Friday, July 22, 2011
UK Phone Hacking:
The crucial difference between behavior of WikiLeaks and News of the World is whose privacy was violated. WikiLeaks embarrassed two-faced, secretive governments and corporations. The News of the World violated the privacy of individual human beings for PROFIT.
Raw Story: Wall Street Journal: WikiLeaks worse than News of the World
"The News Corporation-owned Wall Street Journal blasted 'self-appointed media paragons' who were quick to attack the British tabloid News of the World but not the release of classified information by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks.
The tabloid, also owned by News Corp., closed down after an investigation revealed it had participated in the phone hacking of celebrities, British politicians, the families of terrorist attack victims, dead soldiers and others.
'The damage caused by WikiLeaks almost certainly exceeded what was done by News of the World, precisely because Mr. Assange and his media enablers were targeting bigger—if often more vulnerable—game,' Bret Stephens, a deputy editor for the Journal, wrote in an editorial published Tuesday..."
The Federal Budget:
Dean Baker: President Obama's Big Deal: Cuts for Social Security, But No Taxes for Wall Street
"The ability of Washington to turn everything on its head has no limits. We are in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Even though the recession officially ended two years ago, there are still more than 25 million people who are unemployed, can only find part-time work or who have given up looking for work altogether. This is an outrage and a tragedy. These people's lives are being ruined due to the mismanagement of the economy.
And we know the cause of this mismanagement. The folks who get paid to manage and regulate the economy were unable to see an $8 trillion housing bubble. They weren't bothered by the doubling of house prices in many areas, nor the dodgy mortgages that were sold to finance these purchases. Somehow, people like former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and his sidekick and successor Ben Bernanke thought everything was fine as the Wall Street financers made billions selling junk mortgage and derivative instruments around the world....
...It is striking that a financial speculation tax (FST) has not been mentioned in the debt discussions. The European Union has been actively debating the imposition of a FST ever since the crisis. The European Parliament voted for such a tax by a margin of more than 3 to 1. The United Kingdom has had an FST for decades. It raises the equivalent, relative to the size of its economy, of almost $40 billion a year just by taxing stock trades. Even the International Monetary Fund has come out in support of increased taxes on the financial sector.
Presumably, the continuing power of the financial industry explains why few in Washington are discussing an FST. After all, a director of Morgan Stanley, Erskine Bowles, was the head of President Obama's deficit commission.
And this explains why we are looking to gut Social Security and Medicare in response to Wall Street's wreckage of the economy. The basic story is that the average worker and retiree will have to sacrifice because of the damage that the Wall Street crew did to the economy. That is what democracy in America looks like now."
David Korten: How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule
"The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places...
...a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.
Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system..."
The crucial difference between behavior of WikiLeaks and News of the World is whose privacy was violated. WikiLeaks embarrassed two-faced, secretive governments and corporations. The News of the World violated the privacy of individual human beings for PROFIT.
Raw Story: Wall Street Journal: WikiLeaks worse than News of the World
"The News Corporation-owned Wall Street Journal blasted 'self-appointed media paragons' who were quick to attack the British tabloid News of the World but not the release of classified information by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks.
The tabloid, also owned by News Corp., closed down after an investigation revealed it had participated in the phone hacking of celebrities, British politicians, the families of terrorist attack victims, dead soldiers and others.
'The damage caused by WikiLeaks almost certainly exceeded what was done by News of the World, precisely because Mr. Assange and his media enablers were targeting bigger—if often more vulnerable—game,' Bret Stephens, a deputy editor for the Journal, wrote in an editorial published Tuesday..."
The Federal Budget:
Dean Baker: President Obama's Big Deal: Cuts for Social Security, But No Taxes for Wall Street
"The ability of Washington to turn everything on its head has no limits. We are in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Even though the recession officially ended two years ago, there are still more than 25 million people who are unemployed, can only find part-time work or who have given up looking for work altogether. This is an outrage and a tragedy. These people's lives are being ruined due to the mismanagement of the economy.
And we know the cause of this mismanagement. The folks who get paid to manage and regulate the economy were unable to see an $8 trillion housing bubble. They weren't bothered by the doubling of house prices in many areas, nor the dodgy mortgages that were sold to finance these purchases. Somehow, people like former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and his sidekick and successor Ben Bernanke thought everything was fine as the Wall Street financers made billions selling junk mortgage and derivative instruments around the world....
...It is striking that a financial speculation tax (FST) has not been mentioned in the debt discussions. The European Union has been actively debating the imposition of a FST ever since the crisis. The European Parliament voted for such a tax by a margin of more than 3 to 1. The United Kingdom has had an FST for decades. It raises the equivalent, relative to the size of its economy, of almost $40 billion a year just by taxing stock trades. Even the International Monetary Fund has come out in support of increased taxes on the financial sector.
Presumably, the continuing power of the financial industry explains why few in Washington are discussing an FST. After all, a director of Morgan Stanley, Erskine Bowles, was the head of President Obama's deficit commission.
And this explains why we are looking to gut Social Security and Medicare in response to Wall Street's wreckage of the economy. The basic story is that the average worker and retiree will have to sacrifice because of the damage that the Wall Street crew did to the economy. That is what democracy in America looks like now."
David Korten: How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule
"The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places...
...a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.
Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system..."
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Transportation:
Nancy Folbre: The Bicycle Dividend
"More Americans are biking or walking to work these days, in part because public-sector investment is improving the infrastructure they need to get there safely. Further public investments in bike paths and bike lanes are likely to offer a big social payoff..."
Economics:
Jim Hightower: Tracking US Recession with the RPI (Regular People's Index)
"...Republican leaders are locking arms (and minds) to prevent any cuts to the insane tax handouts now going to billionaire hedge fund speculators, Big Oil and multinational corporations that hide massive profits in offshore tax havens. While they cut the poor, no tax giveaway to the rich is so revolting that GOP lawmakers won't kiss it right on the lips, as shown by their insistence that even the $3 billion a year doled out to subsidize corporate jets is off limits, as is the subsidy that Uncle Sam gives yacht owners. Seriously, jets and yachts!
Sen. Jon Kyl whined that Democrats 'want ordinary Americans to believe that they will not be affected by the president's tax-increase proposals.' If anyone knows what planet Kyl lives on, please beam the news to him that ordinary Americans don't have corporate jets and yachts. We can laugh, but clowns like Kyl are destroying our middle class to make America safe for plutocrats."
David Morris: Why is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?
"In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?
Of course, I’m talking about the Pentagon. Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the Pentagon. In 2011 military spending accounted for more than 58 percent of all federal discretionary spending and even more if the interest on the federal debt that is related to military spending were added. In the last ten years we have spent more than $7.6 trillion on military and homeland security according to the National Priorities Project..."
The Bankster Heist/Bailout:
Frank Rich: Obama’s Original Sin
"The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second..."
The 2012 Presidential Race:
I'm not sure who's less qualified; Palin or Bachmann, but Bachmann seems quite a bit less sane.
Matt Taibbi: Michele Bachmann's Holy War
Nancy Folbre: The Bicycle Dividend
"More Americans are biking or walking to work these days, in part because public-sector investment is improving the infrastructure they need to get there safely. Further public investments in bike paths and bike lanes are likely to offer a big social payoff..."
Economics:
Jim Hightower: Tracking US Recession with the RPI (Regular People's Index)
"...Republican leaders are locking arms (and minds) to prevent any cuts to the insane tax handouts now going to billionaire hedge fund speculators, Big Oil and multinational corporations that hide massive profits in offshore tax havens. While they cut the poor, no tax giveaway to the rich is so revolting that GOP lawmakers won't kiss it right on the lips, as shown by their insistence that even the $3 billion a year doled out to subsidize corporate jets is off limits, as is the subsidy that Uncle Sam gives yacht owners. Seriously, jets and yachts!
Sen. Jon Kyl whined that Democrats 'want ordinary Americans to believe that they will not be affected by the president's tax-increase proposals.' If anyone knows what planet Kyl lives on, please beam the news to him that ordinary Americans don't have corporate jets and yachts. We can laugh, but clowns like Kyl are destroying our middle class to make America safe for plutocrats."
David Morris: Why is the Most Wasteful Government Agency Not Part of the Deficit Discussion?
"In all the talk about the federal deficit, why is the single largest culprit left out of the conversation? Why is the one part of government that best epitomizes everything conservatives say they hate about government—- waste, incompetence, and corruption—all but exempt from conservative criticism?
Of course, I’m talking about the Pentagon. Any serious battle plan to reduce the deficit must take on the Pentagon. In 2011 military spending accounted for more than 58 percent of all federal discretionary spending and even more if the interest on the federal debt that is related to military spending were added. In the last ten years we have spent more than $7.6 trillion on military and homeland security according to the National Priorities Project..."
The Bankster Heist/Bailout:
Frank Rich: Obama’s Original Sin
"The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second..."
The 2012 Presidential Race:
I'm not sure who's less qualified; Palin or Bachmann, but Bachmann seems quite a bit less sane.
Matt Taibbi: Michele Bachmann's Holy War
