jersey shore: July 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

barbie dolls house

Real Wedding: Freya and Matt (Part 1 of 2)

We love it when our readers send us photos of their weddings to feature on our blog. We love it even more when that reader is a friend of ours and we can make her feel extra special by showing off her gorgeous wedding to all of you! Freya, our friend and PDR enthusiast, met Matt over 10 years ago at a house party and she says it was truly love at first sight. In fact, she recalls announcing to her friends that she was certain he would be the one she married. Although they didn't start dating right away, a mutual passion for music, travel, and food helped them to become fast friends and in 2007, six years later, they began dating. Three years after that they got engaged and started planning their big day, which we are lucky to be able to share with you today! These two make a great couple and their June wedding had a lot of lovely details that helped their fun loving personalities shine through. Here's a look at some of our favorites from Freya and Matt's wedding (taken by the talented folks over at RHM Photography):

There were just so many charming portrait shots and fun reception pics that we decided we couldn't squeeze it all into one post. So, we hope you enjoyed this little preview but be sure to check back Friday for Part 2 for more Freya and Matt and for some of the details like the dress, venue, etc.

XOXO

Jen & Saira

Ring Lardner Tonight: "You Know Me Al" II, Part 7 -- Bedford, IN, meets NY, NY

"I run into a couple of the ball players and they took me to what they call the Garden but it ain't like the gardens at home because this one is indoors."

-- from Jack's letter of September 16 from New York

The Garden that Jack was taken to would have been
the second Madison Square Garden (1890-1925).

FOR JACK'S NYC INITIATION, CLICK HERE

YOU KNOW ME AL: Our story to date

John Lardner's Introduction (1958): Part 1 and Part 2
Chapter I: A Busher's Letters Home --
Part 1, Preface and Jack's letters of Sept. 6 and Dec. 14 and 16
Part 2, The busher reaches the bigs -- March 2, 7, 9, and 16
Part 3: Countdown to Opening Day -- March 26 and April 1, 4, 7, and 10
Part 4: The busher makes his big-league debut -- April 11 and 15
Part 5: A major development for Jack -- April 19, 25, and 29
Chapter II: The Busher Comes Back
Part 1, The busher comes back -- May 13 and 20
Part 2, Big news for Al -- July 20
Part 3, A surprise for Jack -- August 16 (plus "The real Charles Comiskey")
Part 4, Back in the bigs -- August 27
Part 5, Big doings in Detroit -- September 6
Part 6, "Boston is some town, Al" -- September 12

THURBER TONIGHT (including BENCHLEY, BOB AND RAY, WILL CUPPY, WOLCOTT GIBBS, RING LARDNER, PERELMAN, JEAN SHEPHERD, and E. B. WHITE TONIGHT): Check out the series to date

"54 MPG Never Looked So Good!"

Hey, we gots to pay the bills!

And now, a word from our sponsor, Government Motors

Because what could go wrong with the huge, out-of-control, centralized, authoritarian, federal government mandating an arbitrary 54.5 miles-per-gallon?

The 14th Amendment Blues

The Congressional Progressive Caucus and lots of Democratic candidates and activists have called on President Obama to invoke section 4 of the 14th Amendment to prevent the United States from going into default. New Mexico state Senator Eric Griego summed it up well earlier today when he wrote to constituents that the GOP refusal to negotiate in good faith has left us "teetering dangerously close to losing the full faith and credit of the United States," an unacceptable outcome.

We must put the country’s interests ahead of House Republicans’ insistence on an ideological crusade that takes our country’s future hostage in order to gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for millionaires, Big Oil and other corporate special interests.

We expect Republicans in Congress to own up to their responsibility for fostering the conditions that have led our country to this point. But after spending trillions of dollars in Bush tax cuts for millionaires, paying trillions more on the nation’s credit card for two mismanaged wars under President Bush’s watch and having nearly caused another Great Depression by falling asleep at the wheel while big banks sank our economy, their intransigence is callous at best and morally bankrupt at worst.

That is why on Friday I called on the President to invoke the 14th Amendment to use executive order in raising the national debt ceiling immediately. Then let’s get to work cutting subsidies for big oil and tax breaks for the rich so we can create jobs and reduce unemployment because people are hurting and they want to work.

Not so fast, says my old friend "bmaz," an attorney in Phoenix who blogs at Emptywheel. He made a persuasive argument today on Twitter about why this is the wrong tack to take and, while I'm not entirely convinced, the argument was sound enough for me to ask him to summarize it for us at DWT:

THE CASE AGAINST TURNING TO THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT SO FAST

-by bmaz

As about everyone knows by now, the great debate is still ongoing on the issue of the debt ceiling. The frustration of those on the left with the intransigence of the Republican Tea Party, coupled with the neutered Democratic Congress, has led many to call for President Obama to immediately "invoke the 14th." The common rallying cry is that legal scholars (usually Jack Balkin is cited), Paul Krugman and various members of Congress have said it is the way to go. But neither Krugman nor the criers in Congress are lawyers, or to the extent they are have no Constitutional background. And Balkin's discussion is relentlessly misrepresented as to what he really has said. "Using the 14th" is a bad meme and here is why.

The Founders, in creating and nurturing our system of governance by and through the Constitution provided separate and distinct branches of government, the Legislative, Executive and Judicial and, further, provided for intentional, established and delineated checks and balances so that power was balanced and not able to be usurped by any one branch tyrannically against the interest of the citizenry. It is summarized by James Madison in Federalist 51 thusly:

First. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments.
....
We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinate distributions of power, where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other-- that the private interest of every individual may be a sentinel over the public rights. These inventions of prudence cannot be less requisite in the distribution of the supreme powers of the State.

Which must be read in conjunction with Madison in Federalist 47:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

This is the essence of the separation of powers and checks and balances thereon that is the very-- root foundation of our American governance. It may be an abstract thing, but it is very real and critical significance. And it is exactly what is at stake when people blithely clamor to "Use the 14th!"

Specifically, one of the most fundamental powers given by the Founders to the Article I branch, Congress, was the "power of the purse." That was accomplished via Article I, Section 8, which provides:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States...

and

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

The call to "Use the 14th" is a demand that the President, the embodiment of the Article II Executive Branch, usurp the assigned power of the Article I Congress in relation to "borrow money on the credit of the United States." This power is what lays behind the debt ceiling law to begin with, and why it is presumptively Constitutional. It is Congress' power, not the President's, and "invoking the 14th" means usurping that power. Due to "case and controversy" and "standing" limitations, which would require another treatise to discuss fully, there is literally likely no party that could effectively challenge such a usurpation of power by the Executive Branch and an irretrievable standard set for the future. The fundamental separation and balance of powers between the branches will be altered with a significant shift of power to the Executive Branch.

This is not something to be done lightly or if there is any possible alternative available. Indeed, the only instance in which it could be rationally considered would be if all alternatives were exhausted. That does NOT mean because the GOPTeaers are being mean and selfish. It does NOT mean because you are worried about some ethereal interest rate or stock market fluctuation that may, or may not, substantially occur. It does NOT mean because your party's President and Congressional leadership are terminally lame. That, folks, is just not good enough to carve into the heart of Constitutional Separation of Powers. Sorry.

And for those that are thinking about throwing "experts" such as Jack Balkin in the face of what I have argued, go read them, notably Jack himself, who said before invoking the 14th, first the President would have to prioritize what was paid by existent resources, those that could be liberated and revenues that did still come in:

...certainly payments for future services -- would not count and would have to be sacrificed. This might include, for example, Social Security payments.
....
Assume, however, that even a prolonged government shutdown does not move Congress to act. Eventually paying only interest and vested obligations will prove unsustainable-- first because tax revenues will decrease as the economy sours, and second, because holders of government debt will conclude that a government that cannot act in a crisis is not trustworthy.

If the president reasonably believes that the public debt will be put in question for either reason, Section 4 comes into play once again. His predicament is caused by the combination of statutes that authorize and limit what he can do: He must pay appropriated monies, but he may not print new currency and he may not float new debt. If this combination of contradictory commands would cause him to violate Section 4, then he has a constitutional duty to treat at least one of the laws as unconstitutional as applied to the current circumstances.

So, contrary to those shouting and clamoring for Obama to "Use the 14th," it is fraught with peril for long term government stability and function, and is not appropriate to consider until much further down the rabbit hole. It is NOT a quick fix panacea to the fact we, as citizens, have negligently, recklessly and wantonly elected blithering corrupt idiots to represent us. There is no such thing as a free lunch; and the "14th option" is not what you think it is.

As a parting thought for consideration, remember when invasion of privacy and civil liberties by the Executive Branch was just a "necessary and temporary response to emergency" to 9/11? Have you gotten any of your privacies and civil liberties back? Well have ya?

Lede of the Day: Stanley B. Greenberg Self-Beclownment Edition

If Stanley B. Greenberg ever decides to leave the "center-left political" polling business (if that is a real business), I think he has a future on the comedy circuit with one-liners like this one:

Barack Obama can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy, even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAHhAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHA AHHAHAH (***cough***) AHAHAHHAHAHAH AH AHA HA HAHA HA HA AHA HA HA AH AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA (***wheeze***) AHAH AHA HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA (***owww***) HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHH AHHA HA HA AHHAHAHAH (***sh--***) OWWWW HA OWWW...

Ow. Ow. I think I just wrenched my clavicle.

Greenberg is a hilarious kook of a propagandist. Obama, in fact, helped cause the housing meltdown as an agitator for ACORN, which harassed banks into issuing subprime loans.

Obama blew trillions of borrowed dollars on 'shovel-ready projects', only to admit later that there was no such thing.

The Obama administration was also held in Contempt of Court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, one of many steps the president has taken to destroy the domestic energy industry.

Obama also bludgeoned a wildly unpopular "health care reform" bill through Congress -- thousands of pages of legislation that no one had a chance to read or understand -- which is frightening business owners around the country and crushing hiring.

Obama also told a major aerospace manufacturer that they could not locate a billion-dollar manufacturing facility in a right-to-work state, an unprecedented act by a president completely dependent on unions for campaign donations.

And, most recently, Obama set the nation on a course of a downgrade from its once-unchallenged AAA credit rating by borrowing 40 cents of every dollar the federal government spends.

Stanley Greenberg has a future at Second City.

Will Progressives Abandon Obama... Even With Fascists Burning Down The Country (Literally)?

We have our own brand problems now

Earlier today, Digby started a brilliant post explaining what's gone down in the debt ceiling kabuki by quoting a jubilant George Will:

"Conservatives are saying it's imperfect, to which one must say, the Sistine Chapel is probably in some sense imperfect."

This morning Paul Krugman was on ABCNews with Christiane Amanpour. He'd sure make a better leader-- or poker player-- than Obama. He sees the same thing Will sees, although his reaction is more sympathetic to the victims of Austerity, most of us:

"From the perspective of a rational person-- in other words a progressive-- we shouldn't be talking about spending cuts at all now. We have 9% unemployment. These spending cuts are going to worsen unemployment. It's even going to hold the long-run fiscal picture because we have a situation where more and more people are becoming permanent long-term unemployed... We used to talk about the Japanese and lost decade. We'll look at them as a role model. They did better than we're doing. this is going to go on. I have nobody I know who thinks the unemployment rate will be below 8% at the end of next year. With the spending cuts it might be above 9% at the end of next year. There is no light at the end of this tunnel. We're having a debate in Washington, all about, 'Gee, we'll make the economy worse, but will we make it worse on 90% of the Republicans' terms or 100% of Republicans' terms?' The answer is 100%."

I'm a happy guy; I don't let things get me down. Nothing depresses me. Last night at dinner, 3 savvy progressives asked me what country I thought would be best to move to after the 2012 elections. (I lived in Europe during the Nixon/Vietnam War years.) I ain't movin' anywhere again. This time I'm staying and fighting.

Last night, right after the outline of Obama's complete surrender to the Far Right came out, someone tweeted that the White House was denying that there's a deal. Let me see if I can find it. Ah... there it is: a tiny little hope in the firestorm:

Turns out to be a false hope. As John Conyers pointed out, it was Obama who put Social Security cuts on the table for the corporate overlords, not the Republicans who want it so badly but are too (wisely) scared. And it's been Obama who has been feeding their hated anti-Medicare mania. Another scrap of hope-- a really far-fetched one this time:

Obama didn't win California's 55 electoral votes in 2010 because of the one I, on a leap of faith, cast for him. 8,274,473 Californians voted for him, more than 3 million the number who came out for John McCain. If Obama can't win California without my vote, he's not going to come close to winning in states he needs, like Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New Hampshire. How many more progressive Democrats, like me, have made up their minds to withhold their votes from Obama next year-- not in California, where it is easy to take the high ground, but in the swing states, where an election is decided? Today's NY Times sees a problem with the base if Obama is really signing on to this dreadful deal the Republicans have forced him into. This morning Jackie Calmes wrote about the rightward tilt and the party rift.

However the debt limit showdown ends, one thing is clear: under pressure from Congressional Republicans, President Obama has moved rightward on budget policy, deepening a rift within his party heading into the next election.

Entering a campaign that is shaping up as an epic clash over the parties’ divergent views on the size and role of the federal government, Republicans have changed the terms of the national debate. Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.

That has some progressive members of Congress and liberal groups arguing that by not fighting for more stimulus spending, Mr. Obama could be left with an economy still producing so few jobs by Election Day that his re-election could be threatened. Besides turning off independents, Mr. Obama risks alienating Democratic voters already disappointed by his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and his failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, end the Bush-era tax cuts and enact a government-run health insurance system.

“The activist liberal base will support Obama because they’re terrified of the right wing,” said Robert L. Borosage, co-director of the liberal group Campaign for America’s Future.
But he said, “I believe that the voting base of the Democratic Party-- young people, single women, African-Americans, Latinos-- are going to be so discouraged by this economy and so dismayed unless the president starts to champion a jobs program and take on the Republican Congress that the ability of labor to turn out its vote, the ability of activists to mobilize that vote, is going to be dramatically reduced.”

Borosage is a friend of mine but I disagree with him. Members of he liberal activist base, or at least many of them, are abandoning Obama despite the false threat of BACHMANN!!!!!-- which the Republican Establishment will never let happen. Pawlenty was supposed to knock her out of the primaries in return for the Romney VP nomination. T-Paw turned out to be the biggest political dud since Fred Thompson... so they recruited Texas dullard, Rick Perry-- yes, dumber than Bush-- to do the job for them.

Obama, in his failed effort for greater deficit reduction, has put on the table far more in reductions for future years’ spending, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, than he did in new revenue from the wealthy and corporations. He proposed fewer cuts in military spending and more in health care than a bipartisan Senate group that includes one of the chamber’s most conservative Republicans.

To win approval of the essential increase in the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing ceiling, Mr. Obama sought more in deficit reduction than Republicans did, and with fewer changes to the entitlement programs, because he was willing to raise additional revenue starting in 2013 and they were not. And despite unemployment lingering at its highest level in decades, Mr. Obama has not fought this year for a big jobs program with billions of dollars for public-works projects, which liberals in his party have clamored for. Instead, he wants to extend a temporary payroll tax cut for everyone, since Republicans will support tax cuts, despite studies showing that spending programs are generally the more effective stimulus.

Even before last November’s election gave the Republicans control of the House, Mr. Obama had said he would pivot to deficit reduction after two years of stimulus measures intended first to rescue the economy and then to spur a recovery from the near collapse of the financial system. With Republicans’ gains in the midterm elections, that pivot became a lurch. Yet Congressional Republicans say Mr. Obama seeks a debt limit increase as “a blank check” to keep spending.

“The Republicans won, and they don’t know how to accept victory,” said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

...“The president’s proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare has the potential to sap the energy of the Democratic base — among older voters because of Medicare and Medicaid and younger voters because of the lack of jobs,” said Damon A. Silvers, policy director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “And second, all these fiscal austerity proposals on the table will make the economy worse.”

Mr. Obama’s situation has parallels with the mid-1990s, when President Bill Clinton shifted to the center after Republicans took Congress and battled them on deficit reduction and a welfare overhaul. Many Democrats were angered by his concessions, by a sense of being left out of negotiations and by a fear of alienating Democratic voters. Mr. Clinton was re-elected in 1996.

But Mr. Obama is likely to face the voters with a weaker economy and higher unemployment than during Mr. Clinton’s era. Still, his advisers express confidence that voters will reward Mr. Obama either for winning a bipartisan deal, if that were to happen, or for at least having a more balanced approach that does not remake Medicare and Medicaid and asks for more revenue from the wealthy. And they suggest another potential parallel with the Clinton years of divided government: that Republicans risk a voter backlash with their uncompromising stands.

There are going to be a lot of people aliented from "mainstream" politics now, even as the radical-- now fascist-- right turns more and more to crap like this:

Fire officials in La Crosse are continuing to investigate a Saturday blaze that destroyed the regional offices of We Are Wisconsin, a union political action committee (PAC) that has pumped millions of dollars into supporting Democratic candidates in the upcoming recall elections.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that the cause of the fire, which started at about 9:30 a.m., remains unknown. Firefighters thought they had the blaze under control in the afternoon, however, that wasn't the case and it continued into the evening, the newspaper reported.

We Are Wisconsin used the building at 432 Jay St. to oversee its efforts in the 32nd Senate District recall election, which will be held Aug. 9. Incumbent Republican state Sen. Dan Kapanke is being challenged by Democratic state Rep. Jennifer Shilling in that district.

A spokesman for the group told the La Crosse Tribune that the group's office was a total loss.
We Are Wisconsin is a political action committee made up by a coalition of unions that has spent more than $2 million supporting Democratic recall candidates around Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.

Moody’s: Boehner and Reid plans both completely fail to avoid downgrade

Gee, this is unexpected:

Moody’s, best known for “Subprime is AAA,” is belatedly coming to the realization that a country running serial deficits of 10% of GDP is not a AAA credit.

Well, admitting you have a problem is the first step. And today, Moody’s is admitting what we’ve been telling you for some time, that the debt ceiling charade is a farce and the real problem is the debt itself.

President Subprime McTrainingWheels could not be reached for comment.

And, gee, who could've predicted such a turn of events?

House Speaker John Boehner had two nuclear weapons at his disposal. And he chose to use neither. He had the debt ceiling and a threat of a downgrade by the rating agencies.

Cut, Cap & Balance addressed both issues.

If Republicans had united behind CCB, they could have forced a vote in the Senate -- by putting massive pressure on the 20 Democrats who had earlier pledged to support a Balanced Budget Amendment -- and send it to the President's desk.

Boehner could then tell the American people: there's only one plan that addresses the deficit and prevents a downgrade.

And let Obama deal with the fallout of a veto -- if he has the guts.

Instead, we submit a plan that still results in downgrade and default.

Idiocy. Sheer, unmitigated idiocy.

We need to elect a boatload more conservatives in 2012, politically eradicate the RINOs, and jam true conservatives into leadership positions.

Because all of these pantywaists -- put together -- don't have the cojones of Michele Bachmann.

They're wimps who are selling out the American people -- just a tad bit slower than the Marxist, Democrat Left. We're headed for fiscal apocalypse and these feckless RINOs won't even put up a fight.

WARNING: Do not show this chart to a liberal (unless wearing headgear to protect you from a cranium exploding into high-velocity brain-shrapnel)

A couple of observations about this graph:

• The vaunted "Clinton Surplus" was, in fact, the work of a GOP House that was willing to fight for fiscal sanity (current Ohio Governor John Kasich was one of the architects of the surplus); in addition, two events conspired to turbocharge the economy -- in spite of Clinton, not because of him.

• Liberals like to talk about Reagan's deficits, but they ignore the fact that every budget Reagan ever sent to the Democrat-controlled House was declared "dead on arrival". Reagan supported a Balanced Budget Amendment, sought to eliminate useless agencies like the Department of Education, and otherwise believed in the U.S. spending within its means.

• Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, they have jammed through the most fiscally irresponsible spending programs in world history (I won't use the word "budget", because they've refused to propose a budget for roughly 822 days).

In short, Democrats never propose less spending than Republicans -- unless we're talking about defense. And now, after four years of Democrat-controlled spending, the federal government is forced to borrow 40 cents for every dollar it spends.

And that, my friends, is bound to end badly since the hard left Democrat Party and the RINOs appear ready to turn the spending on auto-pilot -- right into the tarmac.

Sunday Classics: The seething revolutionary rage of "Andrea Chénier" certainly strikes a chord at our present moment

Last night we heard two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso. It seemed only fair to let him get through the whole thing.

by Ken

As I explained in last night's preview of Chénier's Improvviso, we're continuing the three-part series devoted to Giordano's best-known opera begun earlier this month with a post called "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (also with a Saturday preview), built on the premise -- well, my premise -- that Chénier is a great revolutionary opera. Our goal is to get to the great Madelon scene of Act III. (I know you may not know what a "Madelon scene" is, but I don't want to try to explain the scene until we get to it.)

It's true that eventually Giordano and librettist Luigi Illica (also one of Puccini's most important librettists) cared more about the doomed love of the anti-royalist poet Chénier and the aristocrat Maddalena di Coigny, and I don't have a huge problem with that, because that's interesting enough and occasioned a fair amount of swell music. But for me the opera sizzles when it focuses on the way its characters are caught up in the tide of revolution in France, starting -- literally starting -- the overwhelming opening scene in which the servant Carlo Gérard, observing his broken-down father still in service to the Contessa di Coigny, vents some volcanic rage that there's no escape from servitude not just for his father but for his father's children; they're a race of menials.

In that opening scene we saw Gérard occupied, along with all the other servants in the household, with preparations for a grand soirée at the Coigny home -- just as the French Revolution, as we learn, is about to break out. Later we see the Countess and her lovely, inquisitive daughter Maddalena engaged in final preparations for Maddalena, and then the guests arrive. At the party, one of the guests, a young poet, is going to be moved to share some recent experiences and observations that will scandalize everyone present except Gérard and Maddalena: the Improvviso we heard last night, which today we're going to put in context.

We're going to pick up as the arrival of the guests is well under way, a starting point that was determined by one of three recordings we're going to hear -- all that survives of the broadcast of a 1938 San Francisco performance -- once we've broken the scene down a little. It's actually not a bad starting point, though, as the Countess greets the first of her "special" guests.

FOR OUR CHUNK OF ACT I, CLICK HERE

PART 3 OF THE ANDREA CHÉNIER SERIES . . .

. . . continues with previews and http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/08/sunday-classics-preview-preparing-for.htmlhere, and the main post "We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?We do know that young Roger Alberto isn't coming back, don't we?"

Will A Downgrade Matter?

Remember when he used to talk about "adult moments?"

S&P still says it's serious about a downgrade. Economics Weekly looked at it from their perspective:

S&P have recently revised its outlook for the US from stable to negative, indicating it may lose its precious AAA credit rating in 2012. For an long time now the US has had economic and fiscal risks and has an large amount benefits. However the strengths of the US, the fact that it is highly diversified and flexible, their track record have allowed it to maintain the highest possible credit rating, however recently the fiscal uncertainties i.e. the weaknesses have started to outweigh the strengths of the US economies. Thus it looks like their rating may be downgraded, but what are the likely effect of a possible downgrade?

Any downgrading of US debt will mean investors will see US dollars as riskier therefore will sell US dollars, resulting in a fall in the value of the US dollar against most global currencies. However many believe that as many of the world currencies do not want to be devaluated against the main global currency, as it will effect price competitiveness many central banks may intervene in the market to maintain the value of the US dollar. Therefore in the long term the dollar may not fall that much in value that is of course if the dollar is still the major global currency at the time when the US may have their credit rating downgraded.

Moreover any downgrading will result in the cost to obtain money increasing, this will therefore cost the US more to service debts. The return they will have to offer for bonds would therefore have to increase. Furthermore with news that China may cut up to two thirds of its $3 trillion worth of US debt, this will mean yet greater interest will have to be offered in order to borrow money. This will therefore limit the US ability to borrow money in the future.

Furthermore if the rating does fall it will result in the US dollar no longer being seen as the safest currency in the world, and may result in many investors moving away from the dollar to precious metals such as gold and silver, or to other countries. This will further weaken the US and may result in a decline of the US dollar as the world’s most prominent currency. This will then result in a fall in investment levels within the US, as the country will no longer be as appealing.

Yesterday while I was putting on my socks, I had the TV on and Steve Womack, the freshman Republican Party hack who replaced now-Senator John Boozman in Arkansas' reddest district, was babbling on about the greatness of the Boehner bill. Watching this highly bigoted, former small-town mayor-- and Merrill Lynch financial advisor-- trying to grapple with the impending financial meltdown his party is purposely inflicting on the country, I made a snap decision. I ran down to my safe, which I hadn't opened in a decade, and took out a big stack on I Series federal Treasury bonds, zoomed over to an open bank and cashed them all in. When I got home I read Binyamin Appelbaum's analysis of what a credit downgrade is likely to look like if the GOP gets its way and forces one on the country in their mad and demented jihad against Barack Obama.

Applebaum says that one of the reasons the talks have broken down is because Inside the Beltway, there is a feeling that although a downgrade would probably increase the cost of borrowing for the federal government, state governments, businesses and consumers, the economic impact might not be as bad as many people have predicted. That's encouraging?

The federal government makes about $250 billion in interest payments a year. Even a small increase in the rates demanded by investors in United States debt could add tens of billions of dollars to those payments. And the credit rating agencies have said other downgrades would follow like dominoes.

For example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge mortgage companies that are backed by the federal government, would be downgraded, raising rates on home mortgage loans for borrowers. Maryland and Virginia, and many local governments near Washington, their economies tied to the government, would also be downgraded. So would New Mexico, because an unusually high proportion of residents depend on federal benefits.

“A default on our nation’s obligations, or a downgrade of America’s credit rating,” 13 financial company chief executives said on Thursday in a letter to the president and Congress, “would be a tremendous blow to business and investor confidence-- raising interest rates for everyone who borrows, undermining the value of the dollar, and roiling stock and bond markets-- and, therefore, dramatically worsening our nation’s already difficult economic circumstances.”

...Moody’s said on Friday that it would maintain its Aaa rating for the United States so long as the Treasury keeps paying bondholders and Congress passes a long-term deal to extend the debt ceiling. The announcement said that failure to act by Tuesday night, or to meet other obligations, including Social Security payments, would not prompt a downgrade.

Ready for what last line may be presaging? Meanwhile click on this image to get it large enough to read. It's from the Chicago Tribune and warns of higher borrowing costs for consumers, plummeting consumer confidence, and jittery markets-- the GOP game-plan for the 2012 presidential election.

Larwyn's Linx: A Deal No Republican Can Support

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QOTD: "In the most recent of numerous scandals to rock the District of Columbia’s famously corrupt government, a councilman charged with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars meant for youth programs has been let off the hook by the city’s attorney general and won’t be federally charged because the area’s U.S. attorney is a college fraternity brother.

It marks the latest in a never-ending tale of the crooked officials who run D.C. and seldom face consequences. In this case D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas, who has represented Ward 5 since 2007, “diverted” more than $300,000 in public funds intended for children’s sports and spent it on personal travel and a luxury car." --JudicialWatch

Saturday, July 30, 2011

beautiful barbies dolls

Sunday Classics preview: Is the moral of "Andrea Chénier" that poets make lousy party guests?

DG herewith shares two minutes' worth of Plácido Domingo singing the Improvviso from Andrea Chénier (at the Vienna State Opera, 1981, Nello Santi conducting) from its Domingo 70th-birthday audio-and-video sampler.

by Ken

A few weeks ago I began what I explained would eventually be three sets of posts devoted to Giordano's opera Andrea Chénier. In that first post, "Giordano's Andrea Chénier and the class war that wrote the book on class warfare" (with a Saturday preview), we looked at the opening scene given to Carlo Gérard, a servant in the household of the Contessa di Coigny immersed in preparations for a swanky soirée on, literally, the even of the French Revolution.) We're headed for the Madelon scene of Act III, but before we get there we have to consider the poet Chénier's arresting Improvviso (which refers both to its improvisatory quality and to its suddennesss and unexpectedness), which shocks the dickens out of most of the guests.

In tomorrow's post we're going to work our way through the scene that leads up to the Improvviso as well as hearing the scene in its entirety (several times, actually).

Tonight we're going to listen just to the Improvviso itself. For the sake of my sanity I limited myself to what I've got on CD, but I think we've got an interesting assortment of performances -- in terms of voice types, national origins (two Italians, two Canadians, and an Argentinian), personalities, and interpretive thoughts -- beginning with Enrico Caruso's only recording of it, made when the opera, which had its premiere in March 1896, was little more than a decade old. Don't worry about hearing a bunch of antique recordings. After the Caruso, we jump to 1958, and everything is in stereo. (Which reminds me, there's also some notable variety in the conducting and orchestral playing. Just listen to the way the veteran Tullio Serafin balances, and the Rome Opera Orchestra plays, the chord that launches the aria proper.)

Believe it or not, I really don't have anything else to say tonight. I'll let the performances speak for themselves, and the music too, of course.

FOR TONIGHT'S IMPROVVISO PERFORMANCES, CLICK HERE

It's not just in his politics that Andrew Cuomo sure ain't his old man

Andrew Cuomo after being sworn in as governor of New York, with his daughter Cara at left and his parents, Mario and Matilda Cuomo, at right -- it's a shame the boy doesn't seem to be nearly as smart as his folks.

by Ken

We're not big fans here of New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It's not as if he's done anything surprising. He made it pretty clear during the campaign -- what there was of a campaign once it became clear that he was running pretty much unopposed, thanks to the Republicans' nomination of far-right kook Carl Paladino -- that he intended to govern basically like a Republican, making working people pay for the excesses of their financial overlords, and while he may not be in a class with plutocrats' best friends like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and New Jersey's Crap Christie, the margin really oughtn't to be that close. Now he's shown that he may seriously overestimate his own smarts.

Last week New Yorkers were shocked by sudden news that Jay Walder, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which operates pretty much all buses, subways, bridges, and tunnels in the city plus the Long Island and Metro North commuter railroads and many bus lines in other state counties outside the city, was quitting to take a high-paying job in Hong Kong running its buses and commuter rail systems and apparently a whole bunch of other stuff, with a stratospheric salary and a mandate to move Hong Kong into the 22nd century. It was, according to the early reports, an offer he couldn't refuse. What was a little odd was that in taking the MTA job Walder had had built into his contract provisions designed to make him immovable from the job -- it sure seemed like he intended to stay awhile.

Now I think we've heard the other shoe drop. The NYT's Michael Grynbaum and Christine Haughney report that a major factor in Walder's receptivity to the Hong Kong job offer was being treated like dirt by the governor. (The MTA, you should understand, is a state-chartered agency.) The MTA has brutal financial problems just trying to maintain service, and not only have the governor's plans for balancing the state budget included no help, but Walder hasn't even been able to talk to him.

On the management level, this is pretty stupid. A huge number of New York State voters use MTA facilities every day, and the man responsible for keeping them running can't even get the governor's ear. (Grynbaum and Haughney start with an appalling story of Walder being snubbed on a visit to Albany, when the governor entered a meeting Walder was having with gubernatorial aides, spoke to one of his guys for a few seconds, and left.)

I don't know how great a job Walder was doing, but the fact is, he was doing it. Does the governor have any idea how complex as well as punishing the job is? Does he have any idea how hard it's going to be to fill? Here are the NYT reporters:

The governor began his term with this best-of-both-worlds situation: If Mr. Walder ran into problems, the governor could easily blame his predecessor for the appointment. And if the transportation authority thrived, Mr. Cuomo could take credit.

Now, Mr. Cuomo must find someone willing to take on the Sisyphean task of running a troubled agency at a troubled time. Transit experts say the number of qualified candidates is limited. Officials in the transportation industry said they did not fault Mr. Walder for making a reasoned decision, saying the outlook for transit and infrastructure in New York is far grimmer than its competitor cities around the world. . . .

“When Jay was working in London, Jay had the total confidence of the mayor,” said Robert E. Paaswell, a longtime friend who studies transportation at the City University of New York.

In New York, Mr. Paaswell said, “the mayor and the governor have a very complex platform, and transportation is just one of many issues; it doesn’t really stand out.”

As for Mr. Cuomo, Mr. Paaswell said transportation “hasn’t been on his radar” because of priorities like legislative fights over the budget and same-sex marriage.

Mr. Cuomo may have gotten what he wished for. At the sole debate in the governor’s race last fall, he teed off on the transportation authority, repeating a long-discredited canard about the agency’s “two sets of books” and complaining that “no one is in charge of the M.T.A.”

“Put the governor in charge,” Mr. Cuomo said at the time. “If it does not work, it should be up to the governor, and everyone should know.”

Oops!

It may be worth remembering that the stepping stone to Mario Cuomo's political career was his impressive service in 1972 investigating and mediating a public battle over low-income housing planned in Queens. That required actually listening and understanding the stands and stakes of the parties to the controversy. His boy doesn't seem to be much of a listener -- except maybe to what's going on in his own head.

Maybe our Andrew really has a plan that will answer the transit needs of the huge number of New Yorkers who are captives of the MTA. Or maybe he's just a whole lot less smart than he thinks.