I am one of those people who will actually watch those boring, boring, hearings on C-SPAN that most of us flip right on past while watching TV, and this past week I've been watching one of the longer events the channel broadcasts...but it's been far from boring.
The Coast Guard and what used to be the MMS were in Houston looking into what caused the Gulf oil spill and they're taking testimony from representatives of the involved parties...and let me tell you, this is more than just an accident inquiry-it's also a warm-up for the lawsuits that are surely going to follow.
While we've all been busy watching the "oil spill live cam", a similar uncontrolled discharge has been taking place in Washington, DC
In this case, however, it's lobbyists that are spilling all over the landscape as the House and Senate attempt to merge their two visions of financial reform.
They're trying desperately to influence the outcome of the conference in which House and Senate negotiators have been engaged; this to craft the exact language of the reconciled legislation.
There's an additional element of drama hovering over the events as eight House members, including one of the most vocal of the Republican negotiators, face ethics questions related to this very bill.
The best part: if you're enough of a political geek, you can actually watch the events unfold, unedited and unfiltered, from the comfort of your very own computer.
So far, it's been amazing political theater, and if you follow along I'll tell you how you can get in on the fun, too.
I just wanted to take a minute to say hello and to see how things have been for you lately, and to maybe bring you up to date on a bit of news from here.
Well, right off the bat, we hear you have a new Conservative Prime Minister and that his Party and Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are in partnership, which I'm sure will be interesting; you probably heard that us Colonials are again having Tea Parties, which has also been very interesting.
I have a Godson who's getting married this September, so we're all talking about that, and I hear Graham Norton was even better than last year at hosting Eurovision, despite the fact that it's...frankly, it's Eurovision.
Oh, yeah...we also had a bit of an oil spill recently that you may have heard about-and hoo, boy; you should see how the Company that spilled the oil has been acting.
I was supposed to begin the long-delayed series of PTSD stories I’ve been planning, but before we begin, I need to tell y’all about something that just happened in my house.
For us it wasn’t a matter of life or death, but it is the kind of story that explains, perfectly, why we need to reform the health care system we have today—and for that matter, it’s also a great explanation of why a single-payer system would be a giant step forward for everyone in this country, whether you’re insured today or not.
It’s also hilarious and sad and frustrating, all at the same time—which makes today’s story a pretty good allegory for the current American way of doing health care.
So follow along, have a good laugh…and at the same time, take a minute to consider what could be, and how much less irritating things should be.
After a decade-long slide into semi-irrelevance, it’s now being announced that the major television broadcast networks are considering leaving behind the “free TV/advertiser supported” business model in order to turn themselves into something more closely resembling a cable operation; the idea being that they could create a second revenue stream from the same “subscriber fees” that are paid by cable and satellite operators to all the other channels those operators carry.
This has become necessary, according to the networks, partly because the market has become so fragmented...which, naturally, is cable’s fault—and presumably the fault of the disloyal viewer, as well.
Another reason driving the change is related to the desire of the networks to have a source of revenue that’s more reliable in times of economic downturn, when advertisers often try to husband scarce resources by cutting back on all their expenses, particularly advertising dollars.
Will this new change in the business model reverse the fortunes of the networks? Is it possible that the networks are simply poor business managers?
And what about...Krystal Carey?
Tune in for the rest of the story—and we’ll find out.
We’re diving deep into “geek world” today with a story that combines economic hardball, the periodic table of the elements, and a barely noticed provision of the Defense Authorization Act that seeks to break a monopoly which today gives China near-absolute control over the materials that make cell phones, electric cars, wind turbines, and pretty much every other tool of modern life possible.
If we successfully break the monopoly, we’ll be able to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in this country—and if we don’t, somebody else owns the 21st Century.
Ironically, the global warming we’re trying to fight with new green technologies might be an ally in our efforts to make those very same green technologies happen.
There’s a revolution in industrial processing going on, rare earths are at the center of it all...and in today’s story, the revolution will be televised.
Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it’s time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.
We have heard a lot about the…how can I put this politely…challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements—but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:
Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites…which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.
We strive to be, if anything, a participatory space around here, and I’ve had a question come to my inbox that is very much deserving of our attention.
To make a long story short, our questioner wants to know why, on the one hand, despite the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, also known as the “stimulus”), unemployment in the construction industry continues to increase, and, on the other hand, why there is such a giant disparity, on a state-by-state basis, in the cost of saving a job?
They’re great questions, and, having done a bit of research, I think I have some cogent answers.
I believe government works. The Republican party says government doesn't and shouldn't work unless the discussion is about defense spending.
A year ago it was chaos, it looked as if the economy was going to implode. Like many generations before us we learned the lesson that an unregulated market builds bubbles. On the inflate many get rich off of transaction fees and rising asset values. When the bubble pops the negative feedback loops or vicious cycles are devastating. We saw the transferred devaluations move from housing values to Wall Street securities and from there to all sectors of the economy. Autos, small banks, 401ks, mutual funds, university endowments. It wasn't clear when the wave would stop but we knew something had to change. The government's normal economic tools were used up after too many bubbles and they were wrong in scale for the job. As a last resort the government stepped it up with a once in a lifetime set of moves like TARP and the ARRA also known as the stimulus. Yet 9 months after the stimulus was passed it's critics are fiercely attacking it. They say it's not working, it's wasteful, it should stop.
There has been a great wailing and gnashing of teeth over the past day or so as those who follow the healthcare debate react to the Stupak/Some Creepy Republican Guy Amendment.
The Amendment, which is apparently intended to respond to conservative Democrats' concerns that too many women were voting for the Party in recent elections, was attached to the House's version of healthcare reform legislation that was voted out of the House this weekend.
The goal is to limit women's access to reproductive medicine services, particularly abortions; this based on the concept that citizens of good conscience shouldn't have their tax dollars used to fund activities they find morally repugnant.
At first blush, I was on the mild end of the wailing and gnashing spectrum myself...but having taken a day to mull the thing over, I'm starting to think that maybe we should take a look at the thinking behind this...and I'm also starting to think that, properly applied, Stupak's logic deserves a more important place in our own vision of how a progressive government might work.
It's Political Judo Day today, Gentle Reader, and by the time we're done here it's entirely possible that you'll see Stupak's logic in a whole new light.
There was a time, in the 1990s, when "boy bands" walked tall in the musical world. New stars with names like "BoyzIIMen" and "Backstreet Boys" and "*NSYNC" were everywhere to be seen, and positioned prominently within this firmament of stars was an Irish band, "Boyzone".
One of the five members of Boyzone's most famous lineup, Stephen Gately, died over the weekend in Mallorca, aged 33, much to the dismay of the group's fans and friends.
Because Gately came out at the height of his career, and at considerable risk to his (and the group's) "brand" prospects, the LBGT community is experiencing considerable dismay over the loss as well.
Today's story, however, isn't about any of that.
Instead, we'll consider what's likely to happen to Gately's estate.
The point of the exercise? With this being one of the most prominent deaths of a gay celebrity to occur since civil commitment came to pass, and with Mr. Gately being legally committed to husband Andrew Cowles at the time of his death, it seems like a good time to examine how the law responds to these situations in the UK-and how it could work in the United States.
So it's the day of the big speech, Mr. President, and we got trouble with a capital "T" right here in Health Care City.
What are you gonna do? Do we follow the traditional Democratic Party legislative process of passing...something...at any cost, assuming the entire time that the Left and the Netroots will "go along with the program", or is there a risk that the calculus doesn't work as well today as it did in 1994 and 1996?
Well, lucky for you, I'm a fake consultant, and I know a few things about your "target market", so before you answer that question...we need to talk.
(Because we can't go to the moon on Reagan/Bush taxes. We need JFK taxes to leave Earth's orbit - promoted by herding old cats)
Forty years ago this week an event occurred that changed the history of mankind forever.
An event so monumental that the memory lingers on, even though the venue where the event took place has been, shall we say, “repurposed”.
But we’re not here to talk about the time that Minnesota Twins Manager Billy Martin appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Instead, let’s talk space.
NASA is forever trying to interest the world in space exploration...and forever struggling to come up with the money to get things done.
Well, I’m not a scientist, nor an engineer, and I don’t assemble rocket vehicles...but I am a fake consultant, and if NASA took my advice, I’d bet my fake paycheck that money would be a lot less of a problem.
I don’t know if you’ve been thinking about it, but the costs of long-term care have been on the mind of some friends of mine lately.
For reasons that we won’t go into here, they are in the process of pricing long-term care at care facilities…and yesterday afternoon, we had a chance to have a look at the “menu” of services (the facility's term) that can be purchased at this particular location.
If you are facing this issue in your own family, if you are a taxpayer thinking about how we plan to fund long-term care in the future…or if, one day, you expect to be old yourself…this conversation will surely matter.
So if you’re like me, you have been wondering just exactly what all this “tea party” stuff is about. There’s going to be some sort of protest, that we know; but beyond that the whole thing seems a little...vague.
Alternatively, it’s possible that you were unaware that “tea party” has recently become a word reborn in conservative political circles.
Well, whether you knew it or not, April 15th was indeed a day of protest, with citizens gathering for what were reported to be a series of grassroots events across the nation that was intended to invoke the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.
In an effort to find out exactly what is motivating these folks, and to find out what they are trying to accomplish, I took my handy recorder and captured a conversation with a “tea bag” protester.
We will review that conversation, and we will follow it up with a few thoughts about how this group of voters might impact electoral politics going forward.
Every morning lately, we have turned anxiously to the news to see if financial markets are in freefall...and some days, they actually are.
Governments across the world have responded over the past two weeks--including a massive commitment by the United States Treasury that is, to say the least, highly controversial to the American voter.
As this is being written markets are opening in Asia. At the moment things are somewhat stable, and except for Shanghai and Taiwan, they’re heading upward. During the writing process, Europe has opened, and there are gains there today as well.
The US credit markets did not open today (although the stock markets did) because of the Columbus Day holiday—but anyone who recalls Mr. Dow’s Wild Ride last Friday is quite nervous ahead of the Tuesday opening.
Despite all that bailout stuff we’re hearing about, confidence doesn’t seem to be returning to the markets. Why?
Excellent question, Gentle Reader, and I have a few helpful answers.
As this is being written we are in the midst of the second day of testimony before Congress by Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson in support of the Administration’s proposed financial rescue package.
The basic sales pitch is that the Nation’s financial problems are at this moment so severe that the only solution is to expose to risk $700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to buy assets with a currently unknown price…and to give the absolute and total power over what those valuations are, what should and should not be bought, what repayment terms will be sought—and additionally, what happens to any money recovered--to one man, Henry Paulson.
There are those who are not on board. They have critics, who continue to stress the dire consequences of inaction.
With all due respect to those critics…we have been down this road before with this Administration—and last time, they weren’t so big on telling the truth…or getting the job done effectively.
We’ll cover that ground, we’ll talk a bit about “mark to market” issues—and on a positive note, we’ll address the role of “warrants”, the negotiating power of Warren Buffett, and how the taxpayer could actually see substantial recoveries of money down the road.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This was originally published on February 14th of this year, but it seems to be exceptionally timely today.
We had a lively discussion last week regarding the causes and possible future of the “subprime crisis” that is on everyone’s lips these days.
Having examined the sources of the problem, and noting the lack of holistic thinking about how things might be resolved, I’ve taken it upon myself to come forward with an idea that can actually get at the root causes of today’s difficulties...and do it in a way that offers a potential “win-win-win” outcome for homeowners, investors—and the taxpayer.
Paying attention, Presidential candidates?
Good—because time is short, and we need to get to work.
Once a year the professional golf community comes to visit my neck of the woods, in the form of the PGA’s Champion’s Tour.
It’s an event that changes the character of the community in several ways: spectators swell the size of the town, there’s a media focus that usually doesn’t exist…and an actual, no kidding, traffic jam might develop—on a weekend.
It’s a great economic barometer, as well. Despite the efforts of the Professional Golfers Association (the PGA), there is a lot more of an upper-income demographic attending the tournament than there is a Happy Gilmore kind of crowd.
Which brings me to the point of today’s examination: what can we learn about the state of the economy from the perspective of the tricklers, as opposed to how it looks from the point of view of the trickled upon?
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