a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It depicts the plight of the French proletariat under the brutal oppression of the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution
The share of total income going to the top-earning 1 percent of Americans went from 8 percent in 1980 to 16 percent in 2004.
...
One reason: gains in the stock market. Affluent people own more stocks, and executives are often paid in stock or stock options. So when the market does well, their wealth accelerates quickly
Well, Bill Moyers is currently telling the historic Story about the Need for "Two Banking Systems" ...
NATIONALIZE: Experts agree on the means -- Insolvent banks that are too big to fail must incur a temporary FDIC intervention - no more blank check taxpayer handouts. (see Krugman on nationalization)
REORGANIZE: Current CEOs and board members must be removed and bonuses wiped out. The financial elite must share in the cost of what they have caused. (see Simon Johnson on reorganizing)
DECENTRALIZE: Banks must be broken up and sold back to the private market with new antitrust rules in place-- new banks, managed by new people. Any bank that's "too big to fail" means that it's too big for a free market to function. (see Mike Lux on decentralization)
The sponsors are names all of us recognize and love as former Edwards supporters and we have a lot to thank Joe Trippi for as he started the grassroots organizing that led to Dean 2.0 which whether some Obama supporters like it or not, is a big reason he won. Also I like William Greider from the Nation.
I think we'll all be learning a lot about the obscure and complex Securitization Markets, over the next year -- at least those of us wanting answers. Ben Bernanke, Alice Rivlin, Paul Krugman, are identifying this little known "investment vehicle" as a major cause of Banking Credit Crunch now.
So what's the problem with Securitization Markets?
Buying Bonds Into Supply By David Gaffen, blogs.wsj.com -- Feb 10, 2009
( On the other hand, securitization markets are basically dead, with just $4.6 billion sold in the asset- and mortgage-backed markets. )
A lot of dismayed progressives and liberals are lamenting president-elect Obama's choices for his impending administration, which include Rahm Emanuel and Jane Harman. That he has moved so quickly to stack it with right-wing insiders bodes ill for the hopes his followers placed in him, for they suggest that the tiny window of opportunity progressives have to influence policy is even smaller than we thought, and closing more rapidly than is warranted. We haven't got until January to line up outside Obama's Oval Office; we don't even have until December.
That is why it is imperative that progressives succeed in storming the proverbial gates to make sure he listens to the people who actually elected him president and handed him a sizable majority in Congress. David Sirota, Paul Krugman, and Al Gore, among others, have all chimed in with this common theme: do not let timidity and the politics of caution thwart badly needed progressive policies. Americans gave Democrats a mandate to govern from the left, albeit an undeserved one. If they let the public down by replaying the worst failures of the Clinton and Carter years, I shudder to think what shall happen after.
November5.org was formed with the help of genuine progressive Ralph Nader, who had sense enough to lay the groundwork for citizen action after the election to pressure Obama and the Democrats to use the mandate given them to implement progressive policies. This is but one tool of many we on the actual left can and should use to shape things to come.
If you visit my own blog site you'll notice the content on the left side of the page. I've put up links to news sources, both mainstream and alternative, as well as links to the Congressional Web Sites. I or one of the other administrators there will be putting up more, so as to provide you with the information you need to take action. Progressive Independence was created to organize the left into a cohesive unit, and last week's elections are not a signal to grow complacent. We have tools; now let us use them - and quickly, before it's too late.
Paul Krugman, the winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Economics, penned an article a few months ago: "Know-Nothing Politics".
the debate on energy policy has helped me find the words for something I've been thinking about for a while. Republicans, once hailed as the "party of ideas," have become the party of stupid.
For Krugman, the Republican embrace and promotion of Drillusion exemplified how "know-nothingism" had become revered within the Republican Party. "The party's de facto slogan has become: "Real men don't think things through."" ANd, "In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump."
In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country's problems. It's not going to happen - not as long as one of America's two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.
(Fantastic news about a great progressive writer! - promoted by Laura Serena)
For the last half dozen or so years, I have had the pleasure of reading Krugman's insightful columns in the New York Times and two of his books. For me, it was worth paying for an online subscription to NYT.com just to be able to read Krugman's columns, which have been a model of clarity, a great defender of Middle Class vitality, and a tremendous antidote to the Republicans' trickle down nonsense and voodoo economics.
Krugman's book The Conscience of a Liberal gives a stirring defense of the route to preserve strong democratic values and a shared prosperity.
Go Figure, The Ladies at "The View" do the job of journalists w/ video
John McCain was on The View today and it was an awful roasting. He was pinned up and down the couch.
Barbara Walters in particular, who tends to stand down on these occasions really went after the old man. She really tried to pin him on picking such a right wing nut for the VP. She specifically confronts him about what qualifies her as a reformer. Notably they tell him that she did give out earmarks and McCain LIES and says she never did so as a governor. Joy outright calls his ads about "lipstick" and comprehensive sex education for kindergartners "LIES"
First we get this from reporter Jonathan Weisman of The Washington Post in his piece "As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They're Undone" http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said the campaign is entering a stage in which skirmishes over the facts are less important than the dominant themes that are forming voters' opinions of the candidates. "The more the New York Times and The Washington Post go after Sarah Palin, the better off she is, because there's a bigger truth out there and the bigger truths are she's new, she's popular in Alaska and she is an insurgent," Feehery said. "As long as those are out there, these little facts don't really matter."
(The August Book Review... :D - promoted by poligirl)
It's Down the Rabbit Hole Month here at the Admiral's Book Post, due to a plethora of culture shocks, non sequiturs, odd characters, surrealisms and just plain nonsense. Hope you are the same.
I've had too few political books in my posts lately, so I went out of my way to include Paul Krugman's Conscience of a Liberal, probably the most sensible, down to earth work in this month's series. But a lot of the others, like Cather and Mann, have essential political components...
