"When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead"

"When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead"
click pic to reminisce

December Jeopardy! Challenge  

Posted by howard in nyc

Thursday 12/1
Category: HIT SONGS
Clue:  Inspired by a Meher Baba saying, this 1980s Grammy winner was the first a cappella recording to top the Billboard 100

Answer:  What is Don't Worry, Be Happy ?

Friday 12/2
Category:  WORD ORIGINS
Clue: This word for a friend comes from the Latin for "with whom you would eat bread"

Answer:  What is "companion" ?


Monday 12/5
Category:  PLAYWRIGHTS
Clue:  For a 1953 play, he spent time in Salem doing research at the courthouse and at the witch house

Answer:  Who was Arthur Miller  ?


Tuesday 12/6
U.S. STRUCTURES
Clue:  On Dec. 6, 1884 this was capped with a 100oz., 9-inch-high pyramid shaped block of aluminum, a metal that was rare at the time

Answer:  What is the Washington Monument?

Wednesday 12/7
Category:  SPORTING EVENTS
Clue: The cup presented since 1887 to the man who wins this is inscribed "Single Handed Champion of the World"

Answer:  What is Wimbledon ?

Thursday 12/8
Category:  DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE SIGNERS
Clue:  The only Roman Catholic signer represented this state
Answer:  Where is Maryland  ?

Friday 12/9
Category:  "FIRST" PHRASES
Clue:  The earliest known use of this term was in an Indianapolis Star opinion piece of September 20, 1914

Answer:  What is the "First World War" ?

Monday 12/12
Category:BILLBOARD TOP 40
Clue: Prviously done by the Trapp Family, this song wbout an instrumentalist was a Top 40 hit every December from 1958 to 1962
Answer:  What is The Little Drummer Boy ?

Tuesday 12/13
Category:  20th CENTURY LITERATURE
Clue:A 50th anniversary edition of this fictionalized biography featured the painting seen here on its cover











Answer:  What is Lust for Life  ?  i saw the movie, didn't even know it was a book.


Wednesday 12/14
Category:  POPULAR BABY NAMES
Clue:  Character names in a book & movie series, the top names for 2009 & 2010 were Isabella for girls & this biblical one for boys

Answer:  What is Jacob ?

Thursday 12/15
Category:  AMERICAN AUTHORS
Clue: He was born in NYC on April 3, 1783, toward the end of the Revolutionary War, & named for one of the war's heroes

Answer:  Who was Washington Irving?  not nathaniel hawthorne.

Friday 12/16
Category:  WORD HISTORY
Clue:  A Roman legal term for a debtor sentenced to servitude is the origin of this term for a slave to a vice

Answer:  What is an "addict"  ?

Monday 12/19
Category:  FAMOUS BUILDINGS
Clue: Recent evidence suggests that, despite its name, this 1599 building was a 20-sided icosagon

Answer:  What is the Globe Theater?

Tuesday 12/20
Category:  POETS
Clue:  While north of his homeland, he was inspired to write perhaps his greatest work, "Alturas de Macchu Picchu"

Answer:  Who is Pablo Neruda ?

Wednesday 12/21
Category:   The NFL
Clue: This team that joined the NFL in the mid-1970s is the only one whose name starts with the same 3 letters as its city's name

Answer:  What are the Seattle Seahawks  ?


Thursday 12/22
Category:  ISLANDS
Clue: 1 of the 2 islands exceeding 100 million; each one is part of an asian country

Answer:  What are Honshu (Japan) or Java (Indonesia)  ?


Friday 12/23
Category:  POLITICAL WORDS
Clue:  16th century British farmers notching their livestock for identification led to this term for an item set aside for a specific purpose

Answer:  What is an 'earmark'  ?


Monday 12/26
Category:  JOLLY OLD ENGLAND
Clue:  Queen Anne liked the Marquess of Normanby, gave him permission to build a huge home in London and made him Duke of this

Answer:  What is the Duke of Buckingham?

Tuesday 12/27
Category:  PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATIONS
Clue:  His second inauguration marked the first time that women officially participated in the inaugural parade

Answer:  Who is Woodrow Wilson?
 dumbass clue.  what the hell does 'officially participated' mean?  what if clara barton marched in march 1865? why not just say the first inauguration after female suffrage was embraced by the sitting president?  dumbass. but i got it anyway.

Wednesday 12/28
Category:  BUSINESS HISTORY
Clue: Crosby, Sinatra & Hope starred in the October 13, 1957 CBS-TV special that launched this short-lived product

Answer:  What is the Edsel Automobile  ?


Thursday 12/29
Category:  CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WRITERS
Clue: Concluding a 4-book series, his 2004 novel "Folly and Glory" features Kit Carson, William Clark & Jim Bowie

Answer:  Who is Larry McMurtry ?

Friday 12/30
Category:  ROCK ICONS
Clue:  While he's had 12 top 10 hits on billboard, including 7 from a 1984 album, he;s never had a no. 1 single

Answer:  Who is Bruce Springsteen ?



Ha-Ha! Charade You Are  

Posted by howard in nyc

Supercommittee hard at work

Some days you're the boot
And some days you're the can.

A polite reminder to my friends and correspondents who last summer insisted that the budget negotiations and debt ceiling 'crisis' was extraordinarily important.  And that I was misguided in ignoring the drama, characterizing the political posturing of Obama and the congress to be a bad joke and not worthy of my attention.
 You can guess what I am thinking today.  Rest assured, I am not so rude as to say it outloud.




It was easy for me to understand this at the time, last summer.  Because they are pig men and women.  They know nothing else, than to act in their own selfish interest.  To serve banks.  Not us.

Big Man
Pig Man
Ha Ha!
Charade you Are!

And It's One-Two-Three-What are we fighting For?  

Posted by howard in nyc

I kinda miss the good ol' days when we fought and died for oil.

Walk of Shame  

Posted by howard in nyc in , , ,

 Video above:  Hundreds of UCD students silently look on, as Chancellor Katehi ends her occupation of the small classroom building on campus near The Silo



An Open Email to Linda P. B. Katehi, PhD (or EngD?  sorry, i'm not sure)
Chancellor, University of California, Davis

Dear Dr. Katehi:

Your public statement issued Sunday morning November 20, 2011 included the following sentences:

"I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident. However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again."

Here are three simple, essential actions you can take immediately, that are the best possible insurance that this indeed does not happen again.

1) Fire the Chief of UC Davis Police Annette Spicuzza.  Immediately.  For cause.
 
2) Telephone the Yolo County District Attorney, Jeff Reisig.  Ask that he immediately investigate the battery attack with chemicals upon a dozen of your students.  Strike that 'ask'.  Insist.  Demand.  Promise full cooperation from your office, from the UC Davis police department, and promise that his investigation will not be interfered with nor obstructed.

3) Resign.  So that you will never again be able to cause this to happen.

If this seems too much, that's ok.  Just skip to #3. 

That is the single action that is needed from you to best insure this will never happen again.  The truth of this is obvious to everyone but you.

You will serve the university better by submitting your resignation than by forcing Governor Brown and the citizens of California to fire you.  Either way, you are finished as Chancellor.  You are going to leave, very soon.  Unlike your actions on Friday, you can today do the right thing.

I am gratified you have accepted full responsibility for the incident.  I am further gratified by your pledge to take action.  Unfortunately, that responsibility now requires that you to resign your position. 

Sincerely

Howard in New York
UC Davis student, 1974-1977
Member of Davis, California Community, 1967-present
Aggie for Life.

decaying into a police state  

Posted by howard in nyc in ,

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.
~George Orwell, 1984

 
All photos courtesy of www.adbusters.org
The process is sadly well under way.  And I am throwing in the towel on the American people for ushering in the police state.  I’m not going to bother cataloging all the recent behavior, authoritative use of violence, lying rhetoric, or even to define what is a police state.  The line of events, from the patriot acts, the department of homeland security, the groping of children and senior citizens at airports, the wiretaps, rendition and torture, the expansion of wars and assassinations, up to the suppression of Occupation Wall Street protests, are part of the historic record.  As is the blatant serial betrayal and misuse of trust, granted the political leaders and perversely twisted against us, most obviously with wars and bailouts, as prequel to the inevitable misuse of trust in the police state the public had granted, and will have used against them down the future line.  No police state in history has ever acted otherwise, and the American one will not be the first.

A police state in the USA can only take hold with the acquiescence of the people.  That prerequisite has been met. Most recently reconfirmed with the acceptance of police violence in several cities, inflicted upon OWS protesters.  Acceptance being the absence of tens of thousands of citizens in the streets, demanding arrest and prosecution of the police officers who committed violence.  But like the bankers, mortgage brokers and other criminals, these have gone un-investigated and uncharged.  The number of American people demanding justice is miniscule.

My former comfortable conclusion that America could never become a police state did not rest on naiveté or swallowing myths from school days.  It rested on what I saw as I moved from youth into middle age; recurrent, consistent evidence of the American citizen's love of personal freedom and intolerance for encroachment upon that freedom.

For example, back when the Clintons were selling their health care run by the insurance industry scheme.  (Btw, where the Clintons failed, the insurance companies won.  They run the show completely, and pocket billions in profits each quarter.)  Anticipating developing technologies, the government planners hatched a plan for a health care information and coverage card.  It would be like a social security card; it would be your 'proof of insurance', provided by the government, and it would a few years later be able to carry all your essential medical history on this credit-card type document.

People hated it.  Overwhelmingly. So rapid and fierce the objection by the masses, the republican opposition didn't even have time to get in front of the issue for political points.

A couple of pundits recognized the reason this idea was so abhorrent to ordinary Americans.  They saw this would be a de-facto national identity card. Identity papers.  Something routinely carried and produced on demand by authorities in most western democracies.  But not the USA, dammit.

Deep in the gut of the typical American was a rejection of the concept of a national id card.  Despite the ubiquity of the social security number used for identification, how many people actually carry their card?  How often is the card itself demanded?

But that gut feeling has eroded.  Slowly, insidiously.  The zeitgeist of the American people is completely different than just a few years ago, regarding the equation of security and liberty.  (An equation, which as ben franklin promised, never ever balances.)  In the early stages of that change, I thought it impossible to go much further.  But further it did.

Things today are way fucking different.

People are cool with government wiretaps.  People are cool with any and all manner of anti-terrorist action.  Even torture.  People are cool with mass violence and death in the deserts above oil fields far from here.  And now, people are cool with mass numbers of riot police to quash peaceful protest, dissent and free speech.  For complete bullshit reasons (sanitation; curfews and time limits numbered in weeks; hurting small businesses and normal commerce; any other crap Bloomberg’s lawyers come up with).

The tolerance of stupid failed wars, so many historians and philosophers have told us, goes hand-in-glove with acceptance of decreased domestic rights.  Now we are seeing this linkage for ourselves.

Real men don't pull hair
We still enjoy a tremendous degree of personal freedom in the United States.  Setting aside the economic aspects of freedom, the necessity for some degree of economic security for personal freedom to have any meaning, we still have it damn good.  If you compare our liberty to that of the rest of the world, today or looking back in history.

But, our standard is our own history.  Our own recent history.  Most of the current government infringements on our free expression and movement are small and subtle.  But the direction is steady, and the movement is gaining momentum.  Not in a good way.  While the quantity of perceived freedom for the masses of Americans has eroded only slightly, even a hurricane announces itself with but a few raindrops and a moderate wind gust.

The riot-gear clad cops are dispatched not just for drug busts.  Not just for 'riots'.  But for small, peaceful protests.  Frequently for the purpose of intimidation, nothing more or less.  Airport security is engaged in behavior control, ham-handed enforcement of unquestioning obedience, having nothing to do with stopping a terrorist bomb.  Now, tactics of the powers-that-be include centrally planned suppression of the OWS movement. Possibly by the justice department/department of homeland security themselves

But the escalation of police and security acts against the populace is only the symptom.  The sickness is the acceptance of the creeping police state.  The people are cool with it, by and large.

There is exactly one force and one force alone that can stop or reverse the erosion of freedom by authorities.  The people.  The masses of people.  Because left to their own devices, those in power will always choose control over freedom.  And they have been left to their own devices too much for too long.

The suckers who still vote had no trouble re-electing all the clowns who extended the patriot act.  Even so-called 'tea party' candidates who liked the idea of government security powers, voted 'yes' and got returned to congress.  The percentage of people who are not troubled by squads of riot-gear clad thugs swinging batons on peaceful protesters.  That is what counts.  That is the one and only way the police state growing and festering in the United States of America can possibly continue.
If the American people allow it.

Well, the American people are doing far worse than passively allowing the police state to grow.  They are actively approving the suppression of OWS.  Not just a few Americans.  Millions.  Fucking millions.  Maybe even a majority.
Approving the use of riot cops.  Applauding.  Happy with the fact, while befuddled why anyone (like me,) would be disturbed, would think bulldozing the encampments are a big deal.

I never thought Americans would nod approvingly at the things that are commonplace today.  I don't understand why this change in the American psyche came about, even though I have closely and carefully watch it happen.  It makes me sad.

Yes. A fucking tank.  At an 'Occupy' protest.
I suppose comfort and freedom from troubling thoughts has become so necessary to my fellow citizens, that rampant consumer consumption wasn't enough to satisfy the need for comfort.  Order, routine and security from discomfort became more important than rights long ago taken for granted.  Quaint rights like freedom of assembly, of speech, of religion (if you are a Muslim in downtown new york and own a building), to carry a gun, to not be stopped and frisked, rights that people delusionally believe will only be infringed upon for 'other people'; the criminal, the 'terrorist', the political loon or extremist.  Rights people cannot imagine being denied for them.  Completely disconnected in their mind from a little feel-up at the airport, or having to show ID papers to walk down a particular street.

People are more infatuated with stomping on the rights of 'others' who are deemed undesirable, than they are in love with rights for everybody.  They think their personal rights are immune.

Heh.  They got a nasty surprise coming.

So many people wonder how the civilized, politically aware German population allowed the change in their society ushered in by the Nazis from 1933-'39.  Fuck, we Americans of 2011 are so much worse than the German people.  So much worse.  Empty of any common sense or insight regarding the freedom that is the lifeblood of our nation.

By 1933, Germany had suffered their humiliating defeat of 1918; economic privation as a result of the peace treaty; a crippling hyperinflation and currency failure in 1923; ten years of economic depression before The Great Depression even started. Year by year, things went from horrible to much worse; a decade of escalating political violence, deadly violence, on the streets of major cities, political assassinations numbering in the tens of thousands.  And that violence was not monopolized by the rising brown shirts; communists, socialists, monarchists, police forces, private militias, public militias were all shooting and killing one another in the streets.

Hard to blame a people drained by fifteen years of unemployment, economic depression, a failed money system, and blood literally running in the streets, that they were willing to trade a few freedoms in return for some long-denied security.

What’s our fucking excuse?

Traffic was backed up on one day for a big protest march?  Those dirty hippies have taken over one of a hundred parks in your city?  Shit, the cost of police overtime is at least a rational concern when your city is already borrowing to pay pensions and salaries and keep services operating.  And you can be forgiven asking the next question, 'are so many cops working overtime really needed to watch those OWS campers, after a few weeks of peacefully just sitting there'?

Exactly what are you getting in return for allowing (or cheering) the violent suppression of protest by riot cops?

Comfort.  Routine.  Not having your normal evening news entertainment 22 minutes punctuated with people saying and doing weird things and drumming.  That’s all.

Bad trade, America.  There hasn't even been a real riot.  A few broken windows in Oakland; one cop in NYC gets hit in the hand with a piece of glass, and three others are splashed in the face with vinegar.  That is it.  And crass attempts to crush dissent, completely illegally, in complete violation of the letter and the spirit of the bill of rights and hundreds of court rulings over the year, all cool.  No problem, in fact, I’m glad my mayor put things back to normal.

Heh.  The turning upside down of the rule of law in the USA had been just some people are immune to the law, and can steal billions. While the rest of us suffer irrational punishment for petty theft or possession of a joint.  Now, people completely in compliance with the law, and following police commands are arrested and charged.  Not just upside down, but completely twisted and distorted.  Of course a police captain is not charged with assault when he pepper-sprays two women doing exactly as they are told; but they are charged with resisting, disturbing, hell, they'll probably have to pay for the pepper spray.

Whether OWS fades away (I doubt it) or grows and thrives (I think likely for several months, but the suppressors will just ramp up their violence and bullshit) is not what I am talking about.  Irrelevant.

The quiet acceptance by millions of Americans (and active approval by millions more Americans) of the suppression of political dissent, with violence, has convinced me.  The decay into a police state is not gonna stop.  A done deal.  I’m crying 'uncle'; throwing in the fucking towel; invoking the mercy rule; no mas, por favor.

Hope he earned another green ribbon for this bit of detective work
It doesn't matter what your personal definition of a 'police state' may be.  A reasonable definition can be applied today, and has been by some friends and pundits.  Doesn’t matter.

Even if the economic catastrophe hits this Monday morning, and causes the slumbering masses of America to wake up and smell the reality, it is too late.  The mentality of the American people has already allowed the advancement on the road to a police state to go too far.   The trend toward sacrificing freedom for the (bullshit) promise of security can't be reversed or undone by anything short of millions of people in the street in opposition.  And those millions ain't gonna take to the streets until they are starving; and that battle will be unnecessarily more difficult and more bloody because we let the enemy arm themselves so well (on our dime).  And gave them ample time to practice.

Sure, I can still write this, without risking arrest and punishment today.  We ain't there yet by my definition.  But that dude who the other day said out loud what a Molotov cocktail can do to a crowded Macy’s store wouldn't have been arrested and punished for those exact words in the exact same context ten years ago.  A 2004 protest of a hundred thousand people in New York City against the Iraq war or the republican convention was met with less violence than an encampment of 200 people in 2011.  Shit has changed significantly, rapidly, and irreversibly.  Until people wake up.

And folks are still sound asleep.

November Jeopardy! Challenge  

Posted by howard in nyc

Monday 11/28
Category: 16th CENTURY NAMES
Clue: In 2010, 467 years after his death, this man at odds with The Church was reburied with honors at a Polish cathedral
Answer:  Who was Copernicus? 
 

Tuesday 11/29
Category: TOYS
Clue: Invented in 1943, this toy was flung over tree branches by soldiers in Vietnam & used as a makeshift radio antenna

Answer:  What is Slinky, it's Slinky, the wonderful marvelous toy? 

Wednesday 11/30
Category: ORGANIZATIONS
Clue:  On Nov. 17, 1871 Union vets dismayed by soldiers' lack of proficiency in one skill formed this organization

Answer:  What is the National Rifle Association ?  cold dead hands, bitches.


Monday 11/21
Category:  MOVIE CHARACTERS
Clue: 900 years old when he died, he spoke in OSV syntax, object-subject-verb

Answer:  Who is Yoda ? Stupid your argument is; the fuck shut up you must.
 

Tuesday 11/22
Category:  U.S. MONEY MATH
Clue:  Adding up the denominations of circulating bills with U.S. presidents on the front gives you this total
Answer:  What is $78 ? fucking bullshit.  the two dollar bill should not count.  1,2,5,20 and 50; $10 (hamilton) and $100 (franklin) were not presidents. 

Wednesday 11/23
Category:  AMERICAN WOMEN
Clue: Geraldine Doyle, who in 1942 took a job at a Michigan metal factory, helped inspire the look & job of this iconic character
Answer:  Who is 'Rosie the Riveter ?

Thursday 11/24
Category:  PSYCHOLOGY TERMS
Clue: This 2-word term has its origins in a hostage-taking that followed the botched 1973 Norrmalmstorg bank robbery

Answer:  What is the "Stockholm Syndrome"?

Friday 11/25
Category:  MODERN AMERICAN NOVELS
Clue: The title of this 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner comes from a Jonathan Swift line about how lesser minds unite to oppose genius

Answer:  What is A Confederacy of Dunces (by John Kennedy Toole)

Monday 11/14
Category: THE PRESIDENTIAL CABINET
Clue: 7 women have been the secretary of this, the most for any department in the president's cabinet
Answer:  What is Labor  ? 
 

Tuesday 11/15
Category: 19th CENTURY POETRY
Clue: He wrote, "He looked upon the garish day with such a wistful eye; The man had killed the thing he loved, & so he had to die"

Answer:  Who was Oscar Wilde  ? 

Wednesday 11/16
Category: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
Clue:  Still in existence, it began in 1688 in a British coffee shop popular with maritime folk; it soon got involved in their business
Answer:  What is 'Lloyds of London' ?

Thursday 11/17
Category: HISTORIC DOCUMENTS
Clue: It's the shorter, better known name of the document "United States - Vietnam Relations, 1945-1967"
Answer:  What are 'The Pentagon Papers' ?

Friday 11/18
Category:  ACTOR-DIRECTORS
Clue:   It's rare to get Oscar nominations for Best Director & Best Actor for the same film; he is 1 or the 2 who did it twice

Answer:  Who is (Clint Eastwood or Warren Beatty)?  Unforgiven/that stupid damn boxing movie, and Heaven Can Wait/Reds.


Monday 11/7
Category: FROM THE GREEK
Clue: The word for a song element you won't find in instrumentals comes from the name of this instrument
Answer:  What is the 'lyre' ? root of the word 'lyrics'
  


Tuesday 11/8
Category: 18th CENTURY AUTHORS
Clue: In a poem he named himself Cadenus, an anagram of decanus, or "Dean"
Answer:  Who was Jonathan Swift ? 

Wednesday 11/9
Category: FRENCH HISTORY
Clue:  She said, "I told my plans to no one. I was not killing a man, but a wild beast that was devouring the French people"
Answer:  Who was Charlotte Corday ? (the killer of Jean-Paul Marat, Jacobin leader of one of the nasty parts of the french revolution)

Thursday 11/10
Category: HOLLYWOOD HISTORY
Clue:  They were the first 2 sisters ever nominated for the same acting oscar in the same year
Answer:  Who were Joan Fontaine and Olivia DeHavilland? 

Friday 11/11
Category: BUSINESS
Clue:  A 2005 sale of 14,159,265 shares prompted the headline "Google Offers Shares, Seeks Global Piece of" this

Answer:  What is "Pi" ?  come on, what the fuck jeopardy?


i am marking myself wrong for spelling.  i guessed 'pie' because i couldn't make sense of the clue.  we can discuss if there is not an immediate consensus.




Tuesday 11/1
Category:  CHILDREN'S LIT
Clue:  This classic book begins, "The pretty little swiss town of Mayenfeld lies at the foot of a mountain range"

Answer:  What is "Heidi" ?  which is the swiss word for 'raiders score twice late to win'

Wednesday 11/2
Category:  WORLD CITIES
Clue: A member of the Hanseatic League, this city with a 4-letter name was once known as the "Paris of the Baltic"

Answer:  Where is Riga? (Latvia)


Thursday 11/3
Category:  COUNTRIES' HIGHEST PEAKS
Clue:  These 2 nations, one an island, have highest peaks with the same name; the also share a common European culture

Answer:  Where are Greece and Cyprus?


Friday 11/4
Category:  NOTABLE GROUPS
Clue:  Harpo Marx was among this group when it met in NYC's Rose Room for its final time, in 1943, & found there was nothing left to say

Answer:  What was the Algonquin Round Table ?

benzos don't kill people  

Posted by howard in nyc in ,

10/30/2011
21:08

earlier in the week, this story hit that ruth and bernie madoff actually did have some shame, for a few hours, and tried to end their sorry thieving fraudulent lives.  ate some ambien and valium.  shockingly, woke up the next morning.  i did not know why this was a big news story.

but, during the sunday football, the reason for this 'news' was made apparent.  cbs was pimping this week's 60 Minutes show.  jeez, who cares.

somehow, rich thieves never figured out the only way valium or ambien will kill you is if you gulp so many pills at once, a dozen or so find there way past your epiglottis to physically clog your windpipe.  and a big handful of tylenol is all you need to do the trick. shit, suicide is wasted on all the wrong people.

hey ruth.  you tried to kill yourself.  next time, try harder.

the system is broken. a lot broken.  

Posted by howard in nyc

10/8/2011
17:05

if you need a simple, focused message, you're welcome.


this simple, focused message that the folks downtown at Occupy Wall Street offer to the nation is clear and obvious.  except to the people who will not, or can not, accept either the message, or the reality.

and Occupy Wall Street is a success.  a smashing success.  after only three weeks.  sure, the success may be temporary.  but they are Winning-Duh!

the fact that the system is broken is now part of the conversation.  it was not a month ago.  now it is, on the tee vee, in the new york times, even occasionally on the murdoch (including the occupied wall street journal;   while the street proper is still safe from the mobs, for the moment they got into dey heads.)

that is a success without a single demand. or a list of demands.  i'm sorry, i missed that part of the revolutionary cookbook--that demands must be produced, err, on demand.  there was an old term from the 60s and before.  consciousness raising.  still counts. 

on the demand front, another way of looking at it i read earlier in the week.  when there is a single injustice--we'll have a single demand.  when there is a simple, uncomplicated injustice, we'll have a simple, uncomplicated demand.

see me; hear me; even mace me and arrest me; those are the demands of the day.  and the success--being seen, being heard.  that only took a matter of days.  well done, OWS.

like i said, it may be temporary.  very likely, it will be dust and memories by winter.  temporary success is not failure.  from small things mama, big things one day come.

enough about the messengers.  let me hammer the message yet again.

the system is broken.  a lot broken.  to the point of failure.  requiring massive overhaul, including replacement or rebuilding of many key components.  possibly requiring junking and replacement, which becomes more likely the longer the crippled system is driven w/o the necessary overhaul.

the political component of the system has failed; it no longer performs its democratic function.  Obama and his administration has functioned 100% in the best interests of the banks, the lobbyists, the huge corporations.  not one single action, regarding war, economy, health care policy, has failed to supply those interests with everything they demand, at the expense of the population at large.

we have three years of historic record to serve as proof of this claim.

the party or individual identity of the president has ceased to matter.  red/blue, democrat/republican makes zero difference in the day to day and year to year policies and actions of the federal government.

the finance industry component of the system has failed.  despite being given every support and every dollar they demanded after their failure was obvious to the world in 2008, they again are on the brink of an extinction event.  they cannot even maintain their stock prices, as boa, morgan and goldman shares tumble over the past year.

the larger economic component of the system has failed.  in our system, economic prosperity requires growth.  growth used to come from savings and investment; those inputs were replaced by debt.  debt (and credit) is by definition based on confidence--a reasonable expectation that the debt will be repaid.

when debt grows beyond a certain point, the confidence fails, and debt growth stops.  and economic growth, and prosperity, stops.

the problem appears to be how to replace/restore debt growth.  the problem in actuality is too much debt.  adding more debt only breaks the system more, compounds the failure.

all the efforts to feed the failed system serves only to foster more failure.  more "stimulus" only stimulates 1) more money in the pockets of the rich, the corporate and banking heads; 2) more jobs to china and higher unemployment here; 3) more debt that will never be repaid. (paraphrased/stolen from Jessé at his blog today, Jessé's Cafe Américain

the further myriad failures--education, health care delivery and profit taking, infrastructure, government bureaucracy--merely outcomes of and symptoms of the above component failures. 

simple, really.  the system, that we have all participated in and enjoyed our entire lives is broken.  really really badly broken.  no republican or democratic president or group of congressmen is going to fix it.  because all they will do is a tune up--change the oil, new spark plugs, maybe wheels and a coat of paint.  that is all they know how to do.

the bad news--that is the good news.  that only a small percentage of americans are willing or able to accept the fact that the system is severely crippled is grim.  but OWS has chipped away at that, if only for a short while.

the really bad news--we are not gonna overhaul and repair the system until it seizes up.  not until a catastrophic full-stop failure.  despite the opportunities, the multiple clear warnings, the wake up calls.  it looks like we may be blessed with yet another opportunity, to watch it happen in europe, with maybe time to avoid it here.  (i doubt it; i think when europe blows, we will have about three minutes before the first bank failure here, then its party on garth.)

i try my best not to fall in love with and commit to my forecasts and predictions (i don't limit that to women.)  most of the time, i don't even like my predictions.  including these two today.  that Occupy Wall Street will fade away; either by co-option by the entrenched left or the labor movement or the Democratic Party; or alternatively in a spasm of violent suppression, orchestrated or not.  and that america will not wake up to the severity of the failures of politics, finance and economy and demand overhaul until after the broken system is totaled.

as usual, i hope i'm wrong.

 

Posted by howard in nyc

Monday 10/31
Category: 19th CENTURY QUOTATIONS

Clue:"In this sense, the theory of" this group "may be summed up in the single sentence:  abolition of private property"

Answer:  Who are the Communists ?


Monday 10/24
Category: U.S. CITIES
Clue: Of the top 10 cities in population within city limits, this one of 1.4 million is the only state capital
Answer:  Where is Phoenix, Az ?

Tuesday 10/25
Category: CLASSIC GAMES
Clue: Monopoly creator Charles Darrow's sole quote in "The Yale Book of Quotations" includes this 3-digit number

Answer: What is 200?



Wednesday 10/26
Category: DEATH OF AN AUTHOR
Clue: In 1940 at age 44 he died of a heart attack at his Hollywood home while reading his Princeton Alumni Weekly
Answer:  Who was F. Scott Fitzgerald?



Thursday 10/27
Category: MOVIES
Clue: The villain's visage in this movie series was partly chosen due to its likeness to an 1893 work by a Norwegian artist
Answer:  What are the "Scream" movies ?


Friday 10/28
Category:  INVENTORS
Clue:  In 1823 this Scot obtained a patent for a process that made silk, paper & "other substances impervious to water and air"
Answer:  Who was Charles MacIntosh ?





Monday 10/17
Category: 2011 EVENTS

Clue: To mark an historic visit, on May 17 an Irish Army band played this song, followed by Ireland's anthem
Answer:  What is 'God Save the Queen'?  she ain't a human being


Tuesday 10/18
Category: FOREIGN-BORN INVENTORS
Clue: His 1922 New York Times obituary mentions that his patent no. 174,465 "has been called the most valuable patent ever issued"

Answer:  Who was Alexander Graham Bell?

Wednesday 10/19
Category: THE 20TH CENTURY
Clue: In the 1940s Franklin Roosevelt coined this term in reference to all the countries allied against the Axis powers
Answer:  What are the United Nations ?

Thursday 10/20
Category: TOP OF THE POP CHARTS
Clue: In 1978 he replaced his brothers at No. 1, who then replaced him; one of the brothers was a writer on all 3 songs
Answer:  Who was Andy Gibb ?


Friday 10/21
Category: CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Clue: In the original 1883 work, this title character kills a talking cricket, has his feet burned off & nearly starves
Answer:  What is 'Pinocchio' ?






Monday 10/10
Category: The Revolutionary War

Clue: He was executed in 1780 & buried in Tappan, New York; his remains were moved to Westminster Abbey in 1821


Answer:  Who was Major John André?  he was the head of brit army intelligence, who ran benedict arnold (and probably banged arnold's wife).






Tuesday 10/11
Category:  19th CENTURY LITERATURE

Clue: " 'How are you getting on?' said" this animal character, "as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with"

Answer:  Who is the Cheshire Cat?

Wednesday 10/12
Category: ART & STATE CAPITALS
Clue:  The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, home to the largest permanent collection of her works, is in this state capital

Answer:  Where is Santa Fe, New Mexico ?


Thursday 10/13
Category: THE OSCARS
Clue:  This performer is the only person to win Oscars for acting & also songwriting

Answer:  Who is Barbara Streisand ?


Friday 10/14
Category: THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Clue: This nation lost its direct access to the Pacific around 1880 but retains a navy that now patrols its rivers & a large lake
Answer:  Where is Bolivia ?



Monday 10/3
Category:  REMEMBERING U.S. HISTORY
Clue: Issued in 2011, a stamp commemorating the 150th anniversary of a major event in U.S. history depicts this stronghold

Answer:  Where is Fort Sumter?


Tuesday 10/4
Category:  EUROPEAN TRAVEL &  TOURISM

Clue:  Visited by 15 million people a year, this spot in Britain honors an 1805 battle fought elsewhere


Answer:  Where is Trafalgar Square?



Wednesday 10/5
Category:  LITERARY TITLE CHARACTERS
Clue: He gave his horse a name that partly means "nag" in Spanish; the name he gave himself refers to a piece of armor


Answer:  Who is Don Quixote?  and i thought his name refers to a breakfast favorite.  (quick-oats)



Thursday 10/6
Category: OSCAR NOMINATIONS
Clue: The only time 3 actors from the same movie were nominated for best actor was for this high seas film

Answer:  What is Mutiny on the Bounty ?



Friday 10/7
Category: ROYALTY
Clue: The son of an Oscar winner, this prince is also a 5-time Olympian

Answer:  Who is Prince Albert of Monaco ?  (Grace Kelly and Prince Ranier's son)















final jeopardy challenge, September 2011  

Posted by howard in nyc

Monday 9/26
Category: FAMILIAR PHRASE ORIGINS
Clue: In medieval times, an act of bravery got you dubbed a knight & won you a pair of golden these

Answer:  What are spurs?



Tuesday 9/27
Category: ENGLISH WRITERS
Clue: English poet Thomas Hoccleve, a contemporary of this man, called him the "firste fyndere of our fair langage"

Answer:  Who was Geoffery Chaucer?




Wednesday 9/28
Category: THE CHANGING U.S.A.
Clue:  According to the census, this point has progressed westward since the U.S. was founded, & has moved southwest since the 1960s

Answer:  What is the center of population distribution ?




Thursday 9/29
Category: THE 20th CENTURY
Clue:  In February 1967 this Asian leader said his people would "never agree to negotiate under the threat of bombing"

Answer:  Who was Nguyễn Sinh Cung, aka Ho Chi Mihn ?



Friday 9/30
Category: 
Clue:

Answer:  Wh ?





Monday 9/19
Category:  AMERICAN WRITERS
Clue:  In the 1840s he wrote, "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government"

Answer:  Who was Henry David Thoreau?

(yeah, i say the same thing, and everyone thinks i'm nuts.)



Tuesday 9/20
Category: NAME'S THE SAME
Clue:  Name shared by a popular world sport & a member of the Gryllidae family

Answer:  What is cricket?



Wednesday 9/21
Category: OSCAR WINNERS
Clue:  The most recent father & daughter to win acting Oscars; he won for playing a veteran, she for playing a mental patient

Answer:  Who are Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie?



Thursday 9/22
Category: PHILOSOPHY
Clue:  Nietzsche wrote, "once you said 'God' when you gazed upon distant seas; but now i have taught you to say" this word.

Answer:  What is "ubermensch" or 'superman'?  just last night, listening to the ny philharmonic play Wagner (Overture to Tannhauser), i was thinking how the music made me feel like an ubermensch.



Friday 9/23
Category: AMERICAN BUSINESS
Clue:  In the 1880s he developed 'Crystal A Caramels'; a product under his own name came out in 1900

Answer:  Who was Milton S. Hershey?
if it involves chocolate, i would not bet against me.

it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel  

Posted by howard in nyc in , ,

9/9/2011  17:55

yet, our leaders seem to be quite confused this week.

the deficit and the debt ceiling were the recent crisis to be solved.  but now, spending $400 billion is imperative to create jobs.  we must cut spending, so important is this need, a congressional supercommittee has been created.  but we must increase spending, right away.

that was president obama, speaking to congress.  he is not alone.  the ben bernanck was confused.

even though he specified severe unemployment, fallen housing prices, high gasoline and food prices and high household debt as current problems.  yet he was puzzled as to why consumer spending is so weak.

now i have yet another reason for unease.  i have been uneasy, dysphoric, and downright depressed because i see the economic calamity unfolding as, well, calamitous.  but nearly everyone around me in america sees things quite differently.

i figured the folks nominally in charge told a bunch of lies (for our benefit, of course) while understanding the score.  the true state of the economy.

now, i am not so sure.  particularly the ben bernanck.  i have vacillated between thinking him evil, knowing exactly what he is doing serving the banks and speculators, and thinking him incompetent, frantically pulling levers and spreading liquidity, not understanding why his drastic monetary stimulus has failed to promote sustained economic growth and prosperity.

the way he sounded yesterday, now i'm pretty sure it is the latter.  he did everything his lifetime of academic work promised would prevent economic depression and deflationary collapse.  he printed up a buttload of money.  he did everything possible to recapitalize insolvent banks.  he manipulated interest rates and the cost of credit to near zero.  he weakened the dollar as far as he dare.  and all he got was energy and food inflation, severe enough to negatively drag on the economy.  no decrease in unemployment, no increase in exports, no GDP growth once QE2 ended.

no wonder he looks and sounds like a broken man.  and no wonder he has nothing new to offer, despite plenty of opportunities (stock market volatility, big jackson hole meeting).  i am figuring we will get little more than words out of the ben bernanck and the fed over the next year.  because the cost of aggressive monetary policy (printing money and buying treasury securities or other 'assets') has become too great--inflation of oil and food prices, weakening of the dollar toward the breaking point.

even if things get so desperate that he tries QE3, those costs will reassert themselves even more quickly than in previous turns.

as for the other folks who are supposed to be less confused, the president and the leaders of the congress bounce wildly from spending to cutting, in their rhetoric.  the third rail of politics is no longer social security, but it is now raising taxes.  woe to anyone standing for election who dares mention increasing taxes, on rich or middle class.

the superficial nihilism of the gop is fake; no one loves big government more than a republican holding office.  they talk 'starve the beast in the cradle' then when they hold power, they nurture the beast on borrowed money, pushing the due date off to the future.  and the superficial populism of the democrats is equally fake; their true loyalty is to the big campaign contributors and to the status quo.  they push off into the future the recognition on the part of their base that they have been bought off temporarily by 99 weeks of unemployment bennies on the wall and 1 in 7 americans being fed with food stamps is a holding action, not true populism.

but mr. obama, railed all summer about the need to cut spending.  even social security spending.  now, he insists $400 billion in new spending is just the ticket.  and he'll explain in 11 days how he will pay for it.

yeah, sure.  one truism, proven over and over again.  the spending always happens.  the paying for it in the future, never happens.  that is how the deficit doubled since the last presidential election (didn't he promise to cut the deficit in half?)  that is how the unfunded liabilities of the government swelled to $100 trillion with a T.  that is how the literal debt, measured by the treasury bond market, grew to $14 trillion so quickly.

an economy built upon credit, once it begins to fall apart because of too much accumulated debt, cannot be repaired with more debt.  an economy built upon consumer spending and consumption, once it tops out because of too much consumer debt, cannot resume growing with more consumer borrowing.

why is that so confusing?

i nearly forgot.  greece is gonna blow up within a matter of days/weeks.  this could spread slow or quick.  but spread it will.  karl thinks "It's Over" and he may be right. 

and here are three good 9/11 anniversary articles.  the first sums up my thoughts precisely.

Debt Ceiling Breached! ! !  

Posted by howard in nyc

Horrors!  Default! End of our way of life!  isn't that what geithner and obama said would happen?

what a bunch of fucking liars. (h/t zerohedge.com)

see the numbers for yourself:  


inflation; deflation; duck season! rabbit season!  

Posted by howard in nyc in , ,

9/3/11  17:50

some of my best lessons have come from people with whom i seriously disagree.  i am often rewarded when i read/pay attention to viewpoints and ideas provided by smart, thoughtful people i think are wrong about one thing or another, large or small.



Jesse, on his wonderful daily blog, Jesse's Café Américain is one of those.  kinda sorta.  there is precious little of his economic and market analysis and opinion with which i disagree.  but, he is an 'inflationist' (horrors!).  no, he does not believe inflation is a good thing; he anticipates the resolution of our economic collapse will be inflation.  he proffers that the commodity inflation we have experienced was an entirely expected result of conditions and behaviors by leaders over the past few years.  he called it before and during QE1 and QE2.  mad props for his profferings.

he writes a wonderful piece today, entitled About Those Falling Interest Rates and the Fallacy of Monetary Deflation at the Zero Bound

folks spend time arguing inflation vs deflation without ever clarifying their definitions of or understanding of the terms.  jargon, technicalities, and lack of agreement over simple historic events confound defining and mutual understanding of the very definition of these words.  even once those chores are complete, inflation and deflation are difficult factors to understand, much less to forecast.

money is an even more difficult, complicated concept.  juxtaposed by the apparent simplicity of the question 'what is money'?

Jesse begins with addressing what is and what is not money, in the context of the events of the last few years.  i appreciated that he and others do not consider credit and debt to be money (many other folks, including me, do so consider).  but i did not understand why he did not consider credit to be money.  until i read his piece today.

Let me give you three things to think about.

First, credit is NOT money. Money can be created from a number of sources throughout an economy. The expansion of credit at the business and banking level, often involving savings and fractional reserve leverage, is the major organic source of money, the point of its creation from economic activity or transactions themselves.   It is the most utilitarian form of money, because it is directly tied to what one might ordinarily expect to be productive investment and economic benefits.

Sometimes this mechanism is distorted and abused, in the case of fraud or reckless lending for speculation as an example, and then the money supply begins to decouple from the real economy.  It is the job of the regulators and the Fed to control this.

Like gold or any other asset or liability, credit must be transformed into a utilitarian form of wealth, or money, in order to effect the exchange. You may HAVE a million dollars in credit somewhere, but at some point someone must agree to transform that credit into actual money for you to use it. If an unused million dollar credit line expires, we do not see ourselves as a million dollars poorer.

When organic credit expansion fails to create money, the Fed or the Treasury can step in and create money non-organically, that is, not as the result of economic activity. In the case of an external standard, the Treasury can formally devalue the currency, as the US had done in the first half of the 1930s. Monetary authorities do not like to do this, because it makes their activity more transparent, and therefore more controversial. 

i don't agree with many of Jesse's points and arguments.  i am not smart enough or knowledgeable enough to counter many of those disagreements clearly or intelligently.  but the essay helps me understand his position and perspective much more than i had previously.  

i will briefly state that i believe his distinction between credit and conversion of same into actual money is a distinction without a difference, when applied to the US economy of the past 15 years.

without bothering to try to find some actual numbers (hey, i'm a blogger, not a frigging economic historian; and i ain't getting paid for this), i am gonna take a wild leap and guess that the vast majority of credit made available during the 90s and 2000s was actually converted into money (and debt).  and further converted into assets.  housing, other real estate, stocks, bonds, wages, goods and services.  and vast amounts of those debts were destroyed, (default), as were many of those assets (housing/real estate equity and valuations, stock share values).

and, in short, at least i now understand why and how Jesse does not consider credit to be money or a money equivalent.  i don't agree, but i get where he is coming from.  and i sure as shit understand he may well be right, and i may be wrong.  (um, i think the betting public would be justified and correct in setting odds on him, and against me.)

unfortunately, Jesse falls into some rhetorical traps (while discussing the mother of all liquidity traps), lumping all of the opposing point of view into a mis-characterization he describes.  and some name calling.  these are tense times; there is a lot of falling into such traps going around.

Jesse correctly (imo) states a pair of truths in his other two of three things to think about:

The second thing to remember is that the extent of inflation or deflation is a policy decision in an otherwise unconstrained environment.

Greece does not have such a choice, for example, because the ECB controls their currency.  The US probably has the most choice of all, because it not only owns its currency, but the dollar is also still the world's reserve currency. While the audience is not captive, it is at a disadvantage.

The third thing is that the creation of money from the Fed or Treasury may result in more money, but it may not result in a sustainable recovery.    Money created by the Fed is high powered money, created as it were from the will of the monetary authority's policy.

Money creation, or monetary stimulus, works well in situations wherein the economy has fallen into a temporary slump, especially because of some exogenous shock or a slack period that is cyclical in nature, such as seasonal variation.

But in the event of a secular crisis or problem, monetary stimulation is a palliative, but no cure.   The remedy lies generally on the fiscal and political policy actions, with the aim of correcting or repairing whatever had caused the problem in the first place.  

Monetary stimulus alone, without the will to effect political reform for example, results in very uncommon economic conditions, one of which Keynes described as a 'liquidity trap.'

even if i reject my own analysis, opinions, and judgments that rest upon what i have managed to learn about our economic collapse, and 100% agree with Jesse's formulation of the finance/macroeconomic world, i can continue to hold tightly to one of my central ideas regarding the path of our collapse.

it is an idea that was little more than a wild-assed guess in 2007.  and today, while i have acquired a rudimentary understanding of macro and finance, this idea is informed much more by human action, than by numbers and exponents.  (wtf did you expect?  i love mises to pieces; and Human Action is a great fucking book.)

as bad as a deflationary depression is for the interests of the true powers that be, the people who actually run the country and the economy (not our puppet president and elected officials), a hyperinflationary collapse is worse.  much worse, if you are a superwealthy former chief executive of a wall street bank, pharmaceutical house, or other mega corporation.

and while collapse is inevitable, particularly since zero significant reform and restructuring has occurred in our banking and finance system, the mode of collapse is ultimately a policy choice.  (Jesse said so!)  and while high inflation is very appealing if you are a short-sighted politician (sorry for that redundancy), it is the only thing more scary to the uber-rich who actually call the shots than deflation.

i learned a lot from this essay, gained tremendous food for thought, and came to value his ideas and opinions that are directly contrary to my own even higher than the price of Apple stock three weeks ago.  like Chomsky, Richard Brookheiser, Gore Vidal, at times Howard Zinn, and tons of others, thank goodness for really smart people whose ideology i do not share, but whose ideas i always value and often find agreement.

i'm tired  

Posted by howard in nyc in , ,

i know how you feel, lily.  sing it girl.
8/6/11 15:27

one thing that fatigues me is continuing to spoonfeed my friends, in real life and on the internets, the facts and obvious conclusions that stem from those facts about the sorry state we find ourselves.  the economy, the political system now 100% captured by the big money interests, the society that embraces lying, cheating and stealing as a way to get ahead, while remain oblivious or in active denial about what is in front of our eyes.  denial most often activated by sinking into emotionally satisfying lies, that one party or another is to blame, that things will get better because they always do, that what we are living through is not unique to our lifetimes (unless you lived through the 1920s and early 1930s).

particularly tiresome is folks who will argue with me over facts.  often after admitting they are not knowledgeable or informed about a particular item or subject, about which i have spent a lot of time and effort to learn.  then they proceed to argue that i am wrong, because they 'feel' it must be wrong.  or they can't 'accept' that what i say is possible, much less is true.

so stop doing it, asshole.

thanks.  i needed that. hey, those voices in my head have steered me pretty damn straight lately. i'd be a fool to stop listening to them now.

and it is not as if i am infallible.  i am often wrong.  like yesterday, about the s+p downgrade of the creditworthiness of the united states of america.  i don't mind being wrong, when i am i promptly admit it and when needed, to make amends.  but facts prove me wrong, not what people feel, or what they can or cannot accept.

i did not think the s+p would downgrade.  wrong, bubba.  fine.  i'm interested in why.  why i was wrong, but much more importantly, why they downgraded.

(hint--it was not because all of a sudden this week the creditworthiness of the nation took a dive.  if these assholes were honestly and systematically evaluating fed credit, this downgrade would have come years ago.  if not decades ago.)

(hint #2--it was not because these assholes are honest, objective evaluators of anything.  their record makes this obvious.  how did they rate AIG?  AAA.  how did they rate all those junk mortgage backed securities?  AAA.)

i don't know, but i have a good idea why.  what led me to my reasoning, the following articles.  read 'em yourself, fish for a lifetime.


Is Too Much Significance Given to U.S. Credit Rating?

 

Police raid Milan offices of Moody's and Standard & Poor's

 

that first article is long; skim it and you get the jist.  there was another good piece on S&P's abysmal record of collecting fat fees for marking shit AAA, from michael shedlock's blog, but i cannot find it now.  him, and yves smith, are my first reads darn near every morning.  the ponds where i do my fishing.


but i'm also tired of repeating where i get my news and analysis.  i guess i'll start a blogroll on the right side, like all the cool kids.

last thing that makes me tired.  my personal dissonance.  seeing the facts, rejecting the overwhelming sea of lies, thinking instead of emoting, that is hard enough.  but recognizing the realities of our economic and political failures, while almost everyone else is unaware, or blissfully wallowing in the lies, delusions and emotional salves provided by the folks running the show for their own benefit, this disconnection from the mainstream weighs me down.  makes me tired.  really really damn tired.

at least that is coming to an end.  folks are starting to wake the fuck up; lights are flickering on, dots are being connected.  it is about damn time.




 

hide yo kids, hide yo wife!  

Posted by howard in nyc in , ,

7/11/2011  14:23

I have not ranted and spewed venom, errr, I mean I have not crafted a thoughtful and restrained essay on economic and financial collapse in a few weeks now.  I have not been moved to words by any recent non-events.  All due respect to Casey Anthony and the federal budget farce coupled to the juvenile lie of 'pending default', the two leading non-events being tracked faithfully by the joke of our news media and the sugar high distraction of the cultural consciousness.  I don't know which is more surprising:  the number of friends and acquaintances who were outraged over some white lady's acquittal, which i would've expected them to be unaware of, much less so strongly opined about; or how many of the same folks believe that TBTB are in any danger of failing to make a $30 billion monthly interest payment, out of $300 billion monthly expenses, when monthly income is ~$175 billion.

The interest on the national debt will be paid before salaries of all those government employees who do not carry weapons, or the social security/medicare/food stamps payments to the hoi polloi (yes, that includes doctors, or 'health care providers', which I am told is the preferred term.

Every fucking news report has the word 'default' in the lead.  And it is a big fat hanging lie.

See?  I have nothing much new on my mind about real events in the world.  Wars, rumours of war, unemployment, bank fraud, sovereign debt crises (at least that is heating up--finally).  Just waiting for another big shoe to drop, in Damascus, Tripoli, Brussels or Wall Street.

In the meantime, two things I read that I really liked, and wanted to share.

First, from Jesse's Café Américain, one of my daily reads.  A wonderful descriptive analysis (or maybe analytic description) of our horrible, hated president:


A bright fellow no doubt, but unseasoned by things like family, tradition, and the personal experience of hardship: a great story teller, a rationalizer, a perpetual outsider, and a thoroughly modern relativist. You have to keep your eye on what he does, rather than what he says. But that is a given with all modern managers.


The other, from a source I do not regularly read, but via Yves at Naked Capitalism, her daily news and commentary links are a daily don't miss for me.  A blog called Decline of the Empire, a clip from a post non-sarcastically (and non-ironically) called This Time Really Is Different:

I've got some news for people like John Mauldin, Barry Ritholtz, Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff—this time is different, but not in the sense you intend. To understand what is happening in the United States, it is necessary to go far beyond an historical survey of financial crises. You must consider the specific historical circumstances that led to the current crisis. Such a review would include but not be limited to the following observations—
  • The United States has been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs for 30 years.
  • Almost all of the income gains made during that time went to the top 10% of wage-earners, with most of them going to the top 1%. Wealth inequality grew accordingly.
  • Health care costs have been soaring all that time.
  • College tuition costs skyrocketed at a pace far beyond the rate of inflation.
  • Households took on more and more debt to replace lost income.
  • We had not one, but two, substantial economic bubbles during the last 15 years. Without those bubbles, how much would the U.S. economy have grown?
  • The private debt to GDP ratio grew and grew, clearly indicating that more and more debt was required to add an additional point of GDP.
  • The Federal Government more and more became the tool of monied special interests.
And so forth. When people endorse Reinhart and Rogoff, we are supposed to understand that the Tough Times we're experiencing now have a well-defined beginning—the financial crisis after the fall of Lehman—and will have a well-defined end—however many years it takes to work through the credit problems. This is utter nonsense. The "historical obversations" I listed above are in fact the root causes of our current predicament.

And in each case, the historical trend has not changed, or has gotten worse. Households now have only slightly less debt than they did before the crisis, but trillions of dollars of housing wealth has disappeared. Health care costs continue to soar, as do college tuitions. Income gains still go to the wealthiest Americans. In short, nothing has changed.

That leaves those who want to believe that All Will Be Well with the same unsolvable dilemma we started out with: how do you tell a credible story that everything will turn out OK? I'm sorry, but no amount of convenient, hopeful rationalization is going to change the American disaster while the roots of the crisis remain in place. The financial meltdown was the proximate, not the ultimate, cause of America's economic woes.

This time really is different.

July Jeopardy  

Posted by howard in nyc

Monday 7/25
Category:  BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS
Clue:  The 2003 bestseller "The Meaning of Everything" is subtitled "The Story of" this reference classic

Answer:  What is the Oxford English Dictionary?


Tuesday 7/26
Category:  THE NEW TESTAMENT
Clue:  This miracle that happens in all 4 Gospels, including Mark 6 & Luke 9, has elements that symbolically represent Jesus

Answer:  What is the feeding of the multitudes, with the loaves and fishes?


Wednesday 7/27
Category:  ROYALTY
Clue:On the run following the siege of Oxford, he surrendered May 5, 1646 near Newark on Trent (*not Newark on Passaic)

Answer:  Who was Charles I?



Thursday 7/28
Category:  WORLD HISTORY
Clue:  Surus was the last known one of these to survive a mountain crossing in the 3rd century B.C.

Answer:  What is an elephant ?  (hannibal, alps, dead punics, you know)



Friday 7/29
Category:  LOS ANGELES LANDMARKS
Clue:  A James Dean memorial can be found adjacent to this structure, located at one of the high spots in Los Angeles

Answer:  Where is the Hollywood sign? 









Friday 7/22
Category: FAMOUS AMERICANS
Clue: In 1909 he sent the message "Stars and Stripes nailed to the Pole"

Answer:  Who was Rear Admiral Robert Edwin Peary? 



Thursday 7/21
Category: 20th CENTURY LEADERS
Clue: Time Magazine first mentioned him in 1939, when his father sent him on a diplomatic errand from London to Glasgow

Answer:  Who was John Fitzgerald Kennedy?


Wednesday 7/20
Category: SPORTS MOVIES
Clue: Their team colors were yellow and white & they were originally sponsored by Chico's Bail Bonds

Answer:  Who are the Bad News Bears?  Let Freedom Ring!






Tuesday 7/19 Category: 19th CENTURY NOVELS
Clue: This novel's first epilogue says, "the activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or harmful"

Answer:  What is Tolstoy's War and Peace?



Monday 7/18
Category:  WORLD GEOGRAPHY
Clue: Of the 4 largest Asian countries in area, it's the only one that borders the other 3

Answer:  Where is China?  (Russia, India and Kazakhstan are the other three)




Friday 7/15
Category:  TRADEMARKS
Clue:  In 1987 a maker of fiberglass insulation became the first company to trademark a color--this color

Answer:   What is pink?

let steven answer that question:





Thursday 7/14
Category: PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES
Clue:  Opened in 1971, his presidential library is the farthest south

Answer:   Who was Lyndon Baines Johnson?


Wednesday 7/13
Category:  NAME THE POET
Clue:  "The spirit who bideth by himself / in the land of mist and snow / he loved the bird that loved the man / who shot him with his bow" 

Answer:   Who was Samuel Taylor Coleridge?  get your albatross!

Tuesday 7/12
Category:  COMIC BOOK HISTORY
Clue:  On the cover of the 1941 first issue of this comic book, the title hero punches Hitler in the jaw

Answer:  Who is Captain American?




Monday 7/11
Category:  18th CENTURY QUOTATIONS
Clue:  2 yrs. before his 1794 execution, he said, "I am no courtier, nor moderator…nor defender of the people:  I am myself the people"

Answer:  Who was Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre?







Friday 7/1
Category:  BRITISH AUTHORS
Clue:  She described her work as "human nature in the midland counties" & involving "three of four families in a country village"

Answer:  Who is Jane Austen?

view from my seats

view from my seats
Premium Lower Box, Section 110 (a little higher, row 29, and a little to the left)

schedule

schedule
click above to go to detailed schedule on the giants' website

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