Quotulatiousness

February 3, 2010

Paul Volcker praises Canadian banking system

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:50

Expect this to continue to be the story of the week in Canadian newspapers:

Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman who’s now a key economic advisor to the White House, told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday they ought to learn from Canada’s banking system as they seek to overhaul rules governing the biggest U.S. banks.

Speaking at a hearing to tout his proposal to rein in risky investing activities by large U.S. commercial banks, Mr. Volcker said the life’s work of Canadian banks is retail banking: “That’s no longer true of great big American banks.”

With just five or six banks dominating the industry, Canada’s banks benefit from having less competition, Mr. Volcker said. “It’s a stable oligopoly.”

There’s a mixed blessing in that: fewer banks means less competition, so there’s less need for banks to compete for customers in meaningful ways. Look at the feeding frenzy once banks were allowed to buy trust companies . . . partly because trust companies were more actively competing for business. Having a “stable oligopoly” has benefits, but consumers have fewer choices on where to bank, and banks have far less pressure to lower fees or increase services.

Here’s what Americans may find the most unexpected part of the story:

Canada’s banking system also has been shielded by the fact that it has less government interference in its mortgage market, unlike in the United States, where banks have been pressured by the government to make low-cost loans to the economically disadvantaged, he said.

Mr. Volcker’s endorsement of Canada’s banking system — the only Group of Seven nation that didn’t need taxpayers to bail out its banks — came two days after The New York Times published a piece by Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist Paul Krugman that said the United States should emulate Canada’s financial regulatory regime.

Unfortunately, the wrong lesson is likely to be drawn from this: much of the reason Canada’s banks didn’t need to be bailed out was the much lower political interference in their lending policies. Instead, US politicians are likely to insist on even more political interference to achieve the “right” result.

February 1, 2010

Modern etiquette

Filed under: Japan, Middle East, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:06

I guess I missed the class on American etiquette, because I had this odd notion that Americans weren’t supposed to bow to royalty. There must have been more to than that, however, as apparently you’re supposed to bow to Mayors, too:

So let me get this straight . . . Americans should not bow to Queen Elizabeth (who is head of state of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.), but should bow to the Emperor of Japan, the King of Saudi Arabia, and the Mayor of Tampa? Is that the full list? How about deputy mayors?

January 29, 2010

Short (political and economic) memories

Filed under: Economics, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:20

David Harsanyi looks at the “lost decade” of the last 10 years and finds not so much of a disaster:

Of the many tall tales spun by President Barack Obama during the State of the Union address this week, there is one, and perhaps only one, that most Americans believe to be true.

The old yarn goes something like this: A long time ago, the United States was an economic powerhouse. We built things with our hands and worked in factories and we loved it.

Our recent prosperity, on the other hand, was built on a house of cards — intellectual innovation, risk, free-wheeling markets and international trade — and nothing more than an illusion.

“We can’t afford another so- called economic expansion like the one from the last decade — what some call the ‘lost decade,’ ” Obama explained. The president went on to promise he would do all he could to stop any pesky so-called expansions in the future. And I believe him.

A recent poll shows that Obama is not alone in his aversion to the 2000s. According to a Pew Research Center poll, over 50 percent of American hold a negative view of the decade. Yet, the 2000s, like decades before it, are by nearly any measure — be it health, standard of living, the environment or technology — a success.

The average unemployment rate during this “lost decade” — including one of those unfortunate man-made disasters to the country’s financial center — was at 5.6 percent. One would think that the president — a man who believes a “jobs” bills that only saw unemployment go from nearly 8 percent to over 10 percent was a wild success — would be sort of impressed.

It may be a factor in any given decade, but it’s surprising how deep the short-term memories seem to be coloured by the recession at the end of the decade (the one we’re still struggling out of).

January 26, 2010

When politicians get too close to the sharp end, militarily speaking

Filed under: Government, Military, Politics, USA, Weapons — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:42

This is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to allow politicians to get too deeply involved in military acquisition and logistics:

The U.S. Army wants to use more precision “smart” weapons. To that end they have replaced unguided MLRS (227mm) rockets with a GPS guided one. There is now a very popular GPS guided 155mm artillery shell in use. Laser guided Hellfire missiles are widely used by helicopter gunships. But there’s still one unguided “dumb” weapon that the army just can’t seem to get away from; their unguided 70mm (2.75 inch) rockets. Back in 2003, the army planned to begin phasing out these rockets. But, instead, during the last five years, the army has purchased nearly a billion dollars worth of 70mm rockets. Not because they wanted to, but because the politicians from Vermont, where the rocket is manufactured, had enough clout to force the army buy over 100,000 70mm rockets they don’t want, won’t use, and will eventually have to dispose of. That last step will cost more money, unless they can find some foreign country that wants to buy them, cheap.

I guess the plant that produces them is in a district represented by a member of a powerful committee in Washington.

January 23, 2010

Slate peeks at Barack Obama’s Facebook feed

Filed under: Humour, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 17:09

I thought Facebook had fixed the privacy settings, but Slate manages to show President Obama’s Facebook feed:

January 21, 2010

Obama’s move to throttle the big banks

Filed under: Economics, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:18

Megan McArdle takes a first look at the Obama administration’s new initiative to control the big banks:

The administration’s new proposal has two core pieces, both of which are at least somewhat novel. First, banks that have access to the discount window will not be able to trade for their own account. That means no prop trading desk. No owning hedge funds or private equity funds. No investments of any kind to make profits for your shareholders. Financial institutions can make profits by servicing clients, or they can make profits by investing for their own book. But they can’t do both.

Senior administration officials I spoke to made it clear that this would not include market making activity, which the administration views as something you do for your clients. But while that may partially reassure banks, that seems to mean that market makers — i.e. Goldman Sachs — are very definitely included. That impression was reinforced by the way Indeed, if they pass this thing, they should probably call it the Hey Goldman Sachs! You’re Not Going to Be So Profitable Any More Act of 2010.

January 20, 2010

This has got to be a mis-communication

Filed under: Americas, Bureaucracy, Military, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 21:55

At least, I hope it’s just a miscommunication:

Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.

It was not known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.

“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.

Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water. The State Department and USAID did not respond to requests for comment.

Surely not even the most pig-headed rules-lawyer would have required this . . . I hope.

H/T Castle Argghhh.

Update, 21 January: For reasons of incompetence, I forgot to actually include the URL in that link to Castle Argghhh. Fixed now.

While I’m updating the post, this may be relevant:

The MRE (Meals Ready to Eat, in a pouch) are frequently used as emergency rations. The MRE has evolved from its initial introduction in 1983 (12 separate entrees) to today (24 menu entrees). The MREs change from year to year, and new entrees are added in place of others. The U.S. military has generally switched out entrees each year (apparently the notion that such a deal is a zero-sum game seems to persist, as opposed to just adding new ones). This constant evolution has done much to diminish the bad reputations MREs had early on. Back then, the MRE (officially, “Meals, Ready to Eat”) was often called “Meals Rejected by Everyone”.

The United States also has other rations, including variants for cold weather (which has a higher calorie count than the regular MRE – 1540 per meal compared to 1250 for an MRE), and a kosher/halal variant for Jewish and Moslem soldiers (both religions, for instance, forbid the consumption of pork). Vegetarian entrees are provided, as well. The United States also has developed the Humanitarian Daily Ration (HDR), which has three meals and is based on vegetarian entrees to provide a low chance of offending cultural sensibilities. Many of these HDRs were dropped over Afghanistan in late 2001. Several hundred thousand HDRs are stockpiled for disaster relief, and production can be ramped up quickly. MREs and HDRs are particularly attractive because they provide uncontaminated food that does not require refrigeration, in a compact package. The UN, and many other food aid organizations, use the HDR for situations like Haiti.

January 19, 2010

QotD: Time to panic

Filed under: Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:11

Jonathan Cohn headlines his latest plea to ignore a Brown win and pass health care anyway “Pelosi Isn’t Panicking. Her Party Should Listen.” Umm, call me cynical, but maybe the reason Pelosi isn’t panicking is that Pelosi’s got one of the safest seats in the country? I mean, take this for what it’s worth but if Brown wins today, my advice to Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson, and their counterparts in the house? You should panic. They’re coming for you next.

Hell, If I were Blanche Lincoln, anyone in the leadership who wanted to get me to the floor for a health care vote would have to pry me out of the darkened room where they’d find me huddled in the corner, rocking back and forth and crying. Maybe Cohn’s right and the thing’s too far gone to save, so you might as well vote for it anyway. But that’s not exactly soothing, is it?

Megan McArdle, “Time to Panic”, Asymmetrical Information, 2010-01-19

January 9, 2010

QotD: The awfulness of airports

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 00:02

Over the weekend, an idiot walked the wrong way through a secure exit for arriving passengers at Newark airport. An entire terminal was shut down so that everybody on the “sterile” side of the security barriers could be herded back out and rescreened. The entire process took just under seven hours. The cascading delays disrupted air travel worldwide. They didn’t even catch the doofus who caused the ruckus. No doubt, if they’d announced his location over the paging system, he’d have been drawn and quartered by a mob of traveling salesmen from 3M and a gaggle of middle-school girls returning from a volleyball tournament.

Now, I should back up. When I referred to the “sterile” side of the security barrier, I was using the term narrowly, to refer to folks who’d been through the metal detectors. Because to use the word “sterile” in its usual context in a sentence with “airports” — those belching Petri dishes of bathroom effluence and unidentifiable noisome miasma — would be a grotesque abrogation of journalistic trust.

According to the latest epidemiological research, airports reside somewhere between no-frills Haitian brothels and Penn State fraternity bathrooms when it comes to hygiene. USA Today recently surveyed the health-inspection records of airport restaurants and found that serious code violations were as commonplace as rat and mouse droppings; 77 percent of 35 restaurants reviewed at Reagan National Airport had at least one major violation.

I could go on, of course. The petty humiliations, the routine deceptions from airline employees desperate to rid themselves of troublesome travelers (“Oh, they can definitely help you at the gate!”), the stress-position seats, the ever-changing rules for what can and cannot be in your carry-on, being charged for food that the Red Cross would condemn if it were served at Gitmo: Air travel is the most expensive unpleasant experience in everyday life outside the realm of words ending in -oscopy.

Jonah Goldberg, “A No-Fly List? Count Me In: Flying before 9/11 was already awful, and it has only become worse”, National Review, 2010-01-08

January 4, 2010

Ohio moves to protect wine drinkers from themselves

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Law, USA, Wine — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:10

Ah, those Ohio wine drinkers . . . they must be consuming wine at much higher than the national average. How else can you account for the state government legally imposing limits on how much wine you can buy each year?

As laws go, Ohio’s limit on wine purchases appears to be simple:

“No family household shall purchase more than 24 cases of 12 bottles of 750 milliliters of wine in one year.”

That’s 288 bottles per year — plenty for most people. But it raises questions if you’re a collector, entertain a lot or just prickle at the thought of another government regulation.

How do they know how much wine I buy? Why do they care? How many cases have I purchased this year?

Of course, the limit isn’t really a limit: there’s no mechanism to track your actual purchases from retailers, Ohio drinkers, it’s only to limit sales direct from wineries to consumers. This limit was introduced after the US Supreme Court decision a few years back which struck down state-level restrictions on shipments from out-of-state wineries.

In several ways, it’s a typical bureaucratic response to a non-issue, providing work for several new civil servants, requiring uncompensated form-filling and legal compliance on the part of the sellers (over and above the normal requirements for selling alcohol), and being remarkably ineffective, to boot:

All wineries or importers for wineries that produce fewer than 250,000 gallons per year pay the state $25 for a license that allows them to ship directly to customers here. They have to pay the state’s alcohol and sales taxes. They also have to tell the state who received the wine — and how much that person got.

The Ohio Division of Liquor Control, which receives the reports on wine sales from the S permit holders, uses the reports to determine whether someone might be violating the purchase limit, said Matt Mullins, a spokesman for the division. “It’s the division’s interpretation that it’s related to the amount of wine shipped from an S permit holder. That’s what we believe the intent (of the law) was.”

The reports are due each year in March, he said, and the first came last year. No one was flagged as a violator.

If the reports did show that someone had purchased too much wine by mail, Mullins said, the information would be turned over to the Ohio Department of Public Safety Investigative Unit, which enforces state alcohol laws. The law allows a fine of up to $100 if someone is found guilty.

I’m not at all in favour of this sort of legalistic bullshit, but if they’re going to go to the effort of setting up this system, it’s farcical to — a year or more after the fact — track down a “perpetrator” and then fine them “up to $100”. A hundred bucks wouldn’t pay the state for the time and effort to track down that criminal mastermind who legally ordered an extra case of wine . . .

Of course, the statist’s response would be to substantially increase the fines, rather than dismantle the whole ridiculous tracking system.

January 2, 2010

This isn’t the way it was supposed to go

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:39

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, “Purple Avenger” tries to decipher the inscrutable Obama administration policy on information classification:

Here’s what I’ve found so far that I’m 100% sure of:

— There’s a 10 year “default” on declassifying classified info unless a longer time frame was specified and justified.

— Unclassified information may BECOME classified upon submission of a FOIA request for it . . . thus allowing for a public veneer of openness while reserving the right to clam up if said openness should prove inconvenient when someone actually learns of a document’s existence and has the nerve to request it.

Its a very lengthy and tortuously worded EO and people will be analyzing its ramifications for quite a while I suspect. I don’t imagine the professional intelligence community is terribly happy about the Byzantine procedures outlined here. Their jobs just got a lot harder.

December 31, 2009

“We put the jerk in knee-jerk with the way we respond to threats”

Filed under: Bureaucracy, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 20:22

Tom Kelley sent me a link to this Miles O’Brien article:

[. . .] my family and I will face long lines, lots of questions, pat down searches and an hour of lockdown time in our seats before landing. It is as if my ruler-brandishing first-grade teacher Sister Grace took over Delta Air Lines. “Books away — feet on the floor — hands on your desk — eyes straight ahead . . . ”

It is brilliant thinking like the new seat arrest rule that should tell you a lot about our ill-conceived approach to thwarting terrorists who continue to find plane loads full of innocent Americans to be tempting targets. I don’t suppose future terrorists might try to light some portion of their clothing 61 minutes before landing do you?

What about the baby who needs a bottle or a passy on descent and is crying his lungs out? God help him, his mother and the rest of us . . .

We put the jerk in knee-jerk with the way we respond to threats.

Our Homeland Security Czarina Janet Napolitano tried to spin the whole thing into a triumph of our security apparatus. At least she didn’t get a “Nappy, you’re doin’ a heckuva a job!” from our Commander-in-Chief

Government moves quickly on TSA . . . to silence critics

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Law, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:11

In a bold move in the wake of the latest terrorist bomb attempt, the government has pounced . . . on the bloggers who reported on the TSA’s response:

As the government reviews how an alleged terrorist was able to bring a bomb onto a U.S.-bound plane and try to blow it up on Christmas Day, the Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents Tuesday night at his Connecticut home for about three hours and again on Wednesday morning when he was forced to hand over his lap top computer. Frischling said the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn’t cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo.

Gerard van der Leun was right

Filed under: Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 11:17

Back in 2005, I grabbed this as a quote of the day, and it’s on the verge of becoming true today:

On my first flight to Europe, everyone dressed for success. Now everyone dresses for Gold’s Gym. And I’m sure the next step in TOTAL SECURITY will be to require everyone who is not of Arab descent to arrive with a note from their doctor attesting that they had a high colonic an hour before the airport to make the body cavity searches a bit more pleasant for the staff. Then there’s the added coach thrill of a blood clot developing in the legs that stops your heart at 50,000 feet. Plus . . . no peanuts! After all, think of the allergic children! Add to that the new innovation, no pillows! I don’t see why the airlines don’t simply install hooks and, working in concert with government’s laughable security cops, require everyone to hang from said hooks naked. It will come to that. You know it will.

Tweet of the day: Ohio

Filed under: Randomness, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:45

Radley Balko is in transit across Ohio. He’s finding it less than entertaining:

radleybalko: driving thru ohio. motto: nothing much to look at, but you’re gonna be here awhile.

radleybalko: ohio. new motto: yep. you’re still here.

I haven’t driven in every state, although I’ve managed to visit most of ’em east of the Mississippi, and Ohio is always the state I hate driving through:

. . . Ohio must be located in a time warp, because the drive from Cincinnati to Toledo seemed to take weeks, not the three or so hours it should have done . . .

In either direction:

The drive south along the I-75 went relatively smoothly, at least once we got out of the rutted road section between the bridge and the Ohio state line. I don’t know if Michigan deliberately leaves that stretch of road in poor condition to discourage locals from escaping or if it’s a full employment scheme for alignment shops at the exits. Either way, it’s almost the worst stretch of road we encountered during the entire trip.

As mentioned before, the I-75 between Toledo and Cincinnati seems to exist in a universe where time has no meaning. Entire geological epochs seemed to pass as we endlessly drove towards the intermediate towns. I’m certain that the continents re-arranged themselves twice in the time it seemed to take between Lima and Dayton.

Driving through Cincinnati at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday is rather like a combination of riding the Wild Mouse, taking a speed-reading test, and riding through a buffalo stampede. The very worst drivers, of course, had Ontario license plates.

Of course, not having driven in any state to the left of the Mississippi River (aside from California), I’m sure that some of those square-ish territories could challenge Ohio for the title. You know, those places that only ever appear in the “Odd News” section, like Missouransas, Oklarado, Wyotana, South Iobraska, and Nevazona.

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