http://www.nytimes.com/…

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last big independent investment banks on Wall Street, will transform themselves into bank holding companies subject to far greater regulation, the Federal Reserve said Sunday night, a move that fundamentally reshapes an era of high finance that defined the modern Gilded Age.

The firms requested the change themselves, even as Congress and the Bush administration rushed to pass a $700 billion rescue of financial firms. It was a blunt acknowledgment that their model of finance and investing had become too risky and that they needed the cushion of bank deposits that had kept big commercial banks like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase relatively safe amid the recent turmoil.

It also is a turning point for the high-rolling culture of Wall Street, with its seven-figure bonuses and lavish perks for even midlevel executives. It effectively returns Wall Street to the way it was structured before Congress passed a law during the Great Depression separating investment banking from commercial banking, known as the Glass-Steagall Act.

By becoming bank holding companies, the firms are agreeing to significantly tighter regulations and much closer supervision by bank examiners from several government agencies rather than only the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, the firms will look more like commercial banks, with more disclosure, higher capital reserves and less risk-taking.

I’m fine with this outcome in that the Glass-Steagall Act has been effectively nullified as far as I can tell. However, it makes me wonder if this was all part of some plan. Yes these firms will become more regulated in some ways but in what way does it harm them vs harming smaller firms. Morgan Stanley has had its Utah based industrial bank and word is they have been looking at the benefits of becoming a bank holding company for a while now.

So now they are a net less risky. They claim revenue will be down as a result as will bonuses and perhaps pay. We shall see. How long till the government forgets what led us here and creates the environment for a bubble again? If we make it out of this one… likely not long.

When asking the delegation for nominations for president, after McCain was included the person presiding asked for any more names, Ron Paul was clearly yelled several times and was ignored without any recognition.

The following states did not give all their votes to John McCain:

• Alaska: 24 McCain, 5 Ron Paul
• Idaho: 26 McCain, 6 ?
• Maine: 20 McCain, 1 ?
• Minnesota: 35 McCain, 6 ?
• Oregon: 26 McCain, 4 Ron Paul
• Utah: 2 Romney, 34 McCain
• Washington: 36 McCain, 4 “Dr. Paul”
• West Virginia: 2 Ron Paul, 30 McCain

There may have been more states but this is all I noticed.

Sadly, states like Nevada and Montana where Paul received more votes than McCain, all their delegate votes went to McCain due to party loyalists taking over state conventions. It’s also sad that some states did not give Paul, Huckabee or Romney the votes they had actually received.

When Ron Paul received votes the announcer did not repeat his name nor vote count. Just McCain’s. However, for Utah she repeated Romney’s 2 votes. For Washington, the other announcer cut off the one repeating the vote so that Paul’s name could not be said. When repeating West Virginia’s results she caught herself about to repeat Paul’s 2 votes and quickly stopped, going on to repeat McCain’s only. I guess they think if they ignore him, not say his name 3 times… he won’t show up / go away. I think they’re mistaken.

They reported Romney got 2 votes and Paul 5. That’s obviously not correct. He was explicitly given 15 votes.

Arizona delegates made mention of Barry Goldwater being another great politician from Arizona. As did a few randomly interviewed people after the convention. Funny… John McCain, at least on domestic issues, is practically the antithesis of Barry Goldwater. Barry Goldwater Jr. had endorsed Ron Paul and was at the Rally for the Republic continuing his support just yesterday.

I can’t find an online article to confirm but Butler Shaffer over at LewRockwell.com/blog posted this:

The government of Salt Lake City has undertaken the prosecution of persons who recycle the rain water that falls on their lands. Those who collect such water for use on their gardens, or for household purposes, etc., may be visited by the rainwater police. The city’s rationale is that such recycling interferes with the rights of other property owners who might seek to claim such runoff when it would otherwise come to their lands.

But not to worry about any possible water shortages. In a number of communities - I don’t know if Salt Lake City is one of them - city governments are recycling sewer water - including water from toilets - and pumping it back into city water supplies to be returned to homeowners for drinking, bathing, and cooking purposes!

As Voltaire so wonderfully satirized the Leibnizian doctrine: things are all for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Let us drink to the wonders of our brave, new world, . . . but be sure to use bottled spring water in doing so!

bosco, better hope New Jersey doesn’t pick up on this trend.

• The Democrat race is still in the air a bit. While Clinton is ahead by nearly 100 delegates there is still many states left and a long time till their convention.
• McCain did well as expected. I think primarily because of the number of winner take all states. Had the delegates been split up it would probably would have been much closer.
• McCain won 9 states. Huckabee 5. Romney 7. Paul 0.
• Accounting for things like what occurred in West Virginia the number of delegates dedicated to each candidate is not quite accurate.
• The available numbers also don’t account for any internal events which may be occurring in the states. I’m not familiar with the workings of all the different states but some use this primary or caucus to vote for state delegates which will at a later time pick national delegates. In those cases the MSM reports the national delegates as if they were already selected. If someone was to drop before the nationals are selected than they could vote differently.
• In several states Giuliani actually got votes. He even beat Paul 5% to 4% in California with 90% reporting. Assuming much of those votes would have gone to McCain it doesn’t look like they would have changed the results in any of the states. Again given the differing systems it’s hard to say for sure. Thompson even got 3% in Tennessee. In that race it could have changed the outcome. Huckabee got 34% and McCain got 32%. I suspect it would have helped Huckabee more than McCain however. I’d like to know if these were protest votes or people who didn’t realize their candidate of choice had dropped. I hope it’s the former.
• There has been several accounts of voting issues with Paul supporters. Three from people I know. Steve Miller in Brooklyn saw issues with voting machines not working and those running the poll said that only 2 Republicans where running and Jim Lesczynski and his wife had changed their party affiliation months ago yet the voting place had them as their old party. Here in NJ they had my girlfriend and I marked as unaffiliated and we had to choose which party to vote for on the spot. No harm but sad that I had changed to R months ago and received confirmation saying as much.
• Paul did well in states he was expected to do well in but not as well as some thought. 3rd in Alaska is disappointing given the level of support that was expected. He was the number 1 fundraiser there. In Montana Paul was again the number 1 fundraiser with more than twice what Romney in second raised. Yet Romney won 38% of the state delegates vs Paul’s 25%. Unfortunately Montana is a winner takes all state and the delegates are apparently required to vote for that individual. It’s even more interesting in North Dakota where Paul again was the largest fundraiser with Romney raising the least yet Romney won the majority with Paul a close 3rd with 21% to McCain’s 23%. Both get the same number of delegates as does Huckabee with his 4th place 20%.
• He also did worse in some states where he was polling last but with higher percentages than he actually received.

Paul generally got spanked but that was expected. The race is still not over and even with McCain in the lead he’s only 60% the way to the nomination. Obviously money does not mean votes. As a movement we need to better target the public. I truly believe the MSM did us great harm in this race and we need to figure out a way to deal with that in the future. The counties around the several states where Paul won or did well should be analyzed and replicated. I don’t believe there was anything particularly special about those voters it was how we advertised and presented our candidate to them. We need to convince people not only of his platform but his electability. As much as we hate that that is a major component to the average voters decision it’s reality and we need to counteract the MSM putdowns and writeoffs. Spend less money on blimps and more on newspaper, radio and TV ads. More articles to the editor which aren’t defensive and complaining about being left out but offensive and comparative and explains why our policies are right and better for the average voter. While we may lose this battle the fact we are able to get such high numbers in some areas of the nation should give us encouragement. In local and national elections were we are targeting much smaller audiences we have a better shot at getting freedom fighters in office. Murray Sabrin’s campaign for Senate has been able to get more money than they where asking for from 47 states. That kind of support will hopefully help get those people elected. Also as a libertarian candidate we’ve gotten a low of 3% and high of 25%. This is just unheard of in the Libertarian Party generally. Nationally Paul is pushing 7%-9% from what I’ve seen. That’s really huge. We do have an audience we just need to approach them. We probably have a larger audience we just need to get by the MSM’s attacks and blackout. On a local level that’s much easier.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens when and if Huckabee or even Romney drop out. It seems to me that those supporting them would be hard pressed to support “liberal” John McCain. If Paul does not drop and seeks the Libertarian ticket he could possibly pick up quite a few delegates. I understand that is a fairly unlikely situation but I’d love to see it just to gage what and why people choose a candidate.

To leave on a more optimistic note, A Scorecard You Won’t Find on Fox News:

Supporter Loren C. sends in this excellent summary of what Ron Paul has achieved so far.

A friend of mine asked me tonight, “Should Ron Paul just quit? I never hear of him on the news so he can’t be doing very well today (Super Tuesday).” Here is my reply to him:

I don’t care what the liberal media is saying, he has,

2nd place in Nevada

2nd place in Louisiana (possibly first once they get it sorted out)

2nd place in Montana

2nd place in Maine

3rd place in Utah

3rd place in North Dakota

There is about 21 more states left to vote,

He has plenty of money,

No one has even close to enough delegates to take the nomination,

He has the only true Republican stance on the issues,

He is the only candidate who believes our government should follow ALL of the Constitution,

Quit?

Not even close. Keep fighting, Ron Paul is!

Well said. And while the momentum John McCain has been gaining lately may appear daunting, Ron Paul supporters are the ones who should be least intimidated by it, because as the other, fraudulent alternatives to John McCain fail one by one — Mitt Romney is certainly on the ropes after tonight, especially if, as appears to be the case, he loses California to McCain — the real alternative to McCain-ism, Ron Paul, will only become more attractive to conservative Republican voters.

Indeed, it’s interesting to note that so many of the states McCain won tonight were blue states which any Republican (except the antiwar Dr. Paul) will have a hard, if not impossible, time winning in November. And despite his wins tonight, McCain does not have a majority of Republican National Delegates, so the fight for the nomination is still very much on.

http://news.yahoo.com/…

A bill that would have given District of Columbia residents their first-ever member of Congress died in the Senate on Tuesday, dashing hopes of finally gaining full voting rights after a 206-year wait.

Senators voted 57-42, just three votes short of the 60 needed to move the measure forward. The bill would have created two new House seats: One for the city of about 600,000 people and one for Utah, which narrowly missed out on a fourth seat after the last census.

If they are going to give DC voting rights it should be given state status otherwise treated like other US territories like Guam, Puerto Rico, etc. If it’s really an issue then let Virginia or Maryland absorb it. DC was never meant to have the general public living there but simply a neutral location where those members of government went to perform their duties. Why must all these one off exceptions be made for DC? It’s not necessary.

http://www.joystiq.com/…

As promised, game developer David Jaffe has finally announced – in a move many expected – details of his new development studio located, not surprisingly, in Utah. Titled Eat, Sleep, Play, the new studio is a partnership with Incognito chief Scott Campbell who worked with Jaffe on the popular Twisted Metal series while both were at SCEA. With Ingognito’s Warhawk about to take flight on PS3 and Jaffe having just finished Calling All Cars, the two are finally ready to branch out on their own … but it’s hard to get away from the mothership Sony. They’ve “signed on for a multi-year, multi-title deal to create titles for the PlayStation family of products, with the first slated for release in 2008.”

It’s not clear if that includes their first project, a PlayStation 2 port of the PSP’s Twisted Metal: Head On with some notable tweaks: bumped to 60 frames per second, higher-res textures, “5-7 levels from the never released Twisted Metal Black: Part II,” and “a documentary on the history of the series.” Jaffe surmises it may be some eight to twelve months before we hear about these new titles, but Twisted Metal: Head On will be available this holiday season.

I was really hoping for Twisted Metal Black 2 or the like for the PS3 but I can deal with a revamped and enhanced TM:HO. I’ll surely pick it up. Too bad it probably won’t have online support.