The Man Called Petraeus Launches His Campaign
by digby
There’s a counter campaign called Rethink Afghanistan, that’s worth looking at and supporting. We don’t want to think about this right now, but we’d better. It’s not going away.
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Plutonomy Revival
by digby
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about how we have to coddle the wealthy or they’ll hold their breath until they turn blue and then we’ll be in real trouble. It seems ridiculous that anyone would listen to this, but it’s worth revisiting this Wall Street Journal piece from 2007 to get an idea of where this is coming from:
It’s well known that the rich have an outsized influence on the economy. The nation’s top 1% of households own more than half the nation’s stocks, according to the Federal Reserve. They also control more than $16 trillion in wealth — more than the bottom 90%. Yet a new body of research from Citigroup suggests that the rich have other, more-surprising impacts on the economy. Ajay Kapur, global strategist at Citigroup, and his research team came up with the term “Plutonomy” in 2005 to describe a country that is defined by massive income and wealth inequality. According to their definition, the U.S. is a Plutonomy, along with the U.K., Canada and Australia. In a series of research notes over the past year, Kapur and his team explained that Plutonomies have three basic characteristics. 1. They are all created by “disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist friendly cooperative governments, immigrants…the rule of law and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity exploited best by the rich and educated of the time.” 2. There is no “average” consumer in Plutonomies. There is only the rich “and everyone else.” The rich account for a disproportionate chunk of the economy, while the non-rich account for “surprisingly small bites of the national pie.” Kapur estimates that in 2005, the richest 20% may have been responsible for 60% of total spending. 3. Plutonomies are likely to grow in the future, fed by capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity and globalization. Kapur says that once we understand the Plutonomy, we can solve some of the recent mysteries of the American economy. For instance, some economists have been puzzled (especially last year) about why wild swings in oil prices have had only muted effects on consumer spending. Kapur’s explanation: the Plutonomy. Since the rich don’t care about higher oil prices, and they dominate spending, higher oil prices don’t matter as much to total consumer spending. The Plutonomy also could explain larger “imbalances” such as the national debt level. The rich are so comfortably rich, Kapur explains, that they have started spending higher shares of their incomes on luxuries. They borrow much larger amounts than the “average consumer,” so they have an exaggerated impact on the nation’s debt levels and savings rates. Yet because the rich still have plenty of wealth and healthy balance sheets, their borrowing shouldn’t be a cause for concern. In other words, much of the nation’s lower savings rate is due to borrowing by the rich. So we should worry less about the “over-stretched” average consumer. Finally, the Plutonomy helps explain why companies that serve the rich are posting some of the strongest growth and profits these days. “The Plutonomy is here, is going to get stronger, its membership swelling” he wrote in one research note. “Toys for the wealthy have pricing power, and staying power.”
Keep in mind that from atop the rubble of the economic meltdown, those very people are once again making big bucks and lobbying strongly for less regulation whiloe they cry about being demonized in the press. (And it is those same people who are telling congressmen, many of whom are also in the upper one percent, that they have plenty of jobs, but the unemployed are too lazy to take them.)
If you think plutonomy is a good idea (or at least a neutral one) then the current housing slump and unemployment crisis are irrelevant to the health of the nation — as long as the government doesn’t expect you to kick in more to keep these people from being forced to accept falling wages and a much lower standard of living. If that happens you might not be able to buy as many jewels and fine art and then the whole thing falls apart.
The writer did offer one little warning about the potential problems that might stem from that:
The author of the piece did offer a teensy little warning back in 2007:
Of course, Kapur says there are risks to the Plutonomy, including war, inflation, financial crises, the end of the technological revolution and populist political pressure.
I might have thought that the destruction of the middle class would be considered a primary risk for social unrest, but perhaps society’s winners think they can protect their jewels and mansions by hiring Blackwater these days, so it’s not a problem. In any case he brushed off all those potential consequences:
Yet he maintains that the “the rich are likely to keep getting even richer, and enjoy an even greater share of the wealth pie over the coming years.” All of which means that, like it or not, inequality isn’t going away and may become even more pronounced in the coming years. The best way for companies and businesspeople to survive in Plutonomies, Kapur implies, is to disregard the “mass” consumer and focus on the increasingly rich market of the rich.
It would appear that even in the aftermath of a near cataclysm in the financial sector, they have not changed their minds. But then, why would they? From their perspective, the government did its job by bailing out the big banks and Wall Street to save the economy and everything’s back to normal.
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Newtie’s Tantrum Pledge
by digby
Newt’s gathering signatures for his presidential bid with this bold pledge:
To Member of Congress:
The Left are planning to subvert the will of the American people. You have the power to stop them.
Leading Congressional Democrats are dead set on passing controversial and unpopular legislation in a special Lame Duck session of Congress after the November 2nd Election. It’s the only way Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi can succeed in advancing their unpopular agenda because they know they do not have the support of the American people.
Given the Left’s track record during this current session of Congress, the American people have the right to know where their elected representatives stand.At American Solutions, we’ve developed the following No Lame Duck Pledge and we’re trying to get as many citizens as possible to sign our letter urging members of Congress to pledge the following:
I, undersigned Member of the 111th Congress, pledge to the citizens of the State of _____________ I will not participate in a Lame Duck session of Congress. I believe reconvening the Congress after the November 2nd election and prior to the seating of the new 112th Congress, smacks of the worst kind of political corruption. Attempting to pass unpopular legislation subverts the will of the American people and is an abusive power grab.
We know the Left are capable of using cheap tricks. We saw it during the health care reform debate. We know they are willing to ignore the will of the people. They ignored the town hall meetings and the clear signal the voters of Massachusetts sent by electing Scott Brown and passed the health care bill anyway.
Your friend,
It wouldn’t be the first time they shut down the government, would it?
Huh?
by tristero
The following gushed forth from MoDo’s wordprocessor this morning:
W.’s reign of error so enraged Democrats that they were bound by one desire: to get rid of him. Bush, Cheney and Rove inspired the Democrats to spawn a powerful lefty tower of babble led by Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore and the blogosphere.
Let’s get real: if, today, there are actual liberals with anything resembling a public face, it is in spite of the Democratic party, not because they spawned us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Except, I suppose, in the negative sense. That is, during Bush, the Democratic party (and the press) were so cowardly and incompetent that someone had to speak up.
As for us being “a powerful lefty tower of babble” – why am I reminded of a Beach Boys song?
Saturday Night At The Movies
Under My Big Fat Tuscan Sun
By Dennis Hartley
Eat Pray Love: Anyone seen Somerset Maugham?
Do you remember that popular Top 40 song from the late 70s that went like this?
Oh, I’ve been to Nice and the Isle of Greece,
while I’ve sipped champagne on a yacht
I’ve moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo,
and showed ’em what I’ve got
I’ve been undressed by kings and I’ve seen some things,
that a woman ain’t supposed to see
I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me
God, I hated that song.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge the singer’s admirable journey of self-actualization, slogging and suffering along the way through the champagne and tiresome Mediterranean cruises and all, but any schlub who has been to at least two world’s fairs and a rodeo could have saved her the trip by quoting Buckaroo Banzai’s favorite adage:
Remember…wherever you go, there you are.
On the plus side, it only took 4 minutes for the singer to arrive at her epiphany. Unfortunately, it takes the globe-trotting heroine of Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love 133 minutes to reach that same conclusion (OK, so it took Tyrone Power 145 minutes in The Razor’s Edge…but who’s counting?)
Julia Roberts stars as Gilbert’s avatar in the film, where she is briefly introduced to us as a (seemingly) happy, thirty-something NYC-based writer with a loving and supporting husband (Billy Crudup). I say “briefly introduced”, because soon after a research trip to Bali, during the course of which a shaman (Hadi Subiyanto) foretells that she will lose all her money, but eventually return to study under him so that he may impart his great wisdom, Liz decides that she needs to bolt from the marriage (much to the puzzlement of husband and audience). Since there is virtually no exposition as to why she has the sudden change of heart (perfunctory flashbacks down the line do little to clarify), we just have to assume it’s one of those spur-of-the-moment, “I’ve never been to me” moments.
While the ink is still drying on her divorce papers (at least in screen time), Liz tumbles headlong into a relationship with a hunky young off-off Broadway stage actor (James Franco). The lust, however, soon turns to wanderlust, and Liz decides that maybe what she really needs is to take a year off from…everything. So, leaving her new relationship somewhere in the neutral zone, she embarks on a three-pronged attack in order to “find herself”, first to Italy (eat), then India (pray) and then Bali (love…oops, is that a spoiler?)
So what does she learn? Want the speed-dating version? Here goes! In Italy, they have like, killer pasta and pizza. Awesome! And the gelato…it’s to die for! Oh…and Italians live in the moment, and they talk with their hands…just like the people on Jersey Shore! And when Liz decides to treat her new Italian friends to an all-American style home-cooked Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, one of the Italians, being unfamiliar with our ways and customs, forgets to defrost the bird. But, not to worry-Liz puts it in the oven, they all go to bed, and then, they have turkey for breakfast. How whimsical! Next stop: India, where Liz learns piety by scrubbing floors at an ashram. Oh, and gurus live in the moment. Then, it’s back to Bali, where she goes back to the shaman who started the whole thing (he lives in the moment). Then, she meets a sexy Brazilian! (Javier Bardem).
Roberts is suitably radiant, flashes her million dollar smile and delivers her patented hearty guffaws right on cue, but she oddly seems to spend a good portion of this (very long) film as an observer of her character’s journey, rather than an active participant. Consequently, it’s hard for us to really care about what happens to our leading lady; and that is a fatal flaw. The always wonderful Richard Jenkins (as another American at the ashram) briefly perks up the middle third. But as soon as his character disappears, so does the spirit and energy he brings to the film. The locales are gorgeous, and there’s plenty of food porn for the gastronomiques, but that doesn’t candy-coat Robert’s phoned-in performance and the flat, soap opera-ish dialog (co-written by Murphy and Jennifer Salt). It’s like randomly surfing between Lifetime, The Food Network and The Travel Channel.
I have not read the source book, nor frankly am I ever likely to (if I see “An Oprah Book Club Selection” sticker on the dust jacket, my reaction is much akin to that of a vampire unexpectedly encountering a garlic bulb). The Pottery Barn angst on display here is tough to sympathize with in these hard economic times (how many of us can afford the luxury of “taking a year off” to navel-gaze?), and seems bent on perpetrating the Ugly American meme. In fact, I thought that the depictions of the “colorful locals” encountered by the protagonist on her whistle stops bordered on the kind of colonial stereotyping I assumed Hollywood had abandoned ages ago. You know how they say that “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”? In this case, the trip could not be over soon enough.
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Don’t Bother, They’re Here
by digby
Howie has a hilarious post up today about the Tea Party clown show down in Florida. Here’s an excerpt:
Glenn Beck, in fact, adopted the Orlando, Florida Tea Party as a kind of pet project talking about in constantly in late March of 2009 and urging whatever ambulatory viewers he has to attend. As with anything Beck touches, though, the Orlando Tea Party has turned into a complete disaster and is now embroiled in law suits and squabbles between factions and at least a good part of it has been taken over by the corrupt political hacks inside the Tallahassee Republican Party. Last night I got a media alert from John Hallman, the Executive Director of the (official) Florida Tea Party denouncing the Republican Party version as a fraud and a scam and pointing out their congressional candidate forum Thursday as a way of fleecing clueless Glenn Beck viewers. Unlike other recent teabagger vs teabagger brawls, this one didn’t result in any fistfights or violence, but it is leaving conservatives dazed and confused about which tea party is legitimate and which one is just a GOP front.
Read the whole thing. The Republicans are suing each other for the name, others are claiming the Democrats are engineering it, it’s a moronic free-for-all.
Howie concludes with this:
Here’s the official Tea Party of Florida candidate, Peg Dunmire, running against both Alan Grayson, who she swamped 72-28% in the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce straw poll, and whichever crook the Tallahassee Republicans embrace, likely Daniel Webster:
Maybe this would be a good time to get Grayson’s back. We’re getting very close to our goal for 2010.
Word Salad TV
by digby
Jacob Weisberg has a new book coming out about Palinisms that promises to be very entertaining. (His book on Bushism’s was essential to any blogger.)
Here’s a little excerpt:
So far as I can tell, Sarah Palin has four core beliefs:
1. Things go better with God.
2. Yay, Alaska!
3. Let’s drill that sucker.
4. Curse you, political establishment.Palinisms occur when Palin expresses one of these views in her idiosyncratically involuted syntax (“It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia”); when she expresses two or more of them in combination (“God’s will has to be done, in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that”); or when she says anything at all in her imitable my sentence went on the Tilt-a-Whirl and got nauseous way (“And I think more of a concern has been not within the campaign, the mistakes that were made, not being able to react to the circumstances that those mistakes created in a real positive and professional and helpful way for John McCain”).
But the best Palinisms of all result when the huntress encounters something she wasn’t hunting for—that is, when Sarah Palin comes into contact with most anything to do with domestic, foreign, or economic policy. It is this situation that generates those priceless let me tap-dance and, also, sing for you a little song while you think of a different question moments…
Tina Fey’s caricature of Palin as an unprepared high-school student trying to bluff her way through an oral exam by mugging and flirting hit its mark not merely because of the genius of the mimicry, but because of its fundamentally accurate diagnosis of Palin as bullshit artist. Palin’s exuberant incoherence testifies to an unusually wide gulf between confidence and ability. She is proud of what she doesn’t know and contemptuous of those “experts” and “elitists” who are too knowledgeable to be trusted.
Palin is a joke as a politician, but she’s a huge success on her own terms — she’s a reality television celebrity who happens to come from the world of politics. In the old days this kind of act would have probably been religious in nature. (Amy Semple McPherson comes to mind.) Today she’s the Bethenny Frankel of Alaska — a big winner in the American celebrity sweepstakes. It’s a good career move.
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Putting The Parasites In Their Places
by digby
Michael Moore points out something unpleasant:
During the first half of 2010, GM made $2.2 billion in profit, yet according to The Wall Street Journal, they’ve only added 2,000 jobs in all of North America, taking their workforce from 113,000 to 115,000.
And what’s true for GM is true for the country. The government stepped in with trillions of dollars in cash and guarantees to keep Corporate America from collapsing due to its own stupidity, short-sightedness and greed. And it worked—for Corporate America. You may not have noticed as you were being foreclosed on, but the profitability of the Fortune 500 is almost back to normal. It jumped to $391 billion in 2009, up 335 percent from 2008. And the 500 biggest non-financial corporations are now sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, more than at any time in the past 50 years. (That’s what the business press always says—that they’re “sitting” on it—although as far as I know this is not literally true.)
That’s what we should really focus on when talking about GM and other companies who’ve taken the free handout. It’s not about the continuous reshuffling of the white-guys-in-suits deck of cards. What does it mean that the new CEO of GM is Daniel F. Akerson, a managing director at the Carlyle Group? Probably that GM is about to be run by some real ballbusters who have no problem flaunting the law or basic American decency.
To understand what’s happening, we have to focus on the bottom line, just like they do. And what the bottom line says is that the entire business world has figured out how to make huge buckets of money without hiring us to work for them. I’m not sure how in the long run this benefits these companies. Maybe the same robots who make most things now are also programmed to buy them?
But the upshot is this: We have to face the fact that most of America’s CEOs don’t want the economy to get “better.” Because for them, it couldn’t get better—they’ve got profit coming out their ears, while with 9.5 percent unemployment their entire workforce is too scared to ask for a 25 cent-an-hour raise. They’d be happy to have things stay just like they are now. Forever.
Say, is anyone talking about deflation yet? Oh, that’s right.
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One From Column A, One from Column B
by digby
Who’s this supposed to impress exactly?
Speaking to reporters today, President Obama drew a sharp line under his comments last night, insisting that his defense of the right to build a mosque does not mean he supports the project.
“I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding,” he said.
Obama’s new stance is logically consistent with his words last night, if a bit less “clarion,” as Mike Bloomberg called the first remarks. And there are certainly two possible stances here: Bloomberg’s, that the Cordoba project itself represents the best of America; and Obama’s, that the freedom of religion is an important American value.
Obama’s new remarks, literally speaking, re-open the question of which side he’s on. Most of the mosque’s foes recognize the legal right to build, and have asked the builders to reconsider.
Oh well. It was a nice gesture for the president of the United States to unequivocally recognize the constitutional right to religious freedom. It’s probably too much to expect that he might unequivocally stand up for religious tolerance too. Common ground and all that.
I’m fairly sure these folks are questioning the wisdom of building their mosque on the hallowed ground of Texas. As are other mosques throughout the country. Just so you know, Americans have every right to be Muslim in America. Let no one say anything to the contrary. I’m not going to comment on the wisdom of them doing so.
Chris in DC has written a nice essay on why this “debate” over the wisdom of building the center is balderdash. Here’s an excerpt:
[T]he Cordoba House is deliberately, expressly, and unequivocally intended to stand for the diametric opposite of what the 9/11 attackers believed. It would stand for inclusion, reconciliation, and understanding across faiths and cultures. In fact, in many ways, the Muslim founders of the Cordoba House (and its imam) are the sorts of Muslims that bin Laden and his adherents hate most. They are cosmopolitan and modern. The Cordoba House itself will contain many earthly luxuries and pleasures. Its founders (and location) actively embrace multicultural, multi-sectarian, quintessentially modern New York City, and many of its proponents have happily lived in Southern Manhattan for decades.
The Cordoba House, in other words, is not only separate and distinct from the identity and ideology of al Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorists, it is a direct repudiation (“refudiation,” for Sarah Palin) of them. So the only way that someone could ever confuse the Cordoba Initiative with radical, militant Islam is if that person thought that Islam itself was inseparable from terrorism or terrorist sympathies. That, to me, is highly illuminating. And if a very small handful of radicals who call themselves believers in a religion can hijack that entire religion to stand for the terrible things the radicals do and believe, then, well, Christianity apparently stands for the murder of doctors, the preachings of David Koresh, the beliefs and deeds of Tim McVeigh, the goals of the Huntaree militia….
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Al Gore Is Worse Than Charles Manson
by digby
Right Wing News is a very funny blog. Unintentionally, of course.
Out of all the gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, incompetent & crooked politicians, spies, traitors, and ultra left-wing kooks in all of American history — have you ever wondered who the worst of the worst was? Well, we here at RWN wondered about that, too, and that’s why we decided to email more than a hundred (right wing) bloggers to get their opinions.
23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)
The good news for our side is that John Wilkes Booth beat out Nancy Pelosi, so that’s good. At least they were able to muster up one Confederate. And it was very fair of them to include Nixon. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it was for signing the Clean Air Act.
I do have to wonder if Tim McVeigh had blown up the World Trade Center instead of the Murrah Federal Building if they might have edged him ahead of Roosevelt. But I doubt it.
And Bill Clinton at the bottom of the list? Lord have mercy. Since they impeached him, I have to assume they want to try Obama for treason and send Jimmy Carter on a one way ticket to Mars.
These are funny funny folks. Especially since they actually believe this stuff.
Update: Ok. I can see we’re going to have a competition for funniest wingnut to0day. here’s another entry:
This Rand-cult bonehead drove over 12,000 miles back and forth across the US, clicking his GPS logger on and off at selected points to create a series of waypoints that would spell out his message to the world when displayed in Google Earth, if anyone bothers to look.
He must be one of those Superman producers we hear so much about.
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