Ted Cruz the Idiot does it Again: Stabs GOP In the Back and Attempted to Roil Financial Markets

I think it is high time for the GOP to censure this ignoramus.

Cruz's insistence on getting 60 votes prevented the bill from being passed with a simple majority in the 100-member Senate. Had he not objected, the 53 Democrats and two independents who align themselves with Democrats could have done it by themselves without forcing any Republicans — particularly those up for re-election this year — to cast politically painful votes.

But now the filibuster vote was on. And the only way to know where the tally stood was to sit in the Senate chamber and track the vote of every senator, typically made with just a hand gesture.

It's a challenging task for even the most accomplished Senate watcher to perfect.

Nervous Wall Street traders and other interested observers were out of luck as the voted dragged on for more than an hour.

Financial markets floated softly southward as suspense built.

Yes, Ted Cruz pretty much hung his fellow Republicans out to dry so they had to vote with the Democrats to break his stupid filibuster. If this vote collapsed we might have seen a default and an 800 point down day. I'm glad McConnell and 6 other Republicans actually stood up to Cruz the bully and put their political futures at risk for the sake of the market and the country. 

I think I might give money to McConnell's campaign so he can smash the face of whatever stupid Tea Party boot-licker he is running against. In any case I am now officially anti-Tea Party. Cruz the Idiot has actually changed me from pro-Tea Party (who attended the first Hawaii Tea Party group) to thinking that the Tea Party is a menace and needs to be censured and driven out of office. 

I would sign any petition to recall Ted Cruz and any fellow Tea Partier and replace them with Republicans that will actually watch out for my 401K. This is one of the few times I had Koch Brothers billions so I can funnel money into pro-business candidates that will drive these fools out of office and into the dust bin of history.

Economists Make the Case for Minimum Wage Hike Very Convincing

It seems that Obama's $10.10 minimum wage for contractors might be the right amount the economists agree on raising it to.

So where to set the wage floor? Whether he arrived there by logic, intuition, or dumb luck, there’s a defensible case that the sweet spot is in the neighborhood of Obama’s suggested $10.10 an hour. The Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found in a survey last year of leading economists that 47 percent felt the good effects of a $9 minimum wage—the figure on the table at the time—would outweigh any bad ones. Only 11 percent disagreed. Last month seven Nobel prize-winning economists and four former presidents of the American Economic Association, along with more than 600 other economists, signed a letter to Congress urging passage of the $10.10 floor. “At a time when persistent high unemployment is putting enormous downward pressure on wages,” the letter said, “such a minimum-wage increase would provide a much-needed boost to the earnings of low-wage workers.”

I feel that giving millions of people a $3 extra per hour raise will help GDP growth. That equates to $120 a week extra in peoples pay packets and that means a car payment, more restaurant meals, or simply more money in the bank.

The gains come out of Wal-mart and McDonalds bottom lines but I'm sure people at those companies can cut costs or raise prices to offset this amount. I mean if Wal-mart hikes prices to offset wage increases I'm sure Amazon will be happy to pick up the market share that is left behind. I mean with $120 extra a month more people can afford Amazon Prime.

Some retailers will be hurt by wage hikes but more people with more money in their pockets is normally a good thing. It will reduce the need for government hand-outs and might just empower more people to contribute to economic growth. I always think people are better able to figure out what to do with their cash than the government or any corporation usually does.

House Financial Services Committee Member Admits She Doesn't Understand what FED Chairmen were talking about?

I guess you don't need any actual financial services experience in order to get this job.

The Fed chair drew praise for her direct responses. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said she'd been able to understand more of Yellen's answers than she had the responses of Bernanke or Greenspan.

At times, Yellen was blunt. Asked what impact a failure to raise the federal debt limit would have, she said, "Frankly, it would be catastrophic to not raise the debt limit."

Oh wow, Shelly Moore Capito needs to be put into a different committee ASAP. She admits that she didn't understand the responses that Greenspan and Bernanke gave her? But she is ruling on things important to the entire world economy and doesn't understand what the FED chair is saying/

In fact she seems she is more trained for the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee according to her bio.

Capito graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science in zoology and holds a Master of Education from the University of Virginia.

I'm sure she was a great teacher/zoologist but I figure she needs at least a little financial experience to be part of the Financial Services Committee. Hopefully, she took a few economic courses between zoology classes. 

Also whoever asked Yellen that idiotic question about the debt limit needs to lose their Committee membership as well. That is just asinine and is so very Ted Cruz-ish and that person should be ostracized.

New York State Clamps Down on Bitcoin: Are the Good Times Over?

Well whenever regulators get their hands on something you can pretty much back up the truck because they will regulate it to death.

Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, expects to adopt consumer disclosure rules, capital requirements and a framework for permissible investments with consumer money.

"Our objective is to provide appropriate guard rails to protect consumers and root out money laundering without stifling beneficial innovation," Lawsky said in a speech at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Lawsky said last month that his agency plans to issue rules for businesses handling virtual currencies, including a "BitLicense", which could make New York the first U.S. state to regulate virtual currencies such as bitcoins.

In other words Wall Street types want to get in on Bitcoin trading but they cannot when Mt. Gox and Slovenia-based Bitstamp (now that sounds shady if I ever heard of it) are controlling trade in it. This would be interesting to see how the value changes after this. My guess is it will drop as fees and automated trading take a bite out of actual supply and demand metrics. Oh well it was an interesting experiment.

The Era of Debt Ceiling Brinksmanship is Over: The GOP Offer Condition-Free Bill

I guess holding the world economy hostage every few months is no longer a tactic of the GOP.

House Speaker John Boehner said he will now seek to pass a clean debt ceiling hike with help from most Democrats in the chamber, admitting it was "disappointing" that the party leadership did not have the votes to pass the measure with an attached provision reworking military pension benefits.

I hope this is the start of the understanding that Congress needs to work together in order to get anything done. They can't continually govern by brinksmanship and threats. Now Boehner work on tax reform and cut capital gains taxes for people making under $250k a year.

Daenerys Targaryen AKA Emilia Clarke voted Most Desirable

I have to agree but I wonder if she threatened to sic her dragons on the Askmen.com staffers if they didn't vote her into the top spot.

Clarke, 26, has clearly captured the hearts of viewers with her ethereal beauty and outstanding performance as Daenerys Targaryen. The "Mother of Dragons" has evolved from a shrinking violet into a fierce leader, a champion of the weak and a warrior, and the strength of her character is inspiring. The actress is also a charmer who knows how to work her assets, not least of which are her, um, eyebrows? Two other "Game of Thrones" actresses, Oona Chaplin and Rose Leslie, also made the list this year. The promos for the fourth season have been giving us chills, so we understand why folks have these beguiling ladies on the brain.

She is such a natural beauty as well.

Movie Review: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit: Avoid It

Well I recently saw this movie and I was kind of wishing it was as good a reboot as The Bourne Legacy was for that franchise. This movie was very forgettable but had some decent action scenes but is not even close to the 90s Jack Ryan movies. The plot was ludicrous to the point of laughablity and the acting was subpar for the most part. I kind of wished I saw something else or even saw Lone Survivor again.

The movie starts off as Jack Ryan is studying economics at the London School of Economics. He sees a news program about 9/11 and off he goes into the Marines. He gets shot down in a pretty exciting scene and we are told that he saves the people on his doomed helicopter. It would have nice to see the actual heroics but I guess it would have been too Lone Survivor-ish.

He then goes to Walter Reed Hospital to mend his broken back. While there he meets Keira Knightley who plays a nursing student at the hospital. He shows how much he likes her but the two actors don't have boffo chemistry like other movie parings like Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. It isn't the worst I have seen (Attack of the Clones ugh) but the romance brought nothing to the movie.

We then go on to meet Kevin Costner who is a pale shadow of the character that James Earl Jones played in the other Jack Ryan movies of the 90s. I think it is all the smirking and dead-pan voice but I guess I am just not a Costner fan. I think the only movies I have seen him (that I remember) were JFK and Man of Steel. He was okay in them but he didn't bring anything special to those roles or this one either. He just seems like a mirth-less asshole in any movie he is in.

One thing I was thinking was I wonder if people will get confused between this movie and Three Days to Kill. It is Kevin Costner playing a spy and things blow up. This one is about the same sort of idea but Chris Pine is the guy that makes things blow up. I was thinking Three Days to Kill is the Liam Neeson movie that might make Costner into the 50-something bad-ass that kills a bunch of people and saves his daughter/wife/family pet. However, Neeson is likeable and you want him to rescue his daughter. If Costner is shot in the first 3 minutes of the movie I wouldn't have minded.

In any case Ryan is sent to Russia and matches wits with Kenneth Branagh who plays a Russian oligarch/gangster. He pretty much hams it up with a terrible Russian accent and does things like shoots his own lackeys when they talk trash to him. There are about a 100 different bad-guys that would have been more intimidating than Branagh was in this role. I think we are spoiled with villains like Moriarty (Andrew Scott) from Sherlock or Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) from Game of Thrones. Those villains would eat Viktor Cherevin (I didn't even remember his name and had to look it up on IMDB) as an appetizer.

In any case Branagh has some cock-a-Mame plan to "crash the worlds debt markets" using a terrorist attack on Wall Street. So we have to go through a tiresome procedural to catch the villain.  In the course of it we have a Mission Impossible-style break in that was so tech-poor I laughed out-loud. Jack Ryan hacks Branagh's laptop and we have this scene of Ryan trying to download a bunch of files to a thumbdrive that he waits to insert until the last possible moment. Um, if you are going to be downloading a bunch of files from the office of the scary Russian mobster maybe you should connect your USB device first?

In any case the plan to "crash the US treasury market" was so stupid that I had to laugh again. Even if Wall Street was leveled using some strange explosive underground, or something, the markets would be immediately closed. Selling billions of dollars of treasuries all at once (the Russian badguys plans) would trigger curbs immediately. Even if those trades were triggered the SEC would probably notice that some Russian company was dumping treasuries to profit from a terrorist attack and reverse those trades. The whole exercise would have caused a plunge but it would not have "crashed the US markets" for longer than a few months.

In any case I have said too much about this poor movie then needed to be said. It was lame-brained and the plot was a mess from the scene where the villains son waits until the last moment to steal and paint a truck (he couldn't have just bought the thing months ago?) to the villains finding the CIA safe house in record time. However, it was interesting to find out that the KGB used to break a light bulb in a persons mouth as a torture technique. I'm sure Vladimir Putin approves of such measures and smiled as if recalling good times.

Flappy Bird is taken offline: Could Nintendo Leaning on the Developer Been the True Reason?

I didn't play Flappy Bird but I did see a few screen shots and the pipes looked very Mario-esque.

In the days leading up to the takedown, Dong seemed to blame his increasing stress level largely on the press and a constant stream of media requests, tweeting to a Newsweek reporter:

“Hi Joe, I think press should give my game some peace. Its success is really overrate! I’m sorry, I refuse to answer questions.”


However, two of Dong’s friends told Reuters that he had received a warning letter from Nintendo — the ubiquitous pipes in Flappy Bird and other art appears to be lifted without any modification from the company’s Super Mario games.  Nintendo refused to confirm or comment on the letter to Reuters.

Too bad the creator Dong Nguyen didn't use different types of pipes or wooden blocks or something else as obstacles for the bird to fly through. The game seems super addicting and this guy could have made millions. However, Nintendo had to flex its mighty arms and squash him before the big money started to flow.

Maybe Dong will create a different version of the game with different obstacles. Maybe trees or roots or something. They could even change the obstacles as you get further into the game. It will give the game some variety and keep Nintendo off his back. Call if Flappy Bird 2: Escape from Nintendo's Legal Department.

Bitcoin Drops Dramatically After Mt. Gox Stops Trading

I hope you aren't holding all your assets in Bitcoin because you would be hurting about now.

On the Mt. Gox platform the currency plunged to as low as $500 early on Monday, down more than 27 percent from Friday's final price of $692, according to the Mt. Gox website. It last traded at $595.74, off nearly 14 percent from Friday.

"This technical issue is of a much larger intensity than we've seen in the past," said Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale in New York. "The market may be realizing that there are issues which are specific to these forms of currencies."

One of the "issues" is that Bitcoin isn't as liquid as nearly any other kind of currency. I guess this would be akin to a 27% drop caused by the London Metals Exchange suddenly stopped trading in bullion or something "indefinitely." I'm sure other exchanges would pick up the slack but liquidity will leave the market.

I think the key to Bitcoin's future is that it needs to trade on an actual FOREX exchange so that something called Mt. Gox (sounds like an anime location) doesn't crash the currency when they shut down their servers.

Is the Bloom Off of the Social Networking Rose?

It seems that way as Twitter disclosed how growth is slowing.

But Twitter's slowing growth has obviously spooked investors. The company said its active user base reached 241 million at the end of the fourth quarter, up only 4% from the previous quarter. That’s the slowest quarterly rate of increase Twitter has disclosed and less than half the rate of a year ago. Just in the United States, active users increased less than 2% to 54 million, one-third the growth rate of a year ago.

Facebook has also seen its quarterly growth in usership tail off.  Overall monthly active users increased just 3% in the fourth quarter from three months earlier and U.S. usership grew only 1%. A recent Pew Research report also found that only 10% of Facebook users update their status daily.

I think they are pretty close to critical mass as this article points out that 73% of adults are using some form of social networking. I think that is pretty close to saturation. You add to the fact that people seem to be leaving social networks slowly but surely and those companies need to reinvent themselves to keep up their valuations.

Chicago Officials Put an Anti-Gun Sign on Buildings: It Shows Spree Killers Where No One Will Shoot Back

Well it seems Chicago officials are up in arms out over signs depicting a "no guns allowed" sign.

Some school officials aren’t happy about the stickers because they contain a very basic image of a gun.

“It is bothersome to have to post a sticker of a gun that says, ‘Hey, folks, leave your guns at home,’” Theresa Nolan, principal of Tinley Park High School, told the SouthtownStar.

Nolan stressed that she is very concerned with “safety and security” and concerned that, somehow, someone could wrongly interpret an image of a gun emblazoned with the universal sign for prohibiting something.

“I think the general public will be alarmed by it and wonder if people have been allowed to bring guns to school in the past,” Nolan also fretted.

She said she would prefer “something more subtle.”

“You can’t look at this (sticker) and not think about Sandy Hook,” the principal added.

Well the next Adam Lanza can now look for the no guns allowed sign and know that security guards or teachers with concealed carry will not shoot back.

Yet Another Problem with Sochi: Hackers They Be Hacking Everything in Sight

Well, I hope our Olympic Team and spectators don't have anything interesting on their smart phone, laptop or tablet because it seems they will lose it within minutes of logging into any free Internet.

To illustrate his point, Mr. Engel brought two new laptops to Sochi. With the help of an American security expert, he uploaded a fake identity and fake contact list onto the computers—both were hacked within the day. "It had taken hackers less than one minute to pounce," he said, "Within 24 hours, they'd broken into both computers and started helping themselves to my data."

Mr. Engel also conducted an experiment wherein he took a new smartphone to a restaurant, and started browsing the Internet for Olympics news. "Malicious software hijacked our phone before we even finished our coffee, stealing my information, and giving hackers the option to tap and record my phone calls." he said.

Wow now that must be a record for someone to steal your data. I love this "way to protect yourself" as well.

Mr. Engel concludes by describing the cybersecurity environment as a "minefield," and suggests that the best way to protect your data is to leave your devices at home.

In other words unplug from the digital world for a few weeks just so you can watch Shawn White to a 720 mctwist or whatever. Um sorry the Putin Games will be a big fat disaster and depending on what those hackers do it might be much worse.

It Seems the Hotels Are Not Ready in Sochi

I guess if you like yellow water and wi-fi routers dangling from the ceiling then Sochi is the kind of place for you. I guess $51 billion doesn't buy you what it used to:

Sochi officials say that the city's hotels are 97% complete on the eve of the Olympics.

But given the nightmare travel stories rolling in from reporters in Sochi, that 3% difference goes a long, long way.

There are reports of rooms without light bulbs or doorknobs. There are stories about unfinished hotels without lobbies or working elevators or running water. There are anecdotes from people who've checked into their rooms, only to find them occupied by stray dogs or construction workers napping in between shifts.

The venues and Olympic Village all look perfectly fine, and we haven't seen any complaints from athletes. But the hotels, specifically media hotels, aren't finished yet and it's a total mess.

The worst part is that these media dorks have access to Twitter and are going to slag the crap out of the Olympics and Russia whenever they get a chance. They have long days ahead and if they come home to a room full of stray dogs or have to use yellow water to shower with then it will be a long Olympics indeed.

Sony to Sell the Viao Line in Japan and Potentially Shutter the Brand the US

Well, it seems that the Viao PC is yet another casualty of the long slow Death of the PC.

Sony Corp is in talks with investment fund Japan Industrial Partners to sell its loss-making Vaio personal computer division, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

A new company would be set up by Japan Industrial Partners to take over the Vaio brand's operations in Japan, according to the plan under consideration, the source said. Financial details and stakeholdings in the new entity were still being discussed.

Sony is also considering a withdrawal from overseas PC markets, the source added.

No sense chasing after the shrinking market share of slowly dying dinosaurs like Dell and HP.  I'm not sure about the Japanese PC market but you figure an investment fund can keep them in offices for some time. I think the Japanese salaryman would rather do his daily work on a PC rather than a smartphone or tablet for the time being.

Now Dems Joining the Fight To Approve Keystone XL

I guess the coalition of the obstructionist environmentalists are starting to fray at the seams.

Five Democrats joined Republicans at a Capitol news conference to urge President Barack Obama to approve the pipeline following a State Department report last week that raised no major environmental objections. The $7 billion pipeline would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. The project has lingered for more than five years and has become a symbol of the political debate over climate change.

What is hilarious about the Hollywood types against the pipeline is this fact.

Foes say the pipeline would carry "dirty oil" that contributes to global warming. The State Department report says oil derived from tar sands in Alberta generates about 17 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional crude. But the report makes clear that other methods of transporting the oil — including rail, trucks and barges — would release more greenhouse gases than the pipeline.

Those methods are also more likely to cause spills than an pipeline. There have been several rail disasters already in Canada trying to ship that oil out to the coast. I mean Canada is not going to stop drilling for this "dirty oil" anytime soon and will find a way to get it to a refinery.

It Seems Obamacare is a Jobs Killer After All: A Little Late CBO

Well it seems the CBO revised their estimates and Obamacare is looking even worse than a bad website.

CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive. 

The reduction in the numbers of hours worked projected by the CBO will lead to the equivalent of 2 million fewer workers in the labor force in 2017. That number will rise to about 2.5 million in 2024. Previously, the CBO had estimated the equivalent of 800,000 fewer workers by 2021.

Just when the economy was picking up it seems that Obamacare will shave 2 million more workers from the workforce by 2017. Obamacare is the failed government program that keeps on giving.

With Bridgegate Destroying Christie's Presidential Chances; Paul Ryan Moves Forward: I'd Vote For Him

Well it seems that Paul Ryan is moving into the lead in Presidential contenders for 2016.

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Ryan for now is the top choice of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents for the 2016  nomination with 20 percent --  followed by former Florida governor Jeb Bush with 18 percent and Christie 13 percent.

A trio of automatic losers to Hillary trail the pack:

Three freshmen GOP senators with strong Tea Party backing – Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida -- bring up the rear among the potential Republican contenders. They scored 12 percent, 11 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

I'm sorry Hillary would trounce these guys but would have the fight of her life against Paul Ryan. He is burnishing his bi-partisan bona fides and looks like the "adult in the room" more and more. He also seems young and dynamic and not a plutocrat like Romney. Even Hillary looks long in the tooth compared to Ryan.

Maybe the Rich Won't Get Eaten. I Agree with this "Nothing to Worry About" Assessment

Yeah I think America or the world is just not set up for another Bolshevik/French Revolution no matter how large the wealth gap becomes.

There certainly is precedent for too much wealth concentrated in too few hands leading to revolutionary change. Yet those changes usually required a dramatic triggering event, which hasn’t happened in modern times. “I don’t think we’re all that close to a tipping point yet,” says Joseph Thorndike, a historian with Tax Analysts who also teaches tax policy at Northwestern University Law School. “It really takes a crisis to make something happen.” Some may think the 2008 financial meltdown qualified as a crisis, but that was tame by historical standards.

The French revolution was caused by massive debt and a financial crisis due to the Seven Years War and helping us with our Revolution. There was also famine, drought, and harsh winters which made food prices much higher then they were normally. That second thing might happen but there is just so much more food being grown than there are people to eat it. People's waistlines attest to that fact.

While the Bolshevik Revolution was due to massive death and destruction caused by Russia fighting in WWI. If Russia stayed neutral during WWI there might have been a chance that the Romanovs would have survived until today.

So in both of these cases we had an economic crisis caused by large and costly wars. That sort of thing will probably never happen again in the next 50 years. The only belligerent powers that are large enough to cause massive disruption would be North Korea vs. South Korea/USA, China vs. Japan/USA or India vs. Pakistan. Any other wars like Syria are regional problems and would not cause that sort of destruction that would bring on a revolution. Even the USA dabbling in Iran and Afghanistan was fairly affordable compared to WWI or the Seven Years War.

Eat the Rich? It Seems the 1% Are Starting to Fear Just That

Way back when the Occupy Movement first started I had a fear that they would morph into something like the rich are fearing in this article.

President Barack Obama and the Democrats have pivoted to income inequality ahead of the midterm elections. Pope Francis has strongly warned against the dangers of wealth concentration. And all of this follows the rise of the Occupy movement in 2011 and a bout of bank-bashing populism in the tea party.

The collective result, according to one member of the 1 percent, is a fear that the rich are in deep, deep trouble. Maybe not today but soon.

“You have a bunch of people who see conspiracies everywhere and believe that this inequality issue will quickly turn into serious class warfare,” said this person, who asked not to be identified by name so as not to anger any wealthy friends. “They don’t believe inequality is bad and believe the only way to deal with it is to allow entrepreneurs to have even fewer shackles.”

Okay maybe they have their fear in the right place. Think about a bunch of 20-somethings that have been sold a bill of goods by their parents that college is the ticket to a good job. They have now graduated with no job in sight and they are fearing that their future has been stolen by the 1% percent and their mortgage crisis.

The banksters and the bling-bling crowd were all bailed out but the the middle class and the poor paid the bill for the Great Recession. These 20-somethings are mired in student loan debt and no possibility to pay it back in 20 years or more. Maybe they feel helpless and taken advantage of and will lash out violently against the 1% who he perceives as the cause of his problems.

Maybe that 20-something might throw a brick through the window of a Mercedes or punch a rich guy in the face a la "the knockout game?" The "Knock out the Monopoly Guy" game per se. They won't steal the guy's wallet but just commit violence for violence's sake. There might be a very thin line between someone breaking the window at the Gucci store to a Wall Street guy being pushed onto a subway track simply for wearing a $2k suit. After all the French Revolution started in part because of extreme income inequality. The rich and the powerful were murdered because too many people were starving and blamed the rich for what was happening. Hmm, maybe some bodyguards will not go astray if you are part of this 1%.

Hey we Grew 3.2% in the 4th Quarter. The US is looking up!

Despite all the gloom and doom it looks like the recovery is moving apace.

Strong household spending and robust exports kept the U.S. economy on solid ground in the fourth quarter, but stagnant wages could chip away some of the momentum in early 2014.

Gross domestic product grew at a 3.2 percent annual rate in the final three months of last year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, in line with economists' expectations.

Wait until we start exporting natural gas and oil to China and hopefully building new power plants and manufacturing. I think salad days are ahead for the US economy.