It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it, Upton Sinclair

An interesting timeline, one that is I suspect correct and one that is right in it's implications. Rahm would not want to learn anything that would interfere with his preconceived notions. The idea that we've got to suck up the the corporatists and the big money people in order to win certainly isn't new. The fact that you can't screw up enough to lose your job. Is probably not new either. If you insist that the things to do are very conservative things to do.

Now by job I mean the money that comes in from their corporate backers. That would include all writers for the MSM. It would also include all most all elected and appointed officials. One can of course lose one's elected position, or the people who appointed one can also get voted out, but then one will get to go back to the right wing welfare trough, or a nice lobbying position which would probably provide even more money than one got working for the government.

Well well. Why do you think the judge put the guy in jail. Do you think that it is possible that the judge has decided that too many important people may be implicated by a witness who is too cooperative? Hmmmmmmmmm?

[Un]Employment

You want to see a scary figure check this out and scroll down to U-6. Happy Fourth of July?

Health Insurance

So after years and years of being told by the powers that be that socialized medicine is not very good and is just well wrong, is it a surprise that most people say that they would keep their insurer rather than go with a public option? What is surprising is that a huge majority think that there should be a public option. Available, I guess, for the hoi poli, for those peasants who need it and not for us middle class who are well just doing so well in this society.

A guy I know, a couple of years ago got cancer and had to be off the job for several months. He works for a good employer, and had good insurance, but after some time the employer would not (or could not I never understood which) stopped covering him, in the middle of his illness. Because of the law he was allowed to purchase it himself. He was able to do that for several months and keep it. Then when he went back to work (his employer kept his job for him) his employer then picked up his insurance again.

He had good coverage by the standards existing the the United States, not by any other industrialized nation, however. Would he have been better off with socialized medicine? You betcha.

American Justice

So Madoff is to be sentenced soon and the government is asking for 150 years while the defense is asking for only 12. For a 71 year old I don't think that there is much different.

What interested me the most is that wifey had $80 million taken leaving her only $2.5 million. Poor baby.

It is beginning to look like Madoff succeed in keeping the family out of prison and with enough wealth to live well for the rest of their lives.

Now here is a family that I would think would merit prolonged detention. Certainly, they have caused a great deal of harm to our country. There appears to be no way that they can be tried and found guilty. Therefore, given Obama's position on prolonged detention, these should be the first people held (I'm talking the wife and kids at least). Surly, these people who in all probability did more harm to this country in general than any terrorist we now have in custody deserve prolonged detention, if anybody does. I mean lets face it if they could get back in the financial area couldn't they do that much harm again? Therefore..................

Yet Another Post on Health Insurance

Actual unretouched photo of health insurance CEOs at work.

Sara Anderson had a comment on the Fucked Again post of a couple of days ago. She said, and I think I'm being fair, (you can look at her comment on that post): That requiring all people to buy insurance would require people who are young and healthy and probably don't now need health insurance to purchase it and therefore make the risk pool larger and since the new people would use the insurance less, the individual cost s/would go down for all. She caused me to think about what I'd written.

To paraphrase myself: I don't agree with what I see as her point. People buy all sorts of insurance (home insurance, life insurance, etc.) without being required to do so. I have family members who have made good livings selling insurance for a long time.

People do not buy health insurance because it is so expensive. When I quit working at legal aid, my wife (du jour) and I continued to pay for insurance even though we were both healthy and relatively young. Even under COBRA the price kept going up and up. Once we were off it sky rocketed. We had no health problems (other than allergies) and were both under forty.

I think the obscene profits and the insurance bureaucracy will simply be continued and institutionalized under mandatory plans forcing people who have little to spend it now on insurance, so the big boys get richer. And the rest of us will continue to be denied or physicians will have to have staffs to simply fight with the insurance industry to get the money out of them

The short answer is that I do not trust the insurance industry to not take the mandatory money and simply use it to increase their profits rather than lower the rates for everyone. I also do not expect service to be any better absent massive government oversight, which will in the long run simply not happen.

More Health Insurance Stuff

Krugman makes some very interesting points concerning how far to trust insurance companies. About THIS far. No really, however far that is on your computer and no farther. They will lie and cheat. Requiring everyone to buy health insurance may give the insurance companies a lot more money from people who will (for the time being) not use the insurance and therefore one could, in a just world, expect the industry to lower costs across the board, but I doubt it (a lot).

However, given the industry's history unless the government forces the industry to lower its' profit margin, they'll just take the money and run with it. Managing these companies profits would be well neigh impossible politically and probably completely impossible practically.

Crook's and Liars point out that it doesn't work that way in Massachusetts. The costs to the individual are still astronomical.

Banks And Bankers

Somewhere in the Ur part of my brain I keep wondering if all this torture and star chamber stuff isn't being kept on the front burner to keep the discussion off economics.

Digby has a nice post up concerning Greider's book.

I had a friend in law school a woman who had worked for Greenspan between college and law school. This would have been during the Nixon interregnum. She told us a couple of interesting things about Greenspan. First, that he had a lot of women working for him, mainly she thought, because he could pay women less then men at that time. Second, that all their projections were massaged to project success for whatever it was that Nixon was trying to do.

But, the most revealing and kind of sadly funny thing was that one year they had a xmas party in the offices and a prize was given to the employee who had made the most accurate predictions for the previous year. That person was the guy who ran the mail room.

Whenever I think about our economic situation, I think about that story.

More of the Fucking Same

I couldn't think of a single funny thing.

So the best of the economists of the left, the ones who predicted the collapse, have jumped all over Obama's leaked (should that be in quotation marks?) new (that should definitely be in quotation marks) economic plan. For those who have been asleep for forty-eight hours, they panned it.

Basically, as I understand it we, through our rulers, by giving money to the people who originally screwed up will buy bad assets at way over the market prices and take the hit if they stay down, but not get the profit if they go up. That will be because we've loaned the money to these assholes to make the purchases, not made them ourselves.

It truly amazes me that these people (the ones running the companies, the ones making the trades, the ones who used to run the companies and now run the Treasury and government in general) seem to have absolutely not one second of self doubt. It was beyond their control, no one could have foreseen this problem (it doesn't matter that people did, of course)(including a Noble prize winner). It will correct with a "little" help from the government.

The government's position: It will all be over by next year. And when it isn't, it won't be the conservative assholes who get blamed.

Oh Just Waaaa

I mean like Atrios says "poor wealthy white people." I do see that one of the writers is a Buckley, I wonder if it's a relation.

You know I've had clients who were charged with a crime when they were in a car when the real thief went into the place to rob it. I've also got a guy who bought a gun from a thief, thinking it might be stolen, but not sure. He's now charged with receiving stolen property. These people at AIG (and other places like MSNBC and Bear Sterns) should be glad they are not in jail.

Boring AIG & Bonuses Again

I have been thinking about these people at AIG who got the bonuses and the ones who will receive the next billion in bonuses. They ran the company into the ground and they ran the entire world's economy into the ground. Which now that I think about it really is pretty impressive.

On the other hand, what do you think that they do/did that a graduate of a good joint vocational school with dual degrees in accounting and computer science couldn't do?

Damn I Hate It When I'm Right

I put up the last post before I saw this. There is apparently no way you can fail without being chosen to work on this administration's financial team. At least under Bush they waited until they were appointed to fail completely.

Given my tax problems and criminal history I should be a natural for some high level administration position. Well that and the fact that I am willing to take a position in a field I know nothing about. I think that I'll put my name in today.

Deep Thought -- AIG Contracts

You know I wonder if our president, who happens to be a constitutional law professor has seen these unbreakable A.I.G. contracts.

Does It Strike You As Strange or Where Are The Fucking Contracts

Now I've got you by the short and curlies

Does it strike you as strange that we have not seen any of these unbreakable contracts?

OK, maybe Clinton would have been better. Maybe (heresy) McCain would have been better. It is hard to imagine someone being worse. I would have expected that anyone would have tried to buy their friends out of this trouble. Anyone would/could have thrown money at the banks as easily as our Democratic friends are. Although I'm hoping that the Republicans would have had more fun (oh, that Henny Youngman).

As I said his brilliant political skills will only work if he produces. You can run and you can get elected, but then you have to produce --- if you are a Democrat I mean. For the most part Republicans still get a pass.

I would like to see the contacts, though. It is one thing to leak to various news media that the contracts are unbreakable, knowing that the "reporters" (scare quotes) we have now wouldn't even try to see them. It is another thing for congress and the white house to buy into it without looking at the contracts and then letting us see them. Unless they are all in on it (says that little voice in my head).

The more I think about this story the fishier it gets. All those people who are getting the bonuses are probably working at will. All can be fired. And replaced with people who are competent. Let us see these unbreakable contracts. Another question, do you think that given the choice of losing their jobs and foregoing a bonus most of these people would choose to lose their jobs? Aren't bonuses by definition dependant on doing something special? I would think at the vary least you would have to make the firm money not lose the firm money before you get a bonus.

Where are the fucking contracts?

Oh here they are:

So I guess this is what we now own.

OK Maybe I Was Wrong

OK, perhaps I was wrong and maybe Obama wasn't the best of three bad choices. Or if he was then we are indeed fucked.

Accurate At Least

So Mexico (the government, at least) is all upset because this guy is one of the wealthiest people in the world. He comes in at 701 with a puny billion dollar fortune. All because he got it illegally. (By the way check out Greenwald today about Protugal's legalization or at least decriminalization of all drugs.)

That means that there are at least 700 people in the world who are worth more than a billion. Think about that for a minute.

OK, have you gotten your mind around that. Meanwhile I'm worried about a couple of hundred (that's dollars not thousands). Everybody I know, even those who are "well off" are looking over their shoulders.

Actually, a second thought is that there are 700 people who can legally steal more than a billion from the rest of us.

Why Should I Work?

Why should I do the heavy lifting when someone else does it and I can just link to them? Although, I do not expect anyone to believe me, I had come to the same conclusion about Madoff's plea before I read Simple Justice. That is, that by pleading to these counts it was the only way to (perhaps) tramp down all the evidence of conspiracy with his sons and wife and other relatives.

I mean let's face it all Madoff can do is hope to keep the kids, at least, out of it. And let's also face it that Madoff was allowed to plead to eleven counts that did not include conspiracy. I suspect that the problem with that is that when the victims realize that there really isn't a lot of (or maybe any) money to cover their investment, they will start to check out the other parts of his "businesses" and his relatives. They can bring civil suits and, stuff will probably come out in five or six years. I suspect that if the only victims were poor (before Madoff's crime was revealed, that is) people and charities, all of that sordid stuff might be kept hidden. But given that the victims are (or were) the wealthy I suspect that it will all come out in the end.

Although, you have gotta wonder just what the prosecutor was thinking and what is going on letting Madoff plead with no conspiracy count. That certainly raises questions about the forth rightness of the U.S. Attorney.

Economics? Eh

So reading again about Obama who is not, it appears, doing enough. I say it appears because those who knew what was coming and just where we are are now are calling him on his "too little, too late." There is also the seeming willingness to throw tons of money into holes that have been dug by the wealthiest (the money coming, of course, from the rest of us). Add to this little or no oversight and we have a disaster, and who knows if it would be as big or bigger or smaller than if nothing were done.

Well, OK the people I mentioned earlier know, and they seem to say something is better than nothing economically. But in political terms probably doing a little something, is worse than doing nothing. Why, you vouchsafe? Because it will turn people off to government action and progressive politics for the foreseeable future. (Obama a Randian sleeper cell?)

Obama is a brilliant politician. But eventually even a brilliant politician has to produce on the most important political issues of his (or her) time. In this case it is the economy. He is doing half assed things, along with his continuing to dangle Social Security out there as a ripe grape for his wealthy buddies. This is not brilliant politics, this is not even competent economics.

I started to write "Once again," but I don't think it is again. I think it is "still." It hasn't changed in at least sixteen and probably more like thirty years. Our rulers allow us enough liberty (read my rants!) and toys (did I show you my new computer?) to keep us occupied.

I suspect now, that the only change that will be allowed through is a sort of cosmetic one, which will look like, what? I don't know, but not like the place I grew up, with expectations for the children being better than those for their parents. A few very wealthy. Their most important minions working hard for them.................. and the rest of us. Probably being given enough to keep us from going crazy and killing those in power. But then it is always easy to convince the vast majority of the underclasses that they really do not deserve anything more and the upper classes deserve all they have and more.

Well, I voted for Obama because of hope (is that word already owned?) and because I knew what both the others stood for. He was zit.

A Couple of Things

I've been thinking about a couple of things and lo and behold here are some posts about them.

First, I've been wondering about the Madoff thing and this post by Simple Justice is brilliant, because he says just what I've been thinking. I'd figured that the deal was probably to keep his sons out of jail, but I hadn't realized that it could extend to his wife and some other relatives. I am kind of concerned about the thought that they'll be allowed to keep some of the money, but we'll see. My bet is that at least the family won't go to jail and they will be left with smidgen maybe a mill. total,

Second, there is the question I've had all along as to what the hell Obama is thinking about with Social Security. I can understand why republicans would be attacking it, but I cannot really understand why a "moderate" democrat like Obama would keep looking at it for "reform." It doesn't need reform. The only reform that has been suggested is to invest it in the market. That that is still being suggested is, to put it mildly, amazing. I do mean WTF. No matter what you owe your money supporters, I would think that you would not even consider that. At least not at this point.

I mean lets face it for a guy who has been so brilliant politically up to now this does seem like a tin ear sort of thing. Unless, of course he is relying on the so called liberal media to eventually convince the rubes out there that Social Security is unsafe or a form of Ponzi. Then he will let his wealthy buddies swoop in and eat it up.

The other way to look at this is to look at the game he is playing with the banks. Is he just not creative enough? Cause he certainly not dealing with that issue with the kind of forcefulness one would like to see.

I'm thinking that both of these things involve the miss use of other people's money. Maybe I should have been a banker.

Just Wonderin

How do you steal 50 billion dollars if you don't own your own country?