Day: January 13, 2009

Random Thoughts–2009

This is the first of my series “Random Thoughts”; notes that I took but did not make it into a post on Info Ink.  These are good thoughts that deserve some attention.

Actually these are some things I found out about stuff in 2008, but it is the new year and these things needed to be said.

1–25% of the laws past by Congress were to rename post offices.  (This is why they get the big bucks)

2–Since 2007 13 Middle East countries have pursued nuclear programs.

3–Nelson Mandela was removed from the terrorist list in 2008.

4–79% of Citigroups profits came from credit cards.

5–Estimated revenue from a half acre dedicated to ethanol is $300, the same half acre with a wind turbine would generate $10,000 of revenue.

6–In 2008, the price of eggs went up 34%.

7–There is a 2009 Sarah Palin Calendar sold on Amazon for $15.95.

8–the new senate is the oldest in history–average age:  63

9–did you know that people who have stopped looking for work are counted as “employed” by the government stats?

10-White House is worth $34 million less because of the falling housing market.

11-Stock market ups and downs has very little to do with the overall economy.  It just indicates what is the feel of the investors are.

12-In the UK, there is a warning label on Dairy Milk saying that it contains “milk”.

copyright:  CHUQ/Info Ink

Vulture Capitalism

Thoughts from an article written by Norman Markowitz.
If you believe that the masters of capital are moving away from the principle that Oliver Stone immortalized in the film “Wall Street, “that is, “Greed is Good,” get a load of Seidman’s comment about his activities. “It is an enormous market [the battle to both get a piece of the $700 billion and to buy up institutions cheap that government funding will revive] I am really enjoying this.” “Fortunes will be made here, no doubt about it,” another former Resolution Trust official notes. Another official notes with a bit a guilty glee, that while the financial crisis is a disaster for the nation, “the opportunity going forward is unprecedented. It is fantastic. It is as if I had been in training for this for the last 40 years of my career.”

These men and their firms see the crisis as a way to make millions for themselves and billions for their clients. They are the “vultures” of state monopoly capitalism, like the old Wall Street “bears,” coming in to both buy cheap in the midst of a crisis in which it is public assets that will be sold off. Right now, as Sam Zell, CEO of the bankrupt Tribune Company, who made his fortune buying up Savings and Loan properties in the first great bailout notes “the best opportunity right now is in the debt area, mortgages. We have been buying all along.”

Millions of people face foreclosure on their homes and “the best opportunity right now is in the debt area, mortgages.” Tens of millions of workers who live paycheck to paycheck face the possibility of unemployment which will devastate them and their families and prominent figures like William Seidman are “really enjoying this.” This is the system that praises itself as the foundation of progress and civilization, which defines conduct that would be considered pathological in normal social relations as good?

What this shows is the necessity for a policy to make this “bailout” very different than the last one. It is time to look seriously at public ownership and forms of regulation that will stop the profiteering, perhaps by making those who be these institutions be subject to various surcharges and other forms of taxation that will return to the public sector the built of the profits which come from them. The Obama transition team should take with a pitcher of salt “advice” from these former bailout officials. They have little to offer, except perhaps as an example of what not to do in distributing the $700 billion in public investment.

JUst some thoughts from the economic battlefield.

Plight Of The American Worker–Part 3

What Should The American Worker Do?

I have predicted that this assault on the unions will provide the workers a chance to make a REAL difference in the labor movement.  A difference to their benefit, not that of the corporate handlers.

“There’s going to be fewer factories, fewer salaried and hourly workers, lower compensation, fewer brands, fewer models, fewer dealers,” Dana Johnson, senior economist with Dallas-based Comerica Inc., told the Detroit Free Press. “Everything is going to continue to be rapidly downsized, just not in as chaotic a process if they had not gotten the financing,” Johnson said. He predicted that Michigan would lose another 30,000 auto jobs next year, along with 60,000 non-automotive jobs.

In order to defend their jobs and living standards, autoworkers must organize independently of the UAW and reject the blackmail being carried out by the government, the corporations and the union. A struggle must be waged to oppose wage and benefit cuts and to defend all jobs. This requires a new political strategy—a break with the two parties of big business and the building of a mass party of the working class, fighting for socialist policies including the nationalization of the auto industry under the democratic control of the working class.

I realize that few want to hear this type of language, but unfortunately, the constant attacks on the working class will make this almost inevitable.  The question to ask is “will it help the workers?  The only answer I have is, “could not hurt them anymore than the past has”.

War Comes To Gaza–Day 17

Same Sh!t, Different Day!  Bombs go boom……bodies break….blood runs downhill…..Rockets still fly.

Somethings that need to be reported and analyzed.

As a popular party with Israel’s large Arab minority, the Balad Party has been seen as a prime mover behind the nation’s domestic antiwar movement. Though officials have repeatedly warned them that “there is a limit to democracy” in Israel, this opposition party never seems to have fully learned its lesson.

Balad was barred from the 2003 elections amid claims that it was secretly involved in terrorism, though this ban was later overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court citing insufficient evidence. Lieberman hopes to see the ban renewed in time for next month’s elections, and in a war-time Israel where censorship is rampant and antiwar protesters are traitors to the state, he may just get his wish.

The Central Elections Committee is expected to vote on Balad’s ban tomorrow, and with the ruling Kadima Party on board it seems likely to pass. Kadima says that though it supports giving the Arab minority “due representation,” the Israeli government has an obligation to defend itself from Balad who “is trying to undermine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.”

Banning a party for calling for equal rights may fit with some Israeli politicians’ ideals of what a “Jewish state” should be, but with at least one journalist already arrested for violating the growing wartime censorship regime and minorities under growing threat from Israeli police for protesting government policies the ban of an opposition party for demanding equal rights for its constituents is likely to add to the growing concerns about Israel’s claims to be anything resembling a bastion of freedom in the Middle East.

There is more.

Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip is boosting the popularity of Hamas and other Islamic groups in the Arab world where people are dismayed by the passiveness of their regimes, analysts said on Sunday.

“Hamas appears to be scoring points. So far, Israel has not achieved all its military and political objectives and has lost the media battle,” said Dhia Rashwan, an Egyptian specialist in Islamist movements

Israel’s military offensive on the Hamas-controlled territory has killed at least 875 Palestinians, including 275 children, and left 3,620 wounded, since it began on December 27.

Media coverage shows an imbalance between a modern force, armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weapons, and a militia equipped only for guerrilla warfare, analysts said.

Wait!  Someone called this weeks ago.  Who was that guy?

Mr. Burris, Take Your Seat

Roland Burris on Monday won his bid to fill the seat in the U.S. Senate vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, overcoming objections from Democratic leaders who now stand ready to enjoy their biggest majority since 1981.

Barring unanticipated roadblocks from Senate Republicans, Burris, appointed to the seat by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in December, could be sworn in within days, giving Democrats 58 of the Senate’s 100 seats.

The decision by Senate officials to swear in Burris was a major about-face by the Democratic leadership, which initially vowed that the appointment would not stand because Blagojevich has been charged with having earlier tried to sell the seat.

Joe, Oh Joe!

As reported in CNN:

‘Joe the Plumber’ Wurzelbacher told a group of journalists covering the conflict in Israel and Gaza that he didn’t think the media should be allowed to report on war.

“I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting,” Wurzelbacher said. “You know, war is hell. And if you’re gonna sit there and say, ‘well, look at this atrocity,’ well you don’t know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it.”

Wurzelbacher arrived in Israel on Sunday to start a 10-day assignment for pjtv.com, a Web site run by the conservative media outlet Pajamas Media. The plumber-turned-foreign correspondent said he wanted to cover Israel’s side of the conflict, because he thought the media was slanting the story to make it look like “Israel’s being bad.”

He got a first-hand taste of reality in Sderot, when his group heard sirens warning of a rocket attack. With cameras rolling, Wurzelbacher and his group ran into a shelter.

“I’m in the bunker, I’m sitting there angry, outright furious, that I’m letting this terrorist dictate what I’m going to do because they’re firing missiles,” Wurzelbacher said. “It was fear at first, then outright anger, and then me wanting some kind of retribution. I’m not a person that runs from things, but when it’s a missile, you run.”

Gee, and I thought reporters were observers, not cheerleaders.  My bad!