The Other Shoe Is Dropping

The housing depression has been bad enough, but far less attention has been paid to its corporate counterpart in commercial real estate. The bad news is that the commercial real estate market is plunging almost as badly as the residential one, and it too is about to hit crisis mode.

Vacancy rates in office buildings exceed 10 percent in virtually every major city in the country and are rising rapidly, a sign of economic distress that could lead to yet another wave of problems for troubled lenders.

With job cuts rampant and businesses retrenching, more empty space is expected from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles in the coming year. Rental income would then decline and property values would slide further. The Urban Land Institute predicts 2009 will be the worst year for the commercial real estate market “since the wrenching 1991-1992 industry depression.”

Banks and other financial companies have not had the problems with commercial properties in this recession that they have had with residential properties. But many building owners, while struggling with more vacancies and less rental income, will need to refinance commercial mortgages this year.

The persistent chill in lending from banks to the credit markets will make that difficult — even for borrowers who are current on their payments — setting the stage for loan defaults.

The prospect bodes ill for banks, along with pension funds, insurance companies, hedge funds and others holding the loans or pieces of them that were packaged and sold as securities.

Jeffrey DeBoer, chief executive of the Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group in Washington, is asking for government assistance for his industry and warns of the potential impact of defaults. “Each one by itself is not significant,” he said, “but the cumulative effect will put tremendous stress on the financial sector.”

The commercial real estate market collapse is the main reason why I believe recovery in the economy is several years off. Even if the residential market turns around in 2010, the commercial market still has a long way to go to daylight. Ten percent vacancy rate is horrifying, and it's going to get far worse, causing another round of bad bank problems and massive corporate defaults on property, triggering another round of bailout cash pleas for the business sector.

It's going to get far, far worse before it gets better.

Change Of Heart

It's truly impressive to consider the number of Bush administration employees that are screaming publicly that the Executive Branch is simply too powerful now that a Democrat is in charge and are fully expecting Obama to roll over on this.

It's even more impressive that somebody like John Bolton is asking for his old job to be nerfed completely, along with the entire State Department.

Of course, considering Hillary Clinton is actually wanting the State Department to do something other than lie to the world about who has WMDs, that's got Bolton and his ilk pretty scared...scared enough to want to suddenly have all the power in Washington back in Congress where the GOP can block anything and everything and call the Democrats naughty names if they refuse.

The most impressive thing is that the GOP's plan will almost certainly work because the Dems fold every time.

In Which Zandar Answers Your Burning Questions

TPM's Josh Marshall asks:

Can someone help me come up with an argument for why the Obama stimulus plan isn't turning out to be a painful joke?

...as he references the news that Obama's stimulus package contains $300 billion in tax cuts.

The answer of course is "I got nothin', bro." It is very much a painful joke. As I said yesterday, the most likely outcome is that the GOP will insist on passing the tax cuts immediately, and will then block spending with enough Blue Dog Democrat interference in the House and/or Senate to assure that anything that does pass will simply fail to help the economy. Obama will take the blame for it, and by the time November 2010 rolls around the economic picture will still be so bad that the Dems may even lose control of one or both chambers, assuring that what recovery we do have will be targeted at the top instead of the bottom up.

In other words, the Dems still don't have enough of a working majority to deal with the completely repudiated conservative economic garbage of the last 25 years because Washington is still run by the Village Centrists who want the status quo of Reagan/Bush "trickle-down" nonsense.

If the Dems can't find their spines in 2009 and run the country like voters actually put them in charge of things, we're looking at far, far worse times ahead.

[UPDATE] Paul Krugman weighs in and nails it cold.

What this says is that there’s a reasonable economic case for including a significant amount of tax cuts in the package, mainly in year one.

But the numbers being reported — 40 percent of the whole, two-year plan — sound high. And all the news reports say that the high tax-cut share is intended to assuage Republicans; what this presumably means is that this was the message the off-the-record Obamanauts were told to convey.

And that’s bad news.

Look, Republicans are not going to come on board. Make 40% of the package tax cuts, they’ll demand 100%. Then they’ll start the thing about how you can’t cut taxes on people who don’t pay taxes (with only income taxes counting, of course) and demand that the plan focus on the affluent. Then they’ll demand cuts in corporate taxes. And Mitch McConnell is already saying that state and local governments should get loans, not aid — which would undermine that part of the plan, too.

OK, maybe this is just a head fake from the Obama people — they think they can win the PR battle by making bipartisan noises, then accusing the GOP of being obstructionist. But I’m really worried that they’re sending off signals of weakness right from the beginning, and that they’re just going to embolden the opposition.

For Pete's sake, if Krugman the economist can clearly see the politics in this and how it plays out, it's got to be patently obvious to everyone. I don't think this is a head fake. I think Obama is walking right into the Clinton Triangulation Trap(tm) and somehow thinks he's smart enough to come out ahead.

Why the hell is Obama going at this from a position of weakness? What makes him think the GOP has any respect for his position or his agenda when they just stopped publicly calling him all but a secret Muslim terrorist only two months ago? They will not stop until they get everything they want: another Bush trillion dollar plus tax cut for the rich and especially for corporations. If they don't get it, they will destroy the entire spending package and the economy along with it. If they do get it, they will destroy the economy and finish the most massive transfer of wealth in history and eliminate the middle class.

Obama's already playing like he's lost, and he's not even President yet.

StupidiNews!

• The Israeli attack on Gaza enters into Day 10, with no end in sight.
• With states facing budget problems, fewer turned to the death penalty in 2008.
• Sources say Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will take over Howard Dean's position as DNC head.
• The Gaza conflict has sent oil close to $50 a barrel.
• The Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens advanced to round 2 of the NFL playoffs.

What Digby Said

Another installment of What Digby Said, this time on Israel and the US reaction to the invasion of Gaza:

You know, it's one thing for people to dispute whether Israel's incursion into Gaza is disproportionate. It seems obvious to me that it is, but people can argue that in good faith. However, I'm frankly gobsmacked by the cavalier attitude of some Israeli and American politicians, like Michael Bloomberg, who blithely assert that a disproportionate response is exactly the right thing to do:

"The concept of proportional response is one of the stupider things I've ever heard in my life. If it was your family, would you want a proportional response? No, you'd want every single resource to be brought to bear to stop those who are killing innocent people."

Well then genocide and nuclear holocaust are logically on the menu too, eh?

By Bloomberg's logic Israel has the right to turn Gaza, the West Bank, and any number of Arab states into smoking parking lots of blackened glass. Of course, by the same logic, the Arab states and Palestinians have the right to do the same to Israel.

International laws only really work if every actually follows them. When nation-states stop doing so because of political expediency, well...bad things happen.

The New New Deal Deferred

Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle today expressed serious doubts about getting Obama's stimulus package ready by the time the President-Elect is sworn in on the 20th.

Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, expressed doubt on Sunday that the Jan. 20 goal set by some for getting a stimulus package before the new president could be met.

“It’s going to be difficult to get the package together that early,” he said. Instead, he told “Fox News Sunday,” lawmakers hoped to have it to the new president by mid-February. [Like the others appearing on the day's talk shows, Mr. Hoyer made his comments before it was known that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had withdrawn as the Commerce nominee.]

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, was more cautious about any deadline, saying simply, “We will work this just as quickly as we can.” As to the amount of a stimulus package, he said only, “It’s whatever it takes to bring this country back on a fiscal footing that’s decent.”

But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, agreed with Hoyer that the Jan. 20 goal was impractical.

Mr. McConnell also expressed reservations about the ideas of extending unemployment benefits to part-time workers or expanding government-assisted health care insurance. “Those are very big systemic changes,” he told ABC’s “This Week,” and so warranted public hearings and deliberate bipartisan discussions.

And he raised a caution about the notion that as many as 20 percent of the jobs to be created by a stimulus plan might be in the public sector. “Is that a good idea?” he asked. He also urged Obama to support an immediate middle-class tax cut — possibly lowering the 25-percent rate to 15 percent — saying, “This is the sort of thing we could have bipartisan agreement on.”

It's pretty clear that the stimulus will be held hostage until the GOP and the Blue Dogs get everything they want in it. I would expect we'll still be squabbling over this in June. Considering how fast Bill Richardson was shown the door, I think Obama will happily cave into the GOP demands in the name of expediency.

In other words, the package that does pass will be useless, and Obama will be blamed for it.

[UPDATE] News leaking tonight that Obama will entice the GOP with a $300 billion tax cut.

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a plan to offer about $300 billion in tax cuts to individuals and businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.

The size of the proposed tax cuts -- which would account for about 40% of a stimulus package that could reach $775 billion over two years -- is greater than many on both sides of the aisle in Congress had anticipated, and may make it easier to win over Republicans who have stressed that any initiative should rely relatively heavily on tax cuts rather than spending.

Which" individuals" and which "businesses" is the question, but the program appears to be aimed at the middle class.

The largest piece of the overall tax relief would involve cuts for people who pay income taxes or who claim the earned-income credit. It would serve as a down payment on the "Making Work Pay" proposal Mr. Obama outlined during his election campaign, providing a credit to offset Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes of $500 per individual or $1,000 per family.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama said he would phase out a similar tax-credit proposal at around $200,000 per household, but aides said they haven't settled on an income cap for the latest proposal. This part of the plan is similar to a bipartisan initiative launched in early 2008, which sent out checks worth $131 billion.

As for the business tax package, a key provision would allow companies to write off huge losses incurred last year, as well as any losses from 2009, to retroactively reduce tax bills dating back five years. In effect, this would entitle companies to receive cash from the government that they otherwise couldn't have claimed.

We'll see how this goes over. I'm betting the GOP will want to pass the tax cuts now and will block the other $475 billion in spending...in fact, I can almost guarantee it.

Divide And Conquer

Twenty-four hours into Israel's ground offensive, the IDF has split Gaza in half, have surrounded Gaza City, and is claiming it now controls northern Gaza.

Israeli ground troops and tanks cut swaths through the Gaza Strip early Sunday, cutting the coastal territory into two and surrounding its biggest city as the new phase of a devastating offensive against Hamas militants gained momentum.

The military used overwhelming firepower from tanks, artillery and aircraft to protect the advancing soldiers, and Gaza officials said at least 31 civilians were killed in the onslaught. The military said troops killed several dozen militants, but Gaza officials could confirm only four dead — in part because rescue teams could not reach the battle zones.

The ground invasion and live images of the fighting in Gaza drew international condemnations and dominated news coverage on Arab satellite TV stations, many of which aired footage of wounded Palestinians at hospitals. Hamas threatened to turn Gaza into an Israeli "graveyard."

Thousands of soldiers in three brigade-size formations pushed into Gaza after nightfall Saturday, beginning a long-awaited ground offensive against the area's Hamas rulers after a week of intense aerial bombardment. Black smoke billowed over Gaza City at first light as bursts of machine gun fire rang out.

The ground operation is the second phase in an offensive that began as a weeklong aerial onslaught aimed at halting Hamas rocket fire that has reached deeper and deeper into Israel, threatening major cities and one-eighth of Israel's population.

Politically, Israel's current leadership is toast. Benjamin Netanyahu and the hardliners from Israel's Likud party are waiting in the wings to take over in March on a platform of dramatically increased military action against Hamas. Looks like Tzipi Livni is jumping the gun to save her bacon.

Too bad it's coming at the cost of lives on both sides.

First One Out

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson is out as Obama's Commerce Secretary, citing an investigation into a company that has done business with New Mexico's state government.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, tapped in December by President-elect Barack Obama to serve as secretary of Commerce, has withdrawn his name for the position, citing a pending investigation into a company that has done business with his state.

"Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact," he said Sunday in a report by NBC News' Andrea Mitchell. "But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process."

He said he plans to continue in his role as governor. "I appreciate the confidence President-elect Obama has shown in me, and value our friendship and working partnership. I told him that I am eager to serve in the future in any way he deems useful. And like all Americans, I pray for his success and the success of our beloved country."

The obvious question is why Richardson agreed to this in the first place if the investigation was pending, but it's possible the investigation just got under way. Still...Richardson and Obama's team must have known this was a possibility. On the other hand, Richardson is doing the right thing, there's no way the GOP would have allowed his confirmation with this investigation pending.

The other more cynical theory is that with Blagogate, Obama now has a zero tolerance scandal policy and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. Richardson was therefore told to withdraw. That of course leaves a number of controversial cabinet picks that may be withdrawing in the future.

I like Obama, but even I think this is starting to smell bad. Obama clearly didn't have a problem a month ago with Richardson, and neither did Richardson. Now this investigation is too much to handle? Something must have changed besides Blagogate, and that something is bad enough for Obama's team to decapitate Richardson. With talk of Richardson's people in New Mexico going before a grand jury, this one is looking serious enough for Obama to pull the trigger. Either this is a bad apple that had to be picked off the tree, or Obama is cleaning house across the board. Time will tell which this is.

Either way, the GOP can smell the blood in the water and they will now go after Obama's cabinet picks in full force: Eric Holder at Justice, Hilda Solis at Labor, and of course Hillary Clinton at State.

Who will replace Richardson, I wonder?

Franken Time

With the recount all but over, it looks like Al Franken has won election in Minnesota. But the problems are just beginning, and the Land of 10,000 Lakes may be the Land of Only One Senator for quite some time.

Minnesota's other senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, told the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune this week that if the state Canvassing Board -- which is tasked with tallying votes -- certifies a winner, the Senate should "consider seating that person pending litigation."

Klobuchar's statement prompted Cornyn, a Republican from Texas and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to threaten a filibuster to block Democrats from seating Franken before an official certificate is signed by Ritchie and Pawlenty.

The governor and secretary of state are barred by Minnesota law from making the election official until all legal proceedings have been completed.

"It is very clear that the people of Minnesota and the courts in Minnesota should make the decision about who won the Minnesota Senate election and not political leaders in Washington, D.C.," he said.

Klobuchar spokesman Ross Corson told CNN that the senator had only said it would "be an option to look at for the Senate, to consider seating the person who is certified by the Canvassing Board."

The new Congress will be sworn in Tuesday, and it's unlikely a certificate would be signed by then. Speculation over what could happen in the interim included the possibility that the Democratic-controlled body would provisionally seat Franken if he remains in the lead.

"There will be no way that people on our side of the aisle will agree to seat any senator provisionally or otherwise," Cornyn said.

In other words, there's a very good chance that come Tuesday there will be only 98 Senators seated, and Illinois' Roland Burris and Minnesota's Al Franken will not be sworn in.

Inevitability

As widely expected, Israel's ground assault into Gaza is underway.

At least four Palestinians have been killed as a direct result of the ground assault, Palestinian medical sources said, bringing the death toll in Gaza to 460 since the conflict erupted December 27.

The ground assault followed a weeklong campaign of airstrikes in what Israel says is an offensive to halt rocket attacks from Hamas militants in Gaza.

"We want to create a situation where the civilian population in southern Israel is no longer on the receiving end of those deadly Hamas rockets," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told CNN.

"We haven't articulated regime change as the goal of this operation. Our goal is to protect our people," Regev said.

After Israel's failure in Lebanon, if the Israeli army can't put an end to Hamas rockets, then the whole operation is a political failure. Let us not mince words here, Israel's real goal is nothing less than the end of Hamas in Gaza. Hamas is talking tough, but their leaders are expecting Israel to remove them and to replace them in Gaza with the more moderate Fatah.

Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken.

Wisam Abu Jalhoum, a Fatah activist from the Jabalya refugee camp, was shot in the legs by Hamas militiamen for allegedly expressing joy over the IDF air strikes on Hamas targets.

"Hamas is very nervous, because they feel that their end is nearing," a senior Fatah official said. "They have been waging a brutal campaign against Fatah members in the Gaza Strip."

Nature abhors a vacuum, after all. The enemy of Israel's enemy is their friend and Fatah is more than willing to step in after being run out of Gaza.

But will it work? Not without many deaths and a long, ugly campaign. How far is Israel willing to go to rip out Hamas and install a Fatah-led government in Gaza, a government the people of Gaza will never accept?

After all, we're still in Afghanistan after seven years after doing the same thing to the Taliban and replacing them with Karzai's government...a government that doesn't even reach outside Kabul's city limits.

Israel is falling into the same trap we did, and many Palestinians and Israelis will die as a result.

StupidiNews, Weekend Econ Edition

• Obama has laid out a five-point economic recovery plan, but will it be enough?
• Blue state governors say they need upwards of a trillion federal dollars in 2009.
• A federal commission says it's time to raise the gas tax.
• California Governor Schwartzenegger's latest budget proposal cuts a billion from the state's prisons.
• Wikipedia has passed its $6 million donation goal.

Ground Game

As I pointed out on Tuesday, Israel's airstrikes on Gaza could never last more than a few days. Israel is now out of targets for airstrikes to hit militarily, and politically airstrikes would allow Hamas to play the survivor card. Israel either has to retreat or go to ground attacks, and with "news" that Hamas has somehow "acquired" Iranian short-range Fajr-3 missiles, that conveniently could be fired from Gaza in range of Israel's Dimona nuclear facility (arguably the worst kept secret in the Middle East) Israel seemingly has no choice but to unleash a full ground assault into Gaza. What better way to report it than from the Village's London division, the Times?

Israel is poised to launch a major ground offensive into Gaza tonight after allowing hundreds of foreigners living in the devastated territory to evacuate.

After a week of air strikes that have killed at least 420 Palestinians and left scores of buildings in rubble, the Israeli army was set to fling hundreds of troops and tanks into a blitz to stamp out Hamas’s military wing, The Times understands.

Despite the looming onslaught, more Hamas rockets – which have so far killed four Israelis – were fired into southern Israel today.

The Islamist group vowed that its attacks, which have lasted for years and which finally provoked the massive Israeli campaign, would not stop.

Those dirty Palestinians have regrettably borough collective punishment upon themselves, you see. Of course, the ground offensive part of Operation Cast Lead was the plan all along. Sometime this weekend, Israel is expected to roll in and crush perhaps thousands of Palestinians in order to protect Dimona. It will be a massacre. Having experienced a failure in Lebanon 18 months ago, the Israelis are determined not to repeat their mistakes. With the Palestinians of Gaza safely roped in behind a huge concrete wall, the fish in the barrel will be not only shot, but bombed, burned, crushed, smashed, and butchered.

Our wonderful humanitarian President of course blames the Palestinians for this. It's no surprise then with the Israelis taking a page from Bush's Muslim-killing cookbook, drumming up a climate of fear that the mere threat of Palestinian rockets are infinitely more dangerous and deadly than the Israeli military machine. Israel certainly should be able to defend itself from these rockets. But the imminent slaughter of several orders of magnitude more Palestinians than have been killed by Gaza rockets isn't defending your country...it's collective punishment.

A war crime.

But then again, Americans do that sort of thing too. Why not Israel? Honestly, who's going to stop them?

Dear America:

"Since eight years of Bush shredding and then defecating upon the Constitution of the United States of America and then repeatedly interpreting it to mean that it's okay to constantly violate the laws within didn't work out so well for conservatives, I've determined the best way for conservatives to get back into power is an amazing document called the 'Constitution of the United States of America' that, if the laws are actually applied to him (unlike Bush), can be interpreted in such a manner that it can be used to stop Barack Obama and the liberals from doing anything. I'm a genius for the annals of humanity."

--Peter Berkowitz, WSJ

Thank You For Not Flying Air Stupid

You're flying home on New Year's Day, when you overhear people in the next row saying the following:

"The conversation, as we were walking through the plane trying to find our seats, was just about where the safest place in an airplane is...[w]e were (discussing whether it was safest to sit near) the wing, or the engine or the back or the front..."

Now, probably you're looking at a mental picture of a nervous Seinfeld-like moment with a family of neurotic flyers, maybe a kind of morose-looking college student and his girlfriend, an insurance guy coming home from a conference discussing probabilities with his buddy from risk assessment, a group of extreme sports enthusiasts talking up an adrenaline rush, or maybe a couple of pro poker players doing what pro poker players always do: talking odds.

Now imagine when you turn around to look at the people holding the conversation, that they are a traditionally-dressed Muslim family. What would your reaction be? Would it result in something like this?

Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was "impressed with the professionalism" of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

AirTran Airways late Thursday said they acted properly and that the family was offered full refunds and can fly with AirTran again.

"AirTran Airways complied with all TSA, law enforcement and Homeland Security directives and had no discretion in the matter," the company said in a prepared statement.

Family members said FBI agents tried to work it out with the airline, but to no avail.

"The FBI agents actually cleared our names," said Inayet Sahin, Irfan's sister-in-law. "They went on our behalf and spoke to the airlines and said, 'There is no suspicious activity here. They are clear. Please let them get on a flight so they can go on their vacation,' and they still refused."

"The airline told us that we can't fly their airline," Irfan said.

America still has a long, long way to go to recover from the damage caused over the last 8 years.

"When we were talking, when we turned around, I noticed a couple of girls kind of snapped their heads," said Sobia Ijaz, Irfan's wife. "I kind of thought to myself, 'Oh, you know, maybe they're going to say something.' It didn't occur to me that they were going to make it such a big issue."

Some time later, while the plane was still at the gate, an FBI agent boarded the plane and asked Irfan and his wife to leave the plane. The rest of the family was removed 15 or 20 minutes later, along with a family friend, Abdul Aziz, a Library of Congress attorney and family friend who was coincidentally taking the same flight and had been seen talking to the family.

A very long way to go. No doubt there are those out there who think that not only are the two girls on the plane heroes, but that Muslims have no business flying in airplanes in America in the first place, or even having any of those "civil rights" we keep talking about. We interred Japanese-Americans during WWII, after all.

Seven years later and we're still yanking Muslims off planes and telling ourselves "well, no harm done in overreacting like that!"

What if it was you and your family marched off a plane by the FBI?

Like I said...a long way to go.

StupidiNews!

• Capitol Hill sources say Blago pick Roland Burris will be barred from the Senate floor at Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony.
• AG Michael Mukasey is recommending that Bush invokes executive privilege to protect Dick Cheney.
• Israel rejects the idea of a truce with Hamas and continues to attack Gaza with an "iron fist".
• The US steel industry is eagerly awaiting details of Obama's infrastructure spending plan.
• The controversy over the UK's plan to track every e-mail and phone call in the country is growing.