Mid Morning Fishwrap

TOP STORIES


This morning Treasury Secretary Geithner laid out the administration's plan on what to do with the remaining TARP funds and other implementations. The first will be stress test for various banks. We can only assume that these "stress tests" will include such Gitmo favorites as no sleep, noise, and total darkness. The second is they have called in some...associates...to, let us say motivate secondary lenders...you know what I mean pal? The third is to treat lending like toxic waste and send it to New Jersey. The fourth involves something with mortgages, but I don't know if anyone understands that. It also creates alleged transparency and, hell lets be honest, we're becoming loan sharks to the banks and THAT is fucking awesome.


President Obama gave his first press conference last night to speak on the Stimulus Bill and other matters of his presidency. What he really spoke on, very forcefully, was the mis-comprehension of Republicans that he means bi-partisan not by partisan work on the bill.

LOCAL NEWS

Apparently the snow that happened in Houston for about twelve minutes cause some of the worst delays in airportdom in America last year.

So when prices are dropping because of the recession you would think that would effect cable and satellite companies, yeah, you would think that.

In the, well isn't this a shock, portion of the news, prosecutors are asking a judge to send Marion Berry to jail for failing to file a tax return for the eighth time in nine years.

SPORTS


A-Fraud admitted that he took steroids, probably after watching what happened to Roger Clemens, Rafi, and Big Mac when they were either silent (Big Mac) or vehement deniers (the other two a-holes). I must agree with the DFP, there is only one sure fire way to punish these players. I for one am all for the HoF committee adopting a rule or something similar denying access to anyone caught juicing.

This "mother" can't be serious when she can't decide who is worse between Alex Rodriguez and Michael Phelps. Lady, lets take a quick look at the facts shall we? One increases your athletic performance, the other is a narcotic that some folks use in religious rights. One is arguably the most selfish ballplayer since Bonds, the other went out and won eight gold medals at the Olympics. One has decided to play for the DR, the other bleeds red white and blue. Wait, back to the drug portion. One is likely to end your life, the other is gonna give you the munchies. One is done by the rare few, the other has been done by over half of the population of the United States and is only illegal due to some made up bullshit in the early 20th century. Now tell me, who is worse?

ENTERTAINMENT


The star of Drumline and husband to Mariah Carey is the new host of America's Got Talent. I would say this is ironic but The Hoff is one of the judges after all...

Well, kiss your concert going days good bye. LiveNation is buying TicketMaster in some nasty $2.5 billion deal, luckily some folks see the monopoly monster this is and are trying to stop it.

Finally, a funny video to amuse you...

Tuesday Two-fer

Israel's push in Gaza has entered its tenth day.  And by all accounts, it's (predictably) a humanitarian crisis.  Palestinian civilians are bearing the brunt of the Israeli attack: Palestinian casualties have exceeded 550, fuel and water has been cut off to hundreds of thousands, and basic medical care is hard to come by.

The stated purpose, of course, is to rid Gaza of its Hamas political leadership and to put an end to years of rocket attacks.  Israel has expressly said that it has no designs on occupying Gaza (Strip, not City).  But, however, there seems to be something strangely familiar, even Bush-like, about the assault.  When our nation invaded Iraq, we, at least at some point, stated that our goal was to crush terrorism and promote democracy and freedom.  But we went into Iraq with guns blazing, stirring up a hornets nest that still hasn't died down.

Israel, according to the spokesman I listened to on NPR this morning, aims to instruct the Palestinians that they should abandon terrorism and direct their efforts towards things like economic development - things that promote peace.  But the approach, to me, is both disproportional and wholly misguided.  Why not invest in better infrastructure, free economic development, and improving impoverished conditions rather than bombing folks into the stone age?  Just doesn't seem right.

On the home front, we're nearly two weeks away from Inauguration Day, which we're all waiting for.  And waiting for our new President will be the worst financial meltdown we've seen since the Depression.  We all know that.  And, we all know that the way to solve all this is to prop up our vital industries and financial services companies with huge, huge infusions of cash and credit.

Or do we?  If you've been following the editorials, you'll note some folks, like Paul Krugman of the NYT, noting that one of the worst fiscal moves our country made was President Franklin Roosevelt's attempts to balance the federal budget after only a few years of deficit spending during the Great Depression.  The theory goes that if he and Congress hadn't pulled back, the Depression wouldn't have last as long as it did.  Therefore, the thought goes, we should not make the same mistake twice and fail to dump many trillions of dollars into our economy.

But let me play devil's advocate here for a moment, bearing in mind that I'm no economist.  However, what about letting things be?  At least part of the modern conservative theory of capitalist economics holds that from time to time modern economies must re-allocate resources from less productive industries to more productive industries.  Our economy has recently been tied up in financial services and heavy investment in real estate.  That served us fairly well after we recovered from the collapse of heavy manufacturing.  If we prop up our economy now, do we in some way prevent it from transitioning to the next big thing?  Should we hold up on the economic stimulus, maybe let this thing play out, regardless of the pain?