SAR #14321

In economics, as in love, 'what could have been', isn't.

 
Phases Of The Moon: US industrial production fell 0.1% in October as car makers reported a 1.2% drop – making three consecutive months of declining production that non-existent interest rates, subprime lending and outright cash-back bribes have failed to get Bubba to buy another pickup. Elsewhere, Japan has fallen into another recession as its GDP fell 1.6% in the latest quarter, China reports the largest increase in bad loans since 2005, and Prime Minister Cameron says markets are living on borrowed time as the world faces a second global crash.

Leveling: In his on-going attempt to level the playing field, John 'I'm the Speaker' Boehner is pushing a bill that would exempt internet companies peddling goods in your state from paying the same taxes the companies and stores in your state have to pay. Some businesses are more equal than others, y'see. Just another way to cut taxes and starve state budgets.

These Are The Good Old Days: How much of the 'preparedness' going on in Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and the nation is anticipation and how much of it is guilt? 
 
Faint Praise: People who have health insurance under the ACA like it about as well as people who have any other form of health insurance. It's too expensive, they say, doesn't cover everything and the co-pays are too high. So we've achieved health insurance equality. Now if we could develop good single payer national health insurance program that isn't too expensive, covered damned near everything and had low or no copays... And was the only game in town so all doctors and hospitals had to accept it, then we'd be getting somewhere.

Golly Gee: Research shows that the difference between poor blacks and poor whites is not nearly as dramatic as the gulf between the poor and the rest. The color gulf exists for the convenience of the rich.

Say / Do: As Putin fled the pressure from the leaders at the G-20 summit, he made it clear that he wasn't fleeing the pressure from the summit leaders about Ukraine.

'Twas Ever So: Research based on criminal records concludes that right-to-carry and concealed-carry laws increase the number of violent crimes in a state. The NRA disagrees and insists that Stanford asked the wrong people, should have asked their members rather than going by actual data.

Slip Sliding Our Way: John Thune (Reconsidering-SD), the third most powerful Republican in the Senate, acknowledges that “human activity” contributes to “climate change” and “The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”

The Key: The CEO of the company behind the Keystone XL Pipeline has corrected Mitch McConnell on the mater of job creation: The pipeline will provide 50 permanent jobs, which is well worth another degree or two of global warming. 
 
Plowshares: Military fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan is estimated to have cost the US taxpayer at least $30 billion and possibly $60 billion. And that's before you count the Blackwater and Halliburton contracts. Peace may be the military's mission, but profits are its product. 
 
Bringing In The Sheaves: Governments and businesses around the world are 'harvesting' and digitally storing voiceprints – yours, mine, whomever – against the day they might be useful. Over 65 million of them, so far. They'll be handy for identifications, later on, if they decide to hold trials. 
 
Off-Broadway: Canada has new legislation that immunizes their telecommunications providers against those nasty lawsuits from customers when they discover their provider has been delivering all their personal information to the government without warrant or judicial oversight. Martin Short may have been the last decent Canadian export. 
 
Porn O'Graphs: Boiling away.