Quote of the month from Mat Taibi: “Romney can’t even be mean
with any honesty. Even when he’s pandering to viciousness, ignorance and racism, it comes out like scaly calculation.”
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People keep asking me why I started writing this blog and after more than a year I have never been able to put together a clear explanation, but if you really want to know, I suggest you tune in to the pilot episode of Newsroom, a new HBO show written by Aaron Sorkin, arguably the greatest writer alive today. The first five minutes is a simulated panel discussion at Northwestern U. in which the question is asked of our hero, “Why is America, the greatest country in the world?” His answer sums up, brilliantly, the reason for this blog. I strongly suggest you watch it.
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Two things were very obvious at the Senate Banking Committee hearings and questioning of Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase. One is that the committee itself is made up of men who know nothing about banking. The fact that these fools are on this committee is exactly why the congress has a 9% approval rating. We, the taxpayers, are paying these clowns very good salaries, you’d think that they would, at least, find out something about what they are investigating. Not only were they almost completely without knowledge about their subject, a number of them couldn’t even read the questions that their researchers had prepared. Okay, fellas, so you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to be doing, at least take a minute and read through your questions so you don’t look like a complete retard. No one on that committee should be elected to any office for the rest of his or her life.
On the other hand, maybe it’s not that they were so stupid or inattentive to their subject matter, maybe it’s that at least seven members of the committee have received big money from JP Morgan Chase. What’s that you say? Bribes? No more so than any other campaign contribution; but when you’re Senator Tim Johnson, committee chairman and JP Morgan Chase is your second biggest campaign contributor, maybe you have to consider throwing the game.
Oh yeah, there’s also the fact that one of Johnson’s former staffers is now Morgan’s chief lobbyist and one of the Senator’s current assistants used to be a lobbyist for the bank. These guys make the Godfather look like Mother Theresa.
The second point has to do with Dimon, himself. This guy is the CEO of the biggest bank in the country. What the hell is he or any other banker doing with a seat on the New York Federal Reserve? That’s like asking the cat to guard a dish of milk. Why isn’t the Federal Reserve board made up of economists, instead of bankers? Maybe if it were, we’d have an even chance of not getting screwed by these greedy slobs.
Why do I call them greedy slobs? I read someplace, and I’m not sure of this figure, but it said that 35% of the GDP is from financial institutions. No wonder the economy’s in the toilet. 35%? They make nothing, they employ a minor number of people commensurate with their percentage of the economy and they are currently the plug in the money drain that is keeping small businesses from trying to create jobs. I know, demand is what creates jobs, but that is mainly in large industry where decisions are made by corporate bean counters. Small business is the home of innovators who start companies and create jobs based on ideas and inventions; always clinging to the concept, that if you build it, they will come.
Walk through SOHO in downtown New York City sometime and check out the thousands of small business that crowd the renovated buildings. This is American innovation at its best, men and women with an idea, taking a shot, hustling for the American dream. This is where American innovation lives, not in top-heavy corporations that manufacturer nothing but bonus grabbing CEOs. If this country is going to survive, it’s these, mostly young, men and women who are holding the life preserver.
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The Bush tax cuts have been in place for ten years now. The big question is, when they are going to start trickling down?
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Bernie Saunders plan to fix SS: Billionaires now pay into the SS fund the same amount as someone making $110,000. If we lift that cap to $250,000 SS will be solvent for the next 75 years
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It is essential that everyone who has any interest in education watch Taylor Mali’s rant on Utube about what he does as a teacher. It is fucking brilliant.
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Ric Santorum says that Obama will amp up the public sector rather than the private sector. So how come the public sector has lost 700,000 jobs under Obama while the private sector has gained jobs? Santorum also claims that an increase in public sector spending causes a decrease in private sector spending. This is just a case of a guy who knows nothing getting a microphone in his hand. Any employment, regardless of public or private, increases the ability to purchase, otherwise known as demand for product, and thereby increases job possibilities in the private sector where the honest owners of corporations tell us that thy haven’t been creating jobs because there is no demand. So Santorum is either a liar or a moron…. Or both.
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Watched Richard Trumpka, head of the AFL/CIO this weekend, trying to put a good face on the trouncing the unions took in the Wisconsin recall of Scott Walker. This guy is living a fantasy. He doesn’t want to face reality. If he and his people had done their homework before the recall was put in effect they would have found out that regardless of the cause, over 60% of Wisconsin voters didn’t support the idea of a recall for political motivations, that the only recall they would support was for malfeasance in office and that’s not what the unions were selling.
The whole recall was a huge mistake and Obama didn’t back them because he already knew what they didn’t want to admit, that it was a sure loser. The only possible positive that can come out of the recall was that the Democrats picked up a couple of State Senate seats and maybe it will act as a wake-up for the left as to how the right is going to conduct themselves in the up-coming election.
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Watched Ed Gillespie on Meet the Press and he is slicker than whale shit. He sat there and lied from beginning to end of his air time and no one had the stones to call him on it, least of all David Gregory. Gillespie lied about everything he spoke about, even facts that have been in evidence for years. I’m surprised that he didn’t try to tell them that he wasn’t there.
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The right keeps harping on lower taxes for the rich to create more jobs and that uncertainty about regulation is what is keeping down business investment in job creation. These are all lies. The facts are in evidence. We have had lower taxes on the rich for ten years now and they haven’t created squat in the way of jobs. Also we have almost no regulation on industry right now because even the few regs that Obama passed didn’t get financed. The reason we can’t get a fixed set of regulations so that industry can see what they have to deal with is that the right won’t let anything get through the House. Why is this? It’s because they don’t want any legislation to pass that might help Obama in November’s election. They are more interested in getting their agenda in place than they are in doing their job and helping the country recover from a depression that they caused.
Any economist who speaks without an agenda will tell you that the kind of economic collapse that was the result of the Bush administration’s policies will take around ten years to right itself. This is based on historical research.
We are three and a half years into this depression. We are making some small progress, certainly not enough, but even if Obama is re-elected in November we will never make any progress until the Republicans cease their regressive policies and try to engage with the Democrats.
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The Republican’s, especially the Romney campaign staff, have already established a reputation for being world-class liars, now they have even involved the press. Self styled, fact checkers, Brooks Atkinson at Annenberg and Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post have been acting like Romney lobbyists by denying facts that Romney, himself has already stated with regard to his attachment to Bain Capital during the years 1999-2001. Romney flacks have appeared on talking-head TV and claimed that independent fact checkers, that’s Atkinson and Kessler, have said that the Democratic accusations are lies. But the contradictory statements actually came from Romney himself. Seems the candidate of the right just can’t seem to keep his lies sorted out. Independent fact checkers who lie for the right wing only seem independent if you’re Rush Limbaugh.