Before you say that the IMF's austerity programs have failed, ask who funds the IMF, who runs the IMF and who benefits from these 'failures'.
Numbness: The Chicago Fed's national activity index fell to a negative 0.87 in August, down from a very weak -0.12 in July. In that this is an index of indexes, it means that on average the economy is way below average. This marks six months in a row where this index ignored the The RecoveryTM.
Assurance: Romney says that everyone in the US has health insurance because if they have a heart attack they get taken to the ER. Then they get taken to the cleaners. That's his plan.
Briefly: "Capital flight is leading to the disintegration of the euro zone.” While Greece, in a last ditch attempt to prevent an inexorable slide into depression has announced that anything it can possibly do without - and many things it can't - are for sale. Make an offer, everything must go - islands, post offices, electric systems, democracy...
Quoted: “The current voting rights issue is even more serious: it’s a coordinated attempt by a political party to fix the result of a presidential election by restricting the opportunities of members of the opposition party’s constituency—most notably blacks—to exercise a Constitutional right.” Elizabeth Drew
Business Ethics: Microsoft, facing a $210,000 penalty for overestimating its power use, proceeded to waste millions of watts of electricity, just to keep its lower rate.
Organize! “The new Parti Québécois government scrapped a controversial increase in post-secondary tuition fees this week and a hardline student group is now turning to free education as its long-term goal.” Those who scoff at the accomplishments of the US #Occupy movement or Europe's Indignados and their offshoots are missing the forest for the trees.
Succinctly: The Mitten's housing white-paper, addressing both housing and the “too big to fail” problem by saying: “The Romney-Ryan plan will completely end “too-big-to-fail” by reforming the GSEs” and providing “a long-term, sustainable solution for the future of housing finance reform in our country.” That's it. No details. Nothing actually about houses or housing or mortgages or the underwater. No explanation why Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and the other “too gigantic to mess with” escape attention. Brevity is the soul of Romney/Ryan policy.
Life In The Camps: I know there is no privacy. I know they know everything about me. I know they can (and do) track my every coming in and going out, my every purchase. I know they read my emails and monitor my Internet usage. I know all that, but even so, I find Redpepper's 'Facedeals' particularly nauseating. Go, read.
Inside Joke: "Business is business. It should not be politicized” according to China's ambassador to Canada.
Blowing Smoke: Chevron built a bypass pipe that routed pollutants around monitoring equipment at its Richmond refinery and illegally burned them in the atmosphere. For four years. There will eventually be a fine. No one will go to jail. The number of added deaths in the nearby communities will never be known.
Bailing The Outs: The world's central banks - the Fed, IMF, ECB, and BOE, among others, have been saving us for five years now. How's your end of the boat doing?
Oil Prices: The drought in Spain may cut the world's supply of olive oil by 20%. Already the price of extra-virgin olive oil has spiked 50%, with another 20% rise anticipated. Trust, but verify.
Leg Bone Connected To The Hip Bone: The loss of Arctic ice is expected to result in weaker and slower-moving circulation patterns for the Jet Stream, presaging more "societally relevant" weather extremes - such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and even unusual cold spells. "Societally relevant." Ha.
Tutus On Pointe, Stage Right: Auditioning for the role of Confidence Fairy, Mitt said: “If it looks like I’m going to win, the markets will be happy. If we win on November 6th, there will be a great deal of optimism about the future of this country. We’ll see capital come back and we’ll see — without actually doing anything — we’ll actually get a boost in the economy.”
The Parting Shot:
What you looking at, fella?
2 comments:
ICE MELT- no no no, if we have more Societally Relevant climate events, it because the gods are angry and we must appease them with christian scalps.
RE: "Leg Bone Connected To The Hip Bone" During the course of reading your excellent blog I noticed that my neighbor has driven their 14 passenger van down the block to pick-up a pizza. When nice folks like my neighbors think twice about their behavior maybe the time will be ripe for politicians to act on global warming. Too bad that won't be until about 2030.
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