Operation Cypriot Slip, Part 4

As I alluded to in this morning's StupidiNews, Cyprus got a last minute bailout deal from the ECB, but the cost is pretty steep.

The agreement came hours before a deadline to avert a collapse of the banking system in fraught negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades and heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Swiftly endorsed by euro zone finance ministers, the plan will spare the Mediterranean island a financial meltdown by winding down the largely state-owned Popular Bank of Cyprus, also known as Laiki, and shifting deposits below 100,000 euros to the Bank of Cyprus to create a "good bank".

Deposits above 100,000 euros in both banks, which are not guaranteed under EU law, will be frozen and used to resolve Laiki's debts and recapitalize Bank of Cyprus through a deposit/equity conversion.

The raid on uninsured Laiki depositors is expected to raise 4.2 billion euros, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijssebloem said.

Laiki will effectively be shuttered, with thousands of job losses. Officials said senior bondholders in Laiki would be wiped out and those in Bank of Cyprus would have to make a contribution.

So, goodbye to the island's number 2 bank, and at least a 30% haircut through "unwinding" of Laiki on big Russian whale accounts, a clever maneuver that's not exactly a tax...oh yeah, and the loss of maybe half a percent of the nation's total jobs.  We'll see who signs off on the deal in the rest of Europe, because this deal is being done as a "bank restructuring" which the Cypriot parliament has already approved, they can't vote on this and sink it again.  Now, the rest of the EU however does have to sign off, and that's expected to happen.  After all, they're not going to burn over this, just Cyprus and Russia.

The Russians, I expect, will arrive for their payback quite soon.  Meanwhile, expect Cyprus to slip into a full-blown depression, as the Offshore Money Laundering industry was the island's major industry.  With that dead, yearly GDP contraction in the double digits isn't out of the question.  Big time depression coming here.  The real losers are the Cypriots themselves, who I expect will be in the riot stage before the end of the year, if not the end of spring.

Gotta love austerity.  In the end, the little people always pay.

StupidiNews!

• A single winning ticket for the latest $338 million Powerball jackpot has been sold in New Jersey this weekend.
• Protests against the NYPD continued over the weekend as the funeral of a sixteen-year old boy, shot and killed by police, sparked marches and demonstrations.
• Tighter US rules on lead emissions mean more companies are shifting battery production to Mexico.
• A last second deal will spare Cyprus and raise the $13 billion in bailout funds at the cost of the country's second largest bank and deposits larger than 100,000 euros.
• A jury has hit networking giant Cisco with a $70 million patent infringement penalty for misuse of a patent in its help centers in 2004.

Last Call

Mike Lillis over at The Hill can barely suppress his glee as President Obama's political obituary is written once again over gun regulations being dead, dead, dead in Congress.

An assault weapons ban is on life support and Senate Democrats have failed to entice a single Republican to back universal background checks. Congress also this week solidified four gun-friendly laws as part of legislation to fund the government through September.

To some observers, the shift in momentum comes as no surprise at all.

"[NRA CEO] Wayne LaPierre made terrible mistakes early on. They took two very bad spills," Ross Baker, political scientist at Rutgers University, said Friday in a phone interview. "But they quickly recovered and they assumed their usual position of dominance.

"They may do poorly in the first quarter, but they rally and they're usually ahead by halftime," he added. "They've been at it a long time. They know what buttons to push."

Adam Winkler, a constitutional expert at the UCLA School of Law, offered a similar explanation this week, arguing that even when the NRA is on the ropes, it "still sways a lot of voters."

"The NRA didn't become the political powerhouse it is by losing high-profile battles," Winkler, the author of "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America," said Friday in an email.

"Even though the NRA had a poor showing in the November elections, the people whose job it is to know who sways voters — members of Congress — still think it can deliver."

In the world of The Hill -- again, about as inside the Beltway as it gets -- the NRA does indeed rule triumphantly.  I've warned time and time again that Wayne LaPierre's seemingly insane babbling makes perfect sense to the doomsday prepper crowd, and they're millions strong.  Barack Obama has been the best thing for firearms manufacturers and ammo makers since the beginning of time.  Record sales, huge shortages, and demand growing by double digits quarterly?  Tell me the NRA is crying.  They exist to get Americans to buy guns and ammo and brother, are they ever buying.

Like it's the end of the world or something.

Denial Ain't Just A River In Ross Douthat's Mind

I've decided that the "We're sorry we got suckered into supporting the Iraq War apologists" crew in both liberal and conservative circles alike can suck it, of course (and Ezra Klein's mostly sincere apology still means he will always have that strike against him).  Thanks for reminding us who lacked character, credibility, and judgment back then so we're all inclined to take anything you've said in the last ten years or anything you say now with an entire salt mine.  The number of dead Iraqis and coalition troops your apologies have resurrected remains precisely zero, which coincidentally is the quantity of damns I give about your tortured consciences.  Live with it.  You still have that option, unlike the dead.

But Ross Douthat singularly compounds his idiocy by deciding that liberals should really be grateful for Bush's bungled war because it gave us Obama.

No, seriously.  That's his argument.

History is too contingent to say that had there been no Iraq invasion in 2003, there would be no Democratic majority in 2012. (It’s easy enough to imagine counterfactuals that might have put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.) But the Democratic majority that we do have is a majority that the Iraq war created: its energy and strategies, its leadership and policy goals, and even its cultural advantages were forged in the backlash against George W. Bush’s Middle East policies. 

Not mentioned anywhere in Douthat's piece:  The fact that liberals AND conservatives may have been angry about Iraq, but hey, Afghanistan and Bin Laden still happened.  Oh, and that whole nearly collapsing our economy thing in his second term.

Barack Obama couldn't possibly have won election or re-election based on his policies and performance, right?  He couldn't have beaten the most powerful Democratic party machine in modern history (or at least since Camelot) without Bush Bungles Baghdad, right?  What's next, telling me how slavery, the Civil War, and the Jim Crow era were an awesome lucky break for black folk like me?

Douthat's one of those people who lack character, credibility, and judgment.  So why would anyone listen to his self-serving nonsense now?

I can't think of a reason.

Baby You're A Rich Man

Want to know why reducing the deficit, cutting social programs, repealing Obamacare and cutting taxes for the rich are Washington's only real priorities right now?  They're the top priorities of the people who have bought Washington, of course, as the LA Times discovers.

We recently conducted a survey of top wealth-holders (with an average net worth of $14 million) in the Chicago area, one of the first studies to systematically examine the political attitudes of wealthy Americans. Our research found that the biggest concern of this top 1% of wealth-holders was curbing budget deficits and government spending. When surveyed, they ranked those things as priorities three times as often as they did unemployment — and far more often than any other issue.

The game is always about money and power.  It always has been, it always will be.

Two-thirds of the respondents had contributed money (averaging $4,633) in the most recent presidential election, and fully one-fifth of them "bundled" contributions from others. About half recently initiated contact with a U.S. senator or representative, and nearly half (44%) of those contacts concerned matters of relatively narrow economic self-interest rather than broader national concerns. This kind of access to elected officials suggests an outsized influence in Washington.

Imagine if two-thirds of Americans donated $4,633 rather than just the rich.   Course, we don't have that kind of money.  The people who do will forever own our country's politicians.

While the wealthy favored more government spending on infrastructure, scientific research and aid to education, they leaned toward cutting nearly everything else. Even with education, they opposed things that most Americans favor, including spending to ensure that all children have access to good-quality public schools, expanding government programs to ensure that everyone who wants to go to college can do so, and investing more in worker retraining and education.

The wealthy opposed — while most Americans favor — instituting a system of national health insurance, raising the minimum wage to above poverty levels, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit and providing a "decent standard of living" for the unemployed. They were also against the federal government helping with or providing jobs for those who cannot find private employment.

Unlike most Americans, wealthy respondents opposed increased regulation of large corporations and raising the "cap" that exempts income above $113,700 from the FICA payroll tax. And unlike most Americans, they oppose relying heavily on corporate taxes to raise revenue and oppose taxing the rich to redistribute wealth.

If this sounds like 100% of the Republican party's austerity platform, and the votes of Blue Dog Dems, there's a reason for that.  The rich bought and paid for the campaigns, and they expect delivery.  Sure, it will come at the expense of the rest of us, but we never mattered anyway.

We could if we wanted to.  We don't.

Operation Cypriot Slip, Part 3

Cyprus, facing Monday's ECB deadline to pull the plug on their banking system, and a re-opening of banks that have seen their depositor's confidence shattered, is in a huge bind.  They called the ECB's bluff by voting down the first bank levy plan to tax all depositors.  The ECB responded with the Monday deadline which will lead to the country's economic collapse unless averted.  Cypriot leaders see they now have no choice other than to cough up cash by dropping a huge bank levy on only the island's biggest accounts, most of which are held by Russian oligarchs.

Cyprus is considering a levy of about 25 percent on bank deposits over 100,000 euros ($130,000) in the island's largest local lender, Bank of Cyprus, Finance Minister Michael Sarris said on Saturday.

Sarris told reporters that "significant progress" had been made in talks with officials from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund - the so-called 'troika' - and that the discussions may conclude on Saturday evening.

If that's true, the Russians are going to blow a gasket.  It also means that oligarchs in other EU countries are going to look at this in horror.  They know they're next.

Stay tuned.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• Senate Democrats have passed a budget raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and closing loopholes to raise $1 trillion in revenues, but it will not survive the House.
• North Dakota lawmakers have sent a bill outlawing all abortions in the state to voters in a planned 2014 referendum.
• After being filibustered by Senate Republicans for 33 months, DC Circuit Court judicial nominee Caitlin Halligan has withdrawn her nomination.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state trip to Russia has resulted in a major oil deal with Moscow and increased cooperation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Apple's rollout of two-stage verification for passwords has exposed a major bug that could easily allow hackers to reset Apple ID passwords.

Last Call

Dinosaur Steve comes through in the end with a veto of the unconstitutionally stupid KY House Bill 289, the "Religious Freedom Act" but there are enough Blue Dogs (and in Frankfort, all the Dems are Blue Dogs) to most likely override the veto and make us the laughingstock of the nation again.

Gov. Steve Beshear vetoed a controversial religious-freedom bill Friday afternoon, saying the measure was well intended but would spark costly taxpayer-funded court cases and bring an array of unintended consequences.

"I have significant concerns that this bill will cause serious unintentional consequences that could threaten public safety, health care and individuals' civil rights," Beshear said in a statement. "As written, the bill will undoubtedly lead to costly litigation."

House Bill 279 would allow someone with "sincerely held" religious beliefs to disregard state laws "unless the government proves by clear and convincing evidence that it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing" the person's religious freedom. Gay rights and human rights groups have said the bill could be used to challenge local anti-discrimination laws that protect gays and lesbians in Lexington, Louisville, Covington and Vicco. 

"My religious beliefs are that (non-white people/LGBT people/non-Christians/women) are cursed by God, and I refuse to serve them.  It's now up to the Commonwealth to prove with clear and convincing evidence that they can infringe on my right to be a racist bigot."

Sure, this law won't cause lawsuits or anything.  I wonder how long this lasts if you replace the category up there with "white men".  Odds are we're going to find out really soon.

The sponsor of House Bill 279, Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, said he thinks he'll have the 51 votes required to override the veto if House leaders decide to take a vote. Damron said Beshear, a Democrat, did not ask him or Democratic House leaders to refrain from trying to override the bill during a conversation of more than an hour Friday in the governor's Capitol office.

In a written statement, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said, "The Senate is prepared to override the veto of HB 279 if and when the Speaker moves to do so. As a House bill, that chamber must act on the bill first."

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, said in a statement that Democratic leaders "will be discussing what action to take with our caucus."

The House passed the bill earlier this month with only seven dissenting votes. The Republican-led Senate passed it 29-6.

Lawmakers return to Frankfort on Monday for the final two days of the legislative session. Damron said there will be enough time to override the veto by midnight Tuesday.

So yeah, unless House Speaker Stumbo can talk the Blue Dogs down, Kentucky's about to become the land of 4.4 million theocracies.  Still, I'd love to see some atheists start refusing to serve anyone with religious beliefs.

In fact, I think that needs to happen...

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/22/2569508/beshear-will-veto-religious-freedom.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/22/2569508/beshear-will-veto-religious-freedom.html#storylink=cpy

A Little Perspective Music, Please

To recap, the House has passed the Senate 2013 Continuing Resolution.  The Senate CR bill makes the sequestration cuts permanent and makes several pro-gun NRA policy riders permanent.   Every Dem but two and both Independents voted for the CR (with the exception of New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg, who didn't vote and Jon Tester's no vote) along with several Republicans.  You want to know what the Republicans were getting in exchange for Reid's gun control bill even getting a vote?  Now you know.  That price came up front for the GOP, and they'll probably find a way to kill Reid's bill anyway.  Even if it does move through, it faces the House.

This means that Liz Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Bernie Sanders, Tom Harkin, Al Franken, all these bastions of progressive purity, voted for this in order to prevent a government shutdown next week, knowing that the gun control bill is in serious trouble and the GOP now has no real reason to negotiate in good faith.  It's the price of doing America's business, right?

Keep that in mind when President Obama signs the bill Congress gives him into law.  That sausage making machine is a pretty awful process to watch, ya know.  Tester and Lautenberg aren't exactly the bluest of blue, either, if you're planning on holding them up as more liberal than Liz Warren or anything.

And yes, this is me going after the usual suspects.  Nobody is pure in Congress.  They all play the game.  There are times when it doesn't matter how liberal the Dems are if you don't have the number of votes needed to win.  This is the result.  If you think the answer is the throw the impure Dems out and not the real bad guy Republicans, this result will continue to be permanent, too.

Operation Cypriot Slip, Part 2

Cyprus is now on the clock again.  The country's parliament called the ECB out and totally shot down the deposit levy scheme.  The ECB responded with a "Monday or else" deadline that could lead to Cyprus being the first country to economically flunk out of the Eurozone, not to mention you know, trigger a new European debt crisis and collapse.

In a sign it was at least preparing for the worst, the Cypriot government sought powers on Thursday to impose capital controls to stem a flood of funds leaving the island if there is no deal before banks reopen following this week's shutdown.

Parliament will reconvene later on Friday to debate a raft of government crisis measures after lawmakers adjourned a late-Thursday sitting saying they needed more time for consultation.

Even those measures looked likely to fall short of a promised "Plan B" to raise the 5.8 billion euros demanded by the EU in return for a 10 billion euro lifeline from the EU and IMF.

The European Central Bank said it would cut off liquidity to Cypriot banks without a deal, and a senior EU official told Reuters the bloc was ready to see the island banished from the euro to contain damage to the wider European economy.

The problem is confidence.  If Cyprus burns, then the current PIIGS on the barbecue spit, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain, are looking like they'll be next.   Paul Krugman sums it up:

What can be done? First off, Cypriot banks cannot honor their debts, which unfortunately overwhelmingly take the form of deposits. So a default on deposits is inevitable.

As I now understand it, the initial screwup was a joint error of the Europeans and the Cypriots. Europe didn’t want an explicit bank resolution, which would among other things have given clear seniority to small insured deposits; instead, it wanted this essentially fictitious tax scheme. Meanwhile, the Cypriot government still has the illusion that its banking model can survive, and wanted to limit the hit to the big overseas depositors. Hence the debacle of the small-deposit tax.

In the end this probably comes, in some version, to what it should have been from the start — a big haircut on deposits over 100,000.

That's going to A) piss off the Russians and B) turn into a truly ugly week in Europe starting Monday, regardless of what happens now.   But with TV screens across Europe soon to be filling with bank runs and riots, I'm betting more than a few people start getting really nervous and moving their money out of other banks in Europe too.  That could get really nasty and quickly.

We'll see.  So far the ECB has been able to stomp out the fires when they pop up, but each round gets more and more costly.  If Cyprus is the bridge too far, then hold on to your seats.

StupidiNews!

• Three are dead, including the gunman after a shooting at Quantico Marine base in Virginia early Friday morning.
• Just seven years after Colorado outlawed same-sex marriage in its state constitution, a civil unions bill has now been signed into law.
• Kansas GOP Sen. Pat Roberts has introduced legislation to cut $36 billion from SNAP benefits over the next decade.
• Legislation to cap bonuses given to European Union bankers could affect as many as two-thirds of EU fund managers.
• FCC Chairman Julius Genakowski will reportedly announce his resignation today, leaving the President with a guaranteed tough confirmation battle no matter who is nominated.

Last Call

Not sure how I feel about this new bill from Rand Paul and Patrick Leahy.

Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced a bill Wednesday designed to give relief to the nation's bloated prison system by offering judges leeway to consider sentences below the mandatory minimum for all federal crimes.

The bill, named the Justice Safety Valve Act, would expand a current provision in sentencing law, authorizing judges to hand down less harsh sentences if they determine doing so would not jeopardize public safety. Under current law, only certain nonviolent, low-level, first-time drug offenses are subject to sentencing below the federal mandatory minimum.

On the one hand, the travesty of mandatory minimum sentencing is absolutely one of the major reasons the US is the nation with the most people in prison, and an overwhelming majority of prisoners are minorities.  The prison pipeline in this country is arguably the single biggest fully preventable social injustice around.

On the other hand, I'm automatically suspect of anything that both Rand Paul and Grover Norquist think is a great idea.  I want to see the details.  I fully expect the crimes where judges are given leeway to be ones with mostly white convicts, like tax fraud or something.  I don't know.  What I do know is I don't trust either of these guys for a reason, and that reason is they are both soulless bastards.

In an op-ed in The Hill on Wednesday, Julie Stewart, founder and president of the Families Against Mandatory Minimums Foundation, and Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, both hailed the Justice Safety Valve Act as a "common sense" measure that would save money and help ensure that the "time fits the crime in every criminal case." Their column offered some data on prison capacity and overcrowding:

According to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, the number of inmates under the Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) jurisdiction has increased from approximately 25,000 in FY1980 to nearly 219,000 in FY2012. BOP prisons are operating at 38 percent over capacity, endangering the safety of guards and inmates alike. Last week, the Inspector General for the Department of Justice testified that it’s only going to get worse: the BOP projects system-wide crowding to exceed 45 percent over rated capacity through 2018.

On the gripping hand, the only way anything was ever going to get done about mandatory minimum sentencing in this country was through a bipartisan effort. It was always going to take a combination of fiscal conservatives horrified at the costs of incarceration to state budgets, and social liberals horrified at the costs of incarceration to people, communities, and families.

If it takes Rand Effing Paul to get the ball rolling on getting rid of minimum sentencing, great.  He's still an awful person, despite the one time he mathematically comes up with doing the right thing.  I don't trust him, I won't vote for him, I won't praise him.   But if this bill passes, I'll take it in spite of him.

Ashley, Alison, And The Turtle, Part 2

Yesterday I posted a Politico report that here in Kentucky, the Clintons were backing Alison Lundergan Grimes with the hope she would take on Mitch McConnell.  I said that I would take the Clintons offer of help to rid the Senate of Turtle Boy, and that the Kentucky coal industry would do everything they can to bury Ashley Judd anyway.  Lundergan Grimes, being the daughter of long-time Clinton friend and Kentucky Democratic Party chair Jerry Lundergan, would have the party machine necessary to beat Mitch.

Over at 3ChicsPolitico however, Ametia reminds us that the DSCC and the Clintons aren't exactly friends of progressive Kentuckians like myself.

You can do it, Ashley. Don’t fall for the old, “you’re not a resident of Kentucky” BS. Hillary Clinton moved to NY, established residency, ran for the senate, and she won. Don’t fall for you’re an actress and you have too much baggage. Ronald Reagan was an actor, he ran for POTUS, and he won. And don’t even get me started on coming in with “BAGGAGE.”

You’ve got something mighty special for McTurtle and nem to come after you, before you’ve even announced your bid for senate. And for the Clinton’s attempts to THROW YOU UNDER THE BUS for their hand-picked choice, I’d say RUN ASHLEY, RUN. Just like Barack Hussein Obama, Don’t be threatened by the Clinton MACHINE supposed power & $$, Or do they owe Grimes a favor?

I’ll wait for Ashley to announce, even with the rumors of her annoucing at the Kentucky Derby event in May.

Give it up, Bill and Hillary Clinton. We’re not voting for Hillary in 2016; at least, not me.

Yeah, they owe Grimes a favor because of her dad.  Ol' Jerry Lundergan was a huge Hillary backer here in 2008 and used his connections to help win the state for Hillary.  I said then that if the price for getting rid of Mitch was being nice to the Clintons, I'd be willing to pay it.  As much as Lundergan chafes my chaps, his daughter's still better than Mitch as my senator.

Yeah, I'd rather see Ashley Judd run and win, and as I said yesterday, Grimes hasn't committed to a Senate run and could take on a House or Governor candidacy.  She'd win, too.

Ideally, I'm hoping that's what happens.  Realistically, I just want Mitch's ass gone.  I live here, folks.  I'm casting my vote for whoever has the best chance of beating Mitch, and I stand by that.

What's The Penalty Here?

As Steven D over at BooMan's place points out, Michele Bachmann is an inveterate liar, a hack, and a lunatic.  Yet she still serves in Congress and will continue to serve, even when she tells ridiculous lies like "70% of all food stamp money goes to government bureaucrats."  It's more like 0.3%, but who cares?  What real penalty does she face?

Of the $82 Billion budgeted for federal food and nutrition assistance relief under the USDA for 2013, less than 6% (5.8%) is allocated to all administrative costs, which includes, by the way, state administrative costs that represent 81% of all administrative costs for the Food Stamp Program.

If, in fact, "Washington bureaucrats" received 70% of that $82 Billion pie each year, they would all be multi-millionaires. Hey, if that were true I'd sign up to work for the USDA in a heartbeat. However, the truth is that working for the USDA will not make you wealthy. As of 2011:

As of September 30, 2011, there were 1,325 full-time permanent employees in the agencies. There were 529 employees in the Washington headquarters office; and 796 elsewhere, including in seven regional offices; 55 field offices; four SNAP compliance offices in Illinois, California, New Jersey, and Tennessee; and a computer support center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

That number includes the 166 government employees who work for SNAP. The average salary for USDA Food and Nutrition Service employes is around $61,000. The highest paid position is at the level of a GS 13, with salaries ranging from a little over $72,000 per year to a high of a little under $94,000 per year depending on various factors including geographic location. Nothing to sneeze at, but hardly a job that will move you into the top 10 percent of income.

Sadly, far too many people will believe Bachmann's absurd claim that food stamp recipients receive only 30% of the money budgeted for SNAP. The truth, that SNAP is on of the most efficient government programs in terms of the ratio of benefits provided to administrative costs (942:6) incurred will be ignored by most of the media, and the conservative talking point zombie lie that SNAP is a wasteful program that should be cut severely will be the default position of all "serious people" inside the Beltway, despite the reality.

Best part is Bachman's lie will be repeated in campaign ads, on Sunday shows, and on FOX News time and again.  It will rarely be challenged on air, in real time, if at all.  So it will become "conventional wisdom" and eventually will be the reason why SNAP will be discontinued by Republicans.

She knows exactly what she's doing and she knows there's zero penalty for her doing it.

StupidiNews!

• China is denying South Korean accusations that a major hacking attack Wednesday on several South Korean media and financial companies came from Beijing.
• Nine House lawmakers are leading a bipartisan effort to prohibit the trademarking of the term "Redskins" in order to put pressure on Washington's NFL franchise to change its name.
• The Senate bill to prevent a government shutdown at the end of this month makes sequestration cuts permanent, but gives the government more flexibility in administering them.
• As Cypriot banks remained closed after this week's rejection of bank levies by parliament, the ECB is warning that the country's banks will be cut off March 25 without a bailout plan.
• Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is reporting his undersea exploration company has successfully raised from the Atlantic a number of F-1 rocket engines used 40 years ago for Apollo 11.