March, 2011 archive
Dustbiters 0
Gosh.
Just when I was starting to think the FDIC had run out of banks to close in honor of the integrity and acumen of our responsible fiscals, they find another one:
“Going to War Used To Be a Serious Deal . . . .” 0
I think this airs the issues as fairly as five minutes could allow.
SEC Sued for Negligence 0
No doubt the government will invoke sovereign impunity immunity:
The investors, in a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court in Dallas, said regulators should have investigated Stanford earlier and detected what the agency later concluded was a “massive” Ponzi scheme.
Oddity Dawning 0
In the Guardian, Charlotte Higgins examines theories why the assault in Libya was named “Odyssey Dawn.”
My favorite:
Aside:
This does seem to be an apt description of the war in Afghanistan.
Bonus Babies 0
Roger Lowenstein discusses the robber barons. A nugget:
In the coming proxy season, you will see executives getting huge raises and justifying it on the basis that their stocks and profits are up. But a CEO’s impact is felt over many years — not just one. A single up year doesn’t warrant a big bonus if the longer-term performance was mediocre. Nor is simply riding a stock down and then up again cause for celebration. When a batter in baseball slumps to .200, he doesn’t deserve a bonus for getting his average back to .250.
Stray Thought, Creationism Dept. 2
Someone who must deny science to protect his or her faith has not faith.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Bob Cesca sums it up:
Trying to unscramble their (Republican–ed.) logic is a wild goose chase.
The president could observe that the sky is blue, and the Republicans would reply, “Nuh-uh! Commie!” Then, if the president responds by conceding, “Well, they’re partly right, the sky can be several colors depending on the time of day,” they’d reply, “No no no!!! The sky is only blue! Why does Obama hate America?!” There’s nothing there. It’s just the opposite.
Triangulation 0
Harold Meyerson commemorates the Triangle Shirtwaist fire: the factory owner’s resistance to workers’ demands for safer working conditions, the staircases locked to keep workers in, the fire escape that collapsed for lack of maintenance, the workers jumping to their deaths to escape the flames . . .
. . . and the reaction of business owners, who considered workers disposable, to the minimal safety regulations that followed (emphasis added):
Such complaints, of course, are with us still. We hear them from mine operators after fatal explosions, from bankers after they’ve crashed the economy, from energy moguls after their rig explodes or their plant starts leaking radiation. We hear them from politicians who take their money. We hear them from Republican members of Congress and from some Democrats, too. A century after Triangle, greed encased in libertarianism remains a fixture of — and danger to — American life.
QOTD 0
Frederick Douglass:
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Afterthought:
As long as you don’t have to pay teachers a living wage.
