Economy

The Election is Essentially Over and Spoiler Alert: Wall Street Won

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Cross posted at Orangina and The Stars Hollow Gazette

I know it. You know it, so who are we kidding? I suppose anything can happen, but essentially the election is over and our President will very likely win the electoral college and the Democrats will keep the Senate and maybe pick up some new seats in the House. So I'm here to find meaning within it all, because I have not been able to grasp how shutting up during election season, but then speaking up after the election will make us "move froward." Especially when the President and the filibuster-loving-set-to-do-nothing Congress do not have to care what we think at all afterwards.

They may get together for their grand bargain since many so called Democrats and Republicans are deficit terrorists and will work to tear down our social safety net in a bipartisan way for the mythical bond vigilantes and confidence fairies they believe in because Peter Peterson told them some scary bedtime stories in the chambers of Congress. This will all be hashed out in unrepresentative undemocratic gangs of 6 or 8 or 12 without our input. So what are we supposed to do when that happens and we are cut out? Make believe they still love us?

Or perhaps some think pointing this out is me being seduced by cynicism. Though I respect some who are arguing this now as opposed to the past, I have to vehemently disagree and I think I have a good case to make to counter that narrative.

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Anti-capitalist meetup: Do you inhale? Capitalism and your health by Northsylvania

True to form as usual

A purely free market system has one glaringly obvious flaw: if a company’s first responsibility is to its shareholders. In a system based on quarterly earnings, business decisions are only based on the effects of a product on the customer, or even society as a whole, if they impact the bottom line in the short term. This is why, to one extent or another, the excesses of free market capitalism are restrained through regulation. The only brake on corporate malfeasance in a case where the interests of business and society are diametrically opposed is the regulatory arm of the government.

Unfortunately, the interests of the government can be swayed by massive amounts of money, either through tax revenue or through campaign contributions to individual representatives. Sometimes the welfare of society and its constituent members are ignored, even in a supposedly representative democracy. A number of examples can be made here, from the lack of attention to global warming due to the interference of Big Oil, to the current state of the banking system. This diary examines something both universal and intimate: the government’s ambiguous role in preventing long-term diseases such as cancer, and regulating triggers that might cause it. It is not a critique of the current US health care system, or even Obama’s modification of it, but an overview of how good health over the life of an individual is certainly not of primary importance to industry and in some cases, not of interest to the government either.

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The Missing Debate Within the Debate

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Cross posted in Orange and the Stars Hollow Gazette

Our fate, for one, but I know that is really depressing(why I don't write about it as much as I should) because as a whole no party really is going to do anything about it, even the Democratic party who kept the filibuster(despite Sen Merkley and Udall's efforts to even change it to make it less damaging) after whining about it to you asking for money you don't have that you gave them in 2008. But they really wanted all that environmental legislation that died in the Senate to pass. At this point Daryl Hanna is putting up more of a fight in my state of TX and kudos to her for her efforts.

But the Keystone pipeline will be a reality regardless of this election like drill baby drill Obama style(we thought we were voting against that in 2008) if the entire population does not emulate her example. So like Charles Ferguson, director of Inside Job, I'm going to concentrate on other real issues no one really paid attention to in this Presidential debate or general election that could be handled more easily without Congress. That is, if those in charge of running the Department of Justice weren't so pathetically unable to live up to their namesake in the executive branch.

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Police Use Rubber Bullets on Austerity Protestors in Madrid, Spain

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Earlier today, police in riot gear, wielding batons and firing rubber bullets moved on protestors in Madrid, Spain. Spanish newspapers are reporting that while only 20 people were arrested, at least a dozen protestors were injured. The protestors were part of the Spanish "Occupy Congress". Under Spanish law, people who lead demonstrations that effectively disrupt parliament (while it is in session) may be imprisoned for up to one year. It is not yet known if anyone will be charged with disrupting parliament.

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Economic Populist: The Obama Platform and the Grand Bargain

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Burning the Midnight Oil for Economic Populism

There is this thing called the "Democratic Party Platform" that people fight over, as another set of people fight over the Republican Party Platform ... but its been decades since the Party Platform was the kind of actual governing platform that we see in the party platforms in parliamentary democracies such as the UK or France or Australia.

The closest thing we are getting to a real platform is what is put on TV, with the speechwriters working in a room underneath the stage vetting the speeches. Part of their job is to ensure consistency of "the message".

And in listening to the economic policy positions as filtered through the speechwriters room ... well, one of these things is not like the others.

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Open Thread: Let's Be Direct: Theft is Theft

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Sure, there's theft through legal means and theft through small print. I don't mind if you call that fraud. But this is theft as in highway robbery:

1) Notice that aside from pensions, which you already have in pocket, middle class wealth resides in real estate.

2) Figure out a scheme to transfer that retirement, inheritance, capital investment middle class wealth from the many in the middle class to a small group of "speculators".

a) Create a housing bubble.

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People That Excuse Wasting the Crisis in 2008 Don’t Get to Lecture Anyone

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Cross posted in Orange and The Stars Hollows Gazette.

In lieu of meaningless political convention coverage, my title is absolutely still true. Decades and decades of history refutes any excuses about the so called political expediency of wasting any crisis economic or otherwise. That is one of the only things I agree with Rahm Emanuel on when he said it at the beginning of this administration. Sadly, the White House only listened to his hippy punching BS. The prospect that this economic disaster wouldn't go to waste or enrich bankers was where the hope used to reside when there was any at all to confide in as far as any real economic recovery is concerned.

But when we mention these real world problems still abound from these failures we hear the same old tired excuses trotted out to excuse this administration from loyal partisans who are proud of what they never learn. This involves excusing the the bailout, housing, and foreclosure crisis. Ironically, this is why there is any chance at all for insane Republicans to make hay in this election at all so it might be smart to pay attention to it at some point even if the media won't cover it. The bottom line is that coddling too big to fail banks with trillions in bailouts and more bailout guarantees on top of that (29 trillion globally when counted all up) to make Capital whole at the expense of laborers didn't help and many of us knew it wouldn't from the get go.

During an election it is treated like a crime to say so. You know, other countries have actually learned this lesson as we have forgotten from the past. Alas Iceland handled their crisis well, like Sweden, and like we did during the S&L crisis but not in 2008 where our fate is now a lost decade or two. With too many loyal "Democrats" looking the other way, this administration and their point man in the Treasury let Wall St have the most say even though public anger at Wall St was and is still at an all time high. This explains why the public was against the bailout, and how it failed in the House at first.

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