It's class, stupid
To understand economic justice, we need to think beyond touching anecdotes about lost jobs, untreated illnesses and hungry kids.
"Classes are large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate the labor of another owing to the different places they occupy in a definite system of social economy." -- V.I. Lenin, A Great Beginning, in Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 421.
Hansen Unplugged: Signs of change
"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything." - Albert Einstein.
From the How Things Really Work Desk:
Madoff Investors Keep Billions in Profit (this is from a NYTimes email)
The company led by the American billionaire Koch brothers, along with dozens of banks and fund managers, kept billions of dollars in profit from Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in accounts offshore.
And, it turns out, the funds can stay there.
They had invested in the Madoff fund from offshore accounts, and a judge said that certain funds held abroad, worth an estimated $2 billion, could not be made available to victims of the Madoff scheme.
The judge said foreign bankruptcy proceedings blocked the trustee from gaining access to the money. Koch Industries began investing in the Madoff fund well before its collapse and pulled out $21.5 million in 2005.
The money went to a fund registered in the British Virgin Islands and then to a Koch entity in Britain. They were not alone.
Several European banks also had Madoff money offshore, according to court papers, including HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse, an international arm of Merrill Lynch and the French money manager Natixis.
The rest of the story:
The company led by the American billionaire Koch brothers, along with dozens of banks and fund managers, kept billions of dollars in profit from Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in accounts offshore.
And, it turns out, the funds can stay there.
They had invested in the Madoff fund from offshore accounts, and a judge said that certain funds held abroad, worth an estimated $2 billion, could not be made available to victims of the Madoff scheme.
The judge said foreign bankruptcy proceedings blocked the trustee from gaining access to the money. Koch Industries began investing in the Madoff fund well before its collapse and pulled out $21.5 million in 2005.
The money went to a fund registered in the British Virgin Islands and then to a Koch entity in Britain. They were not alone.
Several European banks also had Madoff money offshore, according to court papers, including HSBC, UBS, Credit Suisse, an international arm of Merrill Lynch and the French money manager Natixis.
The rest of the story:
What's wrong with the Democrats?
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” -- Sen. Chuck Schumer before the election.
How'd that work out for you, Chuck?
Be careful what you wish for
All this talk about Donald Trump getting busted or impeached... Mike Pence would be a lot more focused, determined and competent than the attention-deficited president-elect. And Pence would start with a cache of good will for not being Trump.
"I'll be back."
Last night Bernie Sanders gave a surprise address outside the White House during a global day of action against the Dakota Access pipeline that included demonstrations in over 300 cities.
Democrats have some 'splainin' to do
"In ... poring over the exit polling, there are numerous counter-intuitive findings that explain why Trump proved to be a lot more acceptable than his detractors acknowledged." For example, "Trump won white women by a whopping 10 points (53 to 43 percent), smashing the conventional wisdom that his candidacy would fuel a historic gender gap. ... Nonwhite voters preferred Trump to" Mitt Romney, Trump won a greater share of blue-collar votes than Ronald Reagan. ... Trump won 10 percent of Obama supporters. ... The military leadership is wary of Trump, but veterans supported him overwhelmingly. ... [H]e won a larger share of the Jewish vote ... than either George W. Bush in 2000 ... or John McCain in 2008." (National Journal)
Just axing
It is intriguing that some U.S.Senators who have the most liberal records -- Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, Al Franken -- come from swing states. Is there a lesson here in what it takes to win in the flyover as a Democrat?
How far back can Trump turn the clock?
It is going to be interesting to see how much President Donald Trump will be able to or even try to get done.
In his first 100 days, he promised, he will cancel “every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum, and order issued by President [Barack] Obama," which he will have the power to do. These could include the Syrian refugee program; increased regulations on greenhouse gas emissions for the nation’s power plants; the right to take family medical leave for same-sex couples; and halting the deportations of illegal immigrant children. And he vowed to repeal Obamacare, which would strip over 20 million Americans of their health insurance, although this may be more difficult than he imagines: the insurance hogs will not go easy from the trough.
He threatened to impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports, officially branding China as “a currency manipulator,” while also seeking a 35 percent tariff on Mexican imports, but pressure from the business community should be enough to keep him from setting off a trade war and sparking a world-wide depression (the stock market already seems to be pricing in tax-cut Trump but ignoring trade-war Trump).
He promised to deport 2 million “criminal illegal immigrants” on his first day in office, but it took Obama six years to accomplish that, so expect a slow acceleration there, and the wall is a non-starter.
More seriously, he pledged to cut all federal funding to “sanctuary cities,” which are municipalities whose local policies do not permit prosecuting people only for being undocumented. He said he will cut all payments to U.N. climate-change programs which, in addition to likely signaling an increase in U.S. emissions, will also cut budgets of U.S. universities and laboratories dedicated to studying climate-change. Some of this is real. Some of it is campaign rhetoric. More dangerous may be that he won't veto actions by the whackos controlling Congress.
Also, amid all the whining and puling about Trump, it's important to remember that Obama still has a month and a half to try to ram through TPP.
Time to get organized, folks.
Even if they are mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre people. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they? -- after Roman Hruska
BuzzFeed has an inside list of eminences being considered for senior positions in the next administration.
Not to draw distinctions too fine, but: cretins, criminals, conmen and clowns.
I know this is serious, and it's going to take a lot of hard work to stop this cabal from doing its worst, but -- Christie? Bolton? Palin? Rick Scott? Giuli-freaking-ani! -- admit it, it's also going to be fun. Ben Carson as Secretary of Education alone is almost worth the pain and suffering. Plus, you gotta wonder which countries will get Willie Robertson, Scott Baio, Natalie Gulbis, Antonio Sabato, Jr. and Kid Rock as U.S. ambassadors (will the Swon Brothers each get a country or will they have to share? Maybe one can have Trinidad and the other Tobago).
And where's Carly Fiorina when you need her?
"In total, the list includes 41 names and covers 14 different departments. A source told BuzzFeed that the list is not final and will likely be changed in the future.
"Attorney general picks include Chris Christie, Jeff Sessions and Rudy Giuliani.
"Newt Gingrich, John Bolton and Bob Corker are listed as potential picks for the secretary of State.
"Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is the only name listed under chief of staff, while Sessions is also the only one being considered for director of Office of Management and Budget.
"Christie is also being weighed for secretary of Homeland Security, and Carson, Gingrich and Florida Gov. Rick Scott are potential picks for secretary of Health and Human Services.
"Sarah Palin also makes a surprise appearance on the shortlist, mentioned as one of seven potential candidates to become the secretary of the Interior.
"Potential secretary of Commerce picks include Christie and [Mike] Huckabee, while Carson is under consideration to be secretary of Education."
Caveat Empty
So a vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries turns out to have been a vote for Donald Trump in the general election. It's not like millions of people didn’t try to warn the Democrats.
quote unquote: Adlai Stevenson
In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take. -- Adlai Stevenson
“Inside the polling booth, every American man and woman stands as the equal of every other American man and woman. There they have no superiors. There they have no masters save their own minds and consciences.” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is not a horse race. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Tomorrow, vote with your conscience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
