Economic Lessons

And the lesson learned from all this economic mess is ... if you're going to behave, behave as IRresponsibly as possible and do it in the BIGgest possible way so that you make others take your risks (while you take your millions and run) and you end up too big to fail and you get lots of other people's money handed to you with barely a slap on the wrist. Greed is Good ...

Whereas ... all you get from being responsible is ... you end up small enough to fail, to disappear beneath the waves without a trace.

I'm sick of it.

Let's look at the whole picture ...

In this article in the Washington Post, Marie Arana reminds us that to refer to Barak Obama as our first black President is to ignore all but one portion of his bloodlines and heritage. "To me, as to increasing numbers of mixed-race people, Barack Obama is not our first black president. He is our first biracial, bicultural president. He is more than the personification of African American achievement. He is a bridge between races, a living symbol of tolerance, a signal that strict racial categories must go." She also points out that "Few who see Barack Obama, it seems, understand that he's 50 percent white Kansan."

On a tangentially related note, remember all that stuff about Obama sitting on a panel with '60s radical, Ayers? That, apparently, made Obama a "terrorist sympathizer." Why didn't his sitting on that same panel with, as I understand it, some powerful Republicans also make him a "Republican sympathizer"?

I wonder about these things ...

Kick the SOBs Out -- sans Millions

Something to make you REALLY SICK ...

Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation this morning said that the CEO of Toyota makes $1 million/year. His company made $5 billion last year.

The CEO of one the "big three" US auto makers makes $15.7 million/year. Another makes $21 million. Both companies LOST multiple BILLIONS last year.

As Nancy Pelosi said, most workers make less in a LIFETIME than one of those guys makes in a MONTH.

The auto CEOs arrived in Washington in their big private jets, hats in hand, begging for handouts -- with no plans to share as to what they planned to DO with that money.

I say kick the SOBs out -- and demand that they pay back to their respective companies the multiple millions they've been paid in past years for letting their companies FAIL. At the very least the millions ought to go to pension funds and layoff payments for people who are going to lose their jobs because of the greed and bad management of those CEOs.

Why should I pay them ANYTHING??? Why should the taxpayers pay them ANYTHING before they've PAID BACK all that money they never earned?

Money for nothing ...

I feel the same way about AIG. No junkets, no parties in ANY part of the company if you're expecting taxpayers to bail you out. You cut back FIRST. Then, when you've done all you can, maybe then and only then come to the taxpayers. Maybe.

A Nose as a Nose ...

HERE in The Economist this week, is a wonderful "obituary" by Ann Wroe for the Bush administration, in which the nose of a president serves as a metaphor for his failings.

The Bright Side and the Grim Side

Hooray! Obama is our new President-elect!

On the seriously bright side, I love what Garrison Keillor had to say HERE in his syndicated column as it appears in the Chicago Tribune.

On the significantly grim side, I am sickened -- but, sadly, not particularly surprised -- by an Associated Press report as it appeared on the NPR website HERE.

Many people were concerned about what might happen during the election and about whether we might end up with another election mess (and giveaway) like the one we had in 2000. I have also been concerned for Obama's personal safety. I hope that I have reason to continue to celebrate his election and Presidency and that I never have to mourn as I did in 1968 when both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. I think Obama may be the best Presidential option we've had since Robert Kennedy. I hope we are blessed with the same intelligence and strength and grace for the next four years that we saw during the campaign and election.

Priorities in the Health Care Debate [revisited]

Spammers have figured out how to bypass the comment monitor, apparently, because my original post of this in November of 2007 got spammed this morning. I think the topic is worth repeating, so I deleted the original posting, and I'm reposting my post and its one legit comment here.

There's something seriously wrong with the current debate about health insurance for children. It is said that all children deserve health insurance. Ithink the people who are arguing for that -- indeed, everyone arguing in this debate -- are focussing on the wrong thing.

It's not health insurance that children -- and adults -- need. It's health care.

In fact, I believe we need a lot less insurance and a lot more care.

The idea that we need insurance to get care is bogus. Though it's true that, given the system as it is set up today, one really does need insurance to be able to afford care, it's also true that if the whole insurance industry disappeared tomorrow, we'd still have doctors and nurses and health card providers. And a whole very expensive middle-group would have their< costs -- and profits -- eliminated from the overall cost of health care. Furthermore, healthcare providers would be able to eliminate their expenses associated with dealing with insurance companies and filling out forms and such.

Something to think about ...

Comment from blogger "Sal", Sat Nov 03, 03:32:00 PM 2007:

San Francisco is offering health care for the uninsured and, of course,is being taken to court for how they're doing it, but ...

SF is offering health care, not insurance, to people of low income who have no insurance and can't be covered with Medicare or MediCal. If you're on holiday at Disneyland and bust your head, your Anaheim medical bills won't be taken care of, but any health issues that pop up while you're within the city limits are.

Chron article

But right you are. The question is health care, not health insurance.

Olbermann comments on Palin's glass house

Keith Olbermann, in one of his "Special Comments" this week, takes Palin to task for her hypocrisy HERE:

Olbermann: It's Palin doing the pallin'
Hockey moms in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

UnAmerican Activities, Palin Style

You know what they say about living in glass houses and throwing stones, not to mention what the Bible says about not judging people. As long as we're talking about associations with violence and anti-American terrorists, check out the Palin credentials in a salon.com article by David Talbot HERE. Palin's husband was a long-time member of the Alaska Independence Party founded by Joe Vogler, "preached armed insurrection against the United States of America." Palin told the AIP to "keep up the good work."

Hypocrisy to the max

Hypocrisy isn't unusual on the campaign trail. But to hold Obama accountable for any association with a "terrorist" who was engaged in terrorist activities when Obama was a kid but who was, by the time Obama came to know him, a respected professor -- to hold Obama accountable for that without taking John McCain seriously to task for his association with, even embracing of, unrepentant convicted criminal terrorist G. Gordon Liddy takes hypocrisy to new levels.

Read what Steve Chapman had to say in The Chicago Tribune HERE, for one thing.

Find more at mediamatters.org HERE, including links to the above article and others.

Moyers on the bailout (by any other name)

The transcripts of last night's Bill Moyers' Journal aren't up yet but they will be soon. Watch for them and note what Moyers and his guest, Emma Coleman Jordan, say about the great bailout (by any other name) ... Or go ahead and watch the streaming video, which is online and available for viewing.

Meanwhile, click HERE for more info about Professor Jordan and for some pointers to more reading.

There's also a link to a copy of the bailout bill (bloated from the original 110+ page House version to * 451 * pages in the version the Senate passed -- roughly 340 pages tacked onto the end) and a discussion about it: www.publicmarkup.org