What if central banks had decided to shore up borrowers and not banks…
The radical alternative discussed here last week – QE for the People (or QEP, for short) – would bypass banks completely by distributing newly created money straight to the public. It is not yet on anyone’s agenda, but neither is it any longer dismissed as a joke.
Given the clear political attractions of giving money to citizens, rather than bankers, it may start to gain attention, at which point there will surely be powerful objections to this idea.
Only Two athletes I remember watching and thinking “Why do human beings even try to face them?”: Bolt and Tyson
These are the only two athletes we ever knew that made it look this easy. We knew they were going destroy the opposition. We knew it was up to them by how much. We knew we never saw anything like it in their division of their sport (Tyson in Heavyweights and Bolt with sprinters). We knew you had to see it because there is nothing close to it and nothing lasts forever.
Tyson’s ferocity and ability to escalate sustained violence from the opening bell. His technique (prior to jail) was excellent, and his speed was maybe more impressive than his strength.
Here’s Tyson fighting Reggie Gross in 1986…fast forward to 3:45 to see where Gross tries to assert his will by throwing everything at Tyson, and fails miserably. Fast Forward to 5:40 to see Tyson in slow motion. The speed and quickness is still shocking to watch.
Bolt, is just a sprinter built like no others. He doesn’t start well. Who cares. After the 1st step of the blocks, his competition’s advantage is gone. Ask Michael Johnson what he thinks of Bolt. The sprinters aren’t slouches. These guys around him at the start, are blazing fast. Guys are not finishing in the top 3 and running under 20s in the 200. That’s amazing. Amazing. Everyone is running some damn fine races and Bolt is just killing them. For lack of Olympic XXX embeds, here is Bolt setting the world record in the 200 at 19m 19s in the worlds in 2009:
The San Francisco-based appeals court ruled that when Congress wrote the law regulating eavesdropping on Americans and spies, it never waived sovereign immunity in the section prohibiting targeting Americans without warrants. That means Congress did not allow for aggrieved Americans to sue the government, even if their constitutional rights were violated by the United States breaching its own wiretapping laws.
“Under this scheme, Al-Haramain can bring a suit for damages against the United States for use of the collected information, but cannot bring suit against the government for collection of the information itself,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority. She was joined by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and Judge Harry Pregerson. ”Although such a structure may seem anomalous and even unfair, the policy judgment is one for Congress, not the courts.”
“One factor made the 2012 grind bearable and at times even fun for Obama: he began campaign preparations feeling neutral about Romney, but like the former governor’s GOP opponents in 2008 and 2012, he quickly developed a genuine disdain for the main. That scorn stoked Obama’s competitive fire, got his head in the game, which came as a relief to some Obama aides who had seen his interest flag when he didn’t feel motivated to crush the opposition. […]
“When he talked about Romney, aides picked up a level of anger he never had for Clinton or McCain, even after Sarah Palin was picked as his running mate. ‘There was a baseline of respect for John McCain. The president always thought he was an honorable man and a war hero,’ said a longtime Obama adviser. ‘That doesn’t hold true for Romney. He was no goddamned war hero.’ “
And isn’t that the worst thing about Mitt Romney on the trail: people trust and like him less every day he is out there.
The 83-point victory is bigger than the Dream Team’s biggest Olympic win, a 116-48 defeat of Angola. It’s early, but through three games, the 2012 version of the Dream Team has been more dominant than the original Dream Team. They are averaging more points and winning by a bigger margin.
But then I read in the Washington Post that he made those comments on Monday while talking to fundraisers.
Do you realize what health care spending is as a percentage of the GDP in Israel? 8 percent. You spend 8 percent of GDP on health care. And you’re a pretty healthy nation. We spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. 10 percentage points more. That gap, that 10 percent cost, let me compare that with the size of our military. Our military budget is 4 percent. Our gap with Israel is 10 points of GDP. We have to find ways, not just to provide health care to more people, but to find ways to finally manage our health care costs.
Mitt’s not wrong. He’s just flabbergastingly off-message. The Post’s Sarah Kliff does the heavy lifting:
Israel regulates its health care system aggressively, requiring all residents to carry insurance and capping revenue for various parts of the country’s health care system. Israel created a national health care system in 1995, largely funded through payroll and general tax revenue. The government provides all citizens with health insurance: They get to pick from one of four competing, nonprofit plans. Those insurance plans have to accept all customers—including people with pre-existing conditions—and provide residents with a broad set of government-mandated benefits.
So is the argument now that government regulated, mandated, tax funded, single payer healthcare is awesome, we just disagree with this awesome policy being good for Americans?
Halliburton has previously said it received an anonymous e- mail in December 2010 alleging that current and former employees violated Halliburton’s own business-conduct codes and the FCPA, mainly through its dealings with an Angolan vendor. The e-mail has alleged “conflicts of interest, self-dealing and the failure to act on alleged violations,” Halliburton has said in federal filings.
FCPA is the 1977 law requiring that US companies don’t illegally bribe foreign officials as part of business and that SEC accounting standards are used by foreign firms with US listed securities.
Plutocracy is an ignored problem in emerging economies. The World Bank, IMF and G8 countries have not resolved that any monetary aid is in too many cases simply wealth multipliers for crony politicians who are trading resource wealth and labor for personal enrichment.
This will all result in a fine and business as usual.
The company first disclosed the Angola investigation in October 2011. It said then it self-reported to the DOJ and had ‘met with the DOJ and the SEC to brief them on the status of our investigation and provided them documents.’ The SEC issued the subpoenas after that initial disclosure.
Halliburton is one of the biggest oil and gas services companies in the world. It operates in about 80 countries with nearly 70,000 employees. Revenues last year were $24 billion.
The company’s shares trade on the NYSE under the symbol HAL.
In 2009, Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR paid $579 million to resolve criminal and civil FCPA charges. KBR was part of a consortium that paid about $180 million in bribes to Nigerian officials. The consortium won $6 billion in contracts to build LNG facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria.
Even though this is a “largest ever” fine, two things remain: the countries where these offenses are taking place use shell “consulting” firms to be able to send money directly to cronies and for companies to get timely access to boundless resources, they will happily pay the SEC fine and these bribes in the order of millions to make billions.
Reviewing stock prices and focus grouped, carefully parsed attack lines from the campaigns from candidates at 5 p.m. every day doesn’t have any inherent news value or relate to guts.
It’s not even a pause because “something” has to be written every day at 5pm even though nothing has actually been said of real import. Basically they are trying to create a target for campaigns to dump spin on them daily at 5 p.m. so they can launder it as newsworthy.
When I heard that Philadelphia native, Air Force Veteran and famous Emmy award nominated TV Actor Sherman Hemsley died, I thought of one of my favorite episodes of the Jeffersons “Change of a Dollar” (1983) . Its a narrated episode (a la Twin Peaks or Desperate Housewives) except the narrator is a dead president: Jefferson’s Cleaners first dollar of revenue. It fits this description of the Jefferson’s from The Onion AV Club:
But while the show focused plenty on satirically exploring whatever social malady was being tossed around in the writers’ room that week, over time the sharp comedic interplay between the actors—particularly the darts lobbed between Hemsley and Marla Gibbs’ withering maid Florence—shaped the show into a more farcical and character-driven affair, with Hemsley seamlessly shifting from jerk to underdog to sympathetic, loving family man, often within the same episode.
The episode starts with the Jeffersons and the Willises celebrating an award ceremony where Tom Willis will be mentioned for helping to discover a now successful writer who’s won an award named “the shaft”. George tears down his effete neighbor Tom on the night of his big award on the way out while promising to make the award ceremony on time and then rushes all the way from the east side to his original Queens store to “check out everything”.
Then the episode flashes back to the opening day of the store. While setting up wine and American Cheese wrapped singles for their opening day, George links his hopes and dreams for his family to his new business:
George: “I wanna do it for Lionel, I wanna send Lionel to college so he don’t have to scrape like we do! and you know what I’m gonna do for you Weezie? I’ma buy furs, i’ma buy diamonds, I’m a buy you expensive cars…”
Weezie: “oh george, you don’t have to do that!”
George: “Okay, but remember I offered!”
George actually does go on to promise Weezie a maid and a “deluxe apartment in the sky” and then he makes his wife half owner of his business. George wants to suceed so his family can do better than him and better in the future. Lionel in college, Weezie being served instead of serving others. We see why George makes Weezie part owner: whenever he is discouraged by their slow start, he is shored up by Weezie telling him that he will succeed. He knows he is there with her and she’s been there through and through, his word and dedication being enough.
After pitching Jefferson Cleaners to anyone who listens, the first customer Mrs. Colby arrives.
She is intent on giving new businesses a shot.
Mrs. Colby: “Light on the starch, blouse in a box. You do a good job for me and I’ll tell all my friends about you”
George: “Well Mrs. Colby, I hope your very popular.”
Really Mrs. Colby is recognizing the honest effort of another human being. She’s rewarding effort and risk whereas everyone else who has walked by Jefferson’s cleaner was to busy to consider them.
15 years later, Mrs. Colby returns as she has every Thursday since she gave Jefferson’s Cleaners a chance, but instead of bright and early, she comes under the cover of night, after close, obviously indigent. Jefferson welcomes Mrs. Colby into the store and has her clothes ready for her to pick up and treats her like the same Mrs. Colby for a moment every Thursday. He reciprocates Mrs. Colby’s dignity just like, years early, she afforded a hungry new businessman the same when everyone else pretended they didn’t exist.
Above all we well remember that walk: a bouncing, shoulders-back, cuffs-shooting, South Philadelphia strut: “We used to practice these walks when I was growing up,” he recalled. It was a kind of armor and an expression of attitude, he said, as if to say, “Yeah, it’s me.”
Hemsley and Isabel Sanford (Weezie) made the Jeffersons iconic characters who were culturally black as ever but stronger characters every episode so that even a heavy handed episode like this one was worth more than the story it told. But some of the best George Jefferson appearances were from “All in the Family” where Bunker and Jefferson’s shared love of bigotry and insults left them living relics of the way things used to be. The best example of Bunker and Jefferson’s prejudice is “Lionel’s engagement Party (1974)”:
George: Bunker, what is this world coming to?
Archie: Beats me Jefferson. All I got to say is: here’s to yesterday.
So your wife owns a horse that’s in the Olympics. Do you care? Not if your Mitt Romney:
“I have to tell you. This is Ann’s sport. I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well,” he said.
Listen here Brian Williams: She’s got some animal prancing around, that’s all I know. I tune out when I hear talk about prancing. Then I tell ‘er: ‘Horses are for Ranchin’, Ford Mustangs and Chevy Camaros, not for dancing around London’. Oh yea and “Low taxes for the rich!”
Mitt goes to London and promptly tells them they are f8cking the Olympics up…
The headline of the piece? “If Mitt Romney doesn’t like us, we shouldn’t care.” And remember this is from the Toriest of Tory papers. Moving a bust of Churchill really doesn’t come close. Cameron has already put out a statement rebutting Romney’s public pissing on the Brits’ readiness and eagerness for the Games.
The two men are said to have got on well during their talks, despite the barbed rebuke Mr Cameron delivered beforehand when to comment on Mr Romney’s concerns about the capital’s preparedness for the Games.
He point out that the 2012 Olympics were taking place in a busy city rather than “the middle of nowhere” – a remark was widely seen as a reference to the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, which Mr Romney was in charge of organising.
And following their talk, Mr Romney appeared to have taken the hint, saying: “I applaud the work of the organising committee in bringing the Olympics right into the heart of London.
Smooth move from the Romneybot. But the “Quiet storm” known as Dressage in London doesn’t stop there:
He’s already questioned the preparedness of Britain to host the Olympic Games and today Mitt Romney added to the gaffe-count of his UK visit by appearing to forget Ed Miliband’s name during a press conference.
Following a brief press conference today speculation on social networking site Twitter centered on whether Mr Romney had forgotten the Labour leader’s name.
Replying to the Labour leader in front of the press, Mr Romney said: “Like you, Mr Leader, I look forward to our conversations this morning … and recognise, of course, the unique relationship that exists between our nations, our commitment to common values, our commitment to peace in the world and our desire to see a stronger and growing economy.”
Prior to today’s meetings Romney had also questioned Britain’s readiness to host the Olympic Games.
London Mayor Boris Johnson mocked Mitt Romney as the Olympic torch was being lit Thursday, telling a crowd in Hyde Park, “There is a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know if we are ready. Are we ready?” The crowd of 60,000 yelled “YES!” and a chant of “Boris!” broke out (watch it here). The hashtag #Romneyshambles began trending in the U.K. The Olympics are the one moment when even countries with complicated colonial pasts can safely indulge in a little nationalism, and Romney turned himself into the perfect enemy for Brits to root against by publicly doubting whether British people would unite behind the Games.
It was not just the youth mocking Romney on Twitter. British politicians joined in. “If I were American, I’d vote Republican, but Mitt – #fail #RomneyShambles,” Louise Mensch, Conservative member of Parliament, tweeted. “Conservatives the world over tend to be patriots. Insult my country, and I no longer care if you rep sister party,” she added. Other conservatives cheered Johnson. “James Chapman, the political editor of TheDaily Mail — not exactly a liberal publication — compared Romney to Sarah Palinand George W. Bush, and not for their charisma. “Can this get any worse for Romney? Boris is now mocking him in front of 60,000 people in Hyde Park #romneyshambles,” Chapman wrote. In London, the BBC is replaying Johnson’s Romney moment, ABC News reports.
I know when Mittens gets back, he will say that he knows how to fix these gaffes and if he’s President, he won’t be such a fuck up and even if he is, he will never apologize. Oh and tax cuts for the job creators (rich).
Samantha Power, journalist and Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and head of the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, talks about how Rwandan Genocide defined her perspective:
“But on April 21, a wonderfully honest moment occurred. And that was that an American congresswoman named Patricia Schroeder from Colorado met with a group of journalists. And one of the journalists said to her, what’s up? What’s going on in the U.S. government? Two to 300,000 people have just been exterminated in the last couple of weeks in Rwanda. It’s two weeks into the genocide at that time, but of course, at that time you don’t know how long it’s going to last. and the journalist said, why is there so little response out of Washington? Why no hearings, no denunciations, no people getting arrested in front of the Rwandan embassy or in front of the White House? What’s the deal? and she said — she was so honest — she said, “It’s a great question. All I can tell you is that in my congressional office in Colorado and my office in Washington, we’re getting hundreds and hundreds of calls about the endangered ape and gorilla population in Rwanda, but nobody is calling about the people. The phones aren’t ringing about the people.”
This becomes the source of the argument for invasion of Libya, the murder of Bin Laden and opposition of Mubarak’s hold on Egypt and Assad’s rule of Syria. A kind of knowledge that the murderous dictators must go, but you are trading for increased stability, not our kind of stability.
At the heart of racism is a xenophobic victim-hood idealizing an imagined ethnically pure idyllic past that has been irrevocably ruined by the even the most slight introductions of diversity that then turn the whole country against the rule of their betters. Papachristou is no exception.
when a high paid, high profile part time employee is accused of raping or touching kids on campus, “I was cc’ed” or no one told me is not an adequate defense:
Spanier, former chairman of the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and a former member of the association’s executive committee, said he was merely copied on two emails from Schultz to Curley about the 1998 report. “I have no recollection of any conversations on the topic or any other emails from that era sent to me or by me,” he wrote. “It is public knowledge that the district attorney decided there was no crime to pursue. I don’t understand how one could conclude from such evidence ‘concealment’ of a known child predator.”
[…]
Spanier wrote that his knowledge of the 2001 incident was explained in detail to Freeh investigators. During that year, Spanier wrote, “I never heard a word about abusive or sexual behavior, nor were there any other details presented that would have led me to think along those lines.”
Three men have told investigators that Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State defensive coordinator recently convicted of 45 counts of child sex abuse, molested them in the 1970s and 1980s, The Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pa., has reported, citing sources close to the case.
None of Sandusky’s 10 previously known victims had predated the 1990s, and in his report released Thursday, former FBI director Louis Freeh said his review for Penn State’s board of trustees had not found evidence predating the ’90s.
But the question should really be, in the face of these new allegations and the aftermath of the NCAA “near death” penalty: how many more McQueary’s and janitors are there?
I can’t believe it was just a couple of PSU janitors, an assistant coach and 4 administrators were all that ever knew about Sandusky.
That’s why I still think single or multi-year suspension plus sanctions were the way to go. We don’t know how many McQueary’s or Janitors thay are.
We do know there are many that have held Joe Paterno up so high they can’t see him any being as low as the fact suggest.
Look at those kids faces when they hear the NCAA penalties. Surprise? Really?
In 1986, I spent a week in State College, Pa., researching a 10-page Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year piece on Joe Paterno.
It was supposed to be a secret, but one night the phone in my hotel room rang. It was a Penn State professor, calling out of the blue.
“Are you here to take part in hagiography?” he said.
“What’s hagiography?” I asked.
“The study of saints,” he said. “You’re going to be just like the rest, aren’t you? You’re going to make Paterno out to be a saint. You don’t know him. He’ll do anything to win. What you media are doing is dangerous.”
[…]
It gets worse. According to Freeh, Spanier, Schultz and Curley were set to call child services on Sandusky in February 2001 until Paterno apparently talked them out of it. Curley wasn’t “comfortable” going to child services after that talk with JoePa.
