"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is a well-armed lamb disputing the outcome."
--(Attributed to) Benjamin Franklin
For those of you who are not regulars at Jon Shapiro'sSchwarz' A Tiny Revolution are missing a regular treat.
Over the weekend, there appeared a post which is utterly awash in the delectable sweetness in delight at the discomfiture of the detestable. Shorter ATR: The mega-mall holding corporation on whch the fortune of Tom Friedman's multi-billionaire in-laws depends has lost 98% of its worth (on paper) in the last TWO MONTHS.
This state of affairs apparently led Friedman to discourse in an atypically honest column late last week at in NY TIMES. Quoth ATR:
It would be easy to dismiss today’s rant (however spot-on it might be) by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman as yet another ideological tirade against the U.S. automobile industry. But based on the bad news coming out of shopping-mall owner General Growth Properties [GGP], it is no wonder Friedman is feeling crankier than usual. That’s because the author’s wife, Ann (née Bucksbaum), is an heir to the General Growth fortune. In the past year, the couple—who live in an 11,400-square-foot mansion in Bethesda, Maryland—have watched helplessly as General Growth stock has fallen 99 percent, from a high of $51 to a recent 35 cents a share. The assorted Bucksbaum family trusts, once worth a combined $3.6 billion, are now worth less than $25 million.
If you click through to this chart, you'll see the drop has actually been even more precipitous than described above. GPP was trading at $27.55 the week of September 8th. It's now at $0.44. Thus, it's lost 98% of its value in the past two months.
SO, THIS is how a "Free Market" works? Schweet, schweet, schweeeeeet! Down from $3.6 BILLION, to "less than $25MILLION"? WhaddaRIDE!
My own (substantial, to me, though amounting only to some 10s of THOUSANDS of dollars) losses (retirement accounts down 30-35% in two months) somehow don't seem so terrible.
This time of year, the passing squadrons of migrating sand-hill cranes wheel and veer over my casa near the Rio Grande, which is their flight-way. They're heading today toward a wet and watery refuge 100 miles south, at Bosque del Apache.
Their cries fill the sky, but they're tricky to spot, because their undersides are pale and, at the altitudes where they fly, their slim silhouettes don't stand out against that azure sky.
Their cries are unmistakable. They're there, but you look where the sound says they should be and there's nothing there. But then in a shimmer, the flock wheels and changes course and as they bank and swoop, they appear.
Even at the distance--they're at least 700-1000 feet in the air, and often at a remove of many hundreds of meters in lateral distance--the effect can be mesmerizing.
I invariably stop to try to spot the flocks when I hear them, when I'm out walking a dog on the ditch.
Calculated Risk has become my personal source for all things economic-al. Did you know, for example, that a handful of insurance companies--the best-known being "The Hartford"--are trying to buy 'thrifts' so they can get in on the "bail-out?" I mean, everybody knew the 'bail-out' was really a 'give-away,' but this is fuuking RIDICULOUS:
4 insurers seek to buy thrifts for part of bailout Insurers ask government to let them acquire thrifts so they can receive bailout funds
* Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer * Friday November 14, 2008, 9:14 pm EST
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four insurance companies on Friday asked the government to allow them to buy thrifts so they can qualify to receive federal money under the financial rescue program.
Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Genworth Financial Inc., Lincoln National Corp. and Aegon NV, a Dutch company that owns U.S. insurer Transamerica, each asked the Office of Thrift Supervision for permission to acquire an existing savings and loan.
The deadline for filing applications was Friday. The Treasury Department agency said it received submissions from those four firms to become thrift holding companies by acquiring savings and loans.
Insurers that own thrifts, which are federally regulated, are eligible to apply for a piece of the $250 billion the government is spending to buy shares in banks and other financial companies. Thrifts differ from banks in that, by law, they must have at least 65 percent of their lending in consumer loans such as mortgages.
Hartford Financial said it expects to be eligible for between $1.1 billion and $3.4 billion in government bailout money.
The Hartford, Conn.-based company said it had agreed to buy Federal Trust Bank for about $10 million and to inject an undisclosed amount of new capital into the federally chartered savings bank. Federal Trust Bank, now owned by Sanford, Fla.-based Federal Trust Corp., operates 11 branches in Florida.
Richmond, Va.-based Genworth Financial applied to acquire Inter Savings Bank, a thrift based in Minneapolis, according to the thrift agency. Philadelphia-based Lincoln National is looking to buy Newton County Loan & Savings, based in Goodland, Ind., while Transamerica is seeking to acquire Suburban Federal Savings Bank of Crofton, Md.
Insurance companies are mostly regulated at the state level, but insurers that become thrift holding companies are under federal supervision and thereby qualify for the government bailout money.
At least two dozen insurers currently own thrifts.
Many insurers have been struggling. Hartford and Lincoln were among several companies analysts identified this week as likely needing to raise capital and facing the possibility of ratings downgrades.
"It wasn't just the banks and other institutions that were buying the subprime mortgage packages," said Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "It was the insurance industry that bought a lot of that -- which is why they are now backpedaling to write all that stuff off their balance sheets."
Plath said insurance companies are "holding their hand out to Treasury for money because they don't have any capital left to write it off against."
A number of property-casualty insurers have said they aren't interested in participating in the bailout program. The industry appears to be split between life insurers, some of whom have previously expressed interest in participating in the program, and property-casualty companies.
In a letter last month to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Chubb Corp., a major property-casualty insurer, said "we do not believe that allowing property and casualty insurance companies to participate in the (Treasury program) is consistent with the stated purpose" of the law creating it. That purpose is "to restore liquidity and stability" to the U.S. financial system, Chubb noted in the letter.
AP Business Writer Ieva M. Augstums in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.
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This really IS the pits, friends: Insurance companies TRYING to buy 'struggling' thrifts to BOLSTER their bottom lines! Where/when does it stop?
This crisis is the "shock" they've all been waiting for, the cover for ever more FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate)-sale consolidation...
Oh, and did anyone mention that "President" Obama's on-board since Day 1?
Yesterday (Friday) s/he had this up as "Video of the Day": ... a set of clips of Peter Schiff predictions from 2006 and 2007 on FOX News (with his views being ridiculed) (10 minutes)
Big Change! But mostly in 'folding' money, not coins...and mainly, the recipients.
Changes in the names of the people on the Pay-To-The-Order-Of lines on the checks written by the clients of the biggest K-Street firms.
Other than that, ummm, not so much. Ken Silverstein on the Harper's Magazine blog, No Comment reports:
Biden’s “Intern” Nabs Lobbying Contract: Washington adjusts to the Obama Era
By Ken Silverstein
The Washington Post had two interesting pieces today about how Washington is responding to the election of Barack Obama. The first said that Obama’s election had “touched off a mini-boom on K Street” and that Democrats who supported him were the primary beneficiaries.
“[Jaime] Harrison helped mobilize voter turnout for Obama in South Carolina, and for the past two years he directed floor operations for House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — credentials that made him a sought-after addition to firms looking for an edge in a new administration. “I built a lot of strong relationships with members, as well as their staff, and some of my very best friends worked on the campaign,” Harrison said. He will start with the Podesta Group next week.
The second piece said that bundlers “who raised millions of dollars for [Obama’s] White House bid are starting to land significant posts on his transition team. At least nine of the volunteer fundraisers whose wide networks of colleagues, friends and relatives gave more than $1.85 million to Obama are now positioned to help the president-elect set foreign and domestic policy and identify potential Cabinet appointees.” Meanwhile, Public Citizen reported that Congressmen John Dingell and Nick Rahall are hosting a fundraiser next week to help newly elected Democrats retire their campaign debt. The price: $20,000 for Political Action Committees and $10,000 for individuals.”
I checked lobby disclosure reports filed over the past few months and there’s an endless list of former government officials and staffers handling new accounts. Democrats are indeed doing well.
Thurgood Marshall Jr., who formerly worked for Al Gore, signed on to represent Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Joshua Fay-Hurvitz, a former staffer to Congressman Anthony Weiner, recently was retained (along with several other lobbyists) to represent Sovereign Bank.
Steve Elmendorf, a one-time adviser to former House minority leader Richard Gephardt, was retained by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Three other former Democratic staffers are working on the Association’s account, including Robert Cogorno. “Most recently, Cogorno served as Floor Director to Representative Steny Hoyer in both his Majority Leader and Democratic Whip offices,” says his bio. “In that capacity, Cogorno oversaw the Leader’s floor staff which directs day-to-day legislative activity in the House of Representatives. As the Leader’s chief liaison to Committee Chairmen and Chairwomen and their staffs, and other Members and their offices, Cogorno managed implementation of the Democratic strategy, counting votes and building support for leadership-backed legislation.”
And then there’s Gwen Mellor at Hogan & Hartson, who signed up to represent NewStar Financial on November 4, Election Day. Mellor has worked for at least five former members of congress, including Senators Tim Johnson and Tom Carper.
But on her disclosure form Mellor only mentions one former job: intern to Senator Joe Biden. Now that’s someone who knows how to adapt to the new era.
We Murkins are such fucking chumps. We believe our own press releases. Like "Obama's RILLY, RILLY, RILLY gonna CHANGE things."
...If it doesn't drive you mad with lust, or murderous rages. Right? Remember "Reefer Madness?"
No? Well, that's not surprising, given how weed wipes out your memory, you damn dirty hippies.
Ken Silverstein, at Harper's Magazine's"Washington Babylon" blog, posted the following piece from The Agitator he says he found on Andrew Sullivan's blog.
Successful Pot Smokers: Let’s Make a List Friday, November 7th, 2008
The latest absurdity to come out of the Office of National Drug Control Policy is an anti-pot PR campaign with the motto, “Hey, not trying to be your mom, but there aren’t many jobs out there for potheads.”
The first three ads suggest that drug users can look forward to a career as a “burrito taster,” a “couch security guard,” or “remote control operator.”
It’s an incredibly lame campaign, and reeks of stodgy wonks making a desperate attempt to look hip.
The Marijuana Policy Project’s Bruce Mirken adds:
By the way, jobs held by people who’ve acknowledged smoking marijuana include governor of California (Arnold Schwarzenegger), astronomer (Carl Sagan), mayor of New York (Michael Bloomberg), billionaire rock star/songwriter (Paul McCartney), and — well, you get the point.
Here’s my challenge to Agitator readers, bloggers, and others: In this comments thread, let’s compile a master list of admitted pot smokers—current or former—who not only haven’t ended up as heroin junkies or burnouts, but have gone on to lead successful lives. If the person is famous, include a link. But feel free to add yourselves and what you do now, too, if you fit the criteria. School teacher? Cop? Stay at home mom? Grad student? Count yourself in. You can leave out your name if you like. Or include it. Either way.
I’ll get it started:
Barack Obama, president-elect. Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the U.S. John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president. John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Josh Howard, NBA all-star. New York Governor David Paterson. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore. Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
That’s the result of a five-minute Google search. The presence of so many high-ranking politicians so early in the search results puts the lie to the ONDCP’s ridiculous ad campaign, and shows that to the extent that marijuana is harmful, the harm lies mostly in what the government will do to you to you if it catches you. It’s not only possible to smoke pot and go on to live a productive life, that’s by far and away what most people who smoke the drug actually do. The fact that all of the politicians listed above still support drug prohibition and the continued funding of farcical government organizations like ONDCP is the real shame, here. They’re more than happy to ruin the lives of young people who did the same thing they did in their youth. The lesson isn’t that you shouldn’t smoke pot. It’s that if you do, don’t incur the misfortune of getting caught.
So let’s see how long we can make this list. Give this post some love on Digg, and on Reddit. Poke around on the Interwebs and add more entries in the comments. If you qualify, add your own name—or at least what you do. I only ask that you not add the names of people other than yourself without documentation.
Have at it.
Burrito taster? You can get paid for that? Shit, I never knew that!
At this posting, there were 434 replies listing 'successful' pot smokers, many of them neither obvious nor public figures, but still having had good lives, despite their foul 'addiction.'
Oh, I almost forgot: here's the notorious "Reefer Madness." Enjoy...
Militant anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera is not happy that Barack Obama has been talking to Rev. Gene Robinson--in fact, this simple act alone is enough to convince LaBarbera that Obama is “anti-Christian” and out to undermine the Christian faith:
A conservative Christian activist says it's a sad omen for the Obama administration and the United States that Barack Obama has been seeking guidance from the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop.
The Times of London reports that the president-elect sought out New Hampshire homosexual bishop Vicki Gene Robinson for advice three times during his presidential campaign. Robinson, whose ordination in the Episcopal Church has caused a deep rift within the Anglican Communion, was reportedly sought out by Obama to discuss what it feels like to be "first."
Robinson notes in their three private conversations, Obama voiced his support for "equal civil rights" for homosexuals and described the election as a "religious experience." Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, believes Obama's consultations with Robinson show the true tenor of his upcoming administration.
"It looks like Billy Graham has been replaced by a gay bishop. We're moving to, perhaps, our first anti-Christian president; it's beyond post-Christian. Gene Robinson advocates homosexuality as part of the Christian experience," he explains. "Now Bible-believing Christians cannot accept that. Homosexual practice is sinful, as taught by the scriptures. This man [Obama] pretends to be faithful to Christianity, even as he works very hard to undermine it."
LaBarbera suggests Robinson may possibly replace Jeremiah Wright as one of Obama's main spiritual advisers. Wright was Obama's Chicago pastor for 20 years before disassociating with the controversial preacher during the presidential campaign
I guess you'd hafta expect that from a muslim, innit? But wait, wait... Wright's a "Christian," iirc. Can a Muslim be a Christian? Vice versa?
Every Department, Bureau, Board, and/or Commission of the Federal government has impacts upon or regulates industries which impact upon the increasingly volatile planetary climate. Everything from Defense (especially), to Treasury (through tax policy, etc), to Justice (enforcement)
We are out of time. We can not only see the abyss, we teeter right on the brink. I have mentioned Van Jones, before. He's a young, sharp, Harvard Law grad and community organizer who has a GREAT IDEA: "The Green-Collar Economy." Followed to its logical conclusion, Jones' proposals would address virtually ALL the pressing issues involved with a sustainable economy AND a sustainable planet. Every heated or cooled building should be inspected to evaluate its energy efficiency, conservation-and/or-wastage. Then every heated/cooled building found wanting in any of those areas should be either retrofitted to improve their performance, or torn down and rebuilt within the energy-saving demands of a dying planet. Federal funds should be devoted to the invention, production, and promulgation of energy-saving technologies.
There is absolutely NO practical (versus ideological/commercial) reason that there should not or could not be SOME kind of solar-energy collector on the roof of EVERY building in America (or the world, for that matter). And there would be NO better use of Federal resources than that (except perhaps for Universal Health Care) for the federal government to subsidize 100% of all such innovation and renovation, as it did when developing nuclear energy.
There is an additional benefit: Jobs. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of jobs, developing, building, installing, servicing, and repairing this vast, vital new infrastructure. It's not fucking rocket science, just pretty simple plumbing, carpentry, and electrical skills. ANYBODY could do it. And the wages would FAR outstrip what's available at wal-mart or Mickey-D's...
I know this is a perilous suggestion, given the euphoria and triumphalism of the Obama 'victory.'
But, for the life of me, I cannot escape the impression that the Pukes, looking at the incredible array of intractable clusterfucks that is the only 'legacy' of the Busheviks' tenure, decided they just wanted to be DONE with it all, silently and subtly threw the whole thing to the Dims, and walked away, giggling with relief and anticipation of the impending melt-down of the Democrats in the toils of the impossible situation the Bushies left behind.
How ELSE do you explain Sarah Palin? Her future prospects notwithstanding, Palin was an appalling choice as a running-mate. It tests credulity to the maximum to believe she was any kind of a rational choice. McCain's continuous and increasingly egregious bungling, mis-steps and mis-statements were just distractions. The racially tinged vileness of the campaign, and the rest?
I think they just invested enough into the race to make it SEEM like they were contesting the thing, but in reality, washing their hands of the whole mess (which they, having created it ALL, were eager to now abjure), secure in the knowledge that the conditions they were leaving behind would defeat the "Risen Messiah," to say nothing of a mere mortal with a bare margin in the Congress, composed of fractious, incompatible elements and irreconcilable interests, and opposed by a nearly monolithic, disciplined Puke minority which will NEVER negotiate in 'good faith' or in any way assist the 'change' agenda on the basis of which Obama won his historic, albeit slender, victory.
I more or less predicted this outcome/scenario early this year...
With HEAPS of gratitude to Mike's Blog Round-up at C&L (He searches the Freep/Tard/Xian-osphere, so WE don't have to), here's the week's load of HOLY CRAP:
It was on CNN the day after election, and Rachel Maddow (Friday night) devoted a lengthy segment to the question, too. Naturally, bloggers weighed in, too, including on MyLeftWing, where blogger "shanikka" picked it up, ran the numbers, and wrote, extensively, concluding that:
Utterly Supported Fact #1: There Were So Many More White, Latino and Asian Votes in Favor of Proposition 8 That Blaming Black Folks is Both Bad Math and Racist Scapegoating of the Highest Order.
I got no dog in this fight: I'm a straight, oft-married, recovering-racist, white, male, agnostic/atheist. From my POV, howsoever true it is that the passage of "Prop Hate" was not the sole responsibility of black folks--there are a LOT of fundie/homophobic Hispanic voters in California, too, who would have followed the urgings of their pastors, etc., compliantly or eagerly, as well as fundie Asians (Moonies?), to say nothing of the $70Million dollars mostly raised from WHITE churches (LDS, in particular) to promote the discriminatory law--still: How can that excuse or ameliorate the votes by the former victims of State oppression to oppress another despised group, and to claim essentially the SAME spurious ('religious') grounds that were heretofore employed to justify discrimination against them??? That's the part I don't get. Emmett Till got lynched for merely whistling at a white woman, iirc...
It seems to me and to others, there is an almost exact parallel, between the now-rejected claims of a "Biblical" warrant for the anti-miscegenation rules which prohibited inter-racial marriages, and the current, purely 'religious' prohibitions against same-gender unions? If there is any difference, it eludes me.
Oppression is oppression, whether on grounds of skin-color or sexual orientation or national origin, isn't it? Neither condition is "voluntary." How is it that people who suffered such discrimination--they, and/or their children--can calmly and without apparent shame or remorse impose their form of religious bigotry (what else to call it when the oppressors reach for Biblical justifications for their outrages?) on another socially despised group, when they themselves have so recently, only, escaped those same oppressive forces? This seems to me to be of a muchness, as a species of action--in so many ways resembling pogroms--with what makes the Israeli suppression of the Palestinians, and their violent, ruthless efforts at confining them, so incomprehensible to anyone who has even HEARD of the Holocaust.
Just out of curiosity, because I was out of the country a lot of the '60s, defending God and Country: Was there EVER a plebiscite--a popular vote--on Civil Rights for blacks, or even on the issue of inter-racial marriage? Were there ballot measures proposing to amend state Constitutions to prohibit 'miscegenation'? Loving v. Virginia was decided in '67, but the decision invalidated a Virginia STATUTE, iirc, not a plebiscite. Indeed, did the 'people' ever vote, explicitly, to accept or reject slavery, itself? (If so, I don't remember hearing about it, and I paid attention during history class.)
Though it is true that, as Shanikka wrote, the black vote alone was not sufficient to PASS the odious measure, had they voted AGAINST it in the same numbers the voted FOR Obama, they would have DEFEATED it and helped win for another oppressed minority the same rights they (though not alone) won for themselves 40 years ago; they could have crowned their historic triumph of the Obama victory in the glory of justice, instead of sullying it in the shit of superstitious bigotry and discrimination...
Mebbe that's just me.
Coda: What's that line in the Kris Kristofferson song, "Jesus Was A Capricorn": "Cuz everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on, Somebody doin' sumpin dirty decent folks can frown on..."
No, that's right. I do NOT believe in "god" or in any heavenly-ordained 'moral' order. Why?
Yes, the margin is greater than that enjoyed by any Democrat since LBJ's 18-point margin in '64. But, to actually achieve the REAL "change" he ran on (in the unlikely event that such "change" was EVER on the agenda of the resurgent Dims; I'll give Obama himself a temporary 'benefit of the doubt'), would have required a margin of Johnsonian/Rooseveltian proportions. FDR garnered a 16-point spread in '32, 28 points in '36. It was this wide, deep, overwhelming popular support that enabled FDR to extract such concessions as he did (which, in the end, weren't very much, really) from the plutocrats and oligarchs who were even then bent of reducing any pretensions of USer 'democracy' to an historical footnote, and who have labored tirelessly--and VERY effectively ever since--to reverse, or incapacitate, or eviscerate all the popular the programs FDR set in place, albeit they diminished the power of the elites only even ever so marginally. LBJ's 18-point margin made it possible for him even to CONSIDER the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, which would have been even politically untenable with less of a popular mandate. Obama faces problems even more pressing than those LBJ confronted, and almost as severe as those FDR had to face.
To enact change of ANY significance, BHO needed at LEAST a 10-point margin (and 15 points would have been a THOUSAND percent better). Five or 6 million votes out of more than a reported 130 million votes cast is a fart in a windstorm. "Electoral Vote" majorities are meaningless, since they can be won with a one-vote margin as well as with a 200,000-vote margin. Electoral votes are not reliable indices of the popular will, but only of a particular peculiarity of the USer political system, which was in any case designed to LIMIT the effects of the popular voice and the power of the popular vote.
In order to motivate and energize his base and to capture the necessary number of Independents, Obama HAD to make a LOT of promises he has NO FUCKING WAY of keeping. At the same time, he had to avoid making many promises that he COULD or MIGHT keep--except that by doing so he would discommode the financial (versus the 'popular') interests whose support he enjoyed. We need to recall that, while just about half of his campaign war chest came from "individual donors," the OTHER half came from 'CorpoRat interests' that are positioned--as 'popular interests' are not and never can be positioned--to claim the preferences he implicitly (via his record, which was ANYTHING BUT 'LIBERAL") promised them as the pro quo for the quiddity of their endorsements and financial support. He led the recent "Big Banker's Bail-out," remember, and acted to stiff the 'people' when it might have mattered. He favored the interests of Big Bidness on the FISA bill, too. These weren't the first times in his short career he had done so, either. We can safely predict he will stiff the people; he WON'T stiff the bankers, if (when, inevitably, as he has already readily and repeatedly shown) the "push" comes to "shove."
Here's where the 'benefit of the doubt' comes in: Obama's not morally culpable for his failures...no, that's not right. He's not POLITICALLY culpable for the failures that will attend him. He'll fail on ALL the big things. He won't get--won't even try to get--Universal Health Care; he won't end US universal militarism, just relocate it; he won't boost alternative energy to parity with the conventional energy industry in terms of tax-code protections, incentives or out-right grants, and probably he won't restore many of the rights and liberties stolen from the people by the busheviks and a compliant, complicit Congress under the rubric of "national security."
But he won't do those things out of a lack of will or political courage. He won't do them because 6 or 7 points is not anywhere near a sufficient mandate to overturn his politician's innate caution, and fear of alienating the really POWERFUL members of his constituency. He needed at LEAST 60% of the popular vote to do what the people elected him to do. While it is true that his campaign needed the contributions of the millions of individuals who sent them, it is also, and probably MORE, true that he couldn't have won without the donations and the support of the CorpoRats.
And they're in a much better position to remind him of his debt to them than are those millions of people who sent in their hard-earned sheckels.
Barack Obama's won the Presidency, but he faces an enormous and terrible array of problems left behind after 8 years of Bushevik environmental malevolence, and a minimum callous indifference toward the problems of ordinary people. The economy is in tatters, unemployment is sky-rocketing, and deep recession looms.
Pres. Obama's going to have to develop and implement progressive, environmentally proactive (non-militaristic, Keynsian) ways spend our way out of these looming social catastrophes. One obvious way is to put federal resources into the so-called "green economy": developing, building, installing, and maintaining the technologies that make individual citizens contributors to the national energy grid, not just consumers., and reduce wasteful, useless energy consumption. He needs to get people into his administration who have new and imaginative solutions. Van Jones impresses me as one of those people.
Saving the Working Class with Green-Collar Jobs
Very soon, according to Greentrepreneur, lawyer, civil-rights reformer, and community activist Van Jones, environmentalism won't just be about the environment anymore. Instead, it will drive fundamental changes in the way we do business and the jobs we create — that's what he means by a green-collar economy. Jones, the head of the non-profit Green For All and the author of the new book The Green-Collar Economy, could represent the future of environmentalism in America and a way for the movement to survive and even thrive through the coming recession. "The solution for the environment and the economy will be the same thing," says Jones. (Listen to Jones talk about the green collar economy on this week's Greencast.)
Over the years, manufacturing and other blue-collar jobs have been gradually outsourced from the U.S. That has hit the working class especially hard, in both cities and rural areas, because decent-paying blue-collar employment is what pulls people out of poverty and into the middle class. At the same time, it's the working class that has also borne the brunt of the high energy prices that result from America's dependence on foreign oil. As the recession darkens, that double bind is likely to worsen.
The answer, Jones writes in his book, is the creation of green-collar jobs that provide working-class employment, shield America from rising fossil fuel prices and stem carbon emissions. These are not the high-tech, high-education "George Jetson" jobs, as Jones puts it, that were created by the Internet and biotech booms. Green-collar jobs include manufacturing solar panels, insulating green homes, servicing wind turbines. These are jobs that can be filled by blue-collar workers who need jobs — and they help the environment to boot. "You can put the country back to work with green solutions that are good for the Earth," says Jones.
Jones has captured the essence of the current dilemmas of energy and climate succinctly: "We cannot drill and burn our ways out of these problems," he says in he latest book. Provocative, personal, and inspirational, New York Times best-seller The Green Collar Economy is not a dire warning but rather a substantive and viable plan for solving the biggest issues facing the country--the failing economy and our devastated environment. From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.
Van Jones: A Video Profile:
In The Green Collar Economy, acclaimed activist and political advisor Van Jones delivers a real solution that both rescues our economy and saves the environment. The economy is built on and powered almost exclusively by oil, natural gas, and coal, all fast-diminishing nonrenewable resources. As supplies disappear, the price of energy climbs and nearly everything becomes more expensive. With costs and unemployment soaring, the economy stalls. Not only that, when we burn these fuels, the greenhouse gases they create overheat the atmosphere. As the headlines make clear, total climate chaos looms over us. The bottom line: we cannot continue with business as usual. We cannot drill and burn our way out of these dual dilemmas.
Instead, Van Jones illustrates how we can invent and invest our way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy. Built by a broad coalition deeply rooted in the lives and struggles of ordinary people, this path has the practical benefit of both cutting energy prices and generating enough work to pull the U.S. economy out of its present death spiral.
Rachel Carson’s 1963 landmark book Silent Spring was the pivotal ecological examination of the last century. Now, rising above the seemingly impenetrable, if not insoluble, debate over the environment and the economy, Jones’s The Green Collar Economy delivers a timely and essential call to action for this new century.
My taste for exposing the powerful to humiliating discomfiture got a brief, but glorious work-out this morning on the news that national embarrassment and pestilential parvenu Sarah (The Cooter) Palin got it stuck to her by a couple of Quebecistani wits recently. It's been all over the Left-blogs, but I first tumbled to it on "Jesus' General'" manly site:
French Canadian terrorists, pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy, prank called Our Lady of the Witch-Hunt, yesterday. Although she did not know the name of the Canadian Prime Minister, I think she recovered well when she agreed to go hunting in a helicopter with "Sarkozy" so they could bond by "killing animals." She also did well by accepting praise from the prankster for a Fox documentary about her life. I haven't seen it, yet, but it's called Nalin' Palin.
In an over-the-top accent, one half of a notorious Quebec comedy duo claims to be the president of France as he describes sex with his famous wife, the joy of killing animals and Hustler magazine's latest Sarah Palin porno spoof.
At the other end of the line? An oblivious Sarah Palin.
The Masked Avengers, a radio pairing notorious for prank calls to celebrities and heads of state, notched its latest victory Saturday when it released a recording of a six-minute call with Palin, who thought she was talking with Nicolas Sarkozy. [...] "We have such great respect for you, John McCain and I, we love you," Palin gushes, evidently unaware she's speaking to an infamous Quebec comedian named Marc-Antoine Audette. [...]
Over the course of the interview, Palin doesn't seem to realize she's being tricked until Audette comes clean near the end of the call.
"Ohhhh . . . have we been pranked?" she says, in her inimitable style. Seconds later, Palin's aide can be heard taking the phone before the line goes dead.
Throughout the conversation, Audette drops plenty of clues that something's amiss. He identifies French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday as his special adviser to the U.S., singer Stef Carse as Canada's prime minister and Quebec comedian and radio host Richard Z. Sirois as the provincial premier.
"We should go hunting together," Palin offers when Audette professes a love of hunting - or, more precisely, killing animals. "We can have a lot of fun together while we're getting work done. We could kill two birds with one stone." [...] Audette goes on to describe Bruni [President Sarkozy's wife] as "hot in bed" and claims she's written a song for Palin, the French title of which translates as "Lipstick on a Pig." In English, Audette says the song is about Joe the Plumber.
Finally, he mentions a notorious Hustler video titled "Nailin' Paylin," describing it as "the documentary they made on your life." "Oh, good, thank you, yes," Palin replies. "That was really edgy," Audette says. "Well, good."
I no longer live in California. If Prop 8 passes, I likely will never go back. Why should I support a state whose voters legalized discrimination?
If it passes, and it looks like it may, then likely it should be challenged on the basis that it violates the US Constitution, specifically the First and 14th Amendments. The First Amendment argument is subtle, nuanced, and utterly correct: Prop 8 DOES impose unambiguously 'sectarian' prohibitions on all citizens regardless of their religious (or irreligious) affiliations.
But Murkins, even the ones wearing the black robes of jusice, do not DO "Nuance." So the best approach is via the 14th Amendment. Gay marriage is a slamma-jamma ginormous DUNK under the 14th Amendment, as long as states continue to ratify marriages between hetero couples...These are very good ads, btw...
Note: I am not a lawyer, but have played one in the movies...AND have stayed at a Holiday Inn.
Barack Obama seems to be heading for a victory in the election next week.
Since FDR assumed the reins of Govt in 1932 and used his "First Hundred Days" to launch the New Deal, it has become almost a cliche to discuss every new President's "First Hundred Days" as the best--or perhaps her/his ONLY--chance to create an agenda.
So, the question:
If you were in the circle of close advisors to a newly elected President Obama, what FIVE measures would you want (or, alternatively, recommend) him to adopt or press for in his "First Hundred Days" following Jan 20, 2009?
“Considering that there is an $800 billion giveaway, to be followed by another trillion and another trillion after that, this is the biggest giveaway since the land giveaway to the railroads in the mid-nineteenth century and just as that giveaway created a power elite that would rule America for a century and a half, this is creating a new power elite that has changed America from a democracy into an oligarchy. And as Aristotle said, ‘what is democracy but the stage immediately preceding oligarchy?’”
From Michael Choussadofsky's Centre for Global Research, GlobalResearch.ca: Dr. Hudson is a Financial Economist and Historian. He is President of the Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trend, a Wall Street Financial Analyst and Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His 1972 book “Superimperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire” is among the first pubilications to critique how the United States exploited foreign economies through the IMF and World Bank. He is also author of “The Myth of Aid” and “Global Fracture: the New International Economic Order”. Dr. Hudson has written several articles on the recent Wall Street meltdown and Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson’s Plan. These articles have included, Financial Bailout: America’s Own Kleptocracy--the Largest Transformation of America’s Financial System since the Great Depression. The Paulson/Bernanke Bailout: Will the Cure Be Worst than the Disease? Financial Fraud: Mr. Paulson and the New Yazoo Land Scandal. And Thinking the Unthinkable: a Debt Write Down and Jubilee Year Clean Slate. The interviewer is GR's Bonnie Faulkner.
It starts well:
BF: Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson’s $700 billion so-called bailout, first called “The Plan”, was defeated in the House. Then a modified version called “Troubled Asset Rescue Plan or (TARP)” was passed by Congress in it’s “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008”. Still others refer to this legislation as “Cash for Trash”. What would you call it?
MH: Cash for trash is exactly what it was, and the emphasis should be placed on “Emergency “ for Emergency Plan. It was rushed through without giving any opportunity to debate. Dennis Kucinich protested, for instance, that this was the first time a major plan that was going to create the equivalent of 700 billionaires, people who are going to become the next power elite to govern America for the next century --that this act was done without any hearings, without specialists--despite hundreds and hundreds of major economists throughout the world saying that it was a disaster and a giveaway. It is cash for trash. It will not resolve the problems.
The dollar will plunge. The stock market already plunged.
It is purely a giveaway to Mr. Paulson’s colleagues on Wall Street and a giveaway to Mr. Obama’s and Mr. McCain’s campaign contributors. The Democrats were the major supporters of Mr. Paulson while even the Republicans sought to dissociate themselves from the plan so they couldn’t get blamed when the inevitable failure of the plan shows that all that was done was a giveaway of $700 billion to Mr. Paulson’s colleagues and pals on Wall Street.
And gets juicier and meatier and more trenchant as it goes along.
It is relevant, and germaine, of course, because one of the foremost supporters, and advocates, for the plan is the all-but-President, Barack Obama. Dr. Hudson has a thing ot two to say on that score, too:
MH: Mr. Obama is the man who is giving it all way to Wall Street and his major campaign contributors. Look at what’s happening with Mr. Rubin, there’s no difference at all between his financial advisor Robert Rubin and the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.” Instead Mr. McCain shifted gears, reversed himself, gave in and said, “now I’m supporting the plan too”. So the result of the Friday debate, if you remember the first half hour, Mr. Lehrer kept trying to press both presidential candidates on ‘how do you feel about the bailout, what do you think? ‘
And they talked about anything else. Mr. Lehrer tried to be more polite and finally he was laughing, and he said, “Aren’t either of you guys going to answer my question?” And they both of them said, “No.” Now when they refused to give their position to the bailout to the American people. When they refused to take a position on a plan that most voters “overwhelmingly” opposed and then they support the plan this shows they’re just in the hands of their financial backers.
Later, we discover that what the over-TRILLION-DOLLAR bail-out has bought, basically is "worthless junk."
BF: Now is the government buying real assets or just worthless toxic junk?
MH: Well no real assets will be bought at all, although the government will end up foreclosing on them. Let’s say what the real problem is: the real problem is that the volume of mortgage debt far exceeds the ability of debtors to pay and the willingness to pay. Mr. Paulson’s pretense, which is an absolute lie and which should lead him to criminal prosecution because he knows it’s a lie, is that the problem here is a liquidity problem. But its not a liquidity problem, it’s a bad debt problem. Suppose that people bought a house for $125,000 and have a full mortgage on it for that price and suppose the house has fallen to $80,000. I know a number of houses like that. I know a professor in western Illinois that had a house that she bought for $125,000.
The highest bid she has it on: $80,000, fully mortgaged. Dennis Kucinich tells me that the house next door to him in Cleveland, Ohio was bought for $125,000 and now it’s only worth $80,000. So this is typical. Now imagine a bank responding to a borrower who wants to say, “Well gee, I want to be able to pay my mortgage can you lend me enough money to pay my mortgage?” What bank can be expected, when already the house is 50% over-mortgaged… who is going to lend more mortgage than a property is worth? That era is over! No bank any longer is going to lend more money than a house is worth. And already Mr. Paulson said that 5 million Americans are in arrears and facing foreclosure.
The figure was then corrected by other economists to 10 million Americans in the coming year are going to lose their homes! Now no amount of liquidity is going to provide them with the money to stay in if already they can’t afford the mortgage. And in fact the government is now supposed to make money “quote” for taxpayers “unquote” by coming in and acting as debt collector. Now, in order to make money for taxpayers, the government now has to come in and say, “We’re going to enforce the Adjustable Rate Mortgages that are exploding in interest rates. You are now going to have to pay much higher interest rates. Penalty rates. Back fees and penalties or we’re going to throw you out of your house because we have to make money for the taxpayers. We are now the collecting agents not Countrywide Financial or Fannie Mae or Washington Mutual or the others.
So the debts of homeowners will remain in place. The debts of cities and municipalities will remain in the place and all that happens is that people who have the mortgages are supposed to be bailed out now because under Mr. Paulson’s plan as he wrote it and the plan that the house originally rejected, the terms were that the government would buy the bad mortgages and bad debts from the banks and other investors and insurance companies for what they had paid for them. In other words insurance companies will not take a loss for their bad investments. Banks won’t take a loss for their bad investments. Hedge funds won’t take a loss for their bad investments. Now how many of your listeners would love to be able to say, “geez I made a bad stock investment. I’d like the government to buy back these stocks that I bought that have gone down.”
That’s not what the government is doing because these aren’t the major campaign contributors. So this is the asymmetry. The inequity. And the irony is that the Democrats have supported this so strongly. A week ago last Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Hillary Clinton of all people came out with a wonderful wonderful plan. She said that the government should insist on rewriting the bankruptcy laws. She said the government should rewrite the mortgages down to the current market price and the government should replace exploding interest rate mortgages with normal interest rates or the teaser rates that had been signed. So she obviously knew what the right thing to do was.
And that’s the plan that would have worked. And yet she went and voted for the plan as it came out of the Senate when they passed it on Thursday. So she met the criterion of evil that Milton described in Paradise Lost: somebody who knows the right thing and yet does the wrong thing knowingly. That is also the definition of a crime. A criminal has to knowingly and consciously be making a mistake. And Hillary, and the other Democrats, Obama… just about all the Democrats who supported the bill said, “We don’t like it. We know its wrong but we’re voting for it because it’s an Emergency and if we don’t vote for it the stock market will go down.” Well as you saw on Friday the stock market did go down and it will continue to go down because foreign investors realize that this money that is being given away is going to flow out of the country very quickly and that’s going to put downward pressure on the dollar. And even if housing prices only fall another 20% or so, if the dollar declines by more they’re going to take a heavy loss that they basically can’t afford to take.
Read the rest at the link. Or don't. I'm about past caring, one way or the other...
You'd think so if you thought for a moment about where those issues were in the Presidential "debates."
Did any of the "moderators" or 'citizens' either for that matter, ask a single question?
McCumstain is an avid proponent of more conventional energy development, including more Nukes, more (oxymoronically labeled) "Clean Coal," and "Drill Here, Drill Now."
Obama, the Candidate For Change, is also firmly in the pocket of "conventional energy," supporting ethanol for fuel, and (ever oxymoronic) "Clean Coal" for electricity.
The question also occurred to Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo, who put up a compendium of recent stories about the great disappearing climate stories yesterday:
environmental news sunday
protecting the planet. as the seemingly endless presidential campaign season winds down, attention has focused on bread-and-butter issues: the economy, jobs, taxes, health care. no one is uttering a word about clean air, water, land conservation, global warming, endangered species. gainesville times
coal's time bomb. every year, south carolina's power plants burn enough coal to fill 10 large football stadiums, leaving behind a stadium-size pile of toxic ash.- charleston post and courier
reports of toxic spills spiking. rural counties struggle to respond to calls, and cleanup often is left to the polluters. (good luck widdat. ed)denver post
europe's secret plan to boost gm crop production. gordon brown and other european leaders are secretly preparing an unprecedented campaign to spread gm crops and foods (so-called "frankenseeds and frankenfood") in britain and throughout the continent, confidential documents reveal. there is a LOT of resistance to the introductions among European farmers - london independent
palin pipeline terms curbed bids. gov. sarah palin's signature accomplishment - a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from alaska to the lower 48 - emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an associated press investigation shows. - ap
sioux honey, researchers probe bee colony collapse. billions of honey bees nationwide have checked out of their hives, never to be seen again. - sioux city journal,
where have the orcas gone? the disappearance of seven orcas from b.c. coastal waters is being blamed on a "double whammy" of low chinook salmon numbers and toxins being dumped in the ocean. - vancouver province,
scottish dolphins becoming endangered species. dolphins are in danger of disappearing from the Scottish coast as temperature rises and food shortages drive them away. - edinburgh scotsman
saving the working class with green-collar jobs. van jones, a charismatic 40-year-old yale law school grad who has emerged as a major green star over the past year, argues that environmentalism won't just be about the environment anymore. - time magazine.
Some cretinous, brain-dead executive fucknozzle from Duke Energy a couple of weeks ago said the country had a choice: we can have an economy now, or our heirs can have a liveable planet. But, apparently not both. I reckon you know what side he came down on, innit?
This blog has hosted every vid I find illustrating the vicious stupidity of Middull Murka. Here's a new one. (DOTOF™ to Driftglass, that unequalled paragon of the photoshop and inchoate rage) This “race” is about nothing BUT Race.
The “Left” wants to make it a referendum on Bushevism/neo-con assholery, but with a black man at the top of one of the only two tickets that can be ‘elected,’ this was always gonna be about race. If Hillary had been the candidate, the race would have been about ‘gender.’ Which is why whichever one was the eventual nominee virtually was required to name the other as running mate, and why Obama’s failure to do so was both a tactical and a strategic mistake.
Race, more than any other social marker, dominates discourse in the USofA. It’s (justifiably) the default critically interpretive position. Nothing like a presidential election has EVER focused the national attention on the matter before. Not MLK’s assassination, not the civil rights movement. Nothing other than having a Black president has ever promised to make white people, especially the ones i call “MiddullMerkins,” confront the full consequences of successful integration, and their resistance to it.
From Miller's News From Underground blog, a piece called "12 Ways You Can Safeguard Your Vote," included the following admonition:
Early voting really won't enable the protection of your vote, as you are likely to be voting on the same corrupt machinery, or to have your ballot counted by the same corrupt machinery, that's used on E-Day proper. Also, all those voters who vote early will mean that many fewer voters in the turnout on Election Day-- and we need a record-breaker, to make yet another theft that much more inexplicable.
So if you do vote early, try to turn out on Election Day as well--not to vote, of course, but just to be there to enlarge the crowd, and also to help keep an eyes on things.
(And if you have a problem with the machinery--a problem that you can perceive--be sure to report it, by calling 1-866-OUR-VOTE, or telling the election protectionpeople, or the videothevote team, assuming that they're there.)
The "12 Ways To Safeguard Your Vote" are:
BEFORE ELECTION DAY 1. Check your registration. Even if you think you're registered, you may not be. Check online at www.CanIVote.org.
2. Vote now. Check if early voting is possible in your state. If you're voting by mail, check carefully where you need to sign, how to seal the envelope, and how to mark the ballot. And note: Some ballots require extra postage.
3. Practice your vote. Electronic voting machines can be difficult to use. Verifiedvoting.org is preparing links to video demos of how to vote on the machine you will find at your polling station. If you'll be using a paper ballot, check out the sample included in your voter pamphlet.
4. Find out who's in charge. Make a phone list of your county and state election officials-it may save valuable time on Election Day if you need to get registration verification or other information.
ON ELECTION DAY 5. Vote early. Avoid the frustration of long lines. Also, if you encounter problems, you'll have time to sort them out and may be able to help others.
6. Take your government-issued ID and your cell phone, if you have one. If you have problems, or see problems, call a hotline immediately (see point #9). You may not need ID to vote, but it's best to have it. If you have trouble with your registration, ask for a provisional ballot.
7. Avoid Straight Party Voting, if it's an option in your state. Vote for each race individually, even if it takes a little longer.
8. Verify your vote. If you're voting on an electronic voting machine, check the review screen to make sure it reflects your vote. If the machine produces a paper record, check as you go along that everything is working correctly. If not, speak to a polling attendant-don't leave until you're sure your vote has been properly recorded.
9. Document and report. If you encounter difficulties, or see others experiencing difficulties (excessive lines, voter harassment, malfunctioning machines, etc.), make a detailed record. Get all the facts you can-location, names, specific problem.
The best way to report problems is to call 1-866-OUR-VOTE (1-866-687-8683), which has volunteer lawyers in 15 locations standing by to provide rapid-response assistance. You can also contact your party of choice. We have more suggestions here.
AFTER ELECTION DAY 10. Call your candidate. If there are questions about an election result, urge your candidate to ask for an audit. Ask how you can help.
11. Call your election officials. If you have concerns, let your county and state election officials know, and monitor their response. Ask them not to certify the election before all challenges and recounts are finished. And send a copy of your message to your local newspaper editor. If you're confident about the election result, thank the officials for a difficult job well done.
INTO THE FUTURE 12. Work for fair, transparent elections. 66% of Americans don't trust the electronic voting machines many of us will be voting on this November. Join the movement for election reform in between elections. Use our YES! Tools to find out how.
