Here are three links that are suggesting this might very well be an uncontrollable spew, an extremely alarming development, if true with a difficult to manage future, to say the least. I heard someone from an ocean-loving non-profit on The Dylan Ratigan Show say that if it's now just a hole with no casing spewing from the sea floor, the only solution would be a low-level nuclear detonation to turn the cracked areas of the sea floor to glass.
Here are the relevant links -
Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable? Mother Jones_
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/worst-already-true-BP-well-now-unstoppable
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593#comment-648967
http://www.aesopinstitute.org/
http://www.opednews.com/articles/B-P-Halliburton-and-Trans-by-Chris-Landau-100611-452.html
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Against and For Temporay Receivership of BP by The Federal Government
Is It Political Lunacy for the President to Take Charge in the Gulf Or Political Lunacy for Him Not To? A Colloquy
Friday, June 4, 2010
I just came across this post from Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard whom I’ve never known to mince words.
I like Bob Reich and consider him a friend, but he is nuts. [She’s referring to my suggestion that the President put BP into temporary receivership.] There is a reason why the right, including Sarah Palin, is calling for Obama to “take charge” of the BP disaster, including fixing the leaking pipe. This is a problem that cannot be solved, and probably will not be for many months.
They want Obama to directly own it so they can reinforce their message that government does not work. Why should liberals, stupidly, be pushing for this? I cannot figure out what the left and many liberal pundits think they are doing in all this.
When a huge private corporation makes a mess and cannot fix it, it is sheer lunacy to take direct charge of that mess unless you can fix it right away.
Obama and the government can (a) hold BP accountable in criminal and financial terms; and (b) orchestrate the mitigation, restitution, and financial help for the regions affected. They are doing this and should be as visible as possible about steps in both areas. The last thing they should do is take charge of fixing the leak itself when they cannot.
My response:
I like Theda Skocpol and consider her a friend, but she’s got this one backwards. It’s not “political lunacy” for the president to take charge of this mess. It’s political lunacy for him not to.
Would Theda propose that if a military contractor accidentally fired off a missile, or the owner of a nuclear reactor accidentally allowed it to melt down, or a food processor accidentally sent off deadly bacteria into America’s food chain, that the President should not take control because he couldn’t “fix” these disasters right away? Or that he shouldn’t get involved because the political right might subsequently use his efforts to reinforce its message that the government doesn’t work?
What’s happening in the Gulf is the worst environmental disaster in American history. It defies common sense for the President to delegate most of its solution to the same corporation whose negligence in all likelihood created it.
The public deeply distrusts BP, with good reason. Its record to date has been cutting corners to make profits. Yes, BP’s expertise may be necessary now. But how can we believe BP is using all the resources at its disposal to stop the leak? (A petroleum engineer told me earlier this week that BP has some two dozen tankers in the Gulf that could be siphoning off the oil, and has shut down work on the second relief well in order to cannibalize parts from it for the primary kill effort.)
How can we trust that decisions BP continues to make – such as the use of toxic dispersants – properly weigh risks to the safety and health of Americans?
And as BP continues to pay out dividends to its shareholders, how can we trust it will have enough capital to pay all the costs of cleanup, not to mention the costs to businesses and individauls of the devastation it’s wrought?
For the President to stand apart from all this – to set up a commission to study how it happened and instruct the Justice Department to inquire into the possibility that civil and criminal fines may be appropriate – is both poliltically unwise and against the public’s interest. I fear Americans will come to see it as a dereliction of duty.
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Robert Reich has the answers
Putting BP Under Temporary Receivership: Some Qs and As
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Q: Is this realistic?
A: Not only realistic but it may become necessary — both operationally and politically. If the disaster continues to worsen, it’s untenable for a for-profit corporation to be in charge.
Q: But why should we expect government to do any better job than BP?
A: BP would still be at the job — and its expertise, equipment, and other assets would continue to be utilized. But the federal government would be in overall control of the operation — weighing public risks and benefits, deciding what resources are necessary, getting accurate information and disseminating it to the public.
Q: Why should we trust the government?
A: This isn’t an ideological contest about how little you trust a giant oil company versus the federal government. It’s a matter of accountability. BP’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders. And it will cut corners — as it has before — if that’s the best way to maximize the value of their shares. But only the government, through the President, is directly accountable to the American public, and responsible for protecting it.
Q: Under what legal authority could the President take control of BP’s North American operations?
A: Obama has implicit authority through laws and regulations dealing with offshore drilling, especially the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. By analogy, if a nuclear reactor were melting down, the President would use his regulatory authority over nuclear energy to take temporary control over the plant and the relevant parts of the corporation that ran it. President Truman seized the nation’s steel mills in 1952, arguing that the emergency of the Korean War necessitated it. (The Supreme Court ultimately blocked him but according to Justice Jackson, whose opinion was essentially the majority’s, that was because Truman had no statutory basis for the seizure, not even an implicit one. That isn’t the case here.)
Q: But BP is a British corporation. How can the U.S. government take control?
A: The nationality of a corporation’s shareholders has nothing to do with it. If it is operating within the jurisdiction of the United States and poses a serious and imminent threat to the health or safety of Americans, a president would take control of its operations and assets in the United States.
Q: Do you really think Obama would do this? Wouldn’t he prefer to stay away from this mess and keep the responsibility squarely on BP?
A: He may not have much of a choice. If the disaster worsens and Obama doesn’t take control he risks inheriting the mantle of Katrina.
Q: What will force his hand?
A: The White House is already inching toward control. BP’s new admission that it can’t stop the leak until August has shocked a public already deeply distrustful of it. As new evidence emerges of the scale of the disaster, the pressure on the Administration to take full and open control will only grow. Last Saturday Energy Secretary Chu asked BP to cease its so-called “top kill” effort to stop up the gush because he and his team of scientists had concluded it was too risky. Now the White House has to decide whether BP’s continued use of highly toxic dispersants poses more of a threat to the public and the environment than a help. When do these decisions tip over into control? Any time now.
Closing the Hole in the Gulf: A Petroleum Engineer Responds
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
A petroleum engineer who’s worked in the oil industry tells me BP is doing the minimum to clean up the oil and everything it can to protect its bottom line. According to the engineer, here’s what BP should be doing right now to mitigate the damage. If the President were to put BP into temporary receivership, he’d have the power to get BP to:
1. Stop releasing dispersants. So-called dispersants are toxic, and it’s crazy to add more poison to the Gulf. Dispersants do nothing to assist the environment in naturally cleaning the oil; their main use is PR. They reduce the number of ugly pictures of birds covered in pure black crude. Dispersants break the thick layer of crude into smaller globs, but that doesn’t help the Gulf and its wildlife. Most of the crude just mixes with the water to produce a goop that looks like chocolate ice cream but is highly poisonous.
2. Mobilize every possible tanker to siphon up crude from as close to the leak points as possible. Oil industry leaders as John Hofmeister (president of Shell Oil from 2005 until 2008) have recommended this, but inexplicably neither BP nor the federal government are talking about even trying this idea. BP currently has only one spot where they have inserted a tube into a riser, or pipe, that is leaking oil from the sea floor. The company is gathering the crude oil and siphoning it up to a drill ship for storage.
They should have at least a dozen collectors. BP has 24 tankers that are being used to make money for BP, not for clean-up duty. (President Obama should also use all necessary federal power — or money, and send BP the bill — to put as many tankers and refineries from other companies on the task.)
Mile-long pipes could be dangled down into the crude spewing from the wellhead and at each breach in the riser pipe, and the tankers could pump the crude mixed with water back into the tankers. They could then separate the crude and water in the tanker, and pump the water out on the spot. This should continue until each tanker is full of oil. The crude should then be taken to a refinery for processing, as other tankers take their place. Submersibles can be used to monitor the uptake into the dangling pipes, moving them as needed to keep them picking up as much crude as possible.
Even after some separation time in the tankers, the crude will be contaminated with water beyond the typical water contamination levels acceptable at refineries. This would drive up the price of gas in the short term. The president will need to go on TV and ask all Americans to cut their gasoline and energy usage in half, as an emergency response to the disaster in the Gulf, so that tankers and refineries can enact these far-from-perfect cleanup measures.
3. Restart work on the second pressure relief well. BP did start work on two relief wells as the government requested, but the second has been shut down to cannabalize parts from it for the primary well kill effort. The President must order BP to spend whatever money it takes to get another blow out preventer on site, to re-start work on the second pressure relief well. A recent blow-out off the coast of Australia required five pressure relief wells to successfully shut it down.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Arianna Huffington: Financial Reform: A Win for Wall Street, A Cold Shoulder for Main Street
It's mission accomplished for financial reform.
Unfortunately, it's more of a Bush 43 "mission accomplished" than an Apollo 13 "mission accomplished." That's because the financial reform bill passed by the Senate last week, like Bush's ship deck ceremony, is more notable for what it has left to still be done.
The Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 will do no such thing. First, it doesn't do enough to rein in Wall Street. It doesn't end "too big to fail" banks, doesn't create a Glass-Steagall style firewall between commercial and investment banking, keeps taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts, and leaves open dangerous loopholes in the regulation of derivatives. And we can expect more loopholes to be inserted as the bill heads to conference committee. In D.C., crafting a bill without them would be like baking bread without yeast. Though you can't see them, they're what makes a Washington bill rise.
There's a reason a longtime investment banker, speaking to the New York Times, said of his colleagues' reaction to the new bill, "If you talk to anyone privately, there's a sigh of relief."
Don't expect a similar reaction on Main Street. Despite its name, this bill will not be restoring financial stability to the tens of millions of hardworking Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by the economic crisis.
On nearly every front in the real economy -- from jobs to consumer spending to foreclosures -- we've made virtually no progress at all. While Washington and the media have been consumed with the titanic debate over this reform bill, talk of the actual suffering by actual people in the actual economy is virtually a taboo subject, at least judging by how rarely it makes the front pages or leads the TV news.
But the data points are all around us. In a speech last week, Sandra Pianalto, president of the Cleveland Fed, surveyed the landscape and did not see a lot of financial stability, partly because of the huge loss of skills that is being suffered by the long-term unemployed. "Research... tells us that workers lose valuable skills during long spells of unemployment, and that some jobs simply don't return," she said. "Multiply this effect millions of times over, and it has the potential to dampen overall economic productivity for years."
Her conclusion: "Many people are now just aiming for 'financial security' as their American dream." In other words, the core idea of the American Dream -- work hard and advance up the ladder -- has been gutted. Now the American Dream is to try to not fall, or do all you can to slow your rate of decline.
And forget about having enough in the bank to give your kids a leg up on doing better than you've done. It's hard enough just to keep a job until you retire -- if that's even going to be an option. At a D.C. jobs fair for older workers this month, more than 3,000 job seekers showed up for the event, entitled "Promoting Yourself at 50+." Not surprising, given that the average jobless stint for those unemployed who are 55 and over was around 43 weeks, as of last month. (Quick note to struggling politicians out there: want a huge crowd at your campaign rally? Call it a "jobs fair," and you'll have lines of people around the corner.)
Their children and grandchildren who are just graduating from college aren't faring any better. According to Business Week, the 1.6 million about to hit the job market with their expensive degrees will be confronting a youth unemployment rate of almost 20 percent -- the highest rate since the Labor Department started tracking youth unemployment in 1948.
And, as Laura Bassett reported on HuffPost, many workers who have managed to hold onto their jobs are increasingly doing so only by accepting less pay and taking on a higher share of their health care costs. "My company didn't eliminate my job, they just eliminated my salary," wrote marketing director Mike Cheaure in an email. "I was back at work as a freelancer the next day working at 1/4 the pay and no benefits." The experience has made him very familiar with the new reality. "For us, the American Dream is gone," he said. "Now it's just getting by."
Adding insult to injury, a growing number of working mothers are having to give up their jobs and rely on welfare because states are cutting back on child care services that allowed them to keep working. And kids across the country are scrambling to find something to do this summer as a number of states make deep cuts to summer school programs.
And what about that recent surge in consumer spending that spawned talk of "green shoots" and "recovery?" Turns out, there was a surge in spending -- but almost exclusively by the rich. As the LA Times' Don Lee put it, the "little-noticed reality" behind the "encouraging numbers" was that "much of the new spending has come not from America's broad middle class but from a small slice of affluent people at the top." In fact, according to the Labor Department, the richest 20 percent of American households accounted for 40 percent of all spending.
As the Washington Post reported last week, "lavish fringe benefits" are back at the top end of corporate America, including "country club dues, chauffeured drivers, personal financial planning services, home security systems and parking." Of the 29 biggest public companies that took taxpayer money, around one in three decided to funnel some of it to its chief executive. As the Post's Tomoeh Murakami Tse dryly put it: "Those raises contrast with the belt-tightening that many Americans have experienced during the recession." Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library, put it more directly: "Marie Antoinette could fit into this crowd without missing a beat."
The latest news in consumer lending is similarly dismal -- especially among the banks that got the most help from taxpayers. According to the Treasury Department, from February to March, the largest banks cut lending by $9 billion -- yet more evidence of the schism between the two economies. Of course, the two economies aren't entirely separate -- the Wall Street economy is happy to accept massive transfusions of cash from the fading middle class.
This isn't to say that there were no provisions that would help Main Street considered as part of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. There were plenty -- it's just that almost all of them were either voted down or taken out and never even put up for a vote. Even something as simple and sensible as putting a cap on credit card interest rates. Sheldon Whitehouse's amendment to do just that was voted down 60 to 35. So much for "financial stability." Though I suppose it depends on whose financial stability you care about -- the banks' or the taxpayers'.
Or how about payday lending -- the largely unregulated advances on a paycheck that can carry rates in the triple digits? In Missouri, for example, rates can top 600 percent. Yes, you read that right. Not exactly a recipe for "financial stability." North Carolina's Kay Hagan offered an amendment that would have clamped down on the $40 billion industry. It was killed without a vote because of Republican objections.
Objections that were, no doubt, the end product of the mother of all lobbying campaigns by every sector of the financial industry. Of course, the line between Senator, staffer and lobbyist is pretty blurry these days. A joint report released by SEIU, the Campaign for America's Future, and the Public Accountability Initiative found that the finance industry has 70 former members of Congress and 940 former federal employees on its lobbying payroll. This includes 33 chiefs of staff, 54 staffers of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee (or of a current member of those committees), and 28 legislative directors. Five of Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd's former staffers are now working as banking lobbyists, as are eight former staffers for Banking Committee powerhouses Richard Shelby and Chuck Schumer.
And the revolving door spins both ways. As Arthur Delaney reported on HuffPost, 18 percent of current House Financial Services committee staffers used to work on K Street. All told, the financial industry has spent nearly $600 million on lobbying since the collapse of Bear Stearns in March of 2008 -- almost a million dollars a day.
A lot of money, sure, but if what you care about is the financial stability of the banks, it was money well spent. Take, for instance, the Merkley-Levin amendment that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities, a version of the Volcker rule. And you can take it, because the Senate won't be using it -- the amendment never even made it to a vote. This wasn't because it wouldn't have passed. On the contrary, since debate began on this issue, anger from those mired in the real economy has reached enough lawmakers that the amendment had a real shot. Which is why, as Simon Johnson put it, "the big banks were forced into overdrive to stop it."
Another reform completely left out of the bill was any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This despite the fact that in just the last quarter Freddie -- one half of what the New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson calls "the elephant in the bailout" -- reported a loss of $6.7 billion.
Serious delinquencies on Freddie's single-family conventional loan portfolio are at 4.13 percent, up from 2.41 percent for the same period last year. And the number of foreclosed units Freddie controls stands at nearly 54,000, up from 29,145 at the end of March 2009.
"I don't understand why people are not talking about it," says Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It seems to me the most fundamental question is, have they on an ongoing basis been paying too much for loans even since they went into conservatorship?"
And why would they do that? It's part of what Baker calls a "backdoor bailout" of the banks. In other words, an under-the-radar way to continue shoveling money from struggling taxpayers over to the richest Americans.
We've been told time and time again over the last two years that right after Washington deals with what's on its plate, "jobs is next." Well, it's been "next" for quite some time now, but it never seems to come to the floor. And now that a financial reform bill has passed, the talk on the Hill is that climate control or immigration will be tackled next. Or that members will just go off for the summer and campaign, flush with all the donations many of them just pocketed from the banks in this latest effort.
I often have a nightmare -- a common sort -- in which I'm stuck in a forest and I can't find my way out. I have a friend whose version is that her feet are stuck to the ground and she can't move. Not a bad description of our leaders' approach to the massive suffering that's going on across America.
A recent study by Duha Tore Altindag and Naci H. Mocan for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the effects of unemployment can have troubling implications for a political system. The authors studied data from 130,000 people in 69 countries. Their conclusion: "We find that personal joblessness experience translates into negative opinions about the effectiveness of democracy."
No shock there. But it should frighten anyone genuinely concerned about our stability, financial and otherwise.
=============
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/financial-reform-a-win-fo_b_587728.html
Unfortunately, it's more of a Bush 43 "mission accomplished" than an Apollo 13 "mission accomplished." That's because the financial reform bill passed by the Senate last week, like Bush's ship deck ceremony, is more notable for what it has left to still be done.
The Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 will do no such thing. First, it doesn't do enough to rein in Wall Street. It doesn't end "too big to fail" banks, doesn't create a Glass-Steagall style firewall between commercial and investment banking, keeps taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts, and leaves open dangerous loopholes in the regulation of derivatives. And we can expect more loopholes to be inserted as the bill heads to conference committee. In D.C., crafting a bill without them would be like baking bread without yeast. Though you can't see them, they're what makes a Washington bill rise.
There's a reason a longtime investment banker, speaking to the New York Times, said of his colleagues' reaction to the new bill, "If you talk to anyone privately, there's a sigh of relief."
Don't expect a similar reaction on Main Street. Despite its name, this bill will not be restoring financial stability to the tens of millions of hardworking Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by the economic crisis.
On nearly every front in the real economy -- from jobs to consumer spending to foreclosures -- we've made virtually no progress at all. While Washington and the media have been consumed with the titanic debate over this reform bill, talk of the actual suffering by actual people in the actual economy is virtually a taboo subject, at least judging by how rarely it makes the front pages or leads the TV news.
But the data points are all around us. In a speech last week, Sandra Pianalto, president of the Cleveland Fed, surveyed the landscape and did not see a lot of financial stability, partly because of the huge loss of skills that is being suffered by the long-term unemployed. "Research... tells us that workers lose valuable skills during long spells of unemployment, and that some jobs simply don't return," she said. "Multiply this effect millions of times over, and it has the potential to dampen overall economic productivity for years."
Her conclusion: "Many people are now just aiming for 'financial security' as their American dream." In other words, the core idea of the American Dream -- work hard and advance up the ladder -- has been gutted. Now the American Dream is to try to not fall, or do all you can to slow your rate of decline.
And forget about having enough in the bank to give your kids a leg up on doing better than you've done. It's hard enough just to keep a job until you retire -- if that's even going to be an option. At a D.C. jobs fair for older workers this month, more than 3,000 job seekers showed up for the event, entitled "Promoting Yourself at 50+." Not surprising, given that the average jobless stint for those unemployed who are 55 and over was around 43 weeks, as of last month. (Quick note to struggling politicians out there: want a huge crowd at your campaign rally? Call it a "jobs fair," and you'll have lines of people around the corner.)
Their children and grandchildren who are just graduating from college aren't faring any better. According to Business Week, the 1.6 million about to hit the job market with their expensive degrees will be confronting a youth unemployment rate of almost 20 percent -- the highest rate since the Labor Department started tracking youth unemployment in 1948.
And, as Laura Bassett reported on HuffPost, many workers who have managed to hold onto their jobs are increasingly doing so only by accepting less pay and taking on a higher share of their health care costs. "My company didn't eliminate my job, they just eliminated my salary," wrote marketing director Mike Cheaure in an email. "I was back at work as a freelancer the next day working at 1/4 the pay and no benefits." The experience has made him very familiar with the new reality. "For us, the American Dream is gone," he said. "Now it's just getting by."
Adding insult to injury, a growing number of working mothers are having to give up their jobs and rely on welfare because states are cutting back on child care services that allowed them to keep working. And kids across the country are scrambling to find something to do this summer as a number of states make deep cuts to summer school programs.
And what about that recent surge in consumer spending that spawned talk of "green shoots" and "recovery?" Turns out, there was a surge in spending -- but almost exclusively by the rich. As the LA Times' Don Lee put it, the "little-noticed reality" behind the "encouraging numbers" was that "much of the new spending has come not from America's broad middle class but from a small slice of affluent people at the top." In fact, according to the Labor Department, the richest 20 percent of American households accounted for 40 percent of all spending.
As the Washington Post reported last week, "lavish fringe benefits" are back at the top end of corporate America, including "country club dues, chauffeured drivers, personal financial planning services, home security systems and parking." Of the 29 biggest public companies that took taxpayer money, around one in three decided to funnel some of it to its chief executive. As the Post's Tomoeh Murakami Tse dryly put it: "Those raises contrast with the belt-tightening that many Americans have experienced during the recession." Nell Minow, co-founder of the Corporate Library, put it more directly: "Marie Antoinette could fit into this crowd without missing a beat."
The latest news in consumer lending is similarly dismal -- especially among the banks that got the most help from taxpayers. According to the Treasury Department, from February to March, the largest banks cut lending by $9 billion -- yet more evidence of the schism between the two economies. Of course, the two economies aren't entirely separate -- the Wall Street economy is happy to accept massive transfusions of cash from the fading middle class.
This isn't to say that there were no provisions that would help Main Street considered as part of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. There were plenty -- it's just that almost all of them were either voted down or taken out and never even put up for a vote. Even something as simple and sensible as putting a cap on credit card interest rates. Sheldon Whitehouse's amendment to do just that was voted down 60 to 35. So much for "financial stability." Though I suppose it depends on whose financial stability you care about -- the banks' or the taxpayers'.
Or how about payday lending -- the largely unregulated advances on a paycheck that can carry rates in the triple digits? In Missouri, for example, rates can top 600 percent. Yes, you read that right. Not exactly a recipe for "financial stability." North Carolina's Kay Hagan offered an amendment that would have clamped down on the $40 billion industry. It was killed without a vote because of Republican objections.
Objections that were, no doubt, the end product of the mother of all lobbying campaigns by every sector of the financial industry. Of course, the line between Senator, staffer and lobbyist is pretty blurry these days. A joint report released by SEIU, the Campaign for America's Future, and the Public Accountability Initiative found that the finance industry has 70 former members of Congress and 940 former federal employees on its lobbying payroll. This includes 33 chiefs of staff, 54 staffers of the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee (or of a current member of those committees), and 28 legislative directors. Five of Senate Banking Committee chair Chris Dodd's former staffers are now working as banking lobbyists, as are eight former staffers for Banking Committee powerhouses Richard Shelby and Chuck Schumer.
And the revolving door spins both ways. As Arthur Delaney reported on HuffPost, 18 percent of current House Financial Services committee staffers used to work on K Street. All told, the financial industry has spent nearly $600 million on lobbying since the collapse of Bear Stearns in March of 2008 -- almost a million dollars a day.
A lot of money, sure, but if what you care about is the financial stability of the banks, it was money well spent. Take, for instance, the Merkley-Levin amendment that would have forced big banks to get rid of their speculative proprietary trading activities, a version of the Volcker rule. And you can take it, because the Senate won't be using it -- the amendment never even made it to a vote. This wasn't because it wouldn't have passed. On the contrary, since debate began on this issue, anger from those mired in the real economy has reached enough lawmakers that the amendment had a real shot. Which is why, as Simon Johnson put it, "the big banks were forced into overdrive to stop it."
Another reform completely left out of the bill was any reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This despite the fact that in just the last quarter Freddie -- one half of what the New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson calls "the elephant in the bailout" -- reported a loss of $6.7 billion.
Serious delinquencies on Freddie's single-family conventional loan portfolio are at 4.13 percent, up from 2.41 percent for the same period last year. And the number of foreclosed units Freddie controls stands at nearly 54,000, up from 29,145 at the end of March 2009.
"I don't understand why people are not talking about it," says Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It seems to me the most fundamental question is, have they on an ongoing basis been paying too much for loans even since they went into conservatorship?"
And why would they do that? It's part of what Baker calls a "backdoor bailout" of the banks. In other words, an under-the-radar way to continue shoveling money from struggling taxpayers over to the richest Americans.
We've been told time and time again over the last two years that right after Washington deals with what's on its plate, "jobs is next." Well, it's been "next" for quite some time now, but it never seems to come to the floor. And now that a financial reform bill has passed, the talk on the Hill is that climate control or immigration will be tackled next. Or that members will just go off for the summer and campaign, flush with all the donations many of them just pocketed from the banks in this latest effort.
I often have a nightmare -- a common sort -- in which I'm stuck in a forest and I can't find my way out. I have a friend whose version is that her feet are stuck to the ground and she can't move. Not a bad description of our leaders' approach to the massive suffering that's going on across America.
A recent study by Duha Tore Altindag and Naci H. Mocan for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the effects of unemployment can have troubling implications for a political system. The authors studied data from 130,000 people in 69 countries. Their conclusion: "We find that personal joblessness experience translates into negative opinions about the effectiveness of democracy."
No shock there. But it should frighten anyone genuinely concerned about our stability, financial and otherwise.
=============
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/financial-reform-a-win-fo_b_587728.html
60 minutes report worth watching again
This details the errors especially with the gasket that no one is bringing up still:
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Dr. Reece Halter on the ecological devestation of the BP OIL DISASTER
Dr. Reece Halter, conservation biologist at Calf. Lutheran U. talks to Ed Schultz about the soon-to-be ecological devastation of the oil-and-chemcial toxic brew flooding the Gulf now:
He's interviewed from @ 9:28 to the end of this clip:
He's mad as hell, and that's entirely appropriate!
Reece Halter's blog
He's interviewed from @ 9:28 to the end of this clip:
He's mad as hell, and that's entirely appropriate!
Reece Halter's blog
Monday, March 29, 2010
Big Brother Luntz
From Paul Krugman's column "Punks and Plutocrats" - NYT - 032810 -
"Back in January, Frank Luntz, the G.O.P. strategist, circulated a memo on how to oppose financial reform. His key idea was that Republicans should claim that up is down — that reform legislation is a “big bank bailout bill,” rather than a set of restrictions on the banks."
Do slimeballs like Luntz have a trace of integrity left? If "evil" is consciously lying to promote theft, then Luntz fully fits the bill.
The last paragraph is great and a concise summary:
"So it’s the punks versus the plutocrats — those who want to rein in runaway banks, and bankers who want the freedom to put the economy at risk, freedom enhanced by the knowledge that taxpayers will bail them out in a crisis. Whatever they say, the fact is that people like Mr. Shelby are on the side of the plutocrats; the American people should be on the side of the punks, who are trying to protect their interests."
Right-on, Paul Krugman!!
"Back in January, Frank Luntz, the G.O.P. strategist, circulated a memo on how to oppose financial reform. His key idea was that Republicans should claim that up is down — that reform legislation is a “big bank bailout bill,” rather than a set of restrictions on the banks."
Do slimeballs like Luntz have a trace of integrity left? If "evil" is consciously lying to promote theft, then Luntz fully fits the bill.
The last paragraph is great and a concise summary:
"So it’s the punks versus the plutocrats — those who want to rein in runaway banks, and bankers who want the freedom to put the economy at risk, freedom enhanced by the knowledge that taxpayers will bail them out in a crisis. Whatever they say, the fact is that people like Mr. Shelby are on the side of the plutocrats; the American people should be on the side of the punks, who are trying to protect their interests."
Right-on, Paul Krugman!!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Comment I found at The Nation website
Some years back, Honda had a choice between building a plant in the United States or Canada. They settled on Canada, because their government-run health plan would save them money. While the drug companies and the health care industry will make a lot of money out of healthcare "reform," it will drive up costs for other business interests.
The economies of "developed" Western nations are supported by the disposable incomes of ordinary workers. Since the purpose of "free trade" and "neoliberal economics" is to drive down wages, they are destroying their market and their wealth.
The economic elites are very stupid, and will destroy themselves along with the world's economy!
Pervis James Casey
Riverside, CA
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
An Integral Analysis needed
Someone(s) need(s) to deconstruct, unpack, analyze the following from an Integral AQAL place:
- The Tea Baggers
- The plutocratic (my term) Corporate establishment
- The Republican Party
- Wall Street
- Progressives
- Democrats
- Neoliberals
- Neoconservatives
- Right wing Christians
- Cultural conservatives
- Cultural progressives
- Socialists
and many more players....
I will begin shortly - stay tuned....
- The Tea Baggers
- The plutocratic (my term) Corporate establishment
- The Republican Party
- Wall Street
- Progressives
- Democrats
- Neoliberals
- Neoconservatives
- Right wing Christians
- Cultural conservatives
- Cultural progressives
- Socialists
and many more players....
I will begin shortly - stay tuned....
Health Care DEform
Watching/responding to MSNBC 121609
Howard Dean is holding his own against tweety bird's hot air except Tweety says if you don't like your ins. co., go somewhere else - MONOPOLIES
dumb fuzzy headed corporate tweety (CMatthews) - passing medicare for all through reconciliation would DESTROY the Senate LOL
Tea party manipulated by Armey tool of corporatocracy anger at govt from amber level - progressives anger at Congress/Obama from green lvl.
I like Ed Shutlz & I share his anger re health care DEform, but he's not thinkin clearly-just stated that teapartiers want pub opt.!
Olbermann's comment is strong EXCEPT he thinks it's just Obama's weakness at fault not the truth-he's been bought & paid for by corps.
I like his prescription though - see vid I'll post later:
------------------
This is NOT progressivism; it's corporatist neoliberalism (or neoconservatism) - take your pick.
It's corporate plutocracy with the government part of the ruling system R or D, with 38 or so exceptions in the House and perhaps 4-5 in the Senate. if that.
Howard Dean is holding his own against tweety bird's hot air except Tweety says if you don't like your ins. co., go somewhere else - MONOPOLIES
dumb fuzzy headed corporate tweety (CMatthews) - passing medicare for all through reconciliation would DESTROY the Senate LOL
Tea party manipulated by Armey tool of corporatocracy anger at govt from amber level - progressives anger at Congress/Obama from green lvl.
I like Ed Shutlz & I share his anger re health care DEform, but he's not thinkin clearly-just stated that teapartiers want pub opt.!
Olbermann's comment is strong EXCEPT he thinks it's just Obama's weakness at fault not the truth-he's been bought & paid for by corps.
I like his prescription though - see vid I'll post later:
------------------
And Obama can say that you’re getting a lot, but also saying that it “covers everyone,” as if there’s a big new benefit is a big stretch. Nothing will have changed on that count except changing the law to force people to buy private insurance if they don’t get it from their employer. I guess you can call that progressive, but that doesn’t make it so. In fact, mandating that all people pay money to a private interest isn’t even conservative, free market or otherwise. It’s some kind of weird corporatism that’s very hard to square with the common good philosophy that Democrats supposedly espouse.
Nobody’s “getting covered” here. After all, people are already “free” to buy private insurance and one must assume they have reasons for not doing it already. Whether those reasons are good or bad won’t make a difference when they are suddenly forced to write big checks to Aetna or Blue Cross that they previously had decided they couldn’t or didn’t want to write. Indeed, it actually looks like the worst caricature of liberals: taking people’s money against their will, saying it’s for their own good. — and doing it without even the cover that FDR wisely insisted upon with social security, by having it withdrawn from paychecks. People don’t miss the money as much when they never see it.
What this huge electoral mandate and congressional majority have gotten us, then, is basically a deal with the insurance industry to accept 30 million coerced customers in exchange for ending their practice of failing to cover their customers when they get sick — unless they go beyond a “reasonable cap,” of course. (And profits go up!) If that’s the best we can expect of progressivism for the next generation then I’m afraid we are in deep trouble.
This is NOT progressivism; it's corporatist neoliberalism (or neoconservatism) - take your pick.
It's corporate plutocracy with the government part of the ruling system R or D, with 38 or so exceptions in the House and perhaps 4-5 in the Senate. if that.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Tea parties on the ground of being
The "tea partiers" manipulated by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Armey, and plenty of Republicans are at a level of identity and consciosuness which is chauvinistic, nationalistic, ethnocentric and, in typical right-wing fashion, paranoid about our being attacked by all the not-like-us other groups. It's a low level of consciousness, and until they grow out of it, we'll have a block of reactionaries yelling and screaming and blocking change.
They also are afraid of big government (except in its defense functions), because they are confusing the pre-individual collective oppression we had (on this planet) under communism and fascism with the trans-individual conscious collective "we" that is democratic government that represents us, that serves the large conscious "us," and is Constitutionally prohibited against transgressing our own civil rights. These unfortunate people who haven't even grown to full individuality to think for themselves are oblivious to the fact that we live in a corporate plutocracy, and the threat from that to our democracy and well being on all fronts is much greater than their delusional "big government" fears.
The further down the chain of consciousness one lives at, the more OTHERS one fears (rendered through hatred -same thing- aversion) others unlike oneself. The Islamic fundamentalists are prime examples, of course. The tea-partiers aren't too many levels above that.
The politicians, including the loathsome Lieberman, may have some right-wing ethnocentric, nationalistic, paranoid beliefs, but are more likely influenced by living large via contributions and other ways they are interested parties, funneling in filthy lucre from the big healthcare, energy, and military-industrial corporations.
They also are afraid of big government (except in its defense functions), because they are confusing the pre-individual collective oppression we had (on this planet) under communism and fascism with the trans-individual conscious collective "we" that is democratic government that represents us, that serves the large conscious "us," and is Constitutionally prohibited against transgressing our own civil rights. These unfortunate people who haven't even grown to full individuality to think for themselves are oblivious to the fact that we live in a corporate plutocracy, and the threat from that to our democracy and well being on all fronts is much greater than their delusional "big government" fears.
The further down the chain of consciousness one lives at, the more OTHERS one fears (rendered through hatred -same thing- aversion) others unlike oneself. The Islamic fundamentalists are prime examples, of course. The tea-partiers aren't too many levels above that.
The politicians, including the loathsome Lieberman, may have some right-wing ethnocentric, nationalistic, paranoid beliefs, but are more likely influenced by living large via contributions and other ways they are interested parties, funneling in filthy lucre from the big healthcare, energy, and military-industrial corporations.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
"Anatomy of Casino Capitalism" pt.2
"Anatomy of Casino Capitalism" pt.2 - intvw w/Jane D'Arista - http://tinyurl.com/yem5nro
PLAN by James K. Galbraith
I found this article from a link at Bill Moyers's page at pbs.org. It's very good, and has given me a new perspective on "free markets" and the fact that truly free markets are supported by sane regulation and balanced by a robust public sector. The learning curve for me is encapsulated in the following paragraph:
============================================
Plan
By James K. Galbraith
Can Capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.
—Joseph Schumpeter, 1942
The problem is not how to save capitalism but how to save the unique and successful mixed economy built in the United States over the eighty-five years since the New Deal. Our system is not capitalism. Our economy has a large public sector, which at its best was competently concerned with research, defense, financial stability, environmental safety, social security, and large measures of education, health care, and housing. Today, after thirty years of attack on government, all these functions are damaged and in peril.
The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets. They have a reckless attitude toward war-making and they put the financial system in peril by failing to enforce standards of ethics and transparency. As a result, they imperil the country’s credit in the world. True conservatives recognize this, which is why they defected from Bush and McCain long ago.
Our postwar system was built on technological leadership, financial stability, and collective security. The world gave us credit and used our currency. Why? Because we gave it back the public goods of peace and economic progress. We were the bulwark during the Cold War. Our system wasn’t imperial: we spoke instead of community, of freedom, of common purposes and common values, and the world took us seriously because we had paid our dues.
The next successful system should be built on that model—that is, on the basis of regulated finance, collective security, and, above all, a national purpose. Since energy and climate change will dominate the global agenda for the next generation and perhaps even the following, dealing with these issues must become our generation’s purpose too. Although America is the world’s great energy wastrel, among developed countries we are the best positioned to change, to reduce our own fossil-fuel use and help the world do likewise. We have the science, the technology, the engineering, and the educational capacity to take the lead.
What we do not have is the capacity to figure out, in advance, a coherent national strategy toward this goal, and for using our government to advance that strategy. We have no capacity to plan, and that is what we need now.
“Planning” has been a dirty word in American politics for decades. For the hard-line right, planning destroyed freedom: it was the “road to serfdom.” Anti-planners also thought it a failure; for them the collapse of the U.S.S.R. was due to “central planning.” But without public planning, who is in charge? Lobbyists who represent the private planning of the great corporations. The public interest ceases to exist, and the public sector becomes nothing more than a trough at which private interests come to feed.
What the government needs most today is to regain an independent capacity to think. The government needs a way to imagine the future that is not dominated by lobbies or even by Congress so long as Congress is dominated by lobbies. Planning is a process: thinking, coordination, action. What is the long-term national interest? What specific targets must be met? What is the best way to do it, and who plays what role?
For instance, carbon prices and cap-and-trade systems will help to deal with the climate crisis, but they cannot do the whole job. Markets do not design new systems— new patterns of transport and housing, new technologies for electric power, for vehicles, for heating and cooling. To design a system, to put the pieces together, to identify the most promising lines of attack and take steps to achieve them: that is the planner’s role.
Imagine a Federal Department of Energy and Climate with real independence. It could make an honest evaluation of ethanol. It could review the prospects and assess the dangers of next-generation nuclear power. It could make a judgment on carbon capture. It could consider all the serious conservation proposals, such as Joe Kennedy’s program to retrofit housing in the snow belt. It could fund new research centers in the major universities, so that in a decade the country will have trained the experts we will need to implement the plans we make.
Planning is not coercive, but it should be privileged. Once Congress approves a plan, budgeting and appropriation rules should favor public capital spending that implements the plan. For instance, such investments would not be subject to “pay-go” restrictions; as long-term improvements, they properly should be funded by issuing long-term debt. The planning process would thus parallel the budget process, superseding it in the areas of infrastructure, technology, and environmental management that would be the main arenas for the plan. Dealing with the energy and climate crises will require direct public action and the cooperation of the private sector, which will be achieved in part by regulation and standards. Clearly, the challenge is daunting. But it’s not hopeless. If the country gets it right, all of us can have work for a generation, a better living standard afterward, and leave the planet more or less intact. And in addition, we stand a chance, otherwise improbable, of persuading the rest of the world to keep our line of credit open.
© November 2008 The Harper's Magazine Foundation.
The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets. They have a reckless attitude toward war-making and they put the financial system in peril by failing to enforce standards of ethics and transparency. As a result, they imperil the country’s credit in the world. True conservatives recognize this, which is why they defected from Bush and McCain long ago.
============================================
Plan
By James K. Galbraith
Can Capitalism survive? No. I do not think it can.
—Joseph Schumpeter, 1942
The problem is not how to save capitalism but how to save the unique and successful mixed economy built in the United States over the eighty-five years since the New Deal. Our system is not capitalism. Our economy has a large public sector, which at its best was competently concerned with research, defense, financial stability, environmental safety, social security, and large measures of education, health care, and housing. Today, after thirty years of attack on government, all these functions are damaged and in peril.
The rot comes from predators posing as conservatives and mouthing the rhetoric of “free markets.” They are not actually interested in free markets. Their goal is to use the government to build monopolies, to control resources, to block regulation, to crush unions, to divert as much as possible from taxpayers into private pockets. They have a reckless attitude toward war-making and they put the financial system in peril by failing to enforce standards of ethics and transparency. As a result, they imperil the country’s credit in the world. True conservatives recognize this, which is why they defected from Bush and McCain long ago.
Our postwar system was built on technological leadership, financial stability, and collective security. The world gave us credit and used our currency. Why? Because we gave it back the public goods of peace and economic progress. We were the bulwark during the Cold War. Our system wasn’t imperial: we spoke instead of community, of freedom, of common purposes and common values, and the world took us seriously because we had paid our dues.
The next successful system should be built on that model—that is, on the basis of regulated finance, collective security, and, above all, a national purpose. Since energy and climate change will dominate the global agenda for the next generation and perhaps even the following, dealing with these issues must become our generation’s purpose too. Although America is the world’s great energy wastrel, among developed countries we are the best positioned to change, to reduce our own fossil-fuel use and help the world do likewise. We have the science, the technology, the engineering, and the educational capacity to take the lead.
What we do not have is the capacity to figure out, in advance, a coherent national strategy toward this goal, and for using our government to advance that strategy. We have no capacity to plan, and that is what we need now.
“Planning” has been a dirty word in American politics for decades. For the hard-line right, planning destroyed freedom: it was the “road to serfdom.” Anti-planners also thought it a failure; for them the collapse of the U.S.S.R. was due to “central planning.” But without public planning, who is in charge? Lobbyists who represent the private planning of the great corporations. The public interest ceases to exist, and the public sector becomes nothing more than a trough at which private interests come to feed.
What the government needs most today is to regain an independent capacity to think. The government needs a way to imagine the future that is not dominated by lobbies or even by Congress so long as Congress is dominated by lobbies. Planning is a process: thinking, coordination, action. What is the long-term national interest? What specific targets must be met? What is the best way to do it, and who plays what role?
For instance, carbon prices and cap-and-trade systems will help to deal with the climate crisis, but they cannot do the whole job. Markets do not design new systems— new patterns of transport and housing, new technologies for electric power, for vehicles, for heating and cooling. To design a system, to put the pieces together, to identify the most promising lines of attack and take steps to achieve them: that is the planner’s role.
Imagine a Federal Department of Energy and Climate with real independence. It could make an honest evaluation of ethanol. It could review the prospects and assess the dangers of next-generation nuclear power. It could make a judgment on carbon capture. It could consider all the serious conservation proposals, such as Joe Kennedy’s program to retrofit housing in the snow belt. It could fund new research centers in the major universities, so that in a decade the country will have trained the experts we will need to implement the plans we make.
Planning is not coercive, but it should be privileged. Once Congress approves a plan, budgeting and appropriation rules should favor public capital spending that implements the plan. For instance, such investments would not be subject to “pay-go” restrictions; as long-term improvements, they properly should be funded by issuing long-term debt. The planning process would thus parallel the budget process, superseding it in the areas of infrastructure, technology, and environmental management that would be the main arenas for the plan. Dealing with the energy and climate crises will require direct public action and the cooperation of the private sector, which will be achieved in part by regulation and standards. Clearly, the challenge is daunting. But it’s not hopeless. If the country gets it right, all of us can have work for a generation, a better living standard afterward, and leave the planet more or less intact. And in addition, we stand a chance, otherwise improbable, of persuading the rest of the world to keep our line of credit open.
© November 2008 The Harper's Magazine Foundation.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
What Must Be Done to Reform Wall St. Banks at the least
Congressional reform must repeal (or un-do) the two odious laws deregulating Wall St. in '99 and '00 -The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which dissolved the firewall between commercial and investment banks (undoing the Glass-Steagall act of the Depression era) and The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (which deregulated exotic financial instruments like credit default swaps), both of which opened the Wall St. Casino doors wide and free from transparency and oversight, it will be a good bill. It must break up the too- big-to-fail banks decisively (reinstating the separation of commercial and investment banks would do this). If it doesn't accomplish at least those two goals, it's window dressing.
Anatomy of Casino Capitalism
FIRST PART of clear, more complex analysis of the banksters schemes: More parts to follow.
Two art pieces by me-"watermarked"
http://imageplanet24.blogspot.com/2009/11/two-art-pieces-by-me-watermarked.html
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