"News."

y DONNA CASSATA
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conservative Republicans have roughed up the business community this year - and it's not over yet.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and major companies like Boeing Co. and Caterpillar Inc. all wanted quick reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance American companies' overseas sales. Congress had reaffirmed the independent federal agency some two dozen times since its creation in 1934. But this year it took months of pleas, briefings and negotiations to overcome conservative opposition.

...

Republicans like to tout themselves as the best friends of business, and the rhetoric only grows louder in an election year. They talk forcefully about their job-creation agenda and determination to undo the burdensome regulations they say arise out of President Barack Obama's policies.

Yet when it comes to many of industry's top legislative priorities, conservative Republican lawmakers and like-minded groups including the Club for Growth and Heritage Action have thrown up roadblocks to tasks that had been easy before the 2010 elections sent a large class of conservative tea party insurgents to Congress.

They and their ideological leaders argue that the marketplace should dictate what businesses thrive and falter, not Washington.

Yes, that's so controversial.

Remember the days when Democrats (and their media Spirit Squad) railed against Republicans for "favors to big business"? Well, the Democrats have changed their position, and the media has quickly followed suit.

There is actually a big story here, which one could explain without the AP's bias.
This good opinion piece by Tim Carney on the Conservative Case Against Favors to Big Business explains the right's move away from Crony Corporatism.

Politically favored businesses of course benefit from direct subsidies (think agribusiness) and government loan guarantees (think Solyndra and Boeing), but Mitchell makes the important point that regulation itself creates a privileged class.

...

In the Obama era, as Democrats and the media try to paint deregulation as some sort of dangerous sop to big business, Mitchell's notion of "regulatory privilege" is a crucial tool for dismantling the old narrative that regulation protects the public...

...

The research Mitchell brings together helps show why government-granted privilege is so important to big business and so costly to the rest of society. In one key finding, he highlights research indicating that free markets, with fewer barriers to entry and fewer bailouts to prop up failed giants, make it harder for dominant businesses to maintain dominance.

Mitchell cites a 2008 study in the Journal of Financial Economics that found "big business turnover ... correlates with smaller government, common law, less bank-dependence, stronger shareholder rights, and greater openness [to trade]."

Further, in Mitchell's words, "those nations with more turnover among their top firms tended to experience faster per capita economic growth, greater productivity growth, and faster capital growth."

Big business wants safety, but big-business safety hurts the rest of the economy.

Why does Big Business go along with regulation? The way it works is this: Business agrees to liberal intervention in exchange for a a concession to big business, such as protecting it against competitors. The article notes that Phillip Morris went along with Obama's anti-tobacco initiative because the law contained a sweetener essentially protecting PM's market dominance.

That's how it always works. PHaRMA endorsed ObamaCare in exchange for a favorable payment schedule for its drugs.

I think business should begin heeding the counsel of (IIRC) Ben Franklin: Those who would exchange an essential freedom for a little temporary security will wind up with neither.

Thanks to Dr. Spank.

Posted by: Ace at 12:44 PM | Comments (165)
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First of all: What is LIBOR?

It’s the London interbank offered rate – or, more accurately, rates. A number of big banks submit an estimate of how much it would cost them to borrow unsecured money from another big bank for a given period of time, in a given currency. The top and bottom estimates are tossed out. The others are averaged. The resultant rates act as benchmarks for hundreds of trillions of dollars – yes, trillions with a t – of financial products, everything from complicated derivatives to simple consumer loans.

Okay, so LIBOR is an average of banks' costs on borrowed money. Since banks themselves report the figures which in turn provide the average (and that average is, in turn, used as a proxy to determine borrowers' interest rates), banks can manipulate the figure, by submitting false rates. And they could manipulate the figure if doing so would provide them with some advantage.

Which is what some banks -- including Barclays -- did.

In order to make their books appear more presentable.

There are two ways in which Barclays and other large banks could have benefited. The first is confidence. [B]ecause of the public nature of the submissions, there is a danger that a bank will understate its LIBOR submissions in order to boost marketsÂ’ confidence in the institution. This prospect became more likely during the financial crisis, when a bank reporting high borrowing costs could have dire and perhaps fatal effects.

I believe they mean that a bank could show how healthy it was viewed by the community by claiming other banks only charged it a low rate on such loans, because they had such confidence in that bank's ability to repay. Lower rate indicates lower perceived risk.

So this is like citizens being empowered to guestimate their own credit rating -- obviously, everyone would submit better credit ratings than earned. Banks, here, were submitting false (and publicly offered) reports on their own credit-worthiness.

The second possibility...

... is that derivatives traders Barclays, along with several other as-yet-unnamed banks, colluded to influence LIBOR, not so that investors would have confidence in them, but so that they could reap profits on derivatives trades.

I have no idea how that works, but I'll trust Time Magazine to give me the straight story on the perniciousness of derivatives-traders. (Um, not really, but given that I don't understand it, I'm just repeating it without analysis.) I'll just guess that many derivatives are sensitive to small changes in such interest rates, so you could game the system by reporting a higher-than-actual rate when you needed it, and a lower-than-actual rate when you needed that, in order to benefit your own accounts.

Forbes believes that even the regulators (in England) knew banks were manipulating the rate.

ThatÂ’s the heart of it: during the Crash the authorities knew that everyone was lying through their teeth about what the real Libor rate was. The reason being that the rates being reported were not including the perceived credit worthiness of some, if not all of the participants. It absolutely was a false market and Barclays were by no means the only ones falsifying it.

I suppose they permitted it because, in the depth of the crisis, they approved of some manipulation of public confidence. But that's only a put-the-best-spin-on-it guess.

Enormous lawsuits are possible:

Over the past week damning evidence has emerged, in documents detailing a settlement between Barclays and regulators in America and Britain, that employees at the bank and at several other unnamed banks tried to rig the number time and again over a period of at least five years. And worse is likely to emerge. Investigations by regulators in several countries, including Canada, America, Japan, the EU, Switzerland and Britain, are looking into allegations that LIBOR and similar rates were rigged by large numbers of banks. Corporations and lawyers, too, are examining whether they can sue Barclays or other banks for harm they have suffered. That could cost the banking industry tens of billions of dollars. “This is the banking industry’s tobacco moment,” says the chief executive of a multinational bank, referring to the lawsuits and settlements that cost America’s tobacco industry more than $200 billion in 1998. “It’s that big,” he says.

As many as 20 big banks have been named in various investigations or lawsuits alleging that LIBOR was rigged. The scandal also corrodes further what little remains of public trust in banks and those who run them.

One point, though: The first article I linked suggests that the general direction of manipulation of the rate was downwards; in that case, consumers themselves would "benefit" from artificially-low rates. Of course, to the extent that this contributed to the crisis, they were then losers, weren't they? But I don't know if you could sue for such a speculative connection between bad act and bad outcome.

But Every Winner Creates A Loser: As @comradeArthur notes, borrowers might have benefited from artificially-low rates, but savers would then be the losers; an artificially low borrowing rate means an artificially low interest rate on savings.

Which is another word for "millions upon millions of claimants."

Posted by: Ace at 11:52 AM | Comments (141)
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Okay, she doesn't say "my friends." She says "many economists we called this morning."

It's very odd that they never bother to call up Greg Mankiew.

John Nolte gets annoyed at Soledad spinning like a ratings-basement top. Or I guess, "bottom." But that's not a thing.

If Mitt Romney doesnÂ’t come forward with a better plan, many economists we spoke to this morning would say, "You know, the President is not to blame and that anybody in the same position would have the same challenging numbers. It's really going to be incumbent upon the Republicans to say 'Well, here's what we would do better and provide a convincing argument if they expect to take the White House'".

There's a very obvious bias here which they apparently believe is subtle enough to get away with.

It's a very live question whether voters should treat this as a "referendum" or "choice" election. Time and time again analysts have noted that if it's a "referendum" election -- a referendum on Obama's performance -- he loses, and badly. If it's a "choice" election -- Obama's plan vs. Romney's plan -- he could, possibly, win.

Obama's big economic speech from three weeks ago repeated the refrain that the country faced a "choice." Meanwhile, Romney sticks to his basic campaign like that Obama Isn't Working so it's time to jettison him.

Now, given that that's the basic ur-structure of the political argument, that should be left for voters to decide, and candidates and surrogates to argue.

But CNN, and Soledad O'Brien, aren't respecting that. They are siding completely with Obama on this major, major point, declaring, on their own authority, that this is a choice election, and that voters can only select Mitt Romney if they find his future plans superior to Obama's.

I don't expect them to shill for Romney and declare he's right, and that this is a referendum. To do so would be to issue a not-so-stealth endorsement of Mitt Romney.

But neither will I abide them offering a not-so-stealth endorsement of Obama.

"Referendum" or "Choice" is one of the central questions this campaign cycle; it is not the role of Soledad O'Brien or her swell economist buddies to settle this matter on behalf of CNN's viewers.

Furthermore, she's a f***ing idiot who has no competency whatsoever to resolve this question, apart from simply being a breathing adult. If CNN calls her, randomly, as part of a poll, sure, let her answer then.

Just for fun: A flashback to this past May, wherein Sage Soledad offers her learned opinion that "if you actually look at the way the economy is trending, it favors Obama."

In May, when she made this claim, the April jobs report was the current one; a meager 77,000 jobs had been created (since revised down to 68,000).

I guess she was insisting it was a blip.

It wasn't. Video below.

ABCNews: The Best News Is That Our Collapsing World Economy Will Lead To Somewhat Lower Gas Prices In Time for the 2012 Election! Well, that's a silver lining, I guess.

On the downside, prices for diamonds, shotguns, barbed wire and guard dogs are going through the roof.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:18 AM | Comments (221)
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56% agree that Obama has changed the country, but for the worse.

A new poll for The Hill found 56 percent of likely voters believe ObamaÂ’s first term has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35 percent who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership.

The results signal broad voter unease with the direction the nation has taken under ObamaÂ’s leadership and present a major challenge for the incumbent Democrat as he seeks reelection this fall.

In addition, 53% of the country approves of the contempt vote against Eric Holder.

According to a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday morning, 53% of people questioned say they approve of the House vote a week and a half ago to hold the attorney general in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents related to a controversial program called Operation Fast and Furious, with one in three saying they disapprove of the move and 13% unsure.

Note that last poll isn't of likely voters, or even registered voters, but simply breathing adults.

I think both polls are very predictive of November's vote. My theory (which I've written about a lot) is that late-deciding voters actually are not so late deciding. They are simply very late about admitting they've decided. Because they tend to be disinterested in politics, they know they haven't done their homework, and thus hold off on making an acknowledged decision until they get all the "facts" -- until they've done their homework -- which they never actually do.

Another tendency I've noticed is that when people swing towards a candidate, they tend to answer every secondary question about the candidate in the same way -- in 2008, they declared that Obama would be better on healing the nation's racial and political divides, better on maintaining the social safety net, and better at producing "change;" they also said he'd be better on the deficit, taxes, and terrorism, traditionally thought to be Republican strengths.

(By the way, I previously knocked such independents for refusing to parse between different questions, and basically just say "My guy is best at everything." But I realized -- partisans do the same exact thing; it's not like many of us think that Obama would be better on, say, Pakistan or something. So I have to adjust that part of my thinking: Nominal independents begin thinking like partisans, for whatever team they've decided to come down on, this particular time.)

These polls seem consistent with (if not proving) my belief that the under-structure of the campaign is tilted greatly in Romney's favor, and that head-to-head polls are a lagging indicator of voter preference. Actual voter preference will be determined by facts on the ground as we head into November, particularly economic facts; these are the leading indicators of voter preference. As we know more and more facts (and have fewer and fewer unknowns, and unpredictable Black Swans become even more unlikely) we tend to know what voter preference will ultimately be.

It is hard to square an Obama victory with 56% of likely voters saying he's changed the country for the worse. People make oddball conclusions, but to vote affirmatively for Obama, in the face of believing he's made the country worse, seems more oddball than usual. "He's done a bad job, and is taking the country in a negative direction, so he's got my vote" just doesn't seem to scan.

Likewise, 53% of the country supports the contempt vote against Holder. If a majority of the country really felt affection for Obama, one would imagine their belief about this would tend to match their beliefs about Obama; if they were pro-Obama, they'd characterize the contempt vote as a "distraction" and "political games" and a "witch-hunt," as the media and the Obama campaign do (but I repeat myself).

Instead, a majority of all adults thinks it's the right move.

My conclusion is that a majority of all adults also wants to replace Obama as president. They just aren't comfortable with announcing that yet. They still need "facts" and "detailed plans" and all the other extemporizing crap they say.

But that's their inclination. I suppose that inclination can be overcome, but time is growing short, if there's some big, bright, helpful news for Obama on the horizon.

And the Downside Risk Is Much, Much Greater Than the Upside Risk: "Dr. Doom" Roubini, who has a good track record at predicting "unexpected" economic calamities, sees a "Perfect Storm" for the world economy gaining strength.

In May, Roubini predicted four elements – stalling growth in the U.S., debt troubles in Europe, a slowdown in emerging markets, particularly China, and military conflict in Iran - would come together to create a storm for the global economy in 2013.

“(The) 2013 perfect storm scenario I wrote on months ago is unfolding,” Roubini said on Twitter on Monday.

Chinese inflation data released on Monday, suggested that the economy is cooling faster than expected, while employment data out of the U.S. on Friday indicated that jobs growth was tepid for a fourth straight month in June.

Roubini said that unlike in 2008 when central banks had “policy bullets” to stimulate the global economy, this time around policymakers are “running out of rabbits to pull out of the hat."

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (126)
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The background of this is that Bill Maher has twice said that he wishes Obama would be less like Wayne Brady and more like Suge Knight. Wayne Brady is a black comic who doesn't seem angry and gangstered-up. Suge Knight, on the other hand, is a gangster rap producer who's in jail.

So, it's a weird sort of dis, only possible in a milleu where both racists and non-racists -- blacks and liberal whites -- cling to the notion that "real blacks" have a criminal disposition.

Wayne Brady takes offense to this. I get why -- no one wants to be called a wussy -- but it's still strange that it's an insult to be called "law-abiding and pleasant."

“Now, I’m not saying I’m Billy Badass, but if Bill Maher has his perception of what’s black wrapped up, I would gladly slap the shit out of Bill Maher in the middle of the street, and then I want to see what Bill Maher would do.”

“Now, Bill Maher would call the cops and he would have his lawyer — I’d get sued and lose my house and it’s not worth it for me,” he continued. “But the black man part of me would be so satisfied to slap the shit out of him in front of Cocoa and Ebony and Fox, the three ladies of the night that he has hired."

"I think there's one called 'Fancy,' too," said Tyler.

"Fancy," Brady continued, " who also happened to be named Tyrique at one point.”

Those are such stereotypical "Black Hooker Names" I think maybe they're making them up, but I'm not sure they're making them.

So, is this real dope or a joke?

Bill Maher is known to be a patron of hookers. He also had a black girlfriend nicknamed "Coco" who tried to get money out of him in a palimony suit (which was dismissed). Coco is described as a Playboy model.

It sounds to me like they're making this up as a comedy bit, at least the specifics of it. Aisha Tyler laughs out loud at Brady's "Fancy, also known as Tyrique" line, suggesting this is new to her, and further suggesting this is all just a comedy riff both are engaging in.

It's possible that this is some dirt that people in Hollywood have heard, but have kept to themselves, until now; but if so, I don't know why Aisha Tyler laughs so hard at "Fancy aka Tyrique" rather than just saying "I've heard that too."

more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (212)
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"I suspect that most people in Cincinnati would acknowledge that I've tried real hard, and we haven't gotten the Republicans to engage on a whole range of issues that, I wish had happened," Obama said in an interview with WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Via Hot Air.

He has a weak hand to play, so his appeals tend to sound, well, weak. Negotiating from a point of weakness and such. And essentially begging the country's indulgence and patience for his poor performance.

Is this working? Some good quotes of the day from Saturday. This one alarmed me some.

Obama runs even with, or slightly ahead of, Republican rival Mitt Romney in poll after poll. Campaign strategists debate the reasons.

They might include ObamaÂ’s personal likability, gaps in RomneyÂ’s strategy or AmericansÂ’ grudging acceptance of a new normal in which millions of jobs are gone for good and no single person is responsible.

If high unemployment “was a killer, he’d already be dead,” said Republican pollster and consultant Mike McKenna. “The survey data tells you he’s not dead.”

The problem with that line is that Jimmy Carter wasn't "dead" at this point in 1980, according to polls -- and yet, actually, he was.

Larry Kudlow shares the belief that Obama's goose is already cooked.

[O]bamaÂ’s goose may already be cooked.

The Joint Economic Committee (JEC), spearheaded by Texas congressman Kevin Brady, put out a report saying that the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times. ThatÂ’s a real milestone in the post-WWII era. ItÂ’s ten out of ten for both jobs and economic growth. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP has expanded only 6.7 percent over the eleven-quarter recovery since the recession ended. The Reagan recovery at the same stage had increased by 17.6 percent. The Clinton recovery by 8.7 percent.

As for jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of private-sector jobs has grown by only 4.1 percent since the cyclical low point. ReaganÂ’s record was 10.7 percent.

So much for Obamanomics. DidnÂ’t work. Still isnÂ’t working. As the JEC put it, spending stimulus, housing bailouts, auto bailouts, financial bailouts, cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, and $5 trillion in deficit spending left the Obama recovery dead last in modern times.

For Obama to win, it would require that people decide that they simply do not care that his presidency has overseen a stagnant economy that actually seems to be deterioriating. That hasn't been the case in the past, and I don't know it would be the case now.

Flashback: In 2004, Obama dismissed the Republicans' attempt to suggest the economy was improving. After all, the unemployment rate was 5.6% and we'd just added 310,000 jobs in a month. Far too soon to say we'd made progress, he urged.

Posted by: Ace at 08:46 AM | Comments (147)
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Because according to a Harvard economist, you're not a real human being until you're all crammed together in high density urban bliss.

Warning to the Morons: what you are about to read is so witless, so laughably off the mark, you may literally be stupefied by it. AOSHQ cares about its readers and suggests you view this profoundly retarded article through a pinhole camera.

Glaeser argues that the deduction, as well as other governmental policies that encourage homeownership, effectively “bribe” the well-off to segregate themselves from poorer people by abandoning more diverse cities for more homogenous and affluent suburbs.

Because poorer people tend to live disproportionately in cities Â… bribing wealthier people to leave higher density apartments is increasing the physical, and possibly also the social, distance between rich and poor.

Citing the work of economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer, who found that support for redistributionist policies was greater among those who live near poor people of the same race, Glaeser argues that “[i]f proximity breeds empathy … then distance may reduce that empathy.”

While Glaeser’s argument here remains speculative, it’s in line with a great deal of recent research that suggests wealth (and the attendant ability to segregate oneself from the poor) may make people more selfish and less empathetic. In a cover story in the latest issue of New York magazine, Lisa Miller uses this research to present a compelling case that “Money Can Make You Mean.” As one money-empathy researcher, Berkeley psychologist Paul Piff, tells Miller:

[T]he rich are way more likely to prioritize their own self-interests above the interests of other people. It makes them more likely to exhibit characteristics that we would stereotypically associate with, say, a**holes.

And academics are more likely to prioritize their half-baked social theories above elegantly simple reality. Having lived in, and near, urban areas my whole life, I can assure all these researchers that there is no great glut of 'empathy' burdening the dwellers therein, and definitely, absolutely, no shortage of a**holes. Furthermore, a little 'social distance' between me and some of my apartment-neighbors was refreshing, and the point of every weekend daytrip.

All of this dreck, of course, hinges on what qualities these researchers are implicitly defining as 'selfish.'

Their apparent definition of a**hole: Someone with a desire to protect and remove oneself and one's children from bad schools and the criminal underclass, and the self-reliance and ability to accomplish that goal.

Liberals pretend these two huge urban problems- inferior schools and high crime- do not exist (or at least have root causes that cannot be blamed on the actual local practitioners of ineffective schooling and highly effective crime). Thus their inability to sensibly describe why people leave the city.

So they wail about a 'social distance' arising between people, but only look at one of the parties to answer why. They absolutely cannot and will not look at the other guy to find cause.

Ask a hundred ex-urbanites why they left- it's a safe bet that 'bad schools' and 'high crime' are in the top few reasons.

But no, these intrepid researchers are telling us they were bribed by the US government to leave, and also, they are a**holes.

This article is trying to create a phony moral underpinning for taking long-customary tax breaks from middle class people.

These things are true; you are living well when you have a quiet life of your own choosing, and your neighbors aren't right on top of you, and your kids are safe, and you're comfortable. When these optimal living conditions exist, the correct response of decent folk is to recognize this is a good thing and to be glad for you. And to want more of it, and to encourage everyone with your good example.

This mature and supportive response to your comfort and happiness is also the conservative position.

But to libs, cramping and inhibiting you is better. They claim otherwise, but their every public policy and ideological point keeps pushing you to the same conclusion: you shouldn't be living well. It's bad for society, and also, you're defective! NYAH!

A**holes, heal thyselves.

Thanks to Ben's sidebar link dump.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:46 AM | Comments (286)
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Failed President Obama is about to give a speech (well, that's a new tactic for him) arguing for higher taxes on people.

A preview of the upcoming repeat.

President Barack Obama will call Monday for a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts that chiefly benefit families making less than $250,000 annually, setting an election-year collision course with Republicans that seems designed to amplify his core campaign message. An Obama aide confirmed the news, which was first reported in The New York Times.

Obama's proposal will put him at odds with Republicans, including Mitt Romney, who have called for extending all the tax cuts—including those for the wealthiest Americans. The president hopes that what some of his advisers are calling the "tax fairness" argument will win over voters struggling in the fitful economy three and a half years after he took office vowing to fix it.

Why just a one year extension for middle class? It's almost as if he plans on raising them for everyone if Americans are dumb enough to reelect him.

Obama now speaking: "We tired it there way (Republicans) and it didn't work.". And 41 months of 8%+ unemployment is success?

Just a reminder, Obama complaining about Bush's job growth is a little...fanciful.

Shorter Obama: We can't afford to let people keep the money they earn.

Shorter me: It's the spending you socialist ass.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:09 AM | Comments (174)
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Happy Monday.

The Supreme Court is still leaking like crazy, if this unsourced report-cum-analysis is any indication. The Chief Justice's late switch in the Obamacare case, along with his attempt to strong-arm Justice Kennedy into switching too, looks to leave long-term problems. BTW, I never understood why people were claiming that these leaks came from the liberals or from liberal clerks. This is very obviously coming from the conservative wing of the court, which is seriously, perhaps irrecoverably, pissed off at the Chief Justice.

President Obama will give a Rose Garden speech today calling for extending the Bush tax cuts for another year, but only for people making less than $250,000. As you know, the GOP is pushing to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans. Each time Obama went up against the GOP on this before, he caved and approved the tax cuts for all, but only after lying his ass off about it.

The Romney camp raised $106.1 million last month and has $160 million cash on hand. The Obama folks haven't released their June numbers, but Democrats say that Obama was out-raised, just like in May. The interesting number would be Obama's expenses. Even though he's been making taxpayer-funded trips to avoid paying full cost for travel, the word is that Obama's already spending more than he's taking in.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:50 AM | Comments (442)
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End of the weekend for some, just another day for others, but all are welcome at the ONT party.

Who's Got Power and Who Doesn't?

Find out where the power is off with Blackout Tracker which shows both the duration and number of people affected.

Put together by Eaton, a company that makes products that help utilities manage different parts of the electric grid, this little web app shows you where the electric grid has recently failed, and why. The Blackout Tracker doesn't claim to include all blackouts, but it gives you an idea of the number of blackouts that happen, and the wide range of causes blackouts can have. For instance, in the picture above, you can see that Wichita, Kansas, had a blackout earlier this week that was related to a heatwave-hot weather meant more people turned on their air conditioners in the middle of the day, and, for whatever reason, there wasn't enough electrical supply available to meet that demand.

And one thing that most people don't realize is how delicate our electrical distribution system actually is...well until the lights go off.

First, the grid doesn't have any storage. (At least, none to speak of.) Second, the grid has to operate within a very narrow window of technical specifications. At any given moment, there must be almost exactly as much electricity being produced as there is being consumed. If that balance is thrown off, by even a fraction of a percent, you start heading toward blackouts. There are people working 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, making sure that balance is maintained on a minute-by-minute basis.

And contra recent hysteria we have more to fear from an angry sun taking down the grid than we do from hackers and terrorists.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:10 PM | Comments (561)
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