Stockstradamus AKA Stocky’s Blog

The Globe’s lazy Business reporter Steve Bailey gets the bad timing award of the week with his column today on the new Boston Fed Governor.

He sings the praises of Eric Rosengren for being the lone dissenting vote at the last FOMC meeting. Eric wanted a half percentage point cut in the rate instead of the quarter point cut we got.

The argument for the bigger rate cut is that a slowing economy is the biggest worry. The argument for a smaller rate cut is that Inflation is the biggest worry.

Bailey compares Rosengren to a previous Boston Fed governor Morris who wrongly opposed Chairman Volker for pushing up rates to stem inflation.

Keep in mind that inflation is the single biggest destroyer of wealth there is.

Bailey, sings the praises of Rosengren for standing up against Bernacke while acknowledging a previous Boston Fed Governor who did the same thing which we now know was flat out wrong.

Right on Queue we get new economic data today that the WSJ reports:

Friday’s report, particularly coming on the heels of the import price and producer price data, appears to justify the Fed’s modest rate cut — which disappointed many on Wall Street — and its decision not to cite slow growth as a bigger risk than inflation, as many analysts had thought it would.

Bailey’s new “Boston Leader” so far looks like a dolt. But in Bailey’s world doing something, anything, even if it’s wrong is to be admired:

“What I am encouraging the organization to think about as we gather the data and do the analysis,” Rosengren said, “is that the end point is not doing a working paper, the end point is not doing a speech, but having some tangible impact.”

Here in Boston, we’re forever wringing our hands about the dearth of leaders. We may have been given a good one in Eric Rosengren. Sitting atop the Boston Fed at the age of 50, the man now has a decade or more to make a real difference. What an opportunity.

What an opportunity all right. An opportunity to destroy an economy.

Let’s start with a Stocky “favorite”, Steve Bailey of The Boston Globe. In todays column, Stevie takes time off from committing felonies to write about the fascinating subject of The Massachusetts Business Court.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …. oh, sorry. I dozed off there for a minute.

In the middle of an excruciatingly boring piece he inserts this non-sequetor:

 Let’s stipulate, as the lawyers might say, that Howie Carr is no van Gestel fan; after losing repeatedly in his court, the Boston Herald columnist is probably headed back to “indentured servitude” at WRKO-AM at more than $1 million a year. But beyond Howie, van Gestel is a judge with many fans, the person most responsible for turning the business session of the state’s Superior Court into the success it has become.

Nice little whack at Howie. What does it have to do with the reorganization of the Mass Business Court?

Not a fucking thing.

And of course Mr. Business Writer extrodinaire gets the salary figure wrong. No way Howie pulls in $1 mil per year anytime soon. His contract is incentive laden with a base salary that’s actually a pay cut. It’s not certain what time slot he’ll return to never mind if he’ll meet the high bars the incentive clauses have set. But that level of analysis of the situation by Bailey is pretty typical of his work. His thinking runs as deep as a soap dish.

For Moron #2 we go to our Hero Cap’n Carr. In this time of crisis it appears that Howie is regressing to his journalistic childhood. He’s writing columns about City Council races.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz … oh, sorry. I dozed off there for a minute.

Howie eloquently describes the level of interest in yesterdays election:

After days of being called “liar” and “sneak” and “coward,” the college boy from Harvard ousted Felix “No-Show” Arroyo from the City Council in an election 85 percent of voters took a pass on.

If 85% of the voters in Boston didn’t care about this election, what percentage of the Herald’s readership gives a Rats Ass about it? Less than 5%? Forget about that talk of Howie trying to get himself fired on purpose when he returns to ‘RKO, it looks like he’s trying to get himself fired from The Herald.

We get a hint of what Howie is doing with all his free time from an indication that he was actually out “pounding the pavement” for quotes last night.

I asked him if he had any final thoughts on Connolly.

“Nothing,” he said, chuckling. “Not tonight.”

Nice work, Paper Boy. I’m sure it was tough fighting off all your fellow scribes to get that exclusive quote.

Speaking of savewrko.com, we get to Moron #3. Brian Maloney. In a ridiculous jealousy laden post today he calls Tom Bradys lifestyle “borderline disgusting” and repeats the days ago refuted claim that Gisele Bundchen refuses to be paid in Dollars.

Do a little work Brian. Here is a quote from her manager:

But just a few minutes ago, CNBC Squawk Box producer Stephanie Landsman spoke by telephone with Anne Nelson, Bundchen’s manager.  Nelson tells us reports that Gisele wants to be paid in euros are “false.”   Nelson’s take: “Some idiot in Brazil reported something just to make news.”

Nelson points out that Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle.

And Tom Brady’s personal life is “disgusting”. He’d already broken up with his over the hill former girlfriend before she announced a couple of months later that she was pregnant. Can you say TRAPPED? She’s the one who is disgusting.

In a comment Maloney states that there are better ways to hedge than to play the currency markets. Do tell, oh investment guru. I suppose thousands of red blooded American currency traders are just disgusting Morons and un-American if they short the Dollar.

I guess Stocky is Un-American too for investing in all those sweet multinational energy services companies who don’t get paid in Dollars but make a killing when they convert the revenue to the sinking Dollar. 

Stick to your day job of wrongheaded commentary on the Boston Radio scene.

Our do-nothing Governor is beginning to hear some faint criticism from his allies. Todays Boston Globe has a story about a group of Black Harvard Students holding a candlelight vigil to protest the do-nothing Governor doing nothing about violence in Boston.

Oh, wait. My Mistake. The Governors not a Republican???? Scratch the candle light vigil/protest. Let’s call it a “visit”.

Holding lit candles while wearing black suits and dresses, members of the Harvard Black Students Association visited Boston last night to add their voices to the chorus of those challenging Governor Deval Patrick to combat black-on-black youth violence

This follows yesterdays story which also laid a velvet glove on Gov Do-Nothing:

Among the 1,500 mourners was Governor Deval Patrick, who had been admonished a few days earlier by Odom’s mother for doing too little to quell gun violence in the city, the kind of complaint regularly directed toward mayors, not governors. Dickerson told the congregation that some had criticized Kim Odom for “calling the governor out” and asked whether Odom should expect more from Patrick because he is black.

Gun Violence in Boston has been on the rise for several years despite what that series of lying though their teeth billboards on the Mass pike behind Fenway have said. What’s interesting is occasionally the Globe gets it right. Just a few days before these stories were printed the Globe had a story about 3 major cities in Massachusetts where shootings have recently decreased by 45%. Drastically improving the lives of everyone who lives there.

But progress has been made in reducing gun violence, according to police statistics. Reports of shots fired have declined 45 percent through August, and the number of people struck by gunfire has dropped to seven, from 25, through August 2006, according to police. The city had five gun slayings last year but went nearly 10 months until recording the first gun killing of the year, on Sept. 30. New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang, a former prosecutor, is a supporter.

…

Hockert-Lotz, who has publicly praised Sutter in opinion pieces published by the Standard-Times newspaper, said Sutter’s approach, and the drop in gun crimes, has given him hope. “New Bedford is the safest it’s been in the 20 years I’ve been doing business,” he said.

The Cities are New Bedford, Fall River and Taunton. 3 of the roughest cities in the State.

Well Holy Shit!!! You might think. Why couldn’t Boston do the same??? Bristol county must have some extra special gun laws to accomplish such a drop in Gun crime. Let’s get busy doing the same thing in Boston. Imagine how many lives could be saved!!!

Sorry, but you would be wrong to think that. It appears that no one in Boston or the State House is interested in reducing gun crimes by 45%. If they were they would be using the Bristol County model. There is nary a peep about what’s going on in Bristol County.

The reason??? 

O’Berg and police in New Bedford and Fall River are pointing to the aggressive move by Sutter as a key reason gun violence and reports of gun violence have seen double-digit drops in the three Bristol County cities since January, when Sutter took office.

While other prosecutors in Eastern Massachusetts seek to hold someone as a danger to society on a case-by-case basis, Sutter requests a hearing whenever anyone is arrested on gun charges.

“We’ve pushed the envelope,” Sutter said. “We haven’t had a 100-percent success rate, but we certainly are pushing it.”

Dangerousness hearings have been held in 58 cases, according to Sutter’s office, and defendants have been ordered held in 45 of them. Fall River has had two gun-related homicides so far this year, and there were two during 2006. But Police Chief John Souza said his city is more peaceful, as the reports of shots fired have dropped by 40 percent through September.

 Go figure. Locking up the scumbags who commit these gun crimes reduces the amount of gun crimes? How shocking is that?

One thing we know for certain is that Gov Do-Nothing will be doing and saying nothing about the success in Bristol County. To advocate locking up inner city thugs would risk a “visit” from the likes of Al Sharpton.

That’s an outrage Gov Do-Nothing will not stand for. And of course, speaking of outrage, there is none from Steve Bailey.

Stevie has another anti-casino column today which starts off with a lame shot across the Bow of Gov. Moonbat. Stevie calls him “Governor Slots”.

That’s Stevie being “hard on the governor for embracing gambling” again. But as he takes a tiny slap he can’t help but fall into swooning mode:

I have been hard on the governor for embracing gambling. But to be fair he is a man with great ambitions for the state - a very good thing - and he has been honest enough to say we are going to need new money to pay for it. 

If Stevie was really interested in being “fair” he would note that it’s only recently that Gov Moombat has “been honest” about needing money to pay for all of his “ambitions” AKA campaign promises.

During the campaign Kerry Healey nearly lost her voice screaming about how ridiculous all of Deval’s promises were. SHE WAS THE ONE who said over and over that there wasn’t enough money to do the things he was promising.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that our intrepid “business reporter” Mr. Bailey never wrote about this during the campaign. It’s only now after Deval is governor does Bailey become Mr. Authority on the states revenues and budget.

What’s really amazing is that at no time during the campaign was Deval in danger of losing. He had a huge lead yet he was falling all over himself pandering for votes; a puppet of the special interests.

God forbid his next election is close. Who knows what he’ll promise all the special interest groups.

His only response to Healey during the campaign was his mythical $750 million in waste and inneficiency he was going to eliminate from the budget.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for any press releases on that one. In fact, one of the first things Deval did was restore millions of dollars in cuts the Romney administration had made in order to balance the budget.

But back to Stevie. He has a much better idea for generating revenue than casinos:

The math is not complicated: 10 cents a gallon yields $300 million; 20 cents a gallon is $600 million. The Massachusetts’ gas tax, which hasn’t been raised since 1990, is 23.5 cents a gallon; in New York it is nearly 39 cents. And unlike gambling, we won’t have to set aside a dime to treat the victims of raising the gas tax.

Raising the Gas tax. Gee, there’s a new idea. But what about the $750 mil Deval is going to find in waste + inneficiencies??? Oh, wait. He’s going to use that money to give us “property tax relief”. Or is it the 1000 new police officers he promised? It’s hard to keep these broken promises straight.

Could the lead Business reporter for the globe spell all this out or does it take some dope with a blog like Stocky to do this?

Apparently the answer is some dope with a blog.

Yesterdays Boston Globe had a very good article by Brian Ballou on Crime in the notorious Franklin Hill Housing Project in Dorchester.

Lots of Bad stuff going on there. Ballou does some nice reporting detailing some of the problems:

After a 48-year-old man was fatally shot Monday night inside a hallway, some residents expressed frustration yesterday over the violence.

“They should just tear this whole place down,” said McKinley Sykes, 60, a longtime tenant in the complex in Dorchester. “I told the management before that, anything short of that won’t solve the problem.”

The body of the victim, identified by sources close to the investigation as Kelvin Alexander of Providence, was found not far from the spot where two other men, Jeffrey Jones, 41, and Jarrid Campbell, 27, were slain July 13 as they sat in a parked car.

…

Many tenants clamored for more police foot patrols, especially in areas of the development neighbors know as trouble spots.

“I’m very cautious, because this place just draws the worst kind of people,” said Frederick Bridgewater, 65, who lives in the building. He said he recently refused to open his door after someone professing to be a neighbor knocked and told him his car lights were on. “I didn’t come out, because there was another resident who was busted on the head and robbed some days before,” Bridgewater said.

Jerome Gary, 61, said that he has lived in the development for 14 years and that “it’s never been this bad.” Gary said that he and his grandson “go inside when it gets dark, and we don’t come out.”

…

The Rev. William Dickerson, pastor of the nearby Greater Love Tabernacle, said he grew up in the Franklin Hill area. He also said he presided over the funerals of the two men killed in July.

“An increased police presence will calm things down there,” Dickerson said. “We saw a decrease in violence when police began patrolling several hot spots in the city, and that’s commendable, but we also have to change a whole culture that has become violent.”

That place sounds like a disaster. Maybe an article like this will spur the Boston Police and/or the Mayor to do something to help.

In a case like this Stocky parises the Globe for shedding light on a horrible situation without falling into the intellectualy lazy trap of blaming Guns for the problems.

Speaking of intellectualy lazy, that brings me to Steve Bailey. Not a word of outrage from Mr. Bailey on this. You’d think a good liberal like him would be all over this story. Crying out for justice for the poor residents of Franklin Hill.

You would be wrong.

While Mr. Bailey did have a column in yesterdays paper he chose to address the issue of Casinos in Massachusetts. Interestingly enough, the Column was titled “Collateral Damage”. Gambling is bad, economic impact is overstated, blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard it all before.

One wonders if one of these proposed casinos might be near one of Bailey’s vacation homes.

Maybe he should conduct a “sting” operation similar to the one he executed at the NH Gun Show. He could head to one of the Connecticut Casinos and have the Globe buy a bucket of quarters for a chain smoking Senior Citizen living off Social Security.

Said Senior Citizen blows the liberal wad with nothing to show for it and Stevie gets to pontificate about how evil Casinos are.

Stevie could do that if he has time out from defending himself from felony charges, that is.

Another day, another gang banging thug gets a free pass from a Judge in Massachusetts.

Michelle McPhee does some more excellent work here.

   Last week Boston Municipal Court Associate Justice Annette Forde gave a stay of execution to a convicted gun-toting thug who secreted a loaded weapon - with its serial number filed off - in a “hide” built into a car stereo. The judge’s move is essentially a free pass to stay home while he appeals his jury conviction for gun possession.

    These are the facts of the case:

    Locksley Bailey, 20, was arrested less than two hours after a shooting when the car he was traveling in was approached by Boston cops, who said they who smelled marijuana coming from the windows. He fit the description of the gunman who unloaded a fusillade of bullets on a Dorchester street corner, hitting a man in the buttocks and hand.

A search of the Globe Website finds nary a mention of a “yout” named Locksley Bailey. No surprise there. Stocky bets they will get around to this story in the unlikely event that Locksley actually begins to serve some time. Look for a story on his aspiring rap career with the standard quotes about “turning his life around” along with a heartfelt shoutout or 2 to his kid(s) and his girlfriend suddenly turned fiance.

And of course, not a word of outrage from Steve Bailey.

What do you get when you take a clueless Boston Globe (sorry for the redundancy) “business” writer and let him write about Guns?  Typical liberal kneejerkism followed by holier than thou excuse making and attention diverting attacks on the messenger.

The Steve Bailey Straw purchase is detailed here. To summarize, Stevie is bored with writing boring business stories so he grabs the Globe’s favorite loony leftist gun control nut (John Rosenthal) and he heads to a New Hampshire gun show. Hijinks follow when Stevie uses his El-Globo expense account to have someone else buy him a gun. Otherwise known as a “Straw purchase” and/or a felony. (more…)