A Seattle judge had some good things to say in his sentencing statement for one of the terrorists in the millennium bombing plot (which Bill Clinton's administration thwarted because they were paying attention to the intelligence instead of fucking around on the ranch after they got warning signs):
I've done my very best to arrive at a period of confinement that appropriately recognizes the severity of the intended offense, but also recognizes the practicalities of the parties' positions before trial and the cooperation of Mr. Ressam, even though it did terminate prematurely.
The message I would hope to convey in today's sentencing is twofold:
First, that we have the resolve in this country to deal with the subject of terrorism and people who engage in it should be prepared to sacrifice a major portion of their life in confinement.
Secondly, though, I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.
I would suggest that the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections.
Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens.
Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.
The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism.
Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.
It is my sworn duty, and as long as there is breath in my body I'll perform it, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We will be in recess.
Did you read that, all you so-called libertarians out there? Did you see what a REAL libertarian sounds like? Yeah, this guy was a Reagan appointee in 1981, so don't start with that liberal activist judge crap. Goddamn right. You think Bush would appoint anyone with attitudes even remotely similar to this guy?
If you read the article, you find out that we actually learned quite a bit from this terrorist thanks to the timely capture. I'm sure it will be ignored by this administration just like all the other intelligence that was handed to them by Clinton's team. And to imagine these people had the fucking GALL to blame 9/11 on Clinton. Boggles the mind.
Posted by Observer at July 28, 2005 07:22 AMComments on entries can only be made in pop-up windows while those entries are still on the main index page. Sorry for the inconvenience this causes, but this blocks about 99.99% of the spam the blog receives.
Exactly how did Clinton's administration paying attention to the intelligence catch Ressam? I'd read locally that it all came down to Ressam being an idiot and a single Customs agent acting on her suspicion.
On a side note, I hate LAX so much I almost wish it was blown up and rebuilt, just not involving loss of life.
Posted by: Humbaba on July 28, 2005 09:11 AMClinton's paying attention to the intelligence stopped the overall plot and told people what to look out for. You should read what Richard Clarke and others have to say about that story. Of course, because nothing blew up, we never heard much about it in the media. The true measure of intelligence is a series of quiet successes rather than Bush's string of loud failures.
Posted by: Observer on July 28, 2005 09:55 AMBack on market bubbles, this sounds JUST LIKE the tulip bubble... NOT!
What Housing Bubble?
Neil Barsky. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Jul
28, 2005. pg. A.10
If you want to be scared out of your wits these days, you basically have
two choices: go watch Steven Spielberg's latest, or listen to the
hysterical warnings of economists and journalists about the imminent
popping of our so-called housing bubble. Robert Shiller, the ubiquitous
Yale economist, says home prices could fall 50% from their peak. Taking
things a step further, The Economist recently went so far as to call the
global housing boom "the biggest bubble in history."
In a free country, it is fair game for the media and economists to scare
homeowners with words of gloom and doom, however knee-jerk, consensual
and misguided they may be. But housing is a serious business; for most
of us, it is our most valuable asset. For generations of immigrants,
home ownership has represented the realization of the American dream.
The reality is this: There is no housing bubble in this country. Our
strong housing market is a function of myriad factors with real economic
underpinnings: low interest rates, local job growth, the emotional
attachment one has for one's home, one's view of one's future
earning-power, and parental contributions, all have done their part to
contribute to rising home prices. Over the past quarter- century, there
has been an explosion of second-home purchases, a continued influx of
immigrants, and a significant reduction in existing housing inventory
through tear-downs. Not all of these trends are accurately reflected in
the unending stream of data published daily. Home prices on average have
risen at a 6% annual pace since 1999, and 13% over the past year.
What we do have is a serious housing shortage and housing affordability
crisis. Despite robust construction, unsold inventory stands at four
months, well below its 25-year average. Private builders complain they
can't get land permitted to meet demand. Low- income housing advocates
complain housing prices are out of reach for many Americans, and that
government subsidies have been slashed.
I am not an economist, though if you keep reading, you'll find I can use
selective data points to my advantage with the best of them. I was a
real estate reporter for this newspaper through several real estate
crises, as well as a Wall Street REIT analyst; I am now a money manager.
I currently own stocks in several homebuilders; so I am putting my money
where my mouth is.
Of course, over the past 25 years we have seen numerous real estate
busts. However, steep price declines have typically been driven by local
economic factors -- oil woes lead to weakness in Texas in the '80s;
aerospace and defense layoffs soften up prices in LA in the '90s; a
contraction on Wall Street hurts New York co-op prices.
What we have never seen in this country is a collapse of home prices
without also seeing local economic weakness or significant capacity
growth. Absent those factors, housing markets just don't collapse under
their own weight. Herewith are some of the myths put forth by the
housing bubble Chicken Littles.
-- Myth 1. There is too much capacity: According to Census data, over
the past 10 years, housing permits have averaged about 1.63 million
units per year -- including multifamily units. Household formation has
averaged 1.49 million families per year. So far, so good. But here is
where the data get murky. Roughly 6% of the new home sales were for
second homes (I have seen estimates that the number is actually twice as
high), according to UBS. And while there are no precise numbers on this,
approximately 360,000 units every year were torn down either because
they were nonfunctional, or because they were "tear-downs." When the
latter two numbers are taken into account, the real number of new homes
is closer to 1.2 million, or 19% fewer than the average number of new
households formed each year.
-- Myth 2. Risky mortgage products are fueling house appreciation: Sages
from Warren Buffett to Alan Greenspan have warned of the increased risk
from the use of new mortgage products, particularly adjustable-rate
mortgages and interest-only mortgages. The theory here is that buyers
are extending themselves to make payments, and when their mortgages
reset they will be in trouble. Put aside the fact that only a year ago
Mr. Greenspan was advocating the use of ARMs ("American consumers might
benefit if lenders provided greater mortgage product alternatives to the
traditional fixed-rate mortgage," he told the Credit Union National
Association last year), these concerns are wildly overstated. As
virtually every mortgagee in the country knows, most ARMs are fixed rate
for the first two to seven years. Virtually all have 2% interest-rate
caps. The average American owns his home for seven years. Why pay
several hundred basis points to lock in rates he is highly unlikely to
take advantage of? Moreover, very little equity has been paid off by a
homeowner in the first seven years of a 30-year loan, so consumers have
been effectively overspending on interest rates for generations. As Mr.
Greenspan said in his 2004 speech, "the traditional fixed-rate mortgage
may be an expensive method of financing a home."
-- Myth 3. Speculators are Driving Home Prices: The media today is
chock-full of stories of day-trading dot-com refugees who have found
their calling buying homes and condos "on spec," with the hope of
flipping the property for a higher price. Earlier this month, one Wall
Street analyst published an article with the catchy headline: "Investors
Gone Wild: An Analysis of Real Estate Speculation." Scary stuff. Here,
again, some common-sense thinking is in order. In Manhattan, where I
live, friends buy apartments kicking and screaming, convinced they
top-ticked the housing market. Is Manhattan special? Are speculators
flipping Palm Beach mansions? Bay Area three-bedroom homes? Newton,
Mass., Tudor homes? I don't think so. Yet these markets are experiencing
the same price appreciation as Las Vegas, Phoenix and Florida, where
real estate investors are supposedly driving prices higher.
Anyone waiting for prices to collapse before buying a home is likely to
be in for a disappointment. According to the Homeownership Alliance, new
household formation, replacement demand and second-home demand will
require about two million homes per year to be built over the next
decade. This year, the number is likely to be around two million, the
highest number since the 1970s -- even as the number of households has
grown by over 50% since 1975. Therefore, there is a large cumulative
deficit in housing that will take years to correct even if annual
housing starts continue at these record levels.
---
To the cynical, it is seductive to claim that every piece of good news
is a bit fraudulent. And real estate has certainly been subject to boom
and bust cycles. But bubbles happen when prices become unhinged from
intrinsic value. Homes are not stocks; their "intrinsic value" can only
be in the eye of the beholder. A house has utility. Rational people
might be willing to pay more for a water view, or for living close to
work, or for a larger loo. Such voluntary economic decisions are neither
irrational nor exuberant.
It's time to stop being alarmist about home prices. To the extent policy
makers want to modulate home-price appreciation, they would do well to
relax zoning laws, or stimulate development of low-income housing
through tax subsidies. Since those things are not likely to happen
overnight, housing prices are likely to cool off slowly, if at all.
---
Mr. Barsky is managing partner of Alson Capital Partners, LLC.
To be fair, you should expose yourself to Schiller's actual arguments about the housing bubbles, not just the arguments of his critics. Try here. BTW, your guy Barsky misspelled Schiller's name in his article, which probably is no big deal but rarely a good sign.
Posted by: Observer on July 28, 2005 12:13 PMI didn't see any actual arguements about the housing market there, and I'm not going to read his entire book for something that could be summarized in an article.
I read today that something like $133 billion was spent on home improvement in the last year. I know I've improved the value of my home since I've owned it, and I've read you've done the same.
Current housing prices don't seem like a bubble to me.
Posted by: Humbaba on July 28, 2005 12:33 PMThere's plenty out there from economists who think like Schiller and Krugman if you care to look for it. I've linked Krugman's thoughts in the past, which seemed plausible to me, and they were even in article form!
The value of our home is not rising, and thus we're reluctant to do any further improvements because we already have the most valuable home on the block -- our original improvements were not done for economic concerns but simply to increase the house's livability for our own needs. That being said, talking about individual experiences in the housing market is like talking about local weather conditions in the global warming debate. Anecdotes are no substitute for comprehensive, representative data.
Looks to me like Schiller and Krugman have looked at the data, and Krugman has an impressive habit of being right (and Schiller called the stock market bubble correctly). I don't know enough to say for sure what will happen in the next ten years, though. For the sake of America's well-being, of course, I hope you're right. I have a feeling that if the housing market does collapse, Republicans will figure out some way to blame it on Democrats.
Posted by: Observer on July 28, 2005 01:14 PMWell, honestly, I'm in no way personally worried about a housing bubble. I have at least 66% equity in my first house that I've been renting, and about 50% equity in my current house, so a 50% market crash (which is pretty much unprecedented) would leave me with 33% equity in my rental and broken even on my main house, so even that worst-case scenario I'd be above water.
I totally saw the stock market bubble, and totally don't agree there is a housing bubble.
Posted by: Humbaba on July 28, 2005 01:23 PMDude, you're clairvoyant. (Can I say "dude" on this site?)You're the Swami!
Posted by: Johnnie Fishpimp on July 28, 2005 03:39 PMI dunno if Observer approves, but I don't mind anyone calling me dude.
It doesn't take clairvoyance to predict that companies that spend $10 to make $1 in sales don't justify ANY investment, let alone >100 P/E ratios...
Posted by: Humbaba on July 28, 2005 07:04 PMLong ago, at Patty Hearst's trial, the judge's final instructions to the jury are ones that we need to remember:
"... the question before you should never be, 'Will the Government win or lose this case?', because the government always wins when justice is done."
That seems to have been quoted a lot from the McVeigh trial, but the first time I remember hearing it was nigh on 30 years ago.
Posted by: Feff on July 29, 2005 02:39 PM