1/ Tax cuts for the rich
Well the bill has passed, and we watch the spin machine on both sides putting on the "best face" apologies for this travesty. Fascinating to see the power of the establishment work on the media, even the commentariat like Ed Schultz that spoke out strongly against it.....but it won't work boys. Almost everyone with a functioning brain cell knows Washington is broken - the corporations, the oligarchs and the super wealthy are running everything and we the middle class are just picking up the bill.
The title of this is "Tax cuts for the rich, scraps for the jobless". Add in "a time bomb for Social Security" and it's nuff said.
The Obama administration has told us repeatedly that it had to accept extending tax cuts for the rich as the price for the votes to continue emergency unemployment benefits for people who have been out of work for six months and longer. This trade may be unpalatable policy -- seven-figure tax savings for people with private tennis courts in exchange for $300-a-week unemployment checks for those who now shop at food banks -- but it makes perverse sense.
The tax cuts handed out to the top one percent of American earners early in the George W. Bush administration exacerbated the long trend toward more and more wealth flowing to the top, while the "bottom" 90 percent of the economy got the backwash -- stagnant wages, and rising costs for health care, housing and education. (Robert Reich lays all this out cogently in his recent book,"Aftershock") The result of this quarter-century of regressive redistribution is that fewer and fewer people can afford to buy homes and cars or pay for clothing and medicine and food without slipping deeper into debt.
We now know how that story ends: Our Ponzi scheme of an economy broke down in late 2007, as the financial system absorbed the reality that it had lent out trillions of dollars to people in no position to pay it back.
2/ And on the same theme, spin, Paul Krugman on how the Republicans are trying to rewrite recent history and blaming the financial meltdown on everyone but the banks.....after all they are major campaign contributors....
How naïve we were. We should have realized that the modern Republican Party is utterly dedicated to the Reaganite slogan that government is always the problem, never the solution. And, therefore, we should have realized that party loyalists, confronted with facts that don’t fit the slogan, would adjust the facts.
Which brings me to the case of the collapsing crisis commission.
..............................
It’s a straightforward story, but a story that the Republican members of the commission don’t want told. Literally.
Last week, reports Shahien Nasiripour of The Huffington Post, all four Republicans on the commission voted to exclude the following terms from the report: “deregulation,” “shadow banking,” “interconnection,” and, yes, “Wall Street.”
When Democratic members refused to go along with this insistence that the story of Hamlet be told without the prince, the Republicans went ahead and issued their own report, which did, indeed, avoid using any of the banned terms.
3/ Good article from Rolling Stone from Matt Taibbi, one of the better investigative reporters in America, about Bernie Sanders and his one man filibuster......
I’m bringing this up now to put into context what Bernie did on the floor of the Senate last week, standing up for eight hours and 37 minutes to make a case that the hideous deal that Barack Obama cut with the Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts was an outrage to the very qualities that matter most to this politician, common decency and common sense. While everyone else in Washington was debating the political efficacy of the deal – the Hill actually published a piece talking cheerfully about how CEOs found a“new friend” in Obama, while the New York Times shamelessly ran a front-page “analysis” talking up the deal’s supposed benefits to the middle class and the political benefits from same that Obama would enjoy – Sanders blew all of that off and just looked at the deal’s moral implications. Which are these: this tax deal, frankly and unequivocally, is the result of a relatively small group of already-filthy rich people successfully lobbying an even smaller group of morally spineless politicians to shift an ever-bigger share of society’s burdens to the lower and (what’s left of the) middle classes. This is people who already have lots of shit just demanding more shit, for the sheer rotten sake of it. Here’s how Bernie put it:
"How can I get by on one house? I need five houses, ten houses! I need three jet planes to take me all over the world! Sorry, American people. We've got the money, we've got the power, we've got the lobbyists here and on Wall Street. Tough luck. That's the world, get used to it. Rich get richer. Middle class shrinks."
I contrast this now to the behavior of Barack Obama. I can’t even count how many times I listened to Barack Obama on the campaign trail talk about how, as president, he would rescind the Bush tax cuts as soon as he had the chance.
4/ Excellent excellent Jon Stewart - he devoted his last show of the year Thursday to the 9/11 responders and the failure of the Senate to get the Bill passed for the medical bills of these brave people.
Two parts - one skewering the media [especially Fox] for their lack of coverage, and the second a panel of four first responders, all dying of 9/11 related diseases.....even got your trusty scribe a little moist-eyed.....
Great show - Jon Stewart is the best journalist in America.....
Adding to his frustration, none of the three major networks have covered the story in over two months. Surprisingly, Stewart realized this was actually a job for Fox News, "the nation's leading source of 9/11-based outrage."
But how does the conservative network feel about Republicans blocking the bill? As Stewart showed, Fox News hasn't gotten one 9/11 first responder to talk about why they need the Zadroga Bill. in fact, only one network actually picked up the story in a meaningful way: Al Jazeera.
5/ A Charles Blow column in the Times blasting the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.......and although I don't agree with it all he has some points.....the proper role for the Dems is to be more populist, to fight for the middle class, but of course the Party is after the same campaign contributions as the Republicans so....they say they are for the middle class, but aren't.
At least the Reps have the courage of their convictions - they are unequivocally the party of the rich....
The near-apoplectic level of agita within the liberal screeching class over President Obama’s tax-cut compromise has exposed a seismic crack in the Democratic monolith — outspoken liberal Democrats on one side and barely audible moderate Democrats on the other.
The lopsided optics raise the question: Is there a future for moderation, and especially conservatism, in the Democratic Party or is the party experiencing the beginnings of a purging akin to that seen on the right?
To some degree, it may be the latter.
According to a Gallup poll on Thursday, the percentage of Democrats who identify as liberal rose by nearly a third from 2000 to 2007, for the first time matching the percentage who describe themselves as moderate.
6/ The lovely Tiffani Theissen [who?] and how incredibly busy she is.......good parody of every wannabe starlet......Kardashians anyone? Two minutes....
7/ Fox News lies to you!
Finally a study that verifies what we all know is true - if you watch Fox News exclusively for your information you are misinformed about a wide range of political issues, and the University of Maryland who did the study has facts and data to back it up.....
Fox retaliated by attacking the University, but didn't dispute the story which is of course their style....always discredit the source and ignore the facts......
However, while consumers of just about every news outlet believed some information that was false, the study found that Fox News viewers, regardless of political information, were "significantly more likely" to believe that:
--Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)--Most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
8/ Stephen Colbert holds a Goldman Sachs partners credit card hostage till he comes on the show.....funny....3 minutes.....
9/ It's not just Florida and Nevada - Spain has whole subdivisions that are empty and unsaleable.....really interesting story on the Spanish property market, and how the banks there are in denial, just like ours are......the next monetary crisis, coming soon. It will be worse than Greece or Ireland.....
Yebes is hardly unique. The wreckage of Spain’s once booming construction industry is everywhere. And much of it sits as bad debt on the books of Spain’s banks, which once liberally offered financing to developers and homeowners alike.
Just how big a loss the banks are facing is unknown, at least publicly, and that has investors worried — the cost of financing Spain’s debt rose 18 percent in the last month alone. But the potential costs of failure go far beyond that. Spain’s economy, the fifth largest in Europe, is much bigger than Ireland’s or Greece’s, and a bailout of its banks could be far more costly, an event that could push the government into default and end up dooming the euro itself.
10/ When we were travelling this autumn we got a new credit card from Capital One without the 3% fee for foreign transactions, and now both AmEx and Citi are coming out with new cards that don't charge for foreign currency purchases.....about time, but there is of course a catch - AmEx's deal is only valid on the Platinum [$300 a year membership fee] and Black [$500] cards.....such a deal....bastards.....
Meanwhile, many customers are paying down high-interest debt and have sworn off the companies’ products in favor of debit cards. Oh, and they mostly hate that card companies cut many of their credit limits in a time of need and then reduced perks on some cards as if to rub salt in their wounds.
So now a couple of companies want to throw you a small bone. American Express announced Friday that it would soon get rid of its dreaded currency conversion fees for transactions that begin outside of the United States, though only for people who have its Platinum or Centurion (a k a Black) personal and small-business cards.
11/ Music - Bruno Mars with "Just the Way You Are". Not heard of him? Why not?
He's got 7 Grammy nominations, and if you watch this 3 minute video you'll see why - great voice, nice smile and cute........good song too.....recommended....
12/ Movie Time
"Tron Legacy" with Jeff Bridges - a decent review, says the movie is a little chaotic but exciting and has great special effects.....and it's 3D!!
Allrighty then......off we go.....review and trailer......
"Rabbit Hole" with Nicole Kidman - a child dies, and the parents grieve.....depressing subject, but great performances in this harrowing film.......review and trailer......
Also playing - "How Do You Know" with Reece Witherspoon....forgettable fluff, and "Casino Jack" with Kevin Spacey...better to watch the documentary "Casino Jack and the United States of Money", a much better film....
Todays Asian joke
Fluctuations
I was at my bank today; there was a short queue.
There was just one lady in front of me, an Asian lady who was trying to exchange yen for dollars.
It was obvious she was a little irritated . . . She asked the teller, "Why it change? Yesterday, I get two hunat dolla fo yen. Today I only get hunat eighty? Why it change?"
The teller shrugged his shoulders and said, "Fluctuations."
The Asian lady says, "Fluc you white people too"
I was at my bank today; there was a short queue.
There was just one lady in front of me, an Asian lady who was trying to exchange yen for dollars.
It was obvious she was a little irritated . . . She asked the teller, "Why it change? Yesterday, I get two hunat dolla fo yen. Today I only get hunat eighty? Why it change?"
The teller shrugged his shoulders and said, "Fluctuations."
The Asian lady says, "Fluc you white people too"
Todays kids joke
Out of the mouths of babes ...
Children writing about the ocean. . .
1) - This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles.
(Kelly, age 6)
2) - Oysters' balls are called pearls.
(Jerry, age 6)
3) - If you are surrounded by ocean you are an island. If you don't have Ocean all round you, you are incontinent.
(Wayne, age 7)
4) - Sharks are ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily
Richardson. She's not my friend any more.
(Kylie, age 6)
5) - A dolphin breaths through an asshole on the top of its head.
(Billy, age 8)
6) - My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a woman and pots and comes back with crabs.
(Millie, age 6)
7) - When ships had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when the wind didn't blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come. My brother said they would have been better off eating beans.
(William, age 7)
8) - Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like, really?
(Helen, age 6)
9) - I'm not going to write about the ocean. My baby brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big sister has just got pregnant, so I can't think what to write.
(Amy, age 6)
10) - Some fish are dangerous. Jellyfish can sting. Electric eels can give you a shock. They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug themselves into chargers.
(Christopher, age 7)
11) - When you go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small.
(Kevin, age 6)
12) - On vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast. She says she won't do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass.
(Julie, age 7)
13)-The ocean is made up of water and fish. Why the fish don't drown I don't know.
(Bobby, age 6)
14)- My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean. What he doesn't know is why he quit being a sailor and married my mom.
(James, age 7)
Todays Australian joke
If this bloke is not in advertising then he should be. What great copy!!!
*An ad found in the** Canberra Times, Personal Section**: *
* I reckon this bloke should have got a few replies simply for taking the time to think of this!**
*
*An ad found in the** Canberra Times, Personal Section**: *
* I reckon this bloke should have got a few replies simply for taking the time to think of this!**
*
Wanted A tall well-built woman with good
reputation, who can cook frogs
legs, who appreciates a good fuc-
schia garden, classic music and tal-
king without getting too serious..
Interested?
Then please only read lines 1, 3 and 5;
still interested?
Call me at....... 8250-0327
No comments:
Post a Comment