Whether Forecast: In a vague, hand-waving forecast worthy of the new girl at WKRP, The US claims it has excellent intelligence indicating that someone may do something sometime soon. Be afraid, be afraid.
Whose Recovery? Who Recovered? In 2007 the unemployment rate was 4.7% and the employment rate (the employment-to-population ratio) was 63.3%. Today unemployment is purportedly 7.4% and the employment rate a lowly 58.7%. Let's celebrate!
Opportunity: After the criminal enterprise called Enron collapsed, the government allowed Wall Street to replace it in the energy industry. And it did. JPMorgan engaged in bid rigging, Barclays "totally fukked" with the energy market in the Southwest, Deutsche Bank manipulated electricity flows to increase profits. Remember when bankers were just greedy, not criminals?
Filibuster Done Right: In Taiwan they don't stand around in cute sneakers jabbering away for hours, nor do they simply mail in their objections by saying they are going to filibuster. Nope. In Taiwan they wrestle each other, put the opposition in headlocks and scramble to possess - by physical prowess - the president's pulpit. A different form of winner take all.
Table Of Contents: The CO2 we've already put into the atmosphere is enough to guarantee that Galveston and more than a dozen other coastal towns in Texas are certain to lose land to rising sea levels. Ditto for Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and so on. That's in the box; we're working on more.
Prelude: US is characterizing the overthrow of President Mohamed Mursi as “restoring democracy”, rather than “military coup" so it can keep sending military supplies and money to the junta. Those who 'restored democracy' are preparing to give another series of citizenship lessons to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Big Four Oh! Those stalwart guardians of all that is right and holy have once more - for the 40th time - voted to repeal Obamacare. They were going to do something about stimulating the economy, but ran out of gumption. Oops, here's their plan: Reduce Food Stamp funding by 5% and make it impossible for Congress to pass any law that would improve working conditions – things like workplace safety, minimum wage, child labor laws, overtime pay and other governmental interference with the free market. And they also plan to permanently prevent Obama from filling the three vacant seats on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
The American Experience: If Steve Jobs was so brilliant, how come Bill Gates' Microsoft rules the world? Perhaps good fortune, random chance and a bit of quasi-legal shenanigans trump building better mousetraps. It is better to be good at making money than at making things.
Present: Of the 166 prisoners remaining at Guantánamo, only 22 are considered "chargeable," never mind convictable. Fell safer now? And proud?
Paraphrased: Republican leaders are about to reap the whirlwind, because they haven’t had the courage to tell the base that Obamacare is here to stay, that the sequester is in fact intolerable, and that they have lost the war over the shape of American society. As a result, we’re looking at a high probability of government shutdowns and even debt defaults. One of America’s two major political parties has gone off the deep end.
The Parting Shot:
No comments:
Post a Comment