Texas Senate Race Update for Thursday, September 29, 2011
September 29th, 2011LinkSwarm for September 27, 1011.
September 27th, 2011More Greek Default Rumblings
September 25th, 2011Actually, less rumblings than the roar of an approaching train. And since I temporarily seem to be ahead of the latest Ace of Spades Doom roundup, I’m going to try and give you a nice clear view of the coming crash.
“No longer a question of if, but when – that is the tone of discussions over Greece which has dominated the summit of finance ministers in Washington over the weekend.” Former Britain’s former finance minister Alistair Darling agrees, calling default “only a matter of time.”
The talk now is of how to put in a “firewall” to prevent the contagion of an inevitable Greek default from spreading throughout the European banking system.
The Euroskeptics have been completely vindicated:
Very rarely in political history has any faction or movement enjoyed such a complete and crushing victory as the Conservative Eurosceptics. The field is theirs. They were not merely right about the single currency, the greatest economic issue of our age — they were right for the right reasons. They foresaw with lucid, prophetic accuracy exactly how and why the euro would bring with it financial devastation and social collapse.
I think at this point UK residents should be feeling vrey glad indeed that they didn’t abandon the Pound for the Euro.
Bret Stephens talks about the long line of deceit and fraud that lead Europe to the current crises. “What is now happening in Europe isn’t so much a crisis as it is an exposure: a Madoff-type event rather than a Lehman one.”
Mark Steyn, using the ever popular music and political metaphor gambit, compares the breakup of the Eurozone with the breakup of R.E.M. while bringing the usual Steyn goodness: “Attempting to postpone the Club Med welfare junkies’ rendezvous with self-extinction will destabilize internal German politics (which always adds to the gaiety of nations).” And this:
As its own contribution to the end of the world as we know it, the Obama administration has just released a document called “Living Within Our Means and Investing in the Future: The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Deficit Reduction.” If you’re curious about the first part of the title — “Living Within Our Means” — Veronique de Rugy pointed out at National Review that under this plan debt held by the public will grow from just over $10 trillion to $17.7 trillion by 2021. In other words, the president’s definition of “Living Within Our Means” is to burn through the equivalent of the entire German, French, and British economies in new debt between now and the end of the decade. You can try this yourself next time your bank manager politely suggests you should try “living within your means”: Tell him you’ve got an ingenious plan to get your spending under control by near doubling your present debt in the course of a mere decade. He’s sure to be impressed.
Germany is near the limit of their willingness to bail out Greece.
There may even be a taxpayer revolt brewing in the Aegean.
And if the other PIIGS are doing better than Greece, it is only a matter of degrees: “Italy is the new Lebanon, Portugal the new Venezuela, Spain the new Vietnam, Ireland the new Argentina and nothing is more risky than Greece, according to today’s credit default swap market.”
But it’s not just Greece and Europe that are hitting the wall. China’s housing bubble may finally be bursting. Worse still: “growth in China may be zero [and] China has ‘European kind of numbers’ when it comes to debt.”
And the Chinese housing bubble isn’t just affecting China. It’s also affecting Canada.
And at least one observer has drawn parallels to a certain hopemonger currently residing in the White House:
Obama has no intention of really solving the debt crisis. And that brings us back to Greece. That government has been doing the same thing for a decade and the chickens have now come home to roost. Greece’s debt is 150 percent of its Gross Domestic Product. Our debt has just reached 100 percent of GDP and the debt is accumulating faster than it ever has. If we were looking out the windshield down the road, we could see the crash that’s just up around the bend.
But rather than put on the brakes, the president has chosen to pick a fight with the other passengers in the car he is driving. Talk about distracted driving! He is gambling that this fight will convince the passengers to let him stay behind the wheel for another four years. But we certainly can’t wait that long. He’s turned up the radio in hopes we won’t hear the ambulance sirens.
It looks like its going to be another rough week for world markets…
Texas Senate Race Update for September 23, 2011
September 23rd, 2011Interview With Texas Senate Candidate Tom Leppert
September 21st, 2011After my interview with Ted Cruz, I was contacted by the Tom Leppert campaign in late August and asked if I wanted to do an interview with Leppert. And they did this despite my very public doubts over several aspects of Leppert’s record. Leppert’s comments on the campaign trail have always been very solidly conservative; my doubts have been over how much Leppert’s actions match his rhetoric. So I agreed to do an interview, after which is was just a matter of finding a date and time when he would be in Austin, which turned out to be Monday, September 19.
From shortly after each of them jumped into the campaign, Cruz and Leppert have been neck and neck in who has the most effective campaign organization, with both seeming very polished and professional. (David Dewhurst’s start was late enough that I haven’t yet collected enough data to make a determination. So far I’m more than little skeptical that the “Ivory Tower” strategy of avoiding the candidate forums is the right choice.) Early on, I sought to get interviews with all of the major Republican Senate candidates, starting in the order they joined the race. I heard absolutely nothing back from the campaigns of Roger Williams, Michael Williams, or Elizabeth Ames Jones, not even the polite “our candidate is really busy but we’ll see if we can work something in” blogger brushoff. By contrast it’s been very easy and hassle free to get information out of the Cruz and Leppert campaigns.
As I mention in the interview itself, this was designed so be a mixture of general and specific questions, as well as mixture of softball and hardball questions.
A few observations:
I expect to have more information on Leppert (both positive and negative) in the next week or so.
Texas State Senator Steve Ogden Won’t Seek Another Term
September 20th, 2011According to the Texas Tribune. Ogden is my state Senator, and it was something of a surprise that he ran in 2010. House District 52 Rep. Larry Gonzalez sent out a press release saying he was running for re-election to the House, but wasn’t looking to run for Ogden’s seat in the Senate. Conversely, Rep. Charles Schwertner of Georgetown announced he’s running for Ogden’s seat. Given how geographically sprawling and diverse Senate District 5 is, it wouldn’t surprise me to see other candidates jump into the race.
LinkSwarm for Saturday, September 17, 2011
September 17th, 2011A few links for Saturday:
Texas Senate Race Update for September 15, 2011
September 15th, 2011Some Analysis of the Republican Victory in the New York Ninth Congressional District Special Election
September 15th, 2011I’m a sucker for wonkish political analysis of voting results, so here are some of the more notable results-scrying for Bob Turner’s win over David Weprin in New York’s Ninth Congressional District after Rep. Anthony “look at my bulge” Weiner resigned in disgrace. A race Weprin lost despite $485,000 of DCCC ad buys and having Bill Clinton and New York Governor Andrew Coumo campaign for him. I’m going to ignore the usual “weak candidate, ran a bad race” blather liberals always trot out when a Democrat loses, because it’s become a tautology that doesn’t explain anything. He lost? Bad candidate that ran a bad campaign. He won? A good candidate who ran a good campaign.
Speaking of incompetence, let’s also dismiss DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz laughable assertion that a district where registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 3-1 “is difficult for Democrats.” Even more risible is Wasserman Schultz’s claim that Obama has an “incredibly strong record on Israel.” She truly is the gift that keeps giving to Republicans.
So why did Weprin lose? Some theories:
Democratic strategist James Carville says it’s time for Obama to panic, but his advice is on the lines of firing people, find some scapegoats, and return to Ye Olde Big Government Religion. (He also seems to regard a $1.25 trillion budget deficit as “austerity.”) Walter Russell Mead isn’t impressed with the advice: “This President doesn’t do ‘tough’ very well….he isn’t convincing as a Chuck Norris impersonator. Often when he tries to sound tough he comes out tinny. Also, teleprompters don’t work when the goal is to project spontaneous, righteous and passionate rage.”
If NY9 is indeed a bellwether for 2012 (a big if), Democrats are in for some pretty rough storms over the next 14 months…
Greece Getting Ready to Default?
September 12th, 2011According to Seeking Alpha last week: “Yields on two-year Greek government bonds reached 46.84% recently. This is roughly comparable to yields on Argentine bonds in early December 2001 – only a month before the country defaulted on its debt.”
Other signs of the Euro crisis: The Euro hit a six month low against the dollar, and a ten year low against the yen.
Now Walter Russell Mead is reporting that markets around the world have a serious case of the jitters due to the possibility of a European meltdown. “Creating a monetary union without a true federal government is looking more and more like the biggest European policy mistake since Britain and France let Hitler have the Sudetenland.”
It’s not just Greece. Investors are now worrying about the potential solvency of French banks.
Last week, Powerline linked to this cheerful piece over at Zero Hedge, which outlines some consequences of a Euro breakup: “Were a stronger country such as Germany to leave the Euro, the consequences would include corporate default, recapitalisation of the banking system and collapse of international trade.” Lovely. Other possibilities: The rise of authoritarian or military governments to contain the crisis, or civil war.
Despite all this, the EU itself, when not pushing for further austerity, denies it’s preparing for a Greek default. Should we be more worried that the Eurocrats running the show are liars or idiots?
Here’s Peter Morici calling Greece to default and abandon the Euro, although comically, he’s saying that it’s Greece that is the exploited nation “at the mercy of Germany and other rich states who exploit European unity to live well at the expense of their poorer brethren.” Of course this is an inversion of the actual situation, with wastrel cousin Stavos living high on the hog off of Uncle Fritz and Aunt Helga’s credit rating.
But that might be coming to an abrupt end. Despite a slew of austerity measures introudced over the weekend, the Greek government only has enough money to last through the middle of October. There are technical obstacles to still more bailouts from Germany, assuming Uncle Fritz was even willing to extend more credit. Signs are that he isn’t. Indeed, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is openly discussing “an orderly bankruptcy of Greece.” The bond market is already treating a Greek default like a near certainty. It seems like the plan to prop up Greece until banks can stick European taxpayers with the bill may be coming undone.
So, you think gold prices would soar, right? Wrong. “Gold futures slumped as traders cashed out of the perceived refuge asset to cover losses in other markets while Europe’s debt crisis seemed poised to take a turn for the worse.” So it’s gotten so bad that traders need to sell gold in order to cover losses in everything else but gold.
Hang on, folks. We could be in for a very rough ride…