Links: 2013-03-09
News links for 9 March 2013
Sen. Rand Paul: My filibuster was just the beginning – The Washington Post
“I wanted everybody to know that our Constitution is precious and that no American should be killed by a drone without first being charged with a crime. As Americans, we have fought long and hard for the Bill of Rights. The idea that no person shall be held without due process, and that no person shall be held for a capital offense without being indicted, is a founding American principle and a basic right.”
Eugene Robinson: Rand Paul did the right thing with filibuster – The Washington Post
“Hours after Paul finished his filibuster, Holder finally closed that door. “It has come to my attention,” he wrote Paul, “that you have now asked an additional question: ‘Does the president have the authority to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil?’ The answer to that question is no.”
So that’s settled. But the overwhelming majority of drone attacks target foreign nationals in foreign countries, and this is where the moral calculus gets harder.”
How Bears Explain The Stock Market Rally – Business Insider
“With the stock markets surging to all-time highs, Wall Street’s most famous bears have found themselves struggling to explain to their clients why they were told to stay out of stocks.
While each bear’s explanation is different, one thing is consistent: no one admits error.”
How A Fired Republican Staffer Became A Powerful Martyr For Internet Activists | TechCrunch
“Someone in DC thought they had snuffed out an official Republican report on radical intellectual property reform by convincing the authoring agency to erase the document from the Internet and fire the staffer charged with writing it. The shadowy politicking backfired. The young fall-boy, Derek Khanna, instantly became a front-page living martyr against the entertainment and telecommunication lobbies, who have long been villainized for pushing aggressive anti-piracy laws at the expense of innovation.”
McCain and Graham Assail Colleague’s Filibuster Over Drones – NYTimes.com
“Senator Rand Paul’s intention was to highlight his misgivings about how drones are used. He ended up enmeshing his fellow Republicans in a broader debate over national security that scrambled the politics of left and right.
After invoking and being embraced by civil-liberties-minded liberals during a 13-hour filibuster starting Wednesday on the Senate floor, Mr. Paul, of Kentucky, was showered with praise on Thursday by both the Tea Party movement and the provocateurs of the peace group Code Pink. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican minority leader, praised Mr. Paul’s conviction.”
La producción industrial cayó en enero un 3,6% según el INE | Economía | Cinco Días
The year-on-year decline in Spanish industrial production was 7.1% in January 2012 after a corresponding decline of 7.1% in December 2012.
Dow record not necessarily a buy signal | Reuters
“The Dow’s run to record highs in the stock market’s rally this year may not mean it’s time for investors to go on a buying spree.
Instead, many financial advisers are telling clients to go easy, whether they’re just getting back into stocks or seeking to add to equity positions.
Questions over how much higher the market can go have kept caution in play, with some technical indicators suggesting the market is overbought.”
“Italy’s report (142-page PDF) finds that median household net wealth has increased 56% since 1991. And from 2008 to 2010, it increased by about 5% annually, despite the crisis!
But the wealth of German households stagnated during much of that time while they paid taxes out of their noses. And now they might learn that Italy’s median household wealth is €163,875—while Germany’s is closer to Austria’s, around €76,000. Less than half!
“Politically explosive,” sources at the Bundesbank whispered to the FAZ.
These reports show that in some countries, like Italy, where government finances have been in crisis, median household wealth is actually greater than in some financially healthy countries where governments have kept deficits and debts down.”
Roach Says BOJ, Fed Currency Weakening Won’t End in ‘Pretty Way’ – Bloomberg
““Whether it’s the Bank of Japan (8301), the Federal Reserve or even the ECB, the idea that they can engineer economic recovery by quantitative easing that may lead to weaker currencies ultimately is not a story that will end in a pretty way. Currency devaluation as a recipe for economic growth always comes at a cost of taking market share from someone else.””
ECRI Recession Defense Supports Critics – Business Insider
It’s not just that stocks generally decline during a recession but other variables that do not support ECRI’s thesis.
“While I’m at it, a similar likelihood plays out with regard to Nonfarm payrolls, which, according to ECRI, have now risen for 7 straight months into their recession. This length of a continued upturn has only happened exactly 1 time since World War 2 – in 1974. Payrolls turned down at worst only 3 months into each and every other recession.
And initial claims have never continued to decline after the onset of a recession. And vehicle sales have never continued to rise after the onset of a recession. but they made a their most recent high in November.
And the ISM manufacturing index – now over 54 a similarly has only been at this high a level only once in any recession since World War 2 – declining through it in the 1974 recession.
So we either have a recession that is an exception to boatloads of reliable data from other recessions – ECRI’s position. Or else no recession started in July in which case ECRI is wrong for the 4th time in the last year and a half about the onset of recession.
China Inflation Climbs While Other Indicators Soften – WSJ.com
“Compounding the challenges for the government, property sales have been soaring, rising 77.6% from last year’s levels in value terms over the first two months of the 2013, and highlighting the difficulties in keeping the economy growing at a steady pace while avoiding steep rises in prices.
China’s consumer inflation jumped to 3.2% year-on-year in February, up from 2% in January, for the highest increase since April last year. Prices were likely boosted by the Lunar New Year holiday, which often brings a spike in prices for food and other goods.”
McCain vs. Paul: Elevator encounter follows filibuster face-off – latimes.com
Christine Lagarde looks to aid Irish rescue – Telegraph
“Ireland should be given more help to exit its bail-out programme in recognition of the “huge” efforts made by Dublin, the International Monetary Fund’s boss has said.”
Fitch downgrades Italy after election impasse – Telegraph
“The international ratings agency Fitch said on Friday it had downgraded Italy’s sovereign debt rating by one notch to “BBB+” from “A-” and added that the outlook was negative.”
ECB should cut rates, allow higher inflation: Lagarde | Reuters
“The euro zone may need higher inflation in countries like Germany and lower interest rates across the bloc to ensure a sustained economic recovery brings palpable benefits, the head of the IMF said on Friday.”
Econbrowser: ECRI’s Lakshman Achuthan: U.S. recession began around the middle of last year
“Obviously, all of these series will be revised, so one wouldn’t want to state definitively we are not in a recession – therein lies the path to embarrassment. But the case still has to be made for recession.
(Of course, with the sequester in place, I certainly wouldn’t bet against negative growth for a quarter or perhaps even more, going forward!)”
Mexico’s Central Bank Slashes Rates, Ending Years of Inaction – Real Time Economics – WSJ
“In one of the Bank of Mexico‘s policy decisions that has generated the most expectations in recent times, the central bank cut the overnight lending rate by a half-percentage point to 4%, its first shift in the rate since July 2009. The bank made it clear it was a one-time cut and not the start of an easing cycle.”
SwiftKey Keyboard (for Android) Review & Rating | PCMag.com
“Despite the ubiquity of touchscreen keyboards, no one has figured out how to make tapping words on glass a pleasurable experience. But the Android app SwiftKey ($3.99) comes close. While iOS users are stuck with the stock keyboard, SwiftKey takes full advantage of Android’s openness and swaps out your mobile device’s existing keyboard for one that’s better designed for thumb-typing and makes smart predictions about what you’ll write next.
While it won’t replace a traditional keyboard for accuracy and speed on long documents, SwiftKey’s Flow input—a new feature, similar to Swype—makes firing off quick messages a breeze, and its smart suggestions get better the more you use the app.”
Another step towards an East-West trade war – Telegraph Blogs
“As you may have seen, Chinese exports surged 22pc in February. Imports fell 15pc.
This is exactly what pessimists feared. For all the talk of a great shift by China away from export-led growth to internal demand, the reality is that the Politburo is still propping up the same old system, still shovelling subsidies to loss-making firms and state behemoths to keeps factories open.”
Mike Norman Economics: The dollar has NOT gone down since the 1970s.
“The dollar may have gone down against the major currencies, but when viewed against a broad basket of currencies, it didn’t go down, it went up.
The statement that the dollar went down after we went off the gold standard is commonly put out there, but it is wrong.
Here’s the link to the Fed data for anyone that’s interested.”
Comments are closed.