1/ Another excellent column from Paul Krugman, and he looks at our national obsession with the deficit and explains why this focus is wrong and damaging our chance for recovery......but the political orthodoxy that drives our calamitous policies is reinforced by the media and repeated endlessly by Fox News.....
In 2011, as in 2010, America was in a technical recovery but continued to suffer from disastrously high unemployment. And through most of 2011, as in 2010, almost all the conversation in Washington was about something else: the allegedly urgent issue of reducing the budget deficit.
This misplaced focus said a lot about our political culture, in particular about how disconnected Congress is from the suffering of ordinary Americans. But it also revealed something else: when people in D.C. talk about deficits and debt, by and large they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most understand the least.
Perhaps most obviously, the economic “experts” on whom much of Congress relies have been repeatedly, utterly wrong about the short-run effects of budget deficits. People who get their economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now!
And while they’ve been waiting, those rates have dropped to historical lows. You might think that this would make politicians question their choice of experts — that is, you might think that if you didn’t know anything about our postmodern, fact-free politics.
But Washington isn’t just confused about the short run; it’s also confused about the long run. For while debt can be a problem, the way our politicians and pundits think about debt is all wrong, and exaggerates the problem’s size.
Deficit-worriers portray a future in which we’re impoverished by the need to pay back money we’ve been borrowing. They see America as being like a family that took out too large a mortgage, and will have a hard time making the monthly payments.
This is, however, a really bad analogy in at least two ways.
First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base. The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.
Second — and this is the point almost nobody seems to get — an over-borrowed family owes money to someone else; U.S. debt is, to a large extent, money we owe to ourselves.
2/ On this same theme look at what is happening in Britain. The Conservative government under David Cameron has taken the "cut cut cut" theme and implemented it last year, so we can see in real time how the same policies being pushed by the Republicans affect countries. Badly.
The year ends with the country in a worse state than the government's severest critics expected. Yet worse is to come, as 2012 slides towards the second recession in three years. Virtually everything David Cameron's government has done has made matters worse; most policy initiatives are creaking while others are mere words without substance. In my political lifetime there has been no more callous or inept crew in charge – nor a government more skilful at disguising its nature.
Archives from 1981 – a similar Conservative year of deep cuts and riots – remind us of a cabinet that put up a fight against some excesses. Margaret Thatcher herself knew the no-go areas – the NHS above all – until hubris overcame her on the poll tax.
Not so this government, as it puts the NHS out to tender, cuts benefits for disabled children, leaves Britain more isolated and rapidly accelerates inequality. The difference is that Cameron is the master dissembler, his words belying his deeds, while Thatcher revelled in an Iron Lady imagery tougher than her more pragmatic reality.
3/ Tis the season for the "best of 2011" clips, and this is from the Colbert Report where Steven nails Herman Cain - remember him? He was in the lead for the Republican nomination when this aired in late October......amazing when you think on it......
A very funny 7 minutes.....one of Colbert's best......
4/ Not often you can sense immense frustration from a professional journalist, but Gretchen Morgensen, one of the better financial columnists for the Times, is pissed......and that's not just reading between the lines......
I'm attaching the whole column because as we proceed into an election year we need to keep a level head and filter the stories in the media for the truth behind ........
LIVE and learn. And well we should, given that 2011 was packed with teachable moments.
Some of this stuff we already knew. Like the fact that bankslove the perks that come with being too big to fail. They will lobby shamelessly to hang on to their riskiest businesses and stay perilously large. No surprise, really. A heads-we-win, tails-the-taxpayers-lose model has a lot going for it, at least for executives atop these institutions.
Here’s another lesson we didn’t need to relearn: Penalties levied on corporate miscreants, and the legal bills they rack up defending themselves, never come out of their own pockets. Insurance policies and shareholders wind up paying. Another win for the me-firsters.
And what if you run a company so far into the ground that the federal government has to take it over? Not to worry: the taxpayers may even pay your legal bills. Consider Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Since the two companies collapsed into conservatorship in 2008, taxpayers have advanced about $73 million to pay the legal bills of former executives who are fighting fraud suits and investigations dating back to 2005.
Isn’t America great?
Another unfortunate lesson we keep learning over and over is that policy makers always put off tough decisions for another day. Kicking the can down the road is so much more fun and profitable, especially for politicians worried about re-election.
But last year also provided some truly illuminating moments. A favorite was the pronouncement that if Greece were to default on its debts, it wouldn’t really count as a default at all. That determination meant that investors who had bought insurance against a possible default would be out of luck. Their policies wouldn’t pay off as expected.
Who ginned up this nondefault default? A secret committee of bankers who call the shots in the world of credit default swaps. These people happen to work for big banks that probably sold the insurance and, as a result, would be on the losing end if a Greek default were actually called a default.
It sure is good to run the Wall Street branch of the Ministry of Truth.
Another eye-opener came courtesy of the folks at MF Global, the trading house and derivatives dealer overseen by Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey senator and governor and former chief executive of Goldman Sachs. Investors were shocked to learn that MF Global, a supposedly legitimate brokerage firm, was so lax about its affairs that hundreds of millions of customer dollars simply vanished. Months after MF Global failed, an army of investigators is still searching for the missing money.
Washington politicians can usually be relied upon to educate the citizenry — again and again. Last year was no exception. One telling moment came late in the year, when Democrats and Republicans agreed to extend an existing payroll tax cut for two months. Helping to defray the cost was $36 billion generated through an increase in mortgage guarantee fees charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
That $36 billion will come out of borrowers’ hides, of course. But using Fannie and Freddie as a money spigot sent a powerful message: Never mind that losses at these mortgage giants have cost taxpayers $150 billion so far. Or that many Americans would prefer these toxic twins to go out of business sooner rather than later. As long as Fannie and Freddie are viewed as piggy banks, there is little chance that Congress will dissolve them. It looks as if these taxpayer-owned zombies, which did so much damage to our economy, are poised to live on and on.
Finally, it was in 2011 that the ugliest paradox of the financial crisis became clearer. That is, some of the very people our government had pushed to embrace the American dream of homeownership — minority groups, lower-income borrowers, immigrants and others previously shut out of the market — were the very people hurt the most by the foreclosure mess. Washington’s push to increase homeownership opened the door for companies to sell poisonous and tricky loans that have now imperiled many of the most vulnerable.
This became painfully evident in a discrimination suit filed by the Justice Department against Countrywide, once the country’s largest mortgage lender. The suit, filed in December, was based on investigators’ findings that more than 200,000 minority borrowers had been charged higher fees and rates by Countrywide than white borrowers of similar financial standing.
The Justice Department also said that Countrywide steered more than 10,000 minority borrowers into high-cost subprime mortgages even as white borrowers received standard, lower-cost loans. The company’s systems, investigators said, allowed loan officers and mortgage brokers to change the terms of mortgages without complying with fair-lending rules.
Bank of America, which bought Countrywide in 2008, agreed to pay $335 million to settle the suit. The events cited in the lawsuit occurred before its purchase of Countrywide.
But the facts assembled by the Justice Department certainly shed new light on Countrywide’s boasts of eliminating barriers to minority homeownership. Its House America program, which committed $600 billion in loans for low-income borrowers in 2003, won plaudits for Angelo R. Mozilo, Countrywide’s co-founder.
The next year, Mr. Mozilo was named Housing Person of the Year by the National Housing Council Conference. “We commend his leadership,” said G. Allan Kingston, the group’s chairman at the time, adding that it “led to the company becoming one of the top lenders to African-Americans and Hispanics, a direct result of his clear understanding that we must do more to ensure affordable homeownership opportunities throughout the nation.”
As I said: live and learn.
5/ Going back to the summer you may have missed this early Republican Presidential debate including both Sarah Palin [Tina Fey] and Donald Trump.....a SNL classic......six minutes......
6/ Nicky Minaj's "Super Bass" video has had 210 million, million! views so it's about time you looked at it too.......it's lively, fun, noisy, colourful, sexy and a little stupid.....but 210 million people can't be wrong.......or is this the dumbing down of America....
We present, you decide......
7/ We are so toast - climate scientists cannot get the funding to study the effects of the warming of the earth because of the political polarization - so the most important issue for all of us isn't being analyzed. The stupidity of our political class and the cynicism of our institutions and corporations just stuns me......
Just remember this - you may not believe in climate change, but climate change believes in you......
At the end of one of the most bizarre weather years in American history, climate research stands at a crossroads.
Scientists say they could, in theory, do a much better job of answering the question “Didglobal warming have anything to do with it?” after extreme weather events like the drought in Texas and the floods in New England.
But for many reasons, efforts to put out prompt reports on the causes of extreme weather are essentially languishing. Chief among the difficulties that scientists face: the political environment for new climate-science initiatives has turned hostile, and with the federal budget crisis, money is tight.
And so, as the weather becomes more erratic by the year, the public is left to wonder what is going on.
When 2010 ended, it seemed as if people had lived through a startling year of weather extremes. But in the United States, if not elsewhere, 2011 has surpassed that.
A typical year in this country features three or four weather disasters whose costs exceed $1 billion each. But this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has tallied a dozen such events, including wildfires in the Southwest, floods in multiple regions of the country and a deadly spring tornado season. And the agency has not finished counting. The final costs are certain to exceed $50 billion.
“I’ve been a meteorologist 30 years and never seen a year that comes close to matching 2011 for the number of astounding, extreme weather events,” Jeffrey Masters, a co-founder of the popular Web site Weather Underground, said last month. “Looking back in the historical record, which goes back to the late 1800s, I can’t find anything that compares, either.”
Many of the individual events in 2011 do have precedents in the historical record. And the nation’s climate has featured other concentrated periods of extreme weather, including severe cold snaps in the early 20th century and devastating droughts and heat waves in the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.
But it is unusual, if not unprecedented, for so many extremes to occur in such a short span. The calamities in 2011 included wildfires that scorched millions of acres, extreme flooding in the Upper Midwest and the Mississippi River Valley and heat waves that shattered records in many parts of the country. Abroad, massive floods inundated Australia, the Philippines and large parts of Southeast Asia.
A major question nowadays is whether the frequency of particular weather extremes is being affected by human-induced climate change.
Climate science already offers some insight. Researchers have proved that the temperature of the earth’s surface is rising, and they are virtually certain that the human release of greenhouse gases, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major reason. For decades, they have predicted that this would lead to changes in the frequency of extreme weather events, and statistics show that has begun to happen.
For instance, scientists have long expected that a warming atmosphere would result in fewer extremes of low temperature and more extremes of high temperature. In fact, research shows that about two record highs are being set in the United States for every record low, and similar trends can be detected in other parts of the world.
Likewise, a well-understood physical law suggests that a warming atmosphere should hold more moisture. Scientists have directly measured the moisture in the air and confirmed that it is rising, supplying the fuel for heavier rains, snowfalls and other types of storms.
“We are changing the large-scale properties of the atmosphere — we know that beyond a shadow of a doubt,” said Benjamin D. Santer, a leading climate scientist who works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. “You can’t engage in this vast planetary experiment — warming the surface, warming the atmosphere, moistening the atmosphere — and have no impact on the frequency and duration of extreme events.”
8/ Did you like "Alien" with Sigourney Weaver? How about "Aliens", one of the few instances where the sequel was better than the original?
Director Ridley Scott is working on "Prometheus", the prequel to the Alien series but with the very latest technology. Can't wait for this one.....due out in August.....hope it's in 3D!!!
Here's the one minute teaser trailer.....
9/ This is a concrete example of how "the boys" get richer and the rest of us get poorer - through tax loopholes and opportunistic greed. Executives granted huge stock options when the market went down in 08 and a low stock price, and when the stocks rebounded a lot of senior management have made buckets of money. And the corporations then benefit because of a tax lophole put in there by lobbyists - this is the secret stuff you never hear about, but this is how "the boys" game the system......
The stock market’s rebound from the financial crisis three years ago has created a potential windfall for hundreds of executives who were granted unusually large packages of stock options shortly after the market collapsed.
Now, the corporations that gave those generous awards are beginning to benefit, too, in the form of tax savings.
Thanks to a quirk in tax law, companies can claim a tax deduction in future years that is much bigger than the value of the stock options when they were granted to executives. This tax break will deprive the federal government of tens of billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade. And it is one of the many obscure provisions buried in the tax code that together enable most American companies to pay far less than the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent — in some cases, virtually nothing even in very profitable years.
In Washington, where executive pay and taxes are highly charged issues, some critics in Congress have long sought to eliminate this tax benefit, saying it is bad policy to let companies claim such large deductions for stock options without having to make any cash outlay. Moreover, they say, the policy essentially forces taxpayers to subsidize executive pay, which has soared in recent decades. Those drawbacks have been magnified, they say, now that executives — and companies — are reaping inordinate benefits by taking advantage of once depressed stock prices.
A stock option entitles its owner to buy a share of company stock at a set price over a specified period. The corporate tax savings stem from the fact that executives typically cash in stock options at a much higher price than the initial value that companies report to shareholders when they are granted.
But companies are then allowed a tax deduction for that higher price.
10/ More proposals from Congress, and another brainless way to fix Social Security......or is it prescient? Onion News has the story......2 minutes.....
11/ A little late [after NYEve], but I'm including this because of the crystal clear voice of the Norwegian singer Sissel, and what is basically a wonderful travelogue video on the beauty of Norway.....and it truly is a gorgeous land especially in winter......it also has some uplifting messages for you cynics out there......
Sissel sings "Auld Lang Syne".......5 minutes.......
12/ Here are 12 Florida stories we will be watching this year......
Instead of rounding up the week's news, which again was in short supply this week — we look forward to next year with a roundup of the stories we think may be the biggest next year in state government and politics. Happy New Year.
Todays video for golfers........The Womens Tee
Todays rude jokes......
I was devastated to find out my wife was having an affair but, by turning to religion, I was soon able to come to terms with the whole thing. I converted to Islam, and we're stoning her in the morning!
------------------------------
------------------------------
The wife suggested I get myself one of those penis enlargers,
so I did....she's 21 and her name's Lucy.
------------------------------
Went to the pub with my girlfriend last night. Locals were shouting "pedophile!" and other names at me, just because my girlfriend is 21 and I'm 50. It completely spoiled our 10th anniversary.------------------------------
The thing I love most about this hot weather is the short skirts and low cut tops....although, they do make me look a bit gay.------------------------------
My son was thrown out of school today for letting a girl in his class give him a hand-job. I said "Son, that's 3 schools this year!
You'd better stop before you're banned from teaching altogether."------------------------------
Just been to the gym. They've got a new machine in.
Could only use it for half an hour, as I started to feel sick
It's great though. It provides me with everything I need -
KitKats, Mars Bars, Snickers, Potato Crisps, the lot.."------------------------------
Question - Are there too many immigrants in Britain ?
17% said yes;
11% said No;
72% said "I am not understanding the question please.".------------------------------
The cost of living has now gotten so bad that my wife
is having sex with me because she can't afford batteries! ------------------------------
A teacher goes around her class asking each of the kids
what do they need at home.
1st kid says "A computer".
Teacher replies "That'd be very useful."
2nd kid says "a new lawn mower" and gets a similar response.
Little Johnny pops up and says "At my house we don't need nothin."
The teacher asks him to think again carefully as everybody needs something.
Little Johnny replies, "no I'm sure."
"When my sister started going out with a Muslim, I remember my dad saying,
"Well, that's the last damned thing we need."------------------------------
A man calls 911 and says "I think my wife is dead".
The operator says, "How do you know?"
He says "The sex is about the same, but the ironing is piling up!"
------------------------------
My girlfriend says she thinks that I might be a stalker.
Well... she's not exactly my girlfriend yet.
------------------------------
Well... she's not exactly my girlfriend yet.
------------------------------
A wife says to her husband
"You're always pushing me around and talking behind my back."
And he says "What do you expect? You're in a wheelchair!"
------------------------------
My wife has been missing a week now.
The police said to prepare for the worst.
So, I went down to Goodwill to get all of her clothes back. ------------------------------
I've heard that Apple has scrapped their plans for the new children's-oriented iPod
after realizing that "iTouch Kids" is not a good product name. ------------------------------
There's a new Muslim clothing shop that opened in our shopping center, but they threw me out after I asked if I could look at some of the bomber jackets. ------------------------------
The Red Cross just knocked on my door and asked
if we could contribute towards the floods in Pakistan .
I said we'd love to, but our garden hose only reaches to the driveway.
No comments:
Post a Comment