I just finished reading Josh's musing on the "odd confluence of interest -- radical religion and radical secularism -- that seems to leave little room to the sort of accepting pluralism that I think our society is based on" and am once again struck by how the Establishment Clause has been imbued with an unintended sentiment.  To whatever extent it originally expressed religious tolerance, it was a grudging tolerance despite the overwhelming predominance of British Protestants at the time.

Massachusetts Congregationalists routinely banished Quakers and at times hanged them.   Peaceful, non-violent Quakers had no qualms about shunting "Born Fightin" Scots-Irish Presbyterians to the back country as a buffer between them and the "savages".  Neither the Congregationalists nor the Quakers wanted the Anglicans of Virginia and South Carolina to become the official State Church as it was in England. 

At the beginning the Establishment Clause was very much a political deal recognizing religious territories.  That it has become something of a noble inclusive ideal is nothing short of amazing.  I hope that sentiment manages to survive the current holy wars but I have my doubts.

Josh again: "I always try to keep front and center in my mind that there are a good number of Muslims around the world who believe their religion is at war with the West and particularly with the United States."

Me, too.  And I try to remember that Islam literally means submission while the United States, America, stands for and prizes liberty.  I often wonder if we are kidding ourselves that we can tolerate each other without separate territories and a couple of more centuries.  It doesn't look promising right now.

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Employment, Interest, and Money: The Real Activity Suspension Program

The Continued Stealth Takeover of the Courts « naked capitalism

I think we all remember how thoroughly Crichton was demonized by the activist community for daring to challenge their 'good' work.  It is really a shame that he died before seeing some vindication of his thesis in the current IPCC Clusterfrak.  Because he is not here to say, "I told you so" I am saying it for him.

As the financial crisis virus has swept around the globe in recent months, Kazakhstan's banking sector has been engulfed in turmoil. This is not just creating a headache for the Kazakh government and Western creditors, but also highlighting issues about the credit derivatives market that extend well beyond those far-flung steppes.

Take the case of Morgan Stanley's dealings with BTA, Kazakhstan's largest bank. A few years ago, BTA - like many of its Eastern brethren - was an up-and-coming darling of the capital markets world, with investment bankers furiously competing to float its bonds, provide loans, and much else.

But earlier this year, when funding dried up for Kazakh banks, BTA fell under the control of the government. Initially BTA wanted to keep servicing its loans, and its creditors, such as Morgan Stanley, appeared happy to play along.

But last week Morgan Stanley and another bank suddenly demanded repayment. BTA was unable to comply, and thus tipped into partial default. That sparked fury among some other creditors, and shocked some Kazakhs, who wondered why Morgan Stanley would have taken an action that seemed likely to create losses.

One clue to the US bank's motives, though, can be seen on the official website of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. One page reveals that just after calling in the loan, Morgan Stanley also asked ISDA to start formal proceedings to settle credit default swaps contracts written on BTA.

For it transpires that while the US bank has a loan to BTA it also has a big CDS position on BTA, that pays out if - and only if - the Kazakh bank goes into default. Indeed, some of Morgan Stanley's rivals suspect that notwithstanding its loan, Morgan Stanley is actually net short the Kazakh bank.

As a result speculation is rife that Morgan might have deliberately provoked the default of BTA to profit on its CDS, since a default makes the US bank a net winner, not a loser as logic might suggest.

Morgan Stanley, for its part, refuses to comment on this speculation (although its officials note that the bank does not generally take active "short" positions in its clients.) And I personally have no way of knowing whether Morgan is short or long, since Morgan refuses to disclose details of its CDS holding.

What is crystal clear is that somebody has been placing big bets on whether or not the banking equivalent of Borat will blow up.

 

There is more so please read the whole report.  Also, Willem Buiter comments on some wider implications  of the "nasty case of moral hazard" created when CDSs can be written without any insurable interest and provides a bit of information on the attempts of foreign  creditors to get the Kazakh  government to guarantee their unsecured loans with oil and gas revenues.

Open questions are who is on the hook for those CDS that Morgan wants settled and whether or not BAT is free of the defaulted debt or just has a new creditor -- maybe US through AIG.  What are the foreign policy implications of that?

None of the archived posts include the book title or subject of discussion in any header so one is forced to read into the posts a good deal in reverse order just to figure out where the conversation began. 

It is even worse trying to sort out an old discussion found through a search.  For example, this morning I looked for an old discussion on heterodox economics, a very lively discussion among many, many well-known economics bloggers.  The hits were not even in date/time order.  They did not include book, author, subject or even the poster's name.  An expanded search that included the name of a specific poster produced a longer list of posts that were less specific to the discussion I was seeking.  What a pain.

An indexed archive would be beneficial for authors as well as late readers..  Authors would benefit because their books would continue to be promoted beyond their alloted week and late readers of the discussion could follow the conversation more easily in sequence and may end up buying an interesting book. 

It should not be that hard to create an indexed archive, just initially time consuming.   For an example, see how Cato Unbound links and tracks their current and archived discussions on their right sidebar.  And for something really useful, see how Cato creates a separate web page of links for each archived discussion.

Whether this is something that TPM thinks would be worthwhile will depend not just on the merit of the idea itself but on its usefulness to its general audience.  What do you all think? 

Therefore, be it resolved, this 5th Day of February, 2008, that the Georgia Federation of Young Republican Clubs strongly condemns and denounces the actions and speech over the past several weeks by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and others for breeding contempt, disunity and hatred among the Republican Party in order to bolster their own careers; and

Therefore, be it FURTHER resolved, that the Georgia Federation of Young Republican Clubs praises talk show hosts like Neal Boortz, who, despite making their preference known, have chosen not to make it their mission to tear down other GOP candidates.