In These Times

You can find many people who had warned of this latest financial crisis. If one understands bubbles, one can see when they are ready to pop. James Howard Kunstler in his book "The Long Emergency" predicted these days in 2004. His book is premised on peak oil and the slow but sure decline of nations that depend on an oil economy, zeroing in on the US. He was quite clear in describing the housing bubble and thought it was due anytime, and also describes the exotic financial vehicles ready to fall apart. But listening to the "naysayers" in times of ignorant …

Posted to Americans Unwilling to Face Reality

To address other points in the article; MacArthur only briefly mentions Hank Paulson. This guy is forming Wall Street in his own image, the God of finance. He allows certain firms to fail, others to merge and others to get funding. All the bailout money is going directly to banks that are the buyers of government treasures at auctions named Primary Dealers. This is no accident and by the way the primary dealers include some foreign banks which you KNOW will be saved by either the foreign government of the banks or by the US. Paulson of course was from Goldman …

Posted to Americans Unwilling to Face Reality

Of course it's too late now that the bailout got the rubber stamp, but I've got a question that I know Wall Street wouldn't answer. Why don't they actually delve into the mortgages they hold, the toxic debt they claim they don't know its worth, and sort the good mortgages from the bad? The answer is that they were buying mortgages as investments rather than have any interest in managing the mortgages as banks used to do in the good old days (about a decade ago). I would have told the banks to sort out their mortgages and either work with …

Posted to Saying “No Deal” to This New Deal

Ah Scorp, Just as I predicted in another post, you returned to partis-insanely blame the Democrats. AND with repeated Republican talking points, which I've already heard numerous times. So, let's address the talking point concerning the Community Reinvestment Act. Show me the statistics of those helped and their foreclosure rate. Until you can do that, just stating a talking point you got somewhere else is nothing but propaganda AND a lack of skepticism on your part to any old talking point thrown your way. Oh, and the scorp crew can't wait to pick you up on election eve, we suspect with …

Posted to Saying “No Deal” to This New Deal

Hey Scorp, It was about six months or so ago that you were so sure that stocks were just fine based on p/e ratio. I told you "no" that p/e was a lagging indicator and that the market was due for a downward correction. I said it was a bubble. I based this on the fact that I argued that the housing market would take it down. See the thing about p/e, is that you have to have honest companies and CEOs providing honest data. But your free marketeers were of course BSing their stockholders and all Americans for that matter. …

Posted to Saying “No Deal” to This New Deal

Whattheheck, Apparently we mostly agree about this stuff as in the past. I haven't seen scorp around lately to defend the failing economy or rather blame it all on Democrats. Your first post correctly points out the bipartisan corruption. Any member of the Senate or House that sits on Finance Committees always gets nice campaign contributions from Wall Street, particularly the Chairs. And the free as the wind marketeerism has had support from members of both parties since the late 1990s. Of course how could we expect Congress to regulate the financial instruments that have developed when I have my doubts …

Posted to Turning a Wall Street Giveaway Into a Rescue for All Americans

WTH, Owning a home is a good thing in the long run and any family should naturally desire stable long term living conditions. The obsession wasn't home ownership, but using a house as an investment opportunity. And yes, this was advertised relentlessly by industry and the federal government supported the practices of the industry. Long before the sub prime bust there were some political voices trying to put in some control over finance companies, protections. In several states efforts were made to regulate, but along came the lobbyists to thwart those efforts. But you and I know that even Wall Street …

Posted to Our Toppling House of Cards

WTH, Can't find much to disagree with you. I do think the whole mortgage boom was nothing but a Ponzi Scheme. Intelligent people created the structure of finance and lack of government oversight during the boom. The rules changed and people that shouldn't have gotten homes, did. But those rule changes were designed by those intelligent people who understood that they were going to both make a ton of money (or their friends were) and that good mortgage practices of the past were to be eliminated. They must have known that the new people that became eligible to buy these new …

Posted to Our Toppling House of Cards

WTH, To add to above...I can't help but express that for people that wanted an honest and reasonable dream come true, they were really smashed over the head with advertising, advice, promotion, enticement, etc. It was "buy a house" sloganing from all angles. An onslaught of info that made dreams come true, if only for a few years. You couldn't turn on a TV for more than a few hours without someone telling us, "home ownership was great" in some form. It came from cable news, finance shows, cable home decorating shows, and of course all that advertising between the shows …

Posted to Our Toppling House of Cards

Can't say I'm more compassionate, maybe younger... I do know a few things that never seem to change...one, that every generation considers following generations to have it easier or that the school system is worse or kids are dumber, etc. What I also see is that our society creates the people. Today's youth are a result of their parents generation (the generation that is now the major consumer) who came from the boomers (that now dominate our society). Those last two generations have been influenced by, as well as creators of, a consumer culture. School kids of today will emerge in …

Posted to Our Toppling House of Cards

Face it, the Bush Administration wasn't the only presidential team to use imperialism as its' foreign policy. Presidents both Republican and Democratic have invaded countries out of ideology that the U.S. knows better than the countries they invaded. From Hawaii at the end of the 19th century to Iraq, places in the world have been subjected to the thoughts of American "exceptionalism" from presidents. This superiority complex became firmly established not long after WWII, but traces to the beginning of the 20th century and every president since brought that attitude to the Oval Office. Of course Bush Jr. was just another …

Posted to Dogmatic rhetoric is self-defeating

Alan, This is the kind of rhetoric that Ken (I think) would oppose and I'll explain why I believe it isn't justified. There is a bigger picture to war than just one person serving as the cog in the machine. All the "war criminal" and other accusations you pin on McCain could just as easily be charged to many leftist that have served in war. After WWII ended people like Howard Zinn (a great progressive today) and Kurt Vonnegut called into question the use of fire bombing civilian cities in Germany and Japan. They came later to understand that they were …

Posted to Earth to Ken Brociner

scorp, "Jon, if you and Blondemike seriously want to target me,..." Where did you see that I'm targeting you? You have some sort of paranoia. Is it that anyone that disagrees with you is out to get you? You should get some help. Seriously. Get some counseling.

Posted to Earth to Ken Brociner

Scorp, Wow, what an angry dude you are. You should get some drugs when you see the psychiatrist. But, I'm going to confess something. See, you are correct, there is a reason for your paranoia. A few years back, the leftist, socialist, marxists, progressives, anarchists, Democrats, Greens, all the people you fear formed a clandestine network called the Secret Collective Of Radical Peaceniks... or SCORP. When you took our name of SCORP we had to begin investigating you to see if you had either found out about us or had secretly joined us without telling anyone in SCORP. We've had you …

Posted to Earth to Ken Brociner

Yeah scorp, The subject of the original post is Obama, titled Earth to Ken Brociner, you can read it if you want. So you're way off topic as to socialism and all your ravings. I will address your characterization that he is the most left elitist to ever grace the scene. This is just a variation of Republican talking points that were used against Hillary (early on when it looked as if she would walk to the Democratic nomination) and Kerry in 2004. Supposedly they both were the most liberal in Congress according to Republican talking points, which of course ignored …

Posted to Earth to Ken Brociner

I tend to agree with Mr. Brociner. The ad hominem attacks have become the natural way to do things. There is no way to assign which side "started it" but both the right and left have become ugly. As left as I am, there used to be a time that I would be willing to listen to the rights' point of view. I can't even take a few minutes anymore. Maybe the rise of right wing talk radio has been the instigation for the equal response from the left, but more than likely it's simply the dumbing down of America. Our …

Posted to What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

Ken, Sure, it's probably true that most of those we disagree with don't have sinister motives. They've come to there ideology from different angles, shaped by so many factors...for instance family upbringing. But, and it's a big but...there are certainly a portion of people that DO have sinister motivations and it can be difficult to sort the chaff from the wheat. The biggest factor for sinister motivations usually comes down to self interest particularly when it comes to money. Follow the money is that common rule. And of course self interest is written all over politics these days. Any candidate is …

Posted to What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

Ken again, I suppose your original post was essentially about taking the high road or not stooping to insulting language to make ones point as a candidate. But here's the tough part. How does one respond to the supporters of a candidate? Most candidates do try to stay away from the vitriol, it's the machine that supports them that does the skewering. Consider scorp. His last post was filled with ad hominems. Dems are dims. Obama is "shallow, callow, inexperienced, articulate, and indoctrinated." And we know what the reference to "articulate" means. As well as he references that the left "fools …

Posted to What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

scorp, You want me to sympathize with you as to Blondemike? You two were attacking each other pretty good. Just because he wanted to take it to another level doesn't justify your role. All your ad hominem attacks and insults are supposedly erased because Blondemike got madder than you? I thought a conservative value is to be accountable for ones own actions, words and deeds? But apparently your accountability is to point the finger to the other person, "they did it worse." Simple schoolyard tit-for-tat. Then, I apparently don't understand how Obama gets your ad hominems because of others. Your transference …

Posted to What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

Jim Webb should be the VP. He certainly is an economic populist, he wrote a great op-ed not long after his election discussing the widening gap between the haves and have nots. Beyond that, his military credentials give a boost to the ticket for Obama. And finally, he's from Virginia, a state that would be a great early election day coop if it went blue. Hillary indeed represents the past. This election needs to end the Clinton/Bush era. It's time to move on. If I were Obama, I would offer Hillary a cabinet post such as Health and Human Services. She …

Posted to An Anti-Clinton For VP

Marta, You posted the birth of religion options, mental artifact, etc. You know I always just figured that early humans spent plenty of time staring at the stars as entertainment (their version of TV) and not understanding the celestial bodies, and in particular the planets moving differently than the stars, began to create stories about them. The stories may have been completely different than the written history of the Greeks, but the eons of time would have given humans plenty of opportunity to create all sorts of fantasies to imagine in the night sky. I suppose creating characters with attributes of …

Posted to Atheism’s Unholy Trinity

wolf..."Do you pretty much only believe in what you personally completely understand? Or do you believe in science, more or less, as a whole? How do you pick and choose between what to believe from science and what to doubt? Do you believe that one day, if humans survive long enough (perhaps evolving into more sophisticated creatures) science will be able to explain everything?" I'd like to try to explain my philosophy for these questions. I suppose by definition I'm not an atheist, I'm skeptical of a god concept as I'm skeptical of all things. Simply put, when considering my belief …

Posted to Atheism’s Unholy Trinity

Newer theories in physics are not my strong suit. I do read books about it as they come out, "popularized physics" (Brian Greene, etc.). I'm inclined to accept something new (yet old) of a repeating universe (from string theory). Considering quantum physics, I can accept that since we seem to be discovering so much in such a relatively short time that we will continue to discover more and these "mysteries" will be revealed in due time. Although, repeating universe and others may always only be mathematical probabilities and have no physical proofs, rendering them as some sort of scientific religions. But …

Posted to Atheism’s Unholy Trinity

The article expresses the poor situation that the public finds itself in the age of consumerism. The list of problems is huge. Start with the fact that the media has a control over access. They decide what is good for us. They also decide what is good for them, which is money to fund their corporations. There was a time that programming was the main point of TV, now it has become reversed with advertising the main point and programming is only the lure for advertising dollars. Examine the commercials themselves. Cars fly, actors can be superheroes, and medications can turn …

Posted to Adbusters' Ads Busted

Polling consistently shows that Americans distrust corporations (it's been in the upper 70% for several decades), yet no politician can win the presidency by attacking corporations in our era. You can look at the campaign donations for one reason, but the corporate media plays a big role as well. You can obviously see it in debates as the candidates that would address corporate power get asked ridiculous questions like Kucinich and UFOs. They also ask less questions of them. I watched a recent Republican debate where Ron Paul wanted his turn in the back and forth between Romney and McCain and …

Posted to The Democrats' Class War

SCORP as usual blinded by his wish for one party rule (Republican) fills his post with lies. But I'll only comment on employment figures, not faked, but flawed methodology. Scorp, that means collecting the data has many problems. To save myself time I'll paste from Wikipedia this; The unemployment rate may be different from the impact of the economy on people. The unemployment figures indicate how many are not working for pay but seeking employment for pay. It is only indirectly connected with the number of people who are actually not working at all or working without pay. Therefore, critics believe …

Posted to The Democrats' Class War

I'm almost SHOCKED..scorp ONCE again takes a quote out of context. "One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: No ordinary man could be such a fool." Orwell, when he wrote that in 1945, was referring to a few in Britain that thought the Americans entering the Second World War were doing it to suppress an English revolution rather than fight the Germans. He was talking about British conspiracy theorists, that's all. But taking quotes out of context and getting caught makes scorp the big fool, as if he hasn't proved this repeatedly before. "You elite Socialist …

Posted to The Democrats' Class War

OK Scorp.. So what English revolution was to be crushed by the US? It was nothing but conspiracy theory to think that the US was entering the war in Europe for that reason particularly as the US was aiding Britain prior to actually declaring war on Germany. Orwell was a strange man in many ways. He disliked Great Britain's empire after serving in Burma as a part of that wide ranging empire. Who he refers to as the intelligentsia is up for debate as he doesn't even mention a name. The piece you quote is from an essay on nationalism, where …

Posted to The Democrats' Class War

Scorp, let's clear up some "housekeeping." First, as usual you have completely changed the subject of the original subject of David Sirota. I keep forgetting about your classic tactic of blatant essayist red herring. Second, as usual, and as I predicted you don't answer the questions I put to you. 9 posts back I asked several questions about unemployment statistical methodology and then put this at the bottom of the post "I don’t expect scorp to answer any of my questions, he never does." I wonder if you will continue to live out my prediction or actually answer those questions. Again, …

Posted to The Democrats' Class War

Insulting is the idea that we are to consume with the stimulus rather than do the right thing and pay off debt. That buying things is better for the economy than fiscal conservatism. I guess I must be dumb as I would assume that the companies that so many Americans owe money to, somehow wouldn't benefit by having the bills paid down. Wouldn't the big credit card companies of New York (CitiGroup for instance) welcome some cash after all the billions in write-downs? The Bush economic plans (remember after 9/11 we were told to go shopping?) is nothing but imitate the …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

JT, I can agree with much of what you say, but... 3. By reducing dividends paid to shareholders. Keep in mind that half of American households own stock. So, its not just the ‘rich’ CEO’s whose dividends are cut - it could also be the widow down the street that relies upon stock dividends for her income. "Half of American households own stock," which may be true I'm uncertain, but that isn't the whole story of that statistic. The total distribution of stock is in the hands of the rich. Something like 85% of stock is held by the upper 15% …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

To add something about stock ownership by regular Americans. Are 401K plans really a benefit if at the same time people are paying interest on debt? Particularly credit card debt which is at an all-time high for both the amount of credit card debt per household and the amount of households carrying credit card debt. Trying to make 5% margin in the market is better than paying say 10% every month on the credit cards? We've become a society gambling on the future because we can't control our present spending. But this is what we are told to do. We are …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

wolf? Where do you get this historical figure? (which historically return about 11-12% year) The problem with historical periods of stock market investments is where one limits their timespan. 5% is the historical figure I've always heard. But how far back in market history does one go to accumulate data? Have you ever seen a long time line of the Dow? From 1930 until the late 1940s the Dow was virtually flat, that is a long time period of little growth. It was an era of distrust of Wall Street and banks. People would put their money under the mattress and …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

Yeah JT.. I'm not saying it's a total scam, but the whole thing was conceived, designed and implemented by government and corporations, that alone makes me suspicious. There was no demand from the people for 401K plan, it was corporations that essentially wrote the legislation. Corporations understood that creating demand for stocks would help them fund themselves. And don't get me started on CEOs and top execs and how they take huge advantage of stocks through stock options. Why is it they are allowed to skirt 401K plans? Well because that wasn't part of the legislation. Those who set the rules …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

WTH..."I can’t see any reason why an employer should provide for an employee’s future. The employee would be better off receiving a larger paycheck and saving or investing for himself." The reason of course is twofold. One, employees demanded it via unions and two, competition for employees by corporations as they offered the benefit to attract workers. Of course this happened in previous times. At this point I wouldn't be surprised to see corporations trying to unwind retirement 401K benefits as they have with other benefits. So, I agree with you. Another myth, that corporations can't find good workers coming out …

Posted to The Stimulus Swindle

I don't know about that conclusion. Pakistan is another country where the US has made mistake after crucial mistake. Going back to the Reagan Administration where they knowingly allowed Pakistan to become a nuclear power, and knowingly allowed our tax dollars to actually pay for A. Q. Khan's projects..to now our long standing monetary support of Musharraf...I doubt anything the US does will be considered good for the people of Pakistan. The problem has always been the military leaders who dabble in election terrorism (you can try to monitor the actual election, but what of the crude tactics before that date?) …

Posted to Musharraf's False Dichotomy

I live in Michigan and without a doubt this primary is proof that our democracy is in shambles (Florida will experience the same thing). I voted in the Democrat primary. Why, when I knew it wouldn't count? Because as a taxpayer in the state, I helped pay for this debacle, not that I was given a choice about whether I wanted to pay for it. What I did was tell every poll worker and anyone around (very few people as not many even bothered to vote, about 20% of registered voters) what a taxpayer rip-off this primary was. Can anyone answer …

Posted to Meaningless in Michigan

LeeJ...As I'm from Michigan, maybe you need correction about a few things. There really aren't any Michigan miners, the biggest mining done in Michigan was of course copper in the UP and that was long ago shut down due to cheaper mining in other countries, outsourced sort of. We do have other mining, just not as huge mega-industries. But not too many people really want to be miners these days anywhere in the US. Even back in the old cooper days in MI, it was done by immigrants and the no-other-choicers. People are not leaving MI in droves, at best it …

Posted to Acid-Mining Michigan

LeeJ A big industry in Michigan linked to the environment is hunting. We are one of the top states for hunting and fishing which encourages land owners to keep it wild. Many towns up north are perfectly happy with keeping it simple, the land, the tourism and aren't concerned with becoming rich cities. They are realists, they don't believe in pie-in-the-sky promises or short term profit over long term quality of life. That's the type of conservatism that I can believe in. Now, I'm not a hunter, but I'd much rather have a short time period of drunks culling deer herds …

Posted to Acid-Mining Michigan

Scorp..."Most people are impressed with China’s recent growth, a product of limited free-market trade with Europe and the USA, and are largely unaware of the unpaid costs China is incurring to participate in that trade. Huge chunks of state-owned Chinese enterprises, perhaps a trillion dollars worth, are not producing and are being propped up by an increasingly weak banking system. Pollution is out of control and threatening health and lives. Water resources are being exhausted. Corruption is rampant. The Chinese stock markets are in a huge bubble, larger than the Japanese Bubble of 1991 that essentially ended Japan’s rapid growth following …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

From partisan scorp..."You come up with the most amazing nonsense. We have the least problems of any country. If you think otherwise, document it." OK...This is just for starters. # The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004). # The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). # Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005). # "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Actually scorp,, a few more "least problems." # The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005). # Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005). # The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004). # "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

From Scorp, "You shitting me, boy?" If you're calling yourself a turd, well, sorry I don't crap offensive right wingers, they don't flush well. You're opposition argument comes from Henry McKinnell, the ex-Pfizer CEO? A staunch supporter of Bush and various right wingers? That guy? He got the boot from Pfizer as should you for using a biased source. I've been to Europe. There is a difference in how they got to this point as to housing. They actually built homes and business structures to last centuries unlike our quick build soon to fall apart suburbia. You can see how fast …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Here's the lowdown of our "booming" employment for 2007. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' non-farm payroll data, the US "super economy" created a miserable 1,054,000 net new jobs during 2007. This is not enough to keep up with population growth. Last year 1,428,000 private sector service jobs were created. Waitresses and bartenders accounted for 304,200, or 21% of the new service jobs last year and 29% of the net new jobs. Health care and social assistance accounted for 478,400, or 33% of the new service jobs and 45% of the net new jobs. Ambulatory health care and hospitals accounted …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Whattheheck... "In a sense we already have authoritarian capitalism. It need not be at the point of a gun. When someone has the authority to pass legislation to favor themselves and their patrons, can set the standards of what is and is not to be enforced, and feeds only choice data to the public — what else should we call it?" Bravo!!! This is exactly what I've been trying to put into words for too long. Authoritarian Capitalism, a great term to describe where we are today. Add in a complacent media that mostly just reads the script of whatever the …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

You know I never got around to correcting Scorps erroneous view of economic history. But for now lets point out a few things. Scorps relates...on my conjecture about a possible stock market bubble..."That statement will come as a distinct shock to millions of intelligent investors who survived and thrived during the crash of the Bubba Bubble. The NASDAQ P/E Ratio rose above 61 in Clinton’s last year; anything over 30 is generally considered overpriced and bearish. It should be noted that any stock that has no income is not included in the calculations,...it would drive the value much higher/worse. The NASDAQ …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Continued.. Scorp blubbers about my assessment that the housing bubble popped..."Oh, probably not. Since we mercifully have Republican adults in the Executive branch, we can solve this discomfiture like we solved the Credit Union fiasco twenty years ago. Now LBJ pissed away $6 trillion on the War on Poverty, with the sole results being the near total destruction of Black family life in the United States and a REALLY BIG addition to the national debt that you worry about. And then there was Jimmy Carter and his double-digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. Since you are inclined to worry anyway, you …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Scorp... The thing you don't ever seem to notice is that I don't defend Democratic presidents (at least those in my lifetime). Sure those corporate criminals had their beginnings in the dot.com boom which occurred during Clinton's term and continued to be criminals during the Bush early years. (By the way your list was but a small sample of the larger total.) Of course Bush had to have the SEC and Justice throw a few in jail, that's just plain politics...you have to show some kind of law and enforcement even if it's the rich robbing people without guns, otherwise the …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

"Ummm, only if you are operating in a vacuum. Corporations are required to make public any material information, promptly and impartially. Not doing so is fraud." Which is what I've been saying for decades, they are frauds and they do fraudulent things. Even your Dubya God was a fraud when he was at Harkin Energy when he failed to report his stock sales for nearly a year, but it helps not to get prosecuted when your father is president. It's hard to prove fraud. It isn't easy proving that say CityGroup knew earlier about their mortgage exposure. As well, it might …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Marxist??? Man, you don't even know. But I guess I should tell you. I believe the next evolution in democracy is direct democracy. I have no faith in two party or one party representative systems. It's that simple. A duopoly is only barely better than a one party system in a nation of our size. We've outgrown our democracy. As to China, have you forgotten they are communist? Any "unrest" due to economic recession can alway be handled by force. Additionally, China has a lot of experience with a poor economy, they've lived it for years. It's The US that would …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Scorp... You don't have to give me a history lesson I already know. Direct democracy, if you don't understand it...look it up. You know, use your Internets (as Bush calls it). You can still have a bill of rights and direct democracy. There are any number of websites describing how it could be applied to the US. And you can stop labeling me a Marxist, since you don't know what DD is. But aren't you a fascist telling me what I am. Bush more than KNEW Lay. Kenny Boy paid for his inauguration. And if you are complaining about insinuation, so …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Wow, what fun! Let's begin at the end..."Carter not only encouraged the overthrow of the imperfect Shah, he also encouraged the Shah's replacement by a terrorist theocracy that was far worse. You need to go back to your history books." I asked you to supply a source other than a Republican cereal box, you failed to do that. Nothing further until you do. Working upwards..."That is why the Great Depression lasted so long. You need to go back to your economic and history books." You do understand that it was a world-wide depression I hope. I only spoke of the very …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

More scorp stupidly... "Fascism and Marxism are the same thing." And you base this on body counts? No form of government that has ever existed is innocent of body counts. The real main difference between the two is business. Fascism is marked by government and business as separate entities but working for the same goal usually for the military. Business profits by the working agreements with fascism. Supported by the government Nazi fascism was a classic example of a military industrial complex. The worst abuses of course was the slave labor provided by the government to the businesses building for the …

Posted to China's Valley of Tears

Oh scorp, so what are Hillary's radical plans anyway? What evil will she do that makes you cringe in fear? And how is Hillary not any more of a elite criminal than George Bush? Didn't Bush fail to disclose his sale of stocks at Harkin Energy (he claimed he forgot) for many months? I won't go into his other flirts with the law, because it is pointless. The reason it's pointless is that all the top politicians are corrupt because they operate in a corrupt system. In your history lesson you failed to mention the Populists eventually lead by William Jennings …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

It was reported on Democracy Now, Oct.19: "new figures show Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton has emerged as the candidate most favored by the nation's leading weapons companies. Clinton has received more than fifty-two thousand dollars from arms industry employees. That's more than half the amount given to all Democratic candidates and sixty-percent of the total that has gone to Republicans." Yup, Hillary is a real threat, but this is from my opinion and shouldn't be from those who think of her as some sort of radical leftist. When the weapons companies are surging to her campaign, you can figure out a …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH..."Progressive, Liberal or Conservative labels mean little when actions blur their differences." I'm assuming you mean actions at the political level. No matter what label people are given they do or don't take actions at the local level, or for personnel issues. A few weeks ago I accidentally heard some of Bill O'Reilly's radio show. He was ranting about "the radical left" on the subject of national health care and Hillary. The rantings of these type of political pundits (pundit rather than expert) is simply propaganda. Polling has consistently shown for decades that a majority of Americans want some sort of …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH.. Why are neither party doing anything is simple, the presidential campaign season is already upon us. Candidates from both parties are receiving plenty of cash from Wall Street currently. Many on Wall Street give to both parties and several candidates to hedge their bets, so to speak. I saw a list of contributions about a week ago in the Wall Street Journal. And at that point the Democratic candidates in total were ahead in the money race from Wall Street, a bit curious as usually the Republicans get more from that source. I think it was Dodd that received the …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH... I'm worried plenty about the economy. We have a possible perfect storm brewing. I see trends that aren't comforting. I remember back in 1998 telling anyone who'd listen to buy gold, it was about $265 at the time. Now it's at about $750. Wow, even I didn't expect that huge jump in less than ten years. But gold prices are traditionally a marker of trust in the dollar, higher gold prices means less trust. The housing bubble deflation is more serious than the tech bubble pop. Most of tech pop was suffered in paper assets, people that lost big (for …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH.. Back to peak oil...The president of Mexico announced that they have only 9 years worth of proven oil reserves left. Their biggest field has been dwindling rapidly, this was previously guessed at by those who believe peak oil is fast upon us, but now it's official. Proven oil reserves and active oil field estimates is one of the most secretive statistics in the world. No oil producing country wants to let on that their oil supply is drying up until it becomes obvious. The opposite is more true, that proven reserves are overestimated to the world by the producing country. …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH.. I forgot to mention another piece to the housing bubble/bust's puzzle, Property assessments. In states and/or communities that have a property tax (most do) it's based on the assessed value. As housing prices drop, people are going to be demanding that their assessment be readjusted to reflect the lower price. In turn as this happens, the tax base for the state and/or community will fall. In my state much of the property tax goes to K-12 education and my local city. Now it will take a few years for the house price deflation and then the reassessments, but eventually my …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

WTH.... Yeah, economics should never be thought of as a science. It's theory that gets turned on it's head every few generations or so. Partially that is because economics isn't democratic in the sense that the mass of people have really much say in what happens in the macro-picture. It truly is the rich that run economics, either through politics or by way of controlling with their mass of money and both. Free market economics always has holes in it that allow for abuse by the wealthy at the expense of the masses, which is why repeatedly we have these pyramid …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

"....but think how much easier it would be for the loonies running the show n Iran to off writers like Rushdie who piss them off, once they have nuclear warheads!" How would using a nuke for assassination be easier? There are probably hundreds of easier ways to assassinate. The reason they probably haven't gotten Rushdie is that he spends much time in hiding. I'm so sick of the fearful alarmists about Iran. Our own experts have said that the earliest Iran could even have a nuke would be about 6 or 7 years...that's earliest. Most people don't even know that the …

Posted to The Left's Identity Crisis

This outsourcing of military jobs is wasteful and probably simply corrupt. That latest Blackwater incident was in the news the other day when it was found that the FBI investigators that were going to be investigating into the incident were going to be escorted by...drum roll please...Blackwater. Now that it became known, they are switching the protection to regular military. The fact is that all this corporate military is actually costing more money than having the regular military do the jobs. How could it not? If our tax dollars head to the Defense Department and then they contract out to the …

Posted to Merc is the New Crack

Hi Kuya... The point of the war? I can think of too many, none of which were justification. 1) To pilfer Iraqi oil, to put it in the hands of Western oil companies. 2) Because supposedly Saddam tried to kill Bush's daddy. 3) The military/industrial/academic/congressional/complex. 4) Neocon ideology, they want to rule the world by destroying it. 5) Because Armageddon needs to be a self fulfilling prophecy and someone like Bush had to do it. Of course we all know that Revelations is hogwash, it's sad that our leaders believe in it.. 6) For fun. The warmongers are nothing but grownups …

Posted to Merc is the New Crack

Kuya... The problem is that lone superpowers all through history don't usually just give up their dominance by pulling back from the world. In virtually every case they overextend themselves and eventually fall from the top. It comes down to arrogance. Being on top feeds the ego of those who run the empire. They start feeling they can do no wrong or if they do make mistakes that those mistakes can be ignored and overcome. A dominant empire thinks that because they dominate it vindicates whatever took them to the top, so keep doing it. And it almost always is because …

Posted to Merc is the New Crack

Wow!!! I think this is one of the most interesting posts I've ever read. I laughed and cried. One wonders about the shoddy craftmenship of the figures, since it's Wal-Mart it must be made in China. Personally I also think the Jesus doll is a reflection of our society. Selling religious action figures is a weird combination of commercialism and religious fundamentalism. Note that Muslims would never hawk Mohammad (as they forbid the making of images of their prophet) for a quick buck. I suppose the point that the action figures can be educational has some merit, yet the kids probably …

Posted to Holy Toyland

Aunty... It could be blasphemy if you believe in all that God stuff. What I find humorous is that these action figures have faces basically picked out of a hat since there were no photos, paintings, drawings, video, etc. of Jesus, Moses, David, etc. The imagery is all fantasy as is most of the stories they were supposedly connected to. But I say, have at it. Kids will treat the action figures not as some sort of religious icons, but as toys. They will throw them around, run toy trucks over them, leave them in the dirt in the yard and …

Posted to Holy Toyland

That one percent thing is pitiful. Penn knows that this is a representative democracy depending on voting for politicians. One percent can't vote anyone into office and in fact won't even get their one percent displayed in polls on TV. That one percent is utterly powerless so how does Penn attribute influence to that statistical anomaly?

Posted to Trending Toward Inanity

The point made by test100 about margin of error at the extremes is true of real statistics, but we are talking polling here. They can call polling "scientific" all they want, but it lacks the truthiness of statistical analysis of raw data such as home prices, sports stats, income distribution, etc. Polling can't really determine a truthful stat from a false one. There are poll respondents that purposefully answer the questions with lies, and others that don't really pay attention to the question and answer incorrectly. Additionally, polling by telephone is quickly emerging as flawed in the distribution of population due …

Posted to Trending Toward Inanity

I wonder about the economic statistics of Iraq. What of the American contractors (and other foreign firms) that are paid by the American government (and much of this involves corruption), is that part of Iraq's economics? In other words, are we pumping the economics for our own gains? I also wonder at how economic statistics in a war zone could ever be really accurately collected anyway? I imagine the underground economics must be vast. Does Iraq have a tax system and if so does it collect it reliably?

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

Whattheheck, Iraq is not WWII. This hasn't been a war where the enemy has lines of tanks, artillery, infantry, etc. That's what Ike planned against. This is a war of insurgency and the only way these are ever really won is to kill everyone, civilians and foes alike, because it is too hard to tell them apart. And we know that would be an insane way to wage this war considering we are suppose to be liberating the civilians and of course it's inhumane. And even many of the wars of genocide of the past didn't work out so well either. …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

WTH... I understand your point about secrecy, but the point is mute. It doesn't matter that we tell the world (and the Iraqi insurgency) how many troops we deploy now or later, they will oppose the occupation no matter what. You also aren't thinking that much of what is said publicly is disinformation, purposely to both fool the opposition and the American public. That was earlier in the war, these days no amount of disinformation would help. Remember that most moves the military makes is usually made known to the Maliki government which probably has informants for the insurgency and Maliki …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

If I was some sort of election dictator and could change the system anyway I wanted, it would be drastically different. Sure, a filled out job application would be required, and it would be extensive. Complete list of past occupations, a series of questions designed to pinpoint ideology, college degrees with grade points, among the items to be answered. I would have a sit down test on many subjects, economics, history, world affairs, math, science, etc. The application and test results would be made available to the public in every way possible. Further all candidates running would be subjected to periodic …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

WTH.. Term limits is a tricky subject. On the one hand it's nice to have fresh faces, on the other hand it's good to have experience. Most Americans would be upset with a job market that forced you to lose your job based on a term limit. I'm not really for term limits, although I would try to find ways for incumbents not to have such a campaign advantage over challengers, clean campaigning would help achieve that. I also believe in hearings. To me that's one of Congress' most important functions, investigating the other branches of government, checks and balances. It …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

WTH... You might be interested in a book called The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. He sets out the premise that when Peak Oil (the point that the oil producing world can't supply the oil using world, demand out-paces supply) fully hits, then America will have no choice but to deal with a long recession and a contraction of the auto/suburban lifestyle. I find this very possible. Peak oil may have already hit as the actual peak can't be recognized until a few years AFTER the peak. An indication that peak oil has arrived is fluctuating oil prices as well …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

WTH... You might be interested in this article about the Fed rate cut, the lowering value of the dollar, inflation, housing bust, etc. which we are now staring at. I suspect you'd not disagree with hardly a word in the article. http://counterpunch.com/whitney09222007.html

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

WTH... About the water value. I live in Michigan, a state that has had a long drizzle of people leaving the state (mostly due to job loss related to the auto industry). I've often thought that the states population will in the next ten years or so reverse and begin to increase due to the availability of good clean water. Large businesses will want to locate here in order to be near those water sources, both for their own needs and for the quality of life for the employees. Say what you want about the bad things about Detroit, but it …

Posted to Crocker's Kooky Economics

Bernie Sanders once again tells it like it is. Interestingly excerpts of Alan Greenspan's new book have hit the newspapers just today. In it, Greenspan also tells it like it is on Bush. He describes Bush as a man driven more by ideology and the desire to fulfill campaign promises made in 2000, incurious about the effects of his economic policy, and an administration incapable of executing policy. Greenspan, a Libertarian Republican, also pans the Republicans in Washington, “They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose” in the 2006 election, when they lost control of …

Posted to Earth to Bush

Whattheheck, I won't disagree with too much of what you said, but... Greenspan did warn against the tech bubble, the irrational exuberance speech. But I'm not so hard on him because he really didn't have much power on the economy, raise and lower interest rates basically was his only tool. Besides, capitalist economics isn't a science and can't really be controlled, only manipulated by those who can afford to, the super-rich. Lower interest rates did allow many people to own homes they never could have with higher rates. The problem comes with Congress, The White House and regulatory agencies..that's where both …

Posted to Earth to Bush

Whatheheck, To continue a bit... So much of our economics is related and cause and effect from one thing spills into others. Passing NAFTA and other free trade agreements have caused tremendous outsourcing and disruptions to other countries. We have the "Mexican problem" because of so much displacement of Mexican and Central American agricultural workers. We started beating them in farm prices, so much so that American corn has begun to dominate Mexico's domestic sales. And here's the kicker, the workers come here as illegals to pick our fruits and vegetables. We put them out of jobs to come here to …

Posted to Earth to Bush

continued... None of the above was from Greenspan, although he probably believed libertarian economic ideology and that today's middle class would be swimming in cash by now. Greenspan did play a part in saving the economy in 1998 when we had the Long Term Capital Management meltdown. He played a part in getting a bailout for that investment company which if allowed to play out would have sent the US and probably the world into a deep recession. But that's what usually happens in American economics. When the big players make mistakes, we bail them out. When you or I get …

Posted to Earth to Bush

For me I've become so tired of the latest "conventional wisdom" about Iraq from the politicians in Washington which is along the lines of "If we pull out of Iraq, all hell will break loose." What history is this based on? The Middle East has long had "all hell breaking loose" and the region continues to last. We pulled out of Lebanon under Reagan and Lebanon went on to have their hell and almost every American couldn't tell you boo about the events in the years after. Iraq and Iran had a long war in the 1980's and hardly an American …

Posted to Why Iraq is Getting Worse

I saw "No End in Sight" last week at a free showing at a local theater that included a discussion after. It was hosted by our local progressive talk radio host who announced the viewing on his show prior. As he described the audience, it was the usual suspects, meaning the anti-war crowd that has been against the Iraq War since before the war started (myself included). It was immediately decided that this film was nothing but one part of the government criticizing another for mistakes made. This was not an anti-war film, but an anti-war plan film. I was impressed …

Posted to Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

There you go, plenty of distortions. The people of Viet Nam were the same or the same thing is going to happen, this is fantasy. The two situations have little comparison. Whatever "hard evidence" you have from that war doesn't apply to Iraq. I didn't say that conventional wisdom WILL be wrong again. Let me explain again. It has consistently been wrong so far as to Iraq, and this is due to the fact those giving us the conventional wisdom obviously don't have wisdom. So why believe them again? If someone constantly can't add two and two, I will expect them …

Posted to Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

WtHeck..."we’ve sold out our manufacturing capacity and can’t supply our own military." This is poppycock. We are BY FAR the biggest producer of arms in the world. No one makes AND sells more than us. No country in the world comes close to the share of GNP to defense spending as we do. And almost all of it is produced in the USA. Are you forgetting the military industrial complex? The MIC which really should be the MICAC (military industrial congressional academic complex) is a huge part of our economics. When you have Congress earmarking the Abrams tank production in all …

Posted to Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

Whattheheck....To continue what I've been saying about US arms manufacturing and sales AND how it relates to oil and the Middle East, from todays NYTimes a proposed new arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Paraphrasing from the article...The Bush Administration is set to offer a $20 billion arms sale package of advanced weaponry. To offset this, military aid to Israel over the next decade will total $30.4 billion, which is a significant increase. The so-called reason is for Saudi Arabia to counter Iran. But let's get real. This is just another bonus for US arms manufacturing. I would imagine that our share …

Posted to Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

Couldn't agree you both (Maria, Mark) more. Maria, "everyone's planet" unfortunately isn't so, most of the Earth is owned and possessed by the rich and powerful or governments when you measure by property rights.

Posted to Iraq: Mismanagement or Mass Murder?

Maybe what it really comes down to is that there are really no new ideas out there anymore. It's all been done before so art has become nothing more than trying to repackage old ideas. Image is nothing but trying to remake other images into your own. Other bands have done the nudity thing, but realized that it gets it the way of the music. Either you're strippers or professional musicians trying to make it big, the latter becomes the motivation. And others have played music with lyrical content of the money theme, nothing new there either. But in consumer capitalism, …

Posted to Our Profit Margin Could Be Your Life

WTH, Climate change can happen very quickly once it has hit a tipping point and this one probably will be within our lifetime. Past flips from glacial periods to interglacial has happened in a few decades and the current warming is unprecedented as to any known geologic record. The main argument today is whether what we are experiencing is man-made or a natural cycle. By FAR, most climate scientists consider it man-made and among them there are various scenarios of what they expect in the future. Some feel warming is happening very fast and that climate changes will occur in a …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

WTH, When I say "by far" that's from books I've read on the subject. It's like 80%. Climate scientists number in the mid 100s. I don't have the actual stats on me, and don't really want to spend the time searching the net right now (maybe later), but I'm not far off. When I speak of consensus, it has nothing to do with the media, that's from the scientific community. You know how it works. One person (or team) who is concentrating on a specific aspect will eventually propose a theory. It then goes through a debate within the scientific community …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

...Continued. You worry more about jobs? Well global warming will affect jobs, social security, health insurance, education costs, etc. It won't occur in a vacuum. Look at the heat wave that hit Europe in 2003 blamed on global warming. It caused a health crisis which of course affects the economy. If our Midwest were to suffer long term drought conditions, that won't affect people in all sorts of ways? If California were to climatically change enough to only have one growing season, that wouldn't have an impact? Look at the Gulf Coast , Florida and New Orleans. If the increase of …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

What the Heck...What the heck are you talking about? "If people had screwed around with temperatures a while back, we’d be shoveling huge piles of dinosaur crap off the lawn each morning." Are you implying that humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time? Or that prior to the industrial age humanity had the capacity to even do much about temperatures. And finally by your thoughts that appears to accept the premise that we can screw around with temperatures now then why are you willing to deny that we haven't screwed around with the temperatures before and currently? That we haven't …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

WTH... I guess I'm not understanding you. I think you are letting some sort of natural skepticism rule where you put your foot down, and in the process are playing it down the middle. And I certainly understand skepticism, I'm always looking for a conspiracy behind a theory. As well, I've seen you use much better arguments in other forums. "Consensus is a political feature (even then seldom intelligent). The law of gravity was not decided by a show of hands. No matter how many “experts” line up on either side of this topic the truth is not going to be …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

Correct scences.. WTH, My newspaper just yesterday reported this, in 2006 venture capitalists spent $2.4 billion to fund in the alternate energy sector, compared to $917 million in 2005. Much of this going to the Midwest and fortunately including my state, Michigan. If you are so worried about jobs understand that this money is for future new jobs. There is a good possibility that America will become the worlds' leader in an alternative energy industry unless we continue to drag our feet. It seems the venture capitalists are starting to understand the potential, you should consider that cleaning up our act …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

BM' I don't disagree with your last post. But as well the opposite should be acknowledged, that when scientific consensus is considered overwhelming, far too many people still won't believe it. We still have a Flat Earth society, creation science, that the moon landing was a charade performed in a studio on Earth, the list is endless. So of the two choices, to trust in scientific consensus or to disbelieve it, I choose the former with a caveat, keep an eye on the opposition's argument to see if it becomes salient, because if it does the consensus will indeed shift the …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

GM's EV was popular out in Cal. from what I understand but GM recalled them all. The movie "Who Killed the Electric Car" outlines that story. The main problem with an EV is the expense of replacing the battery when it eventually runs down. The owners including some celebrities like Tom Hanks loved them. They were virtually silent and had great pick-up. There was less to service repair as the entire fuel system didn't exist. Battery technology is improving, an EV could be the best answer. A solar panel on the roof for charging eliminates the home's usual use of carbon …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

Luminous Beauty, Sure, urban sprawl. I live in the Detroit area, the masters at urban sprawl. People keep moving farther from their jobs in order to get that "country living" and inevitably in about a decade or so, that country town has become exactly what they moved away from in the first place. They left a cookie cutter inner suburb to help create a new cookie cutter outer suburb. Worse, the new suburb that rises has almost exclusively corporate businesses, the small town businesses disappear quickly. The influx of the fast foods can happen with lightning speed and the down home …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

Hey Kuya, you wrote,...."For example, I become quite disturbed when people say things like “we have enough oil for another --- years”, usually citing an arbitrary 3-digit number, 200 or 300 or the like." I'm not sure who you've heard saying this, but they aren't considering the economics. Are you aware of world peak oil? I case you haven't, this is how it goes, shorthanded as best I can. It is probably more important than global warming. An US oil geologist named Hubbert back in the 1950s calculated a bell curve. Production rise toward the peak as discoveries come on line …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

Natural gas is another problem for the US as to its own reserves, we are running out of that too. I believe we are now importing much of it from Canada and Mexico, via gas lines. Beyond that importation from off continent as liquefied requires a terminal to turn it back into a gas. It costs more to ship it because of the different type of ships needed than oil. The US has a problem competing for exported LNG as other markets are closer to the sources that liquefy it and can pay less for it. And many places in the …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

All this talk about running out of oil reminds me of an old Talking Heads song..."(Nothing But) Flowers" Here we stand Like an Adam and an Eve Waterfalls The Garden of Eden Two fools in love So beautiful and strong The birds in the trees Are smiling upon them From the age of the dinosaurs Cars have run on gasoline Where, where have they gone? Now, it's nothing but flowers There was a factory Now there are mountains and rivers you got it, you got it We caught a rattlesnake Now we got something for dinner we got it, we got …

Posted to Resisting the War on Science

Productivity as another economic stat that is sort of just a guess. We never count the world that is off the legal grid of business. Under the table work, the drug trade, etc. At a legitimate business, increased productivity can really be nothing but a scam. A worker is told to concentrate on things that reflect productivity and ignore the tasks that don't count. A retail worker may be told to deal with customers all the time and not clean the display or the number of meetings is decreased or shortened. In other words, non-productive work is given the shaft that …

Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

Anastasia, The flip side of the coin for your internet theory is that many businesses complain mightily about endless email, the drudgery of finding the important emails amongst the spam and useless stuff. People spend a lot of down time sending around the latest email jokes and crap "important read this" stuff. My wife talks about how much emailing goes on around the office that has absolutely nothing to do with work, as well as surfing the web just for fun. Her boss spends plenty of time on a dating website. And every year about this time I read in the …

Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

Wolf, I'd like to add to your comment about our strange economy. For instance, we are told that education is the answer. Yet college costs have been increasing to the point that even middle class is having trouble paying the bill, usually having to be saddle with massive loans to pay off after graduation. And education is not the be-all. What if all of us were to be given free college educations and we graduated, say 90% of our population, then obviously there are not nearly that many jobs that would need all that education. I know plenty of college educated …

Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

blondemike, "Of course, the rich control the state, they control everything and that’s how it should be. The poor, the failures have no grounds or reasons to control anything." Are you serious??? Wow!! Either you are rich or you've fallen for all the versions of propaganda that the rich have always used to justify their status. If this is truly your viewpoint, then the only political argument we should ever have in this country is which rich person (people) should be running our country, rich left or rich right. And since a rich left might actually advocate some small measures for …

Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

WTHeck, "About 35% of China’s exports were to the US and much of that comes from expatriate US manufacturers — but the latest numbers have been dropping. Possibly the US consumer is either becoming cautious (that will be the day), or he is running out of credit." Just this week, it turns out that China surpassed the US as the top exporter to the European Union. China is an economic powerhouse and beating us all over the world now. And you can bet that part of the reason they are able to do this is two-fold. One of course is their …

Posted to Productivity: Is The Boom Over?

question texind...How is it progressives "love" the Baath Party when it was the Reagan Administration that was making deals with Saddam, Rumsfeld shaking the hand of Hussein AFTER, repeat AFTER it was known that Saddam had slammed the Kurds with chemical terrorism. The UN had put out a report on the incidents, the Reagan clan couldn't claim they didn't know, yet, there they were dealing with Hussein. So, it was regular old Republicans that apparently loved the Baath Party and their leader Saddam Hussein. We certainly are responsible for what happened after we decided to shock and awe them. Bush decided …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

whatheheck....you miss the point. Texind likes to make these unfounded accusations. No progressive that I know ever supported Saddam or his party. Unless his definition of progressive is completely skewered. I just pointed out that it was a Republican administration that was friendly with Saddam after the gassing of the Kurds, strange bedfellows indeed. But I could go into plenty of details of other strange bedfellows the Reagan Admin created. Then we get the repeated ignorant rhetoric of Bush in the run-up to the Iraq War and of Saddam, "he gassed his own people" that was used as a reason for …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

scorp...Your interpretation of history is apparently yours, we all have our own reality. Your definition of war and other peoples are different. Iran and the US was and is still at war is a bit off on most peoples reality. The reason we had to be careful not to start wars in the Middle East is because of our heavy handedness there. Our CIA coup in Iran to install the Shah in the early '50s ended a democracy in order to protect British oil interests was the beginning of a series of blunders to include the Iraq War. Your empirical view …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

WTH, Yes I agree about political parties. Because of the two party system both parties end up being "big tent" with different factions trying to influence the platform the most. Although, party platform is sort of archaic in our current climate. It seems things change too fast to even get an issue defined and written down into some official declaration. Today, it seems if both parties suffer from a ripped seamed tent, with factions not able to agree on enough issues. And factions are based on geography sometimes. A blue-dog Dem for instance from the South isn't anywhere near a liberal …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

Another US blunder as to the Middle East that few people in America are aware of is the last piece of diplomacy with Iraq just prior to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. American ambassador April Glaspie passed the word directly to Saddam Hussein that America had no opinion on any Arab-Arab conflicts, this as Saddam had troops massed on the Kuwaiti border. A week later Iraq invaded. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/april.html There could have been one of several possibilities. The Bush I Administration was seeking a war with Iraq. Glaspie was a poor ambassador and didn't convey a stronger position, couldn't communicate well …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

No scorp...The moonbat right likes to discount this, explain it away, disregard it, criticize it, poo-poo it, etc. because they are out to defend their administration rather than to think in a non-partisan way. When Saddam hears from the most powerful nation in the world that they essentially don't care, then yes he might make a miscalculation. He made plenty, attacking Iran was one of many, a war he couldn't win despite some support from the US. Did you bother to read the link that had the transcript of Glaspie's meeting? Is it any wonder Saddam may have misunderstand what she …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

wth..."My main point was that to use examples of national policy or action out of context AND to attribute them to a single long-range plan as if talking about an individual is neither fair nor prudent." I agree, but disagree. How's that for a strong stand! On certain things a trend can be deciphered, on others a policy can be haphazard based on any number of circumstances, such as the topic we are in, The Middle East, which must change because the countries over there change. As well, we've changed which political party is in charge over the last several decades, …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

Ah...scorp...I didn't say the US was at fault, I called it a blunder. People make all kinds of mistakes, which is what you've done in reading my post. You've failed to notice I was discussing Saddam and the Iran War in retrospect. I didn't know THEN whether he would win, lose or draw. In hindsight it was a massive mistake. Desert Storm did indeed need some incentives to gain support from what became coalition partners. Egypt, Syria were provided financing in what was termed checkbook diplomacy. You still haven't provided the info as to other efforts at diplomacy just prior to …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

Hey scorp....I thought you might like this analysis of Desert Storm by Dick Cheney 16 months after it was over. "And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq." "All of a sudden you've got a battle …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

Blondemike... It's not about the balls, it's about the bat. Scorp is swinging and missing. He still hasn't provided me with info about "other diplomacy." I'll give him some more time about his Iran/Iraq War neutralization scheme. But that of course would mean he'd be admitting that Reagan and probably VP Bush lied about Iran/Conta. Look I get where you are coming from. I distrust our government with great concern, all administrations. I like what I.F. Stone said, "All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." And there has been …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

Hyjinx' The problem is and always was, how do you define success? How many suicide and roadside bombings is tolerable? Does Bush say, "Well, we've only had three or four of those this week, we win!" Do you actually expect some sort of zero opposition some day? You seem to think anyone against this war wants America to lose. You miss the point. It's not about wanting something, it's about understanding reality. I can want ten million dollars, it doesn't mean I will get it. You can want the US to win, it doesn't mean that reality won't stop it. I …

Posted to Counterinsurgency 101

This is not much more than more rewards for the military-industrial-complex. A system that at best worked half the time under optimum conditions is closer to a bondoogle than a effective system. Boeing and others get to cash more paychecks written by our Congress which of course comes out of our wallets. For what? Something that might work half the time. What a scam and a rip-off of our taxes. If we used weaponry in Iraq that only worked half the time (at best under optimum conditions) the soldiers would practically mutiny, at the least major investigations would ensue. Could you …

Posted to Return of the Cold War

D'Souza is so cute blaming liberals for his fears of "degeneracy" as if the right doesn't dabble in D'Souza's fears. Let's see, how many religious right leaders have been caught with their pants down in awkward circumstances over the last few decades? Jimmy Swaggert, Ted Haggerd, Jim Baker, come to mind quickly. Here's a website listing Republican pedophiles, politicians that are (or were) in D'Souza's party. http://www.armchairsubversive.com/ And oh those damn feminists, Condi Rice, get married and quit your job, have a bunch of babies, do the dishes and don't forget to kiss your husbands buttocks before he goes to work. …

Posted to A Wingnut in Sheeps Clothing

I've felt that impeachment should be a threat to possibly use, but to keep in the back pocket if Bush cooperates and doesn't veto Congressional legislation. The trump card if Bush starts vetoing or issues signing statements on bills (that should be outlawed). Texasindependent doesn't even recognize socialism in own country now. For instance, in the last federal energy bill, billions were handed out to the oil companies. It wasn't so many months later that Exxon CEO Lee Raymond retired with a $400 million parachute. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the taxpayers basically socialized his retirement. Socialism …

Posted to In Praise of Impeachment

WTH, that's quite a story about the CEO wondering about the jobs, made me laugh. But the other story about how they make large contributions gives me thought. I've heard this before and have always wondered that in a democracy where really were the voters or citizens in making decisions about where to make those contributions? Further, where were the workers in those companies as to their choice of contributions? After all, couldn't they have been paid more thus reducing the contributions of the CEO/top execs but increasing the contributions of the mass of workers? It comes down to what I …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

WhatTH.. I was only comparing the Soviet political system with corporations which are not private companies. Private companies could be compared to dictatorships. I've worked for all types. My first, a private family owned company which I liked but unfortunately didn't pay top dollar, but it was more fun to work for. I've worked for several private companies and for several corporations. One of those private companies was bought up by a corporation and you could just feel the tension grow incrementally month by month over the few years after I was there past that buy-out. Most private companies are usually …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

wth... From your Dec. 3 post you wrote.."Kolko uses the phrase, “… the United States is strategically weak...” in describing the three military adventures we’ve lost. I see the same with the economic fiasco about to bubble over. I agree but I'm curious are you thinking in terms of the reports recently about the slide in value of the dollar against the sterling and euro (not that this hasn't been predicted in the last few years)? It seems the dollar is in a pretty pickle, tween a rock and hard place which is foreign investment to steady our national debt and …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

Frog... I Read the "tongue in cheek" link. I had just had to shake my head at this go around I deciphered. From the article... ---Suppose that our trade agreements over the last quarter century had been designed to facilitate free trade among highly paid professionals. Specifically, these agreements would be about setting clear and transparent education and training standards that would allow bright kids in Mexico, China, and elsewhere to study to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, and ECONOMISTS in the United States.--- So we bring kids from Mexico, China, etc. here to study economics, which brings us to the original …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

wth... Couldn't agree with you more. You pointed this out..."if job quality nationwide is comparable to those around my area…" Where I live, the Detroit metro area, is quickly changing job quality. Michigan once was the "Car Capital of the World", I'd call it the "State of Confusion" now. Michigan every month vies for the highest unemployment in the country. We keep seeing wave after wave of buyouts (both white and blue collar) in the auto industry and so much of the economy was linked to building cars however peripheral. I was just talking to a friend whose husband is applying …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

WTH,,, Again, I couldn't agree with you more. Another aspect of the loss of manufacturing is the scrapping of long term experienced important niche workers. We are moving to a point where if somehow manufacturing trends are reversed and it expands again we will lack the experience to do it well again for awhile. It's different than back in the 1940's when we geared up for WWII, the processes are much more complicated. Kevin Phillips wrote a book back in the 1990s called "Wealth and Democracy." Mostly it was about the history of the United States and the divide between elite …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

From wth..."So far Byron Dorgan of South Dakota is the only one in Washington who seems to understand the seriousness of the situation. My generation may be the last to have had it better than earlier ones." This last election brought in a few more that understand the problems. New senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bernie Sanders, VT are two. If you read the Wall Street Journal op-ed (and has been seen on the internet elsewhere) by the new Virginia senator Jim Webb's scathing attack on the elite system in business, you have to say he probably understands. Jon Tester of …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

Frog, wth.. Sherrod Brown moved from the House to the Senate. He's so fair trade, he even attended as a protester at the Seattle WTO meeting back in 1999. You know the one with all the "rioting," which caused the police chief to resign. The police chief is now promoting decriminalization of drugs. Ralph Nader has long been a champion of the working class. He continues that work. Failing at three presidential races, he attempted to bring those issues to the country and probably opened at least a few eyes. Unfortunately he is not an elected official, so can't be named …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

An example of the ups and downs of regulations. Back in 1929 and the subsequent Wall Street crash it was found that a cause of the crash was that at that time banks and stock market firms were one and the same. They had a huge advantage over the investors they had as customers, that advantage was inside information. When the market troubles appeared the customers were screwed as the banks tried to save themselves using inside information as their weapon or protection. The result was a regulation called the Glass-Steagal Act that separated stock firms from banks in the mid …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

Yup, I read Fast Food Nation, must have been about six years ago. It was enough to make me give up meat for awhile, it was so sickening. Lately in America we've had several e-coli outbreaks, but all having to do with greens. Lettuce, spinach, green onions, makes one wonder what the hell to eat. Where I work twice in the last few months they've had to toss produce, but the delay in finding out about the outbreak means that if we had affected produce it would have already been too late for our customers. We were probably tossing out good …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

Yeah, I doubt Sarbannes-Oxley will cure all ills in the corporate world. I just wanted to point out the distinct effect of one law that made sense, then was forgotten why it made sense, abolished, then rediscovered why it made sense, to be once again abolished, the separation of banks and stock firms. One reason that it came about was to hopefully give the public a renewed confidence in the stock market after the great crash. Unfortunately, the depression followed thereby causing the public not to really have the ability to invest. The market went decades with little activity from the …

Posted to What We Learn When We Learn Economics

As much as I would like to see Bush and gang locked in solitary confinement, I think it perhaps is not the way to go. Yes, you've heard this before. All I can offer is that the American middle probably wants changes and fixes for todays problems rather than dredge up the crimes. If progressives want the middle to swing left, the middle needs to be brought along, not quickly dragged into progressiveness. We have the problem that impeaching Bush makes Cheney president. So Cheney would have to be impeached as well. But they could manuever with timed resignations and VP …

Posted to Progressive Caucus Rising

The religious right is the most dangerous faction in America for so many reasons. They want to destroy the First Amendment as it has been understood for the entire history of our country. The amendment is a two-way street that the religious right is driving as a one-way avenue. They want to have religion in our government institutions, Christian only, but never think that if they do get their wish of the end of the First Amendment than the lane going in the opposite direction opens as well. That lane is the government's involvement in religion. This is something that should …

Posted to Face-to-Face With the Fundamentalist Base

You can tell China is getting a bit desperate about this if they are having all those farmers shooting shells into the clouds to seed them for rain. And this practice affects natural rain patterns, so where the clouds have more likely released rain in the past, seeding will essentially steal the rain from those areas which over time probably will make those areas drought-prone as well. A good book about the world's water problems is "When the Rivers Run Dry" by Fred Pearce that brings in some of China's problems. The book jumps to places all over the world where …

Posted to Chinas Growing Desert

Strawberry, great post, you've flipped many pages of the book on canvassing. I did canvassing for all of about six days for a PIRG and left quickly with conflicting emotions. I began with idealistic hopes for doing good and finished thinking that PIRGs are no better than any other money making operation. My first pause was the early training program which wasn't paid, on-the-job canvassing. My second day I brought in more money than any other canvasser in the office including long veterans, yet no pay for me. Subsequently I've always wondered whether my enthusiasm and honesty toward the issue was …

Posted to Do You Have a Minute for ?

Electric Vehicles only barely help. Consider that with a huge increase in EVs on the road the resulting huge increase for the need for electric power. In the US we have various types of electric power plants and barely enough to support electrical needs even now. Our most common power plant is coal fired which are a major contributer to greenhouse gases. We have natural gas fired plants, but natural gas is under the same type of price pressure as oil in the US. Natural gas has reached peak US production just as oil did in the 1970s, unfortunately shipping it …

Posted to Running on Empty

We may in fact be living in the twilight of the industrial age. We've come to a point where we've mined our planet of most of the minerals needed to sustain that age. Six billion plus people are such a strain on the Earth's resources and at this point there is no silver bullet to change that. In the US we argue about our energy needs to sustain our car/computer/suburban lifestyle while millions on our planet still burn dung for heat. Maybe we should just start thinking about how to advance to an society that is not pumping the Earth for …

Posted to Running on Empty

Hewman, The fuel costs of EVs is more than your claiming. The cost of replacing batteries. Unlike a petro-car which doesn't require replacing the fuel tank and fuel system every three years or so, the all-electric vehicle does require an investment to replace the battery at a cost of something like $3,000 give or take depending. Average that over the three years, (this is all guestimate due to low EV production numbers) and that is a grand a year. We have no idea what the effects would be on a grand scale across the country, and the strain on the oil …

Posted to Running on Empty

Herman, First off, the energy debate absolutely is comparisons between apples and oranges as well as pears and bananas. A comprehensive energy plan is a fruit basket of comparisons. You extol EVs which are a portion of the use of electricity (apples) by comparing them to gas powered vehicles which are part of the oil sector (oranges), while others dream of hydrogen (kiwi fruit) and every year I see the solar powered (peaches) car race on TV news. All of these "fruits" must be compared if America wants to continue its' driver friendly suburban lifestyle. And those comparisons have their plusses …

Posted to Running on Empty

Are you ready to increase nuclear power? Most Americans aren't. The nuclear debate is well known and highly involve the main factors for change on any major thing in the US. Popularity, politics, and economics. Those three things are what drive any changes you may want so that you can get our entire country driving EVs. Popularity? The people don't want EVs, at least right now. Politically, there's no will. Economics isn't driving change. And energy needs don't add up either. EVs are not a silver bullet for our car culture whatever you may believe. ~~~~~ Addressing some of your points. …

Posted to Running on Empty

Herman, I can see you don't understand me one bit. You actually think Im defending gas powered autos? I think they are dinosaurs. I just don't believe your stats because every study of academic authority that I've seen aren't drooling about EVs as you do. Please cite an authoritive study so that I might believe you. For instance a study of ethanol by the University of Minnesota just recently found that it was porbaby not an energy saver. What you don't understand about politics and economics apparently is that just because an idea might be good, doesn't mean it is good. …

Posted to Running on Empty

johnnyincentrix proving he's too stupid to understand what he reads once again. I know all about the oil subsidies and how we pay more through taxes etc, that should be included in the price of gas when we look at that pump price. I don't believe in the free market, what free market? From sugar to farm prices to oil, we don't have a free market. Nor would I want one as a business government would eliminate any and all regulations that they could. And I certainly don't think I have all the answers. What I've concluded at this point in …

Posted to Running on Empty

I'm still trying to get my mind around this latest scandal. The author (Mulcahey) seems to give the blogosphere credit for digging out the trash about the Watergate Hotel from the Cunningham scandal. But I wonder a little further. It sure seems odd that this connection to the CIA comes around the same time that the phone record collecting is reported in USA Today and that the Bushies nominee was in charge of the NSA and that phone record keeping. And the supposed buzz about a power game between John Negroponte and Porter Goss. One wonders if Negroponte had the Watergate …

Posted to Hooray for Hookergate!

Here we go again wth the switcheroo arguments. An article about an individual case about the domestic spying program gets the Bush idolizers talking about?...Oh wait, lets review. Tina calls up Hurricanes, Thinkforyourself calls up liberal personal attacks, Hyjinks is on about oil. Do any of you actually think you are accomplishing anything? Do you really think completely changing the subject away from the article's storyline endears you to the opposition? At what point will you ever see yourselves as uselessly wasting your time stirring up anger toward yourselves from others? What is your point to being here? Personally I have …

Posted to Undercover Cover-Up

Hyjinx, I stand corrected. You did in fact devote four sentences to the subject. I have to wonder whether your trust in government is sincere. Did you have that trust under Clinton and will you have that trust if a Democrat wins in 2008? A CNN poll just released today about the trust factor. Who do you trust more Bill Clinton or George Bush? Clinton wins 46% to 41%. Of course it's a loaded question as both were liars, but it shows the state of Bush's integrity with the public, how far it has fallen. That Bush promise back in 2000 …

Posted to Undercover Cover-Up

I just this past minute saw a Bush blurb on MSNBC, "America has a problem..." was his opening to another subject subjected to Bush's simplistic ramblings. I believe the subject was on illegal drug use in America, but it doesn't really matter. I have less of "outrage fatigue" than just "Bush fatigue." As I was reading some of the blog comments here, I hear on the TV, Bush saying, "America has a problem..." And my instinctive reaction is to not even bother listening to the rest of his blather. I simply speak out loud, "Yeah, America's problem is you! Why don't …

Posted to What Ails Us?

Marcello, the problem is there aren't many solutions that will be consumated. First, even if we wanted Democrats (I'll return to this) to take back Congress in 2006, the fact is that democracy has been hijacked from voters. Between gerrymandering, millions of dollars political campaigns, electronic voting fraud, suppression of third party ballot access, corporate influence of politicians, elections that consist of mainly attack ads, the fact that we can't even count votes accurately, and other election problems, I don't consider our country a democracy. It's a psuedo-democracy. It looks like democracy, but it doesn't pass the smell test. Consider the …

Posted to What Ails Us?

Hyjinx, the left complaints about the Bush Crime Family ARE good faith criticism. Take just recently when former CIA analyst Ray McGovern took on Rumsfeld about Rummy's claim that he knew where the WMDs were two weeks into the Iraq War. Old Rummy immediately denies it, then starts backpedaling when McGovern quotes him verbatim. Legitimate questions, illegitimate answers, yet the media instead of discussing Rummy's additional lies during the give and take begins to question McGovern's agenda. As if Rummy's "agenda" has no bearing on Americans, but McGovern's is somehow tainted or evil. McGovern was only asking a question I've been …

Posted to What Ails Us?

Tina cracks me up. I don't know how many times I've seen those FoxNewsies blowing their gasket on stupid issue after stupid issue. "War on Christmas," "War on Easter," they sputter and spit. Immigration lately is a good one. "Build a wall, keep dem forners outta here!" And now, they have this depressed tone to their voices on many issues, particularily talking about poll numbers and the midterm elections. I've seen many have this defeatist sound about those elections, I guess they are preparing their minds for the fall. The realist of the Republicans understand that they are losing parts of …

Posted to What Ails Us?

Wolf, you must have missed the recent Univ. of Colo. study on marijuana and cancer. It turns out that the THC actually counteracts any cancer causing agents in the smoke. As a "liberal" you've got us all wrong. We don't much like heavyhanded governments as to liberties as much as the next person, particularily drug laws which seem so fascist in practice. The drug war has been predominantly conservative driven. We care about society as a whole. When we incarcerate drug users to the extent that America has the largest prison system on earth, something is not quite right for our …

Posted to Cops and Harm Reduction Hotties, Oh My!

Oh Scorpy..."The USA is the world’s strongest economy because strong policies create strong results.  That does not mean we are perfect, and it does not mean we are not subject to outside shocks, such as natural disasters.  It does mean that we can rebuild, and that we can minimize damages when something happens.  The biggest damages the American economy has sustained in the last thirty years were self-inflicted; the Carter Catastrophe and the Bubba Bubble." You forgot a few "strong policies" such as deregulation of the savings and loan industry under Ronny Reagan that resulted in a huge scandal that cost …

Posted to Muzzled Voices

Scorp thinks we destroyed the Soviet Union? Somehow I must have missed that one. I do remember we out-spent them. I do remember a huge deficit run up by Reagan to be able to out-spend them. An annual deficit that took over a decade to bring back to fiscal responsibility. I do remember a Soviet Premier named Gorbachov who ushered in Glostnost to begin reforms. Of course Russia is now just a new form of corruption trying to mimmick American corruption. Scorp probably defines Russia as a democracy. I wonder how he feels about Venezuala's democracy. Probably doesn't count it, because …

Posted to Muzzled Voices

Scorp, no panic here, just amazement at some of your historical beliefs and the use of absence of facts. And usually those absence of facts are to make sure you put your dig into Democrats and not Republicans. And trust me, I don't have any love for Democrats any more th