Open Thread
By bluegal Tuesday Feb 17, 2009 8:30pmFrom R.J. Matson at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. (click image for larger) Open Thread below...
John Amato’s virtual online magazine…OK, It’s a blog!
©2009 Crooks And Liars
From R.J. Matson at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. (click image for larger) Open Thread below...
Login or Register to post comments.
...is the Democrats' paper. The Republicans read the Globe-Democrat.
it galls St.Louis Republicans that they have to read a paper called the Globe-Democrat.
for it quit publishing and went out of business 22 years ago. Republicans are as extinct as the newspaper they used to read
Fits the topic.
As long as were sucking on the tit of foreign debt, taxes really don't matter. Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates made a pretty interesting interview on Yahoo Business.
"Worst Is Yet to Come:" Americans' Standard of Living Permanently Changed
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/...
"Stimulus" Has Never Worked
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. After eight years we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot." - US Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, loyal secretary of the Treasury to President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and key architect of FDR’s New Deal. May, 1939
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau...
Can't make it any plainer than that, we're doing it wrong. Don't listen to me, listen to the architect of the new deal.
Spending tax payer money is an old habit our gov has had. What that quote doesn't say is what the money was spent on. If the truth were told (to answer in short) is that Keynesian economic philosophy has never been tested and Obama is going to test it.
They lost a decade, it failed. The quote was an admission by Henry Morgenthau that the new deal had failed in 1939, he was the chief designer of it.
nevermind.
Let banks fail, says Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysect...
Since you think that is so important here is a Nobel prize winner on economics who says the opposite of Krugman. Krugman's prize was for trade patterns, not economic downturns, be careful what you rest your coat on, in a few years Krugman is going to have a lot of explaining to do.
I noticed you pulled the link to the Heritage Foundation.
Any reason for that?
So I replaced it with the Wikipedia one, don't want the message to get lost because of the link.
Quoting Wiki is even worse.
Wikipedia was the liberal media for 8 years (so claimed the Republicans) I won't stand to hear it suddenly be a tool of the right.
The quote can also be found in this book
New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America by Burton Folsom Jr.
http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/20...
Wiki is open source, it is not reliable.
This guy's work appeared in the 'The American Spectator', a right wing rag.
Go away with that crap.
One of his titles is 'The Myth of the Robber Barons'.
I can see it all now. The Robber Barons were actually good guys.
Oh brother.
I'm sure all for this stimulus would love nothing better than to bury that quote. It comes from his personal diary.
It's references are all over the internet, here an article in the Wall Street Journal invoking it.
Leave the New Deal in the History Books
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1232153983708...
The Wikipedia reference is here on page 15 of "Great Myths of the Great Depression" by Lawrence W. Reed written in 1998
http://www.mackinac.org/archives/1998/sp1998-...
Why wouldn't you want to listen to the architect of the new deal?
The opinion page of the Wall Street Journal and a paper from the Mackinac Center? You won't find two institutions that are more representative of the (Republican) industrialist class!
[Alice, I'm surprised you didn't catch that Mackinac Center bit.]
Secondly, you overstate Morgenthau's role as "key architect of FDR’s New Deal". His predecessor as Secretary of the Treasury, William Woodin (who died in 1934) played a much more key role during his brief tenure by pushing for the "bank holiday" and removing the country from the gold standard (fyi, the countries that got off the gold standard sooner during the period recovered more quickly).
Lastly, you've got to take Morgenthau's quote ("We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. After eight years we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and an enormous debt to boot.") in context. FDR took over an economy in freefall. The economy bottomed out post-inauguration in '33, with unemployment at roughly 25%. By the end of FDR's first term the recovery was in effect, with unemployment down to around 15%. But early in the second term Morgenthau pushed for pushed for a balanced budget- counter to Keynesian theory- and the economy dipped again, though not nearly as far as the bottoming out of '33, and unemployment rose slightly. So when you read that quote remember that Morgenthau caused the recession-within-depression by employing non-Keynesian methods.
I'll credit Morgenthau a job well done for planning the post-war recovery in Europe, but pre-war he was a traditional free-marketeer, not a Keynesian.
Unbelievable, I never thought I'd see people here make the same mistake that core 24% Bush supporters made. Don't like the message, shoot the messenger. The reference came out of Morgenthau’s diary.
You can only make an informed decision if are willing to look and see both sides of an argument. I read Krugman’s pieces and listen to watch his appearances often. I get Nouriel Roubini's RGE Monitor Newsletters and watch his video’s often too. Both are terribly short on details on how and why this stimulus will work, they simply don’t explain it with any detail. They only ever say they should work; there is NEVER an explanation how or why.
Krugman recently took listeners calls for 40 minutes on C-SPAN which Heather posted the video’s here.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/p...
Talking about the crisis and promoting his new book (I am now reading) and in video # 2 a caller lamented (5:30 into it) over how Krugman did not see this coming and how the same crooks that made this mess, who have been wrong again and again are now being listened to as the experts to fix it. The caller asks why no one is listening people who did get this right like Ron Paul or Peter Schiff.
Jon Amato even said Peter Schiff was right
http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/peter-sc...
Krugman completely avoided taking on Ron Paul’s and Peter Schiff’s position by the caller, instead he said “boy I don’t even want to go into the Austrian stuff” and then claims he saw it too. Bull Shit! He did not, everyone who did and yelled about it was labeled a “Dr. Doom” people like Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Nouriel Roubini, Marc Faber, Max Keiser, Jim Rogers, and Robert Kiyosaki got that title.
That’s right, the same crooks that bent us over and got us into this mess now guard the hen house under Obama. Furthermore Bernanke and Paulson have been wrong about everything for years and Obama is still listening to them, gee wonder why? If you want to know I recommend you Robert Kiyosaki’s new book on it “Conspiracy of the Rich, The 8 New Rules of Money”, you can read it for free online here (you’ll have to sign up but it costs nothing), the details are in the first chapter. The rabbit has dug a hole into Obama’s camp.
http://www.conspiracyoftherich.com
Robert Kiyosaki also saw it coming years ago too and took a lot of flack for his predictions with books like “Prophesy” written in 2002. He takes the same stance as Peter Schiff and Ron Paul, and like they he also simply recommends you invest for bad policy. So maybe I’m just spinning my wheels trying to get people to wake up, in a few years reality will make obvious that intervention never works. Then Krugman and Roubini will get to explain how wrong they have been.
Do a little research on Henry Morgenthau, despite writing The New Deal he was not a Keynesian economist and argued frequently with FDR on policy. In 1948 there was book written called "The Roosevelt Myth" by John T. Flynn, you can google it's out there in PDF form too. What we’re doing now has been tried in Japan, it failed, once again we get to learn it the hard way.
doesn't make it the truth.
It's so eeeeeeeasy!
that is real easy too, and I get a lot of that here.
You asked about Kanjorski and I told you what I knew at the time.
Here is more.
For setting me straight on that.
Vegas: "The worst is yet to come". Yep. You Betcha.
I don't know what to make of this anymore. I am no economist. So my ideas wouldn't count for anything.
But, during the Eisenhower admin, Massive work projects were put into place building the highways and waterways . That right there should create some long term jobs. Long enough? Not likely.
But, I think all we need is a little time. To get something started. And it will grow again. Will it be the same? Never.
I'm not heartless to the plight of those out of work, I myself closed down a dot com I helped start that burned into the ground in 2001. I watched $3.5 million in preferred stock (147,000 shares) turn into $26,585 before I could legally sell it, quite depressing. I got a good paying IT job after that at a reseller of MCI and 16 months later got laid off in a 20% reduction because of the WorldCom scandal and because it was after 9/11 and IT was in the ground I was out of work for 6 months.
My current employer has government contracts (we don’t get paid unless we save the government money), so bear that in mind when I say:
While government work is honest and beneficial it is ultimately a burden to the tax payer, no matter how many government contractors benefit, or paychecks make their way back into the system, etc. At the end of the day it is a huge tax burden when government spending gets too big, the system will feed on itself and collapse.
Again I work for a company with government contracts, all the employees understand this very personally. We have a serious concerted effort in our company to get commercial accounts to make up 50% of our revenue. The private sector earns money by prosperity and drawing in fresh money from new sources in and out of the country. It survives by its merits, government work survives because the government had or created a need for it, and so it taxes us for that need and we pay for it.
which is exactly what they are going to do with this stimulus plan. which is why the government needs to become fiscally responsible. which is why if a government agency goes over their budget they need to raise their own capital. which is why government interference with the economy needs to be kept at a healthy balance.
thank you. this post gives a concrete example to my sometimes abstract propositions
I don't know why people want to just believe Obama's plan is going to work when there is volumes of data showing it is a bad way to go. The markets see it as well, today the Dow closed less than a point up from the November 2008 low.
I love to be supportive too, but it has to make sense, we fail we all fail. But some just need to pound their head against the wall. Not too mention architects of this disaster are now the ones entrusted to fix it. What the hell?
What's that old saying? Half measure avail you nothing! So if we're going to screw up we might as well hose ourselves good. LOL! and now I cry.
Or maybe, just maybe, Wall Street can't get any money to do deals because none of the banks trust the other banks to be solvent.
The banks know the bad practices because they use them. No stockholder wants to watch their money get bled off by greedy incompetents.
That is why you let them fail, you don't save incompetent companies.
what is blinding you, Rage?
it's easy to pump out a one liner like that, prove me wrong.
http://crooksandliars.com/bluegal/open-thread...
clinton raised taxes and paid down the deficit, which was a bigger burden.
I’m often fascinated by the similarities between micro and macro economics. Between the two, the terminology is different, the application (meaning the focus of study) is in opposite directions, but the fundamentals remain the same.
A good metaphor is the forest. Micro-economics deals with the tree (i.e. Planting the tree, tree-growth, root-system and branches and leaves) while Macro-economics deals with the forest (defining the boundaries, inter-relationships of the flora, cyclical growth). But when you stop abstracting the tree, it is just as complex and multifaceted as the forest. Studying the lone tree can tell you a great deal about the forest.
For years, Americans have consumed beyond their means. We have done so on credit (debt). It became so bad that we owed more than the value of all our assets. This is not just the recent Housing market and mortgages being underwater (meaning the mortgage costs more than the house is worth), but CC debt, tax burdens, auto and non-discretionary (food, energy, and basic necessities) as well. We weren’t making enough to pay for it all - and we borrowed to make up the difference. It couldn’t continue.
When it gets to the point where the American consumer must borrow against assets to pay the INTEREST on the debt that is owed, that consumer will inevitably end up with NOTHING LEFT. Just ask those who thought they could continue opening up new credit-card accounts to transfer balances from old to new. At some point, no one will any longer give you a new credit card, and you’re just stuck with the interest on all of them.
So as it now stands, the American consumer isn’t going to buy all those nifty new gadgets we like so much. The 72” Plasma TV is now a luxury we can’t afford, and we’re just going to be satisfied with last year’s fashions. Energy, food, transportation, and that damned roof over our head that’s worth 50% of what it did last year are now the priority. We still have to pay for these things as we come to terms with what we owe. The rest we’ll just have to, um…. SAVE for.
That is the tree. The forest is the same.
Our National debt is at the point where our tax structure is insufficient to pay our budget. For decades we made up the difference by borrowing. Now we have to continue to borrow just to pay the INTEREST on the debt we owe. And we are beyond the point where China et al will any longer give us a new credit card. We’re stuck.
But just as the American consumer can’t stop paying for the non-discretionary necessities, the American Government can’t stop funding necessary expenditures. Energy, infrastructure, education, and State budget support are our Nations non-discretionary expenditures now. For too long we’ve been paying for the bigger guns and unnecessary vendettas on credit. It can’t continue. We must now prioritize our expenditures so that at the end of the month we won’t end up with NOTHING LEFT.
This stimulus bill will not be the ultimate solution to our economic dilemma. It will not kick-start our economy and get it running just as it was before – NOR SHOULD IT. What it does is refocus our expenditures on necessities to keep that damned roof over our head that is now worth 50% of what it was last year. The rest we’ll just have to, um… SAVE for.
I pray for Obama, but I have little confidence that this program will do little other than push the day of reconing out a few months or years. This is just the begining. We have no idea how bad this is or going to get, and neither do those people in Washington.
We have borrowed and spent ourselves into an enormous hole here and they have gotten us into a big expensive hole in the middle east for corporate benifit, and in both cases they are screaming for more shovels. The only way we might have a chance to correct this trend is to bring back the jobs lost in the last 20 or so years. Ross Perot was right. The money follows the jobs.
I watched this over time and I wondered if it was a coincidence that each year that we had a half trillion dollar trade deficit we also had a half trillion dollar Federal budget deficit. As in replacing the money that just left the country, otherwise there would be financial consequences. This is unsustainable. This is the drawback of a democracy. Politicians making decisions for short term political gain that have long term bad consequences. I mean, who dosn't want a tax cut?
Davidowitz is pulling numbers out thin air.
Here Bloomberg reports real estates valuation loss since the peaks in 2006 at $6.1 trillion.
Here is reported Capital Market losses of $429.4 billion in 2008, more than the previous three years combined. In four years it is not a trillion.
I have no idea what else he is including in the $10 trillion but the phrase 'negative wealth effect from weakened capital markets' is hardly precise.
The equity market has lost $8.8 trillion which is a vast amount but that is not walking around money for the shopping mall crowd.
This one is about right and it is a big problem.
Mainly he is shooting from the hip.
LMAO! $8 trillion, 6.1 trillion, when you consider over $30 trillion is destroyed that we know of so far and we have crap like this on the horizon.
The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/am...
What's a trillion or two anymore?
is most disappointing. I thought you were a deeper thinker.
I can hop on a board take pot shots without qualifying my statements too, I lay down some heavy references in my posts. Prove me wrong.
...they have been frozen in time like the dinosaurs that have gone before. Let them stay frozen and rendered harmless as a minor annoyance to our progressive agenda. They deserve no better treatment as devolved creatures of negativity and obstructionism.
They don't believe in evolution.
I don't see the late fellow in the line evolving through a closet.
don't believe in evolution. A better depiction would have been of them being raptured up to heaven while muttering "Tax Cuts".
They seem to have the charicteristics of the neanderthal though.
Neanderthal's have a bad enough reputation as is. No need to compare Repugs to them.
I always thought they were kina cool. Ya know, clubby and all.
I think the cartoonist published this last week in honor the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth - same day as Lincoln, I think.
Didn't Lincoln's detractors refer to him as an "ape" during his first election?
...and they called him much worse than that ever after.
DEJA VIEW
By, Dwane Powell:
http://www.newsobserver.com/581/image_media/1...
Arnie's already thinking about his next close-up after the President's Day massacre. Global warming forces L.A. to ration water. GM wants to get paid to lay off more people and close up shop. Obama's ready to deal with the foreclosure crisis next. In spite of admitting we'll be hitting a neo-Depression soon, Greenie still thinks government intervention is bad. A satirical spoof of The Wrestler.
Alan Greenspan is still alive to keep telling us what we already know -
we're about to enter the deepest depression know to humankind - mainly thanks to him and his ilk.
Could someone please tell him the STFU!
Bubba is trying to get people to forget about Glass-Steagal.
The Huffington Post lays out clearly the absurdity of the recent criminalization of hemp, And puts a historical perspective on that absurdity as well. Very cool article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robbie-gennet/o...
"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country."
- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President
Jefferson musta been stoned when he wrote that.
Why you don't believe there ain't no validity to that. Do you think he was wearing a tin foil hat while discussing it. Maybe he could fashion a bowl from it in a pinch. But really. At least he wouldn't be put into jail and making a profit for a private prison company if he was stoned at that time.
Jimmy Carter had a point...
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana." - Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
In 1916, the U.S. Government Dept. of Agriculture predicted that by the 1940s all paper would come from hemp and that no more trees need to be cut down.
Oh, I believe it, many of the founding fathers imbibed in the herb. Washington probably used it to ease the pain from those wooden teeth he had to wear.
I feel that smoking pot is somewhat patriotic in a retrospective sort of way.
was too good for us.
carter was the right president at the wrong time. If we had his foreign policy in the nineties who knows what would have happened. but the flip side to that is carter advocated and signed the bill that allowed reagan to spend what he did in military buildup.
but he was way ahead in trying to rethink the whole energy policy, and I find it interesting that he didn't push so much for nuclear power in spite of him being (or maybe because of him being) a nuclear engineer.
as beneficial as nuclear energy can be there are serious drawbacks. such as security issues and storage of the waste products. maybe when we use up all the oil we can store it in the middle east.
bad joke i know.
I've read France is sending some of their waste to Siberia (not confirmed).
well hey all they got out there is caribou anyways. we should send ours to alaska.
It doesn't seem to me like there is any energy source that can replace oil and have the western world continue to having the standard of living it has. Can anyone tell what is on the horizon that can be as cheaply extracted as oil?
It takes pretty much the same amount of energy as drilling. But it as an almost infinite return per drill.
The earth is one big oven, dissipating a large deal of heat... tapping an almost infinitesimal part of that would provide us with the majority of our electricity needs.
Thanks. I'll be looking more into geothermal.
that the western world will be able to continue having the standard of living we've grown accustomed to?
I think in the very near future, it's possible we're going to be living and making do with a lot less than we're used to.
personally, the government should legalize weed. have private farmers grow it and sell it packs. that way we all calm down, the government gets money from the sales in taxes. it frees money to do other things with and it also puts drug cartels out of the weed smuggling business
Obama, not Bush, now seeking to delay Rove House testimony
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_not_Bush_...
any real appetite for going after the shrubsters. His statements indicate he wants to change the ethics and transparency going forward. Although it is frustrating in that I want to see heads roll, Obama has been consistant for the most part in sticking to what he has said about looking forward, not backwards. I remember how painful it was to have Ford pardon Nixon, but looking back it was probably for the best. I don't buy the argument that because Nixon got away with it, it emboldened others to further abuse. Nixon was disgraced and he knew he would go down in history in infamy. Sounds to me like shrub called Obama and asked him to take it easy on Rove and Obama being Obama has considered it. That's my take.
hell maybe obama is taking a page from ford's playbook and looking to forget the past because living it again and again is not going to do anyone any good. and if there was ever a time we need to look forward instead of back it is now.
I really do think that's it.
who knows.
The only ones interested in "moving forward" were the republicans. Plenty of people were pissed that tricky Dick did not serve a single day of prison. Ford's pardon of the Nixon junta made the dangerous precedent that the president was above the law. And we have witnessed continuous abuses of justice by successive administrations (Watergate, Iran-Contra, The Saving & Loans scandal, Clinton's shenanigans, every single policy of the Bush administration, etc)...
It has been all downhill since Nixon. And it seems that behind every major clusterfuck during the past 4 decades, you can trace a member of the Nixon administration behind it. He was a cancer in this country, and we never applied chemo to our nation by "moving forward." We have had successive cancerous growth spurs... each more virulent than the previous.
?
I'm betting plea-bargain in exchange for Bush dirt.
Maybe Obama may be willing to let Grima Wormtongue (AKA rove) slide, in order to go after the two or three other really big fish...bush, cheney and rumsfeldt...if that's the case...I can EASILY live with that...
Obama wants to preserve executive privilege on the cabinet level for something questionable that might be brought to light at a later date (Rahm Emanuel?)
or
Obama doesn't want to cause waves right now in an effort to set a better atmosphere in order to move his economic agenda in at a smoother pace.
I am sure Obama would love operate in a more obscure manner, and try to get away with by pulling the "executive privilege" bullshit.
However, there is no such thing as "executive privilege" and Obama is a constitutional lawyer. Therefore if he decides to go that route, he would be doubleplusasshole... since he can't claim lack of knowledge or familiarity.
I believe it was Truman the first one to bluff his way out of predicaments, using the "executive privilege" bs.
link
link
for getting elected by a mob.
that Obama has his hands full and does not want to distract the populace or the Congress or waste resources on the neo-con idiots right now. I think he may have people working on these issues in the background and will bring them to light when the time is right.
Is there a statute of limitations on prosecuting malfeasance and treason for those in high office?
{ Deleted, flamebaiting. Care to try that again? SiteMonitor}
Sounds like a recipe for bad gas.
Must be an Austrailan brand.
j/k
Typo.
I'd drink it.
is not like congratulations. I hope you wouldn't drink a wet one.
I used to drink a beer called Rhinelander. Sold for six bucks a case and half the bottles were flat out of box. It was cheap, but it got the job done. The next day, you and everyone around you suffered.
{You know where the door is. SiteMonitor}
When i miss all the fun. :)
Gitmo guard speaks
Feb. 17: Rachel Maddow talks to former Guantanamo Bay prison guard Pvt. Brendan Neely, who opens up about abuse there.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/29246...
WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (IPS) - CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus and Multinational Force Iraq (MNF-I) Commander General Ray Odierno have submitted assessments of Iraq combat troop withdrawal plans to President Barack Obama based on the premise that his 16-month withdrawal plan would pose significantly greater risk to "security gains" than the 23-month plan they favour.
But a senior commander in Iraq appeared to contradict that premise last week by declaring that security gains in the Shi'a provinces of Iraq are "permanent", and a field commander in Iraq says there is no objective basis for any Petraeus-Odierno finding that Obama's plan carries greater risk than their 23-month plan.
Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, U.S. commander for the eight southern provinces of Iraq, denied in remarks to reporters Feb. 12 that the security gains in that region were fragile, contrary to the premise that Odierno has publicly asserted. Oates cited the dramatic reduction in activities by Shi'a militia fighters and the holding of the Jan. 31 elections without any major attacks.
I'm happy to say that I was able to contact the director of the Darby Library and offer to do a fundraiser. Of course, I told her I heard of the library's predicament through Crooks and Liars.
I'll let y'all know more once I know more! :)
and if this is the right forum to post..
Paul Krugman gave C & L a mention for it's place in the Time article...yay.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/b...
he gets all of his advice from me.
i ron ic
No roads
No streetlights
No cops
No fire fighters
No schools
No work
No way to get to your non existent job
No food
No electricity
No future
No thanks
No change
what too much taxes will if improperly used:
stifle the economy because no one has money to spend
rewards those that are lazy over those that work hard
keep the government overbloated.
just to name a few
om Medved's radio show today. It's the ones that work hardest that get the least benefits. It's the CEOs that put in an 8 hour day that don't really work that hard and benefit the most.
which is why work so hard so that one day we can sit on our ass all day and play computer games. although good ceo's prolly take an active part in the upper managerial decisions, work hard on promoting their company and raising capital. so to say they do nothing is not entirely fair
you are doing some of the best concern trolling I have seen in ages.
Chapeau!!!!
out done himself hasn't he?
That the people who work the hardest get paid the most?
At least fairy tales are free because they saved you a penny while you lost your dollar believing in them.
NO SENSE
And dangerous...
How many flaming bags of shit did boosh leave?
By my count, everything he touched.
He was sort of the anti-Midas.
Next the Republicans will be arguing whether Charles Darwin actually existed...
maybe. but i know for one i wont listen to it.
Are still slumming...
I'm living proof!
Ability to adapt to changing climates and conditions brings forth a stronger species. The neanderthal is a dead branch in Darwin's tree of life, as is the Neocon. You will not evolve. You fuckers don't even believe in it.
Die fucker. Die! Die like a Whig.
Anyone catch the "Frontline" show on Paulson and Bernanke?
and was a little disappointed that it only recounted the steps they took after the fact, not all the shenanigans the banks and investment houses did/are doing that really caused the problems.
However, it did provide good information for most of the populace who are not well informed about the goings on in the financial/political world. Unfortunately, the people who need that information do not watch PBS very often.
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, PHILLIP L. ZWEIG and JULIE CRESWELL
The Securities and Exchange Commission said it could not account for $8 billion in assets held by the Stanford Financial Group.
Afghan Civilian Deaths Rose 40 Percent in 2008
By DEXTER FILKINS
A U.N. report promised to deepen concern about the American effort in Afghanistan, as President Obama considers adding more troops.
Putting Stamp on Afghan War, Obama Will Send 17,000 Troops
By HELENE COOPER
The order will add nearly 50 percent to the 36,000 American troops already there.
Obama's War on Terror May Resemble Bush's in Some Areas
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
The Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for some major elements of its predecessor's approach to fighting Al Qaeda.
A Painful Departure for Some G.M. Brands
By MICHELINE MAYNARD
General Motors' expansive lineup was once its primary weapon, but it plans to cut four brands, including Saturn and the long-lived Pontiac division.
, so where will the bailout money go?
Effort Takes Shape to Support Families Facing Foreclosure
By FERNANDA SANTOS
A civil disobedience campaign is starting in New York and other cities to support families who refuse to vacate their homes.
Despite U.S. Offer, City Stands Firm on Food Stamps
By JULIE BOSMAN
A provision in President Obama's stimulus package, extending food stamp benefits for able-bodied adults, has revived a dispute in New York City between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and advocates for the poor.
The Unfinished Case of Maher Arar
President Obama can demonstrate his commitment to human rights by addressing the case of Maher Arar, the well-known victim of the policy of extraordinary rendition.
The Bailout Is Robbing the Banks
By JOHN C. COATES and DAVID S. SCHARFSTEIN
The Troubled Asset Relief Program has channeled aid to bank holding companies rather than banks. But this is not a good use of scarce capital.
There's such a thing as nekkid republicans?
David Vitter can answer that question...
What would he know about nekkid?
He was in a diaper.
Funny. Is there any truth about that? Vitter is an infantilist? Where has that theme been coming from?
wearing that thing all the time...
24/7 365...soiled or not...
Stop Coal Turkey, James Hansen. James Hansen asks world leaders to stop coal-fired power plants. - http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/15/23...
MUST READ, Water Wars Update: Tara Lohan: A World Without Water - http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090302/lohan
Water is essentially life on this planet....we cannot allow it to be privatized, life can not be privatized...
There's a new Sheriff in town: EPA to review Bush era rule on warming emissions - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29237460/
Sierra Club lawyer David Bookbinder welcomed the move, saying it "stops the Bush administration's final, last-minute effort to saddle President Obama with its do-nothing policy on global warming."
"With coal-fired power plants emitting more than 30 percent of our global warming pollution, regulating their carbon dioxide is essential to making real progress in the fight against global warming," he said in a statement.
The "Main Street Job Creation Act" is alive!! President Barack Obama signs the document in Denver, saying this begins "the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time."
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
Into the Deep Muddy: "President Barack Obama announced Tuesday night that as many as 17,000 additional troops are headed to Afghanistan in the coming months, administration officials said. Obama announced that he is ordering one additional Army brigade and one additional Marine brigade into combat, along with the support troops they need."
- http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/189...
Although the announcement comes at a time of promised draw-downs in Iraq, no troops go directly from Iraq to Afghanistan.
Obama had promised to increase troops in Afghanistan and criticized former President George W. Bush for taking his eye off Afghanistan as he waged war in Iraq.
Taliban in Pakistan Closes Schools for Girls - http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/17/p...
Wow: An Inexhaustible Source Of Neural Cells - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/...
Research scientists in Bonn have succeeded in deriving so-called brain stem cells from human embryonic stem cells. These can not only be conserved almost indefinitely in culture, but can also serve as an inexhaustible source of diverse types of neural cell. The scientists have also shown that these neural cells are capable of synaptic integration in the brain.Using animal experiments, the researchers in Bonn provided direct proof that these artificially derived neural cells will also function.
Transplanted into the brain of a mouse, these cells made contact with the recipient brain and were subsequently able both to send and receive signals.
Ex-spy chief Dame Stella Rimington says ministers have turned UK into police state - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politic...
Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has accused the Government of exploiting people’s fear of terrorism to restrict civil rights. Ministers risked handing a victory to terrorists who want people to “live in fear and under a police state”, said the former spy, who retired as Director General of the Security Service in 1996. Dame Stella said that America was even more to blame and had acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists, through harsh anti-terror measures that have been accused of breaching human rights law.
“The US has gone too far with Guantanamo and the tortures. MI5 does not do that," she said. “Furthermore, it has achieved the opposite effect: there are more and more suicide terrorists finding a greater justification.” Dame Stella's criticism was seized upon by the Conservatives.
David Davis, the Tory MP and former shadow home secretary, said: "Like so many of those who have had involvement in the battle against terrorism, Stella Rimington cares deeply about our historic rights and rightly raises the alarm about a Government whose first interest appears to be to use the threat of terrorism to frighten people and undermine those rights rather than defend them."
Obama, Gates at Odds Over Proposed Protections for National Security Whistleblowers - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
During an election featuring Democratic allegations that U.S. intelligence was distorted to justify a misbegotten war, Barack Obama endorsed new protections for national security officers who blow the whistle on abusive, corrupt or illegal behavior, by offering them the right to sue for damages and challenge denials of their security clearances.
But by keeping a Republican-appointed secretary of defense strongly opposed to those changes, President Obama is finding the path to a new policy on federal whistleblowing much more complicated.
Can't wait until we get a new Secretary of Defense....
Right wingnut smackdown: Former Gitmo Guard Tells All - http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90...
Teamsters president joins call to pull deceptive ads opposing Employee Free Choice Act off the air - http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Int...
Robert Greenwald: Have It Your Way with Goldman Sachs -- What would you do with an extra $18,000 in your pocket? - http://warongreed.org/burgerking/?utm_source
It's a start: Nation's schools would get $106 billion from federal economic stimulus package - http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/fron...
The Re-Gingrich-ization of the GOP - http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/pr2009021...
If the corporate media wasn't in the bag....they'd have wholesale losses in the 2010 elections...
Pennsylvania Is Ground Zero for Passage of Single Payer - http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pennsylvania...
Ari Melber: Mr. President, They're Just Not That Into You - http://www.thenation.com/blogs/state_of_chang...
Obama plots huge railroad expansion - http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/189...
Siegelman To White House Counsel: Don't Compromise With Rove - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/16/sieg...
"This is not a matter involving civil damages. It is a matter of high crimes, abuse of power, the subversion of our country's constitution and of our individual rights and liberties," Siegelman wrote the Huffington Post. "There should be no deal cut with Karl Rove that would provide him with any immunity whatsoever. There is too much at stake.
U.S. Attorneys were fired because they wouldn't take on political cases and the DOJ was used as a political weapon to destroy people Karl Rove wanted out of the way. For Rove not to be held accountable means others in the future will feel more free to abuse power.
Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. 'Big' John Cornyn (R-TX) Took Caribbean Junket On Allen Stanford's Dime
- http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/200...
U.S. Accuses Texas Financial Firm (headed by Allen Stanford) of $8 Billion Fraud - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/business/18...
Powers of Brightness, California's biggest utility contracts for world's biggest solar power deal. - http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/12/15...
Scientists losing war of words over climate change - http://www.desmogblog.com/scientists-losing-w...
That's because scientists aren't shoveling billions of dollars at PR firms & Marketing consultants like Big Oil & Big Coal are...
Former Astronaut in Bed with Big Oil? - http://www.desmogblog.com/former-astronaut-harrison-schmitt-big-oil-global-warming]
All aboard the SUPERTRAIN, The stimulus bill provides serious money for high-speed rail - http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/2/13/16...
Check out the map for the proposed lines....
Wow: An Inexhaustible Source Of Neural Cells - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/...
Research scientists in Bonn have succeeded in deriving so-called brain stem cells from human embryonic stem cells. These can not only be conserved almost indefinitely in culture, but can also serve as an inexhaustible source of diverse types of neural cell. The scientists have also shown that these neural cells are capable of synaptic integration in the brain.Using animal experiments, the researchers in Bonn provided direct proof that these artificially derived neural cells will also function.
Transplanted into the brain of a mouse, these cells made contact with the recipient brain and were subsequently able both to send and receive signals.
I needed this . This has enormous potential.
Thanx again.
This is a great article, great potential, I hope we can realize it in this country...
Maybe we can replace Bush's Brain!!!??
something...there must be something there to begin with.
With Abby Normal?
i am one pissed off, bitter bastard today. i just found out that princess i keep telling ya'll about got herself a new boyfriend, a total raging alcoholic who doesn't deserve her. and i got to find this out on my birthday.
i don't know what this girl's problem is -i'm trying to topple a new world order and she still won't even say, "hi."
beware neocons, i will be taking out my wrath on you in full force!!
good morning froggy ! and happy birthday! sorry about the dissapointment ! been there done that myself, but i found out eventualy some things are for the best, not that it makes you feel better at the time, i can look back on such times and see that i was ment for better then i was going to settle for, had i not had my throut cut by a few ladies i wouldnt have met my wife i have now, and i thank the fickle gals for doing me a favor ! you never know whats just around the corner it just may be the right one!
... thanks, ty. she's probably not really even worth all the effort.
awfully cute, but maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer...
well froggy it takes two to tangle , cutes fine but it dont last forever, thier comes a time when the one you marry has to be more then a lover she must be a friend allso !one you can depend on to stick with you through the bad times as well as the good times , its only after ones married that you let your hair down and become your true self,
this girl never had my back. NEVER.
i will defer to your wisdom, old friend. thanks for the kind words. gotta run to work.
have a good one!
in long run...if she's gonna do ya like that on your friggin b-day...
Want some advice?
Ok here ya go.
Date smart, ugly women, and ya won't have to worry about her doin ya wrong. ;)
oh and can i now bitch about obamas administration furthering the bush agenda of the bush cheny war on afganistan? more agression , more deaths , more bs , more tax dollars pissed away for nothing ! i know yeah hes only been in office a month and yes we must keep on waiting untill hes been office till when ? to hold him responsible for .....well all most anything!
};)>
Wait for it....ok.....NOW!
Deja view from the Great Cartoonist, Dwane Powell
http://www.newsobserver.com/581/image_media/1...
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/erbe/2009/02/17/a...
I loved one of the comments someone made on that post:
No doubt they thought they were very clever. However, if they didn't define who, or what, God actually is they are up the proverbial gumm tree.
The conversation might go like this;
"Sure I believe in God. He hangs out under a toadstool at the bottom of my garden, along with the fairies who also live there."
"Now, can I have the job?"
"Oh, you mean YOUR PARTICULAR God? Golly gee! I didn't realize that. OK, show me a picture of him. If he looks like a nice guy I'm sure I can believe in him too."
And kudos to the green party guy for trying to get these laws off the books.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge....
How much should we increase taxes?
How much would you like your federal income tax to go up?
I think you are conservative scum if you do not give at least 75% of your income to the federal government.
It's patriotic, after all.
Login or Register to post comments.