Your sunshine and smiles of the day

Looks like things might be finally looking up for those poor, beleaguered kids over at that mom and pop operation known as BP. Did they finally get a cap on that oil, drill the relief well, or in any other way stop all the oil from flowing into the sea? Lord no. But at least they're catching a tax break.

The costs to the foreign oil giant BP for poisoning the Gulf of Mexico will lower the company’s taxes by billions of dollars, and BP “may be able to get a refund for taxes paid in previous years.” If BP’s cleanup costs reach $60 billion, as Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates, the company will be able to deduct almost $20 billion over time. In addition to billions in subsidies, the company has received $10 billion in federal contracts from the American taxpayer in the last ten years. BP spokesman Steve Rinehart told Bloomberg News that BP will deduct the $3.5 billion already spent on cleanup efforts and any future expenses.

Good for them. See kids, if you fuck up colossally enough eventually it starts to work in your favor.

Everything is fucked, we're all going to die

As you may have heard, the voters of Massachusetts stood up in unison last night and said "It's probably better for this country if absolutely nothing gets done for the rest of the year" and put Scott Brown into their open Senate seat changing the balance of the Senate from 60-40 to 59-41, effectively allowing Republicans to succeed with the filibusters they do on every single bill. Apparently voters get mad when you can't fix the problems Republicans spent eight years creating in one year and thus feel the need to hand more power back to them to create even more problems and gridlock. Makes sense.

Were there any lessons learned? Yes, Ted Kennedy is a complete asshole for dying. Also, Massachusetts has a real "fuck you, I got mine" attitude towards public health care. Any positives? Well, Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson are no longer the penultimate votes, so they'll probably no longer infuriate you with their childish demands. You also won't have to concern yourself with bills that get passed or learning new laws as none will be passed now.

But what does this mean for health care? Well there are a few options. One: hammer out a compromise bill and vote on it before Brown is seated. This is what's known as "what the Republicans would do", so of course the Democrats will not even attempt it. Second: the House passes the Senate bill. This would make sense and get this country to make some minor progress towards better health reform, but it would involve House progressives taking some sort of metaphorical political defeat and not allow them the delusion that their bill is all that different from the Senate version, so this will probably never happen. Third option: form a circular firing squad, despair as all hope is lost, get to the business of killing health reform dead, and cement the fact that you will lose horribly in November. Ding ding ding, I think we have a winner.

Yes, before Martha Coakley's body was even cold Democrats were out in full force trying to shoot off their feet, cave immediately, and commit political suicide. Barney Frank was out talking absolute shit about no being able to continue on the current health care path and engaging in some utter fantasy that Republicans will now be eager to join in and offer meaningful dialogue and compromise. Anthony Weiner was alternately saying health care reform should stop or that it should continue, but that he was opposed to voting for it and passing it. Jim Webb was all for letting health care come to a screeching halt and so was Evan Bayh, who took additional time to blame this on liberals who didn't win one single battle in the health care fight against middling "centrist" douches like him.

Gee, sure looks like we're going to get a health care bill real soon. So the conventional wisdom is that quitting and doing nothing, pivoting to some nebulous jobs bill that no Republicans will support, looking incredibly weak, and generally getting nothing done is the only way that they'll be able to save their own hides. Well, who can argue with the political acumen of the Democratic party. I mean they're so often right and prone to picking the most successful path. I'm sure this will all work out for them. Because there's nothing this country likes more than quitting, weakness, and failure.

Congrats on completely fucking up, Democrats. Not passing health care reform is the final step and you seem well on your way to doing it. Thanks for the memories, it sure was a great year. I'll remember to act surprised when you all lose your jobs in November.

The case for rewarding failure

I'm a little at a loss here. There's someone out arguing for $165 million in bonuses to be paid to AIG executives. Oh, I'm not surprised someone's making the argument, I'm just surprised the New York Times got it out of the gate before the Wall Street Journal had it's pants on. But then again I'm not sure I should be surprised. This is after all the paper that spent the fall and winter regaling us with tales of our beleaguered rich betters who could no longer business lunch or marry for money. I guess someone there had to take up the cause for millionaires about to be cheated out of bonuses just for collapsing the world economy and failing to perform at even a basic level of competence.

“This isn’t just a matter of dollars and cents,” he said. “It’s about our fundamental values.”

On that last issue, lawyers, Wall Street types and compensation consultants agree with the president. But from their point of view, the “fundamental value” in question here is the sanctity of contracts.

That may strike many people as a bit of convenient legalese, but maybe there is something to it. If you think this economy is a mess now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to worry that the government would start abrogating contracts left and right.

It would look like what happens every time the government has to get involved with some mega-company going into bankruptcy that has union contracts? Go ask the UAW about the sanctity of contracts.

As to what would happen to the financial sector or banks if people had to worry about their bonuses: who cares? Are there ways with which they could actually be performing worse? If they're taking government bailouts, how many people there could have earned that bonus? Fuck 'em. You lose performance incentives when your performance collapses the economy of the world.

But what about the commitment to taxpayers? Here is the second, perhaps more sobering thought: A.I.G. built this bomb, and it may be the only outfit that really knows how to defuse it.

A.I.G. employees concocted complex derivatives that then wormed their way through the global financial system. If they leave — the buzz on Wall Street is that some have, and more are ready to — they might simply turn around and trade against A.I.G.’s book. Why not? They know how bad it is. They built it.

Great plan. We're hostages, pay the terrorists what they want or they destroy the eastern seaboard. Unless they just take the bonuses and then leave anyway. Maybe we should negotiate with terrorists the way Israel negotiates with terrorists. Get all Munich up in their assess. Get Eric Bana on line one. Though really, if they understand the problems so well we need to pay them ransom money...then how come they didn't understand the problems they were creating in the first place?

What is the limit on articles the Times can produce with Ayn Randian class humping coached in the argumentative cloak of "it might not be great, but we just have to do it"? Have they hit it yet? Here's a hint for the next time you decide that our financial betters aren't being properly deified: if the only two reasons you can think of are "Contract law! What will the children think?" and "Sure they failed, but only they know the specific way they failed. Let's hand them a sack of money so they tell us." then you don't really have any reasons. Just type out "They've scaled the heights of Wall Street, that means they're better than us and we need to pay them as a reward for their status." or "Some of my friends are being affected. Waaaaaaaaah!" and we'll get the message.