licentious radio

Tuesday, September 3, 2002
[7:34:56 PM]

The San Francisco Chronicle has a funny cartoonist, Don Asmussen.

"Cheney: Human Losses in Iraq War don't have to show up on books... Accounting tricks can make Iraq attack appear successful... Our vice president suggests creating fake partnerships/alliances, claiming dead soldiers as expenditures, etc."

[2:50:24 PM]
Have you patched Windows today? Oops! There's no patch:

"Starting immediately, all e-commerce sites have a duty to warn vulnerable IE users to switch to another browser for sensitive transactions." -- Brian Livingston [infoworld.com].

Also note that putting the SSL functionality into the operating system is the reason this is a problem for Microsoft. KDE fixed the same problem in a day. And merging web browser features with the operating system was done specificly with the intent of destroying a well-funded competitor (Netscape). Thus a security flaw that will be very hard to fix was imposed on their customers by a monopolist to use their existing monopoly to drive a new competitor in a different market out of business.

Bring us their heads!

And if you run an ecommerce website and *don't* warn your customers against using Internet Explorer, you should first determine that you are willing to risk bad will, bad publicity, and law suits. It would be extraordinary negligence to claim that the transaction is safe when, in fact, you know that it is not.

[11:51:39 AM]
Krugman writes about Greenspan's speech about the bubble. The speech was remarkable in it's evasion of the important elements.

First Greenspan said he couldn't have known there was a bubble. Now we're supposed to believe he's an idiot? You don't have to have a formal definition and consensus among all economists to know there's a bubble.

Then Greenspan said he couldn't have done anything about it. Remarkably, Krugman pulls out a quote in which Greenspan admitted there was a bubble, and said raising margin requirements would stop it:

'Moreover, there is evidence that Mr. Greenspan actually knew better. In September 1996, at a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, he told his colleagues, "I recognize that there is a stock market bubble problem at this point." And he had a solution: "We do have the possibility of . . . increasing margin requirements. I guarantee that if you want to get rid of the bubble, whatever it is, that will do it." '

The remarkable thing about this quote is the margin requirements solution. The theological doctrine from the Fed is that margin requirements don't work; or rather, there's no evidence that they work. And then they point to economic studies of the times margin requirements were used, and they off-handedly claim that since only 1.5% of market capitalization is affected by margins, it isn't worth talking about.

But there are two problems with that. First, in economic studies the effects of margin requirements are likely to be lost in the jumble of other events. You can't tell what would have happened if the margin rates hadn't been raised, if you're only looking at stock price statistics. You would have to look at the behavior of the speculators.

Second, the low percentage of market capitalization doesn't mean there isn't a large speculative effect. On any given day, the stocks traded represent a small percentage of the total market value of stocks. And yet it is the trades that make a difference in price. Especially in a bubble, speculators focused on a small sector could have a much larger impact -- if two-thirds of margin stocks were in technology, for example. And in the technology sector bubble of the 90s, most of the "market capitalization" for the 'hot' companies was not available to be traded. Prices were determined by demand for a small percentage of the total stock value, and a core group of speculators (day-traders) were the people who were busiest at running stock prices up on margin.

Krugman also points to Greenspan's cheerleading *for* the bubble. Social beliefs matter. Greenspan himself promoted that more Americans should get into stock speculation, and the easy extra profits from trading on margin would also promote speculation by more people.

But the absolute *most* remarkable thing about the speech is the way it was reported -- Greenspan couldn't have prevented the bubble without adverse effects, they say. Excuse me? Eventually, Greenspan got around to completely killing the bubble, and creating the current recession -- *after* the bubble had already started to cool off gradually.

Are we suppposed to believe Greenspan didn't know inventory levels and production capacity were planned for continued growth? Are we supposed to believe Greenspan didn't notice the failures of the most ridiculous dot-com businesses, and the end of the easy money?

I'm willing to believe Greenspan didn't completely understand how important the technology sector was to our late 90s prosperity. I'm also willing to believe he didn't know the technology sector wouldn't recover. It's stunning that the venture capitalists completely stopped venturing. Creating start-up technology companies was a key part of the productivity boom. But Greenspan should darned well have been suspicious that part of the tech boom was to handle the Y2k fears, and that that part of the purchasing would cause a significant drop-off in the next couple of years.

And finally, there's the stench of political corruption: Greenspan's assassination of the economy was timed exactly to affect the 2k presidential elections. In the fall of 2000, Gore couldn't brag so much about the economy, because Greenspan had just initiated the recession, and everyone could tell that trouble was coming.

The Fed, like the Supreme Court, has almost no accountability to the people of the United States. Both organizations are supposed to be above politics. And yet we saw in election 2k the most outrageous court corruption in the history of the nation. The law says count the votes. But because they were afraid counting the votes might put Gore in office, the five judges with extreme personal interests in the decision voted to stop the vote counting while Bush was still ahead.

We've since learned that counting the votes would have given the election to Gore.

So the next question is, why should we believe the Fed is any less corrupt than the Supreme Court?

If you believe Krugman's quote, we know Greenspan lies when he says he didn't know there was a bubble, and he lies when he says he couldn't have done anything about it.

Even if the Fed didn't intend to throw the election to Bush, there is no way citizens of the United States can know. Greenspan lies up one side of the street and down the other. Fed board members are all of the class who are personally rewarded by Bush's transfer of wealth to the rich. There is an absence of the appearance of propriety.

Bring us their heads!

[10:49:35 AM]
HaaretzDaily.com: "Between August 1 and last night, 49 Palestinians were killed by Israel Defense Forces fire in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; around 180 were injured, with at least 65 of them sustaining wounds from live fire (including shrapnel from shells and missiles). Thirty of those killed were unarmed civilians."

[10:44:08 AM]
"All forms of Palestinian violence have to stop," he said. "All resistance acts that are characterised by violence, such as using arms or even stones . . . are harmful. I call for civil resistance within the framework of the political struggle."

No, that wasn't another Licentious Radio rant, that was "Abdel Razzak al-Yahya, the new Interior Minister charged with reforming the much-criticised Palestinian security forces".

Needless to say, Licentious Radio supports this policy 100%.

The problem with the policy, of course, is that non-violent resistance does not prevent violence by the oppressors. Sharon and major elements of the IDF will surely continue to provoke Palestinian terrorists, and will continue to slaughter civilians.

It takes brave people to march without weapons against soldiers who are known to be trigger-happy. Take cameras, take politicians, take Jesse Jackson, take Israelis who want peace, too.

[10:29:17 AM]
To say George W. Bush "rose to the occasion" regarding September 11 is just plain delusional. Did you watch Bush (who ran and hid) talk to Guliani on the phone? Bush may be a mean, greedy bastard, and a figurehead for some truly evil people (Poppy, Rove, etc.), but W. is also an idiot. Talking on the telephone is beyond his level of competence.

The sad fact is that after September 11 he does appear to be more involved with making policy -- the footprints of stupidity are everywhere. An easy explanation is that Cheney had a heart episode, and his secret location was a hospital, and in the power vacuum, Bush the figurehead got to have some input on policy. But whatever the cause of Bush's increased input, the effects are obvious in the endless stream of stupidity reigning down on us.

[12:04:25 AM]
The key point about the Florida coup d'etat: The judge in charge would have insisted on counting every ballot, and that is the scenario in which Gore won, and it is the legal requirement.

Given that there was no legal or constitutional urgency to declaring the result, the Supreme Court's action can only be described as political. The fig leaf presented to the public is that Gore would have lost anyway, but the fig leaf was a lie.

Licentious Radio opposes the death penalty in all cases, even conspiracy to prevent votes from being counted. But we suggest stealing a presidential election should be considered treason, and the conspirators should not suffer a penalty less severe than a minor who commits murder.

Clearing up the election that won't die [tallahassee.com]:

Q: Why did some earlier post-election studies say just the opposite, that is, that Bush had actually won after all?

A: They did not really say this. They reported, instead, that Bush might have kept his lead if the manual recounts of machine-rejected ballots had been completed along the lines either requested by Gore or initially mandated by the Florida Supreme Court. In these recount scenarios, not all of the machine-rejected ballots would have been included. However, just before the U.S. Supreme Court intervened, the judge overseeing the final statewide recount was preparing to announce that the recount would cover all of the previously uncounted ballots.