1/ Paul Krugman is an economist in the wilderness, speaking common sense when the chorus of BS from all of the other voices is overwhelming. The Republicans have set the agenda for the current economic debate into an obsession with the federal deficit, with our President too timid to push back, but if you think of US debt like a mortgage, we have the same primary debt but have tapped into our line of credit a little. The right wing is using debt as a club to dismantle our middle class benefits.....
Krugman seems to be the only economist who gets this.......
Here he ruminates on what is going to happen if the present policies continue.....
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Mistake of 2010
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 2, 2011
Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published a blog post about the “mistake of 1937,” the premature fiscal and monetary pullback that aborted an ongoing economic recovery and prolonged the Great Depression. As Gauti Eggertsson, the post’s author (with whom I have done research) points out, economic conditions today — with output growing, some prices rising, but unemployment still very high — bear a strong resemblance to those in 1936-37. So are modern policy makers going to make the same mistake?
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
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Mr. Eggertsson says no, that economists now know better. But I disagree. In fact, in important ways we have already repeated the mistake of 1937. Call it the mistake of 2010: a “pivot” away from jobs to other concerns, whose wrongheadedness has been highlighted by recent economic data.
To be sure, things could be worse — and there’s a strong chance that they will, indeed, get worse.
Back when the original 2009 Obama stimulus was enacted, some of us warned that it was both too small and too short-lived. In particular, the effects of the stimulus would start fading out in 2010 — and given the fact that financial crises are usually followed by prolonged slumps, it was unlikely that the economy would have a vigorous self-sustaining recovery under way by then.
By the beginning of 2010, it was already obvious that these concerns had been justified. Yet somehow an overwhelming consensus emerged among policy makers and pundits that nothing more should be done to create jobs, that, on the contrary, there should be a turn toward fiscal austerity.
This consensus was fed by scare stories about an imminent loss of market confidence in U.S. debt. Every uptick in interest rates was interpreted as a sign that the “bond vigilantes” were on the attack, and this interpretation was often reported as a fact, not as a dubious hypothesis.
For example, in March 2010, The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Debt Fears Send Rates Up,” reporting that long-term U.S. interest rates had risen and asserting — without offering any evidence — that this rise, to about 3.9 percent, reflected concerns about the budget deficit. In reality, it probably reflected several months of decent jobs numbers, which temporarily raised optimism about recovery.
But never mind. Somehow it became conventional wisdom that the deficit, not unemployment, was Public Enemy No. 1 — a conventional wisdom both reflected in and reinforced by a dramatic shift in news coverage away from unemployment and toward deficit concerns. Job creation effectively dropped off the agenda.
So, here we are, in the middle of 2011. How are things going?
Well, the bond vigilantes continue to exist only in the deficit hawks’ imagination. Long-term interest rates have fluctuated with optimism or pessimism about the economy; a recent spate of bad news has sent them down to about 3 percent, not far from historic lows.
And the news has, indeed, been bad. As the stimulus has faded out, so have hopes of strong economic recovery. Yes, there has been some job creation — but at a pace barely keeping up with population growth. The percentage of American adults with jobs, which plunged between 2007 and 2009, has barely budged since then. And the latest numbers suggest that even this modest, inadequate job growth is sputtering out.
So, as I said, we have already repeated a version of the mistake of 1937, withdrawing fiscal support much too early and perpetuating high unemployment.
Yet worse things may soon happen.
On the fiscal side, Republicans are demanding immediate spending cuts as the price of raising the debt limit and avoiding a U.S. default. If this blackmail succeeds, it will put a further drag on an already weak economy.
Meanwhile, a loud chorus is demanding that the Fed and its counterparts abroad raise interest rates to head off an alleged inflationary threat. As the New York Fed article points out, the rise in consumer price inflation over the past few months — which is already showing signs of tailing off — reflected temporary factors, and underlying inflation remains low. And smart economists like Mr. Eggerstsson understand this. But the European Central Bank is already raising rates, and the Fed is under pressure to do the same. Further attempts to help the economy expand seem out of the question.
So the mistake of 2010 may yet be followed by an even bigger mistake. Even if that doesn’t happen, however, the fact is that the policy response to the crisis was and remains vastly inadequate.
Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it; we did, and we are. What we’re experiencing may not be a full replay of the Great Depression, but that’s little consolation for the millions of American families suffering from a slump that just goes on and on.
2/ Excellent column from Charles Blow on the callousness of the Republicans who are playing with our nation's credit, and our livelihoods.....not only do they not care about the middle class, they look at the lower strata as necessary evils.....some peasants to do the yard work and wait the tables in their fine restaurants.....
It is against this backdrop that Republicans have decided to play chicken with the nation’s credit — insisting on spending cuts while steadfastly resisting tax increases.
This is part of the modern doctrine of a compassion-free conservatism that’s using the fog of the fiscal crisis to push a program of perverse wealth inequality as sound economic policy: The only way to jump-start the economy is to slash taxes on the wealthy and on companies; the only way to compensate for the deficits that those tax cuts exacerbate is to slash benefits to the poor and vulnerable. It would be comical if it weren’t so callous.
Not only is this faulty logic, it’s a false choice. We’ll need sensible tax increases and sensible spending cuts to address the deficit, and both can be offset to some degree by stronger economic growth. It’s not an either-or proposition.
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Furthermore, there is a mound of evidence that corporations are in no need of more tax breaks.
First, the tax burden of American companies is lower than that of other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, aseconomist Bruce Bartlett pointed out this week. Also, a report issued on Wednesday by Citizens for Tax Justice looked at 12 Fortune 500 companies from 2008-10 and found that on $171 billion in profits earned, their effective tax rate was negative-1.5 percent because of corporate loopholes, shelters and special tax breaks.
And, as Time magazine reported in its June 6 issue, “In the 18 months since the Great Recession, which ended in June 2009, U.S. annualized corporate profits rose 42 percent, to a record $1.68 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2010.”
Corporations aren’t hurting. They’re hoarding.
Republicans have taken an untenable position on taxation that threatens to not only undermine the country’s credit worthiness and push us to the brink of default, it is antithetical to the health and sustenance of a just and striving society.
The full stealing from the plates of the starving simply isn’t an American ideal.
3/ Rachael Maddow on Governor Rick Scott and what is turning out to be a mass assault on our rights in Florida. From abortion to voting, the Rickster is after us.....6 minutes of great, though depressing reporting.....
Sorry but you may have to endure a commercial from ExxonMobil on how wonderful "fracking" is to see Rachael's piece.....
4/ A CBS 4 minute mini-doc on the "Golf Carts of the Villages", a look at the variety of carts used in the Villages and the lifestyle freedom having a cart gives you. I personally love the idea of using a golf cart for everyday uses [very green!], and wish Mount Dora would allow them like Tavares does.....
But this clip about the Villages will either amuse you or leave you with a yearning for a gigantic sinkhole to appear and swallow up this nest of Tea Partiers and horny whitehead New Jerseyites ....
5/ Harry Hanrahan puts together compilations of clips from the movies, and this one is the "100 best movie threats of all time"....see how many movies you recognise......12 pretty intense minutes....
Note - lots and lots of really bad language......really bad! Really loud.....and bad.....did I mention the bad language?
My favourite and scariest clip - the Chinese lady from "Kill Bill"......
YouTuber Harry Hanrahan is back at it with an awesome supercut tribute to film's greatest threats. You know, the lines you channel in the mirror when you practice telling your boss how you really feel.
He even included a full list of every quote he used to help you follow along at home.
There's some NSFW language, so we're not going to make you watch it, but let's just say you don't want to know what happens if you don't...
6/ Robyn Blumner column in the St. Pete Times; a wonderful essay on the way words are used in our political discourse to distort, confuse and disguise, starting with our very own Governor's confusion over the difference between public and private.
Very good article......
Prompting all this was what happened at Republican Gov. Rick Scott's signing of Florida's $69 billion budget, where residents identified as Democrats were removed from the audience. Scott transformed the signing ceremony from a governor's public duty to a private event sponsored by the Republican Party of Florida, which allowed his staff to excise all hints of political dissent. Later, Scott's spokesman flat-out lied about what happened, claiming the signing was "a public event."
Maybe Scott's team uses the terms public and private to mean the opposite of their common usage. You know, the way private schools in Britain are called "public schools," in that they are open to anyone who could afford to go there and meet the requirements for acceptance. Come to think of it, that really does nail Scott's understanding of "public."
7/ Rihanna with her controversial video "Man Down".....she is under attack by parents and Christian groups because in the beginning of the video she shoots a man who [presumably] sexually assaulted her.....
The video was shot in Jamaica and Rihanna's accent in the song has West Indian overtones, and her clothes [or lack of them] is very islandish mon.....
But as far as the media frenzy over the video......we report, you decide......
8/ God I hate this bastard, our Governor [does it show?]. He is the worst thing that has ever happened to any state, any time. He's even worse than Scott Walker of Wisconsin who seems to be truly evil, bought and sold by the Koch brothers. Why is he worse? He has a track record of being a crook.....so thanks, thanks a lot to you Republicans who voted him in.....got buyer's remorse yet?
Here are two clips, one from a deposition Scott gave while CEO of Columbia HCA [$1.7 billion fine for Medicare fraud]. Look at the scumbag lie and evade simple questions.....
The second is Scott lying to the media about the budget signing debacle.....both 2 minute clips.....
9/ Movie opening this weekend - X-Men:First Class. Decent review.......
After a close call with franchise death (diagnosis: anemia), the X-Men film series has bounced back to life with its fifth installment, rescued with a straight injection of pop. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “X-Men: First Class” reaches back to the early 1960s for an origin story of mutants, mad men and mods that takes some of its cues from James Bond and more than a few costumes from Austin Powers. Like “Mad Men,” this new “X-Men” indulges in period nostalgia as it gazes into the future, using the backdrop of the cold war (and its turtlenecks) to explore how the past informs the present (while also blowing stuff up).
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“X-Men: First Class” is plenty serious, mostly in its ambitions for world box office domination. With its spy-on-spy globetrotting, old-fashioned villains (we’re back in the U.S.S.R. for a few scenes), flirty but prematurely swinging minis and fan-boy bits (look for an eye-blink-fast tribute to “Basic Instinct” and a cameo from the cult actor Michael Ironside), the whole enterprise has an agreeable lightness, no small thing, given its rapidly moving parts. The weighty themes — post-Holocaust defiance and post-Stonewall pride — are still in play but less laboriously. “Never again,” vows Erik, raising the freak flag. It’s a gesture that the “X-Men” faithful, already schooled in the rights of man and mutant, can dutifully nod at while they and everyone else groove to the sounds of “Green Onions” and the sight of the former Mrs. Don Draper on ice.
Very cool indeed X-Men 2 minute trailer.....
10/ An excellent documentary "The Last Mountain", about a community in West Virginia coming together to resist the evil Massey Energy coal company's quest to blow off the top of their mountain.....
An Environmental Horror Story
By JEANNETTE CATSOULIS
Published: June 2, 2011
Thoroughly fed up but refusing to give in, the residents of the Coal River valley in West Virginia endure earsplitting explosions, raining boulders, toxic sludge and poisoned wells. Their tormentor is the union-busting, environmental-law-flouting Mas
More About This Movie
But the fate of the peak in question — which Massey plans to decapitate like a perfectly boiled egg — is only part of this film’s heartbreaking agenda. The rest is an environmental horror story filled with imperiled schoolchildren, silica dust, and cancer and autism clusters that defy statistical logic. Coming down like a ton of dross on those he believes responsible, Mr. Haney weaves scientific testimony, contentious debates and moving personal stories into a persuasive indictment of Massey in particular and fossil-derived energy in general.
While on-screen notes inform us that hundreds of Appalachian mountains and a million acres of forest have already been flattened, the film draws power from the pain and debris left behind. Doleful guitar twangs accompany shocking aerial views of pancaked wastelands bristling with jagged rocks and scrubby grasses. And if Mr. Haney sometimes struggles to find focus, he has no trouble locating heroes, including the doggedly energetic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a slew of stalwart locals and fearless outsiders. The black heart of coal country — and, as the film shows, our national energy debate — has never seemed so in need of white knights.
Last Mountain trailer.....
11/ We are in for summer TV again, with reruns and silly stuff all around....but there's some good shows as well, and here's a few from the Time's TV critic.....
With the big-five television networks officially on reruns-and-reality cruise control, it’s time for everyone else to have some fun in the sun. Our list of highlights from the summer TV season includes shows new and old, serious and frivolous, as well as a round of goodbyes: the cable stalwarts “The Closer,” “Rescue Me” and “Entourage” will all be finishing their runs.
BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD (HBO, Monday) Directed by Liz Garbus (“Ghosts of Abu Ghraib”), this portrait of the eccentric chess master opens HBO’s Monday-night summer documentary series. Future installments include Lisa F. Jackson’s “Sex Crimes Unit” (June 20), about Manhattan prosecutors who focus on sexual assault cases, and Alexandra Pelosi’s “Citizen U.S.A.: A 50-State Road Trip” (July 4), which documents naturalization ceremonies across the country.
FALLING SKIES (TNT, June 19) Steven Spielberg’s name is on this new science-fiction series, starring Noah Wyle, about the survivors of an alien invasion. Of course Steven Spielberg’s name has also been on “Pinky and the Brain” and “SeaQuest DSV.”
COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN (Current TV, June 20) Mr. Olbermann, whose “Countdown” on MSNBC averaged about a million viewers, will try to regain the old magic within the smaller confines of Current TV.
LOUIE (FX, June 23) Louis C. K.’s fictionalized account of life as a single dad in New York, one of the best and bravest new shows of last season, returns with 13 fresh episodes that will be full, one hopes, of anger, awkwardness and sexual unease. Paired with it on Thursday nights will be the new series “Wilfred,” starring Elijah Wood as a shy young man who befriends his neighbor’s dog — which appears, to him, to be a man wearing a dog suit. It’s based on an Australian show that was named best TV comedy in 2007 by the Australian Film Institute, if that makes you feel any better.
TRUE BLOOD (HBO, June 26) The fourth season of HBO’s Southern-gothic supernatural buffet will introduce Fiona Shaw as a witch named Marnie and Gary Cole as Sookie Stackhouse’s grandfather, Earl, who is, as far as we know, already dead.
TORCHWOOD (Starz, July 8) For its 10-episode fourth season, this “Doctor Who” spinoff moves to Starz from BBC America. It also moves the scene of its action from Wales to America, in a story arc that begins with the end of death: people stop dying, although they don’t stop aging, or being gruesomely disfigured in traffic accidents and fires. The alien-fighting Torchwood Institute has been disbanded after the tragic events of Season 3, but when duty calls.... Mekhi Phifer, Bill Pullman and Lauren Ambrose join the cast, alongside the holdovers John Barrowman, Eve Myles and Kai Owen.
ALPHAS (Syfy, July 11) Yet another prime-time superhero show, this time about a five-person team under the supervision of a benevolent scientist (David Strathairn).
DAMAGES (DirecTV, July 13) For its fourth season the twisty legal drama starring Glenn Close follows the “Friday Night Lights” route and moves to DirecTV. The difference is that no plans have been announced to rerun the episodes on a cable or broadcast network. If you don’t have a satellite dish, you won’t have Patty Hewes (unless you’re willing to pay to watch on Amazon or iTunes).
BREAKING BAD (AMC, July 17) The 2 in AMC’s 1-2 punch (after “Mad Men,” which is expected back in 2012) returns for its fourth season, more than a year after Season 3 ended. For fans of a show that specializes in confounding expectations and keeping viewers on the edges of their seats, the wait must have been unbearable.
ZEN (PBS, July 17) Rufus Sewell, last seen building cathedrals in the medieval mini-series “Pillars of the Earth,” plays a detective named Aurelio Zen in three BBC mysteries based on novels by Michael Dibdin and shot in Rome. It’s the only new addition to the “Masterpiece Mystery” lineup on PBS this season.
THE HOUR (BBC America, Aug. 17) This six-part thriller starring Dominic West (“The Wire”) and Romola Garai is set against the glamorous backdrop of the BBC newsroom in the 1950s. “Mad Blokes,” anyone?
Todays video - Bud Lite's "Bad Dog".......
Todays seniors joke
Two 90-year-old women, Rose and Barb had been friends all of their lives.
When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day.
One day Barb said, 'Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our lives, and we played all through High School. Please do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's women's softball there.'
Rose looked up at Barb from her deathbed and said, 'Barb, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you.'
Shortly after that, Rose passed on.
A few nights later, Barb was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to her, 'Barb, Barb.'
'Who is it?', asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?'
'Barb -- it's me, Rose.'
'You're not Rose. Rose just died.'
'I'm telling you, it's me, Rose,' insisted the voice.
'Rose! Where are you?'
'In Heaven,' replied Rose. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.'
'Tell me the good news first,' said Barb.
'The good news,' Rose said, 'is that there's softball in Heaven. Better yet all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play softball all we want, and we never get tired.'
'That's fantastic,' said Barb. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?'
'You're pitching Tuesday.'
When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day.
One day Barb said, 'Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our lives, and we played all through High School. Please do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's women's softball there.'
Rose looked up at Barb from her deathbed and said, 'Barb, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you.'
Shortly after that, Rose passed on.
A few nights later, Barb was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to her, 'Barb, Barb.'
'Who is it?', asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. 'Who is it?'
'Barb -- it's me, Rose.'
'You're not Rose. Rose just died.'
'I'm telling you, it's me, Rose,' insisted the voice.
'Rose! Where are you?'
'In Heaven,' replied Rose. 'I have some really good news and a little bad news.'
'Tell me the good news first,' said Barb.
'The good news,' Rose said, 'is that there's softball in Heaven. Better yet all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play softball all we want, and we never get tired.'
'That's fantastic,' said Barb. 'It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?'
'You're pitching Tuesday.'
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