Ninety Years of Economic Progress

Hugo Chavez.
“This government is here to protect the people, not the bourgeoisie or the rich.”
read more about Hugo’s revolution right here.

Obi Wan VS George Bush

Catrina, the NYTime’s article is harrowing, a tiny example of the misery and suffering of just a few of the victims of this man made hell. Corruption and tribalism ferments this stuff all over Africa, the Balkans and anywhere else this combination occurs. It’s the tragedy of human attachment to power and the mindless following of ‘leaders’. Hasn’t the West just suffered a blow to its belief in ‘leaders’ too?

On a tangential note, in the NY Times there’s reporting of the discovery, in Kenya, of some footprints of Homo Erectus that clearly show a modern foot. But these are over 1.5 million years old! (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/science/27foot.html?_r=1)

Ironic, isn’t it, that in the cradle of our ancestors, where the first clearly modern, upright hominid once walked, we are still behaving like waring bands of apes?

Makes you want to weep.

CB

Sarah Palin has, unfortunately, not evolved beyond the level of a childlike simple mindedness which really precludes her from the conversation of adults.

But she’s dead moose for Republicans! LOL

Thanks Paddy, I was afraid I’d forgotten all the (gory) details in case I ever am confronted with a warm moose corpse.

(Note to self: sharpen axe, pack extra glad wrap)

Thanks Paddy, I’ll give it a look early next week when my bandwidth limit resets! (I did a friend a favour and downloaded AutoCad…a mere 3Gb file, so the last few days of this month are a wee bit tight! LOL)

_________________________________

As usual, Frank Rich gets to the nub of the American situation, the popular mood and its political implications:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01rich.html?em

…will Obama’s rhetoric only get him high enough to fly too close to the sun, or will he make a smooth landing?

That depends on how well he gets the banks under control, and so far, it’s looking a bit wobbly. Elsewhere it was commented that he likes the stodgy old Canadian model that is still intact, but it will require Federal intervention and some strong pruning.

I guess we wait and see, but Rich is right on this. Obama will get one chance to fix this mess. Get it wrong and he’ll be toast.

paddy – FFS!!!!
Can you believe that there really was a nano-sacond in time when that gormless fool could have been VP and therefore potentially POTUS when McCain fell off the perch??
Slap me now.

12
jen
Here’s the link to the Margret Atwood piece.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/saturdayextra/stories/2008/2432115.htm
I’ll try listening to it when I’ve finished watching LES CHORISTES on SBS and the Krugman stuff.
So much to see and hear…So little time. 🙂

Here you are Jen.

Margaret Atwood Payback

By the way Jen, being a lifelong insomniac, I often trawl the radio at all hours of the morning and I can tell you that whenever I hit Atwood lectures, I’m rivetted! (Since Radio National likes to repeat things I’ve actually heard one piece, or at least most of it, twice!)

She’s amazing. Anything that holds my attention at 5am has GOT to be good!

Catholics gird for Sebelius fight

Kathleen Sebelius’s nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services has triggered a bit of a battle between the traditional Catholic right and the newly energized Catholic left.

Sebelius is Catholic, and word of her nomination today prompted the launch of a new site, Catholics for Sebelius, by the left-leaning group Catholics United.

Catholics United says in its release:

…right-wing organizations, opposed to universal healthcare for all Americans, have been spreading misinformation about Gov. Sebelius’ record on pro-life issues in order to malign her to the Catholic community. Catholics United intends to correct these smears by educating Catholics and the media about Gov. Sebelius’ record of reducing abortions in Kansas by 10% during her time as Governor.

read the rest on Ben Smiths blog on Politico

Not just ‘mistakes’ CB, but his Dept of Justice is doing everything in its power to stop the courts from overturning the Bush argument that the President can do anything, even if it’s illegal.

Go figure:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/28/al_haramain/

…and this is no small constitutional matter, but like Greenwald says, goes to the heart of their rights.

Just why is Obama defending Bush and leaving open the door for him to do the same egregious acts?

Make no mistake, they are trying everything they possibly can to stall this, or kill it off.

10
Paddy
That was a good listen.
He seems pretty cool, calm and collected but i will wait for Kirri’s report on it.

If one owns up to a snap type situation BEFORE someone actually snaps you, is that acceptable as a pre-emptive defence against punitive action?

26
EC
Yeah though we could be in for a bit of a belting again later this week.

Exodus to smaller rivals.
COMMONWEALTH Bank and Westpac have begun to lose customers following their multi-billion dollar regional bank acquisitions last year.

And smaller rivals, such as Bank of Queensland and Bendigo Bank, appear to be the beneficiaries.

CBA, which acquired Perth-based Bankwest for $2.1 billion in October, appears to be suffering the biggest customer exodus according to official data published by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

The authority’s monthly report on banking statistics shows that Bankwest’s household deposits base fell $380 million to $14.07 billion in January.

continued on the Herald Sun

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

The harsh reality that is being repressed is this: the Western world is suffering a crisis of excessive indebtedness. Many governments are too highly leveraged, as are many corporations. More important, households are groaning under unprecedented debt burdens. Average household sector debt has reached 141per cent of disposable income in the US, 156per cent in Australia and 177 per cent in Britain…..

The delusion that a crisis of excess debt can be solved by creating more debt is at the heart of the Great Repression. Yet that is precisely what most governments propose to do……..

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25115869-643,00.html
————————-

Kirri, Julia Prole has the measure of any “champion” the tories can wheel into the chamber. There’s no doubt she’s Dauphine.

Ecky, talking about the financial Armageddon as we were, the big plus I see goes something like this: a wipeout of our faith in the financial system will also make people less likely to believe that our environmental practices are sustainable.

We have, in very quick time, moved from certainty to uncertainty, and this will spread across many areas of human behaviour. The two areas of finance and environment are not unconnected even at the most elementary level: massive consumption leads to a heavy carbon footprint (unlike the one left by Homo Erectus! LOL) and an attitude that it’s OK to burn fossil fuel like there’s no tomorrow because we just ‘buy’ our way out of the consequences.

Without a shuddering collapse in this ungoverned machine we were headed for a runaway.

Now the fuel line’s been severed and the engine has come to an almost complete stop.

Time to think about how quickly we were headed for the cliff, eh?

So, in one sense, the financial crisis is the crisis we just HAD to have! Now we have some moments to reflect on what IS of value, and instead of trading up to BIGGER, more POWERFUL and ever higher consumption, we can start to think about what we really need, how to conserve, how to produce renewable energy and how not to pollute our way to extinction.

This really is a very timely crisis, and one we should make the best of.

We won’t get a better chance.

KR,

I applaud your optimism, and hope you are correct. My cynicism tells me that it is possible that the financial crisis will become an excuse to do even more environmental damage …

If I’m right, then the mooted US Federal strategy will entail cutting out the State’s right to run banks, centralise the remaining few, and limit the growth of credit. In the mighty USA! Imagine, the Federal government actually controlling credit creation to x% p.a.!

Holy Sheet Batman!

And the consequences of going down that path (and they almost MUST, or something very close) is that capital will be allocated MUCH less to speculation, (and finish HIGHLY leveraged speculation stone dead), and send it more to productive enterprise. (If that means static house prices, that is a VERY good thing in my opinion….just look how the opposite got us into this friggin’ mess).

Capital has been misallocated, risk mispriced, and the environmental consequences almost completely unaccounted.

There’s BIG change comin’ down the turnpike, ladies and gentlemen, and not a moment too soon.

Africa has been in terrible difficulties for so many years now it is hard to see any way out. I watched the Bob Geldoff series on Africa, and it was powerful, amazing and horrifying. It seems to me that the only choices the African people get are dictatorships in name or dictatorships that hide behind democratic trappings. When you add tribal hatreds, rampant dark age mentality superstition and exploitation of natural resources by foreigners, the picture just gets more hopeless.

Effectively, you have a feudalistic tribal system with the modern apparatus of state control.

41 David Gould The whole place is full of all sorts of minerals diamonds gold etc. They are even fighting over that.

The results should be a wakeup call to the federal government and its plan for mandatory internet filtering. According to the survey, only 2% of Labor voters supported the filtering at the time of voting, with the majority not even realising it was an election policy. Almost 90% of respondents also said they would opt-out of any optional filter component, bringing into question the demand for such a system.
more on whirlpool

The Australian Broadband Survey for 2008.
read the full survey online here on Whirlpool

Kirri @ 35

Maybe this crisis will finally give the Commonwealth Government the balls to shut down the negative gearing scam on rental housing. And on shares too. Both have distorted our investment choices as a nation, with predictable results – share and housing bubbles that had to crash.

Still, I’m better off than I was five years ago simply because I turned half of our savings into cash in January 2008. I saw this coming but, alas, did not mount the argument that we should sell ALL of our shares well enough to my better half. (My fault) Still, compared to 5 years ago the shares a now comprise a rather thinner gravy in our savings than they once were.

Ah well. There’s going to be a lot more pain before there is any semblance of gain. We have to reduce debt dramatically and return the average home to being in the 3-4 times Average Weekly Earnings. Which means a lot of people a going to want to blame someone.

As Jen would say, !GB … I’d add !JWH and Tip (they all deserve to be sent them to no expenses paid trip to the middle of the Afghanistan & Pakistan borders complete with signs (in the local language) saying Osama is a wimp.

Holy Sheet Batman, the Dax is off OVER 12% at the moment!

(and it took a good rogering last week as well!)

It’s really friggin’ ugly out there.

Bugger, wrong data on US site.

Dax ONLY down another 3%

I saw this on a US futures site, and just about fell off my chair:

XETRA-DAX -465.51 -12.11% 3,739.45

…their data is obviously whacky because the index number on the right is correct, but the fall is measured from somewhere at the beginning of last week…not the last session.

Can’t always believe what you see on the net, eh? LOL

HI Cardster and Cat-
I feel the need to explain that the FuckGeorgeBush signature is really a generic term fostered in a time of an obvious target. It should be FuckAllNeoconservatives – including of course JWH, Smirk and all their evil sidekicks- Peter Reith, Philip Ruddock, Vanstone,Abbott, etc etc etc. And across the Atlantic the list is endless – so feel free to taylor it your own needs.
Fuck The Lot of Them.

And just as an example of complete idiocy on our own doorsteps to entertain us through the waiting waiting (paddy , hope you are ok)
Let’s set up a whole precinct development based on a Ferris Wheel FFS , and ooops….
http://business.theage.com.au/business/design-fault-to-keep-ailing-wheel-shut-20090301-8lh8.html
Talk about bread and circuses.

Kenya has a very long history, with first the Portuguese and then the British trying to take it over. Long before that Arab traders had moved in during the 1st century AD, but while they had quite an impact it was not an invasion.
The Portuguese attempt failed after about 150 years, they were out of there by the 17th century, although there is still some evidence of their visit in the spices used in cooking.
The British invaded around the end of the 19th century, setting up a crown colony in 1920. At the time this was a habit of European countries, picking a country rich in resources and taking it over. The Kenyans (or in particular the Mau Mau organisation from the Kikuya tribe) did not take kindly to this and rebelled. After tens of thousands of Kikaya and about 650 british were killed, the Brits called it quits and gave them their independence in the early 1960’s. (1963 if I am not mistaken). Soon after Jomo Kenyatta declared a republic and was president until 1978. Like so many rebel leaders, Kenyatta was hated by the British, but did pretty well in power. In the early days this was a single party system, with no real opposition to speak of. There was an executive with the president at the head, a legislative branch(national assembly) and the judiciary. The national assembly consisted of 200+ constituencies, each electing a member, with 12 special interest MP’s appointed by the parties depending on the numbers of elected MP’s.
Some trouble with an abortive coup around 1980-82, soon after Daniel arap Moi took over from Kenyatta. By this time the economy had started to fail and in the early 90’s the western powers (particularly the US) suspended economic aid to force reforms.
By 2002 the National Rainbow Coalition came to power and various anti corruption measures were introduced. By now there was a two-party system, but corruption and electoral fraud was rife on both sides. By 2003 anti-corruption measures were introduced and all thought things were settling down, but flared up again during the 2007 election.
My brother, a surgeon from South Africa, is very familiar with Kenya, spending quite a bit of time there most years. It is a beautiful country with lovely friendly people, taken advantage of by the west over many years. He is confident this period of instability will be overcome. The country has had its fair share of problems in its long life, and hopefully will overcome this setback.

A New Hope For Redistricting in Florida.
“Legislators shouldn’t get to pick their voters: voters should get to pick their legislators”.

The 2010 U.S. Census is now around the corner, and that means that all the states of our union will be drawing new maps for legislative and Congressional redistricting following the census.

Even casual observers of redistricting understand the power of controlling the process, or at least having a seat at the table during redistricting. It could make the difference of a seat or two in several states, and perhaps as many as 10-20 Congressional seats overall.

Republicans enjoyed control over several critical states after the 2000 census, and were subsequently able to rig a number of Congressional maps rather brilliantly.

One case in point is Michigan, where a bluish-purple state which voted for Gore and Kerry was rigged to include nine Republicans and six Democrats at the Congressional level (the breakdown is now eight Democrats and seven Republicans).

more of this article on Daily Kos. Just scroll down a bit.

Kerneels, I’ll happily concede that you’re much better placed to know the facts and figures re. the death toll during the Mau Mau uprising,.
But I (and wiki) suggest a much smaller number of Europeans were killed than 650. According to Wikipedia it was only 32.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Uprising
Then again, perhaps I’ve misunderstood what you’re referring to.
Or else (heaven forfend) wiki’s got it wrong again.

Ta megan – it is that stupid thing , where you wait for something that you hope never happens, and then when it doesn’t you get annoyed that you put everything on hold.
As if it would be better if all hell broke loose ….
go figure. Humans are truly nuts.

stay safe all Vic Ticksters – got a feeling in my waters that the shit might again be about to hit the fan.
xx

Paddy,
Even at the time many different figures were quoted. As far as the British side is concerned, the figures include official settlers (ie registered at London House as immigrants to Kenya), other civilians (African, European and British), and British troops. It was in the British interests to minimise the numbers, which may explain the wide variances I find. Mind you, the reported Mau Mau deaths also vary widely. The Mau Mau killed mostly other black Kenyans cooperating with or working for the British. The official number of Mau Mau killed also seems to be on the low side, based on tales of large numbers massacred and never reported, and the number of known Mau Mau left at the end of hostilities.

It’s pretty hard, or next to impossible not to agree with the idea that some of the most egregious derivatives, like Credit Default Swaps, need to regulated in such a way as they are not part of a casino game:

In the early years of the London insurance market, it was possible to buy a life insurance policy on a complete stranger. Then insurance companies noticed the high incidence of unexpected homicides among their lives assured, and the concept of insurable interest was devised, codified by the Life Assurance Act of 1774. Today, you can’t buy a life insurance policy unless you can demonstrate some loss by the assured party’s death. The business is safer that way!

The same consideration must surely apply to the CDS market. The legitimate hedging purpose of CDS today represents only a tiny proportion of contracts outstanding. The U.S. taxpayer is already on the hook for $150 billion, with more to come, through the inept CDS operations of the insurance behemoth AIG. With multiple bankruptcies and huge market instability owing at least part of their provenance to CDS, the public policy consideration for closing or at least sharply restricting the CDS market is even clearer than that promoting the restriction of the insurance market in 18th century London (at least taxpayers weren’t expected to pick up the tab for insurance policies on murder victims!)
(prudentbear,com)

…you’d think someone would have spotted this behemoth, that it was out of control and the risks being taken were going to fall on taxpayers.

Wouldn’t you?

Anyway, the Wall Street casino is getting shut down, one way or another. Last night another bloodbath on the markets which are now at levels not seen since the late nineties.

Gone, all gone, a decade of gains blown away.

On the issue of housing prices, I agree and Cardster’s comment that negative gearing should be eliminated, I don’t think that can be done. When Keating tried it, the rental market dried up and the measure was eventually reversed. I agree that property is way overpriced, but I think the consequences of the removal of negative gearing means it’s not really a workable option.

Perhaps it would be more workable to remove the CGT exemption on one’s home. We still have to live somewhere, so I don’t think this will mean the supply of available homes dries up. But it might mean that people are less likely to churn their homes, to pour huge dollars into the homes in renovations and extensions. They’ll be less likely to buy or build homes way too big for their needs, with a view to selling it at a profit later. The values will fall as the family home will be less a lucrative investment and more, well, a family home. But then, perhaps it’s just unpallatable politically.

I think as a general measure, the 50% exemption for capital gains made by individuals needs to be removed. It’s simply inequitable for capital gains to be concessionally taxed compared to salary and interest. But then if they do that and keep the exemption for the family home, it will make the family home an even more lucrative investment (in a scenario of rising asset values).

Funny, Paddy. It’s an abattoir, so why not some “public execution” while they’re at it?

Secret Bush Memo Authorizing Warrantless Seizure Of ‘Terror Suspects’ Released.

The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects.

The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants.

The Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions, but the documents themselves had been closely held. By releasing them, President Barack Obama continued a house-cleaning of the previous administration’s most contentious policies.

read the whole article on The Huffington Post

Meghan McCain Overshares On Dating, Daddy Issues.
Here’s the biggest surprise: I am not only turned off by people who voted for Barack Obama, but I am also turned off by people that voted for my dad–or more so, obsessive supporters of my dad. Recently, over dinner, a guy started explaining his reasons for supporting President Obama during the election (I didn’t ask, I think the poor guy felt guilty) and I immediately found any attraction I had previously had dissipate. But same thing happens if a guy starts talking about all the reasons why my father should be president. I have the ultimate Catch-22 in post-election dating. So where does that leave me, and who exactly am I attracted to? Let’s just say I’m spending a lot of time writing and even more time with my girlfriends.

more on The Huffington Post including an image of Megan. God she’s cute.

Gibbs on Rush Limbaugh.

Video on Politico

So what happens when the USA decides they like socialism?

Web-Savvy Obama Team Hits Unexpected Bumps.
The team that ran the most technologically advanced presidential campaign in modern history is finding it difficult to adapt that model to government. WhiteHouse.gov, envisioned as the primary vehicle for President Obama to communicate with the online masses, has been overwhelmed by challenges that staffers did not foresee and technological problems they have yet to solve.

Obama, for example, would like to send out mass e-mail updates on presidential initiatives, but the White House does not have the technology in place to do so. The same goes for text messaging, another campaign staple.

Beyond the technological upgrades needed to enable text broadcasts, there are security and privacy rules to sort out involving the collection of cellphone numbers, according to Obama aides, who acknowledge being caught off guard by the strictures of government bureaucracy.

“This is uncharted territory,” said Macon Phillips, White House director of new media, which was a midlevel position in previous administrations but has been boosted by Obama to a “special assistant to the president.”

Phillips, 30, a self-described geek who grew up in Alabama and worked at a D.C.-based online consulting company before joining the campaign, has been trying to manage high expectations that the Obama administration will run the most accessible, transparent, Web-savvy government in history. He feels the weight of carrying out that bold ambition — and hears the criticism.

Hours before the $787 billion economic stimulus package cleared Congress, Obama’s online team posted the legislation on WhiteHouse.gov. The team recognized that many Americans would not only want to read the bill, which runs 1,071 pages, they would want to comment on it. On WhiteHouse.gov, however, users were asked to limit their “comments, thoughts and ideas” to 500 characters, a restriction that didn’t go over too well.

read the entire article on CBS News

Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?
A desire for change isn’t a sentiment unique to voters in the United States, and it’s not something that our country should fear when embraced by our Southern neighbors. El Salvador, a country that will hold presidential elections on March 15, is a case in point. It’s a place where a single party has been in power for two decades. It has long been mired in poverty, crime, and corruption. And its own Cheneys and Rumsfelds remain in power. A victory by the progressive frontrunner in the electoral contest — the first Latin American presidential elections since President Barack Obama’s inauguration — would give the new White House an opportunity to reject fear-mongering about the rise of left-leaning governments in Latin America and instead praise the regional wave of democratic transformation.

In recent months, Mauricio Funes of the progressive FMLN party (the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional)has consistently led in the polls. A February 20 poll reported Funes with an 11% edge over Rodrigo Ávila, a private security mogul, former director of the National Civil Police, and nominee of the right-wing ARENA party (the Alianza Republicana Nacionalista). Funes is well known in El Salvador as a television journalist who hosted one of the few programs openly critical of the government. He has capitalized on public support for new approaches to a crime epidemic and an economy that has provided too few alternatives to destitution or migration to the North. ARENA has held the presidency in El Salvador for the last 20 years, including the 17 years since the signing of the 1992 Peace Accords that ended the country’s civil war.

read more of this article on Foreign Policy in Focus

It’s tragically funny: ex-CEO of AIG, which just announced the BIGGEST quarterly loss in US history (almost $100 billion Aussie dollars! Oooops!!) is now suing the company for “material misrepresentations and omissions” that lead him to take on more stock. As the biggest sole shareholder, he’s a wee bit upset that his $54 shares are now under 50 cents, and he’s been almost wiped out.

I almost feel sorry for him!

So when the ex-AIG trump having done his arse acting on information received, loses his “material misrepresentations and omissions” case, Joe ex-CIO Vs Club Mammon, who’s gonna pay his lawyers?

The special relationship is going global.
Gordon Brown

Historians will look back and say this was no ordinary time but a defining moment: an unprecedented period of global change, and a time when one chapter ended and another began.

The scale and the speed of the global banking crisis has at times been almost overwhelming, and I know that in countries everywhere people who rely on their banks for savings have been feeling powerless and afraid. But it is when times become harder and challenges greater that across the world countries must show vision, leadership and courage – and, while we can do a great deal nationally, we can do even more working together internationally.

So now is the time for leaders of every country in the world to work together to agree the action that will see us through the current crisis and ensure we come out stronger. And there is no international partnership in recent history that has served the world better than the special relationship between Britain and the United States.

It is a relationship that has endured and flourished because it is based not simply on our shared history but on the enduring values that bind us together – our countries founded upon liberty, our histories forged through democracy and an unshakeable belief in the power of enterprise and opportunity.

But if it reflects our values and our histories, this special relationship is also a partnership of purpose, renewed by every generation to reflect the challenges we face. In the 1940s it found its full force defeating fascism and building the postwar international order; in the cold war era we fought the growth of nuclear weapons and when the Berlin Wall fell we saw the end of communism. In this new century, since the horrors visited on America in 2001, we have worked in partnership to defeat terrorism.

more on The Times Online

Cute one Paddy! LOL

Talking of irony, how’s this, from the pen of David Frum (Mr “Axis of Evil”) trying to hose down the hot flushes from Rush Limburg’s latest cheesy effort, his “address to the nation” courtesy of that royal media flagship Fox:

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise — and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

(quoted in the NY Times)

…there’s some real angst amongst the old neocons that they are headed so downmarket collectively that their sorry patrician asses will not sit comfortably with the Rush riff-raff chowing down on this tosh.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown coming soon to a theater near you. So who will they bump off first, Dan Brown for writing the books, Ron Howard for directing the movies or Tom Hanks for being lead actor? 😈

This may interest some of you, High Definition Trailers.
http://www.hd-trailers.net