The news story:

After some hesitation and a time shift, three major broadcast networks have agreed to carry Barack Obama’s latest primetime news conference.

The event was announced Friday afternoon as Obama battles to bolster congressional support for an ambitious health-care overhaul while facing dropping approval ratings.

But broadcasters are struggling with falling approval ratings of their own; Nielsen’s audience measurements show viewership in a summertime slump.

The conference will mark the president’s fourth primetime press event since he took office six months ago. Such interruptions tend to wreak havoc with network schedules and can cost millions in lost advertising.

CBS, which airs only repeats that evening, agreed early Monday to cover the conference.

But for NBC, Fox and ABC, the decision was tougher. During a summer that’s otherwise strewn with repeats, Wednesday includes all of their top-rated reality programs.

Fox declined outright to air the news conference. NBC and ABC fell into line late Monday after the White House shifted the event’s time from the previously announced 9 p.m. to the lesser-watched hour of 8 p.m.

No comment necessary.

Since we’ve been talking on this general subject a bit lately:

Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music. – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Well, the financial system failed. And so we bailed it out. But we bailed out the people who were a very large part of the problem to begin with…and so:

Banks have failed to make adequate provision for the losses on loans and securities they face before the end of next year, Moody’s Investors Service said.

U.S. banks may incur about $470 billion of losses and writedowns by the end of 2010, which may cause the banks to be unprofitable in the period, the ratings company said in a report published today…

…Any economic recovery is likely to be “weak and bumpy hook-shaped,” Moody’s said. Banks will also be challenged in an environment where government support is replaced by tighter regulation, the report said. Higher credit and funding costs may force a re-pricing of credit, Moody’s added.

“The fundamentals of financial institutions are still traveling on a downward slope,” Moody’s said. “No-one should consider recent improvements as assurance that the current rebound can be sustained.” (emphasis added)

Which is something I could have told anyone who asked – until banks start acting like stewards of wealth, the banks will continue make foolish decisions. Banks have to realize that they hold our money in trust – its not there for them to merely make profits, but for them to use wisely…if they use it wisely, they’ll make money…maybe not the huge profits short-sighted corporate leeches desire, but profits quite large, none the less.

We should have let them fail last year – we must let them fail when their day of reckoning comes again.

That is what TARP might cost us:

Some numbers are so large they simply become incomprehensible.

Remember when costs of the bailout were projected to be $0.5 Trillion, then $1 Trillion, then $3 Trillion.

Now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program says U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion.

U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Treasury’s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released today.

“TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity,” Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

And if anyone is wondering why the financial institutions showed a profit this past quarter which is making Obamaniacs go nuts thinking there’s a recovery going on – well, when you dump that much money in to an industry, if you don’t show a profit then you’re pretty darned stupid. Give me a billion dollars next week and I’ll show you that Noonan, Inc. had increased profits on a grand scale. Now, the liberal/socialist theory here is that now that the banks have all this cash they’ll start to lend and otherwise invest it and, presto!, we’ll have an economic recovery. This isn’t just incorrect, its mind-bogglingly stupidly wrong, wrong, WRONG!

The money the banks got came out of some other part of the economy – what the Obama gives with one hands, the Obama takes with the other. We’d be lucky if it were a wash, but given the higher interest we’re going to have to pay on debt and the depreciation of our currency, we’re in for quite a large loss on the deal. Obama can pump up this bubble for a quarter or two, but eventually the bill has to be paid – and if we don’t find several trillion dollars under the White House mattress, it will have to be paid in lost jobs, lower wages, higher taxes, higher interest rate and inflation.

Welcome back, Carterism.

From Reuters – describing the report of lower profits:

Companies reporting declining profits outnumbered companies posting higher profits for the sixth straight quarter. However, the rate at which profits are shrinking is slowing.

Ok, does anyone want to challenge me and claim that the last sentence would have been included if a Republican were President?

In response to “Ham-Gate“:

…the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.191 million, at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound…

Last time my father-in-law bought a ham (he does most of our grocery shopping), it was 79 cents a pound. This is a new era in government? Can’t even get a discount on ham?

We made one heck of a huge mistake in November, my fellow Americans:

The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update—usually scheduled for mid-July—has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town Aug. 7 on its summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

Anyone who defends this Administration is digging himself ever deeper in to the “sucker” hole – Obama knows his numbers are all screwed up, that his Obamacare can’t be paid for, but he wants to hide the budget numbers until after the vote…so that the numbers won’t show that passing Obamacare is national economic suicide.

Here’s the real problem – the greatest nation in human history has an inexperienced, cowardly socialist for a President…his VP is even more of an idiot, and the leaders of the House and Senate are partisan hacks. We’re stuck hoping that, some how, Clinton and Gates can keep things up on the rails until we can vote Obama and his Democrats out.

Its going to be a very, very long four years.

Here on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, it is appropriate that some people are debating the pros and cons of the space program.

My view is that space exploration does offer us great opportunities to expand our knowledge and to develope new technologies – on the other hand, its rather a burden which we seem to have to keep up on lest some nation over take us in space power. The “space race” of the 60’s was to get to the Moon before the Russians did; now its a race to get back to the Moon before the Chinese do. And then on to various near Earth asteroids and then Mars and beyond. I used to be a lot more enthused about this than I am now – I do wish we could just leave it to private enterprise to do whatever it wishes with space, if there’s any market for it at all. But such is not to be.

If we are to do it, then we should do it “all in”. Whatever the cost is, we should carefully plan it out so that NASA can know with precision not just what it will have in 2010, but in 2020 and 2050. Missions to the Moon, Mars and further out aren’t just planned on a note book with a pencil. They take a great deal of time and a massive amount of preparation. Give NASA a budget and then tell them to get us there, where ever “there” turns out to be.

What do you think?

To touch upon reality:

When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:1-12

Roger Kimbal lays in to the eulogies of the late Walter Cronkite, and Michael Jackson:

First Michael Jackson and now this. A little over a week ago, I was captive in a local car repair shop for over two hours as one absurdity after the next dribbled out from the non-stop television coverage of Michael Jackson’s funeral. A phalanx of commentators paused to reflect solemnly on Jackson’s manifold contributions to the world of pedophilia–er, I mean, to the world of pop culture.

It is possible, I’m told, for a kind-hearted person to experience pity when contemplating the wreck that was Michael Jackson’s life. But could anyone really take him seriously as an cultural figure? (His place as a cultural symptom raises a different question.) I found nausea competed heartily with irritation as the assembled news casters marshaled superlative after superlative to describe the career of someone whose entire life was a monument to voracious commercial exploitation, on the one hand, and artistic nullity fired by unstopped narcissism, on the other.

Now, apparently, we are going to be treated to the same cloacal cataract of sentimentality about Walter Cronkite. One had to have a heart of stone, said Oscar Wilde, [to] not laugh at Dickens’ account of the death of “Little Nell.” Similarly, one has to have a cast iron stomach to withstand the adulation accumulating around the name of Walter Cronkite in the aftermath of his death at 92 last week. “Hero, role model, friend” ran a typical headline. Almost all of the scores, nay, hundreds of stories about Cronkite that have appeared in the last few days solemnly cite a poll that denominated that homely, mustachioed news reader “The most trusted man in America.”

The truth is that both Cronkite and Jackson were trivial historical figures – people who will be utterly forgotten in half a century’s time. We are agog over them now because we are a society which desperately wants both lies and titillation. Cronkite gave us lies, Jackson gave us titillation and thus upon their deaths, we are bereft. We prefer lies because truth is hard, we want titillation because it allows us to pretend we’re not as bad as we are. All of us can say that we’re at least not as bad as Jackson, and we want that smooth-voiced lie because it gets us off the hook; as long as the lie is playing in our ear, we don’t have to confront reality.

Think about it – “and that’s the way it was”…as if the events of the day – complex events involving masses of people and untold preliminary events – could have been described, even in a cursory manner, in a half hour news cast. It was Cronkite – a man of limited experience and no discernible military knowledge – who pronounced our effort in Vietnam a failure right after the enemy has suffered a crushing defeat in the Tet Offensive…and yet, years later, when he was close to retirement, he was rated in a poll as the most trusted man in America. What for? Because he looked like your uncle and he was on TV and, of course, back in those days there was no blogoshere or talk radio to point out the nakedness of the Emperor.

Michael Jackson’s musical genius – yeah, right: we listen to Mozart and he’s more two centuries in his grave…who will listen to “I’m Bad” even 50 years from now? I can assure everyone that if any of our civilization survives a thousand years from now, they’ll still listen to Mozart. Michael Jackson was a freak show, and we lapped it up and cast aspersions upon him and used him (as one of dozens) to hang on to our sins so we could pretend we hadn’t any.

In Michael Jackson’s sad life and Walter Cronkite’s un-earned glory is the commentary on what is wrong with us. We must free ourselves from lies and start to deal with things as they are, and ourselves as we are.