Adios, Past Decade

The Big Zero, a forgettable decade

By Paul Krugman

Syndicated columnist

Maybe we knew, at some unconscious, instinctive level, that it would be an era best forgotten. Whatever the reason, we got through the first decade of the new millennium without ever agreeing on what to call it. The aughts? The naughties? Whatever. (Yes, I know that strictly speaking the millennium didn't begin until 2001. Do we really care?)

But from an economic point of view, I'd suggest that we call the decade past the Big Zero. It was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.

It was a decade with basically zero job creation. OK, the headline employment number for December 2009 will be slightly higher than that for December 1999, but only slightly. And private-sector employment has actually declined — the first decade on record in which that happened.

It was a decade with zero economic gains for the typical family. Actually, even at the height of the alleged "Bush boom," in 2007, median household income adjusted for inflation was lower than it had been in 1999. And you know what happened next.

It was a decade of zero gains for homeowners, even if they bought early: Right now, housing prices, adjusted for inflation, are roughly back to where they were at the beginning of the decade. And for those who bought in the decade's middle years — when all the serious people ridiculed warnings that housing prices made no sense, that we were in the middle of a gigantic bubble — well, I feel your pain. Almost a quarter of all mortgages in America, and 45 percent of mortgages in Florida, are underwater, with owners owing more than their houses are worth.

Last and least for most Americans — but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV — it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like "Dow 36,000" predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.

So there was a whole lot of nothing going on in measures of economic progress or success. Funny how that happened.

For as the decade began, there was an overwhelming sense of economic triumphalism in America's business and political establishments, a belief that we — more than anyone else in the world — knew what we were doing.

Let me quote from a speech that Lawrence Summers, then deputy Treasury secretary (and now the Obama administration's top economist), gave in 1999. "If you ask why the American financial system succeeds," he said, "at least my reading of the history would be that there is no innovation more important than that of generally accepted accounting principles: it means that every investor gets to see information presented on a comparable basis; that there is discipline on company managements in the way they report and monitor their activities." And he went on to declare that there is "an ongoing process that really is what makes our capital market work and work as stably as it does."

So here's what Summers — and, to be fair, just about everyone in a policymaking position at the time — believed in 1999: America has honest corporate accounting; this lets investors make good decisions, and also forces management to behave responsibly; and the result is a stable, well-functioning financial system.

What percentage of all this turned out to be true? Zero.

What was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.

Even as the dot-com bubble deflated, credulous bankers and investors began inflating a new bubble in housing. Even after famous, admired companies like Enron and WorldCom were revealed to have been Potemkin corporations with facades built out of creative accounting, analysts and investors believed banks' claims about their own financial strength and bought into the hype about investments they didn't understand. Even after triggering a global economic collapse, and having to be rescued at taxpayers' expense, bankers wasted no time going right back to the culture of giant bonuses and excessive leverage.

Then there are the politicians. Even now, it's hard to get Democrats, President Barack Obama included, to deliver a full-throated critique of the practices that got us into the mess we're in. And as for the Republicans: Now that their policies of tax cuts and deregulation have led us into an economic quagmire, their prescription for recovery is — tax cuts and deregulation.

So let's bid a not-at-all-fond farewell to the Big Zero — the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing. Will the next decade be better? Stay tuned. Oh, and happy New Year.

Paul Krugman is a regular columnist for The New York Times.

2009, New York Times News Service

Health Care Compromise?

People on the left and right are stuck in their positions from years of unwillingness to see the other side's point of view. The right argues for "tort reform" as the cure for lowering health care costs. The left argues that tort reform is just a drop in the bucket. It probably is, but there are people who will sue just to make a "million bucks" on a mistake.

Why not compromise? Why not start some type of a general fund that would pay damages to those who are truly hurt by mistakes made by doctors/institutions/etc? The fund would only compensate for healthcare costs and loss of income etc. Not to make someone personally rich. This would decrease the number of frivolous/unnecessary lawsuits, but would still keep various parties in check, as they would have to pay into the general fund for the harm they had caused.

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Avatar

The new James Cameron movie Avatar is breathtaking and brilliant. I saw it this afternoon with my 12-year old daughter [and no, it was not too scary for her], and was really impressed by the whole new universe created by the film! We watched a 3D version of the movie, and it was all the more impressive. The sights were incredibly real and beautiful.

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Irtisanottu

Tiistaina lounaan jälkeen pomo tuli ohimennen pyytämään minua ja kolmea muuta tyontekijää "tänne hetkeksi". "Tänne" oli neuvotteluhuone, jossa istui jo henkilöstöpäällikkö ja pomon pomo. He pyysivät meitä istumaan alas. Yksi työkaveri ei suostunut vaan jäi seisomaan oven viereen. Käyhän se näinkin, sanoi pomon pomo.

Nyt on niin että olemme viimeiseen asti sinnitelleet, mutta töitä ei enää ole ja meidän on sanottava teidät irti. Olette kaikki hyviä työntekijöitä - tämä ei missään tapauksessa ole henkilökohtaista. Kutsumme teidät kaikki takaisin jos saamme lisää tilauksia. Lupaamme myös kirjoittaa suosituskirjeen jos allekirjoitatte tämän paperin... Pomon pomo jatkoi tyhjän puhumista. Minä katsoin alas käsiäni, pöydän jalkoja, ulos ikkunasta. En sanonut mitään enkä kysynyt kysymyksiä. Toiset kysyivät toiveikkaana sitä sun tätä ja nyökkäilivät innokkaasti kun tuli puhe takaisinpaluusta ym. hölynpölystä.

Ei 50m luksusveneitä enää tehdä. Se aika on jo ohi. Upporikkaat säästävät viimeiset miljardinsa vielä pahemman päivän varalle... Meidän on aika katsoa peiliin. Kelluvien palatsien rakentaminen oli kivaa niin kauan kuin se kesti.

Kokouksen jälkeen meillä oli noin puoli tuntia aikaa kerätä kimpsumme ja kampsumme. Pomo tuijotti vieressä, ettemme vain ottaisimme mukaan sellaista mikä ei meille kuulunut. Yritin hävittää viimeiset höpsysähkopostit joita tulvi tasaisena virtana työkavereilta aivan viimeiseen asti. Turha niitä on kenenkään lueskella ja naureskella jälkikäteen. Tilannekomiikka ei ole niin hauskaa enää kahden päivän kuluttua.

Pitää hakeutua työttömien sankkoihin riveihin. Kuuleman mukaan noin kolmannes firman väestä sai kenkää. Kai se on jonkinlainen lohtu: en ollut ainoa.

Nyt on aikaa. Voin pestä pyykkiä ja siivota kaiken päivää. Voin kävellä koirien kanssa monta kertaa päivässä. Kun vain osaisi nauttia tästä ajasta.

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Tiger In the Woods

Roar! Said the tiger, lost in the hundred acre woods... Don't mess with Swedish women - tiger or no tiger - they'll get you every time.

My 12-year old daughter asked me the other day: why do guys always cheat? I didn't know how to begin to answer that without sounding stupid.

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Economic Half-measures

Things to come

[by Paul Krugman]

What’s going to happen, economically and politically, over the next few years? Nobody knows, of course. But I have a vision — what I think is the most likely course of events. It’s fairly grim — but not in the approved way. This vision lies behind a lot of what I’ve been writing, so it might clarify things for regular readers if I laid it out explicitly.

Start with the short-term economics. What we’re in right now is the aftermath of a giant financial crisis, which typically leads to a prolonged period of economic weakness — and this time isn’t different. A bolder economic policy early this year might have led to a turnaround, but what we actually got were half-measures. As a result, unemployment is likely to stay near its current level for a year or more.

And politically it’s hard to do anything about that. Those economic half-measures have landed the Obama administration in a trap: much of the political establishment now sees stimulus as having been discredited by events, so that it’s very hard to come back and scale the policy up to where it should have been in the first place. Also, with the apocalypse on hold, the deficit scolds have come back into their own, decrying any policy that actually involves spending money.

The result, then, will be high unemployment leading into the 2010 elections, and corresponding Democratic losses. These losses will be worse because Obama, by pursuing a uniformly pro-banker policy without even a gesture to popular anger over the bailouts, has ceded populist energy to the right and demoralized the movement that brought him to power.

Despite all this, the midterms probably won’t give Republicans the majority in the House. But the losses will be big enough to deny Obama a working majority for any major initiatives in the rest of his first term. (My guess is that he’ll be reelected thanks to the true awfulness of the Republican nominee). Since Republicans are dead set against any of the things I think could help pull the economy out of its rut, this means more economic stagnation.

Along with this will come a process of defining prosperity down. All the wise heads will tell us that 8 or 9 percent unemployment — maybe even 10 percent — is the “new normal”, and that only irresponsible people want to do anything about the situation.

So what I see is years of terrible job markets, combined with political paralysis.
I hope I’m wrong about all this. But my sense is that to have any hope of breaking out of this trap, Obama and company have to take risks — they have to propose new initiatives that might not pass, and be prepared to run against the do-nothing Republicans if the initiatives fail. That’s not happening now; as best as I can tell, the administration strategy is to insist that only a few minor course corrections are needed, and to wait for the jobs to start coming in.
Maybe they’ll get lucky. But hope is not a plan.

What can the rest of us do? Progressives have to keep the pressure on. The time for trusting the administration to do what’s necessary is past — all indications are that it won’t, not on its own. But maybe, just maybe, the president can be brought to see the danger he’s running by playing it safe.

I have worried from the beginning, that Obama doesn't have the courage to lead; he's stuck in a "safe" territory. Now we're stuck with him.
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WTO Ten Years After

Ten years ago I was in Seattle during the WTO protests. I went downtown during my lunch break to see what was going on... It was an unreal sight to see police armed to the teeth and protesters breaking windows and burning garbage cans, and singing songs while blocking intersections...

In the local news we heard only of the "violence" that was taking place. No analysis on why the protesters were against so-called free trade. It was a freely and widely accepted paradigm: unfettered capitalism, free trade, winner take all parade to the finish.

Jon Talton writes in today's Seattle Times that the protesters were right all along...

We've come a long way, baby.

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Why I Stopped Shopping at Amazon

Couple years ago when I was taking classes at UW I bought all my books at the University Book Store. I liked going there to browse, feel and smell the books. Sometimes I would buy a children's book for my daughter, or another notebook for the endless notes I took in class.

Several of my class mates said they bought all their school books on Amazon, because they were so much cheaper than at the local book store (and that is a consideration when you spend $100 per book!). I was skeptical at first - I am loyal to local stores and shops as much as is feasible. Although I had purchased several things at Amazon in the past, I had never bought school books there. But money talks. Or so I thought.

In 2006 I purchased a book on mass media law that saved me about $25 by bying it on Amazon. I thought I was clever. What I didn't realize was that the book I bought was previous year's edition (the only one available at Amazon at the time) and it did not include some important changes that I needed in my class. I contacted Amazon to return the book and buy the next edition (which had become available by then). They told me that I could not return it for full credit for some BS reason that I cannot remember, but if I shipped it back I could receive a partial credit (approximately $25). After wrangling with Amazon on the phone a few times I returend the book and bought the new edition at University Book Store for $100.

I never received the partial credit from Amazon for returning the book. I have not bought anything from Amazon since. I still love University Book Store.

Below is another horror story by Steve Brown, who bought a hair color product from Amazon and was overcharged shipping costs.

Amazon Horror

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Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck kertoo radiossa, kuinka Amerikassa eletaan pelottavia aikoja. Dollarin arvo laskee - menettaa koko arvonsa ehka jo huomenna, ehka viiden vuoden kuluessa. Ei ole mitaan tehtavissa. Mutta ehka sittenkin: aina on mahdollisuus valita uudelleen (kuten esim. valtakunnan vaaleissa). Toivo taytyy pitaa elossa. Kun Hitler tuli valtaan ihmiset olivat toivottomia Saksassa, kertoo Beck. Ja silloin saksan markka joutui syoksykierteeseen... Mutta Amerikan ei pida luovuttaa, jokaisen amerikkalaisen velvollisuus on pelastaa vapaa maailma hitlereista ym. totalitarismin kannattajista! (Tassa yhteydessa vihjataan epasuorasti Obaman yhtalaisyyksiin Hitlerin kanssa.)

Glenn Beck on suosittu puhuja seka TV:ssa etta radiossa. Jopa Sarah Palin on kertonut haluavansa hanet varapresidenttiehdokkaakseen (!). Beck on emotionaalinen puhuja joka saa ihmiset tunteilemaan Amerikan hyvyydesta ja amerikkalaisten paremmuudesta muuhun maailmaan nahden. Hanen sanansa uppoavat niihin kansan syviin riveihin, joissa on uskonnollisia ja huonosti koulutettuja ihmisia. Beckilla menee itsekin tosiseikat sekaisin, mutta ei yksityiskohdat tai historian faktat ole ennenkaan saaneet estaa oikean asian voittokulkua. Jumala on kanssamme. Kuka voisi meita estaa?

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Jokaisen aidin painajainen

Olen seurannut torniolaistyton kohtaloa Suomessa ahdistuneena; terve tytto kuoli ilmeiseen laakareiden valinpitamattomyyteen. Kuinka nain voi kayda Suomessa?

Itsellani on 12-vuotias perusterve tytto joka on sairastanut flunssaa jo monta viikkoa; ensin tavallista flunssaa ja sitten ilmeisesti sikainfluenssaa. Valilla han on sairastanut keuhkoputken tulehduksen, ja hetken jo luulimme, etta hanella olisi myos aivokalvon tulehdus. Ei sentaan, onneksi.

Viiden viikon aikana olimme yhteydessa sairaanhoitajaan pari kolme kertaa puhelimitse. Tytto kavi laakarissa kahdesti; kerran ensiavussa, jossa otettiin keuhkokuvat ja todettiin keuhkoputken tulehdus johon han sai heti laakkeet, toisella kertaa tavallisella vastaanotolla toissapaivana, jossa todettiin etta kyseessa on "vain" flunssa (taalla ei enaa testata H1N1 virusta, sill tapauksia on niin monta). Huoli oli suuri, silla olin juuri lukenut torniolaistytosta. Oma lapseni on kuitenkin paranemaan pain.

Iltasanomista ote torniolaistyton viimeisista hetkista:

Äiti kertoo kirjeessään, että hän pääsi lääkärin puheille vasta viimeisen puhelun aikana, noin tuntia ennen tytön kuolemaa. Tuolloin tytön hengitys oli katkonaista ja hänen otsansa oli kostea.

- Lääkäri sanoi, että tänne ei kannata tulla, koska he ei täälläkään voi tähän aikaan mitään tehdä, kun esim. labra on kiinni. Hän sanoi, että olkaa kotona, jossa tyttö nukkuu yön yli. Ja tulkaa aamulla, jos silloin on tarvetta.

- Sanoin, että taas silloin mennään Tornion terveyskeskuksen kautta päivystyksestä jonotuksen avulla mahdollisesti saatavan lähetteen kanssa. Keskustelu kesti 20 minuuttia.

Tyttöni kuoli n. tunnin kuluessa. 8-vuotias perusterve tyttö kuoli kotonaan maanantai-iltana. Ensihoidon tullessa paikalle häntä ei enää saatu pelastettua.

Kammottava tilanne! Ilmeisesti kuolema olisi ollut estettavissa, jos lapsen sairaus olisi otettu vakavammin. Oma kokemukseni taalta Seattlesta on ollut paljon positiivisempi. Laakariin on saanut yhteytta ja puhelimeen vastattu. Eihan siihen labraa tarvita jos lapsen hengitys ei kulje - siihen tarvitaan ensiapua! Heti!

Syva osanottoni torniolastyton vanhemmille.

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Where is Fazer or Marabou When You Need It?

Hershey’s Ain’t Chocolate


by Bennett Gordon in UTNE

Tags: Science and Technology, Environment, health, chocolate, food, The Smart Set

Hershey’s chocolates, for the most part, aren’t really chocolate. They’re “the terrible bastard children of chocolate and corporate frugality,” according to Meg Favreau, writing for The Smart Set. Hershey’s, and other industrial chocolate makers, mix their real coco butter with other vegetable oils. This makes it cheaper, but it also makes it something other than chocolate. For now, the FDA requires Hershey’s to call its industrial byproducts “chocolate flavored” instead of real chocolate, according to Favreau, though the website refers to the candies as “chocolate bars” and “milk chocolate.” That may change, however, as industry groups lobby the FDA to relax its definition of “chocolate” to include other vegetable oils.

I wish I could find Fazer chocolate here. There was a Scandinavian grocery store in Ballard, which sold Fazer but they are closed now. I can find Marabou at IKEA, but it's a long way to get there...

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Finland Is Best Again

This article was posted by Reuters today. It's hard to believe that the Finns are doing so well, even in the midst of the latest global economic crisis. It wasn't such a long time ago when they were just mediocre at best. But hard work and good education are paying off.
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SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!)

For those who value their freedom of expression as much as health, wealth, and prosperity, then Finland is the place to be, with an index ranking the Nordic nation the best in the world.
The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organization, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 percent of the world's population.

The index is based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth with the level of personal freedoms and democracy in a country as well as measures of happiness and quality of life.

With the exception of Switzerland, which came in at number 2, Nordic countries dominated the top 5 slots, with Sweden in third place followed by Denmark and Norway.
The top 10 were all also Western nations, with Australia (6th place) and Canada (7th place) both beating the United States, ranked 9th. Britain came in at number 12.

In Asia, Japan was the region's highest ranked country at number 16, followed by Hong Kong (18th place) and Singapore (23rd place) and Taiwan (24th place).

Dr. William Inboden, senior vice president of the Legatum Institute, said the lower rankings for Asian nations were largely due to their weak scores for democracy and personal freedoms.
"Many Asian nations have good economic fundamentals, but the Index tells us that true prosperity requires more than just money," Inboden said in a statement.
"Democratic institutions and personal freedom measures are letting some Asian nations down. Furthermore, countries which have low levels of economic stability, such as Cambodia, finish even further down in the overall rankings."

Cambodia came in the 93rd slot while China, with its tight political controls, came in 75th despite booming economic growth.

And the world's least prosperous country? According to the Legatum Index, it is Zimbabwe, with Sudan and Yemen close runners-up.

Aura of Inevitablility

Paul Krugman writes:

Something I’ve been trying to put into words, as I watch a couple of issues close to my heart — health care reform, climate change — is this: the “aura of inevitability”, which used to be one of the right’s great weapons, seems to be working for the other side now.

If you followed the Bushies closely, especially in the pre-Social-Security, pre-Katrina days, you became all too aware of the strategy. Again and again — the recount, the tax cut, the march to war — the Bush team would set out, successfully, to convey the impression that everyone knew they were going to win, that resistance was futile. In the case of the war, in particular, a lot of people who should have known better went along out of sheer careerism: this was going to happen, and anyone who stood in the way was going to bemarked as a loser.
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One more thing: the loss of the aura of inevitability has, I suspect, been an important factor in the rise of the teabaggers and all that. My guess is that the attitudes among the Republican base identified in that scary Democracy Corps study aren’t new, although the sense of powerlessness is; the Monster Raving Loony wing has been an important part of the conservative coalition for some time. Under Bush, however, that wing was kept relatively quiet with dog whistles: people at the top in effect convinced the extreme right that they shared its views, and with a little patience they’d see the kind of America they wanted. Now that’s all gone, and the underlying radicalism of the base is out in the open. And that looks likely to cause a lot of trouble for Republican hopes of regaining power any time soon.

Robert Reich on Obama's Nobel

Robert Reich, whose opinion I respect, writes very similarily to what I wrote about Obama's nobel award:

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Why Obama Should Not Have Received the Peace Prize -- Yet

President Obama's only real diplomatic accomplishment so far has been to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy from unilateral bullying to multilateral listening and cooperating. That's important, to be sure, but not nearly enough. The Prize is really more of Booby Prize for Obama's predecessor. Had the world not suffered eight years of George W. Bush, Obama would not be receiving the Prize. He's prizeworthy and praiseworthy only by comparison.

I'd rather Obama had won it after Congress agreed to substantial cuts in greenhouse gases comparable to what Europe is proposing, after he brought Palestinians and Israelis together to accept a two-state solution, after he got the United States out of Afghanistan and reduced the nuclear arm's threat between Pakistan and India, or after he was well on the way to eliminating the world's stockpile of nuclear weapons. Any one of these would have been worthy of global praise. Perhaps the Nobel committee can give him half the prize now and withhold the other half until he accomplishes one or more of these crucial missions.

Giving the Peace Prize to the President before any of these goals has been attained only underscores the paradox of Obama at this early stage of his presidency. He has demonstrated mastery in both delivering powerful rhetoric and providing the nation and the world with fresh and important ways of understanding current challenges. But he has not yet delivered. To the contrary, he often seems to hold back from the fight -- temporizing, delaying, or compromising so much that the rhetoric and insight he offers seem strangely disconnected from what he actually does. Yet there's time. He may yet prove to be one of the best presidents this nation has ever had -- worthy not only of the Peace Prize but of every global accolade he could possibly summon. Just not yet.

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

Obaman nobel

Olen yllättynyt ja vähän pettynytkin Obaman rauhanpalkinnon saamisesta. Hän on ollut virassaan vajaan vuoden, mutta ei ole vielä saanut mitään konkreettista aikaan rauhan puolesta. Palkinto annettiin siinä toivossa, etta Obama kenties saavuttaisi jotain maailman rauhan eteen joskus tulevaisuudessa? Hyvä puhuja sai kiitosta?

Palkinto oli rajusti poliittinen. Uskon etta siinä oli enemmän kysymys vastenmielisyydestä George Bushin hallintokautta kohtaan kuin halusta palkita Obaman "toivo" tulevaisuudesta. Palkinto olisi saattanut olla kohdallaan muutaman vuoden kuluttua, kun Lähi-Idän rauha on sovittu tai Iran luopunut ydinasehaluistaan, tai Pohjois-Korea ydinaseistaan. Nyt palkinto tuli etuajassa ja halventaa koko instituutiota.

Martti Ahtisaari sai palkinnon vuosikymmenien ahkerasta puurtamisesta rauhan hyväksi maailmankolkilla, olematta julkisuuden valoissa tai puhujapöntöissä. Obama on luvannut luopua Tsekkiin suunnitellusta ohjuskilvestä ja aikoo keskustella Iranin kanssa. Hyvä. Mutta hän ei ole vielä lopettanut Irakin eikä Afganistanin sotaa, joita hän niin äänekkäästi kritisoi vielä vuosi sitten.

Nyt on tekojen aika, Mr. Obama.

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Sikainfluenssa

Sikainfluenssa on nyt rantautunut Seattleen ja sen kouluihin oikein toden teolla. Tyton koulusta 10% oppilaista on poissa sairauden takia - luultavasti juuri tuon flunssan takia. Lukiosta 25% oppilaista on kotona sairaana. Kovin vakavalta flunssa ei ole kuitenkaan vaikuttanut ainakaan viela. En ole kuullut yhdestakaan sairaalatapauksesta lahipiirissa.

Tyttokin sairasti jo flunssan. En tieda oliko se juuri sita pahamaineista flunssaa (taalla ei enaa testata virusta, jos ei joudu sairaalaan sen takia), mutta oli kuitenkin kipeana viisi paivaa.

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Kesä viipyy vielä hetken

(Kuva otettu lounasaikaan)

Kesä ei päästä otettaan; kaunis, aurikoinen, lämmin ilma kietoo minut syleilyynsä. Yritän nauttia tästä hetkestä - tiedän että se on lyhyt ja katoaa ennen kuin ehdin päätäni kääntää. Ilma on lämmin ja
haikea: syksy vie sen mennessään ja jättää jälkeensä vain himmenevän muiston.

Ruokatunnilla käyn joella kokemassa aurigon viimeiset säteet ennen syksyn tuomaa vääjäämätontä muutosta.

Kolea, kostea, pimeä on kulman takana. Se repii luotani avoimmuuden ja pelottomuuden, ja antaa tilalle etäisyyden ja muurit.

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Autumn

Image from Slate Magazine

Protest

There's a protest in Washington DC today against "big government". That's great. People ought to be angry about what's happened in the last decade or two. I just think that their anger is a bit misguided. They should be protesting against the bankers who took the money, health insurance companies who denied care, politicians who sent their sons and daughters to die for someone's wet dream.

Their anger is aimed at Obama for speaking the truth, for being non-white, for making them feel uncomfortable about themselves. Obama expects them to act like adults but they cannot, because they've been taught to act like adolescents for so long. As they say: change is difficult.

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Public Option

Paul Krugman writes about the importance of the public option in the health care reform plan. It makes sense: the public option would keep the costs down. But I think many people are against it purely out of ideological reasons. They grew up with Reaganomics: private good, public bad.

Let me add a sort of larger point: aside from the essentially circular political arguments — centrist Democrats insisting that the public option must be dropped to get the votes of centrist Democrats — the argument against the public option boils down to the fact that it’s bad because it is, horrors, a government program. And sooner or later Democrats have to take a stand against Reaganism — against the presumption that if the government does it, it’s bad.


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Takaperoista touhua

Ihmisten yksityisyydensuoja on viety äärimmilleen. Toisten asioihin ei saa puuttua, vaikka henki menisi.

Eräässä läheisessä maaseututaajamaassa kaksi hevosta jouduttiin lopettamaan, sillä naapurin koiralauma oli hyökännyt niiden kimppuun raa'asti. Tammat olivat suojelleet henkensä uhalla kahta varsaa, jotka jäivat henkiin.

Hevosten omistaja oli jo useamman kerran puhunut naapurilleen, että tämän olisi korjattava aitansa, sillä koirat karkasivat siinä olevasta aukosta. Naapuri sanoi ettei hänellä ollut aikaa, sillä hän oli aina toissä. Koirat olivat hätistelleet myös hevosten omistajaa useamman kerran. Hän ilmoitti sheriffillekin koirista, ja sheriffi kertoi etta koirat saa ampua jos ne hätistelevat hevosia. Omistaja sanoi että hänen tarkoituksensa on suojella eläimiä, eikä siten ryhdy ampumaan koiria.

Nyt on kaksi tammaa ja viisi koiraa lopetettu.

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See article here.

Superman No More

Ted Kennedy

Today is a sad day for America.

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Losing a Grip

A good opinion article in the Economist about American paranoia. I totally agree.
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iPhone Love

I have just switched to iPhone, and I love it! I have been a faithful Nokia person for many years, but I could not wait any longer for the 'smart' Nokia phones to come to America. I got my new iPhone yesterday and had dreams about it all night. It really is an amazing little machine - it's pure magic!

Rage

The health care debate rages on but people seem to have left the facts behind...

People are bringing guns to town hall meetings openly - even where President Obama is to speak. But Obama says it's their right to bear arms(!). Here goes another gentle democrat unwilling to confront the nasty right-wing zealots. Let's all just get along and be nice.

When is the first seriously violent outbreak going to happen? And where? Now it's just a matter of time.

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Golden Parachutes

This image from the Daily Beast - T

Wimpy Democrats

Wimpy Democrats are bowing under pressure (what's new?). They are giving up the public option in the health care overhaul as pitchfork conservatives are fighting hard to stop Obama from changing the country they love. At the same time thousands of Americans are lining up to get free health care at tents set up with volunteer doctors, nurses and dentists to provide much-needed medical care for those without sufficient insurance.
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US Healthcare Fight

As the politicians fight about healthcare and the masses fill the townhalls to yell at the politicians, people elsewhere are going to Mexico to get cheaper healthcare. Many simply cannot afford to pay for treatment even if they have insurance!
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Mexico

Bernie Madoff And the Birthers

By Paul Krugman

Obama is a Kenyan-born Nazi Muslim planning to euthanize seniors while putting them in concentration camps. The Clintons were drug-runners who murdered Vince Foster. Why do people believe this stuff?

Yes, there’s a lavishly funded industry pushing these stories. But Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and all the others wouldn’t succeed without a receptive audience. So what makes that audience so receptive?

Here’s a thought: maybe we can learn something from Bernie Madoff.

How did Madoff pull off his scam? A lot of it probably involved affinity fraud: Madoff’s victims, largely affluent Jews, trusted him in large part because he seemed like one of them.

What I think is going on here, at least partly, is that the peddlers of anti-progressive lies are managing to convince a certain kind of American — white, socially conservative, etc. — that the hate-mongers are people like them; and, even more important, that progressives are Those People, people not like them.

Obama’s skin color makes this easy; but the Clintons faced the same kind of thing. Why? Well, the old line about Clinton being the first black president gets at something: even if Bill Clinton had a regular skin and name, he was obviously comfortable with people who didn’t, which made him one of Them.

And anti-intellectualism is also part of it.

In any case, it’s scary: you’ve got a good segment of the American population that is completely impervious to any kind of evidence, any rational argument. I mean, who collects statistics? People in black helicopters!

Nazi-Talk

The discussion is heating up. People on the right are getting their pawns heated up by un-civil talk and watching, as the crowds are getting more and more restless. People are making threats of killing each other because of health care reform and other "Obama ideas". I have a feeling that something stupid is going to happen soon...

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Nazi talk

A Teachable Moment

Can't we all take a moment and rejoice in the return of these two young women without throwing rotten tomatoes at our own Madam Secretary of State? It's bad enough that former UN Ambassador, John Bolton is doing his Nikita Khrushchev imitation banging his shoe on the desk in rage. This was a tremendously delicate situation with North Korea. If it took Bill Clinton showing up to pick up the American journalists, so be it. What matters is the outcome period. The two women were allowed to come home to their lives, and diplomatic channels have been re-opened with North Korea. If for any reason we think that the Secretary of State, the State Department, President Obama, the former Vice President Al Gore and the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee were not involved, you are delusional.

The take away from this episode in the saga of US foreign relations is that President Obama's calm, methodical teamwork is effective. It got the job done. He brought in the best team and stepped back and let everyone do their job. At long last, there is competence. May we learn from it and move forward. That is the teachable moment.

Michelle Kraus on Huffington Post

Helleaalto

Seattleen on tullut erittain kuuma helleaalto. Luvassa on jopa lahes 40 astetta! Yritamme pysya viileana tuulettimien ja avoimien ikkunoiden avulla. Tyopaikalla on viileaa, silla ilmastointi on aina paalla, mutta kun astut ovesta ulos kuuma ilma lyo kasvoihin kuin nyrkki.
On vahan kuin olisi lomalla (paitsi ettei ole).
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Rightwing Rhetoric

(By Paul Krugman)

Hitler heaven

Sen. Jim DeMint says that America under Obama is like Germany before World War II. Republican women in Maryland say that Obama is like Hitler. Hitler comparisons are apparently rife at tea parties. What’s gotten into the GOP?

Nothing. This has been going on all along. Back in 2002 Sen. Charles Grassley — reputedly a moderate — compared the think tank Citizens for Tax Justice to Hitler, because it claimed that 40 percent of the first Bush tax cut would go to the richest 1 percent of the population. (The actual number, according to the authoritative Tax Policy Center: 42 percent.)

The point is that extremist rhetoric on the right — even the allegedly moderate right — has been the norm for many years. The only difference now is that news organizations aren’t as diffident about reporting it.

Update: And Bill O’Reilly compared Al Franken to Goebbels.

Michael Jackson Dreams

Last night my 12-year old daughter saw Michael Jackson's Thriller video for the first time on YouTube. She liked it OK, although she thought the beginning was a bit creepy. We talked about Michael Jackson at length: his early career and music, his popularity and music videos. I said that he was a trail-blazer in the 80's. My daughter wondered why "everyone hated him now". I told her that he'd had some problems in his personal life that made him quite unpopular. We talked about that a while. We talked about Michael Jackson's changing looks and how she liked him "black more than white". (She thought he was white until the Thriller video.)

Last night my daughter had nightmares about bushes turning into creepy monsters and grabbing her nose.

Today Michael Jackson is dead.

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Arianna Huffington on Lobbying

Arianna Huffington writes about why change is so difficult (read: impossible)in Washington. Below some quotes. Whole story linked.
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Remember all that change Americans voted for in November? Well, there's been a change in the plans for change.

The detour has come courtesy of a familiar nemesis: DC lobbyists who, this year alone, have watered-down, gutted, or out-and-out killed ambitious plans for reforming Wall Street, energy, and health care.

The media like to pretend that something's at stake when a big bill is being debated on the House or Senate floor, but the truth is that by then the game is typically already over. The real fight happens long before. And the lobbyists usually win.

They're used to administrations and newly elected Congresses that come in with big plans for the future. But, as Obama and Congressional reformers are finding out, the future doesn't have a well-funded lobby. The past, on the other hand, is extremely well represented.
Look at the auto industry. For decades, Detroit and its lobbyists fought tooth and nail against efforts to improve mileage efficiency standards or to close tax loopholes favorable to gas-guzzling SUVs. They were very successful at holding off the future. Until they went bankrupt.

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The story is very familiar: new rules are announced proclaiming a better, safer system for the future. But then industry lobbyists howl about "loss of jobs," and "decreased competitiveness," so waivers are added. Then some exemptions. Then some loopholes. Then authority to enforce the new rules is limited. By the time the bill hits the floor, it's still got the word "Reform" or "Clean" or "Safety" in the name, but the finished product is all about maintaining the status quo. And a very stubborn status quo it is. For instance, the reason a new chemical safety bill is needed is because this exact process of gutting reform happened in 2001.

12 vuotta

Tytto tayttaa tanaan 12 vuotta. Onnea!

Han kysyi minulta kadehdinko koskaan hanen nuoruuttaan. Mitahan siihen oli sanomista muuta kuin 'kylla'. Kadehdin silloin, kun huomaan vuosien kiitaneen ohitseni kuin huomaamatta. Kadehdin silloin, kun kadun tekematta jattamisiani, tai tehtyja virheita. Kadehdin silloin, kun huomaan mahdollisuuden jaaneen kayttamatta - rohkeuden puutteen tai oman visiottomuuteni takia.

En kadehdi hanen 12-vuotiasta elamaniloaan, silla saan siita itsekin ihan kyllikseni vieressa seuratessani. Toivon vain, etta se sailyy vuosien varttuessa.

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Levottomuutta

Ääriliikkeet ovat aktivoituneet huomattavasti sitten Obaman presidenttikauden alkamisen. Viimeisen parin viikon aikana Amerikassa on tehty kaksi murhaa, joiden kohteina ovat olleet äärioikeistolaiseksi lukeutuvien “vihollisia”. Ensin tapettiin lääkäri George Tiller Kansasin osavaltiossa. Hän oli yksi kolmesta lääkäristä koko Yhdysvalloissa (!) joka suorittaa abortteja raskausajan viimeisillä viikoilla. Sitten ammuskeltiin juutalaisten holokaustimuseossa. Ampuja oli 88-vuotias ukko joka vihaa juutalaisia ja mustia.

Luulen, etta tama on vasta alkua hullujen touhuille. Amerikkaan mahtuu paljon paranoidisuutta; sita imetaan jo aidinmaidossa (tai paremminkin aidinmaidon korvikkeessa), ja kiihko kasvaa sita mukaa kun kuuntelee agitaattoreiden puheita (joita tulee seka radiosta ja televisiosta). Oppimattomat ovat altista kasvualustaa.
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Guantanamon vanki

Ensimmainen Guantanamon vanki on tullut New Yorkiin. Tansanialainen "terroristi" on pikkuinen mies, mutta sitakin pelottavampi, ainakin jos uskoo osavaltioiden kuvernooreja. Heista ei kukaan halua "Gitmon" vankeja omalle maaperalle - menkoot kaikki Eurooppaan, sinne kylla mahtuu.

On Obamalla toita kun amerikkalaiset ovat nain lyhytmuistisia.
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Kesa ja kauhea sotku

Seattlessa on nyt ihana kesa. Takapihan kiipija-ruusu on kasvanut niin valtavaksi, etta tuntuu kuin se aikoisi nielaista koko talon. Odotan sen ihania tulenvarisia ruusuja tuoksuttamaan koko pihan.

Laitoimme uudet lattiat taloon, ja kaikki on aivan sekaisin.
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Onnenmaa

Suomesta on tullut maailman toiseksi onnellisin maa heti karkea pitavan Tanskan jalkeen. Suomessa on yllinkyllin hyvinvointia, vaurautta, ja vaapaa-aikaa sen kaiken nauttimiseen. Asiasta kertoo Forbes lehti.

Ensimmaisen kerran naen sellaisen tilaston jossa suomalaisten henkilokohtainen varallisuus on suurempi kuin amerikkalaisten. Ilmesesti viimeisimman talouskuplan puhjettua todelliset luvut ihmisten elintasosta ovat paasseet esille.

Onnea Suomi.
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Happy Mother's Day

What Finland can teach America about true luxury

This article was in the Yahoo! start page yesterday. It was good, so I'll put the whole piece here.
Living in the States does not give you this kind of luxury - you are always so busy going from one task to another feeling cranky and insufficient.
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New York – What is true luxury? Just when I thought I'd settled on my answer – a flat-screen TV the size of Kansas and a leather-upholstered car that can travel at triple the speed limit – I made several visits to Finland. Shortly after my return the financial crisis hit. Finland has been on my mind ever since. In these hard times, we could learn a few things about luxury from the Finns.

Strolling the streets of Helsinki, the capital, I noticed a lack of grand architecture and opulent homes, and an abundance of modest cars. Helsinki was a nice enough city, and it had some gems of modern design, but part of me felt that Finland was a bit dull. And, strangely, some of the Finns I met seemed to take pride in this.

Finland seemed even duller on my next visit in July. The weather was glorious, but Helsinki felt like a ghost town. I learned that most Finns take a five-week summer vacation, and that many of them disappear for the entire time to tiny, bare-bones cottages in the woods. Curious, I wrangled an invitation to visit one of these secluded cabins. It was meticulously cared for, but lacked any creature comforts. I quickly realized that there was nothing to do and no one to see.

After a couple of days at the cabin I was a convert. It was marvelously relaxing, and I realized the Finns were on to something – a form of luxury that had little to do with high-end products, the quest to acquire them, or the need to show them off. While some Finns pursue the material trappings of success, most seem to feel that the pleasures of time and solitude are more precious.

During my visits, I met some North American expats, including a Canadian who'd lived in the US for years. "I talk to friends back in North America," he told me, "and they tell me about all the latest toys they've bought. Here I'm just puttering away on my little house like a Finn, and that's about it. The pace of life is slower. I like that."

Americans in Finland shared similar sentiments. But they weren't naive about the place, and there was a reason they weren't buying the latest toys. "I'll never become rich in Finland," one explained, "the taxes are just too high." But for him it was a trade-off worth making. "Great healthcare, basically free. My kids get one of the best educations in the world, free." By the way, that includes college, free. He had no plans to move back to the States.

As I spent more time in Helsinki, my own notion of the luxuries available in Finland expanded to include more than just the quiet pleasures of a cabin getaway. Finnish cities are filled with universally well-maintained and high-quality schools, hospitals, buses, trains, and parks. While most Finns might never be able to own a well-appointed SUV or a big house, they value the less-tangible assets they do have, which add up to quality of life and peace of mind.

Finland doesn't pay lip service to providing a level playing field for all its citizens. It really does give the vast majority of its citizens a fair and equal chance in life, in a way that the US just doesn't, no matter how much Americans like to think it does.
Finland has its downsides, of course. The Finns I met described high rates of depression and alcoholism among their countrymen, and admitted that many Finns seem to suffer from low self-esteem. When I returned to the dynamic bustle of New York, I was happy to be back, even with the financial crisis decimating the economy.

Compared with Finns, Americans have qualities I admire and treasure: optimism, an entrepreneurial spirit, and a willingness to be opinionated, for starters. These qualities will help us fight our way back to economic health.
But let's face it: The single-minded pursuit of outsized material consumption helped get us into this mess. As we struggle to get back on our feet, perhaps we should pause for our own "Finnish moment."

Trevor Corson is the author of "The Secret Life of Lobsters" and "The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice."

Sikainfluenssa on saapunut Seattleen

Sikainfluenssa on saapunut Seattleen.
Eilisesta alkaen on todettu kuusi tapausta koko Washingtonin osavaltiossa, joista kolme on Seattlessa. Varmistusta ei ole viela influenssatyypista, mutta on todennakoista etta kaikki tapukset ovat juuri tuota pelottavaa laatua. Yksi sairastuneista on 11-vuotias poika, joka on sairaalassa, mutta toipumaan pain. Hanen koulunsa on suljettu tasta paivasta lahtien ensi keskiviikkoon. Nyt vaan kasien pesuun…
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Arlen Specter Gets Wise

Arlen Specter is switching to the Democratic Party. This is really getting interesting.

Paul Krugman writes:

The Specter of Republican marginalization
Arlen Specter’s party switch isn’t all that startling. Richard Shelby and Ben Nighthorse Campbell switched to the Republicans right after the 1994 election, without (as far as I know) facing the same kind of primary challenge. But this switch is especially important, because once Al Franken finally gets seated it will give the Democrats the magic 60 number. The way is now open to a seriously progressive agenda.

What strikes me, however, is the extent to which this is a self-inflicted wound. If Pat Toomey of the Club for Growth weren’t so diligent about enforcing supply-side purity; if Republicans hadn’t made Rush Limbaugh the effective head of the party; Specter might still be GOP, and the Obama agenda much more limited.

Instead, though, we have a party that seems to be in a death spiral: the smaller it gets, the more it’s dominated by the hard right, which makes it even smaller. In the long run, this is not good for American democracy– we really do need two major parties in competition. But I’ll settle for getting that back after we get universal health care and cap-and-trade.

The Defining Moment

(By Paul Krugman)

One addendum to today’s column: the truth, which I think everyone in the political/media establishments knows in their hearts, is that the nine months or so between the summer of 2002 and the beginning of the Iraq insurgency were a great national moral test — a test that most people in influential positions failed.

The Bush administration was obviously — yes, obviously — telling tall tales in order to promote the war it wanted: the constant insinuations of an Iraq-9/11 link, the hyping of discredited claims about a nuclear program, etc.. And the question was, should you stand up against that? Not many did — and those who did were treated as if they were crazy.

For me and many others that was a radicalizing experience; I’ll never trust “sensible” opinion again. But for those who stayed “sensible” through the test, it’s a moment they’d like to see forgotten. That, I believe, is the real reason so many want to let torture and everything else go down the memory hole.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Clebrating Earth Day With Bill And Barack

Africans Brought to America In Chains Again

Reconsidering a Miracle

By Paul Krugman

In preparation for some recent teaching, I went back to something that was a hot topic not long ago, and will be again if and when the crisis ends: the apparent lag of European productivity since 1995. One recent, seemingly authoritative study is van Ark et al; and I noticed something that gave me pause.

In their paper, van Ark etc. identify the service sector as the main source of America’s pullaway — which is the standard argument. Within services, roughly half they attribute to distribution — roughly speaking, the Wal-Mart effect. OK.

But the other half is a surge in US productivity in financial and business services, not matched in Europe. And all I can say is, whoa!

First of all, how do we even measure output of financial services? If I read this BEA paper correctly, we more or less use “checks cashed” — or, more broadly, the number of transactions undertaken. This may be the best we can do, but it’s a pretty weak measure of actual work done by the financial system.

And given recent events, are we even sure that the expansion of the financial system was doing anything productive at all?

In short, how much of the apparent US productivity miracle, a miracle not shared by Europe, was a statistical illusion created by our bloated finance industry?

Dean Baker has argued for some time that, properly measured, the productivity gap between America and Europe never happened. I’m becoming more sympathetic to his point of view.

Merirosvot

Obama paihitti merirosvot, tai ainakin voitti ensimmaisen eran...  Mietin vain etta Somalian rannikolla purjehtivilla merimiehilla on taman jalkeen paljon tukalammat oltavat, silla panokset ovat nyt kovemmat molemmin puolin.

Onko kukaan ihmetellyt miksi nuoret somalimiehet ryhtyvat merirosvoiksi?  En ole kuullut uutisissa puhuttavan siita, etta teollisuusmaiden isot kalastusalukset ovat kayneet ryostamassa kalat meresta eivatka jattaneet paikallisille kalastajille saalista.  Somalian rannikolle on myos dumpattu saasteita muista maista ja pilattu kalastusvesia.  Siina valossa merirosvous tuntuu jo paljon houkuttelevammalta.

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G-20

Mass Murder

Since March 10 at least 57 people have been killed in 8 separate mass killings here in the US.  It has become so common to hear the news about these shootings that we fail to be horrified any more.  Nobody seems to be calling for stricter gun control laws.  That was in the 90's - when we were still moved by such events.  Now we just hope that it does not happen in our cities or towns...

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Watch Amy Goodman's report here.

Vermont

12-year old makes history in Vermont by testifying on behalf of her family, two moms. She is very brave, and she makes a difference in changing Vermont's laws to accept gay marriage.

Watch the video.

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Kevat Seattlessa

Seattlessa on vihdoin kevat.  Paaskyset lentelivat yllani tana aamuna kirmaillen ja tehden uhkarohkeita kieppeja.  Ilma oli lammin kuin linnunmaito.  Talvi on ollut epatavallisen pitka ja kylma, siksi lampo tuntuu erityisen hyvalta.

Tervetuloa kesa!

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Madonna and Child

It's annoying to me that Malawi is picking on Madonna by not letting her adopt the little girl from there.  They have thousands of children who are in need of adoption and a good home, but Madonna obviously is "trying to get away with something", right?

She is a good parent who can provide for her kids.  Leave her a lone!

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Horse and RIder

Horse and rider fall

Letukka lentää

GM:n pääjohtaja on saanut kenkää Obamalta.  Vuosia vääränlaisia autoja valmistanut General Motors on sellaisessa umpikujassa, etta se selviää vain meidän verorahoillamme (jos silloinkaan).  

On oirellista, että Amerikan suurin ja kaunein on valtavassa talousahdingossa: sata vuotta sitten Amerikkalaiset vaurastuivat halpojen liukuhihna-autojen valmistuksella; kaikilla oli varaa omaan autoon sillä [auto]tehtaiden työntekijät saivat kunnon palkkaa; nyt ihmiset ovat ylivelkaantuneita/alipalkkaisia,he eivät halua/kykene ostamaan huonoja Letukoita tai Chryslereita, eikä amerikanraudat pysty kilpailemaan parempien ulkomaisten autojen kanssa.

Amerikan autotehtailla menee niin huonosti, että  omakotitalojen keskihinta Detroitissa [autoteollisuuden keskus] on 18,000 dollaria!  Joitakin taloja huutokaupataan satasella.  Rappio on syöpynyt jo tosi syvälle.  Ihmettelen vain miksi kansa on niin passiivista.  Ranskassa oltaisiin jo barrikaadeilla...

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Matt Taibbi on Rolling Stone

Matt Taibbi of The Rolling Stone magazine writes a fascinating article about the big money/power grab taking place by the powerful Wall Street insiders.  I have posted just some parts of the article here.  The whole piece can be found in the link.  I recommend that you take the time read the whole thing!  He writes in such a way that an average person can understand what's going on (for the most part): the bottom line is that we are screwed.  The global financial world has become so complex  it is nearly impossible to understand what is going on.  But it's all for a reason: "Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power."

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The Big Takeover 

by Matt Taibbi

It's over — we're officially, royally fucked. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country's heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

The latest bailout came as AIG admitted to having just posted the largest quarterly loss in American corporate history — some $61.7 billion. In the final three months of last year, the company lost more than $27 millionevery hour. That's $465,000 a minute, a yearly income for a median American household every six seconds, roughly $7,750 a second. And all this happened at the end of eight straight years that America devoted to frantically chasing the shadow of a terrorist threat to no avail, eight years spent stopping every citizen at every airport to search every purse, bag, crotch and briefcase for juice boxes and explosive tubes of toothpaste. Yet in the end, our government had no mechanism for searching the balance sheets of companies that held life-or-death power over our society and was unable to spot holes in the national economy the size of Libya (whose entire GDP last year was smaller than AIG's 2008 losses).

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream. When Geithner announced the new $30 billion bailout, the party line was that poor AIG was just a victim of a lot of shitty luck — bad year for business, you know, what with the financial crisis and all. Edward Liddy, the company's CEO, actually compared it to catching a cold: "The marketplace is a pretty crummy place to be right now," he said. "When the world catches pneumonia, we get it too." In a pathetic attempt at name-dropping, he even whined that AIG was being "consumed by the same issues that are driving house prices down and 401K statements down and Warren Buffet's investment portfolio down."Liddy made AIG sound like an orphan begging in a soup line, hungry and sick from being left out in someone else's financial weather. He conveniently forgot to mention that AIG had spent more than a decade systematically scheming to evade U.S. and international regulators, or that one of the causes of its "pneumonia" was making colossal, world-sinking $500 billion bets with money it didn't have, in a toxic and completely unregulated derivatives market.

Nor did anyone mention that when AIG finally got up from its seat at the Wall Street casino, broke and busted in the afterdawn light, it owed money all over town — and that a huge chunk of your taxpayer dollars in this particular bailout scam will be going to pay off the other high rollers at its table. Or that this was a casino unique among all casinos, one where middle-class taxpayers cover the bets of billionaires.

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The crisis was the coup de grâce: Given virtually free rein over the economy, these same insiders first wrecked the financial world, then cunningly granted themselves nearly unlimited emergency powers to clean up their own mess. And so the gambling-addict leaders of companies like AIG end up not penniless and in jail, but with an Alien-style death grip on the Treasury and the Federal Reserve — "our partners in the government," as Liddy put it with a shockingly casual matter-of-factness after the most recent bailout.

The mistake most people make in looking at the financial crisis is thinking of it in terms of money, a habit that might lead you to look at the unfolding mess as a huge bonus-killing downer for the Wall Street class. But if you look at it in purely Machiavellian terms, what you see is a colossal power grab that threatens to turn the federal government into a kind of giant Enron — a huge, impenetrable black box filled with self-dealing insiders whose scheme is the securing of individual profits at the expense of an ocean of unwitting involuntary shareholders, previously known as taxpayers.

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That roll of the eyes is a key part of the psychology of Paulsonism. The state is now being asked not just to call off its regulators or give tax breaks or funnel a few contracts to connected companies; it is intervening directly in the economy, for the sole purpose of preserving the influence of the megafirms. In essence, Paulson used the bailout to transform the government into a giant bureaucracy of entitled assholedom, one that would socialize "toxic" risks but keep both the profits and the management of the bailed-out firms in private hands. Moreover, this whole process would be done in secret, away from the prying eyes of NASCAR dads, broke-ass liberals who read translations of French novels, subprime mortgage holders and other such financial losers.

As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below.

Narcissism

Narcissism, according to Dr. Drew Pinsky, is what caused us to plunge into the current economic crisis. I agree.
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What impact do narcissistic traits and characteristics have in the face of the ongoing economic crisis? First of all grandiosity and denial are common features of the condition which I think can easily be seen as the two horsemen of the apocalypse that lead us down the path to our current situation. How could we have thought that mortgages would magically be paid when there was no evidence of the basic requirements for this to be so? How could a bank offer such a loan and moreover how could a consumer have the hubris to take on the loan? There were powerful financial motivators to be sure. However to participate in that market required quite a bit of denial and a grandiose sense of invincibility. When one examines the Psychology that allows this to occur you can't help but see the shadowy consequences of narcissism on our society. [Dr. Pinsky]

Additions

I have added the Rachel Maddow Show on the video bar and in the links.  She rocks!

I have also added the GoodGuide link to my blog.

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Healthy Foods

I found a very good website that gives you information on healthy foods: 

Try GoodGuide.com. The San Francisco start-up is a free, socially conscious, ethical-shopping Web site and is adding a new set of pages to its site devoted to food safety on March 16. The site is the brainchild of Dara O'Rourke, a University of California, Berkeley associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, and it offers more than you ever wanted to know about those mystery ingredients in your cereal, as well as the environmental footprint and the labor practices that go into manufacturing the roughly 30,000 packaged foods found in your local Safeway, Lucky or Ralph's.

[Tim Kingston, Alternet]

Goodguide

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Remembering Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins was my favorite columnist/political writer/satirist, who died all too soon. She would be intrigued to see what is happening in the world today. She'd have some words about the current economic collapse and other madness going on.
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Bonuses

The big fat paychecks/bonuses received by AIG employees is just the tip of the iceberg, I think.

I've been outraged by the unfathomable pay and bonuses by corporate sharks for 15 years. How could someone be worth that much more than anybody else? I was told that they deserve the pay because they bring in so much profit. Well, I think that wealth should trickle down to everyone who participated in the effort...

But now we all know that while they were raking in all of the national wealth they were ruining the global economy. How do they still think that they are so valuable they deserve a bonus?
Wow!
A New York Times article about the bonuses below.
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Bonuses

Good-by P.I.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed its final issue today. More than 145 years of news print will disappear and Seattle will have only one newspaper left, The Seattle Times. Although the Seattle Times is majority-owned by a private family, it too (or because of it), is in trouble financially.

The Post-Intelligencer will continue online, at least for now. But it will be a shadow of its previous self with less serious reporting.

I didn’t like the Seattle P.I. as well as the Seattle Times. It seemed weak and fluffy; but it’s still sad to see a newspaper disappear. I’ve been subscribing to the Seattle Times for many years - although I switched to the P.I. for a few weeks last year, because I was so annoyed by the Times. Now I don’t have a choice.
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A Show of Solidarity

A great story from Boston Globe that made me choke: a show of spontaneous solidarity that we've rarely seen recently. Maybe things are beginning to change.
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Drug Companies

There have been recent drug company mergers in the news...

What I'm wondering is: will they too, become "too big to fail"? Will the US tax payers have to bail them out too when they overspend?
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Tyottomyydesta viela...

Jostakin luin/kuulin etta oikeasti tyottomyys on taalla jo yli 14%, eli paljon pahempi kuin viralliset tahot kertovat.

Pidan kynsin hampain tyopaikastani kiinni...

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Happy Women's Day!

[AFP]

Tyottomyys pahenee

Yhdysvaltain tyottomyysluku on noussut jo yli 8 prosenttiin (8.1). Se on taalla korkea luku, silla taalla ei loikoilla hyvinakaan aikoina. Luku ei myoskaan sisalla piilotyottomyytta, eli niita henkiloita jotka ovat vain osapaivatyossa koska eivat ole loytaneet muuta, tai niita jotka ovat jo kuluttaneet tyottomyyskorvauksensa loppuun ja ovat "kadonneet" kortistosta.

Pohjaa ei tunnu vielakaan loytyvan. General Motors joutuu ehka konkurssiin - sen seurauksena sadattuhannet menettaisivat tyopaikkansa. Ihmiset ovat alkaneet tallettaa rahojansa pankkiin - sinansa hyva juttu, mutta ei auta kun nyt pitaisi kuluttaa. Ironista, silla kulutusjuhla on alku ja juuri tahan kaikkeen surkeuteen.
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Green Jobs!

Green Jobs.

Peter Daou

Peter Daou writes why the democrats should not legitimize their political enemies who are on the fringe; those who hate, lie and get paid a lot of money doing it. I agree.
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I don't buy into this 'brilliant' strategy of elevating Rush Limbaugh in the hopes that it will tarnish Republicans.

Focus relentlessly on the disastrous Bush presidency to tarnish Republicans, yes.
Overturn every single illegal and unconstitutional Bush-era policy and show the country and the world that we're reclaiming the moral high ground, yes.

Implement bold strategies and use soaring rhetoric to inspire Americans, yes.
Hew fiercely to Democratic principles, reassert the greatness of our American identity, demonstrate the true meaning of liberalism, of progressivism, providing opportunity, seeking justice and fairness, helping those in need, yes.

Spend our resources healing the sick, feeding the hungry, lifting the poor, cleaning the planet, rather than on war and more war, yes.

But expand Rush Limbaugh's profile and platform? No.

It's bad for the country and it's bad politics. Limbaugh and his cohorts (Coulter, Hannity, Beck, Savage, and so on), are largely responsible for our toxic political environment. Given major media platforms to launch crude and brutal political and cultural attacks, to demonize liberals, and to use rage as a means of lining their own pockets, these 'entertainers' have poisoned our national discourse.

There's precious little benefit in making Limbaugh more of a central player, in engaging him directly from the White House podium, in raising his stature, in stamping, sealing and approving the years he's spent bashing his political opponents. There was a moment, a brief moment, after Barack Obama was elected president, a moment long gone, where the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity could have become marginalized, bit players rather than media movers and shakers, the detritus of a sorry era. But instead, they have been granted more power -- out of some contrived political calculus. This, at a time when we don't need political calculus, we need single-minded determination to get us out of this economic calamity and to restore sanity to our government.

I know it's hard for Democrats to appreciate how quickly political fortunes turn -- the glow of victory, the high of electoral success gives a sense of inevitability and invincibility, of permanence. But there's nothing permanent about power. The tide will turn again, and the engine that will drive it is the fury stirred by the likes of Limbaugh. Feeding that machine, expanding and enhancing it is a mistake. A serious one.

It's a truism that victory makes every decision seem genius, defeat, the reverse. Democrats, now in power, have a sense of triumph that makes every decision feel smart, every chess move a checkmate. Thus the "Rush strategy" foisted on those of us who have spent the past decade trying to point out how noxious and pernicious Limbaugh and his ilk have been (and continue to be), and how detrimental the anger they've stoked.

Empowering Limbaugh in the hopes of a bank-shot against Republicans will yield the opposite result: Limbaugh will become more powerful, Republicans will relish his increased influence and allow him to do their dirty work.

It's easy to feel like the old era is gone, the old demons slain, that we WON, that nobody's afraid of the once-vaunted Republican attack machine. But Barack Obama's unquestioned discipline, steadfastness and intelligence notwithstanding, he wouldn't be president without a tsunami of Hillary-hatred expertly surfed by his campaign, mishandled by hers, a tsunami generated over the years precisely by people like Rush Limbaugh.

The myth of a technological, grassroots revolution, of prodigious strategic and tactical brilliance, of a do-no-wrong campaign, perhaps the greatest ever run, that myth sounds good, but it's not what happened. The reality was that the 2008 election was the age-old battle of character-building and character-destruction. Obama's team won that battle against Hillary Clinton not just because of Obama's abundant positive traits but because people like Rush Limbaugh gave him a 15-year head start against her. He won it against John McCain because McCain squandered years of character-building by enabling the excesses of George W. Bush and by running an erratic, unfocused campaign that served to highlight the best of Obama's character and the worst of his. Character versus character.

Democratic strategists, busy sparring with Rush Limbaugh, should keep that in mind. The seeds of Democratic defeat are planted not by Republican elected officials, who, like McCain, will carry the Bush albatross for years to come, but by those who can freely fan the flames of outrage, who can fight dirty, who can bend and break the rules with impunity, who can tear down their opponents' integrity and character, and whose apparent reward (as in the case of Ann Coulter) is to be given yet a larger platform.
No thanks.

The Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper

The Seattle Times is disappearing before my very eyes.  Its size has shrunk over time and soon it will be as small as the Reader's Digest.  (This is exactly what happened to toilet paper - it has gotten narrower and narrower until pretty soon you cannot wipe with it... )  In 2001 the front page of Seattle Times was 13.5 inches wide (34.5cm), now it is 11.5 inches wide (29cm).  It feels different in your hand - as if the news inside were not weighty enough to merit a full size front page.

Helsingin Sanomat is 15.75 inches wide (40cm).  That feels substantial - almost too big to handle - after being used to the American newspapers.

Many American newspapers are in financial trouble.  They are being sold or simply just shut down.  The idea that one should make a (good, big) profit while producing news has gotten them in the situation.  They cannot compete with the internet.  I think it's time to start thinking about news as a public good, not a way to get rich.

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