dkf
dkf's Journal“He is the kind of smart, young guy that Mitt likes and Mitt would have probably hired at Bain"
This is what I was thinking...Paul Ryan sounds like the same type of guy Bain Capital hires.
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Back when he was running Bain Capital, Romney was known for following a management method called the “Bain Way.” In their book, The Real Romney, Michael Kranish and Scott Helman describe it as “intensely analytical and data driven.” It required a “healthy ego,” the authors write, “to go into a business and tell an owner how to run his own firm better.”
It also required a specific type of talent. Bain Capital operated as a small shop, and Romney took care to hire ambitious and serious business-school graduates — fresh-thinking young men he could develop, not just seasoned Wall Street hands.
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Edward Conard, a partner at Bain Capital from 1993 to 1997 and the author of Unintended Consequences, tells NRO that Romney’s effectiveness was sharpened by his relationships with the rising-star consultants he recruited, so he is not surprised to see Romney form a bond with the analytical Ryan. Romney may not have been an overly warm figure in the office, he says, but he was clearly drawn to uber-competent thinkers.
“I saw it firsthand,” Conard says. “Romney challenged us to challenge each other, and he was never afraid to ask tough questions, or answer them. He surrounded himself with the sharpest, most talented guys and ran the place like a consulting firm, where employees were expected to create value, to do their homework, and present proposals rooted in facts. In Ryan, you see that kind of politician; he’s not slinging bull.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/313555/ryan-way-robert-costa
Team Obama denies knowing story of man in its TV ad, call
When President Obama’s aides said they weren’t familiar with former Missouri steelworker Joe Soptic’s life story, all they had to do was check their own campaign archives.
Soptic, laid off from Bain Capital-owned GST Steel, stars in a Priorities USA Action spot this week in which he tells of how his wife died without health insurance after he lost his job. Soptic also appeared, wearing what appears to be an identical shirt, in a May television ad for the Obama campaign.
Asked about the Priorities spot on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Robert Gibbs said he doesn’t “know the specifics” while Stephanie Cutter said on CNN: “I don’t know the facts about when Mr. Soptic’s wife got sick or the facts about his health insurance.”
And Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One that “we don't' have any knowledge of the story of the family,” according to Yahoo! News.
But Cutter hosted an Obama campaign conference call in May in which Soptic told reporters the very story featured in the Priorities spot.
http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/08/team-obama-says-they-dont-story-of-man-who-stars-of-131462.html?hp=l3_b3
US regulators have Britain's 'wild west' bank culture in their sights
The Labour MP John Mann, an outspoken member of the Treasury select committee, has called for a government inquiry into money laundering, and outlined fears that US regulators have British banks in their sights as they try to shift business from London to New York.
The allegations against Standard Chartered, made on Monday by the little-known New York state department of financial services, also prompted calls by the investment advisory agency Pirc for discussions with top bankers about the industry's ethics.
One large shareholder in banking stocks warned that it was considering ditching all its investments in the sector in the wake of the Libor scandal and the money laundering allegations at HSBC – which were compounded by the allegations against Standard Chartered.
The damning criticism of Standard Chartered, which intends to contest the claims that it worked with Iran, is another blow to the reputation of UK banking businesses, and is thought to be feeding prejudice in the US that the UK's regulators have allowed a "wild west" culture to become established.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/aug/07/standard-chartered-joins-british-banks-in-us-sights
We have this Romney tax return kerfuffle all wrong. It's our elected officials who should release
Their returns.
We the people are entitled to know whether they are using their office for personal gain. It's actually more relevant for a Senator or Representative than for a candidate.
Maybe our officials refuse to get rid of loopholes because they personally benefit from them. That is something we should know about.
Howard Dean: ‘I think we ought to go over the fiscal cliff’
The so-called fiscal cliff is a term used to describe what will happen if lawmakers allow certain tax cuts to expire and also allow spending cuts to take effect. The danger, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is that this combination will send the U.S. economy back into recession.
And that is exactly what former Vermont Democratic Gov. Howard Dean thinks is the correct course of action. On Friday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, the former DNC chairman made that proposal as the least of all evils.
“I’ll put a little controversy in right before we go to the break,” Dean said. “I think we ought to go over the fiscal cliff and the reason to go over the fiscal cliff — it’s a terrible alternative — it’s better than the rest of them.”
Dean said that such policy measures would be painful at first, but that in the long-term they would bring greater stability.
“If you do that, you go through two quarters of recession according to CBO and then we come out and you eliminate a tremendous portion of the deficit, and you cut defense, which hasn’t been done for years and years and years. You restore the Clinton tax rates which we are going to have to do because we have to pay more. No, I think we ought to go over the fiscal cliff. It’s not a great alternative but the Congress is incapable of anything else. We ought to do it.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/08/03/howard-dean-i-think-we-ought-to-go-over-the-fiscal-cliff/#ixzz22o4OwRb0
Chart Of The Day: Garbage Shall Set You Free... From GDP Manipulation
It is no secret that just like the Achilles heel of China's goalseeked GDP number is the country's ever declining electric output, so the best coincident indicator of what is really going on behind the scenes with US GDP is railcar loadings of waste and scrap: i.e., garbage. As Bloomberg explains: "One closely watched economic indicator is the rail car loads of waste and scrap materials." Logically: "The more we demand, the more waste is generated by that production." In other words, if one is seeking validation that numbers reported by the BEA are even remotely credible, the best place to turn to is railcar loads of garbage. However, not surprisingly, such validation will not be found in the actual data. As the chart of the day, courtesy of Bloomberg Brief, demonstrates, if garbage is the benchmark, the US economy is now contracting faster than it has at any one point in the past 3 years and is on pace to recreate the economic collapse last seen after the Lehman bankruptcy. Perhaps another reason why central planners have latched on to stock markets and will just not let go.
Some more from Bloomberg:
Two railroad companies made mention of this weakness. Norfolk Southern talked of “reduced shipments of municipal solid waste,” while CSX claimed “aggregate and waste shipments will remain challenged.” Waste Management talked about improving volumes, but said it would remain soft while residential business is still negative.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chart-day-garbage-shall-set-you-free-gdp-manipulation
Can We Feed 9 Billion People by 2050 or Will We Starve?
By 2050 the global population is expected to reach 9 billion with the majority of this increase in our part of the developing world – in Asia. In order to feed this massive number of mouths, speakers at the forum indicated that a huge rise in food production of about 50% was required. The question in everyone’s mind was, if we cant feed the starving 1 billion today how can we ramp up for the increased numbers in 2050?
Speaking to Prof Jonathan Jones FRS of Sainsbury Lab, Norwich UK, one of the foremost experts involved in the study of meeting the challenge of tackling global hunger, he said that researchers have identified many simple methods of matching the demand for food as it must match the supply, and soon the world will face the ‘perfect storm’ of food insecurity if we do not tackle the situation sensibly.
“Improved agronomy could make a big contribution. Increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. Today, approximately a billion people are chronically malnourished while our agricultural systems are concurrently degrading land, water, biodiversity and climate on a global scale. To meet the world’s future food security and sustainability needs, food production must grow substantially while, at the same time, agriculture’s environmental footprint must shrink dramatically.” He shared his study which analysed solutions to this dilemma, by showing that tremendous progress could be made by halting agricultural expansion, closing ‘yield gaps’ on underperforming lands, increasing cropping efficiency, shifting diets and most of all, reducing waste. “Together, these strategies could double food production while greatly reducing the environmental impacts of agriculture,” explained Jones.
Contemporary agriculture faces enormous challenges today, reveals Jones. Even with recent productivity gains, roughly one in seven people lack access to food or are chronically malnourished, stemming from unabated poverty and mounting food prices. Unfortunately, the situation may worsen as food prices are the result of market speculation, bioenergy crop expansion and climatic disturbances. Even if we solve these food access challenges, much more crop production will probably be needed to guarantee future food security. Recent studies suggest that production would need to roughly double to keep pace with projected demands from population growth, dietary changes,especially with changes in meat consumption, and increasing bio-energy use, unless there are dramatic changes in agricultural consumption patterns.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/07/27/can-we-feed-9-billion-people-by-2050-or-will-we-starve/
Harry Reid: Bain INVESTOR Told Me That Mitt Romney 'Didn't Pay Any Taxes For 10 Years'
A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.
"Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years," Reid recounted the person as saying.
"He didn't pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that's true? Well, I'm not certain," said Reid. "But obviously he can't release those tax returns. How would it look?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/harry-reid-romney-taxes_n_1724027.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
Sequester threat to domestic programs drowned out by defense cries
SEQUESTER THREAT TO DOMESTIC PROGRAMS DROWNED OUT BY DEFENSE CRIES – For all the hysteria in Washington over sequestration, you’d be forgiven for believing it only affects defense. The well-financed, sophisticated lobbying arm of the military industry has mobilized to warn against the looming budget ax. And congressional Republicans have aggressively drawn attention to the need to stave off the more than $500 billion in cuts to the Pentagon that begin next year. But nobody seems to be talking about the other $500 billion in reductions — to Head Start, child care and AIDS programs, as well as many other domestic programs that face across-the-board cuts. The limited lobbying and political attention on the domestic end of the sequester reveals the brutal reality of how Washington works when it comes to budgets: Industries with the biggest companies and the most powerful lobbyists still drive the conversation, POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim reports: http://politi.co/NiNR5q
… That’s leaving Democratic lawmakers and their allies nervous that their priorities could get shafted. “My great fear is that medical research education programs and investments in the future of our country will be sacrificed in order to preserve nuclear weapons programs, amongst other things that are not needed,” Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said yesterday.
… Markey obtained one of the early detailed answers from the Obama administration about how the budget pain would hit domestic programs in a letter from HHS last week. Among those cuts: the elimination of 2,300 NIH research grants, nearly 100,000 children losing Head Start services and no more child care assistance for 80,000 kids. Not to mention 12,150 fewer patients with access to AIDS Drug Assistance Program benefits and 169,000 people who would not get access to substance abuse treatment programs. And in general a 7.8 percent cut to most HHS accounts. The letter: http://politico.pro/OxJKO2. And Pro’s story: http://politico.pro/NgY1iv
http://www.politico.com/politicopulse/0712/politicopulse789.html
Tens of Thousands of Federal Employees to Get Layoff Notices Right Before Election
The fight over the automatic trigger cuts, which will take place at the end of the year without Congressional action, took an interesting turn this week. The Senate passed a bill that will force the Obama Administration to provide details on how they will implement the cuts. This bill has already passed the House with a broad majority, and the President has indicated that he will sign it. But politically, it puts him – and Congress – in some trouble.
As Dave Weigel notes, this will be spun as Obama’s job cuts, particularly when applied to the defense sector. Both parties voted for the Budget Control Act, which created the process that led to these cuts. But the name on the masthead of the plan for the cuts will be the Office of Management and Budget, and Republicans in particular will act like the directive comes entirely from them, rather than an agreed-to process voted on and passed by Congress.
Moreover, to comply with a separate Congressional law, layoff notices must be given 60 days prior to any federal employee personnel cuts. That means that four days before the election, a bunch of workers in the Pentagon and throughout government, including a large segment working in the swing state of Virginia, are likely to get a pink slip.
Tens of thousands of civilian employees in the Defense Department could receive warnings about potential layoffs four days before the November election if impending spending cuts aren’t averted, hitting presidential battleground states such as Virginia and Florida hard.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/27/tens-of-thousands-of-federal-employees-to-get-layoff-notices-right-before-election/
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