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2024-12-19 17:30 by Karl Denninger
in POTD , 90 references
 

 

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This does not require a law, although that would be better since then to change it you'd have to repeal it.

All bills must have an appendix and each paragraph or clause (which may encompass more than one paragraph) must be sponsored by at least one member of the respective chamber, who must name themselves in the appendix.

This instantly stops the "bills written by lobbying entity" games.  Yes, they can still try to do it but now at least one member of the chamber must be put his or her name on each paragraph, and therefore be responsible for same.

As things stand right now once a bill is originally filed (which requires at least one member) who wrote what ends up in it is completely without accountability and nobody is forced to take ownership of even a single sentence.

This must stop right now and it must become policy that until it does absolutely everything is vetoed no matter what the bill is.

This really ought to get passed into law and therefore can bind both chambers but since each chamber can control the form and substance of its own business each can write this into their own rules for consideration and one can effectively force both by refusing to take up any bill that does not contain such an appendix that is submitted from other.

This is how we stop the 1500 page monstrosities immediately that are filled with things like "renaming offender to justice-involved person" and similar claptrap, never mind very substantive policy changes such as extending and expanding pandemic-era authorities, both of which are in the current CR.

Accountability must return to the legislative process.

This is the fastest and easiest way, and can be implemented in a literal 30 seconds.

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2024-12-18 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Federal Government , 371 references
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There is a reason the first three letters are "CON" you know.

Speaker Johnson said just three months ago there would be no Christmas omnibus/CR bill.  That they'd extend through the election break to get the work done and pass the actual appropriations bills.

That didn't happen, and rather than enforce the appropriate penalty (shut it down until Congress passes said bills) he is now going to once again do what he said he never would.

This, on the back of record deficit months for both October and November, which at present run rates would roughly triple the annual deficit from last year.  That won't happen mostly because if they actually try to do that we will not make it to September before the Treasury market blows up and both short and long rates are well into double digits -- being that such a deficit would result in a roughly 15% inflation rate and quite-clearly imply that Congress has no intention of getting the situation under control -- not then, and not ever.

This, by the way, is precisely the last check and balance that can be imposed on a runaway Congress when it comes to spending, which is the reason that folks such as Bill Still who advocate for issuing non-debt-backed notes are wrong.  You need only look to the actions of Congress to recognize that removing that one last check and balance would leave as the only available remaining option the violent removal of said Congress by the people -- in other words, Revolution.  A real one, not a rhetorical one.  That's bad, so let's leave the only remaining means of imposing discipline which is both peaceful and lawful in place.

Anyone who believes that actual inflation in terms of all items less food and energy is only up 3.3%, and all items including same is up 2.7% annually as of the last report as you experience it is out of their mind.  Services, less energy services, which is the vast majority of the economy, is reported up 4.6% -- functionally, that might as well be 5% and is above the current 13 week bill rate AND the 10 year note rate.

In other words the idea that you are actually paying to borrow is false; the borrowing rate is below the inflation rate so we still have Congress driving a speculative bubble rather than incentivizing production and innovation, which is what sustains an economy (and the people in it) over time.

Car insurance continues to be on a tear posting a 12.7% annualized rate.  Anyone who has renewed (or will) can speak to that being the case too.  Oh, and if you like eggs (and you should; they're delicious) they're up a stunning 37.5% annualized on a retail basis and if you've bought them recently you may well have seen a double.

Many have tried to claim we can "grow out of the inflation"; Trump, among others (including his nominee for Treasury) has peddled this nonsense.  Nope.  We never really did it in the 1980s after the Nixon and Carter years; instead women went to work and added another income to the household.  That was a one-shot deal, of course and were we to try to grow out of the double in grocery prices not only would it require actual productivity and growth rates never seen in America outside of the years immediately WWII after the war had blown up basically all production in Europe but in addition you can't have any recessions and you must immediately cease all deficit spending -- which the last two months have already voided as a possibility.

The President is one person and does not set spending levels; he, and his people, file a proposed budget (and "DOGE" can influence that of course) but it is Congress that, per the Constitution, must appropriate every single dollar that the government spends.

Therefore this issue begins and ends there with the President being able to sign or veto said bills -- but that's it.  In addition during the last time of "big mess" (anyone younger than 60 or so doesn't remember it and how bad it got because they were either of single digit age or not born yet) brought us the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act which prohibits the President and Treasury from refusing to spend what Congress has appropriated.  The law was passed after Nixon in fact refused to spend appropriated funds in an attempt to control the deficit.

We still have plenty of people who believe this issue mostly resides in the Executive and decisions made there but in fact it does not; as the Constitution calls for, and the 1974 law restated and enforced, a President's power in regard to spending levels is advisory and ends with his right to issue an original veto.  If overridden, or if he signs an appropriations bill he is bound by said levels of spending as it directs.

It certainly would appear, from the last two months MTS, that coming into the new Trump Administration we're in for a rough ride -- and that is very likely to bear -- no pun intended -- the asset markets.

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2024-12-14 07:00 by Karl Denninger
in Musings , 656 references
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This amuses me greatly.

Industry veterans, bartenders and servers in the nation's capital told the Washingtonian that resistance to the Republican figures in the progressive city was inevitable and a matter of conscience. 

"You expect the masses to just ignore RFK eating at Le Diplomate on a Sunday morning after a few mimosas and not to throw a drink in his face?," said Zac Hoffman, a DC restaurant veteran who is now a manager at the National Democratic Club.

Actually, what I expect is a bunch  of bankruptcies.

Its not like there isn't a restaurant or bar on every corner in DC -- there is.

Further, word gets around very rapidly.  If you start doing this everyone in the Administration will know about it in 10 minutes.  Everyone.

I'd love to be a bar owner in that town with this attitude running around.  I'd make very-clear to my staff -- I will be watching for any indication of this and if I see it, you're instantly fired and the table's check is comp'd.

And the next day I get all the business with lines out the door while the place across the street that pulls this crap sees half their business disappear in a single day -- and those people never come back.  Why would they when they get excellent service with a smile right across the street?

In fact I'd run advertisements so-stating and with all the targeted advertising (hi Google and Facebook!) I'd hit every mobile device in DC with the ads too -- "Come one, come all, everyone is treated equally and with respect irrespective of your political party.  We are here to sell you delicious food and beverages -- and for no other reason -- and every member of our staff shall do so."

Smart businesspeople love a market where their competitors deliberately destroy themselves.

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2024-12-13 08:00 by Karl Denninger
in Product Reviews , 183 references
[Comments enabled]  

I've long used Sennheiser wireless "bodypack" systems; they're widely thought of as "the shizz" in the professional audio business, and with good reason.  They just work and are beasts -- rugged, no-BS, locking microphone and output connectors, etc.

The age is showing on my kit, however, and Sennheiser just released a new setup they call the "Profile 2."  It comes with two transmitters with pseudo-omni (facing front only) capsules in them -- and each also has a locking TRS connector for an external lav or similar mic, a 2-channel receiver (outputs either mono or stereo, so you can have two separate channels or both transmitters into mono), will output not just through a standard TRS cable but also through either USB-C or Apple's Lightning connector (both connectors included) and the entire kit is tiny.  Each transmitter also has something like 30 hours worth of audio memory (16Gb!) (so you can literally use it as a detached micro-recorder!) and it can be put in a mode where it will send and back up to the memory at the same time.  The transmitters are both light and tiny -- roughly 2" x 1" x 3/4" including a spring body clip w/1/4" threaded hole on the bottom and the actual capsule.  Included are two very strong magnets on the storage bar (which might work ok on a dress shirt, but not a flannel or other thicker fabric) and the clip on the body pack is ferrous metal so that's the "mating" surface for them.  For size reference if you're familiar with the older Sennheiser body packs four of these transmitters consume basically the same space as one of the older type -- and these new ones do not have an external antenna sticking out of them either.  The transmitters have two buttons on them -- a power button (hold on/off) and a red "internal" record enable/disable (short press) and mute (long press) button.  There are three small LEDs along one corner -- power on (green), link confirmed (green = ok, red = out of range or jammed) and recording (red = yes, otherwise off.)

The receiver is also tiny and has a cold-shoe clip-on to go onto a camera or similar if you want to mount it that way, along with a standard 1/4" thread. Status (battery level on the transmitters that are powered on) and levels display on that screen there.  The receiver can be set for either mono blended output (into both channels) or stereo (each mic as a separate channel.)  Settings are accessed from the receiver; it has an OLED screen that is touch-sensitive.  Being very small the touch sensitivity can be a bit finicky -- don't expect to use it "live" without the risk of hitting the wrong thing, but for setup it works perfectly well.  There is no app integration at all (e.g. bluetooth) as with some other (much more expensive) modern systems but it outputs either over USB or a traditional mini TRS stereo plug (non-locking.)  The receiver also, in a nice touch, has a separate mini TRS headphone/monitor output with individual volume control accessed via the menus.

The entire setup runs on 2.4Ghz band so there are no licensing issues with transmission being digital.

Construction is engineered plastics with the batteries being internal and non-replaceable.  There is a battery in each module and one in the docking bar which charges the other units when they're inserted.  Exactly how many times it can charge the units assuming  the docking station is full is not claimed.  All connections on the units are the more-modern USB-C (yay) which I applaud loudly as USB-C is a lot more robust and less-likely to be damaged than the older "mini" connector.  With the units docked plugging in the base charges everything whenever the modules are inserted and the power button on the side allows it "all" to be turned on as a rather interesting if somewhat-odd "stick mic" you could use like a conventional microphone with both plugged-in transmitters active -- and yes, there's a 1/4" screw mount on the bottom of the bar so you really could stick it on a mic stand.

The whole kit fits in a supplied zippered case for transport or storage.

The best part is that the entire system is reasonably-priced.  Not cheap, but reasonable.  Then again, this isn't "Joe's Chinese Garbage" so..... yeah.

I grabbed one from B&H.

I like it.  A lot.  With one caveat that might kill it for you, and you should be aware of.

Many lavs which are otherwise compatible with this setup (basically anything that has a TRS connector and uses bias current from the pack will work with it, including previous Sennheiser lavs) are not shielded at the capsule.  The cable is shielded but the bias circuitry in the capsule is not and thus it can (and in some cases does) pick up interference from the transmitter signal (the receiver is also transmitting sync/seek and status info) so if the capsule its in the "wrong" place related to either you can hear it as a quite-audible and high-frequency, raspy, but low-level "buzz."  Both of my prior-generation Sennheiser lavs do this and after investigation I discovered its not the wire that is unshielded, its the capsule itself on the end of the wire.  If you set the body units to "record" and turn off the receiver (thus disabling the transmitter side) it goes away so if used as a "recorder" it doesn't exhibit the problem -- but when used as a transmitter it does.  Clearly something in the microphone capsule is rectifying and down-converting some element of the RF signal from the body pack into the audible range -- and that's a bitch as its in the external lav mic itself and thus is almost-certainly a function of the frequency band the units are running on and happenstance as to the harmonics generated when it is rectified by said circuitry.

Thus you will have to very carefully test the lavs you have, if you intend to use external ones, with the system while its still in the return window and figure out if you'll run into this problem or not.  From reading around the 'net this is extremely common with other 2.4Ghz systems too -- including DJI's (in other words, not just the cheap ones) which have the same issue.

I don't know if Sennheiser can correct this in a future revision of the hardware -- or if their newer lavs are better-filtered at the capsule end.  Mine are quite-old but there's utterly nothing wrong with them and they were not cheap either, nor are Sennheiser's current ones so I have no intention of buying new ones to find out.  This is definitely a dropped ball situation for Sennheiser, which was quite unexpected (really guys, you didn't think people who bought this would own some of your excellent lavs in different patterns already and work this through before releasing this thing -- or note the problem if you couldn't fix it in the user manual?)

For my particular uses of this kit I'm not sure I care since "ultimate concealability" isn't a material part of the use case for me, and thus clipping the entire transmitter unit on my lapel or in a vest pocket works fine -- and as I noted, the internal capsules are typical Sennheiser quality (in other words, excellent) and they come with snap-on windscreens as well  (which you will want for outdoor use; indoors they're not needed if at lapel or vest-pocket level as plosives are not typically a factor with a mic placed there.)

Thus my qualified recommendation -- good, but with the qualification that either you don't need external lav capability or the ones you have (or buy for external use) don't exhibit the problem with interference.

Updated note: The extremely reasonably-priced "Neewer" (a Chinese knock-off company) LAVs are appropriately-shielded and while they lack the locking collar (thus take care how you route the wire lest the potential for it to be pulled out while in-use exists) and aren't Sennheiser level quality they work perfectly well with this kit -- I detect zero interference in my testing.  The capsules are quite-small under that huge windscreen (which just pulls off) if you're indoors and thus don't need it and.... they're cheap.

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