Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

Relevant, maybe, but I'm not sure about significant. So far the relevations don't seemt to amount to much (although I'm sure glad I know that an unnamed British MP fucks around and that the German foreign minister is considered dim).

Iran might have suspected that the Saudis have issues, but the confirmation can't be "nothing", is it?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Iran might have suspected that the Saudis have issues, but the confirmation can't be "nothing", is it?

I suspect that Iran was pretty well informed about it.

But I agree, the stuff about how other Arab states view Iran is interesting.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

How dare you, sir!



Yeah, but so far there has been very little to care about in what was confirmed (at least in what I have managed to absorb from it).



Relevant, maybe, but I'm not sure about significant. So far the relevations don't seemt to amount to much (although I'm sure glad I know that an unnamed British MP fucks around and that the German foreign minister is considered dim).

I don't know what bank is being targeted in the next dump, but considering the disconnect between the obvious street level reality of a doomed housing bubble and the assumptions held in bank boardrooms by people viewing spreadsheets in helicopters and Lincoln towncars, it isn't hard to imagine some shocking admissions of cluelessness at very high levels. That incompetence is hardly revelatory in abstract discussion here (we all know, too well, how dumb some of these people were). But when exposed in emails from the top brass of a bank - from individuals described by office and specialty - it takes on a whole new depth. There's a concreteness, an immediacy, that makes the "smoking gun" email salacious and shocking even when you suspected (or knew) well in advance exactly what such a document would say.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't know what bank is being targeted in the next dump, but considering the disconnect between the obvious street level reality of a doomed housing bubble and the assumptions held in bank boardrooms by people viewing spreadsheets in helicopters and Lincoln towncars, it isn't hard to imagine some shocking admissions of cluelessness at very high levels. That incompetence is hardly revelatory in abstract discussion here (we all know, too well, how dumb some of these people were). But when exposed in emails from the top brass of a bank - from individuals described by office and specialty - it takes on a whole new depth.

Let's see what's in there. Obviously quite a lot of ink has been spilled on the subject already, but maybe there will be some good stuff from the horses mouth.

[Adder]

For Sebby:

Cutting taxes makes government spending less expensive for taxpayers, which makes them want more of it. And politicians, obliging creatures that they are, are eager to give the people what they want. Result: lots of spending and lots of deficits.

link

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

For Sebby:



link

I'm doing a call shortly, so I can't reply in total now, but that's an intriguing argument to say the least. Interesting way of looking at the interplay between expectation and cost.

[Adder]

There is all kinds of interesting stuff about the psychology of opinion in this Ezra Klein post, which seems like it should be a FAQ for newcomers to the PB.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't know what bank is being targeted in the next dump, but considering the disconnect between the obvious street level reality of a doomed housing bubble and the assumptions held in bank boardrooms by people viewing spreadsheets in helicopters and Lincoln towncars, it isn't hard to imagine some shocking admissions of cluelessness at very high levels. That incompetence is hardly revelatory in abstract discussion here (we all know, too well, how dumb some of these people were). But when exposed in emails from the top brass of a bank - from individuals described by office and specialty - it takes on a whole new depth.

I got the impression that the wikileaks guy thinks the e-mails are Enron level damning. Of course, he seems to think that every single piece of information he's divulged so far is critical.

There's a person in my office who is in charge of open records requests. Most open records requests are from news organizations looking for particular documents. Or corporations that didn't win the RFP and want to see some of the details of the winning bid. Usually requestors are looking for particular documents with specific information. Usually, the requestor is reasonable and can tailor down the request to get the information that they want with minimal bullshit.

But every now and then there's someone who just wants to go fishing. We have one that has made well over 100 requests in the last eighteen months. She is a nutjob, and her requests are often written like "any communication from [date] to [date plus year] about me". Or "all [person that done her wrong]'s e-mails from [date] to [date plus two years]". There are many, many, many people here that she thinks has done her wrong.

At one point during the height of the requests, every other attorney in the office was pulled off whatever we were doing to sort through e-mails to determine which were responsive and which could be argued to be privileged or otherwise held back. I spent two days going through 50,000 e-mails of the secretary of a person who may have done the requestor wrong. It was tedious, boring work, and I know more than I ever wanted to about that secretary's mother, thanks to daily e-mails.

And the woman just won't stop. We ended up having to hire a recent law school grad part time to help sort through all the crap.

While this person is delusional and clearly has nothing better to do with her time (I envision her living in a 10x10 storage facility with random documents attached to the walls, connected by strings), given the sheer volume of documents she's been given in her open records requests, there has to be stuff that's embarrassing, overly candid, or otherwise is a document we'd take back if we thought the general public would get its hands on it. I'm sure, with those documents, she's yelling to the pigeons that share the storage facility "a ha!"

The wikileaks guy reminds me of the open records requestor. And that's not a good thing.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Adder

For Sebby:



link

This is definitely California's experience and soon will be the nation's. And Ronald Reagan was spotted leaving the scene of both crimes.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

There is all kinds of interesting stuff about the psychology of opinion in this Ezra Klein post, which seems like it should be a FAQ for newcomers to the PB.

I'm not sure I believe any of that stuff.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not sure I believe any of that stuff.

Clearly someone like you wouldn't.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Tom Ricks:

The Pentagon is set to release this afternoon its report on what the troops think about lifting the "don't ask, don't tell" ban on being openly gay in the military.

By coincidence, I didn't know until last weekend that baseball great Jackie Robinson, in 1944 a lieutenant in the Army's 758th Tank Battalion, was court-martialed back then for refusing to move to the back of an Army bus at Fort Hood, Texas. He was acquitted on all charges and honorably discharged later in the year.

He also had been turned away when he tried to play for the baseball team at Ft. Riley, Kansas. He was told to report instead to "the colored team" -- which didn't exist. A big joke.

It all reminds me of a talk I attended years ago at the Naval War College by Richard Danzig, who was then secretary of the Navy. He began by showing a few photographs, including one illustrating the racism of a Navy ship's crew during World War II. This was "the Greatest Generation," he observed, yet they did this. So, he asked, what are we doing now that our descendants will shake their heads over and wonder how could we be so head-slappingly stupid?

My candidates:

* Discriminating against gays
* Eating meat (I write this as someone who is going to cook a great beef bourguignon later today)
* Denying global warming

Any other guesses?

I'm with him on the first and third bullet point, but not the second. Meat is tasty.

[Gattigap]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Tom Ricks:



I'm with him on the first and third bullet point, but not the second. Meat is tasty.

[Hank Chinaski]

this guy has my proxy (hi Ty!)!

every day I pray to the holy Jesus and thank him that John Kerry was not president.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I don't know what bank is being targeted in the next dump, but considering the disconnect between the obvious street level reality of a doomed housing bubble and the assumptions held in bank boardrooms by people viewing spreadsheets in helicopters and Lincoln towncars, it isn't hard to imagine some shocking admissions of cluelessness at very high levels. That incompetence is hardly revelatory in abstract discussion here (we all know, too well, how dumb some of these people were). But when exposed in emails from the top brass of a bank - from individuals described by office and specialty - it takes on a whole new depth. There's a concreteness, an immediacy, that makes the "smoking gun" email salacious and shocking even when you suspected (or knew) well in advance exactly what such a document would say.

I actually think you will find the exact opposite. These guys new what was going on, but were bending over backwards to NOT disclose it to the markets (or to dress it up neatly for public consumption).