Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:04pm
Alert reader Jawbone recalls Catherine Austin Fitts to me, who invented the term "tapeworm economy, which, not coincidentally, is one of our topics. I poked around her site, and found this post: Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 3:21pm
Damn:
Harry Kalas, the Phillies' Hall of Fame announcer, died at 1:20 p.m. today, the Phillies announced.
Mr. Kalas was 73.
He collapsed in the press box at Nationals Stadium in Washington at about 12:30 p.m. and was rushed to George Washington University Medial Center.
How I'd want to go -- doing what I loved. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 11:28am
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:58am
One more post -- I heard this one when I briefly turned on "All Things Considered" a few days ago. Put down your coffee:
As part of its sweeping plan to purge banks of troublesome assets, the Obama administration is encouraging several large investment companies to create the financial-crisis equivalent of war bonds: bailout funds.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:40am
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:31am
George Packer plays 11 dimensional chess:
Obama’s signature projects defy grouping under a single heading, and, as a result, he has been criticized for inconsistency. To take one example, he forced the chief executive of General Motors, Rick Wagoner, into early retirement, and yet he has not called for the removal of any of the failed leaders of America’s financial institutions, like Bank of America’s Kenneth Lewis.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 9:47am
You can trust the Republicans -- to be Republicans:
Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.
But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. ....
One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. ....
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 9:27am
McClatchy's Kansas City Star:
A 22,000 percent return on investment?
Three professors at the University of Kansas say dozens of America’s largest companies got that sweet deal four years ago — not by hiring workers or purchasing new equipment, but by investing in Washington lobbyists.
Those lobbyists, the three said, helped write a federal tax break that eventually put roughly $100 billion in tax savings in the pockets of the firms and their shareholders, at a cost to the companies of just pennies on the dollar.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 12:22am
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:35pm
[If any reader wishes to become our Bangkok Correspondent, please get in touch! --lambert]
Our famously free press is happily demonizing the Thai red shirts using almost identically formulaic language, so I distrust the coverage. And if there's an international blog covering this, I'm missing it. I poked around the Google blog search, and found one roundup from a travel blogger, which includes this vignette:
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 10:23pm
By deranking them. In today's world, that's the same as putting them on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
All these giant monopolies suck, not just the banks, and the health insurance companies and the telcos and the giant defense contractors ... We should break them all up. Or turn them into regulated public utilities. Too big to #FAIL is too big to exist. Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 4:58pm
Clark Hoyt's doing his job (go read), but his column today also contains this factoid:
[Times-person Daphne] Merkin’s ... oldest brother ... J. Ezra Merkin, a prominent financier and philanthropist ... fed more than $2 billion of clients’ money into Madoff’s scheme, collecting more than $470 million in fees [and as we know, it's all about the fees!], according to New York’s attorney general, who accused him of civil fraud and sued him last Monday.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 4:22pm
Yay:
Longer Unemployment for Those 45 and Older
The recession’s onslaught has come [note lack of agency] as Mr. Sims and many others belonging to the post-World War II baby boom generation — the demographic burst from 1946 to 1964 that reshaped the country — remain years from retirement. But unemployed boomers, many of whom believed they were still in the prime of their careers, are confronting the grim reality that they face some of the steepest odds of any job seekers in this dismal market.
Older workers do hold some advantages. Many have avoided layoffs during this recession, and government statistics show that people 45 and older currently have a lower unemployment rate than younger workers.
Read below the fold...
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 2:13pm
Submitted by lambert on Sun, 04/12/2009 - 11:17am
Times:
The turning point for Stephan Jung came in February, around the time bonus checks were slashed. [Quelle surprise!] A veteran of UBS, one of many banks tarnished by the financial crisis, Mr. Jung realized that the old Wall Street would not be bouncing back any time soon. It was time to head for the new.
Read below the fold...
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