the brains of lizards

Josh asks for Help: Who's got the mystery hold on Obama's science advisors? Help us find out. Sens. Vitter and Martinez say it ain't them.

Drum on Quants: Dennis Overbye has a piece in the New York Times today about "quants," the geeks and nerds who have converged on Wall Street in recent years and tried to use mathematical models to outsmart the market and generate vast sums of risk-free cash for their employers. ... ... here's another thing to think about. Even among the number crunching set, physics has a reputation as the most aggressive, male dominated branch of geekdom: only 14% of physics PhDs are women, the lowest of any of the sciences. (Math is pretty male dominated too, but pales compared to physics: 29% of math PhDs are women.) If the first thing that "aggressive and male dominated" reminds you of is the big swinging dick world of high finance, give yourself a gold star. Call this the testosterone theory: physicists are attracted to Wall Street because they like the atmosphere.

QOTD, Josh Marshall: I've speculated as to whether God created Michael Steele's tenure at the RNC simply for the purposes of cosmic comic relief, seeing as the financial crisis appears so bleak.


This chart was going around a few days ago. Worth keeping it in the forefront.

Yglesias: Top Marginal Tax Rates Over Time

Via Steve Benen, John Cole has a chart that puts Barack Obama’s economy-destroying tax cuts in their proper context:

As we can see here, the United States has enjoyed three periods of prosperity over the past 100 years—there was the late-1920s, the late 1980s, and the 2000s. For the rest of our history, the entire period from FDR through to early Reagan, and then again in the dark days of Bill Clinton, we suffered from cataclysmic stagnation because “soak the rich” policies left businesses without incentive to invest. Our talented citizens unfortunately, but understandably, dediced to “go Galt” en masse and the economy stagnated. ...

• As John Cole said: The Thin Line Between Socialism and Capitalist Nirvana

  The 2010 proposed rate of 39.60% = socialism.
  

  The 2002-2008 rates of 35.00% = capitalist nirvana.
  The 39.6% rate of the 1990’s = socialism.
  Everything else = down the memory hole.

  That Obama fellow sure is soaking the rich, isn’t he?

Yglesias: Cutting Earmarks Doesn’t Save Money

I think it’s reasonable well-understood at this point among non-stupid, non-dishonest people that “earmarks” are a minor aspect of the budget and the bloviating about them is just hot air not serious budget policy. Less well-understood is Stan Collender’s point that earmark reform would literally save no money whatsoever:

Lost in all of the debate (and the reporting about the debate) on the earmarks in the omnibus 2009 appropriations bill the Senate is still working to adopt is the basic fact that cutting earmarks doesn’t save any money.

This is not open for discussion. An earmark simply is a congressional decision to allocate part of appropriation for a particular purpose. Eliminating the allocation doesn’t reduce the appropriation, it simply leaves the allocation decision to a federal department or agency rather than to Congress.

A lot of people don’t understand this because the mechanics of the federal budget process are fairly obscure. But guess who really ought to understand the federal budget process? Members of congress! And especially those members of congress who portray themselves as incredibly concerned with the need for federal budget reform. I’m looking at you John McCain!

Maddow on the fundamental ideological clash of our time. Union fight ahead, and "the big lie works." Any idea who might be lying?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The description of brain function here is fascinating.
Hilzoy: Kids In The Back Seat

The Washington Post has a story about people who accidentally leave their kids in the car, where they die from the heat. I often say that things are worth reading, but this one is more than usually so: for the detail, the understanding, the neurological explanation for how this could happen even to loving and attentive parents, the stories of how, incomprehensibly, the parents who do this go on living. It's really, really good, and really, really tough to read. But it's worth it.

...

A molecular physiologist quoted in the Post story explains how it happens:

"The human brain, he says, is a magnificent but jury-rigged device in which newer and more sophisticated structures sit atop a junk heap of prototype brains still used by lower species. At the top of the device are the smartest and most nimble parts: the prefrontal cortex, which thinks and analyzes, and the hippocampus, which makes and holds on to our immediate memories. At the bottom is the basal ganglia, nearly identical to the brains of lizards, controlling voluntary but barely conscious actions.

Diamond says that in situations involving familiar, routine motor skills, the human animal presses the basal ganglia into service as a sort of auxiliary autopilot. When our prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are planning our day on the way to work, the ignorant but efficient basal ganglia is operating the car; that's why you'll sometimes find yourself having driven from point A to point B without a clear recollection of the route you took, the turns you made or the scenery you saw.

Ordinarily, says Diamond, this delegation of duty "works beautifully, like a symphony. But sometimes, it turns into the '1812 Overture.' The cannons take over and overwhelm." (...)

The quality of prior parental care seems to be irrelevant," he said. "The important factors that keep showing up involve a combination of stress, emotion, lack of sleep and change in routine, where the basal ganglia is trying to do what it's supposed to do, and the conscious mind is too weakened to resist. What happens is that the memory circuits in a vulnerable hippocampus literally get overwritten, like with a computer program. Unless the memory circuit is rebooted -- such as if the child cries, or, you know, if the wife mentions the child in the back -- it can entirely disappear."

I believe this now, as I sit here writing this post. I do not think I would be able to believe it if I had left my child to die. In that situation, I don't think that all the neurological evidence in the world would convince me. But, as I said, I can't imagine.

...

Speaking of "the brains of lizards" ...
Aravosis: Limbaugh attacks Gingrich

He really can't shut up. I love it.

"I'm frankly getting tired of talking about Newt. I mean, it's a pointless exercise," Limbaugh said of Gingrich's dismissal of him on "Meet the Press." "I'm surprised by nothing when I'm dealing with people in the media who think they're in politics. ... They are fly-by-night operators, and most of them stand for nothing until they see a poll about what the American people want, and then they go out and try to say one way or another what the American people want while trying to falsely hold onto an ideology at the same time — and you can't count on them. You can't depend on them. They will sell you out; they will throw you overboard to save themselves, faster than anything. And they'll use you on their way up as often as they can at the same time."

"I mean, next week Newt could come out and profess his total admiration and love for me if it would serve his purposes," he continued. "They're running TV ads against me. Newt Gingrich wishes they were running TV ads against him."

Ben has the entire transcript - go read it.

• Tim F.

  ... Some think that Gingrich made a smart play by taking on Rush directly. That is simply false. How much good do you think that technically significant Republican bloc that hates Rush will do for Newt? My magic eight ball keeps flipping between little and none.

  Here is why. For all its numbers the constituencies that power the GOPzeitgeist in useful directions. Most of the rest are like my dad – one issue or another keeps them voting for whoever the GOP puts up but they have better things to do with their life than get involved with interparty spats between a loudmouth and a has-been. political machine are relatively small. The religious right delivers warm bodies to the polls. Rush moves his dittoheads to volunteer and donate money to candidates. Finally, wealthy donors like Richard Mellon Scaife fund thinktanks and astroturf groups that push the media

  Rush has a third of the Republican base in his pocket. The country doesn’t hold that many hyper-motivated, single-minded angry people with time on their hands, say a couple million at the most, but about half of them will clog a congressperson’s switchboard at the drop of a name on the Limbaugh show. That, and the disproportionate amount of money that dittohead types donate, makes them a serious concern for any Republican politico.

  That doesn’t mean that it’s not a fair fight! Newt has guys like David Frum on his side. Still, other than than exiled doofuses who lost the party’s soul on the day that Karl Rove met David Addington, I’m not sure whose support Newt is looking for here. ...

• 
  

Brooks: Taking a Depression Seriously

The Democratic response to the economic crisis has its problems, but let’s face it, the current Republican response is totally misguided. The House minority leader, John Boehner, has called for a federal spending freeze for the rest of the year. In other words, after a decade of profligacy, the Republicans have decided to demand a rigid fiscal straitjacket at the one moment in the past 70 years when it is completely inappropriate.

The G.O.P. leaders have adopted a posture that allows the Democrats to make all the proposals while all the Republicans can say is “no.” They’ve apparently decided that it’s easier to repeat the familiar talking points than actually think through a response to the extraordinary crisis at hand.

If the Republicans wanted to do the country some good, they’d embrace an entirely different approach.

...

Finally, Republicans could make it clear that that the emergency has to be followed by an era of balance. This crisis was fueled by financial decadence, and public debt could be 80 percent of G.D.P. by the time it’s over. Republicans should be the party of restoring fiscal balance — whatever it takes — not trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

If Republicans were to treat this like a genuine emergency, with initiative-grabbing approaches, they may not get their plans enacted, but voters would at least give them another look. Do I expect them to shift course in this manner? Not really.

Chris in Paris says Leading US banks look as bad as ever

What's the plan for the US banking industry? Nationalizing and cleaning them up? Letting them collapse? Breaking them up to prevent too big to fail? Geithner is going to have to wake up sometime soon or Obama is going to need to make a change because the banking situation - which Geithner was supposed to be watching in recent years - looks no better today than it did last year, maybe worse. Having a plan is not such a bad idea, but that doesn't look like anything exists right now.

America's five largest banks, which already have received $145 billion in taxpayer bailout dollars, still face potentially catastrophic losses from exotic investments if economic conditions substantially worsen, their latest financial reports show.

Citibank, Bank of America , HSBC Bank USA , Wells Fargo Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase reported that their "current" net loss risks from derivatives — insurance-like bets tied to a loan or other underlying asset — surged to $587 billion as of Dec. 31 . Buried in end-of-the-year regulatory reports that McClatchy has reviewed, the figures reflect a jump of 49 percent in just 90 days.

The disclosures underscore the challenges that the banks face as they struggle to navigate through a deepening recession in which all types of loan defaults are soaring.

The banks' potentially huge losses, which could be contained if the economy quickly recovers, also shed new light on the hurdles that President Barack Obama's economic team must overcome to save institutions it deems too big to fail.

atrios says it is Going to Be Worse

Sadly I think they're still being somewhat optimistic.

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. jobless rate will reach 9.4 percent this year and remain elevated through at least 2011, threatening the nation’s longer-term growth potential, a monthly Bloomberg News survey indicated.

The peak in unemployment surpasses the 8.8 percent estimated last month, according to the median of 54 projections in a survey taken from March 2 to March 9. The average rate for the next two years will exceed the 25-year high of 8.1 percent reached in February, the survey shows.

Stimulus package isn't going to be enough, and lighting piles of money on fire isn't especially productive.

Josh Marshall on the House of Cards

From TPM Reader RB ...

I'm glad to see TPM picking up on the question of what is to be done about the bondholders. I've had the feeling for a few weeks that this is the real Gordian knot the Administration can't bring itself to cut, for fear that the rope is holding up the roof above all of us.

Here's my next question, though: aren't most of those bondholders holding not traditional bonds - straight debt from straight borrowing at whatever interest - but derivatives of and bets on those traditional bonds? And that being so, wouldn't government, once the banks went into receivership, be able to institute rules that make holders of "real" bonds whole, and pay off the derivative gamblers at pennies on the dollar?

And if that in turn is so, doesn't every day the government fails to bite the bullet mean another bunch of billions paid back out of taxpayer funds to the derivative gamblers rather than the institutions that made good faith investments?

With all the conversations I've had today, when I get questions like this, I'm tempted to reply: "You got me. No idea." What's far more troubling to me, though, is that I talked to a few world-renowned economists today who said pretty much the same thing to me when I asked them some of these questions.

I've been increasingly mystified and frustrated, bordering on angry, over recent days as I realized that the assumption behind all the would-be financial sector fixes is that the bondholders -- i.e., the creditors of the big financial institutions, the folks who lent them money -- should take at most a nominal hit, even though they lent money to companies that in every real sense of the word went bankrupt. And the money to pay them off has to come from American taxpayers.

I was expected to hear some basic skepticism about this assumption from the economists I spoke to. But I didn't. They agreed that the danger was just too great, notwithstanding the unfairness to the taxpayer. ... ....

What it all amounts to is that the bondholders have a gun to the head of the world economy. But it's a real gun. And it may be loaded.

Who knows ...