Friday, January 15, 2016

SAR #16015


There is a difference between being persistent and being stubborn.
Debatable: Was the winner of the GOP debate the candidate who told the most lies, the boldest lies, or the most effective ones? Which was more important, lying about yourself or the competition?
The Slow Bern: Bernie is 14 points ahead of Hillary in NH. He's also picked up an endorsement from The Nation and the support of over 3,000 Democratic caucus operatives in Iowa. That may be why why the Clinton machine is spreading lies and innuendo about Sanders' promise to enact a single payer Medicare for All system. Maybe Hillary's so upset because the health care industry paid her nearly $3 million in the last 2 years to make sure nothing upsets their lucrative business.
Faint Praise:Key indicators monitored by the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee [the folks who will tell us we're in a recession about nine months after we're in a recession] do not suggest we are in a recession currently, save industrial production.” Ah, what's industrial production got to do with an economy? If we are in a recession, let's blame it on the Chinese.
Rhetorical Question: Are Iraq and the Kurds going broke? First, Iraq and 'the Kurds' are not countries. And yes, both are going broke – despite all the democracy spending the US has done in the area. Constant warfare takes a lot of money.
Alternate Reading: That President Obama offered to loan Joe Biden the money to help pay for the cancer treatments Joe's son needed so that the Biden home would not have to be sold speaks highly of Mr. Obama. That the Vice President of the US would have to sell or mortgage his home to pay for healthcare says a great deal about these United States, too.
Morally Upright: Seem's Ted Cruz borrowed over a million bucks from Goldman Sachs during his 2012 Senate campaign and failed to report the loan (investment?) on his campaign finance reports. But it was just “an inadvertent filing” error. Nothing to be seen. Let's prey pray on it.
Comes The Dawn: Someone besides me has stumbled onto the basic problem with the neolibearal approach to capitalism. If you look to increase your profits by reducing your employment costs, say by shipping factories overseas, and maintain your sales by extending easy credit to your customers, don't come crying to me when your customers – those folks who used to work for you – run out of credit and can no longer buy the crap you are making in China or Indonesia, and your stocks begin to fall. Like all free lunches, it turns out not to be free. Corporate profits keep collapsing, with 4Q2015 reports to be the worst since 2009. US Corporate defaults are at their highest since 2009 and – according to the less than impartial S&P - “the outlook for corporate borrowers worldwide is the worst since the global financial crisis”. Party on.
Blowing Smoke: A major UK study of the effects of marijuana found that it does not reduce the IQ of teens who use it. That it dumbs down elected officials has long been obvious.
The Parting Shot: 
 

6 comments:

McMike said...

re stubborn versus persistent. And the difference isn't apparent until after the fact.

re capitalism. It's really just the "tragedy of the commons" playing out, except the commons is the spending capacity of the pool of consumers.

Gegner said...

Whose bottom line is it anyway? Long self-evident has it been that the beancounters/corporate slash and burn artists have viewed the 'customer base' as somebody else's problem. Now a pauperized populace can no longer support commerce that serves only a tiny customer base, that miniscule pool of customers that has all it wants and wants no more.

If we shift our perspective to that of the swinging pendulum we'd find ourselves close to where they were after the Black Death all but wiped out the Artisan class (now how much will you pay?)

And where does hyper-inflation begin? with too much money chasing too few goods.

Will 2016 be the year of the food riot?

Anonymous said...

Alternate Funding: Almost all of the time Beau Biden was diagnosed with cancer PPACA, or as his daddy would say, Obamacare was established. Did he pay the default fine instead? Says a lot about what Obamacare is really for, and it isn't helping the poor working class sod who could not have afforded the gold/platinum plans Beau should have been under.

Further, while not qualified due to his early dis-honorable discharge, Beau received part of his treatment on the VA's dime at Walter Reed's branch that takes care of the President and Congress, thanks to family connections. It's true Joe Biden didn't enrich himself, but he did enrich his brother and his sons by directing either federal contracts or requesting firms employ them as lobbyist.

The show is being sold as a tear jerking reminder of why we need Obama-care, when in fact its a condemnation.

https://youtu.be/bqsd0WNl8u0

McMike said...

re: Biden justifies Obamacare.

Reminds me of George W, and the one-size-fits-all "philosophy" that all roads lead to tax cuts.

And reminds me of this: http://www.thismodernworld.org/arc/1998/98-01-14-ju-jitsu.gif

kwark said...

RE "Debatable": I watched until it became clear that the same old hateful, empty-headed BS was all we'd hear - which took about 1 minute. The answer to your questions is yes!

Did anyone listen to the Republican "rebuttal" to the SOTU speech? I thought it interesting that they again picked from one of the few prominent Repubs who happens to be decidedly different than the nasty white folks from the so-called debate. Nikki Haley was at least attempting to be courteous but given that she's supposed to be one of the "smart ones" in the Republican party I was floored when she pronounced "we've never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion. Let's not start that now." A well intentioned rebuke of the Donald I suppose but why is that Republicans seem to be particularly prone to this sort of gaff?

Anonymous said...

"That President Obama offered to loan Joe Biden .... speaks highly of Mr. Obama. "

Why? Joe Biden is a poor credit risk? I'd think that going into retirement and having to compete against the one/two/three of Team Clinton for selling access would be a very good reason to have an olde war horse in Obama's debt. An olde war horse who has lots of dirt and favors owed in Congress. That loan would pay interest that Goldman Sacs would have wet dreams about.