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:
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.
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?
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
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
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?
"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.
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