This from Brad Setser’s blog….

Incidentally, the $8.7b in average weekly purchases of Treasuries over the last 8 weeks would – if sustained — be enough to finance a $454b budget deficit without selling a single Treasury bond to private investors. Sometimes I think the US should drop the façade of auctioning off Treasuries and just negotiate private placements with the People’s Bank of China and the Saudi Monetary Agency.

What’s more, all this financing was provided more or less unconditionally, with the United States creditors taking on the risk of future dollar depreciation. Further dollar depreciation against the euro – and, perhaps more importantly, the risk of further dollar depreciation against their own currencies.

It goes without saying that this flow is far, far larger than the $30b or so sovereign funds committed to troubled US financial institutions in December and January ($40b if UBS is considered a US financial institution). Yet it has attracted far less attention.

Two of the most notable changes made by the A-Team were imposing a strict separation of duties between assemblers and material handlers and the sharp increase in the number of material handlers. They felt we would gain more efficiency by not letting the assemblers more so much as an inch away from their posts to Click Here to continue reading.

From For Construction Pros……

UPS says that in 2007 it saved itself 3 million gallons of gas by routing trucks using a technology that emphasizes safety and efficiency — meaning delivery routes are planned as a series of loops with as few left turns as possible. UPS says it’s a safer driving practice because drivers aren’t turning in front of oncoming traffic as often, and it saves fuel because they spend less time idling in left-turn lanes waiting to turn.

I read this at On The Level….

It is the little industrious man in the brand new Toyota Sienna Minivan taking the aluminum from my and all of my neighbors’ recycling bins a block ahead of the city’s recycling truck. The way I see it, if I had put my cans in with my trash because I was lazy or didn’t care about the environment then he would have every right to take the cans from my garbage container. But since I sort the recyclables and put them in a bin specifically for the recycling truck, I believe he is stealing as well as harming the environment. Here is why: The aluminum(arguably the most expensive item in the recycling bins) is used to offset the cost of my refuse bill. Without the aluminum, it may cost more to pick up the recycling than the materials themselves. If the city loses money, my bills go up. Second, by having both his minivan and the city truck stopping at every recycle bin in my neighborhood, he is putting more carbon in the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.

I don’t have any sympathy for this line of argument. Trash pickup should be for trash pickup. If you are not willing to throw it out don’t put it out. And if you are willing to throw it out, don’t worry about who is picking it up. This is like somebody complaining that they left a bag full of soda cans out for the garbage man and someone else came by and turned them in for a redemption. If it is not worth it to take care of it yourself, don’t worry about it.

If this person was that worried about rising refuse bills, he could save his own aluminum up for year and turn it in for cash himself. That would offset his rising bill. Back when aluminum was cheap, nobody was doing this. But when aluminum was cheap, how could the city use it to off set the garbage bills? I don’t see how he has any real right to complain.

I suspect that his concerns about having a minivan and a city truck stopping at every recycling bin in the neighborhood is also bogus. Extra weight increase fuel consumption so by having less weight the recycling truck will save some energy. This will partially offset the minivan. Moreover, the recycling center will have to additional material handling to get the aluminum to where it needs to go. Our industrious little man is probably taking it directly where it needs to go. So on the whole, I suspect that it is a wash. I don’t have any proof, but then neither does he.

Saw this courtesy of Calculated Risk…..

Joan Shaffer is turning in the keys of the north Phoenix Tatum Ranch home she bought with her daughter in late 2005. They put nothing down on the home, took out a loan that let them pay less than they owed each month and now their loan is $200,000 more than the house is worth.

“We paid $585,000. It was the peak of the market, but no one told us,” said Shaffer, a real-estate agent from Colorado. “We would probably have to spend the next 20 years trying to get right on the mortgage. That’s crazy.”

As Calculated Risk said “It’s amusing that she is a real estate agent.” He has such a gift for understatement.

On a more serious note, I saw a link to this discussion thread in the comments of CR post. The discussion is about the morality of just walking away from ones mortgage and it takes place on a forum for mortgage brokers. I recommend that everyone take the time to least skim the thread. The perspective of the people who where involved in making these loans is very interesting.

Monster Cables is one of those companies that relies on lawyers to make money because it is easier than relying on the quality of their goods and services. In other words, they like to sue other companies on dubious trademark grounds.

While we feel that the behavior of companies like Monster Cables is proof that are legal system needs reforming, we must admit that part of the problem is general cowardice on the part of victims. So often companies decided to settle over these dubious claims rather than fight because it cost less in the short term and is less “risky”. But of course, this only encourages the bullies continue with their misuse of the law.

Happily, Blue Jeans Cable is not one of those who are inclined to roll over. Here is Blue Jeans Cable’s response to Monster Cables. Make sure you read the last three paragraphs even the the rest of the rant is to much for you.

At a meeting on Friday afternoon, P.B. introduced to some of the supervisors a template for creating work instructions. I regret that I once again demonstrated my talent for being an obnoxious questioner. I questioned whether there was really the political will to accomplish the arduous work of creating and maintaining a comprehensive set of Click Here to continue reading.

From Naked Capitalism…..

The Wall Street Journal reports on another sign of how bad the credit crunch has gotten: banks fudging on what they are reporting as their short-term cost of interbank borrowing, out of fear of revealing how stressed they are. So the Libor becomes less useful as a guide. That in turn means that the so-called TED spread (the difference between three month Libora and ninety-day Treasuries), which is one of the preferred measures of stress in the interbank markets, is understated by as much as 30 basis points.

Next they will be telling us that the inflation figures are not accurate.

From the Consumerist…

New York’s argument, based on a reading of the 1992 Quill vs. North Dakota U.S. Supreme Court ruling, is that because Amazon makes sales through affiliates who live in the state, it can be considered to have a physical presence there—which means the new law wouldn’t apply to retailers who don’t use affiliate programs.

Oddly, until now New York residents have been asked to voluntarily provide their total sum of online purchases on their state tax forms in order to estimate a tax payment, but InternetNews wrly notes it “evidently has fallen short” of the expected revenue goals set by the state.

In other words, because some people sell stuff over Amazon even though they do not work for Amazon and Amazon does not own their stuff, New York State thinks that it has the right to tax them.