Little Boxes
During our recent brief periods of waking convalescence, we’ve caught the first season of Showtime’s Weeds on Netflix with Roku.
The story of a suburban widow raising two kids and forced to sell pot strikes me as a lot like AMC’s Breaking Bad, with the obvious disclaimer that selling pot is more amenable than meth. I suppose the latter came later and is probably a Weeds rip off. You’ve got the obligatory stoner dads as customers, but for me the real treat is fellow mommy and raging sociopath, Celia, as played by the amazing Elizabeth Perkins. Late in season one, she shaves her head to portray a chemo patient for the second time in her career. God, how I adore strong women. Speaking of which, Mary Louise Parker is relentless as Nancy Botwin.
511 State Street
I am happy to report the Wife’s stores, Rubenesque for Less consignment and the retail Linnea’s Boutique are for the most part, happily ensconsed at State Street Station.
The old Battleground location is nearly empty. As you might imagine, we are beyond shredded. My ailments are merely physical, while the Wife is also exhausted mentally and emotionally. Somehow, she managed to drag herself out of bed this morning and go to work. I’ll take today to catch up on work. We’ve until Sunday to vacate the Battleground location.
I was amazed at the amount of crap stuffed into that 1200 sqft location. Three minivans spent two days moving stuff to State Street. I was responsible for putting up standard to which brackets and bars could be applied to hang clothes on. I was tapping into steel 2×4s set at 24″. It was extremely critical the standard align with each stud and that each of the screws anchored to the metal. These metal bars would endure crushing weight and abuse. Therefore, I tightened each by hand, lest a drill ruin the tap. As a result, my hands feel like catcher’s mitts. Otherwise, I’m sore but fine.
It is times like these, when the rubber meets the road, you find what people are made of. The Wife is a superhero. Her broad shoulders lifted hundreds of garments, so far for three days straight, without fail. That’s not to say a few Tylenols haven’t been taken, but she’s still moving.
The TWC installer was with us all day, yesterday. He is a wonderful guy and while we don’t yet have actual internet service, I’m sure he did a great job under difficult circumstance. However, I am tired of telco installers who, upon completion of their job, feel like they’ve done you a fucking favor.
The traffic on our end of State Street is crazy. In spite of this, we actually rolled a jewelry case down the middle about 2:30 yesterday. Everything seems to work if everybody slows down. And our quads are gonna be crazy from the trip to the dumpster at the bottom of the hill.
Speaking of cases, I must brag again on the Wife. Monday evening, when we were close to exhaustion, we split a sub and moved her cases with U-Haul furniture dollies and my truck. It was like butta. We’d tilt the case and I would back up or away from under it. I may screw up yet, but so far, so good.
She keeps saying this is the last time we’re moving. But given what we’ve been through the last few days, we can still git’r'done.
Beautimus Digs
I’ll be running a few errands today, but the move will begin tomorrow. I was at State Street yesterday and the new stores look great. They were laying carpet in Southwyck Antiques. Linnea’s and Rubenesque didn’t get new carpeting like we’d hoped, but still shine.
Meanwhile, recent pieces in the N&R have helped inform customers of the transition. We’re running a week late, but we didn’t have to do the renovation. Hopefully, we can get it done Sunday and Monday.
As always, the foul up is with the telco. But she’s leaving BellSouth for TWC. For the last couple of years, BellSouth has treated the Wife as a spammer for regularly emailing her customers. We hope TWC does a better job of authentication. Some time ago, she sent AT&T multiple copies of her signed opt out agreement to no avail. She continues to dispute the renewal charge. Now, the same thing is happening with BellSouth. Even if Time Warner turns out to be horrible, it’ll be an improvement.
19:00: The Wife’s store was mobbed all day long. She had emailed her customers of a sale and they responded. Everyone is ready for the move. Currently, what is left of JoJo is prostrate with a cat on her lap watching Bones. I haved plied her with Natty Light and a little Lunazul. In the oven, I have a breadmaker crust on a Pampered Chef stone with the kitchen sink for toppings.
We will get serious on some sleepy State Street tomorrow.
19:30: I’ve gotta get some bread flour.
Greenwald Defends Grayson
From Glenn Greenwald at Salon on Congressman Alan Grayson, D-Fla.:
He has tapped into his background as successful litigator and his Harvard degrees in law and public policy to shape public discussion on a wide range of issues — from his highly effective grilling of the Fed Vice Chair regarding massive, secretive Fed activities and aggressive investigation of the fraud surrounding the Wall Street bailout to his unparalleled work exposing defense contractor corruption, his efforts to warn of the unconstitutional underpinnings of anti-ACORN legislation (a federal court proved him right), his creative (if not wise) legislative proposals to limit corporate influence in politics, and his successful, bipartisan crusade to bring more transparency to the Fed…
back in mid-January, a mere six weeks ago, Grayson went on Hardball and advocated that the Democrats pass health care reform through reconciliation, which would enable them to avoid a GOP filibuster…
But now? Thirty-three Democratic Senators are calling for the passage of a public-option-inclusive health care reform bill via reconciliation, and the President himself wants to use that process as well (albeit without a public option).
Simon on Pandit
From Simon Johnson at The Baseline Scenario on Citigroup’s Vikram Pandit appearing before a TARP oversight panel:
As far as anyone can judge, Mr. Pandit, you are completely unqualified to restructure and run a disaster prone global bank. Can you please explain in detail how you got the job?…
Mr. Pandit, your proposed restructuring plans simply make no sense; there is nothing you have put on the table that would reduce the risks posed by Citi to the national interests of the United States.
It was striking that, on the first day of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on Wednesday, Citi and its representatives were conspicuously absent from the witness box. After all, every major international financial crisis of the past 30 years has involved two elements—unregulated borrowers and Citi…
In 1982, Citibank almost failed because of bad loans made to Latin America. In the late 1980s, the problems were centered on commercial real estate in the U.S.—there was another rescue in 1990-91, by a Saudi prince, no less. Citi was exposed to significant losses in 1998 when Long Term Capital Management nearly failed. And Citigroup, as it is now called, was bang smack in the middle of latest housing/derivatives/failure of risk management fiasco…
Prince and Pandit would just be the appetizer. The main course should be Sandy Weill, the man who built Citi as a supposedly modern financial supermarket, and Robert Rubin, who was brought in to oversee strategic direction and to think deeply about risk.
The Helicopter Is Grounded
From Ambrose Evans-Pritchard at the Telegraph, recently:
Bank loans in the US have fallen at a 14pc rate this year, caused in part by Basel III rules pushing banks to raise capital ratios.
The M3 money supply has fallen at a 5.6pc rate since September. The Fed’s Monetary Multiplier dropped to an all-time low of 0.809 last week.
The contraction of eurozone bank credit to firms accelerated to 2.7pc in January, while M3 fell by a further €55bn. Japan’s GDP deflator has dropped to a record low of -3pc.
These are epic warning signals, with echoes of 1931. Yet the Fed has just raised the Discount Rate. It is winding up liquidity operations, and preparing to reverse QE, even though the housing market has tipped over again. New home sales fell 11pc in January to 309,000 units, the lowest since data began, and 24pc of mortgages are in negative equity.
From David Serchuk at Forbes:
Vince Farrell, chief investment officer at Soleil Securities, says the Fed should, and likely will, continue on its present course of low interest rates. This is because Ben Bernanke, a renowned student of the Great Depression, is loath to repeat the mistakes of 1937. Back then the economy seemed finally to be on the upswing, before a combination of higher taxes and interest rates and a reduction in the money supply kicked off the second leg of the Depression…
One thing the Fed needs to do is to sell off the toxic assets that it bought as part of its numerous initiatives over the past two years to provide financial system liquidity, says Joseph Battipaglia, market strategist at Washington Crossing Advisors. Despite this, he believes the Fed will make still more of these purchases in 2010, further swelling its balance sheet, which totaled $800 billion before the financial crisis took it to $2.3 trillion today. This is troubling because 50% of the collateral backing the Federal Reserve notes is in the form of mortgages, reflecting the Fed’s $1.25 trillion program to purchase mortgage-backed securities and to help Fannie Mae ( FNM – news – people ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE – news – people ). Reserves had been mostly in Treasuries and gold a few years ago…
Gary Shilling, head of A. Gary Shilling & Co. and editor of the Insight newsletter, feels there isn’t much the Fed can do let alone should do to foster growth…
To foster inflation a number of things would have to take place, he says. One, banks and credit worthy borrowers have to be willing to do business with one another. Two, you need three to four years of rapid growth, which Shilling does not see on the horizon. The third step is where the Fed comes in. As steps one and two take place the Fed needs to basically do nothing, to drain excess liquidity from the system. When this last step finally takes place it would push demand past capacity and generate inflation.
From Sam in the comments at Econbrowser, last March as QE was announced:
As expected, the FED fired its last bullet. Mr. Bernanke does not seem to understand or want to understand that you cant get something out of nothing, i.e. you can’t created demand for real goods and services by printing money, because money is a medium of exchange and not a good based on labour that produced it that you can exchange. A construction worker exchanges its labour (that built a house) for a pound of meat that a farmer produced (using his labour). That is economy, that is exchange of goods. What Mr. Bernanke does, is he pushes a button on his computer, adds money to his electronic account and then thinks he can exchange it for something valuable. What is he giving in return? Nothing really. So there is no real economic output on the side of the FED, so there won’t be jobs created and goods exchanged for other goods. Mr. Bernanke’s academic theories, tested on real living people, are falling flat on its face and we’are headed for Great Depression 2.0, because “the student of Great Depression”, the “helicopter Ben” just does not get it – You can’t create something out of nothing.
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — A majority of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index increased cash to a combined $1.18 trillion while simultaneously reducing spending, keeping a jobs recovery on hold.
Caterpillar Inc., Eaton Corp., Walgreen Co. and General Electric Co. are among 256 companies that ended last quarter with $518 billion more cash than a year earlier after cutting capital spending by 43 percent. Economists say the dearth of investment is keeping the jobless rate at about 10 percent as the U.S. emerges from its worst recession since the 1930s…
Investment in equipment and software rose 13 percent in the fourth quarter and temporary-worker hiring is on the rise, suggesting companies are “on the cusp” of using cash to invest more, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut.
Militant Pensioners
The Greek economic sit gets sillier by the moment. Its instructive value is enormous as a window into our future:
Greek trade unions are predictably furious over the bonus cuts, which come on top of a 4% pay cut they have already swallowed. Strikes will spread. Some strikers are unpopular, for example the taxi-drivers who have been protesting over being obliged to give passengers receipts. There is more sympathy for pensioners, who face a double blow from a freeze in pensions and the impact of tax rises. Militant pensioners unexpectedly broke through a police cordon blocking the road to Mr Papandreou’s office as he was announcing the new measures. They will soon be on the march again, says their union. “You cannot make ends meet on 400 euros a month,” declared one retired plumber.
The real danger to business as usual here at home comes from the 60% of citizens on the public dole. Add to those, the legions of public employees and union workers with unfunded pensions and it’s a very large number.
And don’t look to the opposition party for help. The latest Republican health care reform plan throws seniors under the bus with its suggestion they seek vouchered private Medicaid.
Things will get really ugly when the checks stop coming for the entitled. The Senate narrowly avoided such a calamity by extending jobless benefits. It’s just a matter of time before one large group of moochers fails to get re-funded.
End TBTF
From Richard Fisher, Dallas Fed Pres., at The Baseline Scenario:
Given the danger these institutions pose to spreading debilitating viruses throughout the financial world, my preference is for a more prophylactic approach: an international accord to break up these institutions into ones of more manageable size. If we have to do this unilaterally, we should.
From Charles Plosser, Philly Fed Pres., at Zero Hedge:
I believe Congress should amend the bankruptcy code to include a new chapter for large nonbank financial institutions. In my view, the most important issue any reform must address is the too-big-to-fail problem. Without a credible resolution mechanism to allow the orderly failure of large and interconnected financial firms, we will be setting the stage for the next crisis…
The resolution regime must not become a mechanism for more bailouts. I am concerned that the current legislative proposals allow far too much discretion and could lead to more bailouts, not fewer…
I believe Congress should clarify that the Fed has umbrella supervisory powers and the responsibility to exercise them, including collecting supervisory information on the holding company and all of its subsidiaries on a routine basis…
I believe Congress should also clarify the Fed’s financial oversight responsibilities by requiring a semi-annual Financial Stability Report for Congress and the public, much as it requires the Fed to submit its Monetary Policy Report…
regulators should marshal market forces by requiring financial firms to hold contingent capital in the form of convertible debt that would convert into equity in periods of financial stress.
Obama’s Broadband Stimulus
From Scott Bradner at Network World in January:
The Pew Internet & American Life Project just published the results of two surveys on Internet connectivity it ran over the last year. This report shows that not all that many people are blocked from getting broadband Internet access because it is not available in their area. There is no question that there are big parts of the country where broadband access cannot be obtained unless you are willing to use a satellite service. It is hard to tell in how much of the country this is true because of the poor statistics the FCC has been collecting. (See “All’s well with U.S. broadband deployment (says FCC).”)
The Pew report says that some people (more than 15%) have no interest in getting online. Another 6% think the price is too high, and 5% have usability problems. The president’s plan is unlikely to change these numbers much.
The current draft of the broadband part of the stimulus package focuses on providing grants to companies that are willing to deploy wireless or wired broadband in underserved areas. The bill mandates open access to any services that result from such grants.
But, if the Pew report is correct, the stimulus money and open access policies might only result in a few percent of additional broadband users in the United States. Figuring out how to get more competition into the picture so that prices could come down might yield a greater return.
From Johna Till Johnson at Network World on Google Fiber:
The move is a direct challenge to both the FCC and the telcos whose Internet business the FCC is seeking to regulate. On March 17, the FCC plans to roll out its Broadband Internet Stimulus plan, which aims to mandate low-cost, high-speed, universal connectivity. The FCC’s vision is that every household should have 100Mbps Internet access within the next 10 years.
The carriers say it can’t be done — that 100Mbps within 10 years is too aggressive. And they also say the FCC has no right to regulate Internet access (including broadband) in order to reach its universal-service goals…
If the FCC succeeds in reclassifying Internet access as title II services, Google may find itself and its broadband network under regulation — not nearly as much fun as watching the FCC regulate someone else. And broadband isn’t the only potential for regulation — a U.K.-based Web site recently filed a motion with the FCC requesting enforcement of “open search” rules to complement net neutrality.
From Bradner at Network Word in June 2008 on oversubscription:
Telephone networks solve this type of problem by not letting people make new phone calls if the network is congested — you get a fast busy signal. There is no equivalent to a fast-busy for the Internet — that is, there is no distributed admissions control — so there is no way for the end system to know if some points in the network are already congested and to not try a big data transfer. The Internet mostly relies on congestion-aware protocols, such as TCP, which slow down in the face of congestion. But not all Internet protocols are congestion-aware. For example, music or video-streaming protocols tend to ignore congestion.
The carrier proposals I’ve seen recently either want to charge more for users who transfer lots of data or want to throttle the amount of data that users are permitted to send.
The first solution actually solves no real problem (except maybe a revenue problem for the carrier). Since the real problem is points of oversubscription, charging someone for sending lots of data only makes a difference if they happen to be sending when the oversubscribed point is congested. Sending lots of data in the middle of the night when few others are using the net does not cause congestion, which is the ostensible reason for the extra charge.
The second solution only makes a difference if it’s limited to sharing the oversubscribed points in the network when they are congested. Like the first solution, this hurts users who may not be causing any congestion.
From David Coursey at PCWorld:
It won’t be released for two weeks, but the FCC’s national broadband plan is already drawing critics, who say it is overly broad and unworkable. The plan, a child of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, calls for as much as $25 billion in spending, money Congress isn’t likely to part with easily or all at once…
It reportedly includes $9 million in improvements to rural broadband, a new $9-$16 billion wireless network for first responders, and reclaiming spectrum from television broadcasters, among other proposals.
It is probably fair to say the plan as a whole will be dead-on-arrival when it lands on lawmakers’ desks. To have any chance of passage, critics say it must be broken into a number of smaller pieces to be acted upon individually…
Congress has already dedicated $7.2 billion of stimulus money to improving rural Internet access and a request for more will fall on many deaf ears.
All You Can Eat Sirloin
From Carl Wilson at the N&R:
Through the month of March, Avenue Restaurant and Bar (201 N. Elm St., Suite 105) in the Center Pointe building in downtown Greensboro is offering a never-ending platter of USDA prime sirloin steak served with buttery whipped potatoes and choice of soup or salad. All for $24.
The cuisine was purported to “better than hospital food.”
All you can eat sirloin is also available at Golden Corral, and cheaper, with many more veggie and dessert options.
I can eat the amount of sirloin it takes to make two cheeseburgers.
Back when we had friends, some invited us over for a steak dinner. It was sirloin. We pushed it around the plate and informed them we didn’t eat sirloin. When we reciprocated, they were feted with honking ribeyes. Hell, I broiled a couple last night with nothing but salt and pepper. They were glorious.
Back to Roy and Mitch at Avenue on Elm Street, these are the same geniuses who came up with the deal last summer where you could eat and pay for your meal, go watch a baseball game, and come back for the dessert you’d already paid for. The hope was you’d get drunk or be maimed by a foul ball and forget or be unable to enjoy your dessert.
Sirloin. Folks, I know times are hard, especially when you’ve blown your wad renovating downtown properties. But, those are not excuses to let down our standards. Ribeye will always be on sale. Buy them whole, cut them up and freeze them. Then, when it threatens to snow yet again, instead of losing her composure, the Wife say “Hey stupid, would you like a steak, tonight?” Such things are the bulwark of our civilization.