1/ A wonderful column from Paul Krugman titled "America Isn't a Corporation"......this is a time when the putative Republican nominee Mitt Romney is touting his business at Bain Capital......
Excellent column - I truly admire his relentless logic and insight......
“And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”
That’s how the fictional Gordon Gekko finished his famous “Greed is good” speech in the 1987 film “Wall Street.” In the movie, Gekko got his comeuppance. But in real life, Gekkoism triumphed, and policy based on the notion that greed is good is a major reason why income has grown so much more rapidly for the richest 1 percent than for the middle class.
Today, however, let’s focus on the rest of that sentence, which compares America to a corporation. This, too, is an idea that has been widely accepted. And it’s the main plank of Mitt Romney’s case that he should be president: In effect, he is asserting that what we need to fix our ailing economy is someone who has been successful in business.
In so doing, he has, of course, invited close scrutiny of his business career. And it turns out that there is at least a whiff of Gordon Gekko in his time at Bain Capital, a private equity firm; he was a buyer and seller of businesses, often to the detriment of their employees, rather than someone who ran companies for the long haul. (Also, when will he release his tax returns?) Nor has he helped his credibility by making untenable claims about his role as a “job creator.”
But there’s a deeper problem in the whole notion that what this nation needs is a successful businessman as president: America is not, in fact, a corporation. Making good economic policy isn’t at all like maximizing corporate profits. And businessmen — even great businessmen — do not, in general, have any special insights into what it takes to achieve economic recovery.
Why isn’t a national economy like a corporation? For one thing, there’s no simple bottom line. For another, the economy is vastly more complex than even the largest private company.
Most relevant for our current situation, however, is the point that even giant corporations sell the great bulk of what they produce to other people, not to their own employees — whereas even small countries sell most of what they produce to themselves, and big countries like America are overwhelmingly their own main customers.
Yes, there’s a global economy. But six out of seven American workers are employed in service industries, which are largely insulated from international competition, and even our manufacturers sell much of their production to the domestic market.
And the fact that we mostly sell to ourselves makes an enormous difference when you think about policy.
2/ And if you're one of the 99% wondering about the rigged system that produces such fabulous wealth for the 1%, Mitt Romney thinks you're just jealous......Charles Blow with some thoughts on what the oligarchy doesn't want discussed.......
You’re just jealous. At least that’s how Mitt Romney sees it. The millionaire who posed for a picture with the boys at Bain Capital with the long green clinched between their teeth and poking out of their collars and jackets now says that people who question what he did there, and what rich people do now, are just green with envy.
In his New Hampshire victory speech on Tuesday, Romney lambasted his Republican opponents (who have raised real issues about his role at the private equity firm Bain Capital) for following the lead of President Obama, whom he described as a leader who divides us “with the bitter politics of envy.”
The next day on “Today” on NBC, Romney defended the statement, rejecting the notion that there were questions about Wall Street behavior, saying the whole discussion was about class warfare. He even went so far as to suggest that such talk shouldn’t even be openly entertained. When the interviewer asked, “Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?” Romney responded, “I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms and discussions about tax policy and the like.”
In quiet rooms? That’s the problem. Too many have been too quiet for too long. And, on this point, we must applaud the efforts of the Occupy Wall Street movement. It took income inequality and corporate responsibility out of the shadows and into the streets.
A report released on Wednesday by the Pew Research Center found that about two-thirds of Americans now perceive a strong conflict between the rich and poor in this country. That was up 19 percentage points from 2009.
As The New York Times pointed out in regard to the report, “conflict between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in American society.”
And this has nothing to do with envy and everything to do with fairness.
Elizabeth Warren, who is now running for the Senate seat that Romney ran for in 1994 and didn’t get, probably rebuts this myth of class warfare best by reframing the discussion in terms of a “social contract” between the rich and the rest of society. At one of her campaign events, she explained:
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But, I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea. God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
That is the corporate Contract With America: societal symbiosis. We create a society in which smart, hard-working people can be safe and prosper, and they in turn reinvest a fair share of that prosperity back into society for posterity.
Everyone benefits.
But somewhere along the way this got lost. Greed got good. The rich wanted all of the societal benefits and none of the societal responsibilities. They got addicted to seeing profits go up and taxes go down, by any means necessary, no matter the damage to the individual or the collective. Those Maseratis weren’t going to pay for themselves.
And the resulting income inequality helped to stall economic mobility.
3/ And we'll give Stephen Colbert the last word on Mitt Romney, with his funny commentary on Mitt's gaffe ["I like firing people"] during the New Hampshire primary.......5 very amusing minutes......
The results of Tuesday night's New Hampshire primary might show Mitt Romney leading the race, but his latest gaffe didn't go unnoticed by Stephen Colbert.
Romney has a good chance of breezing through the remaining primaries -- that is, of course, if he can protect what Colbert calls his biggest vulnerability: the years he spent as a "heartless corporate raider" at BainCapital.
So you can imagine Colbert's surprise when he heard that Romney recently told a crowd of supporters, "I like being able to fire people" who provide inadequate services. Colbert covers many political gaffes, but he actually had to break out his turntable and do a old fashioned record skip for this one.
4/ Matt Taibbi with another example of the wholesale corruption of our "regulators" and how their cozy treatment of Wall Street is rewarded with plum jobs after they leave Government service.....just disgusting, blatant corruption.....
While America focused on New Hampshire, a classic example of revolving-door politics took place in Washington, going almost completely unnoticed. It’s a move that ranks up there with the hire of Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin to head the pharmaceutical lobbying conglomerate PhRMA -- at a salary of over $2 million a year -- immediately after Tauzin helped ram through the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, a huge handout to the pharmaceutical industry.
In this case, the hire involves Walter Lukken, who toward the end of the Bush years was the acting head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. As the chief regulator of the commodities markets, it was Lukken’s job to spot and combat speculative abuses and manipulations that might have led to artificial price hikes and other disruptions.
In 2008, the last full year of his tenure, Lukken presided over some of the worst chaos in the commodities markets in recent history, with major disruptions in the markets for food products like wheat, cotton, soybeans, and rice, and energy commodities like oil.
Most notoriously, 2008 saw a historic spike in the price of oil futures, an enormously destructive speculative bubble that peaked in July of that year at the lunatic high price of $146 per barrel (Goldman, Sachs at the height of the mania was telling investors oil might go to $200 a barrel).
It was Lukken’s job to spot the speculative abuses leading to disruptions like that bubble, but he didn’t do it. Instead, he repeatedly insisted that there was nothing untoward going on, most notoriously through testimony before the House and the Senate at the height of the oil boom.
In testimony that summer, Lukken continually insisted that the price surge was due to normal supply-and-demand forces, ignoring the far more obvious explanation of a massive inflow of cash from commodity index speculators.
5/ One of the "Best of 2011" videos - from Conan O'Brien - "The Sarah Palin History Channel" promo.......yes Caribou Barbie is getting another reality show....who knew?
6/ Most interesting column from Nicolas Kristof about the value of a good teacher - a recent study has measured the monetary value to a childs' career from having an excellent teacher in one grade. One grade!!!
Suppose your child is about to enter the fourth grade and has been assigned to an excellent teacher. Then the teacher decides to quit. What should you do?
The correct answer? Panic!
Well, not exactly. But a landmark new research paper underscores that the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher lasts a lifetime. Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime — or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class — all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the extra income they will earn.
The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible — but their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum.
Conversely, a very poor teacher has the same effect as a pupil missing 40 percent of the school year. We don’t allow that kind of truancy, so it’s not clear why we should put up with such poor teaching. In fact, the study shows that parents should pay a bad teacher $100,000 to retire (assuming the replacement is of average quality) because a weak teacher holds children back so much.
Our faltering education system may be the most important long-term threat to America’s economy and national well-being, so it’s frustrating that the presidential campaign is mostly ignoring the issue. Candidates are bloviating about all kinds of imaginary or exaggerated threats, while ignoring the most crucial.
7/ Kristof's column took me back to last summer when a Mount Dora High School teacher was outed for homophobic Facebook postings.....Kristof's column stresses the value of a good teacher, and conversely the destructive and cumulative effects of a bad teacher. A lousy fourth grade teacher at the same school for [say] 20 years affects every student who passes through his class.......
So who knows how many of our kids in Mount Dora have been affected by Mr. Buell, who is now a hero to the right wing having had Rush Limbaugh defend him on his radio show. This is probably why the Lake County School Board refused to do anything about it......scared of the wrath of Rush........
And we wonder why Florida's school system is so screwed up......
And the national publicity also wasn't good for Mount Dora's tourism.......
As you may know, Jerry Buell has returned to work.
If you don't know, Jerry Buell is the central Florida high school teacher who, on July 25, got so outraged while watching a TV report about the legalization of gay marriage in New York that on his personal Facebook page he wrote, "I'm watching the news, eating dinner, when the story about New York okaying same sex unions came on and I almost threw up."
Then he did another post, about how gay marriage is a "cesspool." "God will not be mocked," he wrote. "When did this sin become acceptable???"
When a number of his 700 Facebook friends reacted negatively to his comments, Buell posted, "If one doesn't like the most recently posted opinion, based on Biblical principals and God's law, then go ahead and un-friend me. I'll miss you like I miss my kidney stone from 1994."
At Mt. Dora High School, where he teaches, Buell is (hold on, now) chair of the social studies department. He's been teaching history at the school for nearly 30 years. So respected is he at the school that last year he was named Mt. Dora's Teacher of the Year.
"I teach and lead my students as if Lake Co. Schools had hired Jesus Christ himself," is how Buell describes himself on his school's webpage. On his class syllabi is his warning, "I teach God's truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, 'cause I ain't changing!" On on a separate document, Buell wrote that he regards the classroom as a "mission field."
A history teacher -- a Teacher of the Year, no less -- making sure everyone knows he won't compromise in teaching "God's truth." And people wonder why so many American students think europe is a flavor of fruit roll-ups.
8/ Mary and I saw the Phantom of the Opera a few times in the 90's, so it was wonderful to revisit perhaps the best song from that wonderful musical "Music of the Night", performed by one of the finest singers in the world, Sarah Brightman.....5 glorious minutes.....
9/ Yup - Florida's school system is screwed up......our ranking has tumbled drastically in this poll.....and these are based on 2009 test scores.....
Wait till the effect of our certified asshole Governor's cuts in 2011 kick in.........
Florida's education system fell in rank from No. 5 to No. 11 this year due to budget cuts and stalling national test scores, according to a closely watched annual report released today.
The report card from the Education Weeknewspaper, which was provided in advance to the Tampa Bay Times and other news outlets, is another recent sign that Florida's education star may be dimming.
On the academic achievement portion of the report, Florida dropped from No. 6 to No. 12.
On the finance portion, it stumbled from No. 31 to No. 39.
The latter rankings are based on 2009 figures, so they're likely to get worse in future reports. The Legislature cut another $1.3 billion from schools last year.
"It's not all about money, but at some point, it does take money to run a school system and a high quality one," said Colleen Wood, founder of 50th No More, a state group dedicated to increased education spending.
10/ And while we're talking Rick Scott, he made a huge deal about restoring some of the money [$1.3 billion] cut last year back to the education budget........but as usual with this cretin it's smoke and mirrors designed to get a good sound bite on the news, especially Fox News, so he can fool the stupids.....
Gov. Rick Scott used his session-opening speech to insist that lawmakers follow his directive to pour $1 billion more into public schools next year.
"Floridians truly believe that support for education is the most significant thing we can do to ensure both short-term job growth and long-term economic prosperity for our state," Scott told the Legislature earlier this week. "That's why this session I ask you to continue your commitment to education ... On this point, I just can't budge."
But Scott's top education policy chief conceded Thursday what most in the Capitol and education circles already know: that the $1 billion isn't exactly $1 billion in new money.
Democrats on the House PreK-12 Education Appropriations Subcommittee questioned Scott education policy coordinator Scott Kittel on the break-down of those dollars as well as cuts the governor's budget would actually make to community-outreach programs for children by making them compete for a smaller pool of grant dollars.
Scott and lawmakers cut $1.35 billion from classroom spending last year in real dollars. The governor's budget proposal to lawmakers counts $1 billion as an increase by:
- Providing $381 million in extra per-student funding to double money for reading instruction and restoring the reward amount for the School Recognition Program to $100 per student for "A" schools from $70 per student this year.
- Adding $190 million to pay for the expected 30,567 new students enrolled statewide at $6,230 per-student.
- Restoring $224 million in one-time funding lawmakers put in the budget last year to help transition the state off of stimulus funds that are running out.
- And adding another $220 million to offset the local funding decrease due to an expected 3.23 percent reduction in school property taxes.
So, out of that $1 billion figure Scott uses, only the $381 million is the actual amount that increases overall per-pupil spending. And that doesn't come close to bringing per-student funding back to where it was before last year's cuts.
11/ A few of the scenes from the very clever 2011 compilation video last week were from Katy Perry in her definitive video "Last Friday Night", an 8 minute musical story that combines decent acting by Ms. Perry with a very catchy song......very good.......
12/ A rare accident [and I can't remember a similar serious incident in the last 30 years] - a major cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, with 3000 plus passengers has run aground in the Mediterranean off the Italian coast with loss of life - perhaps dozens of casualties.....a video report from Sky News......
Costa Cruises is owned by Carnival Corporation........oops.......
Three people have died and at least 50 more are missing after a cruise ship carrying thousands of passengers, including British holidaymakers, ran aground off Italy's coast.
One of the victims was a man aged in his 70s who reportedly died of a heart attack caused by the shock of the icy water when he dove in during the chaos.
The British consulate told Sky News the 37 Britons onboard - 25 passengers and 12 crew members, mainly entertainers - were rescued.
A major rescue operation was launched after the Costa Concordia began sinking near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast, late on Friday - just two hours after it began its voyage.
13/ Hmmmm.......the Costa Concordia follows on from another Italian registry ship, the MSC Poesia, aground off Freeport last week......tugs got her off the reef....
What giveth? Remember things happen in threes.......
A 2,550-passenger cruise ship ran aground in shallow water in Freeport, the Bahamas Saturday morning.
The 93,300-ton MSC Poesia was hosting the first annual three-night Holy Ship! music cruise from Fort Lauderdale when it ran aground two miles off Grand Bahama early Saturday, the Freeport News reports.
The cruise was being held for electronica music fansand featured 20 DJs, including Steve Aoki and DJ Aero (with whom Tommy Lee was scheduled to appear, USA Today reports.)
The ship docked in some 14 feet of water in low tide, the Freeport News reports, and it took four tug boats to pull the heavy ship off the reef. Ships of that size are not meant to dock in less than 30 feet of water.
14/ Stephen Colbert is running for President - a really funny segment where he hands the leadership of his SuperPac over to a colleague.....and guess who it is? Five good minutes......
Stephen Colbert is once again testing the lengths of how far a comedian can go by officially investigating a run for President -- or at least a run for President during the South Carolina primary.
After Public Policy Polling revealed that the "Colbert Report" host was ahead of GOP candidate Jon Huntsman in South Carolina, Colbert pondered on Wednesday if he should consider a run for President. After explaining that he would have to go home and "talk it over with his money," Colbert teased a big announcement on Thursday night's episode.
And indeed, there was.
15/ Thought we'd revisit this video - "The Idiots" with Zoe Saldana and Kate Bosworth......an amusing 4 minutes......
16/ Remember the story about our perky Attorney General Pam Bondi firing two fraud investigators because they came close to busting some mortgage fraud cases? And she said it would be investigated?
The report is out, and it's a whitewash.....of course.....the moral corruption of Florida's government continues......
By now, many of you are probably familiar with the story that gained national attention when Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office ousted its two most successful foreclosure-fraud investigators after some of the monied interests being investigated started complaining.
The stink raised enough of a ruckus that Bondi agreed to let one of her fellow Cabinet members, CFO Jeff Atwater, investigate the matter through his inspector general. I didn’t hold my breath. In fact, last month, I went so far as to say that, if this investigation held anyone accountable, I would broil, bake and eat that column. Well, that column is safe. Atwater’s IG, Ned Luczynaki, put his stamp of approval on the oustings.
But it’s worth taking a close look at his report. Because much of his investigation was predicated around an accusation that I don’t recall hearing anyone ever make.
On page one, Luczynaki said he was endeavoring to determine whether the oustings ofJune Clarkson and Theresa Edwards constituted a “violation of law, rule or policy.”
Again, no one ever said such a thing. Even Clarkson and Edwards. In fact, the IG himself noted they never did. The question and accusation — made by everyone from the two investigators who had received stellar job reviews to state legislators — was that they were canned for political reasons and/or ticking off powerful interests.
But since Luczynaki set a higher bar — criminal conduct which no one had alleged — it’s probably not surprising that Bondi cleared it.
Still, I decided to delve into the entire 85-page report to summarize what Luczynaki did determine ….
Clarkson and Edwards were the first two interviewed. The two made national headlines for exposing foreclosure fraud — and netting taxpayers the largest settlement ever, $2 million, with regards to companies accused of improperly taking people’s homes.
On the heels of nothing but stellar job reviews — including one just weeks before they were ousted — Bondi’s office decided they were unprofessional and unfit for office. Clarkson and Edwards said the reasons were clear — the people they were investigating didn’t like their aggressive ways. Some of them complained (which was verified) and they lost their jobs.
In an interview with the man most responsible for their ousting, economic crimes director Richard Lawson, Lawson described the two women’s work product as “sloppy.” He also described them as unprofessional … as evidenced by complaints from attorneys for companies they were investigating. In general (and I’d encourage you to look at this report for yourself), Lawson seemed completely frazzled and distressed about the way Clarkson and Edwards were treating the companies they were investigating … for fraud, mind you. At one point, he fumed that they had unfairly highlighted one company’s fraudulent signatures, saying that the company hadn’t approved of the fraud and had stopped when it caught. (Not that the company didn’t have bogus signatures, mind you, but that it wasn’t fair to harp on this, since they stopped. His point: there was no “intent” to defraud.)
Overall, though, Lawson accused the two of making accusations and cases that they couldn’t back up with cold, hard facts.
Todays video - an amazing new cell phone with some surprising functions.....move over Android.......
Todays joke for sensitive males.......guys, for you......
Male sensitivity......
The room was full of pregnant women with their husbands.
The instructor said, "Ladies, remember that exercise is good
for you. Walking is especially beneficial. It strengthens the
pelvic muscles and will make delivery that much easier.
Just pace yourself, make plenty of stops and try to stay on a soft
surface like grass or a path."
"Gentlemen, remember -- you're in this together. It wouldn't
"Gentlemen, remember -- you're in this together. It wouldn't
hurt you to go walking with her. In fact, that shared experience
would be good for you both."
The room suddenly became very quiet as the men absorbed
The room suddenly became very quiet as the men absorbed
this information.
After a few moments a man, named James, at the back of the
After a few moments a man, named James, at the back of the
room, slowly raised his hand.
"Yes?" said the Instructor.
"I was just wondering if it would be all right if she carries a golf
"Yes?" said the Instructor.
"I was just wondering if it would be all right if she carries a golf
bag while we walk?"
Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? This kind of sensitivity just
Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? This kind of sensitivity just
can't be taught.
Todays life lessons joke.....
Five Rules to Remember in Life.
1. Money cannot buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than on a bicycle.
2. Forgive your enemy, but remember the asshole’s name.
3. If you help someone when they are in trouble, they will remember you when they're in trouble again.
4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problems, but then neither does milk.
1. Money cannot buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Corvette than on a bicycle.
2. Forgive your enemy, but remember the asshole’s name.
3. If you help someone when they are in trouble, they will remember you when they're in trouble again.
4. Many people are alive only because it’s illegal to shoot them.
5. Alcohol does not solve any problems, but then neither does milk.
We end our jokes with some serious news for seniors......
To help save the economy, the Government will announce next month that the Immigration Department will start deporting seniors (instead of illegals) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs.Older people are easier to catch and will not remember how to get back home.I started to cry when I thought of you.Then it dawned on me ... oh, crap...I'll see you on the bus!
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