Weekend Economists MLK Remembrance January 20, 2014

[Demeter]

Most of you have no idea what Martin Luther King actually did by HamdenRice

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/29/1011562/-Most-of-you-have-no-idea-what-Martin-Luther-King-actually-did#


...I remember that many years ago, when I was a smart ass home from first year of college, I was standing in the kitchen arguing with my father. My head was full of newly discovered political ideologies and black nationalism, and I had just read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, probably for the second time.

A bit of context. My father was from a background, which if we were talking about Europe or Latin America, we would call, "peasant" origin, although he had risen solidly into the working-middle class. He was from rural Virginia and his parents had been tobacco farmers. I spent two weeks or so every summer on the farm of my grandmother and step grandfather. They had no running water, no gas, a wood burning stove, no bathtubs or toilets but an outhouse, pot belly stoves for heat in the winter, a giant wood pile, a smoke house where hams and bacon hung, chickens, pigs, semi wild housecats that lived outdoors, no tractor or car, but an old plow horse and plows and other horse drawn implements, and electricity only after I was about 8 years old. The area did not have high schools for blacks and my father went as far as the seventh grade in a one room schoolhouse. All four of his grandparents, whom he had known as a child, had been born slaves. It was mainly because of World War II and urbanization that my father left that life.

They lived in a valley or hollow or "holler" in which all the landowners and tenants were black. In the morning if you wanted to talk to cousin Taft, you would walk down to behind the outhouse and yell across the valley, "Heeeyyyy Taaaaft," and you could see him far, far in the distance, come out of his cabin and yell back.

On the one hand, this was a pleasant situation because they lived in isolation from white people. On the other hand, they did have to leave the valley to go to town where all the rigid rules of Jim Crow applied. By the time I was little, my people had been in this country for six generations (going back, according to oral rendering of our genealogy, to Africa Jones and Mama Suki), much more under slavery than under freedom, and all of it under some form of racial terrorism, which had inculcated many humiliating behavior patterns.

Anyway that's background. I think we were kind of typical as African Americans in the pre Civil Rights era went.

So anyway, I was having this argument with my father about Martin Luther King and how his message was too conservative compared to Malcolm X's message. My father got really angry at me. It wasn't that he disliked Malcolm X, but his point was that Malcolm X hadn't accomplished anything as Dr. King had.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his "I have a dream speech."

Before I tell you what my father told me, I want to digress. Because at this point in our amnesiac national existence, my question pretty much reflects the national civic religion view of what Dr. King accomplished. He gave this great speech. Or some people say, "he marched." I was so angry at Mrs. Clinton during the primaries when she said that Dr. King marched, but it was LBJ who delivered the Civil Rights Act.

At this point, I would like to remind everyone exactly what Martin Luther King did, and it wasn't that he "marched" or gave a great speech.

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, "Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south."

Please let this sink in and and take my word and the word of my late father on this. If you are a white person who has always lived in the U.S. and never under a brutal dictatorship, you probably don't know what my father was talking about.

But this is what the great Dr. Martin Luther King accomplished. Not that he marched, nor that he gave speeches.

He ended the terror of living as a black person, especially in the south.

I'm guessing that most of you, especially those having come fresh from seeing "The Help," may not understand what this was all about. But living in the south (and in parts of the mid west and in many ghettos of the north) was living under terrorism.

It wasn't that black people had to use a separate drinking fountain or couldn't sit at lunch counters, or had to sit in the back of the bus.

You really must disabuse yourself of this idea. Lunch counters and buses were crucial symbolic planes of struggle that the civil rights movement decided to use to dramatize the issue, but the main suffering in the south did not come from our inability to drink from the same fountain, ride in the front of the bus or eat lunch at Woolworth's.

It was that white people, mostly white men, occasionally went berserk, and grabbed random black people, usually men, and lynched them. You all know about lynching. But you may forget or not know that white people also randomly beat black people, and the black people could not fight back, for fear of even worse punishment...

The diary goes on....and having seen what berserk (mostly white, mostly men) Americans have done to the possibly gay, the possibly Muslim, the Occupiers, all without provocation of any kind, how can we doubt it?

Our very own President is out droning the Yemeni, the Pakistanis, anyone he wants to--why? What is this, testosterone poisoning, or just another version of King of the Hill? Or is BHO a tool of the berserk white men? A cat's paw, if you will.

More like a damn fool or a tool. Somehow, I really doubt that MLK would approve.

And one thing is certain, I don't want this nation to tolerate such behavior, at home or abroad.

[Demeter]

1. Company Responsible for Major Chemical Spill Is a Great Candidate for the Corporate Death Penalty

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/company-responsible-major-chemical-spill-great-candidate

MAYBE THE BANKRUPTCY COURT WILL DO US ALL A BIG FAVOR...

For the first century-and-half or so after the founding of the republic, it was common practice for state governments to give corporations the corporate death penalty.

The idea behind the corporate death penalty was - and still is - pretty simple. If a corporation did something blatantly against the public interest, like gambling away people’s life savings or polluting local water supplies, the government would revoke its charter - the thing that gave it a right to exist as a private, for-profit business.

Banks were shut down in Ohio, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania for behaving in ways that were “financially unsound.” Oil corporations, match manufacturers, whiskey trusts, and sugar corporations were given the axe in Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska and New York. By the 1870s, nineteen states had amended their state constitutions to give lawmakers the power to “execute” corporations that violate the public’s safety and trust.

The longstanding practice of giving businesses the corporate death penalty only really stopped when President Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1921 with the promise of putting “less government in business and more business in government.”

[Demeter]

2. My Doctor Can Disclose My Medical Records to the NSA Without My Authorization (and so can yours)

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2014/01/16/my-doctor-can-disclose-my-medical-records-to-the-nsa-without-my-authorization-and-so-can-yours/

...I read my healthcare provider’s privacy information, those endless pages you click through signing up. After many, many paragraphs describing how they would not share my Personal Health Information (PHI) even with my spouse without my authorization, I ran straight into this (emphasis added):

We may sometimes use or disclose the PHI of armed forces personnel to the applicable military authorities when they believe it is necessary to properly carry out military missions. We may also disclose your PHI to authorized federal officials as necessary for national security and intelligence activities or for protection of the president and other government officials and dignitaries.

I checked a few other major insurance carriers, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and they all have the identical language; check yours.

In other words, your doctor does not need your authorization to share your health information with the government. If the NSA asks for it, they get it. I found no provision requiring your medical provider to tell you the information was passed to the government....

[kickysnana]

4. I tried...

First I refused to give my SS# but after 2003 they absolutely required it for ID. Before that they demanded it when I called to ask a question at a local lab to ask what tests patients could pay for and get results without a doctor order/referral. "Who are you? Why do you want to know?"

Then I complained about the HIPPA being a joke every time I had to sign the stupid paper. I don't care if the person behind me knows my medical history they are not a threat. My employer, the govt and whoever else is on that gravy train probably is.

[Demeter]

3. On Elizabeth Warren’s Bill Against Using Credit Scores in Employment Screening

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/01/elizabeth-warrens-bill-using-credit-scores-employment-screening.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29



YVES SMITH SAYS: Since I give Elizabeth Warren a hard time when she pulls her punches, I am remiss in not giving a thumb’s up to her proposed Equal Employment for All Act, which would bar the use of credit reports in most hiring decisions. In the stone ages of my youth, it was unheard of to pull a credit report for a prospective worker. The only cases where it was considered relevant was for jobs in which the employee handled cash, such as a branch teller, since someone who was seriously in debt might find it hard to resist the temptation to pilfer.

Of course, it goes without saying that making creditworthiness a condition for getting a job, which in many people’s cases is a condition for survival, entrenches the power of banks and other creditors. You don’t need debtors’ prisons if the consequence of a bad credit score could ultimately be living on the streets.

The use of these records is essentially a misleading bit of busywork on the part of human resources departments. A post by Bob Lawless at Credit Slips points out that credit scores are generally useless in an employment context and merely pander to employers’ prejudices as to what constitutes virtue:

there is money to be made in convincing those who make hiring decisions that there are data and services that can unlock the hidden traits of job applicants

.

Such claims play into a well-known psychological phenomenon known as the fundamental attribution error or the correspondence bias. As Gilbert & Malone put it:

People care less about what others do than about why they do it. Two equally rambunctious nephews may break two equally expensive crystal vases at Aunt Sofia’s house, but the one who did so by accident gets the reprimand and the one who did so by design gets the thumbscrews. . . .

Attribution theories suggest that the psychological world is a mirror of the physical world and that the two are therefore penetrated by the same logic. Ordinary people seem to believe that others behave as they do because of the kinds of others they are and because of the kinds of situations in which their behaviors unfold . . . .

Attribution theory makes a distinction between situational and dispositional causes. A common mistake is to attribute an action entirely to a dispositional cause while ignoring possible situational causes. For example, when observing a driver running a red light, we often will jump to the conclusion the driver is reckless and ignore explanations such as a medical emergency.

The efficacy of pre-employment credit checks plays exactly into the fundamental attribution error. When we see someone with a bad credit report, we tend to attribute it to dispositional causes (poor financial decision making, financial recklessness, dishonesty) than situational causes (health problems, layoff, divorce). Moreover, we probably are especially prone to make the fundamental attribution error when it comes to financial problems. A dispositional cause allows us to tell ourselves the financial problems will not happen to us because we believe ourselves to lack the necessary disposition that will lead to the problems.

The fundamental attribution error, however, does not mean that dispositional causes are never partially or fully explanatory. Sometimes people run red lights because they are reckless, or sometimes bad credit results from a fundamentally dishonest nature. Usually, the most complete explanations for any social phenomenon are multicausal. The question raised by Senator Warren’s bill, however, is not whether some people might have dispositions that correlate with financial irresponsibility but whether credit reports can screen for bad employees. The fundamental attribution error makes us want to believe they can do so, but there is almost no evidence to support that notion (although more research would be useful).

MORE

[Demeter]

5. Solving the Net Neutrality Problem Is Actually Simple

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-17/solving-the-net-neutrality-problem-is-actually-very-very-simple#r=lr-sr

...If the FCC actually wants to ensure net neutrality, it will have do something that every regulator in every other developed country did a long time ago. (It will also turn Verizon litigiously apoplectic.) It has to unmake the mistake it made in 2002, when it failed to classify cable Internet providers as telecommunications services. Doing so would solve everything. The last major piece of internet law, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, gave the FCC the authority to regulate Internet service providers as either telecommunications services, which transmit data, or information services, which process data. Early in the 2000s, the cable industry argued that it not only transmitted Internet data to customers, it also provided e-mail addresses and Web pages—it processed data as well. Since cable companies were therefore both telecommunication and information services, the industry argued, it could only possibly be an information service.

The FCC bought this argument. In 2002, it decided that since cable was both, it could only be one. The FCC still treats broadband Internet access as an information service. No one has ever done a better job of pointing out the absurdity of this decision than Antonin Scalia, who in a dissent in a Supreme Court case in 2005 pointed out that the cable industry was like a pet shop that sold a leash with every puppy, then decided that it was not in the puppy business but in the leash business.

The distinction matters because under the Telecommunications Act, an information service is automatically regulated as a common carrier—it cannot discriminate among the kinds of traffic that pass through it. In its statement after the decision, Verizon argued that the “the court found that the FCC could not impose last century’s common carriage requirements on the Internet.” Telecom companies like to use that phrase, “last century’s common carriage requirements,” to imply that the concept of common carriage is horribly outdated. But common carriage is not a last-century concept. It’s a legal necessity that goes back to Rome. Ferrymen in medieval England could not deny any man passage; the crossing was too vital to commerce.

Internet service providers have always been allergic to this possibility, because it inevitably means some kind of regulation will curb their market power. Sometimes this regulation is more drastic. The telecom regulator in the U.K. broke up British Telecom, the old monopoly, into two separate companies: a common carrier that maintained the backbone of actual wires as a heavily regulated utility and a customer-facing Internet service provider that competed with other ISPs on that same backbone. France took a similar step....

[Demeter]

6. For the Love of Money: The superrich are our cultural gods By SAM POLK

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37411.htm

IN my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts to pay, no philanthropic goal in mind. I wanted more money for exactly the same reason an alcoholic needs another drink: I was addicted.

Eight years earlier, I’d walked onto the trading floor at Credit Suisse First Boston to begin my summer internship. I already knew I wanted to be rich, but when I started out I had a different idea about what wealth meant. I’d come to Wall Street after reading in the book “Liar’s Poker” how Michael Lewis earned a $225,000 bonus after just two years of work on a trading floor. That seemed like a fortune. Every January and February, I think about that time, because these are the months when bonuses are decided and distributed, when fortunes are made.

I’d learned about the importance of being rich from my dad. He was a modern-day Willy Loman, a salesman with huge dreams that never seemed to materialize. “Imagine what life will be like,” he’d say, “when I make a million dollars.” While he dreamed of selling a screenplay, in reality he sold kitchen cabinets. And not that well. We sometimes lived paycheck to paycheck off my mom’s nurse-practitioner salary.

Dad believed money would solve all his problems. At 22, so did I. When I walked onto that trading floor for the first time and saw the glowing flat-screen TVs, high-tech computer monitors and phone turrets with enough dials, knobs and buttons to make it seem like the cockpit of a fighter plane, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It looked as if the traders were playing a video game inside a spaceship; if you won this video game, you became what I most wanted to be — rich.

IT was a miracle I’d made it to Wall Street at all. While I was competitive and ambitious — a wrestler at Columbia University — I was also a daily drinker and pot smoker and a regular user of cocaine, Ritalin and ecstasy. I had a propensity for self-destruction that had resulted in my getting suspended from Columbia for burglary, arrested twice and fired from an Internet company for fistfighting. I learned about rage from my dad, too. I can still see his red, contorted face as he charged toward me. I’d lied my way into the C.S.F.B. internship by omitting my transgressions from my résumé and was determined not to blow what seemed a final chance. The only thing as important to me as that internship was my girlfriend, a starter on the Columbia volleyball team. But even though I was in love with her, when I got drunk I’d sometimes end up with other women....


AN AMAZING CONFESSION...MUST READ

[Demeter]

7. The Hows and Whys of Gold Price Manipulation By Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler.

PAPER GOLD, REAL GOLD...THE NITTY GRITTY DETAILS

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37413.htm


The deregulation of the financial system during the Clinton and George W. Bush regimes had the predictable result: financial concentration and reckless behavior. A handful of banks grew so large that financial authorities declared them “too big to fail.” Removed from market discipline, the banks became wards of the government requiring massive creation of new money by the Federal Reserve in order to support through the policy of Quantitative Easing the prices of financial instruments on the banks’ balance sheets and in order to finance at low interest rates trillion dollar federal budget deficits associated with the long recession caused by the financial crisis.

The Fed’s policy of monetizing one trillion dollars of bonds annually put pressure on the US dollar, the value of which declined in terms of gold. When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value. Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market. Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts. The bullion banks purchase the deserted shares and present them to the trusts for redemption in bullion. The bullion can then be sold in the London physical gold market, where the sales both ratify the lower price that short-selling achieved on the Comex floor and provide a supply of bullion to meet Asian demands for physical gold as opposed to paper claims on gold.

The evidence of gold price manipulation is clear. In this article we present evidence and describe the process. We conclude that ability to manipulate the gold price is disappearing as physical gold moves from New York and London to Asia, leaving the West with paper claims to gold that greatly exceed the available supply...


...Over the course of the 13-year gold bull market, gold leasing and rehypothecation operations have largely depleted most of the gold in the vaults of the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank and private bullion banks such as JPMorganChase. The depletion of vault gold became a problem when Venezuela was the first country to repatriate all of its gold being held by foreign Central Banks, primarily the Fed and the BOE. Venezuela's request was provoked by rumors circulating the market that gold was being leased and hypothecated in increasing quantities. About a year later, Germany made a similar request. The Fed refused to honor Germany’s request and, instead, negotiated a seven year timeline in which it would ship back 300 of Germany's 1500 tonnes. This made it apparent that the Fed did not have the gold it was supposed to be holding for Germany.

Why does the Fed need seven years in which to return 20 percent of Germany’s gold? The answer is that the Fed does not have the gold in its vault to deliver. In 2011 it took four months to return Venezuela’s 160 tonnes of gold. Obviously, the gold was not readily at hand and had to be borrowed, perhaps from unsuspecting private owners who mistakenly believe that their gold is held in trust.

Western central banks have pushed fractional gold reserve banking to the point that they haven’t enough reserves to cover withdrawals. Fractional reserve banking originated when medieval goldsmiths learned that owners of gold stored in their vault seldom withdrew the gold. Instead, those who had gold on deposit circulated paper claims to gold. This allowed goldsmiths to lend gold that they did not have by issuing paper receipts. This is what the Fed has done. The Fed has created paper claims to gold that does not exist in physical form and sold these claims in mass quantities in order to drive down the gold price. The paper claims to gold are a large multiple of the amount of actual gold available for delivery. The Reserve Bank of India reports that the ratio of paper claims to gold exceed the amount of gold available for delivery by 93:1....

MUST READ!

[Demeter]

8. STUNNING CONCLUSION

...What we are witnessing is our central bank pulling out all stops on integrity and lawfulness in order to serve a small handful of banks that financial deregulation allowed to become “too big to fail” at the expense of our economy and our currency. When the Fed runs out of gold to borrow, to rehypothecate, and to loot from ETFs, the Fed will have to abandon QE or the US dollar will collapse and with it Washington’s power to exercise hegemony over the world.

[kickysnana]

50. ..is the end really near? Is there another rabbit hole? n/t

[Demeter]

53. Martial law, maybe?

Have to be some kind of provocation though, and nothing ridiculously small...

I'd be happy if the 1% just took off for their floating fantasy islands and left. Then we might be able to effect change.

Or, did you mean rabbit hole for the 99%?

Our best defense would be to offensively ignore them and their court orders and illegal laws and subvert their mercenaries.

[Demeter]

9. America is Still a Deeply Racist Country By Chris Arnade

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37375.htm

Gone is the overt, violent, and legal racism of my childhood in the 1960s. It's been replaced by a subtler, still ugly version...Gone is the overt, violent, and legal racism of my childhood. It has been replaced by a subtler version.

It is a racism that is easier to ignore, easier to deny, and consequently almost as dangerous.

MORE

[xchrom]

10. Irish Bonds Climb as Emerging Stocks Fall; Platinum Gains

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-19/aussie-holds-drop-before-chinese-data-after-s-p-500-falls.html

Irish bonds led gains in European debt after Moody’s Investors Service lifted the nation’s credit rating from junk. Emerging-market stocks fell as China’s factory output trailed estimates, and platinum rose.

The yield on Ireland’s 10-year bond slid 18 basis points to 3.26 percent at 11:35 a.m. in London. The MSCI gauge of developing-nation shares dropped for a third day, with Chinese stocks in Hong Kong declining 1.3 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped less than 0.1 percent. Deutsche Bank AG tumbled 4.1 percent after posting a surprise loss. Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures were little changed, with U.S. markets closed for Martin Luther King Day. Platinum advanced 1 percent as workers planned to strike at mines in South Africa, the world’s biggest producer.

Moody’s raised Ireland to Baa3 from Ba1 with a positive outlook, becoming the third main credit-rating firm to rank the country as investment grade. China’s industrial production climbed at the slowest pace since July after President Xi Jinping scrapped a goal of “relatively fast” growth in his first year in power.

“The cycle has really turned for the peripheral countries and we expect it to continue,” said Allan von Mehren, the chief analyst at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “We see fundamentals improving and at the same time we have very, very low rates so there’s this hunt for yield among investors.”

[xchrom]

11. Infographic The Unfinished Business of the 1963 March on Washington{large}

http://www.epi.org/multimedia/infographic-unfinished-business-1963-march/

[xchrom]

12. No Job Openings for More than Three Out of Five Job Seekers

http://www.epi.org/publication/job-openings-job-seekers/

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that job openings increased by 70,000 in November, bringing the total number of job openings to 4.0 million. However, there were 10.8 million job seekers in November (unemployment data are from the Current Population Survey and can be found here). That means there were 2.7 job seekers for every job opening in November. In a labor market with strong job opportunities, the ratio would be close to 1-to-1. November’s ratio of 2.7-to-1 means that for more than three out of five job seekers, there simply are no jobs.

Furthermore, the improvement in the ratio of job seekers to job openings in this recovery (from a peak of 6.7-to-1 in July 2009) overstates the improvement in job opportunities. Most of the decline in the number of job seekers is because roughly 6 million would-be workers are sidelined; they are neither employed nor looking for work due to the weak labor market. These “missing workers” are thus not counted as unemployed, but many will become job seekers when a robust jobs recovery finally begins, so job openings will be needed for them, too.

Figure A shows the number of unemployed workers and the number of job openings by industry. This figure is extremely useful for diagnosing what’s behind our sustained high unemployment. If our current elevated unemployment were due to skills shortages or mismatches, we would expect to find some sectors where there are more unemployed workers than job openings, and some where there are more job openings than unemployed workers. What we find, however, is that unemployed workers dramatically outnumber job openings across the board. There are between 1.3 and 8.5 times as many unemployed workers as job openings in every industry. In other words, even in the industry with the most favorable ratio of unemployed workers to job openings (finance and insurance), there are still nearly 30 percent more unemployed workers than job openings. In no industry does the number of job openings even come close to the number of people looking for work. This demonstrates that the main problem in the labor market is a broad-based lack of demand for workers—not, as is often claimed, available workers lacking the skills needed for the sectors with job openings.

[xchrom]

13. Trade Partnership or Putsch?

http://www.epi.org/publication/partnership-putsch/


EUGENE – In 2010, I sat across the table from Assistant US Trade Representative Barbara Weisel, who was responsible for negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the mega-regional free-trade treaty among Vietnam, Malaysia, and ten other Pacific Rim countries that President Barack Obama’s administration wants to conclude in the coming weeks. At the time, I was Senior Policy Adviser for the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor – a position that made me the top congressional staff member responsible for upholding labor standards in international trade treaties.

The purpose of the meeting was for Congress to understand what steps the Obama administration was taking to protect American workers from being forced into unfair competition with workers from low-wage trading partners. I asked Weisel what I thought was a simple question: “What is the White House’s position on democracy?” Weisel claimed not to understand, so I explained: A majority of congressional Democrats supported the principle that the United States should sign trade agreements only with countries that are democracies.

Other democracies feel the same way. For example, trade agreements negotiated by members of the Commonwealth of Nations (formerly the British Commonwealth) contain just such a provision. The logic is obvious: If we in developed democracies had lacked the right to protest, speak out, organize unions, and vote for representatives of our choosing, we would never have ended child labor or established the eight-hour workday. Having used these rights to raise our own living standards, we should not now put developed countries’ workers in direct competition with workers who lack the basic freedoms needed to improve their own conditions.

But my explanation did not help. Weisel stated simply that “we have no position” on democracy. I pressed her on how the White House planned to deal with, for example, Vietnam – a country where children as young as 14 are forced to work 12-hour days, and where there is no right to free speech, no right to protest, no right to strike, and no freedom of association. “Oh, you can have labor rights without democracy,” Weisel insisted. She demurred when asked to name an example.

[Demeter]

15. OH...MY...GOD

Now I REALLY feel sick.

That is such unbearable behavior for a once great democracy....how can they say such things, let alone try to bind us to them?

[xchrom]

17. +1

[DemReadingDU]

38. +++

[Hotler]

44. No hope. No future. I shortened it up. n/t

[kickysnana]

51. +

[xchrom]

14. Union Calls Strike by 90,000 South Africa Minerworkers

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-19/amplats-majority-union-votes-for-strike-to-hobble-platinum-mines.html

The South African union representing most workers at the world’s top three platinum companies and some of the largest gold mines in the nation has served notice that its members will go on strike over wages.

The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union delivered the notices to Anglo American Platinum Ltd. (AMS) and Lonmin Plc. (LMI) today and said it plans the same for Impala Platinum Holdings Ltd. (IMP) It has at least 70,000 members across the three companies. Gold producers, where the AMCU has about 20,000 members, including at AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG), also confirmed through an industry group they’ve been told of the strike.

“Tomorrow, they’re going to be served with the notice, as per the mandate,” Joseph Mathunjwa, president of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union, said after addressing thousands of members in Rustenburg, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Johannesburg, yesterday.

AMCU workers agreed to start a strike at Amplats, as the world’s largest producer of platinum is known, with a show of raised fists at the meeting in a stadium. The strike will start on the first shift on Jan. 23, Mathunjwa said, referring to Amplats, Impala and Lonmin. The union is the largest at the biggest South African mines run by AngloGold, Sibanye Gold Ltd. (SGL) and Harmony Gold Mining Co.

[xchrom]

16. Hedge Funds Raise Gold Wagers as Goldman Sees Drop: Commodities

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-19/hedge-funds-raise-gold-wagers-as-goldman-sees-drop-commodities.html

Hedge funds raised bullish gold wagers to the highest in eight weeks as signs of stronger Chinese demand drove prices to the longest rally since August. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says the gains will be short-lived.

The net-long position in gold climbed 7.6 percent to 43,277 futures and options in the week ended Jan. 14, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Long wagers rose 4.7 percent, outpacing the 2.9 percent gain in short bets. Net-bullish holdings across 18 U.S.-traded commodities advanced 2.6 percent, led by cattle, silver and soybeans.

Gold climbed for four straight weeks, rebounding 4.1 percent this month after a 28 percent plunge in 2013 that was the biggest since 1981 as some investors lost faith in the metal as a store of value. Lower prices are attracting buyers in Asia, with deliveries by the Shanghai Gold Exchange almost doubling in 2013. The bear market is unlikely to reverse, and bullion will “grind lower” over 2014 as the U.S. economy gains momentum, Goldman analysts said in a report Jan. 12.

“There’s a tremendous divide in the gold market,” said Jeff Sica, who helps oversee more than $1 billion of assets as president of Sica Wealth Management in Morristown, New Jersey. “Demand for jewelry in China is still relatively strong, and I think it will remain strong. The bears ignore physical demand and think that gold is not relevant when there’s no economic crisis.”

[xchrom]

18. China’s Expansion Loses Momentum in Fourth Quarter

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-20/china-s-economy-grew-7-7-in-fourth-quarter-topping-estimates.html

China’s economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter as gains in factory output and investment spending eased last month, sapping momentum as a credit clampdown adds pressure on the outlook for this year.

Gross domestic product rose 7.7 percent in the October-December period from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today in Beijing, compared with 7.8 percent in the third quarter. Chinese stocks fell to a five-month low even as GDP exceeded the median estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg News survey.

Any deeper slowdown would test leaders’ willingness to implement the broadest policy shifts since the 1990s and tackle debt-fueled investment, after President Xi Jinping scrapped a goal of “relatively fast” growth in his first year in power. The world’s second-largest economy may expand at the weakest pace in almost a quarter century in 2014, a survey showed last month, as spending on infrastructure and factories moderates.

“Growth momentum is clearly weakening,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist and strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. “The slowdown became increasingly clear as the quarter progressed.” Expansion will decelerate this year, he said.

[xchrom]

19. India Said to Plan Merging Regulators After Bourse Collapse

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-20/india-said-to-plan-combining-regulators-after-exchange-collapse.html

India is planning to combine the stock and commodities market regulators after a payment crisis led to the collapse of the nation’s biggest spot exchange, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The Finance Ministry is working on the proposal, the people said asking not to be identified as they were not authorized to talk to the media. The merger of the Securities and Exchange Board of India and the Forward Markets Commission will boost oversight of the nation’s $2.8 trillion commodities market and prevent failures at exchanges, they said.

Regulators globally are expanding scrutiny of markets from metals to currencies, tightening rules on capital buffers and cracking down on crimes from money laundering to interest-rate rigging. A merger of the two regulators will be the biggest overhaul of commodity markets regulation and follows the suspension of trading on the National Spot Exchange Ltd., a platform for buying and selling everything from gold to sugar.

“We need stronger regulatory oversight in commodities to protect small investors,” Andrew Holland, chief executive officer at Ambit Investment Advisors Pvt., said in an interview on Jan. 9. “If they can close the loop after the NSEL episode, investors will be fine.”

[Demeter]

20. Susan Miller, astrologer to the stars: 'April's so scary I'm giving classes on it'

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2014/jan/18/susan-miller-astrologer-interview?CMP=ema_565

Susan Miller has important news for us. "April's so scary that I'm giving classes on it," she says, tracing a series of points on her impossibly complicated astrology chart. "Look, we have a perfect square on 15 April – 15 April! You've got Jupiter at 12, and Uranus at 13, and Pluto at 13, and Mars at 16 – but wait! It's going to get a little bit worse." She furrows her brow while she studies the chart. "Look at 29 April!" I look. "Some people feel the stock market is…" She pauses for such a long beat that I offer to complete her sentence: "…going to crash?" She shakes her head. "This is even worse – we've not had this since the American Revolution."

...Miller is garrulous, warm and utterly unpretentious. She is also, according to her many, many fans, uncannily accurate. This first meeting occurs during the US government shutdown over the budget last October, and Miller is riding high after forecasting a diabolical month. Her reading for Leo, the birth sign of President Obama, began: "You may have already heard the rumours – October is not due to be an easy month in any which way" and continued: "The new moon may trigger contract negotiations, but talks are likely to hit snags. Don't try to rush things to closure. Delays will benefit you." The government impasse ground on before being finally broken in Obama's favour...

[xchrom]

21. great. my birthday month. nt

[Demeter]

28. As long as it's the 1% taking it in the neck (giggle) you and I should be all right

Maybe it will stay above freezing, at least.

[xchrom]

31. if it isn't freezing -- ill count myself as lucky. nt

[Demeter]

42. It's going down to -2F tonight, and -9F on Thursday

they forecast. I may have to move to Florida, after all, and I hate Florida!

[xchrom]

47. girl! that is some cold weather.

and it doesn't seem to get easier the more the years pass -- i know i feel it more nowadays.

[Demeter]

49. Worse yet, it's the 3rd round this winter, and it's only the middle of January

I don't think I can take it. Not in a nation that refuses to adapt to climate change.

Any other place, they'd make adjustments, not expect people to try to kill themselves sticking to an arbitrary schedule of mostly useless make-work.

The point is to cut the waste and excess, do what's necessary for ALL to survive, and give up dreams of riches beyond avarice from Other Peoples' labors...

[xchrom]

55. Preach, Sister Demeter - Preach -- the choir says Amen

[xchrom]

22. UK economic recovery boosts financial firms' profits, jobs - survey

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/uk-britain-financialservices-idUKBREA0J00S20140120

(Reuters) - Britain's financial services industry is beginning to feel the benefits of economic recovery, as firms report growth in profits, business volumes and optimism in the fourth quarter, according to a survey.

Some 69 percent of firms said they felt more optimistic about the overall business situation versus just 1 percent who felt less optimistic, the quarterly CBI/PwC financial services survey showed on Monday.

The positive balance of 68 percent was the highest since the survey began in 1989.

The survey is based on the balance of firms reporting an increase and those reporting a decrease.

[xchrom]

23. Deutsche Bank warns of challenges ahead after surprise loss

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/uk-deutschebank-results-idUKBREA0J0DG20140120

(Reuters) - Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) shares tumbled on Monday following a surprise fourth-quarter loss due to a steep drop in debt trading revenues and heavy litigation and restructuring costs that prompted the bank to warn of a challenging 2014.

Germany's biggest bank said revenue at its important debt-trading division, fell 31 percent in the quarter, a much bigger drop than at U.S. rivals, which have also suffered from sluggish fixed-income trading. Deutsche's bond trading business is one of its biggest and contributed 73 percent of total trading revenue in 2013, the bank said.

The unexpected loss is likely to compound problems that have dogged the bank over the past year, which include a list of lawsuits and regulatory wrangles. It will also increase pressure on co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen to overhaul the group, including pushing through a culture change.

Deutsche's bond trading slump highlights the impact of a debt market slowdown in anticipation of an end to the U.S. Federal Reserve's bond buying to help the U.S. economy.

[xchrom]

24. Insight - Shorts set to pounce as stocks seen pricey, Fed pulls back

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/uk-usa-stocks-shorts-insight-idUKBREA0J0AE20140120

(Reuters) - After years of hiding under their desks, short sellers are re-emerging - slowly.

Investors who make a living betting that stock prices will fall are happy to forget 2013: The S&P 500 gained nearly 30 percent while Credit Suisse's index of hedge funds with a dedicated short bias lost 25 percent.

Buying the most heavily shorted stocks was a much better bet than the S&P 500: A list of top shorted stocks from SunGard's Astec Analytics beat the S&P 500 by 26 percentage points on average last year.

But with the Federal Reserve beginning to cut back on its bond buying - in a withdrawal of the stimulus that underpinned the rally - there's hope for short sellers in 2014.

[xchrom]

25. Thai government considers state of emergency after weekend violence

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/uk-thailand-protest-idUKBREA0J0A620140120

(Reuters) - Thai authorities are "very seriously" considering a state of emergency after a weekend of violence in the capital where protesters have been trying for more than two months to bring down the government, the security chief said on Monday.

The violence is the latest episode in an eight-year conflict that pits Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment against poorer, mainly rural supporters of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her brother, ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled by the military in 2006.

"We're prepared to use the emergency decree ... Everyone involved including the police, the military and the government is considering this option very seriously, but has not yet come to an agreement," National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattantabutr told Reuters after meeting Yingluck.

"The protesters have said they will close various government offices. So far, their closures have been symbolic, they go to government offices and then they leave." he said.

[xchrom]

26. Italy's Renzi to spell out reform deal with Berlusconi

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/01/20/uk-italy-politics-idUKBREA0J0SR20140120

(Reuters) - Italian centre-left leader Matteo Renzi can expect a hostile reception from sections of his Democratic Party (PD) when he gives details on Monday of an electoral reform pact with opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi.

Since being elected leader of Italy's largest party in December, Renzi has held talks with all the other parties on how to reform an electoral law blamed for the country's chronic political instability.

But his meeting on Saturday with former prime minister Berlusconi, who is barred from parliament after a conviction for tax fraud, sparked discontent from small parties backing Enrico Letta's government as well as those in opposition.

Stefano Fassina, from the left-wing of the PD, who resigned as deputy economy minister this month after a dispute with the more moderate Renzi, said he was "ashamed" to see Renzi meet with a convicted criminal at the PD's headquarters.

***wtf!?

[Demeter]

27. Obamacare rules on equal coverage delayed

QUELLE SUPRISE! RANK STILL HATH ITS PRIVILEGES

http://news.yahoo.com/obamacare-rules-equal-coverage-delayed-ny-times-221209281--sector.html

The Obama administration is delaying enforcement of a provision of the new healthcare law that prohibits employers from providing better health benefits to top executives than to other employees, the New York Times reported on Saturday. Tax officials said they would not enforce the provision this year because they had yet to issue regulations for employers to follow, according to the Times. Internal Revenue Service spokesman Bruce Friedland said employers would not have to comply until the agency issued regulations or other guidance, the newspaper reported.

The IRS was not immediately available to confirm the Times story....The law, adopted in 2010, says employer-sponsored health plans must not discriminate "in favor of highly compensated individuals" with respect to either eligibility or benefits.

IRS officials said they were wrestling with complicated questions like how to measure the value of employee health benefits, how to define "highly compensated" and what exactly constitutes discrimination, the Times reported.

The ban on discriminatory health benefits was to take effect in 2010. Administration officials said then that they needed more time to develop rules and that the rules would be issued well before this month, when other major provisions of the law took effect. A similar ban on discrimination, adopted more than 30 years ago, already applies to employers that serve as their own insurers. The new law extends that policy to employers that buy insurance from commercial carriers.

[Demeter]

29. "Wolves of Wall Street" in Review

http://www.gocomics.com/jeffdanziger/2014/01/19/#mutable_1108608

[Demeter]

30. Wake up, campers

[DemReadingDU]

39. That's a good one!

[xchrom]

32. More Arrests: Greece Makes Progress on Arms Deal Corruption

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greece-arrests-two-suspects-in-submarine-bribery-case-a-944446.html

The case involving German firms that allegedly payed bribes to Greek officials in exchange for arms deals is not new. Years ago, prosecutors in the northern German city of Kiel launched an investigation into top managers at the Kiel-based HDW shipyard on suspicion of corruption. But a lack of cooperation by Greek authorities led to the investigation being abandoned.

Recently, though, with Greece pursuing past corruption with more energy than ever before, progress has been rapid. And last week, two more suspects were taken into custody on suspicion of having received bribes from German arms companies or transferred bribe money onward in connection with a sale of German-made 214-Class submarines in the beginning of the last decade. The deal was worth €1.14 billion.

Sotiris E. is suspected of having received €20 million in connection with that deal. E. was the head of the struggling, state-owned HSY shipyard in Athens at the time. One of the provisions of the deal was that HDW would take over HSY. SPIEGEL has learned that Greek investigators believe the German submarine consortium, which included Essen-based Ferrostaal and HDW shipyards, gave that money to E. in the form of a bribe payment to ensure he wouldn't stand in the way of the plan. E. is thought to have received the money via shell companies in the Marshall Islands and Hong Kong as well as through his lawyer. He denies the accusations, saying that the payments were legitimate commission fees.

The second arrest made last week was that of Yannis B., who is thought to have cashed in €3.5 million on the same submarine deal. B., who is a close associate of former Greek Defense Minister Akis Tsochatzopoulos, has likewise denied any involvement in corruption.

[Demeter]

33. The Trouble With Chris Christie By Chris Hedges

TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL, MR. HEDGES!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37358.htm

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been Wall Street’s anointed son for the presidency. He is backed by the most ruthless and corrupt figures in New Jersey politics, including the New Jersey multimillionaire and hard-line Democratic boss George Norcross III. Among his other supporters are many hedge fund managers and corporate executives and some of the nation’s most retrograde billionaires, including the Koch brothers. The brewing scandal over the closing of traffic lanes on the George Washington Bridge apparently in retaliation for the Fort Lee mayor’s refusal to support the governor’s 2013 re-election is a window into how federal agencies and the security and surveillance apparatus would be routinely employed in a Christie presidency to punish anyone who challenged this tiny cabal’s grip on power.

Christie is the caricature of a Third World despot. He has a vicious temper, a propensity to bully and belittle those weaker than himself, an insatiable thirst for revenge against real or perceived enemies, and little respect for the law and, as recent events have made clear, for the truth. He is gripped by a bottomless hedonism that includes a demand for private jets, huge entourages, exclusive hotels and lavish meals. Wall Street and the security and surveillance apparatus want a real son of a bitch in power, someone with the moral compass of Al Capone, in order to ruthlessly silence and crush those of us who are working to overthrow the corporate state. They have had enough of what they perceive to be Barack Obama’s softness. Christie fits the profile and he is drooling for the opportunity.

Activists, Democratic and Republican rivals for power, liberals, reformers and environmentalists will, if Christie becomes president, see the vast forces of the security state surge into overdrive to stymie and reverse reform, gut our tepid financial and environmental regulations, further enrich the corporate elite who are pillaging the country, and savagely shut down all dissent. The corporate state’s repression, now on the brink of totalitarianism, would with the help of Christie, his corporate backers and his tea party loyalists become a full-blown corporate fascism.

Wall Street was unable to mask Mitt Romney’s cloying sense of entitlement and elitism, along with his Mr. Rogers blandness. But Wall Street sees in the profane, union-busting New Jersey governor the perfect Trojan horse for unfettered corporate power. Christie, eyeing a bid for the presidency in the 2016 election, has been promised massive financial backing by the Koch brothers; hedge fund titans such as Stanley Druckenmiller, Kenneth C. Griffin, Daniel S. Loeb, Paul E. Singer, Paul Tudor Jones II and David Tepper; financiers such as Charles Schwab and Stephen A. Schwarzman; real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman; former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso; former AIG head Maurice “Hank” Greenberg; former Morgan Stanley CEO John J. Mack; former GE Chairman Jack Welch; and Home Depot founder Kenneth Langone. David Koch has called Christie “a true political hero” and said he is “inspired by this man.” Rupert Murdoch, whose ethics seem to align with Christie’s, is similarly besotted with the governor...

IT WAS MORE THAN THAT...ROMNEY WAS INEPT, CROOKED TO THE CORE, ONE STEP AHEAD OF THE POSSE...CHRISTIE ISN'T EVEN THAT.

[DemReadingDU]

40. Christie isn't corrupt?

Or you mean Christie is worse than Rmoney?

[Demeter]

41. I mean, Christie isn't even one step ahead of the posse

He's blown it, big time, already.

Sorry for the alarm.

[DemReadingDU]

43. Yep

Who is the next choice the Republicans aim for a Presidential candidate?

[Demeter]

45. I'm hoping it's good old Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan

He's already got a few slips showing, and I'd LOVE to blast him out of office.

[Demeter]

34. HSBC and Citigroup suspend foreign exchange traders amid rigging probe

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/17/hsbc-citigroup-foreign-exchange-traders-market-manipulation?CMP=ema_565

HSBC and Citigroup have both suspended foreign exchange traders as a global probe into possible currency market manipulation intensified.

Regulators from the United States arrived in London this week, stepping up an investigation in which they are working with Britain's financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority, to determine whether traders at some of the world's biggest banks colluded to manipulate the $5.3 trillion-a-day (£3.2tn) foreign exchange market.

The investigations centre on senior traders' communication of client positions via electronic chatrooms, which also featured prominently in a probe into the rigging of a key interest rate known as the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.

As the currency investigation ramps up, the banks themselves are scrutinising their employees more closely and most are carrying out internal investigations...MORE

[Demeter]

35. US tech firms make eleventh-hour attempt to halt tax avoidance reforms

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/19/tech-firms-attempt-halt-tax-avoidance-reforms

Silicon Valley has launched a last-ditch attempt to derail plans devised by the G20 group of countries to close down international loopholes that are exploited by the likes of Google, Amazon and Apple to pay less tax in the UK and elsewhere.

The Digital Economy Group, a lobbying group dominated by the leading US digital firms, has written to the OECD, the Paris-based thinktank tasked by G20 leaders with drawing up reforms, saying it is not true that communications advances have allowed multinational groups to game national tax systems.

Suggesting that any leakage of tax revenues flowing from the complex corporate structures of digital groups is merely coincidental, the Digital Economy Group says: "Enterprises that employ digital communications models do not organise their business operations differently as a legal or tax matter."

Their denial of tax engineering follows a string of tax scandals in Europe and the US in the past two years. In the UK, Google bore the brunt of criticism from Margaret Hodge, who chairs the public accounts committee, after it emerged that Google – which the Guardian understands is a member of the DEG – had been allowed to pay £3.4m in tax to HMRC in 2012 despite UK revenues of £3.2bn...

HOW ARE THINGS IN GLOCKAMORA, APPLE?

[Demeter]

36. NSA Insiders Reveal What Went Wrong

In a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.

January 7, 2014

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Former NSA Senior Executives/Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Input for Your Decisions on NSA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Official Washington – from Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein to NSA Director Keith Alexander to former Vice President Dick Cheney to former FBI Director Robert Mueller – has been speaking from the same set of NSA talking points acquired recently via a Freedom of Information request. It is an artful list, much of it designed to mislead. Take this one, for example:

– NSA AND ITS PARTNERS MUST MAKE SURE WE CONNECT THE DOTS SO THAT THE NATION IS NEVER ATTACKED AGAIN LIKE IT WAS ON 9/11

At a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 2, Senator Feinstein showed her hand when she said: “I will do everything I can to prevent this [NSA’s bulk] program from being canceled.” Declaring that 9/11 “can never be allowed to happen in the United States of America again,” Feinstein claimed that intelligence officials did not have enough information to prevent the terrorist attacks.

Mr. President, we trust you are aware that the lack-of-enough-intelligence argument is dead wrong. Feinstein’s next dubious premise – that bulk collection is needed to prevent another 9/11 – is unproven and highly unlikely (not to mention its implications for the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment).

Given the closed circle surrounding you, we are allowing for the possibility that the smell from these rotting red herrings has not yet reached you – even though your own Review Group has found, for example, that NSA’s bulk collection has thwarted exactly zero terrorist plots.

The sadder reality, Mr. President, is that NSA itself had enough information to prevent 9/11, but chose to sit on it rather than share it with the FBI or CIA. We know; we were there. We were witness to the many bureaucratic indignities that made NSA at least as culpable for pre-9/11 failures as are other U.S. intelligence agencies.

We prepared this Memorandum in an effort to ensure that you have a fuller picture as you grapple with what to do about NSA. What follows is just the tip of an iceberg of essential background information – much of it hidden until now – that goes to the core of serious issues now front and center.

The drafting process sparked lively discussion of the relative merits of your Review Group’s recommendations. We have developed very specific comments on those recommendations. We look forward to an opportunity to bring them to your attention.

MEMO CONTINUES AT LINK

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37325.htm

[xchrom]

37. Oxfam: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world

The world's wealthiest people aren't known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population.

[Demeter]

46. Thoughts (about thinking) for the Day

"Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think." - Thomas Edison

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." - Aldous Huxley

[DemReadingDU]

48. No wonder this country is in trouble

85% people don't think, and facts are being ignored.

[kickysnana]

52. It amazed me that immigrant NY cabbies had a better handle on things than most Amerikins n/t

Last edited Mon Jan 20, 2014, 06:24 PM - Edit history (1)

[Demeter]

54. They came from the outside of the bubble

seen some real life, as opposed to the nightly fantasy on TV.

[kickysnana]

56. Comse to mind but I can't find the quote from "Moscow on the Hudson"

someone is giving Robin Williams advice on how to survive in NYC and he tells him he either needs to look mean or crazy...he tries mean, totally lame..then the guy says...forget that, act crazy.

I think I will keep that in mind.