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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
October 29, 2013
And if we had universal single payer, we wouldn't be arguing about paying for maternity care.
"They live in a world of 'we', not 'me'"
And if we had universal single payer, we wouldn't be arguing about paying for maternity care.
October 29, 2013
(Rolling Stone) A lot of people all over the world are having opinions now about the ostensibly gigantic $13 billion settlement Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase have entered into with the government.
The general consensus from most observers in the finance sector is that this superficially high-dollar settlement – worth about half a year's profits for Chase – is an unconscionable Marxist appropriation. It's been called a "robbery" and a "shakedown," in which red Obama and his evil henchman Eric Holder confiscated cash from a successful bank, as The Wall Street Journal wrote, "for no other reason than because they can and because they want to appease their left-wing populist allies."
Look, there's no denying that this is a lot of money. It's the biggest settlement in the history of government settlements, and it's just one company to boot. But this has been in the works for a long time, and it's been in the works for a reason. This whole thing, lest anyone forget, has its genesis in a couple of state Attorneys General (including New York's Eric Schneiderman and Delaware's Beau Biden) not wanting to sign off on any deal with the banks that didn't also address the root causes of the crisis, in particular the mass fraud surrounding the sale and production of subprime mortgage securities.
Those holdouts essentially forced the federal government's hand, leading Barack Obama to create a federal working group on residential mortgage-backed securities (widely seen as the AGs' price for okaying the $25 billion robosigning deal), headed up by Schneiderman, whose investigation of Chase and its affiliates led to the deal that's about to be struck. Minus all of that, minus those state holdouts in those foreclosure negotiations, this settlement probably would never even take place: The federal government seemed more than willing previously to settle with the banks without even addressing the root-cause issues that are at the heart of this new Chase deal. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/nobody-should-shed-a-tear-for-jp-morgan-chase-20131025#ixzz2j4dK76ns
Matt Taibbi: Nobody Should Shed a Tear for JP Morgan Chase
(Rolling Stone) A lot of people all over the world are having opinions now about the ostensibly gigantic $13 billion settlement Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan Chase have entered into with the government.
The general consensus from most observers in the finance sector is that this superficially high-dollar settlement – worth about half a year's profits for Chase – is an unconscionable Marxist appropriation. It's been called a "robbery" and a "shakedown," in which red Obama and his evil henchman Eric Holder confiscated cash from a successful bank, as The Wall Street Journal wrote, "for no other reason than because they can and because they want to appease their left-wing populist allies."
Look, there's no denying that this is a lot of money. It's the biggest settlement in the history of government settlements, and it's just one company to boot. But this has been in the works for a long time, and it's been in the works for a reason. This whole thing, lest anyone forget, has its genesis in a couple of state Attorneys General (including New York's Eric Schneiderman and Delaware's Beau Biden) not wanting to sign off on any deal with the banks that didn't also address the root causes of the crisis, in particular the mass fraud surrounding the sale and production of subprime mortgage securities.
Those holdouts essentially forced the federal government's hand, leading Barack Obama to create a federal working group on residential mortgage-backed securities (widely seen as the AGs' price for okaying the $25 billion robosigning deal), headed up by Schneiderman, whose investigation of Chase and its affiliates led to the deal that's about to be struck. Minus all of that, minus those state holdouts in those foreclosure negotiations, this settlement probably would never even take place: The federal government seemed more than willing previously to settle with the banks without even addressing the root-cause issues that are at the heart of this new Chase deal. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/nobody-should-shed-a-tear-for-jp-morgan-chase-20131025#ixzz2j4dK76ns
October 29, 2013
'SiCKO' and a reminder of why insurance companies need to be extracted from health care - period.
October 29, 2013
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he doesn't accept Monday's federal court declaration that part of a new Texas abortion law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional.
"Texas passed commonsense legislation to protect the health of women and their unborn children," Cruz said in a statement. "This law is constitutional and consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent protecting the life and health of the mother and child. I hope the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will uphold Texas' reasonable law."
Cruz is staunchly anti-abortion. He disseminated inaccurate birth control information at the 2013 Values Voter Summit, where he misleadingly told the crowd that Obamacare forces Christian businesses to offer employees "abortifacients" or pay millions in fees.
Two of Cruz' fellow Texas Republicans said they also continue to support the restrictive new abortion law. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/ted-cruz-abortion-law-texas-_n_4171756.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
Ted Cruz, messianic loonball
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he doesn't accept Monday's federal court declaration that part of a new Texas abortion law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals is unconstitutional.
"Texas passed commonsense legislation to protect the health of women and their unborn children," Cruz said in a statement. "This law is constitutional and consistent with U.S. Supreme Court precedent protecting the life and health of the mother and child. I hope the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will uphold Texas' reasonable law."
Cruz is staunchly anti-abortion. He disseminated inaccurate birth control information at the 2013 Values Voter Summit, where he misleadingly told the crowd that Obamacare forces Christian businesses to offer employees "abortifacients" or pay millions in fees.
Two of Cruz' fellow Texas Republicans said they also continue to support the restrictive new abortion law. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/ted-cruz-abortion-law-texas-_n_4171756.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
October 29, 2013
from truthdig:
For a Budget That Is Both Morally and Economically Sound
Posted on Oct 28, 2013
By Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
As a member of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, I am more than aware that a $17 trillion dollar national debt and a $700 billion deficit are serious problems that must be addressed.
But I am also aware that real unemployment is close to 14 percent, that tens of millions of Americans are working for horrendously low wages, that more Americans are now living in poverty than ever before and that wealth and income inequality in the United States is now greater than in any other major country—with the gap between the very rich and everyone else growing wider and wider.
Further, when we talk about the national budget, it is vitally important that we remember how we got into this fiscal crisis in the first place and who was responsible for it. Let us never forget that when Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, the U.S. had a budget surplus of $236 billion with projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. During that time, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected a 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, enough to erase the entire national debt by the end of 2011.
What happened? How did we, in a few short years, go from a large budget surplus into horrendous debt? The answer is not that complicated. Under President Bush we went to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and didn’t pay for them. We just put them on the credit card. The cost of those wars is estimated to be between $4 trillion to $6 trillion. Further, Bush and Congress passed an expensive prescription drug program that was unpaid for. They also reduced revenue by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. On top of all that, the Wall Street collapse and ensuing recession significantly reduced tax receipts and increased spending for unemployment compensation and food stamps, further exacerbating the deficit situation. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_a_budget_that_is_both_morally_and_economically_sound_20131028
Sen. Bernie Sanders: For a Budget That Is Both Morally and Economically Sound
from truthdig:
For a Budget That Is Both Morally and Economically Sound
Posted on Oct 28, 2013
By Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
As a member of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, I am more than aware that a $17 trillion dollar national debt and a $700 billion deficit are serious problems that must be addressed.
But I am also aware that real unemployment is close to 14 percent, that tens of millions of Americans are working for horrendously low wages, that more Americans are now living in poverty than ever before and that wealth and income inequality in the United States is now greater than in any other major country—with the gap between the very rich and everyone else growing wider and wider.
Further, when we talk about the national budget, it is vitally important that we remember how we got into this fiscal crisis in the first place and who was responsible for it. Let us never forget that when Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, the U.S. had a budget surplus of $236 billion with projected budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. During that time, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected a 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion, enough to erase the entire national debt by the end of 2011.
What happened? How did we, in a few short years, go from a large budget surplus into horrendous debt? The answer is not that complicated. Under President Bush we went to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—and didn’t pay for them. We just put them on the credit card. The cost of those wars is estimated to be between $4 trillion to $6 trillion. Further, Bush and Congress passed an expensive prescription drug program that was unpaid for. They also reduced revenue by giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations. On top of all that, the Wall Street collapse and ensuing recession significantly reduced tax receipts and increased spending for unemployment compensation and food stamps, further exacerbating the deficit situation. ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/for_a_budget_that_is_both_morally_and_economically_sound_20131028
October 29, 2013
Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup
Monday, 28 October 2013 09:57
By Justin McCurry and David McNeill, Japan Focus | News Analysis
During a visit to Fukushima Daiichi in September, Abe Shinzo told workers: “the future of Japan rests on your shoulders. I am counting on you.”
The prime minister’s exhortation was directed at almost 6,000 technicians and engineers, truck drivers and builders who, almost three years after the plant suffered a triple meltdown, remain on the frontline of the world’s most hazardous industrial cleanup.
Yet as the challenges facing Fukushima Daiichi become clearer with every new radiation leak and mishap, the men responsible for cleaning up the plant are suffering from plummeting morale, health problems and deep anxiety about the future. Even now, at the start of a decommissioning operation that is expected to last four decades, the plant faces a shortage of workers qualified to manage the dangerous work that lies ahead, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the situation inside the facility.
The dangers faced by the nearly 900 employees of Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] and some 5,000 workers hired by a network of contractors and sub-contractors were underlined in October when six men were doused with contaminated water at a desalination facility. Their brush with danger was a sign that the cleanup is entering its most precarious stage since the March 2011 meltdown. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/19661-japans-cut-price-nuclear-cleanup
Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup
Japan's Cut-Price Nuclear Cleanup
Monday, 28 October 2013 09:57
By Justin McCurry and David McNeill, Japan Focus | News Analysis
During a visit to Fukushima Daiichi in September, Abe Shinzo told workers: “the future of Japan rests on your shoulders. I am counting on you.”
The prime minister’s exhortation was directed at almost 6,000 technicians and engineers, truck drivers and builders who, almost three years after the plant suffered a triple meltdown, remain on the frontline of the world’s most hazardous industrial cleanup.
Yet as the challenges facing Fukushima Daiichi become clearer with every new radiation leak and mishap, the men responsible for cleaning up the plant are suffering from plummeting morale, health problems and deep anxiety about the future. Even now, at the start of a decommissioning operation that is expected to last four decades, the plant faces a shortage of workers qualified to manage the dangerous work that lies ahead, according to people with firsthand knowledge of the situation inside the facility.
The dangers faced by the nearly 900 employees of Tokyo Electric Power [Tepco] and some 5,000 workers hired by a network of contractors and sub-contractors were underlined in October when six men were doused with contaminated water at a desalination facility. Their brush with danger was a sign that the cleanup is entering its most precarious stage since the March 2011 meltdown. .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/19661-japans-cut-price-nuclear-cleanup
October 29, 2013
Paul Krugman’s Shocking, Revisionist, and Obscurantist Views on Single Payer
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
I hate to chew the ankles of blue America’s favorite quasi-Nobelist, because during the dark early days of Bush the Younger, his was a lonely and desperately needed voice of sanity. Also too, cats. But I read this column (“Why Is ObamaCare Complicated?”) in Conscience of a Liberal, and I was shocked. This is too much. Krugman’s piece contains historical errors, analytical errors, and errors of conscience. Let’s take each in turn:
Krugman’s historical errors:
But what was the origin of these mysterious “constraints”? Krugman doesn’t say, so let us supply the lacuna. I suggest the real constraints came from three sources, as indicated by their behavior from 2009, when battle for health reform was joined: (1) The Democratic nomenklatura, which censored single payer stories and banned single payer advocates from its sites, and refused even to cover single payer advances in Congress, while simultaneously running a “bait and switch” operation with the so-called “public option,” thereby sucking all the oxygen away from single payer;1 (2) Democratic office holders like Max Baucus, the putative author of ObamaCare — Liz Fowler, a Wellpoint VP, was the actual author — who refused to include single payer advocates in hearings and had protesters arrested and charged; (3) and Obama himself, who set the tone for the entire Democratic food chain by openly mocking single payer advocates (“got the little single payer advocates up here”), and whose White House operation blocked email from single payer advocates, and went so far as to suppress a single advocate’s question from the White House live blog of a “Forum on Health Care.” (Granted, the forums were all kayfabe, but even so.) As Jane Hamsher wrote, summing of the debacle: “The problems in the current health care debate became apparent early on, when single payer advocates were excluded (note, again, lack of agency) from participation.”
In short, if single payer was “politically infeasible” — the catchphrase of that time — that’s because Democrats set out to make it so, and succeeded. ...........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/46940.html#i293zSymWd1X0Gp0.99
Paul Krugman’s Shocking, Revisionist, and Obscurantist Views on Single Payer
Paul Krugman’s Shocking, Revisionist, and Obscurantist Views on Single Payer
By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
I hate to chew the ankles of blue America’s favorite quasi-Nobelist, because during the dark early days of Bush the Younger, his was a lonely and desperately needed voice of sanity. Also too, cats. But I read this column (“Why Is ObamaCare Complicated?”) in Conscience of a Liberal, and I was shocked. This is too much. Krugman’s piece contains historical errors, analytical errors, and errors of conscience. Let’s take each in turn:
Krugman’s historical errors:
Political constraints made (note lack of agency) a straightforward single-payer system unachievable.
But what was the origin of these mysterious “constraints”? Krugman doesn’t say, so let us supply the lacuna. I suggest the real constraints came from three sources, as indicated by their behavior from 2009, when battle for health reform was joined: (1) The Democratic nomenklatura, which censored single payer stories and banned single payer advocates from its sites, and refused even to cover single payer advances in Congress, while simultaneously running a “bait and switch” operation with the so-called “public option,” thereby sucking all the oxygen away from single payer;1 (2) Democratic office holders like Max Baucus, the putative author of ObamaCare — Liz Fowler, a Wellpoint VP, was the actual author — who refused to include single payer advocates in hearings and had protesters arrested and charged; (3) and Obama himself, who set the tone for the entire Democratic food chain by openly mocking single payer advocates (“got the little single payer advocates up here”), and whose White House operation blocked email from single payer advocates, and went so far as to suppress a single advocate’s question from the White House live blog of a “Forum on Health Care.” (Granted, the forums were all kayfabe, but even so.) As Jane Hamsher wrote, summing of the debacle: “The problems in the current health care debate became apparent early on, when single payer advocates were excluded (note, again, lack of agency) from participation.”
In short, if single payer was “politically infeasible” — the catchphrase of that time — that’s because Democrats set out to make it so, and succeeded. ...........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/46940.html#i293zSymWd1X0Gp0.99
October 29, 2013
WASHINGTON -- Two coal state lawmakers -- a Republican House member and a Democratic senator -- introduced legislation on Monday that would kneecap Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas pollution from new coal-fired power plants.
The proposed legislation comes from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Whitman said he "has been working closely" on the measure with Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who "will spearhead the legislation" in the Senate. The pair unveiled the plan in a press release on Monday afternoon.
The EPA last month issued new draft rules that would limit emissions from new power plants. The limits would mean that no new coal plants could be built unless they use technology to capture and store carbon emissions. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/coal-epa-emissions_n_4171465.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
Coal State Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Block EPA Greenhouse Gas Emissions Rules
WASHINGTON -- Two coal state lawmakers -- a Republican House member and a Democratic senator -- introduced legislation on Monday that would kneecap Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gas pollution from new coal-fired power plants.
The proposed legislation comes from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Whitman said he "has been working closely" on the measure with Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who "will spearhead the legislation" in the Senate. The pair unveiled the plan in a press release on Monday afternoon.
The EPA last month issued new draft rules that would limit emissions from new power plants. The limits would mean that no new coal plants could be built unless they use technology to capture and store carbon emissions. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/coal-epa-emissions_n_4171465.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
October 28, 2013
Listen: http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-economics-news
by Richard Wolff.
Published on October 27, 2013
Updates on big banks' misdeeds, inadequate health care, the social costs of low wages, and Nobel prizes in economics. Major discussions about poverty and education and important economic events on Bolivia (workers taking over enterprises), Spain (indignados form new political Party X), and China (raising value of yuan to change China's and world's economy). Response to questions on (1) how Great Recession affects retirees and retirement, and (2) latest data on the highest incomes in US.
Richard Wolff: "We can't afford private banks....They should become public institutions."
Listen: http://rdwolff.com/content/economic-update-economics-news
by Richard Wolff.
Published on October 27, 2013
Updates on big banks' misdeeds, inadequate health care, the social costs of low wages, and Nobel prizes in economics. Major discussions about poverty and education and important economic events on Bolivia (workers taking over enterprises), Spain (indignados form new political Party X), and China (raising value of yuan to change China's and world's economy). Response to questions on (1) how Great Recession affects retirees and retirement, and (2) latest data on the highest incomes in US.
October 28, 2013
from truthdig:
Our Invisible Revolution
Posted on Oct 28, 2013
By Chris Hedges
“Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?” the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay “The Idea Is the Thing.” “If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.”
Berkman was right. As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden.
It appears that political ferment is dormant in the United States. This is incorrect. The ideas that sustain the corporate state are swiftly losing their efficacy across the political spectrum. The ideas that are rising to take their place, however, are inchoate. The right has retreated into Christian fascism and a celebration of the gun culture. The left, knocked off balance by decades of fierce state repression in the name of anti-communism, is struggling to rebuild and define itself. Popular revulsion for the ruling elite, however, is nearly universal. It is a question of which ideas will capture the public’s imagination.
Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression, the chronic unemployment and underemployment, the massive debt peonage that is crippling more than half of Americans, and the loss of hope and widespread despair, means that blowback is inevitable. ............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_invisible_revolution_20131028
Chris Hedges: Our Invisible Revolution
from truthdig:
Our Invisible Revolution
Posted on Oct 28, 2013
By Chris Hedges
“Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?” the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay “The Idea Is the Thing.” “If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.”
Berkman was right. As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden.
It appears that political ferment is dormant in the United States. This is incorrect. The ideas that sustain the corporate state are swiftly losing their efficacy across the political spectrum. The ideas that are rising to take their place, however, are inchoate. The right has retreated into Christian fascism and a celebration of the gun culture. The left, knocked off balance by decades of fierce state repression in the name of anti-communism, is struggling to rebuild and define itself. Popular revulsion for the ruling elite, however, is nearly universal. It is a question of which ideas will capture the public’s imagination.
Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression, the chronic unemployment and underemployment, the massive debt peonage that is crippling more than half of Americans, and the loss of hope and widespread despair, means that blowback is inevitable. ............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_invisible_revolution_20131028
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