Lame duck crap

American politics at its worst – a push by a lame duck administration to enact regulations at the end of its term. Clinton did it – Bush was able to kill 254 of Clinton’s last-minute regulations because they had not yet officially taken effect. The Bush administration learned from that, and is working hard to be sure that its last-minute changes have completed the comment period and cannot be easily reversed.

Depending on your view, these may be wonderful changes. “Scott H. Segal, a Washington lawyer and chief spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said that ‘bringing common sense to the Clean Air Act is the best way to enhance energy efficiency and pollution control.’" He said he is optimistic that the new rule will help keep citizens' lawsuits from obstructing new technologies.” On the other hand, John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council thinks “These rules ‘will force Americans to choke on dirtier air for years to come, unless Congress or the new administration reverses these eleventh-hour abuses.’" While neither of these should be considered objective sources, I’ll accept the lobbyist statement as an indication that the change helps the business at the expense of the general public.

The above quotes are from an article in today’s Washington Post. It describes the flurry of activity as administration officials listen to lobbyists and draft rules that will help their industries. It’s pretty scary reading for today.

Consumer credit cards

I’ve been expecting this aspect of the economy to get more attention, and an article in today’s New York Times discusses the looming problems with consumer credit cards.

The gist of the article is that companies that issue credit cards are taking steps to protect themselves from an impending flood of red ink as they write off unpaid balances from folks who are affected by the economic crisis. Now that they mention it, I’m receiving a lot less junk mail trying to get me to sign up for credit cards. Apparently the companies are reducing credit limits on existing accounts, raising interest rates (those few that are not already at the maximum legal limit), and generally doing reasonable things. How unusual . . . financial companies taking reasonable and realistic action.

But the scary part is that they’ve written off $21 billion in bad credit in the first half of the year, and “the industry stands to lose at least another $55 billion over the next year and a half, analysts say.” What if those analysts are wrong, and that $55 billion number is as understated as the numbers were related to mortgage losses? Are we looking at another bailout for companies that issue credit cards?

Frankly, I have no sympathy for these guys but I had no sympathy for the ones who pushed mortgages on people who couldn’t repay them. I am afraid that this segment of retail credit is going to cause the economy a lot more problems.

Winter weather

Suddenly, it’s winter.
We’ve had snow squalls on and off all day and now the ground is actually turning white. The weather prognosticators graced us with a wind advisory this morning but no hint of actual snow. The image here is of the geraniums on the front porch that were still blooming yesterday.

I’m sure we’ll have some more decent weather before winter really sets in. At least I hope so, as I’ve quite a bit of yard work that I intended to finish this year.

Misinformation

I received an unsolicited email from an acquaintance yesterday. The gist of it was that Sarah Palin is qualified to be President because she has the highest classified security rating of all the presidential candidates.

I can’t imagine anything more irrelevant than the security rating of the President or of candidates for the job. Hell, back in college I had a security rating; does that somehow qualify me to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?

This piece of trash is an example of similar “information” that is being circulated in this campaign. Perhaps both sides are guilty, but I’ve only seen the technique used by the Republicans. At a recent family gathering someone had printed out a piece that questioned where Obama was born; the fact that the campaign has posted his birth certificate on their web site means nothing. Many of my relatives are still convinced that he is Muslim.

Are the American people really that gullible – if it’s printed on paper or displayed on a computer screen, it’s accurate? Vote for McCain if you want, but please base your vote on facts. Real facts. This technique of smearing the opponent with completely fabricated information is just sad.

But it works.

Providing entertainment for the kids

When you think about whether a proposed rule is reasonable, think about the individual who is going to be actually enforcing that rule.

The latest example of this concept is an event reported in several papers today. The individuals charged with actually listening in on telephone conversations admit that they misused their power by enjoying eavesdropping on personal conversations that had nothing to do with what they were supposed to be looking for. This is completely predictable.

Any time you grant power to an immature twit, this is exactly what will happen. People who have access to medical records peek at celebrities or politicians. Cops check up on their ex lovers or perspective lovers. Computer administrators read random people’s email, just for kicks. The list is endless and only serves to prove the point that people are, well, human.

The only way to address this problem is to curb the power or lose the data. Yes, the best way to protect sensitive data is to not have it in the first place. If you purge data that there’s no reason to keep, it won’t be vulnerable to loss or theft.

Can’t this problem be solved by simply picking more responsible people to exercise these oversight powers? No. These are entry-level jobs – monitoring telephone conversations is frightfully boring, as is data entry. But to do it, the people need god-like access. Given the pool of people available to do the work, abuse is absolutely guaranteed.

So the next time you think that monitoring telephone conversations is justified based on national security, think about the pimply-faced technician who is doing it and contemplate whether you want him or her getting their kicks by listening to your personal conversations. Maybe you do think that it’s justified, but I think it’s just a waste of time and I don’t enjoy the prospect of providing entertainment for this community.

Wolves. Hens.

The wolves that are watching the henhouse have been given longer claws.

Today’s development in the “bailout” is the interpretation that it justifies the Feds actually taking ownership interests in banks. I’m sure that this is a reasonable interpretation since basically what happened is that Congress said, “Here, Mr. Paulson, take this unthinkable sum of money, and do with it what you will.”

I have a basic problem here. The government got us into this mess, specifically the current administration in the White House. Now we’ve given that same group of people a huge wad of cash and expect them to get us out of the crisis. What’s wrong with this picture? You’ve got wolves guarding the henhouse, and when the hens are disappearing, you bring in more wolves?

This concept is illustrated by an article in today’s New York Times that takes Alan Greenspan to task. “If Mr. Greenspan had acted differently during his tenure as Federal Reserve chairman from 1987 to 2006, many economists say, the current crisis might have been averted or muted.” Until recently, Greenspan was generally held up as one of the brilliant policy-makers who engineered years of economic stability and prosperity. Now he is being vilified.

Yet Greenspan’s power pales before the power that has been granted to Paulson, whose responsibility it was to keep us out of exactly the mess we’re in now. Overnight the policy has changed 180° from hands-off to bailout. Yet the same people who were adamant that government had no business involved in the markets are meddling in the markets now. One wonders how history will see the story, after we climb out of this crater.

Which leads to a different topic . . . an article that examines whether the stock market has bottomed out. Not that I consider the LA Times a bastion of prescient economic information, but the question of where the market is going is one of more than passing interest to those of us trying to make investment decisions.

"These are the moments that people look back on and say, 'Man, if I only bought then!' " said economist Zachary Karabell, founder of River- Twice Research. "And nobody ever does."

Or maybe this is the moment when people look back and say, “If only I had waited six more months.” At some point I’d like to move some cash into equities to get my portfolio re-balanced, but my crystal ball is broken. I wish it wasn’t.

It's free

This is an amusing article. I’m sure the author doesn’t agree.

The premise is that Google should have real-people customer support. To me, that’s just hilarious.

The author argues that his bank offers support and so should Google “even if I pay the company not in the form of a monthly account fee, but with my attention, which Google commercializes by selling slices to its advertisers.” Give me a break.

There’s a difference between a customer and a user. The mentality of “You can find anything you want on the Internet, for free” is a dangerous one. It encourages unrealistic expectations, not only related to support but for reliability of information.

That’s not to say that if you pay for a service you should expect to call their support organization and get immediate access to a real person, but expecting such service from a company where you’re a user, not a customer, is unrealistic. And it’s not a small expense to provide that service; the same article discloses that Netflix has a staff of 375 customer-service representatives. But I pay Netflix a fee each month; not so with Google.

So if you use your Gmail account for mission-critical stuff . . . “buyer” beware.