Paul Krugman putting the blame for the economic disaster we are suffering through squarely at the feet of the ones who caused it - the plutocracy.....
The past three years have been a disaster for most Western economies. The United States has mass long-term unemployment for the first time since the 1930s. Meanwhile, Europe’s single currency is coming apart at the seams. How did it all go so wrong?
Well, what I’ve been hearing with growing frequency from members of the policy elite — self-appointed wise men, officials, and pundits in good standing — is the claim that it’s mostly the public’s fault. The idea is that we got into this mess because voters wanted something for nothing, and weak-minded politicians catered to the electorate’s foolishness.
So this seems like a good time to point out that this blame-the-public view isn’t just self-serving, it’s dead wrong.
The fact is that what we’re experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. The policies that got us into this mess weren’t responses to public demand. They were, with few exceptions, policies championed by small groups of influential people — in many cases, the same people now lecturing the rest of us on the need to get serious. And by trying to shift the blame to the general populace, elites are ducking some much-needed reflection on their own catastrophic mistakes.
Let me focus mainly on what happened in the United States, then say a few words about Europe.
These days Americans get constant lectures about the need to reduce the budget deficit. That focus in itself represents distorted priorities, since our immediate concern should be job creation. But suppose we restrict ourselves to talking about the deficit, and ask: What happened to the budget surplus the federal government had in 2000?
The answer is, three main things. First, there were the Bush tax cuts, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt over the last decade. Second, there were the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which added an additional $1.1 trillion or so. And third was the Great Recession, which led both to a collapse in revenue and to a sharp rise in spending on unemployment insurance and other safety-net programs.
So who was responsible for these budget busters? It wasn’t the man in the street.
President George W. Bush cut taxes in the service of his party’s ideology, not in response to a groundswell of popular demand — and the bulk of the cuts went to a small, affluent minority.
Similarly, Mr. Bush chose to invade Iraq because that was something he and his advisers wanted to do, not because Americans were clamoring for war against a regime that had nothing to do with 9/11. In fact, it took a highly deceptive sales campaign to get Americans to support the invasion, and even so, voters were never as solidly behind the war as America’s political and pundit elite.
Finally, the Great Recession was brought on by a runaway financial sector, empowered by reckless deregulation. And who was responsible for that deregulation? Powerful people in Washington with close ties to the financial industry, that’s who. Let me give a particular shout-out to Alan Greenspan, who played a crucial role both in financial deregulation and in the passage of the Bush tax cuts — and who is now, of course, among those hectoring us about the deficit.
So it was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit. And much the same is true of the European crisis.
Rachael Maddow has an excellent synopsis of some of the outrages Governor Wingnut is inflicting on the hapless citizens of Florida. Six minutes of how the working poor are being brutalised, by our best TV journalist.....
Click on "Florida Governor....."
Where will the next big crash come from? Good question and if you knew for sure you'd be rich, but this story illustrates a possibility - the insurance industry. Some states have created loopholes in the capital requirements to meet claims so insurance companies will move to their state, creating some white-collar jobs.
If you look at the examples below insurance companies get multi-milion dollar benefits from setting up "captives", and I don't know about you but when I read this stuff I know this money comes from somewhere, and it's likely to be their customers who are, or will be, getting screwed.....I hope Rick Scott doesn't read the Times as Florida will be next.....
Vermont, and a handful of other states including Utah, South Carolina, Delaware and Hawaii, are aggressively remaking themselves as destinations of choice for the kind of complex private insurance transactions once done almost exclusively offshore. Roughly 30 states have passed some type of law to allow companies to set up special insurance subsidiaries called captives, which can conduct Bermuda-style financial wizardry right in a policyholder’s own backyard.
Captives provide insurance to their parent companies, and the term originally referred to subsidiaries set up by any large company to insure the company’s own risks. Oil companies, for example, used them for years to gird for environmental claims related to infrequent but potentially high-cost events. They did so in overseas locations that offered light regulation amid little concern since the parent company was the only one at risk.
Now some states make it just as easy. And they have broadened the definition of captives so that even insurance companies can create them. This has given rise to concern that a shadow insurance industry is emerging, with less regulation and more potential debt than policyholders know, raising the possibility that some companies will find themselves without enough money to pay future claims. Critics say this is much like the shadow banking system that contributed to the financial crisis.
Aetna recently used a subsidiary in Vermont to refinance a block of health insurance policies, reaping $150 million in savings, according to its chief financial officer, Joseph M. Zubretsky. The main reason is that the insurer did not need to maintain conventional reserves at the same level as would have been required by insurance regulators in Aetna’s home state of Connecticut.
In other big transactions, companies including MetLife, the Hartford Financial Services Group, Swiss Reinsurance, Genworth Financial and the American International Group, among others, have refinanced life, disability and long-term-care insurance policies, as well as annuities.
For the states, attracting these insurance deals promotes business travel and creates jobs for lawyers, actuaries and other white-collar workers, who pay taxes. States have also found that they can impose modest taxes on the premiums collected by captives.
For insurers, these subsidiaries offer ways to unlock some of the money tied up in reserves, making millions available for dividends, acquisitions, bonuses and other projects. Three weeks after Aetna’s deal closed, the company announced it was increasing its dividend fifteenfold.
And as changes to the nation’s health systems are phased in, such innovations might even help hold down the cost of insurance for consumers, much as selling pooled mortgages to investors has made buying a home less expensive.
The downside, though, is that the states are offering a refuge from other states’ insurance rules, especially the all-important ones requiring companies to have sufficient reserves. California, for one, has already chosen not to try to lure such businesses. “We are concerned about systems that usher in less robust financial security and oversight,” said Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner.
The American Dream is now officially dead, as the last person who believed in it gave up.....Onion News has the story....2 minutes....
The Koch brothers are everywhere, including picking the faculty at FSU [yes FSU!] who share their extreme right wing views... this is a first, corrupting a department of a major University.....
A conservative billionaire who opposes government meddling in business has bought a rare commodity: the right to interfere in faculty hiring at a publicly funded university.
A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."
Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they've funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.
Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.
A DDD favourite....
Heard this on the radio today, and remembered this video.
"Could You Believe" by ATB.....the one with the beautiful lesbians, a German stalker, great photography and a very catchy song.....you remember, that one....3 minutes....
We are so screwed - a Times Editorial on Big Rick's idiotic decision to turn down the rail money and 20,000 well paying jobs.........
After Gov. Rick Scott of Florida thoughtlessly rejected $2.4 billion in federal aid for a high-speed rail line, he claimed last month that he was doing a huge favor for the national Treasury, which he expected would give away the money in tax cuts. That was nonsense, of course; Mr. Scott was really doing a favor for train passengers in the Northeast, Midwest and California, which were given $2 billion of his money on Monday for better service.
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Florida voters might want to think about that decision as they sit in traffic jams, burning up $4-a-gallon gasoline. In fact, some of them clearly have thought about it because Mr. Scott now has some of the worst approval ratings of a Florida official in the last decade.
He has joined other newly elected Republican governors so rigidly opposed to the Obama administration that they are willing to harm their states to score points. The result is a crazy quilt of state relationships with Washington, stitched more with ideology than reason.
None of the money in Monday’s announcement will be going to Wisconsin, for example, where Gov. Scott Walker has also decided that his strapped state could do without rail improvements and the construction jobs that go with them. Nor will it go to Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich preferred rejectionism to the improvement of rail service among the state’s largest cities, which could have produced 16,000 jobs.
Instead, it will go to 15 states that have more farsighted leadership, who understand the important role federal dollars can play in stimulating the economy, moving people quickly from place to place and reducing tailpipe emissions. Some of those states are led by Republicans: Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan happily stood beside Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Monday to accept nearly $200 million to upgrade the rail line between Dearborn and Kalamazoo, the bulk of the Chicago-Detroit corridor.
The difference between states that want better infrastructure and those that do not is likely to grow in coming years. Some states will accept federal aid and tax themselves to pay for better trains, upgraded roads and bridges, and effective water systems. Others will not.
In the Northeast, several Amtrak corridors will be upgraded, including a sliver of the Acela line and the Empire line through upstate New York. The Chicago-St. Louis corridor will be improved, and $300 million will be invested in the high-speed project between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Texas is accepting $15 million to start work on a fast line between Dallas and Houston.
Transportation is not all that is at stake. Last year, Utah Republican lawmakers tried to refuse $101 million in federal money intended to save teachers’ jobs; they backed down when it was clear that Washington could send the money directly to school districts. Oklahoma and other states have rejected federal dollars connected to health care reform. Earlier this year, Missouri nearly rejected extended jobless benefits for 10,000 residents after a handful of Republicans said the money was wasteful.
Refusenik Republicans glorify shopworn principles like smaller government and states’ rights. They will have to defend them to their voters when the public hears the passenger trains whistling from the next state over
A ventriloquist without a dummy? Good act, and really funny.....4 minutes......
Golfers - read this one, and then someone tell me where to get these bad boys......
EDGEWATER, N.J. — Ducks quack, dogs bark, cab drivers honk and golfers slice. Among the basic truths of the planet: 80 percent of golfers cannot hit their tee shots where they aim.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
The Polara golf ball has different dimple design that makes it fly straighter than a conventional — and legal — ball.
Multimedia
But what if there were a golf ball that went only straight?
“That would be a miracle,” Dion Cooper, 26, of Brooklyn, said as he swatted balls last week at the Edgewater Golf Range in northern New Jersey.
Mr. Cooper was hitting his driver toward the Manhattan skyline, the balls tailing off in the familiar arc of the classic golf slice. Then he was handed the new Polara golf ball and took a healthy swat.
“Straight as an arrow,” he yelped with a mix of awe and surprise. For the next five minutes, he rarely hit a ball crooked.
A golf ball that won’t slice? It sounds like an old joke: guy invents a ball that won’t sink in water hazards, then loses it in the woods. It sounds too good to be true, sacrilege to the golf ethos of eternal struggle.
Or, as Mr. Cooper asked, “Is this magic?”
Todays painfully graphic video - 5 Idiots
Todays oldie but goodie joke
The Cow, an Ant and an Old Fart
A cow, an ant and an old fart are debating on who is the greatest of the three of them.
The cow said, "I give 20 quarts of milk every day and that's why I am the greatest!"
The ant said, "I work day and night, summer and winter, I can carry 52 times my own weight and that's why I am the greatest!"
Why are you scrolling down? It's your turn to say something...
A cow, an ant and an old fart are debating on who is the greatest of the three of them.
The cow said, "I give 20 quarts of milk every day and that's why I am the greatest!"
The ant said, "I work day and night, summer and winter, I can carry 52 times my own weight and that's why I am the greatest!"
Why are you scrolling down? It's your turn to say something...
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