It is not love that I
seek, but passion.
Geese and Ganders: Nine of the ten Atlanta school staff convicted of cheating on standardize tests have been sentenced to one to seven years in jail. Not a single senior banker from any of the Wall Street banks that have admitted to cheating by rigging interest rates, rigging FX markets, rigging the international price of gold, defrauding homeowners of billions of dollars, and conducting massive and varied frauds in the mortgage markets to the extent of crashing the US economy have been tried, much less gone to jail. Here endeth the lesson.
Secret Secrets: The US Trade Representative's office claims that the TPP treaty's actual content cannot be released to the public nor to Congress because to do so would endanger US national security. Or corporate profits, which is much the same thing.
The Middle Did Not Hold: Research by the St. Louis Fed shows that median incomes in the US have fallen 16% between 1989 and 2013.
Crime and Retirement: A former Chicago police commander who supervised cops who tortured confessions from at least a hundred mostly black victims was allowed to retire and draw a pension. The city is setting aside $5.5 million to bribe his victims to shut up and go away. Except, of course, for the ten tortured onto death row - four of whom have been pardoned by the governor.
Showdown: Turkey's President Erdoğan has warned Pope Francis to be careful what he says about those ridiculous Armenian claims about genocide, because Erdoğan has god on his side while Francis is merely on god's side. It's hard to understand what definition of genocide doesn't include what the Turks did to the Armenians. Or what Americans did to Native Americans. Or what the Israelis have been doing to the Palestinians.
He Said/She Said: The 2016 election is not a choice of this Republican or that Democrat. It is not even a choice between a particular man and Hillary Clinton. All of the Republicans are running on a promise to kill Obama Care, minimize if not abolish or privatize Social Security and Medicare and make deep cuts to Medicaid while cutting taxes on the rich. The Democrats will maintain if not extend the reach of these programs as well as seek to tax the rich and super rich at much higher levels. For once we will be given a real choice.
Technical Skills: Why do people like economists and politicians think that training more refrigerator repairmen will create jobs for refrigerator repairmen?
6 comments:
to say a bit more about krugman's point about the clear choice of policies which the 2016 election will offer the voters, which you reference at He Said/She Said-
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt
the focus on personalities which krugman decries, which will have the result - and probably has the intention - of preventing the american people from fully grasping the socioeconomic implications of the choice they are offered, could be somewhat mitigated if mrs clinton was not in the race
our only chance for that to happen is if a new or much exacerbated scandal or illness crops up in next year or so
when i told missus charley that was my hope, she thought i was being mean-spirited, even though i claimed i was thinking of the long-term good of all
but really - wouldn't we all be better off if the democratic standard bearer were someone like my man martin o'malley?
Love the ER quote.
Don't know enough about O'Malley to endorse him, but do wish we could have a serious and non-emotioonal discussion from the left/far-left that was a meaningful part of the candidate selection process.
There's gotta be a couple three thoughtful and rational social democrats out there who have at least a little lust for power...
Obama is good a terrorising wedding parties. why can't we put a bit more terror on bankers, and a little less terror on teachers caught up in a twisted bankrupt system not of their making. The defects in either situation can not be blamed on Cuba or anyone other than the US administration.
What's the difference between 'powerlust' and the criminally insane? Leaving Spirit in the Sky out of this, failure to follow the wishes/dictates of Big Chief Hand-on-Hip is often fatal.
This is not so much a question of 'how' these individuals come to power but why they remain unpunished?
Which is to opine there hasn't been a 'Democrat' in politics since LBJ refused to run in 1968.
Krugman is right! We can always trust the NYT and if the NYT says we can believe every golden world that drips from Hillary's mouth, then it's true! It must be true this time! HOPE FOR CHANGE!!!
Well, with Krugman it's trust but verify. The NYT not so much.
I think the current choice is clearly between those who want to totally abolish the system as we know it and replace it with some form of corporate fascism/feudalism, and a lady who might only redecorate.
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