Diaspora

The Donkey Diaspora is beginning.  Apparently this truck pulled up to the Russell Senate Office Building, and then just hauled ass.

Click for an even more departing image.

The Nanny Who Wouldn't Leave

The set-up.

The update.

Chevy: Losers wanted

Well Average is Over and Chevy has reacted appropriately.

If you are ugly, broke, unemployed, and hen-pecked, then the new Chevy Malibu may be just for you.

I am not making this up. They are flat out telling you:

Kasparov on Syria & Putin

People, I love Twitter. Feast your eyes:

Putin & al-Assad get what they wanted: status quo of them in charge, massacring all opposition. WMD are bait & Kerry/Obama eating the hook.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2013

You also have to look big picture. North & South Korea are watching. China & Taiwan, Putin and all dictators see they have a free hand.
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2013

Kerry & Lavrov deal: Putin will supply al-Assad with weapons to kill rebels and Obama will supply al-Assad & UN with lots of papers!
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2013

We have finally found Obama's red line! Now if Syria doesn't comply, US has right to go to UN, where can be blocked by... Putin! A circle!
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2013

Perfect! They will bury al-Assad under tons of paperwork! RT @lmldias: @Kasparov63 Death by bureaucracy!
— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) September 14, 2013

Is this Naomi Klein's Kickstarter?

Wow. Tyler von Strauss points us to a super-creepy kickstarter project:

(clic the pic for an even more inappropriate image).

I thought maybe it was just me and my weird ways, so I showed it to Mrs. Angus, who was horrified.

So, so, so wrong.

Markets in Everything: Hangover Heaven

Wouldn't it be great if you could pay someone a nominal fee to come to your hotel room in Vegas, hook you up to an IV to rehydrate you quickly, and give you some meds while you have coffee and watch Sportscenter?

Well, no, actually, because I'd pay $1000 to avoid visiting a hellhole like Vegas in the first place.  So I'm not really the target market.

But if the above appeals to you, there is an company for that.  Markets in everything.

Not sure I'd want to be one of those room service workers, though.  Having to kick aside the dead animals and empty Southern Comfort bottles to get to the inert figure on the floor beside the bed would be unsavory.

Nod to Kevin Lewis.

Buss-ted

Wow, Jimmy Buss really played rope-a-dope with Laker nation.

As of mid June he was lowering expectations of the faithful, telling them not to expect any major moves in the off season beyond an attempt to re-sign Ramon Sessions!

Now the Lakers have a projected starting lineup of Steve Nash, Kobe Bean, Pau Gasol, MWP, and Superman! With Antwan Jamison coming off the bench.

Yikes.

In the NY Times, Howard Beck estimates that the Lakers will be paying around $70 million of  Luxury Tax for the 2013-14 season. I guess he's assuming that Dwight Howard signs a max contract with LA (as of now Howard can walk after the upcoming season), but that's a big number. Remember that the alleged salary cap figure for next season is $58 million!

Yet I still don't see the Lakers getting by my Thunder.

OK people, will Dwight sign long term with the Lakers? Will Jimmy Buss really pay that much to the league? How far will the Lakers go next year?

I know that you know where to tell me.

Say what?

After the results of the Wisconsin recall were in, Obama for America-Wisconsin released a statement that said in part:

"While tonight’s outcome was not what we had hoped for – no one can dispute the strong message sent to Governor Walker.

Well, since he beat the same guy by a bigger margin than he beat him in 2010, I guess that the message would have to be, what, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK?

Not sure that's the exact "strong message" the Dems were looking for.
 

Sunday morning at the woodshed

Wow. Lant Pritchett absolutely eviscerates the Obama administration over their pick for World Bank President.

Here are some of the salty bits:

“It’s an embarrassment to the U.S. You cannot with a straight face say this person is the most qualified to lead the World Bank.”

and:

Adds Pritchett, nominating Kim “is like picking the short stop for the New York Yankees out of the scrub leagues.”

Finally:

“there’s no question that Kim has done terrific things, but I wouldn’t nominate Mother Teresa to head the World Bank if she were still alive.”

I personally think that the World Bank's composite scorecard is way over par (during its existence, on balance, it's done more harm than good) and favor abolition.

But I don't think the main problem has been choice of leadership.

As Mallaby's superb book "The World's Banker" makes clear, WB Presidents cannot make the behemoth bank bureaucracy march to their own tune.

The problem is institutional, the problem is conceptual, the problem is philosophical. The WB is one of the last bastions of central planning, and it functions about as well as other such bastions have functioned.

Welcome to the woodshed

They do the work, so I don't have to!

 Let's start off this new KPC feature with a double-header.

 First, Clive Crook takes Jon Chait to the woodshed.

Then, in the mother of all beatdowns, Bob Kuttner takes Tim Geithner to the woodshed and just wails away on him.

Here come the torches and pitchforks

LeBron & I have a new piece out at Grantland.com about how American football might die out and what the effects of its death may be.

Here's the bit that may get me into trouble:

Any location where football is the only game in town will suffer. If the Jets and Giants go, New York still has numerous other pro sports teams, Broadway, high-end shopping, skyscrapers, fine dining, and many other cultural activities. If college football dies, Norman, Oklahoma (current home to one of us), has … noodling? And what about Clemson, in South Carolina, which relies on the periodic weekend football surge into town for its restaurant and retail sales? Imagine a small place of 12,000 people that periodically receives a sudden influx of 100,000 visitors or more, most of them eager to spend money on what is one of their major leisure outings. It's like a port in the Caribbean losing its cruise ship traffic. (Overall, the loss of football could actually increase migration from rural to urban areas over time. Football-dependent areas are especially prominent in rural America, and some of them will lose a lot of money and jobs.)

Thanks to Bill Simmons and Dan Fierman for giving us these opportunities.

The Fed is a bear

I read the Fed's latest announcements as a sign that they are very bearish on the US economy. They are saying two things. (1) The Fed funds rate will stay near zero at least through most of 2014, and (2) their inflation target is 2%.

The only ways I can see those two points being consistent with each other is if we have another recession or a sustained but pitiful "expansion" for the next 10-12 quarters.

I wouldn't want to be an incumbent from the President's party running for re-election in the 2014 midterms if the Fed "achieves" both of their announced objectives.

would you believe?

Would you believe me if i told you that, before roasting and eating that marshmallow, Kanzi the bonobo had (a) collected the wood, (b) built the fire (c) grilled up some burgers, and (d) ate them?

How about if I told you after he was done that he put the fire out with a bottle of water?

Well, it's all true!

Kanzi apparently lives in Iowa and to my mind is much more qualified for the GOP presidential nomination than any of the other "primitive creatures" who just left the State.

Not the Onion?

Try to guess....

1. Kidnapper claims kidnapped couple agreed to hide him from police. When police later shot him, he sues for breach of contract.

2. Guelph professor accidentally named Italy's junior agriculture minister

3. Financial professional seeks "holiday girlfriend."

Turn out the lights

Yikes! 10 year Italian government bond yields are now well over 7%!! That was the level that sent Ireland, Greece, & Portugal down the rabbit hole of "bailouts".

The party is indeed over.

Two Words: MORAL. HAZARD.

RL in Toronto sends this article, and notes that someone should explain moral hazard to the researchers.

As KPC hero Gordon Tullock suggested, if you wanted to increase auto safety, you might do this:  

In other words, if players were safer, they would play more aggressively, and the net effect (that's a hockey goal joke!) would be close to zero. People choose their own level of risk. Safer equipment, more risk = no change injuries.

(pic credit to EconoBonus, even though he attributes the idea to Peltzman. EconoBonus's "Fact 2" is not a fact at all, I should say: deaths and injuries per mile have fallen, not risen. It's just an example, though. It's true Peltzman did good research on the subject...)



To be fair, both death rates and injury rates have actually fallen sharply for cars. The effect on pedestrians is ambiguous. I think the most you can say about the Peltzman effect is that the improvements in health that result from improvements in safety may be less than you expect. They do NOT appear to wash out completely. Safer cars and safer roads really do appear to have reduced injuries, by quite a bit.

Your Eurozone deathwatch update

1. The Greek government has replaced all the heads of their military branches with officers considered more friendly to the regime.

Wow! Given Greece's history, that is a stunner. The left fears a coup? This might get even uglier that I had imagined.

2. Italian bond yields are up to 6.4% and Berlusconi is coming to the G-20 Summit empty handed.

Italy's public debt is on the cusp of explosive dynamics, where the higher interest rate on new debt combined with a low economic growth rate causes the debt to GDP ratio to continually rise even if the Italian budget is in primary balance (spending net of interest payments = revenues).

People, the Euro as we know it is over. I say it's a coin flip to last until Christmas and maybe 15% to last until spring break.

Germany and France are asking Greece, "do you want to stay in or not?" and Greece is saying "what, are you guys deaf?".

I am not sure what Germany and France are up to. If Greece goes, Italy definitely goes and that's game, set & match.

If they want to keep the Euro together they need to take on Greek debt as their own and settle in for a long hard slog dealing with Italy.

Good Grief: What does Obama have against Lee Myung-bak?

The South Korean president is here to celebrate the US-Korea FTA signing. Here is what our President has planned for him:

"Obama on Friday will then take Lee for a road trip to Detroit, home of the U.S. auto industry."

Let's break this sentence down, Tosh.O style:

1. A "road trip"? Are they DRIVING FROM DC to DETROIT? Who's paying for gas? If they use an electric car, how many days will that take?

2. Where, upon arrival, UAW officials will bury Lee under a parking lot, Jimmy Hoffa style?

3. Maybe President Lee has a thing for vacant lots or $11,000 houses?

4. Umm, Mr. President, I don't think Detroit is actually the Home of the US Auto industry anymore. Are you going to use a time machine and take him to Detroit in 1966?

Plenty of room in the comments for more!

Hit the BRICs

This doesn't seem good:

(clic the pic for an even more depressing image)

Separated at Birth: Tennis edition

Alexandr Dolgopolov & Martina Hingis:

'


(clic the pics for more eerily similarity)

'Nuff said