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SUNDAY 03.07.04 / 3:55 PM / LINK

Brazilian Breadbasket
Noted @ The Agonist

And we thought they had a lot of corn in Kansas. Well, here comes Brazil.

03.07.04 / 8:35 AM / LINK

The GOP: Jobs Rn't Us

You might not have noticed, but the U.S. economy is sporting 21,000 new jobs. They came on board in February according to the Labor Department. My God, that's .0084% of the population!

Given that we've lost about 2.2 million jobs in the last four years, at this rate it's going to take a little time to make up the difference.

And where did most of these new February jobs come from? According to this Reuters report, "Government hiring was the only reason the nonfarm payroll count rose."

Government. Gov'mint jobs.

But of course, like those jobs at McDonalds, they were probably all manufacturing jobs -- and all due to the expansion (for the upcoming election), of the White House basement shop for precision myth-milling. Shards of truth will be flying all over the place down there, they'd better be wearing character protection.

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03.07.04 / 8:35 AM / LINK

Another forked-tongue outbreak in D.C.

The latest outbreak of the virulent four-year forked-tongue plague (as noted at TPM -see sidebar, left):

One the one hand, "I will continue to speak about the effects of 9/11 on our country and my presidency ... How this administration handled that day as well as the war on terror is worthy of discussion and I look forward to discussing that with the American people." -George W. Bush, March 6th, 2004

But on the other, "The independent commission investigating the (9/11) attacks won't accept strict conditions set by the White House for the panel's interviews with President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, commission members said Tuesday."

If John Kerry's a flip-flopper, George Bush must be a high frequency oscillator.

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03.07.04 / 7:25 AM / LINK

Deferrals, enlistments, and disappearing acts

Trying to undercut the John Kerry military service issue, Republicans have come up with this.

Kerry apparently sought a 1 year deferment from service in the mid-sixties. The news comes from an article in the Harvard Crimson of the time, which said, "When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy."

If you're a an administration sychophant, the significant part of that sentence is: approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris.

The really salient part though is: draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy.

He didn't enlist in the Champagne unit of the Texas Air National Guard then spend his time disappearing.

But this is gonna be par for the course.


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03.07.04 / 7:12 AM / LINK

"I hope there's a benign ending to this problem"

Here's something.

"Warren Buffett blasted mutual fund companies, attacked greedy chief executives and revealed he was loading up on foreign currency...). This according to a Reuters report by Philip Klien.

Why would the world's second richest man and arch capitalist do this? Because he thinks foreign money is a better bet these days then U.S. dollars.

"Buffett said he began investing in foreign currency for the first time in 2002 as a result of the widening U.S. trade deficit."

In the report Buffet says, somewhat ominously, "As an American, I hope there is a benign ending to this problem," He said this could cause problems that reach "well beyond currency markets."

Let us meditate upon why Warren Buffet is the second richest man in the world: he's one freakin' astute investor who knows what he's doing. What's he doing? He's pulling his investment in U.S. dollars.

Yoohoo, Mr. & Mrs. America.....

Besides lambasting corrupt mutual funds who betrayed the trust of their investors, Buffett also criticized the tax policies of the Bush administration, saying they were too favorable to corporate America. He said Berkshire's tax bill was $3.3 billion in 2003.

"We hope our taxes continue to rise in the future -- it will mean we are prospering -- but we also hope that the rest of corporate America antes up along with us," said Buffett.

Warren, with the example of the me-first, robber baron mentality of the present administration, it's going to take more than hope.

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SATURDAY 03.06.04 / 8:43 PM / LINK

I own 9/11!

As the president is trying to claim 9/11 for his own in campaign videos, the country is going to hell in a handbasket, citizens.

B i i i i i i i i i i i g deficit --once anathema to Republicans, but they got religion.

An out-of-wack budget --once anathema to Republicans, but they got religion.

A job losing president --an employment malfactor.

A taxcut-and-spend Republican... A profligate sucker-up to them that's got the gold... a crippler of government...

A Texan disaster to the nation....

But I hyperventilate.

The president is a saint. A real trustworthy Texas cowpoke (in the literal sense of the term: with the poor and middle class being the cows and him doing the poking). A man obsessed with your well-being...

How old are you?

This November we're going to have a choice alright, and which side of the equation you put yourself on will be a fateful decision. A nation-defining moment and personal test. An historical divide.

May the force be with you, and us --us against a two-hundred million dollar Republican campaign obfuscatarama.

"Money doesn't talk, it swears." --B.D.


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FRIDAY 03.05.04 / 6:14: AM / LINK

Shishkabobing Social Security: More right wing tricks with numbers.

With the religious fervor of disciples concocting myths, ideological number skewers are busily shishkabobbing Social Security. This is what Paul Krugman reports in his column today.

What the shishkabobbers say:

SS is $44 trillion in the red.

What Krugman points out:

Yeah, if you include Medicare. The SS part is only 16% of the total.

What's more, according to economist Krugman, 62% of the shortfall comes after 2077.

So, 16% of 44 is 7.04 trillion, and 62% of that comes 73 years from now. This means the immediate SS shortfall is around 2.67 trillion.

Now nobody's saying 2.7 trillion is not a lot of money, but it's not $44 trillion ...that is unless you're a White House shiskabobber.

"So does the Treasury report show a looming Social Security crisis?" Krugman asks. "No," he answers.

He says, "Social Security's problem, such as it is, is a matter of demography: as the population ages, the number of retirees will rise faster than the number of workers. As a result, benefit costs will rise by about 2 percent of G.D.P. over the next 30 years, and creep up slowly thereafter. By comparison, making the Bush tax cuts permanent would reduce revenue by at least 2.5 percent of G.D.P., starting now. That — combined with the fact that Social Security, unlike the rest of the federal government, is currently running a surplus — is why the Bush tax cuts are a much bigger problem for the nation's fiscal future than the Social Security shortfall."

As Krugman points out SS and Medicare ain't the same animal. Their problems stem from different causes. And the dilemma of Medicare will not be affected by anything we do about Social Security.

Krugman's conclusion:

"The biggest risk now facing Social Security is political. Will those who hate the system use scare tactics and fuzzy math to bring it down?"

NoUtopia's answer:

Is Alan Greenspan a Republican?

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03.05.04 / 6:05 AM / LINK

Subpoena for Air Force One records

According to documents obtained by Newsday, "The federal grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July."

This is connection with the investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Here's the story.

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TUESDAY 03.02.04 / 6:00 / LINK

Another neocon, government demolition expert

Paul Krugman's article in todays NY Times defines chutzpa as being chairman of the Federal Reserve while behaving as another neocon, government demolition expert.

This is the conclusion we may draw from Alan Greenspan's latest advice: make permanent the tax cuts for the rich and cut social security for average Americans to pay for it.

What Krugman says is, "Finally, the right-wing corruption of our government system — the partisan takeover of institutions that are supposed to be nonpolitical — continues, and even extends to the Federal Reserve."

"Corruption" is the word he uses, and it's the right word. One of my colleges likes to say that we have one of the most corrupt systems going, except it's legal. It's a point recently made by others more tied in to the inner workings of the bad machine. Now Paul Krugman is making it clear.

Check out here just how Krugman sees Alan Greenspan wearing a hard hat, sleeves rolled up and manning a jackhammer, dismantling a government that works for ordinary Americans. In it's place we can expect one with an invincible army run by multinational corporations that suck workers dry while nurturing the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of those wealthy enough not to have to pay taxes.

I'd call that chutzpa alright.

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MONDAY 03.01.04 / 5:19 / LINK

Passion or Compassion, pick your milieu

Whether or not religion and its baggage are ultimately a net plus or minus for humanity will probably be debated forever. But each generation thinks it has the answer.

Insofar as Christian scripture has been used to grease the wheels of select groups it would have been better for all of us if it had never been written, but, as one political operative said, "Once squeezed, it's hard to get the freakin' toothpaste back in the tube." So Christian scripture is with us, like a salve or an incendiary device. Use it as you will.

Mel Gibson has used his "Passion" not only to portray passion, but to inflame it. In mid-twentieth century Germany a bent and inflamed christian passion led to the holocaust. Where it may lead in the early twenty-first century is still up for grabs. But starting any century with a blockbuster movie graphically portraying the sustained and unrelenting torture of a person thought by some to be god, can't raise the level of the debate.

As William Safire notes in today's NY Times, "Because [Gibson's] wallowing in gore finds an excuse in a religious purpose — to show how horribly Jesus suffered for humanity's sins — the bar against film violence has been radically lowered. Movie mayhem, long resisted by parents, has found its loophole; others in Hollywood will now find ways to top Gibson's blockbuster, to cater to voyeurs of violence and thereby to make bloodshed banal.

"What are the dramatic purposes of this depiction of cruelty and pain?" Safire asks. "First, shock; the audience I sat in gasped at the first tearing of flesh. Next, pity at the sight of prolonged suffering. And finally, outrage: who was responsible for this cruel humiliation? What villain deserves to be punished?"

In a time and place when the popular urge is to reduce the world to black and white, there's no good answer to that question.

More here.


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