Monthly Archives: October 2008

(Community Matters) John Thornton on Insomniative on Rep Lewis’ comments. I disagree with John on this. I think the subtext of McCain’s and Palin’s “paling with terrorists” remarks have incited a hatred that we should all fear. These are extraordinary times and some people are feeling threatened on many fronts. Especially in these times our leaders – and those campaigning to be – have a responsibility to call forth our best, not our reptilian worst.

(Community Matters) Recent UT Michener graduate, David Modigliani has released his movie, Crawford, on Hulu here

Could have sworn I’d earlier posted pics of David paling around Jo’s with prep school buddies including Jake Ghyllenhall. hmm, only find this one

(Community Matters) It’s been a gorgeous day in San Francisco. Steven and I have taken it way easy. Our accomodations include a gorgeous, luscious court yard with plenty of sun and a parlour where we can spread out. We were up early, a brisk walk around a quiet city, a favorite breakfast, then mostly him grading, me reading. A couple of separate walks, and we’re headed back to Chez Panisse for dinner upstairs with Anton Nel (dined downstairs Thursday night). Last night nibbles and wine in the parlour, then dinner at the Urban Tavern with our friend, Dan Adams, youngest son of our dearest friend Rev. Bill Adams. Tomorrow, services at St. Gregory’s, then back in time for Steven to upack/repack for travel to Arizona, then Toronto. I’ll be catching up at EF and helping host a few fundraisers for Obama, including the Wed night debate watch party at our house.

Three Obama fundraisers on Tuesday:

• 4pm campaign briefing at the Headliners with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and DNC General Election Director, Paul Tewes info here
• Dinner and campaign briefing with Jarrett & Tewes contact me for info
• Generation Obama & Texans for Obama Happy Hour 5:30 to 7:00 Sky Lounge, 416 Congress Ave
  

Wednesday evening debate watch party at our house info here

(Community Matters) Colin Powell may have once been among the most trusted and honored men in our country. Difficult to watch him today.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday praised Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ sense of honor at his trial on corruption charges, calling his reputation for honesty and integrity “sterling” in the quarter-century they’ve known each other. “As we say in the infantry, this is a guy you take on a long patrol,” said the retired four-star Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I sometimes wonder how they convinced General Powell to so dishonor his reputation with his misleading testimony to the UN on WMD. No idea if there is a real connection but twice when trying to understand the General’s public positions – which seemed inconsistent with his history of courage, truthfulness and principle – thoughts of protecting his family have come to mind. During the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell chaos of Clinton’s first 100 days, I felt he might be protecting the privacy of his lesbian daughter. During his tenure as Bush’s Secretary of State, whenever he didn’t speak out and against the administration, I wondered if he was protecting his son, then Bush appointee and Chair of the FCC.

(Community Matters) He gets credit for finally speaking up. And, he’s responsible for letting the genie out of the bottle.

(Community Matters) Violence from the Right. In my mind it’s even scarier than it appears.

From Three Blue Dudes:

Paul Krugman writes something that’s been on my mind lately: That as ugly as GOP rhetoric is right now, it will be even uglier if Obama wins the general election and becomes President of the United States.

What it came down to was that a significant fraction of the American population, backed by a lot of money and political influence, simply does not consider government by liberals (even very moderate liberals) legitimate. Ronald Reagan was supposed to have settled that once and for all.

What happens when Obama is elected? It will be even worse than it was in the Clinton years. For sure there will be crazy accusations, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some violence.

The next few years are going to be very, very tough.

I think that’s exactly correct. It is easy to forget how crazed and unhinged the Right was about the Clintons and the things they said and did to destroy him, including impeaching a popular and successful president. It will be worse with Obama and there is no reason to believe that the media, which outrageously lent credence to even the most preposterous anti-Clinton conspiracy theories, has learned anything at all. Most likely, they will entertain the new anti-Obama conspiracy theories [mostly just recycled anti-Clinton theories] just as eagerly.

When Easter 2009 rolls around, we’ll hear that Obama wants to cancel the Easter Egg Roll at the White House because he hates Baby Jesus. A year from now, we’ll be told that Christmas has been cancelled at the White House, but Ramadan is mandatory for all federal employees. And that’ll be the mild stuff. Wait until we hear about all of Obama’s white bastard children — race-mixing being a particular bugbear for the American Right.

It will get ugly. Don’t fool yourself.

In January I wrote about James Dobson, radio broadcaster and founder of Focus on the Family, and his tendency to refer to Bill Clinton’s administration as a regime because he felt moral issues prevented him from supporting a Clinton administration. He went so far as to question how long “Christain” Americans could support an immoral regime. This is real stuff. (never mind that Dobson is a hypocrit and argued against investigation of Republican congressional influence in any coverups related to Mark Foley).

In fact, powerful political interests misinform and stoke fear in many people off-balance and scared because of change, economic & political balance-of-power threats. You’ve seen Palin and McCain incite xenophobic and nationalistic anger bordering on violence among some supporters. Already, Former Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffe has withdrawn his support for the McCain/Palin ticket out of concern. Former Michigan Republican Governor Millken has similar withdrawn his support of McCain and for the same reasons. Let’s hope more honorable Republicans stand up against this wave of resurrection.

(Community Matters) This from Daily Kos. I haven’t vetted it. Warning, includes the F word

(Community Matters) I didn’t even know their supreme court was hearing a case. Ruling 4-3 that gay marriage is legal. here

What a great ending to a lousy financial week. Regret that there are some who might not consider it progress. Gay men & women marrying will strengthen your sacred institution of marriage, not in any way threaten it. And, we’ll help strengthen inclusive family values.

(Community Matters) The invitation to fly to New York for the final debate. Cruel only because I’m hosting a fundraiser and can’t!

(Community Matters) You gotta remember, the call with bankers I’m catching up on was held yesterday. I just finished hearing the remainder.

Of course, since then the equities markets were down yesterday by 0.8% to 2% depending which benchmark measured and after today’s 5% to 7.6% tumble, it’s interesting to note that yesterday morning’s call warned we could easily see another 15% to 20% decline (to the average 50% declines experienced in 1973-74 and 2000-02). For many reasons, they do not expect we’re headed into a depression like the 30s when stock prices declined 86%.

Good gosh, there is a long list of recent US financial expenditures/authorizations associated with this recession/bailout:

• $100B in tax rebates earlier this year
• $50B in business tax incentives as well
• $300B for home mortgage refinancing passed a couple of months ago
• $200B conservatorship monies for Fannie & Freddie
• $85B for AIG
• $50B in assets from the Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee money market accounts (# shares held at 9/17 – I’ve subsequently read if you sold but bought back, you’re still insured up to # shares on 9/17. In case anyone bailed into treasury only mmfs and now want back into something with an above inflation rate of return)
• $700B bailout, aka TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program

On the bailout (TARP), they explained that Treasury can 1) purchase assets, 2) insure the value of assets for a fee and 3) purchase any other financial instruments (aka preferred stock thus giving them an equity play)

Of course, TARP also provided for an increase in FDIC insurance to $250,000, so CD spread programs have just gotten easier. As an fyi and from my old banking days, it was a fallacy in the 80’s & 90’s that you had $100k per account or unique account style. Then, you attributed proportional interests among account owners and each person or company had a total of $100k insurance within each financial institution. Not sure if this is still the way they’d calculate.

There was a question about why the markets didn’t seem to be responding so favorably to the finally passed bailout (NO THANKS TO LLOYD DOGGETT). Our presenter stated that the requirement for warrants and caps on executive compensation were giving pause to participation (good), as were the facts that some financial institutions had already written down the securities so were considering whether to simply hold and recapture their own gains and, conversely, if they hadn’t already been required to write down the values, concern about the balance sheet implications of doing so.

Fiscal stimulus measures: Prior to the meltdown, expectations of another $50B stimulus measure. Now imagine we’ll see even higher numbers, though probably not during the lameduck Congress, but from our new administration and Congress.

Discussion about the new IRS rules re: tax write off of losses from acquired financial institutions. This probably not of much interest. (but for my own notes: from limit of 5% of acquired
“value” to unlimited. Retroactive. And, questions about IRS authority to even reinterpret these limits).

Wow, still predicting 8%+ growth in China. Euro markets stronger than UK and USA. Expect Euro back up to 1.5x USD (currently 1.36).

Equities. What are the opportunities? Extreme pessimism in the market. Bullish sentiment lowest since 1994. All time high indices of anxiety over volatility. (yeah, your mind jumping to opportunity too?) Panic – liquidation of MMFs to treasuries akin to stuffing the mattress. Combination of credit crisis, home price declines and ongoing deleveraging will continue to take its toll.

Normally predict 2 to 2.5 years for the economy to fully recover after a banking crisis. But, since equity prices anticipate economic changes, where’s the trough? If we’re predicting GDP to bottom 4Q, 1Q and 2Q, might we be there?

Lots of good info on earnings, price:earnings and historical comparisons. US large cap 10 year rolling percent returns and S&P percent changes. Appears there could be cautious opportunities to slightly bump up allocations to equities, averaging over next 6 to 9 mos. Though, absolutely, ought to maintain plenty of liquidity for a good night’s sleep.

(Community Matters) Several years ago a group of community leaders were in Colorado as guests of Applied Materials’ Charitech initiative. We were challenged to think up a new initiative for our city. Our group created the East Austin Economic Forum. Lots of meaningful observations there, the most memorable for me was that the psychological barriers to economic success for East Austin were at least as ingrained within East Austinites, if not more so.

The next year, Cloteal and I were both receiving the usual flurry of emails reminding us about the upcoming Anglo Angelous Economic Forecast presentation. We were at breakfast with Margo Weisz and wondered aloud, why isn’t there as substantive an economic presentation about East Austin and how the broader region’s and nation’s economic forecast will present challenges and opportunities for East Austin entrepreneurs. Voila . . . The East Austin Economic Summit.

This event has become one of THE economic summit presentations in Austin. Regret that I’m away and unable to be there this Saturday.