From <a href=”http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/31/obama-offers-budget-deficits-far-number-crunchers/”>Fox News</a> and the <a href=”http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35173466/ns/politics-white_house/”>Associated Press</a>:
<blockquote>WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s proposed budget predicts the national deficit will crest at a record-breaking $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year, then start to recede in 2011 to just below $1.3 trillion.

Still, the administration’s new budget proposal to be released Monday says deficits over the next decade will average 4.5 percent of the size of the economy, a level that economists say is dangerously high if not addressed.</blockquote>

$1.6 trillion dollars is equivalent to everyone in the United States borrowing a little more than $5000. That’s $5000 that we don’t have, and that is coming from China and other buyers of American Treasury Bonds.

I find this a little problematic. Someone is going to have to pay this money back, because the interest will keep rising and rising, yet in our current political climate, I wonder if it will be possible.

The interest (hundreds of billions of dollars) is going to ruin us, because unlike every other emergency this country faces, it won’t be solved by a single act of Congress, or an emergency bi-partisan meeting. We can only fix this with long-term discipline from both sides. How likely do you think that is?

How can we guarantee that the party in power will get control of this spending? Does the political will even exist?

The new Supreme Court ruling on political speech has been slammed by President Obama and a wide variety of Democrats and liberals, such as Keith Olbermann. While I cannot claim any level of legal expertise, and am ignorant of the decision’s specifics, there may be a significant silver lining lost in the condemnation.

The following argument is a paraphrase of Daniel Indiviglio, from the Atlantic’s Politics blog. It goes like this: large corporations were previously able to fund partisan political ads through 527s and Political Action Committees, so instead of opening the way to any new spending affecting politics, the field has now been opened for small businesses to fund advertisements, without having to employ a large legal department in order to maintain “proper separation.”

In essence, in allowing corporations free reign, we’ve democratized their involvement. Such a statement still sounds a little strange to my ears – corporate electioneering has long been seen as intrusive and corruptive, many times rightly so. However, corporations are not universally bad. They are this country’s industry: UPS ships our packages; Chic-Fil-A and Waffle House feed us; Coca-cola refreshes us at the ball park, The Weather Channel keeps us up-to-date about incoming storms, and CNN keeps us way too up-to-date about everything. While our society could be described as socialist, because of the high involvement of government in commerce, our private companies are a legacy to be proud of, even with all of the horrible faults and failures of companies like Exxon, Enron, and Worldcom.

Beyond the above, it’s hard to fathom what exactly will change as a result of this policy. Money will always find a way into politics, even going so far as directed donations to a politician’s charity of choice in order to curry access; seeking to remove its influence is foolhardy. On the contrary, the more we allow for openness and sunshine, the more corruption can be managed, and beyond that, the more secrecy will stand out. Moreover, this bill will not strictly benefit GOP interests: Democrats will benefit from groups such as unions being able to directly pay for ads.

If I haven’t yet convinced you, let’s take one step further back. Corporations are groups of individuals, and while corporate personhood has many problems, I am sympathetic to claims that groups of individuals should be able to make political speech. Just as I’d hope citizens should band together in groups to campaign for certain candidates in local elections, there’s no reason why a group of shareholders shouldn’t be able to do the same thing. Free speech is free speech, no matter which group of people is saying it.

What frustrates me more about this decision is that I think President Obama realizes the above. However, the decision is a political gift to the Democratic Party: thanks to Bush’s nominees to the court, corporations now have theoretically unlimited donation powers. The letter of thelaw has changed in a way that will allow Democrats to hit the GOP over the head, repeatedly, during both the upcoming midterm elections as well as Obama’s re-election campaign. But because our polarized politics demands a winner and a loser, Democrats can now play victim to a precedent-overturning, corporation-loving Supreme Court.

Will our democracy be damaged by this ruling? It’s possible. Will elections be more dominated by corporate dollars? It’s likely. But our democracy is already damaged, and our elections already dominated by PACs and bundlers. Even our contribution limits are a joke: besides being able to donate to political parties, 50 rich individuals can donate to 50 candidates, allowing each person to deliver 50 times more money through cooperation. These things happen today, and this new ruling won’t break much new ground. Instead, we should celebrate the increased sunshine that the law now allows, and hold candidates accountable for their corporate supporters.

Besides, my prediction is that in seeking to avoid negative publicity, PACs and 527s will stick around. Why fund someone explicitly with political fallout when you can fund them under the table, without it being so obvious? This ruling will make that under-the-table dealing more suspicious, and while I’m not sold that it’s all good, it’s certainly not all bad. It’s a pity our national politics won’t be able to recognize that.

When Jon Stewart talked about the “two markets” in his <a href=”http://blog.indecisionforever.com/2009/03/13/jon-stewart-and-jim-cramer-the-extended-daily-show-interview/”>interview with Jim Cramer</a>, he wasn’t completely correct. There are two markets, but they aren’t exactly the ones Stewart described (though very close).

Long term, there’s only one way a stock is going to go up, and that’s if the corporation you buy stock in makes money, thus raising the company’s value, and thus the value of your stock. There’s simply no way around it – unless a company isn’t earning a profit (including employee expenses and dividends), it’s going to be more valuable.

Short term is a different story. Wall Street traders make their money via the crazy variances in how Wall Street evaluates a company’s worth, and CNBC helps to inform those decisions. Think about it. When GM’s stock price drops 1% in a given day, it’s not because 1% of GM’s total value was stolen. It’s because Wall Street’s opinion of GM’s value has changed. Follow the jump for the implications of this.

What people figured out is that you can make a lot of money outsmarting other investors trying to evaluate a company’s worth. If you think X company has a great new product out that’s about to get some buzz, a smart trader might buy that stock so that when the buzz (and Wall Street’s speculative evaluation) changes, the trader can make money off of the change. Shorting a stock is doing the exact same thing, but in the opposite direction.

Much of this is obvious – it’s why we ban insider trading, which is based on information that has not yet been released to the public. Everyone trading is supposed to have the same information on which to make judgments about companies. However, the rise of a 24 hour news cycle and CNBC along with it have made those evaluations much more fluid.

The insane fluctuations you see every day in a given stock are just the noise of traders trying to outsmart each other by moving things around in a way smarter than the next guy. Long term, your money was supposed to be safe in certain companies that had solid, profit earning business models.

But the short term took over – and the scheme worked for year after year after year. A world where 35-1 leveraging was insane yielding to the financial reality that there was a LOT of money to make via leveraging. How? Leveraging allowed people to take bigger bets with both bigger rewards and bigger risks. But the rising market diminished those risks; traders and analysts drew greater and greater rewards for crazier and crazier schemes.

The short term speculation and need for new assets to buy and sell created a need for more assets, which came in the form of sub-prime mortgages secure only in a rising home price bubble. Everyone made solid money in the short term, and took us higher and higher until we stepped off the cliff.

And suddenly we had no more lending available, and for once, the REAL VALUE of companies dropped as credit and orders dried up. Our market of safe investments had been taken for a ride; and suddenly profits weren’t so easy, and we entered recession.

Obama’s actions will have real effects on the market’s long-term future; his taxation policies and regulations will have real effects on a bottom line. But day-to-day, it’s all speculative noise, and we should all stop calling it otherwise.

If you haven’t heard already, there are reports that information on the VH-3D or the VH-60N helicopters operated by Marine Helicopter Squadron One have been found on the internet. The reason for the fuss is that these helicopters are more usually knows as Marine One when carrying the President of the United States, just as the Boeing VC-25 aircraft is known better as Air Force One.

According the CEO of Tiversa, a company that specializes in Person-to-Person filesharing networks, “a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One” was found at an IP address located in Tehran. How did the file get out?

It seems that a computer system belonging to a defense contractor also had a File Sharing Program running on one of its computers, likely placed their by an employee who didn’t realize the dangers of running such a program. It serves as a fitting reminder for us all on the ease by which our information can be stolen.

Many methods of information access can’t be controlled by us, since we aren’t in charge of electronic security at our bank or other companies that hold our information. We’ve all heard the reports of loose laptops and files over the years, causing embarrassment and fear for customers whose data was put at risk by professionals who should have known better.

However, you do have control over some possible weaknesses in your electronic security. Here are some minor reminders.

First, be careful on open wireless networks. They are at places like airports and Starbucks, and I’ve found such networks to be very useful. But everything your computer sends can be snooped on. Usernames, passwords, and anything else you see on a webpage can be seen by the middle-man between you and the interwebs.

Second, be careful with your home wireless, if you have it. If your home network is open, and your computers aren’t secured against inter-network access, then your files could be at risk (more info here). Another vital concern is if someone else uses your network to mask their own file-sharing or hacking activities – your home becomes the originating address for these attacks, and the address to which the authorities will show up. That’s not to say that you should never open your own network, but do so with knowledge of the potential consequences.

Third, be careful with your passwords, especially those for institutions with sensitive information. Companies often suggest random strings like g8ds9ke or d7e9j2nk3 as passwords, and since many people don’t feel up to remembering random strings of characters, they swing the other way and use the same password everywhere, or easily guessed and very common passwords.

Fourth, be careful in campaign offices. Political information is power, and campaigns must balance data availability with data security – don’t do anything dumb to let an entire database get out.

Fifth, be careful with attachments. Files that are .exe are always bad – they are Windows programs and not pictures. You should also be on the look our for phishing, which is an attempt by a third party to get your information by claiming to be an institution you share data with. (Hilarious example here.)

Last, use common sense. The internet is a powerful tool, and allows us to share information and knowledge easily and quickly – just make sure you know what you are making available, and you’ll save yourself many headaches in the future. And if you want to keep anything truly safe, a pad and paper is still the best way to go.