Biden said the administration had misread how bad the economy was.
This in spite of the prior administration obligating taxpayers to over a trillion dollars to fix it.
I guess it depends on your definition of bad.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31745563/ns/politics-white_house/
Palin has no clue. About basketball or politics. If you aren't willing to mix it up in the paint with the big guys and step up your game, its over.
I think she very much wanted to play on her terms. When that didn't work out she said screw this. Alaska is a very small stage in relative terms. Stepping onto the national stage and getting pretty well battered around could easily sour anybody's love of the game. Only very special people have what it takes to play at that level.
I caught this piece today and the headline portrays the idea that persons who are unemployed somehow bear responsibility for slowing the recovery. Maybe I have taken it wrong but the way it is expressed coveyed this to me. I waited a while to post this, looking at it a number of times and still came up with the same sense.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31709420/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/
This speaks for itself. It bums me out to write about it so I'll just post this and hope people read it.
I am not sure if I am in favor of this or not. At best I'd have to say I am ambivalent. I did several tours in SEA during the Vietnam period so I have some idea of what this is about.
Our men and women in arms are among the bravest of Americans and I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that where our own country isn't acting in our best interests they would be the first to step up. After all they have sworn to protect us from without and from within. This tells us that people are rethinking the direction where the prior administration took us and are recognizing the flaw and perhaps uselesness of our foreign adventures. The use of force is only useful where you explicitly define the mission and can be sure of the outcome. This is especially true for tactical warfare such as we are engaged in. Afghanistan may have been viewed as strategic in the beginning but has undoubetdly become a tactical mission.
Read here to get still another presentation of how abusively corporate Amercia wields its power over our government and citizens.
If ever congress was in a position to reduce the power and thus the ability of corporations to harm America right now is it. This is a desperately needed action. Relative to the harm that has been wrought upon this nation by corporate America there can be little doubt they are enemies of democracy. As enemies go they are completely vulnerable right now and congress needs to take advantage of that vulnerability. To pass up this chance is lunacy.
This is right out of the twilight zone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3683270/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/
It refers to an UNEXPECTED decline in consumer confidence.
Wall Street prognosticators are dumbasses in the same realm with all the dumbasses who have so mismanaged the nations economy.
Jobs in the toilet, wages declining, costs for everything going up and a congress that can't grab its ass with both hands and these people somehow think we should be confident.
I don't want these stupid bastards having anything to do with our elected officials. Our elected officials are already challenged enough without risking the stupidity of Wall Street rubbing off on them.
Democratic excuseniks in congress saying we don't have the votes are a bunch of cowards who just roll over and raise the white flag. Having and keeping a nation free is hard work and takes dedication and commitment.
Democrats are relying on a few members of the caucus and upon Obama who is hedging on this, to trash what the American people have clearly stated they want.
What the democratic caucus really wants is money. Lots of it.
Wiithout hesitation democrats and congress are willing to promote an increasingly and very obviously corrupt system of governance.
No matter what issue is under consideration, what citizens have indicated they want or what is obviously required or practical, congress very reliably chooses the money.
The bottom line is any and all of our elected offiicials have proven themselves liars and criminals over and over. The openly and obviously corrupt system of governance which repeatedly harms citizens has got to stop.
It could not be more clear that democracy is at serious risk. The choices this congress makes on health care, finance, energy and a host of other important issues will define global democracy for a long time to come. The current political makeup of our government will never be more conducive to saving democracy than it is right now. If our elected officials take a pass on this opportunity, global democracy is done. No matter what they say from here on out the chances of reversing their error are nil. The threads of corruption will have been woven so tightly into the fabric of our society that the only alternative for undoing it will be to burn it to the ground.
After months of digging through all the Madoff mess, $5.1B turns up that can't readily be accounted for. I am getting the distinct feeling that a lot goes on in the world of finance that is more than a little screwed up in multiple ways. I'd be willing to bet and give astronomical odds that there exists fraud beyond anyone's imagination throughout the world of finance.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510209/ns/business-small_business/
This is a letter I just mailed this morning to Barack my senators and congressman.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Saving consumers and taxpayers billions or trillions of dollars isn't in the interest of corporate America or of congress. Both have an opposing interest. That is, their interests are in opposition to the interests of the general population.
It could not be more evident that what is going on is criminal. However, congress and government in general have chosen to express this differently. Congress has expressed this pseudo-intent in order to obfuscate what is apparent criminal intent. And the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of this pseudo-intent and thus is party to the criminality. The proof of this criminally culpable pseudo-intent is in the result. Always examine the stated goal and then measure the one obtained. The differential is an expression of the effectiveness of the ruling body to deliver a workable solution. The measurement also specifies that where the obtained result is consistently undesirable, there exists a clear probability of a conflict of interest and a likely obfuscation of true intent. When this apparent obfuscation of intent ends in serious harm to the general state of the nation, extending to the broader population, it becomes rather obvious that the threshold of criminality has been met or exceeded.
It is thoroughly impossible to examine how our federal government has transformed its viewpoint and obligation to citizens over the years and not see the demonstrable shift of allegiance. The harmful outcomes produced reflect this shift of representation and make an unambiguous statement of inequality and corruption. An objective examination reveals an ethical collapse of epic proportion. This assertion is most evident and fully supported by the frequency with which our elected officials stand before this country and misrepresent or lie about the facts of a situation. This is the norm. Not the exception. Throughout my lifetime my government has repeatedly, inexcusably and increasingly produced results which have brought great harm to this country.
In the final measure, congress and our government are either grossly inept or thoroughly corrupt. There is little question that the evidence points to the latter. The only hope of reversing this is by renouncing the falsehood where it has been specified that the attributes of citizens are in equal measure those of corporations. Corporations are not citizens in any way shape or form. The contentious relationship between citizens and corporations clearly establishes this most evident of facts. Please bear in mind that this contention has changed completely over the last sixty years. It was one a hallmark of the relationship between government and business. This lie, without a doubt, translates to criminal intent. Only through the intentional distortion of simple logic and common sense is it possible to arrive at this undeniably false conclusion. That this is intentional and false renders all your actions derived of it as criminal in nature. No matter if a court rules this so or not does not alter the reality of the outcome.
I condemn, without reservation, everything you do that preserves and promotes the immensity of this fraud that you have visited upon my country.
Here we have another bad side effect of how the restructuring of the retirement system in the U.S. has ended in seriously harming working Americans.
Back when funded retirements were replaced by the 401K retirment plan it was hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread. That has proven false and here we have further proof of the erosion of middle class Americans ability to exercise even minimal control on their own well being.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31488492/ns/business-personal_finance/
As indicated by this action I am inclined to expect that there will be continuous contribution adjustments made by companies that are in some way connected to profits. This will lead to an unpredicatble and unreliable ability to save for retirement. It will compromise any assurance of a secure retirement. The other thing it will do is force people to work longer and likely face declining wages in later years because of being coerced into having to compete with entry level workers. All while facing an ever increasing cost of living.
So far congress hasn't done one thing to address all the hundreds of billions (trillions?) of 401K dollars lost by working Americans. This will just make the problem even worse.
It should be noted that this is consistent with everything else happening such as credit card rates going up, gas going up in spite of weak demand and all the othe telltale indicators of a major rip off underway.
This is one of the most surprising Supreme Court rulings I have seen in a long time. In spite of the certainty of environmental damage, the court ruled to allow dumping of mining waste into an Alaskan lake.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31490416/ns/us_news-environment/
This reflects the conservative court we have and in particular the Chief Justice's long history of supporting and working for business interests.
I'd have never thought we would witness a return to a bygone era where we dump (knowingly or not) toxic materials into the environment.
Democrats are expressing concern that they don't have the votes to pass the Obama health care plan.
Polling indicates a solid majority of citizens are in favor of the WH plan which contains the contentious single payer alternative. The latest NYT polling indicated 72% of citizens favored a bill which contained a single payer option. Conversely it was also indicated that there was uncertainty of how to pay for it.
Why then is congress unable to muster the needed votes? This would appear as another instance of congress being unresponsive to their primary constituents, citizens, instead bending to pressure from lobbyists who, coincidentally (not), control the flow of dollars from political action committees to campaign coffers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31467718/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
In the end it would seem that any and all statements from our elected officials who have condemned runaway health care costs are at best disingenuous. A vote not to change this says so.
Or, as is all too often the case, is congress going to sell the country down the river in support of their private agenda and keep the gravy train of the health care industry chugging along?
Barack Obama stated in his comments recently:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
There is a fly in the ointment here because the perceived notion of universal rights ARE NOT universally held. Were that true we would have a very different world than the one we are confronting. Ideas of the world as held by citizens of the U.S. and the reality differ. As long as we are unwilling to make an accommodation for that reality we will be at odds with other political units around the world. Pressident Obama, like many before him, has failed to acknowledge this. We can try to change this but it places us in direct conflict with other political units which take exception to our projecting our ideas upon their societies. We reject, out of hand, any idea of China or Iran or any other nation projecting their concept of governance and social order upon us. Why then do we think we hold any right to project ours upon them? Arguments of moral authority don't hold up very well either. That is unless you are willing to close your eyes to our many transgressions and those of U.S. corporations.
Until we honestly and objectively address the social, political and financial disenfranchisement of various classes of persons in our country it is hypocritical to project our ideals upon others.
