July 29, 2009
Going Galt
July 28, 2009
That oil supply and demand from last year
Turns out there wasn’t that much demand (at least to drive prices to astronomical levels):
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to issue a report next month suggesting speculators played a significant role in driving wild swings in oil prices — a reversal of an earlier CFTC position that augurs intensifying scrutiny on investors.
Good to know. But Matt Taibbi is conspiratorial when he points out the same. Otay
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
We are at a crossroads
Today, the sheer volume of irresponsible media commentary has forced us to reconsider our public-relations strategy. With every uptick in our share price it’s grown clearer that we who are inside Goldman Sachs must open a dialogue with you who are not. Not for our benefit, but for yours.
America stands at a crossroads, and Goldman Sachs now owns both of them. In choosing which road to take, ordinary Americans must not be distracted by unproductive resentment toward the toll-takers. To that end we at Goldman Sachs would like to dispel several false and insidious rumors.
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
4.6 million reasons why Bauchus doesn’t want to reform healthcare
No one serving in the Senate today has taken as much money from the Medical-Industrial Complex as Baucus ($2,865,881) other than notorious corporate whore Arlen Specter ($4,066,433) and two former presidential candidates, John Kerry ($8,163,141) and John McCain ($8,672,260). Baucus even tops Medical Industry shill Mitch McConnell ($2,755,468). And when it comes to the Financial Sector– the banksters, Big Insurance and Big Real Estate– Baucus was also on the payroll in a major way. His $4,675,393 in donations put him in the Top 10, with corporate whores like Mitch McConnell, Alexander Lamar, Arlen Specter, Joe Lieberman, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Chuck Schumer… basically the folks who oversaw the economic legislation that dragged the economy right over the cliff.
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
Medicare ≠ Government healthcare?
Krugman on why single-payer won’t work here:
At a recent town-hall meeting in suburban Simpsonville, a man stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis (R-S.C.) to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”
“I had to politely explain that, ‘Actually, sir, your health care is being provided by the government,’ ” Inglis recalled. “But he wasn’t having any of it.”
Ignorance is not an excuse. How about throwing free teabags with a single payer system?
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
Why bother with spending – it’ll just get worse, right Cantor & Boehner? New Jersey has passed a stimulus bill of its own, reports the Star-Ledger of Newark. The bill includes incentives for developers. However, the Star-Ledger notes, the bill does not call for recipients of tax breaks to meet any new standards on transparency — a point of contention after last week’s arrests of three Garden State mayors on charges of accepting bribes from a would-be developer. New York City will be left out of $1 billion in stimulus funds meant to avoid police layoffs, the Daily News reports. According to the paper, Justice Department officials decided the money should go to cities with a combination of serious budget shortfalls and high crime rates. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it doesn’t make sense to punish New York’s police force for its success in keeping crime low. The AP adds that Seattle, Houston and Pittsburgh will also be left out of the funding program. Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is pushing to hire a “stimulus czar,” reports the AP. The position is expected to cost $500,000, money that would come from the state’s contingency fund, since it wasn’t included in Nevada’s budget. Neighboring California has such a position, as do a number of other states.
Why bother with spending – it’ll just get worse, right Cantor & Boehner?
New Jersey has passed a stimulus bill of its own, reports the Star-Ledger of Newark. The bill includes incentives for developers. However, the Star-Ledger notes, the bill does not call for recipients of tax breaks to meet any new standards on transparency — a point of contention after last week’s arrests of three Garden State mayors on charges of accepting bribes from a would-be developer.
New York City will be left out of $1 billion in stimulus funds meant to avoid police layoffs, the Daily News reports. According to the paper, Justice Department officials decided the money should go to cities with a combination of serious budget shortfalls and high crime rates. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it doesn’t make sense to punish New York’s police force for its success in keeping crime low. The AP adds that Seattle, Houston and Pittsburgh will also be left out of the funding program.
Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is pushing to hire a “stimulus czar,” reports the AP. The position is expected to cost $500,000, money that would come from the state’s contingency fund, since it wasn’t included in Nevada’s budget. Neighboring California has such a position, as do a number of other states.
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
The heartland knows what’s good for cities
Small towns know how cities work:
Yglesias points out that the Gang of Six negotiating the Senate Finance version of health reform all represent very small states — in fact, the combined population of their states is less than that of New Jersey.
So hey, why not let New Jersey do this instead? We can get a committee of, say, three corrupt mayors and three money-laundering rabbis to draw up a plan; it could hardly be worse than what Max Baucus has come up with.*
As we say here in the Garden State, “You got a problem with that?”
City folk need some learnin’.
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
The death of healthcare reform
When all that’s left is more of the same:
The AP is reporting similar details — no public option, no employer mandate, no millionaire surtax.
The co-ops are an inadequate substitute for a public option, which Baucus had vowed to “fight tooth and nail” for. Moreover, the elimination of an employer mandate makes holding down costs that much more difficult.
Baucus, in other words, has prioritized Republican support for a bill over the quality of the bill, and has given up on some of the key priorities Democrats, including the president, have prioritized from the outset.
Because, bipartisanship is more important than what’s good for the country. Thanks, insurance industry shill.
Truly, the worst of both worlds.
Going galt soon. Here.
July 28, 2009
Evan Bayh has no conflict of interest
As the debate over health-care reform intensifies, Bayh’s wife is receiving lucrative payouts from some of the companies that could be most affected by that legislation.
Bayh contends the $2.1 million that his wife, Susan, earned from public health-care companies from 2006 to 2008 represents no conflict of interest.
Susan Bayh, who was a midlevel lawyer for the politically active Eli Lilly and Co. while her husband was governor of Indiana, did not serve on the board of a single public health-care company until it was clear her husband was about to ascend to the U.S. Senate. Only one month before Evan Bayh was elected to the Senate in a landslide vote, his wife was appointed to serve on the board of what would become the nation’s largest health insurance company — and arguably the company with the most at stake in the health-care reform debate.
Within a few years, numerous companies recruited her, and she eventually served on the boards of eight companies. At least one of them asked her to reduce the number of boards she served on, apparently because she was spread too thin to be effective.
Corporations just want Susan because she is that good and has no connection to her husband whatsoever. Nope, no conflicts whatsoever.
Going galt here. Soon.
July 28, 2009
Sarah’s blender
Hollywood
starlet
media
guns
hunting
freedom
troops
Going galt like Sarah, soon. Here.
