crappy hour

Leona Helmsley's Dog May Not Talk, But He Can Sort Of Explain The Recession

Today's evidence the economy is going straight to the Inferno: 600 Starbucks stores are closing, which will leave a gaping hole in the anchor of countless strip malls and exurban power centers. Oil prices have sunk car sales and rentals to historic lows, and the fact no one is traveling anymore has left casinos struggling to pay the power bills. How did the whole world collapse so quickly? If only Leona Helmsley's dog could talk, folks! (Nobody knows the trouble Trouble has seen.) See, fundamentally not much has changed, but the nature of the market is to exaggerate. Oil prices, which should maybe be around $100 a barrel, have been driven up by speculators. GM stock is at a 53-year low over car sales that are only at a 10-year low. Casinos are power-greedy structures that are generally loaded down with a few billion dollars in debt before they even open and there are 11,500 Starbucks locations that will stick around to sate your dependence on caffeinated milkshakes. But as Leona Helmsley once pointed out, only the little people pay taxes, and only the little people really have to worry about this recession stuff. Dick Grasso is keeping his $140 million payout, the CEO of Starbucks is keeping his billion dollar net worth, and little Trouble here is keeping his $100,000-a-year bodyguard services. That, torture and Obama's mortgage with me and Megan after the jump. More »

crappy hour

It Was A Nice Day For A White Voter

Welcome back kids! How was el fin de semana? Because it sure sucked for a lot of our overseas amigos! A devastating earthquake on the scale of an earthquake that killed a quarter million people in 1976 just rocked China's Sichuan province; Burma's totalitarian military junta decided to grant itself unlimited totalitarian power and all the donated rice; no one can really protest the junta since they are mostly all dead and/or starving to death anyway; hopefully Jenna Bush did the sensitive thing and refrained from throwing rice at her wedding; two John McCain advisers did the sensitive thing and stepped down when it turned out they'd actually taken three hundred grand from the junta for PR services. Bob Barr and Ron Paul both launched separate attempts to do what voters are already doing anyway and sink McCain's campaign; Michelle Obama is nixin Hillary as a running mate (according to Bob Novak?!) and speaking of Nixon, there's a new book on him and the white voters who elected him and we read all about it sorta. All that and a Vito Fossella primer ATJ. More »

news roundup

The "And You Thought Yesterday Was Bad" Edition

• After last night's fellatio-esque interview of John McCain, reporters ask Jon Stewart if he's a real journalist and if he should've tried harder to ask a real question. No, and yes. [Comedy Central, Time, Rolling Stone]
  
• No one really cares, though, because Hillary might not actually stay in the race until August. [NY Times]
  
• And there is one economist who agrees with her gas tax plan, but only because this example of blatant electoral pandering is the method of blatant electoral pandering likely to do the least harm of all the harmful ways to blatantly pander to the electorate. [NY Times]
  
• Oh, and some New York Congressman got his mistress pregnant three years ago and has a secret love child and is a drunk driver. Even married Republicans lose when it comes to abstinence-only education. [NY Times]

More »