Dear Mothers-to-be

Please don't name your daughter Madison. They're going to wind up in school with 4 other Madisons in their class and they'll feel dumb. Furthermore, why do you find it such a compelling name? I don't get it. Maybe it's just me. But this is my blog. Got a problem? Leave a comment.

Paul Kennedy saw this coming.

From historian Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987)

Although the United States is at present still in a class of its own economically and perhaps even militarily, it cannot avoid confronting the two great tests which challenge the longevity of every major power that occupies the ‘number one’ position in world affairs: whether, in the military/strategical realm, it can preserve a reasonable balance between the nation’s perceived defense requirements and the means it possesses to maintain those commitments; and whether, as an intimately related point, it can preserve the technological and economic bases of its power from relative erosion in the face of the ever-shifting patterns of global production. This test of American abilities will be the greater because it, like imperial Spain around 1600 or the British Empire around 1900, is the inheritor of a vast array of strategical commitments which had been made decades earlier, when the nation’s political, economic, and military capacity to influence world affairs seems so much more assured. In consequence, the United States now runs the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of previous great powers, of what might roughly be called ‘imperial overstretch’: that is to say, decision makers in Washington must face the awkward and enduring fact that the sum total of the United States’ global interests and obligations is nowadays far larger than the country’s power to defend them all simultaneously.

Fed leaves rates constant

Fed statement

It's about time. Let's hope they didn't stop it too late.

Jerusalem

Could Jerusalem flourish as an independent city-state? It seems that town is quite the sticking point. I don't think it would be like the Vatican because that would require some theocratic head of state.

I've pondered the benefits of its independence for years. Jon Stewart brought it up recently during some interview (yeah, I'm too lazy to put in a hyperlink here--Google it yourself).

I'm not sure it would happen, but I'd like to think every sticking point is negotiable. (Bill Clinton, you were so damn close. Yes, we can/should blame Arafat.) UN? Got cajones?

Details, geez... i don't feel like writing more right now. But if you take me on I'll either defend myself or concede.

Way to go BP

BP has to shut down its Prudhoe Bay oil field due to "corroded pipes". Nice maintenance. All in the shadow of your record profits.

This is corporate irresponsibility of its grandest.

And watch: their profits will go up even more because of the way the market works.

Remember folks, you can throw around the terms "supply" and "demand" but that doesn't cut to the core of what is going on. Consolidation in the oil refining industry has allowed them to set the retail price that pads their profits. If you doubt, think about this: In what other industries can you have increases in costs (in this case crude oil) result in higher profits. If you think "hey, when my costs are higher my profits get squeezed" you are thinking logically. So the oil industry defies logic. Or that logic is that they are exercising market power. And don't think this administration will go after oil companies. They're in bed together.

Folks, there is no oil shortage. Prices are high, yes. Blame the turmoil in the mideast (and the lack of successful US interventionist policies). Blame the consolidation of the oil industry (and the pro-business leanings of the powers that be). But don't blame supply and demand. They are, as always, on their best behavior. It is the circumvention of the rules of supply and demand that are the culprit.

Way to go BP. Go to hell while you're at it.

At least their stock dropped today.