London Calling ( by Susie at Suburban Guerrilla)

Jesus, Extraterrestrials, & Teh Awesomeness (by Damon at Corrente)
I thought we'd be getting away from this fuzziness when we were faced, head on, with the realness of our economic and social situation, the dire reality that success means not only getting the economy running, again, but reconstructing it to run correctly, this time. One of the biggest false meme floating around is that this society simply needs a reset. We don't need a reset, we need a reconstruction.
A reconstruction like those suggested below, perhaps?—Caro

The G20's Blind Spot: President Obama must squarely face the bad asset problem (by Keiichiro Kobayashi, thanks to Economist’s View)
So long as people hold onto the expectation that recovery could be brought about by fiscal measures, no national consensus can be built to proceed with the painful disposition of nonperforming assets. It is necessary to learn by firsthand experience that fiscal measures are only makeshift. In this context, the enormous fiscal deficit that will be built up in the US in the coming months may be the political cost for consensus building, which would be a replay of what Japan went through in the 1990s.

No More Refuge for Scoundrels (by Joe Conason)
While the leaders of the world's largest economies debate stimulus and regulation in London, let us hope they do not forget about crime and punishment. Rooted in the most massive swindles in financial history, the global crisis offers an unprecedented opportunity to prosecute the criminals whose machinations steered us toward disaster -- and to deter them in the future… Massive fraud has been at the center of this crisis from bottom to top, as everyone paying attention must know… Vast amounts of taxable wealth, last estimated to exceed $12 trillion, are hidden in the protected banks of tax-haven principalities, with annual losses to the U.S. Treasury that may well be greater than $100 billion… The urge to cheat on taxes and the desire to evade regulation represent the same destructive impulse, which governments around the world should now take steps to suppress.

Maybe we could force feed them some of this:
Drug Quells Urge to Steal (Live Science)
A drug given to kleptomaniacs took some of the fun out of stealing, a new study suggests. "It gets rid of that rush and desire," said study team member Jon E. Grant of the University of Minnesota School of Medicine. "The difference in their behavior was significant, and these people were really troubled by their behavior."

The Socialist Solution to the Crisis (by Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists and a former prime minister of Denmark, writing in the Wall Street Journal)
The job losses, repossessions, uncertainty, fear and misery faced by the people of Europe, the United States and Japan are a terrible stain on the consciences of those bankers and politicians whose doctrine of neo-liberal markets plunged us all into this crash… The simplistic dictum of more markets and less government -- championed by Reagan, Thatcher and their ideological heirs -- has failed on a momentous scale…

We must press harder than ever for the implementation of the eight Millennium Development Goals agreed to by the United Nations in 2000, which include halving extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS. A global crackdown on tax havens and tax avoidance could provide the funds to take the fight against such scourges as infectious diseases, maternal mortality and poverty to a whole new level. We could base our stimulus spending on smart green growth, making real progress in protecting the environment. Would that not be an inspiring way to combat the recession? We must press for the strongest possible international agreement on climate change… We must also renew our faith in diplomacy as a means to achieve peace.
Gee, it makes so much sense. What could be standing in the way?—Caro

What’s Wrong With Washington? (by James Wolcott at Vanity Fair)
Washington has always been out of sync with the rest of America, but since Obama’s election, Beltway pundits seem more stubbornly and stupendously irrelevant than ever. Have three decades of being wired for Republican power blown their jittery, Twittering minds?

Click here for more politics and media news headlines.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com