I can tell some of you are bummed. I got markedly fewer link suggestions via e-mail than usual. Maybe we can figure out a place to which we can emigrate (although be warned, getting permanent residence is much harder than you thinks plus there are very few countries that accept people over 45). Or maybe there is a town with cheap and pretty good housing stock and not terrible weather we can all colonize.
New Yorkers Cower As Clinton Victory Speech Reverberates Across Entire State Onion (David L)
London gets its first naked restaurant, waiting list already at 5,000 Independent
Creativity Is Much More Than 10,000 Hours of Deliberate Practice Scientific American
Choosing to Skip the Upgrade and Care for the Gadget You’ve Got New York Times (furzy)
How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get? Ramez Naam
Large Hadron Collider Anomaly Inspires a Zoo of Theories Scientific American
How to Explain Mansplaining New York Times. I interrupt men on the phone regularly. And most of the time, when they speak again there is more tension in their voice. So yes, women get the disapproval message pretty quickly.
2.2 billion in ‘at risk’ Zika areas BBC
Prescription meds get trapped in disturbing pee-to-food-to-pee loop ars technica
Mossack Fonseca
E.U. Rules Will Chill Reporting New York Times (Richard Smith). Editorial. Why really disturbing: a tax dodge is a trade secret: Guest blog: how the European Trade secrets Directive will silence tax whistleblowers Tax Justice Network
Panama Papers: More Trouble For The West Than Russia Forbes. Official confirmation of what you probably knew already…
China?
It is time for China to tackle its bad debts Financial Times
China’s ‘zombie’ steel mills fire up furnaces, worsen global glut Reuters
Instagram’s White Savior Barbie neatly captures what’s wrong with “voluntourism” in Africa Quartz
ECB
What to look out for in the European Central Bank’s meeting Associated Press (furzy)
ECB to fire back at Germany in policy defence Reuters
Schaeuble says zero or negative rates for a long time makes no sense Reuters
Will the ECB fend off German criticism? Financial Times
Brexit?
Britain Would Pay High Price for ‘Liberating’ Europe Wall Street Journal
Syraqistan
Iran funds can go to US Beirut blast victims – Supreme Court BBC
Trump Claims US Government Hiding Saudi Role In 9/11 Eurasia Review (furzy)
U.S. and Saudi Arabia trapped in a bad marriage CNN
Obama’s Last Chance To Change the Saudi Arabia Playbook Defense One (furzy)
Senators Challenge US Military Aid to Saudi Arabia Truthout
An Awkward Silence in Riyadh Politico. Resilc: “Then close the base in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Kuwait and get out 100%. We sure don’t need the oil. If we are there to sell military toys, the roi is terrible. We sell a few 100 bil a year but spend a trillion in the area?”
Imperial Collapse Watch
Andrew Bacevich: Why America’s All-Volunteer Force fails to win wars Dallas Morning News
The Pentagon’s Twisted Potlatch Foreign Policy in Focus (resilc)
2016
The Empire Strikes Back: Donny and Hill’s Big Night Truthout
The (un)Democratic Primary: Why We Need a New Party of the 99% Counterpunch
Why Democrats Are Becoming the Party of the 1 Percent Vanity Fair (resilc)
The Democratic Party Now Belongs to Hillary Clinton American Conservative (resilc)
2016: When the Rules Change the Game Elizabeth Drew, New York Review of Books
Elizabeth Warren chides Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust over Teamsters pensions MarketWatch
US ranks 41 out of 180 in global press freedom, thanks to our ‘War On Whistleblowers’ Boing Boing
VW to pay US customers $5,000 in Dieselgate settlement DW
Nebraska just abolished civil forfeiture Boing Boing (resilc)
Why the Big Banks Can’t Imagine Their Own Demises New Yorker
Crude Oil Is About To Drop 30% – Again Forbes
Oil bounces on stockpile data as the dollar gains Reuters
What Will Come After Payday Lending? Atlantic (resilc)
We can’t save the economy unless we fix our debt addiction Michael Hudson, Washington Post
Guillotine Watch
Tuhao goes shopping for jewelry with 8 robotic maids Shanghaiist
The Invisibility of U.S. Oligarchs: The Case of Penny Pritzker Truthdig (furxy)
Class Warfare
The Death Gap Counterpunch
Bill That Obama Extolled Is Leading to Pension Cuts for Retirees Dave Daye, Intercept (resilc). Depressing.
Antidote du jour (martha r):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
297 comments
Comments are closed.
Emigrate? O lost NY and Cali. Once again:
https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/silver-superdelegates-1.png?w=575&h=465
Wonderful antidote.
Even if you could emigrate your savings aren’t safe from the long arm of the merkan gubmint. Every year a form reporting your assets and no bank willing to play with expat merikans. Plus for the kick in the head, there’s a charge to renounce citizenship.
Gold? Art work? Should be possible to get it out of the country.
bootstraps.
Hey, that gold and art dodge worked for all those high Nazis that did the Holy Grail” ” Run away! Run away! (clip clop clop clop) after folking up a large part of the world… U-boats to Uruguay! (A lot of that gold being ripped from the dead jaws of European Jews and others deemed Lesser by the Nazi Elite…)
And now their offspring are delivering U-boats to the Israelite military, U-boats now equipped with nuclear-warheads cruise missiles, U-boats mostly paid for by US “money…” And now our “war planners” and Battlespace Managers have to spend a whole lot on preparing to respond to Israelite attacks on US warships and other Disposable Assets…
Perhaps then the thing to do is to move to Israel with gold and return it in exchange for their money (thus supporting their sovereign fiat currency).
Live happily ever after in the land of milk and honey.
This seems like an awfully bleak picture. I have two bank accounts in the country I emigrated to, one of which includes a mortgage and credit card. Unlike most expats I file with the IRS, but don’t owe any additional taxes because I’m below the earnings threshold to owe additional American taxes. Even if I were above it, I can claim credit for foreign taxes (form 1116) so I wouldn’t wind up owing anything at any income level because marginal rates are higher here. I report accounts over $10,000 (FBAR) but that doesn’t result in any additional taxation.
Yves’ points about permanent residence, or even an extension beyond tourist visa restrictions are very pertinent though.
If all the good men and good women leave this country, wouldn’t that make the empire even more prone to reach out and touch someone?
Don’t we have a duty to turn the republic towards a more progressive path?
I guess you still vote from overseas, if you don’t renounce citizenship.
I still vote, but I think donating to NC is a more effective expression of patriotism.
Sorry, but on the super delegates, Obama was nearly tied with Clinton at this point in 08. Plus, recall Obama was taking plenty of corporate $$$. Don’t think there is much chance of establishment Dems leaving the $$$ trough for Sanders. They likely prefer loosing to that!
ALERT. ActBlue.
I have given very small amounts to Bernie through ActBlue. Starting about 10 days ago I began getting emails from ActBlue to contribute that did not mention Bernie or Hillary, only Trump.
This has made me wonder if Bernie actually got the money I contributed. If you do not want to contribute to Hillary, be careful.
For the life of me, I don’t get Trump being on a contribution list for ActBlue. The only thing that could be considered blue about Trump is his TPP opposition.
seems to me blue is the one negotiating the tpp right now.
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. The message was that if you are against Trump send us money.
Surreptitiously, it was soliciting money for Hillary.
I only contribute through the donate buttons on emails from Bernie’s campaign. And I get a list of my contributions and where they went. I did get re-routed once to another page with other choices, and once I got an email from ActBlue, but I unsubscribed and they stopped. Thanks, you do have to be careful.
Yeah, I got that too. I marked Actblue as spam. No more tips for them. Start whining about the Rs when it looks likely your nominating a bribe laundering warmonger and you’re gone.
Me, too. I ignore all those ActBlue messages. I donate to the candidate I support directly, not to any general slush fund. I go to my candidate’s webpage and click ‘donate’.
The ActBlue ‘unsubscribe’ link is in tiny blue text at the bottom of the messages.
Which in Bernie’s case, takes you to an actblue page.
Yes. But donating thru the candidate’s webpage goes thru ActBlue and sends the donations to the individual candidate, not to a general DNC fund.
For the record folks, the Philippines offers a permanent resident retiree visa for people 50 up, with a minimum monthly pension of only $800 and having 10 grand cash to stash in a local bank. The natives are friendly and English is widely spoken. Get details at the Philippine Retirement Authority: http://www.pra.gov.ph
Oh cheer up you lot. We’ve got Cameron. Germany’s got Merkel. And Japan has Abe. Would “President Trump” or “President Clinton Mk. 2” really be as bad as that little flock of global leadership turkeys? Erm, hmmm… wait a minute, now that I stop and think about it…
I’m happy to be voting Dilma Rousseff, I mean Hillary Clinton in the fall: impeachment starts right after the inauguration. Trick will be clogging the system before it can start WWIII.
( still a chance for Bernie…)
Rousseff=incompetent.
HRC=corrupt.
Big difference.
HRC=corrupt and incompetent….Hillarycare but one example.
Corrupt, incompetent and mean.
She’s taking names …
We didn’t have them in England so I might not be getting this quite right, but is that similar to some kind of hall monitor? Only, like, this one takes bribes from GS to look the other way while they pick the pockets of the other students.
It reminds me of Richard Nixon with his Enemies List. In fact, Clinton herself reminds me of Richard Nixon. I think Richard Nixon is Senator Clinton’s political Spirit Animal.
HRC gives me that same icky feeling of deja vu too.
so let us all pray to god to unfuck hillary.
would that make her withdraw from the Pres campaign? if so, plz god.
Corrupt + incompetent + mean + shameless
Funny the link on creativity uses a stock photo as its photo not an original piece to illustrate the story.
Because the poor, impoverished publication has NO budget for a commissioned photography shoot! So they HAVE to use stock!
The poor babies.
I was watching Victory At Sea the other night, and I noticed the music of that documentary was provided by NBC Symphony Orchestra.
NBC had their orchestra in the 1950s.
We have come a long way.
Conducted by Toscanini. Sigh. In high school I studied with a violist who had played in that orchestra. Too bad classical musician is not considered a “real” profession, unless you are a studio musician.
Cheer up, part deux:
School taxes: Majority in California would extend tax on rich
The voters are to the left of their
rulersrepresentatives and media shills.Meanwhile a friend of mine who teaches 5th grade in the Atlanta GA area posted a picture on faceborg of the toilet paper the kids are using for kleenex because apparently they have run out for the year. And when they run out of TP? Could be worse, I realize. I mean, it’s not like they’re shortening the school year because they can’t pay their teachers.
I live in the Atlanta suburbs, but am originally from the Northern Virginia area. The state of education in Georgia is pitiful. It is positively ridiculous how little is spent on students, how much people fight any additional expenditure and, most of all, how completely clueless the people are here who fail to understand that the attractiveness of a community is dictated in large part by the quality of the schools. Many counties here allow tax exemptions for seniors to opt out of paying school taxes (!) That is totally preposterous to me – and yet all the seniors here act if though that is something that is owed to them. Talk about takers vs. makers.
Ah, the ballot initiative – sounds great until you see it in practice. Sigh.
By taxing those over $250,000, they can tax billionaires less.
But if they set the limit at, say, $1,000,000, to make up, they would have to tax the billionaires more.
And if people who make $250,000 in California, think themselves as rich, they are sadly delusional.
Ah, yes, Gov. Brown and ballot measures for “education”. Couple of years ago Brownie pushed a ballot measure for increased taxes that would go to two purposes: additional K-12 education funding, and eliminating the need for tuition hikes at UC. Voters swilled the Kool-Aid and approved the measures. Guess what:
1) Every single penny of the money went to backfill unfunded pension liabilities. Not a cent went to classrooms, teachers, supplies, equipment upgrades, etc.
2) UC then approved a 5% a year tuition increase.
Meanwhile Brownie shoved a bill through the legislature exempting members of the state’s most powerful union, the correctional officers, from a new law that prevents applying unused vacation time or compensatory time off to pension calculations. This will, of course, result in further escalation of already obscene pensions for retired prison guards.
Brownie isn’t Governor Moonbeam, he’s much worse. He’s that roving, pillaging alien spacecraft from Independence Day, only we don’t have Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum around to save us.
But UC still adores their out-of-state students, though, no matter how much state money you throw at them.
Does Brown feed from the same trough as Hillary? I’m curious.
Yep. Everyone should understand how money “fungibility” works, as is applied to government budgets. Dedicated taxation just means less will come out of the General Fund, period. When these schemes sunset, things go all to hell…
Jess, that is mostly bunk!
Proposition 30 raised sales, as well as, income taxes. The majority of the money went to education: K-12 schools, plus community colleges. The new funds complemented a prior Proposition (98) AND were clearly indicated to be available for General Fund use (after Prop 98 requirements were met).
The UC System gets NO *dedicated* funding from the Legislature (it must make it’s plea year to year). With limited General Fund help and increasing costs UC System instituted a tuition fee increase. But not without “blow back” from students and their parents.
Your rant about retired prison guards is “right on”, however. But the special treatment prison guards receive is due to their status as “law enforcement officers”. A benefit your local police officers also ascribe.
I would like to see the Wizard of Oz analogy to take hold.
At least Obama hid his having sold out. With Hillary, it’s been one of those celebrity marriages.
Having her as the Wicked Witch of the West, with her flying monkey banker buds and the Donald as the wizard would put it in a context most people would sense.
Here’s Ellen Brown on that allegory;
http://www.webofdebt.com/excerpts/chapter-1.php
I’ve read the history, which does give it a deeper significance, beyond the surface parody.
If nothing else, it will be an interesting year. Sort of like watching a train wreck in slow motion.
NY was a bummer and its now very difficult to win the nomination sans a California landslide or FBI implosion (or both).
But next week should be better. I did some math using Benchmark Politics projections for next weeks’ primaries. They had pegged Bernie at 57%-43% for NY. He actually outperformed in most counties outside NYC/Suburbs.
Updating the projections to reflect how well he did(relatively) based on Demographics/Income/Educational attainment. I got:
PA: 52%
CT: 51%
RI: 52.5%
DE: 46%
MD: 39%
So it’s possible to win 3/5 next week. Which would be a decent showing though not gamechanging.
Seems like all he needs to do is hang in there until the primary schedule goes back west. This may be wishful thinking, but if he does anywhere near as well in California as he has in the rest of the west, it could be game changing. He really didn’t lose all that much ground in NY; he held his own insofar as it was a closed Primary….
His phonebanking has collapsed. An individual running said Sanders has no ground game in his state. It takes extreme effort to find his campaign in CA and we could not get people to register at a college yesterday (an annoying aside, the people I was with kept talking about the importance defeating the Rs and Clinton) Sanders burned through money in NY. It took several wins for supporters to get back in motion after other losses. I don’t think there is enough time. LA just opened an office yesterday…
CT registration closes today. I’m not sure how much time other states had.
One should also consider that the effects of the (clearly significant) registration data malfeasance probably hurt Bernie more than Hillary. So hitting a reasonable projection despite that is an accomplishment.
Yes, it does appear that overall, in open primaries when independents are allowed to vote, then Sanders has a good chance of winning. That is impressive given the extremely biased media coverage. Regardless of this cycle, it bodes well for the future. It could bode well for a third party as well.
What is the optimal timing for Sanders to jump over and form a coalition and run with Jill Stein? Create a platform and start a national initiative for write-in campaigns for congressional candidates who are in alignment? Take the momentum and make a 90 degree turn away from the Lemming Brink?
I think it’s a fantasy, but I would love to see Bernie run at the top of the Green ticket, though I think the party’s nominating procedure would require Sanders to declare fairly soon which would mean ditching the remaining dem party primaries.
Anyway, proceeding with my fantasy, imho Sanders at the top of the ticket would invigorate the Greens as a political force and help destroy the dem party as it presently exists.
The Greens make the Democratic Party look like a well-run organization.
The greens are terribly run, so it might be easier to just have Bernie start a new party and call it the Progressive Party or something. I vote the greens every presidential election, but theyre still a joke organizationally.
It’s a revolution and you have to have the word “Revolutionary’ in there.
People’s Revolutionary Democratic Party.
(Also the word ‘Democratic’ to remind future historian of the episode in 2016).
Bernie can bring over Democrats who know how to run a machine…people with insider information, like the former vice chairwoman.
I won’t vote for any party that includes Democratic in the title. Just sayin’.
I feel your pain, as Bill would say.
M L T P B:
The Raving Monster Loony Party, please.
You have to have ‘Revolutionary’ in there somewhere.
You know what? I would like a New Party to have a name which is truthful about itself AND is a pointed insult to the Democratic Party’s post-Mondale makeover.
I would like such a party to call itself the Real Democrat Party. If that is too pointed, call it the New Deal Party.
Of course if it going to wade into the sewage lagoon of high-fashion “revolutionary socialism”, then I suppose it doesn’t matter what it calls itself. Since I am only interested in New Deal Revivalism.
This maneuver could be the way Bernie extracts concessions from Hillary, even if she’s the “winner” of these contests. Sure, it’s extortion to threaten a third party run (in private), but certainly not as crooked as the other vote-rigging, etc.
In fact, I’d say Bernie would get to have his way with Hillary just as he does with his congressional colleagues. He knows how to strike a deal.
Hahaha ‘extract concessions from Hillary’. You don’t understand the Clintons at all if you think that. The Clintons don’t bargain, they demand.
Split now.
Sanders’ message is guaranteed to be heard in the general election, in that case.
And he can really go after Obama and Hillary.
Plus, MMT can be introduced, so that if we don’t succeed this time, people will know there is an alternative way to frame discussions about money and taxation.
I don’t see that as dragging the old-line Dems with you, but simply splitting the opposition to the Republicans (who suck–let’s not forget that) permanently. My frame of reference is the demise of the Liberal Party in England, which over the last century has helped the Conservatives much more than Labour and helped create one of the most corrupt and intrusive (in its will and ability to spy on the populace) societies on the planet. We’ve got to maneuver in a way that isolates the reactionaries and the 1% while uniting the solid majority of decent citizens. Bernie baling now doesn’t do that.
Absolutely not. Sanders still has a chance for the nomination, although it doesn’t look good. He shouldn’t drop out of the primaries unless it becomes mathematically impossible to win.
His message has a far better chance of being heard if he’s the candidate of the Democratic Party. Third party candidates are rarely allowed to appear on nationally televised debates with the major party candidates.
You’re right. I meant after Hillary has completed her pilgrimage to the party coronation.
At that time, you get a second chance to stop her, though I have read that Sanders has made a certain promise*. So, it may not be feasible.
*Don’t know if there were other promises made. He seems to operate within a very confined area. Will he look into the emails (or Obama’s handling of Liyba, among other things) if he gets into the White House? Was there some ‘understanding’ about what it meant to be a good ‘Democrat?’ Dummies Guide for Independents Who Want To Be Democrats?
If I made a promise like that, or any promise at all, there would be an implicit good faith clause. i.e. “I promise to support the eventual nominee” is understood to mean by all involved to mean “I promise to support the eventual nominee assuming you play reasonably fair and do spend the entire primary trying to screw me over every which way from Sunday.”
You know, like “I promise to pay you $20 if you can outrun me to that tree” implies that you actually try to outrun me to that tree, not have your three cousins tackle me right before you say “On your mark go!” At that point, you forfeited any right to the $20.
I think the Ds forfeited any right to his support long, long, long ago. Bernie may have a different sense of things than I do, tho.
Bernie is steeped in the political loyalty ethic of decades ago. Nowadays it just seems cute and winsome. He will not go against his promise to support The Nominee. He may try to make that support as ineffective as he can achieve . . . with the whole world watching.
He also believes in Revolutionary Gradualism or Gradual Revolution or whatever we want to call it. Hopefully he will lay out that concept very clearly for his followers so that they become more than just followers. Hopefully they will become self-propelled and mutually cross-organizing mutual operators . . . . fit for a several decades long program of growing a real party into a fighting force able to conquer and dominate the tools and terrain of political and economic power.
and prove he was a joke the whole time? Remember Obama? Well you just got punked again! ha! I cashed in on selling my donor list, tee hee.
counting and making conclusions about an “election” that is/was rigged is sort of pointless, no?
Perhaps we can concentrate on writing Sanders name on a ballot and voting for someone that has no appearance of being a crime lord?
There’s much ballyhoo made about the fact he’d need more than 50% of the delegates left to secure the nomination. However, the reality is her path gets way harder for each win he ekes out.
Someone needs to get out the fainting couch because as long as he continues to fight(and only occasionally win) then there’s a chance that this goes to the floor of the convention.
I do feel bummed…not interested in the election anymore. Came to terms with the idea of Billary the day before we voted in NY. Then I read this:
“http://http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/04/12/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-why-it-matters/”>
Simon head has been really clear about the problem with Hillary/Billary. The foundation hairball and they Clinton System. There is a link to his other work in the link.
She’s bad. It will only get worse. At least I believe in God…
Don’t give up.
The other side never gives up. They’d just re-propose bailing banks, and that’s how they win.
We have to be turtles now. not easily excitable and tired rabbits.
+1.
Don’t give up. And if you have accounts at one of the TBTF banks consider moving those accounts to local banks that won’t be bailed out, that will focus on real customer service, and whose profits won’t go toward destroying Main Street.
The Vanity Fair piece says that Hillary has argued for raising the cap on H1B visas.
If true, and publicized, that could do her real damage in California. Tech workers were a key factor in the practical political ability of ‘leaders’ to get away with massive outsourcing. They were the favored ones. (Manufacturing labor was stereotyped as too uneducated and too ignorant, not flexible enough to meet the needs of the market place. This ‘justified’ and explained away the suffering in the industrial towns because if you were bright enough to do tech, you could still make it without help. Social darwinism was still ok because individuals could still succeed.)
Too many tech workers bought into the justification that If you were bright and hard working enough to learn the skills, that prosperity was still a given. That belief makes today’s reality re layoffs, outsourcing and H1B visas especially painful, feeling like betrayal rather than just bad fortune. Both Trump and Sanders could make effective use of a CSpan sound byte re Hillary and H1B visas.
Good idea! Bernie should be sounding the alarm about H1 and J1 visas. Here in PA we have
summer camps with all foreign youth workers. How are the college kids supposed to make some summer money to pay off their debt?
Jay Jacobs, camp owner, held a funraiser for Hillary. The Camp Assoc. spent ten percent of their budget on a Hillary speech. Why J-1 visas.
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2016/02/hillary-clintons-last-paid-speech.html
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/clintons-last-paid-speech-summer-camp-and-political-allies
There’s more than just the H-1B and J-1 visas. There are also H-2B and L-1 visas, and there are almost certainly several types of work visas that I don’t know about. The 0.01% have many ways of suppressing wages and preventing the hiring of people who are capable of standing up for their rights.
Some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-1_visa
http://cis.org/north/triple-play-will-bring-still-more-l-1-workers
http://www.cis.org/h-2b-guestworkers
Raising wages for those visa holders doesn’t do much.
You increase supply, the price will fall.
Two equally qualified job applications, both to be paid the same, the foreigner will probably be easier to exploit, pressure to take work home, less inclined to speak up about it…our’s is a foreign country to him/her, fewer friends/family members to help.
There’s little need, perhaps no need at all, for work visas. There are millions of unemployed and underemployed people already in the United States, and many of them are highly qualified. It’s time to eliminate the work visa programs; at the very least, the quotas should be reduced.
I agree with you, and was disappointed to find out both Trump and Sanders talk about raising H1B visa wages.
Hey! She only made $14,000/yr 1970s dollars when she was paying for school!
Better yet, also besides H1/J1, completely cut off the access to US Graduate Schools. That will immediately dry up a great deal of the flow/theft of US technology.
Interesting that long before Trump became a candidate, Edward Luttwak backed his points about taming China by limiting their access to US market.
yeah that’ll work. You people think that our elite don’t have agreements with the elite in other countries? Look at the entire debacle with Saudi Arabia right now. 3,000 Americans killed, two fake wars started and a bill to hold the Arab princes responsible will cause them to see 725 billion dollars in us assets?
US schools are setting branches in China, I believe.
Not teaching wisdom, for the Chinese can find that in their own ancient books.
How to get rich (by knowing what qualities are desirable for aspiring imperial GDP foot soldiers) is probably what is being taught over there.
And Chinese enrollment at US universities has exploded since 2000. Cutting US universities off from Chinese students is a non-starter. They are all addicted to the revenue.
They can study for the old Chinese Imperial Examination or the new, Western Imperial Examination.
The deciding factor is, as usually, which pays more money to the winners.
Univ. Southern California (USC) now costs over $50,000 a year to attend. Very large Chinese student population there. Plenty of wealthy foreign students, but also bright and dedicated cohorts, too.
and as long as they can get them, then they will never accept “local” students. accept the the neo-liberal framework, and there’s no point to ask for equity.
Better yet, also besides H1/J1, completely cut off the access to US Graduate Schools. That will immediately dry up a great deal of the flow/theft of US technology
Er, I’m familiar with a certain Ivy League engineering building which would have about 4 graduate students left in its 12 stories if this were to be implemented. And that is surely repeated elsewhere.
If that building is for teaching Fracking 101, it’s not be so bad.
No, most of these students were aiming for jobs at McKinsey or similar. Which, come to think on it, might be more destructive than fracking.
So your long term solution is to keep building up China at the US’s expense. I think you’ve proven my point about the failure of USA education, at all levels.
I can imagine a couple of possible outcomes from that:
1) Graduate schools suffer an immediate decline in number and quality of applicants, causing the US to realize the long term strategic value of secondary/tertiary education and invest more public money in it.
2) Graduate schools suffer an immediate decline in number and quality of applicants, causing people to question the ROI on big government research grants. Spotting a looting opportunity, businesses lobby for research grants to be reduced or eliminated and the money channeled into programs for recruiting graduates from offshore universities (naturally on H-1B visas for all but the most valuable) and tax breaks for industries perceived as creating skilled/high tech jobs. US graduate schools gradually lose their funding and reputations and fade into irrelevance, forcing bright US students to look offshore for a world class graduate education. Businesses use this as evidence for channeling even more money and resources into offshore recruiting.
Anyone willing to bet on which is more likely?
I see, China is the only source of competent graduate students. Besides being racist, and self-deprecating in a very negative way, it’s pretty defeatist. You’re exactly what the Koch Brothers want, and exactly why the USA is doomed. The problem: It’s not Washington, its all of you.
Last graf in Vanity Fair article is a good one—identity politics: “they don’t bother rich people”.
—The combination of super-rich Democrats and poor Democrats would exacerbate internal party tensions, but the party would probably resort to forms of appeasement that are already in use. To their rich constituents, Democrats offer more trade, more immigration, and general globalism. To their non-rich constituents, they offer the promise of social justice, which critics might call identity politics. That’s one reason why Democrats have devoted so much attention to issues such as transgender rights, sexual assault on campus, racial disparities in criminal justice, and immigration reform. The causes may be worthy—and they attract sincere advocates—but politically they’re also useful. They don’t bother rich people.—
Identity politics is how elites neutralize the desire for social justice, which is fundamentally about the distribution of wealth
That’s a little too glib. As Woody Allen joked in Annie Hall, when asked where his grandma went to college, he pointed out that she didn’t go–she was too busy being raped by Cossacks. When you are literally or metaphorically in fear of being raped by Cossacks, money may not be your only or top priority.
As a past ‘beneficiary’ of the H-1B program, I used to take issue with comments like this. That was before I realized that the key point about H-1B (and J1) is that they are temporary. This is by design and serves to massively imbalance the employment relationship in favor of the employer, since the temporary worker’s continued presence in the country is tied to their continued employment with one specific employer. They must legally be paid the same rates as US workers, but have much less flexibility and power than US workers do and can be abused to a much higher degree in consequence. That makes them more attractive to hire than US workers (even at the same rates) and means that US workers need to accept tougher working conditions in order to compete. (Or lower rates, which then lowers the rate that companies can legally pay H-1Bs as well).
To make it less of a weapon of capital against labor and more of a genuine immigration program, I think the US should either (a) not let workers in at all or (b) let them in as permanent residents with all the associated rights and privileges of US workers. The decision can still be made on a case by case basis using whatever criteria are deemed suitable, much like other countries do. That would resolve most of the problems with the temporary visa program while not closing the USA off completely to immigration. Unfortunately this will never happen without significant public pressure as the current system is working very well for big companies and they won’t want it changed.
The NY primary has exposed the Clinton ‘cligue’ for the ruthless, power hungry monsters they always have been. Plain old fashioned political “dirty tricks” are trotted out in broad daylight; no attempt is made to hide the facts. The writing is on the walls, subway and tenement; “We will not bend; break us if you can.” [Brought to you by the Demo/Repub National Committee.]
As for the difficulties of emigration; why not get together, gun up, and travel South on a Filibuster? Hillary set the example with Honduras, and it’s an old Tradition in the Americas. See you in Parador!
Our folks are already there:
Not sure I believe the George Strait bit …
Flatt and Scruggs would be more like it.
Now that the primary nonsense is over, New Yorkers can return
to their favorite spectator sport, Albany corruption and dysfunction:
Democrats to have majority, not power, in NY Senate
A lack of party discipline is as useful a fig leaf for Cuomo now as it was for Obama in 2009-2011.
Or, as Lambert might call it, kayfabe.
I actually do thank the obstruction of the Republican party for saving the people of this country from worse under Obama. Speaking as a New Yorker who has had mixed feelings about the corruption convictions, I’m not so sure that is a bad thing. At least depending on how much of it is kayfabe and how much of it is real obstruction to Cuomo. Here’s the thing, Cuomo is an even bigger neoliberal corporate hack and easily should have been seeing the inside of a court as a defendant as Silver and Skelos (it was called three men in a room for a reason). Yes it will stop good things from being done, but with luck it may stem the continued destruction of the education system for instance.
About being bummed out and emigration: after the 2000 elections, I started looking seriously at moving to NZ, where I had lived for a year as a child. NZ Immigration uses a points system to determine your eligibility, and I would have just barely made it in. Now I wouldn’t come close (you lose points the older you get).
As a Vermonter, I used to think the next best thing was seceding from the US. Or failing that, maybe Canada could annex us. But the Harper reign put an end to that latter fantasy; I’m not sure things are lot better up there now; we’ll see.
I guess the best plan is to make the best of a really bad situation, by continuing to work for change on a local level. The NY results have destroyed my faith in the larger political process. Obama had destroyed my faith a while back, and then Bernie had restored it just a little, but now I’m half-convinced it was a false hope. Maybe someone else will come along to carry the banner. But it’s not going to be someone from my generation (I’m 60 now). My generation failed to make good on the promise of the 60s, and we are paying for that failure now.
I also considered a change of residence, and did a lot of looking around, and came to the conclusion that Vermont is a damn good place to be. There is the attempt from outside the State to Republicanize and subvert the political process, but Vermonters are not unconscious or silent about these things, witness their very public opinion of that slimeball Shumlin. I am not saying things are perfect, but having lived in several states, I am happy that I ended up here in “retirement”.
I love this particular thing, lol where a Canada Goose attended a protest
http://www.risingtidevermont.org/news/residents-climate-advocates-prevent-eminent-domain-proceedings-for-pipeline
and here is the most recent link to RisingTideVermont
http://www.risingtidevermont.org/news
I love Vermont
Hi-5 on 60, I am 60 too.
Might I suggest that “working for change at the local level” is necessary but not sufficient. Real change demands angry people in the street: that’s what worked for us during the Vietnam war. My guess is that it’s not bad enough for enough people, not yet, 4 years of Hilary Antoinette should do the trick nicely though.
While it may seem a little like sticking my head in the sand, I avoided the major media outlets from Tuesday evening through yesterday, choosing to read here and other blogs where the emphasis is on information, not entertainment.
It helps; I might do it more often.
So let me get this straight……..
Vietnam was lost because we cared too much.
But now, the guys are losing because we dont care enough?
Yeah, the problem is that not enough US American are willing to volunteer to fight in elective wars.
Why was “Nation Building” in The Stan selected, instead of just staying long enough (and committing enough of our guys) to bring OBL’s head back on the end of a stick, then GtF out?
Why was the Army’s own estimate for the number of troops required to pacify Iraq ignored/ridiculed? Because the jackazzes knew that US Americans would never stand a half million soldier deployment, just to force a regime change. So they tried it “on the cheap”,
The problem does lie with the American people. For continuing to elect the idiots who make these decisions. And continuing to think that the answer to failed policies is not enough dedication, instead of re evaluating the decision.
I’m fairly confident the neoconservatives expected to turn power in Iraq over to loyal elements of the Iraqi army and to move on to their next target in short order. Hence there wasn’t the need for the 500,000 peacekeeping force necessary to manage the chaos from the sudden death of Hussein as his boys wouldn’t be tolerated by the Baath Party at large.
They didn’t grasp “you break it, you buy it” reasoning, and they had to sell “bringing democracy” to sell the war. The wmd search complicated matters. We couldn’t just leave.
I believe Bremer arrived in Iraq and found the coalition lacked the resources to country, 400,000 iraqi soldiers hanging around on bases, and no signs of wmds. Bremer needed to get rid of this army before anger moved them, but course, he destroyed the structure the neocons expected to turn the government over to.
The whole adventure was viewed through the lens of American exceptionalism. Obama plans to lecture the British on Brexit implications.
While you are correct that doesn’t contradict Bacevich’s valid point that if we are going to pretend to be an empire then we will have to fess up and act like one, commit more troops or maybe hire some sepoys. As with so much else it comes down to a failure by our elites to be honest about their intentions. While the Brits did go on about “bringing civilization” etc via their empire they were never shy when it came to their zeal for conquest. In the US we prefer to be hypocrites.
The answer to “too many elective wars” is to return to the Draft. Only then will ALL US families be affected by our military policies.
As a very reluctant draftee in ’65 (in Vietnam 66-67, got to establish those creds these days, save the Thank you for your service), I would certainly never have advocated keeping the draft when it was abolished, but it’s become clear to me since, that unless most citizens are personally affected by war, we will continue to have Wars for Profit, with their attendant disruptions of our economy and culture.
All of which is why the draft isn’t coming back. That, and the general concept of privatization and selling off the commons–the remake of the military and public service as an essentially private business, hiring and firing employees at will.
it’s also why prosperity won’t return to the people of the land any time soon. if people prosper, they have no reason to sign up for this shit show.
Private armies… Can we get some serfs with that?
All US families were NOT affected by the draft. People like Donald Trump were able to get their service deferred.
This idea that if we made everyone serve the really rich would be affected is a pipe dream.
And Dickless “I had other priorities ” Cheney, and Rush “Hemorrhoids” Limbaugh… And GW “AWOL” Bush, on and on.
cwaltz, it was not the “really rich” who protested in the streets until the Vietnam War was shut down, it was the ordinary families whose children were being killed and maimed.
The point of the draft would be to ensure SOMEONE protests our military forays if they’re not benefiting the country.
People already protest our military forays if they aren’t benefiting the country just like people protested bailing out banks for all the good it did. As a matter of fact by pinning people into the military you’d be RESTRICTING many people’s right to protest(the very ones you forced into the military) since the UCMJ forbids active duty personnel from being involved in politics.
So no I’m not for forcing those that are middle class or indigent to serve while the really rich continue to get away with not serving or having cushy jobs that don’t put them at risk.
The problem with the war against the Islamic State is that the American Empire doesn’t have enough Sunni Muslim fighters to defeat the Daesh. The 5000 US soldiers plus twice as many mercenaries in Iraq won’t win anything. Syria and Russia have secular Sunnis, Shiites and Alawite Muslim troops fighting for their survival. The Obama Administration has nixed so far using Turkish and Saudi troops to carve out an Iraq Sunni land probably because it would start the fourteenth Russo-Turkish War. Also, the Daesh provides shock troops for the West for regime change. The Elite’s intention is to keep the war going as long as possible no matter the blowback. To win the war and impose a peace settlement requires the draft and millions of soldiers. It would also require the Elite to become subservient to the state once again and increase their taxes to pay for the conflict. It is not going to happen in either a Clinton or Trump presidency. I see two outcomes. The Empire ends up broke and splintered apart like the Soviet Union or World War III engulfs the world.
The US has been arming Daesh through its “moderate” jihadis from the beginning, and is still doing so.
I doubt defeating Daesh is any part of the State Department’s strategic planning.
Remember, after six months the US was unable to shut down the Daesh oil-tanker route that the Russians shut down within six weeks.
I do think that gives a window into strategic priorities.
–Gaianne
well, y’all could move here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canada-earns-d-grade-on-environmental-record/article29705154/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/21/canadas-15-billion-saudi-arms-deal-what-history-tells-us/
ha!
••
anyhoo,
you folks should just stay where you are. if you think it’s gonna get bad in the states, just think about the rest of the world.
if it’s mr. trump versus ms. clinton, please vote for mr. trump. with her, we’ll get nuclear annihilation; with him, he’ll change the u.s. into a giant hungarian restaurant.
I’d say do what Bernie says. He’s got some bargaining leverage with Hillary. I say he’ll use it even if he falls short in the delegate count.
oh, he’ll get his audience with ms. clinton. perhaps she’ll offer him one of her fine vol-au-vant.
Not sure why there is so much angst about Canada selling arms to Saudi Arabia. The US and Europeans have been doing this for decades. At about 10% of GDP Saudi defence expenditure is proportionately one of the highest in the world, and almost every major weapons system is imported, with the US, UK and France being the largest suppliers.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate that Saudi Arabia isn’t a peace loving liberal democracy that wants to spend petrodollars on arms so they can burn them in a huge bonfire in the name of making the world a safer place. Strange to say the clientele of arms exporters often runs to the unsavoury. But isn’t that a lot like a drug dealer complaining that all his customers are junkies?
Q: Not sure why there is so much angst about Canada selling arms to Saudi Arabia.
A: The US and Europeans have been doing this for decades.
Your point being…what? What’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander?
I’m actually impressed Canada’s relatively modest MIC could put a $15 billion deal together. It probably includes a lot of the latest war canoe tech plus an artillery park’s worth of gently used surplus Ordinance QF 18pdr guns from the Great War…
Not if Bernie runs as an Independent after Clinton takes the nomination. If Trump decides to go rogue, we’re possibly looking at 5 presidential candidates in November.
5 candidates?!? why, that would ruin democracy!
I find the best escape from being bummed out is fantasy: like reading Ray Takeyh’s dragons and fairies tale “An Awkward Silence in Riyadh” (link above). In addition to wookies and orcs, Takeyh creates a fantastical alternate universe in which:
(as opposed to the real world where Washington has continually deep-sixed peace efforts by trying to prevent Assad from participating in negotiations)
(as opposed to the real world, where the Obama administration has made no such “peacemaking” efforts, unless the total destruction of Palestine is what is meant by “peace”
(as opposed to the real world, where the whole point of the Iran sanctions/nuclear deal has been to prevent Iran from being energy independent, thus ultimately working toward regime change)
(OK this is not fantasy but rather humour)
(In which going astray = we send you $60bn in weapons to obliterate Yemen [which is too real world of a country to merit mention by Takeyh])
There’s more, but I can’t do the rest of the article. Takeyh’s alternate universe is making my head explode.
“the palestinian entity”
you know, this word fits that perfectly:
http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/mamón
the given translations are close; however, to truly understand that word, imagine a human stating the above quoted phrase.
How courteous is the Israeli squatter
He says ‘thanks hajji’ as he takes your water
He climbs into his neighbor’s garden
And smiles, and says, I beg your pardon
He bows and grins a friendly grin
And calls his growing family in
He grins, and bows a friendly bow
“So sorry, this my garden now.”
[with apologies to Ogden Nash]
i don’t get it. i mean, where i live is land the was taken away from other humans about 160 years ago. lots of us do. i think we should give a whole bunch back.
but, come on, it’s the future now, and we should understand what theft means.
don’t these people have windows in their new homes?
He uproots your olive trees
And always says, “Excuse it, please”
Maybe we can figure out a place to which we can emigrate
Living in Brazil, I can tell you that option is off the table now.
I also need a new place. Let me know when you’ve all figured it out.
you know, manyfist destiny takes on so many forms.
don’t people ever get tired of being greedy? can’t they go to a park or something instead?
so many humble people caught in a web of avarice created by so few.
Probably you’re speaking of Brazil being “off the table” in political terms, though the violent crime rate is an issue too. But most of LatAm offers resident visas to pensioners who can demonstrate a requisite level of income.
This is in contrast to rich countries (Canada, Europe, NZ) whose generous social benefits mean they do not welcome retirees who would be a net burden on these schemes.
Mexico has the merit of being within easy travel distance of the US. Uruguay is friendly to retirees. No reason an NC colony couldn’t be established beside the beach there.
And Mexico has a national health insurance program that expats can buy into for the sum of $175 per year. Beyond that, a comprehensive private policy for someone over 60 is $1400 per year.
When I was young and in Mexico bumming around in the early 70s, I cut my finger slicing tomatoes and went to a local government clinic. I got 3 or 4 stitches, a tetanus shot, and a dose of antibiotics. I expected to pay fifty or so. They laughed at me. It cost a grand total of something like two dollars.
I like it – capitalism= laughable-ism – it holds up across all categories
“Probably you’re speaking of Brazil being “off the table” in political terms, though the violent crime rate is an issue too. ”
With Latin America, the crime and the politics are linked. The poor arm themselves, since their activists keep getting killed by death squads, and they prey on the rich who hog everything.
I grew up in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, so I can handle more street crime than most people, but probably not an urban insurgency. Though I don’t think its likely, one possible outcome of the situation in Brazil would be such an insurgency. It would happen if the military winds up taking over again, or if the PT is forced out in a way where its clear that things are obviously rigged against them.
However, a likelier outcome is the new administration shutting down the investigations, and an even more naked kleptocracy than they have at present. Think a sort of tropical Ukraine. This would be quite depressing to live under, and forget about something like getting a job.
I’m in!
I posted about Uruguay below at 12:50 pm
Yes, I meant in political terms. I guess that’s the way Yves meant it too (being bumped for political reasons)
Its funny reading this.
My wife is from Brazil, so Brazil was my back-up emigration plan if things every went south seriously in the US. And actually people who have gotten in trouble in their home countries for various reasons have often wound up in Brazil, due to the government historically not being that enthusiastic about extradition. The movie “Brazil” gets its title because that is where the hero dreams about escaping to from dystopian London.
For obvious reasons, the only advantage of Brazil at the moment is that it would be cheaper to live there. Semi-retirement in some some out of the way place in the US would be a better option.
The thing is that you can’t escape the degradation of the biosphere through emigration, which is worldwide. The economic problems that surfaced after 2008 are worldwide too. And if you don’t like neocon/ neoliberal governance, they are trying to control what is happening everywhere, and with some success.
One consideration is that the escapee should not completely cut ties with the empire, in the sense that if you convert all your dollars to the falling Brazilian fiat currency, it might come back to haunt you.
You would still need the global reserve money, backed by the hegemon’s military might.
That’s a moral dilemma here.
Perhaps convert it to gold, and say good-bye to the imperial money (and you might sleep better), but how do you explain gold to your friends?
Sorry to disappoint. For most people, the problem is in the mirror. Changing location won’t help.
Buck up!
The thugs and fixers never go down with out a fight without using all the dirty tricks in the kit bag. After having spent my youth in the anti-war movement in the 60’s and fighting a loosing game in declining unions, I think I have learned one thing. You need a mass movement to make change. From Sander’s supporters comes the core needed to continue the fight. We will not get all of them after the election if Hillary can steal it, but we will get a significant core group to continue the fight.The e demoralized and capitulating will rally little by little after the big election, mainstream media show is put to bed. The Bernie propaganda campaign has already done it job. History is with us if we continue to fight and live long enough. We were going to have to fight tooth and nail, if Bernie had won. If we get Hillary, the struggle continues and on a higher level, with a core of new people “educated” in the primaries. Don’t let the bastards wear you down. We are part of a game changing event. Up the revolution!
Yes. If it were going to be easy, it would have happened already. No one who profits from neoliberalism can be expected to give up their gains without a fight.
As a very smart Italian once said: Pessimism of the intellect; optimism of the will.
If we are there to sell military toys, the roi is terrible. We sell a few 100 bil a year but spend a trillion in the area?
Yes, but the ROI for corporate america is a very decent one, I would think.
The losses are socialized, so who really cares?
Ding, ding ding!
And, by accumulating more & more loot, all of the 1%ers, not merely the MIC-types, are well positioned to globe hop away from the consequences of their predations since having a big ol’ pile of money gets you to the head of the line when it come to residency/citizenship applications. So long, suckers, they jeer as they leave us place-bound muppets behind.
good riddance. they take the fiat and we can just start a new one. so long suckers, indeed.
JJ, that at root is the very definition, the real one, of “globalization.” May someone stick the Flat Earth sideways up the arses of all the people like Tom Friedman and that little Ferengi Greenspan and the rest of the people that enabled the demolition of a livable planet.
Of course, how many of us, given the chance, would decline to join in the looting, and the Beautiful Lives that we would then entitle ourselves to? Lots of folks apparently check in here, looking among other things for hints on where to acquire the totally legal ownership of the next Ten Bagger…
And a dear friend prays and “plays” daily for a big win in the Powerball, and promises God Almighty that given that Big Break, said friend will be all kinds of generous with the windfall, sowing good works and gifts to family and the deserving poor…
It seems to me that it’s the system that we have to change, not our ‘I will generous with the windfall, just tell me what the next 10 bagger is,’ friends.
In that sense, if you beat Hillary today, there will be other even smarter HIllary’s.
Election fraud makes me livid, not depressed. New York was just the most recent, and obvious, case, although it seems that an audit in Chicago is showing election fraud, as well. All of this reminds me of the MBA class I had forty-some years ago where the entire purpose of that one lecture was to drill into our heads a single message: Never play anyone else’s game, because you will always lose.
As Bernie supporters, that’s what we’ve been doing–playing the establishment’s game and hoping we win by virtue of numbers and enthusiasm. It should be obvious by now that in states with primaries rather than caucuses, in which either the governor is a Democrat, or the legislature is controlled by Democrats, Bernie is not going to be allowed to prevail. So this is our Battle of Trenton moment. We need to be as audacious as George Washington while we still have time to affect the outcome. We need a bolder, ingenious strategy.
I don’t think Bernie was wrong to run as a Democrat. He has proven, once and for all, that the party is irretrievably corrupt–in case there was any doubt. He has smoked out the few players, such as Tulsi Gabbard, Alan Grayson, and Jeff Merkley, who are worth supporting; and he has given rise to new players, such as Tim Canova, who are also worth supporting. While Sawant is totally correct in her analysis of the state of play so far, I’m not sure her solution is realistic. We need to find an end run around the rules, or else we are still playing someone else’s game.
I think it’s worth remembering that at the time our founders were plotting the American Revolution, the majority of people living in this country wanted to remain under British rule. Let’s not let numbers deter us.
Thank you, Grayslady. I wonder if our experience of living in Illinois a long time (since birth!) has made us realize that politics is always about the long march to power. Nothing happens without years of struggle. And in Illinois, even after years of struggle, some clowns like Daley, Rahm, and Rauner have the power to ruin things.
I keep wondering if we are seeing the New York primary through that famous New Yorker cover. There’s New York, and somehow, the world ends at the Hudson River.
And I am reminded of how long Vaclav Havel was a dissident. Most of his life.
+1
This isn’t just about one candidate or one election. It’s ongoing work to keep corrupt politicians from selling off the country to the highest bidder.
There oughta be an audit in Missouri, too, especially in the Dem-heavy urban areas of St. Louis and Kansas City. I’ve been voting at the same place for nearly 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like what I saw on the day of the primary here in KC.
And it started off in Iowa–the coin flips, the refusal of the state dem party to release the actual individual vote counts per candidate, etc., etc. My little caucus, which went for Sanders, had to do a head count three times to come up with a verified number, then the volunteer leader worked at the chalkboard to figure out the delegate count, which was mathematically off until someone pulled out a calculator to figure it correctly. Really sloppy.
The positive is it’s possible to our ‘man (or woman)’ in the White House even with election fraud.
That he turned out to be different than we had thought is a different matter.
Focusing on what we have control over, I think with preparation (at least 1 or 2 years ahead), with more experience, the exposure from this year, can anyone not be a little optimistic?
“Everyone register at least 1 year ahead.”
No, I am not blaming the victims.
Sawant knows, or at least should know, that it has to be about more than an election. In her case, it was after she was elected that the truly nasty fight began. And she won–rather, she and the thousands of people she continued to rally by standing on picket lines, giving speeches, etc.
I don’t care if Sanders ultimately gives his “support Hillary” speech, so long as he continues to do exactly what he’s doing right now, giving public speeches, drawing thousands to rallies, standing on picket lines. Imagine how differently the Wisconsin recall election would have gone if someone of Sanders’ current stature were traveling the state holding rallies. Imagine how hard it would be for a President Clinton (shudder) to abandon all her mendacious flips to progressive policy positions, if Sanders stands in front of thousands of people once a month to remind them that she made those promises.
If the only thing that comes of all this is that Sanders keeps people angry, then I’ll call it a huge win.
+1 x 1000 to most of this. Tho I still think a win is possible. If people don’t get discouraged or jump on her bandwagon coz media told them to & no more cheating I’d put it at 50/50, tho I realize those are 3 huge ifs.
Hmmm maybe we can all chip in and buy an island together.
I know some might be depressed but taking on the entrenched establishment was never going to be a quick task.
I truly hope the establishment keeps this all up. I hope they keep fraudulent election/primaries. I hope they keep cutting spending from education and infrastructure. I hope they keep expanding government and military and healthcare, bailing out banks, piling money into the stock market, ‘gifting’ billions in ‘aid’ to the Middle East/North Africa/Israel, keep on expanding the powers of the NSA, keep on adding loopholes to the law books (especially tax law), keep on allowing the wealthy to get away with rape, murder, fraud, of epic proportions, keep on suppressing whisteblowers, etc.
I hope they keep it up. Every time they do, they convert a certain amount of people from normal citizens to revolutionaries.
In 20 years, the US will be at the middle/end of a huge decline. It will be DRASTICALLY apparent. There will be no more debt that the middle and lower classes will be able to hold. There will be nothing they own, it will all be rented/mortgaged/loaned. The decline has only just started, so most don’t ‘see’ the truth around them. The oligarchy is so removed from reality these days, with all the crazy technology, cars, services, people they can purchase, they wont even REALIZE what hit them when ‘their world’ comes crashing down like the French Revolution 2.0.
All these young millennial Bernie supporters are going to grow up one day. When they do, the America they see around them will be wildly different, a landscape of broken dreams & hopes, no middle class, massive amounts of debt, high stress, poor health, unaffordable health care & education, no chance of having children, and dying parents who will recall with sadness the golden 80’s & 90’s.
It’s only a matter of time.
We don’t have to wait 20 yrs for that, its already here.
The American Conservative article, The Democratic Party Now Belongs to Hillary Clinton, is duly spinning to Clinton’s tune:
Pithy summary from Seth Abramson at the Huffington Post: Establishment Candidate Wins Home State
That was a great article. I have always loved well done sarcasm, and that was well done indeed.
Math is hard!!! From the article: “The win gave the candidate approximately 139 of the 2,383 delegates needed to secure her party’s nomination for President, with her opponent getting exponentially less — 106″
my bold…
Oh, I don’t know… Can’t remember the math, but isn’t 106 a number that can be achieved by applying an exponent to 139?
Accuracy and completeness in an infinite universe (presuming that assumption is even correct) are so hard to achieve, irrefutably and without possible cavils…
whoosh – reading further it is apparent I missed the satire.
Unfortunately, satire died years ago, so it’s not your fault.
i saw a picture of hrc there, hugging bush.
exit polling has been hedonically adjusted.
Michael Hudson’s WaPo article is misleading (or at least carelessly written/edited) in several places.
At the household level, buying a home with a 25 percent down payment leaves the home buyer with 75 percent equity.
No, it leaves the buyer with 25% equity and a 75% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio.
If interest and loan payments absorb a quarter of the buyer’s overall income (a rule of thumb for bankers in the 1960s), then that person’s income is said to be 25 percent financialized. But today, home buyers can put up as little as a 3 percent down payment for a Bank of America mortgage guaranteed by the government agency Freddie Mac (and 3.5 percent for an FHA-insured mortgage), leaving homeowners with 97 percent financialization.
The 25% financialization in the first sentence is based on the percentage of income devoted to servicing the mortgage. The 97% financialization is based on LTV. It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison.
wage withholding for Social Security and Medicare (paying in advance to build up a fund that may not even exist to help them later in life) absorbs more than 15 percent of income
Only the self-employed pay more than 15% (15.3%) of income for FICA taxes. Employees pay 7.65%.
Economically, the employer share of FICA tax comes out of what otherwise would be the employee’s salary.
Congress split “contributions” between employer and employee to conceal this unpleasant fact.
And it’s working!
Heh,
You must be one of those people who think if employers didn’t have to pay for health care they’d improve salaries dollar for dollar. How’s that been working out? Hint: It’s not.
I would be more shocked to read that a WaPo article wasn’t misleading (and/or carelessly written and edited). The National Enquirer has more journalistic integrity than the Washington Post these days.
OK, 25% loan-to-value ratio is right. I did write the article hurriedly, The 15.3% represents a combination of employee + employer contributions –in effect, coming out of wages.
I was contacted and asked to write it, and I usually say yes, on the theory that anyone who wants my approach must have some interest in spreading it. You never know who’s reading …
People make mistakes.
I don’t necessarily agree that if employers were not forced to contribute to workers retirement that they’d be giving the money to employees.
I’m more inclined to believe it would largely wind up in shareholders pockets(who conveniently are also often CEOs)
I would just note that here in Australia employers are required to deposit 10% of worker pay in an account the worker controls, owns, and invests. That pool of money is now the fourth-largest pool of pension assets in the world, not bad for a country of 25 million. This started in the late 80’s and required significant “boots on the ground” i.e. people in the streets to accomplish.
Per the conversation above, I handed back my US passport and moved to Australia in 2005 when Bush was re-appointed. Best thing I ever did. There’s a deep vein of social justice here, neocon clowns in charge at the moment but that may change shortly, and they can’t get much done anyway in the face of a people who think health care is a right, college should be cheap/easy, and workers are as good as their bosses.
Sir,
I take my hat off to you. “Killing the Host” is the best economic book I have ever read in the last 40 years. It puts forth knowledge that any reasonably intelligent person can understand and learn from and clarifies so much of the mystery of finance and helps one understand what is going on and more importantly, the “why”.
Please do write an index for the next edition.
I love your work, Michael Hudson, and thank you so much. making these matters clear to someone like myself is a great accomplishment.
I’m replying just so I can brag at parties, “Yeah.. I communicated with Michael Hudson before..”
No link, but Clinton was just on GMA. Only straight answer I saw (sort of) was biggest mistake, voting for the Iraq resolution. I say sort of because lets face it after years of having it thrown in her face she does finally get people really hate that bit of pandering. She did handle the SNL retrospective well. But watching her dance around the marijuana question was almost painful. She almost got snippy with the man who obviously wanted to get her to cut to the chase with a yes or no answer. (If marijuana legalization was on the ballot in your state would you vote yes or no). Probably because he is also aware that all that medical study she is now advocating has largely been done elsewhere if not in the US. I’m not sure if the man who asked how much money she was willing to spend to make reparations to the people whose lives have been destroyed as a result of the Crime Bill is satisfied with her laundry list of things she says needs to be addressed. Probably because I’m not sure if he gets how much of it much be done on a state or local level. Obviously, since I cannot even judge my own state’s reaction, I shouldn’t talk, but I still think the more the country is exposed to Clinton – even in extremely friendly situations like this one, the more she loses. It is the unfavorable ratings thing – they only grow. Eventually all but the die hards are going to figure it out.
In some ways having an alternative to an Evil vs Evil presidential election for a time makes watching that fade harder. That said, we have to remember that this time the lists and the hopes will not be sent to the DNC to die. That the person running always said it was more than the Presidency. There is every chance that this time it will be used to continue pressure on our political process. Especially as it is also very clear that just as the GOP is shattering, so is the DNC. The base for something better has already been established.
I don’t see how the data doesn’t end with the DNC. He is a D loyalist, he is not giving up his committees. There has never been nor will there be an organization to put the Sanders campaign energy into. I see no other reason for him to have such a tight hold on his data if he isn’t going to sell it.
I like Yves idea of a “colony” somewhere where the weather is ok. Not sure immigration is necessary. I’m thinking more of a wandering lifestyle, but with community, in a few select locations. Newfoundland might be good for the Summers, maybe here in Charlottesville for the shoulder seasons, and perhaps somewhere South (Atlanta?, SW US?) In the Winter. The colony or communities is the key – not gated, but like minded supportive groups. Could get the cost of living down and the quality of life way up.
Get a timeshare account, and buy a “villa” in The Villages. Nothing to it, the form already exists.
Joke told by Florida natives (anyone who has lived here more than 20 years):
“What’s a Floridian’s favorite sight?”
“A New Yorker headed North, with a Canadian under each arm…”
Maybe not so funny as the ocean levels rise…
Actually a good joke, and relevant to the ‘facts on the ground.’ Back in the early 80’s, we bummed around the South in a very used Airstream trailer, working whenever possible and moving on regularly. One job I briefly held was as a plumber in Fort Myers. There were lots of condos going up at that time. I met several plumbers from Canada working for that company. The scheme was that the Canadians were working in Florida for lower than usual pay while receiving their ‘winter layoff’ unemployment cheques from Canada. This dragged down the wages of all of the plumbers in Florida. So, waving bye bye to the Canadians in the Spring was a happy time.
Now I hear it is the Mexicans and other Latin American ‘skilled trades’ that are artificially depressing wages in Florida, indeed, the entire American South. (I have personally observed this in Mississippi.) Historically, unfettered immigration and ‘guest workers’ have always been about the suppression of Labour.
As for the ocean level rise, well, in South East Asia, there are villages of fisher-folk who live in ‘houses’ built in pilings stuck into the tops of offshore reefs and submerged atolls. South Florida will have to adapt or die, perhaps both.
Im in Atlanta so I wouldn’t need to actually go far. But I don’t see how Atlanta would make any more sense than anywhere else. Its not THAT cheap over here, though I guess its reasonable if you want to live in a major metropolitan area. But I thought the idea was to move somewhere more out of the way.
I’m suprised by how bummed i was/am about the results. I was feeling genuinely hopeful in the run up, apparently. On the bright side, learning that I have friends and colleagues who are Clinton supporters has been eye-opening and invaluable.
maybe we can find a nice abandoned subway station to homestead… if the mole folk don’t mind a little company…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEpljEbehnY
Stampede: the inside story of Vancouver’s wildest property deal, gone in 7,200 seconds
An SCMP investigation reveals the obscure transactions behind a commercial real estate frenzy, including a two-hour stampede by investors desperate to pay C$60m for a site valued at C$16m. Then, a month after taking ownership, they resold it for C$68m
Peer-reviewed research had previously indicated how Vancouver’s property market had decoupled from the local economy, and was instead being steered by recent immigrants’ foreign earnings and wealth. The vast majority of those rich immigrants have been Chinese.
And so, against this heady backdrop on the morning of October 12, Suncom threw open the gates for the Nelson Street sale.
The result was nothing short of a frenzy.
http://www.scmp.com/comment/blogs/article/1937267/stampede-inside-story-vancouvers-wildest-property-deal-gone-7200
what’s the average income in China, again?…hmmmm
The high prices of property in cities has always amazed me. If I am going to spend sixty million dollars on real estate, I, by God, better end up with thousands of acres. You may need to grow beans some day.
But then that is why southern cities like Atlanta now take up such a large proportion of their states. Maybe those who invest in cities are just smarter than people like me. Land poor southerners were never a particularly rare commodity.
ooh, vancouver is really nice. it’s always been really expensive.
you know what,
why don’t the chinese start building islands right in the straight of georgia?
Vancouver is some sort of haven, if not a tax haven.
well, it’s about time we tax heaven. those churches have been getting off tax free for too long.
Yaay!!!
I can lead you to a decent sized church near Baton Rouge where I helped to install a ‘his and hers’ bathroom for the pastor and his wife, (and any “good friends” that might be visiting,) which included a tiled shower and Whirlpool tub. It was a bathroom worthy of Better Homes and Gardens, all for God, of course.
Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights needs to be updated to include the latest amenities.
hopefully not in prairieville, tho it wouldn’t surprise me. still have fundy relatives down there.
nippersdad @ 10:03 am
You identify one of the more pressing and ignored problems of our time, IMO.
All ecosystems have carrying capacities and energy flowing through them. The amount of energy diverted from Farawayland to power, feed, water, shelter, heal, educate, transport and entertain people in modern cities is untenable. How much Farawayland acreage needs to be in production to sustain one human being (and there are others relying on said habitat) varies by climate and methods of production. If those methods aren’t regenerative, ever increasing acres of Farawayland, along with her inhabitants must be sacrificed until all capacity erodes into oblivion.
This may seem obvious, but modern cities and the current trend of mass migration toward them ignores this basic reality. Some effort goes into urban farming these days, but let’s be honest; the energy imbalance can’t be reconciled at current scales.
Suburban planning is no better. Arguably, there’s more room to improve there, but “thinking” they’d prevent sprawl, planners produced suburbs with too little land to sustain inhabitants. They reproduced the tragic errors of city planning.
Not only is the built environment overpriced, it’s fundamentally undesirable with respect to the present, let alone the future. Human ingenuity disregards your profound observation that, “you may need to grow beans some day.” Geez. Top of the food chain?!?
When I moved to Seattle in 1990, the Bubble was expanding rapidly. I looked for a house, to keep my not-yet-ex-wife happy, and “our” Realtor (TM) took us to lots of places with silly prices on them that were “on the market” a matter of moments, selling for well over asking price.
I was driving around in hopes of catching some Realtor (TM) poiunding a For Sale sign into a lawn so I could rush up and beat other bidders. Got to one house in a gentrifying neighborhood that was still only about 10% crapified, saw the Realtor (TM) pull up with the sign, got out of the car to go put in a bid, but three other couples beat me to the porch. And then began beating on each other, for the “right” to offer way more than what might seem a prudent, reasonable sum for a junky 1 br 1 ba bungalow. The lexicon reported at the time that these were to be known as “Californicators…” On account of how they were fokking up the ‘market” even for the Microsoft Millionnaires who had done the last round of bidding up…
MARKETS RULE! Isn’t that how it is? “Market” meaning “those with power and wealth and the disposition to lord it over others and take their stuff”?
Everybody notices effects but the causes get off scot-free, when interest rates are zero of course desperate yield investors slosh trillions into proto-money substitutes (like houses in Vancouver and Stockholm, the Russell 2000 at 100X earnings, etc).
But help is on the way, everyone can see that the debt-based money system is at the event horizon. Deus Ex Machina! We are moving to equity-based money, Abe just doubled his equity purchases, Mario and Janet won’t be far behind. We may still have a few selloffs as the dinosaurs looking in the rearview mirror die off, but the debt-illusion money system started by the Rothschilds in 1647 has run its course. The new thing of course concentrates money in even fewer hands, 92% of the profits of the SP500 went to buybacks and dividends so some would say we are there already, back to outright serfdom where you don’t own the means of production OR the roof over your head. Please, sir, may I have some more?
I keep this quote around:
William of Orange
One need not hope to undertake, nor succeed to persevere.
As mentioned, I am the very definition of the Illinois voter, used to being defeated. But defeat also makes one creative. So let’s think about where to head collectively (and let’s turn some questions on their heads). As Lambert keeps reminding us, it is a long way to the first Tuesday in November. A lifetime.
And Yves: As to places to move, I will point out that those of us with parents or grandparents who immigrated to the U S of A from countries now in the EU may have some options. I’m not sure that you / we / collectively should rule out taking this whole shebang to Crete, or the Basque Country, or the city of Lyon. All are good places for further struggle. And the food is good–they cook with olive oil.
Go a little bit west of Basque Country and you’ll find Asturias. The Asturians held off the Moors from their mountain strongholds, and founded the oldest city in the United States: St Augustine, FL. They have the mental toughness to survive the crisis. Aviles is a great little city with access to the best seafood from a deep ocean trench just off the coast. You can drink the local sidra at open air bars til the wee hours of the morning for about a dollar a glass. If you miss hearing English you can catch an ocean ferry to the south coast of England for a visit to remind you why you left. If you want a spirit quest, hike the Camino de Santiago.
On the naked restaurant, I get the feeling that it would be like a nudist colony or beach: i.e. the people that tend show up are probably not the kind of people you want to see naked.
It’s more about un-indoctrinating oneself.
Some compare it to a religious or spiritual experience, probably in reverse dogma-wise.
And a real sausage-fest as well
i wonder if that’s on the menu…
More of a sign of times indicator. Sort of like The Economist front cover indicator. Certain kiss of death.?
https://twitter.com/jtepper2/status/722781955327012864
Peak something? Sneak a peak?
Or the menu’s on it.
“Our waiters cater to your every wish.”
Speaking of bawdy dining experiences, there used to be a restaurant in Paris called Le Mouton de Panurge, it was Rabelais-themed, the bread was shaped like a very detailed vulva, the main course a long cylinder of sculpted bifteck with two carved pommes de terre and a merkin of frisee at the base
Reminds me of Ferreris’ 1973 comedy “Le Grande Bouffe.” NSFW I’m afraid, but fun. Also, Terry Southerns’ “The Magic Christian.”
All that was old is new again.
Just re-watched both films quite recently and found The Magic Christian to be especially relevant, given the almost crazed excesses of Capitalism all around us. Plus, John Cleese! Ringo Starr! Peter Sellers! Polanski etc. Even though Le Grande Bouffe is funny, overall it’s a melancholic, rueful tale.
I’d add Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty to your “reminds me of” list…for the scene in which the dinner party guests sit at table on toilets –defecating, but retire to a tiny room to do their eating in private.
Awkward silence in Riyadh.
Luckily (for some), no one can sue the military toy makers or exporting countries.
Just like no one can sue gun makers.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W. B. Yeats – The Second Coming
Thus Aristotle’s the Middle Way…not to be the best, nor the worst.
Zhuangzi is also like that – he says that the tallest, straightest trees are often cut down, because they make good and strong palaces.
“Always come in second or third.”
The Forbes article “Crude Oil is About to Drop 30% Again” is an advertorial.
“In August 2014, I told my readers to short crude oil at $103 per barrel” etc etc
Meanwhile, front month crude is at $43.39/bbl this morning, up from a dismal $26.55 on Jan. 20th.
If you take financial advice from MSM scribblers, you will lose everything.
On the election, for me if there’s no Bernie I’m going to vote socialist or some other alternative. I voted for Obama as the “lesser of two evils” twice. No more.
Enjoy your antidotes, whatever they may be.
Blessings,
– Rick
“The Democratic Party Now Belongs to Hillary Clinton”
Bah. She can have it.
It’s useless, worn out, ruined, tainted…and “she helped’ shake-n-bake that fine dish.
Or you could say, well, of course she owns it– she paid for it.
But the Demorat Party is still one of the big levers and hammers of the power structure. A whole sh!tload of useful idiots many of whom hang out at pseudo places like Daily Kos, all so wonderfully devoted to the Party.
Legitimacy of political-economic constructs seems to me to be a bit of a physics system– mass, relative motion, kinetic and potential energy, and of course from my PSSC high school physics class, P = M x V, momentum = mass times velocity. Looks to me that we humans are working toward another kind of physics, the one that involves that “curve of binding energy” thing, the one that brings so much of the universe together, that E = MCsquared insight. Reduced to practice.
Of course along the way, the Few will do what they have always done: loot, rape, murder, and live just a wonderful perfect fully large and pleasure-satisfied lives…
Good luck to us all, fiddling around with various little hopeful ways of trying to stay alive a bit longer…
And yes, I am just a real barrel of laughs at parties…
Shorter Agnia Grigas’ whine in Forbes: “The corruption of Western leaders and clients like Ukrainian president Poroshenko exposed in the Panama Papers is bad not because the corruption of Western leaders and clients is bad, but because it undercuts our decade+ lying propaganda campaign against Putin on corruption!”
Jonathan Alter on why Bernie’s plan for college is better than Hillary’s:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/free-college-now-why-hillary-clinton-needs-to-run-with-bernie-sanders-s-best-idea.html
Now that Hillary won the NY primary and presumably clinched the nomination, Bernie’s plan is no longer pie-in-the-sky.
i’m still bummed on day 2 even though i don’t even live in the states. the reality is, american policy trickles down to the rest of the world. if sanders had won, maybe the rest of us would have been saved from the TPP/TISA/TTIP, too. maybe we could have natural food, and not GMO catfood; maybe global warming won’t destroy us all; maybe the policy of war would have ended stemming the refugee crisis…
so many reasons to be bummed no matter where one is in the world.
still, maybe uruguay…
american policy does not trickle down. unfortunately, it oozes down the walls in the stairwell to the basement.
how can a place that gave us bebop and deepfried baseball gloves give us trump vs clinton?
He’s a man, not a God. If he’s not elected things get harder but they were always going to be hard anyway. Bernie’s already told us that it’s going to come down to us and getting the numbers and making the argument anyway.
The bully pulpit is valuable. We may lose that. However, we have MORE than we did when he first started. We have knowledge. We have each other. And together those things CAN make a difference if we allow them to.
Most people will take the election as proving the left doesn’t have the numbers. Sure one could start trying to change city hall or something, but it may be a right wing country afterall.
I disagree. The fact that he’s gotten this far with the odds stacked against him proves, we the people(not just the left because there are people from the right who like and agree with Bernie’s views)have the numbers. We just have to keep pushing.
The people in charge want us to give up and be apathetic. We don’t give in to that and give them what we want. We keep fighting the good fight.
If a 70+ year old man can do it (fight and fight despite the odds, often “losing”)then there’s no excuse for the rest of us to think we should just be able to say, “well, we tried. Too bad it didn’t work out.”
Yeah. We have more now because we know now there are masses of people out there who no longer fear “democratic socialism,” and who no longer put fear above altruism and common sense.
It’s really different to feel for years and years, that you are in a tiny minority that is never going to get its views heard, than it is to feel like you are in a huge wave of people who want change. We know the status quo can’t last. Oil is going to go. The climate may go. These are the final days of some crazy that’s been going on our whole lives.
It may be painful, but god do we all live in interesting times.
Since the largest demographic of Bernie supporters are under 45 (and many quite a bit under that), and since their elders insist on invalidating their hopes of any sort of better future (those who vote for Hillary that is), and since they can still easily immigrate, then maybe they should!
The U.S. is no country for young people. And seemingly only a country for quite well off older people who vote their privilege and for the status quo.
It was long country; it was a short country; it was an unjust country; it was a democratic country; it was a cold country it was a hot country it was a white country it was a black country it was a hungry country it was a fat country it was a brutal country country it was a kind country… it was too many things and because it was so complex it was colonized by many groups. Including the NC colony. It was a warm and moist incubator.
it was a jungle
Why Haven’t Bankers Been Punished? Just Read These Insider SEC Emails [ProPublica]
One word: GUILLOTINE.
I am disappointed at how completely captured the system is by the monied interests in both parties.
I am saddened by how many of my friends and colleagues are OK with Hillary, and see nothing wrong in her positions or actions.
Even when you can show them FEC data on how she is not raising money for “down ballot” candidates, even when you can calmly point out that the law states it doesn’t matter if the emails were classified or not just that they were handled incorrectly; even when you show them her role in making or supporting many of the messes she is now complaining against; even when you show them that she is no friend of the environment, working women, labor, good government, or strengthening social security; even when you point out the blatant violations of election law and access to poll locations that result in her current lead…the answer is a shrug. Or worse, some comment on how Republicans will take away abortion access (as if Hillary will lead to expanding it!) and how we need to support the gains (big gains they tell me!) made under Obamacare. Even if any of that were true, I can’t bring myself to vote for someone who is intimately familiar with everything that is legal and completely ignorant of the difference between right and wrong. Perhaps that’s naive of me to expect more from an elected official, but i thought the rule of law was considered a good thing in the West. The Clinton’s world view might as well be from another planet as far as I’m concerned.
I cannot leave the country or renounce my citizenship, but I can try to protect myself and my family from what’s coming. I can try to be active and promote the government i want to see in control. And who knows? Maybe unforeseen events will crop up that change the status quo. Things might not really be as bad as I think. Trump might even be good for our country…and pigs might fly out of his comb over come election day.
I look at the GOP and laugh at where our country is headed. I look at Hillary and despair for what we have lost in our desire to sell our souls to the highest bidder. I’m sure this is an old story and that my children will live to feel the same way. But it is the first time I’ve been beaten thoroughly over the head with how our rigged system is designed to socialize misery in return for enriching a few of the elect. It hurts.
Thanks for the great journalism and providing a space for like minded people to vent.
My advice, if you don’t want “your children to live to feel the same way”? Get Mad. Much madder than you are. And then Get Even, civil and (not-so-civil) disobedience is the only thing these fascists understand. Nixon understood it, DeGaulle understood it in ’68, Chile in 2011, Nuits Debout, Occupy. Once and for all “working inside the system” in 2016 has utterly and completely failed. Aux Barricades!
Two days after the NY Primary, the TImes runs a profile about how Hillary became a hawk. For the NYT’s, there are some pretty damning lines–Hillary is more of a hawk than either Cruz or Trump. Her favored military teacher is a blowhard on Fox News. The profile is useful for showing Hillary’s neocon blood that developed over the past 15 years. She only apologized for the Iraq war because of political expediency and has never seen a foreign policy problem that cannot be solved by military intervention.
I understand readers of NC know all of this, but now the mainstream Hillary supporters have to rationalize her hawkish behavior to the right of Obama. Is that the principled, pragmatic leader they support?
The neocons live Hillary and she is cozy with Kissinger. What could possibly go wrong if she is elected?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
I think the average Hillary supporter either feels like they are insulated from any problems with a hawkish foreign policy, or they just don’t care to critically challenge themselves over the difference between what they read and what they see.
On a positive note (sarc), President Hillary Clinton may be able resolve the climate change crisis with a nuclear winter.
Of course, the negative note is that we may have a chance to momentarily witness the rubble jump in the USA and around the world. Also, the wealthy will be unaffected.
The Baffler’s Hillary’s Courtiers article covers the HRC win in New York from a navel-gazing media’s point of view.
More to your point about Democrat’s hawkishness, I sincerely think we are seeing the end of Republicans and Democrats as we know them. Dems are the new conservative party, and a populist party that awkwardly combines (currently) fringe right and left elements will emerge, with an ultra right-wing nationalist party as desert.
Exhibit A, from http://gawker.com/senior-clinton-aide-tells-reporter-fuck-bernie-1772003114:
When the establishment fails people, blame the victims. If this doesn’t sound like a ersatz Republican, I don’t know what does. But this is coming from (presumably) a Hillary supporter. Left & right are about to get flipped.
If I were unlucky enough to own one of the polluting diesel VW’s, I’d take the $5,000 bribe to shut up from VW and buy a used Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. A used Leaf with 20-40K miles can be purchased for about $7-8000. The VW would be used only for long trips.
How long is the battery good for?
There’s a typo in the article about billionaire oligarch Penny Pritzker. Here’s the corrected link:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_invisibility_of_us_oligarchs_the_case_of_penny_pritzker_20160420
The article mentions the failure of Superior Bank in 2001. Here’s a short FDIC document about that event:
https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2001/pr5201.html
A short quote from the press release:
At the time, the FDIC only covered up to $100,000 in losses by a single depositor. After the Collapse of 2008, they raised this to $250,000. So the people who lost money in 2001 tended to be hurt worse than the people who lost money in 2008.
The main FDIC article about this failure is here:
https://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/superior.html
Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers
Author Gus Russo has done yeoman’s work in pulling the Outfit bosses from the shadows to show how their muscle and methods came to dominate organized crime. In his 2001 book, suitably titles “The Outfit,” he chronicles the Chicago mob’s rise to national power after Al Capone. Now, he weighs in with “Supermob.” If you know about the short shrift the Outfit has received in the popular imagination, you can almost forgive the breathless title, but Russo pointedly uses the term “Supermob” to describe a band of Jewish lawyers, politicians and businessmen who acted as cat’s-paws for some of the Outfit’s most ambitious scams. Although he credits a Senate investigator with first using the term “Supermob,” Russo takes it to a new level, suggesting a gang of white-collar kingpins as ruthless and tightly knit as a Mafia family. He is also serious about the “Super,” claiming that the members of his “Kosher Nostra” would ultimately profit more from their “amoral, and frequently criminal careers” than did their Outfit allies.
As the schemes got more complicated, the mobsters needed the help of lawyers, politicians and frontmen with relatively clean criminal records. It was a Faustian bargain, but it helped launch some of the most prominent names in Chicago’s Jewish community. For example, according to Russo, Outfit funds and connections formed the foundation on which lawyer Abe Pritzker’s family built the Hyatt hotel chain.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-09-24/entertainment/0609220481_1_chicago-mob-bosses-mafia
everything starts to make sense or is it cents?
Mass Immigration out of the US(of Liberals and possibly Trump-istas): (Sarcasm warning label applies)
The idea assumes (that if young enough) Americans are welcome anywhere (in large numbers?).
It’s highly suspect Europe will be in any condition to take on more refuges, thanks to American meddling. Expect a warm welcome for a mass migration movement in such a case?
I suspect large numbers of non-Asian ethnicity refuges would not be welcome in most of Asia. Many people in S.E. Asia lost relatives either to direct US action ala China, Cambodia, Japan, (South) Korea(I assume no one is considering the North), Laos, etc. Or they lost them to US sponsored acts of genocide ala Bikini, Cambodia again (Pol Pot was a CIA client), Indonesia/Timor, Philippines, etc. Asian values generally stress conformity and putting society first (not big American traits),so while the tourist dollar and occasional escapist are fine, the smiles would wear pretty thin if a large number of Americans came with their individualist first culture and tried to set up camp.
Latinos might be okay moving South, but they actually are busy laying groundwork to take over, in many cases trying to claw back land stolen from them (which they in turn may have stole from some of my relatives). I suspect large numbers of gringos and other the non-Latin/non-Native (Americans) would not be welcome in most of Central and South America. Central and South America might start to mirror Boyle Heights if white Americans start trying to gentrify their home countries. Bitter memories too, after all the coup d’états, dictatorships, genocides, etc sponsored by and in the name of the American willfully ignorant middle class for so many years (abet to enrich the 0.01%).
Blacks returning in mass to Africa? That;’s been tried, and Liberia has hardly been the success story of West Africa. As to the white Americans, look up Patrice Lumumda, or all those dictatorships that were propped up to drain African’s wealth into American and European factories in the 19/20th Century. Obama’s so out of tune he even praised a deceased King of Belgium in who’s name Obama’s African grandfather was imprisoned and tortured). Individuals can make it, but there is lots of institutionalized hate there.
No, I don’t think any country would want to be infected with large numbers of American refugees, not even Oz.
Me, I got lucky and got (re-)localized in North East Asia early. On the rare occasion I get queried about why I’m not in North America, I just show the locals the pictures of the sh*t-hole reservation that was left to our people. I then explain that I decided almost 60 years ago rather than go kill Vietnamese who had done nothing to us, it was time for our family to retreat back to ancestral lands across the Bering Straits. It was just one further retreat after being beaten, murdered raped, robbed, and pushed across the whole continent for 400 years. A lot of Asians I’ve met understand where I’ve come from.
In the end, I think most people would say something like you guys preach a good line about how good democracy is, now show us how you fix your own mess.
How about the Vatican?
Morally, they’d have to take us in, but how many tired, poor American refugees can they take in?
“According to the formula (a percentage of population, adjusted for land size, current GDP and unemployment situation, air quality and available nature resources, etc) worked out by socio-political economists, we can’t no longer accept immigrants.”
It doesn’t matter if the ancestors of those living in the Vatican today were immigrants themselves. “No more American refugees who escaped through the Trump Wall.”
Wait what, OBAMA PRAISED KING LEOPOLD?!!!!
WHAT THE FLARK?!
It was Albert I, who continued his uncle’s best practices of extraction of wealth through brutal means.
My bad. When I hear ‘Belgian King’ I go straight to Leopold.
I assume Albert got rid of the hand cutting stuff but continued to do everything else Leopold did…
Actually, the UK eventually got rid of the hand cutting stuff, by telling Leopold to cut it out or they’d take back the Congo, which they gifted him to buy Belgium neutrality. Both Leopold and Albert’s men continued to apply hangings, bombing villages, etc; as both sport and discipline, just like the British men of Rugby did to their African subjects. Albert had some very Catholic ideas about how suffering and death (of others) was good for their souls. Leopold was much more of an agnostic bastard, mearly in it for the money.
It’s still all about the Freedom To Plunder, and contention among the plunderers.
after you start praising reagan it’s a slippery slope.
ice covered double black diamond ski run?
Canada of course is pretty corrupt in it’s own right, a corrupt petrostate dependent on shale frying the planet, and increasingly right wing to boot. But it doesn’t mean it’s taking Americans.
White savior Barbie performing short term and ineffectual NGO assignments in Africa? That is the raison d’être for Samantha Power being US Ambassador to the UN.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/4/20/1518134/-Very-interesting-update-today-in-regards-to-the-FBI-Clinton-Server-Investigation interesting update on the Clinton email saga.
Diarist will get clobbered over there in comments. glad to see there are still some brave souls over there. I hate giving Markos clicks these days, but good diary.
That IS interesting.
Clinton said she did not delete any classified data and yet the FBI is choosing to redact this as classified(after they retrieved it.)
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm
http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/
Very tight summary. Been a long time coming…
The other disruption not mentioned here, but happening in tandem, is the likelihood we should see car ownership decrease due to a combination of better transit models, uber-like service models, eventual ‘bans’ on automobiles in a number of inner cities (which just can’t handle the traffic loads as density increases), and possibly self-driving cars. More and more people are realizing as budgets get constrained that ownership of a vehicle not in use 90+% of the time is wasted money, electric or not.
It’s amazing to drive through most any suburban neighborhood on a weekend, and see everyone out there with their riding lawnmowers, weedeaters, leaf blowers, hedge clippers, pressure washers, snowblowers in the winter, rototillers in the spring, and most have a garage full of power tools for occasional household repairs.
Everybody’s got one of each, it seems.
Like the rugged frontier families they all see themselves as.
Why don’t every 100 households in any given suburb form a corporation, buy one lawnmower, one hedge clipper, one weedeater, one rototiller, one snowblower, and one set of power tools, and then share them? Negotiate with local handymen for the best price for ALL their business? Hire one guy full time to do everything of that sort?
Each household would save thousands apiece every year, get to know one another, not have to do yard work or house repairs, and maybe begin to organize their little village into more important tasks like getting better schools, fewer Tea Party zealots in local government, and other community stuff.
Are we all still rugged high plains farmers who have to make or break completely on our own? Are we really?
“Is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?”
I am currently on a several months vacation in Uruguay for the purpose of researching relocation. I chose Uruguay because it has very progressive government and is in the southern hemisphere. The southern hemisphere is important to me because all of the wars and terrorism and spillover taking place in the northern hemisphere.
Uruguay is 85% European descent so I don’t stick out like a sore thumb generally. Also, English is taught in the schools, so many people speak it here, especially the Young. Uruguay was the first country to provide laptops to every child, they are focusing on education currently The weather is good, there is little in the way of natural disasters. Immigration is easy whether you’re retired or find a job. The country is small and the people are tranquilo. The crime is much less than other South American countries. The progressive government has legalized abortion, marijuana, and gay marriage. 95% of the electricity comes from Renewables. They’re famous for their beef and red wine. The percent of population that is religious is only 30%. There is a strong love of democracy in Uruguay and separation of church and state and a free press.
From link: “Uruguay is a republic with three separate branches of government. The 1967 constitution institutionalized a strong presidency, subject to legislative and judicial checks. The electorate exercised sovereignty directly through elections, initiatives, or referendums and indirectly through representative powers established by the constitution.”
http://countrystudies.us/uruguay/63.htm
On the downsides there are mosquitoes, it’s humid in the summer, and Windy in the winter, the sidewalks are a mess and there’s a lot of trash. Things I love tons of statues, the art decco architecture, so much wrought iron you can’t even imagine it, and murals everywhere (graffiti too). They love their Arts here. The food has a lot of Italian and South American influences. I feel like there is a lot of opportunity here too bring more things to your Uruguay, but there is a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the way of entrepreneurs. To sum up, the best things about Uruguay are the government, the people, the ease of immigration, and the location.
I would love to hear what other people think.
I was talking to a Lithuanian couple here, who told me very seriously that if Trump is elected there will immediately leave Lithuania because of Putin and Russia. I hadn’t thought of this, but it won’t just be Americans who are looking for new places to live if Trump becomes president.
That’s interesting. I got the impression that Trump respects Putin. I wonder what they see that we don’t here.
Trump’s respect for Putin is a fantasy in Trump’s mind. The instant Putin fails to respect Trump as Trump sees fit, he’s a backstabbing piece of $#! who deserves whatever he gets.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Lithuania is sandwiched between Russia, Poland, Belarus, and Latvia. All these countries have known Russian occupation before. As NATO keeps pushing eastward, and as President Trump proves to be as belligerent in office as he is on the campaign trail, Putin or his successors will have to seriously consider creating some buffer states between Russia and NATO. They’re considering it now.
Whether that is outright occupation of these former client states, or everything just short of it, Lithuania and its Baltic coast neighbors will be high on that list of buffer states where NATO is shut out because Russia said so.
When the Cold War ended, and the USSR was no more, a lot of Russians thought the Cold War had ended, and the USSR was no more. Now they have to put the whole thing back together.
Oh for the love of god, modern warfare makes the very concept of “buffer states” hopelessly outdated, and anyone who still deals i n this terminology needs to catch up with the times. Buffer states were useful to protect from invasions, and now one is going to be invading Russia. Nor is Russia about to invade anyone. It is about placing ABM capabilities and also first-strike nuclear weapons as close to Russia as possible, and theoretically making a nuclear war winnable. Yes, it is mad but the morons running our country are madder than any hatter ever was. So what does Russia need a little Baltic pipsqueak for?!?! It doesn’t. The US does though, under the cover of “NATO”.
This is depressing to contemplate, but it is what it is. I am myself getting the eff out of here early next year, unfortunately Bulgaria is about to become the host of an expanded “NATO” presence. Because manifest destiny dictates that the US needs to destroy the world in order to save it.
A big downside I forgot to mention: the most expensive country to live in in South America. You won’t live like a king here, the society is very egalitarian. As an engineer in the US I make 5 times as much as a minimum wage worker, here in Uruguay I would only make two maybe three times as much. There’s also a 10% annual inflation rate, but if you’re retiring and getting dollars from the US every month (for as long as that lasts) then it would seem that wouldn’t be a problem. And you can buy property in Uruguay, even if you’re not a permanent resident so that reduces the effects of inflation as well.
Good God, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you about Universal Health Care and free education including at public universities!
Thanks for this. Interesting place. We visited Chile recently, in part to scout the place for eventual emigration. It has some benefits as well.
With all this talk about moving to another country which might be better than the one you live in, eventually we will all have to make do with where we now live as globalization will eventually catch up to everyone. Sad but true.
As to globalization catching up to everyone, I guess it depends on your age. However, in these times of impending War and terrorism, the southern hemisphere has a distinct advantage over the northern hemisphere. Also, I think you’re discounting the effects of Universal Health Care and a free education vs a militarized police force, corruption of the government and legal process, a captured media and the fear, greed and apathy of US society. But if you want to believe that other places are just as bad as the US, well what can I say? Carry on.
The last sentence of the Politico article simply does not follow from the rest of the piece:
“On the surface, Obama’s summit with the Gulf rulers will generate its share of declarations of friendship. An arms sales package is likely to follow, as some of the most militarized and militarily incompetent states in the world will want to add to their arsenal. Yet no talk of historical alliances and arms sales can bridge the clash of perspectives between the two sides.”
For all the talk of tensions, the executive branch, chiefly Kerry & Obama, has come out against the bipartisan bill in Congress that would allow the 9/11 victims’ families to sue the Saudis. The President, who denounced Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail in ’08, still makes obeisance and still makes the arms sales, which have already increased under his term as compared with G. W. Bush’s. Where does this pressure on the executive (including the formerly honorable Kerry) originate? All the evidence says…from the CIA/deep state (see e.g. Peter Dale Scott).
The amended sentence should read “Yet no talk of awkward silences can hide the fundamental agreement between the two sides.”
Another thought: Where is the White House petition for DOJ investigation of New York over its primary? That would be the best thing to embarrass the hell out of Cuomo, De Blasio & the Comptroller. And quite frankly it’s in order once again.
Hillary takes new york with Putin style antics…not sure what anyone should be upset about with the results in the election…the sandman was nowhere a few weeks ago and forced the clowns that be to reach into the karl rove c.r.e.e.p. Toolbag…
when the powerful have to bend like a palm tree in a hurricane…
it is game over…this was her pyrrhic victory…she is spent…onto california….
Hillary takes New York with Clinton style antics
There, fixed it for you.
Read this (posted above) and have to say that as a Bernie supporter I strongly disagree:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/21/the-undemocratic-primary-why-we-need-a-new-party-of-the-99/
Bernie Sanders’s strategy was to play above-board with the rules he was given, which meant recognizing he had zero chance of winning in a general election as third-party candidate – he’d have no media coverage, zero debates, etc. He’d simply have been ignored. And that remains true even with the movement that’s rallied behind him. Even though I think Bernie Sanders would be the most successful third-party candidate in generations, he made a pledge at the outset in order to run as a Democrat and to go back on that pledge would to some degree undermine the very forthrightness and political openness that Bernie stands for. I think that the “Bernie Democrats” and/or “Bernie Independents” are a key factor now that everyone knows how sizable they are. Do we ultimately get a viable Party out of the movement, possibly, but it’ll take more than just Bernie Sanders himself to make that happen (as he himself has said from the outset).
A twist on the truism that ” If voting mattered it would be made illegal”?
No one has mentioned the very scary notion that the financial criminals put the last piece of the puzzle in place: a way for pension plans (defunded by the crooks) to reduce the payments to the pensioners! So, the very last piece of the puzzle is now in place. And the theft complete.
The question will be: will the Americans go along with this? Will they just turn on the telly for yet another football game? Or will this last puzzle piece be the straw that broke the camel’s back and revolution ensues?
How many Americans will even find out about this? and think it is going to affect them?
How many Americans have pensions? Well let’s just say not the demographic that is voting for Bernie at any rate (those under 45?). I’m just trying to keep Hillary’s hands off our Social Security.
Yes, she definitely will hand it over to the looters slavering to drain it. this is IMO the biggest reason to support Bernie.
Union people, government people, judges, police, fire fighters, teachers.
Hell…..lots of Americans still have pensions.
Believe it or not, men “mansplain” things to other men. I’ve had men completely out of their depth explain my job to me (not talking about my superiors, who know better). Even when I tried for their own sake to save their face by heading off the mansplaining, they doubled-down and proceeded to vigorously chew the foot they inserted into their own mouth.
If women think shaming blowhards with the label of “mansplainer” is going to shut the blowhards up, they are in for disappointment. Blowhards are shameless.
Blowhard-itis is non-discriminatory – unlike this article, which is more or less hate speech. Any article I read with “mansplaining” in the title I read with the same grain of salt I use whenever I hear someone say “I’m not racist, but…” Can you imagine the outrage if the article was by David Duke talking about “nigg*rsplaining”? Discounting an opinion just because they are from some select group is the essence of blind hate.
Her issue with the interruptions are a double standard. If some guy was interrupting her, he would be the “patriarchy” trying to muzzle women’s voices and she is surprised people get tense? She doesn’t even consider that interrupting people is just outright rude, no matter who does it.
Hun? You don’t get out much. Men do interrupt women freely, women are resented when they interrupt men, and taking the stage is tolerated much more by men than women. This is well documented, if you’ve read any of the psychological research. This is not hypersentivity by women, this is factual.
One anecdote: a Ben Barres, Stanford professor of anthropology scientist who underwent a female to male sex change, wrote about his experience in Nature:
He also said:
He found that people who did not know he had been Barbara earlier in his career would assume Barbara was his sister and would regularly say that Ben’s work was so much better than Barbara’s. This is consistent with other research that has found that if you take the same writing sample and attribute it to a male name, it will be rated as being much better than if it is attributed to a woman author.
women are resented when they interrupt men,
Well, at least they apologize!
As a matter of fact, I find women are always apologizing to me for the most innocuous things?. I don’t get it
Case in point, today.. young mom pushing a pram on her side of a sidewalk , plenty or room.. I smile and she says “SORRY!” with a grin..
Sorry for what?
On a commuter train a few days ago, at station and standing on upper deck stairs, I smile and wave a woman in the mian isle to please step in front of me to door, and I get the crunched body language and a “SORRY!”
Sorry for what?
I don’t get it.
We are talking about two different things, Yves. I’m not saying women don’t get interrupted or that their opinions are taken evenly. I would say, however,that the women who get it worse are older and in male dominated professions, which is why I can understand that you, Yves, have probably received more than your fair share. Under 40, I would have to say it is fairly even as this is the generation that was brought up much more concious of ingrained bias. It’s the generation where more women have gone to college than men. I’ve had more bosses that were female than male (roughly 60/40). I’ve even seen a massive reduction of sexism among construction workers as the older generation fades out. Maybe it is just my age (or the fact that I stutter) but I see (and experience) far more women interrupting men than the other way around. Interrupting (or trying to guess my dysfluency/finish my sentence) is disrespectful. One should not carry oneself in a disrespectful manner and walk around demanding respect. Respect gets respect. The article was about being asked a question and then droning on about a topic that may or may not have anything to do with the original question. This is an area that is not sexist, racist, or otherwise. Her evidence was only supportive of powerful men talking more. That’s, what, maybe 1-2% of the male population? And she then extrapolates that to the other 98% completely unsupported? That’s beyond broad brush strokes to bordering outright hate mongering. Any other topic and you would destroy the author for such wild conjecture. Her framing of this issue is her having only a feminist hammer and seeing all problems as man nails.
What if I had just replied “Femsplaining. *snicker*”? Why is “mansplaining. *snicker*” a common, acceptable, even heralded, feminist statement/reply? While both of us are well mannered and respectful enough of each other to have a civil discourse on a touchy subject, how is it even a remotely acceptable term to use? I am totally pro equal rights for men, women, gay, straight, black, white, brown, trans, cis, WTF-ever. Feminists have now achieved equality – they are just as much sexist assholes as the chauvinists they seek to get rid of and need to be called on it in the same manner.
BTW: you used the word “hun”, which is pretty sexist and demeaning in its own right. I’m not offended – actually brightened my day you feel that comfortable despite us being polar opposites on the 3% of issues we disagree on – just saying… :-)
I’ve written about bias before, and there is a lot of evidence that people who pride themselves on not being biased still are. Being less biased by some standard (in your case, relative to older men) does not mean unbiased. I don’t deal only with older men, and I find men under 40 interrupt me plenty when they don’t their male peers to the same degree (and I arguably deserve deference by virtue of greater expertise on top of that). I’ve also been on panels moderated my young men (jouros around 30) and they give the men more air time than women and let men interject when other panelists are speaking, but not women. I don’t see the differences that you claim exist.
On tenseness after being interrupted (being a male): i definitely get tense and a little hot on being interrupted. By ANYONE. I don’t care if you are male or female, you cut in and interrupt me and I’m going to start getting hot. There’s a guy in my current workplace that has a tendency to do that and it pisses me off, and forces me to talk over him to shut him down. That and simply stop talking to him.
At least once a week in meetings at work I’m treated to parallel conversations breaking out because someone (often accidentally) interrupted someone else but neither will back down, so they find someone else to complete the thought at. It’s verbal jousting between stubborn cowards who only skewer the audience.
Anyways, I feel the mansplaining concept is something men already well understand and that for the lived experience of the victims, the difference between genders is in degree rather than in kind. Perhaps it’s too subtle a point to be worth making since in either case I accept that it’s worse for women.
I just lost a little respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-supreme-court-ruling-assets-amounts-theft-iran-155813937.html?nhp=1
Meanwhile the actual people we KNOW have provided funding to ISIL are on their way to getting off free thanks to blackmail.
*shakes head*
Maybe now, imperial adventure victims can get the SC to rule on compensatory damages against drone makers and bomb manufacturers.
“We ask you to deduct trillions from Uncle Sam’s account at the Fed.”
Sure thing. Remember, Uncle Sam has more where that came from.
As much as he desires.
Re. feeling bummed: By way of a silver lining — OK, so let’s say HillBillary ends up being POTUS. Hopefully most NCers are already veterans at avoiding the MSM propaganda, so avoiding having The Voice inflicted on one’s already-jangling nerves won’t involve a wholesale lifestyle adjustment or learning of a completely new set of quick-on-the-mute-button-of-the-remote skills. And on the plus side, there are quite good chances of [a]impeachment proceedings and [b] Round 2 of the global financial crisis re-erupting on her watch. We just have to hope that one of those occurs before she starts WW3 and/or the financial crooks greasing her skids into office own *everything*.
[As for myself I did submit a couple of links, neither of which made the cut:
o Secret U.S. court issues first order for phone data under new law | Reuters
In the absence of any independent oversight of NSA’s actual collection practices, this could very well merely be theater for the Great Unwashed.
o Mitsubishi Motors cheated on emissions testing data | smh.au
This kind of gaming of standardized testing equipment by what increasingly appears to be most of the auto industry reminds of the kinds of scams Big Tobacco used to play. I recall one such ploy involved the standard equipment used to measure tar and nicotine emissions, in which the filter end of the cigarette is placed into a little mini-vaccum-cleaner-style nozzle feeding to measuring equipment. Problem was, the at-the-time nozzle only covered roughly the final half-inch of the filter – so the tobacco companies took to punching a bunch of tiny holes in the filter paper upstream of that last bit, in the section which typically happens to covered by the human users’ fingers holding the cigarette, with the last half-inch going between the lips. Measuring device applies suction, and voila! — clean ‘bypass air’ flows through the holes along with a greatly-lessened amount of lit-end gases, causing the equipment to underreport emissions levels. Human lights up same brand of cigarette, fingers holding the filter cover most of the bypass holes, human gets the actual full dose of smoke. A quite impressively clever stratagem, it must be admitted.
]
i am a little bummed but will keep supporting bernie regardless. crapification anecdote… just spent an hour on the phone with frontier communications re my first bill after they bought my market from verizon with ‘no changes’ to service and fees carrying over prior contracts.
the charges on these bills are bad enough to understand (literally some of the ancillary fees/taxes on my new bill are a few cents more and others a few cents less so overall total due is roughly the same but w t h ? ) as it is but this company cannot explain to me how a previously non-discounted phone service shows upon their bill as discounted but with no term date whereas my internet is discounted with a specific date range indicated. they just say thats how it came over from verizon even though no verizon bill i have reflects that information – SHADOW BILLING i guess. and no recourse for me today – – i just need to call them back if i notice my phone billing has changed! i have never in my life seen things so f ed up.
I can tell some of you are bummed. I got markedly fewer link suggestions via e-mail than usual. Maybe we can figure out a place to which we can emigrate (although be warned, getting permanent residence is much harder than you thinks plus there are very few countries that accept people over 45). Or maybe there is a town with cheap and pretty good housing stock and not terrible weather we can all colonize.
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costa rica?
http://www.therealcostarica.com/living_in_costa_rica/retire_in_costa_rica.html