SAR #11261

When did 'Double or Nothing' become an economic policy?

Hope Floats: Investors have a deeply held, religious faith - shared with international financiers - that creating more debt out of thin air will produce a sound financial system. So let's all do the twist.

Turkey, Talking: Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu explained Turkery's new vision of the Middle East, where Turkey and Egypt form an alliance to bring order, democracy, and economic progress to the region. Turkey and Egypt are the strongest, most populous and most prosperous nations in the region. Not the rebirth of the Ottoman Empire, but perhaps an echo.

Crass Warfare: Obama hopes to make the super-rich pay taxes at a rate as least as high as average Americans do. Even that weak effort gets called "class warfare" by Republicans.

Depraved Indifference: Following the US theory that giving money to an aid agency that feeds the children of possible terrorists makes you a candidate for Guantanamo, a Lloyd's insurance group has filed suit against a leading member of the Saudi royal family, several Saudi banks and prominent charities for financially supporting al-Qaida and indirectly financing the 9/11 attacks. It seeks £136 million in reparations. Choices, as they say, have consequences.

Where's Waldo? The world has not been warming fast enough - sure it's getting warmer, but it is not getting as warm as the atmospheric CO2 load would suggest. Where's the missing heat? Most likely it has migrated to the deep ocean, from whence it will eventually emerge... with consequences.

Sausage: Just as beef is simply cut up cow and veal is a polite name for dead baby cow, superPACs are bundles of bribes. They are not donations, they are investments.

Lips, Moving: “Pitting one group of Americans against another is not leadership... This administration’s insistence on raising taxes on job creators and its reluctance to take the steps necessary to strengthen our entitlement programs are the reasons the president and I were not able to reach an agreement previously, and it is evident today that these barriers remain.” John Boehner. Please explicate.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: America is fundamentally changing. Once a middle class nation, it is now a divided nation – the rich and the rest. Perhaps you are still doing fine. Your neighbors are not and you are not immune. America is getting poorer. For a detailed, and depressing, enumeration of the symptoms, read and weep.

Misdirection: Pundits are asking if the new spate of new Republican-driven voter registration laws are designed to prevent fraud or to suppress Democratic voters. Silly question; to Republicans they are the same thing.

Too Much Money: Banks have an interesting problem; Americans are shoveling money into their bank accounts and the banks do not want it. Wells Fargo, as an example, only pays 0.1% on a one year CD, Citi pays but 0.3%. And the banks fear the Feds will lower the interest rate it pays on excess reserves, which is the only safe place the banks have found to park all the cash. Someone more attuned to finance than I might see banks not wanting free money as a bad sign.

Here's a Clue: How bad is it in Great Britain? Look at it this way, when you sign up for unemployment benefits the government will give you a referral to the local charity-run food bank. It beats begging or starving. But the chit is only good for three days food and you can only get three of them. And on the tenth day...