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I heard today that the military says that a 10% increase (over the previous level) translates to 4-6% increase in recruitment. They haven't had any problems in meeting their goals for a while now.
mstaggerlee
I coined a new term the other day.
"It's a no Boehner"
ooooops.... I forgot to give the URL
http://www.democracynow.org/
From the Raw Story piece on Religion vs. Gayness, linked above by DRichards -
Republicans who oppose hate crimes legislation say they do so because they think it is criminalizing "thought."
Since when are Republicans in favor of thinking?? :D
Former bank regulator William Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One has a lot to say about the economic situation on Democracy Now today..
He says the moves to regulate derivatives since the collapse are ineffective. He's been a guest on Thom's show.
The second segment of the show is a real treat, but really is best when watched rather than just listened or read. It's an interview with Slovenian Philosopher Slavoj Zizek.
You may not be familiar with Zizek, but he's well known in some circles. Here's a quote from Democracy Now's introduction to the segment.
"Dubbed by the National Review as “the most dangerous political philosopher in the West” and the New York Times as “the Elvis of cultural theory,” Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual Slavoj Žižek has written over fifty books on philosophy, psychoanalysis, theology, history and political theory. In his latest book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, Žižek analyzes how the United States has moved from the tragedy of 9/11 to what he calls the farce of the financial meltdown."
Not only is what he says interesting, but he's just fun to watch. He's one of the most kinetic people I can recall seeing. Imagine the kind of motion a 3rd base coach goes through. But the fact is he's also very interesting.
Oh ... Thanx for explaining that, Mr. Boehner - it's these Jewish genes of mine that make me inferior to you. :P
@DRichards - The way I heard it, Mr. Frank is not happy with the amended shape in which this bill left his committee. The Agriculture committee is also working on a derivatives regulation bill (gotta say,though, what this has to do with agriculture is beyond me), and Barney may choose to support the Ag bill over his own committee's.
Religion is not a choice but being gay is, GOP leader’s spokesman says
By Raw Story
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 -- 2:37 pm
You were born a Christian, not born gay. Religion is not a choice.
Or so the spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) would have you believe. Questioned about why the House's top Republican opposes a hate crimes bill penalizing violence against gays, his spokesman said he "supports existing federal protections (based on race, religion, gender, etc) based on immutable characteristics," just not protections for things like being gay -- which conservatives occasionally claim is a choice.
"He does not support adding sexual orientation to the list of protected classes," Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith added. The statement was made in an email to CBS News.
In other words, religion is a trait you're born with.
http://rawstory.com/2009/10/religion-is-not-a-choice-but-being-gay-is-go...
Congress Removes Authority to Ban Riskiest Derivatives Trades Because "There Was Concern That A Broad Grant To Ban Abusive Swaps Would Be UNSETTLING”
According to Bloomberg, the original draft of Barney Frank's derivatives legislation:
would have given the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission joint authority to “prohibit transactions in any swap” that they determine “would be detrimental to the stability of a financial market or of participants in a financial market.”
Frank has now stripped that provision because it would be "unsettling":
“There was concern that a broad grant to ban abusive swaps would be unsettling,” Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said today as the panel began action on his measure...
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
The Ongoing Cover Up of the Truth Behind the Financial Crisis May Lead to Another Crash
William K. Black - professor of economics and the senior regulator during the S & L crisis - says that that the government's entire strategy now - as during the S&L crisis - is to cover up how bad things are ("the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts").
Indeed, as I have previously documented, 7 out of the 8 giant, money center banks went bankrupt in the 1980's during the "Latin American Crisis", and the government's response was to cover up their insolvency...
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
I heard on a local news report yesterday that Minnesota job numbers won't get back to pre-recession levels for 5 years. Meanwhile, the BBC reported that China is now second only to the United States in the number of billionaires it generates, up 29 (to a total of 130) from a year ago:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8305149.stm
A Forbes magazine tally of the world's richest people, released in March, counted 359 billionaires in America, also increased from a year ago.
Breaking news - House Financial Services Committee moves to Regulate Derivative Trading - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aOzNqW0GthZs
About freaking time ... :(
What this amounts to, however, is simply a requirement that if your "business plan" is to cover the risky bets of other investors, you must have sufficient cash-on-hand to pay off if those bets turn out to be losers. This is progress??!!
Just goes to prove the old joke ... if CON is the opposite of PRO, then what's the opposite of progress?
Rick: Great idea on the housing for vets. But you must the US to realize it won't work. The plan contains no openings for people to make big money. The chambers of commerce would fight it tooth and nail, like they do our struggle for universal health care because the well paid execs (parasites) in the private health care system would lose their annual millions.
The corporations run the US and must be dealt with before anything worthwhile like your idea could be instigated.
"When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why so many people are poor they call me a communist".
- Dom Helder Câmara
Drugmakers, Doctors Rake in Billions Battling H1N1 Flu
Swine Flu Is Bad for Victims, But Good for Businesses That Cater to Expanding Market
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=8820642
A modest proposal; how about 'Habitat for Heroes'?
On what might be done or even proposed without the Republicans tearing it down just because it comes during Pres. Obama's administration;
I am of course a Canadian, hope you can still use my 'Modest Proposal'..
Whether or not you take it as the root of the economic crisis, real estate is hurting, as are all the home owners upside-down on their mortgages.
House values are not going to rebound while there are so many houses in foreclosure or worse, abandoned and neglected.
You will at some point have many thousands of servicemen and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Canadians are alongside you in Afghanistan and we have had shameful episodes ourselves, of military families getting by on food stamps etc. There will be many vets coming home without jobs let alone the where-with-all to have decent housing for their families. As a group these people were not rich and many families have suffered while a bread-winner has been stationed away.
What I am thinking of would be loosely on the model of Habitat for Humanity. (It would be great if Jimmy Carter ended up involved in some way.)
Foreclosed and neglected houses could be bought up from the banks at reasonable prices, then renovated for use and ownership by returning veterans.
There would need to a low interest government program for the mortgages, along the lines of what I believe was done after the second world war. This would have to be adaptable to vets who might also be enrolled in training or college programs.
Of course details could get complicated but think of some of the benefits.
Deserving veterans would have homes to call their own. That stability would obviously help in their healthy return to civilian life.
Derelict houses would be removed from the market, improving that market neighbourhood by neighbourhood as well as nationally. These would be buyers from a different pool, leaving the existing buyers still ready to step in. Otherwise, recovery would be waiting for whatever buyers were out there to finally decide it was worth it.
Not even the Republicans could argue about the worth of this sort of program. OK, maybe Acorn wouldn't be the best agency to administer it. ;-) Seriously, the V.A. would probably be a trusted body able to prioritise the elegability among the vets.
Are the Republicans going to say these people are not deserving? Are the funds going to be wasted? I don't think so, when you compare it to the cost of helping homeless vets if done properly. Add the other benefits in and there should be no question.
To make it even better, consider these options;
Hire other vets to work on the renovations. Tailor some of those to disabled or wounded vets who could be made a priority.
Can you imagine the atmosphere and un-assailable public relations image of a Habitat type project with recently returned vets working to set a house up for one of their wounded brothers?
Aside from reasonable renovations to have the homes fit to live in, there could be a green component, making them more energy efficient at the same time.
There would be spin-offs in materials needed and there could be programs to help vets set up their own small businesses to carry out this work.
Who, even among the most sour neo-cons, could try to trash programs like these?
Look for a segment of the population that needs help.
Look for one that is deserving, and has the ability to step up and be successful, given some help.
Look for something to help create value in real things.
Look for a program that the Right can't fault.
I don't think costs would be prohibitive, especially given the direct benefits to be gained.
What do you think?
Regards from Canada
Rick
(I listen on XM and follow the show, wondering why you can't get the health care thing settled. My parents were at various times in hospital for long periods during their lives but never feared losing their house. I count myself lucky to live without the fear and unease that the private system would create. Great care and no complaints up here; the few whiners you hear are nuts and/or have an agenda.)
Gerald Socha
The 3rd hour of the Thom Hartmann Show airs live Monday - Friday on Free Speech TV (FSTV) which is a channel that is only carried by the Dish Network at channel 9415. FSTV carries some excellent programs. It's not a separate TV show.
Nora, except if that was what they were really doing they would have to fear a competitor that wasn't doing it. A competitor that could show (or cast suitable doubt) that they were doing it would drive them quickly out of business. Or, are they all in cahoots and it's a conspiracy!!??
Thom, no one forces those people to seek loans at these rates. If these people are charging rates that these people don't know about (they're hiding or not disclosing them), there are already laws on the books to allow prosecution. Whether we're conscious of it or not, unless we're coerced, every decision we make, we've already come to the conclusion that we're better off with the decison that we would be had we not made it.
Why "force" banks to make loans to low income people. If these people are credit worthy I assume that their loan needs are already being addressed. If they're not, then it's likely they're not credit worthy. Have we learned nothing from "encouraging" lending institutions to loan to people who prior to the "encouragement" were not credit worthy? The "encouragement" doesn't make them a good risk. If they truly are a good risk, then an untapped market exists and why don't you, as any good entrepeneur would do, step in and serve the market!?
I see two things you're railing against: 1) "unjustified" bonuses to GS employees and 2) GS doesn't pay their fair share of taxes.
First, on #2; close the loopholes, plain and simple. 1% total taxes paid seems awfully low, but I'm not a tax lawyer, so I'll trust you. The #'s really not important; it is what it is. What's important is that it's below what you feel it should be. What do you think it should be?
On #1, GS has the right to pay it's employees whatever it wants.
For the sake of debate, let's assume they have 1000 employees and pay 999 employee's $0.01 and the "top dog" $22,999,999,999.99. Absurd, right!? No one could run a business that way, the "shorted" 999 employees would leave (or more likely never would have agreed to employment under such a structure).
Let's adjust it more "fairly." Let's split it equally amongst all. Each will get $23,000,000.00. The Janitor gets the same, the CEO gets the same. Now the CEO and anyone else like him, is going to be pissed. They added more to the "bottom line" than the Janitor. Surely there was a group of people that came up with the strategy that through, execution by their fellow employees allowed GS to reap that dough. I doubt the Janitor was part of the group. So, again we adjust.
We identify the top performers and give them monies commensurate with their contribution to the success of the Company. We continue this down the line until all monies are spent. You continue this tuning and tweaking until you can spend/save/invest all of the Company's money while keeping talent happy enough to stay and allow you to go through this exercise again, next quarter/year.
My point is that every company, every day goes through this process, whether in determining base compensation or bonuses. If they do it wrong and go too low, they lose people. They can't go too high because, unlike the Government, they can't spend what they don't have. Or, if they do, they go bankrupt. That is unless the Government steps in and props them up. It's their money and they allocate as they see fit. Get it wrong and lose talent, bets are on the fact that they won't have all that money to allocate next go-'round.
If you or anyone else doesn't like what these "evil corporations" are doing, I invite you to put on your "big boy pants" and pony up to the Capitalist bar. Start a company that can generate those kinds of profits on their revenues. When you do then you can send those 460k students to Harvard for a year or foot the whole bill for 115k students. All the while you watch you talent walk out the door. But, don't ask (or imply) GS should. Or, through comparative analysis, suggest it's unfair. I wonder how many puppies and kittens could have been saved with that money, or how many starving kids could have been saved instead of starving to death? "Oh, the humanity!!!"
While it's interesting for a blog or your radio show, you don't have the right to question they way they pay out their profits anymore than they have the right to question how you spend your paycheck. Quit throwing grenades from the sideline and put your money where your mouth is; start that company, earn that dough, pay their way. Feed those kids. Save those puppies. They're waiting. And they always will be!
I was only able to listen to Thom for a few minutes. Thom briefly said that he may have a TV show. Did he elaborate on the possibility?
Here's a question: What is it worth to the Pharmaceutical Industry if millions of Americans suffer from auto-immune diseases and other sicknesses that result from the longterm effects of their vaccines?
First, they get the vaccine profits and $ubsidies liability-free. Next they get the huge profits from pharmaceuticals to treat the symptoms of the problems the vaccines cause. There is NO downside for the Pharmaceutical Industry!
Another point about the mandatory flu vaccine:
If a person is so afraid about catching the flu and BELIEVES the flu vaccine will protect them (and I sense that consumer BELIEF and FAITH are required in the case of being willing to injest/inject these vaccines). then why doesn't that person just get their vaccine and leave others alone about it? If the flu vaccine is TRULY protection against the flu, then those who get it will be protected and don't have to be concerned anymore. Forcing EVERYONE to get the vaccines is pretty strange.
And even if the flu vaccines (whether the guesswork-seasonal or the geneticly-altered H1N1) were proven to work -- WHICH IS WORSE: Being flu free a couple of years or later suffering from chronic, inescapable auto-immune illnesses or early-onset dementia which are being linked to the materials in the vaccines and how the vaccines are administered (by-passing the body's natural barriers against foreign proteins and toxins -- the skin, the gut, the blood-brain barrier? I personally wouldn't care if i missed a few days work a year with colds or flu as long as I was protecting myself from vaccines that increased my risk of getting horrible debilitating diseases and chronic and costly problems!
Thom's guest Dr. Art Caplan sounded unprofessional to me, even sort of like a quack. Dr. Caplan pushed the illogic that only vaccinated healthcare workers are safe to be around and that unvaccinated hospital workers caused hospitals to be places where patients get secondary infections.
Think about what Caplan said! He is insinuating that healthcare workers are the cause of infectious problems in hospitals as if healthcare workers are a new version of TYPHOID MARY or something! That is goofy and unscientific!
Poor sanitation, poor hospital design, poor hygeine habits -- and lots of sick people are the cause of infection.
And when Caplan insinuates that an unvaccinated healthcare workers are equal to infectious carriers of disease -- that is just plain SCREWY! A person only has the flu IF THEY HAVE THE FLU.
And it is crazy to conclude that getting the so-called "Seasonal Flu Vaccine" will prevent getting the flu also because in making that yearly vaccine the pharmaceutical companies just GUESS which virus to use in the production of the vaccine. It is just a sort of spin-the-bottle choice with no guarantee.
What the flu vaccine business is about is MAKING LOTS OF MONEY, getting lots of government subsidies, and being FREE FROM LEGAL LIABILITY for the harmful aspects of their products.
This issue is a can of worms. And has the hallmarks of a hoax.
No studies on the safety OR efficacy of the vaccines? WHY not?
Removed liabilites? WHY?
Probably the reason the industry wants the healthcare workers to get it first is that the profiteers have done their homework -- their FOCUS GROUPS -- and realize how the general public TRUSTS healthcare workers -- and if healthcare workers get these vaccines it will be easier to get the general public to acquiesce to getting vaccines.
Thom,
I was disturbed by your segment on mandatory flu vaccines for health care providers on several levels.
First, bio-ethicist Dr. Art Caplan was dismayingly dismissive and disrespectful of personal/ religious objections to a proposed mandated medical procedure.
Second, the flu shot does not guarantee immunity from the flu- there are many strains circulating each year and the shot only covers some of them.
Third, hand-washing is the single, most effective thing that people can do to combat illnesses, including H1N1, according to a NY times article published last month http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/health/15well.html
Fourth, profiteering for big pharmaceutical companies! At $25 a shot, they are laughing all the way to the bank, again. . . or have they offered to provide the shots free of cost to the hard working health care providers on the front lines of this annual "epidemic/pandemic" illness? Or at least provide the shots at cost (not at a profit) for all health care professionals!
Fifth, a government mandated flu vaccine, or any other medical procedure, strikes me as dangerous territory and an affront to personal liberty. It is also a bigger issue than just flu vaccines. As a progressive, pro-choice woman, I cringe at the idea of the government being so directly involved in health care decisions. This should be left to individuals to make well-informed, personal decisions. Otherwise, what’s next?