1/ Interesting Paul Krugman column about the crisis in the Euro zone, with not just Greece but Spain and Portugal in trouble......they are worse off than we are because the leaders of the EU have not faced up to the crisis.
By the way when he refers to a "full scale market run", this means the big banks like Goldman Sachs are attacking the governments of Spain and Italy.....no I'm not kidding.....
On Thursday Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank or E.C.B. — Europe’s equivalent to Ben Bernanke — lost his sang-froid. In response to a question about whether the E.C.B. is becoming a “bad bank” thanks to its purchases of troubled nations’ debt, Mr. Trichet, his voice rising, insisted that his institution has performed “impeccably, impeccably!” as a guardian of price stability.
Indeed it has. And that’s why the euro is now at risk of collapse.
Financial turmoil in Europe is no longer a problem of small, peripheral economies like Greece. What’s under way right now is a full-scale market run on the much larger economies of Spain and Italy. At this point countries in crisis account for about a third of the euro area’s G.D.P., so the common European currency itself is under existential threat.
And all indications are that European leaders are unwilling even to acknowledge the nature of that threat, let alone deal with it effectively.
I’ve complained a lot about the “fiscalization” of economic discourse here in America, the way in which a premature focus on budget deficits turned Washington’s attention away from the ongoing jobs disaster. But we’re not unique in that respect, and in fact the Europeans have been much, much worse.
2/ And Paul Krugman was on the Colbert Report this week....very funny 4 minutes.....
Paul Krugman had an alternately terrifying and hilarious discussion with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday's "Colbert Report."
Krugman was on to talk about the economic crisis. He repeated his mantra that government spending was badly needed to spur economic growth. Colbert said that regulation was "strangling" business confidence, which was a nice segue for Krugman's well-known "confidence fairy" that would save the economy.
"There might be children right now," Colbert said. "The confidence fairy is real, right?"
3/ In case you missed it this is Rachael Maddow's interview with Elizabeth Warren from last night....
After Warren was thrown under the bus for the Consumer Protection job by Obama and Geithner she decided to run for Senate against Scott Brown of Massachusetts. When I watched this interview I was struck with how nice she is, how passionate on behalf of the middle class and how unlike a politician she is......[a good thing!].
Go Liz go....and we need to send her money because Scott Brown is the purchased, bought and sold Senator from Wall Street.....a certified scumbag.
4/ It takes a media outlet in Europe to identify the real cause of the problems of this country - the collapse of the middle class, and the Guardian spells it out in simple terms - we are a two tier society, the rich and the poor, with the middle squeezed tighter and tighter.
Read this with a cocktail in hand, you'll need it......excellent article....
No one can accuse the candidates on stage at Monday's Republican debate of not discussing a broad range of topics. They talked about big issues like social security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, energy independence, repealing healthcare reform and the need for job creation. And they talked about small issues for political point-scoring: like HPV vaccines for girls.
But missing from the debate – and, in fact, much current discussion of America's politics – is the single biggest issue facing the country: the destruction of the American middle class. For stories on how America is bifurcating into haves and have-nots, with precious little in between, you have to dive behind the headlines of the latest Washington political bun-fight and find the devil in the details.
Take a story that appeared in the Wall Street Journal Monday. The tale is nominally one about marketing strategy and it looks at how giant firm Procter & Gamble sells its household goods to its customers. But the picture that emerges is terrifying. P&G, it transpires, is cutting back on marketing to the disappearing middle classes, instead selling more and more to either high-income or low-income customers and abandoning the middle. Other big firms, like Heinz, are following suit. The piece reveals there is even a word for this strategy, helpfully coined by Citibank: the Consumer Hourglass Theory – because it denotes a society that bulges at the top and bottom and is squeezed in the middle.
5/ An excellent Jon Stewart - five minutes of his take on the "campaign Obama"....very funny....
Transformer - Campaign-Based Economy
Americans must give up the pipe dream that an inspirational leader can govern successfully, and embrace an America whose greatest resource is campaign-driven drivel.
6/ Bill Maher on the Jay Leno show, with some commentary on Obama but as usual he had zingers for just about every politician out there.....watch Leno's face during some of his more contentious remarks....
An excellent two clips, about 8 minutes of clever humour......
Bill Maher has never been one to keep his opinions to himself, and during an appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" on Friday, he had one takeaway piece of advice for President Obama: "Stop trying to make everyone like you."
"He's got to understand that with the Republicans, it's not the entree they don't like. They don't like the waiter," Maher told Leno when pressed on his reaction to Obama's jobs speech.
"You could give all the money to the rich, and they would still call you a socialist," Maher said.
Maher admitted that he was impressed by Obama's speech, but is interested to see how the president will follow through and put his plan into action.
7/ Think the tax code isn't broken? Some of the most wasteful loopholes are for, believe it or not, video game makers.
Amazing story from the Times that just makes you want to puke....
The United States government offers tax incentives to companies pursuing medical breakthroughs, urban redevelopment and alternatives to fossil fuels.
Electronic Arts and Visceral Games
Dead Space 2 shipped more than two million copies in its first week.
It also provides tax breaks for a company whose hit video game this year was the gory Dead Space 2, which challenges players to advance through an apocalyptic battlefield by killing space zombies.
Those tax incentives — a collection of deductions, write-offs and credits mostly devised for other industries in other eras — now make video game production one of the most highly subsidized businesses in the United States, says Calvin H. Johnson, who has worked at the Treasury Department and is now a tax professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Because video game makers straddle the lines between software development, the entertainment industry and online retailing, they can combine tax breaks in ways that companies like Netflix and Adobe cannot. Video game developers receive such a rich assortment of incentives that even oil companies have questioned why the government should subsidize such a mature and profitable industry whose main contribution is to create amusing and sometimes antisocial entertainment.
For example, Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., shipped more than two million copies of Dead Space 2 in the game’s first week on the market this year. It shows a total of $1.2 billion in global profits the last five years using an accounting method that management says captures its operating profits.
But largely because of deferred revenue, deductions for executive stock options and a variety of accounting requirements, the company officially reports a net loss for the period. And the company reports that it paid out $98 million in cash for taxes worldwide in those years.
Neither corporations nor the government make tax returns public, and the information most companies disclose in their regulatory filings is insufficient to determine how much they pay in federal taxes and how that compares to the official United States corporate rate of 35 percent.
8/ New talent - Imelda May with "Mayhem"....the Irish rockabilly queen with a retro look....video is interesting, street life Irish style complete with a pub fight.....
9/ I want one. I want one. A combination of glider and jet packs let's a Frenchman fly over the Grand Canyon......looks like Superman coming to save us from Rick Perry....
Cool newagey soundtrack too....
10/ So Rick. Our Governor. Certified asshole. Wants to drill in the Everglades.....
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott on Tuesday waded into the bubbling controversy over Florida's Everglades by saying that he could potentially support drilling in the famed swampland.
Instead of joining with other Florida politicians who are dead set against the idea, Scott said that he could support a "cautious" amount of drilling. He made his remarks during a question and answer session before members of The Economic Club of Florida.
"With regard to the Everglades, I think we have to be very cautious if there's going to be any more drilling. It's my understanding at least, we haven't had any problems in the Everglades to date," Scott said.
Scott, who lived in Collier County before becoming governor, noted that there was already a small amount of oil production that has been going on for decades in the Everglades.
"We already have oil wells in the Everglades. There's a road in Naples that's called 'Oil Well Road," Scott said. "So, we already have oil drilling. We've done it I think since 1943...I think first off people are very shocked that we have it already. They don't know that."
Scott's openness to drilling puts him closer to the position of Minnesota U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann who said she could support drilling during a presidential campaign swing through Florida last month.
11/ Yeay Florida yeay! We're number three in the nation - yeay!!!
What's that? For of the highest number of residents without health insurance? Just behind Texas? Oh........
Recent information released from the U.S. Census Bureau reports that Florida had the third highest percentage of residents without insurance in 2010.
According to 2010 Census information (.xls), in a three-year average from 2008 to 2010, Florida’s percentage of uninsured people was 20.7 percent.
The national average for uninsured citizens was 15.6 percent. The highest percentage rate belonged to the state of Texas with 24.8 percent, followed by New Mexico with 21.8 percent uninsured.
Florida still ranks second in the nation, however, using a three-year average starting with 2007.
A report from the U.S. Census Bureau released today found that between 2009 and 2010, “the percentage of people covered by private health insurance declined,” while the “percentage covered by government health insurance increased.”
Furthermore, the percentage covered by employer-based health insurance also declined.
In Florida, many state jobs have been cut due to austere budget cuts for public programs. More people in Florida have had to rely on other public health programs, such as Medicaid, due to the state’s high unemployment rate.
12/ Saltwater intrusion is making South Florida's water supply at risk, and it's made worse by climate change and rising sea levels.....
This is our local water war coming folks - South Florida will soon want a pipeline [through the Everglades?] from Central Florida lakes and rivers down to the thirsty Miamians.....but don't worry. I for one have every confidence our friends at the St. Johns Water Management District will say no on our behalf....
Saltwater seeping in from the ocean keeps spreading farther west, threatening to foul underground freshwater supplies that provide most of South Florida's drinking water.
"Saltwater intrusion" in South Florida has worsened through the decades as providing water and flood control for a growing population siphons away freshwater and allows more saltwater to seep into aquifers and well fields.
Ninety percent of South Florida gets its drinking water from underground supplies, most from the Biscayne aquifer. Pumping too much water from underground supplies can allow saltwater to push in from the coast.
Droughts can make saltwater intrusion worse as pumping to provide drinking water continues while rains don't come to replenish underground freshwater supplies
A couple of movies still in theaters.....
13/ "Contagion" directed by Steven Sonderbergh - sounds like a very good, exciting movie......
“Contagion,” Steven Soderbergh’s smart, spooky thriller about a thicket of contemporary plagues — a killer virus, rampaging fear, an unscrupulous blogger — is as ruthlessly effective as the malady at its cool, cool center. Set in the world-is-flat now, the movie tracks a mystery pathogen after it catches a ride on a flight from Hong Kong to Chicago, an early hop for a globe-sprinting pandemic that cuts across borders and through bodies as effortlessly as Mr. Soderbergh moves among genres, styles and eras, this time by updating 1970s paranoia freakouts like “All the President’s Men” for the anti-government, Tea Party age.
Trailer looks spooky.....no zombies though.....
14/ OMG - a movie for guys.......this is about two brothers who fight their way up the chain to the ultimate warrior cage fighting match.....
A NYT critic's pick.....
“Warrior” takes place in the world of mixed martial arts, and it is appropriately blunt, powerful and relentless, a study of male bodies in sweaty motion and masculine emotions in teary turmoil.
But like the brutal, brawling sport that provides Mr. O’Connor with a backdrop, a storehouse of metaphors and a pretext for staging some viscerally effective fight scenes, “Warrior” possesses surprising poetry and finesse. Which is not to say that it is subtle. The director’s impressive technique — and all the grace and discipline of his excellent, hard-working cast — is mustered with a single, unambiguous goal in mind. This movie wants to knock you out. It will.
http://movies.nytimes.com/
Trailer gives you a taste of the combat......and the plot.....
Todays video - a classic "The Honeymoon Downs".....very funny, with some salty language....
Todays ladies jokes.....
One day my housework-challenged husband decided to wash his
sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to
me, 'What setting do I use on the washing machine?'
'It depends,' I replied. 'What does it say on your shirt?'
He yelled back, ' OHIO STATE !'
And they say blondes are dumb....
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -------
A couple is lying in bed. The man says, 'I am going to make you the
happiest woman in the world...'
The woman replies, 'I'll miss you...... '.
------------ --------- -------
'It's just too hot to wear clothes today,' Jack says as he stepped
out of the shower..'Honey, what do you think the neighbors would think if I
mowed the lawn like this?'
'Probably that I married you for your money,' she replied.
------------ --------- --------- --------- ----
Q: What do you call an intelligent, good looking, sensitive man?
A: A rumor
--------- ---- ----- --------- ----
Dear Lord,
I pray for Wisdom to understand my man; Love to forgive him;and
Patience for his moods.
Because, Lord, if I pray for Strength, I'll beat him to death.
AMEN
---- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ---------
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -------
Q: Why do little boys whine?
A: They are practicing to be men.
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Q: What do you call a handcuffed man?
A: Trustworthy. .
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Q: What does it mean when a man is in your bed gasping for breath
and calling your name?
A: You did not hold the pillow down long enough.
------------ --------- ------- -- --------- ---
Q: Why do men whistle when theyare sitting on the toilet?
A: It helps them remember which end to wipe..
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Q: How do you keep your husband from reading your e -mail?
A: Rename the email folder 'Instruction Manuals'
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While creating husbands, God promised women that good and ideal
husbands would be found in all corners of the world..........
......then He made the earth round.
------------ --------- --------- --------- -------
Send this to at least five bright, funny women you know and make
their day!
And send this to five men who have enough sense of humor to
take it!
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