Time is running out in California. The budget impasse cannot be broken; Democrats want to raise taxes but the Republicans will have none of that. The state is bleeding money. On or around March 1, the state will begin "paying" its vendors with IOUs. Taxpayers getting refunds will get IOUs instead of money. Everyone seems to have drawn lines in the sand; everyone is daring everyone else to cross; nobody's moving.
Except...Gov. Arnold, who is on vacation in Idaho. At least he's having fun. How nice that he takes his executive responsibilities so seriously. Instead of meeting with legislative Republicans to try to keep the state from going belly up, he's off in Sun Valley. After all, he won't get screwed in March when ordinary Californians by the tens of thousands are. So why should he worry? Celebrity politicians don't want to get their hands dirty doing hard work; that's what menials and assistants are for.
Such is life in the dreamland of California at the close of 2008. What will life be like in 2009 when the dream becomes a nightmare?
Read it here
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Friday, December 26, 2008
Lying for Jesus
Rick Warren, the fat slob who "pastors" (read: CEO) a WalMart-like mega-church in Orange County, California, has denied that he ever equated gay marriage to incest and paedophilia. Too bad for him that we live in the modern age in which televised interviews are captured on tape. Rachel Maddow presents Mr. Warren's denial followed by an interview in which Mr. Warren states what he claims he never said. In other words, Rick Warren lies. To disguise his lie and to divert attention from being caught lying, Mr. Warren is now using that tried-and-true technique of every sordid, crooked politician: accuse your opponents of hate speech and present yourself as an innocent victim. Again, too bad for him that we live in the modern age in which sharp-eyed journalists like Rachel Maddow don't take his BS at face value. Rick Warren is no victim, no martyr; he's not even an honest man. He's a scurvy bigot. The rock he lives under has been overturned, and the world sees the creepy things living beneath it.
Mr. Warren should shut up, make his momentary appearance at the inauguration, then slither back under his rock in Orange County. Instead, this man with an ego vaster than his enormous waist and butt won't shut up but continues to demand attention by telling more preposterous lies, thus egging the press and bloggers into searching out all his wacko ideas. The blog La Figa has discovered that Mr. Warren is a dimwit creationist who genuinely believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together in a world that was created a mere 6000 years ago. (Yes, that's right; Rick Warren thinks that the cartoon world of the Flintstones really happened.) This lunacy ought to amuse the Internet for a good long while.
As a consequence, Mr. Obama is in a pickle. Mr. O got himself into this mess because, as the self-appointed new Moses, he wants to embrace all America and lead us hand-in-hand to the Promised Land. The inauguration was supposed to be a kind of winter love-in on the Potomac. Instead, he's embracing the growing embarrassment that is Rick Warren. His inauguration is being diminished by the antics of a fat, attention-seeking clown. Cut your losses and save yourself needless trouble, Mr. O; rescind the invitation and get somebody else, somebody bland and boring, to call down blessings upon your holy self from the gods.
View Rachel Maddow here
Mr. Warren should shut up, make his momentary appearance at the inauguration, then slither back under his rock in Orange County. Instead, this man with an ego vaster than his enormous waist and butt won't shut up but continues to demand attention by telling more preposterous lies, thus egging the press and bloggers into searching out all his wacko ideas. The blog La Figa has discovered that Mr. Warren is a dimwit creationist who genuinely believes that humans and dinosaurs lived together in a world that was created a mere 6000 years ago. (Yes, that's right; Rick Warren thinks that the cartoon world of the Flintstones really happened.) This lunacy ought to amuse the Internet for a good long while.
As a consequence, Mr. Obama is in a pickle. Mr. O got himself into this mess because, as the self-appointed new Moses, he wants to embrace all America and lead us hand-in-hand to the Promised Land. The inauguration was supposed to be a kind of winter love-in on the Potomac. Instead, he's embracing the growing embarrassment that is Rick Warren. His inauguration is being diminished by the antics of a fat, attention-seeking clown. Cut your losses and save yourself needless trouble, Mr. O; rescind the invitation and get somebody else, somebody bland and boring, to call down blessings upon your holy self from the gods.
View Rachel Maddow here
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Two separate realities
Remember that episode of the original Star Trek in which Kirk and crewmen find themselves in an alternate universe when something goes haywire while they are beaming up to the Enterprise? They deduce that they are in a parallel universe that exists in the same space as their home universe. The alternate looks pretty much like their universe, but it's not; the people in the alternate universe act differently, think differently. Reason and common sense don't apply; nothing makes sense.
Below is an article about such a place: Columbia, South Carolina. The economy there is crashing fast and furious; everybody is getting hit. People are trying to survive on $100 a week unemployment checks. Life is getting worse with no reason to hope for anything better.
The alternate reality: the city's mayor has cooked up a list of projects totaling $140,000,000. It's a plan for "stimulus," "job creation," and "economic development." Terrific! Who's going to cough up the cash? That Santa Claus on the Potomac, Mr. Obama, that's who. So Mr. O has $140,000,000 to spend in Columbia, SC, does he? Well, no, not really. But he will just as soon as he borrows that amount and about a trillion other dollars from the Chinese or the Japanese or the Martians or generous folks somewhere in an alternate universe. And why will foreigners lend $1 trillion (and more) to a country to which they have already lent trillions? Tradition. Or bailout (we're just too big to fail). Maybe charity. Pity?
The whole world is falling into depression, but we Americans think that we can save ourselves by raiding the savings accounts of foreigners who will most certainly want and need to use their own money for themselves. This absurd situation is the only hope Mr. Obama offers us for the future of our country: beg and borrow from foreigners. We've beamed into a bizarre alternate reality where reason and common sense have been replaced by playing make-believe and wishful thinking. Nothing makes sense; soon nothing will work. Our mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before--right over the cliff!
Read it here
Below is an article about such a place: Columbia, South Carolina. The economy there is crashing fast and furious; everybody is getting hit. People are trying to survive on $100 a week unemployment checks. Life is getting worse with no reason to hope for anything better.
The alternate reality: the city's mayor has cooked up a list of projects totaling $140,000,000. It's a plan for "stimulus," "job creation," and "economic development." Terrific! Who's going to cough up the cash? That Santa Claus on the Potomac, Mr. Obama, that's who. So Mr. O has $140,000,000 to spend in Columbia, SC, does he? Well, no, not really. But he will just as soon as he borrows that amount and about a trillion other dollars from the Chinese or the Japanese or the Martians or generous folks somewhere in an alternate universe. And why will foreigners lend $1 trillion (and more) to a country to which they have already lent trillions? Tradition. Or bailout (we're just too big to fail). Maybe charity. Pity?
The whole world is falling into depression, but we Americans think that we can save ourselves by raiding the savings accounts of foreigners who will most certainly want and need to use their own money for themselves. This absurd situation is the only hope Mr. Obama offers us for the future of our country: beg and borrow from foreigners. We've beamed into a bizarre alternate reality where reason and common sense have been replaced by playing make-believe and wishful thinking. Nothing makes sense; soon nothing will work. Our mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before--right over the cliff!
Read it here
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Love thy neighbor--not!
Below is a piece by one of Bernie Madoff's victims, a woman whose life savings have been wiped out. Her story is compelling, but the real story is the comments readers have made. Unbelievable!
Are kindness and sympathy just not part of contemporary daily life? There's a kind comment here and there, and a number of inane there's-always-a-silver-lining notes. But look at the number and meanness of people who leave basically "tough luck, you greedy bitch!" comments. Astounding! A talented woman who has worked all her life, succeeded, and saved money for her old age is robbed through no fault of her own, and people feel free to give her the finger.
That ought to be a good object lesson for us as we fall deeper into the Great Depression of the 21st century. We aren't a nation of good neighbors who join hands and help each other. We're a nation resembling the passengers on the Titanic: the rich in first class got access to the life boats while women and children in third class were locked below decks and left to drown. Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was one of my favorite books of my youth. He gives the passenger list in an appendix and indicates who survived and who didn't. I've always been amazed at the number of women and children who drowned--mostly steerage passengers--and the number of first and second class male passengers who lived. How did these men live with themselves knowing that their place in the lifeboat was purchased by the death of a child or a mother? Did they care? Or was it "Tough luck, scum, it's everybody for himself."
Read the comments on this unfortunate woman's article, and you'll find plenty of the spiritual descendants of those callous men of April, 1912.
Read here
Are kindness and sympathy just not part of contemporary daily life? There's a kind comment here and there, and a number of inane there's-always-a-silver-lining notes. But look at the number and meanness of people who leave basically "tough luck, you greedy bitch!" comments. Astounding! A talented woman who has worked all her life, succeeded, and saved money for her old age is robbed through no fault of her own, and people feel free to give her the finger.
That ought to be a good object lesson for us as we fall deeper into the Great Depression of the 21st century. We aren't a nation of good neighbors who join hands and help each other. We're a nation resembling the passengers on the Titanic: the rich in first class got access to the life boats while women and children in third class were locked below decks and left to drown. Walter Lord's A Night To Remember was one of my favorite books of my youth. He gives the passenger list in an appendix and indicates who survived and who didn't. I've always been amazed at the number of women and children who drowned--mostly steerage passengers--and the number of first and second class male passengers who lived. How did these men live with themselves knowing that their place in the lifeboat was purchased by the death of a child or a mother? Did they care? Or was it "Tough luck, scum, it's everybody for himself."
Read the comments on this unfortunate woman's article, and you'll find plenty of the spiritual descendants of those callous men of April, 1912.
Read here
Friday, December 19, 2008
Life underwater
Here's more on the new American domestic phenomenon: I'm trapped in my house and I can't get out!
I feel for these folk, but they had better get it through their heads that the inflated house prices of the Great Bubble of the 21st century are NEVER coming back. There is no "let's re-finance" escape from their misery of slowly bleeding to death. If they're thinking of walking away, they'd better do it quick if they legally can; because when lots of people who can still pay their bills default and screw the banks, the banks will pay the politicians to change the law to start prosecuting those defaults as fraud with long prison terms and hefty fines. Homeowners will be held to this simple rule: You bought, so you pay for it. Why shouldn't they? Who else should?
Read it here
I feel for these folk, but they had better get it through their heads that the inflated house prices of the Great Bubble of the 21st century are NEVER coming back. There is no "let's re-finance" escape from their misery of slowly bleeding to death. If they're thinking of walking away, they'd better do it quick if they legally can; because when lots of people who can still pay their bills default and screw the banks, the banks will pay the politicians to change the law to start prosecuting those defaults as fraud with long prison terms and hefty fines. Homeowners will be held to this simple rule: You bought, so you pay for it. Why shouldn't they? Who else should?
Read it here
Financial death in Venice, California
Here's another story about California home prices falling into the abyss, both in southern California and the Bay area. I used to live in the San Francisco Bay area just a couple of years ago and saw for myself the lunatic frenzy of the housing boom. Builders were cramming crappy particle board boxes with cake icing-like decorations onto every square foot of land and selling these "houses" for $500,000 or $600,000 or $700,000 or more to numbskulls who were falling over each other to buy them. At the boom's peak the median Bay area house (or even condo, meaning "a one or two bedroom apartment in a lousy apartment house") sold for $665,000; today the median price is $350,000 and falling, a difference of $315,000. As I posted the other day, hundreds of thousands of California homeowners are underwater by amounts essentially equal to the present value of their property, and the situation worsens daily. These people are ruined perhaps for life. How will they ever repay those mortgages? California law limits the options creditors can employ against defaulting mortgage debtors, so more and more people are walking away from their homes. Is this honest? No. But here in the Great Depression of the 21st century, dishonesty may be the only sensible survival strategy. It will be amazing to watch huge areas of the Bay area become abandoned and deteriorate into suburban slums. Once upon a time, the Bay area was full of orchards; maybe it's time to start growing peaches again.
Read it here
Read it here
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A genuinely evil man dies
Here's an early Christmas present: Paul Weyrich is dead. He was one of the masterminds of the political and religious right's war on the human and civil rights of gay people, an aider and abettor of a generation of hate mongers, and a man who grew fat and wealthy pitting Americans against each other. This guy spent the last 30 years poisoning this country; there wasn't any vile bigotry he wouldn't use to further his cause. Despite his efforts, we gays are still here doing fine, but he's not. Mistah Weyrich, he dead. Dump the corpse onto the nearest landfill with the rest of the garbage. Good riddance.
Read the good news here
Read the good news here
The jig is up for the dollar
Peter Schiff (among many others) has been predicting the collapse of the dollar and consequent hyper-inflation. The recent flight into the dollar as a last-ditch hedge against the enormous losses of the great asset sell-off is short-lived, says Schiff. When the sell-off is over, the dollar drops like a rock.
Looks like Schiff has hit another homer. Continuing its uninterrupted string of failures, the desperate Fed has dropped interest rates to essentially zero, and the currency markets have responded by dumping dollars. Everything is going to get much more expensive very soon--like now! Get used to this jaw-breaking phrase: Hyper-inflationary depression. Translation: You're just about broke and the few dollars you do have can't buy jack.
Read it here
Looks like Schiff has hit another homer. Continuing its uninterrupted string of failures, the desperate Fed has dropped interest rates to essentially zero, and the currency markets have responded by dumping dollars. Everything is going to get much more expensive very soon--like now! Get used to this jaw-breaking phrase: Hyper-inflationary depression. Translation: You're just about broke and the few dollars you do have can't buy jack.
Read it here
California bonds keep dropping
From Bloomberg:
"The escalating financial crisis has depressed the state’s bond prices, driving up the yields. A California bond maturing in 2033, which pays 5 percent interest, dropped to 76 cents on the dollar today to yield 7.08 percent. That’s down from as much as 80 cents yesterday, when it yielded 6.66 percent."
Interest will go a lot higher than that soon. But given the frightful condition of the state here at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 21st Century, why would anybody buy a bond that doesn't mature until 2033? There may not be a California (let alone an America) 25 years down the road. And what nitwit would accept a mere 7.08% a quarter of a century from now given the real inflation rate (or even the phony-baloney understated CPI the government produces)? Who's buying these bonds? The only reason to buy a government bond that I can think of is ostensible security. Who thinks California is secure these days?
Read it here
"The escalating financial crisis has depressed the state’s bond prices, driving up the yields. A California bond maturing in 2033, which pays 5 percent interest, dropped to 76 cents on the dollar today to yield 7.08 percent. That’s down from as much as 80 cents yesterday, when it yielded 6.66 percent."
Interest will go a lot higher than that soon. But given the frightful condition of the state here at the beginning of the Great Depression of the 21st Century, why would anybody buy a bond that doesn't mature until 2033? There may not be a California (let alone an America) 25 years down the road. And what nitwit would accept a mere 7.08% a quarter of a century from now given the real inflation rate (or even the phony-baloney understated CPI the government produces)? Who's buying these bonds? The only reason to buy a government bond that I can think of is ostensible security. Who thinks California is secure these days?
Read it here
Screw job
Mr. Obama has selected the fat impresario of a California mega-church called "Saddleback" to give the invocation at Mr. Obama's inaugural-cum-coronation in January. Rick Warren, pastor (read, CEO) of this Wal-Martesque church, was last seen trashing gay people in California by opposing gay marriage as the moral equivalent of allowing brothers and sisters to marry. We gays are livid; Mr. Obama does not care. He claims that he is well known as "a fierce advocate of equality," but in fact both Mr. Warren and Mr. Obama are on the public record as opposing gay marriage. Like those egalitarian pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm, Mr. Obama believes in equality as long as some are more equal than others. Further, Mr. Obama has no record of actually achieving anything for gay people during his all-too brief career as a legislator in the Illinois senate and the US senate.
Just in case you don't buy the Mr. Equality line of BS, Mr. Obama also claims that now is the time to bring people together. I can hear him now: "Can't we all just get along? I'm going to be president of all Americans, homophobes included. I can embrace everybody in my big, loving arms. " Obviously, Mr. Obama thinks gays are now his niggers and ought to shut-up and shuffle off. Happily, I did not support this schmuck because I can spot a fraud like him a mile off. Politicians like him emit happy-talk the way excrement emits stink. Unfortunately, most gays fooled themselves about Mr. Obama's pro-gay happy-talk before the election and now they know better after the election. Too late.
Just in case you don't buy the Mr. Equality line of BS, Mr. Obama also claims that now is the time to bring people together. I can hear him now: "Can't we all just get along? I'm going to be president of all Americans, homophobes included. I can embrace everybody in my big, loving arms. " Obviously, Mr. Obama thinks gays are now his niggers and ought to shut-up and shuffle off. Happily, I did not support this schmuck because I can spot a fraud like him a mile off. Politicians like him emit happy-talk the way excrement emits stink. Unfortunately, most gays fooled themselves about Mr. Obama's pro-gay happy-talk before the election and now they know better after the election. Too late.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The military occupation of the US: first stage
Not that I oppose nabbing drunk drivers, but what in the name of the Constitution are US Marines doing manning DUI roadblocks in San Bernardino County, California? Are people just nuts these days or what? This is a categorical violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which Congress passed to prevent Americans from ever being occupied by a home-grown military dictatorship such as the corrupt, brutal dictatorship citizens of the South suffered during Reconstruction. That sorry episode of American history was so repugnant that even Northern politicians were willing to forbid the use of US military forces anywhere in the sovereign states of the Union. But now, with our Constitution in tatters, the military is infiltrating domestic law enforcement that once was answerable solely to local civilian authority. How long before the country is divided into military districts administered by a regional commander answerable solely to the Pentagon?
You say it can't happen here? Well, what do you think this is, chopped liver? It's happening in front of your eyes. Wake up! The rule of law and the subordination of the military to civilian authority are going, going, nearly gone in this country. Does anyone care? We Americans are sleepwalking into tyranny.
Read it here
You say it can't happen here? Well, what do you think this is, chopped liver? It's happening in front of your eyes. Wake up! The rule of law and the subordination of the military to civilian authority are going, going, nearly gone in this country. Does anyone care? We Americans are sleepwalking into tyranny.
Read it here
Lookin' for love (and reasons) in all the wrong places
To survive, newspapers across the country are cutting staffs, the size and content of their editions, and regular delivery to customers. This is akin to a struggling restaurant trying to survive by serving increasingly lousy food to the dwindling number of fools who patronize it. Hardly a formula for success!
Journalists offer various preposterous excuses for their troubles such as the following:
(1) Readers are moving on-line and abandoning the printed page. Well of course they are since the newspapers themselves are reducing their print editions in favor of on-line editions in order to cut costs. Like duh!
(2) Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer fingers public ownership and the greedy free market. Back in the good old days when rich families owned newspapers, she writes, journalism prospered. Nowadays papers are public corporations that shareholders and investors expect to be profitable, a state of business affairs Ms. Geyer thinks incompatible with the high calling of news gathering. Ms. Geyer doesn't consider the reason that rich families sold their newspapers might be that they were money-losing turkeys run by spendthrift editors and journalists who didn't give a damn where the money came from as long as they got a regular paycheck.
You and I know better because we've read the National Adult Literacy Survey. We savants know that the reason fewer and fewer Americans read newspapers is that more and more Americans lack the reading skills necessary to read them. If you can't read a newspaper, why buy it unless you need to line a bird cage or you have a puppy not yet house-trained? Newspapers are going bust because American literacy has gone bust.
Read it here
Journalists offer various preposterous excuses for their troubles such as the following:
(1) Readers are moving on-line and abandoning the printed page. Well of course they are since the newspapers themselves are reducing their print editions in favor of on-line editions in order to cut costs. Like duh!
(2) Syndicated columnist Georgie Anne Geyer fingers public ownership and the greedy free market. Back in the good old days when rich families owned newspapers, she writes, journalism prospered. Nowadays papers are public corporations that shareholders and investors expect to be profitable, a state of business affairs Ms. Geyer thinks incompatible with the high calling of news gathering. Ms. Geyer doesn't consider the reason that rich families sold their newspapers might be that they were money-losing turkeys run by spendthrift editors and journalists who didn't give a damn where the money came from as long as they got a regular paycheck.
You and I know better because we've read the National Adult Literacy Survey. We savants know that the reason fewer and fewer Americans read newspapers is that more and more Americans lack the reading skills necessary to read them. If you can't read a newspaper, why buy it unless you need to line a bird cage or you have a puppy not yet house-trained? Newspapers are going bust because American literacy has gone bust.
Read it here
Underwater and drowning
According to recent data, the median home price in Southern California is now $285,000, down from the all-time high of $505,000. That's a difference of $220,000; and as prices continue to fall, this difference approaches the new median price. This unhappy fact means that any poor soul who bought a home at or near the all-time high (and hundreds of thousands did) is enslaved to a mortgage on a house which for all intents and purposes has been chopped in half. What a deal! An analyst predicts that home values will continue to fall to at least 55% below the high, and as the depression worsens there may be no real bottom. Debt slavery and continuing impoverishment are the future of California.
All this in a state whose governor and legislature are trying to raise taxes to cover vast budget deficits rather than cut spending. How many turnips will they try to bleed before the fact that California's economy is crashing penetrates those lead-lined skulls in Sacramento?
Read it here
All this in a state whose governor and legislature are trying to raise taxes to cover vast budget deficits rather than cut spending. How many turnips will they try to bleed before the fact that California's economy is crashing penetrates those lead-lined skulls in Sacramento?
Read it here
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Not so bright president-elect
Mr. Obama continues to deplete the newly elected (and yet to be seated) Democratic majority in the Senate. To date, these are the states that will have vacancies to fill: Illinois, New York, Delaware, Colorado. Granted that the Democratic governors of these states will appoint Democratic successors (except possibly Illinois--how a successor will be chosen is anybody's guess). However, these appointments are temporary and valid only until the next general election in 2010. History tells us (but apparently not Mr. Obama) that when the same party owns both the White House and one or both houses of Congress, mid-term elections tend to reduce (or eliminate) that party's majorities in Congress. All four states now appear to be in play for Republicans in 2010; with their current incumbents they were safe seats for the Democrats. I'm confident predicting that Mr. Obama's selection of senate colleagues for his cabinet will not serve him well; his cabinet and vice-presidential picks will be duds and Democrats will lose several, maybe all, of these seats in 2010. Mr. Obama had plenty of good alternatives to choose his cabinet from, but he passed them up for political cronies and pals. The Old Chicago Political Machine has moved to the Potomac.
The Madoff scandal
According to the New York Post:
Madoff remains free on a $10 million bond, but by 2 p.m. today, he must come up with a total of four "fiscally responsible" people to co-sign his bond to stay out of jail. As of late yesterday, his wife and brother had already signed for him. He also must provide his duplex apartment as collateral.
This suggests several points:
(1) If Bernie Madoff hadn't ruined so many people, there would be a larger number of "fiscally responsible" people he might ask for help.
(2) Since Bernie Madoff is a thief, whose $10 million did he put up for bond? Certainly not his $10 million.
(3) How can Bernie Madoff's wife be a "fiscally responsible" person? What money does she have to be "fiscally responsible" with? Certainly not hers or her husband's since whatever is theirs was somebody else's before Bernie stole it.
(4) How can Bernie Madoff's duplex apartment, presumably purchased with stolen money, be used as collateral for bond? Can the goods a thief steals be used to bail the thief out of jail? Is this really legal? In any case, surely even now lawyers for the victims are preparing suits to take it if the government doesn't seize it first. How can any of Bernie Madoff's assets (I use that term loosely) be collateral for anything since obviously his assets are not legitimately his?
(5) If Bernie Madoff's wife and brother are "fiscally responsible" people, does that fact mean that he did not cheat them?
(6) Will his two sons, who ratted him out to the government, volunteer to help keep their father out of jail? Was ratting him out a clever way to deflect attention from them once the jig was up? Who believes that only Bernie was running this scam? Are we soon to discover a Madoff family crime syndicate?
(7) Why does anybody want Bernie Madoff to stay out of jail? To what end? He has stolen the life savings of old people and left them destitute. Why isn't jail the proper place for this man? One can allow for his wife's feelings, but even she can't possibly imagine that a man who robs elderly people of all their possessions (a lousy mugger steals only a wallet or a purse) ought to live free in his duplex luxury apartment while his victims lose their homes and eat in soup kitchens. Given the certainty that Bernie's victims will eventually seize all his possessions and leave him and his wife just as destitute as his victims, one might think that Mrs. Madoff would let Bernie stew in his own juices. The vow "for better or for worse" ought to stop short of suicide. Is Mrs. Madoff more than an innocent wife standing by her man?
Madoff remains free on a $10 million bond, but by 2 p.m. today, he must come up with a total of four "fiscally responsible" people to co-sign his bond to stay out of jail. As of late yesterday, his wife and brother had already signed for him. He also must provide his duplex apartment as collateral.
This suggests several points:
(1) If Bernie Madoff hadn't ruined so many people, there would be a larger number of "fiscally responsible" people he might ask for help.
(2) Since Bernie Madoff is a thief, whose $10 million did he put up for bond? Certainly not his $10 million.
(3) How can Bernie Madoff's wife be a "fiscally responsible" person? What money does she have to be "fiscally responsible" with? Certainly not hers or her husband's since whatever is theirs was somebody else's before Bernie stole it.
(4) How can Bernie Madoff's duplex apartment, presumably purchased with stolen money, be used as collateral for bond? Can the goods a thief steals be used to bail the thief out of jail? Is this really legal? In any case, surely even now lawyers for the victims are preparing suits to take it if the government doesn't seize it first. How can any of Bernie Madoff's assets (I use that term loosely) be collateral for anything since obviously his assets are not legitimately his?
(5) If Bernie Madoff's wife and brother are "fiscally responsible" people, does that fact mean that he did not cheat them?
(6) Will his two sons, who ratted him out to the government, volunteer to help keep their father out of jail? Was ratting him out a clever way to deflect attention from them once the jig was up? Who believes that only Bernie was running this scam? Are we soon to discover a Madoff family crime syndicate?
(7) Why does anybody want Bernie Madoff to stay out of jail? To what end? He has stolen the life savings of old people and left them destitute. Why isn't jail the proper place for this man? One can allow for his wife's feelings, but even she can't possibly imagine that a man who robs elderly people of all their possessions (a lousy mugger steals only a wallet or a purse) ought to live free in his duplex luxury apartment while his victims lose their homes and eat in soup kitchens. Given the certainty that Bernie's victims will eventually seize all his possessions and leave him and his wife just as destitute as his victims, one might think that Mrs. Madoff would let Bernie stew in his own juices. The vow "for better or for worse" ought to stop short of suicide. Is Mrs. Madoff more than an innocent wife standing by her man?
Monday, December 15, 2008
More bad news
The Great Depression of the 21st century has just begun. In store for the future: more years of home mortgage defaults at unimaginable rates and a commercial mortgage debacle without historical precedent. One analyst says that we are maybe only a third of the way through the defaults and the consequent destruction of wealth with many years to go. In other words, we are years away from recovery being even a possibility. And after so much destruction of wealth, what could we recover with? The accumulated wealth of the post-WWII era is being wiped out in front of our eyes.
Watch the 60 Minutes report here
Watch the 60 Minutes report here
Sunday, December 14, 2008
You'd better listen to this guy while you still can
Think me a zany doomsayer for posting about the Great Depression of 2009, California's in-progress bankruptcy, the coming riots in the US a la Greece? Then take it from the widely respected trend forecaster Gerald Celente, CEO of The Trends Research Institute, who's predicting the Christmas Crash of 2008, mass and permanent unemployment, hunger throughout America, hyper inflation, political upheaval, and concentration camps for Americans. "...a meltdown, a catastrophe, the likes of which no one has ever seen before," he says.
Nothing in our lifetime will ever be more serious than the catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, and nothing in our lifetime has prepared us to cope with it.
Listen here
Nothing in our lifetime will ever be more serious than the catastrophe unfolding before our eyes, and nothing in our lifetime has prepared us to cope with it.
Listen here
Trendy fundie (part 2)
My doubt about Mr. Richard Cizik (formerly a vice-president of the National Evangelical Association, an organization of fundamentalist churches) has been borne out by the facts: Mr. Cizik is both a fake and a double-talker. Earlier this month, Mr. Cizik made happy-talk on National Public Radio expressing his supposedly evolving ideas on gay civil unions and gay marriage. He sounded open to gays in some sense (nobody wants to sound close-minded on NPR, for gosh sake's), but this putative openness caused his fellow fundamentalists (who were already out to get him because of his happy-talk on environmentalism) to drive him from office.
Well, Christianity Today reports that Mr. Cizik tried to save his job in that tried-and-true manner of all mealy-mouthed deceivers, by claiming that he was misunderstood by us dummies who could not understand the wise words of the great man. In truth, Mr. Cizik repudiated everything that he previously said and reiterated the standard fundamentalist anti-gay line. Thus reports Christianity Today:
NAE executive director W. T. Bassett also sent an e-mail reply to concerned constituencies that quoted remarks from Cizik following the Fresh Air interview. "I categorically oppose 'gay marriage' and see now that my thoughts about 'civil unions' were misunderstood and misplaced," Cizik said, according to the message. "I am now and always have been committed to work to pass laws that protect and foster family life, and to work against government attempts to interfere with the integrity of the family, including same-sex 'marriage' and civil unions."
So all that NPR happy-talk goes into the trash and instead gays get smeared as dangers to the integrity of the family. What a broad-minded fellow that Mr. Cizik is, no? I am happy to report that all this duplicity (and just plain lying) availed Mr. Cizik nothing; he is now an ex-employee of NAE. Incredibly, news reports are portraying him sympathetically as some sort of moderate who got axed by hardliners. Only Christianity Today has the real skinny about Mr. Cizik's dishonesty. No wonder his former fundamentalist allies said that he had lost all credibility.
All this goes to show you that you can smell phony fundies a mile off because, to put it simply, they stink.
Read it here
Well, Christianity Today reports that Mr. Cizik tried to save his job in that tried-and-true manner of all mealy-mouthed deceivers, by claiming that he was misunderstood by us dummies who could not understand the wise words of the great man. In truth, Mr. Cizik repudiated everything that he previously said and reiterated the standard fundamentalist anti-gay line. Thus reports Christianity Today:
NAE executive director W. T. Bassett also sent an e-mail reply to concerned constituencies that quoted remarks from Cizik following the Fresh Air interview. "I categorically oppose 'gay marriage' and see now that my thoughts about 'civil unions' were misunderstood and misplaced," Cizik said, according to the message. "I am now and always have been committed to work to pass laws that protect and foster family life, and to work against government attempts to interfere with the integrity of the family, including same-sex 'marriage' and civil unions."
So all that NPR happy-talk goes into the trash and instead gays get smeared as dangers to the integrity of the family. What a broad-minded fellow that Mr. Cizik is, no? I am happy to report that all this duplicity (and just plain lying) availed Mr. Cizik nothing; he is now an ex-employee of NAE. Incredibly, news reports are portraying him sympathetically as some sort of moderate who got axed by hardliners. Only Christianity Today has the real skinny about Mr. Cizik's dishonesty. No wonder his former fundamentalist allies said that he had lost all credibility.
All this goes to show you that you can smell phony fundies a mile off because, to put it simply, they stink.
Read it here
Friday, December 12, 2008
Slap in the face
Sometimes reality just whacks you the way a Zen master whacks his pupil in an attempt to force him awake, and you're left in wide-eyed astonishment. I was reading the National Adult Literacy Survey and came across this fact. Only 4% of American adults measured in the survey were able to answer this question correctly: If you borrow $10,000 at 14.25% APR for 10 years with a monthly payment of $156.77, how much total interest do you pay?
Only 4% of adult Americans could compute the total amount of the payments ($156.77 x 120 months), subtract the principal ($10,000), and arrive at the answer: $8812.40 in interest. In fact, respondents didn't really have to compute anything; they only needed to explain how to arrive at the answer.
Is it really possible that things are this bad in America?
Only 4% of adult Americans could compute the total amount of the payments ($156.77 x 120 months), subtract the principal ($10,000), and arrive at the answer: $8812.40 in interest. In fact, respondents didn't really have to compute anything; they only needed to explain how to arrive at the answer.
Is it really possible that things are this bad in America?
The peril of being a trendy fundie
Q: What's the difference between a Christian fundamentalist and a Christian evangelical?
A: Evangelicals try not to belch at the dinner table.
It seems one Richard Cizik, a long-time staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has been forced to resign his position as the organization's vice-president after giving a radio interview in which he stated support for gay civil unions and vague, squishy thoughts which a gullible person might, with enormous effort, construe as just a tiny bit of openness to the almost infinitely remote possibility of gay marriage. In reaction to the stink the interview stirred up, Mr. Cizik (news accounts call him "Reverend" without mentioning of what church he is a reverend) desperately but unsuccessfully tried to recant and to apologize to all fundies/evangelicals offended by his remarks. Despite this grovelling, Mr. Cizik was shown the door and invited to walk through it on his way to the unemployment office. There's nothing more inspiring than Christian charity, now is there?
You may recall that Mr. Cizik made fundies/evangelicals apoplectic when in 2002 he suggested that people of their ilk should concern themselves with environmental issues like global warming since they, too, live on planet earth. The fundies/evangelicals would have none of it (possibly because, not wanting to live on planet earth, they expect the Rapture to occur any moment, at which time they will float up to the stratosphere where Jesus, gathering all his little sunbeams, will whisk them off to heaven while the rest of us die hideous deaths during the Tribulation here on earth). Ever since, these angry people have been out to get Mr. Cizik, and now they've got him.
It's not that I have any sympathy for Mr. Cizik. So he supports gay civil unions? Oh yeah, I ask, since when? He publicly supported Proposition 8, which makes him an abettor of that criminal act which stole the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Mr. Cizik might have recalled that stealing violates one of the Ten Commandments. It seems he needs a Bible refresher course and a bit of remedial training in morality. Now jobless, he'll have plenty of free time for study. Let's hope he makes the most of it. And, perhaps, I do him an injustice. Maybe he really is trying to think for himself late in life; maybe his slight openness to gay people is sincere; maybe he wants more from his faith than the dogma and right-wing politics he has been peddling for the last 20 years at NAE. Maybe. Then again, maybe pigs can fly.
Read it here
A: Evangelicals try not to belch at the dinner table.
It seems one Richard Cizik, a long-time staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), has been forced to resign his position as the organization's vice-president after giving a radio interview in which he stated support for gay civil unions and vague, squishy thoughts which a gullible person might, with enormous effort, construe as just a tiny bit of openness to the almost infinitely remote possibility of gay marriage. In reaction to the stink the interview stirred up, Mr. Cizik (news accounts call him "Reverend" without mentioning of what church he is a reverend) desperately but unsuccessfully tried to recant and to apologize to all fundies/evangelicals offended by his remarks. Despite this grovelling, Mr. Cizik was shown the door and invited to walk through it on his way to the unemployment office. There's nothing more inspiring than Christian charity, now is there?
You may recall that Mr. Cizik made fundies/evangelicals apoplectic when in 2002 he suggested that people of their ilk should concern themselves with environmental issues like global warming since they, too, live on planet earth. The fundies/evangelicals would have none of it (possibly because, not wanting to live on planet earth, they expect the Rapture to occur any moment, at which time they will float up to the stratosphere where Jesus, gathering all his little sunbeams, will whisk them off to heaven while the rest of us die hideous deaths during the Tribulation here on earth). Ever since, these angry people have been out to get Mr. Cizik, and now they've got him.
It's not that I have any sympathy for Mr. Cizik. So he supports gay civil unions? Oh yeah, I ask, since when? He publicly supported Proposition 8, which makes him an abettor of that criminal act which stole the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Mr. Cizik might have recalled that stealing violates one of the Ten Commandments. It seems he needs a Bible refresher course and a bit of remedial training in morality. Now jobless, he'll have plenty of free time for study. Let's hope he makes the most of it. And, perhaps, I do him an injustice. Maybe he really is trying to think for himself late in life; maybe his slight openness to gay people is sincere; maybe he wants more from his faith than the dogma and right-wing politics he has been peddling for the last 20 years at NAE. Maybe. Then again, maybe pigs can fly.
Read it here
California crack-up
Mother of pearl! First, California was $15 billion in the hole. Then it was $28 billion. Now it's $41 billion and counting. Sure, some of this is mere hype which Governor Arnold is using to prod the legislature into action. But most of this latter number must be true; and the more Governor Arnold talks about it, the more the fact that California is dead broke embeds itself in the minds of citizens of the state and, more importantly, in the minds of the financiers from whom the state wants to borrow billions. The governor may want to tone down the hype before he scares away any potential buyer of California's bonds. In any case, California is a mess, maybe an incorrigible mess, and we're only in the first act of the melodrama called "The Great Depression of the 21st Century" with many acts yet to follow. Remember when Okies fled 1930s dust bowl Oklahoma and went to California (immortalized by the Joad family in "The Grapes of Wrath")? Well, perhaps their descendants currently living there should consider fleeing back to Oklahoma while they still have the chance.
Read it here
Read it here
Thursday, December 11, 2008
How long...
The growing economic depression in Greece has led to days of rioting throughout the country. How long before riots break out in, say, California? Or another state? People are getting desperate here, too. We aren't the same stoic country that endured the depression of the 1930s. Contemporary America is full of angry, frustrated people. The decades of wedge politics practiced by Republicans and pandering by Democrats have dissolved the civility and spirit of community that kept America going in the darkest days of the Great Depression. In short, we simply do not have the moral and spiritual resources that Americans had three generations ago. We will not all grimly soldier on doing our duty. Some of us are will reach for guns and bricks; some of us will try to punish the society that so utterly failed us; some of us will go down fighting anybody and everybody. 2009 is going to be a remarkably interesting year.
Read it here
Read it here
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
California living (but not for long)
If I were still living in California, I might be open to the possibility of fleeing the state before it goes belly up. The news article below does not give any reason to hope that reason will prevail in the California state legislature. Money is running out. The wolf is at the door. Nobody wants to buy California's bonds, at least at the interest rate the state is willing to pay. Of course, California can always borrow money providing it pays a high interest rate--say the rate you're paying to Visa or MasterCard--although a promise to pay from a dead-broke organization doesn't inspire investor confidence. The budget gap is in the billions of dollars and growing. Buddy, can you spare a dime (or a billion $$)?
The rump Republican party has no ideas but, as usual, is happy to play the role of obstructionist. The Democrats won't consider genuine cuts and permanent reductions in state government. Governor Arnold has no ideas, either, but what's new about that? The situation is really getting serious. We are at just the beginning of the great depression of the 21st century; California (and the whole country) has a very long way to go in very greatly reduced circumstances before we recover anything resembling normality. If California government goes belly up now before times get really bad, what are Californians going to do for a government in a year or two or three when millions are out of work and the state is fighting for its life?
Read it here
The rump Republican party has no ideas but, as usual, is happy to play the role of obstructionist. The Democrats won't consider genuine cuts and permanent reductions in state government. Governor Arnold has no ideas, either, but what's new about that? The situation is really getting serious. We are at just the beginning of the great depression of the 21st century; California (and the whole country) has a very long way to go in very greatly reduced circumstances before we recover anything resembling normality. If California government goes belly up now before times get really bad, what are Californians going to do for a government in a year or two or three when millions are out of work and the state is fighting for its life?
Read it here
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
More thoughts on American literacy
I've been thinking a bit more about the plight of literacy in America. The National Adult Literacy Survey tells an appalling tale. Given that the highest literacy level it examines (level 5) is equivalent to the reading skills one needs to read and comprehend an edition of USA Today; given that at most only 21 out of 100 American adults have such skills today; given that such skills are really those required for an average, competent high school student of a mere generation ago; must we not conclude that 79 out of 100 American adults have the reading skills of middle-school students or even grade schoolers? Or, in other words, that 79% of American adults are in effect children in terms of their ability to read about and to comprehend the world? What else can we conclude?
Consider the meaning of this conclusion. The vast majority of adult Americans have no access to essential information concerning government, finance, politics, economics, science, etc. One has to be genuinely literate to read about these topics, but only 21% of Americans could even begin to cope with such written material. Where do the majority of our people get their information? Somebody tells them. Some talking head on TV or some disembodied voice on talk radio tells them about the world--or at least tells them things that seem to be about the world. Or maybe they get their information from favorite actors in sitcoms and nightly dramas or from movies. Passive, uncritical minds open up and get a load of whatever blather comes their way. They have no way to judge or evaluate what they hear; that would require using knowledge acquired by serious reading, which they can't do. They must simply accept whatever they hear, whatever suits their mood or momentary disposition. No wonder American political life is absurd. How long can a democracy survive when the great majority of the people (the demos) do not know and have no way of finding out how it functions?
Consider the meaning of this conclusion. The vast majority of adult Americans have no access to essential information concerning government, finance, politics, economics, science, etc. One has to be genuinely literate to read about these topics, but only 21% of Americans could even begin to cope with such written material. Where do the majority of our people get their information? Somebody tells them. Some talking head on TV or some disembodied voice on talk radio tells them about the world--or at least tells them things that seem to be about the world. Or maybe they get their information from favorite actors in sitcoms and nightly dramas or from movies. Passive, uncritical minds open up and get a load of whatever blather comes their way. They have no way to judge or evaluate what they hear; that would require using knowledge acquired by serious reading, which they can't do. They must simply accept whatever they hear, whatever suits their mood or momentary disposition. No wonder American political life is absurd. How long can a democracy survive when the great majority of the people (the demos) do not know and have no way of finding out how it functions?
Monday, December 8, 2008
It's official: Obama's a bust!
Mr. Obama has yet to take the oath of office, yet his administration is stillborn. How so, you ask? Sheer size. The failed government of George W. Bush is the largest, most bloated, most expensive, and least competent in the history of this nation. Mr. Obama is taking this colossal mess as his starting point and is preparing a government that will be larger, more bloated, and more expensive yet. And what will that get him? A government even less competent than that of Mr. Bush, if such can even be imagined.
Any sensible person with management experience knows exactly what's wrong with the executive branch--it's too damn big! It's supposed to be an executive, not an imperial court, for gosh sake's. Just as you can't have an effective army led by a gazillion generals, brigadiers, colonels, and captains, all with their attendant assistants, subordinates, and subalterns; you can't have an effective executive staffed by thousands of managers each with his own staff, each member of which has his own sub-staff, each member of which has his own sub-sub-staff, etc. The only effective executive possible in this world is small and tightly organized with a minimum of staff. Bigness frustrates effectiveness; bloated bigness destroys effectiveness.
So what is Mr. Obama's choice? Bloat, more bloat, infinite bloat. This silly man is encasing himself in bureaucratic concrete, and he is so inexperienced that he can't even recognize his peril. All he knows is the world of politics where staff size is a matter of prestige and where a politician's worth is measured by the number of bootlickers, parasites, and hangers-on who work for him.
So much for voting for change!
Read it here
Any sensible person with management experience knows exactly what's wrong with the executive branch--it's too damn big! It's supposed to be an executive, not an imperial court, for gosh sake's. Just as you can't have an effective army led by a gazillion generals, brigadiers, colonels, and captains, all with their attendant assistants, subordinates, and subalterns; you can't have an effective executive staffed by thousands of managers each with his own staff, each member of which has his own sub-staff, each member of which has his own sub-sub-staff, etc. The only effective executive possible in this world is small and tightly organized with a minimum of staff. Bigness frustrates effectiveness; bloated bigness destroys effectiveness.
So what is Mr. Obama's choice? Bloat, more bloat, infinite bloat. This silly man is encasing himself in bureaucratic concrete, and he is so inexperienced that he can't even recognize his peril. All he knows is the world of politics where staff size is a matter of prestige and where a politician's worth is measured by the number of bootlickers, parasites, and hangers-on who work for him.
So much for voting for change!
Read it here
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The least read book in the world
Ever wonder why people don't read the Bible much? Many people read about the Bible--more or less. Christian bookstores are full of books purporting to be Bible-based. A fair number of Christians buy these books; some Christians may read a few of these books. The shrinking number of American Christians have some idea what the Bible contains and vague impressions about biblical characters, places, and events. But, in truth, people just don't read the Bible. I've read it twice--in my youth and in the Authorized Version no less (that's "King James" to most people). But I dare say that I could select a random 10,000 people in church on any Sunday and find not a one who has read the entire Bible, few who have read the entire New Testament, fewer still who have read most of the Old Testament. Considering that the Protestant ideal was to place the Bible in the hands of the believer so that he could be his own priest with direct access to scripture and to God, the present state of affairs is deplorable at a minimum. What's the answer?
It's simple. Go on the web and find the National Adult Literacy Survey that the federal government conducts every 10 years or so. The survey divides reading skills by five levels of difficulty, the first being the simplest, the fifth requiring the greatest literacy. The survey describes levels 4 and 5 as requiring considerable ability to handle long passages of text and to perform complex calculations based on those passages. Lest you think that the survey tests your ability to comprehend Hegel or quantum mechanics, the government publishes sample questions from prior surveys to indicate the reading abilities it is examining. Inspect these samples and you'll discover that the highest levels of literacy require the comprehension and calculation abilities of an average high-school student of a mere generation ago. Basically, all you need is a vocabulary sufficient to read USA Today and elementary arithmetic. There's nothing tough about this survey. Or so a literate person would think.
If you examine the results of the survey, you'll discover these amazing facts:
(1) More than 20% of the country is functionally illiterate; that is, one-fifth or more of American adults cannot read a brief passage in simple English (this is level 1 complexity) and comprehend its meaning. Put differently, more than one-fifth of Americans cannot read and understand the message that you are reading right now.
(2) Not more than 21% and as little as 18% of American adults have sufficient reading skills to qualify as level 4 or 5 readers. That fact should terrify you.
To read the Bible, you need reading skills of at least level 4, preferably level 5. To have any hope of truly understanding the Bible, we modern readers need to read the Bible with a special study edition (like the Oxford Study Edition I use) that has lots of notes and explanations of the text; and we need a good commentary (like the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary that I also use). Effective use of these tools gives the modern reader a good, general knowledge of the Bible and its proper historical context. Now, these are basic tools; serious study requires far more complex and specialized apparatus. To use even the basic tools effectively requires reading skills considerably in excess of the Literacy Survey's level 5. Don't take my word for it; just compare passages from these books to the survey's sample questions to see how truly minimal are the reading skills that the survey examines. Yet not more than 21% of American adults possess sufficient reading skills to use these tools; in reality, substantially fewer have the requisite skills.
So why do so few Americans read the Bible? Answer: Because relatively few Americans are sufficiently literate to read the Bible. Most Americans don't read the Bible because they can't.
It's simple. Go on the web and find the National Adult Literacy Survey that the federal government conducts every 10 years or so. The survey divides reading skills by five levels of difficulty, the first being the simplest, the fifth requiring the greatest literacy. The survey describes levels 4 and 5 as requiring considerable ability to handle long passages of text and to perform complex calculations based on those passages. Lest you think that the survey tests your ability to comprehend Hegel or quantum mechanics, the government publishes sample questions from prior surveys to indicate the reading abilities it is examining. Inspect these samples and you'll discover that the highest levels of literacy require the comprehension and calculation abilities of an average high-school student of a mere generation ago. Basically, all you need is a vocabulary sufficient to read USA Today and elementary arithmetic. There's nothing tough about this survey. Or so a literate person would think.
If you examine the results of the survey, you'll discover these amazing facts:
(1) More than 20% of the country is functionally illiterate; that is, one-fifth or more of American adults cannot read a brief passage in simple English (this is level 1 complexity) and comprehend its meaning. Put differently, more than one-fifth of Americans cannot read and understand the message that you are reading right now.
(2) Not more than 21% and as little as 18% of American adults have sufficient reading skills to qualify as level 4 or 5 readers. That fact should terrify you.
To read the Bible, you need reading skills of at least level 4, preferably level 5. To have any hope of truly understanding the Bible, we modern readers need to read the Bible with a special study edition (like the Oxford Study Edition I use) that has lots of notes and explanations of the text; and we need a good commentary (like the Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary that I also use). Effective use of these tools gives the modern reader a good, general knowledge of the Bible and its proper historical context. Now, these are basic tools; serious study requires far more complex and specialized apparatus. To use even the basic tools effectively requires reading skills considerably in excess of the Literacy Survey's level 5. Don't take my word for it; just compare passages from these books to the survey's sample questions to see how truly minimal are the reading skills that the survey examines. Yet not more than 21% of American adults possess sufficient reading skills to use these tools; in reality, substantially fewer have the requisite skills.
So why do so few Americans read the Bible? Answer: Because relatively few Americans are sufficiently literate to read the Bible. Most Americans don't read the Bible because they can't.
In the dumps--literally!
Have you thought that when things get really bad, you might need to become a dumpster diver and gather cans and paper to sell at the recycling center just to keep body and soul together? Well, you'd better have a Plan B handy because the recycling industry is now on the cutting edge of depression. The bottom has dropped out in the recycled materials market. Fewer firms are buying the paper and the bottles and the cans; those that are still buying are doing so at greatly reduced prices. Which, of course, means that the incomes of sellers are dropping precipitously. Which, of course, means hunger and homelessness for many. Only a year ago, how many would have thought that, of all things, earning income by ad hoc garbage collecting (what the euphemistically named "recycling" in truth is) would be in jeopardy in the allegedly richest country on earth?
I've thought for many years that the appearance of prosperity in America was pure vapor, pure facade. In my gut I knew differently. I used to shudder whenever I saw somebody rummaging through a dumpster because I knew that with just a short run of bad luck I could be there too. Today, that vapor is dissipating so fast that even earning a meagre income is a crap shoot. What happens now to the people who have depended on recycling to earn money for their families? What happens to the millions of American families who soon will have no income and no way to get any? What happens if the abyss we have fallen into has no bottom? What if the economic wreckage piling up around us is the new permanent way of life in this country? What if all the talk of recovery we are hearing from our leaders-to-be is just as much vapor as all that talk of prosperity we heard from our leaders-of-the-past? How will we keep body and soul together next year, and the year after, and the year after that? Why are we letting this catastrophe happen?
Read about it here
I've thought for many years that the appearance of prosperity in America was pure vapor, pure facade. In my gut I knew differently. I used to shudder whenever I saw somebody rummaging through a dumpster because I knew that with just a short run of bad luck I could be there too. Today, that vapor is dissipating so fast that even earning a meagre income is a crap shoot. What happens now to the people who have depended on recycling to earn money for their families? What happens to the millions of American families who soon will have no income and no way to get any? What happens if the abyss we have fallen into has no bottom? What if the economic wreckage piling up around us is the new permanent way of life in this country? What if all the talk of recovery we are hearing from our leaders-to-be is just as much vapor as all that talk of prosperity we heard from our leaders-of-the-past? How will we keep body and soul together next year, and the year after, and the year after that? Why are we letting this catastrophe happen?
Read about it here
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Workfare nation
Mr. Obama wants to put America back to work again--patching roads and replacing light bulbs. Yup, he is proposing a colossal public works program as the solution to the crashing job market. Are you a laid-off electrical engineer? Start screwing in energy-efficient light bulbs, pal. Are you an out-of-work cost accountant? Mister, grab a shovel and start filling in the pot holes.
All of this, of course, is "investment" in America, not make-work jobs imagined by a president-to-be who can't think of anything except reviving antique 1930s New Deal programs with him playing the featured role of a faux FDR. Word has not yet reached Mr. Obama that the New Deal was a failure, that intractable American unemployment was relieved only by drafting 10 million men to fight World War II, that idle factories were revived only by conversion to war materiel manufacturing, and that a pre-1929 standard of living was not recovered until after 1945.
But these are mere details. It's the bold, sweeping, new-yet-old, fresh-though-stale thought of our glorious leader-elect that counts. Who will pay for all these grand plans, you ask? Now you spoil the mood. Does Santa Claus pay for the presents he bestows? Does the Easter Bunny pay for the chocolate eggs he leaves in baskets? Why should Mr. Obama pay for the goodies he's about to scatter upon us? Perhaps because this is the real world, you say, and somebody has to pay. Varlet, say I, clam up and get with the program. You cynics in the reality-based community are always trying to pee on our parade. Yes, we can! That's all you need--a positive attitude. The power of positive thinking trumps facts any day of the week and twice on Sundays--especially in Mr. Obama's Washington. If you don't think about financial ruin, then it won't happen. Just look at Wall Street...or Detroit...or California...or some place where people still have money they call their own. We'll get them to pay. Quick, alert the IRS and the Treasury! Help is on the way!
Read the nonsense here
All of this, of course, is "investment" in America, not make-work jobs imagined by a president-to-be who can't think of anything except reviving antique 1930s New Deal programs with him playing the featured role of a faux FDR. Word has not yet reached Mr. Obama that the New Deal was a failure, that intractable American unemployment was relieved only by drafting 10 million men to fight World War II, that idle factories were revived only by conversion to war materiel manufacturing, and that a pre-1929 standard of living was not recovered until after 1945.
But these are mere details. It's the bold, sweeping, new-yet-old, fresh-though-stale thought of our glorious leader-elect that counts. Who will pay for all these grand plans, you ask? Now you spoil the mood. Does Santa Claus pay for the presents he bestows? Does the Easter Bunny pay for the chocolate eggs he leaves in baskets? Why should Mr. Obama pay for the goodies he's about to scatter upon us? Perhaps because this is the real world, you say, and somebody has to pay. Varlet, say I, clam up and get with the program. You cynics in the reality-based community are always trying to pee on our parade. Yes, we can! That's all you need--a positive attitude. The power of positive thinking trumps facts any day of the week and twice on Sundays--especially in Mr. Obama's Washington. If you don't think about financial ruin, then it won't happen. Just look at Wall Street...or Detroit...or California...or some place where people still have money they call their own. We'll get them to pay. Quick, alert the IRS and the Treasury! Help is on the way!
Read the nonsense here
Friday, December 5, 2008
The Pruitts again
Does the state of California owe you any money? If so, get it quick! If you wait too long, you may get a "registered warrant" instead of a check. That mysterious financial instrument will be issued to the state's vendors sometime in early spring after California runs out of money. It is in effect an I.O.U., a promise to pay should California ever get enough money to pay its debts. Here in reality, this is called fraud. Will vendors pay their creditors with "registered warrants?" Or their employees? Do you think Safeway will take "registered warrants?" Or Bank America? Or the utility company? If you or I wrote a "registered warrant," we would go to jail as check kiters. But law is for little people, not governments. The all-powerful government of California will kite as many checks as citizen-dopes will allow until, fed up with the on-going swindle, they storm Sacramento armed with pitchforks, torches, and shotguns and finally run the crook-politicians out of town and out of state. As the country falls deeper into the abyss of depression, you can expect more of the growing number of dead-broke states to follow California's example of kiting checks. Are you ready?
Read about it here
Read about it here
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Pruitts of Southampton redux
I inaugurated this blog with a post comparing California's fiscal mess to that old Phyllis Diller sit-com, "The Pruitts of Southampton," about an ex-rich socialite, dead broke, still trying to keep up the appearance of her once-lavish lifestyle.
Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature continue living the Pruitt lifestyle despite an $11.2 billion budget deficit that must be closed. The Democrats have proposed equal tax increases and spending cuts--$8.2 billion each. Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan is similar. The Republicans are adamant against tax increases but don't propose spending cuts sufficient to balance the budget--a typical ploy for Republicans, who pretend to be anti-tax heroes while letting somebody else do the dirty work of figuring out what to do with spending.
Projections of the growing fiscal crisis put the spending vs. revenue gap at $28 billion within 19 months. Of course, here in the real world there could be no such gap. The state would simply run out of money and stop spending. Period. It would stiff its vendors by not paying them; they in turn would stop providing goods and services until the state paid its outstanding bills. State employees would be laid-off; the lights would go out; the doors would shut. Somebody would put up a big "Out of business" sign on government buildings in Sacramento. Thus the fiscal crisis would end. This happens daily in the private economy. Why can't a state go belly up? Life would go on. Life might be better. Californians would get a chance to start over from square one. You don't get many opportunities in life to start over fresh, so citizens might jump at the chance. Why prop up a bloated, tyrannical, bankrupt government? Why settle for so little? Try something new. Give it a shot and see what happens. Is that the scent of a constitutional convention I smell in the air?
America is now officially in recession. Yes, the National Bureau of Economic Research has just discovered that we have been in recession since December, 2007! Good of them to keep up with current events. America faces a federal budget deficit approaching $2 trillion for this fiscal year alone. The current federal debt is $10 trillion. America is broke; California is broke. Perhaps the only really exciting question is this: In the great race to insolvency, who goes belly up first, California or America?
Read about the fun here
Governor Schwarzenegger and the California legislature continue living the Pruitt lifestyle despite an $11.2 billion budget deficit that must be closed. The Democrats have proposed equal tax increases and spending cuts--$8.2 billion each. Gov. Schwarzenegger's plan is similar. The Republicans are adamant against tax increases but don't propose spending cuts sufficient to balance the budget--a typical ploy for Republicans, who pretend to be anti-tax heroes while letting somebody else do the dirty work of figuring out what to do with spending.
Projections of the growing fiscal crisis put the spending vs. revenue gap at $28 billion within 19 months. Of course, here in the real world there could be no such gap. The state would simply run out of money and stop spending. Period. It would stiff its vendors by not paying them; they in turn would stop providing goods and services until the state paid its outstanding bills. State employees would be laid-off; the lights would go out; the doors would shut. Somebody would put up a big "Out of business" sign on government buildings in Sacramento. Thus the fiscal crisis would end. This happens daily in the private economy. Why can't a state go belly up? Life would go on. Life might be better. Californians would get a chance to start over from square one. You don't get many opportunities in life to start over fresh, so citizens might jump at the chance. Why prop up a bloated, tyrannical, bankrupt government? Why settle for so little? Try something new. Give it a shot and see what happens. Is that the scent of a constitutional convention I smell in the air?
America is now officially in recession. Yes, the National Bureau of Economic Research has just discovered that we have been in recession since December, 2007! Good of them to keep up with current events. America faces a federal budget deficit approaching $2 trillion for this fiscal year alone. The current federal debt is $10 trillion. America is broke; California is broke. Perhaps the only really exciting question is this: In the great race to insolvency, who goes belly up first, California or America?
Read about the fun here
Sunday, November 30, 2008
If you think things are bad today...
Almost one-third of high school students admit to being thieves; almost two-thirds admit to being cheaters. And 93% are satisfied with their morals. What does this tell us about our future?
Of course, there is no shortage of excuse giving and rationalizing. "Intensified pressures," says one Mel Riddle, account for the widespread unethical behavior. He explains: "The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically. They have opportunities their predecessors didn't have (to cheat). The temptation is greater."
Everything Mr. Riddle says is preposterous. The "competition" is not greater; our declining test scores disprove that notion. Just the opposite is likely the case: so low have our academic standards fallen that many students are no longer equipped to perform at even a mediocre level; they cheat as a way to cope for their lack of basic skills and knowledge. And "competition" in no way explains why almost one-third of students steal from stores, their families, and other students--and don't seem to think that this behavior is wrong. That last point is the crux. It is one thing to do wrong but admit that you are a wrong doer. At least you acknowledge a moral standard even if you do not live accordingly. It is quite another thing to do wrong but not acknowledge the wrongness of your acts and believe yourself to be just as good as everybody else. That is moral nihilism, deadly to both individual and society.
You can cobble together your own hypothesis; it might even have some truth. The stark fact remains: the younger generation accepts stealing and cheating as ordinary ways of life. What will life be like when such people are running the country?
Read the cheerful tidings here
Of course, there is no shortage of excuse giving and rationalizing. "Intensified pressures," says one Mel Riddle, account for the widespread unethical behavior. He explains: "The competition is greater, the pressures on kids have increased dramatically. They have opportunities their predecessors didn't have (to cheat). The temptation is greater."
Everything Mr. Riddle says is preposterous. The "competition" is not greater; our declining test scores disprove that notion. Just the opposite is likely the case: so low have our academic standards fallen that many students are no longer equipped to perform at even a mediocre level; they cheat as a way to cope for their lack of basic skills and knowledge. And "competition" in no way explains why almost one-third of students steal from stores, their families, and other students--and don't seem to think that this behavior is wrong. That last point is the crux. It is one thing to do wrong but admit that you are a wrong doer. At least you acknowledge a moral standard even if you do not live accordingly. It is quite another thing to do wrong but not acknowledge the wrongness of your acts and believe yourself to be just as good as everybody else. That is moral nihilism, deadly to both individual and society.
You can cobble together your own hypothesis; it might even have some truth. The stark fact remains: the younger generation accepts stealing and cheating as ordinary ways of life. What will life be like when such people are running the country?
Read the cheerful tidings here
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Yet another address to the nation
Mr. Obama has addressed the nation, proclaiming a "new beginning" when he takes the oath of office in January. Apart from the ridiculous gall of this guy--who is populating his administration with Clinton retreads starting with Hillary--claiming to be a new anything, has nobody noticed that he has assumed at the very least the position of co-president without so much as a by-your-leave? Where does this guy get such presumption? Granted that George W. Bush is the human equivalent of a vacant lot, he is nonetheless the official (for that read "constitutional") president of the United States. Mr. Obama has no official (again, read "constitutional") position or authority in the government of the United States. He has resigned his seat in the Senate. He is just like the rest of us--a private citizen. So what's with all these pseudo-presidential addresses to the nation, all these pronouncements on policy and the economy? Why doesn't he just shut up and get on with the full-time work of staffing his new administration? We are not the late Roman empire ruled by co-emperors; we are a constitutional republic governed by law. The Constitution authorizes only one president at a time and no co-presidents. Mr. Obama's disregard for and disrespect of proper constitutional authority say plenty about how he plans to govern. The rule of law is out; the rule of men is in. Just like the reign of George W. So much for the "new beginning."
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Deficits do matter
Mr. Obama said today that his recovery plan will take precedence over the deficit--meaning that Mr. Obama intends to spend trillions that the government doesn't have and that he won't give a second thought as to where these trillions will come from. However, Mr. Obama did tell us that he will conduct a "page by page, line by line" review of the budget to make sure that we are not wasting money. He did not tell us how he would distinguish wasteful spending from good spending. We are to trust that he can tell the difference; that's part of the faith-based approach to government first tried by George W. Bush and which has now become the very essence of Mr. Obama's new administration.
Says Mr. Obama:
"As soon as the recovery is well under way, we need to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure we are not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation."
Now for some facts: as of November 25, 2008 at 9:45:57 PM GMT the federal debt is $10,658,119,542,237.24. I'd say that's one big mountain of debt already. And this fiscal year's budget deficit will approach $2 trillion (current business media chatter places it around $1 trillion but simply adding up the actual and proposed bailout plans, the original deficit estimate when the budget was proposed, and the "off budget" spending for our two wars yields a figure of nearly $1.5 trillion and the current fiscal year is only two months old!). The optimistic Mr. Obama thinks he can let the deficit slide because we will have recovery first and that will take care of everything. A spoonful of recovery sugar will make the medicine of the deficit go down.
I want to know who will finance this deficit. Who will loan America $2 trillion and why? Since financing this colossal deficit is absolutely essential to Mr. Obama's spend-until-you-drop recovery plan, why does Mr. Obama think that he has the luxury of time to defer dealing with the deficit, particularly since he soon will lead a government that is technically insolvent? Will Mr. Obama, like Blanche DuBois, depend on the kindness of strangers--in this case the Chinese and the Japanese? Are we really supposed to put our futures and the future of our nation into the hands of Chinese and Japanese central bankers and hope that they'll keep shipping us money across the Pacific? Isn't this what Wall Street and Detroit are begging for--a bailout? Is Mr. Obama's "recovery" plan merely begging the world for an American bailout? Alms, alms for the poor!
Mr. Obama will soon discover the error of his ways when currency markets experience their first run on the dollar early in 2009. The dollar is fatally wounded as a currency precisely because deficits do matter, debt does matter, and high living on perpetually renewed loans is impossible. Mr. Obama is wrecking his administration and he hasn't even taken the oath of office yet!
Says Mr. Obama:
"As soon as the recovery is well under way, we need to set up a long-term plan to reduce the structural deficit and make sure we are not leaving a mountain of debt for the next generation."
Now for some facts: as of November 25, 2008 at 9:45:57 PM GMT the federal debt is $10,658,119,542,237.24. I'd say that's one big mountain of debt already. And this fiscal year's budget deficit will approach $2 trillion (current business media chatter places it around $1 trillion but simply adding up the actual and proposed bailout plans, the original deficit estimate when the budget was proposed, and the "off budget" spending for our two wars yields a figure of nearly $1.5 trillion and the current fiscal year is only two months old!). The optimistic Mr. Obama thinks he can let the deficit slide because we will have recovery first and that will take care of everything. A spoonful of recovery sugar will make the medicine of the deficit go down.
I want to know who will finance this deficit. Who will loan America $2 trillion and why? Since financing this colossal deficit is absolutely essential to Mr. Obama's spend-until-you-drop recovery plan, why does Mr. Obama think that he has the luxury of time to defer dealing with the deficit, particularly since he soon will lead a government that is technically insolvent? Will Mr. Obama, like Blanche DuBois, depend on the kindness of strangers--in this case the Chinese and the Japanese? Are we really supposed to put our futures and the future of our nation into the hands of Chinese and Japanese central bankers and hope that they'll keep shipping us money across the Pacific? Isn't this what Wall Street and Detroit are begging for--a bailout? Is Mr. Obama's "recovery" plan merely begging the world for an American bailout? Alms, alms for the poor!
Mr. Obama will soon discover the error of his ways when currency markets experience their first run on the dollar early in 2009. The dollar is fatally wounded as a currency precisely because deficits do matter, debt does matter, and high living on perpetually renewed loans is impossible. Mr. Obama is wrecking his administration and he hasn't even taken the oath of office yet!
The former United States
One of the memorable lines in the recent movie "V" occurs in the rant some evil character makes about "the former United States," a play on that well-used phrase of the 1990s, "the former Soviet Union."
Well, a Russian political analyst thinks that "former" status is in the future for these United States. He has been predicting the break-up of the country for more than a decade. His reason: this country is going dead broke with no possibility of righting itself. And he ought to know since he watched his own country--the former Soviet Union--fall apart for similar reasons.
I've long thought that in the continental US there are at least three separate countries, and the recent election confirms my view. There is a northern country composed of New England, the Atlantic states, the region around Philadelphia, mid-West states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and the region around Pittsburgh. There is a southern and central western country composed of the states of the Confederacy, the central mid-west states and the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, and the states of the west and southwest. Then there is the Pacific country composed of California, Oregon, and Washington. These divisions have been evolving for at least the last two generations, and they continue to evolve and the divisions become ever more marked.
Within those large divisions are smaller divisions. For example, the Pacific country is really the coastal sliver of California, Oregon, and Washington, and it is only about 50 miles wide. The western areas of all three states differ entirely in culture and politics from the urban coastal areas. Those regions really belong to the southern/western country.
The last election conclusively demonstrates that the United States is dividing into distinct, separate regions that are largely hostile to each other in politics, culture, and economics. These differences, already obvious, will become even more pronounced as we fall deeper into depression and can't find any way to escape it. The federal government is already held in contempt by millions in the southern/western country; its enormous future failures will only aggravate that contempt possibly to the point that secession--a word long reserved for libertarian kooks--will become widely discussed among ordinary people as a realistic solution to their problems. Watch out when authorities in the imperial capital--that Constantinople on the Potomac--issue orders and edicts but nobody listens. The end is not far away.
Increasingly, there are good reasons to think that the phrase "the former United States" is the future. When the national vase shatters, what will be made out of the shards?
Read it here
Well, a Russian political analyst thinks that "former" status is in the future for these United States. He has been predicting the break-up of the country for more than a decade. His reason: this country is going dead broke with no possibility of righting itself. And he ought to know since he watched his own country--the former Soviet Union--fall apart for similar reasons.
I've long thought that in the continental US there are at least three separate countries, and the recent election confirms my view. There is a northern country composed of New England, the Atlantic states, the region around Philadelphia, mid-West states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and the region around Pittsburgh. There is a southern and central western country composed of the states of the Confederacy, the central mid-west states and the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, and the states of the west and southwest. Then there is the Pacific country composed of California, Oregon, and Washington. These divisions have been evolving for at least the last two generations, and they continue to evolve and the divisions become ever more marked.
Within those large divisions are smaller divisions. For example, the Pacific country is really the coastal sliver of California, Oregon, and Washington, and it is only about 50 miles wide. The western areas of all three states differ entirely in culture and politics from the urban coastal areas. Those regions really belong to the southern/western country.
The last election conclusively demonstrates that the United States is dividing into distinct, separate regions that are largely hostile to each other in politics, culture, and economics. These differences, already obvious, will become even more pronounced as we fall deeper into depression and can't find any way to escape it. The federal government is already held in contempt by millions in the southern/western country; its enormous future failures will only aggravate that contempt possibly to the point that secession--a word long reserved for libertarian kooks--will become widely discussed among ordinary people as a realistic solution to their problems. Watch out when authorities in the imperial capital--that Constantinople on the Potomac--issue orders and edicts but nobody listens. The end is not far away.
Increasingly, there are good reasons to think that the phrase "the former United States" is the future. When the national vase shatters, what will be made out of the shards?
Read it here
Monday, November 24, 2008
$24,000 and counting
Do you know that you have personally pledged $24,000 in loans and other "investments" to Wall Street, Detroit, and anybody else you can think of? Yes, you have. So has every man, woman, and child in the country. That is the government's bailout commitment so far. Did anybody ask you about it? And there are bailouts aplenty going on even as you read; today Citibank gets $20 billion. That's $20 billion we taxpayers used to have for roads, defense, schools, medical care--just the minor necessities of life that we will now forgo to bail out Citibank this week, and then next week, and then the week after. You get the picture.
You have pledged your financial resources, your home, your labor, and your future. You must be a very generous person, kind hearted and freely sharing. Perhaps a better description might be "chump." You have surrendered your future so that millionaires and CEOs will enjoy their future. How do you feel now that you've been taken to the cleaners?
Read about your generous pledge here
You have pledged your financial resources, your home, your labor, and your future. You must be a very generous person, kind hearted and freely sharing. Perhaps a better description might be "chump." You have surrendered your future so that millionaires and CEOs will enjoy their future. How do you feel now that you've been taken to the cleaners?
Read about your generous pledge here
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Why we will win
Apropos the dissent and schism at present vexing the Episcopal church, Frank Kirkpatrick, a professor of religion at Trinity College in Connecticut, says the following:
"I absolutely think there will be a strong and vibrant Episcopal Church left. Look at the number of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The vast majority don't (care) about whether someone is gay or straight. ... As the older people begin to die off, the rage and passion will begin to disappear."
And that is exactly why we gays will win full civil rights and why, despite set backs, we are winning even now. Death is the great expunger of bigotry. According to the CDC's morbidity and mortality statistics, slightly less than 1% of the American population dies each year, mostly old people. According to surveys, the strongest anti-gay animus is found among old people. If you look at surveys which track attitudes toward gays in relation to sodomy laws, job protection, hate crimes law, civil unions and marriage over many years, you discover that the decline in animus against gay people tracks almost exactly the 1% death rate: every year as more old people die, the social climate for gays improves. We gays will win simply because the older generations are mortal and soon will be no more.
One hesitates to put the case so bluntly; death is not something to celebrate. And one does understand that when they were young, today's elderly (if they knew anything about gay people at all or even thought of them) knew gay people only as loathsome sinners or as criminal perverts or as mentally and emotionally ill people. So they were told by the church, by the state, and by medical science. I don't forgive their prejudice, but I do understand its origins.
Nonetheless, the fact is this: as older generations dwindle, the better life becomes for gay people. How nice and encouraging it would be to attribute the considerable progress gays have made in the last generation to our ability to appeal to the reason and fairness of our fellow citizens; how nice it would be to have reasonable and fair fellow citizens. But the real truth is otherwise: (1) the older generations (unlike their own parents and grandparents) have failed to transmit their prejudices against gay people to their own children and grandchildren; (2) the older generations have run out of time.
"I absolutely think there will be a strong and vibrant Episcopal Church left. Look at the number of people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The vast majority don't (care) about whether someone is gay or straight. ... As the older people begin to die off, the rage and passion will begin to disappear."
And that is exactly why we gays will win full civil rights and why, despite set backs, we are winning even now. Death is the great expunger of bigotry. According to the CDC's morbidity and mortality statistics, slightly less than 1% of the American population dies each year, mostly old people. According to surveys, the strongest anti-gay animus is found among old people. If you look at surveys which track attitudes toward gays in relation to sodomy laws, job protection, hate crimes law, civil unions and marriage over many years, you discover that the decline in animus against gay people tracks almost exactly the 1% death rate: every year as more old people die, the social climate for gays improves. We gays will win simply because the older generations are mortal and soon will be no more.
One hesitates to put the case so bluntly; death is not something to celebrate. And one does understand that when they were young, today's elderly (if they knew anything about gay people at all or even thought of them) knew gay people only as loathsome sinners or as criminal perverts or as mentally and emotionally ill people. So they were told by the church, by the state, and by medical science. I don't forgive their prejudice, but I do understand its origins.
Nonetheless, the fact is this: as older generations dwindle, the better life becomes for gay people. How nice and encouraging it would be to attribute the considerable progress gays have made in the last generation to our ability to appeal to the reason and fairness of our fellow citizens; how nice it would be to have reasonable and fair fellow citizens. But the real truth is otherwise: (1) the older generations (unlike their own parents and grandparents) have failed to transmit their prejudices against gay people to their own children and grandchildren; (2) the older generations have run out of time.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Both a satire and the literal truth
Remember the good old days when you could tell satire from reality? Nowadays when it comes to the lunatics on the religious right, you just can't tell anymore. As evidence, consider this piece from The Onion. The tone of the piece is satire, but the views expressed are solid Christian fundamentalism, the sort of stuff you can find in any fundamentalist church.
Pretty spooky!
Read it here
Pretty spooky!
Read it here
Confirmation of impending catastrophe
If you thought that electing Barack Obama president would set the country back on the right track, we now have absolute confirmation that nothing of the sort will happen. From his speech today:
"I have already directed my economic team to come up with an Economic Recovery Plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011 – a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face that I intend to sign soon after taking office. We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead."
In other words, the federal government will use money that it does not have to create jobs out of thin air. Who will be hired, why, on what qualifications? What specific positions will be created, why, for what purpose? Who will choose, on what basis, for what purpose, to accomplish what goals? Not a word about that. Just a plan is in the works, hang on, the good times will roll eventually.
Does Mr. Obama not know that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year will be $2 trillion? Only a few years ago this sum was the entire budget for the federal government; now it is only the deficit. Who will finance this deficit? Not Americans because we have no savings. The Chinese? The Japanese? They have that kind of money just lying around unused? Will they hand us $2 trillion just because they like us? Does Mr. Obama not know that somebody has to pay for all his dreams and promises? Why do we keep listening to this nonsense?
Do you want to know what is really going to happen in the next four years? Then go here and listen to podcast 72 with Peter Schiff of Europacific Capital. He'll tell you what's really going to happen in a dead-broke country with an insolvent government. It doesn't sound anything like Mr. Obama's dreamworld.
"I have already directed my economic team to come up with an Economic Recovery Plan that will mean 2.5 million more jobs by January of 2011 – a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face that I intend to sign soon after taking office. We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels; fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead."
In other words, the federal government will use money that it does not have to create jobs out of thin air. Who will be hired, why, on what qualifications? What specific positions will be created, why, for what purpose? Who will choose, on what basis, for what purpose, to accomplish what goals? Not a word about that. Just a plan is in the works, hang on, the good times will roll eventually.
Does Mr. Obama not know that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year will be $2 trillion? Only a few years ago this sum was the entire budget for the federal government; now it is only the deficit. Who will finance this deficit? Not Americans because we have no savings. The Chinese? The Japanese? They have that kind of money just lying around unused? Will they hand us $2 trillion just because they like us? Does Mr. Obama not know that somebody has to pay for all his dreams and promises? Why do we keep listening to this nonsense?
Do you want to know what is really going to happen in the next four years? Then go here and listen to podcast 72 with Peter Schiff of Europacific Capital. He'll tell you what's really going to happen in a dead-broke country with an insolvent government. It doesn't sound anything like Mr. Obama's dreamworld.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Feed them to the lions (as if!)
Apparently a group of kooks shows up in San Francisco's Castro district (a.k.a. downtown Gaytown) every Friday night to deliver a message of hope and love: God hates queers and plans to send them all to hell. Last Friday, with emotions raw from the Proposition 8 fight, the little group of kooks bumped into an angry bunch of gays who basically ran them out of the Castro. Good, it's about time.
Nero supposedly had Christian pyromaniacs doused in tar and set aflame as punishment for setting fires during the great fire of Rome in 64 A.D. (or so claims Tacitus in a now much doubted passage in "Annals"). Christians have milked this tale for martyrs beyond counting, including St. Peter and St. Paul (remember "Quo Vadis" and all that?). Nowadays serious historians doubt that any of this happened, but the need to be a martyr (known in secular precincts as "professional victimhood") remains strong among certain kinds of Christians--and our little group of Castro kooks is queuing up for martyrdom as word of their escapade spreads among the faithful.
The kooks were driven off with taunts of "Shame on You" and loud whistle blowing. Sadly, none of the gays had any banana cream pies handy. The kooks are telling lurid stories of suffering threats and terror; visions of Jesus and the Virgin cannot be far behind. Wingnuts galore are warning about "violent gays." The great grasp of unreason tightens.
Watch the fun here
Nero supposedly had Christian pyromaniacs doused in tar and set aflame as punishment for setting fires during the great fire of Rome in 64 A.D. (or so claims Tacitus in a now much doubted passage in "Annals"). Christians have milked this tale for martyrs beyond counting, including St. Peter and St. Paul (remember "Quo Vadis" and all that?). Nowadays serious historians doubt that any of this happened, but the need to be a martyr (known in secular precincts as "professional victimhood") remains strong among certain kinds of Christians--and our little group of Castro kooks is queuing up for martyrdom as word of their escapade spreads among the faithful.
The kooks were driven off with taunts of "Shame on You" and loud whistle blowing. Sadly, none of the gays had any banana cream pies handy. The kooks are telling lurid stories of suffering threats and terror; visions of Jesus and the Virgin cannot be far behind. Wingnuts galore are warning about "violent gays." The great grasp of unreason tightens.
Watch the fun here
One reason why we're doomed
Here's a glaring example why the American economy is going, going, soon to be gone: house prices in Southern California have fallen by more than 40%! And worse, they won't ever be going back up. What are families going to do? "We bought a house for $500,000 and now we're stuck in a neighborhood full of empty, foreclosed shanties and our house is worth only $300,000 but nobody wants to buy it and we're still stuck with a $500,000 mortgage!" Does any rational person believe that homeowners are going to keep making payments on mortgages for homes worth only 60% or 50% or 40% of those mortgages? For the next 30 years? The sub-prime crisis was just the beginning; now it is the turn of previously solid middle-class homeowners to walk away. More bank failures are just around the corner.
Read it here
Read it here
But the crook does have a sympathetic heart
Alaska senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens recently said: "I wouldn't wish what I'm going through on anyone, my worst enemy. I haven't had a night's sleep for almost four months."
Things got worse yesterday when, with almost all votes now counted, Mr. Stevens lost his seat, which he would have lost anyway had he won since the Senate would certainly have expelled him.
It's nice that Mr. Stevens wouldn't wish his travails on his worst enemy, but why did Mr. Stevens wish them upon himself? Everything bad that has befallen him was caused by his own hand. He was convicted on seven counts of lying by failing to report gifts. These weren't "whoops, I forgot" boo-boos; he got some $250,000 in gifts (absurdly insisting that just because someone put something in his house which he subsequently used and enjoyed for years didn't mean that he had received a gift--he actually said this on the witness stand under oath!).
Were these gifts worth your career, Mr. Stevens? You'll have a lot of free time in your cell to ponder that question. Now at 85, this sad, old man gets to see everything he ever achieved, every good deed he ever did, obliterated by the fact that he is a convicted felon on his way to prison where he may spend the last years of his life. A lifetime lost to greed. What does it profit a man...?
Things got worse yesterday when, with almost all votes now counted, Mr. Stevens lost his seat, which he would have lost anyway had he won since the Senate would certainly have expelled him.
It's nice that Mr. Stevens wouldn't wish his travails on his worst enemy, but why did Mr. Stevens wish them upon himself? Everything bad that has befallen him was caused by his own hand. He was convicted on seven counts of lying by failing to report gifts. These weren't "whoops, I forgot" boo-boos; he got some $250,000 in gifts (absurdly insisting that just because someone put something in his house which he subsequently used and enjoyed for years didn't mean that he had received a gift--he actually said this on the witness stand under oath!).
Were these gifts worth your career, Mr. Stevens? You'll have a lot of free time in your cell to ponder that question. Now at 85, this sad, old man gets to see everything he ever achieved, every good deed he ever did, obliterated by the fact that he is a convicted felon on his way to prison where he may spend the last years of his life. A lifetime lost to greed. What does it profit a man...?
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
These are the sort who did the evil deed
Although this video was made by people obviously hostile to Barack Obama, it is instructive about one thing: these are the sort of people who in California voted for Obama for whatever reason and voted against the basic human right of marriage for gay people. Does anyone think that any of the people in the video could articulate logical, fact-based reasons why they voted for Obama? How many of these people could possibly express a coherent, rational opinion why gay people should not get married or why as voters they believe themselves empowered to deprive a class of people of fundamental rights? Did you read that piece by Chris Hedges about the vast and growing class of illiterate and nearly illiterate Americans who simply cannot think reasonably about their world and respond only to images and emotions? These are some of the people he was talking about. And lest you think I am partisan, the results would have been exactly the same had twelve supporters of John McCain been interviewed. That is the frightful state of political life in this democracy.
Watch it here
Watch it here
Monday, November 17, 2008
A slimy Newt speaks
Newt Gringrich talking to Bill O'Reilly: "Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school."
So Newt Gringrich believes in historic Christianity? Like the part that forbids adultery and divorce? Mr. Gringrich is on his 3rd wife (having dumped the first while she was fighting cancer and having dumped the second by announcing his divorce to the news media before he ever told her) and goodness only knows how many mistresses (recall that he was dethroned as Speaker of the House because his adultery and mistress were made public at exactly the same time that he was leading the impeachment attempt against that notorious adulterer Bill Clinton). This man genuinely has no conception how vile and hypocritical he is. Everybody else does. The idea of a serial adulterer pretending to defend the sanctity of traditional marriage! Yet still he gets a public platform and dimwits buy his BS.
So Newt Gringrich believes in historic Christianity? Like the part that forbids adultery and divorce? Mr. Gringrich is on his 3rd wife (having dumped the first while she was fighting cancer and having dumped the second by announcing his divorce to the news media before he ever told her) and goodness only knows how many mistresses (recall that he was dethroned as Speaker of the House because his adultery and mistress were made public at exactly the same time that he was leading the impeachment attempt against that notorious adulterer Bill Clinton). This man genuinely has no conception how vile and hypocritical he is. Everybody else does. The idea of a serial adulterer pretending to defend the sanctity of traditional marriage! Yet still he gets a public platform and dimwits buy his BS.
Who says there isn't a God?
Proposition 8 may have temporarily halted gays getting married in California, but James Dobson playing sugar daddy to the pro-Prop 8 mob is now costing employees at Focus on the Family their jobs. Sounds like karma to me. In gay parlance, that would be "what goes around, comes around."
Karma at Focus on the Family
Karma at Focus on the Family
A sane man in a crazy world
Paul Craig Roberts is a sane voice crying in the wilderness. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the early Reagan administration and one of the most important advocates for "supply side" economics, which was a correction of the tax system that was penalizing business and causing stagflation. He was right, and America put an end to stagflation for nearly 30 years until our glorious leader, George W. Bush, and his agents of evil in the Treasury and the Federal Reserve inadvertently revived stagflation by financing Bush's wicked wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and now Pakistan with unlimited borrowing and the printing of dollars. We are back to the dismal world of the 1970s, its rising inflation and falling employment and economic stagnation, without a clue how to escape.
Mr. Roberts was a darling of the conservative Republicans and was published in all the best journals--the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Baron's, etc. But when Bush started his crazy wars, Roberts objected clearly and strenuously. For doing so, he quickly became an unperson. Strangely now, he is welcome among left wingers and is regularly published in Counterpunch.
He has been warning us for years and years that the American economy is being hollowed out, that we are bleeding to death with a vast trade deficit, that reckless deficit spending for wars and the military/industrial complex is bankrupting the government, and that borrowing trillions from foreigners with no hope to repay them will destroy the dollar. The grim realities of today's headlines prove him right.
In this column, he warns America that the bailout billions flowing from Washington will result in a budget deficit this year alone of $2 trillion, all of which must either be borrowed from foreigners or printed up at the Federal Reserve. We can't finance such colossal debt, so resorting to the printing press will be the government's only option. Want a peek at America's future? Look at Zimbabwe today--inflation without limit. You say that it can't happen here? Yes, it can; and, yes, it will.
Read "The Crisis Has Hardly Begun"
Mr. Roberts was a darling of the conservative Republicans and was published in all the best journals--the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Baron's, etc. But when Bush started his crazy wars, Roberts objected clearly and strenuously. For doing so, he quickly became an unperson. Strangely now, he is welcome among left wingers and is regularly published in Counterpunch.
He has been warning us for years and years that the American economy is being hollowed out, that we are bleeding to death with a vast trade deficit, that reckless deficit spending for wars and the military/industrial complex is bankrupting the government, and that borrowing trillions from foreigners with no hope to repay them will destroy the dollar. The grim realities of today's headlines prove him right.
In this column, he warns America that the bailout billions flowing from Washington will result in a budget deficit this year alone of $2 trillion, all of which must either be borrowed from foreigners or printed up at the Federal Reserve. We can't finance such colossal debt, so resorting to the printing press will be the government's only option. Want a peek at America's future? Look at Zimbabwe today--inflation without limit. You say that it can't happen here? Yes, it can; and, yes, it will.
Read "The Crisis Has Hardly Begun"
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Now you ask the question?
Evidently Commerce Secretary Carlos Guiterrez has been tasked by his employer to oppose giving the American Big-3 automakers bailout loans. Says the good secretary: "If you start that, where do you stop? There's a line of companies of industries waiting at Treasury just to see if they can get their hands on those $700 billion."
My dear Mr. Secretary, shouldn't you have asked this question before your employer OKed the $700 billion bailout? And instead of asking a rhetorical question, shouldn't you have addressed your question to your employer and waited for a genuine answer? Now that the bailout is in progress, isn't it too late to be so fastidious about who get the bucks and who doesn't? On what logical, consistent basis can you refuse anyone? Since you have thrown away any principles to stand on, on what basis do you make this stand?
My dear Mr. Secretary, shouldn't you have asked this question before your employer OKed the $700 billion bailout? And instead of asking a rhetorical question, shouldn't you have addressed your question to your employer and waited for a genuine answer? Now that the bailout is in progress, isn't it too late to be so fastidious about who get the bucks and who doesn't? On what logical, consistent basis can you refuse anyone? Since you have thrown away any principles to stand on, on what basis do you make this stand?
Inspiration and determination
Yesterday's nation-wide protests against Proposition 8 and in favor of full civil rights for gay people were an inspiration. Nothing like this has ever occurred in the long struggle we gay people have made for our civil rights. There have been passionate outbursts before (e.g., Stonewall in 1969, which is commemorated every year in Gay Pride), but this mass movement is different. It was proposed spontaneously on-line, spread by word of mouth and email, and organized entirely by ordinary people. This is real democracy--the demos, the people, speaking as one to the entire nation. That is the difference. Not an elite or a band of self-chosen "leaders." The people, gays and straights, are running the show now. We will win in California soon; that foul stain on the state's constitution will not endure. Then other states, one by one. No one will give us full equality; in the true American rough-and-tumble way, we will claim it for ourselves, we will fight for it ourselves, and we will obtain it for ourselves. And unlike our enemies, we will fight with every honorable means at our disposal to win the hearts and minds of honorable Americans.
Right answer, wrong thinking
So Republican Senators Shelby and Kyl oppose a $25 billion loan to the Big 3 American car makers. Why? Says a man who knows nothing about the car industry, Mr. Shelby, "They're not building the right products. They've got good workers but I don't believe they've got good management. They don't innovate. They're a dinosaur in a sense." Of course, all of this is preposterous. The market (not the ignorant Mr. Shelby) determines whether or not GM builds the right products, and GM has been selling millions of its products every year. Obviously somebody thinks that GM builds the "right products." Regarding management, did GM's management just suddenly go sour? Hardly. They don't "innovate?" Every year GM produces more and different products and, again, sells millions of units all across the globe. Thus trashing the Big 3--a.k.a. argumentum ad hominem--is not a proper response to the question on the table: whether to bail these companies out or not.
So why should the government not give the Big 3 a $25 billion loan? For these two simple reasons: (1) Nothing in the Constitution allows the federal government to loan tax dollars to private companies; (2) The federal government--certainly including Senators Shelby and Kyl--is not competent to decide whether or not GM, Ford, and Chrysler should survive as independent companies. The government has no knowledge, insight, or wisdom by which it could arrive at a reasonable conclusion either way, for or against. Survival or failure are market events to be decided by the market alone.
Our two glorious senators should tell the truth: they are not allowed to loan tax dollars to private concerns, and they are not competent to impose their opinions on the market. In other words, the very question of a tax dollar-funded bailout should never have been considered by the government in the first place because by its very nature the government lacks both the authority and the competence to consider the issue.
Read it here
So why should the government not give the Big 3 a $25 billion loan? For these two simple reasons: (1) Nothing in the Constitution allows the federal government to loan tax dollars to private companies; (2) The federal government--certainly including Senators Shelby and Kyl--is not competent to decide whether or not GM, Ford, and Chrysler should survive as independent companies. The government has no knowledge, insight, or wisdom by which it could arrive at a reasonable conclusion either way, for or against. Survival or failure are market events to be decided by the market alone.
Our two glorious senators should tell the truth: they are not allowed to loan tax dollars to private concerns, and they are not competent to impose their opinions on the market. In other words, the very question of a tax dollar-funded bailout should never have been considered by the government in the first place because by its very nature the government lacks both the authority and the competence to consider the issue.
Read it here
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The Great Depression of 2009
Like scary tales that make your spine tingle? Like to read graphs and economic data? Then here's some scary geek reading combining the best of both. Call it "Oswald Spengler Redux: The Decline of the West, American Style." The Crash of 2008 precedes the Catastrophe of 2009. The misery has just begun. John Williams of ShadowStats estimates real unemployment (that is, unemployed people who want work but cannot find any or part-time workers seeking full-time work but cannot find any) at about 15% today! That's an unemployment rate equal to that of circa 1931 and then later circa 1937--years in the depths of the Great Depression. In terms of unemployment, we are in a depression right now. And unemployment will just get worse and worse. What are we going to do? And why don't we recognize our peril? Are we so totally lost in playing make-believe, so utterly incapable of confronting the real world as it really is, that we are paralyzed and unable to respond? Are we just going to sit around and hope that somebody, some where, will tell us what to do?
Read the grim stats here
Read the grim stats here
Next stop: The Inquisition
American Catholic bishops are "warning" President-elect Obama against the Freedom Of Choice Act, a proposed federal law that would guarantee women full access to abortion and other reproductive services by canceling any state-based attempt to interfere with such access. The bishops, who of course want to impose their theology on America whether we citizens want it or not, are up in arms. They claim that "Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans."
Really? Alienate tens of millions of American from what? The Constitution? The law? From Mr. Obama? From Congress?
The bishops also claim that "It [FOCA] would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry." First, the "abortion industry" is known in normal, non-sanctimonious language as medicine and medical services, which of course are well-regulated by the states. Second, as for "modest restraints," the bishops lie by euphemism. They want to eliminate abortion, period. Their idea of restraint is any and all legal obstructions that prevent women from controlling their own bodies; they want to keep piling on the "modest restraints" until access to abortion is thwarted by a legal network of exceptions, procedures, and protocols that women cannot penetrate or surmount.
The real threat here is to the bishops: FOCA puts the anti-abortion crowd out of business, thus curtailing a source of funding for the Religious Right and their cronies. Abortion and gay rights are the two cash cows of the Religious Right, which has been milking them for every penny for the last 30 years. If abortion goes, then the Religious Right goes belly up for want of money; they know it, their friends the Catholic bishops know it, the right to choice folks know it. That's the real reason why the Catholic bishops are threatening Mr. Obama: money makes religion go around, so don't mess with the money!
Read it here
Really? Alienate tens of millions of American from what? The Constitution? The law? From Mr. Obama? From Congress?
The bishops also claim that "It [FOCA] would deprive the American people in all 50 states of the freedom to enact modest restraints and regulations on the abortion industry." First, the "abortion industry" is known in normal, non-sanctimonious language as medicine and medical services, which of course are well-regulated by the states. Second, as for "modest restraints," the bishops lie by euphemism. They want to eliminate abortion, period. Their idea of restraint is any and all legal obstructions that prevent women from controlling their own bodies; they want to keep piling on the "modest restraints" until access to abortion is thwarted by a legal network of exceptions, procedures, and protocols that women cannot penetrate or surmount.
The real threat here is to the bishops: FOCA puts the anti-abortion crowd out of business, thus curtailing a source of funding for the Religious Right and their cronies. Abortion and gay rights are the two cash cows of the Religious Right, which has been milking them for every penny for the last 30 years. If abortion goes, then the Religious Right goes belly up for want of money; they know it, their friends the Catholic bishops know it, the right to choice folks know it. That's the real reason why the Catholic bishops are threatening Mr. Obama: money makes religion go around, so don't mess with the money!
Read it here
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Terrific sites for economics
Here are two terrific sites for anyone who wants to understand why the American economy is going down the crapper.
First, a site dedicated to the only rational economics around, the Austrian school. The Mises Institute is the sole place savants need to find the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about economics.
Second, a fine vantage point from which to watch the American economic train wreck is Economy In Crisis. If we're all going down (and we are), at least a few hardy souls will want to know why. Here's the place to find out.
First, a site dedicated to the only rational economics around, the Austrian school. The Mises Institute is the sole place savants need to find the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about economics.
Second, a fine vantage point from which to watch the American economic train wreck is Economy In Crisis. If we're all going down (and we are), at least a few hardy souls will want to know why. Here's the place to find out.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
And it will just keep getting worse and worse
What is worse than graduating from college only to face the prospect of no job and no income? Being $22,000 in debt from college loans! The upheaval in American higher education is just beginning, but the writing is on the wall for all to see: No money, no students, huge cutbacks, unemployed professors, bankrupt colleges and universities.
Read it here
Read it here
It can't happen here!
"No, it can never happen here. Why? Because it just can't, that's why! Cased closed. Finito. There, I told you so."
When Martin Hennecke makes some sobering comments on the worsening economic crisis and mentions the possibility that the colossal bailout debt the US is developing may lose the government its AAA bond rating, you'd think he was talking crazy or so says a fellow guest commentator. According to this eternal optimist, economic laws don't apply to the USA. Everything will be fine in the end. Pollyanna couldn't have said it better.
Watch it here
When Martin Hennecke makes some sobering comments on the worsening economic crisis and mentions the possibility that the colossal bailout debt the US is developing may lose the government its AAA bond rating, you'd think he was talking crazy or so says a fellow guest commentator. According to this eternal optimist, economic laws don't apply to the USA. Everything will be fine in the end. Pollyanna couldn't have said it better.
Watch it here
Can Americans think straight?
According to a new poll:
"Eighty percent say trimming personal tax rates should be a goal when the new president takes office in January, but only 36 percent say the cuts should [be] a very top priority, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll."
We are in the throes of a recession that is very rapidly devolving into a depression worse than that of the 1930s, yet 64% of Americans have a completely wrong idea how to cope with the situation. Tax cuts (with corresponding spending cuts) are the only way to repair the crashing economy. People and businesses must retain more of what they earn, save it, and reinvest it; the government--which is the biggest consumer, not a producer or investor--must restrain its appetites in favor of rebuilding savings and capital in the private economy. As for the ostensibly sensible 36%, I'll bet a dollar that most of them want only half of the necessary remedy--tax cuts but not a dime in spending cuts. That's been Republican gospel for the last 30 years, and we are paying a terrible price for that foolishness.
Consumption and spending and borrowing and inflating will impoverish us, not restore us. When your assets and wealth are diminishing, you must save, not consume whatever you have left. Why can't Americans figure this out?
Read it here
"Eighty percent say trimming personal tax rates should be a goal when the new president takes office in January, but only 36 percent say the cuts should [be] a very top priority, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll."
We are in the throes of a recession that is very rapidly devolving into a depression worse than that of the 1930s, yet 64% of Americans have a completely wrong idea how to cope with the situation. Tax cuts (with corresponding spending cuts) are the only way to repair the crashing economy. People and businesses must retain more of what they earn, save it, and reinvest it; the government--which is the biggest consumer, not a producer or investor--must restrain its appetites in favor of rebuilding savings and capital in the private economy. As for the ostensibly sensible 36%, I'll bet a dollar that most of them want only half of the necessary remedy--tax cuts but not a dime in spending cuts. That's been Republican gospel for the last 30 years, and we are paying a terrible price for that foolishness.
Consumption and spending and borrowing and inflating will impoverish us, not restore us. When your assets and wealth are diminishing, you must save, not consume whatever you have left. Why can't Americans figure this out?
Read it here
Reason, decency, and human rights in Conn.
Congratulations to the people of Connecticut for enlarging their understanding of human rights to include gay couples wishing to be married. On election day, the citizens of Connecticut turned away an attempt by the theocons to call a constitutional convention for the purpose of overturning the ruling of the state's supreme court that equality before the law means equality for gay people, too. As of today, gays are getting married, and "equal" in Connecticut really does mean "equal."
Looking ahead to 2009, we can look expect more advances in New York and possibly New Jersey. In Vermont, public hearings have been examining whether to extend marriage rights to civil unions. And of course, the battle continues in California; 43 legislators have just signed their names to a friend of the court brief urging the state's supreme court to stay Proposition 8.
What a different time for American gays A.D. 2008 is compared to just 10 years ago when even civil unions were anathema to just about everybody in the country. Now civil unions are the Religious Right's compromise position! Full equality before the law will belong to gay people in this country very soon.
Read the happy news here!
Looking ahead to 2009, we can look expect more advances in New York and possibly New Jersey. In Vermont, public hearings have been examining whether to extend marriage rights to civil unions. And of course, the battle continues in California; 43 legislators have just signed their names to a friend of the court brief urging the state's supreme court to stay Proposition 8.
What a different time for American gays A.D. 2008 is compared to just 10 years ago when even civil unions were anathema to just about everybody in the country. Now civil unions are the Religious Right's compromise position! Full equality before the law will belong to gay people in this country very soon.
Read the happy news here!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
A ray of sunshine
As ominous as the new Democrat ascendancy is for the economic future of America (a future which the Republicans--let me give credit where credit is due--pretty much flushed down the toilet), the Democrats will doubtless advance the liberal social agenda, and I'm all for that. In particular, Roe v. Wade is now secure forever. All the Religious Right's scheming and planning and conniving for the past 30 years have come to nothing. They came within a hair's breadth of stacking the Supreme Court with Scalias and Thomases, but Justice Stevens proved to be too tough an old bird for them and beat the theocons by living to see their ruin. Obama's appoints to the court will upend a generation of wingnut hopes and dreams. The finger of fate has written, and all the regrets and tears will not cause it to erase even half a word: Roe v. Wade is and will remain the law of the land.
And no more abstinence-based BS, no more twisted anti-sex pseudo-education, no more fantasy about breast cancer is God's revenge on abortion, or any of the other preposterous nonsense we've heard from the Bush administration, the previous Bush administration, and the Reagan administration. No more lying for Jesus in Washington, D.C. Further, the Democrats are getting ready to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which will override state laws that have been obstructing women from exercising their reproductive rights.
The Catholic bishops are aghast. Watch them go after Catholic Democrats--especially Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi--with the only tools they have left--denial of sacraments at mass and maybe even excommunication. American theocracy takes a giant leap backward, but it won't go quietly or even with a bit of dignity.
And no more abstinence-based BS, no more twisted anti-sex pseudo-education, no more fantasy about breast cancer is God's revenge on abortion, or any of the other preposterous nonsense we've heard from the Bush administration, the previous Bush administration, and the Reagan administration. No more lying for Jesus in Washington, D.C. Further, the Democrats are getting ready to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, which will override state laws that have been obstructing women from exercising their reproductive rights.
The Catholic bishops are aghast. Watch them go after Catholic Democrats--especially Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi--with the only tools they have left--denial of sacraments at mass and maybe even excommunication. American theocracy takes a giant leap backward, but it won't go quietly or even with a bit of dignity.
Second thoughts in Utah
The great grasp of unreason loosens a bit in the Kingdom of the Latter Day Saints, a.k.a. the state of Utah. One suspects that high Mormon shamans, startled by the very sharp anti-Mormon reaction following Proposition 8, are trying to figure out how to head off a PR mess by making happy talk about the church having "no opposition" to gay civil unions and domestic partnerships. That's the story today. Of course, the story yesterday and the day before yesterday and the day before that was adamant opposition to gay civil unions and domestic partnerships. I'm sure the story will change tomorrow. However, strike while the iron is hot, so politicians in Utah are preparing various gay-friendly bills for the new legislative session in January that will grant many domestic partnership-like rights to Utah gays. They claim they are taking church elders at their word. Certainly they know, we know, and everybody knows that there is no point taking Mormon church officials at their word because they will deny that they ever said anything in the first place. But maybe this time the Proposition 8 backlash will keep PR pressure hot and heavy enough for Utah gays to exploit an awkward public relations moment for the Mormons. Don't hold your breath, but keep your fingers crossed.
Read it here
Read it here
Monday, November 10, 2008
Just a quick thought
I was reading a bit about the new National Socialist experiment America is conducting during the last months of the Bush administration (without all the Aryan superman stuff that so fascinated the German mind of the 1930s, of course), when this thought occurred to me:
The $850 billion bailout plan just passed by Congress now allows the government to acquire part ownership of the financial institutions it is bailing out (for example, it owns some 80% of AIG). But the government also regulates these institutions--that is, the government regulates the businesses it partially owns. Isn't this the very definition of "conflict of interest?" Isn't this a crime? How can the regulator honestly regulate himself? Shouldn't the government begin a criminal investigation of itself? Maybe it will indict itself, try itself, convict itself, and sentence itself to federal prison where, in yet another conflict of interest, it will guard itself.
The $850 billion bailout plan just passed by Congress now allows the government to acquire part ownership of the financial institutions it is bailing out (for example, it owns some 80% of AIG). But the government also regulates these institutions--that is, the government regulates the businesses it partially owns. Isn't this the very definition of "conflict of interest?" Isn't this a crime? How can the regulator honestly regulate himself? Shouldn't the government begin a criminal investigation of itself? Maybe it will indict itself, try itself, convict itself, and sentence itself to federal prison where, in yet another conflict of interest, it will guard itself.
Wow! Essential reading from Chris Hedges
Read this piece by Chris Hedges and despair. What a world we have made for ourselves!
Chris Hedges is one of the wisest people writing today. His books on war are indispensable--because as a 20-year war correspondent he lived on the front lines and saw, heard, felt, and smelled war daily. Despite its frivolous title, his "Losing Moses on the Freeway" is one of the profoundest treatments of morality I can recall reading. Powerful and, again, indispensable.
And he is above all a man of genuine courage. He gave a commencement speech at Rockford College in May, 2003, that came within a hair's breadth of setting off a riot. Why? Because he dared say that war was wrong and disastrous to an American audience enraptured by Bush's glorious war of liberation in Iraq. Would to God we had listened to him then!
Read his piece here:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/
Chris Hedges is one of the wisest people writing today. His books on war are indispensable--because as a 20-year war correspondent he lived on the front lines and saw, heard, felt, and smelled war daily. Despite its frivolous title, his "Losing Moses on the Freeway" is one of the profoundest treatments of morality I can recall reading. Powerful and, again, indispensable.
And he is above all a man of genuine courage. He gave a commencement speech at Rockford College in May, 2003, that came within a hair's breadth of setting off a riot. Why? Because he dared say that war was wrong and disastrous to an American audience enraptured by Bush's glorious war of liberation in Iraq. Would to God we had listened to him then!
Read his piece here:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/
It's come to this?
You know things are truly bad when the Post Office expects to layoff 40,000 employees. If it happens, it would be the Post Office's first layoff ever. Holy cow!
Read it here:
http://www.ksla.com/global/story.asp?s=9247633
Read it here:
http://www.ksla.com/global/story.asp?s=9247633
Three cheers for Mr. Olympia!
Governor Arnold does what craven Democrats won't do: He encourages California gays to keep fighting because they will win eventually. Can you imagine any Democrat anywhere in California (except possibly San Francisco) going on the record with unequivocal support for the right of gays to marry? And he's Republican! That spineless oyster Dianne Feinstein wouldn't do it. She made an ostensibly anti-Prop 8 TV ad in which she opposed "discrimination." Girl, opposing "discrimination" takes as much courage as opposing bad smells. Gays getting married, not "discrimination," was the issue on the table. And don't let her sister senator/oyster, Barbara Boxer, off the hook, either; she didn't even bother to make a TV ad because "she wasn't asked." Oh please, woman, even you can think of a better lie than that!
Goodness knows that the schmuck Arnold replaced, Gray Davis, never let such words pass his lips. Gays got domestic partnerships out of Davis only because he was in the throes of fighting the recall and desperately needed every vote he could buy; in calmer times Gray Davis would certainly have thrown gays under the bus and vetoed domestic partnerships because that conniving bastard had his eyes on a run for the White House and didn't want any gay baggage to weigh him down. Liberal Democrats--they are men and women of principle, each and every one of them (and they will go hoarse telling you so), right up to the very moment when they have to risk voter displeasure, and then down the toilet go the principles--and until now, the gays as well.
Arnold gets my respect. Screw the religious right before which every other Republican politician bows and scrapes; he's siding with gays and human rights. If the Republicans have any hope to save their shattered party from dissolution, they'd better model themselves on Arnold's example and boot the holy rollers and Elmer Gantrys out on their fat butts. The Republicans must reorient themselves as the party of modern secular conservatism and quit being the party of the bronze age, Yahweh, and the book of Leviticus.
Read here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest10-2008nov10,0,4939340.story
Goodness knows that the schmuck Arnold replaced, Gray Davis, never let such words pass his lips. Gays got domestic partnerships out of Davis only because he was in the throes of fighting the recall and desperately needed every vote he could buy; in calmer times Gray Davis would certainly have thrown gays under the bus and vetoed domestic partnerships because that conniving bastard had his eyes on a run for the White House and didn't want any gay baggage to weigh him down. Liberal Democrats--they are men and women of principle, each and every one of them (and they will go hoarse telling you so), right up to the very moment when they have to risk voter displeasure, and then down the toilet go the principles--and until now, the gays as well.
Arnold gets my respect. Screw the religious right before which every other Republican politician bows and scrapes; he's siding with gays and human rights. If the Republicans have any hope to save their shattered party from dissolution, they'd better model themselves on Arnold's example and boot the holy rollers and Elmer Gantrys out on their fat butts. The Republicans must reorient themselves as the party of modern secular conservatism and quit being the party of the bronze age, Yahweh, and the book of Leviticus.
Read here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest10-2008nov10,0,4939340.story
Sunday, November 9, 2008
We should have listened better
Just in case you thought all that "socialist" talk during the campaign was just partisan noise, please read this report about Congressional Democrats holding hearings on how the government may (will!) seize IRA and 401k accounts--for the protection of the account holder, of course. Is this the way the government will try to stave off the inevitable bankruptcy of Social Security? Spread the wealth around, said Mr. Obama, and millions envisioned themselves fingering the billions of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Who knew that it would be your wealth being spread around? Want to rerun the election yet?
The article:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=5081
The article:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=5081
A party of cads
The trashing of Sarah Palin continues. Embittered McCain operatives tell any preposterous lie about her, and the media happily report it as "news." Mr. McCain remains silent while his thugs mug her in an alley. What a noble fellow! Not only are reason and principle extinct among Republicans, but so are gallantry, courtesy, and chivalry. How long will this vile spectacle continue? To her credit, Governor Palin is fighting back (but alone since no Republican "leader" will stand with her). I thought she was ill-qualified for the federal executive, but she didn't doom the Republicans; John McCain, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, et. al. doomed their party by their wicked wars, their lying, their reckless disregard of the Constitution, and their fiscal madness. Sarah Palin is showing that she's more of a man than all these wimps strung together. She's tough and resilient. I like that, and I'm starting to like her.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Proposition 8 in California
I'll be writing a lot on this topic in coming days, but I want to deal with one facet of this issue right now. As exit polls indicate, some 70% of blacks voted against the equal rights of gay people. The vote of no other ethnic or racial group was so lopsided. This deplorable vote highlights a well-known but largely ignored fact: anti-gay bigotry is rife among blacks. This bigotry is not limited to the marriage issue; a similar number of blacks opposed civil unions in California. This bigotry blights the lives of black gays and lesbians. It is deep and ugly, and it roils and festers almost entirely because of the anti-gay hostility that permeates black churches and that is kept alive by black clergymen.
For far too long gays have kept quiet about this locus of anti-gay prejudice. The aura of victimhood has shielded blacks from just and proper scrutiny on this issue. Well, after Proposition 8 there should be no more free rides for bigots. Anti-gay bigotry should be exposed and stigmatised wherever it is found--and there's a huge load of it in black homes and churches. America has risen above its shameful past and elected a black man on his merits as a man. It is now time for black Americans to confront their anti-gay prejudices, rise above them, and accord gays and lesbians their human rights as men and women--including the right to marry.
For far too long gays have kept quiet about this locus of anti-gay prejudice. The aura of victimhood has shielded blacks from just and proper scrutiny on this issue. Well, after Proposition 8 there should be no more free rides for bigots. Anti-gay bigotry should be exposed and stigmatised wherever it is found--and there's a huge load of it in black homes and churches. America has risen above its shameful past and elected a black man on his merits as a man. It is now time for black Americans to confront their anti-gay prejudices, rise above them, and accord gays and lesbians their human rights as men and women--including the right to marry.