The second (and secret) Wall Street bailout
Forget about the $700 billion TARP program. The Wall Street banks got an additional $7.7 trillion in heavily discounted loans from the Fed, allowing them to stabilize their finances, pay back their TARP loans and net $13 billion in profit in the process. It's beyond incredible. ... Yeah, right. This is capitalism. ... From Sen. Sherrod Brown: "When you see the dollars the banks got, it’s hard to make the case these were successful institutions. ... This is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. There are lawmakers in both parties who would change their votes now.”

There seems to be a cross-ideology consensus emerging that we now have an utterly broken, intolerable financial system in this country. ... Bloomberg piece via BI. Here are some other recommended items:

The first one: “Margaret Thatcher knew that capitalism must deliver for the masses.” Reader No. 1 sent in this one, with the apt note, “Something we’ve lost?” That is, something we've lost lost in the blame-game debate over how we got ourselves into such an economic mess. The current crony capitalist system isn't working for the little guy anymore.

The second piece, by Henry Blodgett, suggests a solution: Let losers lose. It’s a good post. To avoid future Wall Street bailouts, I’d suggest creating a new FDIC-like system for investment firms, in which regulators can swoop in and close insolvent companies, quickly and ruthlessly, forcing managers, investors and most creditors to take a loss. It would probably require an industry funded insurance pool of money to financially stabilize the system after a shutdown, something akin to how retail banks now have to kick in money for the FDIC’s deposit-insurance fund. Conservatives don’t like this idea. They’ve called it a tax increase and unnecessary government intervention. But what would they rather have: An orderly bankruptcy system in which losers actually lose or a too-big-too-fail bailout system that allows losers to win?

The third piece, also from Reader No. 1, is about the City’s Journal’s Fred Siegel, one of the sharpest writers out there today. Don't agree with everything he says. But ...  ¶ 10:11 AM

The Pats: 'What was I worried about?'
Reader No. 1 on last night's big win: "What was I worried about? Remorseless Patriot second-half crushing Chiefs, actually quite different from so many games the past 4-5 years, where we rolled it up in the first half-hour and cruised / sometimes slipped in second half. Not to get carried away against inferior competition, but encouraging... "

Quick HB note of pessimism: The defense still looks one flimsy straw away from total collapse.  ¶ 4:26 AM

A conservative's critique of a conservative's critique ... Part II
Reader EM disagrees with the Hub Blog reader immediately below. Here's an excerpt from his email:

The fatal flaw in your respondent's critique comes early:

"the country can be liberated and experience growth in prosperity and freedom through the dimishment of federal largesse."

Austerity is always a last-on first-off proposition, hurting the poorest the most. Until I see convincing evidence otherwise, I believe it appeals to the most crabbed part of our country, which gets more out of hurting those a few rungs lower down the ladder than working to make everybody better off.

Newt himself repudiated this recently:

"..the United States is actually caught between three possible futures:
1. Fantasy and collapse (the Greek model)
2. Pain and Austerity (the Washington establishment model)
3. Innovation and Growth (the Hamilton-Lincoln-Reagan-Thatcher-Gingrich model).

...The Washington establishment’s reaction to the runaway spending is a policy of austerity and pain.
Democrats would cause austerity and pain on the individual by raising taxes, thereby shrinking family and business purchasing power.

Republicans would cause austerity and pain to government by cutting spending and thereby shrinking the services and income transfers government provides.

Clearly, shrinking government is preferable to overtaxing the American people but we must remember that there is a third alternative to pain. It is the path of innovation and growth. Historically, this has always been the American solution."

  ¶ 9:32 AM

A conservative's critique of a conservative's critique of conservativism
Hub Blog sent this column by Ramesh Ponnuru to a number of my conservative friends to see what they thought. One of them sent back the following response, which I pass along in full. He wasn't impressed with Ponnuru's critique of conservativism:

This is really a weird column, and if you didn't tell me it was written by Ponnuru I would have guessed it was written by, say David Brooks - someone plausibly sympathetic to Republicans, but at heart, really conflicted.

First, I'll object to his last assertion - that conservatives object to Mitt because they "fear" he would lead the party to "ruin"
I'm a conservative and I know he would be a lousy Republican, and supply very few coat strings because he does not inspire passion, and because he himself is not animated nor passionate about the philosophical underpinnings of conservativism - You sense, in his heart, he really doesn't believe that the country can be liberated and experience growth in prosperity and freedom through the dimishment of federal largesse. He is passionate about himself and his own destiny and his need to vindicate his father's aspirations, and then to surpass him, finally. Ponneru uses the loaded language of liberals - strange! - when talking about Republicans misplaced fear. We don't fear he will ruin the party - we fear his lukewarm embrace of conservatism will be forever linked to the movement itself, and whatever his failures will be artfully twisted to represent the failures of this philosophy. We fear that what we see as his compulsive need to be liked by the MSM will spill over into GHWBush-like invitations across the aisle to extend his hand, forgetting how skillfully Mitchell outplayed the old man.

He won't ruin the party though - he is an honorable man and he would be a decent and serviceable one-term president who will do little to change the national political dialogue. His successor would be a liberal, but one cloaked in the robes of moderation a la Bill Clinton - claiming this time he is a Democrat who learned from the excesses of the Obama administration - he'll be different - trust me.

Ponnuru says -"'conservatives believed that ideological impurity, especially on spending, had caused those 2006- 2008 losses"
First off - "ideological impurity" is the kind of phrase liberals love to employ when criticizing the right - as in, our zeal to weed out "impurity" that makes it impossible for us to compromise in areas like, say, the super committee. Don't get me started there. Leaving aside the odd choice of words from a man like him, it is not true that conservatives thought "impurity" caused losses - they thought big spending caused a bloated and out of control federal government, and provided democrats with enormous cover to up the ante to ever higher, unheard of levels. it wasn't "impurity" which led to losses, but a lack of animating philosophical energy which gave people of positive reason to get behind the party's candidates - no one like Reagan or Kemp or even Christy was out there on a national scale, selling an idea of what drives the party.

Ponnuru confounds Republicanism with tea-partyism - another liberal habit of convenience.

"Republicans believe that their 2010 election victories were rewards for returning to the true path of conservatism that they had left in the Bush years."

What an ignorant simplification of the attitude of Republicans - yes, they were energized by the drive and passion of the tea-party, notwithstanding it painfully backfired in at least two Senate elections. They believe, I think, that there elections were largely a repudiation of the most grandiose corrupt and unwelcome government power grab in history, in the form of Obamacare. The tea-party, which grew independent of the Republican party, (though admittedly its aims are often congruent), gave a coherent voice to the conservative wing of the party, a language with which to shaper the argument against the incumbent liberals. Find me one idiot who claims we won because we returned to the "true path"?? The only people who use language like that are liberals, who have no other equipment with which to fight conservatism, and instead resort to the arch, unfunny mockery that worked so well among pundits for most of the second half of the 20th century. There seems to be a nostalgic comfort derived form creating then burning those old bogeymen.


He says "In Colorado and Nevada, ( hey - he forgot about Maryland! ) conservative primary voters rejected two electable, conventionally conservative candidates because they were considered part of a compromising establishment."

Ummm yeah, they did. These were tea-party activists, green, idealistic, foolish - admittedly. But how does this recitation of recent history support his earlier argument that "ideological impurity" caused the 2008 election losses in the minds of republicans, but 2010 success was a result of our return to purity - so simple minded.

Those tea-party candidates were as ideologically pure as they come, and they got beat - So does he think we're blind to events as well as just foolishly ideological. because we certainly "returned" to purity there and we got our ass handed to us. Most republicans I heard from on a national level, lamented the nomination of O'Donnell, to name the most prominent example, because it was obvious the other guy, a moderate, would have won. Where does Ponnuru get this stuff? - Newsweek? He makes no sense here, and he tries to squirm out of it in the end as would any NYT/Globe columnist attempting to appear post-ideological by claming that the "real mistakes of the Bush administration keep being made." Right - way to make the two administrations seems politically indivisible, and demonstrate that you alone can see this - nice touch.

Look, I usually like RP, but why not just write the column you meant to write. The candidates we have running aren't the best and it stinks that the Bush administration didn't leave us with a better bull-pen to draw upon - shame on them. If we let the tea-party dominate things, we might end up with a charming but empty suit like Cain - Or an unelectable neophyte like Bachman. Romney is our best chance - it's fine if he thinks that - and thinks our ideological right might give us a loser of a candidate where Obama is eminently beatable. So say that, instead of propping up all kinds of old fashioned calumnies against Republicans - That is unless you're looking for a job at the Daily Beast.

  ¶ 4:10 AM

Fighting Ayn Rand with Ayn Rand
Hey, if it works, it works. Not that I'm a big Ayn Rand fan. I'm not. She was a politicized artist, and the world saw enough of her types in the 20th Century. But if using Ayn Rand to fight Ayn Rand is the only way to get some conservatives to see that the current financial system is not a form of capitalism, then I'm all for it.  ¶ 6:09 PM

Parking lots = urban decay
Here's an interesting report about parking lots and the demise of American cities. The study looked at the cities of Hartford, New Haven and Cambridge. The first two cities never clamped down on the creation of new surface parking lots. But Cambridge banned new parking lots in the mid '80s. Guess which city is thriving today?

OK, so it's not as simple a correlation as the study suggests. Other factors played a role in the demise of Hartford and New Haven. The Hub Blog family has strong ties to New Haven, and I can assure you New Haven once fully embraced "urban renewal" and every other crackpot government idea about how to improve cities. Yale University played its own sorry role in the demise of its home town. Officials in New Haven have only recently begun to treat the city's own self-inflicted public-policy wounds.

But I think it's pretty obvious surface parking lots, sitting on land where proud buildings once stood, are forms of urban blight. They're depressing. They kill street life. They're missing-teeth gaps within an urban environment.  ¶ 10:01 AM

The Existence of a Plutocracy: Verified?
So Congressmen can legally trade on inside information? Apparently so. It seems so far-fetched, so unfair, so potentially corrupt, that it's tempting to dismiss the 60 Minutes piece as a pure connect-the-dots conspiracy theory. But if it's true, it's verification that we have a quasi-plutocracy in this country -- in which Wall Street and government people regularly play footsie under the table to the detriment of everyone else.

Update -- Here's more. It seems to be more about the appearance of trading on inside information, rather than actually establishing a connection. That nudges this a little toward the conspiracy-theory zone. But it's still fascinating stuff. Is Congress really exempt from insider trading laws? It's simply unfair.  ¶ 9:21 AM

Papelbon takes his dance jig to Philly
Reader No. 1’s take on the departure of Jonathan Papelbon to Philly:

See how many Google hits you get on "shipping" and "papelbon" in the news section and marvel at the creativity of headline writers (not even counting all the Tv stations doing likewise). Anyways a good if negative roundup at Dirt Dogs, including the famous 2007 BudLite box. He was fun to watch, kept in top shape this year rebounding from mediocre 2010, loved the pressure. Philly is a great fit even if the team aging like the one he is leaving. National League is better for his fastball-fastball-fastball approach.

Re the Sox, remember the philosophy and experience on closers since new management got here. We spent big once - Keith Foulke, one world series and two washed out injury years for $21m. Don't expect "closer by committee" but look for Cherington to rebuild with perhaps a slightly higher quality of free agents than seen recently.

Reader No. 1 has since sent in a more positive Dirt Dogs send off. ... As for moi, I appreciate what Papelbon did for the Sox. He was a welcome character and a great reliever. He'll always be remembered fondly here for his WS contributions. But I'm not too upset by his departure. It was expected. I'm also a little tired of the Sox. They need to hit the old refresh button to get me more interested about the coming season. ... BTW: I went over to Soxaholix to see its take on Papelbon's departure. Instead, I discovered a link to this truly sorry episode in Sox history. That scandal never got the attention it deserved, coming so close after the 9/11 tragedy. But it's not ancient history, folks. You might say the Sox and Penn scandals overlapped.  ¶ 9:37 AM

Good-bye, Joe Part II
Eric Wilbur points to this April 2011 column, by Mark Madden of the Beaver County Times, as one of the earliest previews of what ultimately unfolded at Penn State. The “worst-case scenario” came to pass. It’s a great piece that admirably asked the tough questions well before the national media realized that something was amiss in Happy Valley. …

One of the big remaining questions: Why did Jerry Sandusky suddenly leave the Penn State football program in 1999? If it turns out his departure was part of an effort to sweep controversy under the rug, it means Paterno et gang knew about the sexual-abuse allegations for 12 long years – and effectively allowed Sandusky to keep sexually preying on other children. And they knew he hadn’t stopped.

FYI -- Dennis & Callahan interviewed Mark Madden this morning. Madden says more allegations may surface.

Update -- While not mentioning the Penn State scandal, George Will zeroes on what makes big-time college sports programs tick: Money. ... The NCAA and higher-ed people don't realize it yet, but they're headed for a crack up. They aren't running "student-athlete sports" programs anymore. They haven't for a while. They're running multibillion-dollar businesses that exploit young people for the gain of others. They've lost control of the system. The TV networks are effectively running the show now.

Update II -- From Reader JW on the original Paterno post:

Well said. Paterno's larger-than-life stature also is nominally why Penn State students took to the streets in protest Wednesday night, flipping a news van, throwing rocks, destroying property and generally causing chaos. Were all of them genuinely upset about the way a coaching legend was shown the door? Of course not. Many were bundles of raging hormones who went out to raise hell because that's what everyone else was doing. The dudes mugging for the CNN cameras gave that away.

We'll pause here for a brief public service announcement: Kids, don't drink and approach people with microphones. YouTube is forever. Many of those students will have children of their own in a few years, and then they'll finally understand why so many felt so disgusted by the way those in power at Penn State handled this nightmare. They'll realize they embarrassed themselves, their families and their university. They'll feel awfully stupid about the way they acted Wednesday, so don't be too hard on them. The hangover will come. Someday, they'll realize Joe Paterno wasn't the victim in this case. A bunch of innocent kids were.

  ¶ 10:20 AM

Good-bye, Joe
Initially, I held off passing judgment on Joe Paterno, figuring the media might be whipping itself into a frenzy again over an alleged sex-abuse case involving a major college sports program. The ugly Duke lacrosse scandal was definitely in the back of my mind. So was Paterno’s image of running a clean-cut college football program over 46 years. But I’ve now read enough to conclude that a lot of people at Penn State knew, or should have known, that a former Penn assistant coach was sexually preying on young boys at the college – and over a number of years. It’s as if they flicked a mental switch and went into full denial mode. They knew it was wrong. But they deep down didn’t want to deal with it. They wanted it to go away. They pretended it wasn’t there. They valued the image of the program too much. … Maureen Dowd’s column this morning is devastating. … Here’s why sports legends cherish image so much: They’re glorified.  ¶ 9:02 AM

Haynesworth gone: ‘Not with a bang but a whimper’
Reader No. 1, who made the above observation about Albert Haynesworth’s departure from the Pats, points to two excellent posts by Chris Forsberg and Mike Reiss detailing Al’s final playing seconds for the Pats.  ¶ 8:14 AM

Steve Jobs: Inventor or Tweaker? Part II
A couple of readers don't like "tweaker" moniker. From Reader AM:

I think Steve Jobs was much less an inventor than a social visionary, around technology - but that's more than a "tweaker." His comps might be George Eastman and Henry Ford, who were certainly technologists but who built their companies on an understanding of how the technologies would be used.

And from Reader No. 1:

I love, love Malcolm Gladwell (and Walter Isaacson, can't wait to read this book) but... 'tweaker' misses the point. The key point is the difference between Invention and Innovation, nicely addressed here.

I think the article was conveying roughly the same point, i.e. Jobs wasn't necessarily an inventor. But I do like the word "innovator" more than "tweaker."  ¶ 6:46 AM

Steve Jobs: Inventor or Tweaker?
Here's an excellent article that asks whether Steve Jobs was a true inventor or an invention tweaker. The latter is not supposed to be an insult. Not many people know how to tweak inventions to make them work to their full potential. The summary of Steve Jobs' spectacular tweaks:

In the eulogies that followed Jobs’s death, last month, he was repeatedly referred to as a large-scale visionary and inventor. But Isaacson’s biography suggests that he was much more of a tweaker. He borrowed the characteristic features of the Macintosh—the mouse and the icons on the screen—from the engineers at Xerox PARC, after his famous visit there, in 1979. The first portable digital music players came out in 1996. Apple introduced the iPod, in 2001, because Jobs looked at the existing music players on the market and concluded that they “truly sucked.” Smart phones started coming out in the nineteen-nineties. Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007, more than a decade later, because, Isaacson writes, “he had noticed something odd about the cell phones on the market: They all stank, just like portable music players used to.” The idea for the iPad came from an engineer at Microsoft, who was married to a friend of the Jobs family, and who invited Jobs to his fiftieth-birthday party.

  ¶ 9:38 AM

Andy Rooney, RIP
The amazing thing: I never got tired of him. I didn't eagerly anticipate his commentaries after every 60 Minutes show. But I was always glad to listen to them. They were just down-to-earth, common-sense observations. That's it. That's all he tried to do. And he did it well. He was genuine. And you don't see many genuine people around these days. ... My condolences to the entire Rooney family.

P.S. -- One of my favorite Andy Rooney commentaries came after the Giants beat the Pats in the Super Bowl a few years back. He was obviously happy as a clam. But he wasn't gloating. Then he ended the piece by suggesting the New England Patriots should change their names back to the Boston Patriots. It was an odd thing to throw in. He wasn't trying to mock Boston. Just the opposite. He meant it out of respect for Boston and the traditional rivalry between the two towns. He wanted to beat Boston, not New England. It was a clever way to convey a point.  ¶ 4:34 PM

There's hope yet for Illinois
Not surprisingly, outsiders often have a hard time grasping the nuances of Boston politics, such as why Whitey Bulger was a bigger-than-life character here beyond his gangsterism. In Illinois, they have their own cast of local behind-the-scenes characters, one of whom was finally convicted yesterday of political corruption. This is a big deal in Illinois. I covered Bill Cellini for years as a reporter in Illinois. It's almost impossible to overstate how powerful he was as an insider's insider within the state's bi-partisan "Republicrat" system. For a decade now, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) has been trying to systematically clean up Illinois' politics, first taking down Gov. George Ryan, a Republican, and later Gov. Rod "Blago" Blagojevich, a Democrat. He next went after Cellini, a quiet and long-time lynchpin of the system. No one thought they'd ever see the day -- Bill Cellini, found guilty as charged, in a public court. But there it is. The day arrived. ... Mark Brown of the Sun-Times and John Kass of the Tribune have good pieces trying to convey the importance of yesterday's verdict.

Update -- Well, maybe there isn't hope yet for Illinois. Its budget is a complete disaster. It's so bad, it's funny. It really is. They absolutely refuse to face reality. It's quite remarkable when you think about it.  ¶ 5:49 AM

The Inside Job: Cain gets Borked
Some conservatives are howling at the MSM for covering the hit job on Herman Cain. But they surely deep-down know it was an internal Republican hit job. Right? … Oh, here’s Karl Rove, giving Herman some obviously dispassionate advice (snort):

“If these allegations are not true, say they aren’t true and put it behind you. … If not, better get everything out sooner rather than later because in a situation like this, if there is something there, that something going to come out.”

  ¶ 8:50 AM

Hack-Progressive Alliance runs amok in … Oakland
Pathetic Oakland. … Via Reader No. 1, who writes: “What happens when you let the hack-progressive alliance get out of balance. 1.5 cheers for Tom Menino.” ... One can only imagine how the establishment in Oakland would react if the same "demands" were issued by the Tea Party.  ¶ 8:06 AM