Too Big To Fail

Stories like this drive me nuts:

There is virtually no chance any significant piece of legislation will pass Congress that would meaningfully reduce the size of the nation’s biggest banks or restrict their activities.

It’s true the recent rise in break-up-the-banks fever could embolden regulators to get a little tougher in final Dodd-Frank rules, expected later this year. And a strange bedfellows, left-right coalition is now pressing for more dramatic action.

Still, there’s nothing on the horizon likely to satisfy those who say the biggest banks — led by JPMorganChase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — continue to pose a systemic threat to the U.S. economy.

First was "too big to fail." Then was "too big to prosecute." At some point, can we please focus on the first two words in those phrases?

We screwed up letting this happen. We need to fix it.

Potato Chips and Lunch Meat, Up in the Front Seat

Not to get too deep into my undergraduate experiences, but this is exactly correct.

“Our potencies here are off the scale,” confirms longtime grower Todd Ellison, co-founder of Colorado Marijuana Marketing, a one-stop shop for weed-related entrepreneurs in search of marketing help. “I have a guy who taught me to grow, who has been growing since the ’60s. And this stuff blows him away.” And Ellison agrees. “I am almost 40. I’ve got three kids. You don’t want something that is going to lay you out and make you stupid all day.”

...

When my brother, Andrew Marris, got into the weed-analysis business, he expected that growers would be poring over readouts detailing the concentrations of the various psychoactive components, trying to create perfect, complex masterpieces. Instead, though, he found that many of his customers were obsessively focused on just one statistic: the percentage of THC.

This THC obsession has created a bimodal weed supply. There’s the carefully bred marijuana, with excellent flavor and aroma and pleasing suite of effects—which are ridiculously, hallucinatory, time-stutteringly strong for a casual user. Then there’s ditch weed or Mexican brick weed. Sure, you can smoke it around the campfire until the stars go out, but it smells bad and tastes bad, and nobody is going to bother testing it or perfecting it. What’s missing is lower-potency, high-quality dope.

Part of the issue is that, with the illegality of marijuana, procuring it has (until very recently in a very few places) been a criminal act that people don't like going through with any regularity. High-potency pot means that users can smoke less of it, less often, thus reducing the frequency of return visits. For sellers in places where the criminal aspect is about to disappear, steps that lead to more return visits will be welcome. Weaker strains that users can smoke more of will provide a big boost in that regard.

Today's less potent stuff looks worse, tastes worse and feels worse than the high-octane stuff, but the high-octane stuff is just too strong. Figuring out how to bridge that gap will be the key to a viable long-term market structure.

The Things That Keep State Rep. John Kavanagh Awake at Night

"Weird people," indeed:

A new bill introduced this week by Republican state representative John Kavanagh would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor to use a public restroom that does not correspond to the gender on one’s birth certificate. If a person is reported to be using the bathroom without the proper paperwork and matching genitals, it would be defined as “disorderly conduct” and the person could be fined $2,500 and spend six months in jail.

The new bill comes on the heels of anti-discriminatory legislation passed in Phoenix last month which extended basic protections to transgender people in housing, the workplace, and in places of public accommodation.

It’s the last bit regarding “public accommodation” that inspired Kavanagh to introduce his own bill. He told 12 News Phoenix: “The city of Phoenix has crafted a bill that allows people to define their sex by what they think in their head. If you’re a male, you don’t go into a female shower or locker room, or vice versa.”

He added that the Phoenix ordinance could also protect “weird” people who use the wrong bathroom on purpose: “It also raises the specter of people who want to go into those opposite sex facilities not because they’re transgender, but because they are weird.”

When I was in middle school, one of my classmates was a transsexual student who was biologically female but identified as male. Would anyone care to guess what happened the day he tried to use the "correct" girls' restroom when a substitute teacher who didn't realize the situation was on duty?

This is about shaming the trans community. Nothing more.

Today's Tragic Juxtaposition

...comes to us from the Great State of Colorado:

Colorado prison chief shot dead on eve of gun laws signing

(Reuters) - The head of Colorado's prison system was shot dead at his home in what police said may have been a targeted killing, just hours before the governor on Wednesday signed new gun control laws spurred by a rash of deadly mass shootings in Colorado and elsewhere.

Police said Tom Clements, 58, appointed two years ago as executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, was shot on Tuesday night at his home in a secluded wooded area near the picturesque town of Monument, 45 miles south of Denver.

The killing did not appear to be linked to any break-in or robbery attempt, said El Paso County Sheriff's Department Lieutenant Jeff Kramer. He said the shooting did not appear to be random.

Meanwhile, on the Governor's Facebook page, gun nuts are trolling in full force, because apparently "the right to keep and bear arms" means "the right to own whatever kind of guns and magazines you feel like without ever submitting to a background check." Because freedom.

Bachmannia!

It still amazes me that Michele Bachmann was, at one point, a front-runner for the Republican nomination for President. I have a very hard time imagining how people look at her and think "There's someone I want representing me!"

Here she is running away from Dana Bash while trying to dodge questions about false information in a speech she gave.

Henceforth, this shall be known as the "Bana Dash"

And here is the Washington Post fact-checker pointing out another massive lie from the same speech:

Indeed, the 2013 budget documents submitted to Congress by the Agriculture Department, which manages SNAP, shows that less than 6 percent of the program is spent on administrative costs. Only 166 people manage the $82 billion food-stamp program — many outside Washington — and the budget document says that staff salaries amount to one-third of 1 percent of USDA’s budget for food and nutrition programs.

Considering such statistics are easily available to a member of Congress, let alone his or her staff, it’s a wonder she never bothered to check. She just assumed “government bureaucrats” were consuming funds reserved for poor people.

A Bachmann spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Bachmann made two key errors here. First, she misinterpreted Tanner’s point. Then, she blithely assumed the ratio was applicable to the Food Stamp program when budget data show she’s off by more than a factor of 10 (or a factor of 200, if you just count salaries.)

I really can't figure out how she stays in office. I can only assume the people that keep voting for her like to look for interesting shapes in their bowel movements and say their favorite food is "puh-sketti," and somehow a lot of them ended up clustered in one general area.

Back in the Saddle

Hard to believe I let a year go by without actually writing anything here. As it happens, I got pulled into full-time political writing for a very large, time-consuming organization, and didn't really want to mix business and pleasure. But now that the campaign is over, and I'm back on the couch looking for something to do, perhaps a resurrection of the Great Unread Buck is in order. Let's see if this time it sticks.

This has been another edition of "I Guess Good And Stuff"

Back in February, when Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White became a convicted felon, I wrote

So the next question is: who becomes SoS?

Mitch Daniels seems to be proceeding as if he's going to be able to make a permanent appointment. But there's still a question as to whether the job rightfully belongs to the highest vote-getter in the last election who was actually eligible for the job. If it does, then Democrat Vop Osili would be sworn in.

I think that Daniels' choice will probably be sworn in permanently. I don't really think the courts will want to give the job to someone whom over 60% of the state voted against when it can allow the governor from White's own party to make an appointment to fill the vacancy. Even though Osili was the highest vote-getter who was actually eligible for the office, and has a very good claim to the position, I think the courts will decide to let this one play out politically rather than actively award the office to someone. But I've been surprised before.

The Indiana Recount Commission held he was eligible, and the state Democratic Party chair, who filed the challenge, appealed to the courts. Judge Rosenberg ruled against White. Judge Rosenberg's verdict is being appealed: whether his ruling will stand on appeal is in doubt, and I (not to sound too much like the legal realist that I am) would expect the courts to find a way to allow the governor's appointee to hold office, since they don't want to be seen as giving the job to someone "rejected" by the voters, especially not so long after the actual election.

That's really more my take on the politics of the situation, but I can think of a way for the appellate courts to handle the issue that would let Daniels make a pick (two ways, actually: one based on statutory interpretation, and the other based on laches, a concept generally illustrated here.).

I think the question of whether White was actually ineligible to be on the ballot was somewhat close. I take a very liberal view of residency requirements, and when he initially entered the race I think he might have been okay remaining registered at his ex-wife's home, since he actually returned there for a time in 2010 before his re-marriage (Judge Rosenberg ruled otherwise, but without further knowledge of Indiana case law I could see this being reversed on appeal, or at least remanded back to him with instructions to more carefully consider whether he could not have legally resided at his ex's house as a matter of law, even though that's where his belongings were, where his son lived, and where he seems to have stayed when in town). If an appeals court holds he was validly registered at his ex's in February 2010, he arguably met the statutory requirement for candidacy ("A person is not qualified to run for...a state office...unless the person is registered to vote in the election district the person seeks to represent not later than the deadline for filing the declaration or petition of candidacy or certificate of nomination."). It's not a great argument, but I can see a court grab hold of it if they need a reason to avoid appointing Osili. Based on the findings of fact in the lawsuit to have him removed*, he probably should have re-registered sometime between May 28, 2010--when Judge Rosenberg found he stopped staying at his ex's and removed all his belongings from there--and the nomination deadline in July 2010, but he might have still met the statutory requirement

(*Note: this is just for the matter of him being listed on the ballot, not the question of whether he committed fraud by voting from his ex-wife's address in the May 2010 primary, which he most assuredly did. The jury in the criminal case found that he should have re-registered much earlier than the facts in the lawsuit seem to indicate--I guess that's the difference between actually mounting a defense and sitting silently while a case against you is made.)

Well, the opinion isn't up yet, but it looks like they went with the laches argument, which makes sense in this context.


UPDATE: The opinion is here.