The BBC's Robert Peston once again weighs in with that English dry humor:
In my wilder imaginings over the years about the future of the public sector, it never occurred to me that one day as a taxpayer I would be financially liable for the overdrafts on 3.2 million UK retail bank accounts, £10bn of loans to British small businesses and a further £10bn of UK residential mortgages provided to 70,000 home owners.
He goes on to detail how the taxpayers of the UK will be paying for RBS into the indefinite future.
It's not pretty.
I wonder if this was assembled in order to be inexorably in place before next year's elections. Brown and Labour must certainly know they are on the way out.
Which raises the next question: What else do they have under their sleeve?
Friday, December 11, 2009
America's Best High Schools
US News and World Report released its list of America's best high schools today.
The list is based on a 'three-step process that examines how well a school serves its entire student body (average students, disadvantaged students, and collegebound students).'
It's an impressive list, not the least for its wide geographic distribution.
The top 100 list is here.
It's an inspiring read.
I get to work with a student in one of the top 30 on the list. It's an old building, with literally no campus around it. Students attend based on achievement, and a lottery is also involved. The level of motivation is very high. For every student there, there is at least another in the city happy to replace him. Hmm. No reports of drugs and discipline problems. He thrives there, generally, except that he is so far ahead of the maths program that boredom is a real challenge.
In the general attitude of cynicism towards schools, it's good to be reminded that greatness is possible in unlikely places. It's not so much a matter of spending money on the latest and greatest physical plant, as it is about building great faculties, and fostering that sense of community that tends to pull everyone along in the right direction.
If what we see here can be our expectations of normality, we're in for great days ahead.
The culture shapes the economy...
The list is based on a 'three-step process that examines how well a school serves its entire student body (average students, disadvantaged students, and collegebound students).'
It's an impressive list, not the least for its wide geographic distribution.
The top 100 list is here.
It's an inspiring read.
I get to work with a student in one of the top 30 on the list. It's an old building, with literally no campus around it. Students attend based on achievement, and a lottery is also involved. The level of motivation is very high. For every student there, there is at least another in the city happy to replace him. Hmm. No reports of drugs and discipline problems. He thrives there, generally, except that he is so far ahead of the maths program that boredom is a real challenge.
In the general attitude of cynicism towards schools, it's good to be reminded that greatness is possible in unlikely places. It's not so much a matter of spending money on the latest and greatest physical plant, as it is about building great faculties, and fostering that sense of community that tends to pull everyone along in the right direction.
If what we see here can be our expectations of normality, we're in for great days ahead.
The culture shapes the economy...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Neel Kashkari, Poster Child Of TARP
Neel Kashkari has surfaced.
As now routinely happens, some unknown person is thrust unprepared into the spotlight of the world's gaze. He retreats, writes The Book(or more commonly, works with a ghost writer), coaches for The Book Tour, hopefully makes some bucks for his pains, and moves on to the rest of his life.
Sweet.
Remember that out-of-body experience you had when you first heard of TARP, and then read the initial proposal floated to Congress? You know, the one that essentially turned the country over to the Secretary of the Treasury?
Neel drafted it.
Jesse, linked above, has the story, and some pithy insights to share. I hope you read them.
But here is how the 'priesthood' at Treasury decided that $700 billion dollars was the figure to demand:
In February 2008, Mr Kashkari was charged with drafting an emergency plan in case the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis. By October the crisis had arrived and his ten-page plan became the blueprint for the banks' bailout that Mr Paulson presented to Congress.
Mr Kashkari admitted that he plucked “a number out of the air” when deciding with Mr Paulson how much funding to request from Congress for the Tarp.
He told The Washington Post that he used his BlackBerry to calculate the bailout figures: “We have $11 trillion residential mortgages, $3 trillion commercial mortgages. Total $14 trillion. Five per cent of that is $700 billion. A nice round number.”
A nice round number, indeed.
I'd love to go create my own 'round number' credit line demand, be able to walk into a bank with a shotgun, hold the tellers hostage, and walk out with my own nifty credit card. I won't even need to pay it back, and the bankers will pour me champagne to celebrate my accomplishment.
I wouldn't even ask for that much. A billion will do.
A nice, round number.
Sweet.
As now routinely happens, some unknown person is thrust unprepared into the spotlight of the world's gaze. He retreats, writes The Book(or more commonly, works with a ghost writer), coaches for The Book Tour, hopefully makes some bucks for his pains, and moves on to the rest of his life.
Sweet.
Remember that out-of-body experience you had when you first heard of TARP, and then read the initial proposal floated to Congress? You know, the one that essentially turned the country over to the Secretary of the Treasury?
Neel drafted it.
Jesse, linked above, has the story, and some pithy insights to share. I hope you read them.
But here is how the 'priesthood' at Treasury decided that $700 billion dollars was the figure to demand:
In February 2008, Mr Kashkari was charged with drafting an emergency plan in case the credit crunch became a full-blown financial crisis. By October the crisis had arrived and his ten-page plan became the blueprint for the banks' bailout that Mr Paulson presented to Congress.
Mr Kashkari admitted that he plucked “a number out of the air” when deciding with Mr Paulson how much funding to request from Congress for the Tarp.
He told The Washington Post that he used his BlackBerry to calculate the bailout figures: “We have $11 trillion residential mortgages, $3 trillion commercial mortgages. Total $14 trillion. Five per cent of that is $700 billion. A nice round number.”
A nice round number, indeed.
I'd love to go create my own 'round number' credit line demand, be able to walk into a bank with a shotgun, hold the tellers hostage, and walk out with my own nifty credit card. I won't even need to pay it back, and the bankers will pour me champagne to celebrate my accomplishment.
I wouldn't even ask for that much. A billion will do.
A nice, round number.
Sweet.
While The Media Obsess About Tiger Woods...
The students of Iran put their lives on the line in opposition to the regime.
These are posts sent from Iran, they seem authentic, but of course I can't verify them up to any real journalist's standard. So readers will have to judge for themselves.
The 'Basiji' referenced appear to be para-military/private-army types in service of the regime. It's not entirely clear from my reading, but they appear to be imports from Palestine, e.g. Hezbollah personnel, not native Persians.
It's hard to know what the students are seeking long-term, if anything. But it is clear they are deeply unhappy with the current regime.
These are posts sent from Iran, they seem authentic, but of course I can't verify them up to any real journalist's standard. So readers will have to judge for themselves.
The 'Basiji' referenced appear to be para-military/private-army types in service of the regime. It's not entirely clear from my reading, but they appear to be imports from Palestine, e.g. Hezbollah personnel, not native Persians.
It's hard to know what the students are seeking long-term, if anything. But it is clear they are deeply unhappy with the current regime.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Helicopter Ben's Legacy
HT to Skeptical CPA, who passed along this gem of wisdom:
If the US dollar were back on the gold standard, notes Societe Generale analyst Dylan Grice, then gold would have be priced at $7,648 an ounce in order to fully back all of the dollars in circulation.
Full article here.
Enjoy.
If the US dollar were back on the gold standard, notes Societe Generale analyst Dylan Grice, then gold would have be priced at $7,648 an ounce in order to fully back all of the dollars in circulation.
Full article here.
Enjoy.
The Rats Begin To Flee The Sinking Ship: So Long, Congressman Tanner
As it becomes obvious that The Beloved Leader and his gang are in for a brutal November 2010, the Democrat Congressional rats occupying vulnerable seats will begin to flee.
Locally, that would be John Tanner.
This is the guy who decries the national debt and proudly votes for unconstitutional travesties like the TARP, the Obama stimuli, and any piece of pork Mama Pelosi can serve to her vote-hungry minions. (He did vote against PelosiCare, to his credit, but I suspect it was because he perceived the voters were paying attention, and melting his staff's phones off in their hands.)
This August, he refused to schedule anything except 'phone-in' town hall meetings, essentially unpublicized. He did meet one group, at a state-run senior citizen's center, which was announced after the meeting took place. He knew what awaited him once the voters began paying attention. Calls to his office were generally met with hostile staffers who often did not even know the day's news, or what legislation was under consideration.
It's time to go, and he knows it.
Remember the old joke?
Q. What do you call twenty (fill-in-the-blank--usually lawyers) jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge?
A. A good beginning.
Now, as big a fool as Tanner is, I wish him no harm. I just want him out of public office, where he can do less harm to the nation.
With his announced retirement, we have a good beginning. Many more, from both parties, available to take that leap back into the Real World.
Plenty of room on that bridge, and plenty of time to act.
Green shoots nominee!
Locally, that would be John Tanner.
This is the guy who decries the national debt and proudly votes for unconstitutional travesties like the TARP, the Obama stimuli, and any piece of pork Mama Pelosi can serve to her vote-hungry minions. (He did vote against PelosiCare, to his credit, but I suspect it was because he perceived the voters were paying attention, and melting his staff's phones off in their hands.)
This August, he refused to schedule anything except 'phone-in' town hall meetings, essentially unpublicized. He did meet one group, at a state-run senior citizen's center, which was announced after the meeting took place. He knew what awaited him once the voters began paying attention. Calls to his office were generally met with hostile staffers who often did not even know the day's news, or what legislation was under consideration.
It's time to go, and he knows it.
Remember the old joke?
Q. What do you call twenty (fill-in-the-blank--usually lawyers) jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge?
A. A good beginning.
Now, as big a fool as Tanner is, I wish him no harm. I just want him out of public office, where he can do less harm to the nation.
With his announced retirement, we have a good beginning. Many more, from both parties, available to take that leap back into the Real World.
Plenty of room on that bridge, and plenty of time to act.
Green shoots nominee!
Oh Give Me A Home Where The Dromedaries Roam...
That sensation of relief felt over Thanksgiving that all will be well, and all manner of things will be well, with Dubai, may have been a teency-weency bit premature.
Nakheel PJSC creditors may win the right to seize a strip of barren waterfront land the size of Manhattan if the company defaults on the $3.5 billion bond backing the development.
Investors will be able to seek foreclosure on the property’s mortgages should the Dubai World unit fail to repay the loan, according to the bond’s prospectus. The debt is due on Dec. 14, after which Nakheel has two weeks to remedy a default. The property forms part of the Dubai Waterfront project, where Nakheel plans to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong.
Now, I'm aware I'm just a layman sitting in the wilds of Tennessee, but did anybody bother to question why somebody might want to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong? Did the kids with the B-school degrees who bought the bonds think to ask the obvious questions? Who **!!***??** NEEDS another city twice the size of Hong-frigging-Kong? Who's gonna populate it? What worthwhile activity will take place there that justifies its existence? Why are we lending to sheiks sitting on oceans of oil?
Why aren't we demanding the freaking OIL as collateral, instead of empty desert islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Does common sense never enter the equation?
In the meantime: Now the area is bare except for a cluster of partly finished low-rise buildings and idle cranes for hundreds of meters. Yesterday, camels roamed part of the land.
Dubai office values fell 58 percent in the year through September, according to Colliers International. House prices have plunged 50 percent from the peak last year. “If built houses drop 50 percent in value, un-built land will likely drop more,” he said.
Maybe they can build a camel race-track! Float bonds for it! Those coked-up morons in New York will buy anything, Ahmed.
Go for it, big guy!
Nakheel PJSC creditors may win the right to seize a strip of barren waterfront land the size of Manhattan if the company defaults on the $3.5 billion bond backing the development.
Investors will be able to seek foreclosure on the property’s mortgages should the Dubai World unit fail to repay the loan, according to the bond’s prospectus. The debt is due on Dec. 14, after which Nakheel has two weeks to remedy a default. The property forms part of the Dubai Waterfront project, where Nakheel plans to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong.
Now, I'm aware I'm just a layman sitting in the wilds of Tennessee, but did anybody bother to question why somebody might want to build a city twice the size of Hong Kong? Did the kids with the B-school degrees who bought the bonds think to ask the obvious questions? Who **!!***??** NEEDS another city twice the size of Hong-frigging-Kong? Who's gonna populate it? What worthwhile activity will take place there that justifies its existence? Why are we lending to sheiks sitting on oceans of oil?
Why aren't we demanding the freaking OIL as collateral, instead of empty desert islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Does common sense never enter the equation?
In the meantime: Now the area is bare except for a cluster of partly finished low-rise buildings and idle cranes for hundreds of meters. Yesterday, camels roamed part of the land.
Dubai office values fell 58 percent in the year through September, according to Colliers International. House prices have plunged 50 percent from the peak last year. “If built houses drop 50 percent in value, un-built land will likely drop more,” he said.
Maybe they can build a camel race-track! Float bonds for it! Those coked-up morons in New York will buy anything, Ahmed.
Go for it, big guy!
Sunday Evening 6 December
Church was good this morning. The children's choir sang like angels, accompanied by an angelic little harpist, and the Gospel and sermon were about Zechariah arguing with the angel Gabriel that miracles were just not possible in his day, and at his age. Little did he suspect that the Almighty was just getting warmed up.
A modest Christmas shopping trip, a lovely modest lunch with my lovely bride, who is herself a miracle, and home again to the house we've occupied for nearly twenty years. It dropped into our laps miraculously when we had not two nickels to rub together, and a number of people close to us really really furious that we had met and married.
But I do sympathize with old Zechariah. He was tired. He had fought the good fight for many a faithful year, and was grateful just to be alive and able to attend to his wife and his life. It wasn't so much lack of faith as abundance of experience, seeing too much evil flourish and too little virtue prosper in his day.
I admit it: I'm tired as well, for much the same reasons.
So tonight, here on 6 December, I'm making out the Christmas card list, and trying to remember just how well it all turned out for old Zechariah, who didn't realize that Providence was on deck, awaiting His turn at bat.
A modest Christmas shopping trip, a lovely modest lunch with my lovely bride, who is herself a miracle, and home again to the house we've occupied for nearly twenty years. It dropped into our laps miraculously when we had not two nickels to rub together, and a number of people close to us really really furious that we had met and married.
But I do sympathize with old Zechariah. He was tired. He had fought the good fight for many a faithful year, and was grateful just to be alive and able to attend to his wife and his life. It wasn't so much lack of faith as abundance of experience, seeing too much evil flourish and too little virtue prosper in his day.
I admit it: I'm tired as well, for much the same reasons.
So tonight, here on 6 December, I'm making out the Christmas card list, and trying to remember just how well it all turned out for old Zechariah, who didn't realize that Providence was on deck, awaiting His turn at bat.
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