The Fire Next Time: The Euro Financial Crisis – Austerity a Recipe for Depression

April 9, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I have been doing a series of posts on The Fire Next Time: The Euro Financial Crisis, warning of the "other shoe" to drop following the American financial system meltdown in 2008. The title is borrowed from a column by Paul Krugman, warning that our failure to correct the casino capitalism of Wall Street and to hold any of the banksters of Wall Street accountable for their crimes leaves the world's financial system vulnerable to another financial system meltdown. Paul Krugman: The Fire Next Time.

It is also to inform you on economics reporting that our feckless corporate mainstream media does not provide. This is an election year. The soft employment numbers for March last week led the chorus of the right-wing noise machine to sing that President Obama's economic policies are not creating jobs fast enough, and the corporate mainstream media who are economics ignorant simply took stenography and repeated these statements in the echo chamber. They do not report the facts that it was the faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics that created the Great Recession, and that conservative austerity economics is slowing the economic recovery, as Paul Krugman frequently writes.

Conservative austerity economics is a recipe for Depression, as it was in the 1930s, and it is on display for all the world to see in the Euro financial crisis. This contagion cannot be contained to Europe. We have a global economy, and the contagion will eventually find its way to our shores and the "other shoe" of the financial crisis of 2008 will drop. There is little this country can do to guard against this European contagion.

When our economy suffers as a result, as it will, Tea-Publicans will say that it is all President Obama's fault, because this is an election year, and our economics ignorant corporate mainstream media will simply take stenography and repeat these statements in the echo chamber. The consequence is possibly electing Tea-Publicans to office who are blindly committed to doubling-down on their disproved and discredited faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics and conservative austerity economics responsible for worsening the financial crisis. It is a recipe for disaster.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes finally caught up to reporting on this story and did an outstanding job of reporting. An Imperfect Union: Europe's debt crisis – CBS News:

Ten European countries are in a recession. In order to avoid default, three have needed bailouts from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, and more might be necessary. What's at stake? A lot, including the future of the currency, the euro, and the health of the United States' largest trading partner. Steve Kroft reports on the European debt crisis, including how the austerity measures being demanded of Greece are rekindling the ghosts and even enmity of World War II.

Must view video below the fold.

Frack! Earthquakes and poisoned water are ‘safe, clean energy’?

April 8, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I do not watch much television, and yet I have seen these ads from Exxon-Mobil for what seems like a million times.

A century's supply of natural gas was right here in North America.
With technology, ExxonMobil is safely unlocking this important resource.

Oil Sands projects like Kearl and the Keystone Pipeline will create jobs,
while providing secure and reliable energy to North America.

And a series of ads like this one from energytomorrow.org featuring this actress/spokesperson a million times more:

With advanced drilling, we can access more domestic oil from a
single location, increasing our energy while decreasing our impact.

The money you are paying at the gas pump is being used for a saturation advertising campaign to influence public opinion for the oil & gas industry, the single most profitable business in the history of the world, for things not directly mentioned in these ads: eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency; rolling back provisions of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; exempting their practices from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, and other environmental quality laws and regulations; continuing taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas; limiting their exposure to legal liability, etc.

At the state level, disturbing legislation like Pennsylvania's Act 13 gives gas companies the right to drill anywhere. Fracking Democracy: Why Pennsylvania's Act 13 May Be the Nation's Worst Corporate Giveaway (This is the first of two articles about Pennsylvania’s Act 13, perhaps the worst new environmental law in the nation, and the effort to stop it from taking effect. You can read the second one here.) The law strips rights from communities and individuals while imposing new statewide drilling rules that favor oil and gas companies.

If you have seen the documentary film Gasland, a film by Josh Fox, there is reason to doubt the "safe, clean energy" claims of the oil and gas companies. Our dwindling fresh water supplies are threatened with contamination by the "fracking" process. Fresh water is the one resource humans cannot live without. People have and wil kill each other over water.

There are two recent reports about the U.S. Geological Survey study that has linked oil and natural gas drilling operations to a rash of recent earthquakes from Alabama to the Northern Rockies. Scientists: Increase in US Earthquakes Almost Certainly Manmade:

As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

ICYMI: Romney associated with Russell Pearce and Scott Walker

April 8, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: In case you missed it last week, Willard "Mittens" Romney was associated with Arizona's nativist and disgraced recalled Sen. Russell Pearce, and soon-to-be-recalled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. In an interview last week, Russell Pearce said he's endorsing Mitt Romney in the November elections, in part because of Romney's position on illegal immigration. … Read more

The coming week…

April 8, 2012

By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings   As usual, all agendas and calendars are subject to change without notice… Much like last week, there aren't many things scheduled down at the lege, not because things won't be happening, but because we've reached the point in the session where the main activity is going on … Read more

ALEC exposed, corporate sponsors begin to back out

April 8, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Now that the political agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has been exposed by ALEC Exposed, companies that have been members and financial supporters of ALEC are having second thoughts about being associated with its radical agenda. BREAKING: Intuit Out of ALEC; Coke, Kraft, Pepsi, too, while Koch Stands Ground (Rebekah Wilce, PRWatch):

A stampede seems to be on the way as more and more groups break ties and dump ALEC. Intuit, Inc. (maker of Quicken and QuickBooks accounting software) told the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) that Intuit also decided not to renew its membership after it expired in 2011.

* * *

Kraft Foods also announced that it won’t renew its membership in ALEC when it expires this spring, according to an email from Kraft Corporate Affairs Director Susan Davison. These announcements follow on the news that Coca-Cola and Pepsi are out.

I would dispute the "stampede" characterization. The "usual suspects" financing the radical right-wing agenda are staying put:

Other corporate board members are doubling down, most notably Koch Industries and Wal-Mart Stores. "Yes, we plan to continue our membership in and support of ALEC," Philip Ellender of Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC told Politico. Wal-Mart refused to withdraw its support of ALEC, claiming, "Our membership in any organization does not affirm our agreement with each policy created by the broader group."

In Memoriam: Mike Wallace

April 8, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: There were giants of the news media that today's blowed-dryed pretty boys and girls fall woefully short of their standards: Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, and Mike Wallace, for example. Mike Wallace of CBS News and one of the creators of 60 Minutes died last night at the age of 93. One … Read more

George Will and the Arizona Daily Star’s creative headline writer

April 8, 2012

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It has been incontrovertibly established that Willard 'Mittens' Romney is a pathological liar. Updated: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity Vol. XII.

Here is Dana Milbank on Mitt Romney’s serial dishonesty and mendacity, and why it goes far beyond the, er, accepted norms of standard political truth-stretching.

But Mittens suffers from another disorder frequently associated with pathological lying, psychological projection, a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which he then ascribes to another person. This is the old schoolyard taunt, "I'm rubber, you're glue – whatever you say (about me) bounces off of me and sticks to you." Willard 'Mittens' Romney: 'I'm rubber, you're glue'.

Today we are treated to that paragon of conservative thought and commentary, the Neoconservative Washington Post's George Will, engaging in psychological projection on behalf of the presumptive Tea-Publican nominee, Willard "Mittens" Romney.

Here is the lead paragraph to George Will's opinion in the Post, What Romney needs in a running-mate (link caption: Romney needs a heavy-hitter as his vice president):

Barack Obama’s intellectual sociopathy — his often breezy and sometimes loutish indifference to truth — should no longer startle. It should, however, influence Mitt Romney’s choice of a running mate.

Whoa! Classic psychological projection from the always mendacious George Will on behalf of the mendacious Mitt. A tag-team double-scoop of mendacity with a cherry on top Sundae.

I have always despised George Will for the ease with which he lies — his lead paragraph above is a man looking at his own reflection in the mirror and ascribing his faults to someone else (psychological projection).

Will uses "big words" for which his conservative audience needs a dictionary to discover the meaning (if they bother), and he speaks with the absolute certitude of his own intellectual superiority to everyone else, which somehow convinces the intellectually lazy D.C media villagers that he must know what he is talking about — doesn't he? It's a nice schtick, but in the end George Will is just another propagandist for the right-wing noise machine. His act is to play the "patrician prevaricator."