January, 2009 archive
Into the Dustbin of History? 0
One can only hope.
Greedy, Dumb, and Selfish 0
But rich.
Our monied classes. Read the whole thing. It will give you a break from the want ads:
While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.
Some bankers took home millions last year even as their employers lost billions.
The comptroller’s estimate, a closely watched guidepost of the annual December-January bonus season, is based largely on personal income tax collections. It excludes stock option awards that could push the figures even higher.
Coinkydink? 0
It is somehow fitting that the ranking Republican representative from Lala Land is Jerry Lewis.
Wonder whether he’s popular in France?
Union Yes 0
I carried a TCU card for 24 years. For 20 of those years, I was not in a union job, but I continued to carry the card.
Why?
TCU didn’t do a lot for me directly (except that, when my job went from non-union to union in compliance with the terms of the contract, my salary went from eight grand to twelve grand because it had to be aligned with pay scales of equivalent jobs).
What TCU did happened 30 and 40 and 50 years earlier (then it was BRAC), when it fought for recognition so that it could represent employees in contract negotiations.
I used to know a man who was one of the founders of the UTU. He could tell stories of having been shot at during the ’30s for his union activities (he was also one of the finest and most honorable men I have ever known).
American management had as much integrity then as it has now.
Now we look around us and see what happens to working persons when there is no one to represent them.
Robert Reich:
At the center of this virtuous circle were unions. In 1955, more than a third of working Americans belonged to one. Unions gave them the bargaining leverage they needed to get the paychecks that kept the economy going. So many Americans were unionized that wage agreements spilled over to nonunionized workplaces as well. Employers knew they had to match union wages to compete for workers and to recruit the best ones.
Fast forward to a new century. Now, fewer than 8% of private-sector workers are unionized. Corporate opponents argue that Americans no longer want unions. But public opinion surveys, such as a comprehensive poll that Peter D. Hart Research Associates conducted in 2006, suggest that a majority of workers would like to have a union to bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions. So there must be some other reason for this dramatic decline. But put that question aside for a moment. One point is clear: Smaller numbers of unionized workers mean less bargaining power, and less bargaining power results in lower wages.
It’s no wonder middle-class incomes were dropping even before the recession. As our economy grew between 2001 and the start of 2007, most Americans didn’t share in the prosperity. By the time the recession began last year, according to an Economic Policy Institute study, the median income of households headed by those under age 65 was below what it was in 2000.Typical families kept buying only by going into debt. This was possible as long as the housing bubble expanded. Home-equity loans and refinancing made up for declining paychecks.
One More Time: The Internet is a Public Place: Appellate Division 0
In California, a Christian school wins an appeal affirming its right to expel students for homosexuality.
The case is troubling, not least because there was no evidence of homosexual behavior, except for “my word against your word” claims.
Bushonomics: The Hangover 0
Once again, it wasn’t the persons taking out the mortgages. It was the banks and mortgage companies issuing them.
And they didn’t get busted because there were not enough government bureaucrats FBI agents to investigate the crimes.
Now we are all busted.
The problem, according to the two FBI retirees and several other current and former bureau colleagues, is that the bureau was stretched so thin that no one noticed when those lenders began packaging bad mortgages into bad securities.
“We knew that the mortgage-brokerage industry was corrupt,” the first of the retired FBI officials told the Seattle P-I. “Where we would have gotten a sense of what was really going on was the point where the mortgage was sold knowing that it was a piece of dung and it would be turned into a security. But the agents with the expertise had been diverted to counterterrorism.”
Via Raw Story.
Judge. Not. 0
Note that the mopes have copped a plea and promised restitution.
What restitution is there for persons incarcerated for personal profit?
(They are since claiming the plea bargains are “conditional.” Apparently that means they reserve the right to renounce them if they decide they can get off in a trial. My intensive study of Law and Order reruns leads me to think that the prosecutors won’t think much of that.)
President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Judge Michael T. Conahan agreed to a plea deal that would send them to prison for seven years, according to an agreement filed in federal court Monday.
The judges allegedly concealed $2.6 million in payments from one of the owners of the centers and an unnamed person, authorities said. At the same time, the judges also worked to ensure that the facilities reaped millions of dollars in business by sending them a steady number of juveniles.
The judges also agreed to plead to tax fraud. Both have stepped down, have agreed to be disbarred and will pay restitution, according to prosecutors.
The Free Hand of the Market 0
Republican economic theory at work:
The Republican theory that there is something intrinsically moral about combining greed, riches, and lack of accountability, . . . oh, well.
Republicanism is bankrupt.
Thanks to it, so are the rest of us.
Aside: Delaware Liberal has a quotation from Adam Smith that Republicans don’t want you to see.
Snow 2
Sleet on top of snow.
Even the biggest dog (50 pounds) is walking on top of the crust. Looks like almost every school in Delaware is closed.
Supposed to be 40 degrees and rain by noon.
Addendum:
Already turning to rain.
DelLib has a fun discussion of Delawareans’ screwy reactions to the white stuff.
Coleman Stoved 0
Fact Check dot org looks at Minnesota. Follow the link for the full analysis:
Unlike many right-leaning blogs and commentators, Coleman makes no claim of partisan funny business by the five members of the Canvassing Board, which has only one clearly identified Democrat. Coleman’s lawyer once praised the panel’s makeup, in fact.
Coleman’s appeal challenging the board’s certification, which a three-judge panel began hearing Jan. 26, lays out his theory: “Not every valid vote has been counted, and some have been counted twice.” Coleman raises several issues, among them: duplicate ballots, “missing” ballots, “improperly” rejected absentee ballots and discrepancies in rulings made on ballots concerning voter intent.
The outcome of this squeaky-close race now rests with the courts. But even if Coleman wins on all points it’s far from certain that he would gain enough votes to change the outcome. When the Canvassing Board was forced to count some disputed absentee ballots, for example, it was Franken who won a majority of them. Now Coleman wants even more rejected absentee ballots opened and counted, but nobody can say if he would get a higher percentage of those, or if he would just see Franken’s margin increase.
“So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye” 0
TerranceDC sums it up.
Today’s Deep Thought 0
from Jack Handey, over there, on the sidebar
———————————————>
is too chillingly true to be allowed to just scroll away:
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.
“Tear Down This Myth” 0
Buy the book.
Mr. Bunch starts with a description of the state of the Reagan Myth today (along with a few jarring facts showing how it deviates from anything approaching in any remote way truth, history, or the American Way.)
He then journeys into truth and history. (With truth and history, we can find the American Way.)
(Full disclosure: I haven’t finished the book yet. But this story needs to be told. Those who believe distorted history create a distorted present.)
Also posted at the Great Orange Satan.
Return of Beyond the Palin 0
This is an example of someone who believes her own press releases.
It reminds me of when Buffalo Bob visited my campus during his short revival of popularity.
He visited during midterms.
In the words of one of my friends, “Dozens thronged the stage. Autograph hunters by the twos and threes stormed the stage door.”
Wailin’ Palin is going to be surprised at how far the public, except for the nutcase fringe deadenders, are so much just so over her.
H/T Karen for the link.
