2009 archive
Bushonomics: Nowhere To Go, Nothing To Do 0
Speaks for itself.
As a proportion of the work force, the tally of unemployment benefit recipients is the highest since August 1983, a department analyst said.
Icey Dicey 0
My brother gave me a cane for Christmas.
No, not because he thinks I’m decrepit. Though he probably does, because I am.
Because he knew I enjoy making useful things of wood and would admire the quality of the woodwork. It’s gorgeous. (Really, follow the link and look at the samples. I think the one he selected is number five.)
I needed it today.
The rain that was forecast to follow the snow yesterday never got beyond a drizzle, so it did not wash away the snow. When the temperature dropped below freezing over night, it just added a nice little one-inch layer of ice on top.
Then, when the temperature nudged above freezing in the morning, a silly little millimeter of water formed on top of the ice.
I had nature’s own Slip ‘n Slide for a front yard.
I needed the cane to walk down the little hill (about a four-foot drop) between my house and the street without falling on my–er, never mind.
(I have another cane that is more functional. Unscrew the handle and it holds five shots of whatever you want to put in the little test tube thingees. I recommend whiskey. It never goes bad. Great for Independence Day fireworks shows.)
Sole Provider 0
Busted Browns:
Now the bizarre attack has spawned a real life work of art.
A sofa-sized statue of the shoe was unveiled Thursday in Tikrit, the hometown of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Via Noz.
Continuing Education 6
A local business association is running a seminar about how to be a better CEO.
Got any suggestions as to who should attend?
Scared to Death 1
Felony murder charges.
There’s no evidence Whitfield ever touched 79-year-old Mary Parnell. Authorities say he even told the grandmother of five he didn’t want to hurt her, directing her to sit in a chair in her bedroom. But investigators have no doubt he terrified her so much that she died of a heart attack.
Now Whitfield, a 20-year-old with no prior criminal record, is charged with first-degree murder, a rare defendant accused of literally scaring a person to death.
Swampwater 0
Draining the swamp.
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.