Factoid

“After a housing slump that has pushed values down 30% in some areas, roughly 12 million households, or 16%, owe more than their homes are worth, according to Moody’s Economy.com.”

Calculated Risk

If Social Security Was a Private Corporation Then it Would Sue Tom Brokaw for Every Penny He Has

If a news reporter deliberately makes a false statement claiming that a private company like Boeing or Microsoft is going broke, the company has the right to sue the reporter and the news agency. That is why reporters rarely make statements like Microsoft or Boeing (or Lehman Brothers, AIG, or Goldman Sachs) are going broke.

However, reporters can freely impugn the financial health of a government program like Social Security because a government program cannot sue for libel. That is why Brokaw knew that he could imply that Social Security is going broke, even though it is not true. Social Security cannot sue Brokaw even if he deliberately tells explicit lies about its financial health.

Those who are interesting in learning about the true state of Social Security’s financial health can find out by looking at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s website.

Dean Baker

Under $3

Regular gasoline spotted around town Tuesday for $2.99⁹.

Most unbelievable line of the debate

“That one.”

John McCain referring to Senator Obama

Government by Dow

Last week, the Dow was on the skids, and the media was SCREAMING that Congress “do something!”, even if that something was mortgaging future generations to the tune of $700 billion. The markets were ANGRY that the House had rejected the bailout! Why was Congress dilly dallying?

And no, there was NO TIME to spend devising a better solution to our economic ills. It was the bailout OR NOTHING! Didn’t we know that this was the only way to PROTECT PEOPLE’S 401Ks?????????

This week, the Dow is still crashing, and …. oh well. Oh, are people’s retirements going up in smoke? Shrug.

Forgive me, but I still don’t get how government by Dow works.

kos

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

I guess we got fooled again.

Oh, and this, from the BBC at 6:26PM MDT:

“Asian markets plummet in early trading after Wall St stocks closed at their lowest levels for five years.”

Plummet — to fall or drop straight down at high speed.

Best catch line of the day

“I saw this on CNN early this morning. John Roberts was talking about the smear campaign, trying to do the equivalency dance, and actually said (I’m paraphrasing) ‘Obama is trying to tie McCain to the Keating Five’. Now, maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t that like saying John Lennon was ‘tied’ to the Beatles? He was a Beatle! John McCain WAS one of the Keating Five.”

Reader at Talking Point Memo

What a bunch of fools we’re being made into

Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.

“Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night,” Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs.

AIG documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.

ABC News

Line of the day

“[O]nly 9% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States — the lowest such reading in Gallup Poll history.”

Gallup

Who are these nine percent and what the fuck is wrong with them?

October 7th

Mary Badham is 56 today. You know her as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was nine going-on 10 when they made the film and she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Badham has just five other film and TV credits.

Yo-Yo Ma is 53.

Sherman Alexie was born 42 years ago today on the Spokane Indian Reservation.

The book that made him famous was his first collection of short stories called The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). He adapted it into a screenplay for the movie Smoke Signals (1998). Smoke Signals was the first commercial feature film entirely written, directed, and acted by Native Americans. His newest book is a young adult novel called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007).

He said, “Indians have a way of surviving. But it’s almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language, and land rights. It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins.”

The Writer’s Almanac

Alexie’s books and stories are good stuff, and the movie delightful.

Cornell University welcomed its first students 140 years ago today.

Another Frightening Show About the Economy

This American Life was about the economy last weekend. It’s excellent and you will definitely understand more about what is going on and how it extends well-beyond the sub-prime problem we’ve been told to blame. Sub-prime loans may have been the virus, but the disease is much more.

I highly recommend that you download the mp3 or the iTunes podcast this week while it’s available.

The last 12 minutes is the Was The Bailout Bill A Good Idea? segment I’ve already highlighted.

Sweetie Sequence

There are two Sweetie birthdays in October, one today and one coming up Monday.

For six days until Monday, The Sweeties® are 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2.

Happy Birthday Kiley!

Best lines of Monday night

And now we got like 28 more days and the campaign is getting ugly. Barack Obama called John McCain “erratic.” And in response to those charges, McCain responded by yelling, “Turn down that damn music!”

Are you excited about Sarah Palin? Well, yesterday she referred to Afghanistan as our neighboring country. Yeah. Apparently, she can see bin Laden’s cave from her house.

And now she’s going crazy, Sarah Palin. She is ready to go, she is saying now, “the heels are on, and the gloves are off.” And that’s the kind of thing that used to cost Eliot Spitzer a thousand bucks.

— David Letterman

Four weeks to go

This morning FiveThirtyEight.com projects Obama to garner 343.8 electoral votes to McCain’s 194.2. Obama wins 51.7% of the popular vote, McCain 46.7%. Obama’s chances of winning are 88.5%. Missouri and Indiana now lean to Obama.

Polls tell you how the public feels at the time the poll was taken. FiveThirtyEight projects the results of the election based on a systematic analysis of the polls.

The Bradley effect — lying to pollsters to disguise racial bias — appears, by all measures, to no longer be a factor. (It primarily applied to exit polls anyway.) People who won’t vote for Obama or any candidate because they are African-American feel no need to hide their bias. The current estimate is that Obama would be up an additional six points if race were not a factor. That is, the election would be a landslide.

After this election there will be a phenomenon known as the McCain effect — voting for McCain but telling the exit pollsters you voted for Obama because you are embarrassed to have voted for a erratic, angry, seemingly demented old man.

Best line of the day, so far

“The times ahead will be tough, but at least we won’t have George Bush as President.”

Bob Woodward on Real Time with Bill Maher via Crooks and Liars.

Confused?

Be sure to check this out if you’d like at least a clue about what’s going on.

Imagine that

Jack Bogdanski (Lewis & Clark) & Bryan Camp (Texas Tech) have independently reviewed the tax issues raised by the release of Gov. Palin’s 2006 and 2007 tax returns and financial disclosure form, as well as the remarkable opinion letter issued from Washington D.C. tax lawyer Roger M. Olsen.  Jack and Bryan conclude that there are serious errors in Gov. Palin’s returns as filed and that she and her husband owe tens of thousands of dollars in additional taxes.

TaxProf Blog

Stocks

You may have noticed I haven’t been singing the praises of Apple and Google stocks lately. Apple is at $89 and Google at $363 at the moment.

Google was at $711 when I mentioned it last November.

Apple got to $202 last December.

I bought none of either.

Best line of the day, so far

“[W]ondering…what might be left of my 401k. I’m worried that it’s now a 301k.”

Joel Achenbach

Stand and deliver

Today marks the anniversary of the first American train robbery. An east bound Ohio & Mississippi passenger train was boarded by the Reno brothers near Seymour, Indiana, on this date in 1866.

The Today in History page at the Library of Congress provides background about train robberies and early railroads including this excerpt from “The Early Days in Silver City” —

I happened to be riding that train. I had gone overland to Safford and Solemisvelle prospecting. I decided to come home Thanksgiving to be with my family at Silver City. I boarded the train at Wilcox. There was a large shipment of gold on the train. Just out of Steins Pass we could see a large bon-fire. One of the trainmen remarked, ‘Wonder what the big fire is, I hope we don’t run into any trouble.’ The bon-fire we discovered to our sorrow was on the R. R. Then as today curiosity got the best of some of us so we had to find out why the train came to an abrupt stop, and what the bon-fire was put on the track. We found ourselves looking into the barrel of guns.

Our capacity for self-government

James Fallows:

From twelve time zones away, it looks as if the United States is in one of those moments where the capacity to get serious and face big problems is sorely tested.

In the short term, a worldwide financial panic and crisis. Just beyond that, the real economic and social problems that come when large numbers of people lose their jobs, their businesses, their investments, their homes, and even larger numbers become fearful about what might happen to them. And then, when we get a minute to think, profound global energy and environmental challenges, security concerns that range from loose nukes to terrorist organizations, plus a couple of ongoing wars and ever-rising medical costs. Just as starters. The United States is still incredibly rich, powerful, and productive. But the current situation is no joke, for America or the world.

In these circumstances, and with a presidential election four weeks away, is it conceivable that candidates will waste time arguing whether one of them has been in the same room with a guy who had been a violent extremist at a time before most of today’s U.S. citizens were even born? (William Ayres was a Weatherman in the late 1960s. Today’s median-aged American was born around 1972.) Of course, it’s not only conceivable: it’s the Republican plan for this final push — “turning the page” on economic concerns and getting to these “character” and “association” questions about Barack Obama.

Grow up. If John McCain has a better set of plans to deal with the immediate crisis, and the medium-term real-economy fallout, and the real global problems of the era — fine, let him win on those. But it is beneath the dignity he had as a Naval officer to wallow in this mindless BS. I will say nothing about the dignity of a candidate who repeatedly winks at the public, Hooters-waitress style. A great country acts great when it matters. This is a time when it matters — for politicians in the points they raise, for journalists in the subjects they write about and the questions they ask of candidates. And, yes, for voters.

29 days to go

FiveThirtyEight.com now projects the popular vote in 29 days to be Obama 51.5%, McCain 47%. The electoral vote projects to 340-198. Obama wins 87.4% of the projections.

Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado are no longer in play.

North Carolina is leaning Obama. Missouri and Indiana are leaning McCain. At the moment, these are the only contested states.

Obama and Biden’s favorables out poll their unfavorables. McCain and Palin’s unfavorables out poll their favorables.

Watch Palin. She’s given up on McCain and is in the running for 2012.

And, while I think of it, thank you Hillary Clinton. You may not have broken the glass ceiling yourself, but by 2012 I don’t think gender will be much of a factor.

DJIA 9864.

Embarracuda

“But what a desperate empty embarrassment the McCain campaign has become.”

Joe Klein

Best factoid of the day, so far

“[I]nsurers selling individual health plans spend 29 percent of the premiums they receive on administration, largely because they employ so many people to screen applicants. This compares with costs of 12 percent for group plans and just 3 percent for Medicare.”

Paul Krugman

Tough schedule

Number 5 Texas plays #1 Oklahoma, #2 Missouri, #17 Oklahoma State and #7 Texas Tech in the next four weeks. I’m wondering if anyone has ever played four ranked teams in four weeks before (and three of them top 7 teams).

Rankings from USA Today poll. Texas also plays #15 Kansas later in the season.

Ten Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta

NewMexiKen likes the Balloon Fiesta and thinks it truly an event worth attending from time-to-time. That said, I still find ‘Burque Babble’s annual “Ten Reasons I Hate the Balloon Fiesta” amusing and point on. Here’s the 2008 Edition.

The original 2005 Edition.

It rained hard all night and both last night’s and this morning’s Balloon Fiesta events were cancelled. (About a 1/2-inch at Balloon Fiesta Park, more like an inch-and-a-half here at Casa NewMexiKen a thousand feet higher.) It was a very wet football game last night, but we held on until the fourth quarter, when very few were left at University Stadium. The Lobos won 24-0 and are now 3-3.