On one side, this elite is presumed to be a bunch of economic superheroes, able to deliver universal prosperity by summoning the magic of the marketplace. On the other side, they’re depicted as incredibly sensitive flowers who wilt in the face of adversity — raise their taxes a bit, subject them to a few regulations, or for that matter hurt their feelings in a speech or two, and they’ll stop creating jobs and go sulk in their tents, or more likely their mansions.
Year: 2016
Politics in Sweden is Odd
The newly elected liberal coalition in Sweden is looking at reinstating military conscription, reversing a decision by the center-right government in 2010 to abolish the practice:
Sweden’s former centre-right government scrapped compulsory military service in 2010, but the current Social Democrat-Green coalition has said it is considering reintroducing the concept.
And a new survey carried out by major pollsters Ipsos on behalf of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper suggested on Monday that 72 percent of Swedes would throw their support behind conscription.
Only 16 percent of respondents said they believed it was a bad idea.
People are also making the argument that this could provide staffing for non military needs:
………
The foreign minister told a meeting of senior politicians and military chiefs, attending the annual Sälen Society and Defense conference, that the government needs to examine all viable options to resolve present and future manpower needs and recruitment challenges faced by the Swedish armed forces.
Wallström said that a reconstructed national service model could bolster the military’s capacity to not only conduct core defense tasks, but would also deliver military support to assist civilian agencies dealing with emergencies such as natural disasters, search-and-rescue missions and environmental clean-up.
This is not something that I would expect from a, “Social Democrat-Green coalition,” though I approve.
I think that a draftee army is likely to be more receptive to civilian control, and less likely to go along with a coup.
Reality: 1 – USAF: 0
Because they have nothing else that can do the job, the the United States Air Force has declared a hiatus on trying to scrap the A-10 Warthog:
The U.S. Air Force has reportedly decided to temporarily call off its campaign to retire the long-serving Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II close air support aircraft. The service finally relented because the Warthog is in high demand fighting the Islamic State terrorist entity in Iraq and Syria.With its distinctive, even ungainly design, the Warthog is nonetheless beloved by U.S. ground forces who have come to rely on the low flying jet to provide air cover during battles with militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the Air Force was — until recently — trying to retire the jet in favor of the stealthy, supersonic Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
“It appears the administration is finally coming to its senses and recognizing the importance of A-10s to our troops’ lives and national security. Since before I took office and after, I’ve consistently highlighted the A-10’s irreplaceable capabilities and worked to expose the administration’s flawed argument for wanting to retire it prematurely,” Rep. Martha McSally — a former A-10 squadron commander and current member of the House Armed Services Committee — said in a statement.
She added:
“With A-10s deployed in the Middle East to fight ISIS, in Europe to deter Russian aggression, and along the Korean Peninsula, administration officials can no longer deny how invaluable these planes are to our arsenal and military capabilities. But our fight does not end here. The administration has been persistent in its efforts to send our best close air support asset to the boneyard without a replacement. That’s unacceptable, and I’ll continue to lead the fight to ensure we keep these planes flying until we know without a doubt we can replace their capabilities.”
The facts on the ground are no surprise, but the fact that the USAF has acknowledged reality is.
They have been soft pedaling their close air support duties since at least the Korean war, when they refused to deploy the P-47 Thunderbolt, and instead deployed the P-51 Mustang, which carried less ordinance and was far more vulnerable to ground fire because of its aft mounted radiator. (And the fact that the Thunderbolt was built like a f%$#ing tank)
I have a New Endorsement
Timothy Canova, who is running against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the Democratic primary.
It appears that dissatisfaction with DWS, both in her district and inside the DC Beltway that The Hill, a bastion of inside the Beltway thinking has taken notice:
For Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the problems with the left just keep coming.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) chief has infuriated many Democrats with her handling of the party’s presidential primary debates. She drew further howls from liberals for deeming a whole generation of young women “complacent” about their abortion freedoms.
And now she’s facing a primary challenge from a liberal Wall Street reformer who says she’s a corporate shill detached from her district.
The challenge highlights the difficulty facing Wasserman Schultz as she juggles her dual roles as Florida representative and head of the DNC — duties that sometimes come into conflict.
Timothy Canova, a professor at the Shepard Broad College of Law in Florida’s Nova Southeastern University, says Wasserman Schultz’s positions on trade, criminal justice, consumer protection and drug policy reform — among others — are evidence that she’s sold out to corporate interests at the expense of her constituents.
It marks the first primary challenge to Wasserman Schultz since her arrival on Capitol Hill in 2005.
Canova launched his bid last week on a platform that pulls more than a few pages from that of populist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Democratic presidential hopeful who’s waged a surprisingly strong challenge to front-runner Hillary Clinton by attacking from the left.
In that mold, Canova is vowing to fight President Obama’s trade agenda, reform the criminal justice system, rein in big banks and curtail the influence of money in politics — all issues where he sees Wasserman Schultz as vulnerable.
“People here on the ground — I hear left and right, you name it — are just dissatisfied that she’s not responsive, she takes people for granted, and it’s becoming evident in the way she votes on an awful lot of issues,” Canova said Friday by phone.
“She takes a lot of corporate money, and she votes for corporate interests contrary to the interest of her own constituents.”
Canova, a former aide to the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.), is pointing to a host of votes that, he says, make Wasserman Schultz a bad fit for the district.
He says she fought against new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau guidelines governing car loans and pay-day lenders.
He’s quick to note that she opposed a 2014 Florida referendum to legalize medical marijuana, calling her “a drug warrior” in the pockets of a private prison industry that promotes incarcerations.
And he’s highlighting the fact that she was one of just 28 House Democrats to support the fast-track trade bill that’s greased the skids for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a huge international accord that’s a top priority of Obama but remains anathema to liberals in his own party.
Canova said the TPP would be an environmental catastrophe for South Florida, which “is really facing, in the long-term, an existential problem with climate change and rising oceans.”
“In a democracy, you have to hold your officials accountable,” Canova said. “I was hoping somebody would step forward and challenge her. Nobody else would, and that’s really the basis of the challenge.”
Canova has a tough road ahead. Wasserman Schultz, as head of the DNC, is the most prominent Democrat in Florida; she’s a prodigious fundraiser for the party; and she glided to a sixth term in 2014 with 63 percent of the vote.
Still, in an environment when political non-conformers like Sanders and Donald Trump have attracted support by simple virtue of their outsider status, Canova sees an opening.
“There’s a perception … that she’s bullet-proof here at home because she wins by big majorities,” he said. “But she’s never been challenged in a primary.”
Washerman Schultz has faced some difficulty representing her district while also serving as a figurehead role for her party.
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz isn’t having difficulties because she has duties as head of the DNC.
She is facing a backlash because she is a careerist political climber with no underlying beliefs beyond that, she is as dumb as a post, and she refuses to listen to people she needs for implementation of her agenda.
I am so hoping that she gets the boot in the primary.
In any case, I have added Dr. Canova to Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.
This Is Some Class A Trolling
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has invited Donald Trump to visit a London Mosque with him:
Britain’s opposition leader invited U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who sparked an outcry by calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States, to join him on a visit to a London mosque.
The comments from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist who represents a multi-ethnic district of north London, come a day before the British parliament debates a motion calling for a ban on half-Scottish Trump from visiting the country.
“I decided to invite Donald Trump on his visit to Britain to come with me to my constituency because he has problems with Mexicans and he has problems with Muslims,” Corbyn told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.
“As you know my wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multi-cultural so what I was going to do was go down to the mosque with him and let him talk to people there,” he said.
This is some truly epic trolling.
Labour made the right choice when they elected him party leader.
If So, I Approve this Camel’s Nose………
Matt Bruenig has a very interesting perspective on Bernie Sanders’ single payer program, specifically, he believes that it provide the fiscal basis for a massive expansion of social welfare programs:
Currently, total health expenditures in the US make up around 17% of GDP. The average for the OECD is 9.3%. Around half of our healthcare spending is public while the other half is private. Thus, very roughly speaking, to shift all of the current healthcare expenditures onto the public health insurance, you’d need initially to raise the tax level by 8.5 points of GDP (half of 17%).
If you believe, as I do, that switching to a single-payer healthcare system would allow us to better curb healthcare inflation and thus to control costs much more effectively than we currently do, then that means that the 17% of GDP we currently pay towards healthcare could be pushed down over time. Let’s assume that, by keeping healthcare inflation in check through single-payer, we could eventually bring health expenditures down to around 10% of GDP (slightly above the OECD average).
Under this scenario, we would initially raise the tax level by 8.5 points in order to cover the half of health expenditures that are currently paid out privately. Then, over time, we would cut healthcare expenditures by 7 points (from 17% to 10% of GDP). Assuming we didn’t lower the tax level over the expenditure-slimming period, we would be able to use those 7 points of savings towards other welfare programs (child care, child allowance, paid leave, etc.). And there is a lot of stuff you can get with 7 points of GDP.
He’s an optimist.
My guess is that these savings, will go to bombs and bullets, because ……… America!!!!
We have still not accepted the wisdom of Eisenhower’s Chance for Peace speech, while we bankrupt ourselves through military procurement and military adventurism.
Can We Give Florida Back to Spain?
In response to donations from sub-par hospitals to the state Republican Party, Florida has abandoned surgical standards for hospitals:
Children’s heart doctors in Florida are reeling from a recent decision by the state to drop surgical standards for pediatric open heart surgery, CNN reports. To add insult to injury, doctors and medical experts suspect that the decision was purely political.
The decision follows a 2014 medical review and a June 2015 report by CNN, which found that one particular medical facility, St. Mary’s Medical Center and Palm Beach Children’s Hospital, had an abysmal track record for pediatric open-heart surgery—a death rate more than three times the national average. And the two reports found that the facility was failing to meet the now-repealed standards, which include proficiency in performing the surgeries themselves.
The St. Mary’s facility is run by Tenet Healthcare, which coincidentally donated $200,000 to the state’s republicans between 2013 and 2014, including $100,000 to Republican Governor Rick Scott’s political action committee. Those donations were the highest of any Tenet gave to political groups in other states.
A month after CNN’s report, the state announced that it would repeal the standards for children’s heart surgery. Florida’s health department explained the move by saying that the standards were never properly approved by the legislature, but it failed to explain to reporters why legislative approval was not sought upon realizing the lapse.
It appears that Florida is in a competition with Texas for most repulsively corrupt politics in the United States.
My Take on the Democratic Debates
I missed the first 20 minutes, so this effects my review of the debate.
My two big take-aways are that but this debate was far more combative than any of the prior encounters, and that the debate moderators were trying very hard to completely ignore Martin O’Malley.
In terms of performance, I think that Clinton is a more accomplished debater, but that Sanders challenged her honesty, which is, and remains a weak point with the voters.
I’m not sure how this is going to pay out.
My guess is that the press will declare it a Cinton victory.
but I do want to say that the decision by Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to schedule this debate opposite the NFL playoffs, much like her decision to schedule an earlier debate on the Saturday before Christmas.
DWS really needs to be fired.
Well, This is Getting Interesting
David Brock, a proxy for Hillary Clinton has been demanding that the 74 year old Bernie Sanders release his complete medical records.
Interestingly, the Clinton campaign has done its level best to get him to STFU:
A top surrogate for Hillary Clinton is prepping a new attack in an intensifying and increasingly personal war against rival Bernie Sanders — calling on the 74-year-old to release his medical records before the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.
Clinton defender David Brock — founder of the Correct the Record PAC, which coordinates directly with Clinton’s campaign — is expected to hit the airwaves this weekend from Charleston, the scene of the third Democratic debate on Sunday night, and challenge Sanders to cough up a clean bill of health and doctor’s note in the next 16 days, according to a Democrat familiar with his thinking who was not authorized to preview any strategy.
Clinton released her medical records, showing she is “fit to serve as President,” last July. A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign declined to comment on the strategy.
But hours later, after this report was published and Brock’s planned tactics were widely criticized on Twitter, campaign chairman John Podesta distanced himself from the surrogate’s attack.
“@DavidBrockDC chill out,” Podesta tweeted Saturday night. “We’re fighting on who would make a better President, not on who has a better Physical Fitness Test.”
Podesta’s belated comment also came after the Sanders campaign issued its own fundraising plea off of this report, calling it “a new, vile super PAC attack on Bernie.”
I don’t think that it was a fundraising plea.
I think that the Clinton campaign does not want a detailed investigation of her health records. (She is 68)
Here is the analysis from Naked Capitalism: (note that Coumadin is a brand name for the generic Wafarin)
……… People in glass houses should not throw stones! Hillary’s medical report reads as if it was written by lawyer, and it’s from an MD in the town next to Chappaqua, when you have to think her and Bill’s main doctors are big ticket MDs in Manhattan, and the local just part of the team. But most important, she’s on Coumadin, which is an anti-clotting drug used often in post stroke patients to reduce the risk of recurrence. Coumadin has to be tightly managed. And read this analysis….be sure to get as far as the discussion of the cumulative odds of death were she to be a 2 term president on Coumadin. Are there any doctors in the house who can weigh in on the article? Update: This came in by e-mail from a doctor who treats in this area that I asked to opine:
Clinton apparently had a rare type of stroke, cerebral venous thrombosis. For what it’s worth, I had never seen a patient with that kind of stroke in my career. In the blog post, Dr Cundiff analyzed the fairly minimal data available on that kind of stroke. One study showed a surprisingly high bleeding risk for patients on long-term Coumadin. But the study was apparently funded by the manufacturer of a drug that was brought out to be a supposedly safer alternative to Coumadin, the COIs affecting the study were not properly disclosed, and the design of the study was such that the likelihood it was biased is high.
And of course it’s actually very difficult to accurately predict what will happen to any patient, much less at a distance using limited information for a patient who had a relatively rare problem.
All patients on Coumadin (and other kinds of anticoagulants) have elevated bleeding risks. How elevated it may be difficult to say for many. Really good medical care and monitoring ought to decrease this risk. Falling and hitting one’s head, or having major trauma surely increase it. So I would advise Ms Clinton, from a distance, to avoid contact sports and activities with high risks of trauma (sky-diving, race car driving, working for the police, fire departments, going into military combat, etc). But that’s probably not so useful in this context.
All of this is significant because I guarantee that the Republican opposition researchers are looking to use all of this against the eventual Democratic nominee.
Whether it’s Clinton or Sanders (O’Malley is really not in the game), we are going to see health issues raised by Republican operatives.
Some History Perspective on Bank Failures
FDIC Data
Data from 1921
The good folks at Calculated Risk have put together some very interesting on bank failure going back almost 100 years.
It should be noted that the current bank failures are dwarfed by the failures during the S&L crisis, (Also known as the bailout of the Texas banking industry) but that we routinely saw more failures than that before the creation of the FDIC.
The next time that someone complains about how excessive regulation constrains the dynamism of the US economy, show them these graphs. (click for slide show)
Muck Ficrosoft
It’s clear that since the clusterf%$# that was Windows 8, Microsoft has been running scared.
Now, it appears that they will be doing their best to cripple earlier versions of their operating systems with the current hardware:
Soon, when you buy a new PC, it won’t support Windows 7 or 8. Microsoft has announced a change to its support policy that lays out its plans for future updates to its older operating systems, and the new rules mean that future PC owners with next-generation Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm processors will need to use Windows 10.
It’s not usual for old PCs to fall short of the minimum requirements of a brand new operating system, but in this case, the opposite is happening. Microsoft and its partners will not be putting in the significant work necessary to make new hardware work with older versions of Windows. The old operating systems, at best, will merely lack the latest updates. At worst, they might not function properly.
Policy starts with Intel’s current processors, Skylake
“Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced, they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for support,” Microsoft notes in a blog post published on Friday. “Windows 10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s upcoming ‘Kaby Lake’ silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming ‘8996’ silicon, and AMD’s upcoming ‘Bristol Ridge’ silicon.”
This new policy doesn’t mean that Windows 7 and 8.1 are no longer supported in general. The two operating systems will continue to get updates through January 14, 2020 and January 10, 2023, respectively. But that’s only if you’re using hardware that was contemporaneous with those operating systems.
For current PC owners, the detail to note is that Intel’s current, sixth generation processors, known as Skylake, are the first that won’t support either of the older versions of Windows. (Intel and Microsoft say that the platform and Windows 10 were designed for each other.) Microsoft is phasing in the policy now.
When juxtaposed with Microsoft’s attempts to move to software as a service, it’s yet another reason to move to Linux.
“If They Want the Germans to Accept Arab Women Wearing Headscarves Then They Must Accept Germans Sunbathing and Swimming Naked in Public Parks and Rivers.”
One of the reasons that there are problems integrating immigrants into European societies is because there is very little effort to actual integrate them into society.
So this course in Europe is a very positive step:
Skinny-dipping, gay relationships and parenting all form part of Magdi Gohary’s crash-course introduction to a strange new home, Learn to Understand Germany, given at a huge refugee camp on the outskirts of Munich.
Many of those who join his seminars headed to the country in search of security and gave little thought to what else awaited them there, says the 74-year-old, a retired chemist who left his native Egypt for Munich half a century ago.
“We talk about homosexuality, which a lot of my course members tend to see as criminal. I go on to explain to them that Germans don’t see it that way and that they will have to accept that if they want to live here,” he says.
They are warned that their children will have more independence if they grow up German than they might have expected in the Arab world.
“Arabs are often shocked here when they see the Bavarians go swimming naked in the River Isar. But I tell them that if they want the Germans to accept Arab women wearing headscarves then they must accept Germans sunbathing and swimming naked in public parks and rivers.”
In the wake of mass assaults on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve – which police believe were largely carried out by men of Arab and North African backgrounds, including several asylum seekers – Germany is being pushed into a public debate about the challenges of integration.
The conversation is a delicate one. Refugees, those who work with them and the millions of Germans who support chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming new arrivals are all very wary of giving more ammunition to far-right groups who have already made political capital from the attacks. But many are also frustrated by assumptions that it would take little more than a change of clothes and passports for new arrivals to settle in, and say the conversation is a very necessary one for Germans and refugees alike.
There is very little effort to make immigrants in Germany, France, Italy, Holland, etc. into Germans, French, Italians, Dutch, etc.
Instead, Europe has tacitly accepted the creation of segregated ghettos, with little meaningful integration into the surrounding culture.
Taking a Prank That Necessary Extra Step
As you are no doubt aware, the terrorists occupying the Malheur sanctuary offices in Oregon have been asking for people to send them stuff so that they can maintain their presence.
They’ve asked for things like food and warm clothing, what they have been getting is dildos and other sex toys.
Well, Max Temkin, co-creator of the game Cards Against Humanity, saw this as problematic, so he sent the protesters a 55 gallon drum of Passion Natural Water Based Lubricant.
Epic.
Misquoting Deming
It turns out that a common argument for expanded school testing is based on a selective quote of the efficiency expert Edward Deming which reverses its meaning:
………
If challenged, test fans often quote the late Dr. W. Edward Deming, the world-famous quality guru who showed Japanese companies how to build better stuff than anybody else. In his book, “The New Economics,” Deming wrote, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Here’s the whole sentence as he wrote it: “It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — a costly myth.”
This full Demings quote is not a surprise.
One of the central conceits of his theories statistical quality control is that testing is a sign of faulty process and faulty product.
Of course accurate quotes do not matter to the educational reform community. Mendacity is at the core of their modus operandi.
The school reform movement is largely driven by two things, the desire to crush teachers’ unions, and the desire to turn public tax dollars into private profit.
Truth is not, nor has it ever been, a meaningful part of their process.
Jimmy McMillan Was Right
The divergance becomes
A convergence when rent is removed
Over at the Wall Steet Journal, they note that reason for the divergence between the CPI and PCE when juxtaposed wit the PPI is that the PPI does not include rent:
Prices in the U.S. are either rising or falling, depending on how you measure them.
The best-known measure of consumer inflation, the Labor Department’s consumer-price index, rose 0.5% from a year earlier in November. The Federal Reserve prefers to use the Commerce Department’s personal-consumption expenditures price index, which rose 0.4% on the year in November.
So why did another Labor Department inflation yardstick, the producer-price index, decline 1.1% on the year in November? The answer may be simple: Housing costs are rising faster than pretty much anything else, and they’re not part of the PPI.
A little background first. The PPI tracks price changes at the business level, and it was overhauled two years ago to cover a broader base of goods and services. In some cases, it can reveal inflationary pressures in the pipeline before they show up in consumer prices.
It also happens to be first broad inflation gauge released each month, earning it extra attention from economists and investors. The December PPI report will be released Friday morning, while the CPI won’t be out until next Wednesday and the PCE price index won’t be available until Feb. 1.
The PPI has generally moved in tandem with the two consumer-facing price gauges, but it has diverged from both measures over the past year. All three inflation gauges fell toward zero after oil prices began to tumble in mid-2014. The PPI kept going, dropping into negative annual territory and staying there, while the CPI and PCE measures have stabilized at low levels.
The likely culprit: rising rents. The cost of shelter, as measured by the CPI, rose 3.2% in November from a year earlier for the third consecutive month—the fastest growth in eight years. But while rent (and its equivalent for homeowners) makes up nearly a third of the CPI basket and a smaller but still substantial share of the PCE index, it’s absent from the PPI. That may explain why the path for PPI looks a lot like the path of CPI if you exclude shelter costs from the latter index.
There are a number of take aways here.
First, and most obvious is (of course) that the rent is too damn high.
The second is that an increasing proportion of our economy is going to rents of various forms rather than productive activities, which does nto indicate an economy that is progressing.
The third, and most important take away is that we are actually in a deflationary economy, like the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The reason that our economic recovery doesn’t feel like an economic recovery is because it really isn’t one.
We are in a deflationary spiral.
Populism Done Right, UK Edition
By being the first Labour leader in a generation to actually take that whole “labo(u)r” bit seriously, Jeremy Corbyn has presided over an explosion in interest and members:
Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of remoulding Labour have been boosted by a detailed Guardian survey into the party at grassroots level that shows overwhelming support for him, a decisive shift to the left and unhappiness with squabbling among MPs.
The Guardian has interviewed Labour secretaries, chairs, other office holders and members from more than 100 of the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Almost every constituency party across the country we contacted reported doubling, trebling, quadrupling or even quintupling membership, and a revival of branches that had been moribund for years and close to folding.
100 Labour officials from across Britain tell of the new members surging to join the party, some young idealists, some returning prodigals – and one who was last a member when Harold Wilson was prime minister
Reflecting increased interest among the young, university cities and towns recorded some of the biggest rises, with Bath jumping from 300 to 1,322 members (911 full members, 120 affiliated supporters and 291 registered supporters) and Colchester from 200-250 to almost 1,000. Neither are traditional Labour seats.
The survey findings are borne out by Labour’s national figures, released to the Guardian in a break with party tradition of keeping them secret. Membership jumped from 201,293 on 6 May last year, the day before the general election, to 388,407 on 10 January.
The Blairites, of course, of course are apoplectic, because they think that the “Wrong Sort” are joining, even at a 10:1 ratio of joiners to leavers.
But if the strikingly good membership numbers have the Blairites freaking out, then Corbyn’s proposals to limit excessive executive pay has their heads exploding:
Companies would be banned from paying senior executives vastly higher wages than junior employees, and would not be allowed to hand out dividends until all staff were earning the Living Wage, under plans signalled today by Jeremy Corbyn.
The Labour leader, who is setting out proposals to close the gap between top earners and low-paid staff, will commit the party to act to “institutionalise fairness”.
He also repeated his support for bringing the railways back into public ownership and for “democratic control” of the energy giants.
Mr Corbyn’s critics, both inside and outside the party, will seize on his plans as evidence that he is trying to drive its platform to the left. Any move to intervene in company pay is also bound to face fierce criticism from business.
But the Labour leader’s allies insist his commitment to tackling inequality will strike a chord with the public who are dismayed by the excesses of company bosses.
Mr Corbyn told a Fabian conference in London: “Too much of the proceeds of growth have accumulated to those at the top.”
He argued: “Everyone benefits when companies succeed. One proposal is pay ratios between top and bottom, so that the rewards don’t just accrue to those at the top.
………
Mr Corbyn also floated a plan to ban or restrict firms from distributing dividends to shareholders if they are not paying the Living Wage to all staff. “Only profitable employers will be paying dividends. If they depend on cheap labour for those profits, then I think there is a question over whether that is a business model to which we should be turning a blind eye.”
He pointed to research by the OECD which concluded that failure to distribute wealth more evenly hinders economic growth. “A more equal society is not only fairer, it does better in terms of economic stability and wealth creation,” he said.
The Labour leader argued that train fares would fall and investment increase if the railways were returned to public ownership. “It would be governed not remotely from Whitehall, but by passengers, rail workers and politicians, local and national,” he added.
Bringing gas and electricity companies under “democratic control” would also help to reduce costs and ease the transition to carbon-free energy supplies, he claimed.
Without excessive executive compensation, how will Blairites cash in when they retire from politics?
We’ve had about 40 years of so-called liberal politicians buying into conservative framing, and the only beneficiaries are the top 1% of the top 1%.
It’s time for a change.
Oh, Snap!
Roll Tape!
One of the issues that seems to be giving the Bernie Sanders campaign its legs is the perception that Hillary Clinton is too close to the Banksters on Wall Street.
This 2007 video of Hillary Clinton giving a speech before banksters blaming ordinary people for the mortgage crisis is not going to help her campaign:
When Clinton ran for president during her second term as New York’s U.S. Senator, she gave a tepid speech at the NASDAQ headquarters on December 5, 2007 — before the financial crisis reached a boiling point — about reforming Wall Street’s housing loan practices, largely excusing financial criminals for their behavior.
“Now these economic problems are certainly not all Wall Street’s fault – not by a long shot,” Clinton said early in the speech.
Clinton’s NASDAQ address amounted to essentially asking the financiers assembled to take voluntary action or else she would “consider legislation” to stop banks from kicking families out of their homes. But early on in the speech, Clinton placed equal blame for the subprime mortgage crisis on low-income homeowners alongside Wall Street.
“Homebuyers who paid extra fees to avoid documenting their income should have known they were getting in over their heads,” Clinton said.
One YouTube user found video of the statement and put it side-by-side with her claim at the first Democratic debate in which she said she went to Wall Street before the crisis and told them to “cut it out.”
This sort of crap is like death to her campaing, because it plays into her greatest weakness, a perceived lack of authenticity.
She is firmly in the Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Barack Obama wing of the Democratic Party.
Trying to pretend that she is more of a populist than Bernie Sanders is laughable.
And Police Wonder Why Some People Call Them “Pigs”
The sense of self-entitled hostility directed toward the public for whom they nominally work is clear when they pull this sort of sh%$:
In April 2015, the New York City television station NY1 filed a open-records request for “unedited video files from the NYPD’s body camera program” captured during five specific weeks in 2014 and 2015. Four months later, the New York City Police Department agreed to review and release the footage—but only after NY1 paid a $36,000 “copying fee.” NY1 appealed the N.Y.P.D.’s decision and, in a letter dated September 16 of last year, was once again denied by the N.Y.P.D.’s deputy commissioner of legal matters.
As the New York Post reported yesterday, the details of the N.Y.P.D.’s response, including the exorbitant fee (charged by a public agency with a budget of $4.8 billion*), were revealed in a lawsuit NY1 filed against the N.Y.P.D. in the Supreme Court of New York County on Wednesday. In it, the channel accuses the department of violating New York State’s Freedom of Information Law by inflating the cost of producing the requested body camera footage—a process that, according to the N.Y.P.D., involves copying video segments that could be withheld under certain privacy and security exemptions.
The fee does indeed come from a curious calculation of labor costs. In a letter to NY1 explaining the administrative denial of the channel’s appeal, a police official explained:
The [record access officer]’s estimate of the cost of processing a copy of the [body camera footage] was reasonable based on an estimate that the total time of footage recorded during the five weeks specified in the FOIL request was approximately 190 hours, and that in addition to the 190 hours required to view the recordings in real time, an additional 60% (or 114 hours) will be required to copy the footage in a manner that will redact the exempt portions of the [body camera footage], for a total of approximately 304 hours. The lowest paid NYPD employee with the skills required to prepare a redacted copy of the recordings is in the rank of police officer, and the cost of compensating a police officer is $120.00 per hour. Multiplying $120.00 by 304 hours equals $36,480, which closely approximates the amount estimated by the [records access officer].
It’s unclear where exactly these figures came from. A police officer is the third-lowest rank within the N.Y.P.D.’s rank structure; individuals holding that title make nowhere near $120 per hour, which is the equivalent of $249,600 per year (assuming a 40-hour workweek).
This is, of course, complete bullsh%$.
A sledge hammer needs to be taken wall that the police place between themselves and the general public.
It breeds contempt, and corruption, and abuse.
Finally, One of Those Ratf%$#S Got Arrested
One of the terrorists in Oregon got arrested for driving a stolen vehicle, specifically a Fish and Wildlife Service truck from the Malheur refuge:
Oregon State Police on Friday arrested one of the protesters occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge after he drove into town, accusing him of having a stolen vehicle.
The man was identified as Kenneth Medenbach, 62, of Crescent. He was arrested on suspicion of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, a class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison. He was to be booked into the Deschutes County Jail in Bend with bail set at $10,000, officials said.
According to federal court records, Medenbach is currently facing federal charges in Medford and was released from custody in November. A condition of his release was that he would not “occupy” any federal land. He was accused of illegally camping on federal property.
He is the first person arrested in connection with the armed occupation of the wildlife refuge, taken over two weeks ago.
He was arrested in the Safeway parking lot in one vehicle bearing federal government license plates. A second federal vehicle was parked next to him, but the man police suspect of driving that into town already had gone into the grocery before police arrived.
Both vehicles — a pickup and a passenger van, bore door signs reading “Harney County Resource Center.” That’s the new name occupiers have given to the bird sanctuary they occupy, which is about 30 miles southeast of Burns.
“The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is grateful for the quick actions from law enforcement,” said Megan Nagel, spokeswoman for the agency, which manages the refuge. “We will continue to work with law enforcement to recover vehicles bought and paid for by the American people to care for their national wildlife refuge.”
………
In 1995, Medenbach was convicted on federal charges for illegally camping on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington state. He was ordered held in custody because of evidence that Medenbach poses a risk to the safety of other persons or the community because [he] acknowledges intimidation practices, references ‘Ruby Ridge’ and ‘Waco, Texas,’ and clearly would not follow conditions of release restraining his presence at the scene of the alleged unlawful activity,” according to a federal appellate court ruling upholding his conviction.
The appellate ruling said there was “evidence that Medenbach had attempted to protect his forest campsite with fifty to a hundred pounds of the explosive ammonium sulfate, a pellet gun, and what appeared to be a hand grenade with trip wires. The government also proffered evidence that Medenbach had warned Forest Service officers of potential armed resistance to the federal government’s continued control of the forest lands in question.”
Despite his prior record, the judge released him on bail, though he was, “Ordered not to occupy federal property as condition of his release from federal charges now pending in Medford.”
Yeah, like that order is going to be obeyed.
Well, it’s a start.
H/t Daily Kos.
Headline of the Day
Ted Cruz Accidentally Proves Donald Trump Is Human
I’m not a fan of Donald Trump, but his response to Cruz’ “New York values” jibe is a thing of beauty:
First, he corrected Cruz—Manhattan produces conservatives, he said, “including William F. Buckley and others” (and what kind of Democrat would name-drop William F. Buckley?), and then he seemed to stand up taller.
“He insulted a lot of people,” Trump said of Cruz. “New York is a great place. It’s got great people, it’s got loving people, wonderful people. When the World Trade Center came down, I saw something that no place on Earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than New York.”
The crowd applauded and, as if to admit defeat, so did Cruz.
“Everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
“You had two 110-story buildings come crashing down, thousands of people killed, and the cleanup started the next day, and it was the most horrific cleanup probably in the history of doing this, and in construction. I was down there,” Trump said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, and the people in New York fought and fought and fought, and we saw more death and even the smell of death—nobody understood it, and it was with us for months. The smell, the air. And we rebuilt downtown Manhattan, and everybody in the world watched, and everybody in the world loved New York and loved New Yorkers, and I have to tell you, that was a very insulting statement that Ted made.”
Cruz just looked at the camera with a nervous smile. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight.
I really think that we saw some honest emotion from the Donald here.
Even if it was a preplanned comeback, he just force fed Ted Cruz his own shit.
It was brilliant.