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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
September 22, 2013
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/pig_heaven_20130921/
The Poetry of the 1% (cartoon)
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/pig_heaven_20130921/
September 21, 2013
John Sterling: "An A-bomb....from A-Rod"
or
Ken Harrelson: "He gone."
I vote for the former. I get ill whenever I hear it.
Cheesiest signature line from a baseball announcer .......
John Sterling: "An A-bomb....from A-Rod"
or
Ken Harrelson: "He gone."
I vote for the former. I get ill whenever I hear it.
September 21, 2013
Typhoon Usagi, a strong tropical cyclone in the western Pacific Ocean, is packing winds equivalent to a categoy 4 Hurricane. Over the next 24 hours Usagi will threaten parts of Taiwan, the far northern Philippines and southern China.
Usagi strengthened to a super typhoon Friday morning before weakening slightly to below super typhoon strength Friday night. Further weakening is expected before making landfall late Sunday, local time.
A tropical cyclone is dubbed a "super typhoon" when maximum sustained winds reach at least 150 mph. Usagi underwent a period of rapid intensification from early Wednesday through midday Thursday (U.S. Eastern time), going from a 55-knot tropical storm to a 140-knot super typhoon in just 33 hours, or just under a 100 mph intensification, based on satellite estimates of intensity.
By Friday night, though, Usagi underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, causing the storm to weaken slightly. In addition, the outer rain bands began to interact with Tawain and Luzon, disrupting the storm's low-level inflow, further weakening the storm. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/typhoon-usagi-threatens-taiwan-hong-kong-20130919
Millions Brace for Impact (Typhoon Usagi)
Typhoon Usagi, a strong tropical cyclone in the western Pacific Ocean, is packing winds equivalent to a categoy 4 Hurricane. Over the next 24 hours Usagi will threaten parts of Taiwan, the far northern Philippines and southern China.
Usagi strengthened to a super typhoon Friday morning before weakening slightly to below super typhoon strength Friday night. Further weakening is expected before making landfall late Sunday, local time.
A tropical cyclone is dubbed a "super typhoon" when maximum sustained winds reach at least 150 mph. Usagi underwent a period of rapid intensification from early Wednesday through midday Thursday (U.S. Eastern time), going from a 55-knot tropical storm to a 140-knot super typhoon in just 33 hours, or just under a 100 mph intensification, based on satellite estimates of intensity.
By Friday night, though, Usagi underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, causing the storm to weaken slightly. In addition, the outer rain bands began to interact with Tawain and Luzon, disrupting the storm's low-level inflow, further weakening the storm. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/typhoon-usagi-threatens-taiwan-hong-kong-20130919
September 21, 2013
(Rolling Stone) I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that's a nom de plume, it's not bad, although I might have gone for "Harry Kingbanger" or "Harry Wandwanker"
. The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, "Give Back? Yes, It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%" and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes.
This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there's a passage in there I just couldn't let go:
What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur!
It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn't go so far as to take the "God's work" thing 100% seriously, and here's this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/forbes-calls-goldman-ceo-holier-than-mother-teresa-20130920#ixzz2fWmw9uea
Matt Taibbi: Forbes Calls Goldman CEO Holier Than Mother Teresa
(Rolling Stone) I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that's a nom de plume, it's not bad, although I might have gone for "Harry Kingbanger" or "Harry Wandwanker"
. The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, "Give Back? Yes, It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%" and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes.
This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there's a passage in there I just couldn't let go:
Imagine the effect on our culture, particularly on the young, if the kind of fame and adulation bathing Lady Gaga attached to the more notable achievements of say, Warren Buffett. Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind. (Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)
Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity. . ."
What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur!
It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn't go so far as to take the "God's work" thing 100% seriously, and here's this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa. ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/forbes-calls-goldman-ceo-holier-than-mother-teresa-20130920#ixzz2fWmw9uea
September 21, 2013
Robert Prasch: The “Lessons” that Wall Street, Treasury, and the White House Need You to Believe About the Lehman Collapse
By Robert E. Prasch, Department of Economics, Middlebury College. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Five long years have passed since the demise of the once venerable firm of Lehman Brothers. To mark the occasion, Wall Street, the United States Treasury Department, the White House, and their several political proxies and spokespersons have taken to the mass media to instruct the public in the “lessons” to be drawn from the financial crisis of 2007-09. Regrettably, we are witnessing the propagation of several self-serving falsehoods in the hope that the public can be induced to embrace them now that the immediacy of the events in question is in the past. Some of the lessons are so flagrantly false that they demand immediate correction.
No One Saw It Coming
Of all the falsehoods being circulated, this one is in many ways the most egregious and damaging. It systemically denies the attribution of credit and thereby voice (and political power) to those who in fact did see “it” coming even as it provides blanket exoneration to those whose ignorance–or more likely–cowardice combined with self-interest prevented them from perceiving what was happening in the financial sector. Those making this latter claim can, more correctly, observe that, “no one in our close-knit circle of elites saw it coming.” Stated in this form, the statement is suggestive. Why, we might ask, was their circle exclusively made up of individuals who did not, would not, or could not, see the crisis coming? Why is it, in a nation with the diversity and talent of the United States, that all of the senior managers of our largest financial firms, and those charged with regulating them, were exclusively made up of individuals sharing the same perspective – a perspective that, I might add, was and remains so singularly and disastrously dysfunctional for the economy upon which the rest of us depend?
These are compelling questions because, as a matter of fact, many highly-informed people “did see it coming.” Indeed, by 2007 the American landscape was littered with risk managers, senior analysts, and even a few economists who “did see it coming” and who had the temerity to speak up about it. We also know that these several persons were invariably pressured to remain silent. Refusing to do so, they found themselves marginalized and their careers stalled. Not a few of them were dismissed from their positions for speaking up. Remarkably, five years after the failure of Lehman, not a single one of the many persons with an accurate assessment of what was going on has been elevated to a position of responsibility in the administration of a president who repeatedly promised the American people that he would bring about “change.” By contrast, the persons in authority who not only failed, but failed catastrophically, in their appointed roles have been retained or promoted by this administration. Am I the only one who thinks that this is a perverse outcome worthy of mention?
The Crisis was Almost Exclusively About Liquidity
Wall Street, Treasury, the White House, and the Congressional leadership of both major political parties (who came together to support the infamous bailout legislation that created TARP), desperately want you to believe that in the Fall of 2008 America’s largest and most prominent financial firms were illiquid as opposed to insolvent (for the record, insolvent financial firms have made this claim since the beginning of time). From the beginning, the story peddled by Wall Street, Treasury, and the White House is that a momentary, irrational, and essentially groundless “panic” had gripped financial markets, causing a passing, albeit catastrophic, decline in the price of otherwise good and worthy assets. As a consequence, those assets could no longer serve as collateral for the short-term lending that had become lifeblood of Wall Street financing. This perspective, one that remains unquestioned across Manhattan and Northwest Washington, was enshrined in the name given to the bailout legislation – the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Notice, these assets were described as “troubled,” not “failed,” not “garbage,” not “riddled with fraud and misrepresentation.” No, they were merely “troubled.” ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/robert-prasch-the-lessons-that-wall-street-treasury-and-the-white-house-need-you-to-believe-about-the-lehman-collapse.html#wH3BmHJTZp5o9dXY.99
“Lessons” that Wall Street, Treasury, and White House Need You to Believe About the Lehman Collapse
Robert Prasch: The “Lessons” that Wall Street, Treasury, and the White House Need You to Believe About the Lehman Collapse
By Robert E. Prasch, Department of Economics, Middlebury College. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives
Five long years have passed since the demise of the once venerable firm of Lehman Brothers. To mark the occasion, Wall Street, the United States Treasury Department, the White House, and their several political proxies and spokespersons have taken to the mass media to instruct the public in the “lessons” to be drawn from the financial crisis of 2007-09. Regrettably, we are witnessing the propagation of several self-serving falsehoods in the hope that the public can be induced to embrace them now that the immediacy of the events in question is in the past. Some of the lessons are so flagrantly false that they demand immediate correction.
No One Saw It Coming
Of all the falsehoods being circulated, this one is in many ways the most egregious and damaging. It systemically denies the attribution of credit and thereby voice (and political power) to those who in fact did see “it” coming even as it provides blanket exoneration to those whose ignorance–or more likely–cowardice combined with self-interest prevented them from perceiving what was happening in the financial sector. Those making this latter claim can, more correctly, observe that, “no one in our close-knit circle of elites saw it coming.” Stated in this form, the statement is suggestive. Why, we might ask, was their circle exclusively made up of individuals who did not, would not, or could not, see the crisis coming? Why is it, in a nation with the diversity and talent of the United States, that all of the senior managers of our largest financial firms, and those charged with regulating them, were exclusively made up of individuals sharing the same perspective – a perspective that, I might add, was and remains so singularly and disastrously dysfunctional for the economy upon which the rest of us depend?
These are compelling questions because, as a matter of fact, many highly-informed people “did see it coming.” Indeed, by 2007 the American landscape was littered with risk managers, senior analysts, and even a few economists who “did see it coming” and who had the temerity to speak up about it. We also know that these several persons were invariably pressured to remain silent. Refusing to do so, they found themselves marginalized and their careers stalled. Not a few of them were dismissed from their positions for speaking up. Remarkably, five years after the failure of Lehman, not a single one of the many persons with an accurate assessment of what was going on has been elevated to a position of responsibility in the administration of a president who repeatedly promised the American people that he would bring about “change.” By contrast, the persons in authority who not only failed, but failed catastrophically, in their appointed roles have been retained or promoted by this administration. Am I the only one who thinks that this is a perverse outcome worthy of mention?
The Crisis was Almost Exclusively About Liquidity
Wall Street, Treasury, the White House, and the Congressional leadership of both major political parties (who came together to support the infamous bailout legislation that created TARP), desperately want you to believe that in the Fall of 2008 America’s largest and most prominent financial firms were illiquid as opposed to insolvent (for the record, insolvent financial firms have made this claim since the beginning of time). From the beginning, the story peddled by Wall Street, Treasury, and the White House is that a momentary, irrational, and essentially groundless “panic” had gripped financial markets, causing a passing, albeit catastrophic, decline in the price of otherwise good and worthy assets. As a consequence, those assets could no longer serve as collateral for the short-term lending that had become lifeblood of Wall Street financing. This perspective, one that remains unquestioned across Manhattan and Northwest Washington, was enshrined in the name given to the bailout legislation – the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Notice, these assets were described as “troubled,” not “failed,” not “garbage,” not “riddled with fraud and misrepresentation.” No, they were merely “troubled.” ..................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/09/robert-prasch-the-lessons-that-wall-street-treasury-and-the-white-house-need-you-to-believe-about-the-lehman-collapse.html#wH3BmHJTZp5o9dXY.99
September 21, 2013
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/income_monopoly_20130920/
Life imitates board game (cartoon)
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/income_monopoly_20130920/
September 20, 2013
Squeezing More Profits from Crummy Tomatoes
Friday, 20 September 2013 09:36
By Jim Hightower, OtherWords | Op-Ed
“I’m 98 percent confident we can make a tomato that tastes substantially better,” Professor Harry Klee recently exulted to The New York Times.
Hmmm. Excuse me, professor, but “substantially better” than what? One of Momma Nature’s own heirloom varieties perhaps? No, no — Klee knows that tomato-tampering flavorologists like him can’t get near that quality.
Rather, he’s merely out to endow the industrial, massed-produced fruits of agribusiness with enough tomato-y taste to pass as a minimally acceptable version of the real thing.
How? By artificially injecting them with some flavor genes from actual tomatoes. Why? So the corporate powers can retake market share and profits they’ve been losing to small producers of the natural product. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18964-squeezing-more-profits-from-crummy-tomatoes
Jim Hightower: Squeezing More Profits from Crummy Tomatoes
Squeezing More Profits from Crummy Tomatoes
Friday, 20 September 2013 09:36
By Jim Hightower, OtherWords | Op-Ed
“I’m 98 percent confident we can make a tomato that tastes substantially better,” Professor Harry Klee recently exulted to The New York Times.
Hmmm. Excuse me, professor, but “substantially better” than what? One of Momma Nature’s own heirloom varieties perhaps? No, no — Klee knows that tomato-tampering flavorologists like him can’t get near that quality.
Rather, he’s merely out to endow the industrial, massed-produced fruits of agribusiness with enough tomato-y taste to pass as a minimally acceptable version of the real thing.
How? By artificially injecting them with some flavor genes from actual tomatoes. Why? So the corporate powers can retake market share and profits they’ve been losing to small producers of the natural product. ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/18964-squeezing-more-profits-from-crummy-tomatoes
September 20, 2013
Published on Sep 20, 2013
Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University joins us to discuss the narrow coverage of economics in media, our fictional economic recovery, Occupy Wall St., and the structural problems that perpetuate a vast disparity of wealth.
Prof. Richard D. Wolff on Economics in Media and the Economy Pts. I & II - MediaChannel.org
Published on Sep 20, 2013
Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University joins us to discuss the narrow coverage of economics in media, our fictional economic recovery, Occupy Wall St., and the structural problems that perpetuate a vast disparity of wealth.
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