First Looks category archive

More possible toxic “assets,” resulting from the “free hand of the market’s” allegiance to greed over moral conduct (emphasis added):

Kentucky stopped distributing FEMA emergency meal kits for victims of last week’s ice storm Thursday after authorities warned that the meals may include packets of peanut butter recalled because of possible salmonella.

The kits were shipped to Arkansas and Kentucky to help feed some of the 1.3 million people left without power for days at the height of last week’s ice storm. No illnesses have been reported, but several people consumed the suspect plastic packets of peanut butter.

Note that there is no evidence that the products in question are dangerous.

It could be that dangerous food is being removed from circulation (a good thing) or that good food is being wasted (a very bad thing).

Once again, we see moral bankruptcy of Republican Economic Theory: the “free hand of the market” is amoral and does immoral things if left unwatched.

Buy the book.

John Cole:

Tax cuts are, to Republicans, secular creationism.

Since Republicans know that wealth equals virtue, giving the wealthy more than they deserved simply makes them more virtuous. Doesn’t it?

Harvard econ Prof. Elizabeth Warren, testifying before a Senate Banking committee hearing underway now to judge the performance of the $700 billion bailout, said that the Treasury overpaid by $78 billion in its first round of investments into troubled banks.

Warren said that Treasury spent $254 billion to purchase assets whose actual value was only $176 billion, “a shortfall of about $78 billion,” she said.

Warren said Treasury failed to “price for risk,” and used a metaphor to explain: It’s as if Treasury was looking at 10 paintings and promised to pay $1 million for each, even though “one is a Picasso, one is a Rembrandt” and the other eight are not.

H/T Karen for the link.

Mr. Obama is learning that it is impossible to compromise with persons unwilling to compromise.

Digby analizes.

Via Eschaton.

. . . John Cole said it so I didn’t have to figure out how to say it.

Not much snow, but it was quite pretty in the sun:

More Pix below the Fold

Libretto: George W. Bush. Music: Henry Hey.

Via Coyote’s Byte.

Tonight, Triumph Brewing Company, two blocks east of the Old Customs House on Chestnut (That’s 117 Chestnut), Philadelphia, Pa., 6 p., followed by an author talk at 8 p.

Find out more down the hall and to the left at Mithras’s place.

I go to DL because it’s fun. Driving to and from Philly in bad weather on the Main Street of the East Coast is not fun. It looks the one might cancel out the other yet again.

The issue isn’t accumulation.

The issue is mixing bad driving conditions with idiots.

As the old saying goes,

If you try to make something idiot-proof, God will just build a better idiot.

Inquiring minds want to know.

All joking aside, if these rumors are true, it’s insubordination. And CENTCOM has let the press releases go to its head.

Then, again, the source is questionable and the source’s “about” page doesn’t really have any about.

Wingnuts make stuff up because the truth is not on their side.

Annette John-Hall in today’s local rag:

From Bill Cosby’s rants to pastors’ pulpits, we hear it all the time – the public tongue-lashing of black men. Nothing more than sperm donors, they’re told. You know the definition of irresponsibility? There’s a picture with your name right next to it.

Yet at the same time, we wink and nod at the masters of the universe, those corporate CEOs who refuse to change their greedy behavior – behavior we’re all paying for.

Who has harmed more people?

But where will the Mallies go?

Aside: I’ve been to the Mall of the Americas. It gets its high store count by cheating. It has–or had at the time I visited–two Radio Shacks on two different levels, and counted them both.

I have shot the trouble and reactivated the WordPress Mobile Plugin.

Jon Swift, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, and Blue Girl are leading the charge to this year’s Blogroll Amnesty Day.

Mr. Swift explained the requirements for participation (post linked above) as follows:

Celebrating Blogroll Amnesty Day is easy. You don’t have to put up a tree or a poll or buy candy or flowers, wrap presents or risk your life playing with dangerous fireworks. All you have to do is link to some smaller blogs that you like or celebrate the idea of linking or blogrolling in any way you see fit.

Mr. Kangaroo (linked above) encourages inclusion:

tho we are happy to point out, one need not link exclusively to progressive/liberal blogs. we highly encourage you to find a sensible rightist blog and link thereto. (ha! that’ll keep ya busy for the weekend!)

Ms. Girl (linked above) says, “No excuses.”

Small and newbie bloggers please be aware of the ironclad rule that you are not allowed to make “hey no blog is as small as mine” jokes regarding Blogroll Amnesty Day. The rule is, straight from the queen of the indy blogs herself (ahem), that you are not allowed to complain or mention your blog’s low traffic until you have been posting daily for a year. If you’re little, link other blogs that are new or still growing their audience, and encourage them to practice their craft daily.

To join them in the celebration, I will add at least five new blogs to my blogroll over the next three days. (I added two today, but I’ll not count them.) I’ll also figure out some way to make them stand out without using the acronym for Blogroll Amnesty Day. (Adding a site to the blogroll and labelling it B. A. D. would probably defeat the purpose.)

I won’t necessarily know whether they are bigger or smaller than I, because, frankly, I decided a long time ago not to worry about “hits” all that much, but I will promise that they will be off the main highway and down the side streets of the Inner Tubes.

Addendum, the Next Evening:

Thanks to the Facebook app, “Networked Blogs” (see the sidebar on the main page), I’ve found a bunch of neat blogs.

From Balloon Juice (emphasis added).

(W)e would be so much better off if the Republicans just took a little breather, got themselves pulled together and composed, and stopped being the crazy uncle at the holiday dinner ranting insanely about everything. These guys need to get their act together and figure out that the “loyal” in loyal opposition is fealty to the country first, and not the party.

Ya think?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Nah.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Too much invested in fantasy.

Draining the swamp.

It is really, really difficult to disagree with this.

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:

Go back about 50 years, when America’s middle class was expanding and the economy was soaring. Paychecks were big enough to allow us to buy all the goods and services we produced. It was a virtuous circle. Good pay meant more purchases, and more purchases meant more jobs.

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.