L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle Blogging

Friday September 10, 2010   John McInturff

Theme:  EY DROPS.   The letters EY are dropped from the end of the first word of easily recognizable phrases, to yield a new phrase with a comical twist.

A 20. Faultfinding brother? : MONK ON ONE'S BACK. Monkey on one's back. This expression goes back to ancient Egypt, originally meaning a guiding spirit or source of inspiration. More recently, it's some sort of burden, affliction, or addiction. I wanted a sibling brother, but a MONK will do just fine.

A 29. Debris in the hayloft? : BARN RUBBLE. Barney Rubble, Fred Flintstone's pal.

A 38. Impervious to chutzpah? : GALLPROOF. This one's my favorite.  Galley proof: the final proof copy of a page being typeset for printing, before it is set as a page of a book or booklet. 

A 50. What Michelle Kwan might do in a financial emergency? : HOCK SKATES. Hockey skates: essential hardware for the Buffalo Sabres.  Somehow, I don't think Michelle will ever be in that position.

A 59. Haystack-hiding Ottoman? : TURK IN THE STRAW. Turkey In The Straw.  Musical Americana.

No unifier, but five brilliant theme entries, two of them almost grid-spanning, along with ten 7-letter answers.  Wow!

Hi gang, Jazzbumpa here, aka JzB, more formally, Mr. Bumpa, or just plain Bumpa to my 11 favorite youngsters. But you can call me Ron.

This is a hard puzzle, and I never got on John McInturff's wave length. Even after I sussed the theme, I couldn't get TURK IN THE STRAW, due to errors in the perps. So, I was reduced to technical assistance for many requested answers.

Mellow Yellow Monday

Family vacation,

Breakfast in the mountains.  I'll

Have a banana.

Shadow Shot Sunday - 9/05

Taken a few weeks ago at the Knoxville Zoo.

Great white pachyderms:

You huddled masses with your

Backs against the wall

Iraq War Costs

Stiglitz and Bilmes reimagine the true total cost of the Iraq war at something north of $3 Trillion.

Their estimate is far too low.

Oil

When the United States went to war in Iraq, the price of oil was less than $25 a barrel, and futures markets expected it to remain around that level. With the war, prices started to soar, reaching $140 a barrel by 2008. We believe that the war and its impact on the Middle East, the largest supplier of oil in the world, were major factors. Not only was Iraqi production interrupted, but the instability the war brought to the Middle East dampened investment in the region. 

In calculating our $3 trillion estimate two years ago, we blamed the war for a $5-per-barrel oil price increase. We now believe that a more realistic (if still conservative) estimate of the war's impact on prices works out to at least $10 per barrel. That would add at least $250 billion in direct costs to our original assessment of the war's price tag. But the cost of this increase doesn't stop there: Higher oil prices had a devastating effect on the economy.

I'm astounded by their meekness.  Attributing only $10 of the oil price to the war is absurdly low - possibly by an entire order of magnitude.   So - their $3 Trillion guess is low by - very conservatively - another trillion, and quite possibly 2 or  even 3 trillion.  The current crude price of $74.34 is probably still above rational evaluation by 50%, or more.  A steady, but objectively extravagant 15% year over year increase from 2002 to now would result in a crude price of about $76.50.   A more realistic increase of 8% would leave it at $46.27.   There is a lot of room on the down side.

The price movement has followed a classic bubble pattern, and it's not at all hard to put Elliott labels on this chart   (as I have done below) and project crude prices around $30 in the next few years - especially if there is a double dip recession and actual deflation.

But there is also a great deal of destabilization in the Middle East, and increased Muslim militancy caused by this war that Stiglitz and Bilmes neglect to mention.  Each of these will have high economic and human costs far into the future.

The Iraq war is the most misbegotten foreign policy adventure in U.S. history.

H/T to AB

Sunday Music Blogging - 9/05

John Williams' Cowboys Overture is a good, not great piece of music; but it's pleasant to listen to, fun to play and the audience always enjoys it.  We opened our concert in the wind with it on Friday. The themes are engaging, if you can avoid thinking about a Marlboro commercial.  But the transitions are, to me at least, baffling; and from about 7:00 to 7:35 in the clip, it turns into generic John Williams what-the-hell.  Oh, well.

Six Word Saturday 9/4

Performed Outside In High Wind - Yikes!

I've played outside at least 40 times.  I've had rain delays and rain cancellations, but never a wind like this, with gale-force gusts.

Even for a grizzled veteran like me, it was a challenge.   Some of the string players who have no outside experience were overwhelmed.

Still - we brought off a really good performance under very trying conditions.  Made me proud.

The New Progressivism

Lawrence Lessig writes an interesting, but sadly naive post, filled with hope and historical perspective.

Where he goes wrong is in suggesting that a new progressivism can incorporate Reagan and Goldwater style Republicans, and reach out to the tea party.  Sorry - there are no Reagan or Goldwater style Republicans.  Regressives worship the myth of Reagan, but are either ignorant or in denial about what he actually achieved - the good and the bad.  Goldwater was simply a libertarian before his time, and a decent, though misguided person who came too late to realize the errors of many of his ways.   By an honest assessment, neither would be acceptable to current Repugnicants.  Even Mr Conservative would not be regressive enough.

The tea party is a different story.  They are immune to facts and logic, and unreachable by rational discourse.  They are the political heirs of - if not strictly identical to - the moral majority and the authoritarian followers who thought that George W. Bush was a good president.

I wish Lessig were right, but this time he is on the wrong side of history, which will now be ruled by right-wing populism, to the detriment of us all.
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Good Debt, Bad Debt

Reminding us that all debt is not created equal, Krugman offers:

Whenever the issue of fiscal stimulus comes up, you can count on someone chiming in to say, “Only a moron could believe that the answer to a problem created by too much debt is to create even more debt.” It sounds plausible — but it misses the key point: there’s a fallacy of composition here. When everyone tries to pay off debt at the same time, the result is contraction and deflation, which ends up making the debt problem worse even if nominal debt falls. On the other hand, a strong fiscal stimulus, by expanding the economy and creating moderate inflation, can actually help resolve debt problems.

Delong adds:

There is nothing wrong with what Paul says. But I think it is incomplete, and that there is a better way of getting to the right conclusion.

The problem was created by too much risky debt and not enough safe debt. The result is that right now there is an excess demand for safe assets--like U.S. government securities. 

. . .

If our big problem were too much debt we would not be here, in depression. Too much debt generates inflation. The things that generate depression are shortages of financial assets, and excess demand for some class of financial assets then produces  .  .  .

Both posts are worth reading.  And what all of this casts into bold relief is the grotesque fiscal irresponsibility of the previous president, and the difficulty of cleaning up after his messes - further complicated by the fact that there are so many of them, in so many places.  Also, the gutting of regulations since Reagan has allowed capitalism to morph into the robber-baronism and economic disparity that ultimately brought on the other Great Depression.  Which is more or less why capitalism fails.

Alas, Obama lacks whatever it takes to get the country back on the right footing in the face of idiotic Repugnicant obstructionism.   And the public seems to be in the grip of right-wing populism - possibly the single most destructive political force known to man.

We are so screwed.

Conservative Pesimism

I've been pondering a post or two on the nature of conservatism, but haven't had time to gather my thoughts and compose the post I would like to write.  Over at Modeled Behavior, Karl wrote an interesting Pessimist Manifesto, that inspired me to respond.  Here it is, with editorial corrections.

You raise some interesting points, and it would take a counter-manifesto that I don’t have time to think through, let alone write, to give it the response it deserves.

In lieu of that, a couple thoughts.

"Bad things happen because badness is the natural state of the world."

Two differences between progressives and regressives are that (generally speaking) progressives are optimists, and reality based, while regressives are pessimisic and bound either by ideology or some other reality-denying mindset.

You, as an intellectual progressive, but emotional regressive, don’t fit either camp. So, when you speak of conservatives who should share your world view, you’ll find yourself the odd man out.

Conservatism is based on ignorance, prejudice (don’t take my word for it, this is directly from Russel Kirk), negation of reality (WMD, New Deal denialism, etc) and false characterizations (which might just be a subset of reality negation) – most economic models, frex.

A Progressive, like Keynes, when confronted with new data, changes his opinion. A Regressive, when confronted with new data, changes the data. Hence the current regressive attempts at history re-writing, re: the W presidency.

There is not a person in a thousand who arrives at political views via rational thought, vs the emotional comfort zone. I sincerely believe that those who do are former conservatives who overcame ignorance to embrace reality.

Which, I guess, is a bit of a manifesto after all.

Cheers! (And welcome to the real world)
JzB

What The Hell?!? Friday - Poorly Thought Out Signage Edition

Seen on a gas pump in Toledo.

Every time I've tried to postpay in advance or prepay in arrears, it just hasn't worked out very well.

Haiku Wednesday - Secrets

SECRETS

Do you know what I

Know?  No!  No one knows.  But now -

Promise not to tell . . .

Nobody knows this,

Not my closest confident;

Shall I tell you? . . . Hmmmm.

"PAYPAL IS THE WORST COMPANY IN THE WORLD"

Or so I have been told.

This might be my only googlebomb participation ever.

But then again, one can't really be too sure about such things.

Anyway, John is over-reacting at least a little bit.


Many, many other companies are at least as bad, though not necessarily in the same way.

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