Streetwise Professor

To prove that this site isn’t all Benghazi all the time (even though I believe it is the most consequential story of the year), I now turn my attention to Sandy, and specifically the idiocy of governments (but I repeat myself).  Specifically, the states of Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have forbidden insurers from applying hurricane deductibles:

Delaware regulators aren’t allowing property insurers operating in the state to apply special “hurricane deductibles” that can saddle homeowners with thousands of dollars of additional repair costs.

Delaware becomes at least the fourth state hit by superstorm Sandy to prohibit use of the special deductibles. The state’s ruling follows similar moves in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart said Friday her office informed the property-casualty insurance industry that the storm wasn’t fierce enough at the point it landed in the state to allow them to charge the deductibles.

The department acted on data from the National Weather Service that showed the storm didn’t have sustained hurricane-force winds when it made land in Delaware, “therefore companies may not impose a hurricane deductible on Delaware claims,” the department said in a news release Friday.

The hurricane deductibles are a feature of many standard homeowners’ policies in coastal areas, and would apply to damage from such things as fallen trees or wind-borne debris—expected to be a source of much of the damage.

Typically, the special deductibles are calculated as a percentage of the dollar amount of coverage on a dwelling, according to the Insurance Information Institute, a trade group. Terms vary by carriers, and deductibles can go as high as 5% under some policies.

Such special hurricane deductibles have become more common over the past decade as insurers have sought to have people with property in the riskiest area pay more of the cost of hurricane damage. Each state sets its own rules for when the deductibles can go into effect.

Because, of course, ex post invalidation of contracts always leads to such great outcomes.  The short run effect is a transfer of wealth from the shareholders of insurers to their policyholders.  Socially-though crucially, not politically-that’s zero sum.

The long run effects are more pernicious.

First, don’t cry to me, citizens of Delaware, NY, etc., if you can’t get hurricane coverage in the future, or find it much more expensive.  Insurers will either raise premiums or withdraw from the market altogether to mitigate the risk of ex post expropriation.

Second, insurance premia and risk sharing will no longer be able to vary with hurricane risk in a discriminating way.  This will tend to encourage overbuilding in vulnerable areas, and to induce the insured to take too few precautions to secure their property against hurricane damage: deductibles force the insured to bear some of the risk, which gives them an incentive to take actions to mitigate damage.

So the effects of these actions will be a one time wealth transfer, and wealth destruction in the future.  The typical outcome of politicized processes.

But it gets better! And by better, I mean worse.  For by undermining the private insurance market, these state governments will increase the demand for government “insurance” provided ex post, in the form of transfer payments to compensate the uninsured who suffer future hurricane losses.  Which means more deadweight losses from moral hazard, and the distorting effects of taxes to pay for these transfers.

But from politicians’ perspective, this is probably all feature, no bug.  For it involves the creation of a new client class, and gives them the opportunity to play Santa Claus in the future.  That’s because politicians are all about exploiting the seen (the public acts of “charity” and “compassion”) and counting on voters not understanding the unseen costs of these allegedly empathetic policies.

One last Sandy comment.  Can we truly be sure that is really Mayor Bloomberg doing such stupid sh*t, and this isn’t an extended Mel Brooks gag?  I mean, Mel and Bloomberg do look pretty similar.  My favorite is Bloomberg’s (or is it Brooks’s?) refusing National Guard assistance in Brooklyn because . . . I sh*t you not . . . the NG has guns.  And guns are bad!  Not that there are looters or thugs or anything like that in Crooklyn that might take advantage of the current circumstances or anything.  I am shocked Bloomberg hasn’t disarmed the NYPD.  (Though I’m sure he has his own armed escort-and did when he was just a filthy rich private citizen.)  But there’s always time for that after he’s vanquished the Biggie Soda and transfat menaces.

New York would indeed do better to have William J. Le Petomane as mayor.

My appearance on FBN has been canceled, or at least delayed.  Apparently there’s an election going on, or something, and in the producer’s “news judgment” it’s more important to devote the entire hour of the program to election coverage, and not even spare a few minutes for a discussion of the earth-shattering issue of FERC and Barclays and power market manipulation.

I’ll let you know if they decide to go with the segment at a later date, but I’m not holding my breath.

Following the CIA’s explanation of its actions in Benghazi on 9/11/12, the Defense Department is justifying its actions-or lack thereof.  In an nutshell: The Pentagon’s defense of our failure to deploy military force to defend those under attack in Benghazi is that the US did not have the capability in the region to intervene.

If true, this is a very sad defense indeed.

According to this NYT story, the American command responsible for Libya-AFRICOM-did not have armed drones, AC130s, or special operations forces at its disposal.  Special Forces were in Croatia; Delta Force in North Carolina; AC130s in Afghanistan; Marines in Spain. According to the Pentagon, none were able to reach the beleaguered in Benghazi in time.  (The conflicting stories about AC130s is particularly vexing.)

This is troubling indeed.  Note that it makes Panetta look deceptive: he implied that the reason that we did not come to the aid to those under attack was a lack of intelligence on the location of the attacking forces, not a lack of ability to act on the intelligence.  There is a big difference.

And pushing back against the Pentagon’s assertion that the defenders of the annex in Benghazi never designated the mortars that killed them with targeting lasers, Fox News’s Jennifer Griffin reports that (a) those in the annex were highly trained and eminently capable of designating targets, (b) had the capability to do so, (c) asked for air support, but (d) none was forthcoming:

The GRS team that was present at the CIA annex provided security for the CIA station, as they do around the world. They are highly trained in countersurveillance, close target reconnaissance and in depth reconnaissance. Enemy fighters have learned in Afghanistan and Iraq to use their cell phones to follow or intercept these “passive” lasers without having night vision or NODS.

The Annex team also had Ground Laser Designators, or GLD. This kind of laser equipment emits code and signal when there is overhead air support, unmanned aerial surveillance, drones or Spectre gunships, for instance.

A source present the night of the attack says that the GRS team that was defending the annex asked where the air support was at midnight. Former SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed 5 hours and 15 minutes later.

Five hours, fifteen minutes.  An eternity, if you are under attack.

This gives the lie to Panetta’s assertion that lack of intelligence impeded a strike against the attackers.  One can hardly imagine better information than that provided by trained eyes on the ground, with the equipment to pinpoint those attacking them.  Which leaves two alternatives: the US wouldn’t come to the aid of those under attack, or it couldn’t.

Taking the Pentagon at its word, no AC130s or special operations forces or armed drones were available to strike.  But what about fixed wing air, e.g., F-16s from Europe, armed with precision munitions (including laser-guided weapons)?  Presumably the answer will be that this would have endangered civilians on the ground.

If that’s the case, let’s hear it, instead of having to infer it.

Another answer, less defensible, is that we did not have Libyan permission to engage, and took a Mother May I? attitude instead of one of Nelsonian defiance. (Could General Ham’s premature departure from AFRICOM be due to his desire to act like Nelson at Copenhagen, and turn a blind eye to orders to observe diplomatic niceties?)

Again, if that’s the case, let’s hear it.

So why did the Pentagon wait so long to provide this information, and grudgingly?  Certainly all these facts were known when the attack occurred.

The only explanation I can offer is that it was loath to admit that we are for all practical purposes completely defenseless in Northern Africa. For defenselessness is what this Pentagon justification for passivity in Benghazi on 9/11/12 implies.

If this is true, I can understand their reticence.  It is a shocking revelation, that the US has virtually no ability to intervene in a region that is (a) in upheaval, (b) is a potential source of terrorism, and (c) is indeed quite clearly a cauldron of Al Qaeda/Islamist/Salafist activity.

Under this interpretation the stonewall-and there has no doubt been a stonewall over all of this-is intended to conceal our deficient capabilities in this seething yet strategic region.

This makes all the other deficiencies in security in Benghazi pre-9/11/12 even more reprehensible.  Not only were people put into Indian country, there was no cavalry to ride to the rescue.  If we knew there was no cavalry available, it was beyond reckless to put Ambassador Stevens and the other Americans in such a vulnerable position.

The Benghazi story has three parts: what happened (or didn’t) before 9/11; what happened (or didn’t) on 9/11; and what happened after 9/11.  If the Pentagon’s explanation is correct, it reduces administration culpability for inaction on 9/11, but makes its responsibility for what transpired before and after even worse.  The revelation of the inability of the military to come to the defense of those in Benghazi makes the failure to take precautions even more reprehensible and indefensible.  It also makes the stories told post-9/11 look even more like attempts to cover up for egregiously negligent conduct.

This also sheds a very harsh light on Obama’s whole “bayonets and horses” snark.  At root, Obama’s sarcastic response to Romney’s questioning of the size of the US military presumed that quality could substitute for quantity: our weapons are so marvelous we don’t need that many of them.  We definitely possess weapons and sensors capabilities far beyond those of any other nation.  But if the platforms possessing those capabilities are in Croatia or Afghanistan or Fort Bragg or Rota, but not Libya when Americans are under attack in Libya, those awesome capabilities are useless: they might as well be on the moon. Capable platforms are just so much expensive junk if they are not where they are needed when they are needed.

Which means that numbers matter.

If the Pentagon and CIA reports are to be credited: Americans were put at huge risk in Benghazi, without adequate resources to deal with those risks; supremely trained personnel were available to provide the real time intelligence necessary to guide our awesome precision capabilities against those attacking the consulate and annex; but the precision capabilities were not at hand, because we are spread too thin across the globe.

No wonder they want to keep it under wraps.

In a revealing display of the inverted reality that characterizes the New York Times, it has a story that blames the confusion surrounding Benghazi on CIA Director David Patraeus’s “quieter style.” Really.  I’m serious.

But since an attack killed four Americans seven weeks ago in Benghazi, Libya, his deliberately low profile, and the C.I.A.’s penchant for secrecy, have left a void that has been filled by a news media and Congressional furor over whether it could have been prevented. Rather than acknowledge the C.I.A.’s presence in Benghazi, Mr. Petraeus and other agency officials fought a losing battle to keep it secret, even as the events there became a point of contention in the presidential campaign.

An intelligence agency that has “a penchant for secrecy.”  Whoever heard of such a thing?  The nerve of those people!

You can read the story forwards and backwards, in English, Mandarin, Russian or Xun, and not find a single word blaming Obama or the White House or the Pentagon for “silence” that has left a “void” concerning what happened in Benghazi before, during or after 9/11.  If you’re confused, if you have questions, blame Patraeus and the CIA.

So, in TimesWorld: It is the responsibility of the unelected head of the CIA to tell the world about what it knows about what happened in Benghazi, but the elected chief executive-and Commander in Chief (I know he is! I’ve seen the bomber jacket!)-has no such responsibility, even though he is ultimately responsible for the decisions made.  Or not made.

Got it. Supersecret intel agencies should tell all.  Presidents can keep mum, especially those who preside over The Most Transparent Administration Ever.

But we haven’t mined all the comedy gold in this vein!  Times reporter Scott Shane contrasts Patraeus’s quiet style with that of his predecessor, the “effusive” Leon Panetta, now defense secretary.

Uhm, with the exception of his BS formulation of the Panetta Doctrine (Don’t Commit Forces If There is Any Uncertainty), Leon the Effusive has suddenly morphed into Leon the Dumb.  Why, pray tell, has moving from the CIA to the Defense Department suddenly caused Leon to lose his voice?  Why isn’t Formerly Effusive Leon being criticized for leaving a “void” that sows “confusion” on Benghazi?

And we haven’t even gotten to the King of the Personal Pronoun who loves the sound of his own voice, but now is suffering from episodic laryngitis which apparently just interferes with his ability to say “Benghazi.”

There are other nuggets of idiocy in this article in about every paragraph.  I encourage you to read it for a sick laugh, but the silliest stuff attributes Patraeus’s alleged PR missteps to his military background.  The most idiotic comment comes from the smarter of California’s two senators (as scary as that is):

“I think he’s a brilliant man, but he’s also a four-star general,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Four-stars are saluted, not questioned. He’s now running an agency where everything is questioned, whether you’re a four-star or a senator. It’s a culture change.”

Er, as I remember it, he was a pretty effective spokesman-on and off the record-when he was a four-star.  He routinely testified in front of Congress and appeared in the media.  I also remember that he took tremendous crap from assorted politicians.  Want to talk questioning?  His patriotism was questioned by Senator Feinstein’s party and Move On fellow travelers: remember the disgusting “Patreaus=Betray Us” campaign?  As I recall, even Hillary joined in on that.   (And a quick web search confirms that at the very least she weaseled and pointedly refused to distance herself from that scurrilous campaign.  To her credit, Feinstein did, voting to condemn the Move On ad-Hillary did not vote to condemn it.)

If you want to see the distilled essence of the New York Times, read this piece. Political hackery dressed up as erudite analysis.  An Obama creature willing to peddle the most outrageous reality-challenged inanity in order to cover for its liege lord.

I will be talking about the FERC show cause action against Barclays for manipulation of the CA power markets on Fox Business News on Monday, 5 CT/6 ET.  Hope to see you!  Or something.

Multiple stories provide a magical timeline from Benghazi on 9/11/12 intended to exculpate Obama from any responsibility for what went on.

Examples include Reuters, Bloomberg, the WSJ.  I could go on.  After being a non-subject for days, all of a sudden Benghazi is THE STORY for the MSM.  Because now they have a narrative that absolves their hero from blame.

Except it doesn’t.  At all.

The basic story is that the CIA made heroic efforts to save Ambassador Stevens and the rest of the US people in Benghazi.  But their efforts failed.

And Obama is not responsible for that failure:

Responding to accusations aired on Fox News and picked up elsewhere that officials in Washington had refused to approve military strikes or rescue efforts, the official said no one in the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA or any other organization second-guessed decisions made in Benghazi, and there were no orders to anyone providing support to stand down.

Such bullshit.  First, no one credible has accused anyone of second guessing decisions made in Benghazi.  Straw man.  Second.  Stipulating the negative (there were NO orders to stand down), what was the affirmative?  That is, what WERE the orders from the WH?

We read paragraph after paragraph about what the CIA did.  We read nothing about what Obama did-or didn’t do.

This is like Where’s Waldo: Where’s Obama?  Isn’t that kind of the point?

Seriously.  Where was he?  Simple question.  No need for an investigation.  Could be answered instantly.

But no. We get these stories about the CIA.  We get the tragedy, but the prince is nowhere to be found.

Remind me again.  Do we have a Defense Department?  A military?  What was the DOD, the military, doing when the CIA was trying desperately to improvise?   Did they do nothing?  That’s what the stories imply.  If they did nothing-why?

I’m waiting for the answers.  MSM-not so much.  Their curiosity has apparently been slaked by this revelation.

When you testify in court, the oath says “Do you swear to tell the truth, the WHOLE TRUTH, and nothing but the truth?”  This is not the whole truth.  It is a selective, quarter truth at best.  It leaves out the most important participants and details.  And partial truths can be more misleading that outright falsehoods.

As is the case here.

I said before this is meant to be exculpatory.  Stipulating for a moment-I know, I know-that it is the whole truth, it is anything but exculpatory.  Because if the only thing that was happening was that the CIA was improvising to retrieve a desperate situation that was careening from bad to worse, that means that Barack Obama was MIA.  He did nothing.  He left it to the CIA and did not strain every muscle to bring to bear every element of US military power that could possibly have saved some of those who died.

So, the choice tonight is: (1) Barack Obama was MIA, and sat by passively and left it to the CIA to deal with a total clusterf*ck, or (2) he consciously decided not to deploy US military assets to attempt to retrieve the situation.

Either way: Derelict in his duty as Commander in Chief.  And BTW, I know he’s CIC because “Barack Obama, Commander in Chief” is embroidered in a patch on that butch bomber jacket he’s donned of late.

The narrative-obviously pushed by the White House-contains some interesting facts intended to be exculpatory, but which are really anything but.  For instance, the Super Secret Source denies that the mortars that eventually killed the two ex-SEAL CIA people had been laser designated by anyone in the annex.  But SSS does acknowledge that the the defenders of the complex DID point a laser at some attackers.  Which means that there were eyes on the enemy.  Expert, trained eyes.  Which blows to hell Panetta’s “no real time intel” defense.

I said before that the CIA people were improvising-valiantly so.  Tragically so.  How’s this for improvisation?:

The officers attempted to rally local support to reinforce militiamen hired to guard the compound and obtain heavier weapons, and when they were unable to do so within minutes, they still risked their lives by going to the aid of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues in the main part of the compound, the official said.

What?  They’re under attack, and they have to approach the locals and say: “Hey, can I borrow that 50 cal?”  Seriously? (Locals, by the way, that were highly likely to be in sympathy with the attackers.)

And think a moment about the import of “rally local support.”  Is that like, I dunno, community organizing?  That sounds right down Obama’s alley.  But again . . . he’s nowhere to be found.  Where’s a crack community organizer when you need one?

It gets worse:

U.S. military, landed at the Benghazi airport, where they began negotiating for transportation into town.

So, the most powerful military in the world is reduced to negotiating for heavy weapons and transportation from the locals while its people are under attack.

There are three parts to the Benghazi story.  The criminal negligence in preparation.  The actions at the time of the attack.  The coverup afterwards.

The image of Americans under attack negotiating under fire for weapons and transport speaks volumes about the complete lack of preparation.  The fact that the response to the attack appears limited to local improvisation has damning implications for the actions of Obama and the DOD at the time of the attack.  This incomplete story is a part of the coverup.

In other words, this story hits the trifecta.

In sum.  This is intended to absolve Obama from any responsibility.  To focus attention on the CIA.

But Obama’s absence from the story only begs the question of what he was actually doing at the time.  Again: What did he know? When did he know it? What did he do about it.

The stories answer the second question: the DOD and WH were informed of the attack around 4PM ET.  Other than that, Obama’s actions or inactions are a complete and utter mystery.

A mystery that could be solved instantaneously, and a mystery that a real media would be demanding to solve.

But not ours.  After ignoring Benghazi for days when numerous leaks portrayed Obama in a very damning light, they now all trip over themselves to run this leak-a press release, really-front and center because in their little minds it absolves Obama.

But just because he doesn’t appear in this story doesn’t mean that he’s off the hook.  If he really wasn’t a player (and no, that wasn’t a reference to his campaign buddy Jay-Z), then he was utterly derelict in his responsibilities.  If he was a player, what plays did he call?  Why?

We need to know.  Now.

PS.  Why did it take 51 days for this story to get out?  Hell, why did it take almost a week since the original allegations of a failure to act were first made for this story to appear?  Has it taken them that long to figure out what to say?  I could imagine, given the need to negotiate an official line that the WH, State, the CIA, and DOD could buy into.  And the inference that I draw from the fact that the WH and DOD are totally missing from this narrative is that they are hiding because they have something to hide.