Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Welcome the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

The advisory board is worth a look: what a criminal-looking bunch, every man jack of 'em wearing an expression that's either brittlely brazen or shifty-eyed and hang-dog. These are the motley Merlins that George Attaturk Soros has assembled to redesign the global economic system; and here is a quote from his highness, lord Soros, that serves as well as any might to seed the ground with dragon's teeth:

"The entire edifice of global financial markets has been erected on the false premise that markets can be left to their own devices, we must find a new paradigm to rebuild from the ground up."

Posted by Owen Paine on Thursday March 11 03:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

March is Independent Fed month!

This month back in '51, the blatantly bright-eyed anal-looking briefcase thief pictured above freed our Fed from the Truman treasury department, after 9 harrowing years of institutional captivity, just as many of our brave boys in Korea were entering Chicom captivity.

Clio takes with one hand as she gives with the other, no?

At any rate, brainwashing seems to work in both directions. Here's one way -- the classical way, the Red Menace way. Before washing:

After washing:

And here's another way -- the Fed's freedom-to-turkeyrope way. Before washing:

After washing:

To read about this glorious silk-hat liberation struggle, maybe start here. In brief: the Fed had its policy rate ceilinged, for nearly a decade, at a level often well below inflation. The clamp was placed originally in 42-43 just as Uncle, resorting to extraordinary measures, exploded his deficits to win the war.

The same clamp -- prolonged by diabolical Treasury forces -- helped win the postwar peace too, as the economy barreled ahead in unprecedentedly broad and bottom-elevating strike-infested fashion.

With help like this pinned rate, obviously the size of our war-induced federal paper debt mountain shrank nicely, as the postwar years of stiff -- in part, wage-driven -- price level updrafts roared away.

March, '51 -- like mighty badger Milhous closing the gold window in August '71

-- one of the really big invisible ink landmarks in the great American class struggle.

Posted by Owen Paine on Thursday March 11 08:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congressman Eric Massa is not going quietly, is he? He's been a favorite here since my visit to the Daily Kos convention back in '06.

His supposed "inappropriate" behavior -- don't you hate that term? -- doesn't seem to have amounted to much, unless there's juicier stuff to come. But all right-minded people are agreed that it's a lunatic "conspiracy theory" -- don't you hate that term? -- to imagine that the Dems might have greased the skids for him.

Posted by Michael J. Smith on Wednesday March 10 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Comments were again inexplicably disabled on Owen's Trumka post. Fixed now.

Posted by Michael J. Smith on Monday March 8 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Behold the agony of Blanche Lincoln:

"Caught in a surge of antigovernment sentiment, [Arkansas senator] Lincoln has been blasted by conservatives for allowing health care legislation to proceed, and has already attracted a slate of potential Republican challengers. At the same time, in a state with a more centrist tradition than most others in the South, she has become a target of the left for opposing a government-run public health care option, easier organizing rules for unions and regulation to fight global warming.

Not only do polls show her behind several of the Republicans, she now also faces a challenger in the May 18 Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter... The Sierra Club is running radio advertisements against Mrs. Lincoln and even Emily’s List, which raises money for the election of Democratic women who support abortion rights, joined the pile-on last week, reminding followers that it stopped supporting Mrs. Lincoln, who is generally a supporter of abortion rights, after she voted to ban a form of late-term abortion in 1999."

"Mrs. Lincoln retains the support of... former President Bill Clinton and Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general."

His endorsers:

"Calling Mr. Halter “a true progressive,” MoveOn.org and other liberal groups quickly raised $1.1 million for him... four unions pledged to spend $1 million each to help him win.The Sierra Club is running radio advertisements against Mrs. Lincoln and even Emily’s List, which raises money for the election of Democratic women who support abortion rights, joined the pile-on."

Can we at least hope the seat goes red-meat Republican come fall? Not that that would be any improvement; but it would provide a salutary blend of justice and entertainment, something we don't see much of any more, now that public hangings have fallen into disfavor.

Posted by Owen Paine on Monday March 8 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

And no, I don't mean the football team:

Icelanders reject full repayment to British, Dutch caught in bank collapse

LONDON -- Icelanders this weekend resoundingly rejected a plan to reimburse overseas depositors after the failure of an online Icelandic bank, a rare public referendum on the repayment of a foreign liability that could fuel further concerns over debt problems in Europe.

A whopping 93 percent of Icelanders rebuffed a government push to reimburse Britain and the Netherlands $5.3 billion....

Voters reveled in a carnival atmosphere following the vote, shooting fireworks into the air and raising placards saying "Sorry Darling, No Deal" -- a reference to Britain's Alistair Darling, the finance minister....

Darling conceded on Sunday that it could now take "many, many years" before London would see any reimbursement. But he also seemed to strike a conciliatory note, saying both Britain and the Netherlands are willing to be flexible.

It's always been head-for-the-hills time in northwest Europe when the Vikings find themselves seized by a "carnival atmosphere".

I happened to be living in Ireland during one of the intermittent "cod wars" between the Icelanders and the Brits. It would have done your heart good to hear the Irish cheering on the Icelanders -- all those unfortunate misunderstandings with Thorgest et al. quite forgotten.

According to a story I heard several times there -- though I've never been able to confirm it -- there was at least one occasion when an Icelandic gunboat loaded up its guns with potatoes and broadsided an English vessel. Talk about bangers and mash! The characteristic Irish narrative genius brought vividly to the mind's eye an image of the Brit warship and its spiffy officers slathered inches-thick with potato puree, flavored with a soupcon of cordite.

Posted by Michael J. Smith on Monday March 8 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Okay, it's time I put together a links page on this site. I'm soliciting nominations. Leave suggestions in a comment or send email -- stopmebeforeivoteagain {at} yahoo.com. I'd be especially interested in hearing about sites that link to us.

Posted by Michael J. Smith on Sunday March 7 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

The executive council of the AFL-CIA, backing its charging fearless leader Ferdinand Trumka, has issued a 5-point jobs plan -- and as far as Knothole Paine here is concerned, at least one of the points sucks hot rivets.

Here's all 5. Can you pick out the banjo? Hint: it's not even number 5:

1. Extending current federal supplemental unemployment benefits programs to prevent a downward spiral as families fall into bankruptcy and lose their health care and their homes to foreclosure.
2. Investing the money to meet the $2.2 trillion in unmet infrastructure needs, while including prevailing wage protections and strong Buy America provisions.
3. Helping state and local governments meet pressing needs to overcome an estimated $180 billion shortfall in the fiscal year 2011 and $588 billion over the next four years.
4. Putting people back to work doing work that needs to be done by preserving good public jobs that provide vital services and capacity for building strong communities. In addition, expansion of vital services in targeted areas can reduce unemployment and provide infrastructure for economic growth.
5. Easing the credit crunch for small-and medium-sized businesses by establishing a fund to lend TARP money to small-and medium-sized businesses at commercial rates, managed by the community banks left out of the Wall Street bailout, with the banks taking first-dollar risk

For that matter, point 3 looks like special consideration horseshit, too. God, I hate public-sector unions as currently constituted, almost as much as the construction trades crowd, the perennial establishment butt boys of the "movement".

Ahh, but I say too much, don't I. Where's my party muzzle when I need it? Oh yeah, we're in 'post-party' times here in America, and how awful that is, especially for big-mouth egg drops like me, here at the SMBIVA bugle.

Father Smiff allows too wide a range of flourishes to this reckless irresolute copperhead.

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(*) I never shall forget the indulgence with which [Johnson] treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature....

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, 'But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.'

-- Boswell

Posted by Owen Paine on Sunday March 7 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

“It’s the Americans,” said Gen. Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, the new chief of Somalia’s military, who said he recently shared plans about coming military operations with American advisers. “They’re helping us.”

That American assistance could be crucial to the effort by Somalia’s government to finally reassert its control over the capital and bring a semblance of order to a country that has been steeped in anarchy for two decades. For the Americans, it is part of a counterterrorism strategy to deny a haven to Al Qaeda, which has found sanctuary for years in Somalia’s chaos and has helped turn this country into a magnet for jihadists from around the world.

More, so much more.

Something I recall from early exposure to radical, not "free alterations", feminism is the effect of a patriarchal culture on the males. There's inevitably a proliferation of socially retarded, deeply angry, power-hungry dorks who will never get anywhere near real power. They have to content themselves with proximity to it. The more cruelly stunted waste their days on witless, technocratic exegesis and apologetics for their bosses' idiot hegemony schemes. They're as completely infantilized as their superiors, whose distinguishing characteristics are ambition and a greater indifference to other people's suffering.

Capitalism produces an endless supply of this intellectual cannon fodder and the Democrats are second to none in their mastery of the mindset. It's probably best to consider the Republicans the acting-out version of the ideal product.

Posted by Al Schumann on Saturday March 6 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Just like old times. The highly touted return of the rule of law must yield to exigent circumstances. Or maybe not. But it's still the Republicans' fault if and when the tortured terror suspects may or may not have to be tried in military kangaroo courts.

The Democrats' neurotic mockery of proceduralism is the dry, sadistic, technocratic version of the Republicans' sweaty, sadistic, technocratic mockery of proceduralism. Neither of them can produce anything remotely plausible as justice. Order is out of reach for them both, because they have no idea what it is. So...

Why not simply murder them? Cut through the dithering! Murder is sufficiently spiteful, and surely there's room in the president's "Just War" theory for a murder or four. He could authorize a predator drone if that would sit better with the focus groups.

Posted by Al Schumann on Friday March 5 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)