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Siv O'Neall - "We do not want to die in the rubble of neoliberalism!"

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:57:45 +0000

It seems perfectly clear that Roosevelt didn't implement the various reforms to get out of the Great Depression from any excessive sense of charity (even though he was most likely a basically sound man) but really in order to save Capitalism. That's a well-known fact and Pierre Larrouturou's founding of Roosevelt 2012 does not to me make him a Messiah. However, through his reforms, FDR did save millions of people from lives in poverty, hunger and misery. He implemented new work relief programs - the WPA (Work Projects Administration) and also banking reforms, the 'Emergency Banking Act' and several other social reforms.

If, however, you hesitate to call Roosevelt a people's man (as I do), just compare Roosevelt to Obama or his predecessors! And when, for that matter, would a revolutionary man or woman be elected President of the United States? It's clear that Roosevelt was a realist, not a flaming revolutionary.

Systems often hold longer than we think, but they end up by collapsing much faster than we imagine. "In those few words, the former chief economist of the IMF International, Kenneth Rogoff, sums up the situation of the global economy. As the Governor of the Bank of England, he asserts that "the next crisis may be worse than 1930" ...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/43160

Elizabeth Warren - Wall Street Waging 'Guerrilla War' on Financial Regulations

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:51:17 +0000

Elizabeth Warren speaking on CNN stated that the issue embodied by JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is a symptom of the regulation-avoiding power that financial behemoths have to take on risks and let the public take on the consequences.

"This isn't personal to Jamie Dimon. It's what's been going on ever since Dodd-Frank passed. There's been a guerrilla war out there in which the largest financial institutions have been doing everything they can to make sure that financial regulations don't get put in place. And if they do get put in place, that they're loaded with loopholes and not very effective. There's been a lobbying army hired by these financial institutions because they really don't want to have any oversight," stated Warren.

“The problem is a combination of size and attitude. They’re too big, there’s too much power concentrated in just a handful of institutions but it’s also that they have the attitude of leave us alone, we’ll manage our risks internally, we’ll take care of it all ourselves, we’ll come back to you only if things go wrong and we need some help and we need a bailout. We can’t run an economy that way. We can’t run a country that way. We have to stand up as a people and say, 'No more of this.'"

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/14-2

[Video] Iraqi Boy on Factor-X

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:47:54 +0000

Brian Moench - Climate Crisis: The Silence is Deafening

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:40:18 +0000

Those of us who have been waiting impatiently for Obama to shed his apparent cocoon of compromise, caution and cowardice finally got a hint last week that a real leader may yet emerge and spread his wings at the White House.

But, there are public policy issues more important than gay marriage, issues where there is no margin for error and no time to waste, issues where the clock is not only ticking but nearing the end of its prelude to catastrophe. The survival of mankind is just such an issue. I'm talking of course about "the climate crisis"--what the coniving Republican strategist Frank Luntz convinced the media to start calling "climate change" in 2003 because polling showed that it sounded less ominous than "global warming."

With the President having shown some mettle on gay rights, we must now convince him that he must bring that courage to bear on the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced. Pragmatists, please don't respond with: "The public doesn't want to hear it." "It's not in the top ten of voters' concerns." "He can't win the election talking about it." Molding oneself for the sole purpose of electability is not leadership, it's pandering, something for which his opponent, Mr. Romney, is widely regarded as breaking the world record, whose only core political belief is that he deserves to be President. There has never been a more noble opportunity for a President to contrast himself from, and elevate himself above a soulless pandering opponent than President Obama has now.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/14-5

Richard Schiffman - Why Our Children Should Be Taught to Meditate in School

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:33:11 +0000

If you have brought up children, or taught them as I have, then there is something that you have doubtless said scores of times a day -- "Pay attention!" Yet this can be the hardest thing for a child to do. Their minds are like monkeys swinging quickly from one branch of thought or feeling to another. And cellphones, iPods and numberless other handheld "weapons of mass distraction" have made it that much harder for our children to focus.

This is a real problem in school, where achievement depends on one's ability to concentrate on the work. It is not just the presence of electronic devices in the classroom, something which naturally alarms a lot of teachers. More damaging are the habits which they inculcate in the young -- the surfing mentality which is always looking restlessly toward the next image, message or sensation.

Granted, this is nothing new. Before there were Blackberries and gaming devices, there were paper airplanes and spitballs. Kids have always found ways to distract themselves from the task at hand -- and adults, too. It is a challenge for all of us to keep our attention focused productively in the here and the now. But we all know from experience that our success and happiness depend on it. To learn something new, to accomplish anything worthwhile, to appreciate a work of art, to think deeply and creatively about a problem, we need to be able to focus and to keep our attention from straying.

Richard Schiffmanhttp://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Our-Children-Should-Be-by-Richard-Schiffman-120513-421.html

Linh Dinh - Idiocy as WMD

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:54:22 +0000

Borges writes, "dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy." As a preeminent mind, Borges rightly considers the mind to be a man's greatest asset, for without mind, a man is nothing. The more oppressive a political system, then, the greater its assault on its subjects' minds, for it's not enough for any dictator, king or totalitarian system to oppress and exploit, but it must, and I mean must, make its people idiotic as well. Every wrongful bullet is preceded and accompanied, then followed up by a series of idiotic lies, but we're so used to such a moronic diet by now, our trepanned intelligentsia don't even squirm in their tenured chairs.

Sane men and women don't consent to kill, rob and rape, much less be killed, robbed and raped, least of all to enrich their masters, and that's why their minds must be molested as early and as much as possible. Hence our nonstop media brainwashing us from the cradle, literally, to the grave. Fixated by flickering boxes, even infants are now mind-conditioned to become scatterbrained idiots before they stagger into kindergarten, to begin a lifelong process of becoming docile and slogan-shouting Democrats and Republicans.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Idiocy-as-WMD-by-Linh-Dinh-120513-76.html

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - World edges closer to deflationary slump as money contracts in China

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:50:25 +0000

Narrow M1 data for April is the weakest since modern records began. Real M1 deposits – a leading indicator of economic growth six months or so ahead – have contracted since November.

They are shrinking faster that at any time during the 2008-2009 crisis, and faster than in Spain right now, according to Simon Ward at Henderson Global Investors.

If China were a normal country, it would be hurtling into a brick wall. A "hard-landing" later this year would already be baked into the pie.

Whether this hybrid system of market Leninism – with banks run by Party bosses – conforms to Western monetary theory is a hotly contested point. The issue will be settled one way or the other soon.

What seems clear is that China's economy did not bottom out as expected in the first quarter. It is flirting with real trouble. Yao Wei from Societe Generale says a blizzard of awful data "screams out for easing".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9263196/World-edges-closer-to-deflationary-slump-as-money-contracts-in-China.html

German Pirate Party to rock Merkel’s boat?

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:43:29 +0000

Germany’s infamous Pirate Party took 8 per cent of the vote in the country’s biggest state, making it the fourth region where they have parliamentary seats. With the national elections set for 2013, could these political buccaneers threaten Merkel?

"We have written history today," said Michele Marsching, chairman of the state chapter of the Pirates, in tears of joy. “Now it is time to party, politics should be fun!" he added.

The Pirates won the support of voters in the parliament of Schleswig-Holstein in the North of Germany on Sunday, the same day that Merkel faced an embarrassing defeat against opposition in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The unorthodox party has enjoyed growing popularity throughout Germany recently, capitalizing on the votes of Germans disgruntled with Angela Merkel’s harsh austerity measures.

http://rt.com/news/pirate-party-support-merkel-186/

Paul Buchheit - Five Facts That Put America to Shame

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:35:34 +0000

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses...I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" These words, from poet Emma Lazarus, were inscribed on the Statue of Liberty over 100 years ago. Today the golden door has a lock on it, paid for with record profits from the health care, education, and financial industries

1. We're near the bottom of the developed world in children's health and safety

According to a 2007 UNICEF report, the U.S. ranked last among 21 OECD nations in an assessment of child health and safety. The assessment measured infant mortality, immunization, and death from accidents and injuries.

A related 2009 OECD study generally agreed, placing the U.S. 24th out of 30 OECD countries for children's health and safety. It also showed the devastating effects of inequality in our country. Despite having the second-highest average income for children among the 30 OECD countries, the U.S. ranked 27th out of 30 for child poverty (percentage of children living in households that are below 50% of the median income).

2. We've betrayed the young people who were advised to stay in school

Over 40% of recent college graduates are living with their parents, dealing with government loans that average $27,200. The unemployment rate for young people is about 50%. More than 350,000 Americans with advanced degrees applied for food stamps in 2010.

As Washington lobbyists endeavor to kill a proposed bill to reduce the interest rates on student debt, federal loans remain readily available, and so colleges go right on increasing their tuition.

Meanwhile, corporations hold $2 trillion in cash while looking for investments and employees in foreign countries, and American students are forced to accept menial positions. Yet delusions persist about our new generation of would-be workers. Conservatives are all bubbly about today's young entrepreneurs creating their own jobs -- jobs that "don't yet exist."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/14-0

Yves Smith - Barack Obama, the Great Deceiver

Gary Null — Wed, 16 May 2012 19:30:55 +0000

Barack Obama swept into office on a tide of giddy enthusiasm. His “Hope and Change” was a pledge to reverse Bush era policies, including socialism for the rich, adventurism in the Middle East, and attacks on civil liberties. He announced his intention to serve as a transformational leader, invoking Abraham Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan as role models. Despite the frigid temperatures, people poured into Washington, DC to hear his inauguration speech, wanting to be part of a remarkable passage.

It wasn’t simply that Obama was the first black president, but also that the economic devastation of the financial crisis opened up a historic opportunity to remake the social contract, to punish the reckless and greedy, no matter how lofty, and to build new foundations and safeguards for ordinary citizens. Obama, with his youthful vigor, his technocratic command of policy details, his “no drama” steadiness, his mastery of oratory, seemed uniquely suited to this time of need. His personal history of repeatedly breaking new ground fed optimism that he could do so for the nation as a whole.

Those times of heady promise are now a cruel memory. Again and again, Obama has shown his true colors. It isn’t simply that Obama lied. Politicians lie. But there are norms for political lying. The depth and dependability of Obama’s misrepresentations constitute a difference in kind.

His pattern of grand promises producing at-best-in-name only and at worst outright bait and switch was well established by his 2008 campaign. Some close observers pointed out his past legerdemain, for instance, his misleading account of his years in New York, his record of fronting for finance and real estate interests in Chicago, his promise to bring a state-wide health care program to Illinois, which in the end was walked back to a mere study. And there were more decisive tells in 2008: the high level of Wall Street funding for his campaign, the inclusion of neoliberal “Chicago boys” in his economics team, his reversal on FISA after promising to filibuster it, which gave retroactive immunity to telecoms for aiding and abetting illegal wiretapping, and his whipping for TARP.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/barack-obama-the-great-deceiver.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29