a scratch pad for half-formed thoughts by a liberal political junkie who's nobody special. ''Hard Heads, Soft Hearts'' is the title of a book by Princeton economist Alan Blinder, and tends to be a favorite motto of neoliberals, especially liberal economists.
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Arthur Silber - ONCE UPON A TIME...

. . .Besides, I'm very sick right now. My major concern is trying to avoid having to call 911. For the third time. I don't want to do that. . .

Susie Madrak - Syria

There are 2 questions re: Manning. One, did he do a good or bad thing? On this, reasonable people can disagree. Second, if it was bad, how bad was it? This is the question on which the US government has lost its mind, its bearings, its morality. It has whipped itself into a hysteria, and allowed itself to become evil. Ali Soufan's recent interview with Charlie Rose exemplifies what good national security work looks like, as opposed to the chilling control-freak excesses of the Manning (and Aaron Swartz) prosecutions.

Glenn Greenwald - must-read piece comparing Manning and Ellsberg

KEVIN GOSZTOLA - Manning is charged with aiding terrorists

[Fein] Manning “knowingly gave intelligence through WikiLeaks to the enemy.” He “wantonly caused the release of this information.” It was “not just good for declared enemies” but also accessible to “all other enemies with Internet access.” . .

. . .Now, it is clear: the effect of Manning’s prosecution has the potential to criminalize national security journalism. . .

If you accept the prosecution's argument, is there any difference between "informing the enemy" and "informing the American people"?

Kevin Jon Heller - Did Bradley Manning “Aid the Enemy”? Did The New York Times? (Updated)

Paul Krugman - Springtime for Toxics

. . .mercury is nasty stuff. It’s a potent neurotoxicant: the expression “mad as a hatter” emerged in the 19th century because hat makers of the time treated fur with mercury compounds, and often suffered nerve and mental damage as a result.

. . .a lot of mercury gets into the atmosphere from old coal-burning power plants that lack modern pollution controls. From there it gets into the water, where microbes turn it into methylmercury, which builds up in fish. And what happens then? The E.P.A. explains: “Methylmercury exposure is a particular concern for women of childbearing age, unborn babies and young children, because studies have linked high levels of methylmercury to damage to the developing nervous system, which can impair children’s ability to think and learn.”

The new rules would also have the effect of reducing fine particle pollution, which is a known source of many health problems, from asthma to heart attacks. In fact, the benefits of reduced fine particle pollution account for most of the quantifiable gains from the new rules. The key word here is “quantifiable”: E.P.A.’s cost-benefit analysis only considers one benefit of mercury regulation, the reduced loss in future wages for children whose I.Q.’s are damaged by eating fish caught by freshwater anglers. There are without doubt many other benefits to cutting mercury emissions, but at this point the agency doesn’t know how to put a dollar figure on those benefits.

Even so, the payoff to the new rules is huge: up to $90 billion a year in benefits compared with around $10 billion a year of costs in the form of slightly higher electricity prices. This is, as David Roberts of Grist says, a very big deal. . .

Diane - A Sign Of Hope

(Via Hannah Mae) I.A.R. Wylie - "The Little Woman" (November 1945)

THOMAS B. EDSALL - The Anti-Entitlement Strategy

THOMAS B. EDSALL - The Trouble With That Revolving Door

I think it was Michael Barone who called Edsall a "gloomy Irishman", a political pessimist who, because he was liberal, kept writing articles about the problems with or obstacles to liberalism. Anyway, a very good political journalist.

Matthew Yglesias - Central Banking & Humility

Scott Sumner - Central Banking & Ego

Modeled Behavior (Karl Smith) - Why Not Plutocracy: Apathy Runs Deep Edition

. . twitter was ablaze a few weeks back over the fact that Jamie Dimon objected to his taxes being raised, but thought that he was already paying what Obama proposed raising his tax rate to.

This makes perfect sense if you note that Jamie doesn’t care about his tax rate. He cares about his taxes being raised. . .

. . .Here at the state level I can safely say that virtually no one has any idea what they are doing. That is, for the most part the lobbyist do not know and indeed are not particularly interested in what is in the best interest of their clients.

Further, this seems to stem from the fact that the clients are not particularly interested in what is in their best interests.

What they are very interested in is whether legislation is pro them or anti them. However, if you begin to talk about the economy as a complex system full of unintended consequences where anti legislation could be in their best interests their eyes glaze over. . .

One example my Dad gives is when a regulated monopoly was forced to lower their rates, to their surprise, profits increased. You would have assumed they would already be maximizing profits, but you would have assumed wrong.

Noahpinion - The liberty of local bullies

posted by Anonymous at 6:12 PM

 
Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

Paul Krugman - But I do know one and one is two. . .

Bill Keller (NYT) - The Pakistanis Have a Point

[Malik]: “If you are not able to close the Mexican border, when you have the technology at your call, when there is no war,” he said, “how can you expect us to close our border, especially if you are not locking the doors on your side?”

IAN AYRES and AARON S. EDLIN (NYT) - Don’t Tax the Rich. Tax Inequality Itself.

There may be better schemes, but Ayres & Edlin's proposal would be an improvement over the status quo.

TAMAR LEWIN (NYT) - M.I.T. Expands Its Free Online Courses

russell (Obsidian Wings) - will the last person to leave please turn out the lights....

Susie Madrak - Distress signal

Diane at Cabdrollery is in trouble, hanging by a financial thread. If you can spare even $10, go help.

DIANE - Will Blog For Food

Literally.

The hammer fell again, this time harder than usual. The landlord has given me a 3 day notice, and I barely have enough money to get to the local DPSS office to see if I can get a Department 8 grant for this month and next month to offset some of the balance I now owe.

As some of you know, I've not been working for the past 6 weeks at all, which leaves only my Social Security, which would have been fine if I hadn't had a serious pulmonary problem develop, which even with Medicare has tapped me out with all the co-pays for the specialists, tests, and medications. I also have state bar dues to pay if I want/am able to work next year. The main problem is that I only have enough money for that visit to Pasadena tomorrow. The cat has food. I have very little.

What I need is a bunch of small donations from a lot of people. I know it's the wrong time of the year to be asking for this kind of help (as if there's a right time), but I need it and I need it quickly. Please help if you can.

This time I'm really scared.

Susie Madrak - Ash Wednesday

James Herriot - The best of James Herriot: favourite memories of a country vet

. . .The card dangled above the old lady's bed. It read `God is Near'. . .

. . .There wasn't much more Miss Stubbs could see; perhaps a few feet of privet hedge through the frayed curtains but mainly it was just the cluttered little room which had been her world for so many years. . .

. . .I had been visiting regularly for over a year and the pattern never changed; the furious barking, then Mrs Broadwith who looked after Miss Stubbs would push all the animals but my patient into the back kitchen and open the door and would go in and see Miss Stubbs in the corner in her bed with the card hanging over it.

She had been there for a long time and would never get up again. But she never mentioned her illness and pain to me; all her concern was for her three dogs and two cats. . .

. . .It was the usual scenario for the many cups of tea I had drunk with Miss Stubbs under the little card which dangled above her bed.

`How are you today?' I asked.

`Oh, much better,' she replied and immediately, as always, changed the subject. . .

. . .The things I had heard in the village came back to me; about the prosperous father and family who lived in the big house many years ago. Then the foreign investments which crashed and the sudden change in circumstances. `When t'owd feller died he was about skint,' one old man had said. `There's not much brass there now.'

Probably just enough brass to keep Miss Stubbs and her animals alive and to pay Mrs Broadwith. Not enough to keep the garden dug or the house painted or for any of the normal little luxuries. . .

. . .`Well, it was quick, Miss Stubbs, I'm sure the old chap didn't suffer at all.' My words sounded lame and ineffectual. . .

`You know, Mr. Herriot,' she said casually, `It will be my turn next.'. . .

. . .`I'm not afraid,' she said. `I know there's something better waiting for me. I've never had any doubts.' There was silence between us as she lay calmly looking up at the card on the gas bracket.

Then the head on the pillow turned to me again. `I have only one fear.' Her expression changed with startling suddenness as if a mask had dropped. The brave face was almost unrecognisable. A kind of terror flickered in her eyes and she quickly grasped my hand.

`It's my dogs and cats, Mr. Heriot. I'm afraid I might never see them when I'm gone and it worries me so. You see, I know I'll be reunited with my parents and my brothers but. . .but. . .'

`Well, why not with your animals?'

`That's just it.' She rocked her head on the pillow and for the first time I saw tears on her cheeks. `The say animals have no souls.'

`Who says?'

`Oh, I've read it and I know a lot of religious people believe it.'

`Well I don't believe it.' I patted the hand which still grasped mine. `If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans. . .

. . .The tension left her face and she laughed with a return of her old spirit. `I'm sorry to bore you with this and I'm not going to talk about it again. But before you go, I want you to be absolutely honest with me. I don't want reassurance from you - just the truth. I know you are very young but please tell me - what are your beliefs? Will my animals go with me?'

She stared intently into my eyes. I shifted in my chair and swallowed once or twice.

`Miss Stubbs, I'm afraid I'm a bit foggy about all this,' I said. `But I'm absolutely certain of one thing. Wherever you are going, they are going too.'

She still stared at me but her face was calm again. `Thank you, Mr. Herriot, I know you are being honest with me. That is what you really believe, isn't it?'

`I do believe it,' I said. `With all my heart I believe it.'. . .

MIT Shakespeare homepage - Hamlet

. . .MARCELLUS

It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO

So have I heard and do in part believe it.
But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen to-night
Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS

Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt

posted by Anonymous at 6:04 PM

 
Arthur Silber - Power of Narrative

. . .But I still have to pay an electric bill, my Internet provider, and ... well, food and stuff. After I've paid for that, I'll be close to totally broke. I mean, except for about a hundred dollars, I'll be totally broke. . .

. . .Have a listen to Leontyne Price singing "O Holy Night." That comes from one of the most beautiful Christmas albums I've ever heard: treat yourself to it. And Cyrano imploringly says: "Keep the Friskies away!" (C'mon, don't sue us. It's just his opinion. Besides, we're judgment-proof.). . .

Violet Socks - Fundraiser to keep my health insurance from being cancelled

I have been scrambling like mad to earn money this fall, but work is the slowest it’s ever been in my entire life. I’ve taken on every kind of job I can, tried to sell stuff, etc., etc., but there is just nothing moving out there.

The main thing I have to pay is my health insurance, which is crappy and has gigantic coinsurance but is better than nothing. And so here’s the deal: at this point I’m exactly $652.23 short of what I need to cover the premium and keep things going into January.

That’s the amount I need to raise somehow: $652.23. If any of you happen to be flush this month and feel like throwing some Christmas cheer my way, I would be beyond grateful for any contribution you can make. . .

. . .I’ll post updates here on the status and let you know when (fingers crossed) the goal is reached. If I can raise this money I will be so overjoyed and relieved, you won’t be able to stand me. I will host a virtual Christmas blog party to celebrate!

John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer - Benioffs pitch in to help homeless S.F. families

Susie Madrak - Catch 22

So they can’t find the money that’s missing, they just know it isn’t mixed in with the money that’s left. . .

Tell me again why companies in bankruptcy are allowed to choose the people who oversee their bankruptcy?

Corrente (Lambert) - Excellent interview with David Graeber

Juan Cole - Top Ten Things Americans can be Thankful for 2011 (US troops out of Iraq)

Informed Comment - Support this Site! (annual fundraiser)

Glenn Greenwald - Blog news (annual fundraiser)

Elizabeth Goitein - Bradley Manning

David Goldstein (McClatchy) - As U.S. troops leave Iraq, what is the legacy of eight years of war?

Paul Krugman - Receding Inflation In Britain

If there's one good thing about the MF Global debacle, it's a timely reminder to be wary of listening to the ratings agencies:

AZAM AHMED, BEN PROTESS and SUSANNE CRAIG (NYT) - A Romance With Risk That Brought On a Panic

. . .Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s had applauded Mr. Corzine’s effort to overhaul the firm, a move that included ratcheting up risk.

“We consider the most recent strategic plan of the new C.E.O. Jon Corzine to be sound,” S.& P. said in 2010, while acknowledging the plan “will incrementally increase the firm’s risk profile.”

. . .A week later, Moody’s cut its rating on MF Global to a notch above junk, pointing to the European debt holdings.

The reversal angered some executives at MF Global, who felt it was disingenuous for the agency to change its mind so suddenly. . .

It's also a reminder that being clever, being rational, and even being right do not necessarily entitle you to great wealth through exploiting the perceived irrationality of others.

Andrew Tobias - The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

p. 171:

. . .David Dreman, author of The New Contrarian Investment Strategy, writing in Barron's, made a good case against random walk. He pointed out that stock markets have always been irrational and concluded that a rational man could therefore outdo the herd. "Market histort gives cold comfort to the Random Walkers," he writes. "`Rational' investors in France, back in 1719, valued the Mississippi Company at 80 times all the gold and silver in the country - and, just a few months later, at only a pittance."

It is true, I think, that by keeping one's head and sticking to value one may do better than average. But it's not easy. Because the real question is not whether the market is rational but whether by being rational we can beat it. Had Dreman been alive in 1719, he might very reasonably have concluded that the Mississippi Company was absurdly overpriced at, say, three times all the gold and silver in France. And he might have shorted some. At six times all the gold and silver in France he might have shorted more. At twenty times all the gold and silver in France he might have been ever so rational - and thoroughly ruined. It would have been cold comfort to hear through the bars of debtors' prison that, some months later, rationality had at last prevailed. A driveling imbecile, on the other hand, caught up in the crowd's madness, might have ridden the stock from three times to eighty times all the gold and silver in France and, quite irrationally, struck it rich.

Fast-forward 281 years to the dot-com bubble. One very smart Wall street trader I know took a slam-dunk shot writing naked calls on Amazon.com, meaning that he pocketed $50,000 or so for taking on a minuscule risk for a week or two - the stock, already wildly overpriced, would have to rise more than 50 points in a week for him even to begin to feel any pain. He was completely right and Amazon stock soon fell precipitously - but not before a final for-the-record-books spurt that totally wiped out every penny he had worked his whole life to earn. He didn't jump - but he thought about it. . .

Question for debt-as-indulgence, prosperity-through-thrifty-idleness types: How is it possible for Japan to have a debt/GDP ratio of 200%, a deficit of 8% of GDP, interest rates of less than 2%, and inflation of less than 2%? Not suggesting that US follow a similar policy, but how could such a thing even be possible, if the deficit-hawk view of the world is correct?

posted by Anonymous at 9:44 AM

 
Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time. . .

Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

. . .It’s being reported that this is the first time ever that a health secretary has overruled the FDA. It’s amazing, isn’t it?. . .

It really does look like the point of this Obama Plan B decision is simply to make liberals squeal, so moderate conservatives can conclude "if he's pissing off liberals, he must be doing something right". "I-Shot-A-Man-In-Reno" politics. Don't think it will be very successful, nor should it be.

Suburban Guerrilla (odd man out) - Banksters spooked by ‘Occupy Our Homes'

No reason to foreclose unless investors would get more money from a foreclosure than a principal modification/short sale. And given that investors have been bailed out so much, it's reasonable to have a rule that no foreclosures unless investors would get $20000 dollars more from a foreclosure than a principal modification / short sale.

Hannah Mae - The Shantoose of the Banjo Club

Krugman - British Debt History

(Via Wonkblog (Suzy Khimm)) - Haunting, candid photos of women on death row in China.

One of the condemned prisoners has a very simple, ingenuous face, and seems to be very happy and jolly in the first few slides. I think this was partly because she was genuinely happy, partly because she was trying to make the best of the time she had left, and partly, also, because in the back of her mind was  the feeling that if she was very jolly and friendly, and people liked her, perhaps they would give her a reprieve / extend her term. The last is an emotion very familiar to temp workers / contractors anxious to get renewed. In one of the slides she breaks down, and is comforted by a prison guard, and recovers her composure somewhat. I don't know what crime she was condemned and executed for, nor the other prisoners, including one who looked somewhat stoic and resigned.

My preferred BCS plan:

1.  Of the 4 BCS bowls, 2 act as semifinals for the BCS championship game,  #1 against #4 and #2 against #3.

2. If a Pac-12 or Big-10 team is in the top 4, the Rose Bowl gets the semifinal game with the highest ranking Pac-12 or Big-10 team. Otherwise, it gets the traditional Pac-12 versus Big-10 game. This would lead to very nice rule, "The best Pac-12 & Big-10 team always plays in the Rose Bowl"

3. Perhaps there could be similar special rights for the Sugar Bowl. In the case of a conflict between Rose & Sugar, the the higher ranked team wins. This would lead to a somewhat less nice rule, "The best Pac-12 & Big-10 & SEC team always plays in either the Rose or Sugar Bowl"

4. The other semifinal games are distributed among the other BCS bowls.

5. The BCS bowl games are played up to either Jan 1. or Jan 2.

6. The BCS championship game is played on the second Saturday after the last BCS bowl game.  i.e. For 2012 that would be Jan. 14, instead of the current date of Jan. 9. Though the championship game would be pushed back a few days,  fans would also see the best teams in the country play on and around New Year's Day, instead of having to wait until Jan. 9.

7. I believe the best college football game of the year should be played on a Saturday afternoon. Play is for players, and fans, not television. But if the conflict with pro-football is too big a problem, the game could be played on the second Friday, or  second Thursday, after the last BCS bowl game instead.

Under these rules, the current season would have a Sugar Bowl of LSU versus Stanford, an Orange or Fiesta Bowl of OSU versus Alabama, and a Rose Bowl of Oregon versus Wisconsin.

And if the seeds won out, you'd top it off  a with a rematch of LSU versus Alabama: 4 great games with genuinely unpredictable outcomes, compared to the current system of 3 great games and a lingering disappointment that the Alabama / OSU debate was not settled properly.

posted by Anonymous at 6:48 PM

 
Violet Socks - Success!

Hilary - Update 3: The goal has been reached!

Paul Krugman - Debt History

Atrios - They Know Even Less Than What They Say

Suburban Guerrilla (odd man out) - Reich’s radical proposal — decent wages

Obsidian Wings (Doctor Science) - The The Labor of the Harvest

Corrente (Lambert) - It's live! (What happened....)

dsquareddigest talks about a culture of tax avoision in Greece, but it's revenue is not that low: 40% of GDP. It's spending is high but not outlandish: 50% of GDP, but a lot of that is debt servicing. What is eye-popping is the debt/GDP ratio: 140% of GDP. Has any country ever gotten out of a debt/GDP ratio that high without defaulting? How did they do it? Japan, I guess, but their solution is to have very, very, very low interest rates, an option that does not seem open to the Greeks.

Anyone have strong opinions on where on the 40-50 scale Greece should aim for? (i.e. assuming a balanced budget, aiming for 47% GDP means 3% spending cuts, 7% tax increases, 42% means 8% spending cuts, 2% tax increases, etc).

In any case, all other countries except Greece and Ireland are liquidity problems, not solvency problems. For Italy, the ECB can solve the problem in a day by announcing that it will not allow the Italian-German spread to rise above 2.5%, and it will not allow the Italian bond to rise above 5.5%. It should do so, and should implement similar policies for other countries. If the ECB won't do it, the Fed should. Just like Clinton's Treasury in 1994 for Mexico, the Fed should not hesitate to intervene in a foreign credit crunch, if it is in US interests.

To those opposed to a simple & easy solution to a not very difficult problem, it should perhaps be suggested that if the desired goal is to teach discipline, continence & sacrifice, coked-up bond traders are not the ideal vehicle for delivering that message. Also, that there are better, truly difficult problems for humanity to attack, rather than inventing, then dealing with, the artificial problem of how to handle a bank run without activist policy to prevent interest rates from getting out of control.

That leaves, Greece, which is (possibly) a solvency problem. 3 numbers the political system needs to find: 1) the maximum GDP number the Greeks can be expected to spend on debt servicing. (my guess: 6-8%) 2) the minimum amount the debt/GDP ratio needs to decrease annually (my guess: 2%) 3) the acceptable range of interest rates the market will demand/ECB will allow for Greek bonds (no idea)

Together, these 3 numbers determine the minimum amount of principle reduction Greece may need in order to make life in the Eurozone tolerable. The hit to principle should be absorbed partly by bondholders, partly by wealthy Greeks. If the ECB/political system wants to prevent bondholders taking losses, that's fine, possibly desirable.

An aside: the one fact about Greece that has captured the public imagination is the "retiring in their fifties" theme. Everyone seems to think that if the Greeks retired at 65, their problems would be solved. No idea if it's true.

An interesting Wikipedia page:

National debt by U.S. presidential terms

which in turn links to an interesting excel file:

White house 2012 budget - Table 7.1 — FEDERAL DEBT AT THE END OF YEAR: 1940–2016


posted by Anonymous at 5:43 AM

 
Arthur Silber - Rape, Harrassment, Horrible Bosses

Arthur Silber - "They Don't Represent America"? Not Quite, Mr. President. (2004)

Will Kane (SF Chronicle) - Scott Olsen, vet hurt at Occupy Oakland, discharged

(Via Atrios):

World O' Crap - If 'Are You Being Served?' is the Kind of Programming...

Sam Seder interview of Dean Baker

Dean Baker: " . . .So we had a huge fall-off in both construction & consumption, creating a shortfall in demand over a trillion dollars a year. The point is, how do you replace that demand? We have all these people in Washington saying `We want the private sector to do it'. Wonderful! I want the private sector to do it too, but it doesn't work that way, they don't increase their spending just because we have politicians who want them to. . ."

just saw the Inside Job, found it a little overwhelming, found the interview with Mishkin, who seemed a nice man (and whose textbook is indeed quite good), painful to watch. One of the baroque details I found interesting was the extraordinary lengths Richard Fuld of Lehmann went to shield himself from the details of what the Lehmann rank and file were doing (He had his own private elevator, and his driver called in to the doorman to clear the way once he had arrived, so that the journey from the car to the elevator, instead of talking 5-10 minutes, could instead be over in 30 seconds, with minimum human contact. Once in the elevator, safe from the rank and file, straight up to the privacy of the executive floor).

I perhaps have similar misanthropic tendencies, a similar occasional desire to be free from the accusing glance of others, a similar desire to be safe in a private sanctuary, but could not imagine indulging that desire to that extreme, no matter how much money I had.

In any case, 2 people in the film that I found impressive were Robert Gnaizda & Charles Morris, and wondered why they didn't seem that impressed with the Obama administration. Also wondered what Larry Summers would have had to say about his dealings with Brooksley Born.

Re: Europe, it almost defies belief, but a great and sophisticated continent is coming to grief because it has saddled itself with a central bank that does not understand central banking: namely, that every industrial economy since 1820 has needed a lender of last resort at a penalty rate, and the penalty rate should be nonzero but affordable. The alternative to the lender of last resort is 1) large amounts of capital wasted self-insuring against Knightian uncertainty 2) random, unavoidable crisis caused by self-fulfilling fears & panics. It's easy to blame the Germans, but I believe the real fault lies with elites in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, who need to gather their courage and get out of the Euro, ASAP. When the UK & Sweden exited the ERM, the results were very beneficial, and I believe the same would be true of exiting the Euro.

One idea I think would be good for US economic policy: allow every fixed Treasury bond to be freely convertible to a TIPS bond, if the bondholder wants to convert. The result would be to allow a shift of inflation risk from individual investors to the government. Hopefully, that would make the system more tolerant of moderate amounts of inflation, and therefore better protected against liquidity traps.

posted by Anonymous at 9:58 PM

 
Arthur Silber - So, What Exactly Are We Talking About? Some Preliminary Observations

Arthur Silber - Railroaded Into Unnecessary War

Arthur Silber - AN ASSAULT ON A HUMAN BEING IS AN ASSAULT ON A HUMAN BEING. CHILDREN ARE HUMAN BEINGS. CHILDREN ARE NOT PROPERTY.

Arthur Silber - Sorrowful Silence

Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

Am I the only person in the world who thinks 200 bucks is serious money? Okay, not exactly serious, but significant. It’s a chunk of change, you know?. . .a hundred-dollar piece of electronic gear is not a stocking stuffer. A stocking stuffer is a plastic pez dispenser with red and green M&Ms. . .

Gary Farber - Amygdala

russell (Obsidian Wings) - the 28th

Susie Madrak - Dorli Rainey

A must-read post by Digby:

Digby - The war at home

Digby - For thee but not for me

Paul Krugman - The Very Brave BOE

The BOE sensibly realizes that moderate inflation is far preferable to the alternative of a liquidity trap combined with a crushing debt burden. No one liked the Post-WWII double-digit inflation rates, but surely they were preferable to depression. Central bankers with a clue: Who let them into the building?

Talking about people who know what they're doing, I've always liked this Roger Mudd interview:

Roger Mudd - interviewed by Brian Lamb (1999)

Lamb: . . .if people were to go back and say, `Was there a Roger Mudd moment?' it would be the question to Ted Kennedy, `Why do you want to be president?'. . .

Mudd: . . .So when we sat down for the interview, I knew almost as much about him and Chappaquiddick as he did so it was not an adversarial interview so much as it was he knew that he couldn't get by with very much. And he'd have to answer the questions because, you know, I knew where to go. . .And I kept saying, `Well, I mean, how do you differ from President Carter? I mean, what would be different?' And the answers were not very articulate, and suddenly I said, `OK, so why do you want to be president?' And the answer was, `Well, because the sky is so blue and the grass is so green and the water's so cold,' is basically what he said, and the answer did not make sense.

And it suddenly occurred to people that maybe the senator didn't know why he wanted to be president or maybe he hadn't thought about it; maybe he hadn't gone to the mountain and figured out who he wanted to punish and who he wanted to reward and what elements of society he wanted to -and it was a difficult moment for him because an awful lot of writers, columnists, reporters used that interview to to dump on him. They had not been willing to do that before because I think they were taken by the Kennedy magic, and this revealed the senator as inarticulate in many ways.

I think he's a terrific senator, by the way. . .

LAMB: . . .You glad it's over? Or would you have liked to have stayed on?

Mr. MUDD: Well, no. Things have changed so much, Brian. Priorities are not the same. What you try to do is not the same. The audience you try to reach is different. The kind of stories that they use now are different. . .I've had a marvelous life with the networks, ups and downs, mostly ups, and was privileged to be a part of a--of, you know, a splendid news organization, CBS. You know, when you--when you went somewhere with CBS, you felt like you were the New York Yankees arriving because you--you knew there wasn't anybody any better.

And we were awfully good; I mean, had an awful lot of good people. And we knew what we were doing, and we knew what was news and what wasn't. And maybe we had too much hubris, I don't know. But, in any event, I think--I think it would be very difficult to go back. So to answer your question, no, I'm not sad about it.

Amid all news of cell phone patents/IP, I realized with a sense of shock that patents/IP are much more valuable for a company which doesn't make cellphones, who makes nothing, than a company which actually makes the damn phones. If you actually manufacture a phone, then you can sue other manufacturers for violating your patents, but they can sue you too for violating their patents, and it's mutually assured destruction. If you can sue for infringement of your "ambulatory communication device" patent, you can also be sued for your infringement of someone else's "device which ambulates while communicating" patent. But if you posses only the cell phone patents, without selling any actual phones, you can happily sue all the real manufacturers for violating your precious, oh-so-valuable IP, without a care in the world. (I take it for granted that 99.99% of patents are not actually valuable in the process of manufacturing a product)

Obviously, this is perverse and absurd. There are solutions, but the current crop of politicians have zero interest in finding them.

I don't think Steve Jobs bitter denunciation to Obama of unions/the left should be seen as Jobs just being a jerk. I think they should be seen as someone who wanted pretty badly to manufacture macs in the US, and was frustrated at his inability to do so. I think Jobs was well aware that if he had managed to make macs in the US, the love people had for him, already immense, would have reached stratospheric levels.

Cricinfo - Full coverage of Peter Roebuck's death

Rob Steen on Peter Roebuck - A sharp mind, a tormented soul

Sambit Bal - Remembering Roebuck

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that Roebuck, when he first came up, was a pupil and friend of Tom Cartwright, one of my favorite cricketers.

posted by Anonymous at 5:54 PM

 
Andrew Sullivan - Assad's Victims Mount

Andrew Sullivan - Obama on Cannabis

Arthur Silber - Sorrowful Silence

Susie Madrak - Generational Warfare

Economist Dean Baker

Gary Farber - Amygdala

Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

Fresh Air - (Jill Lepore) How Birth Control And Abortion Became Politicized

Are the kids in the PSA abuses getting all the help they need? What do they think is an appropriate punishment?

So how many jobs would Obama/Dems have created if the GOP hadn't blocked their bills? And why isn't this number a kajillian billion?

posted by Anonymous at 10:25 PM

 
Gary Farber (Obsidian Wings) - CPT Thomas J. Casey's Bronze Star

ROD NORDLAND (NYT) - 12 Americans Die as Blast Hits Bus in Afghanistan

Corrente Wire - Bernanke & Unemployment

I like Bernanke as a person. But the unemployed deserve to know that there are consequences to the nation's top economic policy-makers for failing to prevent high unemployment.

Violet Socks - The end of male primogeniture

Susie Madrak - Greece

Kevin Drum explains the latest banking mess.

I agree with Atrios that this is really not that difficult. This is just a form of bank run, and we know the way to deal with bank runs is some FDIC-like system.

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time. . .

ROBERT D. McFADDEN (NYT) - Dorothy Rodham, Mother and Mentor of Hillary Clinton, Is Dead at 92

Thomas Macaulay Millar (Feministe) - Facts on rape

. . .rape is not the result of miscommunications, and since it’s not the result of miscommunications, sending “mixed signals” isn’t the problem. . .

Rapists aren't actually seeking consensual sex, they're seeking plausible deniability that non-consensual coercion cannot be proved to be non-consensual. They're not looking for the truth ("Is this rape?"), they're looking for a cover story ("Can I make it possible to argue that I couldn't be expected to know this was rape?").

Alan Rappeport (FT) - Obama orders FDA to tackle drugs shortage

. . .Last month, a US congressional committee requested documents from five “grey market” drug companies that buy and sell drugs in short supply to find out how they are acquiring the drugs and how much profit they are making from selling them to hospitals and pharmacies. The committee said that one company was selling a drug to treat leukaemia for nearly $1,000 per vial when the normal price was $12 per vial. . .

One key point that was not made in the FT article: Europe & Japan do not have these drug shortages.

If I were the Dems, I would make this story the centerpiece of the 2012 campaign. "We found evidence that rogue companies & health-care providers were trying to corner the market in cancer drugs so they could drive up the price and gouge hospitals. We immediately investigated and and used every tool in our power to put a stop to it. We are willing to take action to stop these abuses, no matter how loudly the rogue companies squeal. The Republicans aren't".

The Herman Cain case reminds me of how much I hate non-disclosure agreements (I also hated the non-disclosure aspect of the settlements the Catholic Church made in an attempt to cover up clergy abuse). "I did nothing wrong, but let's let it be our little secret, hmm'kay?" I think a good law Congress could pass is "Non-disclosure agreements shall not be enforceable in a court of law unless the enforcer of non-disclosure clause can demonstrate that said enforcement poses no serious risks to the general public."

posted by Anonymous at 5:48 PM

 
Henry K. Lee,Will Kane - War vet hurt in Occupy Oakland protest improving

Susie Madrak - Google

TOM FINN AND NOAH BROWNING / SANA'A - An American Teenager in Yemen: Paying for the Sins of His Father?

Melissa Mckewan - FYI

MASSIMO CALABRESI - Hillary Clinton and the Limits of Power: ". . .we polled her against Romney and Perry, and found that she does better, by far, than Obama, leading Romney by 17 points and Perry by 26*. Her closest aides strongly dismiss any 2012 ambitions and say 2016 is very unlikely: she’d be 69 the day of the vote that year. We don’t speculate on the source of her popularity. . ."

Juan Cole - Surprises of the Tunisian Election

Obsidian Wings - The future of Libya open thread

Donald Johnson - Libya & Self-righteousness

Nigel: "The incredibly rapid fall of Tripoli indicates (to me at least) that the vast majority of the population sided with the rebels. Western airpower did not and could not have achieved that on its own - as has been clearly demonstrated by all our other failed efforts. . . ."

Corrente Wire

Susie Madrak - Donate

Donations are much appreciated if you can spare them. Thanks!

posted by Anonymous at 5:52 PM

 
Susie Madrak - Sins of the father

Violet Socks - Rapture Watch

Corrente (okanogen's blog) - Sterling Newberry First Hand OWS Reporting

Obsidian Wings (Eric Martin) - Climate Change Skeptics

There is a non-crazy case for skepticism, not so much for global warming, but for policy responses to global warming. The case is that in the future we might have much cheaper ways of removing carbon from the atmosphere, therefore the best thing to do now is to pursue technofixes rather than trying to transition away from fossil fuels.

I don't agree with this view because 1) putting a price on carbon is itself an important way of encouraging R&D and technofixes 2) while there is a need for government to raise revenue, a carbon tax is one of the better ways of doing it.

Freddie deBoer - why Occupy Wall Street exists, reason #1,734

How many people are in US prisons? Of those people, how many 1) received sentences that are too harsh 2) received sentences that are too lenient 3) received sentences that are just?

Juan Cole - Qaddafi’s People’s Temple

Any news on the treatment of African immigrants in Libya?

Gary Farber - Amygdala

Arthur Silber - Once Upon A Time. . .

posted by Anonymous at 6:14 PM

 
(via Violet Socks & Susie Madrak) - Corrente Fund Drive - Help Lambert

anyone have strong opinions on where and in what proportion political funds should be allocated? I guess the organizations are OFA, DNC, PCCC, Blue America, DFA, think-tanks/media/non-profits, and what else?

I thought Feldstein's op-ed in the NYT was pretty good when I was reading it, but Dean Baker makes some sound criticisms.

posted by Anonymous at 1:40 PM

 
Good for Harry Reid. I think what Senate Democrats need to use this new power for, first of all, is to confirm political appointees, i.e. confirm people whose term may end in Jan 2013. For those people, there's no time to waste. And the problems the nation confronts are too important for Obama not to have a full team, or to have great people not confirmed because they rub one senator the wrong way.

Much better news on the jobs numbers. But important not to forget how poor the numbers are compared to the 90's.

Karl Smith - The Silver Lining

Karl Smith - On IS-LM

. . .there is a severe monetary contraction going on in their community. The answer to this story must involve banking, lending, debt, prices, import or export. It will not be solved by changes in real productivity alone. . .

. . .the more you listen to people talk about “economic problems” the more you realize that they are talking about monetary problems. Problems involving prices, money, debt and lending.

The economy of China is quite poor. The economy of Portugal is quite rich. Yet right now Portugal is experiencing a severe monetary contraction while China is trying to put the breaks on monetary expansion.

Thus it feels to just about everyone that the economy of China is doing well and the economy of Portugal is doing poorly. . .

Question: What is the probability the average citizen will be forced, by adverse economic setbacks to a) change their daily/weekly schedule b) change their location of residence/location of work/commute in China, versus in Portugal?

Is perhaps that what people mean by saying China's economy is doing better than Portugal? That the average Chinese has a lower probability, going forward, of being forced to change their lives due to adverse economic setbacks?

Question: How quickly did unemployment decline as the economy was going to full-employment in WWII? How quickly did it decline in 1983 recovery? How quickly could we reasonably expect it to decline now, if we had good economic policies?

Susie Madrak - The Light Dawns

Charlie Pierce: "The flip side of arrogance is opulent self-pity. . ."

(via Susie Madrak) Tim Shorrock - Michael Moore on “Here Comes Trouble,” the Left, the Wall Street protests – and Ralph Nader

Gary Farber - Said the Red Queen

Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time...

a good (7pm - 8pm) hour of talk radio with (host) Peter. B Collins & (guest) William K. Black, on housing, HAMP, etc. (interview starts at 21:30, and a lot of the good stuff starts at: 39:30)

Jeff Pearlman's SI cover story on Walter Payton was astonishing to me, because I never would have guessed a man as great as Walter Payton - and there were/are few greater - would become (partially) unmoored after losing the rhythms and routines of a football season. I guess the lesson is if it can happen to Payton, it can happen to anyone. It reminded me of Kasparov's WSJ op-ed on Fischer: "People may believe that this is what happens when a genius plays chess -- instead of what happens when a fragile mind leaves his life's work behind." Walter Payton was not all that fragile, but leaving your life's work behind must be hard for anyone.

. . .If fans approached him with footballs to sign, Payton first insisted on a quick game of catch. If they wanted him to shake a child's hand, Payton knelt down and engaged the youngster in a conversation about school. While traveling to Orlando for a vacation in 1996, Payton, sitting in first class, was told that a 10-year-old boy named Billy Kohler, who needed liver and kidney transplants, was on the plane, heading to Disney World courtesy of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

"A stewardess comes up and says, 'There's someone who would like to meet you in first class,' " says Jim Kohler, Billy's father. "We go up front, and who's standing there—Walter Payton." He introduced himself and knelt down to Billy's level. "You've been facing a lot of adversity," Payton told the boy. "You will come through this. No matter what follows, you need to keep your head up, you need to keep fighting forward, and you need to believe. You've gone through more in your short life than most of us have in a lifetime."

Overcome by the moment, Billy began sobbing. Payton tickled him beneath the chin. "You're a hero," he said. "Just know that—you're a hero."

Billy Kohler, now 24, is a construction worker in Orlando. . .

John Madden's book One Knee Equals Two Feet has a very good chapter on Payton, "Why Payton is the Best".

NYT reader comments on Brooks's In Defense of Romney column:

Dan (CA): ". . .everyone knows that what private equity is most about is creating efficiencies, including cutting jobs, to squeeze out more profits for investors. There's nothing fundamentally wrong about that, but it's wrong to misrepresent the nature of private equity as Romney does. Private equity is not the same as venture capital. . ."

BH (MA): ". . .With all due respect to Prof. Hubbard and Prof. Mankiw (after all, they are the teachers and advisers of future economists who possess more brain power than most of us,) one should be mindful that they were the advisers of President George W Bush. While President Obama has not been able to fix the economy after pulling America out of the potential Great Depression II, these two powerhouse economists were the team getting us there. Not something we should cheer for. The premise is based on some simpleton math: 8 years versus 3 years, even if one is to discount the fact that fixing things is much harder than breaking things!. . ."

Three very good letters in the Financial Times:

Greg Beier - Polite conversation with a lawyer, two hippies and a nanny

Finn Jackson - Creating more hedge contracts increases the risk

William Thayer - HFT’s only ‘advantage’ is to the traders

posted by Anonymous at 10:05 AM

 
One of the weird unspoken assumptions of politics at the moment is that hurting/ causing pain to others is virtually certain to result in increased benefits to oneself. It's perhaps worth repeating that we can't cut our way out, we can't spend our way out, we can only work our way out. Prosperity is not green pieces of paper, or gold ingots, or even positive numbers on non-fraudulent balance sheets. Prosperity is work well done at work worth doing. If we want more real prosperity, it's not going to come from cutting, or spending, it's going to come from increasing the amount of work well done at work worth doing. If the price of increasing that real work, and that real prosperity, is an abstraction called a budget deficit, or an increased price level, that's unfortunate, but it's a second order issue, not a first order one. We can easily deal with second-order issues once the first-order issues have been addressed.

Susie Madrak - Alabama immigration

. . .hurt children and don’t even care. . .

Susie Madrak - All I really want for my birthday (support #occupy movement)

Susie Madrak - That darn Marcy

Always wanting the evidence and such. What a killjoy!

Why would anyone object to killing U.S. citizens without even a trial?

Susie Madrak - Why infrastructure spending saves money

Brad Delong

. . .In sum, on the benefits side of the equation: more jobs now, $500 billion of additional consumption of goods and services over the next two years, and then a $40 billion a year flow of higher incomes and production each year thereafter. So, what are the likely costs of an extra $500 billion in infrastructure spending over the next two years?

For starters, the $500 billion of extra government spending would likely be offset by $300 billion of increased tax collections from higher economic activity. So the net result would be a $200 billion increase in the national debt. American taxpayers would then have to pay $2 billion a year in real interest on that extra national debt over the next 30 years, and then pay off or roll over the entire $200 billion. . .

David Graeber - Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination

What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. . .Everything we'd been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses. . . money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. . .It seemed the time had come to rethink everything. . .

Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they'd been before.

. . .It's becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant. . .

One simple point I think does not get made nearly enough. The US Government gave Goldman, via the AIG counterparty bailout, at least 12 billion, and probably more. This is more than Goldman's annual profits. And it was a free gift, no strings attached. Wall Street is a primitive "face" culture. By raiding the US Treasury to protect Goldman's profits, we allowed Blankfein to protect his "hayba" as a money-making businessman, instead of a money-losing one.

(Via Garrett Jones) Dean Baker - How It Could Have Been Different This Time

. . .If we had looked at the probability that newborns would live to age five, examining random 20-year intervals in different countries over the last six centuries, we would find that in most of these intervals, most newborns do not live to age five. If we therefore concluded that we should expect children born today to die before the age of five, we would be utterly crazy. The advances in health care, nutrition and sanitation over this period make it possible for the vast majority of children almost everywhere to survive to adulthood.

I would argue that the story with economics is similar. We do know more about the economy today than we did 500 years ago or even 100 years ago. We do know how to get out of severe downturn like the present one, the real question is whether we have the political will to make it different.

In this spirit, I was prompted by a question from Ezra Klein to lay out the case as to how exactly it could have been different. So, now that I have the reins of government fiscal policy and monetary policy, let me show exactly how we would have done it differently. . .

Is there any great mystery in what Obama could do to energize the base, and indeed even the entire electorate? Produce a plan for a full-employment economy, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

MLK: "What's the use of having the right to sit at the counter, if you can't buy a meal?"

I remember reading a Michael May article on MAD where he said "only nuclear weapons and the logic of MAD transforms the great powers perceptions of peace, as something which is nice to have but not essential, into instead an essential strategic necessity. They do this at some risk of an unimaginable catastrophe. . ". I've been thinking the same thing about full-employment and WWII. It's striking how easy it was to achieve full-employment when the ruling class wanted it. There were real costs: a few years of very high inflation, etc. but on the whole full-employment policies were very beneficial.

Michael May - No matter what the evidence, U.S. was going to war in Iraq (2004)

. . .Kay was polite in his testimony and pointed only to an intelligence failure. It clearly was a lot more. Both in the United States and Britain, analysts who knew there was no evidence of any weapons capability could not get their message past the lowest levels of the intelligence bureaucracy. The administration, or the dominant players in it, were determined to let no alternative story surface, except the one that would justify war. Under those circumstances, the truth, which is generally a messy thing that doesn't fit well into any story, had no chance of getting a hearing. . .

Doctor Science - Raytheon's cold equations

. . .My mother/aunt, Renee Douceur, is the winter site manager at the South Pole Station run by Raytheon and the National Science Foundation. She suffered a stroke on August 27th and the on-site doctors requested for her immediate medical emergency evacuation to get her to proper medical care and prevent further injury to her, The decision makers are disregarding the on-site doctors’ request for Renee’s immediate need for emergency evacuation. Instead they are treating her stroke as a non-emergency, keeping her at the South Pole until late October or early November. Renee’s attorney has advised her to go public because he is being stonewalled by Raytheon and the NSF to get her out ASAP for proper medical diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation (if she survives the trip out) Let's get her home!. . .

Gary Farber - Papers, please

Gary Farber - Off With Their Heads!

Doctor Science - September 11, Iraq, and the nature of courage

. . .in retrospect, most people seem to be acknowledging that:

there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attackers

the rationale the Bush Administration put forth for the war was at best specious, at worst deliberately deceptive

the Administration's planning for the war and (especially) for the occupation were staggeringly incompetent

the consequences of the war for the US were bad (loss of life, limb, security, and money), and the Iraqi people catastrophic (death or injury for hundreds of thousands, millions of refugees).

The thing is, most of these points seemed patently obvious to me in February 2003 -- except for #3, the incompetence of the Bush Administration, which I *really* wasn't expecting. I thought they *cared* about war and would do a much better job at it than they did. . .

(Via Ross Douthat) The Skeptical Juror - The Yellow and White Case of Troy Anthony Davis: Part 1

Violet Socks - The Big Lie

. . .human beings are predisposed to believe what other human beings say. . .

"That popup says it's an anti-virus, so how can it be a virus?"

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time...

Amanda Marcotte - Analogizing taxes to rape

I think describing taxes with rape analogies illustrates the extreme dangers of thinking of money as a real thing in its own right, instead of as a useful illusion: A handy, but ultimately fake, thing, which can occasionally enable you to do real things.

Swami Dayananda - The Value Of Values

. . .When I was a child of three years old, I once picked up a piece of paper. It was green, printed, very colourful. I began, as I did with every paper, to play with it. Mummy said: No! That is money." . .

. . .I saw lots of chocolates and jelly-beans. I stretched out my hand: "Give me jelly-beans." The fellow behind the counter raised his eyebrows and looked at Mummy. I wondered why he would not give me any candy when he had so many. Then Mummy opened her purse. . .

. . .One day when we were shopping, I wanted a balloon. Out came the money and the balloon was mine. Oh, ho! If you give money you can get jelly beans, chocolates, and even balloons. This is a great discovery for a small child. I had learnt that money buys things - all manner of things. Not many people understand the monetary system but everybody knows that money buys!

Later, as I grew up I came to learn how many things money buys: houses, cars, even gurus and gods. Nothing buys like money.

When I come to know how well money buys, how many things money buys, I come to have a well understood, well assimilated personal value for money. . .

. . .most of us have a well assimilated personal value for money; whereas, when it comes to speaking truth our value often is general and half assimilated. When this is the case, what happens if there is a conflict between the money-value and the truth-value? . . .Very likely, the assimilated value for money will be the victor. But, all the same, something goes on murmuring inside, "Speak truth, speak truth.". . .

Juan Cole - Informed Comment

Wikipedia - Works Progress Administration

. . .Critics ridiculed them, and the agency as a whole, as lazy — calling the initials "We Poke Along", "We Piddle Around", "We Putter Along", "Working Piss Ants", or the "Whistle, Piss and Argue gang". These were sarcastic references to WPA projects that sometimes slowed down deliberately because foremen had an incentive to keep going, rather than finish a project.[35]

Novelist John Steinbeck rejected a common charge against WPA workers in his essay, "Primer on the '30s": "It was the fixation of businessmen that the WPA did nothing but lean on shovels. I had an uncle who was particularly irritated at shovel-leaning. When he pooh-poohed my contention that shovel-leaning was necessary, I bet him five dollars, which I didn’t have, that he couldn’t shovel sand for fifteen timed minutes without stopping. He said a man should give a good day’s work and grabbed a shovel. At the end of three minutes his face was red, at six he was staggering and before eight minutes were up his wife stopped him to save him from apoplexy. And he never mentioned shovel-leaning again." . . .

. . .Unemployment ended with the beginning of war production for World War II, as millions of men joined the services, and cost-plus contracts made it attractive for companies to hire men and train them. . .

posted by Anonymous at 9:36 AM

 
I do not know whether Troy Davis's last words to Mark MacPhail's family were true. I do not know whether a possibly credible witness claiming Coles confessed to shooting MacPhail is speaking the truth. But neither does the criminal-justice system. Which is why this is such a travesty.

Susie Madrak - The quality of mercy

Violet Socks - Elizabeth Warren for Senate

Gary Farber - Amygdala

Arthur Silber - Power of Narrative

Amanda Marcotte - The death penalty and our corrupted justice system

Lindsay Beyerstein - Troy Davis and Arguments Against the Death Penalty

Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Utterly Relevant NAACP

Jelani Cobb - The Night They Killed Troy Davis

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Death Penalty Activism

Obama UN address

Wonkblog (Sarah Kliff) - Medicaid quietly dodges deficit-reduction battle

Matthew Yglesias - Today Is A Good Day To Guarantee Loans

Matthew Yglesias - Fantasy Central Banker Draft

Matthew Yglesias - No Stop Till (Full-Employment In) Brooklyn

Andrew Tobias - Israel

GOLD

George E.: “On TV and radio I run across a good number of commercials by companies wanting to help protect me from the coming economic collapse by offering to sell gold (or silver, or other precious metals) in exchange for my soon-to-be worthless money. However, if these companies truly believe that an economic Armageddon is about to occur, why are they so eager to sell their gold at this time?”

I do think that one opporutunity for progressives to make up some ground on the tea party will come from the collapse of the gold bubble.

HP's ousted CEO will take home $25 million

Coming To America:

King Jaffe Joffer: Semmi, you have disgraced yourself, and you must be punished. Confine yourself to our royal suite at the Waldorf-Astoria.
[to Oha]
King Jaffe Joffer: And see that he puts on some decent attire.
[to the rose bearers]
King Jaffe Joffer: And I want you to bathe him thoroughly.

posted by Anonymous at 1:23 AM

 
NAACP - Significant Doubts about Troy Davis guilt: A Case for Clemency

NAACP - Too Much Doubt

Troy has been on Death Row for the past 20 years for the murder of Savannah, GA police officer Mark MacPhail. Despite serious doubts to his guilt, Davis’ execution is scheduled for September 21, 2011. There is simply too much doubt to let this happen. Read more about Troy's case here.

We can save Troy, but it’s something we can only accomplish together, with your help. Here are four things you can do to help save Troy Davis from execution.

1. Write a letter to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking them to grant Troy clemency.
    
2. Tell Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm to petition for withdrawal of the death warrant for Troy Davis.
    
3. Participate in our #TooMuchDoubt social media campaign by making Troy your profile pic on Twitter/Facebook, and tweeting from the hashtag #TooMuchDoubt.
    
4. Text TROY to 62227 (NAACP) for updates regarding the Troy Davis case.

 

posted by Anonymous at 10:14 AM

 
(Via Yglesias) JEFFREY GETTLEMAN (NYT) - Famine Ravages Somalia in a World Less Less Likely to Intervene

NYT - How to Help Victims of the East Africa Famine

Matthew Yglesias - Be The Change You Want To See In The World

NYT: Portraits of Grief

Wikipedia - Troy Davis Case

(Via Gary Farber) Lena Groeger (Wired) - The Dead, the Dollars, the Drones: 9/11 Era by the Numbers

Violet Socks - Reclusive Leftist

here’s an excerpt from Richard Clarke’s Against All Enemies, describing the conversations happening in the White House on September 12, 2001:

. . .Secretary Powell pushed back, urging a focus on al Qaeda. Relieved to have some support, I thanked Colin Powell and his deputy, Rich Armitage. “I thought I was missing something here,” I vented. “Having been attacked by al Qaeda, for us now to go bombing Iraq in response would be like our invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.”

Powell shook his head. “It’s not over yet.”

Indeed, it was not. Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that there were no decent targets for bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. . .

I note with amusement that former Secretary Rumsfeld cancelled his subscription to the Times this morning in protest against Krugman’s column.

Susie Madrak - CBS/NYT Polling

. . .The poll found that nearly three-quarters of Republicans said they thought Social Security and Medicare were worth their costs.

Some pretty big clues there, Mr. President.

Arthur Silber - Once Upon a Time. . .

Shorter Netanyahu: We're a good people, so it's not possible for us to do anything bad.
Siegbert Tarrasch: "It is not enough to be a good player: One must also play well."

tweets from dsquared & co:

DD "simple" plan for financial regulation: loan growth > deposit growth = visit from regulators

This is the fundamental fact. For the system, loans can't grow faster than deposits. So if a bank grows loans > dep, it ought to be a focus

Been telling people this for years. UK had a lending boom. It didn't have a simultaneous deposit boom. Hence, problems.

chrismealy Chris Mealy
@dsquareddigest just curious, are there deposit booms?

@chrismealy can't think of one ever happening, but it might possibly have happened sometime somewhere.

@chrismealy Of course, since every loan is a deposit, every lending boom is a deposit boom, somewhere, but somehow it never evens out

Re: Brooks column on limits of government responsibility for the economy, I think he's conflating productivity and employment. The three main fundamentals of an economy are productivity, distribution & employment. Government cannot magically increase productivity, can partially affect distribution (at least, it can make sure everyone has access to affordable basic education and health care), and not only can, it must be held accountable for achieving full-employment.

I actually think the productivity numbers would be more accurate and meaningful, and a better guide for policy, if they included the unemployed/discouraged workers in the calculations.

re: "let him die", I guess my fantasy "grand bargain" is that conservatives give up on the idea of lightening their load by chucking people off the bus, liberals give up on the idea of lightening their load by putting it all on the backs of the rich.

Conversation I had with someone:
"Obama can't do anything about jobs. No politician can. It's being driven by deep forces, outsourcing, globalization. Jobs will come back in this country only when wages equalize with India & China".

Me: What about Germany? Same first world wages, but they've been good at reducing unemployment.

"Oh, but their politics is completely different. . ."

Obviously, the world did not fall at Obama's feet after his jobs speech, but I still think his current strategy of proposing something that might work but might not pass is better than strategy of proposing something that might pass but won't work, or the strategy of proposing nothing because prosperity is just around the corner.

One other possible strategy: Congress, 1) here's your budget. 2) here's the number of jobs you must create 3) how you do it is up to you.
posted by Anonymous at 12:24 PM