Funny

Megan is worried about what will become of rich old executives who lose their jobs.
No, really.
UAW workers should quit for the good of the nation, so we can all chip in and give failed execs a hand up.

Back To Megan

to quickly update, everyone arrested on Friday was released with no bail, and Kerrey seems to have stopped trying to control the narrative, at least for the moment. So let's see what I missed last week.

What's the Real Price of a Toxic Asset?:

This is why I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around the notion that even a very large increase in the default rate can wipe out something like 2/3 of the value of these assets. Most of these loans will perform. And in the case of those that don't perform, while the value of the underlying collateral has fallen, it hasn't fallen to zero.

It's called a "real estate bubble", Megan. Read about it. There have been pieces on it in every major publication in the country.

The Problem with Chris Dodd:

I have to say, the worst allegation I've heard about Chris Dodd is not that he's in the pocket of banks and insurers--financial companies naturally seek to curry favor with the Senate Banking Committee, but I don't really see the case that he's sold us out for his benefit. No, the more damning case is that the Senate Banking Committee was basically non-functional in the early part of the crisis, because Dodd was running for president. Even if early action could have saved us money and pain later--and that's a big if--I recently heard a plausible case made that such action was made impossible by his presidential campaign. But somehow, no one finds that offensive, or even notable.

Plausibility, in this case, depending on your willingness and desire to find ways to blame Democrats for Bush's mess. If only Dodd had acted boldly in unspecified ways back when people like Megan were still claiming there was no recession in need of a response there would be no financial problems now.

Streetcar Desires:

What's the advantage of a system of public transportation that doesn't require massive tunneling projects or add directly to the smog problems faced by most major cities?

Most Unnecessary Health Story of the Day:

Who the fuck cares that the economic turmoil is impacting the mental health of a wide swath of people across the nation and not just the newly unemployed? Duh, and so? It's not like we're talking about the self-esteem of banking executives.

Historical Interest:

Man, people are whiny today, what with all the "I've been evicted" and "I can't afford lifesaving cancer surgery" and "I just lost my job and have three kids to feed and clothe at home in a house I haven't finished paying for". Shut up already! People had it worse in the past, you spoiled brats.

The Incredible Shrinking Public Pension Funds:

The partial collapse of the global financial systems shows that any particular governmental initiative which Megan is ideologically opposed to is a bad idea, because if the markets collapse those initiatives could be badly underfunded.
But it would still be a good idea to privatize Social Security.

N that's enough of that.

Why Must they Ruin Everything that I Love

When I was a freshmen in high school, my brother was a freshmen in college at U Pitt. He discovered Michael Chabon and introduced me to The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. It has been one of my favorite novels ever since. 6 years later I ended up transferring to Carnegie Mellon and found myself living down the block from the "cloud factory" (A major plot point in the book). It's actually the steam plant for CMU.

Pittsburgh is an awesome city with the shittiest weather I've ever experienced (300 days of clouds, literally, but hardly ever more than drizzles).

I was fucking PYSCHED when I found out they were making the book into the movie. Then I saw the movie. Movies are almost never as good as the book (Fight Club being the sole exception I've encountered) but this went far beyond that. Ignoring the fact that entire characters disappeared and that the peripheral characters (who represented much of the MYSTERY) were suddenly the only characters in the fucking movie, it was fucking horribly executed. Ridiculously overwrought and pretentious--with Art Bechstein walking around permawearing the same expression of half confusion, half trying to squeeze out a turd that made Keanu Reeves famous--I had to force myself to watch the entire fucking thing.

It made me think of the time that Megan completely mischaracterized the town I live in now, Berkeley (Pittsburgh's polar opposite-nice weather but, god, do I want to burn this place and its inhabitants to ashes).

The writers and directors of this movie fail entirely to capture the essence of the city. Its total fucking shame because the movie is set from June to August, the only three months of the year da 'Burgh can be cast in an entirely positive light. Why would you do that? Why would you write about something of which you are completely uniformed? Why must these people ruin things for me?

Why, God, why?

Sooner Than I Thought

We all knew it would happen sooner or later:

What we know about Madoff suggests that he may have become an almost accidental crook, like many of the accounting fraudsters of yesteryear: take big losses, cook the books to cover them until he could "catch up", and when you realize you're too far behind, simply ride the fraud as long as you can.

I don't care how tepid it was. She actually defended Madoff. My usual crazed righteousness is not there. I'm somehow completely calm, as if all is right.

For years I've struggled with the notion that these people with whom I disagree so heartily can't possibly be THAT insane. Surely, I must be missing something key to their point or engaging in the same knee jerk biases but from the other side. No.

Megan has defended Bernie Madoff. I know now with an unequivocal certainty that it is not me who is the crazy one.

Her absurdity just never ends and yet there are no repercussions for her. She never questions the mindset that could make her say such ridiculous things. Makes me wanna give up. Fuck it, grab a lawn chair and some popcorn and watch the chaos from my backyard. With stupidity like this on their side, what good does our reason do us?

Wildly Off Topic

but shit, I have to say something somewhere about all this. As probably none of you know, I go to the New School in NYC for grad school in philosophy. As some of you may know, things are going a bit crazy at the New School. I'm not directly involved with the craziness, but I have friends who are, especially among the faculty.
The problem, in a nutshell, is school president Bob Kerrey. I was getting my first MA when he was hired in 2001, and controversy and shitty decision making immediately followed when Kerrey's involvement in the Thanh Phong Massacre was publicly revealed. The New School has an extremely international student body, especially in the grad school, and there were a number of Vietnamese students in the Political Science department in particular. I cannot speak for these people, but it rankled me when Kerrey issued a statement claiming the New School student body was united in support of him, considering at least a handful of those students may well have lost family in similar atrocities. He did not meet with either the student body or any individual Vietnamese students before issuing this statement.
More substantially, Kerrey has been a total failure as an administrator, which is what has led to the current ongoing crisis, which began in proper in December. There are many, many poor decisions by Kerrey to question, particularly his desire to repurpose the school away from its original aim of giving European thought a home in America towards competing with the Learning Annex for NYC yuppie adult education dollars. But the crisis of the moment began when the fourth provost of Kerrey's reign left, and, having realized he made the position one no one wants to hold, Kerrey tried to make himself his own provost. This triggered a faculty meeting where a vote of no confidence was held, with Kerrey losing by 74 to 2. (Another of his poor decisions has been to make the salary structure extraordinarily top heavy, and give the adjuncts and TAs that do the real teaching a pittance even by academic standards.)
This led to the scheduling of a school wide meeting, but the meeting never happened, because of a nearly violent confrontation between Kerrey and students just prior which led to him being chased up Fifth Ave. (I shit you not.) The cancellation of the meeting led to the first takeover of the Fifth Ave building, which was resolved much more peacefully than the pepper spraying police assault of today. (See Update below) Since that time I've received more or less daily emails from Kerrey and his board allies crowing about how much money we have, because of major reductions in financial aid packages, particularly for grad students, and basically saying he doesn't give a shit about anything but remaining in office despite the wishes of everyone but him and a handful of Trustees. As today's events show, that hasn't been a particularly successful tactical choice, and the question now becomes whether the New School, as an institution, can survive, at least in some recognizable form. More than a few faculty members have already retired or moved on to greener pastures, and about the only person I still know in my dept is the student advisor, so many students have transferred. I, myself, am leaving as well, in large part because of this crap, though not solely.
The Fifth Ave building is a particular symbol of Kerrey's mismanagement because it used to be the heart of the school, and the home of the graduate departments which founded the institution. It was campus, to me. However, Kerrey and his allies decided the real estate value of almost a full block on 14th and 5th was more important than providing their students with quality facilities to learn in, and moved us into 3 floors of an office building a few blocks away, which we only have access to at certain times of the day. The business schools that advertise on the subway have better facilities than we do. The library was moved into an administrative building and exists in a tangled maze of multiple floors and side stairways. And, over a year later, the building on Fifth still stands, almost empty, because, despite our supposedly enviable cash position, there are insufficient funds for demolition. It's publicly claimed a new building will be built, but even in the pr you can see an admission the new building will have a smaller footprint, meaning it will be squeezed between as much commercial space as possible.
This rant is running long, and probably isn't terribly interesting for most of you, so I'll try to wind down. I can't ask anyone reading this for help, unless you have a strong personal relationship with any New School Trustees. All I can say is Bob Kerrey doesn't give a shit about anything but himself and his own personal interests. That may seem unfair, but there's concrete evidence. You, the one person still reading, may recall that a few years back John McCain spoke at commencement and was received very poorly. What you might not know is that Bob Kerrey was the only reason McCain was there. The search committee never even suggested McCain, and the student body made amply clear he was not wanted. Commencement is supposed to be about the achievements of the students who are graduating, but Kerrey turned it into a self-serving sideshow, ruining that day for the students who he is supposed to care about first. Kerrey got free publicity for the New School as a bastion of the kind of liberalism he himself doesn't share in, and McCain got a chance to play the victim of uncivil libruls for the conservative base. The students got the shaft, not that Kerrey noticed. He and McCain are pals, eff the students.
The one thing I can say is that if you want to heckle Kerrey, it's real easy, he has a blog, and he pays more attention to online correspondence than to his actual duties.
It's really a shame. I came to the New School because it's one of a very small number of places in the US where you can study philosophy without being dominated by the influence of the British and Berkeley, and some extraordinary minds have taught and learned there. Bob Kerrey is on the verge of destroying that tradition, if he hasn't already. He should be ashamed, but first he'd have to care.

Update:



To explain what you're seeing, the door at the beginning of the video opens onto 14th between 5th and University, much closer to 5th. Some of the students who had taken the building were trying to get out and the police were pushing to keep the door closed so the protesters could be arrested inside. You can see the officer use the pepper spray and the door close shut immediately after. Then the video turns to document officers' responses to protesters who were outside the building. Note this means they had not committed any crimes, unlike the technically illegal seizure of the building. The video follows an officer east on 14th, towards University, and the bulk of the following action happens in front of a combination Taco Bell/Pizza Hut in the very middle of the block.

Update II:

More details are emerging. The police are claiming they were provoked into the arrests outside the building documented above, but the NYCLU is, thankfully, not happy and getting involved. Lots of details can be found here.
There's also a blog run by the protesters, which suffers from the kinds of flaws you'd expect.
Kerrey has expelled the protesters arrested inside the building, though I don't know the university procedure for this and whether he has yet replaced the people responsible with his own lackeys. This is yet another tactical mistake on his part, but one I'm almost glad he's made. It will not be received well within the school community, suffice to say.
Lots of video and more info here.

"Occupy everything right now".

Final Update:

I'll leave it to the sites linked above for further coverage, but Kerrey has sent another school wide email out attempting to control the narrative, and it contains some interesting further details. Kerrey has had to accept and admit he doesn't have the authority to unilaterally expel the arrested protesters, and offered as explanation for the video above the following; "At approximately 11:30 a.m. a group of students tried to escape through an exit on 14th Street. It is estimated that eight participants escaped down 14th Street. Three were caught by the NYPD and resisted arrest. ... These protesters hurt two police officers and face charges of assault in the 2nd degree. One protester, a New School student, was hurt in the altercation." That's probably the young man shoved to the ground by the face then group tackled and handcuffed. He was clearly not being pursued and was only taken into custody after the officer used force on him. Thankfully, to say again, the NYCLU has gotten in on this, and I've also seen mention of the national office.

Dear Inmates,

Please run the asylum.

Thinkin 'bout you,

Megan

Today's Lesson In Alternate Reality History

What Makes a Good Pharma CEO?:

What strikes me is the oddness of having lawyers in the top slot; the legal department isn't such a big customary route to the top job. But the environment has changed greatly. Fifty years ago, with the FDA pressing ever harder on efficacy, the most important thing in a pharma chief was probably knowing what went into making an effective drug. Twenty years ago, you needed to know how to market it to get the most money out of a very narrow patent window. These days, you need to be able to negotiate a fearsome political and regulatory environment.

Instead of responding directly to this gibberish, I'd like to quote something from the wiki for the Advisory Board Company;

The company was founded in 1979 as the Research Council of Washington by David G. Bradley. In 1997, the Corporate Executive Board was spun off from the Advisory Board Company[1], and the Advisory Board Company focused its business exclusively on the healthcare industry. In serving the healthcare industry, the Advisory Board Company primarily serves hospitals and health systems, but also offers niche programs to pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. In 2006, the Advisory Board Company employed more than 900 staff members, the majority of whom are located in the Washington, D.C. headquarters.

Now, naturally this is completely irrelevant to anything Megan has ever said or written, completely and utterly and totally, but it's still good to know in just, y'know, an abstract way.

Shorter Douthat

Is Feminism The New Natalism?:

Sure, Sweden does a better job taking care of its citizens in every imaginable way, the welfare state turns out to be a good economic engine for job creation, and the women there find it possible to have both a career and a family, but where's the fear?
If we ignore the constant chirping of the nativists that America's population growth is driven by immigrants and them damned non-whites then we can pretend the mommy track and layoffs are just as viable means of encouraging women to have families as Sweden's policies.
And do you realize they actually pay for these wonderful benefits with higher taxes? The fuck is that, giving money to your government and getting value back for it. They really are communists.
Also, it's all on the women to juggle career and family, this has nothing to do with men.


Remind me not to click over next time.

Neither Shorter Nor Longer

The Odyssey of Larry Summers:

Glenn Greenwald once lashed out at me for asking an "ignorant" question on a topic I admitted I didn't understand. A petty person would point out that his post on Larry Summers displays not only ignorance, but a total lack of awareness of any gaps in his understanding. And there, I guess I just did.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh my.
Let's begin with the phrase "lashing out", shall we?

Glenn Greenwald presents a thoroughly incoherent response in which he professes not to understand why Dan Drezner and I might be offended by his saying:

What really underlies the mentality of people like McArdle and Drezner are two pervasive though toxic afflictions — a drooling, self-loving American exceptionalism, along with a self-interested refusal to acknowledge that there is anything truly wrong with our political and media establishment because they both support and are part of that establishment.

I certainly hope for the same forbearance when I argue that Glenn Greenwald is a self-serving media hound with a size-twelve ego squeezed into a size-four soul, and that the root of his rage is less a profound moral grievance than a narcissistic belief that his ideas are of such transcendant clarity, his concerns of such monumental importance, that any failure to obey his dicta can only stem from the most base of motives.
I mean, I'm not saying that or anything. I'm just saying that I'm glad to know that if I did utter the above, Greenwald wouldn't take it the wrong way.

Clearly, Megan knows what it is to lash out. What she's forgotten is GG is pretty much done with her, and there will be no Bloggingheads to follow this particular cry for attention, probably not even any notice.
The rest is such a weak attempt to distort GG's post I have to wonder whether Megan even finished reading it before gettin on her horse. Ignoring GG's actual gist that a revolving door between Wall Street and Treasury is arguably a bad thing in and of itself allows Megan to act all mystified. The only ones who will be able to truly understand how Wall St and the Treasury Dept interact will be those alien archeologists from the end of AI. Megan isn't getting paid to acknowledge the realities of crony capitalism, so some things are just unknowable.

Oh, Wow

so I was readin some TBogg, followin some links, n one of the links led to something quite extraordinary. I'm sure TBogg noted and had much mirth about it back in the day, but somehow I missed it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present Dan Riehl calling TBogg "a somewhat homophobic racist blogger".
I'm still having trouble catching my breath.
Dan Riehl and Pam Atlas should have a tv show.
On Adult Swim.
To replace Robot Chicken.