Overrated: Authors, critics, and editors on “great books” that aren’t all that great Slate (hat tip Carol B)
Marriage for ‘Sesame Street’ pals Bert and Ernie? USA Today (hat tip Buzz Potamkin)
Falcon hypersonic vehicle test flight fails Los Angeles Times (hat tip reader Paul T). Your tax dollars at work.
Phone hacking: 61-year-old man arrested Guardian (hat tip Buzz Potamkin)
Caring costs – but so do riots Independent (hat tip reader PQS)
The Swiss will decide how long this rally lasts Golem XIV
Panic on the streets of London Penny Red
Leader: It is too simplistic to blame the coalition’s cuts for these riots New Statesman (hat tip reader May S)
Widespread policy failures have bred a feral British underclass Sydney Morning Herald (hat tip reader May S)
European quartet bans short selling Financial Times. This didn’t help during the crisis.
Saving too big to fail French banks would cost AAA rating Credit Writedowns
Enthusiasm for Obama Drops Significantly in Latest Washington Post Poll Jon Walker, FireDogLake
Obama’s conservative pandering Aljazeera (hat tip reader Crazy Horse)
Completing the Theft from the Social Security Trust Fund masaccio, FireDogLake (hat tip reader Carol B)
Republicans’ No-Tax Stand Unsupported by History or Facts Bloomberg (hat tip okie farmer). From earlier this week, but nicely done.
Krugman #FAIL: Wrong on MMT, again Lambert Strether
MA-Sen: Elizabeth Warren Likely to Run for Senate Dave Dayen, FireDogLake :-(
SEC makes S&P downgrade inquiries Financial Times. The SEC (IMHO weirdly) is looking at insider trading, rather than what would seem to be the slam dunk of selective disclosure. Is this a pro forma effort to satisfy Congresscritters?
How to make monkeys out of rating agencies Peter Tasker, Financial Times
Treasury Saves $647 Million in First Bond Sales After S&P Cut Bloomberg (hat tip Buzz Potamkin)
Virginia’s Cuccinelli sues Bank of New York Mellon, alleging pension fraud Washington Post (hat tip reader Bill)
Global business confidence slumps Financial Times
BofA faces struggle to sell CCB stake Financial Times
Extreme TV show about coupons tied to thefts of newspapers McClatchy (hat tip reader Buzz Potamkin)
Most Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense CNN Money
Income inequality is bad for rich people too Yves Smith, Salon
Three Cheers for Decline Foreign Policy (hat tip reader Carol B)
Antidote du jour:
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Comments are closed.
Goodness me, the New Statesman has joined the ranks of the sane. Whatever next?
‘[James] Joyce himself clearly anticipated this development: He once remarked that he’d “put in so many enigmas and puzzles [into Ulysses] that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant.” Putting in is the tell-tale phrase here: It smacks of something illegitimate, from an authentically literary standpoint.’
Submit a sample of your scribbles, and this handy site will tell you which noted author you write like:
http://iwl.me/
Duly inputting a paragraph of my ravings, it said I write like David Foster Wallace. [Strangely enough, so does Yves Smith, it claims.]
Excerpted pages of Wallace’s Infinite Jest are available on Google Books. Its scenes are dense with eccentric characters, absurd situations, loopy dialogue, and elaborate, apocryphal footnotes.
But even the Google Books excerpts were too much to finish. Couldn’t dig it …
Ulysses is rapturous reading and then you can get out the annotations and jaw drop a while. Wallace leaves me flapping like a stranded fish.
If you’ve never read David Foster Wallace:
http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words
I would like to be able to write like an eagle or a babbling brook.
Dear MLTPB;
Sorry to disappoint but, most of us would write like a Trout in said watercourse nervously eying the Eagle.
“Most Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense”: under any conceivable way in which you might run your economy, it would still be true that many Americans couldn’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense because they would choose to live that way. At least, that’s my guess based on the wide variety of Britons I knew when I was growing up, and the narrower variety I’ve known since. I am extrapolating to Americans.
Says you, huh?
Yup, says me. I know plenty of people on good salaries who seem happy to pay interest on their credit cards. How much do you suppose they’ve put by for a rainy day? Are Americans noticeably reluctant to run up credit card debts?
Dear dearieme;
Most Americans are still extrapolated Britons, culturally if not genetically. And no, most Americans are no better or worse than ‘indebted’ Albionites. A cursory review of social histories of the “Roaring Twenties,” the “Gilded Age,” or any pre-panic epoch will present the same paradox. It takes ‘hard times’ to instill thrift into the social fabric, usually as a means of reweaving it.
Depends on what you mean by ‘many.’
I guess a large number would choose to live that way.
under any conceivable way in which you might run your economy, it would still be true that many Americans couldn’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense
How about a way without coercive money and the artificial scarcity it’s meant to enforce?
I can conceive that easily. And unlike the cesspool we have, it would work.
For every two American Idiots who have negative cash balances, there is probably one who (through investments) lent their fellow citizens the money and that person has a positive net worth….at least until the other two declare bankruptcy.
Head in the oven, feet in the freezer, average it all out and write a newspaper article to inflame the readership while selling them shit they don’t need.
Greta van Susteren has an online poll posted, as to whether the eighty-four (84) members of Congress boondoggling in Israel should be trailed and video’d.
‘YES’ is winning by almost 9 to 1.
http://gretawire.foxnewsinsider.com/poll/should-griff-jenkins-follow-the-84-members-rs-and-ds-of-congress-to-israel/
Holy shit, what are they going to do in Israel NOW, of all times? Learning how to completely piss off the middle-class to cause the biggest mass protest ever? How to be scared enough to pathetically backpedal on almost all the neoliberal talking points that you have spewed all these years? How to find yourself as a leader in unfathomably deep shit in general?
This is absolutely gold.
As to the 84 in Israel… when are you dummies going to get it?
Congress isn’t afraid of voters. Congress only fears Jews and their $$$. Jews choose our governors with their money. So commentary questioning the wisdom of visits to the “Holy Land” are fatuous or disingenuous.
Voters simply do not matter anymore. We are a nuisance to our rulers. And unfortunately the same monsters who rule Wall St – rule our foreign policy. It’s all about the precious metals in your name darlin…..
you and me ? nothing but useful or disposable goy.
Rockefeller isn’t Jewish. Jews are smart and make
sure their kids get educated.
Here’s a source for wealth by religion…beware
the Hindus…
“Income levels of America’s major religious groups compared to the average U.S. income distribution.
Over $100,000 per year:
8% Black Christians
9% of Jehovah’s Witnesses
13% of Evangelicals
16% Mormons
16% Muslim
18% National Average
18% (Other)
19% Unaffiliated
19% Catholic
21% Christian (Mainline)
22% Buddhist
23% Christian (other)
28% Orthodox
43% of Hindus
46% of Jews ”
http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/transparency.jpg
http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/flat.html
Why bother arguing with anti-Semites? If Rockefeller wasn’t Jewish, it just proves that he was a Freemason.
Friends;
Now just wait a G– D—– minute! All this pseudo intellectual bantering about ‘hot button’ issues like religion and race, and no one saw the obvious joke staring you all in the face? Let’s get two more Congresscritters to jet over to Tel Aviv, and we can 86 the Holy Land!
(Mayhaps we should back the UN as Trustee or Mandatory for Jerusalem. Internationalize the place, free access for all, no rebuilding the Temple, no Theocracy, of any stripe.)
The main problem about this place, which I learned early on, is that it is a magnet for religious fanatics of numerous faiths, sects, and cults. The present policy of co-dominion split among the affected faith groups is the only workable solution yet stumbled upon. All other schemes have ended up in bloodbaths.
The Salon article could be a fun project for kids to go through so as to pick out the logical fallacies.
And, if the Willie Sutton model makes sense, then why not just start and win a war with Saudi Arabia?
Funny how you didn’t (or weren’t able to) actually pick out one of the “logical fallacies”, or perhaps your ludicrous example of outright belligerence toward a relatively small but resource-rich country not happening (even though back door value-extracting strategies such as pegging oil to the dollar *are* happening) was supposed to be example? I mean, do you really expect much of anything other than snorting in response to your laughable oversimplification of the complex relationship between sovereigns and the long-term wealth exchanges between them?
I get that her ideas are deeply threatening to you, but you gots to do a lot more to rebut her analysis. It’s amazing how strong the aversion to cognitive dissonance can be. Witnessing Kevin’s obviously instinctive repellence (in an infantile way) against actual evidence is really a quite impressive display of how the mind works.
And by the way, Yves, that was a *fantastic* article. You should re-post it every day in my opinion. And effing everyone should read Frank’s “Falling Behind.” Of course, this may be my own cognitive dissonance, as I have argued my entire adult life that even the rich do not benefit (from at least certain perspectives) from a rising inequality of wealth (i.e., that it’s even counterproductive for them). You would think that the professional class ($200k earners, let’s say) would realize this by now, as they fall further and further behind in the competition against the truly rich for resources like land, housing and services, but it’s definitely difficult to pull people from their paradigm in order to re-examine the facts.
“Honestly I’ve never been persuaded by Ulysses. To my mind, Joyce’s best and most genuine work is the wonderful Dubliners; everything afterwards smacks of striving to write a “great” work, rather than simply striving to write—it’s all too voulu.”
This is the type of prat that turns up to a dinner party trying to sound controversial and contrarian. People then mistake this for being interesting, but it’s really a cover for being uninteresting — ask him for a substantial criticism of why Ulysses isn’t great and he’ll suddenly have to go to the bathroom.
Pretentious idiot. Reminds me of this excellent clip from Nathan Barley, a brilliant British comedy from a few years back (wait till the pretentious twat says that the article is the ‘best he’s ever read’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYBAlqVTZjM
Other potential quotes in this ‘critic’s’ probable canon:
“Lincoln? Washington? Roosevelt? No. The greatest US president was obviously Franklin Pierce.”
“South Korean cars are tremendously overrated.”
“World’s greatest historian? Oh, Richard Pipes, without a doubt.”
Meanwhile, some quotes from Ulysses:
“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
“The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit.”
You decide, as they say.
My personal favorite is…crocodile mouth, but, humming bird ass.
Skippy…pints on me..,tis a birth date…so throw some dirt.
“…crocodile mouth, but, humming bird ass…”
What’s that from? I don’t recognise it.
Happy BD mate! Here’s to ya!! and many more…
Dear skippy;
Big happy birthday to you mate! And lots more! I’ll heft one of my few pints to your continued bliss. (I’ve got the ‘curse of Erse’ in me geneology.)
As for the ‘curious quote;’ could it be something from D H Lawrences’ “The Feathered Serpent?”
Cheers!
It’s easy to forget what the modernist project was and what the ambitions were.
Faulkner was up to the same game, somewhat, in Sound and Fury, which in my view only worked because of it’s sequential slide to clarity. I think he called Modernism in literature “A glorious failure.” In my HAIO (humble and irrelevant opinion) it worked better in painting and music than in words.
I’m far more partial to Dubliners than the other stuff too. The Dead was the best.
Wait. He’s “pretentious” because he *doesn’t* like Ulysses?
Bizarro World, how I’ve missed thee, even though I saw you just yesterday!!!
Seriously, Phil, man, wow, one’s enjoyment or lack of enjoyment of a work of art is perhaps, kinda, sorta *relative*, no?
It really makes one an idiot to not like Ulysses?
What do you mean substantive criticism? That was the great part of that article. Almost all the criticism was of the indisputable kind (i.e., that book made me sleepy). You can’t argue with that sort of criticism. It’s impossible to coherently argue with some who finds a comedy unfunny, a porno unstimulating or a particular book soporific. It is the *ultimate* in substantive criticism. Works of art either move you or they don’t!!!
Oh, sometimes, I just can’t believe the things I read.
And I like Ulysses!!!
“Almost all the criticism was of the indisputable kind (i.e., that book made me sleepy).”
That’s not substantial criticism. That’s just an opinion. Substantial criticism would engage with the work based on its merits. I doubt the author would do that because I think he’s just trying to contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. (“A literary critic saying that Ulysses is NOT Joyce’s best work… OMGzers!!!!!!!”).
Anyone who cannot explain WHY they like or don’t like something shouldn’t be in the game of criticism. We pay critics to give substance to opinions (“I liked X because I thought the characters were strong” or “I didn’t like Y because I found the narrative weak” etc.). If the author was just being ‘subjective’ than he shouldn’t be a critic. Because then we’d just focus group plebs and get them to write their ‘opinions’ in the NYRB.
(I don’t think he was being wholly subjective, but that’s a separate point altogether.)
I do believe you have been had. Or, as they tend to put it on Slashdot, “Whoosh”.
“South Korean cars are tremendously overrated.”
Typo. That should read underrated.
LOL — no one noticed! It works either way.
Bloom’s gone to bog and all’s well with the world.
http://journals.english.ucsb.edu/index.php/Emergence/article/view/9/59
Oh, look a real essay of literary criticism. As opposed to:
“Haha! Ulysees just SMAAAACKS of striving to create a ‘great work’. Hey-ho.” *Takes a puff of his cigarette*
“Incidentally, my dear fellow. Have I ever told you how absolutely AMAZING I think I am? No? Well, I’m basically the most amazing person in the world.” *Takes a puff of his cigarette*
USPS wants to cut 220.000 jobs, pull out of health-care plan (note that title says 120k):
Other article, otherwise uninteresting:
http://www.domain-b.com/economy/worldeconomy/20110812_eliminate.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGFXGwHsD_A
Skippy…must be king because he has no shit on him.
See also this fantastic article from the LRB from a few months ago:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n09/james-meek/in-the-sorting-office
I thought America led the way in the hollowing out of government services and the middle class, but at least in terms of what’s going on in the postal services in the EU, we’re postively progressive over here….must be an historical accident of some sort.
From the article:
“The price of driving down the cost of bulk mailing for a handful of big organisations is being paid for by the replacement of decently paid postmen with casual labour and the erosion of daily deliveries.”
Bloody H—!
I had the rare bad fortune to work for the USPS, in some of the ‘lower rings’ of the avernal organization, for three years. As a direct result of Dick Nixons’ spinning off of the profitable package delivery function, the Post Office was ever after financially challenged. Working conditions were quite Kafkaesque, almost like indebted servitude in many cases. (The instance that lead to my ‘self removal’ from the flock was prompted by a provision that required a substitute rural carrier to be on call at half an hours notice six days a week, with no provisions whatsoever for vacations and other organized in advance events. You were the regular carriers ‘slavey’ and ‘bond servant’ six days a week. He or she could call in and require you to come in and take the route over for that day with no explanation. Even if you had organized a mini-vacation with the wife and kids, and cleared it with everyone at the office in advance.) All of this in the interests of ‘efficiency.’
Ben Franklin, argueably the smartest of the US Founding Fathers, championed a Public Postal Service as a necessary ingredient for a free and informed public. It never was intended to be a profit driven enterprise, but a Public Good. Lo how the Mighty are Fallen!
Wow.. David Harvey, weighing in on the topic of the riots going on in the UK. I’m thinking it will resonate with some people here at least:
http://davidharvey.org/2011/08/feral-capitalism-hits-the-streets/
I suppose Harvey didn’t catch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gex_ya4-Oo
Or the three guys killed in a hit an run while they tried to protect their family business. As they stood on guard to ensure that looters didn’t ruin the rather meager livelihood they tried to get out of their petrol station (‘gas station’ in American English), someone drove up and ran the three of them down, killing them.
But hey, it’s class war right? And they’re just petit buorgeiosies. Anyway, that kid that was beaten and then robbed… well his Dad was probably middle-class or something, so being born on the wrong side of the class war was unfortunate but ‘all is fair in love and war’.
Pity, because Harvey’s ‘Limits to Capital’ is actually a good overview of Marx’s more serious work. Marx himself would have referred to Harvey’s contemporary class-warriors as lumpenproletarians:
“The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.”
— Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
But no matter…
I don’t quite get what it is you’re trying to say with this drive-by ad-hominem, because your response seems connected to the article I linked to in only the most dubious fashion (are you sure you read it?).
Because I did not see Harvey condoning these riots anywhere, nor did he say that the actions the (let’s call them) ‘rioters’ take are rational or excusable per se — in fact, one might easily conclude that he is saying the opposite.
What he is trying to point out is that one should be wary of losing one’s perspective. So while I’m sure the video contains something gruesome, by linking to it you are in a way just proving part of the point Harvey is making: whereas the effects of white-collar crime are very hard to capture on tape, the crimes of these ‘feral youths’ are not. Consequently, their actions are the ones that garner the most visceral response from commentators and on-lookers, even though the crimes perpetrated by the former are far worse.
To wit:
Looks to me like Harvey is trying to absolve the rioters of their responsibilities by blaming everything on the economic system. Okay, he doesn’t say so explicitly. But he uses the riots as a starting point to rip on the political/economic system. This tends to make the reader connect the two phenomena. This is reinforced by calling the economic system ‘feral’ which is the word used to describe the rioters. Why do this unless you’re trying to draw a connection?
He also quite explicitly compares the use of language to describe the rioters as being similar to the use of language used by the French to condemn the Communards (personal heroes of Harvey’s). Why do this? He must be drawing a comparison, otherwise why did he write it?
Let’s just say if I were president, I wouldn’t make him minister for justice…
Now you have to admit that your making this allegation is quite ironic, as coming from someone who is trying to blame bad economic theory for all the ills of capitalism. ;)
Because he is trying to suggest that these sorts of things (including the immediate, and very heavy-handed moralizing coming from the writing class) have happened before? And that these problems do not go away unless something is done about the income/wealth distribution?
I really don’t get why you’re so hostile to this article, when he’s basically doing no more than saying out loud that this shouldn’t surprise us. Why is reductionism fine when you do it, yet a horrible crime when he seems to be doing it?
“Because he is trying to suggest that these sorts of things have happened before?”
So then Harvey IS comparing the Communard revolutionaries — who are heroes of his — with the London rioters? Well, that’s what I was saying.
If only your self-assured attitude was matched by the quality of your posts. Anyway, let’s go back to your first assertion, because it seems to me that that is where your :
Please point out where you read this. Because, again, I did not see it, and while I already pointed this out to you in an earlier post, I did not see you defend it, other than with this hand-waving “sure, he wasn’t saying it, but everyone knows this is what Marxists think”-nonsense.
I said that he didn’t say it explicitly:
“Okay, he doesn’t say so explicitly. But he uses the riots as a starting point to rip on the political/economic system. This tends to make the reader connect the two phenomena. This is reinforced by calling the economic system ‘feral’ which is the word used to describe the rioters. Why do this unless you’re trying to draw a connection?
He also quite explicitly compares the use of language to describe the rioters as being similar to the use of language used by the French to condemn the Communards (personal heroes of Harvey’s). Why do this? He must be drawing a comparison, otherwise why did he write it?”
Arguing with you is boring. I’m going to stop now. If what I’m saying is too subtle for you and you need me to post a picture of David Harvey wrecking a North London bus-stop to make my point… well, I obviously can’t. If you don’t get it, then I don’t care.
That’s the spirit. Back to the high ground, and whatever you do, call it a tactical maneuver rather than a retreat.
Yep, you sure overwhelmed me alright.
Here you go:
http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/27545_109697802381343_9666_n.jpg
Hero.
Now, I’m going to reevaluate my opinions on David Harvey, who clearly did NOT use the London riots as an example of ‘capitalism gone awry’ or implicitly compare the rioters to 19th century revolutionaries. It’s gonna be a long night…
Oh, ok. So in your private language,
Means precisely the same as
And in addition, I guess for you “partial absolution” (to stick to your choice of jargon) is exactly the same as “full absolution.” Because although Harvey is giving the former, from his doing so you conclude he is doing the latter. Analogously, you’re entirely right, by virtue of being slightly right.
Why is it that once you start talking about Marxism, you suddenly lose the ability to think nuanced thoughts?
Foppe — Your turn to get Pilked today. I’ve had a couple of “fun” exchanges with him. He obviously speaks a unique dialect that is difficult for many to translate properly. Some time ago I made the comment that, to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, Pilk is separated from the rest of NC readers by a common language. Your exchange reinforces my position.
FWIW, I regularly describe myself as being feral.
“European quartet bans short selling Financial Times. This didn’t help during the crisis. ”
No, but did a great job of screwing options holders at the expense of options sellers. I suspect his is at work again–as it no doubt will be in the future…
from “The Swiss will decide how long this rally lasts Golem XIV”
“The other effect of any peg, and probably nearer to why the Swiss might contemplate such a move at all, is that it might save the collapse of all those countries who are currently approaching default due to the strength of the Franc relative to their currencies: Hungary and Romania in particular. I really do think the banks I have mentioned repeatedly in this context are feeling very insecure right now and would love some Swiss relief”
And herein lies the problem–all this central bank activity is going to do nothing but temporarily move the bets into the currency realm. The fundamental problem is that valuations across the board are so far out of whack so as to be nonsensical. Now that the governments have decided to “fix” stock and bond prices (ie, interest rates) in their respective countries, the balance has to be made up in the currency realm–ie, in the measures of units used to denominate those fixed prices.
This is going to be absolutely ruinous!!!
As for Eastern Europe, any idiot can take a quick glance at many of those countries and see that they are screwed. Fixing the franc (incidentally, what can Switzerland offer its foreign savers other than a sound currency? Why the hell is one of the few countries that is not hyet worried about a currency run trying to create one??) may initially help a wave of defaults due to Franc-denominated debt, but those defaults are inevitable.
This is just complete lunacy.
Re. Overrated authors:
Any book recommended or mandatory in any college or university “studies” program.
American Studies, Gender Studies, Film Studies,
Ethnic Studies, etc.
It’s programmed self-loathing for American girls and boys to learn to despise themselves and their own nation,
promoted by people who drank the earlier version of the intellectual Kool-Aid and have a vested interest in
their “career”.
“Ulysses” needs to be heard out loud, not read.
I literally used it as a sleep aid for years. Never got past the first few dozen pages. Got looks of good sleep out of it over the years. Then I heard it read (bought the files from Audible). What a revelation. I love it that way.
I would second and third that if a book doesn’t seem great to _you_, it is not for you now. Doris Lessing wrote a great little piece about exactly that. I think it is a forward or afterward for either the Four Gated City or the Golden Notebooks.
Is there a reason why my proofreading eyes get so sharp a split second after I hit the Submit Comment button?
RE: Salon article
I have a problem with this paragraph, which is not from Yves but from FT:
“Rich Americans, for instance, are healthier on average than poor Americans, as measured by life expectancy. But, although the US is a much richer country than, say, Greece, Americans on average have a lower life expectancy than Greeks. More income, it seems, gives you a health advantage with respect to your fellow citizens, but not with respect to people living in other countries….”
What you should really compare is the life expectancy of the top 1% in the US and the top 1% in Greece. On average, Greeks could live longer than Americans but the top 1% in the US could outlive their Greek counterparts.
I don’t have a cite but what is galling to me is that the life expectancy for the working folks in US is much lower but they want to raise the age to get SS when the facts don’t support it….our sick world of propaganda.
But Jim Clyburn on the Super Committee says he feels good at 70 and can keep on working! Oops, I see you said working folks. Never mind.
Good points! I always like how when talking about raising the retirement age they assume that a job is a job is a job. Compare for example a lawyer who merely needs to run his mouth for a few years to a construction laborer. (As an aside, maybe lawyers and politicians should be required to cease running their mouths in order to collect SS — that would save $Billions since non could meet the test).
Dear Tired;
It might not be a bad idea to take a page from Chairman Mao and send the lot of them to the Valley to pick crops for a year. Given the rise of the neocons, and the fact that we’re being exhorted to live by the pronouncements of a bunch of Black Books, why not turn the tables and start enforcing some ‘Little Red Book’ ideology for a change.
What is galling is that it’s Dems who are proposing, both (i) raising the retirement age, and (ii) adopting chained-CPI to cut benefits.
My guess is that the average chicken in Mongolia is healthier than the average chicken in America. They are less likely to be caged.
On the other hand, the average American chicken is likely to be less sleep deprived than the average American human worker.
Supersonic! Next the wizards will boink out stealth missile and hit Idaho.
I can’t understand this story–given the secrecy of the stealth bomber and the SR71 (which were only revealed decades after use), why would a mach 20 plane not be classified?
Moreover, the entire rationale for the plane seems bizarre, as did the comparisons (used for bombing, and could go between NY and LA in 20min? Is NY planning to bomb LA??).
This story really threw me for a loop…
wondering all sorts of things… as if the leak of this story were meant to get us thinking, like, well if it can go from LA to NY in 20 minutes, it can go around the world in 1:40 minutes; what kind of fuel, some secret synthetic element; and also to gain admiration not for their pretend incompetence losing such an aircraft in the Pacific but for how well our military dollars are being spent…
Don’t they ever worry we will think: For all those trillions of dollars we could feed and educate the entire world…
Mach 20 is the speed of a nuclear tipped ICBM just before it hits ground after falling from outer space. I didn’t read the article yet, will have to recharge my eyeballs a bit. It’s so hard keeping up.
Ok. I watched the article, Fortunately it was a video.
So they are launching this “airplane” into near orbit with a launch vehicle and dropping it towards earth. So it’s like riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove, except inside and at Mach 20.
Now the first problem that passengers will have on this “airplane”, once they perfect flight dynamics, is they will be reduced to strawberry jam oozing down the sides of their seats. Seat belts or not.
Seeing as this is a DARPA project, my mind sees the real vehicle. It is a Mach 20 air defense penetrating cruise missile, in case anyone ever develops air defense against nuclear ICBMs we have now.
You shoot it up in your airspace, let it drop in no ones(an ocean is fine) then pull up at say 500 ft altitude and head for the target and blast by any air defense before they know what hit ’em.
Next question is what would we need that for? DARPA does not concern itself with that question, but just whether we can do things or not. The question of “what for” is left to future generations.
But they always say these things don’t cost much relative to US GDP (including going to Mars) and it doesn’t matter if we maintain the budget for this stuff.
Dear Susan d other;
We lived near Stennis Space Centre for a dozen years, it’s down near the mouth of the Pearl River. The government tests experimental engines, among lots of other things, there. Test bed proving of Space Shuttle engines was a tregular event there, open to the public occasionally. One of my neighbors who worked there related the sad tale of one of the first tests of a ‘scramjet’ engine. The theory and initial engineering go way back to 1950’s England by the way. It seems the boffins underestimated the thrust output of the design and ended up with a small forest fire for their pains.
Another ‘wonder’ project is the Aurora spaceplane. It flys by exploding fuel ‘packets’ in a reinforced nozzle in a staccato pattern. Very efficient for high altitude and space applications. This is supposedly the cause of occasional sightings of trails of vapor puffs crossing the sky at very high speeds.
What should concern us all is the oft quoted maxim that: “Every weapon ever invented is eventually used.”
Hypersonic flight – I don’t think you get in-flight movies with that, unless they also develop the technology to fast forward at hypersonic speed.
Can anything be more hypocritical than British MPs expressing their outrage at the riots of the poor and disenfranchized even as they continue to fellate their kleptocratic masters?
Ratings are a pathetically transparent con. So why should anyone care if France loses its fictional AAA rating or not?
Obama doesn’t pander to conservatives. He is a conservative.
I have been writing about the Social Security surpluses as a regressive stealth tax for years. The reforms chaired by Alan Greenspan went through in 1983 so this is by far his longest lived con.
Krugman’s understanding of money never progressed beyond the gold standard and is as a result completely wrong.
Income inequality may be bad for the rich but no one ever accused them of being rational, only greedy and sociopathic.
Lists have a fascination for us. I don’t know why really because we almost always disagree with their choices. I couldn’t help thinking that most of those responding were lazy readers. They didn’t seem to like anything that was complicated or challenging in either its substance or style, or that was in another language or reflected cultural norms of other times and places.
Forgive me for asking, but, how much do wars cost?
Yes, yes. I see you giggling and pointing fingers at me. I don’t mind. I could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_War
But my question is badly phrased. What I really want to ask: Where does the money for Afg & Iraq wars go? How much of the money the US spends on war stays in the States? How is war spending now different from WWII (or the Korea Conflict)?
A good overview would be welcomed. Thanks.
Found this jewel on new research of how the rich are truly different in one of the FDL pieces.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44084236/ns/health-behavior/#.TkL-H7_rhmJ
Here’s a headline for you, from the WSJ online:
Roubini: Karl Marx was right
If the above does not embed the image of the screen capture, here’s a link to the (French) blog where it was posted.
And here’s a link to the video of the interview with Roubini:
http://online.wsj.com/video/roubini-warns-of-global-recession-risk/C036B113-6D5F-4524-A5AF-DF2F3E2F8735.html
It’s well worth a listen.
So the image embed does not work. He’s the direct link:
http://www.pauljorion.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Roubini-Marx.png
And the blog post where it’s from, by Paul Jorion:
http://www.pauljorion.com/blog/?p=27480
Very interesting. Thanks for the link.
Dangerous runaway train of thought here:
“Last night I watched Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives episode 1: the peasant. There was a big revolt in the late 1300’s, where English peasants stormed London, cut off a few heads, and raided the tax offices and burned their paperwork! This reminds me of the movie Fight Club, where working class men organize to blow up all the bank buildings and cancel debts.
Personal debt forgiveness is not even on the radar as a political issue. The “tea-partiers”, a loose coalition of those Americans most susceptible to propaganda, are living 600 years in the past, opposing taxes when they’re already the most undertaxed and overindebted people in the first world. Their secret wish, as right wingers, is to replace the limp-wristed government with the much more brutal and efficient rule of private armies. Liberals are at least wrong about something that’s hard to understand. They think the poor need jobs, when really the poor need to not need jobs – to have the land, skills, and tools to provide their own necessities outside the money economy.”
Website that is quoting didn’t show up. Here it is:
http://ranprieur.com/
Re: Penny Red,
Who blames “racism” for the fomenting of the riots in England. More like Chicken Little.
Hiding out in your house and hoping that some
thugs won’t come and burn you out.
That’s gun
control in action.
turns out these rioters were debutantes, gourmet chefs and skinny white college kids!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025068/UK-riots-Middle-class-rioters-revealed-including-Laura-Johnson-Natasha-Reid-Stefan-Hoyle.html#ixzz1UogKJGwE
I wonder if Richard Smith knows any of these people, especially the debutante with the country chateaux and swimming pool. Or maybe the organic chef. :)
This sounds like something out of Horses and Hounds magazine. Horses and Hounds gone wild! Could be a $24.99/month web site with pics.
This stuff will not make me a conservative. I could never force myself to be that stupid. But, as usual, my instinctive empathy for the oppressed opens me up to overly credulous victimization by all manner of grifters, con-men, frauds, hustlers and actors studio quality sob-story panhandlers.
Nice-ish op/ed:
In other news,an appeals court just rejected something related to Obamacare:
(Warning: uninformative article)
Here are, if I may say so, two informative pieces on the subject.
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/relocalization-and-federalism-vs-the-commerce-clause-wickard-v-filburn-and-peak-oil/
http://attempter.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/kangaroo-court-in-action-the-health-racket-mandate/
if you’re in China and see a bottle of Lafite that is priced too good to be true (or not uncorked in front of your eyes).
http://www.france24.com/en/20110811-french-wines-victim-chinese-counterfeiting-chateau-lafite-bordeaux-china-labels
After designer handbags, perfumes and tablet computers, the latest global success story to fall victim to Chinese counterfeiting is French wine. The process is easy, a vender tells FRANCE 24, and most customers don’t seem able to tell the difference.
Why pick on the Chinese and why limit ourselves to just handbags and computers?
A while back, an Asian man in his 20’s from Hong Kong boarded a flight to Vancouver counterfeiting as an elderly Caucasian male.
Further back in time,, many tried to outcompete ancient China with cheaper, imitation silk and pottery.
Speaking of not being able to tell the difference, George Psalmanazar (from 1679? – 1763, per wikipedia), the French counterpart to England’s Princess Caraboo, fooled many into thinking he was a Formosan (Taiwanese).
Re: Feral British Underclass
Except for affect and IQ, how are the ‘feral’ underclasses any less ‘feral’ than the ‘Uebermenschen’ who’ve looted our economies from the ‘top?’
Memo to Mr. Sheehan: if you want to meet scary American football/sports fans, attend an Oakland Raiders home game. If the security staff and plenty of other fans weren’t just as tough, they’d make more headlines.
I linked to it earlier in the thread already, but see also this article called “Feral Capitalism Hits the Streets”, and also this one: “The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom”.
Caught this on the London riots linked at C&L:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
Written by Russell Brand, which blew my mind…
I particularly liked this quote:
“Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, “mindlessly”, motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that’s why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.
These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.
If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.”
Those are some strong words that need to be spoken more frequently.
Thanks for sharing. It is good to know pressure for change is building.
Stashing cash in tampon boxes – and other sneaky spots http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/12/pf/hiding_cash/index.htm
Maam;
May I suggest that those poor deluded people are living in a “Mules Paradise?”
A Standard & Poor’s director said for the first time Thursday that one reason the United States lost its triple-A credit rating was that several lawmakers expressed skepticism about the serious consequences of a credit default — a position put forth by some Republicans.
Without specifically mentioning Republicans, S&P senior director Joydeep Mukherji said the stability and effectiveness of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that “people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default,” Mukherji said.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/61147.html#ixzz1UtFJkQrB
Has a major ratings agency ever downgraded a large company for a quip or pessimistic or misguided statement by a manager?
This report strikes me as really bizarre.
This item is not related to the above topic but I do not know how to address Yves directly so I simply poste it here. I would be glad to get some feed back.
THE LAW TO CORRECT THE INJUSTICES RESULTING FROM VIOLATION OF THE SPIRIT OF THE RULE OF LAW RESPECTIVELY MORAL HAZARD
It has been generally accepted that extremely high compensation of individuals occupying the higher echelons of financial institutions are a matter of the market (supply and demand) where the most sought after managers justifiably are rewarded at those levels as they are able to produce enormous earnings for the concerned institution. The negative consequences for the safety of the overall financial system have been categorized to be some kind of natural catastrophe that has unidentifiable reasons and therefore gave justification for being rescued by governments the world over under the general heading that it is required in order to tame the markets that seem to act in unreasonable fashion. It takes a long time for the political process to change as the lobby of those financial institutions has been very successful to influence the legislator and media with the vast sums of financial resources available to them.
Change will not come from within the political and business class but can be achieved solely by the electorate. The crimes committed are not yet obvious to the general populace and the effect of the lobbying efforts do still keep many confused and disoriented with regard to the reasons for the presently difficult economic situation. Still, slowly the average person starts to grasp the reality of what happened and with some additional education by a number of respected individuals who do not depend on those financial institutions for their wellbeing, a new wave of awareness will start to arise over the next few years.
The political party that will use a new approach in this situation should be able to gain vast popularity by capturing the presently slow emerging mood of the electorate. The new approach should aim straight to the heart of the reasons that caused the present misery. Obviously the new ideas will be fought without mercy by the moneyed interests with their high public profile. Nevertheless, time works in favour of this new approach which aims to deal with those individuals who drove the financial system into the abyss in ways that must be considered just and fair and are correcting the various violations of the spirit of the rule of law perpetrated over the past many years. A rudimentary text serving as a base for the implementation of a law by the legislator is herewith proposed:
Individuals that have been promoting and in some way are responsible for the creation of unsustainable and unmanageable debt levels within the economy and in this process have been enriching themselves with compensation (including all benefits) in excess of 10x average national income while not being exposed to any risk of loss or risk to their financial health are subject to confiscation of their entire accumulated wealth and to be led to a life at conditions experienced by the individuals presently unemployed. These individuals are forbidden to ever again be in a position to influence credit creation or similar aspects of the financial system.
Obstructions to the identification process of said individuals are punishable with a jail term of no less than 2 years without parole. Entrepreneurs who risk/risked their own personal wealth (who can lose as well as win) are not subject to this law.
This idea is to be seen in historical hence longer term change of public mood and therefore to be eventually introduced in the time frame of within 10 years. Change in public perception is not easy to foresee.
Re: Enthusiasm for Obama Drops Significantly in Latest Washington Post Poll
Democrats, Independents and others voted for Obama because, after 8 years of conservative rule, dismemberment of the regulatory systems, slashing of constitutional rights, elimination of the rule of law, and downright selfishness and meanness, we were ready for “change”.
We got a conservative wolf in sheep’s clothing, a Trojan Horse, which is exactly what one could expect of the win-at-any-cost conservative cartel that stole the Presidency and took over the country in 2000.
I was not an actively political person until I began to understand the fact that this criminal conservative cartel – all of whom will stop at nothing – is real.