Regular Features-

• Late Night Karaoke by mishima
• Cartnoon by ek hornbeck

Featured Essays for July 30, 2011-

• My Commentary on “The Town”: by: mplo
• On Running Your Own Government, Or, Why Pay The Military? by: fake consultant
• "!No Pasaran!" – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Fight against Fascism in Spain, Part I by: JekyllnHyde (bumped)
• Part II – "!No Pasaran!" – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Fight against Fascism in Spain by: JekyllnHyde

DocuDharma

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Turkey seeks solution to army resignation crisis

AFP

4 hrs ago

I’ve kind of been noticing the odd connections between the Murdoch phone hacking scandal and Formula One.  This week’s coincidence is the BSkyB pay TV network in Britain that the Murdochs were looking to acquire before the scandal broke and which they still own 39% of has inked a deal for the 2012 broadcast rights, taking them away from the BBC and leaving only half the races available on “free” television.

The New York Times kind of miscounts the number of Formula One Grand Prix held in Hungary, forgetting the 75th Anniversary of the very first one in 1936 (you should really click that link, it’s a fascinating read).

Jenson Button is celebrating his 200th start in F1.  He thinks his biggest mistake was the 2nd contract he signed with Williams that he had to buy his way out of for $17 million in 2007 to move to Honda (later Brawn).  The English language press is celebrating a McLaren resurgence conveniently forgetting that one race does not make a season and that last week Button had his second consecutive DNF.

The week’s big off track news was the announcement of the tentative 2012 schedule.  Turkey gets dropped.  USA gets added and shifted to the next to last race to avoid the Texas summer heat.  The desert races in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain get shifted to the end of the calendar too while the season starts with Australia and Malaysia.  They’re trying to group the races by region to cut down on travel expenses and schedule them closer together with more consecutive off time including a 5 week summer break.

The Hungaroring is frequently described as Monaco without the houses.  It’s a slow twisty track where they’ll be using lots of down force and the softest tires they can get.  This is said to be good for McLaren which is having trouble with its Drag Reduction System.  Charging the Kinetic Energy Recovery System is putting a lot of drag on most teams during turning and is causing the rear ends to hop around.  It’s traditionally a very hot track too and there could be engine failures.  Webber took the front end off his Red Bull during practice and they’re still usining the mystery wires which were clearly visible.  Buemi is going to be penalized 5 grid positions for an incident last week at the Nurburgring.

This is the 11th race of 19 and the last before Spa at the end of August as the teams take their summer break.  As usual surprises below.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 US economic growth stagnated in first half

By Veronica Smith, AFP

5 hrs ago

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Phone hacking inquiry opens as scandal spreads again

By Danny Kemp, AFP

3 hrs ago

First of all you have to give up the idea that “money” has any utility except as a medium of exchange.

If you have a goat or a camel you can milk it, you can eat it and use the hide, AND you can make cute little baby goats and camels.  On the other hand they eat and are smelly and ill tempered.  Gold is shiny and pretty, non-reactive and a good electrical conductor, as well as being easy to shape and bend.  You can’t eat it or use it for tools (try tightening a bolt with a solid gold wrench).

Now whether it’s Dollars or Gold or Yap Island Rais the essential concept of “money” is that it is something that you can trade for a goat should you happen to need one for milk or meat (not to mention those cute little baby goats) without the inconvenience and stink of actually being a goat herder.

Moreover if you’re weighing the economic advantage of camels v. goats (you can ride them and use them to haul heavy things, on the other hand they spit at you and bite you) instead of figuring out how many goat carts makes a camel load you can go to the magical free marketplace and find out how many carved stone doughnuts it takes to get one.

And it gives you an easy way to deal with fractional goats.  How much is a a haircut worth?  A pair of shoes?  A suit?

Because of it’s adaptable and arbitrary nature “money” is a useful measure of the difference in societal desire between various objects.  This is one reason inflation is economically useful, because it encourages investment in actual goats and camels that produce milk and meat and stinky little goats and camels rather than simply holding hoards of rocks you can’t eat.  There are no cute little baby golds.

“Money” is a lousy store of value.

There is over $700 Trillion of ‘notional’ value floating around in the magical free market place.  This is enough to buy all the little goats and camels for 30 years but that’s not a problem if you don’t need one right now so you can sacrifice to the gods and read the entrails for augury.  Should everyone need ALL THOSE GOATS AT ONCE RIGHT NOW! there is literally not enough “money” in the world, even including camels.  Store of value?  Goats 1, Rocks 0.

It’s really all about convenience.

Nobody wants to smell like a goat herder and hard think make brain hurt.  Especially pampered privileged Masters of the Universe types.  They whine and complain not only over their pwecious wittle fee fees but are constantly surprised when the magical marketplace doesn’t conform to their ignorant expectations.

Ah, if only we had less uncertainty.  And it was a bad lie, I’m taking a mulligan, it’s not that I’m a horrible golfer at all.

Dollar dominance is a historical oddity.  It’s partly a result of the fact that after WW II we were the only economy left standing.  It’s also a result of elite intellectual laziness and the fact that there are penalties for being the world’s reserve currency.

Felix TV: Will the US downgrade be a nonevent?

Felix Salmon, Reuters

Jul 27, 2011 12:50 EDT

The fact is that Treasury bonds are going to remain the global fixed-income benchmark, simply because there’s no alternative. There are $9.3 trillion in marketable Treasury securities outstanding – that’s five times the debt stock of triple-A countries like France, Germany, or the UK. And when it comes to liquidity, the gap is even bigger: daily Treasury volume of $580 billion is 17 times higher than the next most liquid triple-A security, UK gilts. And UK gilts are denominated in pounds, which is hardly a global reserve currency; they’re certainly not much use for, say, financial institutions needing collateral for their dollar-based triparty repo transactions.

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Turban bomber kills Kandahar mayor in troubled Afghan south

By Mamoon Durrani, AFP

5 hrs ago

Somewhat delayed as the Thunderstorm ate my homework (better than my dog, isn’t it?).

Here’s a kitten on a blanket-

Evening Edition is an Open Thread

1 Florists run empty in Oslo as rose becomes grief symbol

By Katell Prigent, AFP

6 hrs ago

Please remember that criticising Barack Obama and his failed economic policies is racist.

Recession Study Finds Hispanics Hit the Hardest

By SABRINA TAVERNISE, The New York Times

Published: July 26, 2011

WOODBRIDGE, Va. – Hispanic families accounted for the largest single decline in wealth of any ethnic and racial group in the country during the recession, according to a study published Tuesday by the Pew Foundation.

The study, which used data collected by the Census Bureau, found that the median wealth of Hispanic households fell by 66 percent from 2005 to 2009. By contrast, the median wealth of whites fell by just 16 percent over the same period. African Americans saw their wealth drop by 53 percent. Asians also saw a big decline, with household wealth dropping 54 percent.

The declines have led to the largest wealth disparities in the 25 years that the bureau has been collecting the data, according to the report.

Median wealth of whites is now 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, double the already marked disparities that had prevailed in the decades before the recent recession, the study found.

Electoral victory my ass.

Obama leaves Hispanic activists unsatisfied

By David Nakamura, The Washington Post

Posted at 10:25 AM ET, 07/26/2011

Appearing at a luncheon at the Wardman Park Marriott for the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic civil rights organization in the country, Obama sought to shore up support from a critical pillar of the coalition that got him elected in 2008. It did not go as smoothly as the president might have hoped.

…

(T)he crowd was not completely convinced. A group of students stood during the president’s remarks, in a silent protest against his policies. And at a news conference afterward, La Raza President Janet Murguía said Obama had failed the Latino community.

“We’re not satisfied the president has kept his promise,” she said. “On the issue of immigration reform, it’s fair to say that we didn’t hear anything new.”

Netroots Nation 2011, Immigration and the Power of the Latino Vote: Why Harry Reid Came Back and Alex Sink Sunk–

It is a category error to consider Barack Obama a Democrat.

Elizabeth Drew Wants a Better President, Also a Pony

By: Scarecrow, Firedog Lake

Monday July 25, 2011 11:24 am

You can hardly blame the growing number of decent folks, long respected, admired writers like Elizabeth Drew, who are now, or still, calling on Barack Obama to stop being a wimp, a disappointment, a terrible negotiator, or a betrayer to his people, principles and Party and become a better President. But he won’t, people, so what’s plan B?

I’m a great fan of Ms. Drew; have been for, um, decades. In her now widely seen article, she joins many others urging Mr. Obama to just say no to the economic terrorists holding the government, its credit, its finances and its functions hostage. Just demand a clean, no strings bill to raise the debt limit and tell the nation, and the Tea-GOP, that he’s had enough. The nation would cheer.

The problem with all such urgings is they assume the President is being forced to accept terrible public policy, and that only a stiffer spine, backed by his supporters, or perhaps a more clever bargaining strategy, would release the inner President he keeps hidden.

…

There is ample evidence, delivered almost daily in his press conferences and statements by his closest advisers, that he deeply believes in the economic austerity, confidence fairy, and debt hysteria notions that fully account for this public positions. The President and his men simply support terrible policies.

If for no other reason than naked political self preservation, the nominal leaders of the Democratic Party should be disconnecting from the suicide pact Mr. Obama wants them to sign. But where is the evidence they understand this?

In the Senate, Harry Reid is fashioning an alternative plan for his Party to self destruct. It even includes another anti-democratic Cat Food Commission to finish the job. What political genius came up with the idea that an acceptable out would be to slash federal spending during a still possible depression by $2.6 trillion or so, with or without new taxes, and putting the family jewels at risk again, as the best way to appease the terrorists? What will the terrorists demand next as they dismantle government’s ability to function?

Obama takes political, policy gamble on ‘big deal’

By Zachary A. Goldfarb, The Washington Post

Published: July 24

Obama’s political advisers have long believed that securing such an agreement would provide an enormous boost to his 2012 campaign, according to people familiar with White House thinking. In particular, they want to preserve and improve the president’s standing among political independents, who abandoned Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections and who say reining in the nation’s debt is a high priority.

…

The risk for Obama now is that his pursuit of a far-reaching package could deeply disappoint his Democratic allies who believe he may be giving away too much. By calculating that an ambitious plan to reduce the nation’s debt by $4 trillion over 10 years is so important, he’s willing to endanger one of the best weapons in his party’s arsenal – the argument that Democrats will protect Medicare and Social Security at all costs.

…

Administration officials said the shift fits with Obama’s vision of what his presidency should look like.

…

Obama is focused on the views of independent voters in the general election. In polls, independents still show support for Obama, but his numbers have come down significantly since he took office.

“He sees the achievement of a big deal as a way to reach out effectively to the kinds of independent and moderate voters who supported him so strongly in 2008 and who have become somewhat disaffected in the interim,” said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

A deal would also help Obama inoculate himself against criticism from Republicans that he has failed to tame the debt.

“It benefits him politically a great deal if there’s a big deal,” said Jim Kessler, vice president for policy and a co-founder of Third Way, a left-leaning group that has been supporting an ambitious plan. “The deficit favors Republicans. But if it seems like it’s been solved, then you take away one of the biggest Republican issues and at worst you neutralize it and at best you win it.”

Left leaning?

And how is that working out for you?

Public Policy Polling as cited by John Aravosis and Taylor Marsh–

For the first time since last July Barack Obama does not lead Mitt Romney in PPP’s monthly national poll on the 2012 Presidential race. Romney has now pulled into a tie with the President at 45%.

Obama’s approval rating this month is 46% with 48% of voters disapproving of him. There are 2 things particularly troubling in his numbers: independents split against him by a 44/49 margin, and 16% of Democrats are unhappy with the job he’s doing while only 10% of Republicans give him good marks. Republicans dislike him at this point to a greater extent than Democrats like him and that will be a problem for him moving forward if it persists.

…

Obama’s numbers are worse than they appear to be on the surface. The vast majority of the undecideds in all of these match ups disapprove of the job Obama’s doing but aren’t committing to a candidate yet while they wait to see how the Republican field shakes out.

How undecideds change the race if you allocate them based on their approval/disapproval of Obama-

CNN Poll: Drop in liberal support pushes Obama approval rating down

By: CNN Political Unit

July 22nd, 2011, 01:01 PM ET

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama’s approval rating is down to 45 percent, driven in part by growing dissatisfaction on the left with the president’s track record in office, according to a new national survey.

…

“But drill down into that number and you’ll see signs of a stirring discontent on the left,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Thirty-eight percent say they disapprove because President Obama has been too liberal, but 13 percent say they disapprove of Obama because he has not been liberal enough – nearly double what it was in May, when the question was last asked, and the first time that number has hit double digits in Obama’s presidency.”

Looking at that figure another way, roughly one in four Americans who disapprove of the president say they feel that way because he’s not been liberal enough.

Obama’s approval rating among liberals has dropped to 71 percent, the lowest point in his presidency. And the number of Democrats who want the party to renominate Obama next year, now at 77 percent, is relatively robust by historical standards but is also down a bit since June.

“It’s likely that this is a reaction to some of Obama’s recent actions, including his willingness to discuss major changes in Social Security and Medicare as part of the debt ceiling negotiations,” adds Holland.

Vicious Cycles: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse

Robert Reich

Monday, July 25, 2011

We now live in parallel universes.

One universe is the one in which most Americans live. In it, almost 15 million people are unemployed, wages are declining (adjusted for inflation), and home values are still falling. The unsurprising result is consumers aren’t buying – which is causing employers to slow down their hiring and in many cases lay off more of their workers. In this universe, we’re locked in a vicious economic cycle that’s getting worse.

The other universe is the one in which Washington politicians live. They are now engaged in a bitter partisan battle over how, and by how much, to reduce the federal budget deficit in order to buy enough votes to lift the debt ceiling.

The two universes have nothing whatever to do with one another – except for one thing. If consumers can’t and won’t buy, and employers won’t hire without customers, the spender of last resort must be government. We’ve understood this since government spending on World War II catapulted America out of the Great Depression – reversing the most vicious of vicious cycles. We’ve understood it in every economic downturn since then.

Until now.

When you’ve lost Jeralyn…

• Raising Medicare to 67: Not an Acceptable Option
• How Obama Has Failed Us
• What Obama Should Be Saying
• How Our Debt Rose to $14.3 Trillion: Blame Congress
• Monday Morning Message for Democrats: Get Up Off Your Knees