1/ A remarkable article from the Wall Street Journal, remarkable in that the WSJ is a conservative paper, and owned by Rupert Murdoch...... The article is titled "Tax the Superrich or Riots will Rage in 2012"...... OK then...... SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — What a year. Rage in London, Egypt, Athens, Damascus. All real. Just a metaphor in the new “Planet of the Apes” film? No, much more. Warning: More rage is dead ahead. Across our planet a new generation is filled with rage. High unemployment. Raging inflation. Dreams lost. Hope gone. While the super -rich get richer and richer. Listen to that hissing: The fuse is rapidly burning, warning us. Wake up before the rage explodes in your face. This firestorm is endangering America’s future. From forces outside, yes. But far more deadly, from deep within our collective psyche. We have lost our moral compass. We are self-destructing. Crackpot warning? No. This warning comes from the elite International Monetary Fund. A recent IMF report looked at “the causes of the two major U.S. economic crises over the past 100 years, the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2007,” writes Rana Foroohar, an economics editor at Time magazine. “There are two remarkable similarities in the eras that preceded these crises. Both saw a sharp increase in income inequality and household-debt-to-income ratios.” And in each case, “as the poor and middle-class were squeezed, they tried to cope by borrowing to maintain their standard of living.” But the rich “got richer, by lending, and looked for more places to invest, bidding up securities that eventually exploded in everyone’s face. In both eras, financial deregulation and loose monetary policies played roles in creating the bubble. But inequality itself — and the political pressure not to reverse it, but to hide it — was a crucial factor in the meltdown. The shrinking middle isn’t a symptom of the downturn. It’s the source of it.” Today the consequences of the meltdown still haunt us — there’s more to come. 2/ Love the title of this column from Thomas Friedman..... "Obama, Tiger, Golf and Politics"..... But the message is less inspiring. The President needs to get tougher and, frankly, lead. Good article....... Without his own Grand Bargain on the table — imprinted on the mind of every American — Obama has been left playing defense, playing to get the least-bad deal, or playing not to lose. That’s what’s producing all the “What happened to Obama?” talk and its silly variants. (He’s a loser; he’s not very bright; he’s Jimmy Carter.) It’s all nonsense. Obama is smart, decent and tough, with exactly the right instincts about where the country needs to go. He has accomplished a lot more than he’s gotten credit for — with an opposition dedicated to making him fail. But lately he is seriously off his game. He’s not Jimmy Carter. He’s Tiger Woods — a natural who’s lost his swing. He has so many different swing thoughts in his head, so many people whispering in his ear about what the polls say and how he needs to position himself to get re-elected, that he has lost all his natural instincts for the game. He needs to get back to basics. It’s crazy what’s happening in America today: We’re having an economic crisis and the politicians are having an election — and there is almost no overlap between the two. The president needs to bring them together. But that can only happen if he stops playing not to lose and goes for broke himself. Our problems are not insoluble. We need a Grand Bargain — where each side gives something on spending, taxes and new investments — and we’re on our way out of this. Run on that, Mr. President: At best you’ll generate enough public pressure (now totally missing) to shame sane Republicans into joining you, and we’ll get a deal, and at worst you can run in 2012 on a platform, which, if you win, will actually give you a mandate for the change the country needs. 3/ Imagine you get a call from an angry Jack Nicholson - it might sound something like this....one minute..... And continuing the Jack Nicholson theme, imagine if "The Shining" were marketed as a rom/com.......one minute.... 4/ An excellent essay from the grand old man of the left - Noam Chomsky. Incisive, always logical and most interesting. The first half of the story is history which I found instructive, but join the piece halfway through to save time...... The final 'compromise' on the crisis -- more accurately, a capitulation to the far right -- is the opposite of what the public wants throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and corporations, which are enjoying record profits. Few serious economists would disagree with Harvard economist Lawrence Summers that "America's current problem is much more a jobs and growth deficit than an excessive budget deficit," and that the deal reached in Washington in August, though preferable to a highly unlikely default, is likely to cause further harm to a deteriorating economy.Not even discussed is the fact that the deficit would be eliminated if the dysfunctional privatized health care system in the US were replaced by one similar to other industrial societies, which have half the per person costs and at least comparable health outcomes. The financial institutions and pharmaceutical industry are far too powerful for such options even to be considered, though the thought seems hardly Utopian. Off the agenda for similar reasons are other economically sensible options, such as a small financial transactions tax. Meanwhile, new gifts are regularly lavished on Wall Street. 5/ "I Believe" from the "Book of Mormon", the hugely successful Broadway musical. This song was sung at the Tony awards by Andrew Rannell.....wonderful...... I want my own planet..... 6/ Remember Casey Anthony? The righteous outrage about the violent killing of her little girl? Then why isn't there any indignation about the cruelty we are inflicting on the kids of America? We have a growing crisis among the nation’s children, yet our policies ignore that reality at best and exacerbate it at worst. According to a report issued this week by the Guttmacher Institute, the unintended pregnancy rate has jumped 50 percent since 1994, yet a July report from the institute points out that politicians are setting records passing laws to restrict abortion. It said: “The 80 abortion restrictions enacted this year are more than double the previous record of 34 abortion restrictions enacted in 2005 — and more than triple the 23 enacted in 2010.” Add to this the assault by conservatives on Planned Parenthood, and what are we saying? This is what we’re saying: actions have consequences. If you didn’t want a child, you shouldn’t have had sex. You must be punished by becoming a parent even if you know that you are not willing or able to be one. This is insane. 7/ Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court justice, is rightly reviled as an extreme right wingnut, but this fascinating article from the New Yorker explains how dangerous he is, and how his reading of the Constitution sways the court more than we might otherwise think.... They also confirm he is a corrupt, porn-addicted scumbag.... An excellent article, fair and balanced....... It has been, in certain respects, a difficult year for Clarence Thomas. In January, he was compelled to amend several years of the financial-disclosure forms that Supreme Court Justices must file each year. The document requires the Justices to disclose the source of all income earned by their spouses, and Thomas had failed to note that his wife, Virginia, who is known as Ginni, worked as a representative for a Michigan college and at the Heritage Foundation. The following month, seventy-four members of Congress called on Thomas to recuse himself from any legal challenges to President Obama’s health-care reform, because his wife has been an outspoken opponent of the law. At around the same time, Court observers noted the fifth anniversary of the last time that Thomas had asked a question during an oral argument. The confluence of these events produced the kind of public criticism, and even mockery, that Thomas had largely managed to avoid since his tumultuous arrival on the Court, twenty years ago this fall. These tempests obscure a larger truth about Thomas: that this year has also been, for him, a moment of triumph. In several of the most important areas of constitutional law, Thomas has emerged as an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court. 8/ The wonderful "Addicted to Love" with Robert Palmer......love the lead guitarist...... 9/ With Hurricane Irene inflicting as yet uncounted damage on the east coast of the US including New York City, here is a most relevant story on the economic toll these weather disasters are causing. Eric Cantor is rightly being hauled over the coals by demanding any federal disaster aid be paid for with budget cuts, but for once he has a point. http://www.addictinginfo.org/ Not a good one, but a point. If you accept climate change will bring more and more of these disasters, how is the country going to pay for it? The weather this year has not only been lousy, it has been as destructive in terms of economic loss as any on record. Normally, three or four weather disasters a year in the United States will cause at least $1 billion in damages each. This year, there were nine such disasters. They included the huge snow dump in late January and early February on the Midwest and Northeast, the rash of tornadoes this spring across the Midwest and the more recent flooding of the Missouri and Souris Rivers. The disasters are responsible for at least 589 deaths, including 160 in May whentornadoes ripped through Joplin, Mo. These nine billion-dollar disasters tie the record set in 2008, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total damage done by all storms, tornadoes, flooding and heat waves so far this year adds up to about $35 billion 10/ Carl Hiaasen with commentary on how assisted living home operators are buying off Florida pols [so what's new], so good luck keeping granny safe.... We truly are living in the most corrupt State in a polarised, dysfunctional and corrupt country...... Anyone who's been following the Miami Herald's investigation of the wretched conditions in some of Florida's assisted living facilities might wonder how the state could have cruelly turned its back on so many sick and helpless people. The answer is as simple as it is sickening: Money. Florida doesn't spend enough of it enforcing the laws and regulations governing the facilities, while the industry spends a fortune buying off key state lawmakers with campaign donations. Todays video - Crazy Marriage Proposal..... Todays joke - something different....Dave Barry's saga about colonoscopy...... |
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Davids Daily Dose - Sunday August 28th
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