Vox Popoli

According to my calculations, following the failure of the 93rd and 94th banks this year, the DIF is in the red somewhere between -3.6 billion and -13.3 billion, depending upon the difference between FDIC-estimated losses and actual losses. That multiple was 1.95 in 2008 and Q1 2009, but thanks to the special assessment in the second quarter, it fell to 1.69 in the last report. There will be another assessment in the third quarter, but regardless, it’s clear that if the DIF hasn’t run out yet, it’s going to before the end of the year.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair said Friday her agency may tap its $500 billion credit line with the U.S. Treasury to replenish its deposit insurance fund, though she appeared cautious about doing so.

“We are carefully considering all options” including borrowing from the Treasury, Ms. Bair said Friday after a speech in Washington.

Ms. Bair has already warned banks that they may face an assessment increase to bolster the fund. Friday, she said there are also other little-known options available to the agency, including requiring banks to prepay assessments. The FDIC board of directors will meet at the end of this month to consider how to replenish the fund, she said.

Two observations. If they think they’re going to need $500 billion on tap, that would imply the failure of an additional 1,200 banks, (or at least the depository percentage equivalent), since the failure of 119 banks has eaten up the $52 billion in the DIF at the beginning of 2008. 1,200 is 15 percent of all the remaining depository institutions in the USA. An article in the SF Chronicle today may help explain where some of those bank failures are going to come from:

“Next year, many option ARM payments will begin to readjust, slamming borrowers with dramatically higher monthly mortgage bills. Analysts say that could unleash the next big wave of foreclosures – and home-loan data show that the risky loans were heavily used in the Bay Area…. First American shows more than 54,000 option ARMs issued here with a value of about $30.9 billion.”

Perhaps $500 billion just the proverbial Big Number meant to reassure the public. Either way, the fiction of the fund has been exploded. The second thing that springs to mind is this: how high would bank fees have to be if they ever tried to pay back that much money?

56 Mounds View Meerkats (1-0)
36 Greenfield Grizzlies (0-1)

89 Judean Front (1-0)
60 Masonville Marauders (0-1)

67 Valders Valkyries (1-0)
64 Burns Redbeards (0-1)

83 Bane Silvers (1-0)
44 Alamo City Spartans (0-1)

67 Black Mouth Curs (1-0)
63 Winston Reverends (0-1)

It’s great to see the Meerkats start off the season with a win, but it’s a bit annoying to face Nate while having to choose between having one of my starting RBs face the Baltimore or the Pittsburgh defense. I’m going to go with Sproles over Forte operating on the assumptions that a) Cutler will turn the ball over more than Rivers, and, b) Sproles wants to keep Tomlinson off the field. Just one receiving TD, that’s all I ask from the little guy this week.

John Scalzi attempts to explain, again, why established writers are seldom interested in reading the work of those hoping to break through the publishing barrier:

Dear currently unpublished/newbie writers who spend their time bitching about how published/established writers are mean because they won’t read your work/introduce you to their agent/give your manuscript to their editor/get you a job on their television show/whatever other thing it is you want them to do for you:

A few things you should know….

It’s ironic that Scalzi has to point this out so often, considering that he does more for beginning writers with his Big Idea posts than any writer not named The Original Cyberpunk. My reasons for not reading unpublished fiction are a little different, however. First, I simply don’t have the time. I don’t even read much good published fiction these days; I prefer to spend my reading time on history and economics. For example, yesterday afternoon I was reading Bernanke’s The Great Depression, about which more will be said anon, and finished with Demosthenes’s Orations as the nightcap. I’m not saying I don’t plow through my share of mind candy, having just read Conn Iggledon’s four Emperor books last week, but unless a novel is particularly good or original, I find that I’m less interested than I used to be.

Second, after two spells on the Nebula novel jury, a year participating in the Critters Workshop, and six months working as the de facto gatekeeper for a fantasy publisher, I never, ever, want to read any new writer’s unpublished fiction ever again. Still less do I feel like arguing with a writer over why my opinion of his writing, which he sought out in the first place, is wrong. If you think much of the fiction that is published today is pretty awful, you’re correct. It is nevertheless markedly superior to the stuff that is being rejected. I don’t care if you think your first scribblings are brilliant or not, the probabilities dictate otherwise and I’m quite willing to swap the chance to be the first to recognize an unpublished masterpiece for the privilege of not having to read three dozen attempted crimes against the reading public.

There are some talented writers out there who are just beginning their literary careers. I occasionally read them over at the Friday Challenge and wouldn’t mind publishing two or three of them someday if I ever find myself in a position to do so. If you want advice and constructive criticism, I strongly recommend participating in the activities there. However, since I don’t use an agent and at least half the publishers in the States and UK would rather chew off their fingers than sign a publishing contract with my name on it, you’d probably be much better off not doing things my way anyhow.

Now, I have certainly had the benefit of help from established writers such as Bruce Bethke, Joel Rosenberg, Lois Bujold, and Pat Wrede. But keep this in mind. At the time the OC was kind enough to look over my work and tell me to throw away my second novel attempt – which a few of you may be interested to know was set in the world of Summa Elvetica, albeit a version sans religion – I was already a nationally syndicated columnist. The lesson is: if you have the talent or the ambition, or preferably, both, and you are willing to be persistent, you’ll eventually find a way.

Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers are frightened that someone, somewhere, might read Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort’s introduction to On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life:

Back in June, I reported on this new sleazy tactic by Ray Comfort: he produced an abridged edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species, and then had the gall to tag on a preface that he had written himself, full of the standard creationist misconceptions.

Sleazy? Gall? Only two cowardly charlatans who consistently run away from debating anyone they suspect will make them look like the hopeless buffoons they are could possibly have a problem with what is nothing more than an introduction to an abridged text. This is hardly the first time a book has been abridged or that an introduction is written by someone who a) isn’t the author, and b) doesn’t believe in the sacrosanct nature of the work being introduced, but of course, this is the sacred text of Saint Darwin of the Galapagos with which we are concerned here.

Obviously, it should be bound in gold plates and read only by the favored few possessed of the holy science degrees.

If this outrages you, then you’re not alone. There’s something we can do though. We can amass as many of these books as possible, remove the 50 page intro, and then donate perfectly good copies of ‘Origin of Species’ to schools, libraries, and Goodwill…. This is a shameful thing that Kirk Cameron and the Banana Guy are doing by altering another person’s book in order to push their agenda. But we can help to restore the book to how it was intended and keep young minds from being brainwashed by misinformation.

In case you’re not convinced yet that the New Atheists and their acolytes are genuine morons, read that last paragraph again while keeping in mind that these are the people who genuinely believe they are particularly gifted in the reason department. But regardless of whether Cameron and Comfort can produce effective arguments against evolution or not, and I have my own doubts on that score, they have not altered anyone’s book! Have they altered a single word from the text? Is the abridgment a dishonest cut-and-paste job? Do they pretend that their own words are Darwin’s? If not, then there is clearly nothing objectionable about what they are doing, no matter how effective or ineffective their arguments are.

Atheism may not be a religion, but Darwinism has clearly become one for some. And such sensitivity from the very people who proudly piss all over the sacred texts of other religions is astonishingly hypocritical.

Or at least, they try:

86 per cent of London lap dancing clubs in London provide ‘discreet receipts’ for expenses claims, allowing fees to be reclaimed without reveal what sort of establishment the money was spent in. Kat Banyard, the Fawcett Society researcher who wrote the report, described the sex industry as “a major threat to women’s equality at work” and said employers have failed to halt the trend.

She said: “The sex industry is increasingly targeting the corporate market, with lap dancing clubs marketing themselves as ideal venues to host meetings and client entertaining. Yet lap dancing clubs are a form of commercial sexual exploitation and fuel sexist attitudes towards women. Their use in a work context discriminates against female employees and undermines women’s status at work.

I don’t think Ms Banyard understands that declaring women are inferior, and, like children, incapable of making their own decisions, undermines women’s status at work and everywhere else far more than the ability to write-off lap-dancing expenses. If it’s acceptable to write off entertainment expenses, then who is Ms Banyard or anyone else to decide what is and what is not entertainment? No doubt this is somehow tied to the whining of professional women who don’t like it that the men in the office may occasionally go out and have a good time doing something that they don’t want to do. But they won’t be happy until the government institutes a law requiring all extra-office socializing to involve knitting or reading Twilight novels.

The irony, of course, is that the main reason strip clubs have become the entertainment venue of choice for professional men is that their traditional men’s-only clubs were outlawed by the same sort of women who are now pushing to make the strip clubs off-limits. Gentlemen, the feminist demands will never end, so your best bet is to refuse to give in from the start.

A number of European economies are nearly as awash in debt as the USA, and in some cases such as Estonia, Ireland, and Spain, their asset bubbles were much worse:

The dire state of Britain’s public finances were laid bare today as the Government unveiled new figures that showed public sector net borrowing swelled by a record £16.1 billion in August. It was the largest increase in the amount of new debt held by the UK Government since records began. With the recession continuing to eat into government tax receipts, the Office for National Statistics said that public sector net borrowing hit £16.1 billion, up from £9.8 billion a year ago.

I can’t stress this enough. There is no recovery. As Bob Prechter’s observation suggests, most observers are looking at the entire picture at too small a scale. There is a growing amount of evidence to suggest that he is correct and that we are not looking at two – and potentially three if the W-shapers such as Roubini are correct – distinct recessions since 2000, but rather the development of one very large depression.

Don’t forget that GDP is simply a metric, it is not the economy. The economic theory behind it is focused on unemployment, not some abstract and subjective statistic. And unemployment has been consistently rising around the world regardless of what the credit-inflated numbers report. The governments are taking increasingly massive gambles in desperate attempts to stave off collapse, and I don’t need to remind the regulars here of the unreliable track record of government in anything it hopes to accomplish.

In what may be the biggest financial gamble in 87 years as a sovereign state, the [Irish] government will spend about 28 percent of the country’s gross domestic product for 2008 to become the owner of loans for property developments that are plunging in value…. The strategy is designed to keep alive Bank of Ireland Plc and Allied Irish Banks Plc. In April, the government said NAMA would take on about 90 billion euros of loans.

Meanwhile, a little closer to home, it looks like the next wave of mortgage meltdown is nigh:

Payment option ARMs are about to explode,” Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said after a Thursday meeting with members of President Barack Obama’s administration to discuss ways to combat mortgage scams.

This is the inevitable – absolutely inevitable – consequence of the $29 billion in adjustable rate mortgages that reset and magically transform from low-interest loans into high-interest ones. Another $67 billion will reset in 2010. The amazing thing is that these Option ARMs going to blow up and drive tens of thousands of homeowners into default even though interest rates haven’t risen appreciably.

The OC considers the long-term ineffectiveness of domestic social policy:

Am I just imagining it, or does no one else understand that the “war on poverty” (and the “war on racism” and “urban renewal” and all the rest of that associated LBJ-era social engineering tripe) is exactly the same thing as “nation building,” and springs from exactly the same set of arrogant and sanctimonious late 19th-century Utopian beliefs? E.g.

a.) that mankind can be improved and perfected by purely scientific and socioeconomic means

b.) that some people are too benighted to uplift themselves any time reasonably soon, ergo,

c.) it is the White Man’s Burden to uplift these people and bring them into the full glory of modern Western scientific civilization, whether they want it or not.

Perhaps it’s time to strip away the cruft and just call it what it is: nation building. Whether foreign or domestic, both forms are equally doomed to fail, because of a fundamental principle of human nature. You can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.

This is a perspicacious observation. Nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan is no different than the structural societal modifications that have been forced on Americans by Washington for the last 45 years. Civil rights have been a disaster for the black and white communities alike, immigration has destroyed the economic supports for the poor and working classes, and globalization has forced the middle classes into massive debt.

We know nation-building doesn’t work. We know planned societal restructuring doesn’t work. The marvel, then, is that so many people continue to believe that it is possible. The reason, of course, is the religious belief in the improvability, if not perfectibility, of Man.

I don’t have much sympathy for this prospective martyr for scientific journalism:

The reason his name is giving everyone the jitters is that he’s being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for an article he published in The Guardian newspaper last year. In the article, Singh argued that there is no evidence for some of the claims that the BCA makes about the health benefits of visiting a chiropractor. He wrote, “The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.”

The BCA asked for a retraction and an apology. Singh refused. The Guardian offered the BCA the opportunity to print a clarification and write a response, so they could lay out evidence supporting their claims. The BCA refused. The libel case is the result.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this British libel law. All Singh had to do was retract his false statement and apologize; he refused to do so. So now, if he can’t back up his assertion in court, and it appears that he may not be able to since all the BCA has to do is demonstrate that there is “a jot of evidence” supporting the health benefits to children of visiting a chiropractor, then he deserves to pay for the full extent of the damages incurred, whatever they might be.

As usual, the self-appointed defenders of science are whining and want to play by different rules than those they demand apply to everyone else. If Singh is correct and there is no evidence, then he’s got nothing to worry about. If Singh is incorrect, then obviously he should have retracted his false assertion and apologized.

Don’t get me wrong, I am every bit as skeptical about alternative medicine in general and chiropractors in particular as Singh himself. Quite possibly even more so. However, if you get called on a blanket assertion, then you either have to back it up or retract it. Crying about laws that do no more than hold you accountable for your comments is ridiculous, and the idea that people should be able to freely inflict material damage on others without being held accountable in any way is absurd.

And, of course, it’s worth noting that the UK, like most European countries, does not possess the strong free speech protections that the USA does. It’s yet another way that religious America is better for science than the secular European utopias.

In general, if you’re upsetting the neocons, you’re on the right track:

President Barack Obama has decided to scrap plans for a U.S. missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland that had deeply angered Russia, the Czech prime minister confirmed Thursday.

This is a wise decision. There is no way that defending the Czech Republic and Poland is in the U.S. national interest. More to the point, it’s not even credible for the U.S. to pretend that it is capable of defending Eastern Europe against any kind of Russian attack. This is one of the first intelligent things that Obama has done since January, and if he’s smart he will continue to ignore the shrieks of outrage that are bound to come from the usual suspects.

A military commitment to lesser states is almost always a mistake for a Great Power that is not aggressively seeking to expand. Russia isn’t about to fire missiles at either the Czechs or the Poles; they’d never need to given their close proximity and the size of their ground forces.