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POPSThe Return of the Robber Barons Another deceit is the measure called “core inflation.” This measure of inflation excludes food and energy, two large components of the average family’s budget. Wall Street and corporations and, therefore, the media emphasize core inflation, because it holds down cost of living increases and interest rates. In the second quarter of this year, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a more complete measure of inflation, increased at an annual rate of 5.2 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent for core inflation. An examination of how inflation is measured quickly reveals the games played to deceive the American people. Housing prices are not in the index. Instead, the rental rate of housing is used as a proxy for housing prices. More games are played with the goods and services whose prices comprise the weighted market basket used to estimate inflation. If beef prices rise, for example, the index shifts toward lower priced chicken.
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POPSFollow This Dime How are we to dissect a deluge like this one? We might begin by categorizing the earmarks handed out by Congress, sorting the foolish earmarks from the costly earmarks from the earmarks made strictly on a cash basis. We could try a similar approach to government contracting: the no-bid contracts, the no-oversight contracts, the no-experience contracts, the contracts handed out to friends of the vice president. We might consider the shoplifting career of one of the president's former domestic policy advisers or the habitual plagiarism of the president's liaison to the Christian right. And we would certainly have to find some way to parse the extraordinary incompetence of the executive branch, incompetence so fulsome and steady and reliable that at some point Americans stopped being surprised and began simply to count on it, to think of incompetence as the way government works.
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POPSLegal right to defend oneself? This headline concerns me. We have always had the right to use reasonable force in certain circumstances. The problem, as I see it, is poor legal advice. When the Everton centre forward Duncan Ferguson was acquitted not once, but twice, for defending his property and family, it was good advocacy that kept his out of prison even though he has a record and past prison life for assault. What is good for Ferguson should be good for every individual defending himself and others against attack. Poor advocacy is a problem, not just in the UK but everywhere in this commercial world, where the poor get inferior service to those with full wallets.
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POPSS&L Scandal Tidbits * The rip-off began in 1980 when the government raised the federal insurance on S&L's from $40,000 to $100,000 even though the typical savings account was only around $6000. * Some of the seized assets were a buffalo sperm bank, a racehorse with syphilis, and a kitty litter mine. * James Fail invested $1000 of his own money to purchase 15 failing S&L's. The government reimbursed him $1.85 billion in federal subsidies. * It sometimes took over 7 years to close failing S&L's by the government. * When S&L owners who stole millions went to jail, their sentances were typically one-fifth that of the average bank robber. * The goverment bail out will cost the taxpayers around $1.4 trillion dollars when it is over. * If the White House had stepped in and bailed out the S&L's in 1986 instead of delaying until after the 1988 elections, the cost might have been only $20 billion. * With the money lost from the S&L scandals, the government could have provided
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POPS The End of U.S. Imperialism? Global hedge funds are not the only byproducts of U.S. policy that are turning on their creator. The International Monetary Fund (created by the U.S. largely at the end of WWII and controlled completely U.S. finance as the world’s capitalist currency was pegged to the U.S. dollar until the early 1970s, when the acquisition of dollars by European and Middle Eastern interests made that impossible to continue) is now openly criticizing U.S. deficits, trade policy, and for that matter, the lack of universal health care in the U.S. Additional coverage: Podcast #72 - A New Deal for America PA Editors Blog * No hobbits! * National Call-in Day on Diplomacy with Iran * C-SPAN Discussion of HR 676 Tuesday Night Subscribe to this Feed Headlines by FeedBurner As few U.S. politicians understand, and as the insurance and pharmaceutical company health care complex goes to great lengths to keep them from understanding, the private insurance based health care system here ma
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POPSPolice Artist Sketch of Robbery Suspect Oww...I had a painful encounter with a highway robber the other day. I took two five-gallon gas cans to the station to buy gas for the mower and chainsaw and nearly fainted at the cost of the ten gallons of gasoline--$53!!! I live in northern Ontario and our gasoline is always higher than it is in the States, but this is outrageously high. There's very limited public transportation up here. I don't know how people here are going to be able to afford to get around or afford goods that must be transported here. It's scary. I recall that some people used to argue that gasoline is still cheaper per gallon than milk, but they can't say that now. At least not where I live. So I laughed at the sketch, but ruefully. :(
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POPSBody of Australian Outlaw Ned Kelly Found? "The social bandit." An outlaw, but nevertheless a hero. :) In the time since his execution, Ned Kelly has been mythologized among some into a Robin Hood, a political revolutionary and a figure of Irish Catholic and working-class resistance to the establishment and British colonial ties. Mrs Ellen Hollow, Kelly's 62 year old great-niece, has offered to supply her own DNA to help identify Kelly's bones. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Kelly
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POPSStepping Back to Dangerous Era in Mining I first heard about this AVOIDABLE tragedy last year. The Robber Barons are returning. The people of Northern Michigan and the entire Great Lakes Region, are fighting to prevent corporations from ruining their health and the ecosystem for the SECOND TIME AROUND. The area is just now recuperating from the last time mining of sulfids, metals, heavy metals and radioactive materials such as uranium destroyed habitats, animals, and humans. How much is a fragile ecosystem and the people of Michigan worth? At the moment, not much, it seems. These corporations are also exploiting the fact that Michigan has runaway unemployment and people are worried about how they will live today. Please check this out and share this with your friends, neighbors, leaders and online network.
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POPSThe Good Shepherd, 3 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. 12 But the hireling and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and flieth: and the wolf casteth and scattereth the sheep, 13 And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd: and I know mine, and mine know me. 15 As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep. 16 And other sheep I have that are not of this fold: them also I must bring. And they shall hear my voice: And there shall be one fold and one shepherd. 17 Therefore doth the Father love me: because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. 18 No man taketh it away from me: but I lay it down of myself. And I have power to lay it down: and I have power to take it up again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
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