The NY Times offers some helpful money-saving hints, such as:
1. How to extend the life of your cell phone battery in a pinch.
2. How to amplify the strength of the car locator/door unlock function on your car keys
3. A clever way to get just a bit more ink out of your printer
4. What to do when your cell phone gets soaked.
5. How to strengthen the power of your wi-fi signal at home
6. How to clean CD's and DVD's (vodka!)
7. How to (possibly) retrieve data if your hard drive crashes
2/22/2009
A little defense of the Community Reinvestment Act
Talking heads who want to blame the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act or the 1995 updates to it can only succeed if their audiences are ignorant to what these government acts did.
To that end here are two excellent summaries of why the CRA definitely wasn't the cause of the housing crisis and was a great benefit to the economy.
From Business Week's Aaron Pressman
and a blurb from the Federal Reserve with some links to studies.
To that end here are two excellent summaries of why the CRA definitely wasn't the cause of the housing crisis and was a great benefit to the economy.
From Business Week's Aaron Pressman
and a blurb from the Federal Reserve with some links to studies.
Phil Gramm and the causes of the economic crisis
Returning to a theme I've been walking around lately, lets consider again the reasons we're in this mess.
Previous posts have established that conservative pundits want to blame Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for this mess. They say that excessive government involvement in the Free Market, say in the form of "forcing" companies to offer loans to bad borrowers, is the issue.
Of course this is a blatant mis-characterization of the situation. I'll write off the Carter business since A) Reagan pretty well erased him and his policies and B) This housing/economic disaster did not happen until a good 30 years after Carter got into office. So that if he is a cause it would be exceedingly difficult to make out just how and to what extent. As to the Clinton years, well people who know me can tell you I'm no F.O.B. I found his governing style annoying at best and counter-productive. But during the end of the Clinton presidency there was no bigger force for Deregulation than Senator Phil Gramm, PhD in economics and the Republican point-man on all things economic.
Gramm was the architect for passing anti-government legislation, for de-regulating. He was instrumental in making sure that banks could invest and lend in more and more risky ways. That is, Gramm made it possible for banks to offer risky mortgages and for investors to create complicated financial instruments based off of these mortgages.
The banks did this not because of "government intervention" but because, acting on the profit motive, they saw a way to make alot of money - so long as housing prices continued to rise and people didn't default on their mortgages. People wouldn't default, of course, because of their own profit motive; owning a house is a great investment.
Instead, what happened was the government chose to get out of the market and let it work on its own. And as markets will do, it took off in unexpected ways. That is, the ideology that says all actors in the market are equally knowledgeable and will act properly according to the profit motive was given the lie.
Thanks to Phil Gramm, there were no government fail-safes to protect anyone. And long story short, here we are.
Now, I'm not an anti-market guy. I'm an Adam Smith guy. And Adam Smith, were he alive today would likely wonder out loud how the hell Phil Gramm ever got a PhD in economics. But he'd be even more dumb-founded at the notion that the "invisible hand" he talked so much about could have been so utterly misunderstood and misapplied.
I promise to in the near future expand on that thought, to deliver in a concise manner the actual recommendations of Adam Smith as to how a capitalist system can work. And what the pitfalls are that must be avoided.
If you are interested in a close-up on Phil Gramm, I highly recommend you check out this November article on him in the New York Times.
Previous posts have established that conservative pundits want to blame Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for this mess. They say that excessive government involvement in the Free Market, say in the form of "forcing" companies to offer loans to bad borrowers, is the issue.
Of course this is a blatant mis-characterization of the situation. I'll write off the Carter business since A) Reagan pretty well erased him and his policies and B) This housing/economic disaster did not happen until a good 30 years after Carter got into office. So that if he is a cause it would be exceedingly difficult to make out just how and to what extent. As to the Clinton years, well people who know me can tell you I'm no F.O.B. I found his governing style annoying at best and counter-productive. But during the end of the Clinton presidency there was no bigger force for Deregulation than Senator Phil Gramm, PhD in economics and the Republican point-man on all things economic.
Gramm was the architect for passing anti-government legislation, for de-regulating. He was instrumental in making sure that banks could invest and lend in more and more risky ways. That is, Gramm made it possible for banks to offer risky mortgages and for investors to create complicated financial instruments based off of these mortgages.
The banks did this not because of "government intervention" but because, acting on the profit motive, they saw a way to make alot of money - so long as housing prices continued to rise and people didn't default on their mortgages. People wouldn't default, of course, because of their own profit motive; owning a house is a great investment.
Instead, what happened was the government chose to get out of the market and let it work on its own. And as markets will do, it took off in unexpected ways. That is, the ideology that says all actors in the market are equally knowledgeable and will act properly according to the profit motive was given the lie.
Thanks to Phil Gramm, there were no government fail-safes to protect anyone. And long story short, here we are.
Now, I'm not an anti-market guy. I'm an Adam Smith guy. And Adam Smith, were he alive today would likely wonder out loud how the hell Phil Gramm ever got a PhD in economics. But he'd be even more dumb-founded at the notion that the "invisible hand" he talked so much about could have been so utterly misunderstood and misapplied.
I promise to in the near future expand on that thought, to deliver in a concise manner the actual recommendations of Adam Smith as to how a capitalist system can work. And what the pitfalls are that must be avoided.
If you are interested in a close-up on Phil Gramm, I highly recommend you check out this November article on him in the New York Times.
2/21/2009
Poverty and the government
I'm not a socialist, not that there's anything wrong with that.
But one thing I share with socialists and christians and many other "bleeding hearters" is that I think poverty is a very bad thing. In addition I think government can and should do something to fight poverty, even as I think that no individual has a specific obligation to "fight poverty".
If you think similarly on these issues you might find the website Poverty Scorecard to be very interesting. Unfortunately, it won't exactly be educational because it bears out what you already know; conservative ideologues vote against bills that might be termed "anti-poverty legislation'. And they do so on principle.
Of course, political principles are a slippery thing, so it may be that if enough people insisted, conservative ideologues might reconsider their "pro-poverty" votes* and "find religion", so to speak.
*I'm ironically using the conservative verbal game that brought such prhases as "death tax' and "pro-life" into the lexicon.
But one thing I share with socialists and christians and many other "bleeding hearters" is that I think poverty is a very bad thing. In addition I think government can and should do something to fight poverty, even as I think that no individual has a specific obligation to "fight poverty".
If you think similarly on these issues you might find the website Poverty Scorecard to be very interesting. Unfortunately, it won't exactly be educational because it bears out what you already know; conservative ideologues vote against bills that might be termed "anti-poverty legislation'. And they do so on principle.
Of course, political principles are a slippery thing, so it may be that if enough people insisted, conservative ideologues might reconsider their "pro-poverty" votes* and "find religion", so to speak.
*I'm ironically using the conservative verbal game that brought such prhases as "death tax' and "pro-life" into the lexicon.
The conservative "talking points" on the housing crisis are petty partisan gamesmanship
Conservative writer Thomas Sowell is among the pundit-class who enjoys attacking "big goverment" on a regular basis. If his arguments weren't so sophmoric and poorly written I'd take the time to dress him down more often. But let's just say that recently he "argued" that the housing bill and the stimulus were stupid and destined to fail. Because they are instances of government interference into the "free market".
He goes on to claim that liberal policies and government intervention caused the housing crisis. Of course this is false on its face. But rather than take the time to seriously engage his crockery, its better to simply point out what he purposefully hides. That is, what was at the very least the proximate cause of the housing crisis. The policies and mindset behind W's "ownership society".
On that note, THIS article by Zachary Karabell of Newsweek is a must-read. As he points out
"To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the "zero-down-payment initiative," which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgages—derivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth."
And happily an absolutely terrific explanation of the housing/credit crisis has been created by Johnthan Jarvis and is available at crisisofcredit.com. Really this is a must-watch.
If partisan hacks and conservative ideologues like Sowell took the time to actually study the issues we face, they might be a little less partisan and less hacky.
And maybe we really could be post-partisan.
Pragmatic solutions should be our goal in politics. This is why I've been such a big fan of Obama and of Mayor Bloomberg.
And thinking that any ideology is going to secure solutions is silly. But it is true that goverment can successfully intervene in the economy. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the suite of plans Obama has in mind including the stimulus and the housing bailout will help.
He goes on to claim that liberal policies and government intervention caused the housing crisis. Of course this is false on its face. But rather than take the time to seriously engage his crockery, its better to simply point out what he purposefully hides. That is, what was at the very least the proximate cause of the housing crisis. The policies and mindset behind W's "ownership society".
On that note, THIS article by Zachary Karabell of Newsweek is a must-read. As he points out
"To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the "zero-down-payment initiative," which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgages—derivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth."
And happily an absolutely terrific explanation of the housing/credit crisis has been created by Johnthan Jarvis and is available at crisisofcredit.com. Really this is a must-watch.
If partisan hacks and conservative ideologues like Sowell took the time to actually study the issues we face, they might be a little less partisan and less hacky.
And maybe we really could be post-partisan.
Pragmatic solutions should be our goal in politics. This is why I've been such a big fan of Obama and of Mayor Bloomberg.
And thinking that any ideology is going to secure solutions is silly. But it is true that goverment can successfully intervene in the economy. So I'm cautiously optimistic that the suite of plans Obama has in mind including the stimulus and the housing bailout will help.
2/20/2009
The New Deal and the Recovery Act
Politico's Matthew Dallek does a good job summing up some of the blatant falsehoods about the "failure" of the new deal
HERE
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich does a similar service
HERE
My favorite point is that when you ask people who, you know, lived through the depression era, they all LOVE FDR.
On a related note is a discussion by Leon Wieseltier about why liberalism, or progressivism, like that of FDR is good for America. And why one should be proud to be a liberal.
HERE
(Note, this will be one of the very few times I link to the New Republic. I don't like much of their stuff.
HERE
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich does a similar service
HERE
My favorite point is that when you ask people who, you know, lived through the depression era, they all LOVE FDR.
On a related note is a discussion by Leon Wieseltier about why liberalism, or progressivism, like that of FDR is good for America. And why one should be proud to be a liberal.
HERE
(Note, this will be one of the very few times I link to the New Republic. I don't like much of their stuff.
2/12/2009
A-fraud
I'm sick over the Alex Rodriguez steroids admission. Like so many people I'd hoped he would make Barry Bonds' own steroids-inflated records irrelevant. Now it turns out Aroid just. really. isn't. anybody's. champ.
And lets also note how completely different the Aroid drug use is from Michael Phelps'. The NY Times' Timothy Egan really distills it perfectly
HERE
The basics: Arod was not being young and stupid but rather made a cold, calculated, sober decision to cheat the fans and the game. Michael Phelps just wanted to relax and enjoy his youth and success.
2/05/2009
My new favorite name
I'm regularly going to update my blog with my current favorite name
Now:
Nu'Keese
Now:
Nu'Keese
2/04/2009
2/03/2009
Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals and he's a 'pot head'? At what point does this cease to be an "accusation"?
I'm not a drug activist, but why exactly is it that he may be charged with a crime? What's he done to harm anyone? He clearly hasn't harmed his career by being a pot smoker!
This will blow over, poof into a cloud of smoke.
I know, I know. But I couldn't resist.
I'm not a drug activist, but why exactly is it that he may be charged with a crime? What's he done to harm anyone? He clearly hasn't harmed his career by being a pot smoker!
This will blow over, poof into a cloud of smoke.
I know, I know. But I couldn't resist.
1/31/2009
1/30/2009
Another public service from Media Matters
Media Matters continually busts conservative (and sometimes liberal or other) lies. They are a treasure. Here they uncover how blatantly false or misguided the criticisms of the recovery plan are. Its just a shame that these lies get repeated in the media so often. In the end the bill will pass because it must.
The RNC (barely) picked Michael Steele as its new chair
I'm shocked because I don't know what it means.
If they'd of gone with Dawson, then I'd have laughed and said the social conservatives had won, that the party would redouble its efforts to do nothing but obstruct and attack, and I would have blogged an obituary for the GOP.
But with Steele, its possible that the party make a concerted effort to get out from under the thumb of the more destructive elements and be the loyal opposition while working to build the brand again....or maybe they just were barely astute enough to not chose the racist.
If they'd of gone with Dawson, then I'd have laughed and said the social conservatives had won, that the party would redouble its efforts to do nothing but obstruct and attack, and I would have blogged an obituary for the GOP.
But with Steele, its possible that the party make a concerted effort to get out from under the thumb of the more destructive elements and be the loyal opposition while working to build the brand again....or maybe they just were barely astute enough to not chose the racist.
1/29/2009
Party Identification in 2008
There's talk in the blogosphere of a liberal tide sweeping the nation. While I hope its true, It certainly never feels that way when I find myself in South Carolina. And judging by the eagerness of newsmedia to put a microphone in front of every crackpot conservative, it would take a huge tide for this country to truly enter an era of liberalism.
But Gallup finds some pretty interesting data to support the idea that the liberals are coming. And it goes along with my own earlier observation that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are certainly on the (slow, loud) way out.
Most surprising is that S. Carolina is only the ninth most republican state and is actually tied in terms of party affiliation
But Gallup finds some pretty interesting data to support the idea that the liberals are coming. And it goes along with my own earlier observation that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are certainly on the (slow, loud) way out.
Most surprising is that S. Carolina is only the ninth most republican state and is actually tied in terms of party affiliation
1/28/2009
Health Care reform
The New Yorker published an excellent discussion about the reality of health care reform.
It is wonderful that the author took the time to explain how other countries that have successful universal care got there. It puts the lie to what I think is an overly idealistic goal of some liberals, to immediately and fully implement a state run health care system. Its simply neither realistic or reasonable.
It is wonderful that the author took the time to explain how other countries that have successful universal care got there. It puts the lie to what I think is an overly idealistic goal of some liberals, to immediately and fully implement a state run health care system. Its simply neither realistic or reasonable.
1/26/2009
rush limbaugh
I'm amused and bewildered by the surprise elicited from the news that limbaugh wants obama to fail. Of course he does, he's not patriotic, he's a side-show barker and needs to speak this way to get attention. Worse, he can't remain relevant if "the other side" succeeds.
But what I really don't get is how blind he is. For nearly 20 years limbaugh gained wealth and notoriety as his ideological compatriots ran the country. And his audiences were huge. But guess what? A generation of white males, such as myself, and such as those who are now dissilusioned with the military, etc have grown up to voting adults. And we don't listen to limbaugh [1]. What I mean is that a generation of men who should have grown up to be the next generation of "angry white men" simply aren't "angry white men". Limbaugh's audience is graying and those that might have been expected to replace them did not appear. Why? Because of the failure of the very "medicine" Limbaugh advocated so successfully. We watched while the partisan, hard headed, old-fashioned form of governing and way of looking at the world limbaugh insisted was best failed.
Limbaugh will continue to make money and be the voice of a breed. It just happens that its a lot like the panda - to dumb to breed itself. But the panda has a leg up on the "politically relevant angry white male"; the panda doesn't bite those who try to help.
[1] I can't get the data on demographics for radio without an Arbitron subscription, but I can look at the traffic to his website.
But what I really don't get is how blind he is. For nearly 20 years limbaugh gained wealth and notoriety as his ideological compatriots ran the country. And his audiences were huge. But guess what? A generation of white males, such as myself, and such as those who are now dissilusioned with the military, etc have grown up to voting adults. And we don't listen to limbaugh [1]. What I mean is that a generation of men who should have grown up to be the next generation of "angry white men" simply aren't "angry white men". Limbaugh's audience is graying and those that might have been expected to replace them did not appear. Why? Because of the failure of the very "medicine" Limbaugh advocated so successfully. We watched while the partisan, hard headed, old-fashioned form of governing and way of looking at the world limbaugh insisted was best failed.
Limbaugh will continue to make money and be the voice of a breed. It just happens that its a lot like the panda - to dumb to breed itself. But the panda has a leg up on the "politically relevant angry white male"; the panda doesn't bite those who try to help.
[1] I can't get the data on demographics for radio without an Arbitron subscription, but I can look at the traffic to his website.
1/04/2009
Sproles
Darren Sproles is an electric cannonball. I had to write it because its true and no one else had yet said it.
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