All Things in Moderation

Apparently Gingrich and Perry also failed to qualify for the Virginia ballot. I’ll leave it to others better informed sources to explain why that happened, and merely note that, from my
vantage point, Virginia’s appears to have positioned itself, for now, as the state in which presidential ambitions are buried and, quite probably, one of the major factors in Romney taking the nomination.

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A little Christmas video for your viewing pleasure.  Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or Happy Festivus.  I’m hoping you have a nice relaxing weekend and enjoy friends and family.  Our daughters dog Pursy Lane is always able to sniff out her gift under the tree so this one made me laugh.  I doubt she’d have the patience this dog displays so we never put her gift out until we’re ready to open presents, which she thoroughly enjoys.  

As I type this we’re anxiously awaiting our daughters arrival back in Denver after a delay getting home from a research trip in San Salvador (bad weather in Atlanta last night).  After picking Pursy up from the kennel she’s heading out later today on a 15-16 hour drive home, hopefully to arrive on Christmas Eve.  Sunday morning we’re going to our sons house for a day of gifts, food, games and laughter.  What are your plans for the weekend?

Also, I hope to be around more after the first of the year.  You’ve all done a great job lately and I’ve missed participating.

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Gingrich will be on Virginia’s primary ballot. Bachmann, Santorum, and Huntsman will not. Although is very difficult to secure a place on the Virginia ballot, it is, arguably, very difficult to consider someone who does not a serious candidate. Unless Bachmann, Santorum, or Huntsman enjoys an incredible run in the early states, it seems likely that they are effectively
out of the running.

As more information becomes available, a clearer picture of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Gingrich campaign should emerge. If volunteers were principally responsible for securing his place on the ballot, then that would seem to speak to some real, dedicated support and resources he could draw on in both the primary and the general election. If paid operatives deserve the bulk of the credit, then doubts that Gingrich will have the money and organization required to garner the Republican nomination will presumably, and understandably, grow.

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Morning Report

Vital Statistics:

Markets are up slightly on very light volume (around 110 million shares as of 10:15). We had a slew of economic data this morning. 3Q GDP and personal consumption came in light, but jobless claims and leading economic indicators were better. The markets will probably focus on LEI, as it is forward looking and Q3 data is old news. University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment came in better than expected, but still shows that the consumer is in a foul mood.

Last, FHFA Hous Price index dropped in October by .2%. This index is pretty narrow – it only looks at conforming mortgages, but this is the center of gravity for the real estate market. It shows the Midwest outperforming the coasts.

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Bits & Pieces may be spotty or non-existent through the holidays. You know, for kids.

The first Hobbit Trailer is out. That’s all you need to know about anything, for now.

“Bagginses? What is a ‘Bagginses’?”

While I imagine a lot of work was finished in order to deliver for the trailer, it seems to me like they must have had a lot of the first movie done, given what’s in the trailer. I’m surprised we’ll be waiting until December 2012 to see it. Ah, well.

I’ll just have to content myself with repeatedly watching the trailer, and wondering what they’ve come up with for Gandalf’s interaction with Galadriel. To the Tolkien purists, all I’ve got say is: you’ve still got the books. I’m as excited as I can be to see what connective tissue to LOTR that Jackson and Walsh and Boyens have invented, and seeing Gandalf chatting with Galadriel, and knowing that Saruman will make an appearance—it all makes me very happy.

At some point, I’m looking forward to watching the extended editions of the two Hobbit movies and the three LOTR movies on Blu-Ray. Sometimes in 2014 or 2015 I imagine. Not sure how I’ll schedule it, but I’m going to make it happen.

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I just read on ESPN that John Terry, Chelsea’s center back and captain of the England national football (read: soccer) team, is to face criminal charges for allegedly uttering a racial slur in a match against Queens Park Rangers.

England captain John Terry will face a criminal charge over allegations that he racially abused an opponent in the Premier League.

Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said Wednesday that there is sufficient evidence to prosecute the Chelsea defender for his on-field exchange Oct. 23 with Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.

The Telegraph has the history of the case.

This is complete insanity. It is not at all clear what Terry is alleged to have said (which is bizarre in itself – the “victim” is reported to have told police that he did not accuse Terry of making a racist remark), but it doesn’t really matter to me. It is just words, said on a football pitch. I’m not going to defend racist remarks, and if the league wants to punish Terry for any remarks he may have made, more power to them. But for this to be a legal matter, that there actually exists laws prohibiting the uttering of racial slurs, shows how utterly confused our good friends across the ocean have become regarding the notion of freedom that they themselves did so much to introduce to the world.

Our polticial, legal, and indeed national culture owes much to the UK, and I have long been a fan of the nation, both historically and contemporarily. But contrasting this foolishness with the recent events between the Cincinnati and Xavier basketball teams where real, phsyical harm was done, and the fact that it will lead to no criminal charges, shows how very far apart our cultures, and the role government should play in it, have grown.

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Vital Statistics:

S&P futures are slightly weaker on a miss by Oracle and European weakness. Oracle blamed the miss on customers delaying purchases and economic weakness in Europe. Analysts are forecasting a drop in corporate IT spending in Q112. Separately, RIMM is up over 9% on reports that they are an acquisition target by AMZN, and that MSFT and NOK considered a joint bid.

Speaking of takeovers, a lot of merger arbs expected the Obama FTC and DOJ to be aggressive antitrust enforcers, similar to the Clinton Administration, when Robert Pitofsky headed the FTC. (Anyone remember Staples / Office Depot?). Well, the Obama Administration finally blocked one – the Verizon / T-Mobile Deal. The Bush Administration had a particularly benign view of antitrust – allowing the merger of Whirlpool and Maytag / Quaker Oats and Pepsi among others. Obama more or less continued the benign view that the Bush Administration followed. It will be interesting to see if this is part of a trend.

The National Association of Realtors just released existing home sales data for November, including revisions going back to 2007. Due to errors in methodology, existing home sales have been overstated by about 14% – 15% for the last few years. Other data in the report: there are about 2.58 million homes for sale, or a 7-month supply. The median existing home price dropped 3.5% YOY to $164,200. 29% of all home sales were foreclosures or short sales. While the naturally bullish NAR is trying to put a happy face on the data, it shows the housing market still has a long way to go in order to reach normalcy. It also demonstrates how much the government efforts to limit foreclosures have depressed sales and delayed the necessary process of moving the distressed inventory. House prices won’t recover (and the economy won’t experience a robust recovery) until the shadow inventory has traded.

Chart: US Existing Home Sales (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate)

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Still watching Battlestar Galactica. Saw a preview of Caprica, and putting it in context, that show looks great. Sorry to find out it got cancelled prematurely, but I’m surprised Syfy had the money to put together a series like Battlestar in the first place. Anyway, it’s awesome.

Stupid consumers won’t buy the right kind of light bulbs, so they must be forced to.

Supposedly because you save enough on energy and replacement costs to justify the investment. If so, why not let bulb manufacturers make that case to consumers, who can then decide for themselves?A noncoercive approach is unacceptable, the Times implies, because consumers are driven by irrational concerns.

Speaking of infrastructure jobs, isn’t the Keystone Pipeline “infrastructure”? Or is it bad when when it’s energy infrastructure? I mean, petroleum energy infrastructure?

I’m sorry, but this is bullsh*t. It’s Google’s g*ddamned search engine. Why the hell can’t they feature search results that feature their own products? Google may not be that great at not being evil, but this is just stupid, and any success they have in this direction just sets a bad precedent. I love how competitive behavior is getting re-defined as “anti-competetive”. Google pimping their own products is now anti-competetive? No, that’s actually competing. In the marketplace.

“Given the scope of Google’s market share in general Internet search, a key question is whether Google is using its market power to steer users to its own web products or secondary services and discriminating against other websites with which it competes,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent Monday.

As a call back to our earlier comment-thread discussions about Song of the South, here are the 6 Most Secretly Racist Classic Children’s Books. Sherlock Holmes is a children’s book?

A few years ago I purchased a collection of vintage cartoons intended for children, but also intended to be cheap (most, I imagine, are very inexpensive to license or in the public domain). There was one Tom and Jerry short on there, but not the cat and mouse (indeed, they were later renamed Dick and Larry, to avoid confusion). Two Laurel and Hardy types, only animated, and there’s a sequence where they are flying in a plane and decide to visit Africa, in blackface. Delightfully racist–you know, for kids!

— KW

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I found myself in lower Manhattan yesterday with some time to kill before my timed pass for the newly opened 9/11 Memorial, so I wandered through Zuccotti Park, former ground zero of the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

Zuccotti Park is typical of several New York City semi-public spaces in that it is not a park in the conventional sense as there are no green spaces. It is a tiered totally hardscaped sliver of a city block with a wide assortment of benches and tables presumably for the enjoyment of nearby office workers on breaks.

Since the police evicted the occupiers/protesters/squatters in the dead of the night, the park has been ringed with two sets of portable crowd control barricades. The inner ring which is double thick in places encircles the park itself except for two difficult to discern cattle gate style entrances inconveniently located so as to make using the park as a short cut between Church Street and Broadway useless despite the crowded holiday pedestrian traffic around the park. The outer ring was another set of barricades at the curb-street line allowing for street crossing at corners but otherwise restricting access for jaywalkers.

Indeed, the park was deserted except for the occasional determined pedestrian and two people huddled at the stone tables, one looking none too warm and definitely on the unhoused end of the homeless-hipster continuum and the other awaiting to hustle chess opponents who never seemed to arrive.

The only two protesters to be seen were at the far east end of the park. One had an incoherent cardboard sign about livestreaming the protest. The other was the ‘official’ OWS representative who was collecting donations while clutching a cup of coffee for warmth. I chatted with him for just a few minutes while he explained how the cops were doing their best to make the park look inaccessible while nominally maintaining it open.

At any given time there were more than a dozen policemen circulating in and around the park, frequently congregating in small groups to chat and joke. There was no serious crowd control going on except for maintaining a highly visible presence.

The OWS protesters are in search of another base of operation, most recently on property owned by nearby Trinity Church who has rebuffed them. I can see why they have to because nobody is going to be occupying Zuccotti Park any time soon.

More photos here.

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