Beer prices rise for the Consumer as Costs of Production Fall and Profits Rise

A number of brewers announced recently that the price of beer that the consumer pays will be going up citing rising costs. In the CNN story above the reasons given are less vague. The brewers claim to be raising prices to offset rising commodity prices and fall in volumes. Though, commodity prices have fallen recently and have caused farmers and dairies to worry about staying profitable this year. Also, ten days ago Anheuser-Busch InBev announced that their second quarter profits had grown despite the drop in volume because of cost cutting measures. One has to work through the maze of business doublespeak in these non judgmental articles regarding price increase and increased profitability to understand that cost cutting and "synergies" in these cases refers to job cuts as a result of the InBev takeover of Anheuser-Busch.

If you are the kind of person who likes to buy American and support American jobs, it is getting harder and harder to find an economical beer. Though some of the big brewers still employ Americans.

Ben Franklin Report: The Mark to Market Rule

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As if in direct response to Colbert's challenge to create something, anything to believe in to turn the recession around, the Financial Accounting Standards Board changed the Mark to Market rule. Unfortunately this was actually in response to intense pressure from Congress and the Banks. This lets banks revalue their toxic assets before reporting them on their books. (Which makes me wonder why this was done just after the end of the first quarter.) The banks that took on more risk than they could manage don't just get to value these assets at whatever they want, they get to value these pieces of steaming crap at whatever they think someone would pay if anyone was interested in buying a steaming pile of shit just because someone called it golden.

Of course this looks exactly like what we have been doing so far in relation to this banking fiasco. We looked at the disaster and saw that the people in charge had established a system of perverse incentives that encouraged highly risky acts and called them extremely safe because of a complete lack of regulation. Our response has been to give even more huge shit tons of cash these very same people that fucked us for fun and profit and by removing any other regulation that insists we call a spade a spade. I am finding it harder and harder to resist the urge to call for murderous mobs to converge on Wall Street.

The Wall Street response to the reduction of regulation was obvious. Though, two years ago, if you said that Dow 8,000 would be good news people either would have thought you were crazy or they would have been terrified.

In this article, John Berry tries to criticize the negative reaction to the rule change that I outlined above. But he is comparing apples to oranges when he says,

The family doesn’t have to put up money to cover the difference between the mortgage and the lower market value. Nor should the Atlanta bank have to take a big hit on its reported income because some other mortgage-backed securities owner sold in a depressed market.

He is comparing the effect on banks that have to back their lending by having 10% of that value on their balance sheets. Which of course home owners don't do. And the family that is upside down on their mortgage will have to pay that money on the mortgage that is more than the value of their home just because they bought at the wrong time.

Lots of pundits and apologists for the financial industry keep trying to accuse home owners that face loosing their residence of buying beyond their means. Through this argument they try to push some of the moral culpability for this fiasco on people who only wanted a nice house. They didn't buy above their means, they listened to the market. The market told them what they were worth. It's not their fault the market lied to them because they couldn't have understood the market. Seriously, if huge banks couldn't see this coming when they specialize in finance, then its simply irrational to accuse home buyers of wrongdoing just because the effect of their actions is to further reduce the property value of their neighbors.

Berry does make a legitimate point about the removal of reality in accounting. He asserts that the Atlanta bank he is referring to in the above quote intends to hold on to its mortgage backed securities until they mature. Meaning the bank will be getting all the money from the mortgagees. This is the family in his apples to oranges scenario who has to pay the full value of the mortgage even though the house is worth less. (But hey, at least it still provides the same amount of warmth and shelter. Its just that breakfast nook they added doesn't mean they can afford to send the kids to college.) This means that the banks assets are really worth nearly their full value because the bank will get paid what it originally bargained. So the accounting rule lets them value their assets at what they can reasonably expect to still get paid over 30 years and they can lend out more money to consumers and businesses which increases liquidity and gets the markets moving again and leads to more manufacturing, more jobs, and more spending. Everyone's happy.

Except that just brings us back to where we started last November. No one knows how many mortgages will go into arrears or how many will be devalued through the proposed new bankruptcy rules. The short of it is we don't know if the mortgage backed securities will be worth what they were originally bargained for in 30 years when they run their course. All we do know is that they will be worth less. If not become worthless.

Unintelligible Intelligence

Somewhere, deep in the labyrinthine catacombs that are the U.S. Intelligence Community, someone doing some red force thinking had a sudden, horrible revelation: women who appear pregnant have the perfect cargo carrying capacity that is seemingly above search. Who really wants to grope a pregnant woman to see if she really is with child? Combined with the fact that organizations have used women in the past to serve as suicide bombers, and the threat, perhaps borne of someone's dissatisfaction with their childhood, was solidified, at least in someone's mind. Thus, the word was spread all across the land, pregnant women are a threat and should be treated as hostile. As with most of the warnings since 9/11, this, too, springs forth from the fearmongering tendencies of the mainstream media. The way to be sure of this is the final paragraph of the aforelinked article, italics added for emphasis:

Authorities say there is "no specific, credible intelligence" that says terrorists are planning to use women and suicide bombers to attack, but the warning was sent to agencies across the country in the wake of recent attacks overseas.

There is no factual substance to this claim, and thus should not be regarded as credible. But, before I go into some of the threats as seen by the U.S. intelligence community, here is an article from Fox News' Mike Baker, who tries to crawl into Osama bin Laden's head and do some red force thinking of his own, and ultimately revealing his own prejudices. I can only hope that those who get paid to do this type of analysis work aren't as simplistic and biased. I like the line where he tries to take credit for being the first to use the complexity of snowflakes in a metaphor for unconventional threats.

This same intelligence community has also recently thought, or perhaps hoped, that bin Laden is dead, judging from a lack of temporal context from his last two videos. Also, the organization whose Director for Analysis went before the House Armed Services Committee and, making a political statement, said that Iran still possesses the technological and industrial infrastructure necessary to acquire a nuclear weapon. A community which exports its fearmongering to those who are notionally our allies, in order to adjust foreign policies, the most recent example of this being India. Mike McConnell, who as the National Director of Intelligence serves as the leader for the community, for instance, frames the threat posed by a newly re-invigorated Russia in terms of control over sources of energy. For an example of how the community is acting beyond the boundaries of the United States, one need only remember the extraordinary rendition program, or for a more timely example, the apparent assassination by car bomb of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughnieh in Damascus. Considering his position on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List, it is not hard to imagine the U.S. Intelligence Community having taken an active interest in Mr. Mughnieh's health.


In conclusion, it would appear that the public product is half cocked fear mongering. Thus, Bush admonishing House lawmakers to approve expanded surveillance powers for this intelligence community is fundamentally flawed. Considering that they can't use the tools they already have to produce anything of any value, any expansion of said powers should be laughed out of the Congress. Also, considering the role of intelligence in the run up to the War in Iraq, the new intelligence offered to the IAEA and the international community.

For some additional flavor, mix in a look at how Defense Secretary Robert Gates' long involvement with the U.S. intelligence community and how it is influencing his strategy in the War on Terror and satellite sleuths seeking secrets.

I am suspicious of this story

They claim the government spying on us was terminated due to an irresponsible lack of keeping up with bills.

Tazer News Today

First, from the blog's hometown Madison, comes the revelation that it doesn't pay to be some random guy in the mall the day after Christmas. I'm not sure if this is a case of prank calling gone to one of its most extreme and sadistic extremes, or a case of someone who was overly paranoid. I'm not sure how I would react if the police, seemingly for no reason, showed up in force and tried to get me to go out to the parking lot. He's being charged with resisting police, but it would seem that he should get a medal for resisting the worst form of senseless police brutality.

Second, here is a transcript of Amy Goodwin from Democracy Now interviewing people involved in the fracas in New Orleans. In this case, it would seem that there are two narratives surrounding the police's use of force in this case. If, as some believe, the police were keeping more members of the opposition from getting into City Council's chamber, the use of force represents a gross violation of the principles of a free, democratic society. If, on the other hand, the police were justified after keeping protesters from tearing down the gates around City Hall, then, you're also violating the principles of democracy, at least in a purely philosophical way, in that the force keeps citizens from entering what should be common municipal space. In any event, it would be interesting to see how many times Tasers were deployed during the course of that protest. See the video goodness below for some background and color the way only CNN can provide. "How do you know you were tazed?" That's some great reporting, Rick Sanchez.

"We Tased him to maintain compliance," [Ogden Police Lt. Scott] Conley said.

Sure, the guy who breaks into a school in the middle of the night because he's really drunk and still got a bottle of vodka to burn through probably needs to go to jail to sleep it off if nothing else. But, it takes a special kind of bravery to sic dogs on a drunk guy who you have out numbered, and then tase him when he doesn't immediately jump to your beck and call.

From My Cold, Dead Hands

http://www.channel3000.com/news/14916807/detail.html

If you parents are having such problems raising your children to be non-violent, or at least not criminal members of society, maybe you should try a different tact. Allowing or asking for the government to regulate what your children are exposed to is not going to ameliorate the very influences that you consider worst for your child. Instead, I would recommend that you talk to your kids and find out what they think about the things that you're trying to keep them from. Instead of categorically banning an activity, as that is not likely to work, talk to your kids and then if they have mistaken notions or are confused about something, you can view it as an opportunity to be a good parent and give your children a bit of truth that the schools won't give them.

In regulating ethics, government policy is a poor panacea for the perceived ills of society. If the government had any say into what you do, then the things that are declared illegal would actually not be committed because of the fear of the results or because of the respect an individual holds for the government. Usually, though, the most important consideration into doing something that is considered illegal, is whether or not you will get caught.

Of course, during an election year, it is easy to grab headlines by attacking a small fraction of society that, because of its very nature, does not have any effective organization to meaningfully resist attempts to oppress them for political points. Gamers are, at turns, obnoxious, profane, and passionate, but they are citizens of the country who are not deserving of this discrimination.

Furthermore, I would go so far as to say that this proposed legislation from Sen. Jon Erpenbach is at best misinformed or misguided. I admit that it would be a good idea to move 17 year criminal offenders as the juveniles that they still are, but I think it is rather dubious that a simple tax on video games is going to raise enough money to cover the proposed expenses. Personally, I see this as a problem of definition. In this case, the definition of what is, exactly, a non violent offense. For instance, how much would the cost go down if, instead of holding children for having a small amount of Marijuana, why not confiscate their pot and take them home to their parents? Instead of having the state teach a lesson, why not let the responsibilities of parenting fall upon the parents?

Besides, this tax is just going to pull money out of the state coffers, as people will just go online, to amazon.com and such, and buy their video games without an extra insipid tax.

Its a Brave New World

http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/10/lane.html

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/28/059.html
In our society being bored or socially aukward is now a mental illness deserving of constant expensive medication. Nevermind that medication has side effects like bleeding from the eyes, at least you wont feel embarassed by your bleeding eyes anymore. All this manipulation of meaning is done by the pharmacuitcal companies that dont want to cure disease anymore, they want to create legal narcotics that we have to buy monthly to boost their profit margins and they discovered that its easier to make an inconvenient part of everyday life, for which there is already a drug, into a mental illness than it is to research a cure for AIDS.

At least in the Brave New World there was promiscuity to look foreward to. The really sad thing is that all the distopian futures written about and feared over the last century and a half are coming true. Not (entirely) through the will of an evil dictatorial government, but because its profitable over the short term to hurt other people and the environment which they inhabit.

This is why capitalism has the capicity to destroy itself, why market forces are not a substitute ofr morality, and why business ethics are not ethical.

Commercial Availability of Tasers

Brought to you from the headquarters of Taser International, comes this story of when tasers go bad, yet not in the torturing innocent people kind of way. I can't imagine the look on the guy's face when the perp pulled out a taser. And note the efficacy of a heavy sweatshirt in resisting the barbs.

Free Taser!

There is a free X26 Taser available for whoever picks it up, thanks to the police department of Layfayette, Indiana!

Military Industrial Complex

Despite there being no threat of a nuke from Iran, Bush wishes to rush ahead with the European Missile Shield. Not to mention, it pisses Russia off. Through all this the old media never mentions the miliary industrial complex.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_industrial_complex

10 U.S. Flags not enough to make Romney a Christian

Its really easy to make the argument about tolerance Romney is making when you are in a minority religion, or are being discriminated against like Romney is. I wonder if he, or the conservative evangaliticals he is courting with this speech, would apply the same tolerance to Islam or Rastafarianism, or Wicca. Their behavior in the past does not fill me with confidence.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071206/ap_on_el_pr/romney_religion_21;_ylt=AvNPAFj7ljheBLdNDxDl0MIE1vAI

More Tazing, More Questions

A 20 year old man in Frederick, Maryland died after police deployed a taser and stunned him. Allegedly, he and three other suspects were fighting when police arrived on the scene, and they tasered this guy. As of publication, there is no official cause of death.

So, if you run over a cop's foot, side-swipe a taxi, and then smash into a police cruiser to avoid getting arrested for driving drunk without a license, and then resist the police? That's a tasing, as this Ottawa woman found out.

To be filed in the "WTF" category, is this case which comes to us from Jacksonville, Florida. Allegedly, police had their suspect detained in the car, after zapping him for an undisclosed number of times for an undisclosed duration, and then during the four minutes between when the EMTs left and got the "cardiac red" call from the police officers, the man died. I'll take a shot in the dark here and say that this incident is probably as fishy as it sounds.

Talk about a lousy punchline, a Bradenton, Florida man was tased and arrested for being drunk in a joke store. The real punchline is that this incident is still fishy. For instance, even though officers had restrained the suspect on the ground, they tasered him to invoke cooperation with the handcuffs.