Kausfiles: A mostly political weblog.

90% B.S.

90% BS: Obama's claim that  

"more than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border"

appears to be deceptively hyped, at best. (The 90% figure only covers the guns that are sent to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Fireams for testing. There seems little reason to assume it is a representative sample of all the "guns recovered in Mexico"). But is the suspect factoid really designed to "weaken the Second Amendment" and promote gun control, as the NRA charges? Or is it just convenient diplomatic BS because it allows the United States to be partly blamed for Mexico's embarrassing inability to control its violent drug cartels?  (True, you'd think it would be unnecessary, since the U.S., as the consumer of the illegal drugs the cartels sell, is already partly to blame.)  ... 

Update: Obama's stat has now received the Official Annenberg Seal of B.S. from FactCheck.Org, which notes: 

the guns that ATF is given to trace are far from a random sample of all guns recovered. Indeed, it omits those that Mexican officials have reason to believe come from elsewhere, and includes only those guns with a good chance of being traced to U.S. sources.

FactCheck's seemingly thorough analysis concludes an accurate estimate would be "probably less than half of the 90 percent claimed by the president and others in his administration." But then we'd have less to apologize for! ... [via Insta via Andrew Malcolm] 1:06 A.M.

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Screwing the Chooch: Did auto czarito Steven Rattner pay to play at his investment fund?... With the GM and Chrysler auto negotiations at their current critical stage, isn't he too big to fail--the Geithner Put? ... P.S.: In what may be an admirable display of independence, the NYT's story makes Rattner--a former Times reporter and buddy of Times CEO Pinch Sulzberger--seem more potentially culpable than the WSJ's story does. Formally, if the accusations are true, Rattner would merely be the shakedownee in the pension fund deal in question. But the Times makes it seem as if he aggressively plunged ahead in what was allegedly a seamy business. [More 'allegedly's?-ed. Think I'm OK] ... Bonus Question: How many vetting problems make a "handful"? ... P.P.S.: How bad is "Chooch," the 2003 film Rattner's firm (allegedly) indirectly bought as part of the complicated financial machinations? Pretty bad, said the NYT. But according to the Village Voice it "charms with its p.c. portrayal of Italian Americans" and "rebuilds cultural bridges." So there. ... 

Update: One of Rattner's "handful" of vetting problems was his conflict of interest due to previous dealings with Chrysler's owner, Cerberus. Jane Hamsher says 

Rattner's Quadrangle has a financial relationship with Cerberus, having loaned them $125 million to buy the Maxim and Blender magazine parent two years ago (Cerberus is currently in default). 

That's wrong. But close! It's Cerberus that loaned the money to Rattner's firm, not the other way around (see link). Hamsher's error is repeated and amplified by TPM's Moe Tkacik.  (Journolist synergy?) If Hamsher, who's well-connected with the labor movement, and Tkacik have it in for Rattner, maybe he really is the right guy for the auto bailout job--i.e. the guy who might force the UAW, as well as Detroit's bondholder's, back to reality. (Contra Hamsher, it's not "a national moral outrage that [UAW members] should expect to make $33 an hour in this day and age." The problem is expecting to keep making $33 when your firm has effectively gone bankrupt.) ...  10:34  P.M.

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Return of the Washington Turf War

Thursday, January 29, 2009 

The Fist Next Time: What if Obama's first foreign policy crisis is a new Tienanmen Moment in China? Bob Wright and I discuss (after trying to figure out what it means, in Obama language, to "unclench your fist").  ... 11:23 P.M.

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Geithner: I am not not not being eaten alive by Larry Summers! (Turns out Geithner's just been "exerting subtle bureaucratic influence"!)  ...  P.S.: For some reason I'm looking forward to the press coverage of mindlessly vicious bureaucratic infighting in the Obama administration. (That sort of ego-tussle can be productive--see Ickes vs. Hopkins.) Was there no domestic policy infighting under Bush, or did the press just not care enough about it to report? ...  10:50 P.M.

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In Gambling, I Think They Call This A Lock: When Obama gives a rousing speech, it just shows what a brilliant wordsmith he is. When he gives a dull speech, it's "perhaps by design"--he's intentionally deflating excessive expectations!--and his "Spare Inaugural Rhetoric Signals Strategic Mastery." ... Nice work if you can get it. ... 7:28 P.M.

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kf Parties for You!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Matt Yglesias defends his manhood! His site wasn't hijacked by Jennifer Palmieri! Rather, he assumed her proposed blog post

"represented her putting her foot down, so I kind of didn't say anything more about it, and just stuck if up there ...."

Hmm. Does that make it any better? ... P.S.: The point is that until recently Yglesias had a nice perch at the Atlantic, where nobody was going to put their foot down simply because he offended a Democratic interest group. But he opted for the joys of cocooning "community," so now when a ranking politico like Palmieri puts her foot down, he rolls over.  ... 4:39 P.M.

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Card Check Slow Track Watch: Labor strategists deny (to Mark Ambinder) that Obama's remarks to WaPo constitute a slow-tracking of "card check." And I know that some business groups still think there's no slow-tracking of "card check" (if it's not in fact already a done deal).  So let's assume there's no slow-tracking of card check! ... But it sure sounds to me like the only bill Obama expects to pass soon would be a compromise (for example, retaining the secret ballot but speeding up various time limits or altering other provisions in ways that would still aid unionization drives). ... If you were Obama and you wanted to slow-track "card check," or force a "reform" compromise that feel short of eliminating the secret ballot, you would tell the Post what Obama told the Post, no? If you were a labor strategist and you were worried that Obama was slow-tracking card check, you wouldn't tell that to Ambinder. You'd tell him that there was "every reason to believe" that Obama would keep his "committment," in order to keep the heat on. ... Update: Anti-card checker Peter Kirsanow is still worried. "Unions understand that the planets won't align for them like this again. ... They won't back down." True. But that's also a reason to discount the bravado they show to Ambinder. They're not going to give up this early and say, "Gee, looks like 'card check's' not going to happen.' ... Not that they might not ultimately win. [via Shopfloor] ... See also Rubin. ...

P.S.: Obama's framework is admirably clear. (It's not mine!)

"[I]f the business community's argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people to join unions and we think that is damaging to the economy then they probably won't get too far with me."

Of course, the issue isn't only whether it will get far with Obama, important as that is. It's also how far it gets with 41 senators. ... 

P.P.S.: Obama says

Here's my basic principle: that wages and incomes have flatlined over the last decade.  That part of that has to do with forces that are beyond everybody's control: globalization, technology and so forth.  Part of it has to do with workers have very little leverage and that larger and larger shares of our productivity go to the top and not to the middle or the bottom.  I think unions serve an important role in that.

The obvious initial question is whether, in a more fully unionized economy, the net productivity gains would be there to be "leveraged" down. Not a lot of gains being leveraged to UAW members these days. ... 2:59 P.M.

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"You Call This a Downturn?" Well, it depends if that ugly red line keeps going in the direction it's going, no? ... P.S.: Keep in mind, the line measures how much employment has fallen versus all other recessions after x number of months. So the current recession started mild, but is now somewhere between "medium" and "harsh." Trending "harsh." ... 11:45 A.M.

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

'We Had a Hat': UAW workers rally against wage concessions to GM in Michigan. ... Old Rules: You demanded higher wages and held rallies against your employer. ... New Rules: You demand higher wages, help drive your employer into bankruptcy, and then you hold rallies against the government that bailed you out. ... P.S.: Shouldn't the mayor of Warren, Michigan be more worried about preventing GM from disappearing, taking all its jobs, than preventing a 10% or 20% pay cut? ... P.P.S.: I just took a 10% pay cut! Do you see me protesting? No! But I'm going to milk it for all its worth. ...  P.P.P.S.: I see a parallel to the counterproductive Gran Marcha: A few more rallies like this and GM won't see another dime from Congress. ... [via Brian Faughnan]10:19 P.M.

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Andy Levy turns today's airplane heroism into a pitch to America's Last Employer. ... [via Insta] 9:47 P.M.

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“I know as much or more than Cheney." Mr. Biden said. "I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.” Wow. a) Biden has no private sector experience after age 30, right? b) How insecure is this guy? Getting close to dangerously insecure, no? ... And here we we'd just succeeded in explaining away the "I have a much higher IQ than you do" aria of credentialist braggadocio. ...   9:45 P.M.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Inaugural Schmoozalism: kf discovers that the mood in Washington among veteran Beltway Dems is a lot more skeptical of Tim Geithner's innocence regarding his tax errors than public reaction by offical Dems (or some GOPs) would lead you to expect. Maguire would feel right at home. ... 9:32  P.M.

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