Links 7/7/12

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Little Free Library phenomenon brings neighbors together McClatchy (Chuck L)

As long as the rich can speculate on food, the world’s poor go hungry The Age

Twitter says government requests keep rising Aljazeera (May S)

Scientology Inc Wants to Censor Cruise/Holmes Break Up News Marty Rathburn. Quelle surprise! (and don’t blame me, I found this on Slashdot)

Tech Companies Leave Phone Calls Behind New York Times. They noticed this only now? Please. Google blazed this path long ago.

The NYT Reporter Who Quit in Disgust Counterpunch (May S)

Europe’s banking union: Possible next steps on a bumpy path VoxEU

And Then There Were Six – Is Slovenia Next? Edward Hugh

Merkel’s public approval ratings soar Financial Times

Liborfest!

Libor scandal: Serious Fraud Office opens investigation Telegraph

‘The Libor matter,’ at the SFO FT Alphaville

Bob Diamond, Barclays, MPs and Libor: five more points Guardian

Exclusive: Barclays insider lifts lid on bank’s toxic culture Independent

How traders trumped Quakers Financial Times

Barclays Sued By Investor Over Alleged Euribor Actions Bloomberg. The first locust arrives…but this suit looks too broad to be well thought out

Tony Blair earned £20m in just one year advising business bosses and foreign governments Daily Mail (May S)

Netanyahu Worked Inside Nuclear Smuggling Ring Antiwar (May S)

Poisoning Arafat Counterpunch

Crybaby Conservatism on the Supreme Court Swopa, Firedoglake

Duke Energy CEO Bill Johnson resigns after one day, gets $44 million in severance Grist (Lambert, who says hello from Thailand)

Don’t Forget About That Other Curious Romney Account TPM (Carol B)

Central bankers opposed to functioning markets John Hempton

IMF to Cut Global Growth Forecasts in Another Blow to Confidence 24/7 Wall Street. Carol B: What economic recovery?

Brian Cox: Bank bailout costlier than UK science ‘since Jesus’ BBC (Carol B)

GSE Debates Show How Little We’ve Learned American Banker (nathan)

Job figures a setback for Obama Financial Times

Obama Urges Voters to Look Ahead on Economy New York Times. I had to refrain from laughing.

Employers Get More From U.S. Workers As Jobs Gain Lags Forecast Bloomberg. Erm, this is not much of a positive for the economy. Temp workers are not going to be confident consumers.

Retailers post worst June sales in three years MarketWatch

Antidote du jour:

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87 comments

  1. RBM411

    Maybe one reason Tech companies don’t have numbers is so Recruiters can’t easily try to poach the talent.

    1. Lee

      Has anyone else noticed that, when searching for a business and going to the link, phone numbers disappear? Show extremely briefly, then are gone, so that one needs to bring up the page repeatedly until he has gotten a good enough glimpse to remember the number? If the business has its own webpage with the phone number as part of that page, it’s different and the phone number stays up.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Lee, the Power has been doing its best to_eliminate_land lines–which once were considered the sine qua non of “legitimacy”–because it is technically still ILLEGAL to tap a land line or to record the conversation on a land line without prior consent. “Cell phone” conversations can be mined with impunity, without notice and without admission of the fact.

        Mass propaganda has being used to bring “the youth” into subjection to Hired Agents of the Masters of Extraction Fascism, by claiming that anyone who uses a land line is “uncool” and an “old fogey.” The same propaganda has been used to herd “youth” into the pen of “digital reading”–so that their every thought and even intention can be mastered and extracted for profit to the 1% NobilityMilitaryCorporatPoliticalFinance Nexus.

        1. Aquifer

          This “ole fogey” still has a land line and a phone with a cord, no less … i actually have a rotary phone as a backup – built like a tank, will outlast all those flimsy push button do-hickeys.

          Even though i use the net to look for stuff – I won’t deal with a company i can’t talk to on the phone, or hasn’t an address to write, or send a check :), to … (Oh, yeah, i still write checks …. as Volker(?) said – the last truly useful “advance” in banking was the ATM ..)

          Frankly, it kind of cracks me up – all the folks who don’t like “the system” seem loathe to eschew the “conveniences” it has inserted into our cultural genes, even when those “conveniences” suck them deeper and deeper into its maw …

          Maybe it’s sour grapes for me – one tends to denigrate what one cannot get a grasp of – but i do think some of my objections are philosophically, as well as practically, legit … (conversely, of course, one tends to hype what one is facile with ..)

          1. LeonovaBalletRusse

            Same here. They seek to eliminate the U.S. Postal Service for the same reason, when we could “update” the system by allowing stations to offer small fry Banking, as they do in Germany.

            The “youth” have been totally enslaved by the 1% Global Profiteering System; they are ignorant of history of other Totalitarian Regimes, so they have no “memory” of how they work. This Orwellian 1984 is perfected in 2012.

          2. ambrit

            Dear Aquifer;
            This “old fogey” doesn’t have a land line as an after effect of Hurricane Katrina. (No land lines were available on the Gulf Coast for months. Everyone had to go Mobile as a matter of survival.) Still and all, the ‘ancient tech’ does have its’ advantages; one of them being the ‘slow down’ effect. (Slow down and think about what you’re doing before you shoot yourself in the foot.) Short attention spans coupled with instant gratification behaviours lead to stupid decisions and evil outcomes. The basic rule of selling is; never let the mark have any time to reflect. As someone else here often says; deception is the weapon of the elites.
            The basic strategy of all “legitimate” philosophical and religious systems is contemplation. Modern “mass consumption” theory is the exact opposite. I know which system I prefer.
            Love and kisses.
            Ambrit

          3. enouf

            Aquifer:

            re: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_old_telephone_service (POTS)


            In the United States and Australia, the pair of wires (RJ25 Connector in Australia) from the central switch office to a subscriber’s home is called a subscriber loop. It is typically powered by −48V direct current (DC) and backed up by a large bank of batteries (connected in series) and in some cases, an additional electric generator in the local exchange, resulting in continuation of service during most commercial power outages.

            Nope — can’t have that in a OMG-the-Tewworista-are-coming World! — we’ve got to do away with common-sense backups!.. Can’t you see?! This old tech makes us inferior!

            Love

          4. enouf

            In addition …

            Search for “Secrets of ‘GrandCentral’ | NYC | Manhatten” or some Michelle Kwang-hosted History channel show, or something.

            Love

          5. enouf

            and …

            Aquifer says;


            … i actually have a rotary phone as a backup – built like a tank, …

            If you ever tear one of them apart you’ll notice a ‘weighty metal plate’ inside, that seems to serve no purpose, other than make it ‘feel like a tank’ (which they do, no doubt — a weapon of choice at times indeed ;-)).

            Love

        2. neo-realist

          Tapping a land line may be illegal, but many years ago while working for a city agency, I do remember hearing “clicks” on my home phone.

          I also like the luxury of a land line in that I don’t feel the need to pick up the phone of a land line where I do with the cell phone; I also don’t have to constantly keep my cell phone on or constantly check it for messages with a land line in place.

  2. RBM411

    Romney 401K:

    Real 401-K plans allow for ~45K max inflow for Highly Compensated Employee’s. If he was putting stock options into the plan he could get there.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      RBM, hasn’t Barclays perfected the “flow” model, so that it has become like a pass-through with skimming at both ends of every spectrum? Who needs reserves, who needs to hold “money?”

  3. rjs

    Job figures a setback for Obama?

    what crap…what about the setback for the 27 million of us who want to be but are not working full time…

  4. Richard Kline

    The commentary on crybaby conservatism regarding the Supremes acceptance of the personal mandate health ‘insurance’ premia misses the point: Chief Justice Roberts patently betrayed the other conservatives on the SCOTUS. To be blunt. The personal mandate is manifestly anathema to Roberts’ judicial career an history, so much so that he couldn’t bring himself to actually uphold the government’s power to enact it. Instead, Roberts fell back on the most tawdry figleaf, that said mandate ‘is a tax,’ a position already dismissed in the language of lower court decisions and joined by _none_ of the more liberal Justices in their separate opinion on the validty of the act in question. Yet Roberts still let the law stand, if with a muddle of justifications from the badly compromised result. It is quite clear that the Abandoned Four on the self-Right-eous wing of the Court were politically aghast and personally affronted by that betrayal, to the point where their future relationship with Roberts the Foresworn may well be damaged. This is an interesting development, but begs the question, “Why did he do it?”

    The consideration isn’t trivial. The Supreme Court is the most uniquely American of all public institutions, and in many respects the one most socially powerful. In recent years, the Court has been an abysmal failure, protecting the wealthy and the selfish while peeling away protections for the socially powerless wherever possible. Rather than protect a civil society, the Conservatives on the Court have worked tirelesly to destroy a common social commitment and the legal framework to keep that intact. But here, in really the most jarring departure from anticipated alignments since the Court stole the 2000 Presidential election for the preferred candidate of minority of the Justices, we have this sudden tango dip by John G. Roberts. Now, the Supreme Court has a long history of changing the views of its members as they serve long enough to understand their social responsibilities. There have been numbers of instances where long-time conservative or at least narrow Justices ‘found a conscience.’ I’m dubious that this has occured with Roberts (though that would assuredly be welcome if so, and a major development for future decisions which is why I at least moot the possibility).

    I’m of the view that the reason was personal to Roberts. It has been reported that unlike many Justices, John Roberts actively peruses the media regarding public posturing on issues coming before the Court and public views on the Federal Court system in general and the SCOTUS in particular. That is less vain and suspect practice than one might think at first glance, for the Supreme Court has a reall _current_ responsibility to American society regarding the impact of its decisions. Notwithstanding the puerile absolutism of ‘conservatives of the word’ that somehow a haphazard collection of dead, white, rich, males two centuries ago were more prescient than Nostradamus regarding the utility of their [deeply and politically compromised] decisions of their day to generations coming, the only determination of ‘what the Constitution allows’ is the present decision of a majority of nine serving wigheads. Society changes; new situations arise; the Constitution was a sapling, not a pulpit even if both are made of wood. All of the Court’s best decisions have been made with a very close eye to the society _contemporary_ to the times of those decisions. So a concern on the part of a Chief Justice with the grain and concern of contemporary society is actually wholly germane to rulings on issues before the Court.

    And the Court hasn’t been as reviled as in the present time at any point in a century. This was well-shown by a poll some weeks ago, where a majority of the public have lost respect and confidence in the Court, exactly due to grossly political and societally irresponsible decisions in recent years, overwhelmingly driven by the kind of ultra-conservative evolutionary denialism of the wizened coprolites on the Right end of the bench. The kind of corporate suckoffism and socially devolutionary revisionism on the conservative side has been monstrous. A rejection of that scabrous monstrosity with a daisy in its paw which is Obamacare would certainly be a major pile of judicial vomitus of similar kind. Rejecting Obamacare, on whatever rationale, woud of a certainty been a major stain on the Court; not as vile as the Citizens United debacle, but because the standing of the Court is lower now than then perhaps even more damaging to the reputation and effectiveness of the SCOTUS.

    And this _is_ the Roberts Court. That is the tradition (perhaps more than the reality). The defeat of Obamacare would compltely confirm that ‘The Roberts Court’ is a sewer of shrunken-hearted corporate lickspittles. Which it is. But not everyone thinks so. Sustaining Obamacare, by whatever rationale, was quite clearly going to be a nice little coup in repairing the reputation of the Supreme Court—-excuuuuuusse me, the ROBERTS Court. And that, to me, is why John G. Roberts sold out his conservative peers and the movement conservatives generally and fudged up any-old-reason on why. To burnish his personal and historical standing, so that John G. Roberts doesn’t go down in history as Chief Dumbass in the Neanderthal Court. No wonder the Scheming Four were outraged: Roberts didn’t even desert them on a principle but for personal gain, so to speak.

    Let’s hope the vanity of John G. Roberts can be tweaked again in future vital cases. I’d be happier if he saw the light and decided things for the good of the country on that basis. But if he does the right thing so he can look good in the history books, we’d all better take that if we can get it.

    1. Hugh

      I think the Obamacare decision simply illustrates the whole Court is corporatist, just in different ways.

    2. Eureka Springs

      Wow… lovely writing, considering just how inhumane lovely writing can be. You really don’t get it.

      At best 30 million Americans will continue to go without health care many years from now. Government/Democrats just compelled with promise to subsidize ten or more million new private for profit policies.

      Rather than negotiate pharmaceuticals to European levels (or much, much lower since we could have been a pool of 300 million negotiating). Rather than simply dropping “over 65” from the original medicare bill – which could have been accomplished easily a few years ago with 50 plus Biden in the Senate… thus reducing our health GDP by 50 percent and caring for all no matter what.

      It only took one right wing Supreme to finally get the exact plan the Republicans and health industrial complex have had in mind since at least Bob Dole… and at the same time help Democrats sink their own ship for passing it – if the country is lucky.

      To give any of these players any civilized sounding slack whatsoever is simply outrageous. They are both murdering at least 50k (an entire Viet Nam Memorial – a 9-11 every three and half weeks!) Americans each and every year… while further enriching industry.

    3. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Richard Klein, your input is so intelligent, so welcome at NC, that I beseech you to please_set a completely good example_with your use of the English language: Please don’t write “begs the question” when what you MEAN is “raises the question.”

      This now common CORRUPTION of the English language has been_killing_the very_meaning_of the formerly obscure literary phrase, “to beg the question,” by employing it to MEAN “to raise the question.” To use the former phrase in order to mean the latter phrase is to DESTROY the meaning of the former phrase, which has a very particular meaning still:

      Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition:
      “to beg the question” – See “Petitio Principii”
      “Petititio Principii – Logic. Begging of the question; a fallacy in which a premise is assumed to be true without warrant, or in which that which is to be proved is implicitly taken for granted.”

      Since the phrase, “to raise the question,” is still obviously available for use, then WHY has the phrase, “to beg the question,” been substituted for “to raise the question” in America? Could George ORWELL tell us the answer? Can it be that the purpose for the switch is simply_to destroy the meaning_of language?

      Mr. Kline, although your comments indicate that you are not a “good soldier” of the Reich, please do not promulgate this perversion of our language, however unintentionally. Your comments carry a lot of weight around here.

      Thank you.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Richard Kline – Likewise, your “I’m dubious” MEANS “I’m equivocal, “I’m of questionable character [as in “a dubious transaction].” Is this what you MEAN to say? Or do you MEAN to say: “I doubt that…?”

        Please say; “I doubt…” instead of “I’m dubious…” SO THAT you do not cast aspersions on yourself.” Surely you do not mean to cast aspersions on yourself, so please do not promulgate these Orwellian Newspeak perversions of the English language.

        1. skippy

          How can you corrupt something that is still evolving, from clay tokens of account, too today.

          Skippy… hay Mayans were completely artistic with their written language, hence the problems with deciphering it, for the formalized English sorts.

          1. LeonovaBalletRusse

            s, “evolving” is one process, “corrupting” as means to a vicious end is another.

          2. skippy

            Sorry LBR, post modern here. Words and meanings change with ever quicking pace as the mental environment transforms.

            Skippy… go back a few hounded years and see how good your English is… then.

        2. Rex

          Leon, … Really?

          I think you got your tutu in a twist. I’m dubious that this argument of yours has any merit.

          Can you trust Merriam Webster?
          2: unsettled in opinion : doubtful
          http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dubious

          Also, I agree with Skippy; the language evolves and there is little to be done about that. Like, right, Dude? BUT… If you want to go on a crusade about the completely backwards use of then and than, I’ll ride with you.

      2. LucyLulu

        Since the phrase, “to raise the question,” is still obviously available for use, then WHY has the phrase, “to beg the question,” been substituted for “to raise the question” in America? Could George ORWELL tell us the answer? Can it be that the purpose for the switch is simply_to destroy the meaning_of language?

        With all due respect…
        The purpose of language is to communicate our thoughts such that they are understood by others. We all understood what Richard was saying when he used the phrase “begs the question”.

        There is no intent to destroy language. Language is a living entity, constantly evolving. New words appear, some words fade from use, and some words (phrases) take on different meanings. It has always been this way and thus will always be… now and forever, amen.

        In other words:
        Madame, ya gotta keep up with da program.

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          So then the above leaders in thought “are fine” with the “Orwellian” destruction of the meaning of the phrase, “to beg the question,” which serves a nefarious political agenda? You’ve become trolls for your “enemy” in spite of yourselves. Fine, let the wolves eat out your substance further.

        2. Otter

          It is NOT true that ”We all understood what Richard was saying when he used the phrase “begs the question”.” I did not.

          Indeed, I lost track of Richard’s meaning entirely when it became obvious that he was “saying” nonsense. Furthermore, by then it was such nonsense that it did not seem worthwhile to reread to determine whether he was trying to say anything useful.

    4. supreme yeah right

      Roberts will vanish into the same historical black hole as Seán Lester (Who?) as a feckless figurehead of an institution that failed and got replaced. The supreme court is discredited, not just by corporate corruption but by its wilful ignorance of universal norms: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/index.htm#instruments . If you want a judiciary with integrity, you have to go over the supreme court’s head to the International Court of Justice, which now protects the rights of individuals. http://humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.de/2012/07/individual-obtains-reparation-at.html

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          Chief Justice[NOT] Roberts is a well-trained, loyal Roman Catholic. Please connect the dots of “intentionality” between his latest gift to Mother Church with the last gift to Mother Church, about the power of a “religious College” to fire a teacher of a secular subject for not toe-ing the Religious Party Line in every aspect of her life, including her freedom of speech.

    5. enouf


      … regarding [T]he Supremes

      [emphasis mine]

      You do a great disservice to a Motown legend when you say that — call them what they really are; “JustAsses”

      Love

  5. F. Beard

    re As long as the rich can speculate on food, the world’s poor go hungry The Age:

    He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. Proverbs 11:26

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      F.B, give us the bit about “trodding out the corn,” Chapter and Verse, please.

      1. F. Beard

        “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing. Deuteronomy 25:4

        Here’s some more food for thought:

        Abundant food is in the fallow ground of the poor, but it is swept away by injustice. Proverbs 13:23

        So injustice leads to food shortages?

        1. LeonovaBalletRusse

          Oh, no, an ox does not “thresh.” Orwellian Newspeak in the Bible. Must be one of those Christian Right translations in Mass Market Americanese.

          The King James translation from the Greek may be “outdated,” so:

          DEUTERONOMY 25:4: “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.”
          (THE NEW OXFORD ANNOTATED BIBLE WITH THE APOCRYPHA: Revised Standard Version” Edited by Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (New York, Oxford University Press, Inc., 1977, 1973; 1962).

          1. LeonovaBalletRusse

            No, F. Beard, you can’t get away with your justification. “To thresh” clearly is NOT the same as “to tread.” An ox cannot thresh. This is impossible.

          2. F. Beard

            “thresh” def: a. To beat the stems and husks of (grain or cereal plants) with a machine or flail to separate the grains or seeds from the straw. from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/thresh

            “tread out” def: to press out with the feet; to press out, as wine or wheat; as, to tread out grain with cattle or horses. from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/To+tread+out [emphasis added]

            Apparently, stepping on grain helps to separate it from the chafe but I ain’t no farmer!

  6. Hugh

    I did an analysis of the job numbers which can be found here: http://www.correntewire.com/the_bls_jobs_report_covering_june_2012_the_best_is_behind_us

    Basically, I am getting tired of the seasonally adjusted numbers. They look increasingly just made up. If you look at the unadjusted numbers, most of the good news on jobs and unemployment has already occurred for the year, and employment has one more good month (July). The rest of the year on the unadjusted side where people actually live should have some growth, barring a blowup somewhere, but only about a fifth or a sixth what occurred in the first half of the year.

  7. LeonovaBalletRusse

    Yves, when you investigate the graphs in the link below, you will see evidence of what you know: it’s ALL about insider “shadow” profit in “derivatives.”

    http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/libor-fixing-and-the-fed-funds-target — posted 6 July 2012 by tonys4412w

    Ain’t nuthin finer than the “confounded interest” of a pack of Top Dogs sucking the marrow out of the bones of Libor-Bank spreads — as displayed graphically on this “Anthony B. Sanders Web Site” to yield the Compound Big Suck of Substance out of “the little people’s” savings and the Real Economy.

    OCCUPY THE SPREAD!

  8. Yves! Pls Help Bob Conely!

    http://youtu.be/lbp4eF0LnFI

    Christopher Conley, High Sheriff of Carroll County NH, holds a press conference at the County complex on 7/2/12. He announces that he is forming a task force to investigate mortgage fraud. Fraud is occurring across the United States. Properties being foreclosed on that are owned outright. Financial institutions that stake claim to a property without a deed. The Sheriff states: “In each case there is no accountability be the financial institution, no one to present a reply, no decision maker to speak with. If you are a property owner and are experiencing any of the above. Contact the Sheriff at CarrollCountysheriff@carrollcountynh.net, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, Attn: Deputy Brian King, PO Box 190, Ossipee, NH 03864, 539-2285 x317

  9. Ep3

    Yves, have we witnessed the end of the library? Why go to a library, when now we can go to bookstores? They have coffee shops, no pedophiles on computers, and of course, they are a profit center. Yes, bookstores are capitalism’s answer to ‘govt libraries’. No more librarians making outrageous salaries and receiving bloated retirements. No ‘boring’ libraries costing taxpayers one tenth of one percent of budgets. Fancy bookstores in shopping malls with fancy, expensive coffee shops. They provide Internet!

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      EpE This is Fahrenheit 451 by any other name. The Power does not want any citizen to have access to non-digital “information,” MUCH LESS the HARD KNOWLEDGE contained in BOUND BOOKS–especially “subversive” books of the “forgotten past” that an inquiring mind might want to explore in PRIVATE.

      We don’t really think that the Profiteers of Google have an altruistic bone in their body, do we?

    2. Rex

      “Why go to a library, when now we can go to bookstores?”

      Around here, most of the bookstores I used to like and go to are gone. The remaining ones are big-box chain stores for books. I think the trend points to soon actual printing presses being an underground thing with a cult following like vinyl records.

      Shame. In the long run, I think paper will hold up better than ebook software.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        Rex, software designed for quick obsolescence. Books may last hundreds of years; parchment manuscripts, thousands. You don’t have to pay through the nose to Big Brother in order to read a bound book in your library for however many decades you choose to refer to it, to re-explore it, to enjoy it.

  10. Susan the other

    VoxEu. Nicolas Veron. Europe’s Banking Union. Good information. He too says there has to be a fiscal political union sooner rather than later. But at least this was an encouraging piece. I’m assuming that the newly announced banking union has something to do with Greece backing away from its demands.

    It’s infinitely confusing for me to untangle the differences between our Federal Reserve system and what the EZ intends to kluge together. We don’t like what we’ve got either, but it looks like the model the EZ is using – anything is better than the mess they’ve got right now. The thing that really confuses me is what happens to the prospects for MMT now. Did it just get leapfrogged because their national sovereigns just got leapfrogged? Or did it just move up a level? It’s my impression that most of us over here want the banking system to respond to the citizens; want to tightly regulate private banking or eliminate it. And over there the private bankers seem to be maneuvering to run the show.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      S, take it from the Top: BIS continues to HEDGE regs for “bankers,” keeping its bread well-buttered.

      1. Susan the other

        It is interesting that you mention the BIS Leonova. Bec. I did think backwards all the way to international trade settlements. So I almost conclude that we are on the doorstep of global MMT because it is the only theory that closes the circle. Corruption notwithstanding as usual. Corruption and racketeering will always have to be dealt with. “Protecting” taxpayers will usurp actual citizen control of sovereign budgets. I don’t like that part. And in my puzzling I also thought about the new Pacific Pact. Talk about leapfrogging the sovereign.

    2. F. Beard

      It’s funny that many liberals and Progressives are against addictive drugs but have no problem with “credit”, an addictive money system. Credit is actually worse than addictive drugs since my use of it compels you to use it too or be priced out of the market. And in aggregate, our society MUST keep on piling on debt or else suffer a recession/depression.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        F. Beard, so true. Maybe Dr. Mate will say more on this parallel. How does addiction to credit affect brain circuitry, so that “the habit” is fiendishly difficult to “kick?”

        1. F. Beard

          No appeal to brain circuity is necessary; it makes economic SENSE to steal purchasing power via loans from the counterfeiting cartel, our banking system.

          1. LeonovaBalletRusse

            But you were talking “addiction” before, not “SENSE” which implies intentionality.

  11. briansays

    todays 7/7 sf chron

    California officials are moving quickly to deliver services to millions of people as a result of crucial legislation signed two years ago by former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    Here’s the twist: Schwarzenegger consulted with advisers to Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and presumptive GOP presidential nominee, before signing a package of seven health care bills after Congress passed the federal Affordable Care Act.

    Among other things, the 2010 legislation made California the first state to establish a health insurance exchange aimed at giving residents more affordable choices. Now, residents of California – home to 7 million uninsured people, more than any other state – are expected to be able to sign up for health care coverage beginning in October 2013.

    Daniel Zingale, who as a senior aide to Schwarzenegger was deeply involved in the process, said, “We flew (Romney’s) people out here and we learned a lot from them” in developing what would become the foundation of the state’s key health care reforms.

    “I genuinely believe that California will benefit hugely from its implementation,” said Zingale, now a senior vice president of Healthy California, part of the California Endowment, a statewide health foundation.

    Many political observers agree that California is on the cutting edge of health care reform even as Republicans – including Romney – across the nation are engaging in a full-throated protest against “Obamacare,” which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld last week.

    Kurt Bardella, a GOP strategist working with the campaign of former Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado in his Central Coast congressional race against incumbent Democrat Lois Capps, said the court’s decision has “united the middle and the right because you have everyone marching to the ‘repeal and replace’ message.”

    Romney signed on
    But political observers said that health care reforms in California, which occurred despite diverse demographics and political interests, succeeded in part because Schwarzenegger and state officials consulted with experts working with Romney, who signed a health care reform law when he was Massachusetts governor.

    “California demonstrated things that Romney hadn’t, in a much bigger way,” said Zingale. He said the state took a page directly from Romney’s playbook – particularly its requirement that all residents have health insurance.

    Zingale credits Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders, including then-Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, for hammering out agreements backed by hospitals and for dealing with the mandate, which was opposed by labor groups and Democrats who favored a single-payer system.

    Like Romney, “we started the conversation by saying there’s a hidden tax now: Anyone who is paying premiums is paying the cost of the uninsured when they show up at emergency rooms,” Zingale said.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      “Shwarzenegger consulted with…” – good Nazi soldier: “Sieg Heil” — just taking orders: “Yes Sir! Yes Sir!”

  12. LeonovaBalletRusse

    Chez Jesse: Matieres: “Central banks at Inflate or Die phase” links us to an audio with text, positing that a “debt jubilee” is unlikely to happen. But actually, we’ve hit the Reversal in the Greek Drama: TINA – “There is No Alternative” to a Debt Jubilee of the kind prescribed by Steve Keen.

    By now, there is NO way to salvage the bacon of the creditors, re-hypothecated unto infinity. That’s right, the creditors themselves have been re-hypothecated unto infinity through Libor manipulation for SubstanceSuck by insiders. The ethereal “profits” of the creditors have been sucked into Deep Space.

    CONJOIN: Kaltesky/Ray EuroFinesse + Keen’s Debt Jubilee – Hudson’s Just Economics Globally for the BIG RE-SET.

    1. LeonovaBalletRusse

      Edit: the dash (-) before “Hudson’s Just” should be a plus sign (+) – THUS:

      CONJOIN: Kaltesky/Ray EuroFinesse + Keen’s Debt Jubilee + Hudson’s Just Economics Globally for the BIG RE-SET.

      1. Susan the other

        just thinkin about Dick Cheney and his steady-state heart pump… like direct current… no piston-like mechanism, just a constant flow. Like MMT at its ideal best. Cheney’s little black heart is like a big interstate intersection without any speed considerations, it is all 60 mph, all the time. Not that this is a bad metaphor, just the opposite.

        1. F. Beard

          Yep. We have a reciprocating (boom-bust) instead of a turbine (smooth power) engine model for our money system.

          It seems therefore, by analogy, that Greenspan was wrong when he said that “progress requires bubbles.”

        2. Up the Ante

          Good, good, maybe Dick will offer us new entertainments driven by his methamphetamine DC pump, one that will surely break his idolization of the Langley ANG conspirators and possibly Rumsfeld’s idolization of the commandoes, to boot.

      2. LeonovaBalletRusse

        And, of course the name is KALETSKY, not the way I typed it before.

        Exeo.

    2. LeonovaBalletRusse

      My APOLOGIES for sloppy research, just winging it:
      NOT “Kaletsky/Ray” BUT “Kaletsky/Das” (Das: recent chez EuroIntelligence)
      DO-0VER:
      CONJOIN: Kaltesky/Das EuroFinesse + Keen’s Debt Jubilee + Hudson’s Just Economics Globally for the BIG RE-SET.

      Forgiveness appreciated.

      1. LeonovaBalletRusse

        My “copy and paste” fiasco is what what comes of “easy” hi=tech convenience: initial error gets replicated. I’ll go back to my practice of re-typing. Less “mindless.”

  13. Up the Ante

    “He also once got into an 8500-word argument with the intellectual master of media criticism, Noam Chomsky, over Chomsky’s support for a writer who denied some Balkan war crimes. But Simpson now questions the “merits of fixating on fractions of anyone’s work” ..”

    That argument may have been a sign of health, Mr. Simpson, as Noam in his later years somehow found it acceptable to work at a place where govt. conspiracies circle, a veritable spycenter vacation spot for the worn-out ‘radical’, MIT.
    Ahem, “this would have been consciously corrupt.”

    Noam as the irritated product of coopted self-cooption.
    “Hang on, how did he do that?”

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/06/the-nyt-reporter-who-quit-in-disgust/

    [coopted self-cooption echoing w/the crickets]

      1. Up the Ante

        Here’s hoping.

        Anyone capable of writing a book called The Manufacture of Consent should not be reduced to coopted self-cooption.

      2. 911truthVN

        It’s not product of coopted self-cooption. Simply said it’s the ego of such personalities. From this link
        http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/02/the-911-conspiracists-vindicated-after-all-these-years/

        by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
        We’re homing in on the tenth anniversary of the destruction of the Wall Street Trade Towers and the attack on the Pentagon. One in seven Americans and one in four among those aged 16-24, (so a recent poll commissioned by the BBC tells us) believe that there was a vast conspiracy in which the U.S. government was involved. But across those ten years have the charges that it was an “inside job” –– a favored phrase of the self-styled “truthers” — received any serious buttress?

        The answer is no.

        Please note that the young, who wasn’t ‘>=18’ when 9/11 took place was much more realistic than Chomsky or Cockburn.

        1. Up the Ante

          That counterpunch link is UTTER rubbish. I seriously don’t know why counterpunch would put up such trash.

          The answer lies in the Air Sovereignty Alert mission, the Joint Surveillance System, and the fact that NEADS conducts training exercises daily during every week.

          The only “truth” evident is the writers of such counterpunch garbage are too COWARDLY to even touch upon the above items. They won’t even go NEAR them.

        2. Up the Ante

          counterpunch writer should insert his identity in the following quote, if he can do so without confusing himself, lol,

          “Another way of putting this is that bankers [writers] have recently gone from being dishonest to the people they *lend* money [credence] to, to also being dishonest to the people who lend money to *them* — the bankers [writers] are now [‘]disloyal[‘] as well as [honest][found out]. ”

          fixed it for ‘ya

          And something tells me it’s related to ‘loss of private investors’. ”

          http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/yes-virginia-the-real-action-in-the-libor-scandal-was-in-the-derivatives.html#comment-753311

  14. Up the Ante

    GIVING NEW MEANING TO THE WORD ‘OUTRAGE’.

    “But let us not weep for our once and not-future king. Bill Johnson’s golden parachute was not affected by his short flight.

    Despite his short-lived tenure, Mr. Johnson will receive exit payments worth as much as $44.4 million, according to Duke. ”

    “So assuming that he worked for a full eight hours on Monday, that comes out to a nice $5.5 million an hour — some 765,000 times the national minimum wage. ”

    http://grist.org/news/duke-ceo-bill-johnson-resigns-after-one-day-gets-44-million-in-severance/

    1. nemjanjukjukjuk

      Which makes it all right that genocidal nakhba vegetable Ariel Sharon murdered him in breach of Article 8.2.c(i) of the Rome Statute. Good thing Ariel breathes and eats through hoses and thinks about static, since the International Criminal Court now urges UN referrals for crimes of concern to the international community. Now as for Ariel’s flunkies, they’ve got to watch their backs, you know, because times change and a weakening US can’t afford to veto too many criminal referrals, and piss away the last of its influence for Israel, the stinking skunk of nations.

  15. scraping_by

    RE: Contra the NYT

    “More importantly, most alternatives weren’t very interested in reporting — or at least understanding what it meant. They’d conflated it with commentary, which is fine, if you acknowledge that’s the goal.” [emphasis mine]

    I’m sure Mr. Simpson has a rigorous, objective and communicable standard to categorize the two. The American journalist’s ignoring large numbers of facts that aren’t part of the ‘story’ as opposed to relating known fact to larger issues, perhaps. Giving the opinion of Serious People as opposed to ignorant crowd dwellers. Having the exact words from an Important Insider as opposed to remembering what the II had done all the times previously. Hard to say.

    Or, it could just be one of those fine examples of English “side” that Anglophiles just love.

  16. El Guapo

    I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: Tony Blair is the scum of the earth.

    1. Up the Ante

      He has the idiosyncratic look of a Brit openly ‘conspiring with the Americans’.

      He doubtless tells himself his fellow Brits couldn’t possibly see that, and believes all Americans are too dumbed down to note it immediately. It’s even steerable from the American side, it’s so open.

      The seedy Anglophile Spy Alliance’s one-time posterboy.

      [with that “seedy” descriptor a veritable Flurry of LexisNexus searches are commissioned to see who the f*#k writes these comments ..]

      [lol]

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