She draws analogies to Halliburton, and says that the health care bill, “would legally require a portion of Americans to pay more than 20% of the fruits of their labor to a private corporation in exchange for 70% of their health care costs.”
She is completely correct.
Go and read it.
Seriously, just go and read it.
And Rachael Maddow, with the aid of a John Waters film, shows how the Teabaggers chose the name because they simply did not do the research on what the term meant in the first place, and not something that Maddow and Ana Marie Cox invented out of thin air, but was actually a cultural/sexual reference of long standing. (or squatting, see pic)
Tim Fernholz.
He goes goes after Matt Taibbi on his latest article, which I called a jem, and Taibbi responds, basically blowing him out of the water, and acknowledging one minor error, confusing diplomat James Rubin, and Robert Rubin’s son Jamie Rubin, though only by calling the latter a diplomat, Jamie Rubin’s role in assembling the Obama financial team is correctly depicted.
If you want the short version, I would suggest that you review Felix Salmon’s take on this tête-à-tête, and Salmon’s take is the same as Taibbi’s: that Fernholz’s criticisms are largely conjured out of hysteria:
In other words, it’s worth cross-checking everything that Fernholz says against what Taibbi actually writes, because often Taibbi simply doesn’t say what Fernholz implies that he says.
All the schadenfreude over Fernholz’s attack on Taibbi is particularly weird since they seem to actually agree with each other. Here’s how Fernholz concludes….
….
This is quite astonishing. Fernholz is basically saying that Taibbi is right, and that not only is he right but that he will now and henceforth utterly overshadow anyone else who’s criticizing the Obama administration from the left. At the same time, however, despite Taibbi’s astonishing ability to encapsulate and personify the entire group of people who criticize the administration, he’s not even going to manage to “make a dent”, because he’s not going about his job in an evenhanded J-school manner.
Major wankerdom.
Matt Taibbi is clearly polemical writer, but he gets his facts right, and he does describe the truly sad state of affairs that is the Rubin/Summers/Geithner economic axis upon which the Obama administration spins.
I posted the video of him going over the basics of this article last week, and this week, Matt Taibbi’s full article in Rolling Stone, Obama’s Big Sellout, goes into more detail.
Taibbi is more charitable than I am, because he wonders, “Is he just a rookie in the political big leagues, hoodwinked by Beltway old-timers? Or is the vacillating, ineffectual servant of banking interests we’ve been seeing on TV this fall who Obama really is?”
Cynic that I am, I don’t think that he’s a wet behind the ears politico hoodwinked by Wall Street: Every action that he has taken has been about what makes things easier for Barack Obama, whether it be the banks, or torture, or gay rights, or the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
It’s no surprise then that he goes for the bankers over the ordinary people: The bankers could bankroll someone like Sarah Palin, and the ordinary people have no where else to go.
Taibbi’s article is a blistering indictment of what Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent Barney Frank have been doing, or more accurately not doing, about wall street.
To get a sense of the article, you need only read this paragraph:
The point is that an economic team made up exclusively of callous millionaire-assholes has absolutely zero interest in reforming the gamed system that made them rich in the first place. “You can’t expect these people to do anything other than protect Wall Street,” says Rep. Cliff Stearns, a Republican from Florida. That thinking was clear from Obama’s first address to Congress, when he stressed the importance of getting Americans to borrow like crazy again. “Credit is the lifeblood of the economy,” he declared, pledging “the full force of the federal government to ensure that the major banks that Americans depend on have enough confidence and enough money.” A president elected on a platform of change was announcing, in so many words, that he planned to change nothing fundamental when it came to the economy. Rather than doing what FDR had done during the Great Depression and institute stringent new rules to curb financial abuses, Obama planned to institutionalize the policy, firmly established during the Bush years, of keeping a few megafirms rich at the expense of everyone else.
Though I would say that I enjoyed this slam of “Eddie Haskell” too:
That probably won’t happen anytime soon. But at a minimum, Obama should start on the road back to sanity by making a long-overdue move: firing Geithner. Not only are the mop-headed weenie of a Treasury secretary’s fingerprints on virtually all the gross giveaways in the new reform legislation, he’s a living symbol of the Rubinite gangrene crawling up the leg of this administration. Putting Geithner against the wall and replacing him with an actual human being not recently employed by a Wall Street megabank would do a lot to prove that Obama was listening this past Election Day. And while there are some who think Geithner is about to go — “he almost has to,” says one Democratic strategist — at the moment, the president is still letting Wall Street do his talking.
If you think that eleventy dimensional chess is going on here, you have the political acumen of Little Orphan Annie®.
Now go read the article.
He has declared his blog to be a Tiger free zone.
He’s right, of course, so Tiger Woods is an addition to my list of They Who Must Not Be Named.
Yesterday’s cartoon is brilliant.
Click on the picture for the whole thing.
So, we have another Nobel Prize winner who argues that a small tax on financial transactions in order to generate revenue for stimulus and to discourage speculation is a good thing.
He also lays some whup-ass on Timothy “Eddie Haskell” Geithner for his opposition to the idea, which is a good thing, and further notes that much of the short term leverage that nearly destroyed the world financial system was an artifact of rapid fire speculative trades.
One item of note is that Krugman makes a very good point about the fact, notwithstanding the claims of opponents, it will be difficult for anyone to avoid paying the tax:
The main argument made by opponents of a financial transactions tax is that it would be unworkable, because traders would find ways to avoid it. Some also argue that it wouldn’t do anything to deter the socially damaging behavior that caused our current crisis. But neither claim stands up to scrutiny.
On the claim that financial transactions can’t be taxed: modern trading is a highly centralized affair. Take, for example, Tobin’s original proposal to tax foreign exchange trades. How can you do this, when currency traders are located all over the world? The answer is, while traders are all over the place, a majority of their transactions are settled — i.e., payment is made — at a single London-based institution. This centralization keeps the cost of transactions low, which is what makes the huge volume of wheeling and dealing possible. It also, however, makes these transactions relatively easy to identify and tax.
This is true. While I might, find a local vendor on the street to exchange currency in Cairo, Egypt, because I could beat the official rate, and avoid a tax of less than ¼%, if I were trading millions of dollars, I need to have a place where I can settle the transactions, and taxes would be assessed there.
It would be hard to implement without the US being on board, which is where the real rub is.
The apocalypse part is that Matt Taibbi is agreeing with Sarah Palin on whether or not the media is out to get her.
He goes meta, of course, because, he is both a good writer and a smart one, and notes that the media always has its chosen targets, and that this wankitude (Gore, Dean, etc.) is thoroughly bipartisan.:
I would, however, like to point out a few things, none of which really involve taking sides in this particular cat-fight. In no particular order:
1) The political media has always taken it upon itself to make decisions about who is and who is not qualified to be taken seriously as candidates for higher office. Without even talking about whether they do this more or less to Republicans or Democrats, I can testify that I witnessed this phenomenon over and over again in the primary battles within the Democratic Party. It has always been true that the press corps has drawn upon internalized professional biases, high-school-style groupthink and the urging of insider wonks to separate candidates into “serious” and “unserious” groups before the shots even start to be fired.
….
2) When that does happen, when the press corps decides to abandon all restraint and go for the head shot, it usually tells us a lot more about the reporters’ bosses and what they’re thinking than it does about the reporters themselves. Your average political reporter is a spineless dweeb who went to all the best schools and made it to that privileged seat inside the campaign-trail ropeline by being keenly sensitive to the editorial wishes of his social and professional superiors.
…
3) So Sarah Palin is now in that category of politician whom reporters feel safe in attacking.
It’s a good read, and highly accurate.
Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be:
…..
“Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: ‘one nation under God,'” said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. “Well, there’s a reason they put that right at the top.”
“Men like Madison and Jefferson were moved by the ideals of Christianity, and wanted the United States to reflect those values as a Christian nation,” continued Mortensen, referring to the “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, considered by many historians to be an atheist, and Thomas Jefferson, an Enlightenment-era thinker who rejected the divinity of Christ and was in France at the time the document was written. “The words on the page speak for themselves.”
…..
Brilliant.
I’ve known the Old Pinko for years, and we exchange emails frequently, and I sent him notice of the twitter meme about using some celebrities to read the bill if the Republicans demand a full reading on the floor of the Senate.
His response:
They should use folks, perhaps children, who have serious illnesses and no health insurance. That, that would really stick it too them.
I will note, however, that I would probably avoid using children, since the right wing in general, and Michelle Malkin, and her deranged Minions™ in particular, already have a history of going after people whose politics they find distasteful, including 12 year old boys critically injured in auto accidents.
Now, if only he’d post more frequently to his blog.
From the Classic WKRP Episode
If we are in a deflationary spiral, aka a “liquidity trap,” and I believe that we are, then one of the questions is how does one get us out.
suggests that it is essential for the Federal Reserve to engage in actions that make it blindingly clear that holding to cash will be long term disastrous.
The problem right now is that, with inflation being negative, people are all too willing to sit on their cash.
John Hempton has a most unorthodox proposal, that we literally drop large amounts of currency onto the streets of American cities:
You need to convince people not to hold money. You need to convince them that cash is trash.And to do that you need to convince the public that there will be inflation (the above gross leverage argument notwithstanding).To do that the Federal Reserve has to be credibly irresponsible. It is not enough to print a couple of trillion dollars (which they have) because everyone thinks (with some justification) that they will suck back the money supply when the crisis is over.No – you have to be more visibly reckless than that. You have to really convince people that there will be inflation.So the suggestion in my title is literal. The Federal Reserve should hire a couple of hundred helicopters and load each one 10 million dollars in neatly bound parcels of $1000 each. Total cost $2 billion plus trivial helicopter hire.
Well, running the numbers, a dollar bill weighs about a gram, so let’s bundle 10 $100 bills together, so as not to create an “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly,” issue.
So, $1000.00 would weigh about 11 grams (adding 1g for the wrapper), which means that if you have a helicopter carrying 4400kg in currency, they would be carrying $400,000,000.00.
So he’s wrong. You would only need 5 medium to heavy lift helicopters, or 1 Mi-26, which has a payload of 22 metric tonnes.
You probably want to spread it a bit further out, but still you are well under 100 helicopters, particularly if you allow them to make multiple trips.
Heck, even a Robinson R22 helicopter could carry more than $10 million per sortie.
Obviously, I have opinions on the behavior of the Church, and particularly the US Conference of Bishops, but to get true clarity, you need the viewpoint of someone raised in the faith. Case in point is thhis post by Lance Mannion:
Taking orders from the priests is exactly what JFK had to promise he wouldn’t do when he ran for President.
Several Democrats, including Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, said they are in touch with their Catholic bishops back home. Altmire said he must have the approval of his bishop in Pittsburgh before he can vote yes.
That’s from CNN by way of Ed Brayton by way of Mike the Mad Biologist. And Altmire was talking about a health care reform bill that hadn’t been amended by Stupak-Pitts yet. He was planning to ask his bishop for permission to vote to expand health care to the poor and protect the sick from losing it.
Mr. Mannion was a devout Catholic in his youth, and lays some serious whup ass on the Church. I highly recommend that you read it.
It is remarkable the change. In 1928, Al Smith was the target of claims that a picture of him opening the Holland Tunnel was actually a “tunnel to the Pope,” and today, it appears that the Conference of Bishops is demanding a tunnel to the pope.
I would also point you to the debate on the BBC about whether or not the Catholic Church was a force for good in the world, between Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan on the pro side, and Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry (of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder, etc) on the other.
Hitchens is, as always, an obnoxious drunk, who delights in offending the religious, and so was not interesting, but Laurie, I think, has genuine affection for faith in general, but not the church.
There is a difference between criticizing a religion for it’s beliefs and observances, and criticizing any organization for its policies.
The Catholic Church is a hierarchical absolute monarchy, and as such, their policies, whether it be the Pope lying about the use of condoms to prevent aids, or the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbying against healthcare, though not, it should be noted not saying a word on the death penalty, which is also deemed a sin, need to be viewed in the exact same context as the United States setting up Gulags and torturing people.
A condemnation of torture, and wars of choice, is no more a condemnation of Americans than a condemnation of the Church in its actions regarding AIDS, or healthcare for the poor, or the complicity of its officers of state in concealing child abuse.
The BBC vid is after break. It’s broken into 5 parts, and cycles though, and Fry is on at about 2:20 in the 3rd segment.
—Barry Ritholtz discussing an article in GQ that excoriates the author.
Ritholtz himself describes her as a, “pedantic bore,” who writes, “blindingly horrific prose.”
I agree with both, though I have never been able to force myself to read anything of hers beyond The Virtue of Selfishness, a perusal of which made me <sarcasm>long for the straightforward and beautifully written prose of Immanuel Kant</sarcasm> and consider self immolation as an alternative to reading any more of hew work.
His last bit is prize:
Worst of all, Rand’s Objectivism has become the rationale for all manner of morally repugnant behaviour. However, I did take one personal lesson from Atlas Shrugged to heart: Anytime I see a parked car with a John Galt bumper sticker, I like to knock off one of the sideview mirrors, and leave it on the hood. I include a note stating my selfish, random act made me feel good, and therefore should be a perfectly fine act in their world.
I assume the recipients miss the irony . . .
Dean Bakes states the obvious in response to a pathetic OP/ED by David Ignatius.
Go read it, it’s only 5 ‘graphs.
Lord knows, I rarely, if ever, quote him, and his mist recent column in the New York Times deserves notice.
His basic point is that there is no recovery for most of the country, even as “Wall Street can boast about recovery all it wants, much of America remains trapped in economic hell.”
Herbert writes about this stuff a lot, and he’s treated like a red-haired stepchild, he rarely gets quoted in the blogosphere, either pro or con.
I’m not sure why this is.
And the folks at New York Magazine have riffed on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book Too Big to Fail, an account of the financial meltdown, and come up with Too Big to Fail and ZOMBIES.
Do not read this while drinking anything, or you will need to clean your screen.
Here is a sample:
It made for an awkward moment, as Merrill CEO John Thain was only seats away. He was likely the next to get the plague, the executives well knew, as his firm was full of the deathless monsters. He had remained notably silent during the exchanges.
“You guys get this done for me, and I’ll make sure I can take care of AIG and Merrill,” Paulson replied. “I’m a little uncomfortable talking about Merrill with John right in the room.” He glanced uneasily at Thain, whose face, everyone suddenly became aware, had taken on a deathly pallor. “John,” said Paulson hesitantly. “Have you been bitten?”
It was then that Thain let out a gutteral animal howl. Half-rising from his chair, he lunged toward Pandit. “BRAINS!” he moaned.
“Holy sh%$!” exclaimed Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who was sitting in between the men. He rolled his chair out of the way.
Geithner ran out of the room, screaming like a little girl.
(emphasis mine)
I needed to clean my screen.
Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, alias “Lou Dobbs,” is escorted by DHS agents to the airport to be sent back to Mexico.
Brilliant!
WANTAGE, NJ—Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents stormed the undocumented immigrant’s home in an evening raid just hours after the 64-year-old newscaster suddenly announced that he was resigning from CNN, and immediately placed him on an Aeromexico flight departing from Newark Liberty Airport.
Just go and read the whole thing.