By now we are all quite familiar with the mortgage crisis that followed hot on the heels of the burst housing bubble. However, you probably have not heard much about the other housing crisis. It has been as quiet as it has been persistent, year in, year out. This crisis, I would argue, is the central obstacle to upward mobility in America today. It is the crisis of affordable housing.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition published a report earlier this year, entitled Housing at the Half: A Mid-Decade Progress Report from the 2005 American Community Survey (PDF), and its findings are telling:

• There are 9 million extremely low income (ELI) renter households earning less than 30% of the median income for the state in which they live. ELI households comprise one in four renters, an increase of 15% from 2001 to 2005.
• The ratio of housing costs to income for ELI renters was 83% in 2005, compared to 75% in 2001.
• 6.4 million ELI renters spend more than half of their income on rent.
• There are only 38 affordable and available (some higher income renters live in housing that would be considered affordable to ELI renters) for every 100 ELI renters.
  

Debilitating housing cost burdens aren't limited to ELI renters. Renters and homeowners alike, higher up the income ladder, contend with excessive housing cost burdens as well. But the scale and scope of ELI renter burdens alone suggest that something should be done to address the silent crisis of affordable housing.

Adequate shelter is a basic need, and people will pay what they must to keep a roof over their head, or else join the ranks of the homeless. All too often, this means cutting back on many other necessary expenditures (e.g. food, health care) and foregoing altogether long-term investments (e.g. childrens' college education, retirement). Housing costs also, of course, cut into the average household's ability to sustain aggregate demand.

But when a crisis comes a knocking, so too does opportunity. The two-fer logic of short-term employment and long-term productivity that investments in rebuilding infrastructure and developing alternative energy technologies applies equally here. Details await sorting out, perhaps in another post here, but in a nutshell, an investment in affordable housing on the order of a few tens of billions of dollars accomplishes the following:

• it helps reinvigorate the moribund construction industry by giving developers and builders something to build.
  
• it creates jobs refurbishing existing affordable housing and building new affordable housing.
• it increases the supply of affordable housing, thereby making housing more affordable to more households.
• it lowers the cost of housing for more households, leaving a larger share of income to boost aggregate demand, which is good for everyone.
  

In short, addressing the longstanding affordable housing crisis would go a long way toward addressing a lot more than the longstanding affordable housing crisis.


 

I'm sure most of you remember this Sean Hannity interview of Robert Gibbs after the second debate. After attempting to link Obama to Ayers right from the start (although the subject hadn't come up at all in the debate), Hannity got completely owned by Gibbs, who went directly after him for his association with the anti-Semitic nutjob he'd showcased on his show, asking, "Are you anti-Semitic?"

Just a day or two before that, Gibbs had made another appearance on Fox to take head on and dispel the "Ayers association" that the Fox Friends were trying so hard to push, and did an admirable job of dumping water on their pet firestorm.

From what I've seen, I think Gibbs is a solid choice for Obama's Press Secretary.  His manner is relaxed and friendly enough, but when lines are crossed he knows how to push back appropriately.  Right now we can only imagine the crap the far right is going to be throwing at Obama hoping that something, anything, will stick.  I feel good knowing he'll have a guy on the front lines who isn't afraid, when it's the right thing to do, to throw it right back at them.

Over 70 years ago in the middle of the Great Depression, my grandfather - a quite successful businessman in hard times - packed the family in a car, drove to Florida, and bought some farm land. Being very clever with his hands and no stranger to hard work, he knew if worse came to worse he could survive off the fat of the land. The exile didn’t last long before he was back in business again, but the point had been brought home, what it takes to survive.

In 2008 if I said I was heading to Florida to buy farm land, you’d look at me like I was crazy. And I pretty well would be. His was a 1930’s strategy for survival, a very good one, but not a strategy that has aged well. There would be no place to sell the extra produce for much money to pay for staples such as gas, additional groceries, toilet paper, insurance, taxes, et al. That world is quite gone.

I thought of that today when I ran across Obama’s new weekly speech, that we were going to start a program rebuilding highways and bridges, schools, and of course invest in new energy. (“New energy” is for example what we’ve been calling solar power for the last 35 years. It’s a kind of outdated term somewhate related to “New Wave” and “New Age”, two other dinosaurs from the 70’s). I have a hat tip I learned from the Japanese before I turn serious - how about we cover 1/3 of the US with concrete over the next 4 years? It would be roughly equivalent to what the Japanese tried to do in the 1990’s, would use up incredible amounts of energy in the process, would no doubt put quite a few people to work in menial tasks, and would be completely ineffective in spurring growth in a modern economy.

Our we could call China.

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A gal can dream, can't she? In any case, I hope a few people will call their reps and ask for this speech.

So the new theory is that a massive government spending program--or "infrastructure investment program" will get us out of the mess we're in.

I'm very ambivalent about the "we have to spend a ton of money" theme. It will sound frivolous to overspent, maxed out, financially exhausted Americans, and will really grind the tails of those who have patiently invested over the years only to have their savings deteriorate almost overnight.

Strangely enough, what I think the government needs to do is stop staring at the mechanics of the economy and just talk with "the real America," if you will. Here's the speech I dream of George Bush delivering before Thanksgiving (or Obama after Jan 20 if it takes that long):

"We have a real housing mess here, and I know that's upsetting for Americans because we all treasure the land, the homes and neighborhoods that support our lives. We in your government value your willingness to invest in your homes and take out debt to pay for them, but in the regulatory environment over the past few years, we lost sight of that. We are partially responsible for what has happened here--we set it up so that some in the finance community could play fast and loose with your debt by handing out trick mortgages and others could make money betting against your ability to pay them. We are sorry for the trouble we have caused.

We are going to repair this, and restore the relationship between you, your government, and the financial community. We're not going to tell you to go shopping--we tried that, and we all ended up with a lot of stuff but not much security. So we are going to take a more careful approach.

As of today, foreclosures are suspended for all occupied homes properly maintained by their owner. The loophole that allowed some to make money by betting against your ability to make your mortgage payments is closed. We have embarked on a program to find a way that every person, rich or poor, who wants to stay in their home can do so, with dignity and at fair rates that take into account the current value of your home, not necessarily the price you paid during the bubble market of the past few years. We will begin this program with bubble mortgages in the hardest-hit neighborhoods and work our way up the line until housing stabilizes and more importantly, your confidence is restored.

We also promise to undertake reasonable steps to invest in infrastructure that all Americans can use, enjoy, and profit from. We won't overspend, because unfortunately, your government has some big debt to pay as well, but you can be assured of some careful attention being paid to education, "green" industry, and ...etc.

Moving forward, your input will be appreciated. We will do our best to clear the lobbyists out of our hallways so that we can better represent ordinary people who need to be heard. Please be patient with us during this process, and stay in it with us. Government of the people, by the people and for all of the people, not just some of the people, is not easy to achieve. But this election has shown us that participation in the political process has a bright future. We look forward to embracing that future with all 300 million of you who make America what it is.

Thank you, happy holidays, and God Bless America."

Hello everyone,

I am finally starting a blog to talk about the foreclosure crisis, which I believe is the financial and psychological heart of our current financial crisis. I will also be blogging at

www.ForeclosureArk.com

Ark not as in Arkansas, but as in "get on the Ark before we're all swept away by the flood."

I'll be talking about the situation and outlining various plans that could help. I hope that many of you, especially those with financial experience, will help with participation, advice and critique.

Thank you,

erica

The world is shifting towards a multi-polar system with a less dominant US and a more powerful China and India, and a "historic" transfer of wealth from west to east, according to a new US intelligence report. Financial Times
In the NIC's view, the rise of China, India and the rest will mean that by 2025 the US will be "one [my emphasis] of a number of important actors on the world stage, albeit still the most powerful". For more than 200 years, even when challenged, the US has been a rising power. The adjustment will not be easy. Philip Stephens -FT

This week's news of a drop in consumer prices may sound on the surface like a good deal for financially strapped U.S. households. But economists warn that sustained deflation -- a period of falling overall prices -- would deepen the nation's economic troubles. Such a period would make it harder for people to repay debts and would prompt consumers to delay purchases in anticipation of lower prices and harder times. "Everyone is having these huge sales, and consumers know if they wait longer, the chances of them not having a good selection is fairly small and the chances are that the prices will be lower," said Charles McMillion, an economist who runs MBG Information Services. "So why buy today? This is exactly why economists are always scared to death of deflation." Washington Post
When Obama takes office in two months, he will find a number of difficult foreign policy issues competing for his attention, each with strong advocates among his advisers. We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention.(...)The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state. Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski - Washington Post

"Deflation as a metaphor" compares the perception of America's relative decline as a superpower to economic deflation, where people hold off from making a purchase because, with prices falling, they think that they can get a better deal if they wait longer. When this happens, prices fall even faster as frantic sellers try to attract reluctant buyers with even lower prices and the potential buyers become even more reluctant to buy. Finally the economy seizes up and only those with great cash reserves benefit.

Deflation is a process, a self-fulfilling prophecy that feeds on itself: falling prices make prices fall faster.The National Intelligence Council's report, "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" postulates that by the year 2025 the United States will be dramatically less powerful than it is today. If we take deflationary process as our guide, the universal perception of America's decline should quickly accelerate that decline.

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Sophia Nelson writes in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post...'It's my party, but I don't feel part of it'...and goes on to say how she pretty much had to hold her nose in order to vote for then Senator Barack Obama, and seems to suggest that the only reason the Senator won the election was because of the disaffection felt by Black and Latino voters to the Republican Party.

The Republican Party she describes existed for only a short period, a period of less than a hundred years, when it began to align itself with the most extreme elements in the American political landscape. The modern Republican Party, at least since the late 1940's has been the party of exclusion, isolationism, and xenophobia. There seems to be this tendency among Republicans that their party has been the party of progressive growth with a commitment to diversity. Where is the justification for this delusion?

Let's call this hallucination for what it is; at no time in modern history has the Republican Party made any real effort to reach out to the so-called minority community. Those who did come to the Republican Party, in my view, were practicing what I call ' political Darwinism', or rather, they become big fish in a small pond. They are held up as useful tools in order to appeal to some sort of 'pull yourself up by your boot-straps' fable. The role of class cannot be underestimated in this discussion of the Republican Party. Let's not forget that the so-called 'progressive' wing of the party is the 'country club' or Rockefeller wing of the party.

Yes, I said "class", that elephant in the room that no one seems to notice even though that elephant has been at the center of racial and class strife since at least the Goldwater years. The revisionist view of the GOP would have you forget Joe McCarthy, Goldwater's' eagerness to bomb the hell out the Vietnamese and his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and let's not forget the Birchers, the KKK in Indiana during the twenties, and on and on. Sophia Nelson would have us believe that Lee Atwater and Karl Rove really had the interests of African-American and for that matter the interests of Latino\as at the forefront of their ugly political machinations.

Now, the Sophia Nelsons' and Michael Steeles' of this world would have you believe that the Republican Party of the 1850's is the party we should be remembering, and not the more modern iteration; the Jesse Helms wing, or the not so subtle appeals for 'law-n-order' during the Nixon campaigns. that finally exposed the Democratic Party of the south for the racists that they were.

Sophia Nelson notices that out of the more than 2000 delegates, only thirty-six or so were African-American, and I would imagine that the number of Latino\a delegates could not have been much more. Voting against one's own self-interest has always fascinated me, I don't understand the disconnect that must occur in order to continually identify with a group that has made no secret of its' disdain for the African-American and Latino community.

Will President Obama be able to salvage a successful first term with all that needs to be done, i have no clue. However, looking to the Republican Party for solutions in the twenty-first century is a little like fixing your toilet by installing an outhouse in the back yard.

There has been a recent wringing of hands by some in response to some of the selections that Barack Obama has made for his future administration.  Allow me a brief moment to respond with a perspective that some may not have considered.  If Obama had surrounded himself entirely with liberals and progressives, he would have breathed life into a dying Republican party. The GOP would be emboldened to fight and obstruct every piece of legislation, and they would attempt to paint Obama and Democrats as extremists and out of touch. We would end up with four more years of bickering in Washington with very little getting done.

In surrounding himself with very smart and open-minded people, people who are respected on both sides of the aisle, Obama is making it much more difficult for partisans and republicans to vilify him, his administration, and his policies. Rather than giving life to a modern day wannabe Newt Gingrich and losing the gains of Congress, Obama is laying the groundwork to not only increase those gains, but also strengthening the Democratic brand in the minds of the country. The obstructionists will soon show themselves to be the ones who are the extremists and out of touch, while Obama and the Democrats will solidify themselves as the party that gets things done.

Surely Obama understands that the country has moved to the left. But to bring the rest of the country along, he must do it in a moderate fashion. Remember, when a pendulum swings from the right, it must pass through the middle before it gets to the left.

An excellent column, well wroth reading, from Gail Collins in today's New York Times. Here's A brief excerpt:

Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning.

Seriously. We have an economy that's crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush -- who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks -- hasn't got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world's most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a bonus, the Pelosi presidency would put a woman in the White House this year after all. On the downside, a few right-wing talk-show hosts might succumb to apoplexy. That would, of course, be terrible, but I'm afraid we might have to take the risk in the name of a greater good.

Can I see a show of hands? How many people want George W. out and Barack in?

 

Here's a link to the full essay. Most people who read Collins think of her as a humorist or satirist and while there's a few chuckles along the way in this piece, her advice, in my opinion, is nothing to laugh at.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/opinion/22collins.html?ref=opinion

Those who believe that "9/11" will always stop traffic should note how little is said of its predecessor date of significance, the date on which the President of the United States was murdered in Texas.

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Al Giordano from The Field has posted a full article on HuffPo http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-giordano/us-secretary-of-state-a-c_b_145539.html presenting his arguments against Hillary's qualifications to serve as Secretary of State, based on his well-informed perspectives on Human Rights issues in Latin America.

His story includes the last video clip from one of his colleagues, an independent journalist from NY, who was gunned down while filming government forces attacking a citizen blockade. It's hard-watching, but powerful and I urge you to take a peek.

This particular incident happened in 2006.  Senator Clinton has been asked to assist in bringing justice in this case.  Their requests have been ignored.

This is not one unfortunate incident somewhere other than the U.S. that has nothing to do with us.  It's about our policies and how our economic interests pave the way for injustices beyond our borders.  Al puts it this way:

 

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There's been a lot of speculation swirling around about Bush's potential presidential pardons. In particular, people are wondering if he'll preemptively pardon any and all unnamed individuals in his administration or their agents who had anything to do with torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretaps. A "blanket" pardon of unnamed people is not unprecedented but earlier examples were all part of a national healing process after a time of profound social and political upheaval. I feel this is very different.

The immediate problem is that the pardons would be for acts that undermine our constitution and are contrary to our fundamental national values. They are violations of human rights and, no doubt, have placed our country in greater danger by enraging people with their audacious flouting of international law.

For me, however, I see another fault, one that cuts to the core of the problem with the Bush administration. How can you pardon people for "crimes" before those people have been found guilty in a court of law? If they are not guilty of a crime, they are innocent, no? And therein lies the problem I think. The Bush folks for years now have been chasing, capturing, wiretapping, torturing, and locking people up on pure suspicion. No longer is guilt necessary to be nasty to people. Tangentially but related, I've noticed lately how the White House has altogether stopped using the word "suspected" in sentence such as "US aircraft bombed the camp of a [suspected] terrorist with ties to Al Queda." No trial needed. He's a terrorist!

Admirably, they are applying the same standard to themselves. They presume their people are guilty of a crime, thus in need of pardoning. But I say, how can you pardon "innocent" people? Or has they very ideas of "innocent until proven guilty" become a trite nicety, no longer valid in America?

Just thinking here, if hillary takes the job as sec of state as is being reported, it is a huge risk for her.  She will vacate her senate seat, both clintons will divest from any potentially conflciting holdings, and Bill will stop the international speaking tours.  The thing is, if 6 months down the road Obama decides that Hillary is either ineffective, distratcing, uncooperative, or he just doesn;t like what bill is doing, she can be completely out of politics.  Serving on the cabinet is the ultimate "at will" workplace, Obama can terminate her at any time without cause.  He has 4 years to a reelection, plenty of time to forget about the clintons. 

 

Accepting this position is a much bigger risk to Hillary than it is to Obama.  She will have nothing to go back to. 

I am in one of the ex-USSR Republics, and this week I was at a high meeting where one of the Ministers excoriated all the Ministry leadership around the country for supposed bad work.  Their work is actually very good, but saying that is not the management style.  These managers will have to work all weekend to correct their "errors" and then go back to their own staffs and terrorize and reprimand the latter as well. 

A member of the top-layer's party asked to speak for "3 minutes" after this hours-long harangue, and held us there instead for fifteen.  His first question was the initial manipulation, how many of us were *not* members of the omnipotent ruling Party?  

Few dared acknowledge such an apparently shameful thing, and he soon tossed us another manipulation nugget by saying that today we might have one particular job, but since almost all of us were Party members, we could also go do remunerative party work at any time as well.  So it was a valuable job qualification, like getting a professional degree.  He explained he had formed a Committtee of Party Control, and that as part of the important effort, we shouldn't enjoy ourselves in public.  No disco, no drinking, no dinners, none of that sort of thing -- otherwise, the Party and the top leadership would suffer disrepute by our bad example.  So we had a heavy responsibility.

This has to be what a Soviet government conference used to be like (or Iraq under Saddam).  You need to be a Party member or else you disgrace yourself and go nowhere, and if you are a Party member, that means no fun for you.   All entirely two-faced, of course, because you just *know* this devil got trashed on vodka in the evening.  Anyhow, the Minister then took another 20 minutes to say that the above were all such good points and paraphrase each one, and that we indeed mustn't go on dates or anything, this time for the reason that government service was such a high honor.  The Minister sought his approval of  this parroting, and he gave it with a sense of gravity and never-quite-complete-satisfaction.  After all, there were always more things we could do to strengten the Party and its important Committee On Party Control.  I realized that some of the abuse the Minister had copiously heaped on the senior staff was for this usurper's benefit.

Thought I'd share the above, as you don't get to witness this totalitarianist atavism every day.

This daily post is a clearinghouse for links to posts that either flew by too fast, didn't get the attention they deserved, or are so good they need to be up even longer...

ANYONE can link a post here, and we encourage you to do so. The post is only as good as its links. If you do add a link, please describe it briefly and tell us why it deserves another look.

As long as the archives are messed up, this is the only way to preserve good posts!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take the time to rec this post, even if you don't read any of the links or add anything. It only works if it makes it to READER REC everyday. If it barely makes it, it gets bounced off and good posts are lost.

...Or Look At All The Chickens Little Run.

Forgive me for my profuse use of profanity but when I get overly excited I swear a lot. That's me. This is my voice. Deal.

The scale of the hand wringing and rending of garments I'm seeing over each and every one of Obama's cabinet picks is unbelievable. This is the shit we liberal/progressive/Democrat-types do every fucking single fucking time. I hate it with the force of a thousand suns. 

I'm all about individuality, critical thinking and what have you. But just this once could we show the same unity, discipline and sense of purpose that's proven so effective for conservatives? Fuck no. We run around crying, "Maybe Hillary could bring in Michael O'Hanlon! The sky is falling The sky is falling!"

It's predictable. It's pointless. It's stupid. It's embarrassing. It makes the wingers rub their hands together with glee. It's well past time we ditched this chicken little act.

I'm only gonna say this once: Barack Obama just ran the smartest, most effective, most transformative political campaign in American history! Do you honestly think Obama's picking these candidates impulsively? He's not throwing darts. He's had 2 fucking years to put together his cabinet wish list. Chill the fuck out already.

Much of this angst is focused on Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State nomination. Stupid. Stupid. And more stupid. I will genuinely miss Hillary Clinton as my Senator. Because she's done overall an exceptional job for NY, I selfishly didn't want her to win the Presidential nomination.

But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton puts her squarely on the world stage. Short of being President, this singularly prestigious cabinet position offers her the opportunity to make history like few before her. Do not underestimate the importance of this. It's Hillary's best chance to silence years of muttering about the Clintons' "legacy".

We used to say in the music industry, "You're only as good as your last record." Well, this could be Hillary's last go 'round in public service. At the end of Obama's first term, she'll be 64 years old.

Yes, she'll still be plenty young enough to serve her country in many ways. But Obama will be running for re-election. The Senator replacing her will be running for re-election. For Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, any office below Prezzie or Veep would be a serious come down.

Then there's those of you who persist in kvetching over potential ego clashes blah yak blah yak. Give it a rest. Hillary will not fuck this up. She's demonstrated her honor of and sense duty to her country. Furthermore, Hillary and thus Bill's "legacy" is now inextricably tied to the Obama Presidency.

Her success depends on Barack's success and vice versa. There's no chance in hell that Hillary Clinton will be anything less than outstanding in her execution of Obama's foreign policy. The ego-thang is overblown. She will defer to him.

Get it? Got it? Good. Get over it.

Let's get back to the hard work of fixing our country. This includes showing great support for  and confidence in our President-elect Barack Obama and his cabinet nominees.

Fer crissakes the guy hasn't even been sworn in yet.

-AF
cross-posted at:
Andrew Sullivan Is A Fraud

You'd think one SOFA couldn't break two Constitutions, but you'd be wrong.

 

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has threatened to resign if the parliament does not pass the security agreement on November 24.

Some MPs are complaining that by the constitution, the agreement should have been turned over to the relevant parliamentary committees. Only if the latter reported it out should the government have proceeded with the first reading. Instead, the agreement went straight to the full parliament.....

Experts testifying, and members of Congress commenting, at a hearing Thursday on the Status of Forces Agreement insisted that it is a treaty and must be ratified by the Senate.

 

But when has Article I (or its client-state counterparts) been noted by Addington and co., except with derision?

 

If SOFA makes it through the Iraqi "legal" process, and is ratified by the Rump (and rogue) Parliament known as the Bush Administration, it will be yet another unconstitionality to confound Obama's lawyers, and their Iraqi counterparts, for years to come.

 

I commend Addington on his ingenuity. He and his friends will never be prosecuted for war crimes- the Administration of his successors will be trying to negotiate foreign-policy landmines through the Supreme Court, which has no taste for this kind of thing.

 

 

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So I live in New Mexico. Bill Richardson is my governor. I have specific reasons not pertinent to this post, and way too involved to be shared here, to be dissatisfied with his performance as NM's governor. But I think he performed well as Ambassador to the UN, and I am impressed with his performance as a free-lance diplomat in a number of crises since. I think he would be a great choice for Secretary of State (much better than HRC), or even in a reprise role as Secretary of Energy. But Secretary of Commerce? Why? His track record here in NM is decidedly mixed.

Our state has prospered even in recent tough times, not because of any particular strength Bill has shown, but because we have had two very senior Senators (and a few mediocre Representatives) who were great at keeping our federal doggie bowl full.

We have military bases that seem immune to BRAC and national laboratories that have kept decent funding even in the face of sometimes gross mismanagement (like Los Alamos National Labs' problems with custody of classified material). That's not Bill's doing.

We are blessed with a permanent fund and extractive industries that have benefitted from high prices for oil and natural gas. That's not Bill's doing.

Where Bill has been a player, the stories aren't so glowing. Not bad, but zero-sum stuff. We have typical cases, like many other development-hungry states, of big corporations playing for Industrial Revenue Bonds and then skipping when the grass grows greener on the other side. We were supposed to have Tesla, and now it looks like Eclipse is going under. We've held onto Intel, but it's been dicey. One call center after another pops up and then disappears.

Bill has courted Hollywood and entered the state into profit-sharing partnerships with studios. Seems like a big ego-stroke and a chance to brush elbows with some stars. Most of the films aren't what you'd call blockbusters; it looks like the loaned amounts still exceed the revenues to the state (but I'm no accountant, so I don't mind being corrected).

So why Commerce?

     Apologies if my brain lags behind the bulk of the TPM community but something has bothered me for some time.  Why didn't Bill Ayers seriously derail Barack Obama's candidacy?  To be clear I don't believe that the two men had anything close to a meaningful relationship except on the provincial issue of education in the greater Chicago area, but since when did the truth matter?  Bill Ayers did do some really dangerous and reprehensible things and remains largely unapologetic.  Barack Obama did know him and work with him; whether this relationship was peripheral shouldn't have mattered to the large portion of the electorate who take a brief and shallow interest in political campaigns particularly in light of the mainstream media's penchance for noise amplification.  What gives?

     After 9/11 the Bush administration launched a protracted and concerted effort to brand the enemies of America.  Much of this we now know was to create a convenient umbrella definiton under which Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and a host of other unsympathetic entities would find themselves.  It worked to a large degree.  Many thoughtful people were persuaded to set aside the myriad cultural and religious differences between these organizations, and more importantly, to blur the serious divergence of their objectives.  For instance at this moment many intelligence analysts would have to acknowledge a high level of antipathy between the Taliban leadership and the remnants of Al Qaeda stemming from the loss of Afghanistan. 

     This refusal to make fine distinctions did a great disservice to the public and armed forces of the United States and gave rise to the popular conception of terrorism as endemic to the middle east and muslim societies.  It helped us forget that a handful of years ago a young man left a crude and devastating bomb in Oklahoma City.  It helped us forget that in our lifetime a bomb was planted in a c  

    

One wonders if all torturers are seized by their consciences at moments.

There has been no doubt in my mind that "Georgie" would be determined to be the worst president in our country's history.  This opinion is quickly becoming the consensus of our nation's population:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081110/pl_politico/15478

I must confess, this administration still scares me.  I blogged several times this year that I was worried that Bush/Cheney et. al. would not allow this election to take place and they would use the powers granted them (by them) in the "Patriot Act" to hold on to power.  "Georgie" is using his last days to put new "laws" in place to make things more difficult for Obama.  And using his power without worrying about low approval ratings to put these road blocks between prosecutions of his administration and current constitutional law is the final nail in the coffin of his legacy.

Well, "We The People" WERE allowed to vote and "We" have spoken.  It is beginning to appear that there WILL be a peaceful transfer of power from the monsters who have controlled our executive branch for these horrible 8 years to a new team of competent, intelligent managers.  For the first time in those 8 years I have hope that our country can begin the long journey out of the black hole that has been the Bush administration.

"They" are still trying to cause international incidents by sending missiles into Pakistan and crossing the border into Syria to strike which are clearly against international law and America's previous moral compass which served us so well for over 200 years. "They" are still standing in the way of legislation which might help us slow the deterioration of our financial markets.  Bush will certainly pardon ALL those who broke our laws, perverted our constitution and pushed the world to the brink of WWIII.

Hope is a good thing.  I like having it again.  But I still believe there is no limit to the evil these people will commit.  Hope fills me these days.  But Blackwater is still out there, Gitmo is still there, Cheney still has access to secrets that should scare the Hell out of EVERY American.

I thought the bottom of the stock market was around 8,000.  I've argued with my nemesis (Lt. US Army) for nearly two years about where this economy would wind up under these people.  It turns out that I was right about the crash and the upcoming depression but I'm now afraid that I may have underestimated the bottom.  Experts are not predicting somewhere around 6,400!  I hope they are wrong.  Time will tell.

Afghanistan is a smoldering cauldron nearing the melting point and yet Bush insists on blowing up Pakistani civilians in an effort to hasten that meltdown.  Yes, I'm still afraid of these monsters.  But I'm cautiously hopeful.

Ain't hope GRAND?!?!?

If you had to describe the Bush administration in one word, few would be more apt than the word incompetent.  From the historic foreign policies blunders of Iraq and Afghanistan to the tragic do-nothing domestic policies of Katrina, 9/11, and managing the economy.  

Not only have the policies been incompetent, but those with positions of responsibility in this administration have been incompetent.  Bush, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Chertoff, Miers, "Brownie", Cheney, Libby, Rice, Bolton, Goodling and many more.  These individuals were not the best and brightest of what this country has to offer, rather they are party loyalists who share a similar disdain and disrespect for the positive role that government can have in people's lives.

A familiar theme from Barack Obama on the campaign trail was that government can't solve every problem, but at the very least, it should do no harm.  With all of the serious challenges that we face as a nation, Obama seems convinced that surrounding himself with very smart people is more important than where a person leans politically.  

Instead of selecting partisans and rewarding political hacks with cushy positions where they have no business being, Obama is selecting open-minded and qualified individuals who are well-respected throughout Washington and abroad.  

Are Obama's selections the progressive all-star team that some of us might have preferred? No, obviously not.  Still, few can say that his appointments are incompetents or partisan hacks or ideological die-hards.  Many in this country have lost confidence in our government, in our economy, and in our institutions.  It seems to me that Obama is attempting to provide a sense of confidence in the team that he is assembling, to give assurances to all that he intends to provide responsible government.    

This one is everywhere now:

(Bloomberg) The Somali Pirates, renegade Somalis known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships, including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered the final stage, Ali said. "You may not like our price, but we are not in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to offer the shareholders anything," said Ali.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the PRBS's.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said "we need a bank so that we have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow the business even faster." Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and this will just allow us to guard our coasts better."
-----------------------------------------------

Well, what do the Somali Pirates really do with all their capital?  This may be a spoof that comes true!

A green mortgage is essentially a new mortgage underwriting technique which a borrower can qualify for if the house is energy efficient, healthy, and durable.

Green mortgages require a larger initial investment and a larger loan (up to 15%). This investment will finance green improvements to an existing home or finance the additional costs of building a new home to green standards. However, over the life of a mortgage (15-30 years) the savings from energy and health costs will be substantially more than the increase in your PITI, thus yielding returns that could reach tens of thousands of dollars. Furthermore, since the initial improvement was financed by your mortgage, the returns of your investment are felt immediately as you will be paying less energy+PITI.

Green houses can cut energy costs by up to 50%. It is unknown how much health costs will be reduced by improved air quality.

By factoring in these savings into mortgage underwriting formulas, borrowers can qualify for larger loans. On a macro level, this means that more people can qualify for home loans, that the marginal borrower is going to need less total income, and that access to homeownership will improve.

Because mortgage default is so costly to the lender, underwriters must allow a good deal of type II error (false negatives) to make up for the risk of a type I error (false positive - so basically banks deny a lot of applications that would have turned out to be solid investments to overcompensate for the uncertainty of risk). By factoring in energy and health savings into mortgage underwriting, underwriters get a more accurate estimate of a borrowers risk of default and are thus more confident in their assessment. Improved confidence in risk assessment means that more loans will be accepted at the margin, which will primarily benefit low-income households and underserved populations.

Lastly, mainstreaming green mortgages could be useful in the housing climate today. By allowing more people to take out loans, this will shift the demand for housing upwards, driving up price and quantity. By investing in the quality of our homes, houses will be worth more, further driving up price.

Notice I haven't made an environmental argument? Thats because it is a good policy even without the added bonus of saving the planet.

So basically Green Mortgages are fucking cool as shit. They literally have zero down-side. Good for lenders, borrowers, good for the economy.  Some may say that this isn't the time to invest in this stuff, but I'd argue that this is the perfect time.

...and its sinking very rapidly.

Democrats, yes, have won a huge victory this year.  Fabulous.  Why?  We promise health care reform, we promise economic solutions, we promise government reform, better education, a reinvestment in American infrastructure, etc.  We promise these things, but let's be honest with ourselves, why did we win?  Our victory was in large part due not to a support for our ideas, but to an opposition to those supported by the other guys.  They suck, try us.  Like knowing you want Chinese food, but knowing, too, that the place down the block isn't really that great and besides it made you ill, so you're going to try the Golden Lotus, because it got some okay reviews and you're curious.  We're the Golden Lotus (which is actually located in Boulder, CO, and is very tasty) and they're telling us they want some mighty fine Chinese.  They're still wary of our ability to deliver and will go right back to the shittier restaurant if we suck, too.

A lot of the American people don't really have a thorough understanding of what the Democratic party stands for, what its values are, what its stance on various issues comes down to.  For too long our own lack of understanding with regard to our identity allowed the Republicans to attach labels to us.  But, now it's our turn.  We're on the offensive.  We must create a Democratic party identity that all Americans will recognize, and that most will find agreeable.  We must push aggressively forward on those values, flex our new muscles, and build ourselves up.  We've been losing for decades because we've been weak, because we've forgotten who we are.  We forgot the lessons of FDR's populism.  We forgot Camelot and the Great Society.  The Democratic party is a party that believes there is virtue in government, that a society is defined not by the religion, the race, or the personality of its people, but by the determination of its leadership to build something beautiful, to bring people together for common purpose, and to pave the way for a better humanity.

These beliefs, these values, are what brought America into becoming the powerhouse it was for the better part of the 20th century, and they can and perhaps will make us great again.  Our best times tend to come after our worst.  This is without doubt one of our worst.  Democrats can and Democrats must show Americans what it is that will make tomorrow one of the best.

This statement is not supportable:

HuffPo reports "You can't have district attorneys across the country bringing charges against federal officials," Treece said. And even in a federal probe, Cheney and Gonzales have a "qualified privilege" that would protect them so long as they were acting within their jobs, Treece said.

Others have a different view. Namely, Jonathan Turley and Vincent Bugliosi.

See "From Pillar to Post": The Prosecution of American Presidents, journal article by Jonathan Turley; American Criminal Law Review, Vol. 37, 2000

The excuses for inaction must be confronted. Here is what you -- as a TPM reader -- can do.

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    Indeed Katrina was a watershed event that effectively splashed water on the face of a country caught in a daze of disinformation.  Until Katrina, the nation was unable to deal with the facts presented to them daily in the press and on the ground, because these facts were not yet plausible in the American psyche.  After Katrina, Republican's incompetence was so grossly apparent, so painfully obvious as to be no longer deniable, that this view overcame it's burden of implausibility in the American culture.  But how did a natural disaster become a label pinned on the lapel of the GOP? Answer: a cultural shift courtesy of the net-roots, and a comedy show named The Daily Show with John Stewart.
     Up to the 2000 election, Democrats and liberals were on their heels.  They possessed no cognizant voice to counter the Logic of the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world.  No lexicon existed to decipher the doublespeak of the neoconservative agenda and it's mouthpiece, Fox News. The whole thing seemed an insurmountable monolith of bullshit, so uniform that no rough edges were apparent enough to gain a grip on, and too heavy to move or push over. The blogs were considered fringe by mainstream press, and the press itself took its marching orders from Washington.  After 9/11 it only got worse; anyone with a dissenting voice was labeled unpatriotic. It was a time of stagnancy in open debate.  I would say however, that there was a disquiet in the air at the time, a universal need to hear someone who would knock the monolith over.  Then came the blogs and Stewart.
    He'd been there, of course. So had the blogs.  They had not, however, gained an audience with the larger American public.  Then came the moment when John Stewart went on "Crossfire" and single-handedly destroyed it.  I took notice and started watching him after that.  Instead of arguing against the Republicans, Stewart clowned them.  He reduced the doublespeak and revealed it to America for what it was: silly nonsense.   The netroots and the political humorists combined in the early part of this decade to change the political tides.
    2004 showed the potential of a net-roots movement.  This movement, along with John Stewart's painfully funny and refreshing reduction process, collectively re-framed the nation's political lens.  It was no longer about right/left punditocracy, it was about raising the level of debate to some semblance of honesty.  The coverage of Katrina would not have been possible if it weren't for blogs driving the coverage, and Stewart pointing out the hilarious stupidity of men like Michael Brown and Sec. Chertoff.  
    Once this network of sharp thinkers and readers became self-aware, the events of 2006 and 2008 became inevitable. The nation had a new form of free press that could speak truth to power and elevate the level of debate. We had a third choice over the "left vs. right" spin presented to us by the media. The debate was now a choice between intelligent debate vs. dogma.  It was obvious as time after time right wing pundits would get turned on their heads by Stewart.  Rovian politics of fear were getting diminishing results because we were being innoculated against it. When you can laugh, you know you don't need to fear. Reality, as Stewart would say, has a liberal bias.

Cross-posted at River Twice Research.

So here we are once again on the precipice, at least in terms of global stock markets and credit markets. Another bout of nail-biting panic is hardly unexpected, though it's always surprising when otherwise sane people veer sharply into hysteria. It's a good, albeit painful, reminder that the bonds of what we call civilization are always more tenuous than we would like to believe, that things like "value" and "worth" and "the economy" are ultimately the products of human beings simply agreeing on a set of rules. Stocks, bonds, gold, silver, none have any intrinsic value, nor do Gucci handbags, Deere lawnmowers, and GM trucks (in case anyone was wondering about that one). We act as if they do, because it gives us some sense of an orderly world, and because the alternative is just too unsettling to live with on a daily basis.

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Why haven't I seen this mentioned anywhere?

Those Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians who still believe in less government involvement and regulation need to be confronted with how stupid was their push for private Social Security Accounts. If that had happened, more than 55 million people would have lost, at a rough guess, 40% of their benefit payments or the entire Social Security Program would be at grave risk. This points out:

. That government programs, like Social Security, are always badly administered as contrasted with private investment accounts or IRAs

. Investing in the stock market pays huge dividends in comparison to the stupid, badly-run government-administered social programs

. The enormous funds that investment houses, like Bear Stearns (remember them?), would have earned would have sustained them through the current crises

. The resultant revolution by those over 65 would not have serious social consequences in our country.

(Of course I'm being sarcastic by listing these points here.)

But the point is well-taken and no respectable Republican, Conservative or Libertarian would dare to mention privatization of Social Security today. At least until we've all forgotten the trauma that has been on-going as the stock market has tanked and continues to do so. Or, for that matter, letting investment companies alone as good ole Phil Gramm and Rush Limbaugh recommend, without any regulation or over-sight.

As President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Geithner was an active partner with Paulson in the forced sale of Bear,Stearns to JP Morgan, as well as the failure to backstop Lehman causing their resultant fall into bankruptcy. In my opinion. LEH's bankruptcy was the main reason that the financial crisis accelerated globally in mid-September and spread through the world, causing  breakdowns of the financial system and the destruction of trillions of dollars of wealth in the United States and the world. The consequences of the LEH bankruptcy contribute mightily to the expansion of an expected mild recession into a possible depression.

Thus, the man who said no to Dick Fuld and failed to backstop Lehman bears a burden and a large stain on his reputation. I believe that it was probably Paulson acting alone, but, if it was Geithner who shared and participated in this decision, he's got a lot of 'splainin to do, and I for one would rather see someone else in charge.

What sounds like the latest title of a Nancy Drew mystery novel and eerily resembles every Scooby Doo episode you ever saw?   It's Josh Marshall's ruminating on the 'mystery' of the overwhelming Republican defeat in the last two election cycles.  It would appear he's particularly interested in why, at least some of them, didn't break camp with Team Bush after witnessing the results of 2006 with their own lying eyes.

I vote for serious self delusion as an answer to the mystery.  There's nothing really creepy about the 'spooky' mansions on Scooby if you already know it's gonna end with some pissed off janitor who gets his revenge by scaring local teenagers.  You and I still enjoy watching Scooby Doo, even though we are in on the joke and know it's just TV.

What's TV got to do with it?  Well, those loser Republicans Josh wonders about are watching Jack Bauer on 24,  examining each week's episode and discussing it's implications on foreign policy decisions, and those aren't even the ones considered seriously crazy.

Enjoy.

The stock market slips and falls and careens downhill, and the stories out of Congress (OK, in this case the Senate) are filled with indignation about how they broke their own rules applauding cconvicted felon ex-Senator Stevens and lauded him, like the tight, ineffective, incestuous, elitest club they are, while afterwards they leave and won't be back to even acknowledge the crisis in the downward spiral of stocks or to attempt to do something about it. No wonder they have such low rating.

"Do-Nothing" is a mild epithet for this pitiful group of Senators and Representatives. The media has no story about it; no indignation; only stories about their treatment of the Big Three Automakers. I, for one, am angry at how indifferent they all are, what a bunch of sheep they are, when it comes to the fundamentals of our economy. The stocks and mutual funds are part and parcel of most Americans' savings, their 401Ks, their IRAs, and the Congress walks out and doesn't even pay attention while Rome (in this case, the U.S.A.) burns.

I’m waiting for the due criticism of Mark Begich who not only didn’t major in communications, he doesn’t even have a degree. Main qualification for office? His father was a Congressman who died with the House majority leader some 36 years ago. Plus he married the former chair of Alaska’s Democratic Party. So come on let’s hear some screams of “bimbo Begich”. “Dynasty”. Still checking on whether he ever entered a beauty contest.

Over at dagblog, TPMer Donal recently posted the news that a South Korea company is pursuing a deal with Madagascar to lease almost half of its currently farmed land for 99 years in order to grow crops for feed and biofuel. Chinese companies have been doing similar deals with a number of African countries but at much smaller scales. Trade deals between multinational corporations and third-world countries have been sources of controversy since the 70's, but the history of such arrangements stretches back to the Dutch East and West Indies Companies, established in the 17th century. New York City itself was founded as New Amsterdam by the Dutch West Indies Company in order to facilitate the purchase of natural resources, including fur and tobacco, from an as yet undeveloped America.

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I've been tossing this around in my head for the last few days, off and on.  Hillary Clinton is offered the opportunity to head up the State Department.  Great.  I have no problems with this.  I think, frankly, she'll do a fine job, and have no concerns about her abilities as a team player in an Obama cabinet.  Obama's not looking for yes-men/women, he's looking for capable people.  So that's great.  But I keep returning to the plaguing question of why she would accept this, and not only accept it, but seemingly work hard to make sure it happens.

Hillary Clinton is not yet a very powerful member of the Senate, but Reid's slowly working on remedying that.  With another term, she'll be getting up there and ready to head up some real committees.  This launches her into a better position for a 2016 run than she had this year.  With the legacy of Bill well enough behind that she can just be Hillary, with a presumably still strong Democratic party, etc., there's very little that'd be in her way, except the prospect of another young star, though hopefully by that point we'll be wanting a stay the course prez, and not the change prez we were all craving this year, which makes a young and inexperienced someone much less attractive.  When things are going well, we like someone grounded in the past.  So what the hell?

Then it hit me; the only possible explanation.  For clarification, the State department has not been a good launching pad into the presidency since the 19th century, so we can rule out that she'd be hoping to make the leap directly.  For the last century, it's been pretty well established that best place to be to maneuver into the presidency after the term limitations are up on the current president is to be the veep.  Joe Biden was picked as the veep, though, you say.  Joe Biden, I respond, is older than God.  By the time even 2012 rolls around, he'll be almost as old as John McCain was this year.  He strikes me as a one-term VP.

You see where I'm going with this; I know you do.  If Hillary is able to earn the trust and respect of those that put their faith in Obama this year through a stint at State, she would make a formidable choice for VP in 2012.  This puts her exactly where she'd want to be to run in 2016.  This assumes that Hillary's primary motivation would be ambition.  I don't think this is a bad thing, as it was often cited as being throughout the primary season.  I believe it's a righteous ambition; the ambition to truly serve the people of the country.

I also think that this isn't some scheming on the part of the Clintons, but a part of Obama's rationale as well.  We'll see what happens, though, I guess.

Where We Go From Here

Chances are if you donated money, volunteered, or even signed up on the Obama website you got the "Where we go from here" email from David Plouffe Tuesday with a link to a survey about your volunteer experience and whether you would be willing to continue to "volunteer in your community as part of an Obama organization."

The survey listed 4 possible goals for the volunteer organization (passing legislation, elections, training community organizers, and working local issues) and asked you to rank them by importance.  It provided a long list of possible issues that such an organization might focus on and asked you to check those you cared about.

It later asked the freeform question:

OPTIONAL: How would you like to see this organization move forward in the months and years ahead? And how would you like to be engaged as a volunteer and organizer? It has been clear that Obama has intended to call for a national spirit of service as president and it seemed obvious that they wouldn't just throw away the organization and momentum they had built once the election was over.  What remains unclear is how and into what they are going to transform their network of contacts and field organization for the sitting president. E.J. Dionne Jr. writes about the internal deliberations and the volunteer survey in the Washington Post today, questioning whether Obama's Network will merge with the Democratic party or stand as an independent but Dem-friendly activist group, and whether their activities will be strictly political or more civic minded.  And Marc Ambinder writes in the Atlantic that the Obama camp is holding conference calls with their field organizers about how they want to move the organization forward. I imagine there are a lot of opinions about this at TPM so I wanted to ask, what do y'all think?  What would you like to see happen with the Obama Network and in what kind of an organization would YOU be willing to play a part?

In the past few days the comment threads at TPM EC have been moderated quite aggresively by the TPM Staff. One more than one occasion, regular posters have had their posts deleted or been admonished to "keep it civil" when referring anatomically to the Clintons, or just spouting off with various profanities.

Is this site going to be PG-13 now? Have the editors recieved enough emails from prudes claiming they have been "chilled" by the aggressive posters at TPM EC? Reall, why the sea-change in the standards of moderating?

I always thought the great values of a community like TPM is it's free-flowing and fearless commenters. If someone is scared or offended by something they read on the intertubes, the intertubes themselves are the best place to make that feeling known, and make the cretin look bad at the same time. The answer is not censorship by "management", which is so anathema to the spirit of this site to begin with.

I fear that censoring and overly sensitive monitoring of threads will have a far greater chilling effect on the range of opinion here than a few off-color, offensive or absurd insults.

I am all for civility, but this is not a tea party. It's the the Wild West, Outer Space, the Frontier, all rolled into one. The most beautiful difference being that the internet allows all of us; the faint hearted, the shut-ins, the quiet, the cowardly, all of us can take part in the beauty and danger of the world and all its opinions from the safety of our keyboards. We're all adults here (mostly), let us handle it, and step in only when really necessary.

I would just hate to lose the unpredictable, irreverent and anti-authoritarian ethos that this site is famous for.

 

A University of Michigan economist, Mark Perry, asks a really dumb question: "Is it right to tax the average worker making $28.50 to bailout workers whose labor cost is over $73 an hour?"

This is dumb because 1) Under Obama tax proposals that average worker won't pay more tax, while the private-jet-flying execs will, and 2) Why shouldn't auto workers make more than average?

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SOmething completely different.  Does anyone here have any experience with it?  I was thinking of dumping Netflix for Itunes, but was not sure it would work... (We do have a mac in the house.).

Headlines across the web this morning are touting the report by the National Intelligence Council, "Global Trends 2025", which predicts a widespread shift in power from the U.S. to Russia over the next 15 years.

Just so happened that in the next moment I noticed a piece of news from Moscow reporting some funny business in the high-profile trial of three men in the killing of Russian muckracking journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The military court (what's in doing there?) decided on the eve of the trial that proceedings would be barred to the public due to fears by jury members of possible recriminations if the men were convicted. Only it turns out the judge was full of shit; the jury expressly wanted an open court. And remember, prime minister--and once and future president--Vladimir Putin has been strongly rumored to have had a hand in this affair.

The second of these two news items instilled in me a profound doubt about the accuracy of the first. My next thought was to recall how, in the late eighties, Japan was going to emerge predominant with an centralized economy vis-a-vis MITI and the various Zaibatsus.

I think there is a lesson or two to be re-learned here:

1. a country does not get to become, or better, the good ol' USA with pretend democracy, openness and free markets.

2. it is precisely the laissez-faire political free market that is this country's greatest strength. In the end, as we heap deserved ridcule on our wonderful country, we heap ridicule on, and we destroy, those who would hurt her - and we do it more and more at the margins.

I welcome the "rise of the others"; a stronger world and a bigger pie can only be good for America.

But let's not forget who--for all her warts--is the prettiest girl at the dance.  





 

Cross-Posted from The End of the American Century

The National Intelligence Council has released its report Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World which forecasts that the relative strength of the U.S. "even in the military realm--will decline and U.S. leverage will become more constrained."

In September, a preview of this report was delivered in a speech by C. Thomas Fingar, the Chairman of the N.I.C. The full 120-page report, like Fingar's earlier remarks, sees the U.S. remaining the single most powerful global actor, but with reduced influence and leverage in the face of the growing clout of China, India, Russia and other countries.

The current report, however, is less sweeping in its assessment of U.S. decline than Fingar made earlier. In September, he spoke of U.S. leadership eroding "at an accelerating pace" in "political, economic and arguably, cultural arenas." The Global Trends report does not have such language, and focuses more on the rise of other countries than on the decline of the U.S.

The report does, however, call attention to the importance of leadership in managing this transition to a transformed world. "Leadership matters," the first-page summary says. "No trends are immutable," and "timely and well-informed intervention can decrease the likelihood and severity of negative developments and increase the likelihood of positive ones."

Wise leadership, in Washington and elsewhere, is crucial because the scale of global changes are immense. "The international system...will be almost unrecognizable by 2025 owing to the rise of emerging powers, a globalizing economy, and historic transfer of relative wealth and economic power from West to East, and the growing influence of nonstate actors." Indeed, this transfer of global wealth and economic power from West to East "is without precedent in modern history."

The report forecasts a more diffuse distribution of global power, the transformation of current international organizations (like the U.N.), the growing influence of nonstate actors (especially NGOs--non governmental organizations), and "a more complex international system."

In this system, the U.S. will be a "less dominant power" with "less room for the US to call the shots without the support of strong partnerships." Even in the military realm, changes in science and technology and the rise of non-state actors "will construct US freedom of action."

These arguments are similar to those I raise in the last chapter of my book The End of the American Century, entitled "America and the World After the American Century." A key difference between my book and Global Trends is that most of my book is about trends that have already occurred. Only my last chapter projects into the future, as the NIC report does. In my view, the decline of the U.S. is a fait accompli. As I write on page 1 of my book:

"In the past decade, and particularly since September 11, every aspect of this American predominance has begun to wane. The U.S. economy is riddled with debt [this was written well before the current financial collapse] and unsustainable obligations--by both governments and households--presaging at least long-term economic decline if not general collapse. The educational system, once considered the world's best, now ranks near the bottom among developed countries, and a sizable portion of U.S. citizens is now functionally illiterate. American corporations, once models of dynamism, innovation and efficiency, are hampered by bureaucracy, corruption, and bloated executive payrolls, and few are generating either innovation or growth. Even science is marginalized and beleaguered under the gun of politics qnd religion. While American consumer goods and popular culture remain fashionable in much of the world, there is at the same time increasing resistance in many countries to the erosion of national culture and traditions in the face of U.S.-led globalization."

So a good deal of the decline of U.S. global influence is due to changes within the U.S.--changes that have been accelerating for the last two decades. These internal developments are as much responsible for "global trends" as are the dynamic changes elsewhere in the world.

While the Vice President goes through theatrics, the States should put pressure on the House to impeach the Vice President, even after he leaves office.

America cannot outsource its criminal justice system to the international community. TPM readers have the opportunity to help bring about the needed change.

There is something specific TPM readers can do. A draft-"State Proclamation" calls on the House to impeach. It will include your inputs. 

The House Rules permit proclamations from the States calling on the House to start impeachment proceedings.  The House can also start impeachment based on charges from a grand jury.

Consider the language of these state proclamations calling for impeachment. After you review this information with your friends, you can provide inputs to how you would like to proceed. Inaction is not "change".

These State Proclamations will help the Congress focus on what must be changed; and give the public the needed information to know whether the promise of change is real.

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    "Where were you on November 22^nd?"  Anyone who was old enough in 1963 to be cognizant still knows the answer to that question.  Forty-five years ago President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed and, for a few days that November, the earth stood still.

    I was an E-1 in the midst of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.  Sportscasters like to joke about the "frozen tundra" of Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin but they haven't seen anything until they have been to Ft. Sill in the winter.  There were times when we marched on solid ice on the parade grounds.  This recollection is not to be confused with old-timers who recall walking to school in the snow; uphill both ways.  No, Ft. Sill was the real deal.

    To this day, that day is crystal clear in my memory.  We were out on artillery field exercises when a sergeant came around and told us that our Commander In Chief had been shot.  At that point there were no details.  We only knew that Kennedy had been rushed to a hospital.  Our exercises were immediately cancelled and we loaded up our equipment and got ready to ride back to base.  When we got there the flag was flying at half-mast and there was a sense that the Army was on stand-by in case there was a foreign government involved with the assassination.

    As it turned out, however, we wound up with the next few days off and most of us hung out in the recreation room where there was a TV set.  We watched, stunned, as the events unfolded.  The scenes from the motorcade and the clip of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald were replayed incessantly and we were mesmerized by the images.  We had a hard time believing that what we were seeing was real.

    Yet there it was.  The crown prince of Camelot was dead.

    While my three year Army service was just beginning in 1963, I had been home for quite a while and was working as a staff writer for The Fresno Guide in California when Martin Luther King was killed.  A short time later when Robert Kennedy was gunned down a lot of us wondered aloud at what our world was turning into.  The names Martin, Bobby and John became a hit song and it seemed to us at the time that we were in the midst of a chaotic fall into anarchy.

    Now in retrospect I realize that in the short span of five years America had lost its innocence.  The drawbridge leading to Camelot had been rolled up and the wonderful life that it had promised had been shunted into exile, not only surrounded by a formidable moat but by an overgrowth of briars and brambles as well.

    Lyndon Johnson tried to keep things on path but the times and his ability to respond to them were just not the right combination.  We were hopelessly mired in Vietnam and Johnson was pulled into the quicksand against his will.  Johnson had also alienated Southern Democrats with his push for Civil Rights legislation.

    Richard M. Nixon, along with his Republican cronies, took advantage of the falling out along racial lines in his subsequent claiming of the presidency.  When the evils of Nixon produced the Jimmy Carter Administration, Republicans knew it was only a temporary setback.

    Ronald Reagan revitalized the Southern Democrats with his code words and convinced them that it was important that they vote against their own financial interests in order to save their social standing.  Then, with voodoo economics in full force, Reagan looted the Social Security system in order to obscure a mind-blowing deficit that lived on into the first George Bush Administration and has been further amplified over the past eight years under the second George Bush Administration.

    In the forum section of the May 2008 edition of Playboy Magazine, Eric Alterman presented some fascinating information.  Since 1960 the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion under Republican presidents, while Democrats have kept it at about $30 billion; on average a Republican year sees the deficit grow by $36 billion, while under Democrats it shrinks by $25 billion.  National debt has increased more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.

    The top 0.1 percent of Americans, who earn more than $10 million a year, pay a lesser share of their income in taxes than those who make between $100,000 and $200,000.  Meanwhile, the average CEO of a 500 company took home $13.5 million in total compensation in 2005, a year in which the top one percent of Americans earned nearly 22 percent of all income.

    Republicans, like the bad guys in Nottingham, steal from the poor and give to the rich.  While they claim to hold dear the concept of smaller government they invariably make the government bigger and less responsive to the vast majority of Americans.

    But now here we are, 45 years after Kennedy's death, entering another era of hope and inspiration.  The briars and brambles are being cleared away.  A majority of Americans have stopped listening to the tales of petty, artificial, divisiveness.  The majority of voters have finally figured out that what a mother in the hood and a redneck in a southern mountain town have in common is that neither one of them owns stock in Halliburton and neither one has health insurance for their children.

    It is time, once again, to enter the castle using the drawbridge of hope.

 

Rather than giving the auto industry handouts or loans, how about contracting them to rebuild America's infrastructure. Starting with replacing every vehicle in the government's fleet with electric or hybrid vehicles. 

The Wall Street Journal argues that Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) replaced Representative John Dingell (D- Michigan) as Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee because "Ms. Pelosi loathes Mr. Dingell's independence -- especially on environmental matters."

Also, Waxman only promotes environmentally responsible policies because he speaks "for the upscale precincts of Beverly Hills."

..for the CEO miscreants moving up retirement dates to cash in before the financial shit hits the fan.

 

How about GOLDEN PRIORCHUTE?

There's some good news and bad news in a global study by American intelligence agencies. On the plus side, the influence and capabilities of that ol' bugaboo al Qaeda may be on the wane. But, according to the New York Times, there's a grimmer side to tomorrow's "morning in America":

"The new report describes a world riven by increased conflict over scarce food and water supplies and threatened by so-called rogue states and terrorists, widening gaps between rich and poor and an uneven impact of global warming. It said the chance of the use of nuclear weapons, while remaining 'very low,' would rise in the next two decades as nuclear technology spreads." 

 

Read more »

     Until this edition of Inspection I really haven't been able to comment about the hat in hand automakers. My mind, 45 years later, is still filled with shadows of Studebaker Packard's three year slide into total belly up as a marquee as probably one of the most innovative automakers ever in the industry. I hate to see any of them go: especially since I am the proud owner of a 07, full convertible, Jeep Ultimate.

    Hey, ever since my beloved VW Thing... may it rest in rustbelt pieces... my heart has gone through a total convertible restructuring. This is the first open air car I've owned since I sadly sold a MG Midget in the mid-90s. {Having a wife who has been developing a void in that same organ regarding rag tops hasn't helped. "You mean you don't want cold wind blowing your office papers and skirt in the air? What's... up... with that?") Oh, what a dream Mister Magoo was to drive when I wasn't standing on my carport, or on a some desolate/suicidally busy road shoulder cursing the heavens by saying, "British engineering." I know. I should go wash my keyboard off with soap for typing something worse than dropping the F-bomb. (Let's pause to sing, "F-bombs away, my friends, F-bombs away...")

     I am proud we have our own auto industry, despite the fact I'm not all that fond of Chrysler, Ford or GM... in descending order of fondness. Still; especially with all those workers, I feel like I'm letting go of a dearly departed spouse, or reading some auto-based version of a book that was a cliche' damn near before it was published: Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Setting something free means it will rarely if ever come back. And do remember that any girlfriend who lamely tries to convince you of such is the one holding the shotgun ready to point at your clay pigeon heart. Pull!

      But let them go I feel we must, and find new suitors. Their record: their abuse of our trust to really compete and look forward, isn't all that good. If we save them now we'll be right back here later: like that abused spousette to the spouse always willing to beat up your heart and your wallet after going on yet another Hummer binge.

      Then we have a little bad history between us...

       After Chrysler was bailed out we were rewarded with the K car... (oh, boy!) ...and they stumbled through the years right back to where we started from, do, dah, do, dah. They even rewarded us by going foreign, only to have their new owners: Stude's former in house export, kick them to the curb... abandoned like an unwanted puppy. Being sold for significantly less than when bought years earlier is never a good sign.

        Here's what I suggest. Approach Nissan, Honda, Toyota and some of the other imports. Bring reps from the Big Three in on it too: include labor. Instead of dumping more money down this toilet, offer the Big Three all kinds of incentives to sell their companies to the government. No: the government won't run them: that would be really, really stupid. Can you think of a government run auto that didn't mimic the odor of skunk spray?

        At the same meeting offer the other companies the assets and car/Jeep/truck lines if they make these new U.S.-only operations as U.S. as much U.S.-source content as possible. We have been doing this already and it has been working.

        Give them one hell of a sweetheart of a deal to do so; but only if they hold on to as much of the labor that the Big Three had to begin with as possible. Servicing and providing parts for the old Big Three cars mandatory.

        Most of these companies have proven; year after year, they know how to build, run a business, market and look forward to the future. The Big Three have proven the opposite.

        Of course I doubt any pol would ever have the foresight and the huge pair of... to do this.

        Would the companies accept the deal? Maybe not all... but if you tie it into access to US markets, or not... bigger tariffs... or not... and an easy out for The Big Three, yes I believe they would. I'm sure my concept isn't perfect, though this would be the first time one of my ideas wasn't... chuckle... so I'm sure it would mean more than a little tweaking.

       They'd better do something more than what has been suggested. Otherwise we'll be right back here doing this again sooner rather than later. There's no doubt the economic hill gets quite steep and I suspect it will be quite a while before we even begin to see the bottom of the hill. Just dumping money into any of this now the wrong way would be like adding oil to an engine without putting the plug back in. It's too late to take back yet again another government giveaway to the Cadillac, welfare queens and queens in the financial industry. We still have time to make sure the engine that drives the auto industry will run well into the future....

        But we need to make as damn sure as possible that oil pan gets plugged first.

                                                        -30-

        Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

"Attorney General Mukasey was roughly twenty minutes into a speech defending the administration's torture policies and particularly arguing against prosecutions of people who made decisions in the aftermath of 9/11 (essentially arguing against what he believed amounted to the criminalization of policy differences)."

Is anyone crass enough to say the obvious; that is, that taking such an obviously indefensible position is bad for one's health. I guess I am. Another way to say this, a way imbued with the very right-wing christian beliefs held by those in attendance at last night's affair, "what goes around comes around."    

Oh poor guy. Rick Wagoner's Wall Street Journal letter makes some of the same arguments I made when my term paper wasn't done, but it also quashes the notion that with another loan you'll make it to the other side of this. I read all 13 paragraphs, but sank his position in the first 3.

I was busy mocking the extraction industry as savior of the current economic slump, and I left the tie-in to my mockery of the auto industry as savior of the current economic slump unfinished. But that's water under the bridge, or maybe over the bridge. Today we have an opportunity to set the economy on its head, shake out a few million pointless jobs in decrepit industries here and abroad, and I think it's silly to reflexively toss them a life preserver.

Not much time to post, but there’s some discussion of where Eric Holder would be on restoring the reputation of the Department of Justice. There’s been much written on the Marc Rich pardon - poorly handled, but a pardon with terms draconian enough that Rich never accepted it.

But there’s more worrisome stuff. Holder was rather supportive of the Administration’s views in the days following 9/11, that detainees and American citizens could be held indefinitely without trial “as long as the war was on” - which of course means forever. Holder does not seem worried about the lack of due process in Guantanamo or that the prisoners have any rights at all. Obama has decided on leaving a couple of primary architects of extraordinary rendition in place as well as Gates (formerly “Iraq 4-evuh”) in place, while Holder seems rather wobbly on some of the biggest justice concerns of the last 8 years.

Where would he stand on politicization of Justice? We don’t need or want a continuation of the Bush policy just in Democratic skin. We need an independent, non-political justice department.

Anyway, skim through the OpenLeft article including the interesting comments section and click on through to Glen Greenwald as well. (For example:

Contrary to what several commenters have suggested, it seems clear that Holder — in the 2002 interview — was not merely arguing that Guantanamo detainees should be denied “prisoner of war” status. He was arguing, explicitly, that they were entitled to no Geneva protections of any kind (as he put it: “they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention”). See here and here for further elaboration.

I think Gonzales put to rest forever that hiring an ethnic minority as AG will bring some sensitivity to human rights. Let’s read the fine print on the new candidate.

Gary Lawrence, director of Proposition 8's Mormon grassroots effort.

The Brethren [the top echelon of Mormon leadership] have felt that the best way to organize and pass the Proposition is to have an Ecclesiastical arm and a Grassroots arm to the organization ... The senior folks who run the grassroots are LDS at the coalition and are headed by Glen Greener and Gary Lawrence.

Here's Gary, back in August, firing up his Mormon brigades ...

Why Mormons Are In This Fight:

If same-sex marriage advocates [win], the whole structure collapses -- the family, the nation, and in time civilization itself. The time has come for those of us who believe that God, not man, created marriage ... to take a stand and defend it.

Here's Gary again from the summer, this time calling on Mormons from across the land to join the battle ...

How Mormons Are Going To Win:

While we ... are mobilizing thousands to walk precincts, you can help us from the comfort of your homes ... if you live in the Eastern or Central time zones, you can use free late-evening minutes on weekdays to call when Californians have just finished dinner.

Mission accomplished.

And how is Gary celebrating his victory?

By promoting his latest book, of course:

How Americans View Mormonism (Seven Steps To Improve Our Image)

Here's the author taking his turn on KSL5 TV:

My favorite piece of advice from Dr. Lawrence to his fellow Mormons:

"Just be yourself."

Perhaps the good doctor might consider that "being yourself" is a poor prescription for winning friends when "who you are" is someone willing to lead a campaign to strip your own child of his civil rights.

Meet Matthew Lawrence:

"Matthew is gay and is the son of Gary Lawrence, 67, who is the "State LDS Grassroots Director" for the state of California."

This kind of heartless crap really upsets me, and I think maybe I need to speak directly to Gary at this point.

What this says about you as a father, Gary, is why it's not surprising that you appear completely oblivious to the absolute incongruity of you, of all people, now touting your advice on the subject of improving Mormonism's image.

How about taking a moment to reflect on your own comments in that KSL interview?

"Thirty-seven percent of all Americans do not know a Mormon, and 55 percent of all Americans do not know an active Mormon. In fact, those who know one Mormon have a worse opinion of us than those who don't know any Mormons."

Gary, if you were the only Mormon I knew, and if I thought for a second that all Mormons were just like you, you can bet I'd have a pretty low opinion of Mormonism.

Considering how your own research indicates that the more people get to know you, the less they like you, how can your writing another book about Mormons (not to mention your going on the teevee to promote it) be viewed as anything other than a counterintuitive and boneheaded move? Your own findings would seem to suggest that perhaps the first step to improving the Mormon image would be for Mormon PR flacks like yourself to simply go away.

Here's my advice, Gary: When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Why not climb out of that hole, use some of the $212,463 that the Prop 8 campaign has so far paid you and Lawrence Research, and take the entire family on a nice vacation somewhere?

Your loved ones might appreciate that, and it would free up the airwaves for all those decent Mormons out there who we need to be hearing from ... and who are the only hope Mormonism's got for repairing the damage you've done.

This is all your doing, Gary.

Jan Shipps: A "Perfect Storm" of Bad PR for Mormon Church

Aravosis v. Utah

Own it.

Chino Blanco

There is no doubt in my mind that the removal of the uptick rule by Chairman Cox and the SEC in July 2007 - a rule that had been in existence for over 70 years - has been a major factor in the destabilization of the financial markets. Naked shorting has added another nail in the coffin.

I have nothing against short selling if it is done within the regulations, but the change in regulations by Cox has dealt a blow to market stability and, more importantly, Cox's failure to regulate properly and in a timely fashion has been a factor as well.

To show the extent of potential profits from illegal short selling, I paste in here an entry from an excellent website "Compliance Insights" (www.complianceinsights.com) which reveals the details of a recent SEC action in which two day traders, aided by a collusive brokerage house,
are alleged to have made over $2 billion in illegal profits over a one year period. Two guys, two billion, is just the tip of the iceberg of the illegal activity that plagues the markets. Add to this the increase in short selling because of derivatives, ETFs and futures, and you have a very unsafe market for traditional investors.

SEC Charges Day Traders in Short-Selling Scheme

"The SEC filed a civil injunctive action against 2 day-traders, Robert Beardsley and George Lindenberg, who allegedly perpetrated a manipulative short-selling scheme through brokerage accounts at a now defunct B/D, Redwood Trading.  In the complaint, the 2 engaged in a manipulative scheme by repeatedly shorting securities in violation of the then-existing "uptick" rule, with the intent to artificially depress the prices of shares that they had sold short in order to enable them to cover their positions at favorable prices.  In a related civil injunctive action, the SEC alleges that Dennis McNell, former CEO and COO of Redwood, aided and abetted their scheme and, in an unrelated fraudulent scheme, sought to hide substantial trading losses that he had incurred in a Redwood prop account. 

As part of their scheme, Beardsley and Lindenberg also failed to mark their orders as short sales in order to create the false appearance that their orders were long.  McNell enabled the scheme by disabling a feature of the trading software that was programmed to prevent violations of the uptick rule.  The two allegedly made $2.4bn in illicit gains in less than a year.  [SEC Litigation Release 20814, 11/19]"

Had they waited for the suspension of the uptick rule in July 2007, what they did would have been legal.

 Cox's suspension of the uptick rule legalized previously illegal behavior.

The news that Democrats allowed Joe Lieberman to keep his position as Homeland Security Chairman broke on Tuesday, November 18th, followed a couple of hours later by the revelation that Howard Dean (by Greg Sargent's understanding), suggested that this was the outcome Obama wanted.

Now to my point: It's fine to support Obama 100% of the time, or almost all the time if he happens to share your views always or almost always. Progressive Democratic politicians are right most of the time anyway.

But it's another thing to support a leader regardless of what his stance is on a given issue. That "whatever-you-say" attitude is incompatible with the workings of a critical mind.

Consider, for instance, the puzzling behavior of Tonnyb, a member of this community who 4 days before the decision on Lieberman, responded emphatically and unambiguouly to a blog post written by Greg Sargent in reference to Patrick Leahy's willingness to give Joe the boot.

Tonnyb (11-14-08): Lieberman, an active member of the republican election committee, shouldn't not [sic=should not] be rewarded the chairmanship. The spoils go to the winner. He is part of the losing team.

The same day, still November 14th, Greg Sargent scolded Lieberman defenders, observing that there is good reason to strip Lieberman of his chair.

Sargent (11-14-08): Some folks have wondered aloud why people are so bent on "punishing" Lieberman by stripping Lieberman of his Homeland Security chairmanship when he's going to have severely diminished powers next year in any case. As Geiger makes clear, it's not that complicated.

On some of the most pressing issues we face, Lieberman simply doesn't share the ideas or values of the Democratic Party. And given his performance as Homeland Security chair, Lieberman foes think stripping Lieberman of his post is, you know, better for the country. Some seem incapable of imagining that the push to oust Lieberman could be about anything other than revenge or that anyone could possibly oppose Lieberman simply because of his ideas, values, and governmental failures.

Tonnyb reacted positively to the post above, noting that Lieberman "embraced beliefs and values consistent with the politics of division as practiced by Atwater & Rove."

There is more: as recently as one day before the vote (Nov. 17), Tonnyb again reacts positively to a post by Sargent, who noted that even one of Lieberman's closest allies appeared to be turning on him, and that the political thing to do would be allowing Joe to keep his chair, while the "good governmental decision" would be to "give him the push".

Tonnyb (11-17-08):  "Lieberman could very well act to diminish Obama's favorability among Americans. Why give Lieberman the tools he needs to advance that?"

Even at the time Sargent broke the news of the vote in favor of Lieberman, Tonnyb was for ousting the Connecticut senator:

Tonnyb (11-18-08): "Organizations sometimes preserve their integrity by removing disloyal members. Perhaps those of us who disagree with the democrats decision are political neophytes as opposed to hypocrites."

Past this point,the "flop" begins. When Sargent announces that Howard Dean suggested that the decision was "what Obama wanted", Tonnyb is caught off guard (he was expecting Dem. leaders to boot Lieberman, as indicated in his prediction on the 17th, i.e., "I predict that Joe will lose his homeland chairmanship"). He now switches to protect-the-leader mode and downplays his previous anti-Judas talk. He now claims that he is not happy with the decision but decides to give Obama "the benefit of the doubt" because many times during the campaign he (Obama) "was accused of being wrong but turned out to be right".

This is what I will call a "180" degree turn, or "half-flip".

The full flip flop was completed yesterday, in a blog post entitled "The Obama "Kumbaya" Plan for D.C," Tonnyb, sees the light les than 24 hours after the vote, and wonders "why are so many of us angry (myself included)?" even though absolutely no anger is evident in his piece. Here, the member claims to be "still upset", an interesting thing to say in light of what followed: We are told that keeping Lieberman in his position is 'what we need".

Tonnyb (11-19-08): "The Lieberman decision is making more sense to me now. I'm still upset, but the Lieberman issue was lite. Energy, health care, economy are monumental. Having an historical inauguration without the political infighting, that the Lieberman confrontation would have fueled, is what we need."

That's right. At this point, Tonnyb wants us to believe he is upset while at the same time affirming that Democrats did what was necessary," opinion that he never entertained for the previous four days. His conclusion: "The leader sets the tone. "

Can you sense the anger? I can not.

Some of you need to develop an independent mind and more consistency in your beliefs.
Blog entries by the likes of Tonnyb should carry an expiration date, sort of like milk, reading "opinion best if sold before [enter the date of Obama's take on the same issue here]."

Andrea Mitchell says that Clinton will be SoS. According to her, Clinton and Obama had decided a while ago and that they kept it from their staff.

Jonathan Capehart says that the delay in the announcement has helped flesh out the sources of the leaks.

Later Updated: in response to JNagarya commentary:

I think the pundits are really perplexed as to how Obama could bury the hatchet with Lieberman and Clinton. As you remember, during the election Clinton said that while she and McCain had foreign policy cred, all Obama had was a speech. She also when asked by a reporter if Obama was a Christian, responded that as far as she knew he was, the implication being that maybe he isn't.

After Andrea Mitchell confirmed that Clinton would be nominated after Thanksgiving, the Morning Joe crew struggle to explain how Obama forgave Lieberman and Clinton their election "trespasses" and why he would name Clinton as SoS.

Chris Matthews said (paraphrased) "this guy is really a christian. This is loving your enemies, real Christian values that (addressing Buchanan) are hard to find in the world." Buchanan laughed that one off. Joe Scarborough (paraphrase) "this is New testament in action. He believes in unity and forgiveness."

Additionally, the nonsense question that has been repeated ad infinitum in the media echo chamber as to why so many former Clinton era appointees are being nominated and whether this is really change or a return to Clinton politics was finally addressed. Scarborough and others finally acknowledged that it is common to have appointees from previous administrations reappointed and that having Obama as president makes this administration different. Scarborough commented that although Reagan brought in Nixon's people into his administration, in a top down fashion, Reagan set the policies they were to execute, in effect putting his brand on his presidency.

            What does it say about a president whose one "accomplishment" is something that cannot be proven?  I'm referring to this constant drumbeat I am hearing nowadays about Bush.  In one form or another it goes something like this:  "Well at least we haven't been attacked since 911."  That's it - that's all you got to support why this outgoing president should receive some kudos.  I say, "Bah" and maybe even "Humbug." 

            Seriously, though, this statement is full of holes.  In debate, it's called a Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy.  Though I think it's simpler just to say say, "Bah, Humbug," this debate fallacy, often just referred to as the Post Hoc Fallacy, is quite common.  Essentially, it's the fallacy of supposing that because one event follows another, then the second has been caused by the first.  So Bush supporters say that because we have not been attacked since 911 (2^nd event or effect), then something Bush has done (1^st event or cause) is responsible. Do we know that no attacks have occurred because of something Bush did?  What is the empirical evidence that something he has done resulted in no attacks? It's like trying to prove a negative.  It cannot be proved or disproved.

Perhaps there have been no attacks because of you or me.  You know, I've been more security conscience since 911, so I am always on the lookout for suspicious activity.  And I suspect you have been too.  So perhaps, something we've done produced the same effect.  Yeah, it's far-fetched, but no more so than the notion that Bush is responsible for no attacks.  We hadn't had any attacks for years, who was responsible for that? How about no one tried to attack us, or had the will to, or whatever.

I think it is a sad commentary on Bush's presidency when the only thing his supporters can point to as an achievement is something intangible and something of which not one shred of empirical evidence exists to prove it.  I thought back on other modern presidents and found tangible achievements for each:

Eisenhower instituted the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 which produced 41,000 miles of Interstate highways and was the largest public works project to date providing thousands of jobs

Kennedy created the Peace Corps and also took a first step toward an end to nuclear proliferation in the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August 1963

Johnson's rollout of his "Great Society" program in 1965 was ambitious and included things like expansive aid to education, a "War on Poverty" and urban renewal. He also introduced Medicare and Medicaid to assist the poor with health care as well as signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Nixon, though he resigned to avoid impeachment, is given credit for helping to normalize U.S. relations with China, thus shifting a balance of power towards the West during the Cold War.  The first moon landing also occurred during his term.

Ford's persistence helped broker the first political agreement between Israel and Egypt which produced a cease-fire when the Sinai Interim Agreement was signed in September 1975

Carter instituted a comprehensive energy program conducted by the new Department of Energy and negotiated peace talks between Israel and Egypt during the Camp David Peace Accords

Reagan's relationship with Russian president Gorbachev is cited as a major factor in the end of the Cold War and also the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989/1990

Bush Sr signed a number of major laws in his presidency including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and he worked to increase federal spending for education, childcare, and advanced technology research.

Clinton oversaw a boom in the U.S. economy and the U.S. had a budget surplus under Clinton for the first time in 30 years

Bush Jr................umm....................well.............I got nothing

 

All of these accomplishments by former presidents resulted in definitive outcomes - they enacted a bill, signed a law, etc and the results are real, visible and easily defined.  Bush believers say he did something (what?) and nothing happened (no attack). Hmmm Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Also Non Sequitur which means it does not follow or it's not supported by facts.

In this eagerness to give Bush credit for no attacks since 911, one big fact has been overlooked. What say you to the fact that we actually did have an attack under G.W.Bush? It occurred on September 11, 2001 - on his watch. Oh yeah, that was Bill Clinton's fault. What's interesting is that you do not give Bush credit for an actual happening, but are eager to give him credit for something that didn't happen. Bah, Humbug!

I am so confused...I understand this is a serious matter, but are we talking about the health of the AT or the DOJ - both seem to be in dire straights, but salvageable....

The DOJ has now released a statement describing Attorney General Mukasey as "conscious, conversant and alert. His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits." The AG is currently at George Washington University Hospital and will remain there overnight for observation.

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I hope big business has noticed that the republican party, which it worked so hard to elect, is letting it bleed to death through a combination of gross incompetence and blind adherence to the philosophy of "free markets" that are free of "government interference".

Big business is unfortunately reaping what it sowed.  It has sponsored the ascension of a philosophy that dictates the government do nothing to interfere with business, thinking it would help them avoid regulation and taxation, but what it also got is a philosophy that denies the government itself bears any responsibility for the collapse of the economy, and does not have a responsibility to help fix the problem it helped create. 

It seems to be pretty well accepted that keeping interest rates too low led to a flood of cheap and easy credit, and that the SEC and others didn't keep companies leveraged at a reasonable level.  Greenspan refused to regulate CDS's, and congress deregulated investment banks (see Gramm; Phil). These seem to be the fundamental sources of all that followed: the failure of credit ratings companies, the insane asset bubble fueled by mortgages with virtually no underwriting standards in the pursuit of ever higher returns, balance sheets that were levered 30:1 rather than 12:1.  If indeed the root of the problem was federal inaction or irresponsibility, should the government not share in the costs of fixing it? 

The final perversity is that as the economy weakens and citizens become more vulnerable to severe problems, the government will be less able to help, because it will not have the revenue to do so, especially considering the debt we racked up under republican leadership.  And the less the government is able to help, the worse it will get, etc.  So it's impossible to say you are acting on behalf of your constituents when your inaction guarantees that you will do less for them, and the business community (through jobs, charity, etc.) will be unable to help either.

State and city governments are now being criticized for spending beyond their means, and many of them did.  But when people lose jobs, they stop paying state, local and federal taxes, so the local governments will have to raise taxes or cut services, and the state and federal governments will have to cut spending  - unless they use more deficit spending to finance the programs they needs to help their citizens deal with the sudden loss of income from their jobs. 

So if you loan the automakers 25 billion dollars, you know you have loaned them that amount.  If the industries collapse, and the government needs to finance itself through increased deficit spending, are you willing to bet, to even state publicly anywhere, that you think we will borrow only $25 billion?

So republicans have a message for big business, and Americans everywhere: Drop Dead

Politico, Jake Tapper at ABC, and CNN are now all reporting that Sen. Hillary Clinton will be offered the Secretary of State position by President-elect Barack Obama sometime after Thanksgiving.

I wanted to hold off on commenting about this appointment until it appeared definite.  According to members of the transition team, Clinton's financial disclosures have satisfied all remaining significant questions, clearing the way for her to replace outgoing Secretary Condoleezza Rice.

I've done a lot of thinking about Hillary Clinton since she met with Obama in Chicago.  I know the arguments against her being in that particular position.  She doesn't agree with Obama on foreign military policy.  She likes to be in charge.  She's got too much drama.  Her husband will meddle.  She'll try to upstage the President. 

Even with those arguments, I've come to this conclusion.  Obama's taking a risk with Clinton.  However, to use a poker analogy, Obama's getting ridiculously good implied odds on this bet, making it worth the risk.  Allow me to explain what I mean.

First, there's a concern, based on her primary campaign and some of her prior experience in the White House, that she won't play ball by Obama's rules.  However, Hillary Clinton has shown that she's a team player.  She's received accolades from both sides of the aisle since speculation about her joining Obama's Cabinet became public.  No surrogate campaigned harder for Obama during the general election, and she took major steps to get her supporters behind Obama. 

Then, I remembered a story I read about Clinton, dating back to her high school days.  The story roughly goes as follows.  She'd lost a close, tough race for class president.  Some time later, the president came to her and asked her to organize a major school event.  She could have told the president what to do with his offer.  However, she knew she was much better at organizing than he was, and she could perform a service for her school.  So, she swallowed any residual disappointment - and worked her heart out for a successful event.

I've often argued here that past is prologue.  Remembering that story made me realize that Clinton has always been perfectly capable of doing the job she has to do, regardless of the circumstances.

Second, there will need to be some very tough diplomatic messages sent by the Obama Administration.  Is there any question that she's qualified to deliver those messages?  Moreover, Clinton has relationships with many foreign leaders, and a good deal of respect around the world.  This will give her instant cachet in foreign affairs, and her voice will not be ignored when she represents us in the international halls of power. 

Third, with Clinton watching his back at State, Obama will be somewhat freer to focus on domestic issues (specifically, economic recovery and health care reform).  These are clearly major initiatives that will demand a lot of Obama's first term.  Also, I do not believe experience is the controlling factor here.  The ability to communicate smoothly, to engage in hardball when necessary, and to break down complex situations is going to be crucial, and Clinton certainly is quite able in all those areas.

Fourth, I don't think Bill Clinton will be nearly as much a problem as others do.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama frequently taps him for informal advice, especially on economic issues.  Besides, POTUS 42 would have had to curtail many of his post-White House activities if his wife had been elected President anyway. 

Fifth, I think Clinton does more to advance Obama's promises of diversity and independent thought in his Cabinet than any other pick possibly could.  She'll toe the line publicly, but she is neither in fear nor awe of Obama.  As a result, she will tell him (behind closed doors, natch) when she thinks he's off course.  Every leader needs someone who is unafraid to tell him the truth.  Obama certainly respects Clinton enough to listen to what she says, and that will make her a very influential Cabinet member.

Whatever else one can say about Obama's picks, there's no question that we will find out what he's made of a manager of people right away.  It takes an extraordinary temperament to even attempt Goodwin's "Team of Rivals" concept in modern government, and it takes a remarkable person to serve under someone you spent $250 million and over 12 months battling in a primary that almost rendered the general election an afterthought.. 

Hillary Clinton will play a pivotal role in the actual and perceived success of the Obama Administration.  And, for all the speculation about her intractability and dislike for Obama, she's been telling us all along that she intends to bloom where she's planted.  Her record shows this to be true.  I believe she will be ready to help steer our international efforts, and I look forward to this next chapter in her remarkable life.

U.S. Rep. Henry Brown introduced legislation Wednesday prohibiting the use of government funds to transport any terror detainees to the Navy brig in Hanahan from their current holding site at Guantanámo Bay, Cuba.

[. . .]

Two safer locations, Brown suggested, are the federal "supermax" prison in the high desert of Colorado or the maximum-security military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Both are "better equipped to securely and separately hold hundreds of individuals with ties to terrorists, from civilians," he said.

Brown, a Republican, called any decision to consider the Charleston area "a horrible mistake."

Schuyler Kropf, "Brown acts to bar detainees from brig", The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), November 20, 2008

Read more »

Cross-posted at River Twice Research.

So the G20 met over the weekend, and if there was any doubt before, there should be none now: the financial balance of power is shifting. China, Brazil, even Japan can all claim more sound economies than the United States, and they collectively let it be known that they would no longer take marching orders from the Washington consensus. They expect a voice, and they are not asking permission.

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As a wise man named King said (Rodney, that is) "Why can't we all get along?"
See "Why Can't We (at least pretend to) Be Friends?" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkS6qZg4mo4

SPREAD THE LOVE!! FORWARD THIS LINK TO A POLITICAL ADVERSARY!!

See more at http://parodyandson.blogspot.com

I don't want to waste Hillary on the SoS position. I want her in the Senate for the next 30 years...

Yes, she could do it and do it well, but so could lots of other people. Few have shown such aptitude for the Senate as she has demonstrated. Stay in the Senate, Hil, and take it over!!

Perhaps the REAL position President elect Barack Obama has offered to Senator Hillary Clinton is to be his National Security Advisor (NSA).  She 'is' a hawk after all and as he's stated in the past, he wants opposite views -- not 'yes' people.

NSA people don't have so much of a public job.  They work more 'behind' the scenes.  This would be giving Hillary a very important job; but also keeping her out of the mainstream media's eye.

Would Hillary be able to work without cameras starring at her?  That would interesting to see -- wouldn't it?

Perhaps it's really Governor Bill Richardson Obama has offered the Secretary of State position -- after all, he's the one with actual negotiating experience with our allies as well as some of our enemies.

I don't see this reported anywhere here abouts.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports that as of a few minutes ago Coleman's lead has shrunk to 158, with 38% of the precincts and 29% of the vote recounted.  Coleman's vote has been reduced by 146 and Franken's by only 89.

Michelle Obama has chosen Jackie Norris to be her chief of staff. Jackie was President-elect Barack Obama's Iowa state director.

From the Des Moines Register.

Norris, 38, is married to John Norris, a longtime Democratic operative and chairman of the Iowa Utilities Board. The couple have three young sons.

Prior to taking on her role as a top Obama adviser in Iowa, Jackie Norris was a high school government and history teacher.

However, she has been involved in Democratic politics in Iowa for more than 10 years. She was finance director to Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack's 1998 campaign and worked as former Vice President Al Gore's political director during the Democrat's 2000 caucus campaign.

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Damn now I have seen everything,

al Qaeda's #2 is channeling the KKK or somebody,

<i>"Al-Zawahri says in an audio message, which appeared on militant Web sites Wednesday,

He calls Obama a "house negro."</i>

It's sort of like when Rush the fat drug addict  played "Barack The Magic Negro" on His Show ....

Or when Sean Hannity had the anti-Semitic loon Andy Martin on his show to spread more distortions of Barack Obama's message ......

Tom Delay tried to claim Barack was a marxist or socialist at best .....

Of course Anthrax Coulter had to go all Godwin on us;

<i>"With one association after another, that is beyond the pale with Barack Obama, I feel like we are talking to the Germans after Hitler comes to power, saying 'Oh, well, I didn't know. I had no idea he was gonna be like this.' With this guy, Americans ought to know."</i> .....

Of course there is Joe Lieberman, he tried to make us afraid of Barack, but it did not work on us,

al Zawarhi that is a different matter it seems, he seems to fear Obama.

Who can forget Joe the plumber, we aren't really sure what he was after ... but fame, and making sure he could spread right wing dis-info about Barack.

Or right wing idiots like Mike Gallagher falsely claiming; <i>"that the Obamas don't believe in giving their children Christmas presents or birthday gifts."</i>

Jonah Goldberg (the clown who can't tell the philosophical difference between fascism and liberalism) falsely claimed <i>"cannot credibly talk of love of country while simultaneously dodging the word and concept of patriotism."</i>

At least in a New York Times Op-ed, columnist Bill Kristol provided evidence that he suffers from Obama Derangement Syndrome ... (The symptoms of this syndrome include a pathological hatred of Barack Obama and a willingness to believe any and every lie about him that makes its way into the blogosphere.) ... which lead to many many mistakes in his factually challenged word salads.

Or when the right wing Wurlitzer claimed he was a secret Muslim, (So secret he attends a Christian church for 20 years) talk about deep cover ......

Or paled around with terrorists ...

Man that must have hurt Ayman al-Zawahri' s feelings because he wasn't one of Barack's supposed terrorists friends.

Maybe that is why Zawahri is lashing out at Obama even before he assumes the mantle of leader of the free world.

I guess it is the enemy of my enemy thingie.

Rush, Delay, Kristol, Libermann, Coulter, Hannity, Martin, Goldberg, Palin, Gallagher, Joe the plumber, ... hmm, al Zawarhi sure picks some strange people to ally himself with.

Now that we have had some time to digest president elect Obama's landslide victory over John McCain I thought it was time to release my thoughts about this historic moment in Americas history. I think my thoughts come from a informed place because I have been following the election since he made his announcement in Springfield Illinois in 2007. My view of the entire race has a special twist.I'm black. Jaw dropping I know.

This victory has many obvious implications for the country and for American politics. But I think the single most overlooked dynamic is what it means for young black professionals such as myself. For the first time we have a positive national identity. I stress the word"positive". There have been a long list of negative black roll models over the years. Lets see....there was OJ, Michael Jackson(if he's still black), Marion Barry, Al Sharpton, and a real monster, the Wayans brothers just to name a few. What I'm saying is, for entirely to long we have been viewed as a side show act at a circus. The black bearded lady if you will.

But a funny thing happened on the morning of November 5th 2008. I woke up and said out loud "we have a black president". It seemed to good to be true. Especially since I never thought something of this magnitude could happen to us as black folk. After my normal morning run and coffee I set out to sell some drugs to the unsuspecting American public. I chose the Italian made blue pinstripe suit with the designer tie. My normal threads. I got to stay fly until I die. Most of my readers know this. When I Left my residence I received a smile from a neighbor that doesn't usually speak to me. I gave her one of my award winning smiles in return and thought nothing of it. Then at a local cafe people stared my direction a little more than usual. I just thought these people must be admiring my fresh ass suit or they were mistaking me for someone else. Then it dawned on me. These people see me in a new light because of our newly elected president. I call it "The Obama effect". Its when people see black people differently since Obama's emergence onto the national scene.

I asked a few other black friends of mine and they all agreed that they had noticed a little more attention from their co-workers and from interactions they had during the days and weeks following the election. People now have a new found respect for the black culture. Regardless of who people voted for they now see black people in a new light.

So goodbye fried chicken and fast black people jokes. Hello oval office. No more "wave caps" when we leave the house. Our president elect doesn't roll the streets of Chicago with his "doo rag" on so why should we? Its a new day in America and we now have a chance to redeem ourselves in the eyes of all people who held blacks to lower standards in the past. Lets use this chance to become a real part of America. No more embarrassing moments black people. Stop smoking crack and watching Jerry Springer. We don't need to star on the news every night do we? I'll say it since so few of us will. No more "nigga" talk. Its not a term of endearment. Its a derogatory word. As a rule of thumb, don't call your boys anything you wouldn't want white people to call you. Simple as that.

So, from this day forward lets all be proud to be black again. Black is back baby.

Julian

We track the Senator's downfall from the renovation of his house in Girdwood, Alaska, to the loss of his Senate seat.

Cross-posted at Project Vote's blog, Voting Matters

Weekly Voting Rights News Update

By Erin Ferns

Following an historic turnout in the 2008 election comes a flurry of election reform agendas from both sides of the battle over voting rights. Since November 4, some state lawmakers have seized on the success of early voting and Election Day Registration (EDR) as models for facilitating voter registration, while others appear to have been threatened by the heightened turnout and inspired to introduce restrictive voter ID and proof-of-citizenship bills for the 2009 legislative session.

Following what appears to be significant progress this year in closing participation gaps among historically underrepresented young and minority voters, we review Election Day stories in states with voter ID and EDR laws, and preview next year's legislative battle for election reform.

When I was a somewhat younger man, I worked at small non-profit which was run cooperatively. The folk in that small group were considerably more left-leaning than I, and we took real pleasure in exploring our different takes on the issues and society at large.

I would often gently scold my "Reagan is evil" friends--in the manner of a frustrated but patient Higgins--to remember that we lived in America, and our institutions were effective at rooting and stamping out the sort of behavior they were concerned about (Iran-Contra, et many al).

Alas, as this administration wreaked its merry havoc on the constitution, and as its minions worked to coarsen discourse, I journeyed several times through the stages of grief, and can now say with certainty that the country that young man imagined(?) is gone. My vaunted institutions did not stand against the evil, they were often its agents. The honest middle is a killing ground; a twilight zone where consideration of another's view is evidence of weakness.

It's often said of the Arab world that they respect only that kind of cynical strength that will do anything to win; sadly, I think the same must be said for Americans now. The insinuation of religious fervor into our politics has led us to dim place where it is difficult for many to distinguish between their candidate and our lord, and where certainty is the cool whole-cloth which covers lies as well as it comforts. 

In an environment where honest discourse is dis-allowed, it behooves us to go long, to fight for our 100%. After all, we're pretty damned sure we're right too. And just maybe, when we have brought the country of that young man back to life, our erstwhile political enemies will recognize it as the same thing they remembered and loved as well.

Hey, anything's possible.






 

In World War II, the auto industry practically shut down to build tanks and jeeps and etc.  So if the Big 3 disappear, where will we find the resources to defend ourselves should China decide they want to come over and collect on our debt?

The problem we have created is related to poor risk management.  With so few companies left in the US making cars, we lose three we lose them all.  Same is going to happen with banks.  It pretty much just did, but after the dust clears we will have fewer banks, even larger then before the collapse.  So again, we lose a few, we lose them all.  Credit cards?  MasterCard, Visa, and American Express.  We lose them, we lose them all.  Airlines?  How many are left?  What if we lost them.

To the hyper-rich, it matters not where those companies are.  They have their money in all currencies with gold and precious stones as well.  On a personal level, none of these CEOs are going to lose their positions in the financial hierarchies of the world because of how they no longer see themselves as Americans, but as citizens of the world.  Too bad they forgot to realize how their comforts are products of a wealthy society, not the society of the wealthy.   

President Elect Barack Obama ran his campaign saying the lobbyists needed to be taken out of Washington.  He said during a debate with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards that lobbyist definitely have influence on the politicians and that this influence must stop.  He said they would not have access to his administration.

Hillary Clinton during this same debate said, when asked if she would continue taking money from lobbyists, "YES I will, these lobbyists are people like nurses, etc..." 

Watch the video of this debate.

Now that Obama is soon to have his own administration -- what is one of the first things he does?  He is reported to have asked, who else, but Hillary Clinton (one of the biggest lobbyist friend in Washington) to be his Secretary of State.

Do you suppose that each country she visits as SOS might 'also' have lobbyists working for them?

There seems to be a meme building amongst many that Obama is all of a sudden is not going to be the anti-war candidate that he promises. Well,is this what he promised? Ever? As a little memory refresher I offer up for your reading pleasure the following speech.

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Suggested on a TPM post this AM, the image of Hillary as Lady Macbeth inspired a (slightly altered) recollection of the lines in Macbeth:

Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble,
Ere Barak's regal sum,
Something Clinton this way comes.

There is a saying in Spanish, "did we need such big saddlebags for such a short ride?"

You'd think I'd be happy to have all my past cynicism proved right... and so quickly, but I'm not... maybe if I lived on another planet, or if I were a future Chinese historian lounging in my comfortable study in Beijing a hundred years from now, chuckling as I read about the absurdity of America's slow motion drop into inanity, I would, but I'm not, so I wont.

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I don't mean to rain on the hope that the Democrats might reach the magic number of 60 -- I really hope they do -- but I thought I should point everybody's attention to two other Senators that nobody has mentioned yet: Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka.  Both named Daniel.  Both Democrats.  Both from Hawaii.  Both 84 years young (and born only 4 days apart).
 
Now, obviously they are still in good health and could easily serve out their terms with no cause for concern.  However, they are getting on in their old age, and should either of the Daniels be unable to serve or (heaven forbid) die in the next couple of years, they would likely be replaced by a Republican Senator because Hawaii's governor, Linda Lingle, is a Republican.  It also warrants mentioning that Lingle's term will be up in 2010 and she could be succeeded by a Democrat.  But, she might just as easily run for the Senate in 2010 against Inouye -- or run for an open seat if he retires -- and given her popularity among Hawaii voters, she could win it.
 
Just to carry the argument even further, Dianne Feinstein of California is 75, and Schwarzenegger could replace her with a Republican if she were unable to serve.  Of course, that's balanced out by Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who's 78, represents a state with a Democratic governor, and will be up for re-election against (possibly) Chris Matthews or the governor himself.

Josh Marshall asked for a catchphrase to replace golden parachutes.  Well, I think we just need to redefine the abbreviation.  These thieves are CEO, Cashing Everything Out.  It's a vivid description of someone leaving the poker table with their winnings rather then playing the game until the end.  Joe the Plumber may not get it, but it's because he is willfully blind and is focused on how UAW members still have a chance at a pension.  He' sees the pension as the problem rather then the broken promise.  After all, there are thousands of lone workers who lost their pensions, so why is the UAW so special.  Indeed!  Answer that question honestly and maybe we will see unions growing again.

 

PS - How many of the CEOs are Republicans and how many are Democrats?  It might be interesting to see the proportions.  First, I would guess that it would favor Republicans enormously, and second, that there are Democrats at the top of some corporations might surprise some people.  I am sure there are some taking the money and running on both sides. 

Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, three left during his first term -- one in disgrace, one in defiance and one in disgust.

Name for someone who gets a golden parachute before they ask the government for a bailout.  That's certainly how it feels to me....as a U.S. citizen.  

So I got an email from American Express today.  It's the second one in two months where they tell me (without providing a reason) that I'm going to get a spending limit decrease.

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By Lindsay Beyerstein, MediaWire blogger

It's official, former Sen. Tom Daschle will be Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services. Daschle will also serve as Health Czar, which means he will be in charge of developing Obama's healthcare program in addition to running HHS.

Ezra Klein writes in the Prospect: "This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress."

Ezra argues that Obama has learned the lessons of Hillary Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to reform healthcare in 1994. Ezra's view, the Clinton plan failed because its architects were so focused on crafting the perfect policy that they neglected to figure out how they were going to sell their plan politically.

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Update: How about the Golden Fleece? Nice classical ring to it, play on the original meaning. More TV friendly than....

Golden Ejection? In the spirit of bailing out before the plane crashes, and pulling the eject lever, how about Golden Ejection? OK, so it sounds vaguely sexual, but not overtly. In the end, I guess we are seeing that the captains of industry don't go down with the ship.

Original post:

Platinum Escape Pod? That's my entry, as per Josh's front page challenge. I like the notion that as the spaceship is about to explode, a lucky few jump into the pod and escape, Star Wars style.

Need a Catchphrase

In our new economic era, I think we need a new catchphrase for CEOs like Mack Whittle of the South Financial Group, who pushed up his retirement ahead of schedule so he could bag his mega-Golden parachute a few weeks before he sent his company hat in hand to the government for bailout funds.

Total bailout for Whittle's company: $347 million. Total parachute for Whittle: $18 million.

Seriously, what's the catchphrase? Because I think we're going to see a lot of this.

Anyone else have an idea?

On the possibility of big three auto company "bailouts," I am seeing lots of commentary on this site wihich seems unaware of the following situations.

Reported November 19 in the New York Times Business Section, as well as elsewhere:

A Sea of Unwanted Imports: Unsold Foreign Cars Hogging Space at California Port, filed from Long Beach, California.

In the print edition, there was also  a chart illustration showing unsold inventories way up for Mazda, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda, Volkswagen, Subaru, Toyota and BMW and refers the reader to another news item:

Facing a Slowdown, China's Auto Industry Presses for a Bailout From Beijing, filed from Guangzhou, China.

The port article itself mentions another situation at the Long Beach port: their single largest export is also piling up, recycled cardboard and paper which typically goes to China to pack the products they sell.

Then, we have this situation:

Advantage of Corporate Bankruptcy Is Dwindling

in which examples are given of failing companies choosing to shut down and liquidate rather than reorganize because they cannot obtain the financing to operate while they reorganize.

I am seeing lots of arguments that seem to be unaware that this is a global recession, this is not your garden variety U.S. recession. Jobs are going to be in short supply worldwide. In the short term, if you downsize American business, if you are arguing, for example, that "tough medicine" for "Detroit" is necessary to get their act together as they have not before, you will benefitting the workers of foreign companies and calling for higher unemployment in the U.S., at least short term. If a U.S. citizen needs a new car, they have them sitting there in Long Beach, and they will sell them cheap. Sure, long term, innovation and the smart consumer will prevail, and maybe we've still got both those things. But in the short term, and I am talking a couple of years or a decade, any tough medicine you prescribe for the auto companies, you or your family or friends may also eventually have to take in the lack of jobs.

I think the global economy is evolving right this minute, and the winners and losers in the new global economy are being chosen. It may even be the right thing to let the auto companies fail.I don't have any answers and I pray the new administration has some. But I don't see any benefit in arguing for "tough medicine" without the realization that much of the world is in the same boat as us, as if we are alone in the world. This is not the same old same old auto or airline company bailout situation. Realize the ramifications of what you are asking for.

I was watching CNN this morning. They ran a piece about a civics literacy quiz that was conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Their major findings:

- Americans Fail the Test of Civic Literacy
- Americans Agree: Colleges Should Teach America's Heritage
- College Adds Little to Civic Knowledge
- Television--Including TV News--Dumbs America Down
- What College Graduates Don't Know about America

The results are appaling. One ramification: lack of civic literacy = indifference to civil liberty. (Perhaps the aforementioned is melodramatic, but I had to attempt a clever write-bite...)

Take the quiz here. It is only 33 questions. Good luck and share your thoughts.

This seems like such a no-brainer: the catchphrase is Golden Shower; which is a more accurate description of Reaganomics; the one about which Cheney said "We learned under Reagan that deficits don't matter."

Remember this whole bailout thing the next time someone criticizes Nader; he of the "Just say no to corporate welfare" statements. Gloss it with whatever one wishes: that's what this is: corporate welfare. I've seen junkies and meth addicts in my neighborhood and the results of their binges: toothless, wasted, staggering into the harm reduction clinics; and alcoholics on their last leg. People who go on binges like those suffer the consequences; but so do we.
But once they reach the bottom, as a society we do not tend to support their continued binging and self-destruction, lest we harm our commonality, our community, ourselves, in the future.

And that is exactly what will happen here: if we, we the culture and society, support these entities in their self-destruction, we will harm our selves; it may be over the long run, or it may happen over the short run. This model we've built is unsustainable.

One way or another, we will learn that lesson. That, to me, cannot be debated.

I only wonder to what extent, if any, this apparently broad support for the bailout indexes a proclivity to fascism among the population of those supporting a close relation between the state and private corporations.

During this most recent financial misadventure many of you have written in asking: "Mr. Economist, how can I plug into that steaming pile of government bailout cash?"

 

Well back in the day, you couldn't, but thanks to the tireless efforts of visionary government deconstructionists like William Philip Gramm, James Albert Smith Leach, and Thomas Jerome Bliley, Jr., we all may be able to get a proverbial foot in the door to TARP.

 

Ask yourself the following questions:

 

1. Do you directly or indirectly own, control, or have the power to vote 25% or more of a class of securities of a U.S. bank?  Let's say a large, yellow, plastic cat filled with 20 years worth of collected loose change....

 

2. Is said "bank" adequately capitalized and managed?  Is the large, yellow, plastic cat filled more than half-way?  Do you keep it in a safe-ish place?

 

3. Is all the "capital" in said "bank" U.S. legal tender secured for all debts, public and private?  No Canadian pennies, washers or coin shaped chocolates wrapped in gold foil?

 

 

If you can answer yes to all of these question AND donated significantly to the campaign of the proper ruling party, then all you have to do is apply to the Federal Reserve as a "Bank Holding Company" to get your fair share of the financial safety net being cast out to rescue most important caste of our society... those too rich to fail.

This is a much bigger deal in many ways than so many before have commented.  Dingell is an absolute dinosaur as chairman and Waxman will be a doer not a talker.

He needs to convince Barack, right now, that $15 billion/year for 10 years on alternative energy subsidies if a friggin' joke.  Try $40 billion/year for 10 years.  We need to break the back of Exxon for good!

What a great day for a truly Green America!!!

The California Supreme Court decided today that it will hear the issue of constitutionality of Prop8, probably in March. So many lawyers think this is a reach, that I am not hopeful. Six months of joy and euphoria, now we enter six months limbo, waiting for a crash.

Unexpectedly, the justices have also requested arguments on the legitimacy of the approximately 18,000 existing marriages, which had not been directly brought up in these suits.

I find myself in unexpected tears at my desk. I feel completely violated and dehumanized. Lawyers in court will argue whether or not our marriage is "real" or "valid", over our protests. People who do not know us, or care about us, will presume on the "validity" of our marriage.

Are we slaves? Are we comatose? It's degrading, as though we have no say about this. Are we people, human beings? Apparently not. We are mere objects that bigots will revile, and our fundamental humanity denied. The clinical distance and detachment of the judicial process makes us things, not real loving people.

It feels like that Youtube ad I posted before, where the two men force their way in the home to tear up the marriage license of two women. It feels violating. It really does.

This isn't getting any easier.

(cross posted at Friends-of-Jake)
Blog badge:  This blog supports gay marriage, can be downloaded at Friends-of-Jake. 

One of the big questions right now is what will happen to the Obama Movement now that its leadership is shifting from insurgent campaign to governance. Will they try to keep it alive from the WH, from the DNC? Allow it to spin off as an independent organization a la Democracy for America?

That's the question Micah Sifry asked of organizing guru (and my organizing trainer and mentor on the Dean campaign and at the DNC) Marshall Ganz. Many of the field leaders in Obama's organization are Ganz proteges, and they brought him in to lead the Camp Obama trainings attended by 23,000 organizers.

So, while no one knows what will happen yet, Marshall is worth listening to on this front:

Obama should pull the plug on Hillary. What's with all the maneuvering? And what "concessions" does Bill have to offer? Dealing with the Clintons is impossible. She may be a good fit for the job, but so are lots of people. Send her back to the Senate and move on. I'm tired of these people.

Hey Josh,  in response to http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245163.php, I don't have a catch phrase for the current era just yet, but I have one for the era that's just ended:

The Age of Corpulence.

Fat people in fat SUVs with fat paychecks to pay for fat McMansions based on a fat (aka false) economy.

Single Payer Health Care Would Help Auto Industry

While I originally wrote this in January of 2007, concerning the cost of health care to consumers and service provided, it is equally applicable to the savings for the auto industry and every other industry, as well. And that is not my opinion, that is the opinion of the successful auto industry management. The ones that aren't asking for a bailout. At the time I wrote this in 2007, each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197. Probably more savings now since this was written nearly two years ago:

In U.S., it's pay more, get less - Universal Health Care

In U.S., it's pay more, get less:

"A RELATIVE BARGAIN: George Mercieca, a worker at a GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, shows off his Canadian health care card. GM spends an average of $1,385 a year on medical bills for hourly workers in Canada. An American autoworker costs the company about $5,000, but studies show Americans are no healthier than their foreign counterparts."

He is smiling because he has a great job with better medical benefits than most Americans could ever hope for under our failed healthcare for profit system. The kind of job that Connecticut , and the USA as a whole, can never hope to attract under our current system. If you do not believe me than ask youself "what does the manufacturing industry have to say about this?"

While training issues are less of a problem here in Connecticut, because we have a decent educational system, healthcare is cited as a major issue for Toyota's decision to chose Ontario as the location of a new factory for their Rav-4s slated to open in 2008:

"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.

Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.

"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.

The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.

The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.

In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.

"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.

It is clearly an advantage for any company that wants to open up a business in any industry... A 4 to 5 dollar per hour advantage. An advantage so great that any state that passes true-single-payer Universal Healthcare first will be positioned to become a mecca for any company considering opening any kind of business.

We already have an educatinal advantage over the most of the USA, having a highly rated school system and a high rate of college graduates. Why the hold up on giving these businesses the real money savings that Universal Healthcare would provide and the other best reason to set up shop in Connecticut?

Because of lobbying from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We need to take them out of the loop in the decision making process for this issue since we know they will fight it tooth-and-nail. We need to look at what is best for the people of Connecticut and for all industries, not just those two lobbying behemoths.

And just how much more is health care costing us?

Medical bills soar

Divide the nation's medical bill evenly across the population, and each of us paid $6,102 in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's 50 percent more than the residents of the country with the next-highest health care bill, Switzerland ($4,077), and more than double the average for industrialized nations ($2,546).

...snip...

Those countries provide health care for all their residents for less money than the United State spends while it leaves an estimated 46 million without insurance.

That's contradicted by studies conducted by Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "We have about the same number of MRIs and CT scanners as Canada, the U.K. and France, and far fewer than Japan," Anderson said. "We have the same number of doctors, doctor visits, hospitals and inpatient days at hospitals.

"The difference is we pay two to 2 1/2 times more for virtually identical services."

The average U.S. physician earned $180,000 in 2004, Anderson said; in Canada, it was $100,000 (in U.S. dollars).

Even after adjusting for the higher income of U.S. residents, Americans pay on average $2,000 more per year for health care than the residents of the next-highest paying country, Anderson said.

One out of every seven dollars spent today in the United States goes for health care -- a record 15.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available. By comparison, Canada spends 9.9 percent of its GDP; Japan spends 8.0 percent.

By 2015, one out of every five dollars spent in the United States will go for health care, according to projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If those projections hold, the average American's share for medical needs alone will be a staggering $12,320.

For all that money, you would expect Americans to be healthier than their foreign friends. The opposite is true.

Whoa! They are healthier than us, and they pay less? It is not just a monetary cost:

# If you're born in the United States, chances are that you'll die younger than people born in other industrialized nations. The United States has the lowest life expectancy of 14 nations measured by the World Health Organization. U.S. life expectancy in 2001 was 77.1; Canada, 79.7; Italy, 79.8; Japan, 81.5

# The infant mortality rate is higher in the United States than in other industrialized nations. In 2003, seven infants died for every 1,000 live births in the United States -- the worst rate of 19 countries measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

I am thinking that anyone that is really PRO-LIFE, and not just talking about it for political reasons, would have to be shocked by those infant mortality rates. Why aren't they screaming about this issue? If they are really honest about being pro-life than they should be our allies on true Universal Heathcare.

A s for manufacurers, just how much profit margin can healthcare open up for them?

Those vehicles, often parked on the same dealer lot as identical vehicles produced in U.S. plants, have one notable difference: Each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197.

The higher salaries of Canadian autoworkers offset much of the health care savings for the company, said Jim Cameron, labor relations director for GM Canada. But at the cash-strapped automaker, such a huge health care cost differential is hard to ignore. The difference is primarily a result of Canada's national health care system, in which most medical bills are paid by the government. Most countries have similar systems.

WHAT THE FUCK!!! The GM employees get higher wages up there too? And GM still racks up more profits from production up north in Canada then they can down here? How much more of this are you Nutmeggers willing to take?

Can you imagine the shockwave across the nation if a car manufacturer or some other large industry chose to locate in Connecticut over other states or countries... And it could happen.

Do you want to continue to pay more just to get less? Less healthy workers, less money, less jobs, less profit for industry as a whole.

Why not get more? More people that actually have coverage? More healthy workers that are more productive? More savings in healthcare for us and for industry? More manufacturers picking Connecticut as their destination of choice? More smiles on Nutmeggers' faces.

Universal Health Care is the answer to everyone getting more.

_________________

It might be the answer to save US industry.

There is an off the shelf answer sitting there getting dusty. Ask Rep. John Conyers, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and the other cosigners about H.R. 676. It would be a huge step towards helping every industry in this nation become competitive.

If you need to know about a health care plan that can fix many of the problems with our privatized ripoff:

The United States National Health Insurance Act

H.R. 676

"Expanded & Improved Medicare For All"

*introduced by Reps. John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McDermott and Donna Christensen

"National health insurance is not only the best answer,

it is the only answer to eliminating health disparities."

If you live in CT-05 you may want to know that Rep. Chris Murphy has yet to sign up as a co-sponsor to this bill. Ya think it is time to remind him how important H.R. 676 is to all Americans?

Rep. Chris Murphy's contact info

Chris Murphy
(202) 225-4476,
1 Grove Street, New Britain CT 06053

If you live elsewhere... Please consider contacting your Congress critters, as well.

This video is very sad. I am sad for our country and for the world. I hope the 20 or so percent who still approve of Bush get to see this. These leaders blame Bush for the global financial crisis, the effect of which has yet to be be fully realized. If he has not felt any shame before this, I think he must of felt it in this situation.

I think this says more about the state of the world economy then anything else I have seen or read so far.

If you found this post enjoyable or believe others might benefit from reading it please recommend. Thanks.

Cross-Posted From: The End of the American Century 

The election of Barack Obama sends a signal to the rest of the world that the U.S. will rejoin the global community.  Global leaders and citizens alike seem prepared to welcome back the U.S. with President Obama leading the way--both because of who he is and what he says.

If we surprised ourselves by electing a black man as our President, the rest of the world was even more impressed.  Even our adversaries are likely to take notice of the change.
As Britain's Economist magazine put it, in its endorsement of Obama as "the next leader of the free world"

"Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham."

He is widely seen as a leader who is open to the views of others, and willing to work with other countries. France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a handwritten letter of congratulations to the U.S. President-elect, said

"your election raises immense hope" in Europe and beyond, "of an open America. . .that will once again lead the way, with its partners, through the power of its example and the adherence to its principles."

David Cameron, the leader of Britain's opposition (Conservative) party, said Obama's victory has restored America's status as a "beacon of hope."

Obama enjoys amazing level of support all around the globe. Last summer in Berlin, 200,000 Germans turned out to cheer him--reminiscent of the celebration of President Kennedy during his 1963 "ich bin ein Berliner" speech. A BBC poll of 22,000 people in 22 countries in September found 49% favoring Obama to win, compared to just 12% for McCain. In every single country, more people supported Obama than McCain.

The Economist conducted their own (unscientific) online poll of some 53,000 readers around the world, with Obama winning by a margin of more than five to one. His global victory was even more lopsided if you allocate those votes by country according to size (the way the Electoral College does for states). In this global "electoral college" Obama collected 9115 votes, compared to a paltry 203 for John McCain. In 56 countries, at least 90% backed Obama.

In the Arab and Muslim world, deep skepticism of U.S. intentions remains. But there were voices of hope even in those countries, and marvel at the election of a black man whose father was from a Muslim family. The Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat saw Obama's victory as "a message" repudiating the policies of the Bush administration.

 

"Obama's election was a message against such destruction, against unjustified wars, wars that are fought with ignorance and rashness, without knowledge of their arenas or the shape of their surroundings. . . .It was a message against the pattern that became a burden on the U.S. and transformed the U.S. into a burden on the world." (Reported in the New York Times).

This language is, to say the least, a back-handed compliment to the U.S. It is also emblematic of the way people in many countries--and not just the Arab world--feel about the U.S. and the global role it has come to play. So the U.S. has a lot of global PR work ahead of it.

Fortunately, President-elect Obama is aware of these problems and committed to redressing them. In his book The Audacity of Hope, he acknowledges that in foreign policy "our record is mixed." At times, he writes, American policies

"have been misguided, based on false assumptions that ignore the legitimate aspirations of other peoples, undermine our own credibility, and make for a more dangerous world."

He writes there of the need for the U.S. to be more cooperative and multilateral in dealing with other countries, and to rely more on persuasion than intimidation: "No person, in any country, likes to be bullied." He favors U.S. policies that "move the international system in the direction of greater equity, justice and prosperity" and observing the "international rules of the road."

"When the world's sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following, and robs terrorists and dictators of the argument that these rules are simply tools of American imperialism."

In an article last year on "Renewing American Leadership" in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs, Obama acknowledged that "in the wake of Iraq and Abu Ghraib, the world has lost trust in our purposes and our principles."  But the U.S. could regain that trust by "understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity." If we want to lead the world, he argues, we must do so "by deed and by example."

Barack Obama often invokes the names, the language, and the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. These two men, more than any other presidents in this century, inspired citizens of the United States as well as those of many other countries. FDR's ideals and policies, in particular, helped launch the American Century. Perhaps Barack Obama can begin the process of rebuilding the United States. As he wrote in Foreign Affairs, "it is time for a new generation to tell the next great American story."

This new story, however, is unlikely to look much like the previous one.  The U.S. has changed, but so has the rest of the world.

Annette Gordon-Reed wins the National Book Award for non-fiction. Wow! She deserves it. I have been ensconced between the pages for several weeks. I am afraid to read it too fast because it is such a great read. I especially appreciate the picture painted by Gordon-Reed of Sally and James Hemings in Paris after the American Revolution and before the French Revolution.

It is the first account of American history that I have read where Sally Hemings and her family have and are allowed personhood.

Mitt Romney might not have realized it but in the first three paragraphs of his editorial in today's New York Times, he makes a strong case for nationalized universal health care and stronger social security entitlements. After all, health insurance costs and retirement pensions are the two biggest burdens the US automakers must shoulder that their foreign competitors do not.

Hi there, come on in.  Very late, I'm sorry to keep you.  Another long and exhausting day spent dealing with aggravations and problems galore.  You, too?  Believe me, I completely understand.  Give me your coat, have a seat on the sofa and make yourself comfortable.  Warm beverage in a mug or chilled wine in a glass?  The choice is yours ... as it always is in my living room.  Leave the world outside behind the closed door.  Relax.  Take a deep breath and let it all go away. 

No need to respond, silence is a beautiful addition to the peace we've found here together.  Yet, should I notice the secret smile - will you tell me why?