Oh no, AIG again!

AIG, the Wall Street god that failed, gave bonuses to their top execs. Once the government took over this failed firm, these bonuses were supposed to be returned. Didn't happen. Are you surprised?

AIG and the rest of Wall St. makes out like bandits, the health care insurance industry makes out like bandits, the war industry execs make out like bandits, hospitals make out like bandits, the Karzai government makes out like bandits, doctors make out like bandits, the Maliki government in Iraq makes out like bandits—and a lot of this banditry is done on the taxpayer's dime! And the only folks not fiddlin' while Rome burns are the poor workin’ stiffs who pay all these corrupts fraudsters. Is this a system?

Health Care Reform?

Chuck the damn senate bill. Go to reconciliation and pass the "Medicare-for-all” bill--since this is a money bill to support a program already in existence (Medicare) ,only a simple majority of Senators is needed. This would give us cheaper and better medical care compared to the competing brands.

Otherwise we're just throwing an additional 300-400 million a year to the insurance companies.

Obama says he needs it and it's good for the country., So, why did he have his backroom deals with the insurance giants and the pharma kings? These deals make health care more expensive and give the people who need it less than they need.

Paul Samuelson --from Eco 101 to mathematical predicting free market guru

RIP Dr. Samuelson. Me, I don't know about Dr. Samuelson and the wonders he brought about. He was more of an ideologue of the self-correcting free-market persuasion. His reduction of economics as a set of mathematic equations that supposedly eliminated risk for investors led us astray. People claim he was a Keynesian but this was hardly the case when it came to predicting the ups and downs of the stock market. Keynes said of the future: "we simply do not know,” (General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) . Samuelson argued that one could predict the behavior of markets. When Samuelson's student, Robert C. Merton, got the Nobel prize in economics for his mathematical insights and applied them to Long Term Capital Management hedge fund, the firm collapsed and caused the Fed to bail them out.

As the Times obit puts it:

"Late in his career, Mr. Samuelson laid out the mathematics of stock price movements, an analysis that became the basis for Nobel Prize-winning research by his student Mr. Merton and Myron S. Scholes. They designed formulas that Wall Street analysts use to trade options and other complicated securities known as derivatives."

We now know these mathematical formulas used to promote derivatives led to the recent collapse of Wall Street.

Keynes wrote on the impossibility of predicting the future when it comes to markets. His famous quote was: We simply do not know! Samuelson, on the contrary used mathematical equations to predict and he, along with Greenspan and many other free market economists, was proven wrong!

Do we need Goldman-Sachs, et. al.?

We don't need these banksters. All they do is create too-good-to-be-true investment packages that always end up as a bubble and implode! These gambling casino gurus and their Nobel mathematical wizard friends are having a high time figuring out how to defraud the rest of us. And the sad part is that they usually succeed. Even sadder, with our industrial base now gone, these fraudsters are the only economic game in town.

On Obama getting the Nobel Peace prize

Could it possibly be the “just war” Obama is proclaiming is just a war to get at the oil and gas supplies of the Middle East?

Mission impossible in the Afghan highlands

The US is supposedly going to train the Afghan army. Many obstacles are in the way.

The Afghan army is primarily Tajiks and other Northern Alliance tribes. We supported the NA in overthrowing the Taliban--(Taliban are mainly Pushton.) The Warlords from the NA now run the corrupt Karzai government--Karzai being merely a puppet of them and the US.

Pushtuns are the largest grouping in Afghanistan--43 % of population. They have been marginalized as a result of the US occupation. This is what the fighting is all about. Pashtuns need a piece of the action. Until then, chaos.

Then there is the question of the pipeline!

TAPI--the Afghanistan gas pipeline, That's why we're there. And yet it's never mentioned.

(Google Afghanistan Pipeline --615,000 hits!)

Why are we in Afghanistan ? Or, is there a pony to be found in the dung at the Augean stables?

The usual reasons given (this is the dung part):
1. They'll get us here if we don't get them there.
2. 9/11
3. support democracy, women's rights.
4. \"they tried to kill my father..” whoops, that was George Bush on why he invaded Iraq.
OK, let's look into the top 4 reasons…

“They" can get us from anywhere in the world. However, the 9/11'ers prepared in Dresden and the US. Do we need to invade and occupy many countries before we begin to feel secure? (Let's face it, many Americans will never feel entirely secure: gated communities, yachts, etc. and assorted high living for some has given our rich ruling class the jitters—for them and others, it’s terror on all the channels, 24/7.

And then there's 9/11: They (the Muslims, the Osama-ites, the terrorists, the Saddamists) blew up the WTC and we need to wreck revenge. Forever? Everywhere?

Women's rights, democracy. They say, women's rights; I say, (and here’s the pony!) oil and gas. They say democracy, ; I say world rule. (our imperialists are always cloaking their aims in high-falutin terms!)

And then there’s “They tried to kill my father...”This is George Bush, I and II rubbish.

Let's cut to the chase... we're there because of the energy supplies that are there and the pipelines that bring these goodies to the USA.


"President Obama (as did George Bush,) says 9/11, I say, oil and gas.”

If it weren't for the oil and gas, we would have been out of Iraq and Afghanistan a long time ago

5 car bombings in Baghdad today--hundreds killed.

This is what happens when you set one group--the Shia-- against the other --the Sunni.

Oddly enough, we did the same thing in Afghanistan where we paid the Tajiks/Northern Alliance to battle the Taliban/Pashtun. And ever since CIA agents went to Afghanistan on horseback with saddlebags filled with dollars, paying/bribing became the way to go.

It would have been sensible to stay out of both countries but there's nothing like oil and gas to whet the Empire's appetite.

Obama says he will finish the job in Afghaniistan

The job was a fool's errand to begin with. To wit: to declare total war on a country that ,at worst, housed Osama Bin Laden, much in the way this country housed Tim McVeigh or Britain housed the ShoeBomber. The Bush/Cheney team used the sledgehammer instead of the scalpel to deal with the problem. 8 years later we still soldier on.

Our latest scheme: buy an army to oppose Taliban. Sounds like another hare-brained US Military strategy that we keep on trying in our so-called counter-insurgency plans. Pit one tribe against the other-- Taliban vs. Soviets, Sunnis vs. Shia, Pashtun vs. Tajiks, Ho Chi Minh's Buddhists vs. CIA's Roman Catholics. All of these half-baked plans, sooner or later, come back to haunt us.

Sending in the 40,000 troops that General McChrystal wants, and train more Afghanistan troops and establish a brigade to fight the Taliban is another dead-end. The Afghanis think we’re infidels and occupiers and, as a result, don’t trust us. And isn’t it equally clear that as a result of the Ft. Hood massacre, American troops simply don’t trust the Afghanis? How are we then going to partner with them and train more troops?

The Taliban are the government we overthrew. Basically they represent the largest tribal group in Afghanistan , the Pashtuns at 42% of the population. Fighting these folks will take a long, long time, plus, according to many experts, they are interested in Afghanistan, not in blowing up buildings in the US. Moreover, Al Qaeda, at less than 100 members, are a spent force.

Then there’s the cost issue. Rule of thumb--each thousand troops sent abroad costs $1 billion. So, 40,000 troops , 40 billion per year. Add this to the troops and contractors already in Afghanistan. Comes to over 100 billion a year. This money is to be paid by adding additional debt to our huge deficit, then having the Treasury department print the money and then having the Chinese loan us the money.

Our taxes do pay for the annual $1 trillion military budget (army, navy, air force, coast guard , 1000 overseas military bases, CIA black box operations, Veterans Affairs hospitals, etc.) It all adds up.

And what we get for all our investment in Afghanistan is a lot of deaths, heartaches and corrupt puppet rulers. Pulling out would be a big plus for us--we might lose our influence over the gas and oil pipelines in the region--but we'd be a richer nation for it.

Late stage financial-centric capitalism will destroy itself!

There's hope ! Free-market financial capitalism will go down the tubes. A Wall Street that makes nothing is heading towards oblivion, dragging its' political stooges along with it. Thus went Spain, England and the Dutch. As the great Milton said, "Tomorrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. "

Right now the US is running a corrupt, narco-state called Afghanistan. Why?

Right now the US is running a corrupt, narco-state called Afghanistan. Why?

Pipelines. No one mentions the P-word. Energy pipelines, that's why we're there. Friend Karzai once worked as a consultant for the oil giant firm, Unocal. Current government installed by the CIA. Remember, the CIA was sending guys around on horseback with wads of bills in their saddle packs --paying vast sums to the anti-Taliban (And anti -Pushton) Northern Alliance. We provided air support to the NA troops in their fight to defeat the Taliban. The NA won and a lot of corrupt/narco Tajik war lords were put in power. Still there.

A giant pipeline is planned for Afghanistan--one that will bring middle east gas/oil to the west (and avoid, Russia and Iran). That's the holy grail for the US. That's why we are in Afghanistan and that's why Karzai is our man in Kabul. Almost makes you want to stop driving!

Today's news (10/25/09) from Iraq : Iraq Ministries Targeted in Car Bombings; Over 130 Dead

I read the news today, oh boy!...

When Iraq's Saddam started to sell oil for Euros (and not dollars)-- this was considered a big threat to the oil companies, Wall Street and the Pentagon. BushCo used the Shiites to defeat the Sunnis and Saddam. The fight goes on. We stirred up a hornet's nest when we invaded OilCountry. Time to get out and let the chips fall where they may.

Wall Street makes their fortune by flipping papers

Do we have a real economy in the US? Is there hope for good jobs at decent wages? What's the deal?

China is the deal--it's the new, "New Deal." Sadly, the US economy is going down tubes--it turns out you really can't make a living from flipping houses and buying/selling credit default swaps. And manufacturing is not in the cards. Manufacture what? Green technology? China does it better, cheaper. Autos--see Japan. The stuff Wal-Mart sells--China. Besides, manufacturing something is a lot of work, what with plants, workers, products. Which leads us to the biggest sector in the US economy-Finances. No plant, no workers, and no products that can be bought in a store.

Harvard and Yale now have a majority of business majors--these potential greedsters/fraudsters invariably go to Wall Street, seeking their fortunes and bonuses as hedge fund people, commodity speculators, bubble creators, etc. In other words, our best are brightest are creating SHIT! Try living on that!

Bono wants Obama to help the world. (the anti-Bush)

What to solve the world's problems? Pass "Go" and don't stop at America. Empires create more problems than they can solve. The Brits did in India, Ireland, the middle east and a lot of other good places. Bono should know this. America did in the natives, the slaves, Vietnam, the middle east, Cuba, the Philippines, and this list goes on. The Dutch did in everyone on their spice route-. The Spanish did in Latin America--ditto the the Portuguese. Bono, give the world a break, stay smart, stay home!

Obama's Nobel

"I was dismayed when I heard Barack Obama was given the Nobel peace prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on two wars would be given a peace prize. Until I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel peace prizes. The Nobel committee is famous for its superficial estimates, won over by rhetoric and by empty gestures, and ignoring blatant violations of world peace." --Howard Zinn


I'm with Zinn; he's rarely wrong when it comes to our imperial empire and the destructiveness it entails.

The best that can be said for Obama's getting the Nobel peace prize, yes, named after the guy who invented TNT and made a fortune from it, is, that it's a strategic move-- it will inspire Obama to think peace. But he has a heavy load on his plate, the empire comes with a lot of baggage: fighting resource wars in the middle east and elsewhere, keeping the Chinese, Russians and Muslims at bay, supporting Israel and its nuclear arsenal and attacking Iran for trying to achieve the same. And on and on. Empire ,it turns out , isn't easy, the Pentagon and Wall Street are voracious and Nobel must be laughing in his grave, the bomb man, who passes his baton to Obama , the empire man.

What are we fighting for in Afghanistan?

Why are gas and oil never mentioned in the talks over what to do in Afghanistan?

Outside of us being in Afghanistan as an energy pipeline protection force, I do not see the purpose of our being there. 8 years ago it was to find Osama bin laden, still no luck, and he is probably in Pakistan and the guys who rammed the planes into the WTC trained in Dresden ,Germany as well as the USA. Then there is the argument that we got to get them there or else they'll come here and create havoc. But people can prepare to attack the US from anywhere in the world-- Af/Pak, Dresden, New York or ???.

What was needed in Afghanistan was police/spy work; not invasion. Our military overthrew the Taliban-- the mainly Pushtun group, and Afghanistan's largest minority (43%), and put the smaller minority Tajiks in power. Guess what? The uproar continues .

Solution-get out now as our being there only causes more friction and let the Pushtuns and the Tajiks work it out.

Unless, of course, we're there as a energy pipeline protection force. Even so, this is a bad neighborhood for us to be in. China and Russia want their energy routes in this part of the world and we want ours. India and Pakistan are killer enemies and we are foolish to step in the middle of it. So, if oil and gas is your game, then fight it out in this tough arena and the hell with the toll in deaths and revenue--if not, get the hell out.


Short, to the point, Chomsky Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqX4Jg3DrzY

Escobar article: Pipelineistan's Ultimate Opera
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175121/pepe_escobar_pipelineistan

Charters and its discontents

“Disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools” argues the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof in a recent op-ed entitled, “Democrats and Schools.” Teacher Unions and the impossible-to-get-rid-of-bad teachers are the villains and charter schools are the good guys. But let’s wait a minute before we clean out the Augean stables.

In a recent Boston Globe story, it was reported that half of Boston’s Charter school high school students fail to graduate, and, according the Kathleen McCartney, Dean \of the Harvard Graduate School of Education , this is same as the public school rate for urban high schools . Moreover, we have the recent Stanford University study reporting that charter schools do not outperform public schools. This part is really odd, given that the charters cherry-pick their students and teachers. It seems that the "whiz kids" who teach in the charters are no better at their task than the "unionized dinosaurs" in the public schools.

Yet, charters have their fans as well as many parent advocates. Since it is not about academics, it must be about atmospherics. As parent-involvement is a must at the charters, a well-behaved student body will be evident (as any unruly are sent back to the public schools). With the charter movement, we seem to be on the road to a two-track public school system—raucous, underfunded publics and the well-mannered charters. And this just might be the beginning of the dismantling and privatizing of the public schools. And we will still be left with disadvantaged youths.

The G-20 plans; God laughs

The G-20 plans; God laughs. Let's face it folks, the previous ruler of the world (er, that's the US) is mired in the financial sector (20% of GDP, 40% of corporate profits). Paper flipping is what our best and brightest do--from Harvard to Wall Street they make the easy buck--powered by greed,fraud and the promise of vast riches. Our 1% of the population does very well, thank you;the rest languish and we only await the rising star in the East--China, a command economy, manufacturing rich is the the new world ruler. Hasta la Vista, Wall Street!

What's good for Goldman-Sachs is not good for America.

Want to save America fast? Repeat 100x: What's good for Goldman Sachs is not good for America.
The Citibank oil speculator who is getting a 100 million dollar bonus is not good for America.
The people who live large on Wall Street and make their money flipping papers are not good for America.
The money that bankers give to buy politicians is not good for America.
Obama's largest single contributor to his last campaign was Goldman Sachs. Not good for America.
The financial sector rules this land of ours. They are 20+% of GDP; over 40% of corporate profits. Our government backs them up when they fail--this allows them to gamble recklessly. This is not a sensible or even a sustainable policy.

Out of AF/Pak

The majority of Americans may well be for getting out of Afghanistan but as long as there are oil and gas routes in that bombed out place, we'll be there.

Who made this mess? Not you and I gentle reader. Energy companies, the Pentagon , Wall Street, Big Media--these, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are stuck in the AF/PAK rut and don't mind bringing the rest of us down with them.

Raises the question, doesn't it: Is what's good for Enron, good for America ?

Health Care reform scuttled

Hillary, Obama, Baucus, Joe the Heckler--are not the issue or the problem. The health care industry is the problem--they like their business model fine-- insure who they want--the healthy--and deny coverage to all others. They also pay top-dollar to make sure our politicians see things their way. Can the media be far behind?

The Obama "health reform" will deliver 30-50 million uninsured to the private health care industry. The government will subsidize these folks. The money to pay for all this will come out of the hide of Medicare patients--their services and payments will be reduced.

Result--insurers rake in more billions and the government foots the bill. Big, socialized government is OK as long as it takes from the poor and gives to rich.

Dominoes--Obama says, Kill them in Afghanistan or they'll come here and kill us.

Whenever I hear the word dominoes I look out my door to see if there are a bunch of Vietnamese set to come crashing through. I've be looking now for 50 years and haven't yet seen a Vietnamese invader.

(Ditto Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Cuba, ...)

Obama is a dominoes guy along with being a health-care industry guy, a rendition guy, a bail out Wall Street guy... These are not good ideas.

What a mess, neither of our political parties are up up any good. Time to move on!

Writing, teaching writing and reading

Do we need writing or even writers? Me, I think scribblers are going down the tubes. Students have always written atrociously--check years of bad writing scores on the NAEP.

If you must write, try the 5-paragraph all-American essay--the favorite of many high school English teachers. I liken it to a cheeseburger:

#1. Introduce what you are going to say. Example: The Boston Red Sox will never win a world series and list 3 sentences telling why: curse of the Babe, cheap management, inept players. (Akin to top bun of cheeseburger)

#2 Curse of the Babe paragraph—3-4 sentences what this means and so on. (The tomato part)

#3 Cheap management--spell this out in 3-4 sentences--the cheese part)

#4 Inept players--the ball-droppers, steroid-batters, sore-arm pitchers. 3-4 well honed sentences--the meat of the burger.

#5 Rehash, conclusion, summary and review- 5 sentences. "So, as you can see the Red Sox are a bunch of losers because of ....” The bottom bun of the burger.

There you have it! A winning essay, one that can be used in college and on the job. Keep the Red Sox as a topic or move on to the Chicago Cubs.

Depend on the Democrats?

Depend on the Democrats? Not a chance!


Why so harsh a pronouncement? Because, sorry to say, our politicians preach democracy but practice oligarchy.

Here are some sanity saving mantras for our times:


“There is one party of the rich in America—it has two branches: Dems and Republicans”

or, try, “Wall Street and the Pentagon run the show…”

or, “Money talks and BS walks…”

(“military -industrial complex,” the term that President Eisenhower used to describe who runs our country, now dated and not used anymore)

Julia Child, spy that she was, mastered the art of French cooking—but she needed help!

Charter Schools?

What’s with the push for Charter Schools? Parents and politicians love them—they tend to be quieter, well-disciplined places compared to public schools.

Why? Charters do one thing well-they create a space where learning can occur by controlling who they admit and tossing out those who don’t pass muster. In this way they’re like private schools and religious schools. The public schools must take all comers; the good, bad and the indifferent. OK, but are the Charters better? Do they produce better test results? Not really, if we look at the research literature.

Given the difficulties in comparing public schools (they take all comers and can’t kick out the “rotten apples” to charter schools (they pick who they want and toss out students who are not working out) it is imperative to look at the independent research (omitting both the pro charter research and the pro teacher union research) in this area:

On average, charter schools are not performing as well as their traditional public-school peers, according to a new study(2009) that is being called the first national assessment of these school-choice options. The study, conducted by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University, compared the reading and math state achievement test scores of students in charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia—amounting to 70 percent of U.S. charter school students—to those of their virtual "twins" in regular schools who shared with them certain characteristics. The research found that 37 percent of charter schools posted math gains that were significantly below what students would have seen if they had enrolled in local traditional public schools. And 46 percent of charter schools posted math gains that were statistically indistinguishable from the average growth among their traditional public-school companions. That means that only 17 percent of charter schools have growth in math scores that exceeds that of their traditional public-school equivalents by a significant amount.

In reading, charter students on average realized a growth that was less than their public-school counterparts but was not as statistically significant as differences in math achievement, researchers said.

Moreover, a (August, 2006) study by National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that charter school students performed worse than public school students in both the reading and math parts on the highly authoritative National Assessment of Education Progress test. Moreover, the US Department of Education in November 2004 notes that charter schools did poorly compared to public schools in 5 case studies.
People can quibble with all the studies to date but the notion that charter schools are superior to public school has not been “proven” by any means, in fact the opposite seems to be the case.

With the growth of the charters, we’re heading for a two-track public school system—the charters for the well-behaved and the public schools for the rest. Here’s an experiment that’s worth trying: take a so-called failing school, keep the existing teachers and principals but select the students who can enter. My bet is that this new school will be a model school in a year’s time.

The Charter school movement gives us all a certain amount of amnesia as to what the real problems is: We’re still left with a whole host of students –the so-called “dead wood’ of the public school system. These are the people who don't finish and get a high school diploma, in other words, drop -outs. Or they finish and they are barely literate ...or they finish and have outstanding behavior "issues". What’s the plan for them? Prison, Crime, Drugs or ???

Recently the New York Times had a front page story about a Bronx elementary school that decided to segregate their classes according to sex—boys and girls. This was an experiment to address sagging test scores and behavioral problems. To date, there is no evidence that the segregation by sex is improving matters. It brought back a personal memory of my own days teaching in a Bronx elementary school 50 years earlier.

When I taught in 50 years ago the issues were poverty, disruptive behavior, poverty and poverty --the class roster I started with in September was almost totally different when June rolled around. I don’t think much has changed in the interim.

You can separate the boys from the girls all you want, dress the kids in suits and ties and what not but as long as public schools in the Bronx must take in all comers and cannot easily toss someone out (as in Charters, religious schools, etc) you’re are going to have disruptive, crazy behavior problems which defeat school learning. And the crazy behavior comes from a crazy village with lousy housing, lousy or no jobs and overwhelmed and absent parents.

A good jobs program will do a 100 times more good than a good sex segregation program.

Who caused the Wall Street Meltdown?

While major pundits say the Wall Street meltdown was caused by everything and everyone ,I say...

There were 3 major villains in the Wall Street meltdown: mortgage companies, credit agencies and major banks.

Mortgage companies, such as Angelo Mozilo’s, Countrywide Financial Corp, were real bad news. CFC provided sub-prime mortgages for minorities and low-income people. These so-called NINJA loans (no income, no job, no assets)were given to anyone with a pulse. No problem, the mortgage companies got their money up front. When the housing bubble burst, the firm collapsed. Mozilo, however, was but one player in the recent Wall Street flame out: Dean Starkman at the Columbia Journalism Review makes the case that Countrywide, along with Ameriquest, Washington Mutual and Citigroup were running “boiler rooms” –(seemingly illegal enterprises) at the direction of Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, etc. The purpose of these boiler rooms was to bring in as many mortgages as they could, so, even people without jobs and no money, could get one.

These junk mortgages were then shoveled through the doors of the banks and insurers like AIG and the hydra-headed banker, Goldman-Sachs. Bankers prevailed, as Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times notes, upon the rating agencies (since the banks paid them) to label the junk as AAA securities. These “troubled assets” were then sliced and diced, securitized , leveraged 30x and sold around the world as if they were gold. The business was such a money machine that it was impossible to say no to it. When the housing bubble burst, people lost their life savings, and countries went down. Quite a price to pay for such outrageous greed, deception and alchemy.

Health Care, Jobs

Single payer, please--the rest is a ruse.

We also need a government jobs program as we have, so far, a jobless recovery--Goldman Sachs does well but the 20% of the working population that wants full time work--not so much.

Give them a job, President Obama. A government run jobs program—remember the WPA, the CCC, the Federal Writers Project, etc? Do that, Mr. President.

US meddles in Iran? Unheard of.

But here's what I heard: Our fools rush in because there's oil in dem thar Iranian hills. Truth is, we meddle everywhere--what with 1000 military bases the world over and a trillion a year to spend on military adventures.


So, we preach non-violence and women's rights but we practice overthrow and torture. We think we're good but there's evil in our hearts. Some say it's because we killed off the Indians and enslaved the blacks; we projected our evil onto everyone else and that's why we're such international villains. Me, I don't know--but crazy is what crazy does..

Michael Jackson

He sang, he danced; he was more popular than Jesus.

But something was amiss--his father beat him into becoming a great performer and MJ always resented this --he had to love this as well--without Joe , MJ would have been a human zero.

MJ became white , rich and zany. A lot of people have achieved this state, and you can't blame MJ for wanting what this society has to offer. .

MJ was played out by the time of his Thriller album and he faded into history--possible to be replaced by the star power of Sarah Palin...stay tuned.

Marines in Afghanistan???

Unless we're there to secure oil/gas pipelines and routes, I don't see the purpose. Besides, we're running out of steam... what with Wall Street's flame-out, military overreach and the bubble economy--we'll soon be heading to the 2nd tier pastures of former empires: Britain, Spain, the Dutch. So it goes.

Whatever you do, don't invade Iran!

Don't go there! Please, no invasion of Iran, no drones, no spies sent over to incite, no exploding cigars, no dirty tricks.

We got enough on our plate without meddling in other people's affairs.

Americans seem to get a charge about being the agent for freedom and democracy in the world. ("But not in my backyard")

Maybe it's because we feel guilty about killing off our indigenous population and bringing in 10 million slaves to do the heavy lifting or the wars that got us California, Cuba and the Philippines.

We were supposed to be a shining light, a city on the hill for all the world to admire our goodness, according to our early Puritan settlers. But, alas, we fell short.

So we tell the world how to act right: no nukes for Iran and North Korea ,yet nukes for Israel and India; free and fair elections for Iran , yet we don't respect the outcomes when Hamas wins in a free and fair election.

So, Americans, how about a new ethic: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone...

Our smoke and mirrors economy.

Ever since we gave up the ghost on manufacturing and relied on the financial sector our economy is nothing but bubbles and smoke and mirrors. Making things makes an economy;flipping papers does not.

Obama's Imperial Presidency

I thought it was just Bush--the guy with a reverse Midas touch--everything he touched turned to shit-- with his three failed businesses, Iraq, Katrina. Now Obama, --with his empire of bases, his battle carrier groups that patrol the 7 seas, the nuclear subs that are impregnable to a first strike nuclear attack, the trillion dollar a year military machine—Obama inherits his predecessor's wants (empire) and his means (attack anyone who stands in our way).

Bush and Obama agree? Why yes, they both work for the Wall Street/Pentagon complex. Our oligarchs and their enforcers, though, are short on money and their smoke and mirrors economy is not working. So like other once powerful empires (England, Spain, the Dutch) we recede.

GM bankrupt! --End of manufacturing= end of US empire

End of manufacturing= end of US empire. When the finance whizzes and bankers took over the economy they got addicted to making easy money by flipping papers and creating bubbles.

Sadly, these guys don't do manufacturing--it's too hard a buck. So we begin to sink into a weird world of credit default swaps, sub-prime mortgages and hedge funds. And not even (Larry Summers) can put our humpty-dumpty, old empire back together again.

Get used to it, boys, we're heading toward 2nd tierdom-hopefully we'll become a caring nation.

On the slimming of the Sotomayer Supreme Court pick

We don't need a supreme court, so eliminate it. Ditto the senate, house, and public education. Home school!
Our founders, actually wanted a monarchy but given that England was one, they decided to go with oligarchy instead.
Oh, America, when will you be worth your 1 million Trotskyites and your 10 million dead Indians?
The good news is we're now broke. Empires have a shelf life and ours is near its end. (see England, Spain, Holland...)
Actually Wall Street did us in. The financial whiz kids found a way to make an easy buck-selling junk as gold-and now they're hooked on their criminal ways. They don't want to work hard--as in making things. So they continue to flip papers and click on the mouse.
So down the tubes of history we go--of course the Pentagon helped--a trillion for war every year and the constant invasions, occupations, dronings..
Not to mention that we have a rich caste that refuses to pay taxes or even serve in the military, plus we have really awful leadership (see Rome)..
"Oh mama, can this really be the end...?"

Help Detriot, not Wall Street

Manufacturing (US cars) needs government help. The financial sector (Banks, etc) should fend for themselves--After all, in the years leading up to the meltdown they made fortunes--is there nothing left in their piggy banks so they can get on their feet again?

But, please, dear bankers, no more bubbles, no more easy money/creative financing scams where you take junk mortgages, slice and dice them and sell them as if they were gold.

Blindly our Christian Crusaders battle the Islamic Hordes while the Asians wait...

Bush and team created more than a "mess." Their unregulated free-market ideology shattered our economy and their frontier wild-west ways turned a crime into a war against Islam and created a system of gulags for people they thought did something wrong. So, no cheers for these guys and assorted other Americans who favor such policies. Perhaps a half of a cheer for Obama--a good cop to Bush's bad cop. Still nothing to write home about. America is the mess right now: blindly our Christian Crusaders battle the Islamic Hordes while the Asians wait...

Bush, Cheney et.al. to Gitmo!

We made a mistake when we declared a war on terrorism and arrested and tortured random Muslins taken in Afghanistan and God knows where else. Set them free–and in their place put the torture-memo lawyers and the Bush team honchos who waterboarded everyone with a beard to see if the knew about the non-existent relationship between Sadam Hussein and Al Queda.

Don't double-down on Af-Pak

What a mess! 20 or so Saudis destroyed the Twin Towers and the fight goes on and on. If 20 Italians blew up London Bridge what would be the correct response?--Yes, of course, find the culprits and bring them to justice-but no need to invade and occupy Italy. But, plainly, invasion and occupation of Muslim lands seems to be the plan de jure.

We have, now, a Christian vs. Islamic battle going on. We need to tack in another direction. Like, get out of there.

Obama says we got sidetracked by Iraq and now we're doing the real show--killings the locals (Pashtuns AKA Taliban) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's got to be a reason we're there-- yes, dampen down Islamic fervor but also we want the energy and it routes. This is Dick Cheney's wet dream--control energy supplies and energy routes...

President Obama’s stated rationale for sending more troops and providing additional aid to Pakistan/Afghanistan is that we're there to prevent Al Qaeda/Taliban from attacking the US. This rationale begins to wear thin after hearing it so many times over the years in regard to: Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, San Salvador etc.

Moreover, if we’re afraid of a terrorist attack on US soil from Pakistan/Afghanistan, we need to also consider possible attacks from any number of teetering-on–the-brink countries: Haiti, Somalia, Moldova, Mexico, etc. In this globalized age a Bin Laden’s can operate from anywhere and short of going to war with the entire world, we need a smarter strategy than invading and occupying.

Strangely, there’s never a mention of energy (oil, gas) and Afghanistan in the same sentence. The country is strategically located atop major energy routes. In the past the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban on delivery routes for these vital resources. Is this a current possibility?

I'm no expert but I can tell you the Obama plan of re- invading Pakistan/Afghanistan is DOA. Just ask the master of foreign armies dying in that country, Rudyard Kipling. The place is still part of the "Great Game"--countries near and far want a piece of the action--energy routes, geopolitical control. So India fights Pakistan (solve this one and the whole region will quiet down!), the Taliban/Pushtuns fight Russia, USA, Iran. The place needs a grand bargain--make it neutral like Switzerland, offer a little something to everyone.

Souter's replacement on the Supreme Court

Who to pick to replace Souter? OMG it's gotta be:

Balance the four horsemen of the apocalypse with Paster Wright!

The current Supreme Court four horsemen: Pestilence (Thomas), War (Roberts), Famine (Alito), and Death (Scalia).

Wright is the man , he's lively, he's left and strong enough to put a stake to the hearts of the four horsemen.

The Federal Reserve is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wall Street banks, as is Obama.

Time to take them back. Pete Seeger sings: "Banks of Marble

BANKS ARE MADE OF MARBLE

I've traveled round this country
From shore to shining shore.
It really made me wonder
The things I heard and saw.

I saw the weary farmer,
Plowing sod and loam;
I heard the auction hammer
A knocking down his home.

CHORUS:
But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the farmer sweated for.

I saw the seaman standing
Idly by the shore.
I heard the bosses saying,
Got no work for you no more.

But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the seaman sweated for.

I saw the weary miner,
Scrubbing coal dust from his back,
I heard his children cryin',
Got no coal to heat the shack.

But the banks are made of marble,
With a guard at every door,
And the vaults are stuffed with silver,
That the miner sweated for.

I've seen my brothers working
Throughout this mighty land;
I prayed we'd get together,
And together make a stand.

FINAL CHORUS:
Then we'd own those banks of marble,
With a guard at every door;
And we'd share those vaults of silver,
That we have sweated for.

Words and Music by Les Rice
Copyright 1950 by Stormking Music Inc.

Exit out of Af-Pak now!

Collateral damage is doing us in...

From Today's NYTimes:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials and villagers said Wednesday that at least dozens and perhaps more than 100 civilians were killed in American air strikes in western Afghanistan, threatening to stiffen Afghan opposition to the war just as the Obama administration is sending 20,000 more troops to the country.

It seems that the most of the population of Pakistan are members of the Taliban. Toss in the folks from Afghanistan as well. What enrages them is their have-not status--poor, in a word, while their ruling classes are rich and corrupt. Smells an awful lot like Vietnam. Sure ,we called everyone there a communist; and all the while we supported the rich Catholic minority who was running the place. Oddly, Vietnam is our ally now.

Chrysler-Fiat--how about a new model--the Berlusconi

(From Yesterday’s NYTimes, ROME — Yet again, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s wife has written a public letter rebuking her 72-year-old husband for consorting with young and chesty women who are not her. Among them is a business associate’s daughter who has posed in underwear revealing most of her bottom and whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi recently attended in Naples.)

Chrysler-Fiat--how about a new model-- the Berlusconi-- guaranteed to pick up youngish, good-looking women. Could be a killer product! Let the good times roll.

WU finally figues how to get out of our economic mess!

As the great Lennon used to say: "What is to be done" with these Banksters?

First off, someone should collar the white collar pirates--

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

--From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine

Sadly, prison time won't happen anytime soon given how the BushCO criminals got off the hook.

But, here's the good part: the ship of Anglo-Capitalism, free market Double-Bubble lunacy is Sinking! ("hear what I'm saying")

The Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus:

When Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%)and is our biggest sector for corporate profits (50%), our best and brightest minds made more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit. Most of Harvard and Yale headed to Wall Street!

But even Yale grads know you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In other words, capitalism is killing itself. Remember, it was one of the Marx brothers who said that capitalists are so greedy that they will sell the rope to kill themselves with! How true. By taking the easy money path, instead of the work hard path, we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Summers and Geithner may know people in powerful places but they can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing.

Crazy as America is, is there a way out before we reach 2nd tierdom? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our carbon-based energy use in half, cut our military in half (we already have a nuclear submarine fleet that is armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over AND these subs are impervious to a first strike)and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

60 votes in the Senate: is this new day?

The Democrats always needed an excuse as to why they could never accomplish anything. That excuse was they needed 60 votes in the Senate and they didn't have them. So the War in Iraq was funded, torture was not stopped, illegal wiretapping became a growth industry.

Possibly, that excuse is gone but I don't think so. Depending on the Dems for anything is a mistake--after all, there is one party of the rich in this country--alas, it has 2 branches.

So, between Senator Chuck Schumer, the senator from Wall Street, Rahm Emmanel and Larry Summers, the hedge fund emissaries and Robert Gates, the Pentagon militarist--we have an all-star cast of Democrats and their enablers who run the show. And not very different from the Bush crowd.

Obama and Fixing the Economy

The focus for President Obama is still "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism (i.e. the US, Brits, northern Europe). On the surface he calls for a green economy, health care reform, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. None of these really make for a viable economy and, his ace in the hole, it seems to me, is to go back to what worked before—the old Greenspan Multiple Bubbles program: i.e. low interest rates, easy credit, debt, leverage and the so-called wonders of the unregulated free market.

But going back to our old ways and you have Finances dominating the economy--Wall Streeters flipping paper and making a huge buck that way. They lied, cheated, gambled and untimely lost big time.

And then there's the hope of 21st century technologists. But what they have given us , compared to say, electricity, engines, oil of the early 20th century? Sure, mathematical geniuses at MIT and the University of Chicago recently figured out securitizing subprime mortgages would spread risk and would never fail. These Nobel geniuses were wrong!

Capitalism has finally developed its own economic weapons of mass destruction: cdo's, quants, credit default swaps, securitization, mega-million dollar salaries. Combine this with the usual greed, fraud and avarice and you have a killer system. Except it will kill itself.

Is there a way out of the Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus? Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%), our best and brightest minds make more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit and the downward spiral continues--you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In this we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Summers and Geithner may know people in powerful places but they can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing.

Is there a way out? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our energy use in half, cut our military in half (we already have a nuclear submarine fleet that is armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over AND these subs are impervious to a first strike)and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

Arlen Spector is no panacea.

Arlen Specter leaves the Republicans and becomes a Democrat. Arlen Specter? The man is pure poison! Swallow his jive at your own risk. From torture (he's against, he's for it) to illegal wiretapping (he's for it; he's against it)-- from there move on to his work in getting Roberts and Alioto on the Court. ...to his saying no to Unions and you have a thoroughly contemptible Senator--

Perhaps no worse than many other senators, but no big plus for the so-called big tent democrats who list rightward more with each day. Is there is left-wing in the big-tent Democratic Party? Someone to say no to Wall Street, no to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yes to unions, no to the trillions of dollars in our budget for military world hegemony--let this person stand up!

Oh my, banks and insurance companies can't get by without government help

We're finding out that banks and insurance companies can't get by without government help. Trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve (a quasi-private organization run by banks) plus billions from the Federal budget go into their maws. Taxpayers are into the banks for almost 15 trillion dollars--that equals our annual GDP! They've become Welfare Kings.

They preach free markets but they practice state socialism. They demand government help when they fail and when they succeed they want all the profits. In a phrase, they socialize the losses and privatize the gains.

As, taxpayers, we lose any way you look at it. How stupid can we be the put up with this?

Has Wall Street Ruined US?

Is there a way out of the Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus? I'm afraid we're cooked. Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%), our best and brightest minds make more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit and the downward spiral continues--you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In this we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Geithner may know people in powerful places but he can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing

Taliban creeping up on US?

The Taliban (AKA "Pushtuns") are gaining ground in Pakistan reports today's news.

This is not a time for mere mortals running our government--bring back Dick Cheney--let him nuke the Taliban to smithereens, then torture whoever might be left.

This will keep the red meat crowd happy in this country. For the rest of us--get a grip, the Taliban used to rule Afghanistan and the Bush team did business with them over energy routes. Sure, 9/11 happened under their watch and George Bush happened under our watch. They'd be happy to rule their own countries where they are the majority population. They'd be happy to sell us rights to energy routes. Let free trade rule. Put Cheney back in his lock-box.

Time to collar our white-collar pirates!

Time to collar our white-collar pirates!

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine"

"What a fine mess you made, Mr. Banker."

The trouble with the large banks and with Goldman-Sachs in particular, is that it runs the government-as in, Government-Sachs. I, for one, would let G-S, BA, Citi go down the tubes and return government to the taxpayers.

It was not for nothing that President Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex running the country. Turned out, it's true--now it's called the Wall Street/Pentagon complex.

Who is in charge of all of us? Why, none other than Larry Summers (Wall Street) and Robert Gates (Pentagon). Obama is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldman-Sachs, The congress is all bought and paid for, the media is corporate run. Is there a way out of this fine mess?

The King is always right, always legal?

The torture memos--Justice Department higher-ups saying it was OK to torture, are depraved. After 9-11, the “gloves came off,” asserted Vice President Cheney , and screws were tightened in prison cells from Guantanamo to Bagram. The torturers and their enablers need to be punished but what can stop a President from instigating these horrid abuses again? George Bush simply stated that whatever he did was right and legal. And neither Congress, the Judiciary or the Press were able to resist. Over the years the US presidency has become omnipotent, especially so when it comes to foreign policy. This tendency towards monarchy needs to be checked, but what is the mechanism?

Does our President run the country?

People give too much credit to Obama. He does not have that much leeway. After all, he is a creature of our peculiar system:

We've moved from Bad Cop Bush to Good Cop Obama." Same old story, just another day.

By and large, Obama is simply reading the "President's Play Book." To wit: Wall Street runs the government (therefore Larry Summers is your man and not Dean Baker or Paul Krugman) and the Pentagon runs any foreign policy that Wall Street is not running (that's why we have Gates and not Kucinich).

(Remember the Eisenhower quip about the "Industrial-military complex" that was running out country? It's true--it's now called the "military-wall street complex."

Always was that way--our founding fathers, like the super-wealthy George Washington or the mildly wealthy James Madison, wanted the rich to rule--they preferred monarchy, of course, but settled for oligarchy.

Can Obama turn Latin America into a friend?

Today we find Obama in Trinidad for a "Summit of the Americas - minus Cuba." Last time in Argentina the locals rioted when George Bush showed his face.

What can Obama do to improve US-LA relations?

1. End Cuba embargo

2.support the governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, et.al. instead of trying to destabilize them.

3. 100 million impoverished Mexicans--can we help?

4. Help Haiti--you say you do but the country is a basket case/failed state.

5. Close all US military bases in LA-they are fronts for right-wing US corporate power.

Saving Capiitalism!

Sure, the capitalists killed capitalism and maybe socialism is better or maybe not. Here are some ideas to save capitalism from itself while we ponder the socialist-capitalist dichotomy.

Harvard's MBA program, Capitalism's incubator, should offer a course on "Hey, wait, don't kill capitalism!" Heck, make it a whole new graduate program.

Past graduates have done their best to destroy the system: George Bush and the best and brightest on Wall Street. Time for a change, here at Harvard!

Topics:

Karl Marx on how capitalists will sell the rope with which to hang themselves--required 3 credit course.

Signs that the system is going down:

20-somethings from Yale making 30 million a year on Wall Street. (only a year after graduating!) 3 credits

Larry Summers saying unions are bad for employment. (Taught by Larry Summers!--3 credits

Revolving door from the government to Wall Street and back again. (10K upfront fee-3 credits)

George Bush brought down 3 firms and several countries, including his own. Find out how he did it and then develop plans for a healthier alternative. 3 credits

It's G-20 time and I'm afraid we're in for a long night

It's G-20 time and I'm afraid we're in for a long night. Krugman says the world needs to work together on the economic meltdown even though the US still believes it's the only country that exists. Good luck, US! Lots and lots of people are coming to believe the news that capitalism is the latest God that failed. But our Wall Streeters persist! Once the economy gets on a even keel (if it ever does), these malefactors of great wealth will deregulate whatever Obama's /Geithner's regulations achieve.

How easy is it for the big timers on Wall Street to take your hard earned money? Let us count the ways. The biggest scam ever was the subprime mortgage business (1). Credit was so easy (2) that anyone with a pulse (3) was given a junk mortgage, these, in turn, were shoveled through the doors of the banks and insurers like AIG (4). Next, our best and brightest bankers prevailed (5) upon the rating agencies to label the junk as AAA securities. These “troubled assets” were then sliced and diced, securitized , leveraged 30x and sold around the world as if they were gold (6). The business was such a money machine that it was impossible to say no to it. When the housing bubble burst, people lost their life savings, and countries went down. (Take particular notice of the "securitization" part. This is the way they turn junk into gold. They can do this any day of the week, including Sundays: beware when Madoff or Summers knocks on your door!)

Capitalism has finally developed its own economic weapons of mass destruction: cdo's, quants, credit default swaps, securitization, mega-million dollar salaries. Combine this with the usual greed, fraud and avarice and you have a killer system. Except it will kill itself.

Is there a way out? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our energy use in half, cut our military in half and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

Down and out in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Obama says we got sidetracked by Iraq and now we're doing the real show--killing the locals (Pashtuns AKA Taliban) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's got to be a reason we're there-- I say energy routes. This is Dick Cheney's wet dream--control energy supplies and energy routes...

President Obama’s stated rationale for sending more troops and providing additional aide to Afghanistan is that we're there to prevent Al Qaeda/Taliban from attacking the US. This rationale begins to wear thin after hearing it so many times over the years in regard to: Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, San Salvador etc.

Moreover, if we’re afraid of a terrorist attack on US soil from Afghanistan, we need to also consider possible attacks from any number of teetering-on–the-brink countries: Haiti, Somalia, Moldavia, Mexico, etc. In this globalized age a Bin Laden’s can operate from anywhere and short of going to war with the entire world, we need a smarter strategy than invading and occupying.

Strangely, there’s never a mention of energy (oil, gas) and Afghanistan in the same sentence. The country is strategically located atop major energy routes. In the past the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban on delivery routes for these vital resources. Is this a current possibility?

I'm no expert but I can tell you the Obama plan of re- invading Afghanistan is DOA. Just ask the master of foreign armies dying in that country, Rudyard Kipling. The place is still part of the "Great Game"--countries near and far want a piece of the action--energy routes, geopolitical control. So India fights Pakistan (solve this one and the whole region will quiet down!), the Taliban/Pushtuns fight Russia, USA, Iran. The place needs a grand bargain--make it neutral like Switzerland, offer a little something to everyone.

Israel/Palestine/Arab dispute is over land

Israel/Palestine/Arab dispute is over land. At the time of the Balfour declaration--Mandate Palestine (i.e. British run area of the defeated Ottoman empire administrated by Britain) was 90% Arab, 10% Jewish. Miraculously, the mandate called for the land to be "shared." That never happened--land is now 80% Israeli/Jewish and 20% Palestinian/Arab. The Arabs were/and continue to be pushed out of their ever shrinking part of the Mandate. Stronger forces push out weaker forces--an old story (told many times over in the Bible). This should be end of story--but it's not--Israel lives in a sea of Arabs who want to see a decent outcome. The US sends money and arms to the Israelis--disturbing the Arabs even more. The big question is: Can Obama (already comprised by his support of AIPAC and having a dual Israeli citizen as his chief-of-staff) square the circle and reach a deal?

War spending is killing us and the rest of the planet

With a war budget of nearly a trillion dollars (out of a total federal outlay of nearly 4 trillion--a record!)--the US, again, chooses guns, not butter.

And it's not like our military needs more building up. When it comes to the military, we outspend the rest of the world combined! In our arsenal are tens-of-thousands nuclear warheads with attendant missile launchers, 12 battle carrier groups that dominate the seven seas, a nuclear powered submarine fleet with enough warheads to destroy the world many times over (also impervious to a first strike!)

Our military has achieved "Full-spectrum dominance," in the words of the Pentagon--that is, we are already supreme in the air, sea, land and outer-space.

Slashing the military budget in half and sending the money to the states as part of the stimulus package would help schools, the vulnerable, infrastructure, job creation green energy, etc.

Taxpayers can make this happen. They need to overcome military lobbyist funded politicians, corporate-run media and the pro-Pentagon president.

Obama seems to be playing "Good Cop" to Bush's "Bad Cop."

Obama seems to be playing "Good Cop" to Bush's "Bad Cop." Tone is different but SOS DD

Obama is simply reading the "President's Play Book." To wit: Wall Street runs the government (therefore Larry Summers is your man and not Dean Baker) and the Pentagon runs foreign policy (that's why we have Gates and not Kucinich)

Always was that way--our founding fathers, like the super-wealthy George Washington or the mildly wealthy James Madison, wanted the rich to rule--they preferred monarchy, of course, but settled for oligarchy.

Our economy is in the hands of our own Darth Vader

Our economy is in the hands of our own Darth Vader--Larry Summers and his fellow fraudsters from Wall Street. Here's their plan--makes the banks rich (again!) and their riches will trickle down to you and me. (From Summers's lips to my pockets!)

Obama/Summers--they a wholly owned subsidy of Wall Street--favor finances (the flipping of paper) over manufacturing (actually producing something). A Wall Street run finance-centric economy has caused the past few bubbles and subsequent busts. We can expect more of the same from the current Banksters in power.

The Pirates of Somalia

Obviously, Somalia has to be put back together again. Putting the US in charge of this is another story--it would be like asking Michael Jackson to babysit your 8- year old.

Sure, everyone stole their coastal fish -catch and dumped radioactive waste on their waters--would Larry Summers think this is wrong? Here's the solution --give them whatever they take in on piracy--with the proviso that they have to start building up some legit economy. After a few years they might have something going. Heck, do this with Haiti as well. Moldova would be good too.

Slogans from the war front:

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine"

Obama says torturers won't be prosecuted.

Obama says torturers won't be prosecuted. So is there anyone who is guilty of torture? Nobody? We now have it that the CIA agents who did it were just following orders.(the old German genociders excuse, denied at Nuremberg) But what about members of the Bush Team--Gonzalez, Yoo, etc. who said it was OK to torture? Will no one be charged? Obama says he wants to be forward looking but this is a huge stain on who we are as a country.

We want Cuba to free it's political prisoners but we still harbor torture criminals? Where's the justice?