Author: VD

Yowzers

In which Karl Denninger prison-rapes Paul Krugman’s bizarre meanderings on Social Security:

Seriously. This tripe is so bereft of logic and actual mental acuity that it is unworthy of graduation from elementary school:

“About that math: Legally, Social Security has its own, dedicated funding, via the payroll tax (“FICA” on your pay statement). But it’s also part of the broader federal budget. This dual accounting means that there are two ways Social Security could face financial problems. First, that dedicated funding could prove inadequate, forcing the program either to cut benefits or to turn to Congress for aid. Second, Social Security costs could prove unsupportable for the federal budget as a whole.”

Baloney. This is called fraud in the private-sector. First, there is no dedicated funding. Second, all the money taken in over the years was not “invested”, it was spent.

“Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund.”

That so-called “trust fund” is a fraud. It does not exist.

Here’s what actually happens (and Krugman knows this, which makes him a damned liar besides):

1. Your tax dollars go to Treasury
2. Treasury keeps them and issues “special” Treasury bonds to the Social Security “trust fund.”
3. Treasury counts these tax receipts against the federal deficit, making it look (much, until the last year) smaller than it really is.

Note the slight-of-hand here. Social Security gets an alleged “bond” but they can’t sell it to anyone but the Treasury. That is, legally it is an IOU, not a bond. A bond can be marketed in the open market to anyone who is willing to buy, for whatever they’re willing to pay. These are unmarketable (intentionally) and thus can only be redeemed in one place – at Treasury.

The problem is that Treasury spent the money and thus doesn’t have anything with which to redeem the IOUs!

Seriously, even people who don’t pay any attention to either politics or economics knows that the Social Security “trust fund” is nonexistent and that Congress has been operating on a pay-as-you-go system all along. I can’t even pretend to understand what Krugman was thinking when he wrote this ridiculous column. The money in the so-called “lock box” isn’t there because the box doesn’t exist either. The money is nothing more than yet another government debt as it was all spent years ago.

Bitch school

Is there a man on the planet who genuinely believes women need to learn to NOT apologize? Or strategies on more effectively getting what they want out of others?

THIS morning’s workshop is central to drama reduction. The topic is apologies.

Ms. Simmons divides these ninth graders into two facing lines. If a statement she reads aloud is true, a girl should cross the room.

“I’m usually the first person to apologize!” (A few girls trade places.)

“I apologize too much!” (More make a move.)

“I only apologize when I really mean it!” (A brave two.)

“I rarely apologize.” (An unapologetic one.)

“I’m more comfortable apologizing in a text than in person.” (Stampede.)

Girls are terrified to face a dispute head on, Ms. Simmons said. “In Girlworld, ‘Can we talk for a sec?’ means ‘OMG the end is near!’ ” she remarks, as the girls sit at desks in a half-circle around her. “But think of a conflict with your friend as an opportunity to negotiate for what you want.”

The issue isn’t that women don’t know how to say they’re sorry. They’re perfectly capable of verbalizing the words. They sometimes even prefer to posture absurdly and claim absolutely everything in the world is their fault in lieu of owning up to responsibility for something tangible. The real problem is that most women dislike taking responsibility for their actions and accepting the consequences for them.

The “sorry, sorry” routine is simply a matter of social submission to a dominant female, it has nothing to do with actual apologizing or modifying future behavior. Of course, social dominance is exactly what the Girls Leadership Institute is attempting to instill in girls, which from the description in the article, will likely have disastrous results for their relationships with the opposite sex.

By the banks, for the banks

Is anyone genuinely surprised that the White House’s foreclosure plan is designed to help the banks, and not the homeowners as advertised?

Banks will get the biggest benefit from an Obama administration housing program designed to help unemployed homeowners escape foreclosure. Housing experts expressed concern that banks, not homeowners, will be helped by the White House’s $3 billion funding infusion — $2 billion from the Treasury Department and another $1 billion from the Housing and Urban Development Department — going to those states hit hardest by the housing market crash and unemployment.

This is exactly the same trickle-down assistance approach that was previously taken by Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve and failed miserably. The fact of the matter is that the only reason foreclosures are a concern to the admininstration and the central bank is because they threaten to expose the insolvency of the banks. As is quite clearly the case, they are indifferent to the fate of the homeowning peasantry, otherwise they would have simply used that trillion in bailout cash to pay off problem mortgages.

WND column

This is what I am referring to in today’s WND column. It succinctly shows the death of Keynesian economics in one simple graph. The empiricists who have rejected the compelling but non-empirical critiques of the Austrian School for eighty years will not find it so easy to dismiss the empirical evidence of the declining marginal utility of debt.

There will be no double-dip but only because the “recession” never ended. It was merely disguised due to the ludicrous metric of GDP which counts government borrowing and spending as economic growth. To insist that GDP growth is economic growth is to confuse the map with the territory.

But how many were saved?

The Wall Street Journal finally begins to notice that there is no economic recovery underlying the March 2009 advance:

The jobs picture is much worse than they’re telling you. Forget the “official” unemployment rate of 9.5%. Alternative measures? Try this: Just 61% of the adult population, age 20 or over, has any kind of job right now. That’s the lowest since the early 1980s — when many women stayed at home through choice, driving the numbers down. Among men today, it’s 66.9%. Back in the ’50s, incidentally, that figure was around 85%, though allowances should be made for the higher number of elderly people alive today. And many of those still working right now can only find part-time work, so just 59% of men age 20 or over currently have a full-time job. This is bullish?

(Today’s bonus question: If a laid-off contractor with two kids, a mortgage and a car loan is working three night shifts a week at his local gas station, how many iPads can he buy for Christmas?)

Any predictions on when the first serious mention of Great Depression 2.0 occurs in the WSJ? This can’t be an airy dismissal, but should be accompanied by an admission that there is no double-dip, it’s all just one giant multi-year contraction.

VPFL 2010

If you’re interested in participating, post your name and email here. Last year’s champions, the Alamo City Spartans, will be joining the permanent league members, Mounds View, Burns, and Greenfield. This year we will also permit the VP-AFL champion to participate, however, he will take over one of last year’s teams just like the other five newcomers.

In tangentially related news, inquiring minds are wondering why the Tarvaris Jackson Experiment is still listed as the Vikings starter.

Just deal with it, fat girl

Needless ex-fatty angst over unexpected male interest:

There’s an intelligent, successful, charming bachelor in his 40s. Let’s call him George Clooney. So George, sick of women throwing themselves at him because he’s rich and famous, decides to go undercover. He grows out his beard, he gains weight, he starts wearing ripped sweatpants wherever he goes. He’s the exact same guy underneath, but it’s really important that a woman want him for him—not just for the dashing image he projects and the life he can provide. I’m Not Attracted To Him: Do I Date Him?

Now, George looks like a homeless man. He still has great knowledge of Darfur, Edward R. Murrow, and the politics behind oil. He can still turn a phrase and crack a joke. He still has an amazing smile…. It would probably not surprise you that George would struggle in his quest for love. He may blame women for not valuing him as a homeless man as much they did as an actor—but he’d be the one losing out.

The problem with the attitude that you should be desired for who you are is that your superficialities are an intrinsic part of you. Sometimes they are an accurate indicator of what lies within, sometimes they are misleading, but they are still a part of you either way. Moreover, no one is ever going to “get to know the real you” if you don’t give them a reason to want to do so in the first place. Weight isn’t like height; the only person the ex-fatty should be annoyed at is herself since clearly she could have lost the weight a long time ago.

However, I’m not entirely unsympathetic with the dilemma of the former fat girl. I once knew a very nice girl who had an incredibly pretty face and a fantastic body but did not have an iota of pretty girl syndrome in her. She really seemed to be bewildered by the idea that she might be attractive at all, let alone highly desirable. It turned out that she had been quite fat in junior high and high school, had never had a boyfriend, didn’t go to college, and was almost completely unprepared for how men would react to her when she lost all the extra weight. But she wasn’t bitter, she was simply scared.

People also tend to forget that more men go through this sort of transformation than women do, since being short for a man is rather like being fat for a woman. But most guys who finally catch up to and surpass the girls in terms of height are simply glad that the situation has changed, they’re not bitter because the opposite sex has finally developed an interest in them.

I wouldn’t get too carried away by the sudden interest if I was an ex-fatty. Let’s face it, the thin girl may have escaped temporarily, but there’s still a fat girl inside waiting to devour her.

The worst figures in American history

The Right Wing News polls the bloggers. John says: “While this is a fascinating list, this one is unusual in that I honestly don’t agree with a lot of the people on the list. Take a look at it and see if you feel the same way.”

Here were my nominees:

Alexander Hamilton
Abraham Lincoln
Woodrow Wilson
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Margaret Sanger
Susan B. Anthony
Alan Greenspan
Paul Warburg
David Rockefeller
Richard Nixon

I was frankly shocked to see that so many people agreed with me about Roosevelt and Wilson, but didn’t see fit to add “Honest Abe” to the list.

Morals aren’t evolving fast enough

At least, not fast enough to confer legitimacy on scientific fraud:

Dr. Hauser, whose field is the comparison of human and animal minds, is the author of “Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.”

A Harvard press officer, Jeff Neal, at first refused to confirm that Dr. Hauser was on leave or that Harvard had conducted any investigation. But a message on Dr. Hauser’s laboratory phone says he will be on leave until the fall of 2011, and at least two scientific journals are acknowledging problems in Dr. Hauser’s articles that were brought to light by an internal Harvard inquiry.

The journal Cognition published an article by Dr. Hauser and others in 2002 saying that tamarin monkeys could learn certain rules much as human infants do. The journal is about to run a retraction saying that an internal examination by Harvard “found that the data do not support the reported findings. We therefore are retracting this article. MH accepts responsibility for the error.” The initials M.H. refer to Dr. Hauser.

Rah for the Orange… rah for the Orange… rah for the Orange and Blue! Now, I wouldn’t wish to judge my fellow Bucknellian overharshly, but if turns out that there has been any scientific malfeasance underlying Dr. Hauser’s inaccurate conclusions, it would be a strong indication that one should not take scientific theories about morality and moral development with a straight face. You have to seriously wonder about what is wrong someone who would actively deceive others in attempting to revise the traditional understanding of morality.