Author: VD

Euro 2012 Day 4

England 1 France 1

While France was clearly the better team, England played hard and actually created the better chances despite being outnumbered 5-1 in shots on goal. They also arguably cheated by starting an obvious Klingon, who scored their only goal by heading in a free kick. I’d like to see some DNA testing of the so-called “Joleon Lescott”, as I would be very surprised if he was shown to be of Terran origin. Milner missed a wonderful opportunity when he was put through to goal and beat the goalie before shooting wide, while on the other end, John Terry demonstrated why his teammates are willing to put up with having such an untrustworthy wanker for a teammate. He repeatedly cleaned up potentially dangerous messes. For the French, Riberry was easily the best player and was constantly putting pressure on the English defense with his runs. There was a near goal on a French corner kick, but the English keeper, Hart, produced a nice instinct save to keep the ball out of his net. After seeing this, I expect France to win the group, while England will have a tough time of it unless they can enlist some Romulans or something.

Ukraine 2 Sweden 1

I can’t say much about this game since I only watched the first half, which was scoreless. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Ukraine won, however, as they were clearly the more aggressive team, but I was surprised to see that Shevchenko returned to form and scored both goals. The erstwhile great was relatively ineffective in the first half, failing to even put either of his best opportunities on goal. Ibrahimovic, on the other hand, hit the post in the first half and scored in the second, but I find the half-Swedish striker to be somewhat overrated. While he’s powerful in the air and moves surprisingly well for such a big man, I see him as a complimentary striker, not a number one option, and any team relying on him to be the primary provider of their goals is likely to be disappointed. Neither team looked like it had France’s quality, as both relied very heavily on the long ball, but both looked better than England. I’d be surprised if France and Ukraine didn’t take the top two spots in the group.

Of bailouts and bullet- biting

It may be illuminating to compare what I wrote in RGD to the various ways countries mentioned in it have responded to the debt crisis. Consider the following quote from the book:

“According to Austrian theory, the effects of the housing bust on the overall economy should be much greater in countries like Estonia, Spain, and Ireland than in Austria, Germany, and Poland, and to the extent that inexpensive debt was made available to that and other sectors of the economy, we would expect to see that signs of the resulting economic contraction are similarly greater as well. Therefore we should see unemployment rising faster, prices falling further, GDP contracting more, and government deficits growing larger in the three housing boom countries than in the three non-boom ones.”

From today’s NYT on the Spanish bank bailout:

Two weeks after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain vowed “there will be no Spanish banking rescue,” and after days of delay in which Mr. Rajoy pressed European officials for sounder rescue terms, Spain has now joined Greece, Ireland and Portugal as the latest bailout recipient. Catastrophe averted? Hardly.

Spain, check. Ireland, check. But no Estonia? What happened there? Why hasn’t Estonia required a bank bailout? The answer can be found in the rationale given by Fitch Ratings decision to affirm the little country’s credit rating.

“The rating decision reflects “the country’s near seamless transition to full membership of the euro zone starting on 1 January 2011, coupled with a more balanced economic recovery and the continued deleveraging of the private sector”…. Estonia was the only euro-area member to report budget surpluses for the last two years and had the lowest public debt among the region’s 17 members in 2011 at 6 percent of gross domestic product.”

Translation: Estonia is the only one of the three housing boom countries I noted in RGD that chose to bite the bullet and accept economic contraction and debt default rather than attempt to put off dealing with it in the interest of its banking sector. As even Paul Krugman has begrudgingly noted, they’ve hit bottom and are now in an ongoing process of recovery. But first they took a 20 percent hit to GDP, which is very much in line with what I said would have to be the case in RGD. All the multiple bailouts in Europe and the USA have accomplished is ensure that the trough will have to be bigger and deeper in the end.

Euro 2012 Day 3

Italy 1 Spain 1

Not a bad result for the Azzurri. They didn’t show the same midfield quality as Spain, and their attack was somewhat anemic, but their defense was solid and rendered the pass-heavy ground assault of the Spaniards mostly ineffectual. Balotelli was a complete disaster and I do not understand what he is even doing on the team, let alone starting. His failure to either pass to a wide-open Cassano or shoot the ball when through to goal may have cost the Italians two points; his substitute, di Natale, not only looked much more dangerous but scored within three minutes of getting in the game. The Spanish goal was nice teamwork, but was the near-inevitable result of the Italian left back failing to mark Fabregas in the box. Torres came on late, only to provide copious evidence for an argument concerning who was worse, him or Balotelli. He actually managed to have the ball stolen by Buffon, the Italian keeper, on one of his three fruitless breakaways. The draw was well-merited, as both teams looked considerably better than any of eight teams that played before them, including the Germans, and it was easily the most entertaining match of the tournament to date.

Croatia 3 Ireland 1

Ireland simply doesn’t belong here. Seriously, they were so uniformly bad, both tactically and technically, that I was seriously left with the impression that the first team on my old club could have beaten them. Given wasn’t merely inept in goal, but embarrassingly so, as he failed to save a fairly easy, long-distance header on the first Croatian goal, and later knocked in a ball bouncing off the post with his own head. He looked slow and clumsy even when he was making saves. The Irish further embarrassed themselves with their crying about a nonexistent offsides on the second Croatian goal, ignoring the obvious fact that it isn’t offsides if the pass is from the other team. The Irish defender made what looked like a child’s attempt to clear the ball after a deflected shot, which sent the ball directly to the Croatian who was several yards behind the defense. The Irish were trying to claim that the Croatian had been involved in the previous play, a shot deflected from the other side of the box, which simply wasn’t true. The Irish attack was nearly nonexistent and consisted of nothing more than kicking the ball long, mostly to Doyle, who then collapsed like a hypersensitive Pippo Inzaghi as soon as a Croatian defender breathed on him. Doyle won three or four free kicks this way, one of which accounted for the sole Irish goal, before the referee wised up and forced him to actually try to do something with the ball, which promptly shut down the Irish. The Irish did run hard, but one felt that either the Spanish or the Germans could have beaten them by double digits if they wanted.

WND column

Obama and the Debt Delta

When people who are fat and flabby begin to get in shape by lifting weights, they are often surprised to discover that, although they lose inches off their waistline, they don’t actually weigh any less. This is because muscle is much denser than fat, and an amount of muscle takes up about one-third the space as the same amount of fat. The change in a person’s shape is a qualitative one rather than a quantitative one, and such changes will often have a bigger result on how he looks and feels than simply losing weight while maintaining the same fat-to-muscle ratio.

Although Paul Krugman and a few other mainstream economists are finally beginning to admit that the U.S. economy is not only in a depression, but has been in a depression for some time now, their neo-Keynesian models, which are entirely quantitative, still do not permit them to understand how or why that is the case. With their singular focus on gross domestic product, or GDP, they completely fail to even try to understand how qualitative changes in outstanding credit market debt have a significant effect on the economy.

Euro 2012 Day 2

Denmark 1 Holland 0

It was a reasonably entertaining game, but the Dutch looked simultaneously in control and inept. Rob van Persie was uncharacteristically hapless in front of goal, at one point actually managing to swing, miss, and fall down after finding himself through to goal. The Danish keeper kept them in the game, although most of Holland’s 28 shots really weren’t very dangerous. While the Dutch controlled the midfield as effectively as the Russians had against the Czechs, they weren’t able to deliver the ball to the strikers anywhere nearly as effectively. Of course, on the rare occasions they did so, the opportunity was either wasted or stuffed by the Danish keeper. The Danes, on the other hand, got a lucky bounce at just the right time, followed by a goal that was less indicative of a great finish as a poor effort by the Dutch keeper. I’ve never understood why some keepers at the top levels appear to be inordinately disposed to permitting the one sort of goals that even children can block, namely, a shot on the ground aimed directly at their feet.

Germany 1 Portugal 0

This was a better game, although the Germans didn’t look like the world beaters that they do on paper. Although Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani get all the press, the Portuguese defense was easily the most impressive aspect of the team. I didn’t like Germany’s attacking style, as it mostly consisted of sending the ball down the sidelines, then crossing it into the middle over and over again. The Germans didn’t appear to have any ability or even intent to break down the defense by attacking it on the ground, either in transition or with the defense set in the box. The German manager was just about to send in Klose for Gomez when the latter headed in a deflected cross for the game’s only goal. Portugal actually created the better opportunities, but Pepe hit the bar and Varela simply choked when presented with a near empty net. Every matchup is different, of course, but based on these two games alone, I’d be more surprised to see Holland beat Germany than to see Portugal beat Holland.

And one more thing… avanti Azzurrri!

Paying $5.21 for a dollar

Karl Denninger notes the latest Z1 report:

We’re where we were in Q3 2007 on a ratio basis, which is hardly “healthy” by any stretch. And if you look closely you’ll see that the debt number is going up — and faster than the GDP one is. Where’s it going up? In Federal Government, that’s where. We’re simply shifting where the debt resides. Are we making any material progress? No. In fact, last quarter we added more debt than we did GDP. Therefore, we’re still going backward.

That’s not quite true when viewed from a larger perspective. By my calculations, the debt/GDP ratio has fallen from 3.75 to 3.48 since Q2-2008. The problem, however, is that the debt-shifting that Karl describes is even more significant than most people who know about it grasp. The federal government has not only increased its outstanding debt by 105.76 percent, but as I will show in my column tomorrow, it has provided 168 percent of the $3.3 trillion in post-crisis credit growth. This means that when people talk about the economy needing $3 in new debt to purchase $1 in GDP growth, they are failing to account for the decline in private credit. In other words, the federal government has needed to take on $5.21 in new debt in order to purchase $1 in new nominal GDP.

But that’s not what I found most interesting about the latest report. First, the amount of possible statistical shenanigans appears to be increasing. I keep track of the numbers according to the initial reports, and whereas the federal government number is always static from quarter to quarter, the other numbers tend to change dramatically. The biggest change I’ve seen was in State and Local Governments, which showed a mysterious $500 billion increase (+23.77 percent) in Q3-2011, but the one that caught my attention is the sudden growth in corporate debt during 2011. Corporate debt had been basically flat from 2008 through the first quarter of 2011, but for last three quarters it has suddenly averaged 3.62 percent quarterly debt growth. It was 4.46 percent in Q1-2012, which is between 2x and 3x normal. The last time we saw this sort of corporate debt growth, it ran 3.16 percent for a year, ending in the second quarter of 2007.

I don’t know if this could be some sort of indication that federal government is feeding loans to corporations or if it suggests that corporations go on debt binges prior to economic crises. I tend to doubt the former since the financial sector is still contracting and I’d have to do a lot more research before I could possibly conclude the latter. Either way, it doesn’t strike me as being an entirely innocuous development.

A blog of very particular interest

Being reliably informed that I may happen to possess a few idiosyncracies of my own, I’m always pleased to see when others unabashedly let their freak flag fly. Jamsco has launched a new blog that will no doubt be of massive interest to the State Park-visiting community as he is providing what he describes as A Guided Tour Of The Best State Parks In The World. And he’s not afraid to court a little controversy either, as exhibited by this daring call-out of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Last week the Star Tribune published its “Best Of Minnesota” magazine and in it they claim that the best state park in Minnesota is Whitewater State Park. They cite “miles of cool rivers, steep bluffs and deep valleys, drumming grouse and gobbling turkeys”

Now I will say that (A) Whitewater is a very pleasant place to visit, as I said in my review, and (B) it would be very difficult to choose the best state park, but no – Whitewater is not the best one. I will go on record and say that any one choosing a best state park that is not on the “East Coast” (i.e. Lake Superior or the Mississippi or St. Croix Rivers) will be wrong. Okay, probably wrong.

That’s right, it’s on record, bitch! While I am not among what I can only imagine to be the vast State Park-visiting demographic, I am very excited about the Guided Tour, as I cannot wait for the first serious East Coast-West Coast State Park blog war to kick off. Best of luck to Jamsco aka Biggie. (flashes sign) East Coast!

Euro 2012 Day 1

I didn’t watch Greece-Poland because, well, it was Greece and Poland. It sounds like it was a 1-1 snoozefest enlivened only by the referee, who is a card-happy monster from La Liga that sent off a Greek defender in the first half and the Polish goalie in the second. Russia-Czech Republic was interesting mostly because the Russian attack is seriously lethal. It could have easily been 7-1 if Kerzhakov had any ability whatsoever to even put the ball on goal, forget actually putting it in the net. After what seemed like the 45th perfect little through ball past the defense, he blasted a one-touch shot from about 8 meters out that was wider than Vanderjagt’s miss against the Steelers. That was enough for the Russian manager, who promptly took him out. It was a shame, because Kerzhakov was always in the right place at the right time, demanding the ball from the midfield by virtue of being the optimal pass, only to look like someone who had never played soccer before.

Dzagoev promptly justified the manager’s move, as Kerzhakov’s absence meant the Russian midfield began targeting him with its passes and he promptly buried the very sort of ball that Kerzhakov had been missing in the back of the net. The substitute striker, Pavlyuchenko, then put on what was one of the most simultaneously selfish, stubborn, and brilliant displays I’ve ever seen, taking on three Czech defenders at the left top of the box, staunchly refusing to pass or cross it, then somehow firing a hard, almost Cruyffian-turn shot past the Czech goalie. The Czechs really weren’t bad, but the Russians were an order of magnitude better.

Israel and Immigration II

Chelm continues to insist that Vox is Wrong in Comparing Israel’s African Immigrant Problem and the Medieval Jewish Expulsions:

This post is going to be dedicated to Vox’s assertion that Israel’s deportation of African Immigrants would provide and ex post facto justification of the medieval deportations of Jews and the Arab expulsions in the 1950s. This is of course, laughable, but before I start, I want to point out a few places where Vox has conceded my arguments in his last post on the subject. Vox wrote:

I do agree that Americans are largely unprepared for European openness about matters of race in general and Jews in particular. I would simply assert that I am using primarily American language on the blog, though I suppose it’s entirely possible that I’m not always as conscious of the distinctions anymore given how long it has been since I left.

In this paragraph Vox has conceded the following points:

He did not dispute that there is a correlation between the frequency anti-semitic speech and actual violence against Jews.
He did not dispute that an increase in anti-semitic speech often proceeds actual violence against Jews.
And that his writing regarding Jews can reasonably be viewed as a change in discourse for the subject of Jews in America… so can be reasonably be classified as dangerous.

…which was the the whole point of my original post, that the alt-right philosophy is dangerous. So, thank you Vox for conceding the point.

I found this to be more than a little amusing, because Chelm has confused a failure to dispute something with a concession. In that paragraph, I also failed to dispute the Moon landings, the historical legitimacy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the superiority of the Green Bay Packers, and the Palestinian right of return. But I did not concede any of those things, any more than I conceded the four points that Chelm has tried to claim that I conceded. In his eagerness to score a point and claim a concession, Chelm has done nothing more than attack his own credibility.

But since this is a teachable moment, I will not use this minor debacle as an excuse to blow off the rest of his argument, but will proceed to read through it.

First, I would like to remind Vox that I believe that a mass deportation of the 60,000 African immigrants in Israel is not likely to happen. The government of Israel has willingly taken them into the country (if unlawfully) and now bears some responsibility for their welfare. Even the proposals of deportation floated by the Israeli government envisions giving the immigrants a stipend after deporting them.

While I’m sure we are all interested in Chelm’s ability to prognosticate, it would appear events have already overtaken his stated opinion, as Netanyahu has ordered the deportation of 25,000 of the 60,000 undocumented workers, or as the Israelis describe them, illegal infiltrators. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his ministers to accelerate efforts to deport citizens of South Sudan, the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Ethiopia who are living in Israel illegally on Sunday.” Moreover, the other 35,000 are going to be installed in desert holding facilities, as Netanyahu “ordered a substantial expansion of the Saharonim lockup in the Negev.” For all that the Jews never seem to stop complaining about the Jewish ghettos of Europe, they can’t honestly say that they spent the entire Middle Ages jailed in the desert.

I take issue with his characterization of the deportations as non-violent. All deportation actions are by their very nature violent, in that the threat of violence is required to compel compliance with the deportation order. I assume he is using non-violent vs. violent as a proxy for the government exercising legitimate vs illegitimate authority… and that he believes that the massacres were illegitimate, while deportations were a legitimate exercise of the authority of state. If that is the case, he should have said so, because to characterize the deportations as non-violent fits a rhetorical pattern Vox has of minimizing and trivializing the impact of European persecution of the Jews and reveals to some extent his bias against them.

This is a red herring. First, the threat of violence is not the use of violence. Second, if all deportations are intrinsically violent, then obviously the Israeli deportations of the Africans are violent as well and there is no point in getting into the issue as it proves my assertion of equivalence. The reason that I was pointing out the non-violent nature of the historical Jewish deportations is because I was being careful to distinguish between them and the pogroms which were often very violent in nature. But Chelm is correct and I believe that the massacres were illegitimate – note that many of them were even illegal at the time, and some of them, such as the worst one in English history, brought down the wrath of the king on those who committed them – whereas the deportations were a legitimate exercise of the relevant authority then as now.

I will address the rest of his post tomorrow. However, Chelm may wish to note that his attempt to deny the historical parallels is being made increasingly difficult by the actions of the people in Israel.

“An apartment housing 10 Eritreans has been firebombed in Jerusalem, against the backdrop of rising anti-migrant sentiment in Israel. Four of the occupants were taken to hospital suffering burns and smoke inhalation. Graffiti sprayed on the walls of the building said: “Get out of the neighbourhood.” During a tour of the fence on Sunday, a member of the Israeli parliament said that troops should fire on anyone attempting to cross the border illegally. “Anyone that penetrates Israel’s border should be shot, a Swedish tourist, Sudanese from Eritrea, Eritreans from Sudan, Asians from Sinai. Whoever touches Israel’s border – shot,” said Aryeh Eldad.”