Obama’s Speech Encapsulated
I will make BP pay for exposing my incompetence. Also, administration lawyers are hard at work rewriting the "laws" of thermodynamics. For the children.
But see: Dennis the Peasant
Disparate links, 16Jun2010
I'm home sick, and I'm not in the mood for gathering ye pension news links while ye may, so here's a bunch of things:
- Crazy hats at Ascot - I'm happy to see that Bear Grylls got in on the crazy hat action. Why should women have all the fun?
- In Canada, those who were prudent need to pay for those who were imprudent-kind of like how I'm paying for the houses/cars/states where people believed that they deserve government $$
- Teachers are fair game-they just haven't learned their lesson yet [love ya, gramma, cousins, and aunts! To be fair, my relatives are not incompetent.]
- Gauge your personal beta--no, this is not referring to Allahpundit. By the way, Milevsky is missing an important piece – the moment when you stop being a bond, and you retire – this is why lifecycle funds trend towards more bonds as one gets closer to retirement. I can explain it more some other time.
- On the pertinence of “brightness”--speaking as someone who was considered “bright” in school, please don't hold it against me. My grades were excellent...and many teachers did not like me at all. I've always been a pain-in-the-ass
- Another study/commission/group of beancounters won't make women switch from life sciences to physical sciences - duh. I'm falling asleep reading this, but maybe that's the summer flu talking. Achoo.
Obama’s address; Bully, or BullSh*t, pulpit?
Regardless of what I personally think about Mr. Obama's ideology and actions, historically, when the President of the United States speaks from the White House's oval office it is usually a serious address pertaining to an important issue that the nation is grappling with at that very moment. Indeed, with a few exceptions, such as Jimmy Carter's infamous "malaise" speech, they have generally been important and worth listening to; which is why, armed with many grains of salt, I gave him my undivided attention last night.
It was notable, for reasons I'll shortly expand on, but first I should summarize its 3 important points; to paraphrase Mr. Obama;
1) I know that lately it looks like I've been mainly concentrating on vacationing, partying with aged and pre-pubescent rock stars, and playing a lot of golf. But, I assure you that despite those inconvenient truths, as well as the photos of my communications staff members engaging in important beer-pong meetings, we've actually been all over this mutha since day one!
2) Hey, what this really underscores is the need to pass the craptastic cap-n-trade bill, HEROICALLY! passed by the House of Representatives last year in their orgiastic fit of budget-busting, government expanding, legislation that they'd been dying to pass for the last 15 years; each followed by a throaty chorus of WE WON! after that bill was voted on. I mean, forget about the facts that, much like Obamacare, we have no actual idea what this will cost the public or do to the economy macroscopically, or that Spain has had to recently abandon a similar scheme because it was costing them more jobs, and public money, than it actually returned in beneficial results, or that any plausible possibilities are being pursued by Universities and, you know, evil capitalistic corporations who might look forward to the crazy money they'd make off of finding a substitute for fossil fuels-specifically oil. No, friends, the President made it clear that by the power of his incredible awesomeness, and a couple of hundred billion dollars of our money, his soooooooooper jeeeeeeeenyus Secretary Chu at the Department of Energy could indeed come up with a magial elixer, the fabled substance known to engineers and scientists of all disciplines as unobtainium, that would clearly solve all of their problems and, in this case, provide an inexpensive, ecologically pure, fuel of incredibly high energy density such that when used in ordinary vehicles it would yield triple the current miles-per-gallon...
3) I BLAME BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
Now, among what I found most notable about this speech was its abject political craven-ness. The President has obviously read the polls and tried to hit all of, what he considered, the required themes in the hope of reversing the tide of public opinion; if not among the whole of the populace, at least among dispirited partisan Democrats. As shameless, was his open use of this environmental disaster as a vehicle to pimp cap-n-trade; conveniently restyled as an "energy bill", dont-cha-know. And of course, there was his predictable, but still completely gutless, attempt to pin the actual responsibility on his predecessor.
Typical Obama palaver, that was an emotionless lecture, until of course, he reached the part about cap-n-tax. Then he was FIRED UP! and excited to talk about how, in the classic American fashion, with our usual inventiveness and innovative thinking, we indeed could develop auto fuels from unicorn flatulence. Or maybe that's what it sounded like to me...
But, I mean, never let a good crisis go to waste, eh ?
So, in short, a dodge, a lie, and a con. It sounds like the story-boards from the movie, The Sting, except we're the ones getting taken to the cleaners! Very much like Mr. Carter's "malaise" speech, this was noteworthy for essentially saying nothing; save for attempting to get the latest talking points to the faithful electronic brownshirts-to Soros’ minions. But even the usual nodding head on MSNBC weren't buying it; clearly the whole lot are apostate RAAAAAAACISTS!
It's no wonder that some of the faithful have been thinking that Obama's "Carter moment" was drawing near. In my opinion, we saw it Tuesday evening.
May God have mercy on us all.
Hollywood and DC – a Match Made in Hell
This just in: VP Gore has been
having an affair with Larry David's ex-wife — for the past two years!
I am not shocked. I am not even disappointed. In order to be either of those, I would have had to have some respect for the Goracle. Which, well, I have never had.
As for DC harlots running with NY / Hollywood harlots, I am not shocked at that either. I mean, it takes a certain something to find one's groooove in the scum-lined halls of Washington or heroin-laced groves of Hollywood.
What is really on my mind is that this is sad. On several important fronts, not least of which is that this man just nuked his marriage. That aside, this is possibly the most disturbing commentary on our cult-ure I have read in a long while...
"Al and Laurie went from friends to lovers," an insider tells Star. "It couldn’t be avoided."
It was unavoidable. Really? If I had a dollar (or two) for each willing lover I shut down while still young, skinny, engaging, and drunk... well, I'd have at least $25.00. I wouldn't be married any longer, of course... You know, because remaining so would have been unavoidable.
Hey, Do You Know About The Daily Caller?
Sure, I'll promote your enterprise . . . if you join me for a beer:
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Thank you for your support of The Daily Caller thus far - we hope you are enjoying the site. Since launching in January, we've already surpassed 1 million readers per month. And in just a few months, we've broken some major stories: questionable spending by the national political parties, the Obama administration's attempts to use new contractor rules to benefit labor unions, and the Tea Party's increasing influence on elections across the country.
While other Beltway journalists spend their time yucking it up at White House pool parties with the administration they're supposed to investigate, The Daily Caller will continue to do everything we can to make the Obama administration, Senate and Congress accountable to American taxpayers.
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Pension Obligation Bonds: the grandaddy of bad pension finance
Stephen Malanga on municipal debt – and an important tie to pensions:
Another weapon in the debt arsenal is the so-called pension-obligation bond. For two decades, governments have played a risky arbitrage game in which they issue bonds and then deposit the money in their pension funds to be invested in the stock market with the hope that the money will outperform the interest rate on the bonds. In a stock market that's been stagnant for years, pension bonds have become fiscally toxic. As the Center for State and Local Government Excellence noted in a report earlier this year, most pension bonds issued since 1992 have been money losers for states and cities, exacerbating severe underfunding of pension systems in places like New Jersey.
Ah yes, ye olden POBs. The way the game is supposed to go is this: the municipality borrows at 4.5%, and the assumed average asset return is 8%. Arbitrage! Free money!
Yeah, well, that's the =assumed= return, not the actual return.
Let me give you a real life example: I had a friend who worked for a tech company in the 90s. He showed me his employee options/stock holding statement one day, and he was halfway to being a millionaire. On paper.
I was trying to get him to exercise some of his options to pay off his credit card debt – I argued that his expected gains in the future were unsure, but that credit card debt was sure, high interest, and going to be a problem if his employment at that company cratered.
He kept arguing that nothing went up as fast as that company stock, and it had 4 splits since he had arrived... I told him nothing would fall as fast either [boy, did I get that right]. He was overexposed to one company: it was the source of his regular employment [like an inflation-linked bond that might default [could get laid-off], he had options [which could easily go underwater], AND he had company stock. So within a year all his paper wealth was wiped out. [In lieu of “I told you so”, I told him that his paper wealth was illusory to begin with. He did not appreciate my perspective on the matter.]
Having high debt with regular cashflow servicing needs and then having risky assets to try to pay them off... you're going to run into trouble more likely than not. This is why there's the old folk wisdom of not betting the milk money.
So the various states and municipalities that have played the POB game... many have found out that the bills are coming due at the most inopportune time: right after the pension portfolio cratered. Even if they could get the 8% going forward, they are massively in a hole.
If you are not yet convinced that POBs are not a good idea, take a look at this maneuver:
Retracing the strategy, in 2004 Northbrook fulfilled its pension obligation by swapping pension bonds with Highland Park. Back then, Northbrook's unfunded liability for police and fire was $15.2 million; Highland Park's was $16.6 million.
Jeffrey Rowitz, Northbrook's finance director, explained the sum of bond issues was higher than unfunded liabilities, so the village issued $16.6 million in pension funding bonds and received the same sum of Highland Park's bond in return. And what the bond swap did for both villages was save them about $350,000 annually in annual debt service. The swap was possible because both villages shared a AAA bond rating and had a similar-size debt.
"We gave $15.2 million of the Highland Park bonds to our pension funds to fully satisfy our unfunded liability and retained the remaining $1.4 million in a special revenue fund to help avoid spikes in future tax levies," Rowitz said.
The original pension bonds were expected to last through 2012. But by 2009, $213,885 was needed for the police fund, and the fire fund received $561,225. The 2009 property tax levy to support both funds was only $36,910, so Rowitz said the required contribution for the funds was about $700,000.
"By planning ahead and holding the excess Highland Park bonds in reserve, we were able to use a portion of them to fund most of the 2009 (pension fund) increase," he said.
If only they were smart enough to borrow from their own funds a la NY, they wouldn't have needed to waste all this effort swapping debts and pretending it's an invesment.
This is dumb shit. Who told them that this was fulfilling a fiduciary duty? They got lucky that neither side has =yet= gone under. But if one defaults, then the other likely would, and no one would have been protected from any downside there. This is as illusory as Paterson's proposal for the NY pension fund to borrow from itself.
Breaking (for the last 20 years): Bush women think for themselves
Laura and Barbara (the younger) Bush, public figures/private citizens, both gave interviews recently which veered from the planks in the Republican platform that partisans on both sides love to beat us over the head with. Naturally, the left sees this as them coming out as liberals and a big deal.
Barbara Bush, public figure/private citizen, is the president of something called the Global Health Corps. Mission statement: "Global Health Corps (GHC) aims to mobilize a global community of young leaders to build a movement for health equity." Cue 30 year old Coke commercial.
Not surprisingly, based on that statement, Ms. Bush leans left on healthcare, and a small sound bite from her recent appearance on Fox News Sunday confirms it.
"Why do, basically, people with money have good health care and why do people who live on lower salaries not have good health care. Health should be a right for everyone." That statement was regarding the issue of global healthcare. Later on, when asked specifically about Obamacare, she said, "I guess I'm glad the bill was passed".
She thinks healthcare is a right, which is really what many believe the healthcare debate boils down to. (Actually, it's about the difference between access to healthcare and who pays your bill). It should be noted that Bushette has never publicly declared a party affiliation.
The rest of the Yahoo article was about Laura Bush being pro Elena Kagan, pro gay marriage and pro-choice (according to the writer, Rachel Rose Hartman).
On Kagan: "I think it's great. I'm really glad that there will be three [women] if she's confirmed. I like to have women on the Supreme Court." This isn't a surprise, she expressed this ridiculous sentiment about having women on the Supreme Court for the sake of having women on the Supreme Court before.
Hartman then links to Richard Adams at The Guardian, who links to an appearance Laura Bush made on Larry King is still alive (h/t Laura Ingraham) where she expresses rather moderate positions on gay marriage and abortion, but Adams runs with it.
On gay marriage: "Well, I think we ought to definitely look at it and debate it. I think there are a lot of people who have trouble coming to terms with that because they see marriage as traditionally between a man and a woman. But I also know that, you know, when couples are committed to each other and love each other, that they ought to have I think the same sort of rights that everyone has." I completely agree, and I've written about my own sensible and politically improbable solution before.
On abortion (rather vaguely): "I think it's important that it remain legal, because I think it's important for people, for medical reasons and other reasons." If she's saying abortion should remain legal in cases of rape, incest and the life (which is different from "the health") of the mother then many Conservative women, myself included, agree. Which doesn't mean that because we're content with it remaining legal in those cases we would counsel a friend in that situation to abort their child. In my case, it means that after 30 years of talking in circles while millions of Americans were killed in the womb I'm willing to go hypocrite to prevent the majority of abortions which are not due to rape, incest or maternal health.
Bush women making political waves is nothing new. I submit, the matriarch with the mouth and one of my personal heroes, Barbara Bush the elder, aka Shecky:
In 1984, on vice-presidential candidate and future PUMA, Geraldine Ferraro, "I can't say it, but it rhymes with rich." LOL
During the 1992 Presidential campaign she referred to abortion as a "personal thing" and said, "The personal things should be left out of, in my opinion, platforms and conventions." The same kind of people that think that makes Barbara Bush pro-choice think that Abraham Lincoln was really a Democrat.
She also defended Bill Clinton's defective pants by saying, "He never denied he had a fling, did he?" (This was before he wound up denying, re-defining and kind of eventually admitting in his own weird way all kinds of things he did with and without his pants.)
Then there were her unfortunate, yet based in fact, remarks after her son caused Hurricane Katrina, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said at the time. "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
My point? I don't remember. But the bottom line is that none of these women are relevant to national politics today, and even if they were they're not obligated to support every plank in their party of choice's platform. None of us are. Unlike women on the left, who face ostracism for veering from NOW's talking points, Conservative women are actually empowered to form their own opinions and to share, or not share, them with the world.
Speaking of bottom lines, I vowed long ago to never let an opportunity to post this bikini pic of Barbara Bush go by again. What a hottie!
And speaking of what's relevant in national politics today...
crossposted at snarkandboobs and KillTruck
Where Bob Etheridge and His Call for Civility Can Go
From the Bob Etheridge Mea Culpa files:
Washington, DC, Jun 14 - U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) released the following statement on the viral video which appeared on the internet today:
“I have seen the video posted on several blogs. I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction and I apologize to all involved. Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. No matter how intrusive and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response. I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse.”
Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC-02)
Translation and Root response:
“I have seen the video posted on several blogs goddammit. I deeply and profoundly regret my reaction was caught on camera and I apologize to all involved. Throughout my many years of service to the people of North Carolina, I have always tried to treat people from all viewpoints with respect. No matter how intrusive that little fucker's questions of me were - and damn irritating too - btw -who the hell does he think he is to question me? and partisan our politics can become, this does not justify a poor response - poor, of course, meaning a physical, get in yo grill response asked for by Dear Leader. I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse - "civility" of the sort demonstrated by the Black Union Thug and myself on camera is permissible off-camera or in cases when none are the wiser - the end justifying the means and all.”[emphasis Root]
My response to Bob "get in yer grill" Etheridge: a profound and hearty Fuck You! Resign. How's that for Civility!!110!!!! I can still see November from my backyard.
Pensions and public unions roundup, 14Jun2010
- Alaska settles pension lawsuit for half-bil: Ah, Mercer, who brought us the settlement of the Milwaukee actuarial malpractice case. I imagine there are more lawsuits to come in future years.
Almost $100MM is going to the lawyers. There will =definitely= be more lawsuits.
- Chicago schools borrow to make payroll - hey, at least they're not borrowing from the pension fund directly.
I love the “oh, think about the children! If we don't give teachers the 4% raise! There will be strikes!” – I have a humble proposal. Dare the teachers to strike and fire all those that do. Let's see them get paid the same amount outside the Chicago system.
- More direct intersection of pension funds and politics in NY--Cuomo has been hammering the pensions issue for months now, and I still think it's going to bite him in the ass.
- Story of a double-dipper in NC, making out to the tune of >$200K
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