Month: May 2013

Can we do a bake sale or something?

by digby

…. to help these poor souls out:

In a new article at the U.K. site eFinancialCareers, several bankers explain that they have legitimate reasons for needing more than one million British pounds (about $1.6 million) per year in pay — more money than most non-banking types could ever figure out how to spend. In a nutshell, it’s all about psychology. Abraham Maslow clearly should have added “crap-tons of money” when building his hierarchy of needs.

“It’s really not that unusual to find Wall Street bankers who are close to declaring themselves bankrupt,” Gary Goldstein, co-founder of U.S. search firm Whitney Partners, tells eFC’s Sarah Butcher. “Some people are really struggling.”

The struggles of millionaire bankers (in Butcher’s piece most of them are men) are an important factor for heartless regulators and shareholders to keep in mind as they consider putting limits on banker pay in the wake of a financial crisis that was fueled by bankers chasing higher pay. “One million” of anything — pounds, dollars or Bitcoins, sounds like a lot to us rabble, but let bankers explain to you how it’s pretty much the same as nothing, really.

For one thing, taxes will quickly whittle a seven-figure income right down to the mid-six figures, perilously close to being within sight of the middle class. Then, an ex-Goldman banker points out, with the mere $600,000 in take-home pay remaining, bankers still need to “pay the mortgages on, and maintain houses, in the Hamptons and Manhattan, to put three children through private schools costing $40k a year each, and to pay living costs.”

The humanity.

Might I suggest a kickstarter campaign? I’m sure many people would be willing to contribute.

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A big silver lining for deficit hawks


by digby

Those expensive baby boomers are killing themselves in droves:

“It is the baby boomer group where we see the highest rates of suicide,” said the C.D.C.’s deputy director, Ileana Arias. “There may be something about that group, and how they think about life issues and their life choices that may make a difference.” 

The rise in suicide may also stem from the economic downturn over the past decade. Historically, suicide rates rise during times of financial stress and economic setbacks. “The increase does coincide with a decrease in financial standing for a lot of families over the same time period,” said Dr. Arias. 

Another factor may be the widespread availability of opioid drugs like OxyContin and oxycodone, which can be particularly deadly in large doses. 

Although most suicides are still by firearms, officials said there was a marked increase in poisoning deaths, which includes intentional overdoses of prescription drugs, and hangings. Poisoning deaths were up 24 percent overall during the 10-year period and hangings were up 81 percent. 

Dr. Arias noted that the higher suicide rates might be due to a series of life and financial circumstances that are unique to the baby boomer generation. Men and women in that age group are often coping with the stress of caring for aging parents while still providing financial and emotional support to adult children. 

“Their lives are configured a little differently than it has been in the past for that age group,” Dr. Arias said. “It may not be that they are more sensitive or that they have a predisposition to suicide, but that they may be dealing with more.”

But hey, look at the bright side: Social security and health care costs are very likely to come down if there are fewer old and sick people. Good news!

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Need to explain the urgency of climate change? Here’s your elevator pitch

by David Atkins

Climate activism has a hard time gaining traction even in progressive circles in competition with other issues. This isn’t surprising: when unemployment is high, the economy is slow, inequality is rampant and violence is ubiquitous, it’s hard to become deeply emotionally engaged on a subject that won’t likely directly impact one’s life tomorrow or even ten years from now, even though it will certainly cause increasing weather-related disasters and global catastrophes as the years march on.

Most progressives take climate change seriously as an issue, but understanding that the issue isn’t just a long-term problem but requires the fierce urgency of now can be a challenge. It isn’t intuitive to our human brains to think that a long-term problem must require immediate solutions (except for the deficit fetishists, of course, but their motivation is killing the safety net, not solving the deficit per se).

To grasp why we need to act now on this crucial issue and why we cannot wait, Gaius Publius wrote a basic climate change elevator pitch a while back explaining the situation. Here’s the key part:

Take a look at the chart below. It’s a version of the Michael Mann “hockey stick” diagram showing average global temperature from 500 AD to today, plus various predictions through 2100.

The black line near the right edge of the chart shows global warming measurements. This is global warming — starting from 1900 it never stops climbing.

Where are we headed?

Where are we headed?

All you need to know in four numbers:

■ We get 1½°C — 3°F — by 2100 regardless, even if we Stop Now. We’ve gotten half already (that’s where the black line stops). The rest is in the pipeline.

■ The political elites — G8, Copenhagen conference, etc. — want to stop 2°C — 3½°F. But no one wants to do anything.

■ At 3°C — 5½°F — we have James Hansen’s mass extinction scenario (“game over” he says). 20–50% of species will disappear.

■ What are we on track for? 6–7°C — a whopping 11–12½°F. This is Stop Never, the carbon industry plan.

Short form — We get 1½°C regardless and we’re only halfway there. 2°C is where elites want to stop, but won’t. 3°C is a mass extinction scenario. And we’re on track for 7°C by 2100.

How do we know we’re on track for 7°C?

Go back to the chart above and look at the projection labeled A1F1 (the red line). It takes us to 6°–7°C by 2100.

Now look at the chart below. It zooms in on the time 1980–2010. The projections start at 2000. The measurements keep going through summer 2008. See for yourself:

We’re doing what was predicted. Stop Never is taking us to 7°C by 2100. Our grandchildren will see the result. You and I will live through the early stages.

We can Stop Now or Stop Never; there’s no middle choice. Stop Later is the same as not stopping.

Stop Now means aggressively pursuing — as a action, not an aspiration — “zero new carbon into the air.” Permitting new carbon means not stopping.

We have to stop now. It’s not a far-off distant problem. It’s an immediate problem, and it has to be tackled now, not later.

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So, you say that Americans *aren’t* pants-wetting panic artists?  

by digby

You’d be wrong:

A teenage girl could face up to five years in prison for “discharging weapons or firerarms” on the grounds of Bartow High School in the town of Bartow, Florida. Kiera Wilmot, 16, was arrested by local police and taken into custody after causing a small explosion on campus.

There were no deaths, and no injuries. In fact, the only property damaged by the explosion was an eight ounce plastic water bottle. That’s because the “weapon” Wilmot detonated was a mixture of toilet bowl cleaner and aluminum foil, which she mixed together in the bottle as part of an apparent amateur science project.

Nonetheless, Wilmot—who has consistently good grades and no prior criminal record—is being brought up on felony charges, and will be tried as an adult.

For a typically excellent in-depth view of the context and big picture on this terrible case, watch this clip from last night’s All In with Chris Hayes:

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QOTD: two lunatics on Fox

by digby

Coulter and Hannity:

Coulter: My point is: zero immigrants should be collecting government assistance. If you are collecting government assistance, it seems to me, can’t we all agree that you are not the kind of immigrant we need in America here? We know we have our own native-born losers, murderers, welfare recipients — fine we’ll deal with them,” she said.

Hannity: But we’re importing more…

I know that everyone wants to believe that the only people who agree with these two are a couple of 72 year olds somewhere in Kansas, but I’m afraid that’s way too optimistic.

Immigration reform may very well happen this year or next simply because there is a political incentive among Republicans to do it. (The business community has always wanted it, and they do tend to get their way eventually.) But I hope nobody believes that xenophobia of the type Coulter and Hannity exude there has been extinguished.

If only we could just lock them all up indefinitely, then we would never die 


by digby

What could possibly go wrong?

While the detainees have been trying to protest being held indefinitely without charges, the military is trying to keep Guantanamo guards focused on the idea that the detainees are terrorists who need to be locked up.

Some of the military personnel now at Guantanamo are as young as 18, and were just children when the Sept. 11 attacks took place. To bring them up to speed, and to give those deployed to Guantanamo a better sense of why they’re there, FBI counterterrorism officials hold periodic unclassified briefings open to members of the military. A recent April briefing, which helped explain the role allegedly played by five detainees on trial in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, featured recordings of 911 calls from victims in the World Trade Center, which attendees said left many participants in tears.

Additionally, guards at Guantanamo — like all other members of the military — are barred from doing their own research on Wikileaks, and in theory any news websites that present information from Wikileaks. Such research may tell them more about the detainees. The consequence of accepting the government’s side of the story and excluding everything else is a strict us vs. them mentality.

“Many of the guards are not informed about the details of the situation at Guantanamo or the legal process of it, that there are some people who are cleared for release. They’re kept away from all that,” said Omar Deghayes, a former Guantanamo detainee who was released in 2007 after a five-year incarceration. “They tell them these are the worst of the worst. All they know is ‘Oh, these people are connected to Sept. 11.’ That’s the mindframe.”

“We have the keys at the end of the day, they are on the other side of the cell,” states a sign hanging in the Camp Six observation room, where guards monitor detainees via cameras.

That is an excerpt of a fascinating report from Guanatanamo by Ryan Reilly. He quotes one of the guards kvetching that these prisoners had it a lot better than the Louisiana prisons he worked in as a civilian.Considering that Louisiana prisons are notorious hellholes, that’s hardly a useful comparison. But then this fellow (an officer…) apparently doesn’t know that many of these prisoners are innocent of any crimes and are being held indefinitely because Americans are a bunch of pants-wetting, panic artists who have convinced themselves that if they just try hard enough they can kill or imprison everyone who hates us and then we will all be safe forever. It’s obscenely absurd.

And, by the way, the torture continues:

Fayiz al Kandari, one of the detainees being force-feed, complained through his lawyer, Carlos Warner, that medical officials were using a feeding tube that was too large, and that he was not able to breathe. He said that his request for the doctors to use a smaller tube was denied.

Roughly two-thirds of those being force-fed “accept their nutritional supplement voluntarily,” according to House, meaning the emaciated men don’t actively fight the inevitable. Even those detainees who cooperate are strapped down into a chair with built-in restraints for the arms, legs and torso. Those who refuse to go to the medical facility are strapped to their beds and force-fed inside their cells.

“It’s not a violent resistance,” one medical staffer in Camp Six said the day reporters visited. Nevertheless, medical personnel are accompanied at all times by guards in riot gear…

While there are potential health risks to force-feeding — collapsed lungs, infections, pneumonia — the military in theory may continue the practice for years. One detainee at Guantanamo has been force-fed daily since 2005.

(And yes, that is torture, with ramifications for medical personnel, guards and prisoners.)

Read the whole thing if you can stand it. The administration defenses for all this are lame and unconvincing.

Well, to everyone who isn’t a complete dope, that is:

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Let me finish tonight with this, Gitmo must go, but where? That’s the scare. Move the prisoners where you can put on trial to the states. Okay. But the republicans won’t agree with that. not in my backyard, they say. Or send the prisoners we can’t put on trial to other countries. But what country is willing to take them or I should say, what country do we trust to keep an eye on them? This is a real problem. In the old days we released prisoners of war when the war was over. They go home. When is this war going to be over? This war on terrorism? If they were simply criminals, we could incarcerate them and then let them go. When are we able to release people that are determined to go to war the day they get out. I’m open to new ideas.

I have a new idea, Chris. Why don’t you stop talking for a couple of minutes and think about what you are saying.  It makes no sense.  Is it really acceptable that we have a bunch of prisoners we cannot charge, try or convict but who nonetheless can be assumed to be determined to go to war with us the day they get out of prison? How the hell do you know that?

So, while we might not have any evidence but we just “know” they are guilty and therefore we can never let them go until the War on Terrorism is over. Chris would like to know when that will be. Me too. But I’m going to guess never.

This would be darkly funny if it wasn’t the official policy of the US Government. They have declared that certain prisoners are just going to have to indefinitely stay in prison without trial somewhere.  Sure, we’d like to be able to imprison them indefinitely in a prison that isn’t Guantanamo because well … I don’t know why.  What the hell difference does that make?  But we just do. The only question is where they’re going to molder for the rest of their lives — or until we can all celebrate VGWOT-Day, which is never.

And hey, it’s not like there aren’t other prisoners we’d really, really love to set free, it’s just that we can’t trust them not to be mad about destroying their lives based on lies so we need to make sure they either rot in some foreign prison or are “watched” carefully for the rest of their lives and we can’t find anyone that’s willing to do that dirty work for us. Bummer.

For a more in-depth look at the rigid inability to grasp what’s going on here, check out his interview with two experts earlier in the show.

In case you are unaware of the official 2011 Obama administration executive order on this:

President Obama signed an executive order Monday that will create a formal system of indefinite detention for those held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who continue to pose a significant threat to national security. The administration also said it will start new military commission trials for detainees there.

The announcements, coming more than two years after Obama vowed in another executive order to close the detention center, all but cements Guantanamo Bay’s continuing role in U.S. counterterrorism policy. 

Administration officials said the president is still committed to closing the prison, although he made no mention of that goal in a short statement Monday. The administration’s original plans to create a detention center in the United States and prosecute some detainees in federal court have all but collapsed in the face of bipartisan congressional opposition.

The executive order recognizes the reality that some Guantanamo Bay detainees will remain in U.S. custody for many years, if not for life. 

The new system allows them the prospect of successfully arguing in the future that they should be released because they do not pose a threat.

“Today, I am announcing several steps that broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions and ensure the humane treatment of detainees,” Obama said in statement. “I strongly believe that the American system of justice is a key part of our arsenal in the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and we will continue to draw on all aspects of our justice system – including [federal] Article III Courts – to ensure that our security and our values are strengthened.” 

But activists on either end of the debate over closing the prison cast the announcement as a reversal.

“It is virtually impossible to imagine how one closes Guantanamo in light of this executive order,” said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “In a little over two years, the Obama administration has done a complete about-face.”

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the order vindicated Obama’s predecessor. “I commend the Obama Administration for issuing this Executive Order,” he said in a statement. “The bottom line is that it affirms the Bush Administration policy that our government has the right to detain dangerous terrorists until the cessation of hostilities.”

Chris Matthews just accepts the underlying logic of this lunacy but that doesn’t mean anyone else should. When the government says it just “knows” someone is dangerous but they can’t prove it — so they’re going to lock them up indefinitely anyway — the constitution has become a piece of toilet paper.

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Put a worker on the board

by digby

President Obama’s nomination of Hyatt heiress Penny Pritzker to be Commerce secretary gives me the perfect excuse to write about a fascinating conversation I had recently with Cathy Youngblood, a union activist and Hyatt employee who is on a campaign to get her employer to put one worker on its board of directors. She’s written a compelling blog post over at Huffpost today about the conditions of her job and her attempts to get Hyatt to listen to her proposal and I urge you to read it, particularly this part:

My problem is one that workers everywhere face daily. I know you’ve probably had the thought, “What was my boss thinking when he set up the work this way? I could do this better!” We have common sense solutions and ideas to help our respective businesses run better. But something is amiss. My voice needs to be heard in the boardroom, as well as in the hotel room. Unfortunately, the business owners, those captains of finance, are the last to listen. Our physical strength is required, our wisdom… not so much. But thousands of people like me want something in return for our services. We want their respect, to share in the decision making process of how we do our work. We know what is needed to run a hotel: proper tools and equipment, as well as procedures to ensure safer working environments.

What if a worker, someone like me, were allowed to sit on the board of directors of these companies? Think about it. If you were running a business wouldn’t you want to hear from the people who know your business best? Knowledge is power, but only if one knows how to use it properly. This is why we launched the Someone Like Me campaign. There are currently 12 members on Hyatt Hotels’ Board of Directors, from companies like Walmart, Goldman Sachs, and plenty of private equity. But not one member of the Board works in a hotel. I am calling on Hyatt to add a 13th member to the Board of Directors, and reserve that seat for a hotel worker. If I were on Hyatt’s Board of Directors, I would ensure that all workers at Hyatt are paid a living wage, have safe working conditions, and the ability to speak out about those conditions without fear.

But this campaign isn’t just about Hyatt Hotels, or Walmart, or the big banks, it’s about all companies. The idea that a rank-and-file worker should have a seat on a corporate board may be a novel idea in the United States, but it is very common in the European Union. In some of the world’s best known companies such as BMW, workers have a seat at the table.

When Youngblood first told me about this idea, it was like a bolt of lightning to me. I’m far from a labor expert and it sounded to me like something that should be obvious — in fact, it should be a requirement. I had no idea that this was commonplace in large European companies. And somehow they’ve managed to survive while mingling with the riff-raff.

She is going to try to get into the next Hyatt shareholder meeting in June. The last time she tried, they barred her from the room (and she’s a shareholder!) But she’s going to keep trying until she gets in there and can officially make the proposal to the other shareholders. And we’ll be watching.

Meanwhile, Penny Pritzker is presumable going to have some confirmation hearings. Maybe we could get one of our allies in the Senate to ask her about whether or not she would support this. A commerce secretary in an allegedly liberal, union backed, Democratic administration will certainly be in favor. Right?

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Oh goodie, the poor can’t be helped so now we can fuggedaboudit

by digby

TNR’s Jonathan Cohn reports on a new study about Medicaid which concludes that it rather dramatically improves both the financial security and mental health of those it covers. Unfortunately, the right wing has seized upon the result showing that having Medicaid coverage did not show significant physical health in the first two years (so might as well throw in the towel.) This is what the report concluded:

This randomized, controlled study showed that Medicaid coverage generated no significant improvements in measured physical health outcomes in the first 2 years, but it did increase use of health care services, raise rates of diabetes detection and management, lower rates of depression, and reduce financial strain.

So naturally, the whole damned thing is a waste of money:

There is no way to spin these results as anything but a rebuke to those who are pushing states to expand Medicaid. The Obama administration has been trying to convince states to throw more than a trillion additional taxpayer dollars at Medicaid by participating in the expansion, when the best-designed research available cannot find any evidence that it improves the physical health of enrollees. The OHIE even studied the most vulnerable part of the Medicaid-expansion population – those below 100 percent of the federal poverty level – yet still found no improvements in physical health.

Yeah! Nothing we can do folks! These people are just going to die. In fact, if we really want to save money we could put the poor animals out of their misery and save the cost of those inevitable hospitalizations when these diseases go completely untreated.

Cohn lays out all the reasons why this report actually proves we should expand Medicaid, and he wonders why conservatives and libertarians are so eager to dismiss it. I’ll tell him why: conservatives think these poor people are lazy and deserve what they get and the libertarians just don’t care about them at all. That’s all there is to it. After all, it’s not as if any of them have any answers. They simply assume that there will always be lots of poor, sick people around for whom they have no responsibility. For conservatives the only question for society is how to punish them for their lack of initiative and for libertarians they’re simply of no concern at all. Either way, the end result is that nobody should have to give up even one nickel to help pay for the poor — and if something happens and you find yourself among them, you’re on your own.

These people believe that’s just the way life is. The only way to get decent medical care and fully protect yourself from financial calamity is to get rich. Really rich. It’s the catch-all answer for everything that ails you. Anyone who doesn’t has only herself to blame.

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A tale of two Armaggedons

by David Atkins

Welcome to America, land of enough delusional end times nuts that it actually affects public policy:

The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date.

Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change.

“[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly.

The study, based on data from the 2007 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, uncovered that belief in the “Second Coming” of Jesus reduced the probability of strongly supporting government action on climate change by 12 percent when controlling for a number of demographic and cultural factors. When the effects of party affiliation, political ideology, and media distrust were removed from the analysis, the belief in the “Second Coming” increased this effect by almost 20 percent.

“[I]t stands to reason that most nonbelievers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised,” Barker and Bearce explained.

There are enough places in the country where enough people believe this garbage that action on climate change will be stopped by any one of: a House Republican majority; or 40 fossil fuel loving Senators; or a conservative president. Changing the minds of these people will be impossible. We have to kill the filibuster and take back the House, or watch the planet go down in flames because of a bunch of morons who believe that God will putting the world to the sword anyway.

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Blind partisanship

by digby

The latest New York Times poll analysis says that the country largely agrees on what to do about guns and immigration but they retreat to their political corners when asked what should be done. And they quote some people from their poll to show just how blindly partisan we Americans all are:

Here are the Republicans:

“I’m for stricter gun laws, but the reason I favor the Republicans over the Democrats and the liberals on gun laws is because they have always been against the Second Amendment and the right to own guns,” said Jim Hensley, 69, a Republican from Grandville, Mich., in an interview after the poll was conducted.

“Yes, I believe the Republicans should have voted for background checks, and they should not legalize automatic weapons,” Mr. Hensley added. “I was against the repeal of the ban on automatic weapons, and I don’t support the N.R.A. But it’s like marriage. You stick with your wife no matter what, and you don’t just ditch your political party on one issue.”

Rick Buckman, 52, a Republican and an electrical engineer from Dallas, Pa., said that while he supported stricter gun legislation, he did not necessarily approve of the president’s approach.

“I was really ticked off that the law didn’t pass,” Mr. Buckman said. “But I thought it was wrong of President Obama to get in front of the public and use people who had been damaged by gun violence as props.”

They quoted one Independent:

“Stricter gun laws might help with some of the out of control people who randomly go around shooting others or killing themselves,” said Debby Warnock, 44, an independent from Pueblo West, Colo., who is unemployed. “I do favor background checks, though some of the people who have killed others had clean backgrounds.”

She added: “I personally don’t care whether Republicans or Democrats make the decisions as long as it’s in the best interest of our country.”

And they quoted one Democrat:

Mike Brady, 68, a Democrat and semiretired lawyer in Farmington Hills, Mich., viewed the Republicans’ opposition to the gun control legislation as self-serving. “Well, Obama’s trying his best to do the obvious right thing for the country, but he’s been roadblocked extensively for political reasons by people who even among themselves would take a different position,” he said. “So it’s cynical, unprincipled obstructionism.”

Is everyone there being blindly partisan? Really?

The Independent says that she favors gun legislation and doesn’t care whether Republicans or Democrats do it.

The Democrat supports legislation and points out that Republicans support them too but says, reasonably, that they opposed the legislation for political purposes.

The two Republicans support background checks but support the GOP anyway out of tribal loyalty or because President Obama gave a speech after the vote with the Newtown families present.

Therefore, they all agree that the gun legislation should have passed. But it’s only the Republicans
who are supporting their political leaders even though they didn’t do what they wanted them to do. This simply does not demonstrate than “everyone” has retreated into their partisan corners at all. It demonstrates that Republicans have retreated into their partisan corner. Period.

If you read through the rest of the poll on immigration and deficit reduction, the pattern is just as clear. Is it any wonder that Republicans in congress behave as they do? It’s a very simple political calculation for them: all that matters to their voters is that they oppose the Democrats. And although you can’t extrapolate this from that poll alone, my life observing Republicans tells me that there’s a simple reason for it: they are motivated by their loathing of liberals, not their belief in conservatism. I don’t think there’s much more to it than that.

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