"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
by hilzoy From the NYT: “When President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Monday, it will include two veteran cold warriors and a political rival whose records are all more hawkish than that of the new president who will face them in the White House Situation Room. Yet all three of his choices … Read more
by hilzoy I’ve been trying to understand the problems of the auto industry, and on a couple of points I can’t quite seem to figure out what’s going on. So I thought: why not ask? (1) A quote from Business Week: “Everyone knows that GM is over-branded. (…) At the core of GM’s problems is … Read more
by hilzoy From the NYT: “The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.” “The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says … Read more
by hilzoy I don’t normally read Charles Krauthammer, but Heather Hurlburt at Democracy Arsenal does, and she flagged this startling paragraph: “In the old days — from the Venetian Republic to, oh, the Bear Stearns rescue — if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance … Read more
by hilzoy From the WSJ: “Under fire for his role in the near-collapse of Citigroup Inc., Robert Rubin said its problems were due to the buckling financial system, not its own mistakes, and that his role was peripheral to the bank’s main operations even though he was one of its highest-paid officials.” “”Nobody was prepared … Read more
by hilzoy From the NYT: “In an interview conducted earlier this month by his sister, Doro Bush Koch, Mr. Bush said he wanted to be remembered “as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process.”” “”I came to Washington with a set of values, and … Read more
by hilzoy A bankruptcy judge in the Washington Post: “Homeowners are the only ones who cannot modify the terms of their secured debts in bankruptcy. Corporate America flocks to bankruptcy courts to do precisely this — to restructure and reamortize loans whose conditions they find onerous or can no longer meet. Airlines are still flying … Read more
by publius and ObWi Street Band Turkey thread.
by Eric Martin Some interesting SOFA related goings-on in the past twenty-four hours. A parliamentary vote on the SOFA scheduled for today was postponed until Thursday after Sunni lawmakers witheld their support pending concessions a number of issues. The demands put forth by the Sunni bloc (acting in tandem with smaller Shiite parties) include progress … Read more
by Eric Martin As discussed in a prior post, there is a showdown looming on the horizon between an Obama administration that will be faced with the stark fiscal realities of the post-Bush era, and a Pentagon maneuvering to ensure that its outsized share of the federal budget remains intact and untouched – expanded even. … Read more