Enhancements To The Blog

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Mash

Regular readers may have noticed that over the past month or so, I have been making changes to this site. Most dramatically, I have replaced the old 2-column theme that was here for over two years with a new 3-column theme. Behind the scenes, I have also upgraded the blogging platform to WordPress 2.7.

With the new version of WordPress, I have added some new features that you may find useful. These are:

  • Threaded comments. Now you can reply to specific comments in a post (click on the “Reply” link on the comment you want to respond to). You can also sign up for email notifications of any responses to your comments by selecting the email notification checkbox when you post a comment. You will also notice that my comments appear in green. Hopefully, the new threaded comments will make for a better discussion in the comments sections. I hope you will take full advantage of this feature.
  • RSS feed by email. You can subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed via email by clicking on the email icon on the right side of the header. You can also subscribe to the post and comment feeds by clicking on the other two available icons. As always, you can use the feed icons at the bottom of the right sidebar to easily subscribe to this blog’s feed using your favorite RSS reader.
  • Follow me on Twitter. My Twitter feed appears on the right sidebar. I have just started to use Twitter more frequently in the last few weeks. I welcome you to follow me on Twitter by clicking on the “Mash on Twitter” heading on the right sidebar. Right now the Twitter feed only shows my tweets. If the conversation grows, I will add all replies to the feed as well. Hopefully, Twitter will make this blog more interactive and more real-time.
  • Most discussed and most viewed posts. On the left sidebar, I’ve added a Most Discussed list to show the posts with the most comments in the last 30 days. I’ve also added a Most Viewed list to show the top viewed posts on this blog. The most viewed numbers are skewed toward the newer posts because it only started to track the view count a few days ago.
  • Sociable. At the bottom of each post, you will see a “Share this post” feature. This will allow you to quickly add the post to popular social networking sites.
  • iPhone support. I have added an iPhone version of this blog. If you use an iPhone to access this blog, you will get a iPhone optimized look and feel. Try it and let me know what you think of it.

There are still a couple of things that are broken after the upgrade to WordPress 2.7 (most notably, the Reading Room page). I hope to get the kinks out over the next few weeks as time permits.

Thanks to everyone for reading. Please let me know via comment or the contact page what you think of the changes and if there is anything you would like me to change.

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Goolsbee Unleashed!!!

Posted on March 16, 2009 by Mash

My favorite economist, Austan Goolsbee, was all over the media today talking about AIG’s bonus program on the backs of American taxpayers. As I was driving back from work this evening, I heard Goolsbee on NPR bashing AIG. He was also on MSNBC’s Hardball taking a whack at the bonus program. Suddenly Goolsbee is everywhere, and it is a good thing.

Austan Goolsbee, along with Cecilia Rouse, are now finally and officially on the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. Both their nominations were held up in the Senate by the Republicans until late last week for unspecified reasons. At a time of economic crisis, the three-member Council of Economic Advisors had only its chairwoman Christina Romer able to do the work of the American people. For two months, the Republicans deliberately hamstrung the President’s economic team.

No more. Now Goolsbee is unmuzzled and unleashed. Goolsbee is the master of one liners and a damn fine economist. He is a passionate advocate for the President’s economic policies and has the ability to articulate complex issues in a straightforward manner. It is good to see him back on the news.

As a founding member of the unofficial Austan Goolsbee Fan Club, I am very pleased to see the Republican dirty tricks on the Goolsbee and Rouse nominations come to an end. Now it is time for the CEA to get to work.

Posted in Economy, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Jon Stewart Vs. Jim Cramer

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Mash

The full unedited interview from last night’s Daily Show is below. Host Jon Stewart skewered CNBC’s Jim Cramer in a riveting bit of television.

I commend Jim Cramer for going on The Daily Show knowing full well he was going to get a drubbing. And a drubbing he got. But Cramer took it and persevered through it. I can’t say that Cramer didn’t deserve some of what he got, but, it seems to me that bad reporting is one thing but running the economy into the ground is quite another. And on the latter, CNBC is not the guilty party.

So, while I share Stewart’s anger, I’d save the pitchforks for the real culprits: the captains of industry who tended to their yearly bonuses and golden parachutes while padding their company balance sheets with imaginary assets and creative accounting.


 Intro – Brawl Street: Get Ready to Buy Low! And Sell Die

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c


 The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c

 


 The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c

 


 The Daily Show With Jon StewartM – Th 11p / 10c

Posted in Media | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bangladesh Lifts Ban On YouTube

Posted on March 13, 2009 by Mash

Bangladesh lifted the YouTube ban sometime yesterday. However, I was waiting for an on the record quote from a government official before posting on it. Now we have it:

Bangladesh has lifted a ban on the video-sharing site YouTube after it hosted a recording of an angry dispute between the premier and army officers over a mutiny, an official said Thursday.

Several similar sites were also blocked on Sunday after the recording, purportedly an argument between the army chiefs and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, was uploaded onto the Internet.

In the recorded conversation, the military bosses are heard yelling at the premier for her handling of the mutiny, in which at least 74 people were killed, 56 of them senior officers.

“The ban has been withdrawn,” Ziaul Islam, the head of the telecommunications regulatory commission, told AFP.

“Things are cooling down and everything is settling. We will not be interfering with what is on the site,” he said, adding the content originally considered “subversive to the state” was still available to download.

Bloggers had criticised the government’s actions as heavy handed.

I am glad the Bangladesh government has walked back its ill-conceived and short-sighted tryst with censorship.

Posted in Bangladesh | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Bangladesh Lifts Ban On YouTube

Why Is Neel Kashkari Still Employed?

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Mash

Neel Kashkari holds the title of “Interim Assistant Secretary for Financial Stability” at the Treasury Department. He was appointed by Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to manage the TARP funds. He oversaw the distribution of $350 billion in tax payer money without any hint of accountability. This genius is still employed at tax payer expense.

Fire him.

Yesterday this genius freemarketer was on Capital Hill warning Congress from micromanaging banks that receive federal bailout funds. He put forth the thesis that federal bailout money was difficult to track because money “is fungible”. I guess he has never met an accountant. I think that pretty much explains why no one seems to know how the $350 billion in bailout funds was used.

The financial genius that is Neel Kashkari opined:

Neel Kashkari, interim assistant secretary for financial stability at Treasury, told a congressional oversight panel Wednesday that banks should not be forced to make loans that bankers might deem risky.

“However well-intended, government officials are not positioned to make better commercial decisions than lenders in our communities,” he told a subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Let me get this straight. This knucklehead is telling Congress that we should leave it to the bankers – the same ones who took massive amounts of federal money after bringing the financial system to its knees – to judge what is and what is not a risky loan. How does this financial genius think we got into this mess in the first place? Left to their own devices, some of the golden boys of banking took huge risks and made some horrendous commercial decisions. So, no, we don’t need to be lectured by this clown on the superiority of the decision making abilities of his buddies on Wall Street. That verdict has already been rendered.

It is well past time to nationalize the banks that cannot survive without billions more from the taxpayers. The masters of the universe that run these banks have proven they cannot judge risk and therefore cannot be trusted with more federal dollars. Nationalize these banks, kick these whining CEOs out, clean up the banks, and sell back what is left to the private sector. Then regulate the industry so Kashkari’s buddies cannot take us to the brink of economic collapse again.

Fire the clowns who are in charge now. And fire Neel Kashkari. Plenty of people are losing their jobs in this recession. It is about time Kashkari lost his.

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments