An SUV parked on 45th Street in the vicinity of Broadway and Times Square in New York City with suspicious smoke emanating from it grabbed the attention of a T-shirt vendor last night; law enforcement . There have been a number of unconfirmed rumors, including a possible connection to or claim from the Pakistani Taliban and that the SUV was merely a decoy.
What concerns me now is that we have at least two known efforts under the Obama Administration which were foiled by apparent incompetence or sheer luck. I am not holding the administration responsible for the acts of terrorists, and I do not underestimate the difficulty of defending against an almost endless variety of soft targets. I am grateful that a couple of vendors tipped off the policemen, and I hope other citizens will report suspicious behavior. What I would like to know is why the police did not notice the same things that vendors did. I would like to know if we have learned anything from weapons used against our soldiers and local citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan (e.g., IED's and car bombs) which may be relevant for proactive homeland security policy in our country's urban settings. For example, if there are relevant characteristics associated with car bomb incidents, e.g., SUV's or full-sized vehicles, abandoned, slow-driving or overloaded status, particularly in heavily congested areas (e.g., subway stations), we should have a risk-based approach. It may be necessary to ban certain vehicles in areas (if not restrict traffic altogether).
Obama's Federal Reserve Appointments: Thumbs Down!
Anyone who has been a faithful reader of my blog knows that I have been a critic of Federal Reserve "easy money" policy, which I personally regard as being a key factor during the housing bubble and I'm worried that Bernanke and current board is repeating a similar mistake. Yes, I know the reasons for maintaining low interest rates: consumer price inflation appears low, and interest rate hikes could mitigate a fragile recovery. But let us keep in mind this is somewhat an artifact because of US consumers over the past year sharply increasing their savings rates. Savings are intrinsically worthy (not that you would know that from the massive trillion dollar deficits under Obamanomics), but it also means there are fewer consumer dollars chasing goods and services, moderating inflation. My concern is there is too much money for given goods and services, and that constitutes inevitable baked-in inflation. We are beginning to see warning signs in recent prices correlated with inflation, e.g., gold and commodities. (Near-zero interest rates essentially lower the cost of boom-bust speculation. The odd things is that with all the demagoguery that progressive Democrats are using to talk about casino-like Wall Street, the real cause of speculation was "easy money" policy pursued, unfortunately, by both Greenspan and Bernanke.) In my view, we need to TIGHTEN monetary policy; near-zero interest policies are pushing on a string. This market will not tank if we take some preventive interest-rate hikes now. In fact, it would strengthen our currency.
Larry Kudrow makes related points very well in last week's commentary on the 3 new "easy money" Obamacon appointments to the board. Unfortunately, most American voters don't have a clue. Progressives are big believers in the Phillips Curve, i.e., an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. This isn't true in the long term, e.g., remember Reagan's discussion of Carter's "misery index"? Or super-employment in the late 1990's accompanied by modest inflation?
Political Cartoons
Mike Lester points out that although nuclear power plants contribute roughly a fifth of the nation's electrical power, there hasn't been a single nuclear power plant built in the 30-year period following Three Mile Island. I have to criticize this cartoon principally because oil is used primarily for fuel, not power generation. The ironic thing is that environmentalists could achieve a lot of their goals simply by focusing on displacement of older coal plants with nuclear energy facilities; nuclear energy has intrinsic cost efficiencies. The case for nuclear power and vehicles is less direct; but with the coming generations of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles and charging stations and retirement of fuel-inefficient vehicles from public roads could significantly cut our dependence on foreign-produced fuels.
Quote of the Day
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Will Durant
Musical Interlude: "Devil" Songs
Cliff Richards, "Devil Woman"
Van Halen, "Running With the Devil"
The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy for the Devil"
The Charlie Daniels Band, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia"
