Naked Capitalism link of the day

My favorite link for today is Darrell Issa makes life difficult for Obama in the New Yorker.  As is mentioned on the links, it is a must-read, even though it starts out slow.  Auto theft and suspicion of arson make it pretty interesting.

Now I know

So Crate and Barrel is a store and Croft and Barrow is merchandise?  Learn something new every day.

Update: you must take into account that I thought Abercrombie & Fitch was an accounting firm.

Now that is funny

I was standing beside my grandma's brother-in-law at grandma's viewing.  After his brother went through the line, he said to me, "That's my brother.  I may be high-strung, but he's well-hung." I'm still laughing about that.  I also angered my grandpa by saying that America's favorite half-term governor is a moron.

Fallout from the Great Recession

Ezra Klein:

From the inbox:

Some of my work is as a primary doctor at a VA primary care clinic in Southeast Michigan. We are totally overwhelmed right now with people who lost their insurance from auto-related layoffs and are using VA eligibility for the first time. It is totally awful. Think about the job prospects for a high-school educated 50-year-old with 32 years experience with one employer welding a single auto part near Detroit.
These are good people who lived and taught their kids with a perspective on life -- work hard and stay out of trouble to earn a middle class life -- that is now totally wrong. They're essentially unemployable here but sure aren't going to leave friends and family for a job at a Panera in Arizona. I suppose that's the nature of technology and change, but it's pretty brutal in this neighborhood.

Where global warming meets agriculture

Discussion of unusual weather affecting crop production:

Analysts attribute the rise in grain prices to growing demand in both developed and developing nations, along with a number of cataclysmic weather-related events and speculation by investors. An extreme drought and fierce fires last summer destroyed a large percentage of the wheat crop in Russia and Ukraine, while heavy flooding in India and the inundation of 20% of Pakistan damaged significant parts of the grain output of those countries. At the same time, unusually hot and dry weather suppressed production in a number of other key farming areas.
What makes the picture look so worrisome today are indications that the severity and frequency of extreme weather events appear to be on the rise. In the past few weeks alone, several such events point the way to serious supply problems ahead. Most significant has been the unprecedented rainfall and flooding in Australia that put an area more than twice the size of California largely underwater, significantly disrupting wheat cultivation there. Australia is one of the world’s leading wheat producers. Unusually dry conditions in the American Midwest and Argentina have also hinted at future problems in grain and corn output. It’s still too early to predict the size of this year’s grain and corn harvests, but many analysts are warning of a shortfall in supplies, along with sky-high prices.

Where prices are right now, I really want to sell as much as I can.  My fear is that we'll have a terrible drought, I'll have sold more than what I've grown, and prices will be 4 times higher than what I sold for.  But mass starvation is probably even worse than what problems I'd be facing.  Damn you, El Nino and La Nina.

Thanks GE

From this story raising doubt about the likelihood of job growth in the US:

Substantial changes in free trade agreements and the tax codes since the 1980s have incentivized companies to export jobs overseas. And the outsourcing trend is still alive and well. Howard Rosen, a labor economist at the Peterson Institute observed “US companies are investing in plants and equipment, just not in our borders…They are privatizing the gains of globalization.” US companies are “returning the spoils of globalization and technology” to new projects overseas. Another more recent case in point:

Recently, [mid 2009] ATI [an Indiana company} made $30 million worth of investments to buy, convert, and modernize a shuttered factory in economically ravaged Michigan so the company could provide more [wind-turbine] parts to GE as the green economy expands with federal stimulus funding. But a Chinese firm underbid ATI, and the factory faced having to lay off 302 union workers and shutter the plant. In an aggressive bid to keep the factory open, ATI offered to match the price of the Chinese producers. GE once again said they would prefer to buy from China. The ATI plant is now closed, the jobs gone.

That's good to know.

Pro Bowl

Why have an all-star game, but not have any players from two of the best teams in the league?

In Constant Sorrow

Abuse of English in a place other than this Blog

As seen in a fundraiser announcement, 3rd Annual Inaugural "All-You-Can-Eat" Pancake Breakfast.

Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

The website Naked Capitalism carries a post each day providing interesting links in Science, Politics and Economics. I find them worthwhile to check every day, and will post my favorite. Today's favorite is The Tea Party Wags the Dog, by Frank Rich of the NYT. My favorite part:

For all the Republican male establishment’s harrumphing, it couldn’t derail her plan to hijack the party’s designated State of the Union response with one of her own. More Katherine Harris than Sarah Palin, Bachmann is far more riveting television bait than Paul Ryan, the bland congressman officially assigned the Bobby Jindal memorial slot after the New Jersey governor Chris Christie was savvy enough to take a pass. The G.O.P. grandees’ consternation was palpable. Earlier in the day Bachmann had dispatched an e-mail announcing that her speech would be carried live by Fox News. But when the time came, Fox relegated the live feed to its Web site, forcing viewers to scurry to CNN, of all places, and delaying its own television recap until after prime time in the East. Rupert Murdoch’s other major organ, The Wall Street Journal, toed the same line, burying Bachmann’s speech in a half-sentence in its print edition the next morning. By then, John Boehner, seconding the disdain of Eric Cantor, was telling reporters that he hadn’t watched Bachmann because of “other obligations.”

Maybe they tried to ignore her because they know she is crazy?