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Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Double-Dip Recession? How Our Dysfunctional Political Class Has Made Another Grueling Collapse Far Likelier


Just a few short months ago, few analysts would say publicly that the American economy was likely to slide into another grueling period of recession. That's changed.

August 9, 2011

The single bright spot in this anemic “recovery” had been steadily rising stock prices. Although the market staged a modest rally on Tuesday, news of the debt ceiling deal was followed by a massive sell-off in stocks – the S&P 500 saw its biggest one-day drop in more than a year the day the deal was announced. After losing $14 trillion in household wealth in the crash, Americans' nest eggs had rebounded to some degree, but whether their 401(K)s and investment accounts hold their value in the coming months remains to be seen.

The outlook for the economy is extraordinarily bleak. But we've pulled ourselves out of deep recessions before. What's different now is the profound, Tea-Party stained dysfunction plaguing our political class. As I wrote recently, if the economy does end up contracting in the near future, it will be a recession driven by the “age of austerity” embraced by Washington – and the contractionary policies it has ushered in.

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Michele Bachmann Was Inspired By My Dad and His Christian Reconstructionist Friends -- Here's Why That's Terrifying

Photo Credit: AFP

Bachmann's radical right-wing influences include the most extremist figures in the history of the religious right. READ MORE

BillO: Only Far Left Zealots Will Blame Tea Party For Economic Chaos


Bill O'Reilly is smoking some strong stuff today. His whole Talking Points Memo segment was full of magic. Black, ugly magic. Here are the highlights of his seven minute economic acid trip with some reality checkpoints along the way:

Posted: 09 Aug 2011 07:30 PM PDT

* Standard & Poor's downgrade basically says there is no confidence in the federal government's management of the economy. While that's true, they were a little more specific than that. This morning's pre-dawn (west coast time) conference call with them had a few more details. I was listening. Evidently BillO wasn't. Key (and major) point: S&P does not believe Bush Tax Cuts will expire. Clearly that is not the fault of the "federal government." It is the fault of the Republicans.

# The Democratic Party will not admit that its big spending agenda has driven the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Again, see point number one. This is not a spending problem. It's a revenue problem. Period.
# Only far-left zealots are going to buy that the tea party is the cause of the economic chaos. Wow. That's some strong stuff there. Let's first correct the record. The tea party IS the Republican Party. There is no difference. They are one and the same. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's move on to point number two. Polls and people. As our own Jon Perr clearly demonstrates, it is entirely the Republican Party aka the tea party's doing. Entirely.

# The Democratic Party will not admit that its big spending agenda has driven the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Again, see point number one. This is not a spending problem. It's a revenue problem. Period.

# Only far-left zealots are going to buy that the tea party is the cause of the economic chaos. Wow. That's some strong stuff there. Let's first correct the record. The tea party IS the Republican Party. There is no difference. They are one and the same. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's move on to point number two. Polls and people. As our own Jon Perr clearly demonstrates, it is entirely the Republican Party aka the tea party's doing. Entirely.

But just in case there is still doubt, let's have a look at Michele Bachmann, presidential candidate and chairwoman of the Congressional "tea party" caucus, saying that she would not, under any circumstances raise the debt ceiling and would welcome a default, a talking point echoed by every Fox talker on the planet, including Neil Cavuto.

Of course, now that we have not defaulted but Republican intransigence has caused a credit downgrade, it's all President Obama's fault.

But you know, numbers don't lie. And unless Republicans have suddenly morphed into a bunch of far-left zealots, BillO is just wrong, because a majority of Republicans also believe revenues must be part of deficit reduction, and without those revenues, there's chaos.

*

So there you go. There's TeaPublicans and left-wing zealots with nothing in between.
* We don't have any money for massive government spending projects. I once again refer readers to the first bullet point. There isn't money because there isn't revenues. Raising revenues fixes that.
* Americans are largely furious, because we have no control over our own economic futures due to Washington failing us. I will speak for me and those around me on this one. I am largely furious, because Republicans do not care if I live, die, have a roof over my head, have a job, or if my children get an education. So yeah. I'm pretty furious but it has nothing to do with "Washington failing us." It has everything to do with a group of oligarchs deciding they do not care to share their wealth and their chosen handmaidens carrying out those wishes.
* Talking Points did not believe that U.S. credit would be downgraded and two big institutions have held the AAA rating. And this matters, why? Who gives a rip what BillO thinks? Well, other than Fox viewers, of course. What does that blowhard's opinion have to do with anything?

What I find most disturbing about Bill O'Reilly's magical acid trip is not that he lies. He always lies. No, what's most disturbing is that he is simply summarizing Fox News' meme o' the day, which is that Republicans are not the problem. Washington is.

As if there is some weird gradient of separation between the whackjobs who say things on their network and the ones in Congress casting votes.

Murdoch accused of operating illegal US air force


By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in SPB, 5th August 2011 10:09 GMT

Rupert Murdoch may soon have his front door kicked in by the US's Federal Aviation Administration, amid accusations that News Corporation has been operating an illegal air force.

According to this report down at Forbes,

the media magnate's fondleslab-friendly e-rag The Daily is flying a md4-1000 microdrone (pictured),
which back in May captured some aerial footage of storm-wracked Alabama.
Nice vid, but The Daily may be in breach of FAA regs regarding "operations of unmanned aircraft in the National Airspace System"

As Forbes notes, the FAA requires wannabe drone pilots to have an airworthiness certificate for their "Unmanned Aircraft System" (UAS) and an "experimental certificate" which limits them to "research and development, marketing surveys, or crew training".

The FAA notes: "UAS issued experimental certificates may not be used for compensation or hire."

The FAA's Les Dorr told Forbes: "Currently, 18 of those experimental certificates are active. An experimental certificate allows the holder to do tests, training and demos but not for-hire operations. Ops also must be conducted away from populated areas."

He later added: "We are examining The Daily's use of a small unmanned aircraft to see if it was in accordance with FAA policies."

The md4-1000 has a ceiling of 1,000 metres, and can operate within a radius of 1,000 metres (3,280 feet) via radio control for up to 70 minutes. Its maximum payload is 1,200g (2.64lb), meaning it can easily lift a camera and an electronics package such as that carried by the Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform aircraft, aka WASP

The WASP's compact computer may of particular interest to News Corporation since it is capable of sniffing Wi-Fi networks and intercepting mobile phone calls

Read more:

# Rupert Murdoch

# News Corporation

# Faa

# The Daily

Microdrone

Austerity: The Wrong Prescription




Carl Gibson writes: "Our economy is on life support, barely holding on while jobs continue their flight overseas. Foreclosures and fuel prices are rising almost as fast as the profit margins of big banks and big oil. Despite all of this, there is still no real economic prescription offered by Republicans and corporate Democrats to heal our economy and get people working again. Instead of 'compromising' with the doctors who want to pull the plug on us, America must demand new doctors who are actually interested in curing the disease."
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

About the economy and more...

As much as politicians and leadership want -- that the people should be able to
continuously swallow bs and remain unified and peaceful -- there are as many
reasons why that cannot happen, as their are people on the planet.
I know!~~The market pundits can't tell the truth, because that risks creating
"self fulfilling prophecy"~~But the corollary of which is: "The people must be
led like sheep to the slaughter, because there just isn't another way to
govern on their behalf!" In fact that's been your republican/conservative
pro-offer, resoundingly seconded by Elisa Rosenbaum, the fictional name
of the person who wrote the books that the teaparty want to govern by.
Since when has a scholarly paper or tomb been written under a pseudonym?
Sold as a fiction, but picked up as a guiding light for a nation? Doesn't
the question then become; "Has America lost it's mind?" The answer to which
is: "Of course we have!" We are no longer concerned that the people who
raided the national treasury, have packed up the money and left to live out
their days on the beaches! Instead we look into our pockets to see what we
can contribute to replace the stolen money! How courageously nice of us all, eh?

Followed any history of the world lately? Well, paleontologist have been
discovering that, societies that took care of their young, infirm and aged,
did a better job of surviving and prospering, than societies that did not!~~And they were talking about Dinosaurs! Difficult then, to imagine why,
a race of people able to determine that E-MC² is unable to figure out that
the youth, the infirm and the elderly, all make a very huge contribution
to the ability of the race to survive. As in "How much would you pay for
that?" --Randian discipline anyone? But I jest (if bitterly so)!

Up from the primordial ooze, species have sought the advantages of organization.
But with the advantages of organization -- remember: "every action has an
equal and opposite reaction?" -- there come disadvantages as well. For one,
individualism must be curtailed and two, organizations require leadership.
The task with forming more modernized governments, has been one of balancing,
how much individualism has to be surrendered, to obtain the benefits of
organization. As well as how much power should leadership have, to manage
the affairs of our organizational efforts~~To little and we have anarchy,
to much and we have dictatorship.

We have had dictatorships over time, most especially when, we note, that the
needs of the people for governance were few. However, as the economic facilities
that support larger populations grew, the needs of the people for governance,
instead of mere "rule", also grew. "Governance" was needed to set the mark
of inter-organizational operations and preserve consumer confidence in the
market place, making larger scaled operations and efforts possible. Societies
needed governance to keep the peace, that made the "loftier" pursuits of
exotic and arcane learning possible. Clearly today's governing is failing us
at that!

Here's a read of interest: Welfare

Next up will be the "maintenance of the force of law", so stay tuned!

Bachmann: Tea Party Queen

Why Michele Bachmann is riding high going into Iowa.
Michelle Bachmann on the Campaign trail, Chris Buck for Newsweek

Barreling past Iowa’s iconic cornfields aboard a blue campaign bus, Michele Bachmann tries to explain the uncanny political force that has catapulted her from a backbencher in Washington to a leading contender on the presidential trail. She has just finished electrifying a crowd in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, with a folksy assault on a bloated federal government that she and her Tea Party compatriots routinely vow to dismantle. “Obamacare” will be repealed in a Bachmann administration, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota vows. G-men won’t tell you what lightbulbs you can use, either. And more of your hard-earned money will end up in your pocketbooks, not on the ledgers of mindless bureaucrats.
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Now there's the rub, after ten long years, she sat there and said nothing
while Americas wealth was squandered away. Tax cuts and stimulus packages
did nothing to bring back jobs, but did tend to quiet the opposition with
talking points: "let's give the tax cuts time to work", "Let's give the
stimulus checks time to work", ad nauseum. All the while, in the background,
deregulation was doing it's dirty work. Allowing unregulated lending
to create paper profits and commissions and fees, for anyone unscrupulous
enough to engage in bad practices, yada, yada, yada. Now that the
damage is done and people have no money, she steps forward with the
promise to let you keep, the money you no longer have, in your pocket!

Okay, let me stop here for coffee, then I'll be back with another post!
Obwon