Chris
Category Archives: economics
Elementary Ideas on Democracy
Changes come from the bottom, not the top. As everyone knows, Obama championed the vague concept of “change” to the American people throughout his campaign. And of course everyone ate it up because eight years of a right wing war criminal in office will do serious brain damage to you. So, people wanted a Democrat to fuck things up once again. Anyway, as history demonstrates major societal changes, such as severely kicking racism square in the pills (though it’s alive and well and still needs ass whooping)come through the struggles of everyday people and then the elites react to it. Your history and government textbooks want you to believe the opposite: the elitists, like the Supreme Court randomly decided to battle racism and end legal segregation in the South. Yes, it’s true that that wasn’t the top priority for the majority of America, but as Abbie Hoffman once stated, “You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.” Well, the black rights and civil rights activists, such as Richard Wright and Rosa Parks, and countless others were the “dissidents” and the American people were the “assimilated conformists.” In simple terms, democracy is everyone’s opportunity to participate and have a major influence in the political process. Not mob rule as school an TV have led you to believe. So, the very idea that Obama will clean up the mess of the Bush Administration and previous administrations through health care reform, abortion reform, etc. is absurd. The social ills affecting everyone, particularly the poverty stricken people he doesn’t care that much about, cannot be obliterated through reforms because reforms imply that the system is well intentioned and good, but needs some tidying up. WRONG! you never hear a politician say “we’re doing our best to reform rape” or “With our new program we plan to seriously reform child abuse.” Of course not! because we want to ABOLISH the evils of rape and child abuse. In short, we don’t need reforms, we need changes…. but don’t look to your pal Barry for that, look to one another and create some real dialogue.
Chris
Holy Crap, Banks Suck, Kill Me
This news makes me sick. I hate banks. I recommend you instead store your money under your mattress.
NEW YORK — The New York Attorney General’s office says Citigroup, one of the biggest recipients of government bailout money, paid out $5.33 billion in employee bonuses for 2008.
The attorney general has issued a report Thursday that outlines 2008 bonuses paid to the initial nine banks that received loans under the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Bank of America, which also received $45 billion in TARP money, paid $3.3 billion in bonuses.
New Teacher Program Creates Jobs, Controversy
In 2007, fresh out of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Chris Turk snagged a coveted spot with the elite Teach For America program, landing here at Cherry Hill Elementary/Middle School in a blue-collar neighborhood at the city’s southern tip. For the past two years, he has taught middle-school social studies.
One recent afternoon, during a five-week “life skills” summer-school course, Turk tells his five students that their final project, a movie about what they’ve learned, has a blockbuster budget: $70.
“We can go big here,” he says. “We can go grand.”
He might as well be talking about the high-profile program that brought him here.
Despite a lingering recession, state budget crises and widespread teacher hiring slowdowns, Teach For America (TFA) has grown steadily, delighting supporters and giving critics a bad case of heartburn as it expands to new cities and builds a formidable alumni base of young people willing to teach for two years in some of the USA’s toughest public schools.
Baltimore Superintendent Andres Alonso — who says he has seen “fewer retirements, fewer resignations and just greater stability in terms of our teaching ranks,” much of it because of a reluctance to leave a secure job in a recession — has doubled the number of TFA teachers, known as “corps members,” in city schools over the past two years.
Next week, more than 160 new TFAers arrive in Baltimore, up from 80 in 2007. They’ll make up about one in four new hires.
Nationwide, about 7,300 young people are expected to teach under TFA’s banner, up from 6,200 last year. TFA is expanding from 29 regions to 35, including Dallas, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
But critics say the growth in many cities is coming at the expense of experienced teachers who are losing their jobs — in some cases, they say, to make room for TFA, which brings in teachers at beginners’ salary levels and underwrites training.
I have mixed feelings about this program. Those experienced teachers are eventually going to retire anyway, right? But then again, “underwrites training”? Really? If that’s the case, schools are screwed.
Obama Pitches Health Reform Near D.C.
President Obama on Wednesday highlighted a host of “consumer protections” he said will be a part of health care legislation, casting the government’s overhaul as a bid to provide financial security and peace of mind to the majority of people who already have health insurance.
“The reforms we seek will bring stability and security that you don’t have today,” he told a mostly supportive audience at Broughton High School in Raleigh, N.C. Later he went to Bristol, Va., to make the same pitch.
And what exactly ARE the proposed reforms? According to this “USA Today” piece…
• Prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions or dropping those who become seriously ill.
• Require insurance companies to fully cover regular checkups and preventive tests such as mammograms.
• Guarantee that insurance companies renew policies as long as premiums are paid in full.
• Cut costs to “help get our exploding deficits under control.”
• Cost less than the Iraq war.
Never mind that these are great ideas to prevent misconduct from private, for-profit health insurers. OMG OBAMA’S A SOCIALIST WHO HATES CAPITALISM AND WANTS 2 RULE DA WORLD[/Glen, Chris, Ron Paul, Chomsky, and all the other “cool” guys] But then again…
• Guarantee that insurance companies renew policies as long as premiums are paid in full.
Edmund Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, said Congress already passed legislation with that requirement. “That problem got fixed about 15 years ago,” he said.
I’ll give the Nobama – sorry to digress, but how can you possibly say that with a straight face? Sorry. I’ll give the Nobama camp this: the guy can be pretty damn redundant.
Bernanke Holds Town Hall-Style Forum
By Ben Tan — July 27, 2009
Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, participated in a town hall-style forum in Kansas City, Mo. yesterday. The forum was organized and moderated by Jim Lehrer of “The NewsHour” on PBS. It is the latest stop in a publicity campaign with a message: the central bank is here to help, and is not as mysterious or menacing as people may think. Bernanke took questions from local residents and disputed charges that the Fed was conspiring with big banks or stifling free-market capitalism.
A small-business owner asked Bernanke why the Fed helped rescue big banks while “short-changing” small companies.
Bernanke replied that he had decided to “hold my nose” because he feared the entire financial system would collapse.
“I’m as disgusted by it as you are,” said Bernanke before an audience of 190.
“Nothing made me more angry than having to intervene, particularly in a few cases where companies took wild bets.”
The forum resembled that of a political candidate, and indeed Bernanke’s four-year term expires in January. Bernanke has put himself in the public spotlight to an extent far beyond that of his predecessors, departing from the bank’s tradition as an aloof, secretive temple of economic policy. The bank has already become more open in the decade before Bernanke took charge, and his predecessor Alan Greenspan achieved fame during his long tenure. But Fed officials still distanced themselves from partisan politics and day-to-day business life.
Bernanke, on the other hand, has given a television interview to “60 Minutes” on CBS, including a tour of his hometown, Dillon, S.C. He held essentially a televised news conference and has written newspaper commentaries to explain the Fed’s efforts to fight the financial crisis. Last week Bernanke published a lengthy commentary in “The Wall Street Journal” and testified before three separate Congressional committees.
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