This is just awesome. For a fraction of the cost of standard drilling, some clever lads put together a human-powered drill that can bring fresh water to villages. Four people can drill as deep as 250 feet in a few days and do the work of bringing life to their neighbors. Let this inspire you.
Goldman Sachs hates you. Now that the BSkyB takeover is dead, thanks to revelations that Rupert Murdoch’s employees were the private-sector equivalents to the KGB, all the big brokerages that took up huge positions on BSkyB stock in anticipation of that merger are left holding a very expensive bag.
They thought the BSkyB stock would go up, but it is not going to do that anymore. They will take big losses on their positions unless something else happens to get that stock back up. Goldman Sachs just issued a strong “buy” recommendation to its clients in a naked attempt to prop up its bottom line by selling its stock to bigger fools than they. That’s why Goldman Sachs hates you.
The bigger picture is that lots of former GS executives are all over the financial side of the US Government, and they carry that hate with them. Given a choice between ruining 90-95% of Americans or letting the 1% that have been pillaging take a loss, the GS crowd and its cronies will take the first option, every time.
It’s simple to figure this out. The Democrats are making deep concessions. The Republican leadership is working to find a way, but hasn’t made concessions as deep as the Democrats have offered. The Tea Party crowd is refusing to make any kind of deal at all. If August 3 shows up and the USG can’t mail out checks that day, blame the Tea Party.
Yes, I want fiscal responsibility in my government. Now is not the time to rip the entitlements completely apart. Tea Party talking heads say that raising taxes in a recession is a Bad Thing for the economy. This is true. But removing government spending is a Catastrophic Thing. We’re not ready for that level of drastic measure. If the Tea Party is serious about fiscal reform, they’ll have to do it gradually and make concessions.
Cutting government spending all at once would remove a bigger chunk of GDP than raising taxes by the amounts suggested. To keep the economy going the way the bankers would like, the Treasury and Fed will have to do QE3 in a highly flagrant way. The Tea Partiers break out in a rash when they hear “inflation”, but that’s what they’ll have if spending is cut. If they somehow got their wish and kept the money supply where it is, we’d have a complete crash, thanks to a liquidity collapse.
It’s basic economics, but ideology blinds the Tea Party the same way it blinded the Communist Part of China when it started the Great Leap Forward. Ideology ruined a nation before, and it can ruin one again. When the US defaults, I’ll blame the blind ideologues in the Tea Party.
Native American wisdom for anyone that cares to hear it.
Czech Dream is a compelling documentary that asks some penetrating questions about the power and pervasiveness of advertising. Although the filmmakers lied about the new hypermart, the ending showing the ads for a fake market coming down to be replaced with ads for cigarettes and credit cards made me ask which ads were really more damaging.
Apple makes the iPod, right? Sure they do, but where? Try overseas. Apple employs 27,250 overseas employees at an average salary of $11,743. Sure, the company is making great profits, but that’s because it’s both exploiting overseas labor and refusing to give jobs to Americans. Most of its US jobs are low-paying, to be fair. No, wait, that’s unfair!
7789 of Apple’s US jobs pay an average of $28,244, about 2.5 times what the Chinese and Filipinos are paid, but still hardly anything relative to what it costs to live here. And before someone brings up the “it’s cheaper to live in Asia” argument, there’s a reason why it’s cheaper there: they don’t have access to lots of things that are necessary for getting around in the USA. They still face massively more expensive food prices, crowded living conditions, and poor access to health care – kind of like the poor in the USA, but without cars.
6101 professionals and engineers working for Apple’s iPod division made an average of $86,051. They can afford the stuff the rest of the workers made. This is a pattern common across US-based firms and firms that were formerly based in the US, but which moved their HQs to Switzerland to avoid paying taxes to support the nation that gave them their start.
While my own salary is just above the nation’s per capita income, I don’t earn enough for my household of 5 to have a total income equal to that per capita number times 5. I don’t have health care, it’s kinda crowded in this house, and food and fuel are part of my inflationary worries, even if the USG doesn’t want me to think about them. I’m not part of the world of the Apple engineers and the rest of the iPod users. I’m constantly asked to “do more with less”, which is a codephrase for “you’re going to be exploited more.” The whole world has to do more with less so that those who have more can get more still.
You need to see this. The proposed cuts for 2012 are very, very small indeed. Neither the Republocrats nor the Demicans are serious about trimming the deficit. Both talk about the need for either more taxes and/or more cuts, but neither is willing to go to the extent necessary to keep the wolf from the door.
Have a nice 4th, everyone. I mean that. We still live in a nation where we can holler about things we don’t like, and that’s a precious thing indeed. Governments are idiots everywhere: at least our idiots have to put up with people complaining about them.
Insurance companies take global climate change VERY seriously, since they have to pay out big time as the world climate zones become more extreme. Nobody in the insurance industry is talking like petroleum industry people, casting aspersions on the science. The insurance people take it as gospel because it’s hitting them in the back pocket with a vengeance.
Of course, the petroleum industry would take a hit on profits if it had to clean things up, so it’s obvious to see how they’ve denied all the way. Their lobbyists spend about $147 million a year in getting Congressmen to try and see it their way. The insurance team drops $157 million a year, though, so it’ll be interesting to see if they press to get the USA more green. To be sure, they’re split between reducing carbon emissions and destroying affordable health care, so it’ll be interesting to see what comes of that. Still, they’re 100% behind the conclusion that the world is experiencing climate change and that those changes are a result of human activity.
Hoo-boy. CBS News interviewed Michele Bachmann and she brought plenty of rope, as the saying goes. Bob Schieffer asked her about her Politifact record, which rates her as someone who lies by omission or commission in some very big ways. Yet, she’s out in front among some Republicans.
I’m listening to the interview and Ms. Bachmann definitely comes across as someone that builds castles in the air and then starts cleaning them. She thinks just paying interest on the debt will keep the US government from defaulting, so we don’t need to raise the debt limit. Actually, not paying things like salaries or social security benefits constitutes a default. We can’t just pay the interest. We have to pay everything mandated by law to avoid going into default. She also seems unaware of what “ratings agencies will downgrade US debt if it fails to increase the debt ceiling” means. Short version: It’s BAD. Yes, we need to run up more debt in the short run. If we don’t, then there goes the economy.
Cut spending… she’s going to cut spending… Oh good. That’s exactly what an economy needs with massive unemployment. Her solution: create jobs by turning the whole USA into Ciudad Juarez. The mantra about cutting taxes and removing regulation points down the road to where Ciudad Juarez is today. She’s ready to rip up the minimum wage, which could certainly wipe out unemployment as we pay folks a nickel a day to assemble circuit boards in polluted factories, 14 hours a day. Never mind Ciudad Juarez’ massive murder rate: without that, Juarez is still a hellhole created by an unfettered modern market.
Yes, we need to cut waste and fix things. No question there about that part of Bachmann’s message. The rest of what she’s saying contains elements I consider completely irresponsible and insane. She avoids straight answers when they involve truths that undercut her demagoguery. The fact that someone like this is actually out in front in the GOP pack goes to show just how far gone the bankruptcy in ideas is in that group. Never mind Hollywood being unable to come up with decent movies: we can’t come up with decent leadership.
Interested? Well, it’s quite a clever idea. Change the way inflation is calculated. With that fudge, the US government can make inflation look like it’s increasing less rapidly and, therefore, can slow down the cost of living increases in its payments. Sure, it’s a scam, but it’s a scam that saves the USG $220 billion dollars through a soft default on its promises, so it’s a good scam, right? Look for more great scams like this in the days to come!
