Carnival

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is preparing for more snow. He is sick of the stuff frankly. He made a last trip to the store to get some extra charcoal. This is in case the power at the Villainschloss goes out, he’ll grill food. Sadly, his back-up generator will not be able to be repaired for about 2 weeks. That, put succinctly, sucks. But there is naught he can do but complain about it.

Your Maximum Leader noted that Venice’s Carnival started this week. (NB: Effectively, Mardi Gras in New Orleans began Sunday night.) Sadly, your Maximum Leader is not in Venice, but snowbound in Fredericksburg. According to a Reuters report, there is still hotel availability at some higher-end Venice hotels right now. The bad economy seems to be putting a little bit of a damper on the celebration. You can see a Reuters video report on this story by clicking here.

The snow that is headed towards your Maximum Leader has not yet arrived. It was originally expected to begin about midday. It looks now as though it will not start until later this evening…

Carry on.

Ugh. More snow

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t had much fun this weekend. The snows started on Friday night. The Villainschloss lost power at about 9pm Friday night. So your Maximum Leader went to engage the backup generators. Guess what happened?

Nothing.

The back-up generator was non-functioning. Your Maximum Leader tried a few different fixes he could think of. But no go.

Lucky for us the power came back on after about two hours. Your Maximum Leader went to sleep and woke up Saturday morning to the snowstorm continuing in full force. Guess what happened then… About 5pm on Saturday the power went out again. This time it didn’t come back until about 5pm on Sunday. By that time your Maximum Leader and the family had dug out the driveway, sidewalks, and porch. Your Maximum Leader had also chopped wood for the ole woodstove.

Your Maximum Leader is sore all over. Did he mention that he slipped on some ice today and scratched his knee something horrible. (He didn’t know it was bad until Mrs. Villain said “Is that blood all over your pants?”)

Needless to say the prospect of 6-12 more inches tomorrow/Wednesday is not anything to which he’s looking forward.

Hope you are warm and injury free.

Carry on.

Virginia Government and SNOW!

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the Virginia General Assembly (both the House and Senate) are going to adjourn until next week so that the Delegates and Senators can make it home before the huge blizzard arrives.

Your Maximum Leader suggests that the Governor and General Assembly go to the Bass Pro-Shop and get some sleeping bags and camp beds then order a lot of pizza and a few kegs of beer and just tough it out in the State Capitol during the snow. Perhaps if they are all trapped together for a long weekend they could work out the $2 billion shortfall in the Commonwealth’s budget.

Don’t waste a good opportunity…

Carry on.

Forgetful

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has seen that the National Weather Service has increased the forecast of snow in this are to 16-24 inches of accumulation. That is a lot.

All this weather talk has been making your Maximum Leader think of sunnier weather… and art… He always thinks of art you know. If only there were a way to combine sunny weather and art in one visual medium?

Perhaps the late great Alberto Vargas could help us with that…

Indeed he can…

vargas_suntan.jpg
Depending on your workplace, that image might be NSFW.

Your Maximum Leader loves the caption on that piece. BTW, Your Maximum Leader should point out that suntan lotion should be applied every 15-20 minutes while outdoors in the sun.

NB to Sir Basil: Please note how sun reflects realistically off the fruit and there is no sweat on the bubbly.

Carry on.

Out four bucks

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is out four bucks this morning. Yup. He has to pay up tonight. You see, he bet his family that they would not be going to school today. He didn’t see the people in Stafford County Schools buckling down and getting kids to school. Apparently your Maximum Leader is wrong. The schools are opening two hours late today.

Of course, they will be missing school a lot next week if the expected 10-20 inches of snow falls down here on Friday and Saturday.

Your Maximum Leader is growing weary of the snow. He thinks he’d be less weary of it if the state/county were a little better at clearing it away from the roads. We don’t get much snow here, so they don’t have lots of practice.

Carry on.

Tentacled beasties

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that the coast of California is being assulted by giant squids. No beachgoers are safe! Run for the hills! Check that. Run for the hills that aren’t washing into the sea to be devoured by giant squids!

Do you think that there could be a connection between parts of California washing into the sea and the presence of the giant squid? Is this mother nature trying to cull some of the human herd?

Carry on.

Rabbit and Bacon

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will, in the tradition of his Scottish ancestors, wish you all the word “rabbit” as it is the first of the month. Tomorrow he will likely have to wish you all “groundhog!” As he thinks he mentioned before, he doesn’t know why all his relatives rush around calling everyone on the first of every month and saying “rabbit” but they do.

Your Maximum Leader should also wish his wonderful sister-in-law a happy birthday. Since she is not a regular reader of this space, he’ll have to do better than this forum for birthday wishes.

So, your Maximum Leader has mentioned a few times how much he is enjoying his own home-cured bacon. He is going to have to start changing up his receipe as he does this more. Before he can start experimenting however he is going to need more pork bellies. He’s having a dickens of a time trying to find someone who can supply them. The local grocery stores can’t special order them apparently. (Even Wegmans - who hithertofore had seemed to be able to order just about anything.) The local butcher shop seems to be able to get some, but your Maximum Leader would have to order at least 100 pounds of pork bellies to meet the minimum requirement. That sucks. So he continues to work on getting pork bellies…

Speaking of bacon… Did you see this rating of widely available bacon? The only one he’s eaten off the list is the Oscar Meyer Turkey Bacon. Sometimes Mrs Villain feels she’s doing us a favor by purchasing turkey bacon. Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure about that line of thinking; but it is better to have turkey bacon than none at all. If your Maximum Leader is using the bacon in a dish (like omlettes or something) then turkey bacon is passable. But in dishes where bacon is a key player (and not part of the supporting cast) then only pork will do.

That is about it right now. He’ll possibly post more later tonight…

Carry on.

100 Below: What you didn’t hear at the SOTU

The President basked in the shower of applauds from the Joint Session of Congress. He beamed at the assembled government of the nation. The television cameras panned the room showing Senators, Congressmen, Judges, Ambassadors and Cabinet Secretaries.

The President wanted to tell his secret. He wanted to let the world know what he knew. But it wasn’t time.

Before heading to the Capitol he secretly contacted his handler, Zegulus of the planet Xpflaxus-Primus. Zegulus told him that the invasion fleet was still organizing behind Mars and it was not time.

Next year. Surely next year.

Wherein I don’t listen to Mrs P

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader found himself disregarding Mrs P’s advice. Some time ago your Maximum Leader complained about a Ruth Marcus op-ed piece in the Washington Post. In the comment section of that past post Mrs P advised your Maximum Leader to not read Ruth Marcus as it was bad for his mind and blood pressure. (Mrs P also advised that if your Maximum Leader continued to read Marcus she might have to review the status of his “man card.”)

Well… Apparently your Maximum Leader isn’t good at following Mrs P’s directions.

He read a Ruth Marcus piece on the Washington Post today. The piece is entitled “Why the filibuster is frustrating but necessary.” The first line of the piece reads thus: This won’t comfort Democrats mourning the loss of their filibuster-proof majority, but the existence of the filibuster is, on balance, a good thing. Ruth then goes on to explain what the filibuster is and why it is being more and more used in the Senate today. She is obviously upset that the filibuster can be used to thwart the agenda she wants to see advanced; but she seems to be able to live with it.

Well… Your Maximum Leader agrees with Ruth Marcus on this. And he’ll go a step further. He not only likes the filibuster, he LOVES the filibuster. Indeed, you will remember he likes gridlock. Frankly he doesn’t understand why more conservatives don’t love it.

NB to Ruth Marcus: You seem to be okay with the filibuster, call your Maximum Leader and he’ll see how he can educate you on the glories of gridlock too.

NB to Mrs P: Sorry.

Carry on.

Quick links and interesting fact

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is preparing for the State of the Union address tonight. For the first time in many years he will watch the address live. He hasn’t watched a State of the Union since the one in January 2002. He didn’t watch Bush’s speeches because he couldn’t stand to listen to Bush’s delivery. He always read Bush speeches. Your Maximum Leader has generally avoided President Obama’s speeches because they are lofty and sound magnificent, but are essentially lots of sound and fury signifying nothing. That said, your Maximum Leader is interested to hear what the President will say tonight…

Speaking of Congress (sort of)… Did you know that on this date in 1791 Congress passed the Excise Whiskey Tax. Passage of the act lead to the Whiskey Rebellion. Your Maximum Leader will have to thank a tweet from the Capitol Historical Society for that little tidbit…

Did you catch the post over on the Volokh Conspiracy about the changing Kibbutzim of Israel? No? You should. Your Maximum Leader was, in a debate on socialism, always willing to concede the point that the Kibbutzim of Israel appeared to be a successful implementation of the socialist idea. While he would quibble with anyone as to how the model would work on a wider scale, he was always willing to say that they seemed to work. (Lucky for your Maximum Leader, none of the socialists he knew - or knows - seem to care much for Kibbutzim and the subject rarely came up in a wider context of socalism.) Apparently now your Maximum Leader will no longer have to concede the point of a successful socialist experiment.

Speaking of Kibbutzim, your Maximum Leader’s mother had a good friend who’s sister married a Kibbutznik and was loving her life there. This friend’s sister came to visit in the US and brought along one of here friends from the Kibbutz. The friend was single and looking for a man. She was also up there on the list of the hottest babes your Maximum Leader has ever spent time with. If your Maximum Leader had been slightly older (he was about 17 at the time - she was about 22) and Jewish he might have tried to pitch a little woo in her direction. He would have failed of course, but he would have probably tried.

Your Maximum Leader, although he doesn’t have the money for it, was shopping around for a laptop computer for himself. The computing needs of the Villainous offspring are increasing and he would like to get a nice laptop for himself. He has been looking at a Mac. But he keeps coming back to an Alienware machine. Yesterday he was sorely tempted to make a purchase he couldn’t afford. Yesterday there was a one day sale on select Alienware machines. They had a M15X that was pretty hopped up for $360 off regular price (total cost $1500). He didn’t bite, but feels like it was a good deal. He’ll likely wait until the M11X comes out and sees how that compares in price to other models.

Apparently much hay is being made about this fellow O’Keefe. You may have heard of him a few months ago when he posed as a pimp and went to various ACORN offices and got advise from the friendly ACORN people on how to avoid taxes and such on his prostitution ring. Well now he has been (rightfully) arrested for attempting to bug a phone in an office of Senator Mary Landrieu. Talk about stupid. One would have hoped that after gaining so much acclaim he might have gotten himself an advisor who might have told him that bugging a phone is a bad idea. An illegal idea in fact. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have much sympathy for people being stupid. James O’Keefe appears to be stupid.

That is about it…

Carry on.

F.A. pimped out

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is still thinking a lot about his recent banking post and the follow up it has generated.

If you haven’t read it… Your Maximum Leader’s post and comments are here. Then FLG was kind enough to follow-on. FLG’s first post is here, his second post is here, his third post is here, his fourth post is here, and his fifth post is here. Your Maximum Leader has actually been following FLG’s posts quite carefully. It makes him wish he took more finance classes in college. (He is still reading Niall Ferguson’s “Ascent of Money” which is a history of finance and pretty interesting.)

Your Maximum Leader also listened to a very interesting podcast recently from The Economist about increasing capital requirements at banks. It is here:

There is a lot to think about in all of this, and this post is (at best) going to be a clumsy mish-mash of ideas. Your Maximum Leader favors an upward adjustment of capital requirements at banks. How much should that adjustment be, he can’t tell. After listening to the Economist piece his isn’t confident of any number he’s heard out there on news programs. There has to be a number it seems to be a matter of pinning it down.

Then you have the talk of Glass-Steagall and Gramm-Leach-Biley… Your Maximum Leader has never advocated a return to the days of Glass-Steagall. But GLB probably needs to be tweaked some. Again, what do you tweak? Your Maximum Leader knows enough to say he isn’t sure. He would like to see restrictions on proprietary trading by banks, but as Buttonwood and FLG point out in one of the previously linked peices; how do you do that? He would also like to see the riskier elements of the “too big to fail” banks moved to small subsidiaries - or divested altogether to limit the exposure of the taxpayer who still seems to be guaranteeing all these businesses. Again… The devil is in the details here…

Look, your Maximum Leader realizes that the markets will adapt and change faster than any government regulatory regimen. But we are at a point at which there have been events from which we need to learn and make changes to the regulatory regimen. The hand of government will always be clumsy and slow, but we can take the time now to try and attempt to modify the environment to avoid the recurrence of the catastrophic meltdown we have just experienced (and are still experiencing).

In other economic news… Your Maximum Leader would like to see the President go further in his spending freeze. He would like to see Social Security and other Federal entitlements put into the “frozen” spending. He’d also like to see the President urge that the tax cuts passed during the Bush Administration be made permanent. Both of these positions seem to be prudent ones. Especially considering that billions of dollars of “stimulus” money has yet to be spent. That money is still out there hanging ’round…

As much as your Maximum Leader would like to see budget cutting and more deficit control, he feels the most he can (and should) ask for now is restraint. Let’s let things stabilize and then see where we stand.

And because all the cool kidz are posting it…

Thanks to Joan of Arrgghh for the video. Love it.

Carry on.

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: The Economist podcast he linked above was not the correct one - although it is pertinent to the discussion. This is the one he meant to link:

Carry on.

ANOTHER UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: (NB to Huck Foley: Your Maximum Leader appreciates your comments and is glad that you stepped up to speak on the topic. Your Maximum Leader is in agreement with your point about the Community Redevelopment Act playing a large part in creating the bubble that recently burst. Thanks for the food for thought.)

I’ma pathetic Scottish-American

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is a pathetic excuse of an American of Scottish ancestry. Why you may ask? Well allow him to explain…

As you may know, tonight, January 25th, is Burns Night. The night when Scots and those of Scottish ancestry around the world celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. Often the night is accompanied with feasting and toasting and poetry reading… It is not uncommon for your Maximum Leader to try and have a fancy dinner and a wee dram with his family (and perhaps a few close friends). Burns would be read and a great time would be had by all…

But tonight…

There was no feasting. Indeed the dinner consisted of the remains of a pan-fried round steak, powdered mashed potatoes, and some re-heated frozen veggies (a carrot, broccoli and colliflower mix). It was eaten in about 20 minutes. There was no toasting, there was no poetry. There was no dram.

It was pathetic.

There is only one promising thing to say about the evening… That is that there is still a chance that your Maximum Leader will have himself a little dram of uisge beatha.

For those of you reading this blog closely you may recall that last 4th of July your Maximum Leader swore off alcoholic beverages of foreign make. (There was one exception - he had a Guinness on Arthur Guinness’ birthday in October.) His promise to himself to forego foreign alcohol expired on January 1. But since January 1 he has consumed two Guinness’, one Chimay Ale, and a few glasses of Italian wine. He’s not had any of the greatest drink in the world, Scotch whisky. That should change a few minutes after he finishes this post…

Cheers.

Carry on.

Are you sitting down?

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hopes that some of you are sitting down. You are? Okay… Here it comes…

Your Maximum Leader might (MIGHT) find himself in agreement with some of President Obama’s proposed bank reforms.

There. He said it.

Your Maximum Leader will have to read more about exactly what the President is proposing but it is possible that your Maximum Leader might agree with not only the thrust but detail of the proposals. At this point the reporting on the President’s proposals is mostly limited to how he wants the banks to have to limit risk and not grow as large. There is a lot of breathless reporting about the proposals and few details. So this “endoresment” is tenative and preliminary and easily revoked.

You may be asking yourself, “Self, what has happened to my Maximum Leader? How could he write this?” Well, allow your Maximum Leader to explain some…

As you know your Maximum Leader is a conservative with some libertarian streaks. He believes we need a government which has clearly defined powers and roles. He is a firm believer that the Federal Government has a necessary role to play in the regulation of commerce in our nation. We are not an unfettered capitalist nation. We have limits on our economic system. Many of the limits are very beneficial, some not too beneficial, and some are a hindrance. Your Maximum Leader believes that we do need to do something about our banks…

Now, your Maximum Leader is not an economist, or a finance major, or any such thing. So he admits he’ll need to grow a little more informed on some of these matters as they move forward. But let him explain where he’s coming from. Your Maximum Leader believes that the purpose of finance (and banking) is to concentrate capital to further (advance) other economic activity. Finance (and banking) is not a means to huge profits in and of itself. This is not to say that your Maximum Leader wants to limit bank profits (or paychecks or bonuses). It is to say that the goal of many finance companies (and banks) of late has seemed to be to make a big profit through investments and devices that mgiht not advance other economic activity. So your Maximum Leader is concerned that banks are behaving like regular corporations that focus on the bottom line, and not behaving like banks have behaved through history.

Take for example various mortgage devices that contributed to our current economic situation. The issuance of a mortgage is the proper role of a bank. The reselling of mortgages from bank to bank is not necessarially a bad thing. It is when you start to commoditize mortgages into instruments that become a speculative tool for investors to shift around from institution to institution only seeking a profit on the transfer that you start to have a problem. Again, don’t misunderstand your Maximum Leader here. If you want to speculate in a specialized instrument and expose yourself to risk and potential payout that is fine, but to have the same institutions involved in all aspects of this deal from the mortgage to the speculation is not wise. Your Maximum Leader isn’t fond of the “too big (and diversified) to fail” concept of a bank.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure we should go “back to the future” and repeal some of the legislation that allowed commerical banks and investment banks to merge and own other types of companies (like brokerages and insurance companies). But there needs to be some happy median here.

So, your Maximum Leader will try and figure out what the President is proposing and see if he actually can support the reforms. Perhaps our friend FLG will educate us a little on finance and these recent proposals…

Carry on.

UPDATE FROM YOUR MAXIMUM LEADER: Your Maximum Leader just read a piece by Judah Kraushaar in the Wall Street Journal. It touches on some of the concerns that your Maximum Leader has. You can read the whole peice here: Banks Need Clear Capital Rules. Here is the good part:

There is no silver bullet when it comes to the problem of financial institutions that have become too big to fail. Policy makers have determined that the best approach is to force a conservative capital and restructuring regimen on U.S. banks. In this context, President Obama’s proposed tax on bank assets aligns tax policy with the broader direction on capital requirements being pursued by bank regulators. The ideas he outlined yesterday about limiting proprietary trading will further reduce risk taking and will likely come at the expense of profitability.

There is nothing wrong with increasing capital requirements for the banks. Attacking excessive leverage in the banking system may go a long way toward dampening the boom-bust cycle that has become alarmingly intense in recent decades.

What we need now is clarity. What will future capital requirements look like? What is the plan to return the banks to reasonable rates of profitability? Until that architecture is put in place, banks will have little incentive to sell the problem assets currently clogging their balance sheets—let alone to lend more aggressively.

Protracted congressional hearings on the bank crisis, piecemeal new regulations, sporadic attacks on bank compensation, and an ad hoc approach to taxing banks will only compound the crisis in the American financial service industry.

Right now, investors lack conviction in the ability of the banks to move past the crisis and get back to generating profits. The stocks of the largest bank holding companies now commonly trade at a discount to book value. These discounts illustrate that investors doubt the companies’ wherewithal to earn future returns in excess of their cost of capital. Few financial companies can survive with that sort of penalty, given that attracting fresh capital is their lifeblood.

This isn’t the only concern your Maximum Leader was trying to address, but it is part of the big picture.

Carry on.

Our long national nightmare… Reboots

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that Conan O’Brien will host his last installment of “The Tonight Show” this Friday. It is hard to muster up too much sorrow for a man who is getting a $33 million payout. Your Maximum Leader does think that Conan has been treated really badly. He is sure that Conan will recover and be back on the air somewhere in late 2010. Your Maximum Leader hopes that Andy Richter travels along with Conan wherever the latter ends up.

Fare thee well Conan. Your Maximum Leader will have a beer later in your honor and toast to the complete collapse of NBC.

Carry on.

And so it begins.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is a little surprised that it has taken a little more than 24 hours for a major press outlet to run a “Scott Brown isn’t who you think he is” story. Thanks to the AP we have this: “Brown record doesn’t always match Everyman image.”

According to the AP piece Brown is “to the right” of many of his Massachusetts colleagues. He favors waterboarding terrorists. He has it out for rape victims because he suggested an amendment that would allow Doctors and Nurses with religious objections to refrain from providing emergency contraceptives to rape victims. He didn’t like the federal stimulus bill but said Mass should keep the money. The piece goes on to list other bits as well.

Your Maximum Leader looks forward to seeing more such articles in the future. At least he knows that the tendencies of the press haven’t changed…

Carry on.

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