Notes from Venice

I'm here on a chess, whisky and photo trip with an old friend who is a Brooksian moderate squish who used to call himself variously 'conservative' and 'libertarian'. He calls me 'right-wing extremist', ideologue' and 'tosser', oh and now 'spawn of Sarah'. Naturally an old man's thoughts in Venice in the spring turn to US politics. My friend voted for Obama so I'm grinding him into dust with every tick of the stock market and every game of chess. That's the local colour. Now a couple of thoughts:

1. I guess that the market will bottom at about 4,800. It's hitting new lows now at 6,645, down about 46% since Obama permanently took the lead in polls last October.

2. Billary must be grinding their teeth that Hillary accepted SecState. That's gagged Bill. His cutting commentary on Obama was a pleasure of the Nomination contest. If the Harvard Law School dismantling of America goes on much longer, then Hillary would be favourite for Nominee in 2011 except that she's part of the wrecking crew.

Morning rant #4

Not one of mine, alas, but I do feel his pain; Jimmy Cayne, the former Bear Stearns CEO, on Geithner:

The audacity of that p—- in front of the American people announcing he was deciding whether or not a firm of this stature and this whatever was good enough to get a loan,” he said. “Like he was the determining factor, and it’s like a flea on his back, floating down underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, getting a h—-o-, saying, ‘Raise the bridge.’ This guy thinks he's got a big d—. He’s got nothing, except maybe a boyfriend. I’m not a good enemy. I’m a very bad enemy. But certain things really—that bothered me plenty. It’s just that for some clerk to make a decision based on what, your own personal feeling about whether or not they’re a good credit? Who the f— asked you? You’re not an elected officer. You’re a clerk. Believe me, you’re a clerk. I want to open up on this f—-r, that’s all I can tell you.

This was before Geithner's elevation to Tax-Cheat-In-Chief.

In Venice

The view from my room:

She said what ?!

Ann Coulter's gone too far this time. Calling Obama "Chocolate Jesus" doesn't offend me. Like Clint Eastwood I'm an equal opportunity offender. But Fox should ban that lilywhite beanpole pronto or the race hustlers will come a-hustlin' and when the hustlers come a-hustlin', well, dot dot dot ...

Oh wait, it wasn't Ann Coulter? It was Bill Maher? Impossible. Liberals don't use racist trash talk, it's against their religion. See this clip at 6:40 -


But for the real McCoy enjoy Tom Waits:


Update: After a little reflection I realise that 'liberal' doesn't apply to Bill Maher. I do think he's a liberalesque dope on Bush, Cheney, Iraq, religion and probably a lot else, but he's my kind of guy on some stuff, as in this clip from 1:17 -

Eonnagata

I know a little girl named Sylvie. She's named after Sylvie Guillem, the dancer, so last night I took her and 4 other distinguished ladies to Sadlers Wells in London to see this:



The subject matter was gender - a topic dear to ballet dancers for some reason. I'm increasingly of the view that gender is not destiny, but that the unsexed human spirit makes its destiny and our externals are just that, externals. That's a conceit of course, but it's my conceit and I like it. A lot of Eonnagata was brutally slow for my attention span, let alone a young child's, but Sylvie endured and one day she'll astonish her children when she tells them that she saw the great Sylvie Guillem.

Lest we forget

Right Wing News was almost the first blog I read. (I think Normblog was the very first.) I enjoyed John Hawkins' directness and the man can write. Lately RWN has dropped off my daily tour. It's grown into a less pithy, slightly snarkier, group blog which is plenty meaty but less flavoursome. Don't get me wrong - I like what they say and they say it well, but vita brevis and all that. Hawkins is still a good read after all these years. Sometimes he sounds like me:

The Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, is a tax cheat. Let me repeat that: Timothy Geithner, the guy who is the head honcho of the IRS, is a tax cheat. One more time, Tim Geithner, the guy who will be in charge when the Obama administration institutes what will probably be the single largest tax increase in American history, later in Obama's first term, is a tax cheat.

Moi:

I can be a bore on this Geithner thing. It doesn't take a holistic view to condemn Geithner. There's no nuance required. It's black and white. You can't appoint a tax cheat as Tax Chief. One more time. You can't appoint a tax cheat as Tax Chief. It destroys consent and taints the whole Administration.

Pass the sick bag, Alice

Reading this bollocks on Bloomberg put me in mind of John Junor's catch phrase above:

Obama, a 1991 Harvard Law School graduate, is surrounding himself with intellectuals who, like the president, have pursued careers in public service. They bring policy and political expertise, without the ideology that marked the George W. Bush administration, said Jeffrey Frankel, a professor of capital formation and growth at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

“All of them are completely open to new information,” said Frankel, who was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers for three years during Bill Clinton’s presidency. “They are trying to find out what really works. People don’t value competence, but you do need it.”

Methinks Larry Summers tried to impart some new information at Harvard. They were so open to that, he resigned.

The real deal

Mick has repeatedly dissed Frost/Nixon, the movie. I saw it last night. The whole production is a liberal artefact which makes it all the more delicious that Nixon emerges as hero, willy-nilly, and the creep is the mean-spirited, cowardly (in the film), liberal apparatchik, James Reston Junior. The sheer quality of Nixon, the world-class operator, shines through. It's hard not to compare the sophisticated, battle-hardened Nixon with the juvenile imposter Obama. Would that Nixon were President now! His sins were fighting fire with fire. He'd been subjected to liberal shenanigans and voter fraud for many years. Then as now the media protected the more telegenic, but more scandalous liberal candidates, while emoting with outrage at the relatively humdrum crimes of their cultural arch-enemies. The script nicely symbolizes the culture war with lace up shoes versus elasticated shoes. The movie does more to rehabilitate Nixon than anyone involved could imagine. We crave ruthless competence in the service of America, the city on the hill.

Lifecycle of a bubble

As the Dow Jones Index approaches decade lows. I'd say we're moving thru Capitulation to Despair. The markets are realising that the US is now run by quacks and scoundrels, who prescribe poison for medicine. Worse the quacks and scoundrels won't go away for 4 years, maybe 8 years, maybe 12 years. Then it may be too late. There is a moral component to government. This lot don't have it, so why should politics be self-correcting ? The liberals can now fix the census, fix citizenship, fix electoral rolls, fix freedom of speech, fix the media and fix the courts. If politics no longer self-corrects, why should markets ? 'Return to the mean' isn't guaranteed. Maybe that's a sign of Despair.

"Civic and legal duty" - that sounds important

The Feds are fixing to fix UBS for enabling US citizens to hold offshore accounts out of sight of the IRS. They want names:

“At a time when millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their homes and their health care, it is appalling that more than 50,000 of the wealthiest among us have actively sought to evade their civic and legal duty to pay taxes,” John A. DiCicco, acting assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s tax division, said in a statement.

Here's a name - Geithner, capo di tutti capi at the IRS.

Update: Emanuel.

Give war a chance

There is a credible report that Hamas will agree an 18-month ceasefire. Presumably the promise from Netanyahu to come back to Gaza and finish the job that Barak and Livni left half-done concentrated the terrorists' leaders' minds.

By the way she is Israeli. She'd look good with a rifle, but I'm sorry to say she's an airhead peacenik. Still, braver men and women will kill to keep her safe.