How bad is this recession?

The worst one ever, by far. Check out these charts.

Specter's switch

A rat deserting? A reader of wall-writing? A come-to-Jesus-er? A flip-flopper? Does it matter why, so long as 60 votes, counting Franken and sans Lieberman, are assured?

What's it all about, Alfie?

When Michael Caine is considering leaving Britain because of the prospect of its increasing its tax rate on the highest incomes, we know the end of civilization is near. Except, as you'll note from the body of the article, he's done it before, as have many of Britain's leading actors in the past.

Question: What do Americans who earn those obscenely high incomes do to avoid income tax? Could it be?--yes, it could--that the US tax rate for the wealthy is relatively low? Could it be?--yes, it could--that our tax system has built-in devices for avoiding or deferring tax that aren't available in other systems? Could it be?--yes, it could--that even as we struggle with enormous government deficits, we are a tax haven?

Here's the Telegraph article that's referred to in the above blog.

Now wait a goddam minute!

This worldwide recession thing is getting really scary when it leads to this.

Two and a half questions

First, why do I continue to follow national/global politics with such relish when nothing I do, or can do, affects them; nor do they affect me?

Second, plus one-half: Since I acknowledge that there are forces/concepts/entities in the "universe" that my mind doesn't comprehend, how is it that I am so firmly of the belief that there is no god/God? A corollary: Isn't such a belief of the same merit, based on exactly the same lack of data, as a belief that there is one?

Rats and ships

This asshole, Richard Posner, is now leaping off the free-for-all capitalistic bandwagon. Google him and you'll find him somewhere to the right of Ayn Rand, a free-market monster who's many books and essays were the keystone of the U of Chicago School of Law and Economics, to wit: Whatever business does is good. Period. What a fraud he is, and a dumb one at that.

And another of my favorite essayists...

Naomi Klein. What an imaginative piece of writing.

As usual, when it comes to war/anti-war

Justin Raimondo nails it.

There are suicide bombers...

and then there are these people:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY&feature=player_embedded

This is scary to me

Reuters reports that today (Friday, 4/10) Obama is holding a meeting to see whaddup with the recent "stress tests" of the major banks that we've poured our billions into. These tests, I understand, are to determine to what extent the banks are viable commercial entities, worthy of our continued bailout. But look at who's in the meeting: Summers, Geithner, Bernanke--the ususal suspects. My fear about whether Obama is getting the "rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say, is buttressed by Obama's admission, during a 60-Minutes interview, that he'd had to forego much outside reading lately, relying chiefly of his staffs' "briefing books."

I think he'd be better served reading Newsweek or Common Dreams, or Truthout--any place that presents a different view: that the traditional banks, having so depleted themselves by immersion in fantasy debt instruments, are valueless and that it's time to admit it and deal with it by tearing them into viable commercial banks, holding depositors' deposits and investing them prudently. In other words, Obama, be a man, take a stand. It's no longer business as usual in the business of money-changing. It's time to throw the money-changers out of the temple and get on with truthful earning and responsible, fair and decent investing.

A hanging offense

No, better yet: For Halliburton's KBR--electrocution.

Long, but to the point

An astute, devastating analysis of the world economic downturn by Simon Johnson in the Atlantic, not for the faint of heart, but for the revolutionary, really good stuff.

To Chris Hedges

Why don't you say what you really mean?

And now for some fun

Check out Bush/Cheney's latest approval ratings.

Oh ye of little faith

Let's see: Krugman says Obama's plans aren't socialist enough. Stiglitz agrees, and adds that they're not big enough. Two Nobel laureattes in economics. And Sarkozy of France, at the London summit, says the Gang (oops, Group) of 20's plans aren't revolutionary enough.

Who you going to believe, them or your lying eyes?

Am I missing something?

Why isn't Ralph Nader's solution to the burgeoning federal deficit the "fair and balanced"--and obvious--answer?

Letter to the News-Press editor

Here's a letter I wrote to the Santa Barbara News-Press. I'll update this post if and when it gets published. Update: It was published on March 29, 2009.


I'm a Kool-Aid swigging Obama-devotee and therefore, on balance, I think he's doing his best, given that the Bush administration dealt him the ugliest possible hand. The operative words, however, are "his best,” because, not being a dictator, he still confronts—and so far has well adapted to—political realities, including, among others, the instinctive recalcitrance of blue-dog Democrats to “liberal” ideas, the sniping intolerance of Foxcasters to anything posited by any Democrat, and the fear-based resistance of embedded capitalists to any proposal that constrains their greed.

But two facets of Obama’s leadership nevertheless trouble me. First, his accommodation of the military. To be sure, it's early in his tenure, but I yearn to hear from Obama what President Eisenhower acknowledged in his farewell address, namely, that our nation is in the grips of a military-industrial complex that must be reined in, and that it is as much the cause of, as it is the solution to, our international problems. And second, his assumption that we might spend our way out of our present economic malaise. Rather, I want him to express, fully and frankly, that America’s decades-long materialist madness, fed by its addictive credit-reliance, both of which are promoted by mass media to engorge corporate profit—are over. I want Obama to tell us what we Americans must learn anew—because when America began, we knew it—namely, that in order to prosper we must live within our borders and our means.

I'm frightened

I'm no economist, that's for sure, but it's possible the Obama people are treating our financial problems as stemming from a "liquidity crisis" as opposed to what some experts, including Paul Krugman, deem an "insolvency crisis." The difference, as explained (and predicted as long ago as the fall of 2007) by Nouriel Roubini is critical. It means, in essence, that all the money we're throwing at the banks to make them "liquid"--with money to lend--isn't going to deal with the fundamental issue: they're broke.

A word to the wise...

Three words, actually: Look out below!

Wait and see

Let's hope the US under Obama treats the new leftist government of El Salvador with civility. A good early test of the administration's posture on South and Central America and their moves to the left.