Quote of the day -- on our moral crisis

Something we need more of in the US

There was an interesting article yesterday, at the Reuters news site on a corporate development of late.

The article:

Retooling capitalism for the social good

And here's what's happening, at least in one state:

This week, the state of Delaware, which has made corporate governance its regional cuisine, approved a new form of incorporation, the B-corp, or benefit corporation. These are companies explicitly charged with a dual mission: to earn profits for shareholders, the traditional businessgoal, and also to pursue the social good in other ways, ranging from protecting employees to safeguarding the environment — even if these goals come at the cost of short-term financial gain.

Here's hoping it catches.

And spreads, widely, quickly and wildly.

I could see these being very well invested in, should it spread. People would like that the companies are based on both profit and on doing what's best for the environment and otherwise. With man-made climate change, it becomes more and more obvious and necessary, I think.

Here's hoping.

Disavowing the presumed Right Wing lean

"A majority of Americans still holds (George W.) Bush accountable for the Great Recession, and with good reason. We are still breathing the fumes of his toxic brew of deregulation, massive transfers of wealth to the rich and a doubling of the national debt. His policies, and those of the Republican Congress that had its way with the economy for six years, were in fact the culmination of a right-wing ideological revolution led by Ronald Reagan, which changed the way Americans view their government. Mr. Reagan's shadow continues to loom large, because Democrats have yet to make the case for a compelling alternative and have too often accepted the premises of the right."

--Drew Weston in The New York Times, yesterday, in his column "America's Leftward Tilt?"

Link: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/americas-leftward-tilt/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121104

Vote for a rich guy? And for the rich?

Once again, Garry Trudeau and his "Doonesbury" comic hits the nail squarely (click on picture for larger, easier viewing):

Check out that quote, above. This one:

"You know, it just annoys me that only a few years after the economy was brought to its knees by a gang of predatory Wall Street Plutocrats...that the GOP would nominate a predatory Wall Street plutocrat!"

And that, of course, would be this man:

For pity's sake, whatever you do tomorrow, Tuesday, election day, don't vote Romney.

American financial scandals, then and now

"When Americans saw the scope of the savings an loan scandal in the 1980s, which today just seems like a bad day on the unregulated derivatives market, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Edwin Meese III, put nearly a thousand bankers behind bars. In contrast, Eric H. Holder, Jr., can't seem to smell the stench of a fraud that cost millions of people their jobs or homes."

--Drew Weston in The New York Times today, in his article "America's Leftward Tilt?"

We need to push for banking reform, support of regulations and breaking up the "too big to fail."

Link: http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/americas-leftward-tilt/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121104

A brief reminder of where George W. Bush and the Republicans took us

And someone wants to vote Republican?

Quote of the day

“You have to ask the question: Is capitalism really about the ability of a handful of rich people to manipulate the lives of thousands of people and walk off with the money, or is that in fact a little bit of a flawed system?” --Newt Gingrich. (God, I love irony).

Bill Clinton on the Occupy movement

"Occupy Wall Street has done more in the short time they’ve been out there than I’ve been able to do in more than the last eleven years trying to draw attention to some of the same problems we have to address." --Former President Bill Clinton Link to original article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/shahgilani/2011/12/06/the-rumors-about-bill-clinton-are-true/

Quote of the day

“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way. Unfortunately, in late 2010 and early 2011, politicians and policy makers in much of the Western world believed that they knew better, that we should focus on deficits, not jobs, even though our economies had barely begun to recover from the slump that followed the financial crisis. And by acting on that anti-Keynesian belief, they ended up proving Keynes right all over again. --Paul Krugman, economist, columnist and writer for The New York Times. Link to original post here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/opinion/keynes-was-right.html?_r=1

If the Euro and Eurozone fail...

This out today in the news: US bank warns of eurozone breakup 'pandemonium' Citigroup economist and former central banker Willem Buiter warned Thursday that a fully blown breakup of the eurozone could spell a global depression with unemployment of 20 percent and economic pandemonium. Sketching a stark picture of the stakes facing European leaders as they gather in Brussels to discuss how to save the single currency, Buiter said a breakup would unlikely be planned, orderly or gradual. Buiter, a former Bank of England policy maker, predicted in a research note that a breakup would be "disruptive, destructive and without any winners." Basically, I think this is what he has in mind: Wish us all luck, ladies and gentlemen.

Quote of the day on US social justice (with chart)

"We are slowly — and painfully — being forced to realize that we are no longer the America of our imaginations. Our greatness was not enshrined. Being a world leader is less about destiny than focused determination, and it is there that we have faltered. We sold ourselves a pipe dream that everyone could get rich and no one would get hurt — a pipe dream that exploded like a pipe bomb when the already-rich grabbed for all the gold; when they used their fortunes to influence government and gain favors and protection; when everyone else was left to scrounge around their ankles in hopes that a few coins would fall. We have not taken care of the least among us. We have allowed a revolting level of income inequality to develop. We have watched as millions of our fellow countrymen have fallen into poverty. And we have done a poor job of educating our children and now threaten to leave them a country that is a shell of its former self. We should be ashamed. Poor policies and poor choices have led to exceedingly poor outcomes. Our societal chickens have come home to roost." --Charles M. Blow, Op/ed columnist, The New York Times

"We're number one!" Except we're not. Far from it. Link to original post: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/opinion/blow-americas-exploding-pipe-dream.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

To be clear

Anonymous salutes the "99%"

Now the NBA: It's the rich and fatcats against the poor slobs again

First it was Wall Street, screwing us all with their bad mortgage loans they created but sold as AAA rated material. We all know what that got us--the 2008 financial collapse that went worldwide. Then, on a far smaller scale, it was the NFL owners, trying to grab yet more money for themselves, from the players. Fortunately that got worked out. Now? The NBA owners--rich as they are--just don't feel they have or get enough so they're putting another infamous squeeze on their players so the schedule for this year has been put back at least a week. Forget that in both the NFL and NBA--all sports, really, of course--the players are only able to play for a few years, make what they can and then get out. Of course, they also have to hope, especially in professional football, that their health isn't wrecked. The owners? They're there ad infinitum--nearly forever, raking in millions and millions of dollars annually yet these greedheads think they need yet more money. Is it any wonder the "little guy", the "person on the street", the working people of America are finally fighting back, since our wages have been falling for more than a decade? We're fighting for our lives while the wealthy and uber-wealthy are just fighting--us--for yet more millions for themselves. Links: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/25/138671825/reports-nfl-owners-players-agree-to-new-deal-ending-lockout; http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ycn-10181629

Speaking truth to power

“Some see this as class warfare. I see it as a simple choice. We can either keep taxes exactly as they are for millionaires and billionaires, or we can ask them to pay at least the same rate as a plumber or a bus driver.” —President Obama speaking about the American Jobs Act this weekend

Quote of the day

“There are no excuses left,” Chris Hedges writes in a piece reprinted from the site Truthdig, where he has a regular column. "Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil." Link: http://www.truthdig.org

October2011.com---an organization for the people (and guest post)

"We Stand With the Majority of Americans: Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed A large majority of the American people consistently support the following agenda: Tax the rich and corporations End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages Get money out of politics The government, dominated by elite economic interests, is going in the opposite direction from what the people want. The American people’s agenda is our agenda. The broad agenda for Stop the Machine: Create a New World is to end corporatism and militarism and shift power to the people, so necessities can be met. In addition to stopping the machine we also want to show the “new world” we want to see. The seven issues above are part of our agenda, each of these issues are discussed below, primarily in relation to showing that according to polls, large majorities of Americans support each issue and in many cases have done so for years. While our agenda is based on fact, science and the type of world we want to see, not on polling, it is useful to know that the American people are in favor of the types of reforms October2011.org is advocating. We share these polling results to show that in all of these critical areas the government is going in the opposite direction than the people want the country to go. October2011.org is on the side of the people." Links: http://october2011.org/; https://www.facebook.com/pages/October2011com/128339797264686?sk=wall#!/pages/October2011com/128339797264686

Quote of the day

"Italy's government debt is five times the size of Greece's and concerns about Italy's ability to meet its obligations could grow if Greece defaults." --Landon Thomas, Jr., The New York Times. Link to original story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/business/global/as-greece-struggles-the-world-imagines-a-default.html.

Two telling articles on China today

Check out these two today from Yahoo! News, the AP and AFP. First this: GM's China sales hit record for August. And then this: European group: China imposing new market barriers. Not good. Not good at all. In the midst of worldwide recessions and worse, this is the kind of thing that starts world wars. Fortunately, China and the US need each other far too much. Let's hope that always holds. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/gms-china-sales-hit-record-august-075116832.html; http://news.yahoo.com/european-group-china-imposing-market-barriers-042147073.html

Richard Cordray better be a bulldog

Word out from Washington this morning says President Obama didn't pick Elizabeth Warren to be head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. And while that's not a big surprise since the business-toady Republicans were so deadset against her, what can be said is that the President's choice for this job, former attorney general of Ohio Richard Cordray had better be her equal. He'd better be, as I said above, a strong bit of a bulldog so something can really be done by this new agency to protect the American public from the kind of nonsense the business community got away with in the last few years since it brought the nation and the world to near-collapse. Here's hoping. Here's what stinks about this: "Her (Ms. Warren's) candidacy was passionately supported by liberal members of Congress and consumer advocacy groups. But she never won the full support of the president or his senior advisers, particularly the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, in part because of her independent streak and her outspokenness, which at times put her at odds with the administration." Timothy-freaking-Geithner? Like we care about HIM? He's from the banking industry. He's exactly the kind of person we DON'T want having input on this. It's precisely because Elizabeth Warren was outspoken that she came to prominence, for one, and why, secondly, she would have made a great candidate for the first Director of this agency. Mr. Cordray had better be good, that's all there is to it. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/former-ohio-attorney-general-picked-to-lead-consumer-agency.html?_r=1&ref=elizabethwarren