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?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, December 14, 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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.”
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
