Oil Spill

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

"The answer is no to that," a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. "We're not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It's not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort."

There's a fairly simple rule about Project Management and Problem Solving that applies universally.  It goes like this: If you don't appreciate the full scope of the task, you are almost certain to fail.

2 probabilities - BP knows it's worse than they're saying it is publicly; and they're gambling that the bulk of the oil will stay below the surface, which gives them some plausible deniability. 

I guess I worry that the "anti-oilers" are seen as overstating the problem. If the catastrophe then doesn't quite materialize the way they say it will, there's an opportunity for the "pro-oilers" to whip up a backlash, and we're right back to Drill Baby Drill.

Lastly, what happens to the booms and the sandbag dikes and to the oil blob itself when there's a storm?

Solution Of The Month part 2

Conflation

As always, nothing happens all by itself.  Everything happens in some kind of context; concomitantly;  in conjunction with...etc.  So the oil flood south of New Orleans comes at a time when the dead zone (also just south of NO - and the 2nd largest in the world) is gearing up for the summer season as the Mississippi dumps a jillion tons of animal waste, lawn care chemicals, farm fertilizers, parking lot runoff, and partially treated human shit into the Gulf of Mexico.

From discovery.com

From mindfully.org

I guess we can hope that this disaster contains the usual 30% sawdust-as-dramatic-filler-material that our Press Poodles love to pimp to us.  Or maybe we shouldn't hope for that at all.  What if the media types tell us it's gonna be huge, and then it isn't so huge, and then we get the feeling that this isn't as bad as it actually is?  We can all go back to pretending that we're not driving ourselves over the cliff.

A Fitting Tribute to Ken Cuccinelli

The Coochster is taking lots of heat.

Listen to the mp3, and follow along with the lyrics below.

As published in Richmond Times Dispatch (by Bart Hinkle 5-7-2010)

I am the very model of a mad Attorney General,
My politics are paleoconservative and visceral --
I'll sue the pants off Democrats and wreck their plans historical
With writs and briefs that I'll compose, tendentious and rhetorical . . . .
I'll stop environmentalists from regulating greenhouse gas
By proving carbon dioxide does not have an atomic mass --
That solar-radiative forcing's nothing but a liberal plot
And dendroclimatology is superstitious tommyrot.
I'll prove the EPA is overrun with Commie militants
Who haven't shown a single lick of scientific diligence --
In short, in matters legal, ecological, and federal
I am the very model of a mad Attorney General.

I'll stop the federales, too, from passing mandates medical --
Our Founding Fathers would have found them utterly heretical:
There's nothing in the Constitution that allows the government
To take upon itself an act of such obscene aggrandizement.
Our hospitals and clinics do not need yet more bureaucracy
The whole scheme is most antithetical toward democracy;
ObamaCare could mean as well a case of hip dysplasia
Might put your grandma on a gurney, bound for euthanasia.
The situation's reached the point that it is nearly critical --
And so I'll sue to save the life of our corpus political.
In short, in matters Hippocratic, curative, and medical,
I am the very model of a mad Attorney General.

I'll save our universities as well from filthy sodomites;
The colleges have got no grounds to grant those fellows equal rights.
The legislature has declared they constitute a second class --
Though some might find that attitude as dated as Depression glass
I do not think we need more men who know how to redecorate
Or women dressed like lumberjacks -- God meant us all to procreate.
It's right there in Leviticus: Verse seventeen of chapter eight
Requires colleges to let their faculties discriminate.
I simply want to guarantee our young men's masculinity
By keeping Sapphic types far from the commonwealth's vicinity
In short, in matters non-Euclidian or homosexual
I am the very model of a mad Attorney General.

I also like to think myself a rather high-browed classisist
And artifacts of history are something I cannot resist
But images of Virtue that expose her breast and mamelon
Are too risqué -- they're apt to turn the concupiscent rabble on.
There's nothing more erotic than the Iliad or the Odyssey
And so I'll substitute a pin that manifests more modesty
(One mustn't risk the chance that some poor lad's Attic exuberance
Could lend itself to lusty thoughts and some turgid protuberance).
I'm simply trying to keep things clean, I don't believe in censorship --
But won't go down in history as the man who let a nipple slip.
In short in matters glandular, lactiferous, and sensual
I am the very model of a mad Attorney General.

Today's Quote

Something politicians might wanna consider.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact. -George Eliot

Fallout

We haven't heard much about it lately, but apparently there's still some effort to get back at the US for our high-handed approach to "fighting terrorism" during the Bush administration.

From Harper's Mag online.

I use the term "get back at" because I think these attempts are more about grandstanding for public consumption than they're about justice and substance.  That said tho', the Spanish seem to have a real bug up their butts about it.  And it wouldn't exactly hurt my feelings if somebody from Bush's team took a fall.

I think it's more than a little interesting that not one of the former Bush officials has ever gone out of the country to do any kind of victory lap anywhere but Saudi Arabia.

On Conspiracy Theories

There was a thread over at The Agonist today, trying to make some sense of the recent Flash Crash.  One of the commenters asked the author to "dumb it down a bit" because he didn't understand all of the jargon. The author then provided what I consider the best insight on conspiracy theories I've heard so far.

Paraphrasing:

You see why there is constant demand for alternative conspiracy theories. People at least have to understand the terminology. A conspiracy theory would be more credible to me if it contained concepts which a layman couldn't understand; but they never do; because the theory has to survive in a story telling market.

Brilliant.

Ten Years Of Hell

Whether or not you believe it, I'm not always looking for dark clouds that surround the silver linings.  There has been some decent economic news of late and I really do wanna be up and enthused, but I'm not going to be sucked in by the happy talk that managers and bureaucrats throw at us every other day.

The Credit/Debt Monster is still on the loose, and the bail out schemes for Wall Street and Greece (and the rest of the EU), plus the Stimulus Package (the 2nd half of which hasn't even started yet) are still way too recent for anybody with any sense or credibility to make a good assessment.  So we're operating on the assumption that "we're on the right track" and "things will be back to normal soon".  Where have we heard that before?

Here's a little ditty from Rupert Street Journal from last month that passes on to us exactly what the Gov't told the "reporter".  But there's a gimmick the lenders use when reporting  problems with these loans that actually helps them under-report the loans in default by a factor of up to 5.  Where most of the loans showing up in these statistics are the "traditional" ones held by 20- and 30-Somethings for loans they took out to go to "traditional" institutions, the real story in the last couple of years is that a huge amount of money has been borrowed by a much wider range of people to attend the non-traditional For-Profit schools like Univ of Phoenix and Capella Univ which have been enjoying a massive boom.  Any guesses on what those default rates are?  Take a look at this episode from Frontline. At about the 40 minute mark, the picture of our future servitude comes into very sharp focus.

And Jesus wept.

Wastefulness

Ya wanna know what Government Waste really looks like?

Here it is.

The wrangling over Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's investigation of a climate scientist continues...

After indicating last week that it would comply with a subpoena sent by the AG, demanding documents relating to the work of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann, the university is now equivocating. "Our intention is to comply but we are looking at some options," a UVA spokeswoman told theWashington Post yesterday.

AGW Denial Fallout

Climate Change resistance seems to be all about a political agenda that intends to create inaction.  "Conservatives" and Repubs (mostly) are always blocking movement toward anything they think disrupts the status quo (ie: threatens their positions of power).  There may be some legitimate reasons for it - eg: the economic disruptions of moving away from oil will likely be pretty major, and the trouble we can't predict is always what hurts the most.

While I can understand the reasoning, I dislike intensely the conflict that arises from the way people go about trying to put their policies into effect. The tactic is to paint the AGW proponents as being in service of a Leftist Political slant intent on destroying capitalism, which is of course always portrayed as being "the very essence of all things American".

"Lefties" often do the same kind of painting, but right now, I think the view from "The Left" is more accurate.  My assessment of the ebb and flow of political sensibility is that we're shifting to the left again.  It may well be that the way to "save capitalism" is to take it away from the assholes who claim to be its defenders.

In the case of AGW, the really odd thing for me is that what's driving the shift in sensibility is an adherence to the traditions of science, and that's forcing the opposition to attack the facts themselves, and to defend a position based on uninformed / misinformed / disinformed disbelief.

So we end up arguing about the process instead of debating solutions for the real problems.

Some interesting stuff over at Little Green Footballs.

Solution Of The Month part 1

Make Up Your Mind

Ten Years After

I'd Love To Change The World

Changes

So I was listening to Tony Blankley today on KCRW's Left Right and Center (via truthdig.com).  The topic swings around to BP's oil spill in the gulf and the other commentators are bitchin' about how awful it is, and Blankley says (I'm paraphrasing), "hey, it's bad, but if we don't drill for oil here, we'll have to ship it in, and there're more spills with shipping than with drilling, and we'll be sending more of our money to foreigners - so just think how much worse it'll be if we DON'T keep drilling..."  And I just flashed on something - these guys are always using that specious bullshit argument about some totally unprovable hypothetical that sounds really scary and all too often closes the debate.  We have to stop going along with that shit.

First, we can challenge these guys on the simple fact that they're often so totally assbackwards on their predictions.

Secondly, because our imagination is unlimited, we can conjure up all manner of horrible outcomes - every event COULD BE much worse.

But here's the point: Instead of accepting that kind of argument (which is so often delivered in a condescending and dismissive tone), we need to turn it around on itself.

THEY SAY: "...so it could've been a lot worse, and the next time it WILL be worse if we don't just go along with (insert crappy policy that produced shitty outcome here)"

I SAY: Stick it right back in your ditty bag, Sparky.  Maybe we should start thinking about how much BETTER it could all be if we had some real regulatory guidance; and if some of these asshole companies like BP and Goldman Sachs and Halliburton started following the fucking rules.

Calling Names

Some teabaggers are upset because they say the term "teabagger" is insensitive and insulting.  Cluster Fox ran a longish segment with Monica and Megyn rippin' Obama for using the term.

At first blush: tough shit, girls.  Get a helmet. Nobody likes it and nobody should do it, but y'know, if you're gonna bitch about being called names...fuck it. Never mind.

Moron Arizona

Meanwhile, get a load of some of these polling results:

                  Fer    Agin   Ain't Sure
All               53      36         11

Dems           12      79          9
Repubs        89       7           4
Indies          46      28         26

White          63      26         11
Hispanic       15      76          9
Black            8       80        12

Ever get the feeling that white people really shouldn't be in charge of this joint?
If we ever get a chance at reworking the school system, I think the first thing is to make Civics a part of the core curriculum.

Confluence

I love it when aspects of different and unrelated stories or events come together and link up to illustrate a point.

First, there's the problem with Arizona's (SB 1070) Papers Please law.  Opponents hate it for a variety of (I think) good reasons, but mainly because it turns Hispanics into 2nd Class citizens by reinforcing our silly notion that while profiling is kind of unpleasant; and we certainly wouldn't want it done to us; we need to make some exceptions because after all, we're practically under attack here, and really - if you look at all those illegals, the thing that stands out is that almost all of 'em are brown...

Second, months ago, an Afghani civilian who was supposed to be "on our side" attacked and killed a group of US Military and CIA, killing a bunch of them.  This was a big surprise because while the guy was suspected of being a double agent, they didn't expect him to go all Jihadi because he was in his 30's, he was married, he had a couple of kids...BECAUSE HE DIDN'T FIT THE FUCKING PROFILE!

The brilliance of the guys who put this country together is reaffirmed.  It's like they knew that whatever else happened, we weren't gonna make it unless we understood that we have to treat people like people.  We have to be willing to do the hard work of dealing with each other as individuals and as equals.

And The Horse You Rode In On

Homeopathy Sendup

More Bubbles

And the hits just keep rollin'. What level of disaster will it take to get us to understand some things?

Ten Years Of Hell

Plutocracy: government by the wealthy

Plutonomy: a term that combines plutocracy and economy, refers to an economy in which growth is confined to people at the very top of the wealth pyramid. The term was coined by investment and marketing advisers to characterize the U.S. economy, as an ostensible guide to framing profitable investment and marketing strategies. Critics assert that this usage is one of the many indicators of the moral corruption of the system.

Plutonomy stands at the opposite end of the continuum from economic democracy, a system in which every person has an ownership stake in the means of production on which their livelihood depends. Economic democracy is an essential foundation of political democracy. Plutonomy and political democracy are mutually exclusive, as the current U.S. experience demonstrates so clearly.

This sounds a little "too left" for me, but it also seems there's a pretty strong sentiment in favor of it right now. 

Economic Justice is something we're used to hearing about from guys like Al Sharpton or Spike Lee - and of course, we've generally dismissed it as some coded message about Race-based Politics, but maybe now we're seeing a move toward the rhetorical framing that makes the concept of greater economic equality sound more acceptable emotionally - which in turn will make that equality more achievable politically.

The pendulum swings.

Another Day, Another Spill

From Reddit by way of HuffPo:

Breaking News: Large air spill at wind farm!  No threats reported.  Some claim to enjoy the breeze.

Wouldn't it be nice.

Today In Pictures

Lacrosse Backstop

As usual, the project looks pretty easy and cheap, and then costs a lot more and takes a lot longer than I figured.  At least we get to do something together.

Cause Marketing

I love this kinda stuff.  I love selling because I love the feeling that I can turn NO into YES; that I can turn words into money.

When you get good at anything, you gain a certain power over others.  You get called first for a job interview, or the cabinets you build show up in the best kitchens or the people you work with come to you for help and guidance.  Whatever.  The better you are at what you do, the more power you have because of it.  But power is a dangerous thing.  You have to be wise and circumspect about how you use it because what happens when power is misused always turns out to be really really bad.

Here's one illustration (one of my all-time fave movies)


And here's a story from the real world.
Emotional manipulation works. That is why so many entities are using it against us at every turn. Pinkwashing, greenwashing, cause-related marketing, industry-funded front groups with deceptive names spewing extreme political claims, politicians making weird, baseless statements about proposed legislation -- they all get the desired results. Some legislators still try to use facts, reason and truth in public discourse, but there are now so many strident, paid corporate and political messaging efforts going on that stimulate people to react from their gut and not think, that reason, truth and facts are now weak public voices by comparison.

This Is Really Bad

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

More On Arizona

Maybe that should be Moron Arizona.  Too much of a cold shot?

Now that the backlash has a lot of people whipped up into a mild Anti-Arizona frenzy, the Op-Ed editors are jumping into it with an attitude of "what they did was dead wrong, but understandable". (Editorial Roundup)

Sorry, Arizona, but fuck you.  Sorry, Minutemen, but fuck you.  Sorry, "Conservative Values Voters", but fuck you.  For 30 years, you guys have been voting for an agenda that drains government resources away from providing services like border security, and now you're all pissed off because your borders aren't secure?  You've pissed and moaned for 30 years about Intrusive Government or Incompetent Government or whatever, and you've stayed home on election day or you've voted for these assholes; but now you're acting surprised about what actually happens as a result of getting what you said you wanted!?!  I repeat: fuck you.

You wanted "common sense" and "straight talk" and "leaders who're just like me".  You spent an awful long time listening to and nodding at and forwarding emails that spouted racist and eliminationist bullshit.  Well now that bullshit has been made into law, and you're gonna cry about it?  One more time: fuck you.

As usual, the really good reporting on the background and history of this crappy law is being done by the loonies on the left.

Ten Years Of Hell

Posted today at Balloon Juice:

Check out these facts from economist Andy Xie:

1) Housing prices are up 50% in the past year in some parts of the country.

2) Housemaids are asking for time off so they can return to their village to buy an
apartment before it is too late.

3) Sales girl urges: Buy two! In a few years time prices will rise so much it will be
like getting the other apartment for free.

4) Banks offer unlimited credit for real estate purchases because the central bank is
flooding the market with stimulus money.

5) Local governments are addicted to the revenues from the property sales tax and will
do whatever it takes to keep the bubble going.

6) One local official caught owning 24 apartments. Wonder where he got the money?

7) Real estate mania has now spread beyond the cities to dusty rural towns.

8) Government works to free up as much land as possible for development.

9) In some markets land is so valuable it is worth more than the improvements.

10) Foreign money is flooding into China to participate in the bubble and the yuan
appreciation against the dollar that everybody says is sure to come.

I’ll Tell You When Chinese Bubble Is About to Burst: Andy Xie

Quote Of The Day

"Anyone who stops learning is old; whether at twenty or eighty.  Anyone who keeps learning stays young." - Henry Ford

Bring The Stoopid

OKLAHOMA CITY, April 24 (UPI) — Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said he vetoed a bill that would require women to go through ultrasound examinations before abortions to avoid a court fight.

Henry Friday also vetoed a measure that would have banned wrongful birth lawsuits, The Oklahoman reported Saturday. Such suits are brought by parents of children born with Down’s syndrome and other congenital problems that were not diagnosed during pregnancy.

Henry, a Democrat, said the first bill was likely to involve the state in expensive litigation. He also described the bill as too sweeping because there are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

“State policymakers should never mandate that a citizen be forced to undergo any medical procedure against his or her will, especially when such a procedure could cause physical or mental trauma,” Henry said.

For the wingnuts who are in favor of these intrusive extra procedures: How do you square this with your steadfast opposition to Government-mandated Healthcare?

Bring The Stupid

We spent a whole year arguing and campaigning and angsting over Healthcare Insurance Reform, just to find out that there's already a brilliant and simple way to solve the problem?

As usual, a Republican has the answer for us.  "Sue Lowden is running for Harry Reid's senate seat in Nevada, and she knows exactly what we need to do.

You go, girl.

Samba Pa Ti

Possibly the best instrumental ever. Certainly top 5.

Angry Eyes

Loggins & Messina nearing the height of their powers - one of my all time faves.

Keep On Tryin'

One of Poco's best.  And from a time when the artists could actually lay it all down in a few takes without having to go back and redub a thousand times.

Just A Quickie

Today, the governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, signed into law a complete piece of crap ("Immigration Reform Bill") that requires cops to stop anybody they think might be in the US illegally.  "I best be checkin'  them papers there, Chico".

For me, the fact of it is bad enough, but part of the governor's remarks afterward were to the affect: "we've been waiting and waiting for someone in Washington to do something about illegal immigration; they weren't getting it done, so we had to do it ourselves".

So OK, just for a moment, let's ignore the fact that you've enacted a law that basically makes it illegal to be deeply tanned, and try to concentrate on the remarks.  Am I to understand that this governor has NEVER criticized a political opponent for "wanting a government solution to all our problems"? ..."always looking to Washington for help"?  This kind of politician is true a set of core beliefs only when it is necessary to collect dollars or votes.

These people have no soul and no honor.

We Are So Fucked

We've legalized bribery; we've integrated bribery into the system. It doesn't look quite like what we've always assumed bribery looks like and so we don't call it bribery, but that's what it is. It's bribery.

We won't get anything of real value out of Washington, or any other legislature, until the enormous flow of cash is throttled back. And that will take our elected officials too long to accomplish. As soon as somebody stands up in the speakers' well and declares his intent to change this corrupt system, the monied interests will come down on him like The Lord's burnin' rain (courtesy of SCOTUS and the Citizens United decision). The dirty tricks and the slander and the negative ads will make him out to be the worst thing since Herpes, and the next election will see him replaced by somebody who is a little more pliant and open to the manipulations of our corporate masters.

Gotta Love This Guy

I wonder how long it'll take our "leaders" to shove him over the cliff and get back to suckin' Wall Street's dick.

Bring The Stupid

Hands Up

I'm just gonna run this whole post from Balloon Juice.  It pretty much says it all.

Via Memeorandum, this interview with FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, which had this snippet:

If this had been law prior to 2008, would we have seen the bailouts that took place? Would we have seen capital injections into banks?

BAIR: No. You could not do an AIG, Bear Stearns, or any of that. Those were all one-off things, capital or asset guarantee transactions. This bill would only allow system-wide liquidity support which could not be targeted at an individual firm. You can’t do capital investments at all, period. It’s only liquidity support. No more capital investments. That’s banned under all circumstances.

You can do systemwide liquidity support. But you can’t do anything on an individual basis. They would have to be generally available.

Do you see any way left for the government to bail out a financial institution?

BAIR: No, and that’s the whole idea. It was too easy for institutions to come and ask for help. They aren’t going to do that. This gives us a response: “Fine, we will take all these essential services and put them in a bridge bank. We will keep them running while your shareholders and debtors take all your losses. And oh, by the way, we are getting rid of your board and you, too.”

The whole idea is to get market discipline back.

That’s what ending “too big to fail means.” It means debtors and shareholders understanding their money is at risk and especially the debtholders starting to look at the balance sheet of these big institutions and asking their own hard questions instead of relying on government support.

When Mitch McConnell took to the cameras spewing his Frank Luntz talking points, this is what pissed me off the most (once you get past the instant “CAN’T YOU MOTHERFUCKERS EVER TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ANYTHING!”)- what he was doing was trying to kill a bill that would end the bailouts. And if he succeeded, he would be doing the banksters bidding.

They don’t want what Bair just described. They like things just the way it is right now- they can put a gun to the head of the economy and tell us “If I go down, I’m taking everyone of you with me.” They like how things went down the last time- Goldman got every penny off their bets with AIG, all paid for by you and me. Then they went around and lavished huge bonuses on themselves when they weren’t busy writing whiny op-eds about how unfair it is everyone hates them.

With this bill, if the legislators and regulators have it right, these scumbags screw up again, they get wiped out. Shareholders get destroyed, and the board is replaced.

Wall Street and the bankstas don’t want that- which is why they flew Cornyn and McConnell to NY, told them they would bankroll the Republicans if only they killed this bill, and McConnell went right to the Senate podium and lied his ass off. Not only was he lying, but he was doing everything he could to make sure there would be bailouts forever. Understand what he was doing.

It’s just that simple. McConnell was selling the country and the American taxpayer down the river for a chance at flooding the airwaves with campaign ads funded by Wall Street, made possible by the right wing Supreme Court.

Spoiler Alert

The Young Turks

Not usually this straightforward; and not quite the perfect articulation, but damn - we're gettin' closer.

What's Wrong With The South?

We've had more than our share of cringe-worthy moments of late; especially here in Virginia where we get to stand in slack-jawed stupefaction every few weeks watching our Governor and our Atty General make themselves (and the rest of us) look like complete dicks.

They started out by issuing an executive order telling the whole state bureaucracy that they don't have to worry all that much about discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Next up: Ken Cuccinelli decides to sue the Obama Administration to prevent implementation of Healthcare Reform.  And to top it off, his office then says it only costs us the $350 filing fee.  I called his office 6 times and can't get anybody to answer any questions or call me back.

Then Governor Bob issues a proclamation designating April as Dumbass Redneck Month.

Most recently, any ex-felon in Virginia who wants to get back his right to vote has to write a letter to the government in Richmond explaining why he deserves the same rights as everybody else, now that he's paid his debt to society.  Can you say, "literacy test"?  I knew you could.

I get a weird feeling that there's something about the culture down here that makes this kind of Fantasy-Land-Alternate-Reality thing more probable.  It's certainly not particular to The South, but maybe Southerners are a little more susceptible to the temptation to revise the parts of their history that don't fit well with the basic human need for self-esteem.

A few examples:
Slavery was and still is often referred to as "our peculiar institution".
Secession and armed rebellion (aka Treason) becomes "defense of our homeland against an invasion from the north".
Rob't E Lee - a slave owner fervently in favor of beating slaves to keep them in line - is later said to be an abolitionist.

I think it also has something to do with wanting to let yourself off the hook.  If the truth about who you are and where you came from always seems to point up the fact that you're just the latest in a long line of assholes, you have to be looking for a little relief.  If somebody comes along and spins out a version that helps you feel a little less shitty about it all, then you're probably not going to be overly concerned that he's just makin' shit up.

It still makes me a little nuts, but I think I can understand it.  And that gives me a slightly better chance to counter it.

Read this from Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The Logical Extreme

Ten Years Of Hell

These posts are usually about bad news or warning signs, but this one looks like a win - at least they've managed to forestall a real meltdown in Greece for a year or so.  Unfortunately they haven't fixed the problems of the debt itself - problems that could still bring it all crashing down - problems that the banks are helping to create.

The biggest threat to our economic wellbeing is our inability to deal with all the debt we're piling up.  We can't just push "The Reckoning" farther down the road.  We can't keep borrowing, thinking it'll get better if we just wait for inflation to catch up with us; or that the economy will "grow us out of trouble".  We can't go on thinking we never have to worry about paying any of it back.

So Greece is settled down a bit, and now everybody seems to be worried about Portugal, but the real problem may be right here at home.

We dodged a bullet (for now anyway) by pouring massive amounts of dollars into the banks. We haven't fixed anything yet, but we're still standing - so far.

I've been mostly worried that the next shoe to drop will be Commercial Real Estate - one estimate is that by next year, half of all commercial real estate loans will be underwater.  We'll see; and it'll be a big fuckin' problem if it comes to pass, but it's nothing compared with everything bad that can happen if there are many more stories like this one in Birmingham AL.

In 1996, the average monthly sewer bill for a family of four in Birmingham was only $14.71 — but that was before the county decided to build an elaborate new sewer system with the help of out-of-state financial wizards with names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. The result was a monstrous pile of borrowed money that the county used to build, in essence, the world's grandest toilet — "the Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" is how one county worker put it. What happened here in Jefferson County would turn out to be the perfect metaphor for the peculiar alchemy of modern oligarchical capitalism: A mob of corrupt local officials and morally absent financiers got together to build a giant device that converted human shit into billions of dollars of profit for Wall Street

As usual, I hope I'm wrong, but I fear I'm not.

Ten Years Of Hell

When the crash (and then possibly, the revolt) finally gets here, maybe it won't be so bad that the mob just burns everything down - but that's not how it usually plays out.

If any system of government/economy is to sustain itself over time, there has to be a broad appreciation for a kind of Societal Extortion.  The top tier (where all the money and power is) has to figure out a good way to buy the cooperation and the acquiescence  of the lower tiers.  The mob below has to be pacified somehow.  The Tsars and the Caesars and Kings and Emperors tried various things - sometimes they just hanged a bunch of peasants and burned out their settlements to keep them bottled up, but the really  smart ones built roads; or they put on elaborate shows; or they portioned out grain directly to the people; or they allowed some freedom of commerce.  They knew that even as absolute rulers, if they wanted to stay in power, they had to have the rabble's approval to some extent.

We've evolved a different system here in the US.  We use a lottery system to determine whether or (usually) not someone else is allowed to move up a rung or two.  We call it "The American Dream", but it's set up as the same very exclusive club as any previous system of ruling class(es).  It's just that here you get to pretend that if you work really hard, and if you adhere to a strict code of self-reliance and rugged individualism, then you can rise out of your lowly station and take your place among the Ruling Elite.  It may have been more possible not all that long ago, but in the last 30 years, the transfer of wealth to the upper echelon has been accelerating, and is approaching a point where the Great American Middle Class could actually be in danger of collapse.  From here on out, it's all just a shot in the dark.

And here's the kicker:  Most of us have accepted the notion that what we have here is a Meritocracy.  ie: "If I earn it, then I get it", which morphs into, "I have it, therefore I've earned it".

And the flip side is "If you don't earn it, then you don't get it"; which then morphs into "Your life is shitty, therefore you've earned a shitty life".

The Newness Of It All

I picked a different look for the blog because I wanted the wider aspect.

If it doesn't work for you, lemme know - not that I intend to do anything but ignore your complaints, but hey.

Just pretend you're in one of those meetings at work where The Suits say they're soliciting your input on this important issue, but you know deep down that they're just giving you a chance to agree with decisions they've already made.  Yeah, like that.

Crock Of The Week

Tro Da Bums Out

Since the beginning of 2009:
-we've averted a true economic catastrophe by stabilizing the banks.
-the economy has posted positive growth for 4 quarters in a row.
-we were losing 700k jobs per month, and now we're adding 100k.
-the car-making industry (and all the ancillary businesses) are coming back.
-green business is beginning to take hold and expand.
-troop levels in Iraq are being drawn down.
-DOW is up 3,000 points in the last 12 months.
-American prestige and public image have improved a jillion percent.
-32 million more Americans have a chance to get health insurance, and insurance companies can longer engage in some of their most egregious practices.
-the scope of the world's most destructive weapons is being rolled back.
-taxes for 95% of all Americans are down.

So of course there's only one thing to do - we need to find the assholes who did nothing but fuck everything up and put 'em all back in charge!  Yeah, we should do that.

Don't get me wrong - we still need to clear out a whole big bunch of moldy old politcos who've been around way past their freshness dates.  Let's just try to remember how we got to this dance, and who brung us.

Bring The Stupid

Lots of talk about cutting back on "government spending".  Whenever some politicians want to score a few points, they start screamin' about spending - even tho' by this time, everybody not living in caves has to know that the guys doing the loudest screaming are the ones who ran up the tab in the first place.

I've said it before - what EXACTLY do you want to cut?

Here's a look at what big bunches of people in this country think we should carve down.

At what point do we realize just how misinformed we are, and start to demand better?

Sucks To Be Them

There's a coup or a rebellion or a full blown revolution or something going on in Kyrgyzstan and nobody noticed.

There's no mineral wealth to get excited about; the country occupies no big-deal strategic space; there are no important roads or other lines of communication; and if the US hadn't established an air base at the capital city's airport (using it as a big staging area for our efforts in Afghanistan - and overpaying for it as usual BTW), we wouldn't know anything about anything going on there.  But the really big thing that they don't have is - Twitter!  Which is why we're not getting much in the way of "reporting".

If the News Poodles want the story, they'll have to work to get it;  so of course, that means we'll hear practically nothing about it.