Excerpts from Thom Hartmann News:
Budget cuts have consequences – and tens of thousands of Texans are learning that lesson the hard way. This year – Governor Rick Perry cut his state’s volunteer firefighter program by 75% - reducing funding from $30 million down to $7 million for the critical program to prevent wildfires. Now – massive wildfires are engulfing his state – and have destroyed more than 1,000 homes and killed four people. It’s the largest wildfire outbreak in the history of Texas. I think Governor Perry has some explaining to do in tonight’s Republican debate – namely – how he can tout his accomplishments as Governor when he’s literally left his state in flames.
Instead of chanting, “we’re #1,” in America – it may be time to start chanting, “Hey, we’re in the top 5!” The World Economic Forum just released its latest rankings of the world’s most competitive economies – and the United States has slipped to number five. In terms of competitiveness – our economy now ranks below Switzerland – Singapore – Sweden – and Finland. The United States dropped out of the top spot back in 2008 – coinciding with George W. Bush’s last year in the White House – and has been slipping ever since. The World Economic Forum said the reasons for our decline are debt – loss of faith in government – and corporate ethics. In other words, 30 years of Reaganomics.
Speaking of Reaganomics, while we are all taught that the United States is the place where anyone – whether they were born rich or poor – can succeed if they just work hard – the reality is the opposite. According to a new Pew report – 1 in 3 Americans who grew up and were raised in the middle class have since fallen out of that economic class today – and now belong to the working poor. This is the sort of downward economic mobility that is increasing in our nation as wealth inequality also increases – and millionaires, billionaires, and transnational corporations suck more money out of the middle class. The American dream has morphed into the American nightmare.
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life…tax the rich! A new study out of the University of Virginia makes the connection between happiness and a more progressive income tax. The study – which analyzed nearly 60,000 people across 54 nations – found that those who live in countries where the rich pay very high income taxes tend to be much happier than in nation where the tax rate is flatter like here in the United States. The author of the study – psychologist Shigehiro Oishi noted the uptick in happiness among higher-taxed nations was, “explained by a greater degree of satisfaction with the public goods, such as housing, education, and public transportation." He went on to say, "If the goal of societies is to make citizens happy, tax policy matters…Certain policies, like tax progressivity, seem to be more conducive to the happiness of the people." So why does the Republican Party hate happiness?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Great white jumps on to research boat
Source: CNN
An 1,100-pound great white shark sits in the stern of a South African research boat
Shark researchers in South Africa didn't have to go far Tuesday to find a specimen - a 10-foot great white shark leaped into the back of their boat. And rather than a story of the big one that got away, this is a story of a big one they couldn't get rid of.
The boat, from Ocean's Research in Mossel Bay on South Africa's southern coast between Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, was chumming in the waters around Seal Island and monitoring the activity of four sharks as part of an ongoing study, researchers reported on their blog.
“Next thing I know I hear a splash, and see a white shark breach out of the water from the side of the boat hovering, literally, over the crewmember who was chumming on the boat's port side,” field specialist Dorien Schroder wrote on the blog. He pulled the crewmember to safety while others jumped out of the way of the 1,100-pound shark.
Schroder said the shark landed with only half of its body on the boat, and the crew hoped it would slide off. This shark, however, wanted to hang around.
The shark thrashed about and became stuck in a 5-by-6.5-foot area on the stern of the boat, cutting the vessel's fuel lines in the process.
Schroder's crew on the Cheetah radioed for help from other researchers aboard the boat Laminade. Schroder poured water on the shark's gills to keep it alive as they waited 15 minutes for help to arrive. Researchers then tied a rope around the shark's tail and tried to use the Laminade to pull it off the Cheetah to no avail.
After the Laminade towed the Cheetah back to port, a water hose was inserted into the shark's mouth to keep it alive as a fishing boat used its crane to lift the animal by its tail and drop it in the harbor.
Shark tale over, right? Not quite.
About a half hour later, the researchers found the shark beached on a small area in the harbor.
Two researchers, Enrico Gennari and Ryan Johnson, tried to walk the animal into deeper water. The shark was having none of it, but the researchers weren't about to give up.
The attached ropes from their boat to the shark's tail and pectoral fins, tilted its head up so its gills could work properly, and towed it about a half-mile outside the harbor, where the shark regained strength and swam away.
Researchers were satisfied.
"It is impossible to predict everything that can happen," they said on the blog. "What is important is how you respond to such situation. No one was injured and the shark survived, this is a credit to our team, the port authorities and members of the community who assisted."
And they do have a whale of a shark story to tell their kids.
Our budget problem in two charts (and one issue)
Source: Ezra Klein / Sarah Kliff
Even as someone who spends a lot of time writing about health policy, this new chart from the Bipartisan Policy Center is still one that gives me a bit of pause:
This chart shows the rise of health care as percent of GDP, compared to other programs that the government spends money on. As the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Loren Adler tweeted shortly after posting the report with this graph, “It’s the health care, stupid!”
One other interesting graph that Adler and co-author Shai Akabas include in their report looks at the role of Medicare and Medicaid in the federal budget. It’s not quite as dramatic, but does make the same point:
Even as someone who spends a lot of time writing about health policy, this new chart from the Bipartisan Policy Center is still one that gives me a bit of pause:
This chart shows the rise of health care as percent of GDP, compared to other programs that the government spends money on. As the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Loren Adler tweeted shortly after posting the report with this graph, “It’s the health care, stupid!”
One other interesting graph that Adler and co-author Shai Akabas include in their report looks at the role of Medicare and Medicaid in the federal budget. It’s not quite as dramatic, but does make the same point:
Inside the Koch Brothers' Secret Seminar
Source: Mother Jones
"We have Saddam Hussein," declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be "the mother of all wars."
Charles Koch would probably not publicly compare the president of the United States to a murderous dictator. (As a general rule, he and his brother don't do much politicking or speechifying in public at all.) But Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings from the Koch seminar, a private event that took place in June at a resort near Vail, Colorado.
These unprecedented recordings provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the Koch brothers and their comrades talk when they gather. They include a pair of keynote speeches and remarks by brothers Charles and David Koch, who spell out their political aims and name some of the "great partners" who have contributed millions of dollars to their causes. (The audio was provided by a source who approached the author after the event was over and was not seeking compensation.)
Security was tight at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch on opening night of the weekend conference, which drew an estimated 300 guests. (Past attendees have included prominent politicians, right-wing media luminaries, corporate titans, and wealthy political donors.) Audio technicians even set up outward-pointing speakers around the perimeter of the outdoor dining pavilion, according to sources, emitting static to frustrate would-be eavesdroppers.
"There is anonymity that we can protect," noted emcee "Kevin"—likely Kevin Gentry, a VP for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation — as he gently urged guests to open their wallets in support of the brothers' causes. Indeed, Charles Koch named 32 individuals and families who had donated more than $1 million over the previous 12 months, yet because of loopholes in federal campaign law, their donations do not exist in the public record.
Charles and David Koch are co-owners of Koch Industries, an energy and chemical conglomerate inherited from their father that is currently America's second-largest privately held company. To date, the brothers have spent more than $100 million supporting hard-right political campaigns and institutions. They are key funders of the movement to discredit climate science and sow doubt on the scientific consensus that human activities contribute to global warming.
The Kochs also bankrolled the fledgling tea party by making massive investments in right-wing political advocacy groups such as Americans for Prosperity, as detailed by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker last year. More generally, the brothers have dedicated a portion of their vast wealth—and that of their benefactors—to influencing elections across the nation and swaying public opinion on everything from health care and fracking to labor policy and government spending.
The brothers have held their biannual seminars since at least 2003, endeavoring to keep almost everything about them a secret—not just the content but also the identities of attendees and speakers, and even the locations and dates. They've succeeded until recently. Last October, a leaked invite for the Kochs' January 2011 seminar was obtained and published by Lee Fang of ThinkProgress.org. In response, groups including Common Cause and Greenpeace organized a massive protest outside the gates of the resort near Palm Springs where the gathering was held.
According to an agenda for the 2010 Aspen meeting that accompanied the leaked invitation, previous Koch seminars have featured "such notable leaders" as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also have attended.
Several GOP governors made it to the Vail seminar in June, among them Florida's Rick Scott, Virginia's Robert McDonnell, and White House hopeful Rick Perry of Texas. News of the event slipped out after McDonnell put the trip on his weekend schedule; neither Perry nor Scott initially disclosed the trip to their constituents. A Perry spokesman acknowledged his attendance only after the Austin American-Statesman tracked the tail number of a plane belonging to one of the governor's top donors from Texas to Colorado. He described the summit as a "private gathering of business leaders."
I contacted the Kochs numerous times with questions about the seminar, requesting clarification, for example, on Charles' Saddam Hussein reference. Without addressing the specifics, a spokeswoman for the Kochs merely pointed me to a Koch Industries web page describing the conference. (UPDATE: A Koch spokesman gave ABC News' Jake Tapper a statement claiming that Koch was "not referring to President Obama in his remarks." Listen for yourself below.)
During his welcoming remarks, Charles Koch warned his guests that the 2012 elections are nothing short of a battle "for the life or death of this country." He then acknowledged the individuals and families who had given more than $1 million to the brothers' efforts—though he misspoke, saying "more than a billion," earning a huge laugh from the crowd. "Well, I was thinking of Obama and his billion-dollar campaign," Koch said, to more laughter and cheers. "So I thought, 'We gotta do better than that.'" (Forbes pegs the brothers' personal net worth at around $22 billion apiece.)
(The complete audio and transcript of his remarks are available at The BRAD BLOG.)
Koch then proceeded to read off the million-dollar honor roll, a list of 32 names that we have cross-checked against the published list of 2010 attendees, as well as additional sources. The list features many well-known GOP donors including John Childs (JW Childs Associates), Rick and Helen DeVos (Amway), Dick and Joyce Farmer (Cintas), and Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply). MoJo's Gavin Aronsen breaks it all down in his post, "Exclusive: The Koch Brothers' Million-Dollar Donor Club."
Concluding his reading of the list, Charles quipped that there were "10 more [million-dollar donors] who will remain anonymous, including David and me... We're very humble... The plan is the next seminar I'm only reading the names of the $10 million," he added, to laughs from the crowd.
Charles spoke again the next evening, following a keynote speech by Fox News host and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. The judge didn't stray far from his usual libertarian fare; he was met with hardy approval when he declared that the Second Amendment was created to ensure "the right to shoot at the government if it is taken over by tyrants."
Among Napolitano's other revelations: that he sometimes gets in "a little bit of trouble" from his employers at Fox for being tough on Republicans; that Fox hired him on the strength of his televised advice, during the contentious 2000 Florida election contest, that the Bush-Cheney campaign should take its case straight to the US Supreme Court; that he views the PATRIOT Act as the "the single most abominable, hateful, unconstitutional piece of legislation [ever] enacted"; and that he believes former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales undermined the Constitution when he threatened to prosecute the New York Times for exposing spying by the National Security Agency.
(Read excerpts from Napolitano's speech The BRAD BLOG.)
Napolitano closed his address with a well-worn Thomas Jefferson quote: "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
At this point, Charles Koch returned to the podium. "We've talked about our competitive disadvantage, how we're overwhelmed in a number of areas," he said. "One of those areas, of course, is the media—and we're overwhelmed. The media is 90-plus percent against us. But we have a few bright stars, and Judge here is one of 'em.
"Now, we've opined on what you should do, and you have to go execute. And I'm sure you'll do a great job," Koch said. "We've had great discussions, great arguers, I think great programs, great initiatives. And last but not least, I want to thank all of you who stepped forward so generously to support this as you've done in the past. And I want to give all of you a big hand for stepping forward to save our country."
The crowd applauded itself.
"We've had a lot of tough battles," he continued. "We've lost a lot over the years, and we've won some recently.…And I pledge to all of you who've stepped forward and are partnering with us that we are absolutely going to do our utmost to invest this money wisely and get the best possible payoff for you in the future of our country."
But "it isn't just your money we need," Koch added. "We need your energy. We need you bringing in new partners, new people. We can't do it alone. This group can't do it alone. We have to multiply ourselves. Just as to change the media we just can't have the judge. We need to clone him thousands and thousands-fold.
"And so, thank you so much," Koch said. "God bless you, and God bless America."
"We have Saddam Hussein," declared billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, apparently referring to President Barack Obama as he welcomed hundreds of wealthy guests to the latest of the secret fundraising and strategy seminars he and his brother host twice a year. The 2012 elections, he warned, will be "the mother of all wars."
Charles Koch would probably not publicly compare the president of the United States to a murderous dictator. (As a general rule, he and his brother don't do much politicking or speechifying in public at all.) But Mother Jones has obtained exclusive audio recordings from the Koch seminar, a private event that took place in June at a resort near Vail, Colorado.
These unprecedented recordings provide a behind-the-scenes look at how the Koch brothers and their comrades talk when they gather. They include a pair of keynote speeches and remarks by brothers Charles and David Koch, who spell out their political aims and name some of the "great partners" who have contributed millions of dollars to their causes. (The audio was provided by a source who approached the author after the event was over and was not seeking compensation.)
Security was tight at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch on opening night of the weekend conference, which drew an estimated 300 guests. (Past attendees have included prominent politicians, right-wing media luminaries, corporate titans, and wealthy political donors.) Audio technicians even set up outward-pointing speakers around the perimeter of the outdoor dining pavilion, according to sources, emitting static to frustrate would-be eavesdroppers.
"There is anonymity that we can protect," noted emcee "Kevin"—likely Kevin Gentry, a VP for the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation — as he gently urged guests to open their wallets in support of the brothers' causes. Indeed, Charles Koch named 32 individuals and families who had donated more than $1 million over the previous 12 months, yet because of loopholes in federal campaign law, their donations do not exist in the public record.
Charles and David Koch are co-owners of Koch Industries, an energy and chemical conglomerate inherited from their father that is currently America's second-largest privately held company. To date, the brothers have spent more than $100 million supporting hard-right political campaigns and institutions. They are key funders of the movement to discredit climate science and sow doubt on the scientific consensus that human activities contribute to global warming.
The Kochs have tried to keep everything about the seminars secret: the content, identities of attendees and speakers—even meeting locations and dates.
The Kochs also bankrolled the fledgling tea party by making massive investments in right-wing political advocacy groups such as Americans for Prosperity, as detailed by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker last year. More generally, the brothers have dedicated a portion of their vast wealth—and that of their benefactors—to influencing elections across the nation and swaying public opinion on everything from health care and fracking to labor policy and government spending.
The brothers have held their biannual seminars since at least 2003, endeavoring to keep almost everything about them a secret—not just the content but also the identities of attendees and speakers, and even the locations and dates. They've succeeded until recently. Last October, a leaked invite for the Kochs' January 2011 seminar was obtained and published by Lee Fang of ThinkProgress.org. In response, groups including Common Cause and Greenpeace organized a massive protest outside the gates of the resort near Palm Springs where the gathering was held.
According to an agenda for the 2010 Aspen meeting that accompanied the leaked invitation, previous Koch seminars have featured "such notable leaders" as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.). Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also have attended.
Several GOP governors made it to the Vail seminar in June, among them Florida's Rick Scott, Virginia's Robert McDonnell, and White House hopeful Rick Perry of Texas. News of the event slipped out after McDonnell put the trip on his weekend schedule; neither Perry nor Scott initially disclosed the trip to their constituents. A Perry spokesman acknowledged his attendance only after the Austin American-Statesman tracked the tail number of a plane belonging to one of the governor's top donors from Texas to Colorado. He described the summit as a "private gathering of business leaders."
Koch read off the million-dollar honor roll, a list of 32 donors who have made seven-figure contributions to the brothers' efforts.
I contacted the Kochs numerous times with questions about the seminar, requesting clarification, for example, on Charles' Saddam Hussein reference. Without addressing the specifics, a spokeswoman for the Kochs merely pointed me to a Koch Industries web page describing the conference. (UPDATE: A Koch spokesman gave ABC News' Jake Tapper a statement claiming that Koch was "not referring to President Obama in his remarks." Listen for yourself below.)
During his welcoming remarks, Charles Koch warned his guests that the 2012 elections are nothing short of a battle "for the life or death of this country." He then acknowledged the individuals and families who had given more than $1 million to the brothers' efforts—though he misspoke, saying "more than a billion," earning a huge laugh from the crowd. "Well, I was thinking of Obama and his billion-dollar campaign," Koch said, to more laughter and cheers. "So I thought, 'We gotta do better than that.'" (Forbes pegs the brothers' personal net worth at around $22 billion apiece.)
(The complete audio and transcript of his remarks are available at The BRAD BLOG.)
Koch then proceeded to read off the million-dollar honor roll, a list of 32 names that we have cross-checked against the published list of 2010 attendees, as well as additional sources. The list features many well-known GOP donors including John Childs (JW Childs Associates), Rick and Helen DeVos (Amway), Dick and Joyce Farmer (Cintas), and Diane Hendricks (ABC Supply). MoJo's Gavin Aronsen breaks it all down in his post, "Exclusive: The Koch Brothers' Million-Dollar Donor Club."
Concluding his reading of the list, Charles quipped that there were "10 more [million-dollar donors] who will remain anonymous, including David and me... We're very humble... The plan is the next seminar I'm only reading the names of the $10 million," he added, to laughs from the crowd.
Charles spoke again the next evening, following a keynote speech by Fox News host and retired New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. The judge didn't stray far from his usual libertarian fare; he was met with hardy approval when he declared that the Second Amendment was created to ensure "the right to shoot at the government if it is taken over by tyrants."
Among Napolitano's other revelations: that he sometimes gets in "a little bit of trouble" from his employers at Fox for being tough on Republicans; that Fox hired him on the strength of his televised advice, during the contentious 2000 Florida election contest, that the Bush-Cheney campaign should take its case straight to the US Supreme Court; that he views the PATRIOT Act as the "the single most abominable, hateful, unconstitutional piece of legislation [ever] enacted"; and that he believes former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales undermined the Constitution when he threatened to prosecute the New York Times for exposing spying by the National Security Agency.
(Read excerpts from Napolitano's speech The BRAD BLOG.)
Napolitano closed his address with a well-worn Thomas Jefferson quote: "When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
At this point, Charles Koch returned to the podium. "We've talked about our competitive disadvantage, how we're overwhelmed in a number of areas," he said. "One of those areas, of course, is the media—and we're overwhelmed. The media is 90-plus percent against us. But we have a few bright stars, and Judge here is one of 'em.
"We are absolutely going to do our utmost to invest this money wisely and get the best possible payoff for you in the future of our country."
"Now, we've opined on what you should do, and you have to go execute. And I'm sure you'll do a great job," Koch said. "We've had great discussions, great arguers, I think great programs, great initiatives. And last but not least, I want to thank all of you who stepped forward so generously to support this as you've done in the past. And I want to give all of you a big hand for stepping forward to save our country."
The crowd applauded itself.
"We've had a lot of tough battles," he continued. "We've lost a lot over the years, and we've won some recently.…And I pledge to all of you who've stepped forward and are partnering with us that we are absolutely going to do our utmost to invest this money wisely and get the best possible payoff for you in the future of our country."
But "it isn't just your money we need," Koch added. "We need your energy. We need you bringing in new partners, new people. We can't do it alone. This group can't do it alone. We have to multiply ourselves. Just as to change the media we just can't have the judge. We need to clone him thousands and thousands-fold.
"And so, thank you so much," Koch said. "God bless you, and God bless America."
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Bill Gross discusses structural impediments in the American economy
Quote from Bill Gross at Pimco:
The problem I have with free market capitalism...the apparent exhaustion in the face of three equally dynamic economic influences. Globalization has weakened American economies by siphoning off investments and jobs to emerging nations at 1/10 the wage cost. Take China, for example. Free market capitalism, in other words, is working for China and Brazil, but it's not working for America or Euro land. Secondly, and just briefly, free market capitalism depends on a balanced market between labor and capital. And clearly we're reaching a point where impoverished main street cannot afford to buy the goods that capitalism so magnificently produces. So I think there's an exhaustion here in terms of free market capitalism that has worked so well for 20 to 30 to 40, 50 years, but now is reaching structural impediments that prevent, you know, strong growth that we're used to.
If unemployment stays at 9% plus and if real wage gains are non-existent, then where is the spending power coming from? It has to come from a consumer as opposed to businesses. Businesses are waiting on the consumer. The consumer is waiting on business.
(Source: CNBC)
The problem I have with free market capitalism...the apparent exhaustion in the face of three equally dynamic economic influences. Globalization has weakened American economies by siphoning off investments and jobs to emerging nations at 1/10 the wage cost. Take China, for example. Free market capitalism, in other words, is working for China and Brazil, but it's not working for America or Euro land. Secondly, and just briefly, free market capitalism depends on a balanced market between labor and capital. And clearly we're reaching a point where impoverished main street cannot afford to buy the goods that capitalism so magnificently produces. So I think there's an exhaustion here in terms of free market capitalism that has worked so well for 20 to 30 to 40, 50 years, but now is reaching structural impediments that prevent, you know, strong growth that we're used to.
If unemployment stays at 9% plus and if real wage gains are non-existent, then where is the spending power coming from? It has to come from a consumer as opposed to businesses. Businesses are waiting on the consumer. The consumer is waiting on business.
(Source: CNBC)
Obama's Fantasy
Mr Obama wishes to be president of a country that does not exist. In his fantasy US, politicians bury differences in bipartisan harmony. In fact, he faces an opposition that would prefer their country to fail than their president to succeed. Ms Merkel, similarly, seeks a non-existent middle way between the German desire for its partners to abide by its disciplines and their inability to do any such thing.
(Source: FT)
(Source: FT)
The Debt Non-Explosion
From Paul Krugman
A conversation I had earlier today suggested that it might be worth pointing out a fact that isn’t as widely known as it should be: namely, that there has not been an explosion in debt over the past few years. There has been a big rise in federal debt, but this has gone along with a collapse in private borrowing, so that overall debt growth has been lower than it was in the pre-crisis years:
Source
Bear this in mind when someone starts ranting about hyperinflation just around the corner thanks to explosive debt growth.
Bear this in mind when someone starts ranting about hyperinflation just around the corner thanks to explosive debt growth.
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