Help! Weekend Economists' Beatles Edition July 17-19 2009

[Demeter]

After last weekend's surfing bash, you just knew we had to jump the puddle to Liverpool and London of the summer of '63.




Also known as "The Fab Four," "The Lads from Liverpool"

Origin Liverpool, England

Genre(s) Rock, pop rock

Years active 1960–1970

Label(s) EMI, Parlophone, Capitol, Odeon, Apple, Vee-Jay, Polydor, Swan, Tollie, UA

Associated acts

The Quarrymen, Plastic Ono Band, The Dirty Mac, Wings, Traveling Wilburys, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band

Website www.thebeatles.com

Members
John Lennon
Paul McCartney
George Harrison
Ringo Starr

Former members

Pete Best
Stuart Sutcliffe

The Beatles, a rock group that formed in Liverpool, England in 1960, were one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music. During their years of stardom, the band consisted of John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass guitar, vocals), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocals) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocals). Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and skiffle, the group worked with different musical genres, ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock. Their clothes, style and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. After the band broke up in 1970, all four members embarked upon successful solo careers.

The Beatles have sold over one billion records internationally.<1> In the United Kingdom they released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one, earning more number one albums (15) than any other group in UK chart history. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, they have sold more albums in the United States than any other band,<2> and in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked them number one in its list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.<3> According to that same magazine, The Beatles' innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of top-selling Hot 100 artists to celebrate the chart's fiftieth anniversary, with The Beatles at #1.<4>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States

The Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964, and all the rest is history. Let's relive those halcyon years, when people had futures, jobs and money to spend on music, as we clean up the debris from the major explosion staged by the Corporations to prevent the Dream from being fulfilled. Post them if you've got them.

[Demeter]

1. As Usual, We Start with The Dead Bank Report: 2 at 7 PM

First Piedmont Bank, Winder, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with First American Bank and Trust Company, Athens, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of First Piedmont Bank.

First Piedmont Bank's two offices will reopen on Monday as branches of First American Bank and Trust Company...

As of July 6, 2009, First Piedmont Bank had total assets of $115 million and total deposits of approximately $109 million. First American Bank and Trust Company paid a deposit premium of 1.01 percent. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, First American Bank and Trust Company agreed to purchase approximately $111 million of assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

The FDIC and First American Bank and Trust Company entered into a loss-share transaction on approximately $90 million of First Piedmont Bank's assets. First American Bank and Trust Company will share in the losses on the asset pools covered under the loss-share agreement...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $29 million. First American Bank and Trust Company's acquisition of all the deposits was the "least costly" resolution for the FDIC's DIF compared to alternatives. First Piedmont Bank is the 54th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the tenth in Georgia.




BankFirst, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was closed today by the South Dakota Division of Banking, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Alerus Financial, National Association, Grand Forks, North Dakota, to assume all of the deposits of BankFirst.

The two offices of BankFirst will reopen on Monday. Alerus Financial, N.A. entered into a separate agreement to operate BankFirst's Sioux Falls location as a branch of First Dakota National Bank, Yankton, South Dakota.

Alerus Financial, N.A. will operate the failed bank's Minneapolis location as a branch of Alerus Financial, N.A....

As of April 30, 2009, BankFirst had total assets of $275 million and total deposits of approximately $254 million. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Alerus Financial, N.A. will acquire $72 million in assets, comprised of cash, securities and loans secured by deposits. The FDIC entered into a separate agreement with Beal Bank Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada, to acquire $177 million of the failed bank's loans. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition...

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $91 million. Alerus Financial, National Association's acquisition of all the deposits was the "least costly" resolution for the FDIC's DIF compared to alternatives. BankFirst is the 55th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in South Dakota. The last FDIC-insured institution to be closed in the state was First Federal Savings Bank of South Dakota, Rapid City, on April 24, 1992.

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

$120 Million so far today, folks! That's a Hard Day's Night for you!


http://www.beatlestube.net/video-links/

[ozymandius]

25. Woohoo! Another local (for me) bank!

:woohoo: This makes me want to start a bank just so I can catch that Friday Night Fever too. I hear you're not a Georgia bank until your lobby smells like pizza and FDIC.

[Demeter]

28. Contain Your Enthusiasm, Ozy

What will they do when they run out of banks? They will start in on the pizza shops, probably!

[Demeter]

2. Next, Paul Krugman Spills the Beans: The Joy of Sachs

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/17/opinion/17krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?

First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.

Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.

Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.

Let’s start by talking about how Goldman makes money.

Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared in importance compared with the actual production of useful stuff. The sector officially labeled “securities, commodity contracts and investments” has grown especially fast, from only 0.3 percent of G.D.P. in the late 1970s to 1.7 percent of G.D.P. in 2007.

Such growth would be fine if financialization really delivered on its promises — if financial firms made money by directing capital to its most productive uses, by developing innovative ways to spread and reduce risk. But can anyone, at this point, make those claims with a straight face? Financial firms, we now know, directed vast quantities of capital into the construction of unsellable houses and empty shopping malls. They increased risk rather than reducing it, and concentrated risk rather than spreading it. In effect, the industry was selling dangerous patent medicine to gullible consumers.

Goldman’s role in the financialization of America was similar to that of other players, except for one thing: Goldman didn’t believe its own hype. Other banks invested heavily in the same toxic waste they were selling to the public at large. Goldman, famously, made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages — then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed. All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers.

And Wall Streeters have every incentive to keep playing that kind of game.

The huge bonuses Goldman will soon hand out show that financial-industry highfliers are still operating under a system of heads they win, tails other people lose. If you’re a banker, and you generate big short-term profits, you get lavishly rewarded — and you don’t have to give the money back if and when those profits turn out to have been a mirage. You have every reason, then, to steer investors into taking risks they don’t understand.

And the events of the past year have skewed those incentives even more, by putting taxpayers as well as investors on the hook if things go wrong.

I won’t try to parse the competing claims about how much direct benefit Goldman received from recent financial bailouts, especially the government’s assumption of A.I.G.’s liabilities. What’s clear is that Wall Street in general, Goldman very much included, benefited hugely from the government’s provision of a financial backstop — an assurance that it will rescue major financial players whenever things go wrong.

You can argue that such rescues are necessary if we’re to avoid a replay of the Great Depression. In fact, I agree. But the result is that the financial system’s liabilities are now backed by an implicit government guarantee.

Now the last time there was a comparable expansion of the financial safety net, the creation of federal deposit insurance in the 1930s, it was accompanied by much tighter regulation, to ensure that banks didn’t abuse their privileges. This time, new regulations are still in the drawing-board stage — and the finance lobby is already fighting against even the most basic protections for consumers.

If these lobbying efforts succeed, we’ll have set the stage for an even bigger financial disaster a few years down the road. The next crisis could look something like the savings-and-loan mess of the 1980s, in which deregulated banks gambled with, or in some cases stole, taxpayers’ money — except that it would involve the financial industry as a whole.

The bottom line is that Goldman’s blowout quarter is good news for Goldman and the people who work there. It’s good news for financial superstars in general, whose paychecks are rapidly climbing back to precrisis levels. But it’s bad news for almost everyone else.



Goldman Sachs Gets By With a Little Help From My Friends

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=With%20a%20Little%20Help%20From%20My%20Friends

[Demeter]

3. CIT in talks with JPMorgan, Goldman

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090717/bs_nm/us_cit_30

NEW YORK (Reuters) – CIT Group Inc (CIT.N) is in talks with JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) about short-term financing as it looks for ways to avoid bankruptcy, a source close to the company said on Friday, sending the lender's shares and bonds up.

Bankruptcy, however, is still possible over the next few days, and CIT, a 101-year-old lender that services nearly one million small- and mid-sized businesses, is continuing to talk with regulators about the situation, the source said.

Financing talks have turned primarily to arranging for a debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan for the lender in case of a bankruptcy, CNBC reported, adding that talks were also continuing for financing out of court.

JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were in talks with other banks about a DIP loan, Bloomberg reported.

Meanwhile, CIT's bondholders were going to hold another conference call on Saturday, a source in the lender's bondholder group said.

"They haven't thrown the towel, and they still are trying to work very hard to get some sort of funding, but at the end of the day I still think that there is a very high risk of a bankruptcy event," said Sameer Gokhale, an analyst at KBW.

CIT is in search of $2 billion to $3 billion of financing, according to the source, who declined to be identified because the talks were private. The company also is in talks with bondholders about a debt for equity swap, the source said.

But the source in the bondholders' group said many bondholders were pursuing a "debt for new debt" exchange and that a debt for equity exchange was not a real consideration.

The first source added one potential scenario is a sale of some assets to raise capital. The lender had wanted regulators' permission to transfer assets to its bank unit, but that did not happen, the source said.

"It is just going to allow them to pass the next 30 to 60 days, but they have exhausted their balance sheet condition so fast that it was kind of breathtaking," said Keith Wirtz, president and chief investment officer of Fifth Third Asset Management.

The company's shares moderated early gains and closed up 29 cents, or 71 percent, at 70 cents, after more than doubling their price amid hopes of financing. The company lost 75 percent of its market value on Thursday as government talks for financing collapsed and bankruptcy loomed.

Standard & Poor's said on Friday that it was removing CIT from its S&P 500 (.SPX) market index as of July 24 after the close of trade, replacing it with software maker Red Hat Inc (RHT.N).

CIT's credit default swaps rose to about 51 percent as an upfront cost on Friday afternoon, according to Markit Intraday data, up from about 44 percent on Friday morning and up from about 48 percent late on Thursday.

The price of CIT's floating-rate notes due in August rose to 71.5 cents on the dollar in busy trading, from about 61 cents late on Thursday, according to MarketAxess, helped by news about the negotiations with Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, bond fund manager Sean Simko said.

LIMITED OPTIONS

The company sought additional help even after gaining the status of bank holding company in December so it could draw $2.33 billion of taxpayer money from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

But the Obama administration declined help, saying it had set high standards for granting aid to companies and leaving private investors as the one alternative to avoid collapse.

The impact of CIT's demise would likely pale by comparison with the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers Inc (LEHMQ.PK) last September, analysts said.

"If they can't survive, the market will resolve this for them and move on. I don't see massive systematic disruptions if CIT will not exist three months from now," Wirtz said.

Still, the ripples of a collapse could be widespread and worsen the effects of the economic downturn for some firms.

CIT has about $40 billion of long-term debt, according to independent research firm CreditSights. About $1.1 billion of debt will come due in August, followed by about $2.5 billion by year end.

The New York Post reported JPMorgan could acquire CIT's factoring unit, which finances more than $50 billion of wholesale inventory, at a time of the year when the collapse of the lender could disrupt retailers holidays plans.

CIT declined to comment and JPMorgan was not available for comment. But analysts cooled expectations of an asset sale.

"It has some valuable franchises, but if they sell the assets in a distressed situation, they don't even get the par value for the assets. They will have to take losses and those losses will further weaken the balance sheet, so that doesn't seem to be a viable strategy," Gokhale said.


You Never Give Me Your Money
http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=You%20Never%20Give%20Me%20Your%20Money

[Demeter]

4. History of Bananas:Nikolas Kozloff: Chiquita (United Fruit Co.) from Arbenz 1954 to Zelaya 2009

A lengthy summary of events, well worth the read!

http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/2024

Happiness is a Warm Gun

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Happiness%20is%20a%20Warm%20Gun

[Demeter]

5. The Ransom of Uncle Sam MS. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

http://blog.buzzflash.com/smith/331


"Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism." Earl Warren (1891-1971) U.S. Lawyer. Peter's Quotations (Lawrence J. Peter)

How many times have we heard from the Bush GOP politicians that healthcare and education (which should be free), climate change, science, jobs, whatever the people want at the time, would be the equivalent of (gasp) socialism. Poppycock! Who have the citizens of the U.S. bailed out in recent months? Wall Street plus their bonuses, banks, and more money allocated for killing in Iraq and Afghanistan, while many American citizens are left without employment, homes, and even our military can be found living on our streets, while millionaires make these decisions in U.S. government.

All under the label of "patriotism." But when we Americans want our government to work for us, such as jobs, healthcare, money for a dangerous infrastructure, which happened this month in Illinois as I was writing about the very thing in this article, a bridge failure . . . what do we hear when the people want a government to work for us? Socialism. That's right, this from those in Congress, the Bush GOP, who still refuse to give our government back to the people, unless we pay for their mistakes. We have no guarantee that we will get Uncle Sam back, and in good health. How can we tell if Uncle Sam is in good health? This is how . . . a poll taken for the happiest nation, and the United States makes the list at 114th spot.

You Can't Do That

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=You%20Can%27t%20Do%20That

[rfranklin]

6. The day I met the Beatles... (except for Ringo)

It was 1964. The world was going nuts with Beatlemania. They were flying out to Australia for the beginning of their Far East tour. They were flying on Pan American flight 2, which was the eastbound round the world route. I was living in Bangkok, Thailand, and was able to go out to the plane when they landed there. Paul looked at my girlfriend and said, "Nice birds here." John said , "God, it's hot here." That was about all I can remember.

In 1970 I flew from London to New York with Paul and Linda. But that's antoher story....

[Demeter]

9. Thank you for sharing that memory

I don't mean to be nostalgic or anything, but knowing how the story ends, at least half of it, could anyone ever have imagined?

Yesterday

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Yesterday

[Hugin]

68. Wow! Quite impressive.

Being the celeb-o-phobe I am... I can't say I've ever had the opportunity to meet or see any of the Beatles. Although, I would've liked to.

[Demeter]

7. Dave Lindorff: Dark Days But a Ray of Hope for Embattled Workers

http://blog.buzzflash.com/lindorff/256

The Democrats in Congress have sold out their supporters in the labor movement by giving up the so-called "card-check" feature of the embattled Employee Free Choice Act, which makes the "reform" legislation that has been billed as labor's "number one issue" much less of a reform. Instead of being hammered into line on this issue by party leaders and by President Obama, who has long pledged to back EFCA, conservative Democrats in the House and Senate were allowed to join Republicans in opposing the measure, leading to its replacement with a vague plan to require quicker secret-ballot elections in union-organizing drives.

But largely unnoticed by the corporate media, there has been some really important good news for working people and the labor movement: the appointment of three people to fill the long-vacant empty seats on the five-member National Labor Relations Board, which has the ultimate job of adjudicating issues under the National Labor Relations Act.

The Bush Administration basically gutted the NLRA by simply failing, since 2007, to fill the three seats that had been emptied as prior board members' five-year terms had expired. This had left the NLRB with only two members, one a Democratic pro-labor appointee, and one a Republican pro-management appointee. Since these two members would vote on opposite sides of most issues, the only issues they ended up issuing decisions on were 400 particularly egregious cases, where they could both agree -- and most of those are still in legal limbo since they have been challenged in court on the basis that board rules require a three-member quorum.

The Obama Administration in April announced three new appointments to fill the vacant seats, while the current Democratic member of the board, Wilma Liebman, was elevated to NLRB chair, replacing incumbent Republican Peter Schaumber.

The new members, two Democrats and one Republican in accordance with a long tradition of presidents keeping minority representation on the board, are Craig Becker, Mark Gaston Pearce, and Brian Hayes. Becker, currently an associate general counsel to the Service Employees International Union, was appointed to a term that expires in 2014. Pearce, a private attorney from Buffalo, NY specializing in representing labor law from the labor side, was appointed to a term that expires in 2013. Hayes, currently the Republican labor policy director on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, previously worked as a labor law attorney with a firm that exclusively represents management.

The appointments gives unions and working people a solid 3-2 majority on the NLRB for the first time in almost a decade, and ends a period in which the board has essentially been sidelined, leaving unions and workers with little recourse as employers have worked to undermine existing contracts and squelch new organizing drives.

One of the primary functions of the NLRB in enforcing labor laws has been responding to unfair labor practice charges filed by unions and workers and to anti-union actions taken by managements. Because of the Bush/Cheney administration's refusal to fill vacant seats, the board was largely unable to resolve those disputes -- a situation that has led to a proliferation of illegal actions against workers and unions by corporations.

The firing of union organizers, intimidation of workers who support unions, hiring of permanent replacement workers (scabs) during authorized strikes, refusal to hold elections after the submission of cards supporting a union by a majority of workers in a workplace -- all illegal -- have become commonplace in America during the Bush/Cheney years, in no small part because the NLRB had become virtually dysfunctional.

At this point, the board still has only two members, as the Senate still needs to ratify the nomination of the three additional board members. So far, there is no sign that Republicans will attempt to block the appointments, which the Obama Administration plans to submit as a package. "I think this will be a straight shot for all three members," says David Parker, deputy executive secretary of the NLRB.

The only way these nominations would fail would be if some of the same conservative Democrats in the Senate who have betrayed workers by refusing to support, and ultimately killing, the card-check provision of the EFCA were to side with Republicans in blocking them.

This seems unlikely, but given the sorry history of the Democratic Party in terms of betraying historic progressive traditions and in betraying key supporters, and given President Obama's evident desire to avoid conflict with Republicans and conservative members of his own party in Congress, anything is possible these days.

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Drive%20My%20Car

Drive My Car

DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

[DemReadingDU]

8. Chris Martenson: The US is Insolvent (and headed towards bankruptcy)

7/17/09 Chris Martenson's blog
Yesterday, my jaw literally dropped when I read this statement made by Vice President Joe Biden;

“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”


What surprised me was not the admission by a sitting US Vice President that the nation is headed towards bankruptcy. I suppose that's pretty clear to everybody by now so why not just tell it like it is? What got me was that the statement, as expressed, displays an unbelievable ignorance of finance and economics. The claim boils down to the idea that the way to avoid bankruptcy is by spending money.

If this is somehow possible, I sincerely hope that Mr. Biden sees fit to share the secret with the millions of people that entered bankruptcy this year. Otherwise, it will have to stand as a jaw-droppingly inane comment.

But it clues us into the mindset of at least some of the DC leadership and that gives us some sense of how much faith we should place in their efforts to centrally manage everything from car companies to secretive trillions handed out to untrustworthy bankers.

Instead of blind faith, we might prefer to trust in our own ability to look at the data and ask, “how is this going to work?”
.
.
There can be no doubt except that the US government is financially insolvent. While we may not know the exact timing (this year, next?) or the exact mechanisms (raise taxes hugely? Renege on entitlement benefits?) we can be sure that past profligacy will translate into future hardship and reduced prosperity.

And the shame of it all is that it did not have to be this way. History is thoroughly unambiguous on this matter; spending beyond ones means inevitably ends in tears. No exceptions. How did we manage to forget this?

As I probe further into this country’s recent past, the time of my grandfather and great-grandfather, I am reading of people who understood that prosperity resulted from a combination of productivity and living well within ones means. I wonder what changed and how we so completely forgot the lessons of the (very) recent past that today it is possible for a Vice President of the country to state that spending is the key to avoiding bankruptcy and then walk out of the room with his head held high.

more...
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/us-insolvent-and-headed-towards-bankruptcy/22538



The Beatles-Yellow Submarine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6otXofKLivA&feature=related

[Demeter]

10. I See You Have Your Irony well-Oiled

[Tansy_Gold]

27. Um, excuse me

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=464051&mesg_id=464059


As you can see, I wrote that THURSDAY.


Dear Mr. Biden -- ARE YOU NUTS??????????????

Sir, you absolutely astound me with the lunacy of your pronouncement. Absolutely astound me.

You quite clearly do not have a single glimmer of a clue as to what ails this country and its economy. Not a glimmer. Billions upon billions, amounting eventually to trillions of dollars of government money has been spent already, and we have nothing to show for it. The rich are unfathomably richer, but the jobs keep disappearing. The poor get poorer, the middle class gets poorer. Why do you think that is, Mr. Biden?

Why do you think the banks are reaping record profits off late fees and overdraft charges instead of making money through business operations? Why do you think that is? No, don't turn around and ask someone else, like that moron Tim Geithner or that vampire Hank Paulson or that simpering siphon Ben Bernanke. Come up with an answer yourself, Joe.

It's all because the banks, the investment banks, the commercial banks, the finance companies, the brokers and hedgers and the quants and the market makers have all been sucking up all the money. They have gone beyond millionaires, beyond billionaires. And they have done NOTHING for it.

You need an elementary course in real economics, Mr. Biden. You need to learn, or relearn, how an economy operates. With government regulation or without. With credit or without. With tax-funded social programs and without.

Yes, we need universal health care in this country. You and your colleagues who are stupendously well cared for probably don't have any inkling what it's like to worry every single day of your life whether or not you are going to be destroyed by a medical bill. You've seen the ads on tv, I'm sure, featuring the woman who had to put $17,000 in hospital bills on a credit card. What do you think happens to people who don't have $17,000 in credit available? What do you think happens to someone who finds out the cost of their prescriptions means they will have to do without groceries for a week?

More and more and more and more people in this country are being stripped of their jobs, and yet the banks are making billions. Why do you think that is, Mr. Biden? Where do you think all that money is coming from? Banks don't make money, sir. They move it around but they don't make it. Money, or wealth if you wish, is created by people making things and performing services that increase the value of other things. When banks perform the service of lending money so that more money can be created through real economic growth -- not the bubble-blowing inflation of values like we saw in the housing bubble -- then they are helping to facilitate the creation of wealth. But when all they do is suck in the money someone else has made, and do it with so little compassion and so much greed, that's not contributing to the economy; that's destroying it.

Government spending more money to avoid bankruptcy is stupid. Stupid beyond words.



Tansy Gold, who is NOT stupid

[bread_and_roses]

34. Are You About to Join the White Underclass? by Joe Bageant

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/141405/look_out%2C_are_you_about_to_join_the_white_underclass/?page=entire

in my travels and experience in American life I see that tens of millions of Americans being screwed silly by a handful of chiselers at the top, or if I see one percent of Americans earning as much annually as the bottom 45 percent of Americans, then that 45 percent is an underclass. When I see a 70 year old man on his second pacemaker limping through Wal-mart as a "greeter" so he can pay at least something on last winter's heating bill this month, then he is part of an underclass. When I see the humiliated single mom waitress tugging downward on the ridiculously short red plastic skirt she must wear at the Hooter's type joint so her crotch won't show, she's part of an underclass of humiliated and socially oppressed people. Screw the hairsplitting about who qualifies as underclass and what color they are. Just fix it. Or reap the consequences.

A Hard Day's Night

[bread_and_roses]

36. come to think of it....Lady Madonna

might be more apt.

[Demeter]

37. Lady Madonna,as requested!

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Lady%20Madonna

[Demeter]

11. US and UBS request court delay

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e3d8b684-6ef5-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

ByJoanna Chung in New York and Haig Simonian in Zurich

Published: July 12 2009 16:58 | Last updated: July 12 2009 16:58

The US government and UBS on Sunday stepped back from the brink of a damaging court battle – scheduled to start on Monday – over the Swiss bank’s refusal to reveal the names of thousands of its offshore customers to the US Internal Revenue Service.

Prospects for a settlement between the sides improved after the US Department of Justice, UBS and the Swiss government asked for a three-week delay to the hearing to allow time for an “alternative” resolution to US demands for the names of 52,000 US taxpayers holding offshore accounts.

However, the DoJ said any settlement “would necessarily’’ include requiring UBS to provide information on a “significant number” of individuals.

The request came as the DoJ sought to put further pressure on UBS by saying in a separate court filing that it would consider imposing monetary sanctions on the bank if the court ordered UBS to turn over names under an IRS summons and it failed to do so.

“If the court does enter an order enforcing the summons – as we believe it should – then UBS will have to decide whether or not to comply with the order. UBS, like any other litigant, would refuse to comply at its peril,” it wrote.

The Swiss government waded into the legal dispute last week by saying it would issue a “blocking” order if the US court ruled against UBS, and would prevent any transfer of confidential client information.

On Sunday, the DoJ said such a blocking order could “impact” February’s deferred prosecution agreement with UBS, under which the bank agreed to pay $780m (£481m) to settle a separate but linked criminal action by the US authorities.

The civil case demanding the bank reveal the clients’ identities, which was launched by the US shortly after, will have immense consequences for the bank and Swiss private banking and has been closely followed by bankers and lawyers concerned with extra-territoriality, as well as foreigners with offshore accounts in Switzerland.

An IRS victory would breach Switzerland’s hallowed bank secrecy and other tax authorities would seek to emulate that. A ruling in favour of the “John Doe” summons, seeking client names without specific evidence of wrongdoing, would also put UBS under intense, possibly unsustainable, pressure.

Blackbird

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Blackbird

[AnneD]

60. Perhaps you should reconsider your choice......

Taxman.....Beatles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzLry3ABpV0

[Demeter]

12. China and Russia lead oil deals

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b3a18034-6f0b-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

By Ed Crooks in London

Published: July 12 2009 19:53 | Last updated: July 12 2009 23:39

Oil companies from emerging economies are responsible for more than half the sector’s biggest mergers and acquisitions by value this year as state-controlled companies have exploited western groups’ relative weakness to secure control of resources.

Emerging economy buyers, led by Chinese and Russian companies, paid for $24.2bn of the total $48bn value of the 50 largest oil and gas deals agreed in the second quarter, according to PwC, the professional services firm. Such companies accounted for one-fifth of the total value of deals last year.

M&A advisers expect state-controlled groups to remain active in the takeover market in the coming months, benefiting from sponsor governments’ financial strength and less pressure than western companies over short-term performance.

The leading buyers in the second quarter were state-controlled groups Sinopec of China, which agreed to pay $8.8bn including debt for London-listed Addax Petroleum, and Gazprom of Russia, which spent $8.3bn on a number of deals, including $4.1bn to buy a 20 per cent stake in oil subsidiary Gazprom Neft .

In the top 10 oil and gas deals, three had Chinese buyers; three a Russian buyer – Gazprom – and one was the $6bn merger of London-listed Heritage Oil with Genel Energy of Turkey.

Martin Copeland, managing director of Lexicon Partners, the advisory firm, said: “In the current environment, where many western oil companies are in a state of dislocation and valuations remain low by recent standards, state-controlled companies have taken advantage of the window of opportunity to secure asset positions which might otherwise not have been available to them.”

The total value of oil and gas deals picked up to reach $51.7bn, more than double the value in the first quarter. “In part . . . companies have been sitting back and waiting for the bottom of the cycle,” said Kevin Donaldson of PwC. “I think the consensus is we are past that now, and it is time to do deals.”

Although oil slipped below $59 a barrel at the end of last week, it is still well above its low point below $33 in February.

Chinese companies, in particular, are still looking for acquisitions. For example, CNOOC is interested in Kosmos Energy, the US private equity backed oil group valued by analysts at $3bn-$6bn, which is up for sale with a closing date for bids expected this week.

You're Going to Lose That Girl Her name is Olive, Olive Oyle!

http://www.beatlestube.net/video-links/

[Demeter]

14. And China vs. Intellectual Property--Goes Another Round

Patent spat looms at climate change meeting

By Frances Williams in Geneva

Published: July 12 2009 16:22 | Last updated: July 12 2009 16:22

Ways of averting a damaging clash over patents at a climate change meeting later this year, pitting the US against the big emerging economies, will top the agenda at a conference organised by the UN’s intellectual property agency that opens on Monday.

At the G8 summit in Italy last week, China, backed by India and Brazil, repeated its call for easier access to patented clean energy technologies in return for signing on to a new global climate change accord in Copenhagen in December.

China, in a submission last year to the UN body handling negotiations on the accord, called for new rules allowing confiscation of patents through compulsory licensing of “environmentally sound technologies”.

India and Brazil say they want explicit recognition that compulsory licensing can be used in the interests of mitigating climate change under World Trade Organisation intellectual property rules, drawing parallels with a 2001 WTO declaration relating to intellectual property and public health.

Alarmed US industry groups, with strong support in the Congress, are pressing the Obama administration to resist any weakening of patent protection in the Copenhagen talks, raising fears among environmental groups that wrangling could scuttle an accord aimed at limiting global greenhouse gas emissions.

In May, the US Chamber of Commerce launched a Coalition for Innovation, Employment and Development specifically to lobby for maintaining strong IP rights in the climate change and other international negotiations. The coalition argues that patents, copyright and trademarks are essential to stimulate innovation.

However, more neutral experts, including the World Intellectual Property Organisation , organiser of the two-day conference on IP and public policy, say more creative use of the existing system could enable a wider spread of clean technologies without recourse to confiscation of patents.

David Lammy, UK minister for intellectual property, who will speak at the conference on Monday, says that in addition to more voluntary licensing of technologies such as solar power and fuel cells, poorer countries need help to develop their own knowledge base.

Incentives he will mention include cross-national research collaboration, patent pooling and “licences of right”, which cut patent fees if rights holders agree to license their invention to anyone requesting it.

With China, the UK is developing model agreements for collaboration on research and development to ensure the benefits of innovation are both shared and protected. Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, said earlier this year she hoped to explore collaborations between universities in the US and China “where we can jointly develop intellectual property, where we can jointly come up with new technologies”.

CHINA IS IN FACT NOTORIOUS FOR COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS, FROM THE KNOCKOFF ON DESIGNER'S FASHIONS TO THE REVERSE ENGINEERING OF ELECTRONIC PRODUCTS. THIS IS PIRACY IN YET ANOTHER FORM...

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=I%20Am%20the%20Walrus

I Am the Walrus

[Demeter]

21. The Darker Side of China's 'Miracle' By David Sirota

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23081.htm

July 17, 2009 "Creators Syndicate" -- Before planning for and making the transglobal trek to the most populous country on Earth, I knew mainland China mostly through television and movie screens. My sinologists were Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Egg Shen, the crotchety shaman from "Big Trouble in Little China" - a Cabinet of advisers who left me, ahem, unprepared for my voyage East.

Thus, I was thrilled when, upon arrival, a Peace Corps volunteer handed me a 1997 tome called "Red China Blues." Written by Chinese Canadian journalist Jan Wong, the book tours a nation on the verge of superpowerdom, and it ends by suggesting that the country's industrialization may mean, "The future of China may be the West's past."

One excursion does not make me a China guru, but I can report with some confidence that when it comes to economic growth, Wong is right. China is walking in our shoes - and that's not necessarily a good thing.

On my trip (which you can read more about at Openleft.com), I've seen America circa 1900: coastal metropolises of towering wealth hemming in a polluted and destitute heartland. Two Chinas, as John Edwards might say: one you constantly hear about and another hidden from view.

In Hong Kong, I gaped at the sleek office towers, fine restaurants and nouveau riche - the "miracle" endlessly celebrated by the New York Times' Tom Friedman (China is a place of "wide avenues, skyscrapers, green spaces, software parks and universities"), Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria ("China's growth has obvious and amazing benefits for the world") and most of America's Very Serious Commentators. Indeed, according to MIT's Yasheng Huang, China's best-known cities are known for tricking incurious observers into portraying the entire country as "sanitary ... largely free of grotesque manifestations of poverty (and) one of the most successful countries in tackling income inequality."

Of course, in Guiyang, a coal-mining town of 3 million in China's poorest province, I found exactly the opposite - the darker side of the "miracle."

Here in the countryside is the soundstage of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi flick: filth-covered tenements slapped together with crumbling cement and kitchen tile; limbless paupers with burned faces begging for food; an atmosphere choked by soot, exhaust and the stench of human excrement.

Scholars insist this is the unavoidable consequence of a country being run by the Chinese Communist Party - an extreme version of the Republican Party that couples Genghis Khan's intolerance with Hank Paulson's authoritarian capitalism. Pundits assert that China's inequality, which, according to World Bank data, now rivals our own Gilded Age, is just a necessary evil - the obligatory pitfall of nonetheless positive Western-style development. As "Big Trouble in Little China" presciently warned, China is here and we cannot simply cite inevitability as reason to ignore its metastasizing problems.

We're not talking about the United States in 1900 - a country of only 76 million people pigheadedly despoiling its way into the 20th century. It's 2009, the planet's already on the brink of resource exhaustion and climate catastrophe, and China is 17 times more populous than America during its industrial era. If we just sit back and listen to those who pooh-pooh "necessary evils" and celebrate supposed "miracles"; if governments refuse to strengthen international environmental policies; if the world merely hopes for the best as 1.3 billion Chinese pursue old-school smokestack industrialization, then there's not going to be much of a world left.

Our future won't be that gleaming Hong Kong skyline we keep being told about - it will be downtown Guiyang.

David Sirota is the bestselling author of "The Uprising" (2008). Find his blog at OpenLeft.com .

You Can't Do That

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=You%20Can%27t%20Do%20That

[Demeter]

13. Handy Quote for Modern Times

"Fraud may consist as well in the suppression of what is true as in the
representation of what is false." -- Justice Heath - English
Jurist - Source: Tapp v. Lee, 1803

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Everybody%27s%20Got%20Something%20to%20Hide%20Except%20For%20Me%20and%20My%20Monkey

[Demeter]

15. Video Report : Free AK-47 With Each Truck Purchase!

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/07/17/am.muller.truck.ak47.cnn

Bad Boy

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Bad%20Boy

[Demeter]

16. Bankruptcy Filings up 33 Percent over a 12-month Period: 1.2 Million in 12 months

Bankruptcy Filings up 33 Percent over a 12-month Period: Total 12-month Total of Bankruptcy Filings 1.2 Million. In last Report, Filings up 27 Percent in one month.

http://www.mybudget360.com/bankruptcy-filings-up-33-percent-over-a-12-month-period-total-12-month-total-of-bankruptcy-filings-12-million-in-last-report-filings-up-27-percent-in-one-month/

Bankruptcy filings are soaring in the United States. In the last data point, we had 134,282 bankruptcy filings for the month of March 2009. Bankruptcy data usually lags 3 or 4 months but the trend is ominous. For the last 12 months some 1.2 million bankruptcy filings have occurred. Much of this is linked to the 26,000,000 unemployed or underemployed Americans being unable to pay their bills or even service their debt. What is more telling is the amount of Chapter 7 bankruptcies occurring since these are straight liquidations and not like a Chapter 13 restructuring.

MUCH MORE AND GRAPHS AND TABLES AT LINK!

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Can%27t%20Buy%20Me%20Love

Can't Buy Me Love

[Demeter]

17. City (of Philadelphia) suspends payment of contracts

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/heardinthehall/City_suspends_payment_of_contracts.html


Running out of cash because of the state budget deadlock, the City of Philadelphia has stopped paying many of its bills until the impasse is resolved, City Finance Director Rob Dubow said this morning.

The city must temporarily withhold about $120 million in July and August to avoid running out of cash completely, Dubow said. Payments to contractors stopped Wednesday. Dubow, Budget Director Stephen Agostini and Treasurer Rebecca Rhynhart said that the city will pay its payroll, benefits, debt service and "emergency" contracts. The $4 million a month paid to foster parents, for instance, is considered an emergency, and other contracts will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

In a noon press conference, Mayor Nutter said the city would ask vendors to "understand where we are."

"We're asking them to work with us through this crisis," Nutter said.

The city is suffering for a number of reasons, all related to the state budget, city officials said.

First, the city anticipated receiving nearly $100 million in state payments in July and August that are frozen until a new budget passes. Second, the city is asking the legislature to approve a 1-cent increase in the sales tax, which would generate about $9 million a month, beginning Aug. 1. Third, the city had planned, as it does every year, to take out a $275 million, short-term "tax revenue anticipation note" or TRAN, which municipalities use to provide cash to cover expenses until their tax revenues are collected.

Without the expected state payments and sales tax revenues coming in, borrowing the $275 million would be prohibitively expensive, Dubow said..

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Carry%20That%20Weight

Carry That Weight

[Demeter]

18. Hollow Language and Hollow Democracies What can we do, now that democracy and the free market are 1?

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23092.htm

By Arundhati Roy

July 17, 2009 "New Statesman" --- While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By democracy I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.

So, is there life after democracy? Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defence of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia . . . is that what you would prefer?”

Whether democracy should be the utopia that all “developing” societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn’t meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It’s meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy – too much representation, too little democracy – needs some structural adjustment.

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximising profit? Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be?

What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race? Could it be that democracy is such a hit with modern humans precisely because it mirrors our greatest folly – our nearsightedness? Our inability to live entirely in the present (like most animals do) combined with our inability to see very far into the future makes us strange in-between creatures, neither beast nor prophet. Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

Chains

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Chains

[Demeter]

19. Taking Populism Seriously By Adrian Kuzminski

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23080.htm


July 17, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Populism persists as an uncomfortable element in American and global political life, neither left nor right, liberal nor conservative. Populists are widely portrayed as economic losers resentful of rich elites. Our bi-partisan political and media establishment routinely downplays this resentment, castigating it as the source of misguided "class warfare," even though mainstream politicians, when desperate enough, don't hesitate to arouse just enough populist resentment to gain votes, while artfully evading the substance of populist complaints.

Contemporary populists, like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, appear to the establishment to be "no-nothings" who don't understand "how the system works." They, and increasing numbers of Americans, do, however, know something that their critics don't: that the system is unjust and failing. Should the predictions of blogosphere doomer prognosticators -- like Mike Whitney, Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Hudson, and others -- come true, the principal victims will be liberals, progressives, and the Democratic party. They will all be identified with attempts to save a failed system, and discredited for propping up Wall Street and "the money power." Obama will go the way of Gorbachev, if he's lucky.

After the real crash -- which we still await -- the populists will inherit political power, if only by default. Are they ready for it? On this score their critics have a point: so far populists display no coherent alternative to the system whose evils they rightly decry. Until they develop one they are more likely to bring chaos and anarchy than stability and justice. Fortunately for the populists such an alternative already exists, and they can find it in their own history if they bother to look.

The populist impulse of today, widespread but fragmented and disorganized, is what's left of a once proud and impressive mass political movement in this country. In its heyday, in the 1880s and 90s, fifty populists from the People's party, were elected to the US Congress, with many others winning state and local offices. Such a showing by a third party today would be cataclysmic.

The old populists were out-maneuvered and finally marginlized by what they and earlier Jeffersonians and Jacksonians called "the money power," the privatized and largely unregulated banking and credit system which reduced many small independent producers -- farmers, artisans, shopkeepers -- to debt peonage by unnecessary, that is, usurious interest rates. Today that same "money power," after decades of ascendency, stands insolvent in the wake of the Great Crash of 2008, and the nation faces a second Great Depression. Hundreds of trillions of dollars of outstanding debt far outstrip the productive potential of the nation and the planet ever to be repaid.

This time around, with dense populations and a scarcity of natural resources, especially energy, across the globe, and widespread ecological destruction, there is little prospect that economic growth can or even should be restimulated. Nonetheless, in the face of this crisis, both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and Obama like Bush before him, desperately seek to reinflate the credit bubble, this time on the backs of taxpayers. Insofar as already maxed-out taxpayers cannot carry that burden, the dollar and much of our economy is poised to collapse.

Our fixation with economic growth is largely driven by a usurious financial system. If credit is available only on the condition of onerous rates of interest, then borrowers (individuals and businesses) must put the money they borrow to work, not only to repay the principal and leave some profit for themselves, but to repay as well the interest owed to creditors. It is this, more than anything else, which forces the economy to "grow."

We've gotten gotten away with it for over 200 years of the industrial revolution mostly because we've been able to exploit natural resources, especially fossil fuels, to enable this growth. But global population growth and resource depletion, including "peak oil," appear to have finally caught up with us. The real cause of the depression and the credit crisis is the dawning realization by investors that these resource constraints are contraints on growth, and that the high growth rates enjoyed since the eighteenth century may be a thing of the past.

The populists were the last movement in the United States to offer a viable alternative to the privatized usurious financial system. They wanted Main Street, not Wall Street, to control money. Why, they asked, should credit -- for mortgages, home equity, consumer spending, auto loans, education, etc. -- be available almost exclusively from private lenders at high rates of interest? Why shouldn't citizens be able to access credit directly by borrowing at nominal rates of interest from a decentralized public system of lending?

This was actually possible in colonial America, when land banks and paper currencies made credit widely and cheaply available. As historian Terry Bouton makes clear in his account of the American revolution in Pennsylvania in his compelling book, TAMING DEMOCRACY, the suppression of this public credit by Parliament in Britain led to depression and the revolution. The counter-revolution of propertied elites in the 1780s, culminating in the US Constitution, strangled this impulse for cheap credit. The 19th century witnessed a long but losing struggle against privatized usurious financial interest, who finally sealed their control over money and the economy with the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.

But the idea of cheap public credit was kept alive by Jeffersonians, Jacksonians, and populists. It was developed probably in greatest detail by an early American populist, Edward Kellogg (1790-1858), especially in his postumously published A NEW MONETARY SYSTEM (1861). Kellogg and other populists argued that we ought to have a public not a private financial system. In his plan, citizens would go to local public credit banks and offer collateral for personal loans for any purpose; the money, issued locally but held to a federally enforced standard of a fixed, nominal rate of interest (about 1 percent), would be legal tender, everywhere interchangeable, and so circulate throughout the nation.

Today our money is created top-down as loans from the privately owned Federal Reserve to big banks, who relend to corporations and to the public at rates of interest profitable (when repaid) to themselves. This is a system which demands economic growth and insures that wealth will be concentrated in the hands of creditors. By insisting on a fixed nominal rate of interest Kellogg aimed to forstall tranfers of wealth to creditors. There should be no private charge for money, he reasoned, insofar as money is a public function. And with money issued locally to local borrowers, there would be no need for a central bank.

Now there's a revolutionary idea, and a liberating one. The opportunity to borrow money without unnecessary interest would be economically and politically transformative. It would also be ecologically responsible. The major engine of economic growth, after all, is the need to pay back debt with interest. By making money available at zero or nominal interest, the incentive for economic growth would be removed.

Moreover, in gaining widespread access to capital, individuals would be able to invest in themselves (in education, housing, consumer goods, starting a business, etc.) without having to transfer their wealth to creditors
(consider the interest on a typical credit card or mortgage). Freed of the burden of usurious interest, the pursuit of happiness and genuine liberty would be widely possible. And, not least, the power of the special interests would be broken, restoring the promise of genuinely democratic government.

Adrian Kuzminski, Resident Scholar in Philosophy at Hartwick College, is the author of Fixing the System: A History of Populism, Ancient & Modern. He can be reached at: [e-mail]

I Don't Want to Spoil the Party

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=I%20Don%27t%20Want%20to%20Spoil%20the%20Party

[Hugin]

26. Well, I made it through that one... Until the part about...

how Sara Palin and Glen Beck were populists.

I heartily disagree with his assessment. They are what make populists look bad and that's why TPTB have their media lump the likes of those two in with populists.

I declare this article hooie.

[Demeter]

29. Now, Now, They ARE Populists

Just the same way the Fundies are Christian. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who call themselves something that totally perverts the meaning of the word. And the polite world lets them, but truth can't be hidden very long.

[Dr.Phool]

20. And the last guy we could trust just died.

R.I.P. Walter Cronkite.

[Demeter]

22. In Tribute:

Ask Me Why

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Ask%20Me%20Why

[AnneD]

61. I'll write about Walt on Monday....

He had deep Houston Texas roots-you don't have to go very far to feel his impact.

For Walter...A Day in the Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBJj10rYmdg&feature=PlayList&p=8E852F486CB68070&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

[Demeter]

23. How to Create a Million Jobs in One Month

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/how-to-create-a-million-j_b_230991.html


As jobs continue to evaporate, pressure is mounting for another shot of fiscal stimulus. But as Paul Krugman points out, the danger is that the Obama administration might "find itself caught in a political-economic trap, in which the very weakness of the economy undermines the administration's ability to respond effectively."

What we need right now is a jobs-creation program that cuts through all the Rube Goldberg-type provisions of the current stimulus bill. Because so many of our political leaders hate the very government they serve, they refuse to move money into immediate government jobs. They are afraid to create New Deal-type WPA programs which immediately would put people to work. Instead, they'd rather shovel money into ineffective tax cuts and questionable "shovel ready" projects that are not coming online fast enough. They also oppose funding cash-starved states which are laying off teachers and social workers, while the stimulus bills attempt to hire more construction workers. This tug of war between public and private employment has blunted the impact of the $787 billion stimulus package. If we weren't so hung up on anti-government ideology, we could have turned that stimulus money into 13 million public sector jobs. (See "The Only Thing we have to Fear is Fear ... of Government."

I'm not so much of a "Third Way" person myself, but desperate times call for creative thinking. The Republicans and blue-dog Democrats are incapable of going with sensible and efficient direct-government hiring. Well, how about utilizing the non-profit sector?

There are approximately 534,000 non-profit public charities under the 501(c)3 tax code. Let's offer each one of them $100,000 (pro-rated in monthy payments), if -- and only if -- they hire two new employees at $40,000 a year each, plus benefits including health care. The catch is that they would have to hire these two new employees within one month of signing up for the funds.

At a maximum cost of $53.6 billion we would generate more than million new jobs. And the chance of failure is minimal since we only would have to pay for jobs that actually were created. (The money could be rapidly transferred monthly through the tax collection mechanisms that each organization already has to pay its payroll taxes.)

This new income would be an enormous shot in the arm for public charities, all of which are in severe financial distress due to the drop in foundation grants, charitable donations and the crash in endowment values caused by the financial meltdown.

It would be very interesting to see conservatives argue that public charities don't deserve the support or that they will squander the money. After all, these organizations fit perfectly into our mainstream mantra: these are our "thousand points of light," designed to address needs that neither the government nor the private sector adequately serves.

The price tag is tiny when compared to what we've poured into Wall Street and into the economy already: It's only 3.6 percent as large as what we've spent on TARP and the last stimulus bill.

Most importantly, non-profits usually are nimble enough, and hungry enough for money, to quickly find new employees. They won't have to file building plans and environmental impact statements to get started on their work. They don't have to worry about whether or not the work performed will turn a profit for the charity. They don't have to worry about large bureaucracies slowing down the hiring process. And usually, they already have plenty of job applicants.

This proposal is no panacea. It doesn't directly attack the problem of rebuilding and greening the manufacturing sector, crippled by 30 years of neglect and financial manipulation. (See The Looting of America). But, music, art, dance and theatre organizations would get an enormous boost. And yes, all manner of conservative, liberal and even radical think tanks would also have more staff with which to spew out contradictory ideas. At the very least, this kind of jobs program would be particularly helpful to younger workers who are having difficulty entering and staying in the workforce.

Come on America. Let's put our people to work. It sure beats waiting around for the miracle of the market to kick in.

Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It, Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=All%20I%27ve%20got%20to%20Do

All I've got to Do

[ozymandius]

50. How seasonally adjusted unemployment numbers have become worthless

Good diary posted at Dailykos:

The seasonal adjusting model operates from the known past, and assumes that there will be summer layoffs for retooling in the auto industry at this time of year. This means that it deflates the actual number of adjusted claims to match what "should" be happening at this time of year. That didn't happen this year. The auto layoffs came early because GM and Chrysler shut down while they went through bankruptcy proceedings. Now that GM is out of court, they've called the guys and gals back in the last week. This has really fucked with the models used to create seasonally adjusted numbers.

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since January, depressed by shifts in the timing of auto plant shutdowns.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 47,000 to 522,000, lower than forecast, in the week ended July 11, from a revised 569,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance plunged by a record 642,000, also reflecting seasonal issues surrounding the closures at carmakers.

A Labor analyst said the distortions may play havoc with claims data for another couple of weeks. General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC accelerated shutdowns this year heading into bankruptcy, months before the traditional July closings. Through the gyrations, job losses may subside amid signs the housing and manufacturing slumps are easing.

The distortion started in April and May when large numbers of autoworkers were put on layoff at a time when the model said that plants should be going full bore. It helps to look at the seasonally adjusted and unadjusted numbers from the start of the year to now to get an idea of how this wreaks havoc on the seasonally adjusted reported numbers. As I suggested to New Deal Democrat in Bondad's diary, it's likely that the seasonal adjustment of numbers is obscuring an underlying trend.

Ozy here: As a casual reminder, I am obliged to say that any number reflecting weekly initial unemployment claims above 200k is firmly entrenched in 'oh shit' territory. Numbers over the past year have reflected sentiment at 3 times 'oh shit!'

[Ghost Dog]

64. Non-profits, profit-sharing cooperatives, micro-lending, startups; "points of light"

burning grassroots hot enough to forge a new economy for a sustainable America, yes. And, at the other end of the scale, monopoly-busting and the expulsion of the money-lenders from your political system.

These things are not optional.

Don't let me down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC1U2wUcV6Q :hi:

(Uh. Can't have a Beatles thread without some Stones (Time is on my side)). :evilgrin:

[Tansy_Gold]

71. But those aren't self-sustaining jobs.

It's no different from the current crop of "stimulus" jobs. Infrastructure repair is one thing, but if all the money paid for it ends up spent on cheap plastic crap from China, it leaves the economy and never comes back.

Just like the trillion$ picked from our pockets and handed on golden platters to the already filty stinking rich at Goldman Sucks. It's never coming back into OUR economy.

Sure, give a million bucks to a non-profit and let them hire some people and put the tax money back into the system. But those jobs aren't making things, they aren't "creating" wealth in the generally accepted fashion. And when ultimately those dollars are spent on "things," like food and clothing and school supplies and auto parts and refrigerators and cooking pots -- the manufacture of which USED TO sustain OUR economy -- those dollars leave the system. They do not get recycled, generating more and more and more jobs, sustaining more and more and more families.

THE GOVERNMENT, whether it is the Obama badministration or any other, has no care whether you or I or other working people, here or anywhere on the planet, live or die, whether we are happy or miserable. THEY DO NOT CARE. Remember the elder booosh's gaffe, "Message, I care"? He had to be told to say it because he really didn't give a rat's ass. Neither did his son. Neither does Obama.

NEITHER DOES OBAMA.

I supported Hillary in the primaries because 1.) I wanted to see a woman in the presidency (not ANY woman, but A woman) and 2.) I thought she had more experience with the wah Washington works (and doesn't work). I did see that 2. as a two-edged sword, however, and was well aware that her ties to the DLC and big business and pro-business interests could present a negative. But when Obama got the nomination, I was okay with that. I saw his LACK of ties to DC as a plus, in that maybe he wouldn't appoint a bunch of insiders. And yes, I was worried that Biden, with his historic ties to the banks, might not be the best choice. But jesus harold fucking christ, they were sure the better choice than the old man and the bimbo.

But with the initial appointments of Geithner and Summers, I knew this administration had doomed we the people to a slow economic death. There would be no health care reform, because the business of health insurance and the money it can funnel to the wealthy is far more important than keeping the rest of us healthy. There would be no tax reform, because the wealthy, as few as they are, will not allow their inherited and otherwise unearned wealth to be taxed. It is in their best interest, and our worst, that they continue to accumulate more and more and more wealth, to be immune to any curbs on their behavior. There will be no pressure on the Swiss to give up the information on tax evaders. It will not happen. Bernie Madoff and Allen Standford will be sacrificed, but the others will continue to bleed us.

Solutions will be put forth, like giving money to non-profits to hire people to push paper and distribute money, but there will be no REAL solution, no -- forgive the hideous pun -- but no FINAL SOLUTION that will bring back the jobs, bring back the economy, bring back the sanity. There will be no re-education of the masses so that they understand the lies of the corporations and can resist the constant temptation of the advertisers, the pitchmen, the carnival barkers on the tv and the internet, the roadside billboards, the magazine ads.

We will not be urged to make do with less; we will be forced to do it because there will less for us to make do with, but we will be shamed by it. We will be told it is our fault, and that if we were 'good Americans' we would be spending more. We will be made to feel guilty, and those who have bought into it will blame us and threaten us.

Barack Obama has had the power to change this. He chose not to. He chose to put in positions of power the very people who created this catastrophe. He continues to listen to their counsel, continues to add more of them to the administration's payroll, continues to dangle carrots like health care reform before the noses of the people who elected him, the people who trusted him, the people who believed in him. He has done nothing. NOTHING. NOT A FUCKING THING.

Fred Schwarz's classic anti-communist screed "You Can Trust the Communists" is available free online, http://www.schwarzreport.org/ycttable.htm, and for everything he may have gotten wrong (and it was A LOT) back in 1960, he did get one thing right, and if you substitute "Powers that Be" for "Communists" in this opening, you'll find that the strategy for power hasn't changed:

The thesis of this book is very simple. It is that Communists are Communists. I intend to show that they are exactly what they say they are; they believe what they say they believe; their objective is the objective they have repeatedly proclaimed to all the world; their organization is the organization they have described in minute detail; and their moral code is the one they have announced without shame. Once we accept the fact that Communists are Communists, and understand the laws of their thought and conduct, all the mystery disappears, and we are confronted with a movement which is frightening in its superb organization, strategic mobility and universal program, but which is perfectly understandable and almost mathematically predictable.

In the battle against Communism, there is no substitute for accurate, specific knowledge. Ignorance is evil and paralytic. The best intentions allied with the most sincere motives are ineffective and futile if they are divorced from adequate knowledge. Consider a mother who has a small daughter to whom she is devoted. For this daughter she is determined to do all that a mother may do. She feeds her a well-balanced diet to build a healthy body; she provides the finest education to develop her mind; she cares for her spiritual well-being, and gives her a lovely home. In the environment of this young girl, there are men who specialize in gaining the confidence of little girls by giving them candy and enticing them into automobiles to molest them. If the mother neglects to give her child the specific information to meet such a situation, she will fail in her duty, and all her loving care will count for nothing when the crisis comes. There is no substitute for specific knowledge.

It is the purpose of this book to give that knowledge. Some of it is a little technical. Some of it may seem a long way from the everyday needs and activities of life. Nonetheless, the information contained in it is essential to survival.

The statement is frequently heard: "You cannot trust the Communists!" This is incorrect; you can trust the Communists.

They are extremely trustworthy. You can trust a cancer cell to obey the laws of its lawless growth. You can trust an armed bank robber to take the money and try to escape. Similarly, you can trust the Communists to act in accordance with the laws of their being.

When people operate according to clearly defined principles, they are both trustworthy and predictable. While we continue to believe that the Communists think, feel and believe as we do, the Communist movement is, as Winston Churchill described it, "a riddle wrapped in an enigma." The movements of the heavenly bodies appeared mysterious and unpredictable till Copernicus discovered the governing laws. When we understand the philosophy of Communism, the unifying purpose concealed in their frequently chaotic and contradictory conduct is revealed.


There is no forgiveness in my heart for Obama at this point. None. He has done nothing for us, the people who put him in power. Nothing. Whatever tiny crumbs he has tossed us have done nothing to satisfy the great gnawing hunger we took into the election battle.

He should remember what happens when the beast gets too hungry.




Tansy Gold, who remembered to add to her journal

[Demeter]

82. What Cannot Continue, Will Not continue

Obama could have made it easy for everyone and stopped the crooks. It would have been hard work, and dangerous, and he would have found out who his allies were real fast, but that's what he was chosen to do. He seemed astute and ethical enough to do the job.

He could have identified, denounced and rounded up the crooks. He could have instituted regulations and tax policy and tariffs and trade policies to keep them out of government and under control of the people. But, he chose to try to finesse, instead. He took the Rodney King, "Can't we all get along" approach.

We The People will have to do it the hard way. That was his choice, ultimately. It certainly isn't what we voted for, none of those who voted for Obama voted for what he's done to us.

Whether we will be a better nation in the future for having to do it the hard way (after it's done), versus being a good enough nation in the first place by avoiding the hard way through astute politics and superior rationality, is doubtful. It's going to cost everything. There's your Merchant of Venice quote:

"Who chooseth me, must give and hazard all he hath." That choice would be freedom from crooks and multinational corporations and self-appointed elitists whose abuse of power stems from a basic lack of government regulation.

The mad-dog capitalists are actually pirates. Capitalism isn't license to steal, because it doesn't work as capitalism if it's merely looting.

I don't know if we will live long enough see the outcome, nor what the outcome will be. I do know it wasn't what we were trained for, nor what we aspired to. I am feeling that Time is not anybody's friend here, and that delay will only increase the destruction and death and waste.

I do think that far from stabilizing, the current economic "policy" is guaranteeing a revolution that will rock this nation and upset the world.

I fear for my country and its founding principles. That lamp beside the Golden Door is about blown out.

[Tansy_Gold]

85. Under normal circumstances, I am neither manic or depressive, but

today I have swung very far to the depressive side. Maybe it is the continuing heat and the lack of rain (I hate carrying water to BF's stupid plants). Maybe it is the appointment of another Goldman Sucks exec to a position in the administration. But I'm pissed. Royally pissed.

And reading the kool-aid spew from the true believers is just more than I can take. Today, anyway.



Tansy Gold

[Demeter]

24. the Internet Makes Me Look Like a Beatlemaniac!

Actually, I only became reconciled to the Beatles in the 80's. And only their love ballads. Now in maturity I begin to appreciate the political jabs. Still, it's not Tchaikovsky!

Anyway, it's diverting and amusing picking a song for each posting. Hope you approve of my choices. If you've a better recommendation, by all means, post it!

Brain is fried though. See you all tomorrow! Sweet dreams and make the most of the weekend!

BTW on the first weekend in August, I will be insanely trying to cover 4 routes, with young adult help. This means that unless somebody steps into the gap, the WE may be a bit sparse and limp. I can start it up Friday (I think) but after that it gets hairy. August will be like that. So don't be shy--post a little, or volunteer to take on the structure of the thread.

[Demeter]

30. Jill Schlesinger Wall Street: Long Arrogance, Short Humility

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-schlesinger/wall-street-long-arroganc_b_233044.html


What's the difference between the like-able winners and the odious ones? One word: humility.

Scanning the morning papers, it's clear that Wall Street firms are long arrogance and short humility. (New York Times: "$3.4 Billion Profit at Goldman Revives Gilded Pay Options," Wall Street Journal:"Loan Paid, J.P. Morgan Swagger Returns," Financial Times: "Goldman staff set for record pay-outs".)

My friends at these institutions know that the public isn't pleased with huge compensation packages, but continue to ask me two questions: (1) "Don't they want us to succeed?" and (2) "Doesn't the public know that we didn't really need the TARP money-they forced us to take it!" (Note that these guys don't really know anyone in "the public" so they have to ask me!)

Yes, we want you to succeed and we know that not all of the TARP recipients were on the precipice of disaster or imminent collapse. That said, it's distasteful that you attribute your success only to your superior trading and management prowess, when any objective observer would plainly see that had the government not swooped in and saved the entire system, you would not be talking about profits of any size.

While the survivors on Wall Street should be pleased with their results, there is no need to parade around like proud (but clueless) peacocks. This is distasteful any time, but even more so when the recession has inflicted so much pain on Americans.

It's hard for us here in the public to admire the recovery in earnings when these organizations could not have done it without us. So here's a suggestion for firms that were direct beneficiaries of Uncle Sam's largesse -- start your earnings announcements with the following two sentences:

Before getting into the numbers, we must acknowledge that without US taxpayer money, both directly and throughout the entire financial system, our results could not have possibly been this good. We still have a lot of work to do, but just want to say thank you for all of the folks who never heard of a credit default swap or a sub-prime mortgage.

Humility won't eradicate years of arrogance, but along with some much-needed regulatory reform, it would go a long way to help all of us move beyond this painful period.

SOMEBODY BUY THIS WOMAN A CLUE--AND THROW IN SOME FOR HER WALL STREET CONNECTIONS! THIEVES DON'T MERIT PRAISE FROM THEIR VICTIMS!

Baby You're A Rich Man

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Baby%20You%27re%20A%20Rich%20Man

[Demeter]

31. Arianna Huffington Shattering the Right vs. Left Prism Once Again: WSJ Goes After GS & the Bailouts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/shattering-the-right-vs-l_b_234582.html


Yesterday's opinion section of the Wall Street Journal offered convincing proof that those who want a progressive financial policy and those who simply want to save capitalism are in agreement about the madness of the administration's Wall Street policies.

There, on the editorial page of the capitalist Bible, was a piece taking repeated shots at Wall Street darling Goldman Sachs. And, over on the opposite page, a two-fisted op-ed by former hedge-fund manager Andy Kessler in which he labels the government bailout of Wall Street "a dumb move" and "a bust."

I'm planning to shrink down today's Journal, laminate it, and hand it out anytime someone in the media starts analyzing the economy using the cobweb-covered, tried-and-untrue right vs. left framing.

You know that this way of looking at financial policy is dead and buried when Rupert Murdoch's pride and joy is publishing takes that I could happily have written myself.

Let's start with the editorial, "A Tale of Two Bailouts," which decries the fact that, thanks to the policies of Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, Goldman "enjoys the best of both worlds: outsize profits for its traders and shareholders and a taxpayer backstop should anything go wrong."

The piece is spiked with disdainful references to "the Goldmans of the world" and "the likes of Goldman, which apparently needs no help printing money," and takes issue with the way "we changed when we stepped in to save certain banks in the name of saving the system." It also dubs Goldman "Goldie Mac," saying: "Goldman will surely deny that its risk taking is subsidized by the taxpayer -- but then so did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, right up to the bitter end."

Compare that to the laudatory language and quotes used by AP business writer Stephen Bernard in his story yesterday on Goldman's "stunning" profit report. Bernard calls the company "the king of post-meltdown Wall Street" and repeatedly quotes a financial analyst who anoints Goldman as "the best of the best," "in a class by themselves," and "the golden child of the market."

The Journal's take -- "We like profits as much as the next capitalist. But when those profits are supported by government guarantees or insured deposits, taxpayers have a special interest in how the companies conduct their business" -- is actually more in keeping with that of Robert Reich, who says that "Goldman's resurgence should send shivers down the backs of every hardworking American who has lost a large chunk of retirement savings in this economic debacle, as well as the millions who have lost their jobs.... Goldman's high-risk business model hasn't changed one bit from what it was before the implosion of Wall Street."

Then there is Kessler's op-ed, which mirrors much of HuffPost's take on the serial missteps made by Obama's senior economic team.

"We took the easy way out," he writes, "and, with the help of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's loose 'stress tests,' swept banking problems under the carpet. We waved off mark-to-market accounting and juiced bank stock prices to help them recapitalize, but all those toxic mortgage assets on bank balance sheets are still there as anchors on lending."

Kessler also refuses to buy into the "'green shoots' psychology" that has spread through much of the media -- and rejects the all-too-frequent conflation of the Wall Street economy and the real economy: "By not restructuring banks, by not getting bad loans off bank balance sheets, by not standing up to the massive increases in government debt crowding out private capital, the Fed and Treasury are holding back real economic growth."

There is much in the Wall Street Journal that I don't agree with but, when it comes to the failure of the administration to address and fundamentally reform what Kessler calls "the structural problems that got us into trouble in the first place," we are of the same mind. There is no daylight between a progressive position focused on the paramount need to get the real economy going and one based purely on what makes free markets work.

The editorial goes so far as to suggest imposing a tax (yes, the Wall Street Journal is proposing a tax!), an FDIC-style bailout tax to be precise, "for those in the too-big-to-fail camp."

We've reached the point where the only people defending the administration's Wall Street policies are the people benefiting from them -- or their good friends, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers.

And I Love Her

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=And%20I%20Love%20Her

[Demeter]

32. Sen. Sherrod Brown America Needs a National Manufacturing Policy. Now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/we-dont-care-we-dont-have_b_236218.html


Not too long ago, the ticket to the middle class was straightforward. Work hard, play by the rules, and you'll have something to show for it -- a good wage, a secure job and home, and a solid pension.

Our nation -- and economy -- relied on workers around Ohio to build cars and appliances, to lay down rail lines and highways. Their work put them squarely in the middle class. Their work -- and a thriving manufacturing industry -- turned our nation into an economic superpower.

Job loss and wage stagnation figures reflect a decade's long decline in U.S. manufacturing, a decline that has shattered the American dream for millions of Americans. What these figures don't reflect is the enormous potential the manufacturing sector holds for revitalizing our economy and ensuring our nation remains an economic superpower. Robust manufacturing capacity is not only essential if we are to achieve energy independence and sustain the independent ability to equip our military, it is the key to global competitiveness in emerging markets. From clean energy to medical and information technology to global infrastructure needs -- our nation's global competitiveness depends on our nation's manufacturing sector.

To realize our full potential, we must stop ignoring the challenges that manufacturing faces. We need a national plan -- a national manufacturing policy -- that aligns federal actions with the goal of strengthening our manufacturing sector. Today, as Chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy, I am hosting a hearing to examine how best to develop a robust national manufacturing policy.

Some ideas we'll consider: Permanent research and development tax credits. Making these credits permanent would incentivize investment in clean energy manufacturing industries like solar and wind power. A strong and reliable business climate promotes incubators of innovation that help entrepreneurs excel in a 21st Century economy -- like the more than twenty incubators located at Ohio's universities and businesses from Youngstown to Columbus to Dayton.

We must also ensure that Ohio's auto supply and component manufacturers -- companies that make brake pads and engine parts for cars and trucks -- have what they need to keep jobs in Ohio by helping them expand into the emerging clean energy industry. In June, I introduced the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act, which would provide a $30 billion revolving loan fund to help manufacturers that make gear boxes or windshields for cars to make those same components for wind turbines or solar panels.

Ohio's skilled workers are the backbone of our economy and our middle class. A national manufacturing policy must invest in them by linking highly-skilled workers with businesses in emerging industries. In April, I introduced the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success (SECTORS) Act, which would allow businesses, workforce development boards, labor unions, and community colleges to determine workforce and community needs. SECTORS organizes workforce training around emerging industry clusters like biosciences and alternative energy manufacturing in the Cleveland area or solar power development in Toledo. By providing tailored workforce training for community and industry needs, we can create and retain jobs in Ohio and around the nation.

There should be a coordinated federal response when a community experiences massive job loss, the kind of job loss both Wilmington and Dayton have endured. The federal government has a strategy to assist communities hit by a natural disaster. We must follow the same protocol when a community is devastated by a major plant closing. President Obama's Director of Recovery for Auto Communities is working to coordinate the federal response to auto-related layoffs. We need the same level of coordination for other economically-distressed communities fighting for economic stability.

Our nation has one of the most open markets in the world, but we don't practice trade in our national interest. Our trade laws are not enforced, our trade deficit is expanding, and our communities are crushed by job losses. A national manufacturing policy must include fair trade policies that promote American manufacturing. Later his month, I'll be introducing the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development, and Employment (TRADE) Act, which would ensure our trade agreements with Panama, Colombia, South Korea, or with any nation create a level playing field for U.S. manufacturing.

A robust national manufacturing policy will invest in Ohio's skilled workers to build our way to new opportunities in new industries. A Pew Report on Clean Energy notes that from 1998-2007, clean energy jobs grew in Ohio by 7.3 percent while all other jobs fell 2.2 percent. The report notes that Ohio is only one of seven states with such growth, and ranks fourth nationally in number of clean energy jobs. From public support to private research and development to venture capital investment, Ohio is forging a path to a revitalized manufacturing sector.

But Ohio's communities, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs need a national manufacturing policy now. It's a policy that promotes manufacturing, once again, as a ticket to the middle class.

WE WILL HOLD YOU TO THAT, SENATOR! THANKS FOR RAISING THE ISSUE IN CONGRESS!

Come Together
http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Come%20Together

[Tansy_Gold]

77. So there you have it

Sherrod Brown, on the Senate subcommittee for ECONOMIC POLICY, speaks for the working people of Ohio and the nation, but Odollah appoints Robert Horvats, vice chair of Goldman Sucks Intl, to the State Department as "under secretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs." So while Brown struggles to pass legislation that will help American workers in the American economy, Horvats will be fighting -- and winning -- to make sure the Global Gold Man wins AT THE EXPENSE OF American workers and the American economy.

Brown can "raise the issue" all he wants, but unless he and other members of the Senate find enough backbone, enough intestinal fortitude, enough balls and tits and guts to stand up to the global oligarchs, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. At least, nothing that benefits the American workers and the American economy.


Tansy Gold, I'm doin' all I can

[AnneD]

62. I'd also offer....

Piggies Beatles

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rMzYtqvW6A

[Tansy_Gold]

72. And what is Mr. Kessler doing to fix the situation? Anything?

I'm so sick to my stomach at all this stinking bullshit that I can't read the full article.

When one of these mega billionaires directs his bank to write down its toxic portfolio, tells his executives that they are NOT getting bonuses this year and will in fact see their salaries halved until they get the bank on solid footing again, THEN and ONLY THEN will I believe what comes out of their fork-tongued mouths. Until then, they're all fucking liars. Every goddess-damned one of 'em.




Tansy Gold

[Demeter]

33. We Don't Care. We Don't Have To Care. We're Goldman Sachs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/we-dont-care-we-dont-have_b_236218.html


Goldman Sachs has openly, blatantly gone back to business as usual, knowing they will be bailed out by taxpayers if their high rolling gambles don't work, and they don't care who knows about it.

The reason they can be so breathtakingly arrogant, so stunningly cavalier about not giving a damn about things that any other company's PR and government relations department would advise them against, is that they know they have the power to do anything they want to do. The Obama White House needs to take Goldman Sachs to the woodshed rhetorically, and they should have the Justice Department investigating them for anti-trust violations and all manner of stock manipulation. It is time to start squeezing the management at Goldman, and making them nervous about being broken up into pieces that are not too big to fail.

Here's (with brief intro) Matt Taibbi, Rob Johnson, and myself taking about Goldman Sachs on what is rapidly becoming my favorite media program for discussing economic issues, GRITtv:

VIDEO AT LINK

AND AS FOR THE BEATLE COMMENTARY: Ticket to Ride
http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Ticket%20to%20Ride

[Demeter]

39. ‘Government Sachs’ Strikes Gold ... Again By Robert Scheer

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23070.htm

July 16, 2009 "Truthout" July 14, 2009 - -- Connect the dots: Goldman Sachs made $3.44 billion in profit this past quarter, while the U.S deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time in the nation’s history and appeared to be headed toward doubling that figure before the budget year is out. Since most of the increase in the federal deficit is due to bailing out the banks and salvaging the greater economy they helped destroy, why is the top investment bank doing so well?

Well, because that was the plan, as devised by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Remember that Lehman Brothers, Goldman’s competitor, was allowed to go bankrupt. The Paulson crowd wouldn’t let Lehman change its status to that of a bank holding company and thus qualify for federal funds; soon afterward, Goldman was granted just such a deal, worth a quick $10 billion. Much is now made of Goldman paying back part of its bailout money, but forgotten is the $12.9 billion that Goldman got as its cut of the $180 billion AIG payoff. That is money that will not be paid back.

Goldman is considered a very smart bank because it was early in reducing its exposure to the mortgage derivatives that in large part caused the meltdown. However, it had done much to expand the market and continued to sell suspect derivatives to unwary buyers as sound investments, even as Goldman divested. The firm still holds $1.85 billion in real estate and lost $499 million in the previous quarter on bad loans, but made up for it by playing the vulture role and issuing high-interest debt to governments and companies made desperate by the recession that the financial gimmicks of the banks brought on in the first place.

And Goldman was not just another bank. Before Paulson ran the Treasury Department, another former Goldman head, Robert Rubin, pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall controls on banking activity. While some now play down the significance of this radical deregulation, not so Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein—at least not back in June 2007, when the markets were still doing well. “If you take an historical perspective,” Blankfein told The New York Times by way of explaining his company’s spectacular success at the time, “we’ve come full circle, because that is exactly what the Rothschilds or J.P. Morgan the banker were doing in their heyday. What caused an aberration was the Glass-Steagall Act.”

That 1933 act was repealed in a law signed by President Bill Clinton at Rubin’s urging, and in the following eight years Goldman Sachs recorded a 265 percent growth in its balance sheet. “Back then,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “Goldman was churning out profits by trading credit derivatives, speculating on currencies and oil and placing big bets the roaring stock market.”

Big bets made in a casino designed by Goldman, which now makes money off loans to the victims. High on the list of victims are state governments that have to turn to Goldman for money because the federal government that saved the banks won’t do the same for the states, which have watched their tax bases shrink because of the banking meltdown. As the WSJ noted, “issuing debt to ailing governments” is now a growth industry for Goldman.

Why didn’t the federal government just lend the money to the states? Why was all the money thrown at Wall Street instead of needy homeowners or struggling school systems? Because the federal government works for Goldman and not for us. Indeed, when it comes to the banking bailout, Goldman Sachs is the government.

So much so that last fall The New York Times ran a story, headlined “The Guys From `Government Sachs,’ ” that stated: “Goldman’s presence in the department and around the federal response to the financial bailout is so ubiquitous that other bankers and competitors have given the star-studded firm a new nickname: Government Sachs.”

One of those stars was Stephen Friedman, another former head of Goldman. Friedman was both a director of the company and chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank when he helped work out the details of the Wall Street bailout. The president of the N.Y. Fed at the time, Timothy Geithner, now secretary of the treasury, requested a conflict-of-interest waiver that allowed Friedman to buy more Goldman Sachs stock, and Friedman ended up with 98,600 shares. At market close on Tuesday that was worth $14,756,476. That’s nothing – three years ago, the 50 top Goldman execs made $20 million each, and this year could be better.

They’re not hurting.

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Helter%20Skelter

Helter Skelter

[Demeter]

40. Nine Reasons the Economy is Not Getting Better

http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/mzuckerman/2009/07/13/nine-reasons-the-economy-is-not-getting-better.html

Jobs data paint a discouraging picture of more pain to come
By Mortimer Zuckerman
Posted July 13, 2009

We are now looking at unemployment numbers that undermine any confidence that we might be nearing the bottom of the recession. The appropriate metaphor is not the green shoots of new growth. A better image is to look at the true total of jobless people as a prudent navigator looks at an iceberg.

What we see on the surface is disconcerting enough. The estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of job losses for June is 467,000. That increases by 7.2 million the number of unemployed since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the past six months have been greater than for any other half-year period since World War II, including demobilization. What's more, the job losses are now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all employment growth from the previous business cycle.

That's bad enough. But here are nine reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5 percent unemployment rate indicates.

One. June's total included 185,000 people who were assumed to be at work, many of whom probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. But many of the mythical jobs are in industries that have absolutely no job creation: finance, for example. When the official numbers are adjusted over the next several months, look to some of the 185,000 boosting the unemployment totals.

Two. More companies are asking employees to take unpaid leave. These people don't count on the unemployment roll.

Three. No fewer than 1.4 million people wanted or were available for work in the past 12 months. They were not counted. Why? Because they hadn't searched for work in the four weeks preceding the survey. The assumption is that they had found work or don't want it, but there are other explanations: school attendance, family responsibilities, sheer exhaustion.

Four. The number of workers taking part-time jobs because of the slack economy, a kind of stealth underemployment, has doubled in this recession to about 9 million, or 5.8 percent of the workforce. Add those whose hours have been cut to those who cannot find a full-time job, and the total of unemployed and underemployed rises to 16.5 percent, putting the number of involuntarily idle workers in the range of an overwhelming 25 million.

Five. The inside numbers are just as bad. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory private-sector employees, around 80 percent of the workforce, dropped to 33 hours. That's 48 minutes a week less than before the recession began, the lowest level of activity since the government began tracking such data 45 years ago. Full-time workers are being downgraded to part time as businesses slash labor costs to remain above water and factories operate at only 65 percent of capacity. If American workers were still putting in those extra 48 minutes a week now, 3.3 million fewer employees could perform the same aggregate amount of work. With a longer workweek, the unemployment rate would reach 11.7 percent, not the official 9.5 percent (which in turn dramatically exceeds the 8 percent rate projected by the Obama administration).

Six. The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks. This is the longest term since the government started to track these data in 1948. The number of long-term unemployed (those out of a job for 27 weeks or more) has now jumped to 4.4 million, an all-time high.

Seven. The average worker saw no wage gains in June, with average compensation running flat at $18.53 an hour.

Eight. The jobs report is even uglier when you consider that the sector producing goods is losing the most jobs—223,000 in the last report alone.

Nine. The prospects for job creation are equally distressing. The likelihood is that when economic activity picks up, employers will first choose to increase hours for existing workers and bring part-time workers to full-time status.

TEN. GOLDMAN SACHS HAS CAPTURED THE GOVERNMENT

Many unemployed workers looking for jobs once the recovery begins will discover that jobs as good as the ones they lost are almost impossible to find because more layoffs in this recession have been permanent and not temporary. Instead of shrinking operations, companies have closed whole business units or made sweeping structural changes in the way they conduct their business. For example, General Motors and Chrysler shut down hundreds of dealerships and reduced brands; Citigroup and Bank of America cut tens of thousands of jobs and exited many parts of the world of finance. In other words, we could face a very low upswing in terms of the creation of new jobs, and we may be facing a much higher level of joblessness on an ongoing basis. Job losses may last well into 2010 to hit an unemployment peak close to 11 percent. And then joblessness may be sustained for an extended period.

Can we find comfort in knowing that employment has long been considered a lagging indicator? It is conventionally seen as having limited predictive power because employment reflects decisions taken earlier in the business cycle. But today is different. Unemployment has doubled from 4.8 to 9.5 percent in just 16 months, a record rate so fast it may influence future economic behaviors and outlooks. Bear in mind that the lackluster increase in inventories suggests that there's little prospect in the pipeline of real growth in consumption, investment, and exports. So the terrible state of the labor market is likely to be a strong head wind against consumer spending for a long time as wages and overall income growth are decelerating and households, within a fairly short period, will have received their full portion of the stimulus package.

How could this happen when Washington has thrown trillions of dollars into the pot, including the famous $787 billion in spending that was supposed to yield $1.50 in growth for every dollar spent? For a start, too much of the money went to transfer payments—Medicaid, jobless benefits, and the like—that do nothing for jobs and growth. The spending that creates new jobs is new spending, particularly on infrastructure. It amounts to less than 10 percent of the stimulus package today.

Second, the stimulus package may have been well intentioned, but it was too small and too badly constructed to get money into the economy fast enough to replace lost consumer and business spending and to slow unemployment. Workers' pessimism is justified: About 40 percent believe the recession will continue for another full year. As paychecks shrink and disappear, consumers are more hesitant to spend and won't lead the economy out of the doldrums quickly enough.

It may have made him unpopular in parts of the Obama administration, but Vice President Joe Biden told it as it is when he said the administration misread how bad the economy was. The administration inherited the problem, but then it failed to understand how ineffective its solution would be. The program was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, and jobs. It wasn't. The recovery act may have been a single piece of legislation, but it included thousands of funding schemes for tens of thousands of projects, and those programs are stuck in the bureaucracy as the government releases the funds with typical inefficiency.

An additional $150 billion, which was allocated to state coffers so as to continue existing programs like Medicaid, did not add new jobs. Hundreds of billions of dollars were set aside for tax cuts and for new benefits for the poor and the unemployed, and that did not add new jobs. Now state budgets are drowning in red ink as jobless claims and Medicaid bills climb.

Next year, state budgets will have depleted their initial rescue dollars. Absent another rescue plan, they will have no choice but to slash spending or raise taxes, or both. The complete state and local government sector, which makes up about 15 percent of the economy, is beginning the worst contraction in postwar history in the face of a deficit gap of $166 billion for fiscal year 2010, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a cumulative gap of $350 billion in fiscal year 2011.

Similarly, households overburdened with historic levels of debt will be saving more. The savings rate
has already jumped from zero in 2007 to almost 7 percent of after-tax income now, and it is still rising. Every dollar of saving comes out of consumption. Because consumer spending is the economy's main driver, we are going to have a weak consumer sector, and many businesses simply won't have the means or the need to hire employees. In the aftermath of the 1990-1991 recession, Americans bought houses, cars, and other expensive goods. This time, the combination of a weak job picture and a severe credit crunch means that people won't be able to get the financing for big expenditures, and those who can borrow will be reluctant to do so.

In recent times, Americans found myriad ways to fuel spending, even as incomes stagnated: borrowing against the once rising price of their homes and tapping plentiful credit cards. No longer. The paycheck has returned as the primary source of spending, and pay is eroding even for those who have jobs. This process is nowhere near complete, and, until it is, the economy will barely grow, if at all, and may well oscillate between sluggish growth and modest decline for the next several years until the rebalancing of the excessive debt has been completed. Until then, the private economy will be deprived of adequate profits and cash flow, and businesses will not start to hire. Nor will they race to make capital expenditures when they have vast idle capacity.

In other words, there are many more reasons today to expect the downturn to continue than to expect a turnaround. Consumer spending and residential investment could be even weaker than most estimates, and, as the level of fiscal stimulus begins its decline in the second half of 2010, we may be facing an even more difficult future.

No wonder poll after poll shows a steady erosion of confidence in the stimulus measures. One survey even showed 45 percent believe the limited results suggest they should simply be abandoned midway. The disappointment is understandable—but that would only make things worse. So what kind of second-act stimulus program should we look for? This time, it should not be an excuse to pass a lot of programs like those in the first stimulus package that do not really have the kind of multiplier effect on job creation and on economic growth that was intended. In any event, given the trends, it is absolutely critical that the Obama administration not play politics with the issue but really begin to prepare a second stimulus program, so that if the economy does take a major downturn, it will be possible this time to provide much more rapid government support to infrastructure spending that will maximize the creation of jobs. The time to get ready is now.

IT'S CALLED A Slow Down:

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Slow%20Down

[Tansy_Gold]

73. The American Response

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n03a7cLf0M


Lies






Tansy Gold, who remembers

[Demeter]

83. I Guess WE Has a Theme Song

Thanks Tansy.

[Tansy_Gold]

88. Irony is such a powerful thing, reaching out from the distant past. . . .

The group singing "Lies," of course, is the Knickerbockers, and though I wouldn't consider the NBA a prime source for historical information, they do say "Through history, the Dutch settler "Knickerbocker" character became synonymous with New York City." http://www.nba.com/knicks/news/00398004.html?nav=ArticleList

[AnneD]

35. My blowout contribution to the weekend....

Magical Mystery Tour.....aka following the TARP money
Twist and Shout.....aka the Middle Class
Ask Me Why.....aka Paul Grumman
Chains....aka Bernie Madoff
Do You Want To Know A Secret....aka Mozelle
Money......aka Goldman Sachs
Hard Day's Night.....aka the unemployed
I Should Have Known Better.....aka Obama supporter with buyers remorse
Things We Said Today.....aka CBC
I'll Cry Instead.....aka 401K 403b investors,
Can't Buy Me Love.....aka Elliot Spitz er and most Republican Governors
I'll Be Back....aka resisting the urge and dedicating this to Sarah Palin
I'm a Loser... aka take your pick Sr. Alan Stanford, Ben Beneke, Geitner, Summers
Help....aka GM
You've Got To Hide Your Love Away....aka the Gov with the mistress in Venezuela
Ticket to Ride.....aka Obama-the Dems hope.

[Demeter]

38. LOLOLOLOLOL!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Demeter]

41. FROM OUR TRENDSETTER STATE: Los Angeles accused of criminalizing homelessness

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56E0MC20090715

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Two major advocacy groups for the homeless on Tuesday ranked Los Angeles as the "meanest" city in the United States, citing a Skid Row police crackdown they say has criminalized poverty and homelessness there.

L.A.'s so-called Safer City Initiative was singled out in the groups' report as the most egregious example of policies and practices nationwide that essentially punish people for failing to have a roof over their heads.

Others include making it illegal to sleep, sit or store personal belongings on sidewalks and other public spaces; prohibitions against panhandling or begging; and selective enforcement of petty offenses like jaywalking and loitering.

Such measures are widespread in the face of a deep economic recession and foreclosure crisis that have increased homelessness over the past two years, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Their report examined laws and practices in 273 cities across the country, with Los Angeles topping the list of the 10 "meanest cities" for what the study called inhumane treatment of homeless. A previous report, issued in early 2006 before the crackdown began, ranked L.A. as the 18th meanest.

Under the Safer City effort, thousands of L.A.'s most destitute residents have been targeted for harsh police enforcement, routinely receiving tickets for minor infractions such as the failure to obey crossing signals.

As a result, the study says, many are jailed and end up with a criminal record that makes it more difficult for them to find a job or gain access to housing.

A spokesman for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa issued a statement dismissing the report as "short-sighted and misleading."

Los Angeles officials have touted their Safer City effort for sharply curbing serious crime in Skid Row, a 50-block downtown area inhabited by the biggest concentration of homeless people in the country. "The city's first priority is to protect our most vulnerable residents from violent crime," the mayor's statement said.

But homeless advocates say a promised strategy to ease homelessness there, including new housing and services to go with the Skid Row cleanup, have largely failed to materialize.

An estimated 40,000 people live on the streets, in abandoned buildings or in temporary shelters throughout Los Angeles, more than 5,000 of them in Skid Row. Another 8,000 make their home in that area's short-term residential hotels, or flop houses as they were once called.

Becky Dennison, co-director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network, said the homeless population in Los Angeles has ballooned due to a lack of affordable housing, a high poverty rate and "long-standing lack of local resources."

Tuesday's report cited a 2007 University of California study that found L.A. was spending $6 million a year to pay for the 50 extra police officers who patrol Skid Row while budgeting just $5.7 million for homeless services.

By comparison, Dennison said, New York City has a "right to shelter" policy and invests about $200 million a year in housing and other services for the needy, resulting in a homeless population half that of Los Angeles.

Taxman

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Taxman

[Demeter]

45. California: the human toll of the economic crisis

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/dpss-j15.shtml

By Kim Saito and D. Lencho
15 July 2009

California’s ruling class is using the state’s deepening economic crisis to increase its attacks on the working class. Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic-majority state legislature is preparing a series of massive spending cuts, and possibly regressive tax increases, that will further devastate the living conditions of the working class in California (see “California governor pushes unprecedented budget cuts”).

At a time when more and more workers, hit hard by job losses and reduced work hours, are in need of assistance, state resources are decreasing. State and county agencies—many of which are now in a twice-monthly furlough days schedule—are making their eligibility rules more “strict.” That is, they are seeking more grounds for giving applicants the bare minimum of help or for squeezing them out of the social services network altogether.

According to its web site, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services (DPSS) is charged with providing “temporary financial assistance and employment services for families and individuals; free and low-cost health care insurance for families with children, pregnant women and aged/blind/disabled adults; food benefits for families and individuals; in-home services for elderly and disabled individuals; and financial assistance and advocacy for federal disability benefits for disabled individuals.” The reality is a different picture.

A pair of WSWS reporters talked to people who had come to the DPSS office in Norwalk seeking assistance, as well as with a DPSS worker. A stark picture emerged of not only the struggles working class families face dealing with the effects of the economic crisis, but also of the travails of getting needed benefits from an increasingly tight-fisted social services system.

Erica, a receptionist clerk at the DPSS, told the WSWS team: “The way things are going it’s going to get really hard. I process applications for social services, and I’ve worked here over a year. There’s been a big increase in the number of people applying and coming into this office. I’ve heard so many stories of people getting laid off. Some of them were even people who owned their own construction companies and they lost their homes.”

Marylu and Jessica are students at Pioneer High School in Whittier. They came with a friend and her baby. The WSWS spoke to all three, with Marylu and Jessica translating for their friend who only knew Spanish. She had come to Social Services because her husband was getting fewer hours at the car wash where he works. He had been earning a miserable $400 every two weeks before, but now even that poverty wage was decreasing.

Marylu said, “The main problem is that there are no jobs. My dad just got laid off at a factory which makes tools that make cement. He had worked there over 15 years, since he had come from Mexico. A lot of the workers were laid off.”

Commenting about the difficulties facing people just trying to buy basic necessities, Marylu stated, “Everything’s more expensive: clothes, groceries, gas. It’s like the Great Depression.”

Jessica complained about deteriorating conditions in the school where they study. “Our classes are full. It used to be 20 students in a class. Now there are over 30 students and many times they have to stand because there are no seats. We have materials, like calculators and textbooks.”

The WSWS also spoke with Karla, who has a four-year-old and a two-year-old, and her companion Chris, a temporary warehouse worker whose assignments have dried up. Karla had just been told that she didn’t qualify for welfare benefits because on some weeks she works for over 30 hours. Her plight is reflective of large sections of the working poor, who are penalized by being cut off benefits once they find minimal employment, even if it does not pay enough to make ends meet.

“When I didn’t have a job, I could get social services. Now that I have a job, I just need a little bit of help with food stamps, and they’re denying me. For me it’s much harder because my kids are small. I pay more for day care, and that affects me the most.”


Sylvia Arizaga, who came with four of her children, is on disability and will soon be having surgery for an enlarged heart, a tumor in her chest, and a tumor in her left adrenaline gland. She came to the DPSS to apply for food stamps, but was sent away after being told she needed to bring additional paperwork.

She explained that Victoria, her oldest daughter—all of 19 years old and planning to start community college in the fall—would be responsible for the family while she is recovering from her cancer surgery. “It will be a lot of responsibility on her,” the mother of seven observed. “One boy is diabetic, and another one has cystic fibrosis.”

“We’re surviving with help from churches, family and friends. It’s really hard right now,” she added.


The WSWS spoke with Isabel, who has 4 children and formerly worked admitting patients to an emergency room at a hospital.

“I lost my job in December and it’s been really hard to get back to get a new job. I’ve been applying to all kinds of hospitals, anywhere I can, but none of them are hiring or they don’t have enough positions open.”

She will be receiving food stamps and a small amount of cash aid from DPSS, but noted that she has no medical insurance.

To survive Isabel has had to make significant adjustments to her living situation. “When I was making good money, I was paying $900 a month and had just one roommate. Now it’s four roommates.”

When asked if she saw an end in sight, Isabel replied, “I hope there is. I really don’t know.” She went on to criticize the sales tax hike implemented in April, which disproportionately affects the poor and working class. “The things that they’re raising the taxes on shouldn’t be raised,” she argued, adding, “It’s just more coming out of our pockets.”

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=The%20Fool%20On%20The%20Hill

The Fool On The Hill (applies to just about any GOP member, but this one's for Ahnold)

[Demeter]

42. Can The Economy Recover? By Paul Craig Roberts

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23068.htm


July 15, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- -There is no economy left to recover. The US manufacturing economy was lost to offshoring and free trade ideology. It was replaced by a mythical “New Economy.”

The “New Economy” was based on services. Its artificial life was fed by the Federal Reserve’s artificially low interest rates, which produced a real estate bubble, and by “free market” financial deregulation, which unleashed financial gangsters to new heights of debt leverage and fraudulent financial products.

The real economy was traded away for a make-believe economy. When the make-believe economy collapsed, Americans’ wealth in their real estate, pensions, and savings collapsed dramatically while their jobs disappeared.

The debt economy caused Americans to leverage their assets. They refinanced their homes and spent the equity. They maxed out numerous credit cards. They worked as many jobs as they could find. Debt expansion and multiple family incomes kept the economy going.

And now suddenly Americans can’t borrow in order to spend. They are over their heads in debt. Jobs are disappearing. America’s consumer economy, approximately 70% of GDP, is dead. Those Americans who still have jobs are saving against the prospect of job loss. Millions are homeless. Some have moved in with family and friends; others are living in tent cities.

Meanwhile the US government’s budget deficit has jumped from $455 billion in 2008 to $2,000 billion this year, with another $2,000 billion on the books for
2010. And President Obama has intensified America’s expensive war of aggression in Afghanistan and initiated a new war in Pakistan.

There is no way for these deficits to be financed except by printing money or by further collapse in stock markets that would drive people out of equity into bonds.

The US government’s budget is 50% in the red. That means half of every dollar the federal government spends must be borrowed or printed. Because of the worldwide debacle caused by Wall Street’s financial gangsterism, the world needs its own money and hasn’t $2 trillion annually to lend to Washington.

As dollars are printed, the growing supply adds to the pressure on the dollar’s role as reserve currency. Already America’s largest creditor, China, is admonishing Washington to protect China’s investment in US debt and lobbying for a new reserve currency to replace the dollar before it collapses. According to various reports, China is spending down its holdings of US dollars by acquiring gold and stocks of raw materials and energy.

The price of one ounce gold coins is $1,000 despite efforts of the US government to hold down the gold price. How high will this price jump when the rest of the world decides that the bankruptcy of “the world’s only superpower” is at hand?

And what will happen to America’s ability to import not only oil, but also the manufactured goods on which it is import-dependent?

When the over-supplied US dollar loses the reserve currency role, the US will no longer be able to pay for its massive imports of real goods and services with pieces of paper. Overnight, shortages will appear and Americans will be poorer.

Nothing in Presidents Bush and Obama’s economic policy addresses the real issues. Instead, Goldman Sachs was bailed out, more than once. As Eliot Spitzer said, the banks made a “bloody fortune” with US aid.

It was not the millions of now homeless homeowners who were bailed out. It was not the scant remains of American manufacturing--General Motors and Chrysler--that were bailed out. It was the Wall Street Banks.

According to Bloomberg.com, Goldman Sachs’ current record earnings from their free or low cost capital supplied by broke American taxpayers has led the firm to decide to boost compensation and benefits by 33 percent. On an annual basis, this comes to compensation of $773,000 per employee.

This should tell even the most dimwitted patriot who “their” government represents.

The worst of the economic crisis has not yet hit. I don’t mean the rest of the real estate crisis that is waiting in the wings. Home prices will fall further when the foreclosed properties currently held off the market are dumped. Store and office closings are adversely impacting the ability of owners of shopping malls and office buildings to make their mortgage payments. Commercial real estate loans were also securitized and turned into derivatives.

The real crisis awaits us. It is the crisis of high unemployment, of stagnant and declining real wages confronted with rising prices from the printing of money to pay the government’s bills and from the dollar’s loss of exchange value. Suddenly, Wal-Mart prices will look like Nieman Marcus prices.

Retirees dependent on state pension systems, which cannot print money, might not be paid, or might be paid with IOUs. They will not even have depreciating money with which to try to pay their bills. Desperate tax authorities will squeeze the remaining life out of the middle class.

Nothing in Obama’s economic policy is directed at saving the US dollar as reserve currency or the livelihoods of the American people. Obama’s policy, like Bush’s before him, is keyed to the enrichment of Goldman Sachs and the armament industries.

Matt Taibbi describes Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentless jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Look at the Goldman Sachs representatives in the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. This bankster firm controls the economic policy of the United States.

Little wonder that Goldman Sachs has record earnings while the rest of us grow poorer by the day.

WE'VE BEEN HAD!

You Won't See Me

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=You%20Won%27t%20See%20Me

[Demeter]

43. How Bad Will the Economy Get? Really, Really Bad By Thomas Greco, Jr.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23062.htm




July 15, 2009 "AlterNet" -- Historically, every financial and economic crisis has been used to further centralize power and concentrate wealth. This one is no different, and in fact the moves being promoted by the Obama administration and the central banks of the Western powers will take the whole world to the pinnacle of financial despotism -- unless enough people wake up and claim their own "money power.”

In recent months, the Fed has expanded its "assets" from about $800 billion to more than $2,000 billion. Those so-called assets are securities it bought from financial institutions and loans made to central banks in other countries. But the Fed refuses to name the specific recipients of those funds, while admitting that by doing so they are manipulating the value of the US dollar on foreign exchange markets. (Congressman Alan Grayson Grills Fed Vice Chair Donald Kohn.)

Where does the Fed get the money to buy those "assets" or to make those loans? Quite simply, it creates the money. Unlike you or me or any other economic entity, the Fed has the power to create Federal Reserve dollars by effectively writing a check against no funds. This is the function known as "Open Market Operations."

What is the economy experiencing now, and what is in prospect for the future? Despite unprecedented inflation of the money supply, we are now (mid-July, 2009) in a period of depression. How can we have simultaneous inflation of the currency and still have economic depression?

It is a matter of where the money is going. While the public sector (federal government) is being lavishly funded to maintain a global empire, and the banks are being bailed out to try to keep a dysfunctional and destructive financial system from collapsing, the private productive sector is being starved for credit. As a result, businesses are bankrupting, people are losing their jobs and their incomes, and lower levels of government are being squeezed because their tax revenues are shrinking.

There is also the matter of the real estate bubble that was created by the financial institutions as they loaded up the private sector with a debt burden that was way beyond its ability to bear. Now that burden is being shifted to the public sector as the government assumes those "toxic" loans. Unfortunately, it is not the poor suckers who were lured into the debt trap that are being relieved, but the predatory lenders who laid the traps. So mortgages are being foreclosed at an unprecedented scale, people are losing their equity as housing values plunge, and more Americans are being made homeless.

These are the factors that have so far kept the effects of monetary inflation from becoming extreme. Ultimately, however, such abusive issuance of political money shows up as rising prices.

When will the price effects of hyper-inflation begin to kick in? How will the government respond to it? What will be the social and political fallout? What can ordinary people do to protect themselves from monetary and legislative abuses? These are the questions that beg for answers.

Already there are rumblings and signs that the U.S. dollar is about to lose its status as the global reserve currency. When that happens, imports of energy and other necessities will become more expensive. The U.S.’s massive trade deficits will not be sustained into the future. China, the OPEC countries, and others that have been buying massive amounts of U.S. government bonds with their dollar earnings, are indicating that their appetite has been sated. Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements are being made that bypass the use of the dollar for international trade.

One thing is clear -- we cannot rely upon the government to act in the best interests of the people. Already, President Obama has moved to give the Federal Reserve even more power to control the people's credit and financial resources. According to a June 18 article in the Wall Street Journal, "The central bank would win power to monitor risks across the financial system, and sweeping authority to examine any firm that could threaten financial stability, even if the Fed wouldn't normally supervise the institution." This is not a new plan; it was floated as a trial balloon during the Bush administration. As early as March 2008, then Treasury Secretary Paulson was proposing to "give the Federal Reserve broad new authority to oversee financial market stability, in effect allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system."

Ostensibly that would be done to prevent the errant financial institutions from repeating their sins of the recent past, but more likely it will have the effect of suppressing any private initiative that might compete with the financial cartel. The Fed is, after all, a private company run by the bankers for the bankers. A recent Reuters article is critical of Obama's move because of the Fed's lack of accountability. It is a plan that seeks to preserve at all costs the credit monopoly that exists under the central banking regime and to perpetuate the looting of the economy by monetization of federal government debts and other ultimately worthless "assets."

During the Great Depression, President Franking Roosevelt, upon taking office in 1933, declared a "bank holiday." He ordered all banks to close. Many of those banks never reopened and many people lost their savings. He also demanded that all Americans turn in their gold holdings in return for paper currency, which was one of the biggest robberies in history up to that time. Some pundits are predicting that another such bank holiday is being planned to put the brakes on price increases, once they begin in earnest, by depriving people of access to their savings, as was done in Argentina in 2002.

Governments that mismanage money invariably use the force of law to prevent the sheep from escaping from the shearing pen (or the slaughter house). So long as people are completely dependent upon political money and banks, they will docilely (or grudgingly) accept whatever "solutions” the political leadership puts forth, and do whatever the government demands of them.

Fortunately there is a way out. The primary purpose of money is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services in the markets. But it is possible to mediate the exchange process without using political money as the payment medium, and without borrowing from banks.

There is plenty of precedent for this sort of cashless trading. It involves a process of direct credit clearing among associated buyers and sellers. During the Great Depression the entrepreneurial middle class in Switzerland organized themselves into the WIR Economic Circle Cooperative. After 75 years, the WIR clearing circle continues to thrive with more than 60,000 member businesses trading the equivalent of about US$1.3 billion per year.

The past four decades have seen the emergence of a new industry comprised of commercial trade exchanges, sometimes called "barter" exchanges, that act as "third part record keepers" enabling the same sort of direct credit clearing for thousands of businesses in cities around the world. Efforts at the grassroots by social entrepreneurs to localize exchange and finance have been similarly widespread in many communities over the past twenty-five years.

Measures to properly reform the money and banking system by political means have about as much chance as the proverbial snowball in hell. However, what is possible, and what seems to be gaining traction to transcend the dominant system, is the materialization of voluntary, private initiatives that enable the cashless exchange of goods and services. As these systems continue to improve, proliferate, and scale up, they will provide a pathway toward a sustainable economy, greater local control, and a better quality of life for all.


Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is the director of the Community Information Resource Center, which he founded in 1992. CIRC is a nonprofit consulting organization and networking hub dedicated to economic equity, social justice, and community improvement, specializing in community currency and mutual credit design, development, and implementation. His newest book is The End of Money and the Future of Civilization.

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=When%20I%27m%20Sixty-Four

When I'm Sixty-Four

[Demeter]

44. NOT JUST THE PRESS: Big broadcaster Sinclair in dire straits

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2009/07/big-broadcaster-sinclair-in-dire-straits.html

Another big broadcaster may be on the verge of bankruptcy.

Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which is controlled by David Smith and his family and operates 58 television stations, said if it can't restructure its heavy debt load it will have to file for bankruptcy. The company, which has about $1.3 billion in debt, is trying to negotiate terms on notes of $500 million that are coming due in the next 18 months.

If Sinclair files for bankruptcy it will be bad news for Hollywood, which counts on the broadcaster to spend heavily on programming for its stations. With 58 stations to program, Sinclair is one of the biggest buyers of reruns, movies, talk shows and game shows.

Sinclair is the latest broadcaster to be feeling the pinch of a poor economy and a changing media landscape. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said auto advertising used to represent 25% of its ad revenue and now accounts for only about half that.

(THIS DEARTH OF ADVERTISING, IN PART DUE TO THE ECONOMY, IN PART DUE TO THE INTERNET, HAS DESTROYED THE BUSINESS MODELS OF MOST MEDIA)

Other broadcasters who have filed for bankruptcy this year include Young Broadcasting Inc. and ION Media. Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times and a major group of TV stations, has been operating in bankruptcy since late last year.

Also darkening Sinclair's prospects is Cunningham Broadcasting Corp., a small broadcaster operated by Sinclair that is actually owned by trusts established by David Smith's mother Carolyn. Cunningham, Sinclair said, is at risk of defaulting on its loans at the end of the month. If Cunningham has to file for bankruptcy, that would mean the loss of $77 million in revenue it kicks back to Sinclair annually.

Sinclair has gained notoriety in the industry for both its hard-nosed business tactics and its political stances. Smith is a colorful and known for his sharp elbows. He, along with his brothers inherited two stations from his father and built it into one of the biggest operators in the country.

Smith made national headlines in 2004 when his stations that were affiliated with the ABC network refused to air a "Nightline" broadcast featuring then-anchor Ted Koppel reading the names of those who had died in Iraq. Later that year, Sinclair aired a controversial documentary challenging Sen. John Kerry's war record.

Twist and Shout!

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Twist%20and%20Shout

[Demeter]

46. Oliphant on Healthcare (We CAN Think on Two Issues At Once!)

A Day in the Life

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=A%20Day%20in%20the%20Life

[Demeter]

47. Buying Green: Bad for Your Credit?

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2009/07/buying-green-bad-your-credit

— By Kiera Butler | Wed July 15, 2009 9:33 AM PST


Till today, I couldn't find too many reasons not to shop at the Salvation Army: Thrift-stores are cheaper, better for the planet, and usually more interesting than the mall. But turns out my fondness for weird old mugs could land me in financial hot water. Treehugger has a great little post today about green consumer habits that some credit companies consider "red flags:"

Credit companies take note, for instance, if you charge services like tire retreading and shoe repair to your card. Or if you're shopping at thrift stores like the Salvation Army.

The message: Buying used things and repairing broken ones instead of buying new means you're struggling financially, and can't be trusted to pay back a loan. That's awfully backwards. Little do the credit companies know how much poorer I'd be if I didn't shop at the Salvation Army.

A Taste of Honey

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=A%20Taste%20of%20Honey

[Demeter]

48. Careful, credit card issuers are watching

http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090712/OPINION/907120328/1027/OPINION01


Here's a word to the wise: Think twice before whipping out that credit card to pay for purchases at the Salvation Army or a discount store, have tires re-treaded or even buy a late-night round of drinks. Credit card companies see those purchases, and a slew of others, as a sign of real or impending financial trouble and they'll quickly cut the credit limit, raise the interest rate or even cancel the card with no warning. Once that happens the credit score that determines who is worthy of a loan and at what rate usually plummets.

In May, President Obama signed a bill that will limit some of the worst practices of credit card companies that have been raising rates with little reason and without notice and charging obscene late fees. The bill also requires that banking regulators study the practice of using information about where a person shops to assessing credit worthiness. That means credit card companies, which are already raising rates and cutting credit limits before the new law goes into effect in January, are likely to continue keep track of where and how their customers spend money until at least 2011.

Credit card companies purchase their customer's spending record from reporting companies like Equifax, which gather it by using sophisticated computer programs to "data mine" spending by individuals. The practice allows companies to develop a disturbingly complete picture of people based on not just their buying habits but also specific purchases.

Here are a few other activities that experts say could trigger a hard look from credit card issuers.

• Using a card to bail out that no-good brother-in-law, to get a massage or to employ the services of an escort.

• Charging items at auto parts or grocery stores. Both are seen as a sign of financial distress.

• Charging items at pawn shops, drug stores and shoe repair shops. All can be a warning of someone down at the heels.

• Paying for court costs, child support or alimony with a credit card.

• Charging medical care and child care.

• Charging beer, wine or liquor.

Lenders have a responsibility to assess the creditworthiness of borrowers and debtors. The failure to do that was one of the reasons the housing market collapsed and took the rest of the economy down with it. When lenders - typically an officer at a hometown bank - knew their customers that was easy to do. Today, in most cases, that's know longer possible, and like all modern lenders, credit card companies are right to make an effort to assess risk. It's also in every credit-card user's interest that they do so, since everyone pays a bit more when borrowers default on their loans.

The problem is in the ham-handed, one-size-fits-all way credit card companies and their computer programs use spending information. It makes no sense to penalize frugality. Someone who shops regularly at thrift stores despite earning a good income is certainly a better credit risk than someone who regularly runs a balance on a department store card.

Similarly, there can be lots of reasons for someone to charge groceries or use a card to pay to have a favorite pair of shoes resoled.

Depending on what federal regulators find, the use of data mining and shopping analysis could be refined, limited or perhaps even prohibited in the future. In the meantime, to protect both their privacy and their credit rating, smart shoppers, when making any purchase that might alarm lenders, should use a debit card or good old cash.

Across The Universe

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Across%20The%20Universe

[Hugin]

52. I have two words for them...

Which I won't say in the polite company of the WEE.

Oh, okay... The last word is 'off'.

After I, (against my will) threw several hundred thousand Dollars of my sweat and blood in the form of a bailout at them... They'd better get damned well used to me living what little remains of my life the way I see fit. We're married now, Dears... and since it's a marriage of convenience (to you). You're just going to have to learn to love me... Thorns, knotholes, odd odors, and all. Kiss-Kiss :* sweetie. ;)

Note: This message also goes out to the Corporate "Democrats" as well.

[AnneD]

63. And the Beatles tune...

I am the Eggman...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhYPc_C2qsg&feature=related

[Hugin]

67. If their default-predicting crystal ball software is so reliable... How'd it miss their own?

One or the other... Yet, another logical hypocrisy from the Banksters. They just make this crap up as they go along.

Good show picking Lennon's song to defy those who over-analyse lyrics (and life), AnneD. ;)

"This is a FANTASTIC masterpiece. People thought it has a drug message. Stupid idiots. It was written so ridiculously because John was fed up with people analysing the lyrics of his songs. He wrote the funny type words so that the people analysing would be hopelessly confused. Gotta love that Lennon humour!!!" -- From the comments @ YouTube.

[Tansy_Gold]

74. Laugh Laugh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBBf38X16KM&NR=1

[Hugin]

51. There is a paradox in the whole Health Care Reform I haven't been able to get my mind around...

Why is it the self-proclaimed Pro-Lifers are the first to deny basic healthcare is a Right?

:crazy:

Ah, I suppose it's all part of the standard cradle-to-grave brainwashing package the Right-to-Lifers come equipped with by TPTB (claiming to speak for Gawd) and their Colossal Media Wurlitzer Machine.

[Demeter]

53. They Are Insane

There is no other explanation. And those above subnormal intelligence are criminally insane. Or evil. Or both.

[Demeter]

49. When Dave Barry Is Funny, I Need to Leave For the Powder Room

Enjoy!

http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/dave-barry/story/1119523.html

[Demeter]

54. Left Out:Is progressive economist Jared Bernstein an influential WH player—or just the token lefty?

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/left-out


In early June, Jared Bernstein was introduced at the America's Future Now conference, the annual confab of liberal activists previously known as Take Back America, as the member of the Obama administration's "team of rivals" playing for the progressive side. This White House, like previous administrations, prefers to put forward a unified front and play down internal policy divisions. But when there's a conflict between the White House and its left flank on economic matters, such as when its progressive critics have griped that the administration is more attuned to Wall Street than Main Street, the White House turns to Bernstein to smooth ruffled feathers.

So at America's Future Now, Bernstein reaffirmed the administration's commitment to bolstering the middle class, to "the equitable distribution of growth," and to a financial policy that stops the cycle of what he dubbed "the shampoo economy—bubble, bust, repeat." But he made sure to accomplish his key mission: defend the White House. He noted that he'd read the criticisms of the administration's various economic bailouts made by his old friends in progressive circles and found them "not entirely convincing." Before rushing out, he added that this disagreement was "good fodder for a longer discussion."

In his nearly 20 years in Washington, Bernstein, a former jazz musician and social worker, has never been part of the inside crowd. But today, despite spending his career in progressive precincts and on the outskirts of power, Bernstein is at the center of the action, even if he doesn't always influence the game plan. His official title—chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden—doesn't capture the full range of his responsibilities. In addition to advising Biden, he serves as a spokesman for Obama's economic policies, regularly touting and defending the administration's positions in the media. Out of the public eye, he serves as an emissary to left-wing Democrats and champions the progressive view in internal debates. This was especially so at the start of the administration, when the central subjects of debate were the bank bailouts, the stimulus, and the budget. "Geithner and Summers," as one friend and former colleague of Bernstein puts it, "are very much Wall Street oriented. Much of their focus has to do with fixing the banks. I don't think that's Jared's priority."

Bernstein's focus has always been the status of "the working man"—the middle and lower classes. He wrote his graduate thesis on welfare efficacy, and since then he's toiled in the field of labor economics. It's a field that focuses not on an amorphous, abstract "market," but on a world in which the economy affects the livelihoods of everyday people.

His left-wing bona fides are impeccable. He's signed a letter in solidarity with Noam Chomsky, and one colleague recalls him looking fondly upon the anti-World Trade Organization protests of 1999. Prior to joining the administration, he was stationed for more than a decade and a half at the Economic Policy Institute, a DC think tank closely aligned with the labor movement. He has been one of the few economists who, while clearly a part of the Democratic Party, was unafraid to question the Clinton-era orthodoxy on economics—an orthodoxy largely defined by Summers. In practice, this has meant that Bernstein is more of a realist about trade, willing to acknowledge the benefits, but not dismissing the drawbacks. He does not share Summers' allergy to deficits. During early White House budget debates, Bernstein urged Obama to focus less on deficits than Geithner and Summers advised, arguing that in a recession bigger deficits would be preferable. A bigger deficit, after all, would be the result of a bigger stimulus. But as one high-level administration official in those meetings says, "Those guys kind of prevailed." Bernstein, and his hopes for a larger stimulus than Obama ended up proposing, lost.

Yet President Obama has gone out of his way to acknowledge the role Bernstein plays in the administration—pointing out to the New York Times Magazine, for instance, that Bernstein is one of the top wonks in the daily Oval Office meeting on the economy, while the more centrist Austan Goolsbee is not. (However, Bernstein was conspicuously absent in a recent New York Times story on tensions between members of Obama's economic team.) He has "exceptional access" to Obama, says one Democrat who served in the Clinton administration and now works in the Obama White House. Yet inclusion in meetings is not the same as actual power. "I don't get the sense that is the person Obama turns to for most policy decisions," says a former Bernstein colleague and current friend. Or, as another former colleague puts it: "He's a token."

Bernstein's appointment was an obvious sop to labor unions, a political thank-you for the heavy lifting they did on Obama's behalf in Ohio and Pennsylvania during the presidential campaign. Part of that payback also included the creation of the Middle Class Task Force and the installation of Bernstein as its executive director. Long a dream of labor, this multi-agency group is intended to coordinate the federal government's efforts to strengthen the middle class. Its mere existence is a sharp departure from recent history. And the early rhetoric has left some optimistic. But at this early stage, that's all there is: rhetoric. At a recent MCTF meeting, Biden offered a salve to ailing autoworkers: the creation of yet another task force, with a focus on their problems. And though Biden pledged to make the MCTF "transparent," attendees of the task force's first public event were given tickets based on political connections (a policy subsequently changed). One participant in a closed MCTF session left disgruntled and now refers to the whole thing as a "dog and pony show."

"Jared is an intellectual, an egghead, a wonk," says one labor official. "This isn't a guy who knows how to slice through bureaucracy, who can get on the phone and demand, 'Get it to me by 4 o'clock!' That's not his thing." How, then, will Bernstein be able to convert his position to one of influence? The key is mastering the inside/outside game, says Robert Reich, who famously clashed with the more conservative officials in the Clinton administration when he served as labor secretary. Within the White House, he says, "you can say what you think." But if you're a staffer, Reich adds, "you can't disagree publicly."

Bernstein is certainly giving this strategy a try. He dutifully arrives at the office at 8 a.m. and often begins propounding the day's talking points to the cable shows, doing stand-ups on the north lawn of the White House. But other than that, his public appearances have been limited. His office refused to make him available for an interview for this article.

Behind the scenes, he's had some minor victories. Shortly after Obama's inauguration, Bernstein convened an intimate dinner at Biden's residence with top officials at labor organizations. The meeting was a combination strategy session and policy discussion. Larry Summers didn't show, although participants accepted his excuse that he was tied up with other work. By the end of February, Bernstein had successfully corralled Summers, as well as top outside economists, to participate in a small White House meeting on labor's top legislative goal: passing the Employee Free Choice Act. According to Harvard economist Richard Freeman, who was present, " played devil's advocate, but in the end he clearly favored efforts to strengthen unions," and, yes, pass EFCA. Although there's been little movement since, muted optimism about EFCA reigns among labor officials, who expect it to pass, albeit in moderated form.

In the battle for Obama's heart, progressive economics certainly hasn't triumphed. But the moderate approach, pioneered by Summers in the 1990s, hasn't totally prevailed, either. "The whole Democratic Party has adopted much of the progressive economics perspective without acknowledging it," says Larry Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and previously Bernstein's boss. The deficit obsession that marked much of the 1990s hasn't gone away, but it's leveled off. And any administration officials serious about advancing free trade also are generally serious about attaching labor and environmental standards to future agreements. During his confirmation hearings, Ron Kirk, Obama's nominee for trade representative—a pick initially criticized by labor because Kirk has been deferential to free trade agreements—surprised observers by announcing the administration would focus on enforcing current trade agreements, as opposed to negotiating new ones. "Larry Summers right now is very comfortable making arguments, often quite passionately, that Bob Reich used to be making when he was in the Clinton White House," Obama told the Times Magazine in May. If Summers and Bernstein end up on the same page, then Bernstein will be much more than a token.


I REALLY OUGHT TO POST "CELLOPHANE MAN" FROM CHICAGO, FOR THIS ONE.

Don't Pass Me By

http://www.beatlestube.net/video.php?title=Don%27t%20Pass%20Me%20By

[KoKo]

55. Thanks for this, Demeter. I've missed seeing Jared even on the WH Lawn

giving interviews lately. I'm thinking that Biden's latest gaffe has made him and Jared unpopular for Obama.

I always liked Jared...felt he was one of "us"...whatever "us" is these days...and that's hard to know. I sometimes think "us" are why Jared can't be interviewed and that we aren't seeing him as much lately.

:shrug:

Does "Left behind"...strike a bell in one's mind?

[Demeter]

56. If This Is the Rapture, I'd Rather Be Waterboarded

[Zenlitened]

57. Alabama Hardware Distributor Blames CIT Woes for Its Bankruptcy

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- A hardware distributor in Alabama became the first company to blame the troubles of commercial lender CIT Group Inc. for its bankruptcy yesterday when it filed for protection from creditors.

Moore-Handley Inc., which supplies tools and other items to hardware stores and home centers, said in court papers that it was forced into Chapter 11 because it had difficulty getting cash from CIT, its lender.

The company has tried to negotiate with CIT, though “the federal government’s recent decision not to support CIT’s reorganization has thrown CIT into disarray and casts substantial doubt on CIT’s ability to continue to fund the Debtor’s working capital requirements,” Moore-Handley said in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Birmingham, Alabama.

(snip)

CIT has said its bankruptcy would put 760 manufacturing clients at risk of failure and “precipitate a crisis” for as many as 300,000 retailers, according to internal documents.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=av5fBQGI8U9w

[Tansy_Gold]

78. you knew it was coming

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3971295#3971432

See post #38

Yeah, who cares about them little guys.

You know, those 1 million small businesses, those 300,000 retailers.

As long as the big guys keep rollin' along, suckin' in all the money, nothin' else matters.



Assholes. All of 'em assholes.

[Zenlitened]

58. CIT’s CEO May Be Paid Ahead of U.S. Treasury in Case of Bankruptcy

July 18 (Bloomberg) -- CIT Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek, under whose leadership the lender’s stock has plunged 98 percent, may be in line ahead of the U.S. government to be paid if CIT files for bankruptcy protection.

Peek is owed $14.7 million if he’s terminated or there’s a change of control at CIT. A compensation claim would put him ahead of shareholders -- including the U.S. Treasury -- in the event of liquidation, Scott Peltz, managing director of the corporate restructuring group at RSM McGladrey, said in an interview.

“He’s an employee, and employees in bankruptcy have a priority,” Peltz said. Peek’s compensation claim “would be before the preferred and common and probably with some of the bondholders.”

Peek’s employment contract is among agreements that would end up in court in the event CIT files for protection, and the amount of a payout would depend on a judge. The 101-year-old commercial lender, which has failed to convince the government to provide it with another federal bailout, is short of cash and may need $6 billion, according to CreditSights Inc.

More:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=acO4YOJVfBIU

[Zenlitened]

59. CIT In Talks With Bondholders as Bankruptcy Looms

NEW YORK (Reuters) - CIT Group was in talks with a bondholder group on Saturday, as the lender tried to hammer out a rescue financing deal before markets opened and avoid bankruptcy, a source close to the situation said.

Talks with the bondholder group, advised by investment bank Houlihan Lokey, for a $2 billion (1.2 billion pounds) to $3 billion financing were expected to continue into Sunday with the aim of announcing a deal by Monday morning, the source said.

If a deal is not reached, the 101-year-old lender that services nearly one million small- and mid-sized businesses could file for bankruptcy protection as soon as Monday, according to the source, who did not want to be identified because talks are private.

Talks are also going on a parallel track for debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing if the lender has to file for bankruptcy, the source said.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/07/18/business/business-uk-cit.html

[Zenlitened]

89. CIT Group Said to Weigh $3 Billion Financing Offer

July 19 (Bloomberg) -- CIT Group Inc., the 101-year-old commercial finance company seeking to avoid collapse, is considering an offer from some of its largest bondholders to provide $3 billion in bridge financing, according to two people briefed on the firm’s deliberations.

The lender’s board was scheduled to meet today to discuss the offer, which would give the New York-based company a chance to restructure its debt outside of bankruptcy, said one of the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are confidential.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9.mauy33Ewg

[Robbien]

65. Strange goings on at Security Savings Bank ---An Investigative report

An Investigative exclusive By Teri Buhl, reporting for the Implode-o-Meter

Executives at Olathe, Kan.-based Security Savings Bank have screamed foul for several years—but the Kansas Regional Office of Thrift Supervision has been turning a blind eye to alleged misconduct at the bank, according to numerous sources.

But what about a case where a bank’s own executives have continued to proactively knock on their primary regulator’s door, with little to no response? Kansas’ Security Savings Bank appears to be one such case—and now the thrift is booking ongoing million dollar quarterly losses, distributions have dried up, and investors in the bank’s holding company recently settled in their favor in a suit against the banks chairman- they had sued for securities fraud.

The Kansas-based, federally-chartered savings bank is chaired and owned by longtime real estate developer and home builder Donald H. Bell, Sr. In a brochure touting the bank’s purpose in the community it serves, Bell markets the fact that “God had directed him” to buy a small Kansas bank, so that he may forward the bank’s profits towards Godly ends. He is known to staff the bank with friends from his local church, and from a local Nazarene College he supports.

A Kansas Republican Party spokesperson told The Implode-o-Meter that Don Bell has been an important contributor to the Republican Party in past elections.

Problems in Security Savings’ commercial loan underwriting process first started to show up in 2004, when the board discovered that the bank had extended multi-million dollar loans to a powerful and well-connected member of the so-called “religious right,” Pastor Carl Herbster.

While it is typical for business owners to use their businesses to support causes they believe in, Bell went so far as to install Olathe’s Nazarene mayor Mike Copeland as CEO at the bank in early 2008. Alongside city commissioner John Bacon, who serves on the bank’s board of directors, they’ve been busy changing the world. A government filing shows that Bell also chairs the Faith Family & Freedom of Kansas PAC, and donated near $100,000 to the religious Republican-based lobby group—some of those funds were used to get bank CEO Mike Copeland elected, and support the election of the county’s district attorney, Phill Kline, as well. The funds also support the implementation of a “pro-life” agenda and fuel efforts to get creationism taught in Kansas schools.

Bell’s leadership pushed and pulled his bank to over $830 million in assets (as of July 2008) by originating “friendly” loans on commercial projects to those he worships with, sources who have worked on deals with Bell say. The bank engaged in risky development loans on residential land and home construction loans, including lending on a suburban golf course now overgrown with weeds, by operating an Internet mortgage division for a number of years and by making loans to associates from whom Bell personally stood to benefit, according to sources interviewed for this story.

Problems simmer

Problems in Security Savings’ commercial loan underwriting process first started to show up in 2004, when the board discovered that the bank had extended multi-million dollar loans to a powerful and well-connected member of the so-called “religious right,” Pastor Carl Herbster—while Bell was secretly investing in and around land owned by Herbster’s Tri Cities Baptist Church. Church members complained that the church’s land was being converted to speculative commercial land in Missouri. And the bank’s board of directors and senior management team reported this apparent bank violation and other related issues to regulatory supervisor Don Kramer, the district manager in Kansas City’s office of the Office of Thrift Supervision.

more . . .

http://bankimplode.com/blog/2009/07/16/security-savings-bank-not-so-solid-ground/


It is a long article but very much a worthwhile read

[Demeter]

66. Well, Now We Know What's The Matter With Kansas

It's truly depressing to learn of people trying to use the regulatory system, and the system being so corrupt that they got no help whatsoever. That was the hallmark of the BFEE Administration: government didn't work, because they wouldn't let it.

Now the economy doesn't work, either. Obama may be freeing up the Executive to execute the laws, and freeing up the courts to enforce them, but he's left the economy captive of the biggest baddest bunch of crooks ever known since the Rothschilds: Goldman Sachs.

[KoKo]

75. So glad to see you post this. Did you notice Ashcroft and Bush are mentioned in the

article? There was a link over at Barry Ritholtz's "Big Picture" blog. It was a long read and I couldn't figure out a way to post it here that would do it justice since it's such a long article.

Good for it to get some more coverage. :thumbsup:

[Robbien]

90. And as Teri Buhl said, one wonders how many more are out there just like this

Organizations funding fundamentalism and politicians using other people's money.

The only thing I take issue with is that the article implies the OTS was just incompetent in its oversight of the bank. There are many articles out there that state the OTS here in the US and the FSA over in the UK are staffed with political cronies who have no desire to be watchdogs for the public. In fact the people in both regulatory agencies believe they are there to help the global elite.

[Robbien]

69. Florida regulators asked for records and were told no . Regulators said oh, okay then, carry on.

Florida regulators never acted on troubling findings regarding banker Allen Stanford
Employees for disgraced banker Allen Stanford were shredding records and sending pouches to Antigua stuffed with money -- under the watch of Florida regulators.


MIAMI -- When Florida regulator Keith Jasper arrived at the opulent Miami trust offices of billionaire banker Allen Stanford in 2001, he expected to see records showing that money turned over to the company was safely invested.

But when the veteran bank examiner asked for the reports, he was told there were none.

In fact, records of the millions of dollars that flowed through the office had been shredded.

State regulators could have demanded the documents, or even taken steps to shut down the office to protect investors.

None of that happened.

Over the next eight years, Stanford's offices were allowed to continue selling investments, destroying records and sending money overseas on private jets in what prosecutors are now calling an enormous Ponzi scheme.


Twice, Florida regulators visited the office after it opened in 1998, but state supervisors never acted on the troubling findings, records show.

''I tried to write it plain enough so they could see what was going on,'' said Jasper, 65, now retired from the state Department of Banking and Finance. ``More should have been done.''

The destruction of records -- and the state's failure to stop it -- created crucial gaps that allowed the Miami office to sell millions in controversial securities without regulators questioning where the money was invested.

much much more . . .


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/front-page/v-fullstory/story/1147955.html



A good investigation done by the guys over at McClatchy. These same regulators are still sitting behinds their desks pretending to regulate Florida even today.

edit: Investors are suing Antigua for $8 Billion for their Stanford losses (see my next post). Someone should hand these Investors this McClatchy article.

[Robbien]

70. What a US$8b lawsuit means for Antigua

It must be rare, if not unique, for a lawsuit to threaten the viability of a whole nation. Yet bizarrely, that is what a US$8 billion case launched against Antigua threatens to do. Notwithstanding, it also raises important long-term questions about whether the national and regional Caribbean financial regulatory environment, to say nothing of the probity of individuals, can be shown to bear international legal scrutiny.

The story is complicated and revolves around what the Antigua government did or did not know about Texan businessman Sir Allen Stanford and his activities, and which individuals in successive governments in Antigua were complicit in reaching decisions that allegedly benefited his interests.

. . .

The United States Justice Department also alleges that the former chief executive officer of Antigua's Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC), Leroy King, conducted fake audits and misled US investigators.

He is also accused of providing to Sir Allen or his associates access to FSRC confidential regulatory files, including US Securities and Exchange Commission requests.

King was arrested in Antigua on a provisional warrant at the request of US authorities, but no request for an extradition order has been made as yet.

The case being brought against Antigua comes from a group of seven investors from the United States, Mexico, Columbia and Peru, who have filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that the government of Antigua was a "partner in crime". According to Antigua's Attorney General, Justin Simon, this "has serious implications for the country", and came as a surprise.

. . .

According to reports in the US about the case, damages of US$8 billion are being sought, although it seems that this could be much higher if US racketeering laws were invoked, as these would enable the plaintiffs to seek three times the amount of their actual losses.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Houston, claims that the Antigua government "became a full partner in a fraud, and reaped enormous financial benefits from the scheme". It also makes other allegations about the relationship between Sir Allen Stanford and Antigua.

The case, if it proceeds, has serious implications.

At its most obvious, it is hard to imagine where any of the region's nations - many of which now face International Monetary Fund programmes and many years of austerity - have the wherewithal to meet the huge costs associated with defending a class action in the US; which is to say nothing of what might happen if any final judgement went against Antigua.

While a win for the litigants would raise significant legal issues of sovereignty, liability and enforceability, in some senses the damage is already done.

Bringing the case and associated hearings will bring long-term reputational damage to the island's relationships with extra-regional governments, legislators and investors, which may harm not just Antigua, but the financial services industry in the region as a whole.

Coming as all this case does, hard on the heels of the problems of CL Financial, the collapse of Ponzi schemes in Jamaica and elsewhere, the suspension by the British government of the Turks and Caicos administration, numerous legal cases against hedge funds registered in the Caribbean, and the tightening of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and development rules on the financial services operations of Caribbean offshore territories, it is not hard to imagine the absence of region-wide legislation, regulation and enforcement spurring regulators and legislators outside the region to demand an ever-more strict, timely and transparent Caribbean regulatory environment.

more . . .

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20090719/business/business6.html

[Demeter]

81. Another Fine Mess

[Tansy_Gold]

76. STAND AND BE COUNTED

No, I'm not drinking. I'm just angry as all fucking hell.

I spent half an hour yesterday trying to find a video of Dave Crosby's August 2000 documentary "Stand and Be Counted." It's apparently not available.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWg3b15ITS8&feature=related

So then I get to reading all the WEE stuff and the links to the Beatles, but there was so much more, so damn much more. And yeah, we boomers, we true post-war, comin'-home-to-make-a-family boomers, we turnin' the munitions plants to appliance factories boomers, we got caught between a rock and a hard place. And there was so much we tried to sort out and so much we never did quite understand.

But we tried. We really tried. And I look at the comments posted to a youtube video and they accuse us of selling out, and if anyone sold out it was my beloved Kingston Trio, but so many others never sold out, not in that sense.

And we believed. We did beieve. In what? I don't know. Maybe in ourselves? And was that so wrong? Who else or what else are we supposed to believe in? The magic man in the sky? Bullshit. We knew it was bullshit then. We know it's bullshit now.

And yet we, like everyone else, are now trapped in this hell not of our own making. They didn't listen to us when we said the war was wrong then, and they didn't listen to us when we said the war was wrong now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pih1hVdflnQ

And the god-siders are in charge now, god-siders who are also moneychangers, money makers and money suckers.

Where is our voice? Who speaks for us? If we speak for ourselves, who hears? Anyone?

"We are not afraid today, ha ha."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPONpG32ZmQ&feature=related


Bread and circuses, MTV and youtube, iPods and a zillion other gadgets, a zillion electronic drugs. We've all been stripped of our wealth, stripped of our lives, stripped of our minds. Mark Sanford has a soul mate, the rest of us have lost our souls.

Mad as hell and not gonna take it any more? More like turned on, tuned in, dropped out long time passing.




Tansy Gold, I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way

[Dr.Phool]

79. Settle down and have a drink, Tansy.

In fact, that's such a good idea, I'm going to.

Rule #1. Stay off of other message boards. They almost make GD look sane. Posting anonymously allows assholes to spout shit that would get their teeth kicked in, if uttered in public. I get infuriated reading my hometown Cleveland Plain Dealer. I know the people there aren't that stoopid.

Rule #2. Never try to hold a 130# dog down and try to give him a pedicure with a Dremel.

Rule #3. After violating Rule #2, have that drink. I'm pouring now.

[Tansy_Gold]

80. Can't drink, I'm supposed to be doin' paid work

1. -- I NEVER NEVER NEVER go to other message boards. used to go to one about romance novels but those people (98% female) were too nuts. haven't been there in about two years. Used to go to one sponsored by the company i work for, but it gave me nasty viruses. Don't go there any more either.

2. -- Got all the excitement with dogs I needed two weeks ago separating a 50# Staffie from a 60# beagle mutt (both 'em mine) fighting over a dead rabbit. Nobody got seriously hurt, but there was A LOT of blood, most of it on me. I let 'em bite their own toenails.

3. -- If I can't rant on SMW and WEE, where can I rant?



Tansy Gold, whose biggest canine tops out at 80# and that's ENOUGH

[Demeter]

84. WE Is Open All Night For Ranting

I've been so depressed by what I found (and I didn't even open up Naked Capitalism) that I avoided it all Sunday....sorry.

It sucks. It sucks Big Time. Our institutions are failing us who built them, maintained them, paid for them.

Remember the Nuclear Clock? We need the Economic Clock. How many minutes from civil war are we now? Do they really think that concentration camps can hold 300 million desperate people? Where would they get enough barbed wire and mercenaries?

[Tansy_Gold]

86. "Where would they get enough barbed wire and mercenaries?"

Where else -- China.





Tansy Gold, listening to the rhythm of the rain, at last

[Demeter]

87. Don't Think That Would Work for the Chinese

The last thing they want is to take more funny money, or responsibility for more political prisoners, even if they aren't citizens.

And that would be an open invitation for price gouging.

The Chinese aren't that stupid or that desperate or that well armed.