Holy Crap. Check out the Financial Post, scroll down to all the headlines, one (article) uses the word Depression, first it was credit crunch while we were in a Recession, then it was Recession while we may be in a Depression

eta - of course ignore the National Post of - Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2008, who says The Worst Is Over! Cluebat.

The US entered a recession in December 2007, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Something many good people have been trying to say for awhile now and were drowned out. But this becomes more important now because Pentagon plans to station 20,000 troops for 'domestic security'

Pardon me, but I think the recession with a 'd' is a big part of that. We're already seeing Tent cities sprouting up in the U.S. and squatters in vacant real estate and no doubt food riots to come. The lowering in living standards will no doubt effect the middle class as well. The British Ministry of Defence put out a report last year that paints a very grim picture.

A grim vision of the future I'm sure chemical warfare etc., is a part of the defense for both the U.S./Canada (don't forget they can come up here) but the people are going to be out of hand. I can't even imagine the kind of crime to expect, but of course that isn't being listened to either.

Since it is mentioned in this Financial Times article that the Great Depression (3)? and Global Warming could speed things up, I thought I'd plonk this admission here. Ha, we're not wingnut conspiracy theorists afterall. Who'd of thunk? There really is a Global Agenda to destroy Democracy

Look at the cover art for the current issue of the New Yorker:

I heard last week that both Sak's and JC Penney are about to go bust/tits up. (Ever notice the connection between the expressions?)

Great cover--reminds me of the Monty Python Flying Circus intro gyu (Palin).

I won't drift into it here, but thar be some good stuff in that issue.

Yes, I was almost afraid to look, because there is so much to read.

But I did look, and I discovered a new poem from Richard Wilbur. That man is a couple of months short of being 88. I first read him in 1971, I think, and loved him immediately. If you read that poem aloud, you'll catch some of what he has always been about -- he has rhythm; he works to some fairly classical structures, although they're subtle and hidden. And he is still writing.

As Joe Biden's mother would say, God love 'im.

I think this is his most famous poem -- "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World." It's the first poem of his I ever read, and with a little prompting, I think I could still recite it from memory. Again, try reading it aloud.

Obama! Invite this man to the inauguration! Kennedy had Frost. (I remember that too.)

French colonialism in Guadeloupe.

Britons flee French island of Guadeloupe as rioters turn on white families



On an island, 90% black, what a freaking racist asshole! Wonder how long before his place is torched?

Indeed, though I'd rather see the Guadeloupe people confiscate the arsehole's property to make it a daycare or mother-child health centre with lots of cute li'l Black kids running around.

Art as collateral

At first glance, this appears to be a story about Annie Liebovitz doing a fairly comfortable deal for all her work, but it goes on from there:



Kinda sad, thinking of all that great art just stored away somewhere. What's wrong with this picture?

This thread has been up since June '07. The Cons lied and lied to the public for the last 2 years. Now they are pissing their pants with good reason. But Flaherty wants 3 Billion with little oversight on how the money is spent because Canadians cannot wait for the normal procedures to be followed. Panic stations.

Meantime the global financial system is in a tailspin and many people smarter than me say it is beyond saving; free trade, globalization is dying. The msm continue with the pretense of things looking rosy in a year and it is short-term, hurtful but short-term, which is of course balderdash, it won't be long before everyone will be protectionist. From what I've reading and hearing since Canada ships 80% or more of exports to the US and they are in D, trade will come to a virtual halt. We saw no hope of leadership from the G7 or G20, and very few believe the leaders have the solutions, people are not spending which means they don't believe our leaders have any grasp of the crisis and the forecast is 2010-11 before any relief. Meantime McKay is talking tough about the Ruskies in our airspace over the Arctic. A divergence of course. And the Ruskies are calling McKay's comments a farce which the Beav describes in detail

Obviously the resource war is coming to Canada. But hell the hell can Canada or Russia afford a resource war? Beats me, except it'll end up with bad things happening.

Yes, this exactly. It doesn't take an oceanographer to see the tsunami coming. But it takes a conservative to:

1. Belittle and hector the people who see it coming (they aren't 'serious')
2. Deny its existence even as it starts flattening things
3. Finally notice, panic, then claim they are best suited to deal with it.

Tidal Wave of Homeless Children Hit Schools This article broke my heart, so many kids. Summer can't come soon enough for these parents and their children. This is just a Calif., imagine the numbers involved across the U.S.

But the UK is worried most over what's going to happen in the summer, starting with May Day and M15 is on it, with contingency plans to deploy troops on the streets of Britain’s major cities, for the summer of discontent

Meantime banks are still crying the billions they received aren't enough. Priorities are out of sync with the RW and the brutality to the people is going to become much worse worldwide.

CRA wants us to be snitches on ourselves.



Jeebus, I hope to gawd someone sends in a video that tells them we won't do that to ourselves or our neighbours! Desperation = stoopidity with the con-cons!

And now we will find out what kind of neighbours people have exactly. Look at how they word it all on the cra site - Any way you look at it, the underground economy is your problem.

Well, to be fair they are just trying to collect taxes. Most of us (i.e. the poor) don't have much leeway when it comes to cheating on taxes, and if we do cheat it isn't for much. The cheating happens among those who just can't quite get enough loot, mostly. And I don't mind them getting busted for it, to be honest.

It's well enough to hate the taxperson, but I do like a lot of what that money is spent on.

That said, tax accountants aren't known for cutting edge technological or social trends, the getting of.

Toe, where did your main quote come from (cause I would like to read the whole analysis)? I don't mean the CRA link -- I mean the critical text it's embedded in?

arborman, I confess to feeling a little differently about the barter economy from the way I feel about big-time tax cheaters. I suppose there are degrees of this stuff, but the people I've known who were doing under-the-counter work are mostly small-scale tradespeople -- they ask to be paid in cash, no paper trails. And small-scale barter can be socially healthy -- I cut a neighbour's hair; she does my accounts, that sort of thing.

I like much of what our taxes could be spent on, should be spent on, although I have a lot of questions about income gaps and general economic policy. The big-time cheaters have altogether too much say in where my tax money is or isn't going, and at some point, that tension begins to break down the social contract.

I could be wrong but this appears to be the source of TD's story

LINK

Hear, hear.

I am quite happy to pay my taxes but perhaps because I live in a semi-rural area with a small population, I notice barter is more a part of community than a substitute for the exchange of money. It doesn't even require making a deal. If someone I hardly know drops off their extra eggs and chicken manure to me on a regular basis, chances are pretty good I won't be charging them much for photographing their daughter's wedding.

Barter and the underground economy need to exist, for several reasons. Among them is that it's what keeps a lot of people afloat, during good times and bad. And by afloat, I don't just mean financially. It also highlights unfair taxation and onerous bureaucracy, the burden of which tends to fall on people who are just struggling to make it, either as an individual or a very small business.
If there were more bartering, it would help keep communities afloat, both rural and urban.
And I say this as someone who has nothing against paying my own taxes; I don't like to do all kinds of financial gymnastics to get out of it either. I don't mind paying for things under the table from time to time, as long as I understand a bit about the person doing it, and as long as it won't jeopardise any guarantees on the work.

eta: this used to be a big issue in Quebec in the 1990s, I can even remember a series of TV commercials denouncing under the table economies and people were rather paranoid about it for a while - but somehow it seems to have fallen by the wayside more recently. I think the government more or less accepts its existence now, and I've even heard directly from construction-reno guys that they'd been solicited by people in the government (civil servants or sub-ministers) who wanted under-the-table renovation/construction work done on their homes and cottages.

Thanks Debra, I had forgotten the link. During WW2 there were barter clubs, just word of mouth and mom says people could just sign up at the church or community center. Of course now we have the internet and craigslist and more formal barter sites like this one:
https://www.favorpals.com/favorpals/jsp/index.jsp

One things that worries me is if the gov decides one day to say your a licensed carpenter, but you can no longer do any carpentry work outside of your employment. Of course they'd be holy hell to pay if they tried it, what concerns me is they could. And then hire inspectors. Well the inspectors only work M-F, 9-5 and all the barter work is done on weekends. So on weekends the gov is relying on residents? That would work in the tony nabes, but never in the working class nabes. And then of course it is a long established tradition in many ethnic groups who wouldn't even know they were doing something 'bad' as the cra site calls people who engage.

Making the people snitches is just so typical of an authoritarian gov't. To take it a step further the union's role is to barter for the greatest possible compensation and benefits for the worker, it gives some illusion of democracy in the workplace. The core everyday experience of bartering, especially during bad times, instills a sense of confidence and sense of worth in communities.

Taxes of course need to be paid, but it's not my job to make sure they are and I resent the gov't turning neighbour against neighbour, I can't think of anything more unhealthy or dysfunctional. eta - let's not forget 'some' countries bartering drugs for weapons and vice versa. Tsk Tsk.

Oh certainly - I have tons of issues with current policies and decisions too. And I definitely don't like how tax policy is made, and who it is made for (mostly). But we do need taxes.

Thats not how the inspectors work now. Now they contact all of your suppliers, find out how much you have bought from them and then compare it to your declared sales. If theres a discrepency (you both 100 bathtubs but only sold 10, where on your property is the other 90?) then off to jail and penury you go (penury first, jail as a possible afterthought)

They're baaack.... Does anybody at all know what they are doing? Call in the army.

Oh and look who is taking over for Moffett (after only 6 months) John Koskinen who was a corporate restructuring expert who spent two years directing planning for the "Year 2000" computer conversion.

Doesn't that fill people with confidence? I remember idiot Domi's brother (forget his name) who sold the phoney scare to Toronto City, the millions they spent for the big Y2K bug-a-boo that NEVER HAPPENED.

This is a sexist comment, but I don't care.

Dana Perino is an airhead.



And there's vid of the bubblehead whining on behalf of people receiving "bonuses" of multiple millions each for having screwed up at least and maybe quite a bit worse.

Perino is a problem not unlike dear Sarah. It is perfectly possible (and those two would be proof) for a woman to be stupid, corrupt, a boot-licking stenographer for the powerful, narcissistic, and a whole lot of other awful things too. It would be sexist to claim that women can't be those things.

But the right love finding women like them (see also Rona Ambrose and Helena Handbasket), women who are some eerie combination of eye-candy and unwarranted self-confidence, because as soon as we snort at these absurd creatures, we can be accused of sexism, they think. We only give Perino a hard time because she's hot and we're jealous, they say.

Screw that. I give her a hard time because she is a spoiled, ignorant bootlicker, and only then do I say mean, personal, catty things. Like, she has the most awful voice; she quacks like a duck. Wouldn't you think they could spring for some elocution lessons for her? (And I could say more, but I'll stop there.)

So how do you really feel?

My god but these people are thick. Millions in bonuses makes you middle class? Holy fuck I guess that makes most of us some sort of sub class.

Nope. According to their ideology (unfortunately it has trickled down to much of the working class, or rather been hammered into us) we're all middle-class too, with the exception of a few "hardcore unemployed" and homeless people.

This stuff has me livid. Car workers' pensions have been plundered, and these shitheads keep their bonuses...

Not to mention here in Ontario the Auto Workers are being asked to take a 19 dollar an hour cut in pay, on top of the handouts the company is getting and they are still threatening to leave. bastards.

The House Financial Services Committee is chatting with a number of financial/insurance experts this a.m., one of the them Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG.

The hearing is livestreamed on C-SPAN3, and EW is liveblogging.

I can't possibly explain all the background. I just follow.

Wow, these bonuses are a sideshow to the real problem. I hope Obama is now fully awake and fires the Wall Street handlers he's surrounded himself with.

Enough taxpayer money has been given that could have actually re-done the entire system with regulations. And now the next big package is being prepared. Obama is now on thin ice and he desperately needs a few swiss army knives around him outside of Wall St. executives who know how to multi-task.

Matt Taibbi : The Big Takeover :

It may be the only way-to-go, taxing back the outrageous bonuses, but using the tax system against an identifiable group (AIG bonus receivers) rather than working off large demographic figures (fer instance) leaves me a tad uncomfortable. I am not sure the internal revenue mechanism should be used punitively and selectively.

Yes, the monies should be returned (and any interest made off them), yet is there not another way to recoup these 'ill gotten gains'?

Is there a president for this? While morally these dudes are no better than Mafia Dons .... they have not broken any laws and (eventually) they became (or were forced to become) apparent about the funds revealing their individual size and extent. If they have broken laws there are methods of recovering the fruits of crime.

Is teh tax system teh proper venue for this?

I think you are right, that it's using a sledgehammer to knock a nail into the wall. On the other hand I see no problem with generally raising taxes on the rich, or rather rescinding some of the rightwingers cuts on taxes paid by the rich. But for the AIG guys, could the US government reduce its loan to AIG by the amount paid out in bonuses?

Yabbut, you know how that plays out. The AIG wage slaves will be asked to take a pay cut, or "downsized", and premiums to customers will increase. The spectacularly incompetent executives won't take the hit. They're entitled to their bonuses, afterall.

The dubious mantra repeated ad nauseum about having to pay to retain/attract "talented" people in the corporate & political world (and apparently "only" in these spheres) needs to be exposed for the garbage that it is. Seriously, is there really a huge market out there for these idjits? I wouldn't hire them for litter box duty.

Oh Holly! Holly! Holly! ... in composing that post I considered using the same metaphor as you about hammers, nails and walls. I must admit that it is a question that I cannot answer. Tax teh rich! Tax teh rich! Tax teh shit out of the rich - they will and can survive, that is why they are rich. The riches of the country belong to the people of the country, and the tax system is an excellent method to recoup their seizing of OUR WEALTH. It is sad, but true that k'in is all too correct in saying: wage slaves will be asked to take a pay cut, or "downsized", and premiums to customers will increase. The spectacularly incompetent executives won't take the hit.

But this still does not universalize the tax measures designed to recover these obscene bonuses. We (the US) is supposed to be a country of LAWS - and to specify one bunch of individuals over another on the basis of an instance, as in those recipients of AIG (and other) bonuses, flys in the face of this fundamental.

We have had enough of the selective application of laws ..... Bush did it, and Harper delights in it even yet (seen any reference to Jason Kenny). To rescind the bonuses it will take specifically naming those that have received these monies. Indeed, they cannot even be rescinded, they have already been paid.

Perhaps the criminal code? Certainly a bit of time in the crowbar hotel would turn these folks around - but even that has its' own dangers. Maybe something like forbidding those that received the largess to have any dealing with the government in the future? But all these echo the treatment of Jews by Nazis or Arabs by Israelis.

There must be greater and better trained in the subject minds than mine that can come up with some solution to this - it should be done, it seems to proper that it be done, but the method is beyond me.

Hah, they just said on CBC radio that new documents show the AIG bonuses amounted to 218 million or so. Where's the pitchforks?

A couple of nights ago on CBC AIH they interviewed a Republican congressman from Texas who voted against the bill to tax some bonuses because he said it was a)unconstitutional, b)could be far more effectively implemented using the laws at hand, and c)would only effect a dozen companies out of the 500 at most and they would only ultimately circumvent the taxes anyway as most are already not paying them. He considered the anger fomented against AIG to be a smokescreen to mitigate public anger in order to pave the way for passage of a new round of bank bailouts yet to be made public. He called it a "nod, nod, wink, wink" bill. He stopped just shy of calling the bill a scam to shield the banksters.

In the Matt Taibbi link above, he does call it a scam : "Geithner, Obama's Treasury secretary, is one of the architects of the Paulson bailouts; as chief of the New York Fed, he helped orchestrate the Goldman-friendly AIG bailout. Neither did it look good when Geithner — himself a protégé of notorious Goldman alum John Thain, the Merrill Lynch chief who paid out billions in bonuses after the state spent billions bailing out his firm — picked a former Goldman lobbyist named Mark Patterson to be his top aide"
Taibbi says it's just going to be the Paulson plan all over again.

Krugman today :

Strange bedfellows -- a lot of Republicans like that congressman Alison heard, and then much of the left are both furious about the bonuses and also calling scam on the new plan together. I guess the remaining difference would be that they have different other solutions to the problem.

Things really are bad down there. Every once in a while one of the Merkins I read in comments at EW's place will blurt out a story of personal pain (I know of at least one who's in foreclosure; someone else just said the other day that's he basically broke, and he's a professional -- all these people are), and a lot of people are personally worried about their areas or communities -- EW's in Michigan, eg. I just watch and wonder, and sometimes give hugs.

Why Geithner's plan won't work--Sam & Marc's Remedial Theatre

Oh! Matt Taibbi and Sen. Bernie Sanders will be on Democracy Now in the A.M. (Wed, March 25). Krugman was on DN Monday morning, which is available here.

Matt Taibbi just goes on being brilliant in his passion and anger on this topic. I loved this bit especially:



You can tell that Matt is mad, can't you.

And it gets better.

Good one, thanks skdadl. You know if the elitist capitalist pigs who got us into this mess don't want such financial insecurity among the 'people' and are concerned for worldwide protests, then please tell me why the G-20 are all taking their spouses to this shindig on the taxpayers dime. What are the spouses going to talk about? And check out the schedule, it is mighty pathetic for such a dire emergency. Meantime here is the schedule
It already looks like an orwellian joke.

eta - Oh and Police will be armed with 50,000-volt Taser stun guns to deal with violent demonstrators planning to disrupt the G20 summit.
G20