quid.pro

The best parody of our political system today

For those of you who are not Stephen Colbert fans, you are missing an amazing story: he is pulling off one of the best parodies of all that is wrong with our political system today. More than just talking to his viewers every night, he has hired lawyers, created a Super PAC and is openly mocking the system by demonstrating exactly how much one can get away with. I can’t remember any example of the media taking the joke as far as he’s taking it and it is at once fascinating, hillarious and scary.

I strongly recommend you read the letter he just posted here (there’s no permalink that I can find so hopefully this will stay live on the home page for awhile). In essence, Colbert is doing everything Karl Rove is doing by way of pointing out the ridiculousness of what is allowed in today’s system. Here’s one choice section:

Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow agrees that "fully coordinated" ads shouldn't be counted as "coordinated communications." The candidate would merely be appearing as a paid spokesperson, who, coincidentally, is closely aligned with the candidate that he or she also is.

For example, an ad in which the Kool Aid man decries our nation-wide childhood thirst problem would not necessarily be an ad for Kool Aid brand juice drink. That being said, would a tall glass of Kool-Aid solve that thirst problem? To quote one expert: "Oh, yeaaahhhh!"

There’s some real funny and yet serious shit happening here. I’ve been both amazed and horrified watching it. If you’re missing the story, please trust me... it’s worth following.

The downgrade issue is a stupid red herring

From the same AP story:

U.S. stocks tumbled amid a rout in global markets Monday after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time.

And yet:

Prices for U.S. government debt rose because Treasurys are still seen as one of the world’s few safe havens. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.48 percent from 2.57 percent late Friday. It fell as low as 2.46 percent earlier Monday. A bond’s yield drops when its price rises.

I know better than to expect more from financial news and get that the “downgrade” plays whereas general economic weakness is a tired story. But still, can we stop being that lazy? Credit ratings — as was proved in the sub-prime mess — are one of the biggest scams out there. S&P had an ax to grind and went there, facts be damned. Fact is, the US Treasuries are still the riskless asset class regardless of what S&P thinks and there are no other bond markets with even close to the liquidity to absorb the capital if anyone felt differently. That’s why Treasuries are going up today and why we can stop pretending otherwise.

I’m glad I focus on the longer-term, high growth equity asset class and can pretty much avoid these day-to-day machinations (except for angry Monday morning blog posts). Sell all you want, I’ll be buying this week.

That makes one of us

“I will not be running for president as much as I’d like to.”

Donald Trump, disappointing tens of people everywhere

On behalf of Americans, I’d like to thank the Donald

“He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue.”

Donald Trump, patriot, on saving the nation from the infamy of having elected a foreigner a few years ago

Sorry Allison, but I beg to differ

I really think the creators of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report drastically underestimate just how important their work is. I don't want to overdo it the other way, but these truly are the best, most intelligent and subversive shows on television right now.

You don’t think your work on Late Night, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report has affected people in positive ways?

I am exceedingly thrilled when people tell me those shows make them happy, but I don’t think it’s the same as dedicating one’s life to bringing more knowledge to the world. Or being a social worker and directly helping people. Or being a teacher.

Via David Jacobs, a great interview with Allison Silverman, former head writer for Stephen Colbert.

Masterstroke or ruin. Or both!

“Extending tax cuts and allowing the deficit to remain extremely elevated could be an economic masterstroke, thus pushing up growth. Or it could lead us a step closer towards fiscal ruin. It could be eventually be both.”

Jim Reid, head of fundamental strategy at Deutsche Bank AG, quoted in Bloomberg

No, Thank You

To the 100,000 MEGaWomen, tens of thousands of volunteers, hundreds of endorsers, dozens of dedicated county chairs and coalition leaders, I give you my deep gratitude. To each of you: I thank you for your belief in our vision to build a New California and your confidence that we can change the direction of the state we love.

Excerpted from Meg Whitman's concession letter. How did I miss that she called her supporters megawomen?

Michael Wolff on morons

“This is awfully snobbish of me, but that’s the point: The Muslim question gives us a way to separate, on an empirical basis, the reasonably logical and cognizant from the morons.”

Michael Wolff, commenting on the Barack-Obama-is-a-Muslim crowd

Debt and the financial system

Most boring title ever. Still, if you're in the group of readers who waits for non-baseball posts, this one is for you! The Economist has a great package on debt and this article features probably the most depressing summary of the last 50 years of economic waves:

In the 1960s and 1970s governments grappled with a wage-price spiral in which demands for higher wages forced companies to increase their prices, which in turn triggered demands for higher wages. The past two decades have seen a debt-interest rate spiral. It starts off with the private sector borrowing a lot of money. This is followed by a crisis in which the central bank cuts interest rates to help borrowers. That encourages the private sector to borrow more, which makes it all the more imperative for central banks to come to the rescue when the next crisis comes along. With short-term interest rates now at 1% or less in America, Britain, Japan and the euro zone, this process cannot go any further.

If the 1960s and 1970s produced consumer inflation, the debt-interest rate spiral created asset inflation. In 2000 this pushed share prices to unprecedented peaks; indeed many stockmarkets have yet to regain the levels they reached a decade ago. Now the support of asset prices has entered a new stage, with central banks buying assets (in particular, government and mortgage-backed bonds) directly to boost the financial sector.

Indeed, that sector was the biggest beneficiary of this spiral. Before the credit crunch it generated some 35% of all domestic profits in America. A highly sophisticated society would be expected to spend quite a lot on finance, but that figure still looked too high. “We have been transferring aggregate income and wealth to the financial-services industry. All this financial activity is just a deadweight on the system,” says Mr Grantham.

In the middle of the road, yeah!

“There’s nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.”

Jim Hightower, as quoted in The Economist