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 four months 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.

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 with Grandpa 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.

So much for a bump in the polls on his way out.

CBS/NYT - Bush exits office with 22 percent approval rating.

(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.

Something to pass the time

...while waiting for your pink slip. The Bailout Game.













(h/t The Big Picture)

Another one bites the dust

Circuit City to liquidate - 30,000 jobs lost

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.

Bush's Farewell Address

(Video from November 2000.)

What a difference two letters can make

Class:

President-elect Barack Obama will host a dinner honoring Sen. John McCain, the Republican he tromped in the election, the night before his inauguration, the Presidential Inaugural Committee announced yesterday, saying the gesture demonstrates Obama's "commitment to bridging the bipartisan divide."

The dinner will be one of a series that night: Gen. Colin Powell and Vice President-elect Joe Biden also will be feted.

"In these times of great challenge and great change, leadership requires rising above the same old narrow partisanship," Obama said on the PIC Web site. "Each of these distinguished Americans has spent his life in service to his country, at each and every moment placing the interests of America before issues of political party."

Ass:

President-elect Barack Obama paid a visit Wednesday to the Supreme Court and chatted in front of a fireplace with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a fellow Harvard law graduate whose confirmation he opposed three years ago.

The two will meet again at noon Tuesday, when the chief justice gives the oath of the office to the incoming president.

Wednesday's meeting was described as a relaxed, get-acquainted session. It included Roberts, seven associate justices and Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

The absence of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was at the court Wednesday morning for arguments in two cases, was a mystery. He has, however, voiced lingering anger over Senate Democrats, including Obama and Biden, who voted against his confirmation three years ago. When walking on Capitol Hill, Alito has said, he crosses to the far side of the street whenever he nears the Senate Office Building.

Dork's Dirty Fingernails Economic Indicator

Listening/watching the Barrett-Jackson car auction on Speed. Collector cars, especially Detroit muscle cars from the sixties, have become an even bigger bubble market than real estate over the last several years. Baby boomers with far more money than sense have pushed the price for a lot of 40 year-old muscle cars into new Ferrari territory.

This is only the second day of the auction, (the most-expensive cars won't go on the block until this weekend) but the prices so far are horrible compared to the last two years. Attendance looks to be way down, too.

It's not surprising given the rest of the economy, but how long before the people who paid $200,000 for a '63 Corvette two years ago to ask for their bailout?

Elections have consequences

Democrats Claim Solid Advantage on Senate Committees

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) office released the final breakdown of ratios on committees last night, and what sounds like a dry piece of non-news is actually a serious win for Democrats.

After some questions about whether the undecided Minnesota race would leave committee organizing in limbo, Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have settled on a three-vote advantage for Democrats on every Senate committee except Appropriations and Armed Services -- on those panels, Democrats will have four more members.

This might be more important than having 59 votes. The Republicans have largely defined legislation even when they didn't have the majority by peeling off enough Blue Dogs to win. That's going to be a lot harder to do when they have to hold their votes and win two Dems to win any committee vote.

The Dem/Rep split on committees is even more pronounced in the House. Democrats hold a 40/26 advantage on the Appropriations Committee, 42/33 on Financial Services, 45/31 on Transportation and Infrastructure, and 27/15 on Ways and Means.

If the Republicans can't win committee votes even with the Blue Dogs, it's going to be a hell of a lot harder for them to control legislation.

How I spent my afternoon

If anyone was wondering, watching Bush's press conference yesterday was worse than having your teeth pulled.

All for you, dear reader, all for you.

Was Harry Reid the inspiration for Bluto Blutarsky?

Remember at the end of Animal House, when John Belushi drives off into the sunset with the snobby sorority girl and we learn that years from now they will be Senator and Mrs. John Blutarsky?

I'm wondering if Reid went to Dartmouth with the Animal House writers, or if the Senate Majority Leader learned political strategies from frat-boy movies. Either way, he got the message that the appointment of Roland Burris required a "a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part", and he was just the man to do it.

"The Secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat. In addition, as we requested, Mr. Burris has provided sworn testimony before the Illinois House Committee on Impeachment regarding the circumstances of his appointment.

"We have spoken to Mr. Burris to let him know that he is now the Senator-designate from Illinois and as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a Senator-elect.

"Accordingly, barring objections from Senate Republicans, we expect Senator-designee Burris to be sworn in and formally seated later this week. We are working with him and the office of the Vice President to determine the date and time of the swearing-in.

"As we had outlined to Mr. Burris, a path needed to be followed that respects the rules of the Senate. We committed to Mr. Burris that once those requirements were satisfied, we would be able to proceed. We are pleased that everything is now in order, we congratulate Senator-designee Burris on his appointment and we look forward to working with him in the 111th Congress."

Of course, this was the inevitable outcome from the moment Reid made his stand that the Senate would never, ever seat anyone Blagojevich appointed. The law was never on Reid's side and politically, dragging this out after the inauguration would cause more damage as a distraction than Burris could as a junior senator.

If Reid had not spent the last two years getting rolled by everyone who wanted to block liberal or progressive legislation, then I might admire Reid's turnabout as a way to separate the clusterfuck in Illinois from what's happening in Washington.

But instead of that outcome, Reid is once again left looking like a bumbling, spineless fool. Burris's appointment only means the most infamously corrupt politician in America today joins Joe Lieberman, Mitch McConnell and George W. Bush on the long list of people who have turned the Senate Majority Leader into their personal biatch - maybe while the ghost of his past asks, "What the fuck happened to the Delta Harry Reid I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts?"

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

My new favorite winter tradition - The Buffalo Beast's Fifty Most Loathsome People of the Year

4. George W. Bush

Charges: It’s hard—believe us, we know—to keep coming up with new things to say about this brutally stupid narcissist, who may have ruined this country irrevocably and certainly has ruined a couple of others, mugging amiably all the way. If anything good comes from Bush’s reign of error, let it be the death of the notion that vitally important, life or death decisions that affect the entire world should be made with one’s “gut.” We used to think that incompetence was just a good cover story for this administration, an excuse that masked their deliberate criminality, but it turns out that Bush and his inner circle are both treasonous, corrupt warmongers and inept fools. One good thing about him, though, is that he has no real interest in politics, and probably won’t give a flying shoe what happens to the world when his term is up. As he once put it, ““History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.” Here’s to George W. Bush being history.

Exhibit A: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

Sentence: Detained in formaldehyde-laced FEMA trailer without charges or counsel, sodomized by Lynndie England, declared guilty by military tribunal, set adrift naked on a small ice floe in the Arctic.

Nice Guys Finish

Fox Sports: Tony Dungy to announce retirement.

Tony Dungy is stepping down as head coach of the Colts — at least that's what he's telling those inside the team headquarters, sources told FOXSports.com.

While the team has scheduled a 5 p.m. press conference, Dungy is walking around the team's complex saying goodbye to players and team employees and informing them that the transition should be a smooth one for new coach Jim Caldwell.

According to one source, Dungy explained that he has talked it over with his family and they believed this was the proper time to step down, while the Colts' nucleus was still intact.

I've never become a Colts fan even though I grew up in Indiana and live less than an hour from Lucas Oil Stadium. I didn't like the way the Colts came to Indianapolis and Jim Irsay's Bible thumping gets under my skin.

But mostly it's because rooting for the Colts is like rooting for the Rotary Club. For as good as this team is, and as good as it has been, they are devoid of the personality and attitude that makes a team fun to watch. The only thing to get attached to with the Colts is the idea that a team from Indiana could actually win it all. That is more than enough for most of the current Colts fans.

All that said, Tony Dungy is a class act and one of the best coaches of this era. He took two franchises that could screw up a wet dream and built them into teams that went deep into the playoffs year after year, and he did it without turning into an insufferable toolbag.

I hope Dungy is not done with football. I'd love to see him come back in a year or two in the same kind of role Parcells has with the Dolphins. I think he could do at least as well in dragging a team like the Lions back into contention. And that would be a hell of a lot more fun to watch than the Colts.