Author: NewMexiKen

Financial Crisis for Beginners

We believe that everyone should be able to understand how the financial crisis came about, what it means for all of us, and what our options are for getting out of it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of all writing about the crisis – including this blog – assumes some familiarity with the world of mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and so on. You’ve probably heard dozens of journalists use these terms without explaining what they means. If you’re confused, this page is for you.

The Baseline Scenario

Harold Arlen

… was born Hyman Arluck in Buffalo, New York, on this date in 1905.

A short list from the more than 400 tunes written by Harold Arlen:

  • Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive
  • Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea
  • Come Rain Or Come Shine
  • Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead
  • Hooray For Love
  • It’s Only A Paper Moon
  • I’ve Got the World on A String
  • One For My Baby
  • Over The Rainbow
  • Stormy Weather
  • That Old Black Magic

Arlen worked with many lyricists through the years, most notably Ira Gershwin, Yip Harburg, Johnny Mercer and even Truman Capote. Harburg, for example, wrote the lyrics for the Wizard of Oz songs. Though it’s the lyrics we most remember, it’s the melody that makes a song memorable. That was Arlen.

Remember the Maine

On February 15, 1898, a mysterious explosion destroyed the American battleship Maine in Havana Harbor and helped propel the United States into a war with Spain. The USS Maine was in Cuba, officially, on a mission of friendly courtesy and, incidentally, to protect American lives and property in the event that Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain might escalate into full-blown warfare. “Yet,” writes author Tom Miller, “the visit was neither spontaneous nor altruistic; the United States had been eyeing Cuba for almost a century.”

On board the Maine that sultry Tuesday night were 350 crew and officers. Shortly after 9 p.m. the ship’s bugler, C. H. Newton, blew taps. The ship bobbed listlessly, its imposing 100-yard length visible from stem to stern. “At 9:40 p.m.,” writes Miller, “the ship’s forward end abruptly lifted itself from the water. Along the pier, passersby could hear a rumbling explosion. Within seconds, another eruption–this one deafening and massive–splintered the bow, sending anything that wasn’t battened down, and most that was, flying more than 200 feet into the air…. In all, 266 of the 350 men aboard the Maine were killed.”

The American press was quick to point to an external explosion–a mine or torpedo–as the cause of the tragedy. An official U.S. investigation agreed. On April 25, 1898, Congress formally declared war on Spain. By summer’s end, Spain had ceded Cuba, along with the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam, to the United States.

In 1976, Adm. Hyman Rickover of the U.S. Navy mounted yet another investigation into the cause of the Maine disaster. His team of experts found that the ship’s demise was self- inflicted–likely the result of a coal bunker fire. There are those, however, who still maintain that an external blast was to blame. Some people, it seems, just won’t let you forget the Maine.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine, February 1998.

What’s too scary?

During my recent visit to Virginia I suggested that Mack (8) and Aidan (5) would really enjoy the greatest movie ever made if I could find it on cable or the internets. I was, of course, referring to Tremors, the Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward classic.

Mack and Aidan’s parents were adamant that the boys could not watch the film. Too scary. I suggested it wasn’t any scarier than Transformers and Space Rangers, but I was told the boys knew Transformers and Space Rangers weren’t real, but might not be so sure about huge underground flesh-eating worms.

I wouldn’t go against the parents, but I wondered if anyone else has a take on this.

Love

Nora, official co-daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, lost someone she loved very much when her step-mother Priscilla died from breast cancer at age 62 in 2007. I wasn’t fortunate enough to have ever met Priscilla, but I know Nora, and I now know many of Priscilla’s family. I know she was a truly remarkable and much loved woman.

Long-term readers may remember when Nora’s fund raising effort for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer was mentioned on these pages. That was three years ago. Again this year Nora will be raising funds for breast cancer treatment and research.

Please support me and my loved ones as I take an amazing journey in the fight against breast cancer! The Breast Cancer 3-Day is a 60-mile walk over the course of three days. Net proceeds benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure and National Philanthropic Trust, funding important breast cancer research, education, screening, and treatment.

So, on this St. Valentine’s Day, when love is in the air, please click Nora’s Page to learn about — and perhaps support — her fund raising.

And be sure to read Priscilla’s poem, “Air Loss.”

38 assholes

The Senate is approving the stimulus bill this evening (the House approved it earlier). Currently there are 59 votes for and 38 against (97 total). (The measure requires 60 votes for passage because it is deficit spending — some Senate rule.)

We still don’t have a second senator from Minnesota and Senator Kennedy cannot be there to vote because of his brain cancer. So, only 98 votes total will be cast.

The 98th vote is Senator Sherrod Brown, who is in Ohio attending his mother’s wake. The funeral is tomorrow. He is flying back to Washington to cast the necessary 60th yea. His affirmative is a given; the bill will pass.

Any one of 38 Republican Senators could have cast their vote in favor of the bill and made a statement that they were opposed, but wanted to make it possible for Senator Brown to miss the vote and stay with his family at his mother’s wake.

None did. What a bunch of shits.

(There are 41 Republican senators in all. Republicans Specter, Snowe and Collins voted in favor of the bill.)

The Tax Cuts

The major individual tax credits:

“Making Work Pay” Tax Credit.
For 2009 and 2010, the bill would provide a refundable tax credit of up to $400 for working individuals and $800 for working families. This tax credit would be calculated at a rate of 6.2% of earned income, and would phase out for taxpayers with adjusted gross income in excess of $75,000 ($150,000 for married couples filing jointly). Taxpayers can receive this benefit through a reduction in the amount of income tax that is withheld from their paychecks, or through claiming the credit on their tax returns. ($116,199,000,000)

Economic Recovery Payment to Recipients of Social Security, SSI, Railroad Retirement and Veterans Disability Compensation Benefits.
The bill would provide a one-time payment of $250 to retirees, disabled individuals and SSI recipients receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration, Railroad Retirement beneficiaries, and disabled veterans receiving benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The one-time payment is a reduction to the Making Work Pay credit. ($14,225,000,000)

Refundable Credit for Certain Federal and State Pensioners.
The bill would provide a one-time refundable tax credit of $250 in 2009 to certain government retirees who are not eligible for Social Security benefits. This one-time credit is a reduction to the Making Work Pay credit. ($218,000,000)

The Stimulus Plan: The Tax Cuts – ProPublica

There’s more.

Chuck Yeager

Glamorous GlennisThe first person to break the sound barrier is 86 today.

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, with two ribs broken two nights before in a drunken horseback ride. The plane, Glamorous Glennis, is hanging from the Air & Space Museum ceiling. Glennis was Mrs. Yeager.

Yeager told his story in Popular Mechanics in 1987. Good reading.

Yeager is the basis for the character played by Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff. Glennis was played by Barbara Hershey.

In his wonderful book The Right Stuff, Tom Wolfe explains that West Virginian Yeager is the reason why all airline pilots talk with a drawl — to be like Yeager, “the most righteous of all the posessors of the right stuff.”