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@brian a. hayes -
I think that you try to live your life much as I do - I try to live AS IF the world was already the place that I'd like it to be. However, I also realize that its NOT!
Maybe you can see a nuke-free world with a middle east free of conflict, but I think that even you must agree that we ain't there yet. I also want our government to protect its citizens from corporate greed, anger and folly - but I think that it's more important that our government protect us from those who define us as "the infidel", and therefore feel the need to eliminate as many of us from the planet as possible - and have the ability to do so.
as progressives we need to define what being a progressive means. why am i a progressive? i believe in the power of the people to direct their lives as the see fit. i want my government to protect its citizens from corporate greed ,anger and folly i can see a world without nuclear weapons. i can see peace in the middle east. as a progressive i live my life with total freedom that we the people can create the change , we need to see.
@DRichards -
Al Qaida is not the only hostile presence in Afghanistan. There is also the Taliban to consider, who are far friendlier to Al Qaida than to the US, or to the wants/needs of the Afghani people.
The way I look at it, though, our current presence in Afgnanistan is a consequence of the Pottery Barn rule - we broke it, so now it's ours. We "secretly" helped them to drive the Soviets out, then walked away, leaving behind a perfect recipe for a failed state. We should not be surprised that this is how things developed.
Ronald Ray-gun did NOT single-handedly bring the Soviet Union to it's knees - The Afghani people lent a big hand in that endeavor. We obviously owe them something for that. The question is whether the currency we owe them is American Blood. I think not - I don't even think that's what they want! I think what we owe them is an infrastructure in which they can begin to build a sustainable nation for themselves.
David Ray Griffin spent his professional career (probably decades) on "Process Theology" which is basically making excuses for why the world is so screwed up if the God of the Bible exists. But of course, he insists that God exists.
Based on what he spent his career on I'm not impressed by his intellectual prowess.
Precious, I think you're on the right track. I got so fed up Friday that my 14 year old son and I boarded an Amtrak train from Portland to DC to deal with the health care issue. Along the way I have been told by everyone that coming here was useless, there's nothing to do here I can't do at home, and most of the things I hoped to do you can't do here. Apparently soap boxes have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
So I'm reformulating my plan, digging in my heels, and I'm going to find a way to make a difference while I'm here.
I can't think back on the founding of this country and believe there is not still a way to participate directly in the process of Democracy.
Amtrak is a nice way to travel, and affordable. If you feel called, just come here. Obama's OFA site can help you get connected when you're here, and after making some local contacts, you might be able to get some local folks helping you with unemployment as well.
BTW, I can't help but to wonder, if we had everyone covered, and health care was adequately funded, how dramatically the rate of unemployment might drop, what with all the new PAs, and RNPs, and RNs, and MAs, and imaging techs, and respiratory techs, etc we'd need to actually care for sick people instead of allowing them to become sicker.
Thom, could you do more programs on our war in Afghanistan. Perhaps you could be directive on most effective ways to protest. Please let us know when and where to write letters and also start asking your Washington connections to do a lot more reporting on it? Thank you.
A War of Absurdity
By Robert Scheer
Every once in a while, a statistic just jumps out at you in a way that makes everything else you hear on a subject seem beside the point, if not downright absurd. That was my reaction to the recent statement of the president’s national security adviser, former Marine Gen. James Jones, concerning the size of the terrorist threat from Afghanistan:
“The al-Qaida presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”
Less than 100! And he is basing his conservative estimate on the best intelligence data available to our government. That means that al-Qaida, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan—so why are we having a big debate about sending even more troops to fight an enemy that has relocated elsewhere?
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20091007_a_war_of_absurdity/
Re: Credit Unions
Our local credit union uses the banking fees to establish their rates, thus there is no fee savings for the credit union member.
Re: Money
I suspect the real purpose of creating Federal Reserve money over a barter system is to insure the payment of interest in the form of taxes.
Re. the banking issue & credit unions, I belong to probably the largest entertainment industry credit union on the west coast and I have been charged very high fees. The only difference between the credit union and the banks (I have accounts with regular banks too) is the amount of the fees they charge. My credit union charges $22 for non sufficiient funds where the big banks charge anywhere from $33-40/incident.
My situation, I live about 20 miles from the nearest office for my credit union and my husband's job won't do direct deposit. That 20 mile drive will typically in LA traffic take about an hour. So i have to depost at a "partner / co-op" credit union in the area. The problem is they put an 11 day hold on my husband's payroll checks. The only way this can be removed is by sending a fax to my credit union with the a copy of the pay stub attached. They credit union I make my deposits charge a $3 fee to fax. To save the $3/week ($156/year) fax charge, I have to send the fax myself and wait. If in the hours I'm waiting for my credit union to remove the hold a transaction tries to go through and i don't have enough to cover it before the hold is removed, I get charged a $22 NSF fee. Crazy. In the past 6 weeks I've been hit w/ more than $130 in charges. I was able to get $44 credited back.
the credit unions are robbing us too, they're just not ripping us off as much as the big banks are and that's the only difference.
Tom,
In regard to your comment about switching to a credit union, I can wholeheartedly say it's been a breath of fresh air for us after switching from Bank of America to Unitus Credit Union here in Portland. The credit union seems to operate with the best interest of its customers as its fundamental policy. The bank exists solely to make money off its customers. That dynamic alone creates a wildly different approach to customer service.
Just my observation.
@Quark - "Somehow, we believe that the lower classes are capable of horrendous crimes, but never the upper classes, thus never members of our government."
Please remember that, according to the C-street gang, "conventional morality" - and apparently, conventional law as well - is not applicable to those in power.
This is essentially an extension of the Nixon doctrine - If a person of power runs afoul of cultural norms, or the law, then obviously it's the norms or the law that's wrong!
Regarding the Polanski arrest: I support this action, because I do believe that a child rapist should be held accountable no matter how long he's been hiding out...but I do wonder about the timing, given that Polanski has been in Switzerland numerous times in the past 30 years and he could have been arrested at any time. But now Switzerland is in trouble with the U.S. for offering tax havens to financial scofflaws. Could it be (because I can see a political negotiation in almost anything) that the U.S. said: "Give us Polanski and we'll ease up on the pressure to give us the names of the financial thieves who have been robbing us blind"??
So the right wants to warn us about bureaucrats coming between patients & doctors, eh? OK - let's talk ...
I've been going to a doctor who had been running his own, independent practice for about 10 years. His office was run so efficiently that he was once featured on the cover of a publication named "Medical Business" magazine. However, with the proliferation of insurance providers, etc, it has become more & more difficult for the guy to continue on his own, so he has finally joined up with a large, multi-practice medical group, and moved into an office with 3 other doctors.
Apparently, in the paper shufffle involved with moving and integrating his patient base with that of his new partners, the papers to get this doctor, at his new address, to accept MY insurance, never got pushed. All the other doctors in his new office are in my PPO, but my doctor somehow isn't. So, when I went to see him in the new office a couple months ago, and they asked for my insurance info, the folks at that office said "Yes, we take this insurance," but the insurance company turned the claim down. Next time I went to that office, I brought the claim rejection paperwork with me & asked what was up. I was told that they would deal with the issue.
Here's how the problem was finally resolved - the fee for that one visit was waived, and a note was placed in my account stating that I'm NO LONGER ALLOWED to see MY doctor. If I want to go to that office now, I must see one of the other guys.
So I don't need government bureaucrats to come between me & my doctor ... privately-employed bureaucrats are doing a fine job of that already.
Greetings to all! If one really wants to discover the real motive behind the creation of this recession and all others since the "Great Depression" look to the illegal Federal Reserve and its monetary polices.
Good God, my last post sounds like I'm arguing for eugenics. That's not it. I just wish there was a way to help our fellow humans to have more compassion for one-and-other, as previous posts this week have opined.
I think so many of humanity's problems are the result of malfunctioning and less evolved brains.
DRichards,
Re: Somehow, we believe that the lower classes are capable of horrendous crimes, but never the upper classes, thus never members of our government.
It's easier to be a crook if you have "the face of an angel." Besides, to question the motives and actions of upper classes and members of the government goes against so much of the propaganda with which we have been indoctrinated since birth (unless you're part of the "secessionist" movement!)
F.Y.I.
Re: Another development of interest on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting"
Dylan Ratigan, host of the aforementioned program, although often bombastic and apparently in love with the sound of his own voice, has recently displayed signs of an awakening dissatisfaction with right-wing mouth pieces and perhaps some progressive impulses. Monday morning he coined the phrase "Corporate Communism" to describe our financial and insurance industries in the U.S. All the money going to a few, artificially constrained market places, corruption, uncompetitive practices, etc. This must be seen as a positive development when a business centric reporter is willing to speak this type of heresy to the "free marketers". MSNBC is becoming the lefts' new think tank. "Corporate Communism" works for me as a potent label, if not as a socially responsible business model.
Interesting NYTimes piece in today's business section talks about Bruce Bartlett's criticism of today's Republican Party. (Mr. Bartlett has worked for Jack Kemp and Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He has been a fellow at the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation.)
“So much of what passes for conservatism today is just pure partisan opposition,” Mr. Bartlett says. “It’s not conservative at all.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/business/07leonhardt.html?_r=1
Quark,
Re: Boogey Man
If the information is manufactured, then is it a war crime?
Of course we will never know, because so many of the public could never handle the truth. Somehow, we believe that the lower classes are capable of horrendous crimes, but never the upper classes, thus never members of our government.
DRichards,
If we don't have a boogey man, we MIGHT have to rethink our policies. (Naw, that would never work --- we have too many defense contractors to support!)
What if Osama bin Laden died in December 2001?
Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?
by David Ray Griffin
http://www.amazon.com/Osama-Bin-Laden-Dead-Alive/dp/1566567831/ref=wl_it...
Questions for Gary Gensler and Henry Hu
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
Preface: CDS traders, read the note at the end...
Tomorrow, the House Committee on Financial Services will be talking about regulating about over the counter derivatives. Committee Chair Barney Frank has already circulated a draft of the proposed legislation.
The star witnesses are Commodities Futures Trading Commission chairman Gary Gensler and Henry Hu, who is the Director, Division of Risk, Strategy, and Financial Innovation, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
I urge members of the Committee to ask the following question (you're welcome to hand this out to the witnesses):
Nobel prize-winning economist Myron Scholes - who developed much of the pricing structure used in CDS - said that existing over-the-counter CDS were so dangerous that they should be “blown up or burned”, and we should start fresh.
A Nobel prize-winning economist (George Akerlof) predicted in 1993 that CDS would cause the next meltdown.
U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters introduced a bill in July that tried to ban credit-default swaps because she said they permitted speculation responsible for bringing the financial system to its knees
Nassim Nicholas Taleb said this month, "To curb volatility in financial markets some financial products 'should not trade,' including complex derivatives."
Warren Buffett’s sidekick Charles T. Munger, has called the prohibition of CDS the best solution, and said “it isn’t as though the economic world didn’t function quite well without it, and it isn’t as though what has happened has been so wonderfully desirable that we should logically want more of it”
George Soros says the market is still unsafe, and that credit- default swaps are “toxic” and “a very dangerous derivative” because it’s easier and potentially more profitable for investors to bet against companies using them than through so-called short sales
Satyajit Das, a leading credit default swap expert - the commonly-accepted figures for the CDS losses suffered due to Lehman's bankruptcy have been understated. He also says that the justifications for the value of CDS for the economy are phony.
In addition, the proposed regulations of CDS won't really fix the problem, because they will only cover "standard" derivatives contracts, not the slew of "creative" contracts.
Indeed, Das says that the new credit default swap regulations not only won't help stabilize the economy, they might actually help to destabilize it.
The overwhelming majority of derivatives contracts are held by just 5 banks. So are we really basing our entire strategy on CDS on protecting those 5 banks?
Credit default swap counterparties drive company after company into bankruptcy, and - once a company the counterparties are betting against goes bankrupt - the counterparties cut in line in front of all of the bankruptcy creditors to get paid (and see this).
Given the above, why shouldn't we ban or heavily tax over-the-counter credit default swaps, at least where the CDS buyers isn't itself the referenced entity?
For background, see this.
Note to current or former CDS traders: I'm not against CDS, but I think they need to be reigned in.
And I don't think Congress really understands CDS or their effect on the economy.
If any traders know how CDS can be reigned in without reducing the size of the CDS market, I'm all ears.
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/
YOU'VE GOT TO HEAR THIS!
Betsy McCaughey finally met her match on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting." It's great to see someone insist that she "answer the question!" (Plus Rep. Anthony Weiner, one of my heroes in the healthcare debate, helps.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/ns/msnbc_tv-morning_meeting#33192386
A HEADS-UP
Tonight, Keith Olbermann will devote the entire hour of "Countdown" to a "Special Comment" on healthcare in this country and what Americans can do to improve the legislative outcome in congress.