THE NYTIMES; THE GIFT THAT KEEPS GIVING

today's nytimes has three headlines on page one that scream out for comment. 1) DIOCESE PAPERS DETAIL DECADES OF ABUSE CASES. here we go again. this time LA and the once revered cardinal mahoney; just another scum bag. as a matter of policy there should be zero tolerance of child sexual abuse, there should be mandatory reporting to law enforcement, etc. hopefully this isnt controversial. but lets go to a militating factor here, the requirement for abstinence and the rules against marriage for clergy. the fact of the matter is that humans are sexual beings. thank god. pun intended. priests should be allowed to have sexual lives, heterosexual or homosexual or whatever, with consenting adults. they should be allowed to marry and woman should be allowed to be priests. this would reduce the amount of child sexual abuse and lead to a healthier clergy. 2) COMPROMISE IDEA FOR THE INSURING OF BIRTH CONTROL. the federal government, in its new obmamacare legislation has mandated that contraception needs to be covered, without limit or by type, including sterilization. churches and other religious entities and their affiliates, like hospitals and schools have objected and asked to opt out, at least to the extent of not having to pay directly. the administration is providing ever growing carve outs. they are saying that the insurance companies still have to provide these services and that the insurance companies have to pay for these people where their employer opts out. and they cant charge the employer indirectly thru other fees. so who is going to pay? its vague. the government is saying that they will reduce the fees that the insurance companies are apparently going to pay to cover their right to provide insurance thru the new "exchanges" but at the end of the day, we all pay. the people that don't work for these religiously exempted employers, you and me, will have to pay for the cost of contraception for the employees of say catholic schools. now i am in favor of broad availability of contraceptive products and services for all citizens. it just that this doesn't feel right and fair that i have to pay for someone else because of where they work vs where i work. 3) AS GROWTH LAGS, SOME PRESS FED TO DO STILL MORE. we had QE 1, QE 2, QE 3, Operation Twist. god knows what we are on now. and yet the economy lags. we actually had negative growth in the 4th quarter of 2012. i think the definition of a recession is two quarters so we probably wont trip that. but we are basically creating enough jobs to keep the unemployment rate steady, maybe come down very slowly. in the face of the failure of monetary policy to create 3-4% growth and declining unemployment, people are reacting in different ways. the Keynesians are saying, well the reason its not working is we are not doing it enough, we need more. i think the theory is by artificially lowering rates people will borrow more money and the cost of borrowing it will be lower so this greater and cheaper borrowing will motivate people to buy things and spend money and stimulate the economy. under this way of thinking lower is better. so we have lower rates to near zero at the short end of the curve. what seems to be happening is the very credit worthy are borrowing long and cheap and locking in long cheap financing. this is smart corporate financial management. the government is financing short, this is risky financial management. the people who are buying these bonds are going to get clobbered when rates eventually rise; its just math. the government is going to get clobbered when they have to refinance their short bonds at higher rates; which means deficits will go up. but the economy is not getting stimulated that much. yes they have pumped up housing prices. but that's because the government is buying all the mortgages that wells fargo is originating. the banks are not lending much to SME's who actually want to borrow. and everyone is afraid to borrow or hire or invest because of all of the uncertainty from the bozo's who are our government. but back to monetary policy. if lower is better, how about zero. if lower is better, how about negative interest rates. we actually may have negative real interest rates, ie, the nominal interest rate minus inflation might be negative. but that's for pointy headed nerds. how about negative nominal interest rates. you go to a bank and deposit money and instead of the bank paying you, you pay the bank! now that will undoubtedly boost the economy! oh, all the retired people who depend on income from their savings have no income anymore, too bad, we are stimulating the economy. when will people come to grips that we have come to and gone beyond the limits of monetary policy. we need fiscal policy solutions. structural tax reform, budget reform. maybe sequestration is not such a bad idea. people are running around like chicken littles saying, oh my god, we much avoid the fiscal cliff! but maybe not. the theory is that sequestration is a meat axe, it cuts everything by 10% or whatever. we need a more nuanced surgical approach. well giving the corrupt idiots in DC a scalpel probably wont lead to a better outcome than it did with jack the ripper. what would be so bad about across the board cuts. instead of 30 joint strike fighters, we would buy only 27. the same for ALL programs. that will teach me to read the newspaper.