Just finished watching Gary Johnson make a fool of himself during the center seat panel on Fox News Special Report. When you claim to want a non-intervetionist, non-warmongering policy, you can't support such interventions as this surprising new development from the Obama administration:
President Obama has deployed troops to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama says 12 troops with "appropriate combat equipment" were deployed on October 12 and approximately 100 in total will be deployed including a second combat team and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel. The forces will provide information and advise and assist "select partner nation forces," Obama explains. The troops will not fight except in self-defense.Unfreaking believable. This new "war" spans across 4 countries including Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Surprisingly enough, Congress actually authorized and passed a bill for Obama to do just this back in 2010. Obama certainly makes Bush look like a dove on foreign policy, but Johnson got caught up by Charles Krauthammer for supporting such humanitarian efforts while being critical of the Libyan intervention. Like the U.S. Senate chastising China for manipulating its currency, Johnson looks like a moron playing the "well I support this in certain circumstances but not the other" card. Johnson did have a good ending rant about the size of our defense spending but ultimately failed to impress. He doesn't hold a candle to the real man whom I have an article about today over at LRC titled "Why Ron Paul is Dominating." An excerpt:
Ron Paul has consistently polled third place in most major polls yet has the least amount of speaking and face time compared to other candidates. Romney, the perceived front runner, has oodles of face time and media coverage to make his case. Though Paul is often treated as untouchable by debate moderators, he has maintained a steady position in virtually every national poll.
When it comes to straw poll victories however, Paul has been dominant. Despite his outside-the-conservative-mainstream views on foreign policy and drug legalization, Paul recently won the Values Voters straw poll. He came, in the words of Jack Cafferty, "within an eye lash" of beating Michele Bachmann in the Ames Straw poll. Just a few weeks ago, he came in first at the California Republican straw poll. Meanwhile, flash in the pan candidates such as Herman Cain who manage to win one straw poll become darlings of the mainstream attention despite their pitiful record of recognizing major economic problems. Paul’s straw poll victories are dismissed largely because his passionate base of supporters show up in droves in order to support their candidate. What the media fails to consider is why Mitt Romney and Rick Perry don’t attract such support. After all, straw polls are about showing how popular candidates are, not reflecting whom the mainstream media has already dubbed as the top tier contenders.
While Paul may be marginalized and considered an impossibility in the sphere of being a major player in the race, he continues to poll in the top 3 while driving the topics of discussion in every debate. Four years ago, who in the world would have predicted Newt Gingrich, the man who rallied an impeachment offense against Bill Clinton while committing adultery on his own wife, would be issuing such a pointed and critical attack on an institution that was hardly mentioned in the confines of conventional policy discussion? Political pandering or not, Gingrich’s tirade is the direct result of Paul's decades long endeavor to put the Federal Reserve directly in the limelight of mainstream talk. Chairman Ben Bernanke can't utter one word now without the talking heads of CNBC dissecting its meaning and consequence for hours on end.Great news as the Revolution SuperPAC ad "Plastic Men" will run before the next CNN debate on October 18. As long as it changes a few minds, it will well be worth it. Big thanks to all the reader emails. Some felt compelled to point out these figures from Wikipedia:
I should also point out that the "Black This Out" money bomb is coming up on October 19, I am definitely throwing my $20 in.As Of 10/14/2011...All Online Polls Follow-------------------------------------- Finish Candidate Percent-------------------------------------- 1 Ron Paul 49%2 Herman Cain 12%3 Sarah Palin 8.7%? Tim Pawlenty 4.4%Other 25.8%Combined Straw Polls Follow-------------------------------------- Finish Candidate Percent Votes-------------------------------------- 1 Ron Paul 36% 5812 Herman Cain 16% 2563 Sarah Palin 9.2% 1494 Tim Pawlenty 8.8% 143Other 30.1% 1616
Enough with Ron Paul, let's take a look at the continuing sideshow known as the Euro debt crisis. After first agreeing to 21%, it looks like Greece bondholders and investors are ready to take up to a 50% haircut, via Bloomberg:
European officials are considering writedowns of as much as 50 percent on Greek bonds, a backstop for banks and continued central bank bond purchases as key planks in a revamped strategy to combat the debt crisis, people familiar with the discussions said.50% is not enough of course, but if this follows through, it will be touted as the final resolve which will be a blatant lie. Greece is going to enter into a controlled default while the rest of the PIIGS's default will be fought but will inevitably occur. Like any crisis, the powers that be try to put it into slow motion as much as possible to ride out the good times while they can. The dominoes continue to slowly collapse, via Bloomberg:
French bonds slumped, with 10-year yields rising the most since October 2008, amid speculation European nations will need to backstop their banks, placing an additional burden on state finances.There is some sanity out there judging by this excerpt from a new UBS report:
Ten-year French yields climbed 38 basis points this week, the most since the euro was introduced in 1999.
For more great commentary on the Euro madness, see Jonathan Weil's recent pieces (here and here). An excerpt:For more than a year we have argued that Greece will not be able to avoid a default. In this piece, we look at how this could be done. We think a 50% haircut makes little sense: if we take into account the lenders that cannot participate in the haircut (IMF, bilateral loans) and the bank recapitalisation it would trigger in Greece, we find that a 50% haircut would actually reduce the stock of debt by only 22%. Rather, we think a large restructuring of the debt (i.e. a “super PSI”) is the solution. It would reduce the financial needs of Greece, postponing for decades the redemption of bonds. It would also cut the deficit if coupon payments were reduced sufficiently. This would come with manageable needs for bank recapitalisation. Finally, such a step would remove the need to default, or rather, it would be akin to the default we expect....why a 50% haircut does not work At the time of writing, Greece has total debts of €346.4bn. About a third of this debt is in public hands (34.8% is attributable to the IMF, ECB and European governments), roughly another third is in Greek hands (28.8%, essentially for banks) with the remainder (36.4%) held by non-Greek private investors.
Consider Dexia’s balance sheet as of Dec. 31, which is the date the banking authority used for its tests of 90 banks in 21 EU countries. Dexia’s tangible common shareholder equity was 6.7 billion euros, compared with 564.5 billion euros of tangible assets. (Both figures exclude goodwill and other intangible assets.) That gave it a 1.18 percent ratio, meaning Dexia had little hard capital available to absorb future losses.
Dexia nonetheless managed to show a capital ratio of 12.1 percent, based in part on its calculation that it had 17 billion euros of what the regulators call core Tier 1 capital. Dexia pointed to this figure in its latest annual report as proof that it “enjoys robust solvency.”
Dexia got that ratio mainly by excluding the bulk of its assets -- a process speciously referred to as risk-weighting -- along with billions of euros of pent-up losses on soured holdings such as Greek government bonds. The denominator in the ratio got smaller, the numerator got bigger, and Dexia wound up looking like one of Europe’s safest banks.
Using Dexia’s regulatory math as a starting point, the European Banking Authority then generously estimated Dexia’s core Tier 1 ratio would fall to 10.4 percent in 2012 under the “adverse scenario” it contemplated. The details of the scenario don’t matter now because Dexia is toast.
As for an improving U.S. economy:Bottom line, if Europe’s leaders want to further undermine public confidence in the region’s banks, then they should keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing the past couple of years. A few more put-ons like the last two rounds of stress tests and we’ll have the global financial crisis back to peak form in no time. Dexia’s demise is only the start.
WASHINGTON-- U.S. consumers stepped up their spending on retail goods in September, a hopeful sign for the sluggish economy.This holiday season is going to be key in determining where this economy is really going. I will end by pointing out another Chinese made wonder:
They spent more on autos, clothing and furniture last month to boost retail sales 1.1 percent, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the largest gain in seven months.
Auto sales rose 3.6 percent to drive the overall increase. Still, excluding that category, sales gained a solid 0.6 percent.
I wouldn't trust a jet fighter from Walmart either.
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