Glenn Greenwald is great on irony in this article on The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot. All in all it does look like the administration is manufacturing reasons to get tough with Iran, producing a faked-up and improbable smoking gun to justify McCain’s refrain “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran.”
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Someone posted to a Facebook friend a lament on the decline of Universities in the US. To which I responded. I edit the response here. Actually you have to look through your simple conception of the University, it’s place in education, and the needs of the elites as they have grown to power in the US. Universities were once part and parcel of . . . → Read More: Universities, Democracy and Bankers The Chinese model of capitalism is becoming the new (lower) world standard. Anti-worker and anti-regulation activism on the part of even “new” capitalists, will lead to abuse with impunity on the part of American employers. . . . → Read More: Chinese Capitalism: The new world standard In an absurd manner the Obama administration has chosen with the passing of FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Comliance Act) to penalize almost ALL US Citizens living abroad while trying to close loopholes for tax cheats. This will of course have a profound long term negative effect on US export competitiveness, but the administration does not care. The penalties and the reporting requirements are . . . → Read More: Catch-22: Americans abroad have problems with local bank accounts I love reading Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism…. if only because she can come out with these type of quotes: this proposal is just another example of throwing taxpayers under the bus to save the banks from suffering the consequences of their incompetence and criminality. The article in total is a great indictment of the Administration’s program to get rid of Freddie and . . . → Read More: Throw the Taxpayers under the bus RJ Eskow wrote a piece in the Huffington Post on the Administration’s proposal to clean up the foreclosure mess. I will comment on it separately later. But I want to use it to deal with a long conversation I had with a friend about how the ideology from people on the right seems to try to blame a liberal conspiracy of Fannie/Freddie and . . . → Read More: Freddie/ Fannie-Barney Frank Liberal conspiracy to sell poor people too much house. Michael Monk over at Firedoglake found a very great video snippet. I am shamelessly copying the link from the video from his blog post here so you can look at the video in embedded style… Obama says: And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put . . . → Read More: Will Obama find those shoes? The NY Times today had a longish article by Matt Bai on Governor Christie of New Jersey which contrasted his communications strategy with that of the NJ Teachers union. It was somewhat unfavorable for the Union. Christie the stand-up comedian against the whining, ad hominem and off topic meandering of the heads of the teachers. I, for one, would wish that the teachers . . . → Read More: More Firing at the Teachers Bloomberg reports that it seems finally jail terms are being given for mortgage fraud. Though reading between the lines it seems this guy was an originator who falsified mortgage documents that he passed on to Fannie. It isn’t clear if consumers were caught up in this fraud as well. The former president of a New Jersey-based mortgage company has been sentenced to 14 . . . → Read More: NJ Man sentenced to jail time in mortgage fraud scheme I am participating in the Leadership Training Institute at the Crown Height Community Mediation Center and in the latest meeting on Diversity one of my colleagues (who it was escapes me at this moment… my apologies! … hat tip forthcoming) mentioned that there was a very good essay on white privilege and male privilege by Peggy McIntosh. I realized long ago that I . . . → Read More: White male privileges considered |
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