Mark Horne

"Geithner did not see the current collapse coming. And if you think about it, the idea that he did makes no sense. He foresees this huge economic mess and his reaction is to give a speech in Hong Kong, not actually do anything about it here at home--although he runs one of the Fed’s most important branches. Like so many others in positions of power and trust, Geithner was eminently well placed to see the developing crisis and avoid or mitigate its worst effects. He should have known, but he didn’t. His view was much more conventional. He saw no shocks that the financial system couldn’t handle. He could not have been more wrong, but this is the guy that Obama wants for his Treasury Secretary." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

I found this on the Fire Dog Lake blog. I'll be back to read more. - Mark Horne

"Obama's campaign for "change" included a promise not to hire "retreads." As Philip Giraldi points out in this interview with Scott Horton, he is already betraying this promise with a vengeance. They are not only retreads but pro-war ones at that. As of now, the peace wing of the Democratic Party, which was crucial to electing Obama, is being left out in the cold." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Evil. - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"Zhou said the radical taxation cut package was among the suggestions which he has submitted to the central government. He also said apart from the fiscal stimulus and monetary polices, China needs comprehensive reforms and broader policy packages to cushion the negative impacts of the unfolding global financial crisis. He urged the government to take further measures to lift barriers private enterprises have faced when they invest in monopoly sectors, education and health care. He even suggested that the government give up pricing regulation and let the market have the final say. "It's high time we do that and today's worsening economic situation has partly resulted from incorrect signals due to too much pricing regulation," said Zhou, who has predicated this time last year that "all Chinese enterprises should be ready to spend a winter period in business."" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"President-elect Barack Obama – showing the obligatory toughness toward foreign "evildoers" needed (especially by Democrats) in American political campaigns – pledged to use the American military to go after al-Qaeda in Pakistan. Of all people, his hawkish rival, Senator John McCain, who supported the unprovoked US invasion and occupation of Iraq, criticized Obama's approach toward Pakistan as unnecessarily incendiary. McCain's criticism of Obama's proposed tactics, however, was undermined by the outgoing Bush administration's same policy. The administration has been sending unpiloted drones deeper and deeper into Pakistani territory to attack suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban targets and has, on at least one occasion, used heliborne US Special Forces to launch a ground attack on such sites within Pakistan. So this policy has at least some bipartisan endorsement. It also appears to have some moral sanction resulting from the right to retaliate against the perpetrators and enablers of the September 11 at" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"A 0.7% success rate in finding crime is not relevant. Behavioral profiling has a 0% success rate in finding threats to aviation. Behavioral profiling does not have a proximate relationship to securing against harm coming to commercial aviation. The Fourth Amendment requires searches and seizures to be reasonable. Courts give law enforcement considerable leeway and often use the stamp “experienced officer” to grant the police broad authority to follow hunches. What we have here, though, is a basis for suspicion that has a 100% failure rate. It never finds what it is looking for." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"The United States has asked four oil-rich Gulf states for close to 300 billion dollars to help it curb the global financial meltdown, Kuwait's daily Al-Seyassah reported Thursday. Quoting "highly informed" sources, the daily said Washington has asked Saudi Arabia for 120 billion dollars, the United Arab Emirates for 70 billion dollars, Qatar for 60 billion dollars and was seeking 40 billion dollars from Kuwait. Al-Seyassah said Washington sought the amount as "financial aid" to face the fallout of the financial crisis and help prevent its economy from sliding into a painful recession. The daily said the United States plans to use the funds to help the ailing automobile industry, banks and other companies suffering from the global financial turmoil. The four nations, all members of OPEC, produce together 14 million barrels of oil per day, around half of the cartel's production and about 17 percent of world supplies. The four states are estimated to have amassed close to 1.5 trillion dol" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"The oil companies, in turn, argued that commodity prices are cyclical and would fall soon enough. In addition to a lack of access to resources and skyrocketing production costs, the companies said planning projects that can take a decade to build and cost billions of dollars meant they needed to take a long-term view. In short, they just didn't believe the high prices were here to stay." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

""I don't think they should bail them out because ... obviously something's not right in the way they're running their business, and why should the American people have to bail them out if they can't figure out how to do it right?" September Quinn, the busy waitress, said after the lunch rush at the Inn Between. She holds the unions just as accountable as the companies for the industry's problems. "People agree with the unions because the workers want to be backed on everything, but then again, there aren't people striving to do their job better," said Quinn, whose father works at the nonunion Honda plant. "They've just got Papa Bear to back them up in any instance, and they keep their job. And you can do that, but I don't know at the cost of what."" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"I challenge anyone who wants to help pregnant women to actually go to an abortion clinic. You'll see the young girl who doesn't want an abortion, but whose family doesn't want to be "burdened" with a baby. She's not making her own choice. She is making someone else's choice. Or the young mother whose husband doesn't want their child. Whose choice is she making?" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 17% of likely voters believe the nation is moving in the right direction, while 76% say it is still heading down the wrong track." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"Seven years later, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson has issued a blistering report finding that the CIA repeatedly lied and covered up details about the intercept program, about the downing of Bowers' plane, and about other incidents that never made the news." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Definite proof that the US government is Anti-God. - Jimmie R. Irwin Jr.

"A memorabilia collector has been jailed for five years for possessing a Second World War rifle listed as a prohibited firearm. The rifle was not in a condition to fire live ammunition. But Stafford Crown Court heard replacing the deteriorated pin would have made that possible. Phillip Peter Kent, aged 29, of Owen Walk, Highfields, Stafford, was arrested in the street by police acting on information at 7.30am on June 20 this year" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Huckabee is not going anywhere with this whining. - Mark Horne

"The state Ombudsman has slammed a police plan to roll out stun guns, saying the weapons should only be used to deal with "extreme situations"." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"Timothy Duy, an economics professor at the University of Oregon, is convinced "the economy is moving away from consumerism." Just how far remains to be seen, but a recent Pew Research Center survey found that more than half of Americans say they have cut back in the past year and about half agreed that people "should learn to live with less." People are not only buying cheaper, they're buying less, said Joachim Vosgerau, an assistant professor of marketing at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business who specializes in consumer behavior. "It seems like this trend is only going to continue," Vosgerau said." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Pretty savvy list - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"An earlier FBI news release on the incident said agents were working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and local police when the shooting occurred. It said initial reports that the incident was associated with a home invasion were false." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"Police tracked down Arzigul Tursun, six months pregnant with her third child, on Monday at a private home after she fled Gulja's municipal Water Gate Hospital, relatives said." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Back in 2007... - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"our crazed foreign policy was a major reason why Americans gave Obama such a stunning victory. There's just one problem: our foreign policy is going to remain pretty much the same." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"The Economist reports that as recently as 2005, Americans bought more cars than did China, India, Russia and Brazil, combined. This year those four will buy more than Americans buy, but that is, potentially, good news for Detroit. In America's saturated market, there is almost one car for every person of driving age; in China there are three for every 100, and fewer than that in India. The Economist reports that in the next 40 years, the world's automobile fleet will surge from 700 million to 3 billion. After being restructured through bankruptcy, the Detroit Two, or One, might flourish. Let's find out. The ruinous alternative is to squander, in a doomed attempt to "save jobs," more scores of billions of dollars of scarce capital that will then be unavailable for job-creating investments in rising industries." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Awesome news. May it continue. - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Evangelicals richly deserve this sort of spanking for supporting Bush. But the real point here is that it would be lovely to see the GOP go this route. I've hated reluctantly siding with the GOP for decades. Cut me loose so we can move on and you can go into the history books. - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"But as Obama clearly recognizes, that was a big part of the FDR magic. FDR came into office promising “bold, persistent experimentation” — and delivered. Raymond Moley, an early member of FDR’s “brain trust,” saw the New Deal for what it was. “To look upon these programs as the result of a unified plan was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter’s tools, geometry books and chemistry sets in a boy’s bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator,” Moley wrote later." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Awesome use of Augustine quotation. - Mark Horne

You think de-coupling isn't taking place? Dream on. - Mark Horne

"Last week on Bloomberg radio, there were a couple of guests on the air talking about how their version of the plan could work. I heard it said again and again by the interviewer and the guests: "we have to make sure that the right kind of people get this help and not the wrong kind of people." The "right" people being the high time preference, impulsive, gotta-have-it-all losers who judge themselves - and have others judge them - by their subdivision lot and school system, and thus have launched an unsustainable standard of living on mountains of debt. The "wrong" kind of people are those who stayed put, paid their mortgage, didn't put the ATM sign on the roof, yet lost tons of equity in the bursting bubble." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet