The only good ideas are
the ones I can take credit for.
R. Stevens
Newest JOTY Nominee: Elijah Cummings
My Maryland Congressman, who has never earned my vote, had this to say about Benghazi and the State Department:
This isn’t the first time Clinton finds herself in House Republicans’ cross hairs over Benghazi. Five committees of jurisdiction — including Issa’s — released a 46-page interim report of their investigations last month that put the blame squarely on her shoulders.
But the report may have overreached when it said it had evidence that Clinton had personally signed an April 2012 cable turning down then-Ambassador Gene Cretz’s request for more security. All State Department cables from Washington bear the secretary’s automatic signature, the State Department said.
“Although a telephone call could have clarified this issue in a matter of moments, you chose not to check with the (State) Department before making these highly inflammatory and erroneous accusations in a public forum,” the panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), wrote to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“The allegations in your staff report are false, extremely irresponsible, and lack even a rudimentary understanding of how State Department cables are processed,” he said.Let me first apologize to Speaker Boehner; Cummings is a piece of work whom has done a mediocre job representing my district, and he does not speak for me.
Yes, let's concede that Ms. Clinton's signature is of no consequence and use of robo-signers somehow shields her from personal responsibility for rejecting pleas for upgraded security. Let us ignore that she throws her underlings under the bus for filtering out politically inconvenient messages in accordance with the 3 wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
Cummings' questioning of his opponents' competence not knowing the difference between a robo-signing and a "real signature" is pathetic and, at best exaggerating a staffer's mistake. I, a mere blogger without access to White House secret documents, knew there were security issues in Libya after the overthrow of the al-Qaddafi regime. If Clinton was not proactive in reviewing security issues in Libya, she was hopelessly incompetent. No doubt if Clinton was taped talking to her subordinates about Benghazi, there'll be a politically convenient 18.5 minute gap. I have not read the report in question; if they claimed this was a smoking gun, it was a mistake. But she was responsible for what went on in the State Department, and due professional diligence required more attention given the country's unstable status.
Hillary-Gate: Her 3 AM Call on Benghazi
What we now know is that early drafts of Administration talking points reflected the reality of the the terrorist attacks (HT Jim Geraghty of National Review's Morning Jolt).
Make no mistake: I am opposed to this (and the prior) Administration's interventionist policies. I think, though, this was all about politics. The last thing Obama wanted during his reelection campaign was to explain security gaps contributing to the murder of 4 Americans, including a US ambassador, on his watch, what did the Administration know, when did they know it, whether a timely military response was possible given the timeline, what role, if any, did Obama play in any decision to stand down; Romney would have attacked the Administration from the right: e.g., did an ambassador die while Obama dithered over his options? The video was a red herring from the get-go: it was a decoy, meant to shift attention away from the Administration and onto the straw man of Intolerance, that arch-enemy of progressive elitists, a failure of political correctness. Notice how (below) Clinton deliberately conflates the largely peaceful Egyptian protests with the military-style attack in Benghazi.: she is specifically excluding the facts of the symbolic nature of 9/11 for Al Qaeda and its sympathizers (something the Administration explicitly took into account during 2011's 10-year remembrances), the presence of Al Qaeda affiliates in Libya, and repeated security concerns raised by US diplomats/personnel in Libya. Her tone is defensive (we had nothing to do with the video), she shifts the blame on the video producers and the Libyan government, and she implies that the Administration has been proactive in protecting diplomatic staff when we know requests for more security were rejected.
Even the allegation of the Internet video in the case of Egypt is disputable. What Hillary Clinton does NOT mention in her statement was an alternative motive: the demand to release Omar Abdel-Rahman; there were threats to protest on 9/11 before the release of the scapegoat video, including those to burn down the embassy and everyone in it. For Clinton to omit a material fact is intentional misleading the American people; she lacks the necessary integrity and character to be a future POTUS. I don't deny that Ms. Clinton is intelligent and hard-working. This has nothing to do with partisan politics; I have been sharply critical of GOP interventionists and the Romney campaign's politically inept premature reaction to the north Africa events. But I have zero tolerance for deceptive political spin. During my work career, I've believed in straight talk in academics and with employers and clients; that's different from being deliberately provocative. It had more to do with professional ethics, doing or saying the right thing, even if it made me vulnerable professionally: let the chips fall where they may. In Clinton's place, I would have engaged in straight talk, put the blame on the terrorists, and promised an overhaul of diplomatic mission security, acknowledging there were mistakes made. I would not be trying to reason with terrorists or lecture foreign residents. I would not be shifting blame but taking responsibility, reallocating assets and reforming policies. I don't doubt Clinton's work ethic or good intentions, but her tenure was a seat-of-the-pants failure in muddling through. She was more shrill than decisive, and a lousy manager and leader.
There have been at least 32 attacks on US diplomatic missions over the past century and at least 18 assassinations of American diplomats.
This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We've seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing do to with. It's hard for the American people to make sense of that, because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable. The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Tunisia, did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts. And we will, under the president's leadership, keep taking steps to protect our personnel around the world.
Is the Fed Responsible for the Stock Market Rise?
As I watched my my principal retirement account hit a new nominal high today, Ben Bernanke might no doubt take credit; there are a couple of points of view. John Tamny, Scott Sumner's "favorite Forbes' columnist", argues not. (I discussed the Tamny-Sumner kerfuffle in a recent piece; Sumner is a monetarist whom got his PhD from the University of Chicago, of course. Tamny writes from an Austrian School perspective. Keynesians like Krugman and monetarists are more data-driven and Austrian economists are more conceptual in approach.) Tamny despises activist Fed policy (interest rates, bond buying, etc.), pointing out how gold has trounced stocks in the activist 1970's and 2000's. He argues what has held stocks back was the prospect of an unfettered Obama and Democratic Congress; the 2010 elections have thwarted Democratic Keynesian-style spendthrift ambitions. Thus, stocks have risen despite the Fed, not because of the Fed. In fact, there's something to be said for this argument; Tamny points out when we had a stronger dollar policy, e.g., during the 1980's and 1990's, stock prices rose. With the problems of the euro and/or yen over the last couple of years, the dollar has rallies--and gold corrected recently. But the strengthening of the dollar as had more to do with weaknesses in other currencies, certainly nothing to do with the Fed's wild fiat dollar printing spree.
An alternate perspective comes in a Daily Caller column from pro-liberty Glenn Jacobs; if you recognize his name, he's better known through his WWE persona Kane, currently tag team champion along with partner Daniel Bryan. Jacobs also has an Austrian School perspective. He's really approaching this from the perspective of wealth inequality. He argues effectively the wealthy are primary beneficiaries of money printing and a degraded currency because they can hedge by holdings in stocks, commodities including precious metals and real estate, while small savers and fixed-income seniors get screwed by low interest rates. (Actually, I'm phrasing my take of his argument.)
Let me add a few comments. First, I think that corporate debt has become cheaper to finance, which is good for stocks. Second, some money is coming out of bonds and chasing dividend stocks, particularly related defensive stocks like utilities and consumer staples. Third, private equity companies do well given cheap interest rates to make deals, and virtual banks, which can arbitrage the spread, say to purchase higher-interest guaranteed mortgage securities.
The ultimate explanation is supply and demand--in the aftermath of the economic tsunami, most investors have overwhelmingly stuck with low-rate, "safer" bonds. There is a risk to that, of course: bond returns can be meager, especially given inflation. Not to mention, bonds aren't all that safe; if and when the Fed raises rates, bond prices could correct sharply, leaving investors with large paper losses. I suspect that we're seeing some diversification, e.g., by foreign investor already satiated with US debt (e.g., China).
I also think that the Fed by largely monetizing new Treasury debt frees up capital for investing in the economy.
Are we at a top of the Bernanke asset bubble? This is not an economics or investment blog. Corrections are always possible at any time. But keep in mind the stock indexes are measured in nominal vs. real terms. Whereas we have some some rotation out of bonds into stocks, we haven't seen massive speculation with smaller investors that we often see at market tops.
What worries me is a contagion of "beggar-thy-neighbor" money printing. Softening demand for commodities, in part due to a Chinese economic slowdown, concerns me. Europe is slumping and the ECB just cut interest rates. But the Fed continues to debase the dollar which lowers purchasing power of the dollars American consumers hold. If and when other currencies rise against the dollar, imported resources and components will become more expensive, shrinking margins, which is bad for stock prices.
We need to stop the insanity that pretends price-fixing by a banking cartel, i.e., the Fed, is different from price-fixing in the economy in general, a bad idea.
Political Cartoon
The mainstream media blame it on awful cable videos on Fox News...
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| Courtesy of Glenn McCoy and Townhall |
Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, "Jungleland"
