I’d almost forgotten it was winter, with daffodils coming up and willow trees budding already. Unfortunately for most of my friends, I am a fan of winter and look forward to a few snow days each season, so am hoping there will be a proper snostorm before it is all said and done. But here we are, cruising the internets and catching up on the stuff that happened during the week:
1. The News Journal’s paywall. Which doesn’t seem to have happened, right? Apparently there have been a glitch or two along the way and perhaps it will launch this week. Or perhaps not. It doesn’t look good for a newspaper to not be ready to start collecting on the value they create — especially since this business has been wringing its hands over this very thing almost since Al Gore created the internet. So those of us who want to get the transaction over with (the paying for an electronic version transaction), you need to call the NJ, with your credit card in hand. I know all of you OGs remember how this is done. This is the number — 800-801-3322.
2. Americans Gaining Energy Independence With U.S. as Top Producer — So it looks like the production of natural gas and domestic oil (mostly gas though) are pushing us faster to “energy independence”. You also have to factor in (as this article does) the fact that we’ve been in a deep recession and Americans have cut way back on their energy use and that consumption isn’t rising especially fast as we get out of that recession. (Conservation does pay!) The risk, of course, is that no one is actually paying for the risks of that new energy — either fracking or shale oil extraction. And in your lifetimes, these states will have their hands out to you — the Federal taxpayer — to clean up the mess they’ve made. In the meantime, feel free to ignore any claims to urgency for “energy independence”. (Side question — the price of natural gas has gotten ridiculously cheap. Anyone seen a major reduction in the cost of natural gas on their Delmarva bills?)
3. Tilting the Budget Process to the G.O.P. — You’re kidding, right? The House voted last week to have the CBO analyze proposed budgets by forcing them into a Laffer Curve:
The dynamic calculation would be supplementary and not replace the current official scoring methodology, but the obvious long-term goal is to require official revenue estimates to incorporate “Laffer curve” effects in order to make it easier to cut taxes and harder to raise them.
Notwithstanding the fairly obvious bunkum of this whole thing, is anybody noticing that the GOP is using the legislative process to make the world fit their ideology? Nuts — and it looks to me like Bruce Bartlett is the only part of the media explaining this.
4. The long-awaited mortgage settlement was loudly launched this week and you can count me as part of the unimpressed. FT Alphaville provides the documents and a great graphic breaking it down. Yves Smith explains why you should hate this deal. For me, the $2000.00 settlement on people whose homes were improperly foreclosed upon is the big red flag. It isn’t too far off of those class action suits you join via some postcard in your mail — then three years later you get a check for $2.07. Except this is for people who lost their homes improperly — this is certainly not enough to settle on these folks. And while AGs all over (including ours) have been insisting that this preserves their rights to investigate, sue or prosecute, I’m wondering how much energy they’ll put into this now. I know that this is hard stuff, but banker types really did some pretty bad stuff here and there needs to be perp walks and jail time.
5. CPAC Gangsta Rap — So-called Gangsta rap from the people who are working overtime to invoke every bit of racial stupidity they can to the GOP campaign. Can I get a drive-by from all of you white folks reading this now expelling these people from your race? If these folks are hell bent on embarrassing you all like this, you need to start yanking back their Caucasian Passes, gang.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c0P28cqFDY[/youtube]
So what interests you today?