Month: June 2011

Quote ‘O the Day

by digby

So Michele Bachman may have had the worst GOP presidential campaign rollout since Newt Gingrich’s this morning when she misstated that Waterloo Iowa was the home of John Wayne instead of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.

The presidential hopeful — who was born and grew up in Waterloo as a child before moving to Minnesota — said, “Well, what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.”

The Washington Times points out one slight problem with the Tea Party favorite’s remarks: The John Wayne with roots in Waterloo is John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer who was executed by lethal injection in 1994 after being convicted of 33 murders.

John Wayne — the late movie star, director and producer — was born in Winterset, Iowa, but appears to have no specific connection to Waterloo.

Winterset is three hours away…

It’s going to be hard to beat that one. But as amusing as it is, I wouldn’t say that it’s the quote of the day.

I’m going to vote for this one, a tweet from our majority leader:

@SenatorReid: Cutting debt is equally important to job creation

Any idea what the hell he’s talking about? I assume he’s talking about cutting government debt. What effect do you suppose that’s going to have on job creation, other than making it less likely?

It’s not like we don’t have some data already:

The layoffs of thousands of government workers may threaten the already slow-motion economic recovery in many U.S. metropolitan areas, according to a report released on Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

“Job growth, though occurring in more metropolitan areas than in the past, was sluggish,” the think tank said. “Those that suffered the most, as well as those with the weakest economic recoveries, typically lost government jobs.”

Since the recession began in 2007, 19 out of the 20 metropolitan areas with the strongest economies gained government jobs, according to the report which focused on the first quarter of the year. Conversely, 13 of the lowest performing 20 areas lost government jobs.

Looking at the 100 metropolitan areas combined, Brookings said total employment rebounded by 0.8 percent after hitting its low point in the recession. But local government employment fell 1.2 percent and state employment dropped 0.2 percent, “reflecting the impact of reduced local and state revenues.”

Political leaders and economists have warned that government layoffs could pose serious obstacles to economic recovery. Brookings noted that state and local employees make up the bulk of the government workforce.

And this isn’t even going to appease the confidence fairy. Check this out:

Analysts and investors in the $2.9 trillion municipal bond market are worried that tax revenues have not rebounded enough to make up for this summer’s end of the 2009 economic stimulus plan, which included the largest transfer of money from the federal government to the states in U.S. history.

Senator Reid surely knows better. But they’ve all decided to pretend that this makes sense because … well, just because.

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Exceptionally confident

by digby

Oh good:

The disaster at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in Japan prompted some people to contend that since U.S. reactors have Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMGs) they are less susceptible to disaster.

A recent NRC audit of SAMGs at the nation’s nuclear power plants, however, suggests otherwise.One of the lessons from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident was that U.S. nuclear plants needed better emergency procedures for and training of control room operators. Two sets of procedures were developed.

The first set was the Emergency Procedure Guidelines (EPGs), which were introduced in June 1980 to help the operators respond to emergencies at the plants. These emergencies included transients (e.g., unplanned reactor shut downs) and accidents (e.g., pipe breaks that drained cooling water from the reactor vessel). The NRC licenses control room operators, and to obtain a license, operator candidates must demonstrate proficiency on the EPGs both on written exams and in control room simulator exercises.

The second set was the SAMGs. They were first introduced in June 1996 to back up the EPGs for severe or unusual events – those involving multiple failures of safety equipment or unanticipated accident sequences. For example, the EPGs lay out various means of supplying water to the reactor vessel to cool the nuclear core. If none of those options are available, the SAMGs take over to provide options like flooding the containment structure around the reactor vessel with water to a level above the top of the core.

Unlike for the EPGs, candidates for NRC operator licenses need not demonstrate any knowledge whatsoever of the SAMGs and their application.

The nuclear industry developed the SAMGs, but they are voluntary. So the NRC can monitor them but cannot force the industry to take them seriously.

Well that certainly makes me feel a lot better.

The idea that the US has taken an “it can’t happen here” stance is absurd. It’s not as if Japan is a third world banana republic rife with systemic corruption and a cost cutting, short term business ethos like well … us. And yet it happened there and the worst of it was the fault of the company and government refusing to do what was necessary to contain the damage because of the costs involved. So you tell me just how secure we ought to feel in the great US of A that those things are being “voluntarily” done here. According to the article — they aren’t.

By the way, Japanese kids in the Fukishima area now have a cool new necklace they have to wear:

H/t to BagNews who wrote:

Bag’s Take-Away:

Was waiting for it to happen: Fukushima Prefecture kids get their own portable dosimeters. (Any similarity to the iPod, I assume, is strictly coincidental.)

Update: I guess it’s a good thing these Mississippi floods are happening slowly because it’s giving this Nebraska nuclear plant some time to read their emergency manuals. No word on whether they are learning anything from it.

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Feudal Marketing

by digby

Ad Age analyzes the economy from the marketing perspective. I think what’s most interesting about it is the blase way the article describes income disparity. It looks to me as if this information has been absorbed and … accepted. Business is adjusting as it will. Winners will emerge, losers will disappear. Customers … well, it depends on who you are servicing.

The rich — and marketers who cater to them — just keep getting richer as everyone else struggles through a so-called recovery. That fact of economics could reshape marketing strategies this year, and for years to come.

Last year, the only growth in spending came from people making $100,000 or more annually, said David Calhoun, CEO of Nielsen Co., speaking at the Advertising Research Foundation’s annual Re:Think conference in March. If anything, the disconnect between the haves and the have-lesses has only kept widening since. The ConsumerEdge Research monthly tracker, based on surveys of more than 2,000 consumers, helps illustrate this vividly.

Overall, its “Willingness to Spend” index of U.S. consumers has fallen fairly steadily from 103 in May 2010 (just before the so-called summer of recovery) to 96 last May, where 100 equals sentiment levels in December 2009. But willingness to spend has been on the rise lately among the high-income segment — that 16% of the U.S. population making $100,000 or more annually. Their spending sentiment index rose from 118 in December to 131 in May. Their index is down 6 points from 137 a year ago, but they’re the only income group more willing to spend now than they were in December 2009.

[…]

One reason Procter & Gamble Co. is confident its current round of price hikes to recover commodity-cost increases will stick more readily than those taken in 2008 is that at least this year, wealthier folks are more confident. “You saw the whole affluent class come out of the market in 2008, and what we’re seeing now is a very strong resurgence of the affluent class,” said P&G Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller at a Deutsche Bank investor conference in Paris June 15.

In one sense, nothing much has changed from the trend of the past three decades. Real wages have been largely flat overall since 1980, even as real GDP doubled. The top 1% of earners, as a result, have seen their share of total income double to 20%, even as their tax rates plunged. More broadly, the top 20% of earners have seen their share of U.S. income increase from 45% in 1980 to 50% in 2009 while the shares of every other quintile fell, according to Sanford C. Bernstein research.

For much of that period, however, middle- and lower-income people could grow spending faster than income thanks to loose credit and rising home prices — factors that disappeared in the Great Recession and show no signs of returning.

I have been telling my friends for the past couple of years that in the new servant economy the only smart place to put your entrepreneurial skills is to cater to the wealthy: that’s where all the money is. Hey, it worked for feudal Europe for centuries.

Update: I would also mention that in the article WalMart is particularly suffering. But they forgot the old Henry Ford maxim that you need to pay your workers enough to be able to buy your product. That race to the bottom has finally landed on their balance sheet. Their customers have migrated to the dollar stores and the downsized affluents who felt the squeeze for a while are back in the malls. They’ve got nothing.

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Good cuts, bad cuts

by digby

Not that I’m against cuttting defense spending, mind you, but this just makes me laugh:

As the White House tries to revive negotiations to raise the nation’s debt limit today after the talks nearly collapsed last week, some Republicans see cuts to Pentagon spending as a potential area of compromise. Although the House GOP has long been resistant to the idea, they believe it is easier to build support around cutting defense spending than raising revenues through changing the tax code.

Everyone from the President to Jim DeMint agrees that the government is just like an average American household and it must pay down what it owes as quickly as humanly possible. But they also seem to believe under no circumstances is it acceptable to bring in more money to do it. I guess this explains the lack of interest in the unemployment rate.

Seriously, the defense budget is a very logical place to look for savings. It’s been off limits to any kind of serious oversight for decades, particularly the one just past. I have no doubt that significant savings can be found there. If they can come up with some cuts in obsolete programs that don’t hurt any of their prized constituencies and donors too badly, a deal could potentially be made that would give President Obama an argument to take to his base as his liberal accomplishment in this “deal”.

But keep in mind that when they make the argument that we can’t raise taxes because the economy is too fragile, the economic logic of that is the same as cutting spending. So it isn’t about the economy — it’s about shrinking government. No matter how worthy a goal cutting the Pentagon is on the merits, it’s not a liberal economic policy. In fact, none of this is an economic policy at all — it’s a ritual sacrifice.

Update: Also: what Atrios said.

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Virtually Speaking

by digby

I’ll be on Virtually Speaking at 6 PDT chatting with Cliff Schecter about all manner of things political. You can tune into Blogtalkradio here. You can join in SecondLife or watch it here live.

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Sunday Must Read

by digby

Ok, enough of that happy talk. Back to the grind.

Here’s Robin Wells and Paul Krugman’s review of Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present. Ayeyayay.

The great financial crisis of 2008–2009, whose consequences still blight our economy, is sometimes portrayed as a “black swan” or a “100-year flood”—that is, as an extraordinary event that nobody could have predicted. But it was, in fact, just the most recent installment in a recurrent pattern of financial overreach, taxpayer bailout, and subsequent Wall Street ingratitude. And all indications are that the pattern is set to continue.

Jeff Madrick’s Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present is an attempt to chronicle the emergence and persistence of this pattern. It’s not an analytical work, which, as we’ll explain later, sometimes makes the book frustrating reading. Instead, it’s a series of vignettes—and these vignettes are both fascinating and, taken as a group, deeply disturbing. For they suggest not just that we’re seeing a repeating cycle, but that the busts keep getting bigger. And since it seems that nothing was learned from the 2008 crisis, you have to wonder just how bad the next one will be.

Update: This too.
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Oh Happy Day

by digby

I get so tired of bad news and feeling as if everything’s going backwards. It’s so great to have something positive to cheer about and to have it be something that proves that progress in real people’s lives can be made makes it all the sweeter. I’ve felt more lighthearted this week-end than I have in ages.

Parade organizers estimated as many as 2 million spectators turned out to celebrate the 42nd annual LGBT Pride March on Sunday. Many considered it the most electric in the Parade’s history.

Although this year’s theme was “Proud and Powerful,” the New York gay community feted the legalization of same-sex marriage, which was signed into law late on Friday by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

“I have participated in it for many years, but it is extra special today,” Cuomo said at a news conference before the parade set off.

“I am so proud to be the governor of this state and to sign this law into effect,” he added.

Cuomo, who wore a colorful gay pride flag tucked in his jacket pocket, marched alongside New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Cheers rang out from the crowd whenever the governor was announced, with many holding “Thank you Governor Cuomo” and “You kept your promise” signs.

“I believe New York has sent a message to this nation loud and clear,” the governor said. “It is time for marriage equality all across this country.”

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Shameless Corruption

by digby

Here’s a little taste of what your average senior will have to deal with when she’s on Ryan’s “voucher” program or when the whole Medicare system is privatized.

Reporting from Indianapolis— Louise Cohoon was at home when her 80-year-old mother called in a panic from Terre Haute: The $97 monthly Medicaid payment she relied on to supplement her $600-a-month income had been cut without warning by a private company that had taken over the state’s welfare system.

Later, the state explained why: She failed to call into an eligibility hot line on a day in 2008 when she was hospitalized for congestive heart failure.

“I thought the news was going to kill my mother, she was so upset,” said Cohoon, 63. Her mother had to get by on support from cash-strapped relatives for months until the state restored her benefits under pressure from Legal Services attorneys.

That’s brought to you from the people who say “government can’t do anything right.”

So how did this happen, you ask? Well … it’s good old-fashioned corruption, all dressed up in a fancy new name called “privatization.”

Cohoon’s mother, now suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, was one of thousands of Indiana residents who abruptly and erroneously lost their welfare, Medicaid or food stamp benefits after Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels privatized the state’s public assistance program — the result of an efficiency plan that went awry from the very beginning, the state now admits.

Though the $1.37-billion project proved disastrous for many of the state’s poor, elderly and disabled, it was a financial bonanza for a handful of firms with ties to Daniels and his political allies, which landed state contracts worth millions.

[…]

It’s an issue that is likely to persist, as Republicans in statehouses nationwide turn to private companies as they seek to shrink government and weaken the hold of public-sector unions. One of the main proponents has been Daniels, who privatized a prison and a major toll road and sought unsuccessfully to lease out the state lottery, cultivating a reputation for fiscal discipline that led major party figures to urge him to run for president in 2012. He recently declined, but retains considerable influence in his party.

[…]

Critics say that in Indiana, the privatization process barreled forward with little public input and was marred by the appearance of conflicts of interest. Despite the massive nature of the changes he was proposing, Daniels insisted he did not need legislative approval. And the only public hearing occurred after he announced he would proceed with the project.

Key players involved in the process had ties to Affiliated Computer Services, the company that benefited the most from the deal. Mitch Roob — a Daniels appointee who ran the state’s Family and Social Services Administration when it awarded the contract — was a former ACS vice president. As the state began the project, Roob occasionally sought advice from former Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, a political ally of Daniels and fellow privatization advocate who also had been an ACS vice president.

And any attempts to rein in such boondoggles will inevitably be attacked as “regulations.”

You have to read the whole article to understand just how corrupt these processes are. And for all the talk about local control and smaller bureaucracies, the companies they are contracting with are national and their size is huge.And a bunch of people are getting rich off these tax dollars while the people the programs are designed to serve are getting the shaft.

This is quite a story — and it’s about one of the GOP’s biggest stars, the guy who broke the Village’s heart when he decided against a run for president.

h/t to ms
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“The bitch made me do it”

by digby

It is almost impossible for me to believe that someone with this level of abusive rationalization could even become a Municipal Judge, much less a State Supreme Court Justice:

Prosser admitted to using the word “bitch,” but said it was justified. “I probably overreacted, but I think it was entirely warranted,” he said in March.

Why did Prosser think it was warranted? “They (Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley) are masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements. This is bullying and abuse of very, very long standing,” Prosser claimed.

I’m honestly gobsmacked that someone in a position to mete out justice from the bench of the state’s high court would have the gall to fall back on this “bitch made me do it” trope to justify his behavior. There is such a thing as “judicial temperament” and this person does not have it.

Prosser has a serious problem, which he demonstrated last week in living color by choking a fellow justice. And naturally he’s saying that it was self-defense. That’s what they all say.

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“You look like Alabama to me”

by digby

Alabama has some experience with protests …

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A candlelight march protesting Alabama’s tough new immigration law drew enough people of different colors and faiths to fill nearly 11 city blocks Saturday evening at Linn Park in downtown Birmingham.

“You look like Alabama to me,” Scott Douglas, head of the interfaith antipoverty group Greater Birmingham Ministries, and one of the rally organizers, told the crowd. “This will be a peaceful, nonviolent candlelight prayer march that there may be justice in Alabama without exclusion.”

[…]

Organizers said they were concerned the new law would make criminals out of members of the faith community who provide transportation to church services or events, or otherwise help immigrants who turn out to be in the country illegally.

“I give out juice and cookies as a ministry,” said Linda Hill, who is a chaplain for the ministry Grace By Day at Grace Episcopal Church in Woodlawn. “Am I supposed to ask for their identification before I can give them cookies? This law is hurtful and it’s mean.”

Some Christians are always asking WWJD and it’s usually an excuse to justify whatever it is they are already doing. But seriously, this one really is a no-brainer.

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