bmagnus

Problem Solved

This morning, I was watching CNBC again (no, I don’t know why I torture myself so), when Mark Haines rather annoyedly announced the next segment. It seems that immigration is down — both legal and illegal — and as a result, farmers are having trouble getting the migrant agricultural workers they need to bring in the crops.

Whatever shall they do?? Build a crazy machine to do it??

Well here’s an idea. It seems that the unemployment rate among Americans who can legally work in this country is at the highest level since the Reagan Administration. Crazy talk I know, but how about hiring an American to shit in harvest your crop? Don’t tell me this is “a job Americans won’t do,” because Mike Rowe would do it. Oh I know, you would actually have to pay a decent wage. And you would also actually have to take steps to encourage a safe workplace. That’s show-biz.

Nope, it’s much easier to gripe about how we can’t get our normal supply of people who are willing to be exploited at sub-minimum wage jobs in rough conditions with no overtime pay. Or maybe build a crazy machine to do it.

In closing: a quarter million bucks is a lot of money; incipient SBA fail!; poor hedgies cutting jobs (I hear there’s work as a migrant crop picker!); can you find the logical problem with this sentence? “Nearly half of college freshmen who drink alcohol spend more time drinking each week than they do studying….”; by way of follow up, even the feds admit E-Verify has problems; life lessons; turns out not all terraists are Muslim or even Brown; and finally, don’t get me wrong, I’m not generally anti-Cramer (I’ve corresponded with him), but taking on a comedian as if he were a journalist when your own hands aren’t squeeky clean was a big huge mistake. Stick to making stock calls and pie, Jim.

Whither Facts?

Some of my favorite news people got their start as sports reporters. This may seem surprising, because I am not at all into sports. However, it’s not the content, but being faithful to the facts.

You can’t spin the outcome of a ballgame. You can’t say the Yankees won when they ended the 9th down 3 runs and expect to have anybody listen to you tomorrow. You can have opinions about bad calls all you like, but there’s no changing the raw facts of the game: x runs were made; pivotal moment in a certain inning; which players scored; batting averages; they would have played better if it weren’t for the wind.

Some aspects of the financial news should be just as factual as sports news: the Dow went up/down 100 points; the Fed changed the discount rate; National Gift Wrap reported a profit of $X million; the latest labor statistics. There is still plenty of room for opinion, for example why a stock is moving today or speculation about the future.

I have gotten very frustrated with CNBC lately. I was frustrated some weeks before Mr. Santelli decided to stop talking about what was happening on the trading floor and start talking about us “losers” and “Chicago Tea Parties”. Mr. Santelli’s rant is merely a symptom of what has been going on all across the daily programming.

For the record, just 8 years ago CNBC had the absolute best, most balanced coverage of 9/11 out there. Their people were literally on the ground as close to ground zero as you could reasonably be and live to tell the tale. They managed to stay calm and report facts even as they watched the destruction with the certain knowledge that people they personally knew were dead.

Viewers used to be able to count on CNBC for useful economic and financial news with an appropriate level of commentary: XYZ stock is down 10% because of rumors they won’t meet sales goals; a certain sector is up because of anticipated economic conditions; bonds are up in a flight to quality. Sure, they had their stock-pickers come talk about their favorite stock picks in what amounted to a barely legal pump and dump. However, anybody sitting down with Mark Haines or Tyler Mathisen needed to be aware that failing to answer questions would not be tolerated.

Lately, however, the morning is dominated by Larry Kudlow and other So-Conservative-It-Hurts types talking about how bad it would be for the country to actually change course and deal with our problems. Oh, we can’t tax the wealthy (even though the country needs the money) because they won’t invest anymore. Oh, we can’t spend money repairing roads and bridges (before they simply fall down) because deficit spending is bad (except when Mr. Bush did it). Oh, we must let the free market take care of our health care mess (despite the fact that hasn’t worked so far) or else! In short, everything the people want the government to do is wrong and — as Jon Stewart so hilariously lampooned — the DJIA proves it.

Nope, the Dow couldn’t possibly be down because Wall Street’s supply of fairy dust has been taken away and we must now look upon economic reality as if it were nothing more complicated than the score of last night’s ball game.

At least everybody’s favorite financial madman, Jim Cramer, has the decency to say “I think X stock is going up/down because of this or that.” It’s more than Larry and his Brady Bunch of Bobble-heads have.

Listen up, CNBC. If I want political commentary dressed in a thin veneer of news, I will find it online someplace. When I tune in to see financial news, I expect a certain minimum level of actual facts.

In Closing: Forbes (you guys can just keep looking for the subscription renewal check, it’s not in the mail) keeps on about Barbie; on the business cycle; preach on, WWJD indeed; I know I swore off Alternet, but MahaBarbara wrote this great item on health care; Great Depression Cooking with Clara; and the stupidest item I read all weekend, “Illegal immigrants might get stimulus jobs, experts say.” Never mind the fact that employers are already required to hire people who can legally work in this nation, what this boils down to is “They fault Congress for failing to require that employers certify legal immigration status of workers before hiring by using a Department of Homeland Security program called E-Verify.” E-Verify is nothing more than a huge government database of Social Security numbers. I consider it a huge boondoggle that, if left unchecked, will result in thousands of American citizens unable to work legally because of governmental errors.

Last Shorties on the Left

Yes Yes, Jon Did Excellent Work: Everybody seen these clips from the Daily Show eviscerating CNBC and Rick Santelli? Great, let’s move on.

Barbie Turns 50: and the hard-hitting financial news reporters and comentators of Forbes are there! Way to expose her age, Forbes!

Don’t Fall for this Scam: Some financial companies try to collect debts from the dead. Now, strictly speaking death doesn’t end one’s legal obligations. However, the next of kin is under no obligation to pay on the behalf of the dead when the estate can’t cover it. What are they gonna do? Ding Late Aunt Mildred’s credit score? Oh no, she may not be able to finance a house in the afterlife!

How dare the poor have contact with reality: Somebody is actually upset that someone in a soup kitchen was able to take a cell-phone picture of Michelle Obama serving people. Not because of security concerns, but because here was a person without enough money for a decent meal who nonetheless had a charged up cell phone with a camera in it. First, many cell phones are free with a service plan (as anybody with a grasp of reality knows), and now it’s hard to get one that does not have a camera. Second, cell phone plans start at very cheap. Third, a phone number is almost required to get someone to call you in for a job interview. Smart man indeed if he kept his cell bill paid while letting all else slide. More on what Mrs. O was up to here.

Forbes has a solution: They theorize that we consume too much health care in certain areas because there are too many doctors and hospitals. So it follows that “Decreasing or eliminating supply-sensitive care could greatly reduce health spending without rationing beneficial care….” The other way to describe this “solution” is to round up doctors and relocate them to under-served areas. Yeah, that will go over well.

Nouveau Archeaology: Man-made ruins, courtesy of ArtificialOwl.

This paragraph is a bit depressing, or, I Hate This Part Right Here: Presented with minimal comment, Bankruptcy filings up; World GDP growth expected to be negative for the year; Ford sales plummet, selling fewer than 100,000 vehicles in February (and they aren’t the only hurting automaker); unemployment at its highest level since 1983; in addition to 651,000 jobs lost in February, the experts revised the January and December numbers upwards. All I can really say is “Wow.”

On the idea of College For Everybody: Unnecessary.

The SBA Rides Again: The Obama Administration has budgeted $700 million for the SBA, which should back $28 billion ($28 thousand million) in SBA loans. No word on where they are going to find small businesses that actually have the equity to apply for those loans.

The Financial Crisis Made Simple: And vaguely amusing.

Just say no to slave labor: our current lax enforcement standards on employers who hire illegal workers has an interesting end point, modern slavery.

And finally, I’d like to close with some happy news: Pink Dolphin. It’s real.

Chalene vs. Tony: A Beachbody Showdown

Long time readers know that I lost a lot of weight, kept it off, and that I work out. If you aren’t familiar with the story, here’s Obligatory Diet Posts Part One and Part Two.

I’ve done a lot of different workouts over the years. I change up either to stave off boredom, to get around a plateau, or to achieve a certain fitness goal. I’m still generally a fan of Joyce Vedral. I still recommend military workouts because they work and require almost nothing in the way of equipment. I’ve also done a few taped workouts. For example, there was this Denise Austin video that just made me have unhealthy thoughts about her continued well being. There was this somewhat harder Pilates video (I bought all the hype about Pilates being all about strong core without bulk, and I have a tendency towards bulk); at least I wished the trainers no violence. There’s a Tai Chi with Kickboxing workout featuring Janis Saffell and Scott Cole — he’s nice to look at! — but the first time I tried to do it there were so many interruptions that I took it as A Sign. There was also Nancy Marmorat’s Daily Exercise Routine, which really wasn’t bad at all, especially for flexibility.

For a while, my exercise partner and I have discussed the idea of a hard-core boot-camp style workout such as Tony Horton’s P90X. You’ve seen the infomercial, right? Who doesn’t want to look like that! However, it’s hard to plan to devote 45-90 minutes a day for 90 days, and it was even harder to figure out where we could mount a chin-up bar or find space/equipment for both of us to work out at the same time. Luckily, Tony had a solution for us!

We ordered 10 Minute Trainer last summer and started within days of receiving it. Yeah yeah it’s got an infomercial too. Each of the workouts is 10 minutes of actual work and probably 12-13 minutes of run-time (and another couple minutes of commercials for the other Beachbody products). Make no mistake, he works your butt off for 10 minutes, and yes I mean that literally. The workouts are Cardio, Abs, Lower Body, Total Body, and Yoga/Flex. All the equipment you really need is one of those resistance bands, (one is included) although a mat is also very good to have. You can do one, two, or three routines daily. We did 2 daily and were generally pleased with the results.

Even so, it was time to rev things up.

Last week, we began ChaLEAN Extreme, from Tony’s colleague Chalene Johnson. Chalene’s thing is free weights, although the workouts can be done with bands. Specifically, the principle is to work the heck out of your muscles with relatively heavy weights such that you can only reasonably do 10-12 reps of any given exercise. It is a progressive, 90 day program that gives you roughly 2 days off per week. I like the integrated warm-up and cool-down. A group of 4 people show you a variety of skill/strength levels, including tips for those who aren’t very strong yet. There’s a mid-week interval training block that I suspect won’t be so bad once I’ve actually learned the moves (I found it rather awkward). The beginning level ab routine is a bit tame compared to Tony’s. There is an upgraded routine that I will probably sub in next week. I am pleased with how certain things are shaping up so far. Really, the weight routines are pretty good (with the universal caveat that you have to watch your own form). [More]

However, I was sorely disappointed with the “Recharge” workout, described as “an invigorating flexibility workout.” Despite her claim at the beginning of the routine that flex is an important and often overlooked part of fitness, it feels like an afterthought. It is roughly 25 minutes long, but baby-steps of flexibility. She talks over and over about how many people have problems with stiff hamstrings, and then she does things that are unlikely to make them more flexible — wrong stretch, too little time, too much movement. Several of the “modified” versions for the less flexible are completely ineffective if not actively counter-productive. Some of the yoga poses are not as I have ever seen them before. Chalene clearly doesn’t beleive there’s anything to yoga beyond some funny stretches. If this is your only stretching routine, you are unlikely get more flexible.

Tony Horton said in the introductory materials to p90x that “[I’m not strong] because I do a bunch of pull-ups. I’m strong because I do yoga.” After we finished Chalene’s workout, we did Tony’s 10 minutes of yoga. It felt really good.

*** UPDATE ***: I have gotten a personal reply from Chalene herself, recommending “Full Body Flexibility” by Jay Blahnik. Her stance on flexibility among the Joe and Jane Average crowd are reflected in this work. It is clear that the ChaLEAN Extreme flex workout is aimed at someone with more “average” flexibility, which is odd because I always considered myself something of a “Johnny Stiffguy”. As with the entire workout series, to get the best improvement you are going to need to push yourself as hard as you can every time you work out. While I will absolutely stick with the weight routines, I will probably go back to Tony for yoga. Also worth noting that 4 new routines are under development.

In Closing: oops, he had the wrong kind of anthrax after all; when it comes to health insurance “reform”, who do you trust?; contractors continue a 200+ year tradition of bilking the military and short-changing our troops; I am unclear how bankruptcy judges can really do their jobs if they can’t address the single biggest asset and debt the people before them have; how to merely sound Japanese; and Cat Sanctuary.

Officially Disgusted

Rihanna, Rihanna, Rihanna.

What the heck are you thinking, girl? That man beat you up so bad you couldn’t show your face in public, and it wasn’t the first blow-up you two had together.

Does he have to break your head open before you realize you need to quit him?

Shouldn’t your people — family, friends, management — be telling you the same thing?

Look, if you don’t get him out of your life, he is going to ruin your life: he’s going to ruin your career if he hasn’t already, he’s going to break your body, he’s going to poison your mind. He may promise to be good, he may say everything is going to be alright baby, but he’s going to break those promises unless he commits to some serious counseling. And if he were going to do that, he would have long since done it, girl. If all these music industry “friends” really cared about you, they would be keeping you away from him instead of helping you get back together with him.

Look at what that man did to you!

You have an opportunity here. You can stand up and say “I am a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman and I don’t have to take this **** any more.” You can tell him where to stuff it, and you can be a role model for other women who aren’t as fortunate as you. Women who don’t have fancy clothes and record contracts and “people” but do have “A thug in my life”.

There is no excuse for domestic violence. There is no excuse for a man hitting you. There is no excuse for excusing him. And don’t let anybody blame you; the only thing you’ve done is failed to walk away.

When you are ready to stand up and be the strong, smart woman I know you must surely be, you call the crisis number on this page.

That goes for those of you who don’t happen to be Rihanna too.

Month End Review: 2004 on Tort Reform; 2005 on the intersection between taxes and health insurance; 2006 on how to shrink an economy; 2007 on the Iranian Revolution and how we still don’t get it in the West; and 2008 on locally grown food.

In The Citi

On this day, we found out that the 4th quarter of 2008 had a 6.2% contraction of GDP, far worse than originally thought, the worst performance since the Reagan Administration. For the record, that happened on Mr. Bush’s watch. Stocks ended at a 12 year low (in fairness, during the Clinton Administration, but turing an uptrend). Yesterday we learned that the number of banks the FDIC is keeping a special eye on is up to 252. Good news, there was not an announced bank failure this afternoon, so the tally for the year stands at “lucky” 13. Update: I stand corrected. It’s up to 16.

Before the opening of trading this morning, it was announced that the Feds were going to convert preferred shares to common shares of CitiGroup, and end up owning up to 36% of the company. Citi officials added, however, that they would still control day-to-day operations. Price per share promptly tanked.

Now let me make sure I understand this properly. Citi is so bad off that they need thousands of millions of dollars. They are so big they can’t be allowed to fail. They need to be rescued by the Feds. But never fear, the idiots who got them into this mess will still be in charge.

No wonder there was “dissatisfaction” with the deal.

I’m with Wired on this, we need “radical transparency now“. To the extreme.

In closing: A few choice paragraphs on higher education; America’s worst intersections — is one near you?; CSM asks “Archeological Park or Ethnic Cleansing?”; One in Four Americans put off medical care because of the cost; Homo erectus (“upright humans”) appear to have walked upright (good thing we don’t have to change the species name); I love this paragraph “I kind of love the Hoover Institution. It has all the trappings of being an academic think tank, but none of the actual academics, rigor, intelligence, relevance or inquiry that would normally follow something academic in nature.”; How ironic that a President breaking down the barriers of racism would preside over a nation with “growing hate groups” (seriously, what the heck is with these people?).

What They Said

I know, I know, it’s been a while since I posted. I just haven’t been motivated by killer chimpanzees or the State of the Union or much of anything else that everybody else has been on about for the last week or so. Luckily, other people have written things worth linking.

Let’s start with proof that when you provide seed capital to moticated entrepreneurs, good things happen! Meet Rahinatu, a young lady who made an opportunity for herself with the help of a mere $110. If this sounds like a good thing to you, then I strongly encourage you to go on over to FreeMicroLoan, sign up for the RSS feed, and make some comments.

So I have been hearing nonsense all morning about how “the markets” don’t like what the President said last night and they don’t like “uncertainty.” Well, the people don’t like uncertainty either! Part of the problem “the markets” are experiencing have to do with the fact that we are no longer pretending everything is wonderful. But, when you compare a bunch of stock market declines, you realize it really could be worse! And good news for getting done with this but bad news for corporations, shareholders are angry.

Megan’s Laws don’t work. They don’t work, they don’t prevent crime, they don’t help potential victims stay away from Bad Guys. Since nearly half of sex offenders are family members, it is clear why.

Go ahead and write a letter to the President. He actually reads some of those letters, and uses the feedback he gets from the public (that would be the people who helped him get elected, on whom he must depend to get re-elected in 2012) to inform public policy.

Harsh, Penguin! A few words for the Appleheads.

Harsh but true, Cranky! A few choice words for the young ladies we used to call “bow-heads” when I was in college.

Matt Yglesias has brief but insightful comments on the people who have been called “irresponsible” borrowers. By way of bookends on that theme, Time’s list of 25 people most responsible for the housing crisis, with the ability to rank your favorite losers! Fittingly, when I last looked, Phil Gramm was in the lead. Oh! And it looks like a major group of appraisers are going to oppose the recently announced loan modification plans. Their reasoning? They’re getting cut out of the action.

I enjoyed this chart of travel efficiency, and I hope you will too.

From the “the more things change” department, we have two corrupt judges who were sending kids to juvie detention facilities from which they were getting kickbacks. Often the charges were flimsy. Pork pretty much said what needed saying. Back in my day, it wasn’t juvie. After all, you need an actual judge to send you there. Nope, we had mental hospitals. Even without a crooked judge, you can make do with a crooked doctor, or even a concerned and/or hoodwinked and/or lazy parent, as long as there’s health insurance. And that, my dear readers, is why the seriously crazy lady down the street can’t get inpatient treatment.

And finally, it’s been a while since I gave you some Japanfilter. This is a serious dose of what the…?: Amigurumi.

The Cabin in the Shorties

All You Can Eat Stimulus Bar. Yes America, apparently We Can Has Stimulus Package. Here’s an outline of the provisions. Note that the home buyer tax credit isn’t there. But the bill might give you indigestion. There might be a provision in there to require an electronically verified “white list” of people who can legally be employed. Anybody want to guess if that’s more accurate than the No Fly List? Business Week says that provision is now gone. Oh, and it turns out that 20% of government contract workers earn poverty wages.

Some Alternative Stimulus Ideas. Tim says why not just pay off everybody’s mortgage (which is what I was thinking when the unfortunately accurately named TARP came out). E.B. Misfit suggests tough love for certain Congressmen who thinks no good ever comes out of government spending. Update: The President is thinking small, but it sure sounds like “let’s pay some of these defaulting mortgages ourselves.” Let’s hope it helps people like this, who played by the rules and are now underwater through no fault of their own.

Food Fight. On one hand, the nice people at This Is Why You’re Fat give us turbaconucken. Vegetarians? You might not want to click on that. On the other hand, we have a guy eating himself skinny on “16 hard-boiled egg whites, one and a quarter pound of meat and four cups of vegetables, sprinkled with an occasional carbohydrate.”

Can you tell me how to get… How to get that upcoming new book about behind the scenes at Sesame Street?

All this and no merit badge. Junior Archeology buff builds ancient Japanese style hut, intends to live in it. More on the Jomon period at Wikipedia.

Happy Birthday Mister President and Mister Scientist. You knew it was Lincoln’s 200th birthday, right? Did you also know it’s the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin?

Oh, and one last thing. I finally joined Twitter. You’ll find me as bmagnus.

Same Old, Same Old

I arrived to Geithner’s speech a little late. Just a minute or two before he began to talk about “initiatives to strentghen funding for small businesses.” Here:

We have agreed to expand this program to target the markets for small business lending, student loans, consumer and auto finance, and commercial mortgages.

And because small businesses are so important to our economy, we’re going to take additional steps to make it easier for them to get credit from community banks and large banks. By increasing the federally guaranteed portion of SBA loans, and giving more power to the SBA to expedite loan approvals, we believe we can turn around the dramatic decline in SBA lending we have seen in recent months.

Now let me tear this down for you with the voice of experience. Every time I have ever tried to deal with the SBA — every time anybody I have ever known has tried to deal with the SBA — it has ended up being all about home equity loans. I realize I have somewhat less than a statistically significant sampling, but it’s large enough to include white men, women, and minorities. All these people had detailed business plans that involved tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment purchases and buildouts.

Every time, the end conversation has become “Why exactly am I considering filling out a bunch of government paperwork about my business instead of just talking to Ditech?”

So then, let me explain to the esteemed Secretary why SBA loan applications have plummeted: nobody’s got any home equity anymore. I’m not a fan of Zillow’s research, but they’re only observing the same reality most homeowners face. You can’t get a home equity loan when you have no equity.

So Mr. Secretary, if you would like to actually help small businesses instead of giving the usual lip service, here’s my wish list:

* Direct SBA to guaranty loans secured by equipment purchases, to include reasonable start-up costs when the company agrees to allow SBA review and approval of the business plan. Yes, approval. Some business ideas are stupid. Others have clear but avoidable flaws.

* Make it an SBA priority to provide low-cost consulting and other services to start-ups and businesses in their first year. They already offer some services, but not enough.

* Most importantly, make SBA able to help people buy low-cost, quality health insurance policies for entrepreneurs and their families of the sort that these job-creators would have had if they were content to take a paycheck instead. In fact, make SBA the de facto place for businesses with 12 or fewer employees (“small businesses”) to get group coverage. Don’t tell me they aren’t set up to be an insurance company, because the government already runs several of those. If Blue Cross wants to compete (ha!), let them come up with a cost-competitive plan.

Do us all a favor and do things that will actually help small businesses. And stop trying to pretend we can solve all our financial problems with home equity.

In Closing: I hope everybody has seen this chart of job losses and gains already? How about this one of the S&P 500 adjusted for inflation? Good; Children get it worst in this economy and this stimulus bill (so far); try to live on the minimum wage in any town; getting a job is no longer as simple as moving to where the jobs are; Ezra calls for an end to the filibuster; great pictures of the salvage of flight 1549; and last, even if we have to agree to disagree about whether waterboarding is torture, can we at least agree that slicing someone’s genitals with a scalpel is torture? Please? Sheesh.

Land of the Lost (Jobs)

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All I can say is this: wow.

We knew that almost a quarter million layoffs were announced in January.

And we knew that first time unemployment filings topped 600,000 last week, a level not seen since the Reagan Administration.

But now we also know that the economy lost 598,000 jobs in January and that the unemployment rate jumped to 7.6%. The economy hasn’t lost that many jobs in one month since the Nixon Administration, and the unemployment rate hasn’t been this high since the very beginning of the Clinton Administration. Oh, and they revised the December job losses upwards. Adding things up, that’s 2,500,000 jobs lost in the last 5 months.

Wow.

And things don’t look better when you compare employment to population. Furthermore, the losses were in pretty much every sector.

The job losses obviously have fallout in other parts of the economy, and forming a feedback loop: people aren’t going to the mall or eating out or even getting expensive coffee; people are cancelling cable and getting their news on the internet; people are going without health insurance, because even the researchers have had to admit that the unemployed can’t afford COBRA; enrollment at community colleges is up; CNN is running articles with titles like 10 meals for $10 each. People don’t have money so they don’t spend money so business dries up so more people lose their jobs so more people don’t have money….

And yet the stimulus package is delayed, and some guys like Grover “drown the government in the bathtub” Norquist have the nerve to blame this mess on the new administration. Yeah, cause Obama totally wrecked the economy in less than 3 weeks. Way to go.

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In Closing: the House passed a bill that would make it easier for innocent Americans to get off the no-fly list; I could add more, but Johnny asked the right questions; Hollywood is officially out of ideas, and is clearly toked up; Economic Illiteracy; Chuck Butcher’s quote of the day, “I can state that nothing is gained by panic, which is simple enough to say, another thing in practice”; Wired notes a Playmate trend; can’t decide if the tea shark is clever or “ew”; best anti-drug ad since “this is your brain on drugs”; didn’t I say Dean should be HHS Secretary ages ago, perhaps even before the inauguration?; and yet one more actor who wants to be Governor.