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Tue 9 Mar 2010
The Entitlement Society, Reprise
Posted by Frank under Masters of the Universe
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Paul Myners in the Guardian:
The risk is now that their confidence has not been sufficiently dented; that they have not truly learned their lesson. And the danger with this moral hazard is that they could put us all at risk again.
This is why a central part of restoring true market discipline to the world financial system must be major reform globally to the way banks and financial firms are governed and regulated.
Meanwhile . . .
The “financial industry” has demonstrated that it is incapable of learning from experience and that, in a conflict between greed and responsibility, greed wins.
Check the history of the US in the 1800s. There was a recession depression panic almost exactly every 20 years.
The only period in US history without regular recessions depressions panics was the period during which Glass-Steagel was in effect. Sure there were ups and downs, but those were hills and dales, not mountains and canyons.
Banksters gotta be watched. Carefully. Even in their little bankster hideouts.
Mon 8 Mar 2010
Nostalgia
Posted by Frank under Personal Musings
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Mon 8 Mar 2010
The Entitlement Society
Posted by Frank under Masters of the Universe
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Too much is not enough.
In Germany, a bank goes under and gets taken over by another bank. The new bank decides not the reward employees of the failed bank for their failure with bonuses.
Now bankers from the failed bank are suing for their bonuses.
Dresdner “was entitled to take the actions it did in relation to Dresdner Kleinwort employees’ discretionary bonuses in light of the market deterioration in the investment bank’s performance,” according to a spokesman at Commerzbank, who declined to be identified citing company policy. “The bank will be defending any claims vigorously in the courts.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Mon 8 Mar 2010
We Need Single Payer
Posted by Frank under Health Care
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Country club memberships (emphasis added):
“You see, these insurance companies have made a calculation,” Obama said in prepared remarks released by the White House. “They’re OK with people being priced out of health insurance because they’ll still make more by raising premiums on the customers they have. And they will keep doing this for as long as they can get away with it.”
Mon 8 Mar 2010
UPS and Downs
Posted by Frank under The Comedy Around Us
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A veteran UPS driver, with a 25-year safety record, reflects:
“Distractions are the big culprit,” McAllister says, “and it’s definitely gotten worse.”
He is constantly amazed by “the blatant violations of traffic laws as well as the laws of physics and common sense.”
It’s the electronic age. They used to prop books and memos on the steering wheel. Now it’s laptops.
Furrfu.
Mon 8 Mar 2010
Swampwater
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
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Commence Operation Scapegoat (emphasis added):
After two workers, including a Virginia Beach man, shot and killed two Afghan civilians last year, the Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater was thrown off its $25 million subcontract, but not without a fight, the documents reveal.
The supervisor of the two men was specifically identified in e-mails and letters as fostering such an environment. And even after the killings last May, Blackwater – which now calls itself Xe Services – tried to keep him on the job and distance itself from the shootings.
The functions in question should have been performed by United States employees beholden and subject to the United States, not by mercenaries.
The outsourcing of military functions is bogus. It makes the official military budget look a little smaller (or more accurately not as big), while funneling money into private hands not beholden to the United States except on payday to perform the same functions with less efficiency, less effectiveness, undoubtedly less discipline, but at much greater expense.
It’s the hand-in-the-pocket thingee again.
Sun 7 Mar 2010
The Regency
Posted by Frank under Political Theatre
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Sun 7 Mar 2010
Seen on the Street
Posted by Frank under The Comedy Around Us
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Sun 7 Mar 2010
Meta: Why the Category Is “Political Economy”
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
[2] Comments
Because all politics is economics. Anything else is a red herring.
The magician prattles on about magic powers and beautiful assistants so you don’t watch his hands in his pockets.
The Republicans prattle on about family values for the same reason. The difference is that their hands are in the country’s pockets.
Sun 7 Mar 2010
It’s a Fetish
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
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That is, an unwholesome fixation on one thing, like ladies’ shoes.
Joseph Stiglitz on “deficit cut fetishism”:
Read the whole thing, particularly the paragraph towards the end in which he points out
America’s financial industry polluted the world with toxic mortgages, and, in line with the well established “polluter pays” principle, taxes should be imposed on it.
America’s financial industry has shown that it subtracts, rather than adding value and that incompetence is not its own reward; rather, incompetence deserves ginormous bonuses. And country club memberships.
Its advice should be discounted.
Sun 7 Mar 2010
The Galt and the Lame
Posted by Frank under First Looks
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One of the myths treasured by the rightwing is that private industry always does a better job than government “bureaucrats.”*
It just ain’t so, but it does funnel a lot of government money in private hands:
Consider the bomb-sniffing dogs: The Navy contracted out their training. The dogs failed the tests after training (they couldn’t sniff bombs); after thinking about it a while, the Navy decided to buy the dogs and train them itself:
But what they found when they arrived was shocking, according to internal Navy e-mails: dirty, weak animals so thin that their ribs and hip bones jutted out.
(snip)
In fact, the Navy said later, at least two of the dogs did not survive. Several others were deemed too sick to ever be of use. Nearly a year after they were supposed to have begun working, the remaining K-9s still are not patrolling Navy installations as intended.
The contractor says the Navy owes it $6,000,000.00.
I hope the guv’mint protected itself by including in the contract a performance bond.
_______________
*As if large private companies somehow do not qualify as “bureaucracies”; case in point: try calling Verizon for a telephone repair and see how long it takes to reach a real live human being.
It took me an hour and six phone calls–Verizon dropped two of them and three others ended up in Menu Hell. Once I got to them, the real live human beings were polite, knowledgeable, and efficient (afterthought: probably because they were hungry for human interaction), but Verizon’s 800-number horror show is one of the reasons I would not contract with Verizon for anything other than basic land line service.
Sat 6 Mar 2010
Skip the Interminable Boring Hollywood Self-Love Fest Oscars
Posted by Frank under The Comedy Around Us
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Sat 6 Mar 2010
Banks Shot
Posted by Frank under Masters of the Universe
1 Comment
Sat 6 Mar 2010
Twits on Twitter
Posted by Frank under First Looks
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Sat 6 Mar 2010
Bachman-Grayson Overdrive
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
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Fri 5 Mar 2010
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society”
Posted by Frank under Political Theatre
1 Comment
For two years, in between carpools, I transferred between the bus and the subway at the Pentagon subway station in Arlington, Va., where yesterday some yahoo with a gun cut loose.
Just to be clear, I am against prohibiting firearms. I like shooting and I’m pretty good when I’m in practice. Guns are neither inherently good nor bad. At the same time . . . .
Fri 5 Mar 2010
Prudescence
Posted by Frank under Too Stupid for Words, Words Fail Me
1 Comment
Honest to Pete, someone has a real problem, and it’s not the family that sculpted the snowwoman.
Words fail me, because this is too stupid for words.
Fri 5 Mar 2010
“Hold the Pickle, Hold the Lettuce”
Posted by Frank under The Comedy Around Us
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Special orders don’t upset us.
Fri 5 Mar 2010
Ghostly Presidents
Posted by Frank under Political Theatre
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Fri 5 Mar 2010
Scam Alert II
Posted by Frank under First Looks
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Cramming is back:
This week, the FTC filed charges against two San Francisco brothers, accusing them of fraudulently billing people for services supposedly provided by numerous companies with names such as GoFaxer.com, Global YP and Inc21. A federal judge issued an injunction halting operations by the businesses while the men await trial.
Crammers use a wide variety of ways to stick consumers with charges they never approved.
More of that fee hand of the market that righties are so fond of talking about.
Fri 5 Mar 2010
We Need Single Payer
Posted by Frank under Health Care
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She divorced her husband of over 40 years because he had Alzheimer’s.
It was the only way, after running through all the family’s savings, to make care affordable for him.
Heath care reform is a matter of morality, not a matter of country club memberships for executives.
Our present system is immoral and forces good people to do immoral things to stay alive.
Roberta has found some peace in the realization that “marriage means more than a piece of paper.” Her love and devotion to Alex have not diminished; she visits him every day in the nursing home, giving him the latest news about their children and sometimes bringing flowers. Totally incapacitated now, both physically and mentally, Alex will never improve or return home. But Roberta is grateful for the time they do have, as well as the peace of mind that comes with knowing her own future is secure. “I’m grateful I still have my home and enough savings so I won’t be dependent on my children,” she says. “But the real question is, why should health care have to end up in the divorce courts? What kind of a system is that?”
Thu 4 Mar 2010
Barbutti
Posted by Frank under First Looks
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Souls are lined up to enter Heaven. As each one enters, St. Peter gives the soul a harp.
On the other side of things, other souls are lined up to enter Hell. Each one receives an accordion . . . .
Thu 4 Mar 2010
Domestic Terrorists
Posted by Frank under Republican Hypocrisy
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From the Guardian:
And the Republican Party is quietly encouraging this stuff while acting all proper in public with it’s “socialism” rhetoric.
Read the whole thing.
Thu 4 Mar 2010
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
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Thu 4 Mar 2010
Red Herring
Posted by Frank under Political Economy
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Medical tort reform:
Let’s call this tort-reform fixation what it is: a sign that many Republicans are bereft of ideas and obsessed with an issue that will do nothing to lower care costs or cover the uninsured. Medical malpractice is a political crutch that opponents of the health-care bills lean on time and time again to justify their efforts to derail reform.
The author of the column is a trial lawyer. Nevertheless, that does not keep him from being right. There may need to be some reform medical malpractice law in the interest of justice and good medical practice, but the effects of malpractice insurance, suits, and settlements on costs are minimal:
Thu 4 Mar 2010
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society”
Posted by Frank under Political Theatre
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