Links 4/11/13

US rice imports ‘contain harmful levels of lead’ BBC (1231239)

How a Maine man lived as a hermit for decades Christian Science Monitor

How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs in Their Tracks New York Times

Subsidized Corn Destroying Global Bio-Diversity James Boyce, Triple Crisis

Bitcoin Suffers A Correction Amid Apparent DDOS Attacks On Some Exchanges TechCrunch. TechCrunch needs to get buzzword compatible. “Correction” is not the term of art for a 43% intraday plunge. This is a flash crash. Some bitcoin holders among the TechCrunch editors?

PC Outlook Darkens as Sales Slump Deepens in 1Q Associated Press

Speaking of dancing on people’s graves… Michael Smith (Carol B)

Why Abenomics will work-Joseph Stiglitz Sydney Morning Herald (YY)

Brain Drain: 120,000 Professionals Leave Greece Amid Crisis Der Spiegel

The eurozone’s second sovereign restructuring? Joseph Cotterill, FT Alphaville

Crimes Against Math And Logic: ECB HFCS Wealth Study Edition Ledra Capital

Brussels Threatens Spain With Fines of 0.1% of GDP Michael Shedlock (furzy mouse)

Spain and Slovenia told to reform Guardian

Hollande seeks to ‘eradicate’ tax havens Financial Times

Tobin Tax is madness for Europe, and economic war against Britain Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph. The problem is unilateral action.

Targeting Iran’s Energy Sector Isn’t Working OilPrice

US must prove Manning helped al-Qaeda Sydney Morning Herald (YY)

US Air Force Begins Grounding Combat Aircraft Associated Press (furzy mouse)

Republicans Attack President’s Budget for Social Security Cuts YouTube. Wow, the interviewee is almost licking his chops.

Elizabeth Warren ‘Shocked’ At White House Plan To Cut Social Security With Chained CPI Huffington Post. Tut-tutting is all well and good, but some real opposition would be better.

White House Budget Curbs Some Deductions for the Wealthy New York Times. Gotta have our optics!

THE END OF OBAMA’S ILLUSIONS Charles Pierce, Esquire. This is really embarrassing. Look, it was super duper obvious from the beginning that Obama never planned to spend any political capital on gun control. Why? From the very outset, he’s described it as “gun control”. No clever Orwellian packaging or even good phrasemaking, which is what you’d see him employ if he intended to put shoulder to wheel. Just shows of empathy for victims and other empty gestures.

Haircuts on Intrade Rajiv Sethi

This is the VaR that slipped through the cracks Lisa Pollack, FT Alphaville

Krugman vs. Stockman Counterpunch (Carol B)

U.S. Stock Market Is ‘Overvalued, Overbought and Overbullish’: John Hussman Lauren Lyster

My Cohort Believes QE Only Benefits the Nation’s Wealthiest Bob Lerzner, Forbes. Quelle surprise!

Antidote du jour:

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89 comments

  1. Jim Haygood

    Smoking — a preeexisting condition for some of our comrades. Nothing that solidarity can’t overcome, though:

    The District of Columbia’s Obamacare czars — the board that sets rules for the phony insurance marketplace, or “exchange,” that the law creates — have decided that henceforth insurers shall be forbidden by law to charge smokers higher rates than non-smokers. Smoking, as it turns out, “is a preexisting medical condition,” according to Dr. Mohammad Akhter, the chairman of the D.C. Health Exchange Board. Two states, California and Connecticut, have decided likewise, while Colorado and Alaska have rejected the idea.

    Obamacare was sold as a way to help poor people and sick people get health insurance, but, as the D.C. decision shows, the actual intent of the law is the abolition of health insurance. The notion of insuring a preexisting condition is an oxymoron; insurance is by nature concerned with that which may happen in the future rather than with that which already has happened. You cannot in any meaningful sense insure somebody against cancer when they already have cancer.

    Obamacare is designed to destroy the insurance market. Markets do not function without prices, and Obamacare ensures that prices will not be allowed to emerge. There is a medical price associated with smoking, but the District of Columbia has decided to suppress that price by law. Pretending that smoking has no relationship with health-care costs does not make it so — it is only a way to push costs around in a way that is agreeable to the likes of Barack Obama, converting a system that prices risk into a system of entitlements.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345153/smoking-preexisting-condition-kevin-d-williamson

    As Obama’s Depublicrat national socialist colleague G. W. Bush would say … ‘You’re doin’ a great job, Barky!’

    1. Cynthia

      “GOP Members Call For Increased Spending To Cover Pre-Existing Conditions”

      http://capsules.kaiserhealthnews.org/index.php/2013/04/gop-members-call-for-increased-spending-to-cover-pre-existing-conditions/

      [The young and healthy are to buy insurance on the exchanges, as ACA mandates that they do, so there’ll be no need for taxpayers to pick up the tab for covering those with pre-existing conditions. If Republicans really advocate market-based solutions to solve our healthcare problems, as they claim that they do, then why are they proposing that these costs be passed onto the taxpayers in the form of federal subsidies? For them to do so is a contradiction inside a hypocrisy wrapped in paradox!]

    2. davidgmills

      When the insurance companies wrote the required citizens to use their product instead of the government’s product, count me is not to sorry if it hurts the insurance industry.

      You can’t have it both ways. People with pre-existing conditions need health care. If private insurance isn’t going to provide it because private insurance only wants to cover future risks, then government insurance has to cover it. But of course private insurance would not be interested in the slightest in competing with the government.

    3. Denise B

      The goal is to provide health care to everyone. The commercial insurance system is the (poorly chosen) vehicle to accomplish this. The point is not to insure people against risk – it is to have a national health care system.

  2. Massinissa

    I dont understand much about France’s Tobin Tax. What are yall’s opinions on this?

    1. lakewoebegoner

      People pay $2.50 to withdraw $100 (2.5%) at an ATM, $10 for an entrance or exit visa in many counties.

      So why can’t government place tax 0.25% every time a stock is sold or money is transferred between countries and use that money to pay for pothole repair and cops?

  3. Massinissa

    I sure am glad I decided to just watch Bitcoin from a distance without actually participating…

    1. AbyNormal

      update: But Mt.Gox has now posted a notice on its Facebook page explaining the dramatic dive as the result of too much interest in Bitcoin. As its infrastructure slowed down under the volume of new users crowding in, it said the resulting lag then caused traders to panic and sell off currency — triggering the drop.

      and update on the update: A notice on Mt.Gox’s Facebook page, posted several hours after the prior update, confirms the planned network downtime maintenance has been completed. However it also says the exchange is now under DDOS attack.

      “That money talks, I’ll not deny, I heard it once: it said, ‘goodbye’”
      ‘ ))

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      That sounds like hyperinflation in the Bitworld.

      Was there destruction of productive capacity?

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Thanks!

          I am reminded of a story about a zen monk walking at night without a lantern, but I forgot the rest of the story…maybe he learned he didn’t need the lantern or something. I need a cup of coffee before I try to look up that story.

  4. p78

    Jumping rope may help you fight hunger
    http://www.livescience.com/28610-jumping-rope-exercise-appetite-hunger.html

    “[A]fter the cycling session was over, the men rated themselves as hungrier than they did after the control trials, but after the rope-skipping sessions, they did not. This suggests that cycling, but not jumping rope, causes hunger that leads to “compensating” for the energy that was burned.
    However, the gut hormone levels were not different after the cycling sessions compared with the rope-jumping sessions. It may be that some other mechanism explains the difference in hunger levels, the researchers said.”

    Don’t give ideas to the slave masters…

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Another day, another science-gone-wild moment brought to you by Robots-Are-People too!

    2. kimyo

      non-weight-bearing exercises such as cycling and swimming can lead to calcium depletion. perhaps this is why they found a difference in hunger levels as compared to jumping rope.

      http://munews.missouri.edu/news-releases/2007/1015-hinton-osteopenia.php

      The researchers measured bone mineral density in 43 competitive male cyclists and runners ages 20 to 59. Findings of the study included:

      The cyclists had significantly lower bone mineral density of the whole body, especially of the lumbar spine, compared to runners.

      63 percent of the cyclists had osteopenia of the spine or hip compared with 19 percent of the runners.

      Cyclists were seven-times more likely to have osteopenia of the spine than the runners.

        1. Valissa

          “Congress’s definition of torture in those laws – the infliction of severe mental or physical pain – leaves room for interrogation methods that go beyond polite conversation.” – John Yoo

    1. Ned Ludd

      Elizabeth Warren flipped on single payer and then lied about it (video):

      Interviewer: But you do support single-payer, do you not?

      Warren: No, what I’ve got right now…

      Interviewer: You’ve written repeatedly that you have, have you not?

      Warren: Oooooh. I think you need to go back and take a look…

      Interviewer: I have a paragraph: “The most obvious solution would be universal single-payer health care. Single-payer care would also free families from dependence on an employers’ plan and make certain everyone is covered whether or not…” You wrote that with a co-author.

      If she will lie when caught changing her position outright, imagine what she will do with a bit of wiggle room.

  5. dearieme

    “Tut-tutting is all well and good, but some real opposition would be better.” Quite right: surely she, more than anyone else in the Senate, should be capable of leading a cavalry charge and then scalping her foes.

  6. Brindle

    Re: Charles Pierce….

    “embarrassing” is right.
    Pierce trots out the Dem Party approved comic book version of Obama
    One wonders what planet Pierce has been living on:

    —“He staked his entire career — and certainly, his entire presidency — on the notion that the right person at the right time could heal the “divisions” in our society — which, he told us, were not the real products of our politics, but the temporary fever dreams of a country led astray.”—

    1. Klassy!

      Charles Pierce has staked his entire career on the notion that he is the one person that can point out our foibles and delusions to us. That he is doing this from the pages of Esquire of all places is totally lost on him.
      He really blew the lid off on that Creationist Museum. But seriously, did he have to travel all the way to exotic Kentucky to find something worth lampooning?
      http://esquirehomecollection.com/thecollection.html

      1. down2long

        I have been a fan of Pierce’s for years. He is a daily must-read, just as is Naked Capitalism. His blind spot on Obomba has been jarring, when he is so absolutely ascerbic (and often hyterically funny, a la Molly Ivins) on so much else.

        His transformation in the last two weeks as he realizes Dear Leader is a complete sellout have been touching. Took six years. “Over time, Hope can turn toxic, as it morphs into Denial.”

        Poor man, the beloved are always the last to know…..But I still love him. We need to support him in his grief.

  7. Garrett Pace

    The hermit in Maine:

    An interesting guy. What’s intriguing to me is that he was clean shaven – a surprisingly social thing for a 27-year hermit to do. Maybe so he wouldn’t attract attention when burglarizing?

    Also, that they think he’s used the same pair of sunglasses for 27 years. Sunglasses are fragile and outdoor life is hard on objects. Either he is exceptionally careful and methodical, or there is more to this story…

    1. 1231239

      apparently the guy burglarized more than 1000—especially hitting a nearby camp for special needs kids.

      sounds like he could’ve easily stolen everything he needed.

  8. Paul Tioxon

    I think the big tell about you Yves, for me at least, was your recent mention of not watching any TV. And now, the disconnect with pop culture. And, except for the literary foundation demonstrated here by so much quoting and some music compadres, I feel like a stranger in a strange land too much of the time among the writers and the comments here on NC. Sci-fi, comic books, rock and roll, jazz, novels, movies and TV shows make up my youth, and it seems, some of yours.

    But it is clear to many people, who do watch movies and TV, even unselectively so, that the halls of power are not ours to walk freely or come cheaply if at all. From the Summer of 1968 when I watched the Chicago Police beat Americans not much older than me during a Democratic PARTY national political convention, even as an 11 year old, I felt that there was something terribly wrong with my country. And as more pictures emerged, of women being beaten and dragged bleeding on the ground, that those cops were not acting the way a real man acts by hitting a woman. I probably had my consciousness raised more by television than personal encounters or extensive reading of turgid academic tomes piled high and deep. Or as Bruce Springsteen said: “We learned more from a 3 minute record than we ever learned from books.”

    Two night ago, my son came to me with a poetry text for a community college course he was taking on line. In a rare turn of the tables, it was a poetry for computer scientists class. He did not understand the meaning of the poem he was supposed to write a paper on and asked for my help. I looked at the page and it was by Paul Simon, “THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE”. By memory, I started quoting the opening phrase; “Hello darkness my old friend…”. I said it was a hit song from great a album. It then struck me that he should hear the poem sung, to music and I told him to go onto Youtube to listen to it order to get the meaning. He went back to his room, where of course, he seldom leaves at all and did not come back. Meaning, he got what he needed.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_cS_iQ-w0

    LET’S IMPEACH THE PRESIDENT BY NEIL YOUNG WITH CROSBY, STILLS AND NASH. freedom of speech tour 2006

    I’m sorry folks but I never did need Hannah Arendt to know which way the wind blows.

    1. jrs

      When I’m the literary type so I had to come by it by reading.

      But anyway a piece from Thatcher reminded me of that song. Who is still up for impeaching the president? I am! Let’s impeach the president! Hope, change and impeachment.

    2. Murky

      Pop culture has some quality content, sure. But content of less quality, ‘pop-garbage’ if you will, is a deterrent for tuning in to the mainstream. I cut out most of this pop-garbage when my television set broke 3 years ago. And I am so glad for it. Now most of my time is spent with choice book literature and carefully selected content from the internet (Naked Capitalism, Project Syndicate, etc.) One major drawback is persistent eyestrain from 6+ hours in front of a computer screen every day. But otherwise the benefits of a life unplugged from TV are broadly obvious. While visiting relatives on a recent evening I saw them borgified into TV drones, deprived of all will power and sucking up even the most obnoxious of commercial content. Programs such as Survivor and Who Wants to be a Millionaire fill the void of their mental space. And they were once intelligent people. You know the saying: “garbage in, garbage out”. Unplug your TV while you still have the courage and will power to do so.

    3. jrs

      But it’s hard to see any good what all this t.v. consciousness raising actually did. Apathy, cynicism, resignation? On the cheap and easy, don’t even have to read NC? Ok then what? Hopelessness? Then what? Just that I guess, a boot stamping on a human face forever? forever?

    1. Expat

      In addition to doing his best to ensure that ours is the last educated generation in America (such as it is), Obama’s “market rate” strategy has bearing on trade agreements now being negotiated.

      As oldtimers may recall, NAFTA only covered commodities in commerce. At the time, only limited water resources were being tapped for profit by commercial enterprises. The (Most Dis)honorable John Engler, then governor of Michigan, rewarded for his pillaging of Michiganders with the top position at the National Association of Manufacturers, did his best to ram through state approval for large-scale shipment of water from the region by international and foreign national corporations. Unless Dubai and not climate is responsible for the low water levels of the Great Lakes at present, we can conclude that no country or corporation took advantage of Engler’s largess. However, who knows what betrayal lurks in the fine print of state law and regulation.

      In the same way, Obama is not-so-secretly trying to get as much regulated enterprise out of government oversight and into the world market so that the 99% can fully assume their role as workhorses for the .1% without a shred of legal recourse. Student loans, state-owned public banks, etc., etc.

      Now that it has been thoroughly discredited as a check on businessmen’s bad behaviour, Mr. Market must be further subsidized by the government through the sacrifice of its citizens. Or so an ordinary person would think upon consideration of Obama’s policies.

      1. Klassy!

        Well that’s interesting about the attempted theft of water, but someone will be coming for it eventually.
        Don’t you like it that the rates won’t be “left to congressional whim”?

        1. Expat

          “Whim” is marketing genius. The whim of the people is, I suppose, the democratic process. By the way, water was just an example of how these trade deals can work. Regarding your point that someone will come for it eventually, all I can say is that as long as the resource is tightly regulated by the responsible parties to promote the public interest, “stewarded” is the word I am looking for, I am all in favour.

  9. AbyNormal

    National Safety Council honors Exxon Mobil Corporation with the Green Cross for Safety medal

    http://www.nsc.org/Pages/NSC-honors-Exxon-Mobil-Corporation-with-the-Green-Cross-for-Safety-medal-.aspx

    “It is evident that ExxonMobil is committed to excellence in safety, security, health and environmental performance,” said Froetscher. “The Council is honored to recognize ExxonMobil with the Green Cross for Safety medal. This organization is a wonderful example of the role corporations can play in preventing injuries and saving lives.”

    O, wonder!
    How many goodly creatures are there here!
    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
    That has such people in’t! the tempest

    1. davidgmills

      You are beating up on my stock. Why do I own Exxon/Mobil? Because it seems to me as if oil is the only real money there is today, not because I am enamored with Exxon/Mobil. Oil just seems to have the essence of what money should be: plenty of it (though dwindling) and in demand because it is a useful thing with seme intrinsic value. There must be plenty of oil to go around as those that have it don’t seem to mind spilling it everywhere. Could say the same thing about the value of the kilowatt/hour. Energy is power and power is money.

      1. AbyNormal

        playing in oil eh…maybe you should look for something else to occupy your brain

        You have a barrel of oil, and you need to measure out just one gallon. How do you do this if you only have a three-gallon container and a five-gallon container?

        as for your mula, just hand it over…i’ll hold it for ya
        ‘ )

        1. John L

          Um, fill the three gallon container, pour it into the five. Fill the three again, top up the five, you have a gallon left.

  10. AbyNormal

    Wall Street Journal De-Links Story That Jamie Dimon Will Meet the President at the White House Today

    http://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/04/wall-street-journal-de-links-headline-that-jamie-dimon-will-meet-the-president-at-the-white-house-today/

    Early this morning, the Wall Street Journal’s link on the front page of its web site to its story on the President’s meet-up with members of the Financial Services Forum tells us the following: “PAGE UNAVAILABLE — The document you requested either no longer exists or is not currently available.” Fortunately, Google has cached the article and from it we learn that Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase (whose firm is under an FBI investigation for losing $6.2 billion of depositors’ money in a derivatives trading scheme) is expected to meet with the President at the White House today as part of the Financial Services Forum. Also expected to attend is Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America.

    At the same moment the President is meeting with the CEOs of these firms, an investigative hearing will be playing out in the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, part of the Senate Banking Committee, on whether these same banks and others corrupted the process of a regulatory mandate to review their foreclosure files for evidence of fraud and abuse by directly paying and interacting with the consultants hired to do the work.

    The optics of the President meeting with executives from a Wall Street lobby group one day after submitting a budget proposal to Congress that would raise income taxes on the middle class while cutting Social Security benefits on the elderly, veterans and disabled is apparently of no concern to the President, unless his “closed press” blackout doesn’t hold. It could be a fluke that out of a hundred other headline links on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, only this one doesn’t work. Or it could be that the comments were so savage that the article and comments were removed. Also possible is that those ubiquitous invisible hands asked to have the article removed from the front page and someone forgot to take down the headline link.
    (gnashing of teeth)

        1. AbyNormal

          Klassy i did a quick search and the meeting is showing up in plenty of print & links…not sure whats up with WSJ. i mean if CNBS’ll squawk it then what’s the problemo :-/

  11. Jeff N

    You are so right about Elizabeth Warren – she has *said* so many good things, yet done NOTHING.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Shame on us…getting fooled over and over again.

      Maybe we are immune to shame…

      1. CB

        Perhaps Elizabeth is a far better, and more experienced, politician than ordinary voters realized. Wouldn’t be the first time a slick pro has snookered the unsuspecting public.

  12. rich

    Bill Gross Is Angry

    No Bill, we are bothered too: we have been looking for the past 24 hours on the Fed’s site for ways to subscribe to said early release distribution list and still can’t find it. We even offered Kevin Henry $29.95 a month to add us to Fed’s frontrunning newsletter and so far, nothing.

    How are we to make 100% returns in the otherwise risk free market, if we too can’t have market moving information days in advance of everyone else?

    Mr. Bernanke, are you listening – it hinders the “wealth effect” by denying everyone material, market-moving information early!

    Get to work Mr. Chairman.

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-11/bill-gross-angry

    got to love MSM….Martha Stewart got tried on TV 24/7 but not a peep over this.

  13. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Subsidized corn…Global bio-diversity.

    More importantly, subsidized ideas are destroying global intellectual-diversity. Here, we are talking about professional idea-generators who are paid vs. non-professional idea-generators who do it on their own free time.

  14. direction

    Spring is coming. Sprout your beans Now: indoors in a jar on the window sill. With a simple box of soil on the porch, roof, or fire escape you should be able to grow all the leaves needed to get rid of all the bed bugs in your apartment building by summer! and have a few nice snacks or salads. Beans are the easiest plants to grow, spread the good word.

    Seriously folks, it’s maddening to me. Why would people want to wait for the scientists and FDA approval when you can throw out a couple seeds and watch mother nature do the rest? Bean leaves are free, they are composted as waste. Any bean farmer will let you pick all you want, and then you can just drive back to the city and hand them out free on the street or at your nearest infested budget motel.

    http://bedbugregistry.com/metro/

  15. rjs

    coming soon to a state near you…

    Photographing fracking would be illegal under Indiana proposal – Indiana lawmakers are considering a bill that would make it illegal to photograph or videotape fracking, mining, clear-cutting forests or factory farming. Under Senate Bill 0373, anyone who sets foot on corporate property in order to document envionmental, animal welfare and health violations of the industries would face criminal penalties. The bill has passed the Senate and is on track to be approved in the House.

    1. AbyNormal

      There must have been a moment, at the beginning, were we could have said — no. But somehow we missed it.
      Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

  16. Eureka Springs

    US Air Force Begins Grounding Combat Aircraft

    I for one am delighted to read this. May they never fly again!

  17. down2long

    Not to be vulgar, but Greg Palast did put out a very touching eulogy on that Dang Ding Dong Witch Thatcher:

    Naggie Hatchet dead and gone

    Ruled her Empire State like Queen Kong

    Stomping on us little peeps

    Just to sell our Jewels to creeps.

    And lost the war that Winston won

    By turning back the clocks to

    England’s meanest hour.

    Yet worse to come: as trapped below her terror tower,

    And forced to look up that Iron Skirt

    At the beastly anus as it squirt

    From the crack in the grizzly monkey hair:

    Tony Blair.

    My apologies to Lady Thatcher’s family and sincere condolences. After all, large simians are people, too.

  18. Hugh

    Pierce shows the essential contradiction between what elites are, at least in theory, supposed to be and what they actually are. Elites justify their position, wealth, and privileges on the basis of their “expert” knowledge. They tell us that we need them because they know more than we do and they see things much earlier than we do. Only they can get us what we need individually and as a society.

    But as this lame “if only the tsar had realized” piece demonstrates, Pierce is just recycling tired memes about Obama most of us saw through years ago. Much like the kos post from yesterday on Social Security, it shows how far behind the curb elites like Pierce (and kos) are, which rather undercuts the whole elite rationale for why we need them.

    1. Hugh

      Sorry, curb is where they are throwing us to. Curve is what they are behind as they are doing this.

  19. ScottS

    Re: Krugman vs. Stockman Counterpunch (Carol B)

    I saw an interview with Stockman on The Daily Show and found it hard to disagree with his assessment. I do have to disagree with his (presumed) prescription. He doesn’t actually say what to do, but his concern about the debt and hatred of FDR implies he wants more austerity, less government spending and less safety net.

  20. diane

    Speaking of ‘Tax,’ something that truly disturbed about that recent bit, hugely fanfared by intertube blawwwgers (with their shirts and blouses still intact), about exposing individuals and their tax havens, was that it totally ignore the U$ legalization of tax havens for Multinational Corp[se]orations, such as every single one of the now oligarchic west coast (predominately California Bay Area [Sly Con Valley], and Seattle, Washington;….both of which states figured hugely in that ghastly Manhattan Project ) monsters responsible for stunning violations of intimacy and privacy; …. which in turn has made millions unemployable as Multinational Corp[se]orations were given the free reign and capacity to discover the most personal details of a human’s life; most particularly: that they believed in being kind to their fellow earth travellers, a profound concern and kindness held in total contempt by the monsters who are running things.

    1. diane

      Sorry for the typo. I meant: … was that it totally ignored the U$ legalization of tax havens for Multinational Corp[se]orations, ….

        1. diane

          Siiiiggghhh, …… I can’t take credit for thinking of Corpse oration, though I’d like to. I just instinctively thought the additional “se” more fully explained the concept of the word Corporation and the near thorough lack of liability, for crippling and deadly profit making ‘activities,’ which the word immediately denotes to those seeking power/monetary profit at the expense of all else.

  21. chicagogal

    I was a little out of things over the weekend and first part of this week, did anyone see the stories about Fannie and Freddie going back to “no doc” modifications? Considering how that worked out last time, why would they go back to it?

  22. LucyLulu

    Chris Hayes landed an interview tonight with George Papandrieu(sp?), former PM of Greece, on austerity and similarities between US and Greece, and differences, followed by panel discussion. All the key talking points were hit. Must see tv.

    “The republicans made the U.S. look more like Greece. The conservatives made the mess in Greece. We’re mopping up the mess. We have to deal with the crisis. It’s not the welfare that was the problem, but more crony capitalism where business and government were colluding to spend money in ways which helped obviously the richer, not necessarily the poor. I’m not saying we didn’t have to revamp our pension system, we didn’t have to be careful. [snip] Good governance, that was the problem in Greece, not the welfare system. Brookings institute came out and said if we were transparent and able to hit tax evasion as a country like Sweden or Scandinavians we would gain 8% gdp. That’s not austerity. Good governance is what we need.”

    http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51511648#51511648

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