We don't want reform, we want revenge.
The Easy Button: Republicans are aghast at Harry Reid's claim that it is possible that Romney hadn't paid a penny in taxes for ten years in the 2000's. They say he's lying. Maybe. We won't know until The Mitten shows a little ankle.
No Other Possible Explanation: Climate Change guru Dr. Jim Hansen now admits he has been wrong all along with his predictions of disaster ahead if we keep burining fossil fuels. It is not going to be as bad as he said, it is going to be much, much worse. And he's got the statistics to prove it, if just stepping outside doesn't convince you. There is no other way to account for the continuing series of climate extremes. Climate change is here; it's the new normal. This is the world we have made. There was a time to act. It has nearly passed. We must stop burning coal. Today. “The future is now. And it is hot.”
Slab Flab: There are currently about 40 million excess McMansions in the US – houses that generations X and Y do not want, while we are short that many smaller homes that people actually want and might even be able to afford.
Scriptwriter: The Mitten says the US needs “dramatic” measures to spur economic growth, but not a stimulus that would “grow government.” He says he will add 12 million new jobs in four years, Naturally he did not want to reveal how he would do this, other than to have the government give lots of money to business.
Globalization: In Zambia, coal miners at a Chinese-owned mine have killed the Chinese manager in a riot over low pay. Take notes.
Disappeared: Over 4% of working age Americans have been permanently deleted from the US workforce. In July, nearly 200,000 fewer people had jobs than in June, while the BLS reported “163,000 new jobs”. From 2002 to 2008, over 62% of working-age Americans had jobs, today it's only 58.4%. Slackers.
Now It Can Be Told: Pakistani Ambassador Wajid Shamsul Hasan says the US prefers to deal with dictators, not democratic institutions. Wow, really?
Preview:Since Reagan’s deregulation of the electric industry, no one has taken care of the US power grid – there's no incentive to spend money on stuff that doesn't put money in the stockholder's pocket in a few months – much less the billion dollars a year the American Society of Civil Engineers says is needed. It will happen here.
Feature, Not Failure: Today half of Americans die with less than $10,000 in assets. Think how little they'll have after the Republicans get through chopping Social Security and Medicare. Without funds, they won't be able to pay for the medicine required to keep them around annoying Wall Street.
Facing Hunger: Nearly 50 million Americans – half of them children – depend on food stamps to pay for their basic necessities.
Capital Punishment: It's becoming popular to speculate on the possibility of clapping a few bankers in chains, but it seems most unlikely. And even if a few were strung up from lamposts, it wouldn't do much good. We've sporadically put financial miscreants to death for nearly 4,000 years, but the risk/reward calculation is still on the side of risk. Or greed.
Openness: During his six day big adventure overseas, The Mitten answered three – exactly three – unscripted questions from the media that traveled with him. No wonder they felt like they were trapped in a petting zoo.
Porn O'Graph: RecoveryTM!
The Parting Shot:
Funnel cones?
5 comments:
Maybe they're Woolly Milkcaps (Lactarius torminosus)?
-Lobo
Lobo - certainly is possible. A Lactarius for sure, but I didn't do any field tests so can't be sure. I was taken by the very fuzzy covering. Problem with the L. torminosus ID would be that this bunch is growing on a hickory, not the ground...
ckm
Capital Punishment: It's becoming popular to speculate on the possibility of clapping a few bankers in chains, ....
I have followed the Financial Crime Wave for about 15 years. In all that time, I have never seen anyone put a number on the possible number of Financial Criminals in the US. No Criminologist seems willing or able to step up to the task of calculating some basic numbers and coming up with at least a ballpark figure on the number of Financial Criminals. One begins to conclude that one's career in Criminology, like many other careers, would be destroyed by spilling the real Crime Beans.
Here is my amateur estimate:
Let's say that ONLY $1 trillion has been stolen, looted or otherwise obtained by criminal means. That is one million millions. (This seems on the low side.)
So, if each crime was worth an average of one million, then we would have one million Financial Criminals at large in the US. Granted there are probably single criminals committing multiple crimes but then again a lot of the crimes may be smaller, In addition, there are a lot of underpaid underlings involved in and committing these crimes. Think robosigners, mortgage appraisers, mortgage appraisers, so-called government regulators, court officials, etc. So, one million does not seem an outrageous figure.
This is a simple, crude calculation but it gives some idea of the magnitude of the problem. Accompanying the calculation, it would be useful to know if the current Injustice System has the capacity to prosecute a million Financial Criminals. What capacity to prosecute does it have?
It is a continuous mystery why no respected Criminologist with their models, methods and statistics has not written a detailed article on America's massive and expanding Financial Crime Wave, let alone the parallel Corporate Crime Wave in all other facets of American business and, in the main, financed and engineered by the Financial Criminals.
Since may alternative, contrarian analysts insist that there will be no recovery without prosecutions, why has no one done even the basic calculations to see if the number of such prosecutions necessary are even possible?
Anonymous:
You should read the writings and listen to the speeches and interviews with Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. He has articulated "control fraud" as being endemic in our financial system.
RE: Easy Button
Mitt just needs to tell Obama that when he unseals his collage records he'll show his tax returns. That will prove interesting.
RBM
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