by rifek
Mon May 4th, 2026 at 06:39:30 PM EST
So the Tangerine Latrine (TL) has announced Project Freedom, assigning US Navy ships to escort shipping through the Strait. One might hope there was an actual plan here, but for the Epsteinth time we are being graced with something TL pulled directly out of his ass during yet another all night Twitter on the Shitter fest.
by rifek
Sat Apr 18th, 2026 at 10:43:37 PM EST
No, that is not an oxymoron. Close, but not quite. But things have definitely declined in the last several months.
by rifek
Fri Apr 17th, 2026 at 03:46:58 PM EST
So there's a ceasefire in Lebanon. Everyone praise Deity for a few seconds, then let's look at reality.
by rifek
Tue Apr 7th, 2026 at 04:43:59 AM EST
So The Tangerine Latrine decided to prove yet again that he a great, great Christian, the best Christian, by using Easter morning to threaten Iran with war crimes. Does he mean it?
by rifek
Wed Apr 1st, 2026 at 04:15:46 PM EST
In J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, the intrepid band of dwarves and their burglar hobbit are captured by a trio of trolls who then start discussing how best to prepare and eat them. The wizard Gandalf sneaks up unseen and by mimicking their voices gets them to start arguing and continue to do so until the Sun rises, and they turn to stone. The Spanish lab in today's diary would have done well to have learned from this tale that prolonged discussions rarely lead to any good.
by rifek
Mon Mar 30th, 2026 at 07:40:32 PM EST
Well, I might actually start posting here again, but first I'd like to clarify a couple of points from the Global Financial Crisis Wars of the good old days 15+ years ago:
by rifek
Tue Feb 24th, 2026 at 05:01:41 AM EST
Frank, are you still with us? The Republic kicks Imperialist arse, and we get crickets?
by rifek
Sat Mar 5th, 2022 at 07:51:26 PM EST
...courtesy Hozier and RTÉ One.
The Parting Glass
by rifek
Mon Jun 27th, 2016 at 05:20:33 AM EST
As I commented elsewhere, Labour will fracture because it just can't help itself. And here we go.
Frontpaged - Frank Schnittger
by rifek
Thu Jul 16th, 2015 at 04:02:19 PM EST
As has been apparent in the Greek fiasco, figuring out what the US government is going to do can be like sorting out the Gordian Knot. I'm not going to offer solutions to this problem, because there aren't any, but I have found these guidelines helpful
by rifek
Mon Jan 5th, 2015 at 04:13:22 AM EST
I have finally gotten around to reading the Autumn Statement from the UK's Office of Budget Responsibility. You can download the whole smash here, but for brevity's sake, I'll stick to the Overview and Executive Summary. I'll say up front that the Statement is a tour de force of alternately covering and kissing butt, but I believe the real importance of the Statement is the insight it provides to the "reality" the OBR is expected to manufacture to support the Coalition Government's policies.
by rifek
Tue Feb 4th, 2014 at 10:06:37 PM EST
I was originally going to post this as a comment over on ARGeezer's "Does the US even have a viable Plan A for HS education?", but it got really long, so I figured I'd better do a diary.
No, the US does not have a Plan A. My parents are retired teachers, and I've taught at all levels, so I have some idea.
by rifek
Sun Aug 4th, 2013 at 01:35:50 AM EST
...or, Typical Austro-Chicago Logic.
This is cross-posted from a discussion at Credit Slips and is also at my blogs The Business Law Spot and The Real Estate Spot.
Omri Ben-Shahar of the University of Chicago Law School has fired the latest round in the US class wars in a paper alleging that clauses in consumer sales contracts mandating arbitration (usually in a distant jurisdiction) and barring class action suits are good for consumers because litigation costs are actually regressive taxes that are passed along to consumers whether the consumers reap any benefits or not. Looks like more of the Austro-Chicago rubbish that got us into this mess.
by rifek
Sun Sep 2nd, 2012 at 04:26:28 PM EST
Over at Credit Slips, we've started a new discussion concerning a new article in New York Times Magazine about the status of the Euro crisis. I of course chime in with my own comments.
by rifek
Sun Mar 11th, 2012 at 11:39:53 PM EST
No, not as far as being able to predict what's going to happen, just in figuring out what's happening. Over at Credit Slips and London Banker, we're discussing different aspects of the Greek default, and we may have stumbled upon a couple of insights.
by rifek
Thu Jan 19th, 2012 at 02:40:42 PM EST
There is a lot of shifting going on in major, US Chapter 11 bankruptcies. Cross-posting this from both my blogs for the edification of all.
by rifek
Wed Oct 19th, 2011 at 03:51:27 PM EST
I just posted this on both my blogs:
Adam Levitin posted a great piece on Credit Slips ripping on proposed "solutions" for the financial crisis (And yes, kiddies, regardless of the pablum they're shoveling your way, we're still in a crisis.). Basically, he compares these proposals to prescribing an aspirin to someone with a knife in his chest and then giving the aspirin to the attacker. First comment out of the box blames the mess on those evil, nasty borrowers. To quote the Interweb meme, "Don't know if trolling or just stupid." Probably a shill, actually. Anyway, I and a few others declared a free-fire zone. Enjoy.
The triggering comment from Dennis Chow and my response follow.
by rifek
Tue Jul 12th, 2011 at 07:36:34 PM EST
Cross-posted from my blog.
To preface, for those of you who may think I was late to the bubble prediction bandwagon, I suggest you look here and see that I was predicting the train wreck in December 2005. Beat that, Nouriel Roubini.
We know that the overwhelming majority of opinion makers in the US are just sock puppets for the Financial Overlords. Ditto for our supposed intellectuals. They don't need to rub our noses in it. But along comes Roger Lowenstein in Bloomberg Businessweek to "explain" why there have been effectively no prosecutions resulting from the collapse. It's because, simpletons, there were no crimes committed. Demands to the contrary are just the result of our overheated, plebeian blood.
by rifek
Wed May 18th, 2011 at 01:34:18 PM EST
Cross-posted from my blog.
Late last year, a group of merry pranksters issued a fake press release satirizing Koch Industries' environmental policies, using Koch's trademarks and name to make the release look like it was actually from Koch. FYI, Koch Industries is the Koch Bros., the billionaires who are funding the Tea Party and about every anti-Middle-Class piece of legislation in the country. Nobody was actually fooled into thinking the press release came from Koch, but Koch did have to spend some staff time responding to inquiries. Well, things like this aren't supposed to happen to People Who Matter, like the Koch Bros., so they decided to get to the bottom of it. They sued Bluehost and Fast Domain, the internet service providers (ISPs) the pranksters used for disseminating the release, here in Utah to get the names of the pranksters (Bluehost is based here.), alleging the pranksters had committed IP fraud and infringement.
by rifek
Sun Feb 20th, 2011 at 03:59:22 PM EST
Cross-posted from my blog.
Just ask the Wall Street Journal and the Chamber of Commerce. According to an article this week in the Journal, business bankruptcies are down, so things must be improving for small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce chimes in with this line, with the C of C VP for small business offering the usual pap about small businesses being better positioned to recover than the big boys because they are more nimble.
