner, in addition to being older than dirt, hasn't been able to make those kinds of long pinpoint passes since his hand was broken while playing for the Rams. Warner can still throw the ball a mile, however and now he just tries to chuck it five or six feet over Fitzgerald's head and lets him pull them down. No one can defend Fitzgerald when he goes up that high. Warner just has to get the ball in the same zip code as Fitzgerald and there's a very good chance his QB rating will go up another ten points.
What do you think Troy Aikman (retired at age 34) was thinking when saw Warner get completions, touchdowns and another trip to the Super Bowl at age 37 by hurling the ball five feet over Larry Fitzgerald's head? Suppose he was doing the calculus on how long he could have continued playing if he had had Michael Jordon in his backfield?
Shit, maybe God really does like Kurt Warner best.
When Popular Mechanics meets CNBC: The confluence of my interests as a car and economics geek came to an end Sunday night when the last car rolled off the block at the Barrett-Jackson auction. I didn't tune away from the games to watch any of the final day of the auction. Saturday night was bad enough. Auction company CEO Craig Jackson couldn't hide his disgust as he tried to goad the audience into bidding more than $300,000 for a very rare '69 Camaro that would have easily brought over $750,000 two years ago. It was like that (albeit with smaller numbers) for car after car at the auction. Even the demand for celebrity cars donated for charity were down. Last year NASCAR star Tony Steward sold one of his Sprint Cup cars to benefit charity and raised $380,000. He did it again this year but the sale only brought in half as much.
There was so much smugness around collector cars over the last few years, particularly the incredible run up of sixties muscle cars, that I can't help but taking a little satisfaction as prices come back to earth. If an escapee from a Flowmax commercial is taking a bath on his Hemi Cuda that might be deserving of a little schadenfreude, but like the fall of the stock and bond market there are going to be a lot of more sympathetic casualties, too. It's been possible to make a decent living in automotive restoration on domestic cars in the last few years and that's going to come to a quick end as these auction results cascade downhill. Suppliers of these reproduction parts are going to feel the pinch too, and some of them probably won't be here at this time next year. These people are enthusiasts, they got into this work because they love old cars, and I'm afraid they're going to take the worst of it.
Obama's arrival in Washington: I only caught a little bit of the festivities on Saturday, but the speech from Baltimore reminded me again that Obama doesn't see his history as a community activist only as a way to get elected. He's going to carry this into the White House as a way to decide and execute policy. Anybody have a guess on how that is going to play out? Are people going to stay engaged for four or eight years? Will he be able to be effective if they don't? And is this going to be an Obama thing or is it something we're going to start expecting from elected officials at every level? I don't know. There are a lot of comparisons between Obama and FDR because of their populist communication styles, but the differences in communication and the media are so huge that I don't feel comfortable using FDR's experience as a template for what will happen to Obama.
Speaking of comparisions...there was a little bit of symbolism in the train trip that I didn't hear any of the cable news idjits mention. Obama may have followed the same path as Lincoln to come to Washington in January 1861, but Lincoln had to sneak into the capitol wearing a disguise to avoid slavery supporters who had threatened to kill him. Seeing Obama follow that route without hiding from anyone may not have been intentionally symbolic, but it wasn't lost on me.
Football playoffs: This is why I missed the O-Show. There's a longer post about what the Cardinals trip to the Super Bowl means for a die-hard Phoenix sports fan like yr. obt. svt., and I'll write it as soon as I can get my head around the fact that the Arizona Cardinals are going to be in the Super Bowl.
But this was a great game. The Cards aren't just going to the Super Bowl - they've become a breathtakingly exciting team to watch. Larry Fitzgerald is a freak of nature, and its great that he'll get the stage he deserves. But how incredibly great is it that the Cards are making it to the championship because they paired Fitzgerald with
Kurt Warner, in addition to being older than dirt, hasn't been able to make those kinds of long pinpoint passes since his hand was broken while playing for the Rams. Warner can still throw the ball a mile, however and now he just tries to chuck it five or six feet over Fitzgerald's head and lets him pull them down. No one can defend Fitzgerald when he goes up that high. Warner just has to get the ball in the same zip code as Fitzgerald and there's a very good chance his QB rating will go up another ten points.
What do you think Troy Aikman (retired at age 34) was thinking when saw Warner get completions, touchdowns and another trip to the Super Bowl at age 37 by hurling the ball five feet over Larry Fitzgerald's head? Suppose he was doing the calculus on how long he could have continued playing if he had had Michael Jordon in his backfield?
Shit, maybe God really does like Kurt Warner best.
When Popular Mechanics meets CNBC: The confluence of my interests as a car and economics geek came to an end Sunday night when the last car rolled off the block at the Barrett-Jackson auction. I didn't tune away from the games to watch any of the final day of the auction. Saturday night was bad enough. Auction company CEO Craig Jackson couldn't hide his disgust as he tried to goad the audience into bidding more than $300,000 for a very rare '69 Camaro that would have easily brought over $750,000 two years ago. It was like that (albeit with smaller numbers) for car after car at the auction. Even the demand for celebrity cars donated for charity were down. Last year NASCAR star Tony Steward sold one of his Sprint Cup cars to benefit charity and raised $380,000. He did it again this year but the sale only brought in half as much.
There was so much smugness around collector cars over the last few years, particularly the incredible run up of sixties muscle cars, that I can't help but taking a little satisfaction as prices come back to earth. If an escapee from a Flowmax commercial is taking a bath on his Hemi Cuda that might be deserving of a little schadenfreude, but like the fall of the stock and bond market there are going to be a lot of more sympathetic casualties, too. It's been possible to make a decent living in automotive restoration on domestic cars in the last few years and that's going to come to a quick end as these auction results cascade downhill. Suppliers of these reproduction parts are going to feel the pinch too, and some of them probably won't be here at this time next year. These people are enthusiasts, they got into this work because they love old cars, and I'm afraid they're going to take the worst of it.
Friday, January 16, 2009
So much for a bump in the polls on his way out.
CBS/NYT - Bush exits office with 22 percent approval rating.
Twenty-two percent. Phrase the question right and venereal disease can get a 22% approval rating. Incredible.
(CBS) President Bush will leave office as one of the most unpopular departing presidents in history, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll showing Mr. Bush's final approval rating at 22 percent.
Seventy-three percent say they disapprove of the way Mr. Bush has handled his job as president over the last eight years.
Mr. Bush's final approval rating is the lowest final rating for an outgoing president since Gallup began asking about presidential approval more than 70 years ago.
The rating is far below the final ratings of recent two-term presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, who both ended their terms with a 68 percent approval rating, according to CBS News polling.
Recent one term presidents also had higher ratings than Mr. Bush. His father George H.W. Bush had an end-of-term rating of 54 percent, while Jimmy Carter's rating was 44 percent.
Harry Truman had previously had the lowest end-of-term approval at 32 percent, as measured by Gallup.
Twenty-two percent. Phrase the question right and venereal disease can get a 22% approval rating. Incredible.
Another one bites the dust
Circuit City to liquidate - 30,000 jobs lost
Like the falling prices for old muscle cars that I talked about Wednesday, this isn't surprising. Circuit City was weaker than Best Buy long before the economy turned south. Any business that was just hanging on two years ago might be lucky to survive 2009. A lot of them won't.
But this thinning of the herd isn't going to help the economy in the long run. We can see a great example of this in the banking industry. When we come out of this we're going to have no more than four banks (Wells Fargo, Citi, BofA and Chase) that control a huge majority of the entire banking industry. In consumer electronics we'll have Best Buy and not much else. Your choice of a neighborhood book store is likely to be Barnes and Noble or, if you're lucky, an independent shop with a tiny fraction of the selection. I think its very likely that at this time next year there will only be two domestic car companies, and maybe only three import brands that will come close to being major players in the market.
What will this reduction (or elimination) of competition have on the economy when it starts growing again? A smart company would go on like they were fighting for their life and keep the pressure on themselves to keep prices low and service high, but that tends to be the rare exception. Absence of competition almost always leads to higher prices, poorer quality and less innovation. When we're talking about this becoming the new norm for such wide areas of the economy - and when the size of the surviving companies is so large that it makes building a competitor practically impossible - that can make it everyone's problem.
Bankrupt Circuit City Stores Inc., unable to work out a sale of the company, said Friday it will go out of business — closing its 567 U.S. stores and cutting 30,000 jobs.
The nation's second-biggest consumer electronics retailer is the latest casualty of an unprecedented pullback in consumer spending that has driven other brands such as KB Toys, Mervyns LLC and Linens 'N Things into bankruptcy. Experts believe there will be more to come.
"This is the only possible path for our company," Circuit City's acting Chief Executive James A. Marcum said in a statement. "We are extremely disappointed by this outcome."
The company had been seeking a buyer or a deal to refinance its debt, but the hobbled credit market and consumer worries proved insurmountable. Negotiations for an acquisition went past midnight on Thursday, a Circuit City lawyer said in court.
Like the falling prices for old muscle cars that I talked about Wednesday, this isn't surprising. Circuit City was weaker than Best Buy long before the economy turned south. Any business that was just hanging on two years ago might be lucky to survive 2009. A lot of them won't.
But this thinning of the herd isn't going to help the economy in the long run. We can see a great example of this in the banking industry. When we come out of this we're going to have no more than four banks (Wells Fargo, Citi, BofA and Chase) that control a huge majority of the entire banking industry. In consumer electronics we'll have Best Buy and not much else. Your choice of a neighborhood book store is likely to be Barnes and Noble or, if you're lucky, an independent shop with a tiny fraction of the selection. I think its very likely that at this time next year there will only be two domestic car companies, and maybe only three import brands that will come close to being major players in the market.
What will this reduction (or elimination) of competition have on the economy when it starts growing again? A smart company would go on like they were fighting for their life and keep the pressure on themselves to keep prices low and service high, but that tends to be the rare exception. Absence of competition almost always leads to higher prices, poorer quality and less innovation. When we're talking about this becoming the new norm for such wide areas of the economy - and when the size of the surviving companies is so large that it makes building a competitor practically impossible - that can make it everyone's problem.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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