March 2011 archive

Mar 05 2011

Pollution

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

My activist brother often tells me that the reason we have to constantly re-fight the battles of the past is that we didn’t crush these bone head brain dead assholes the way we should have in the first place.

I’m inclined to agree.

Remember Cuyahoga?

3 Dems join GOP fight to block EPA climate rules

By DINA CAPPIELLO, Forbes

03.03.11, 04:49 PM EST

WASHINGTON — Three Democrats are joining a Republican effort in the House to block the Environmental Protection Agency from reducing the gases blamed for global warming.

Rep. Nick Rahall of West Virginia, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, and Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma will sponsor a bill supported by 42 Senate and seven House Republicans that would bar the EPA from using federal law to control greenhouse gases from power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities.

The measure is the latest to be introduced in the Republican-controlled House, where at least a half-dozen bills target the EPA and its efforts to control air and water pollution.

Mar 05 2011

Economics is NOT a science

Crossposted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

At least the way many economists practice it.  Instead it is a faith based Voodoo cult.

For one thing science is predictive and replicable.

Neo-classical synthesis predicts that reduction in Government spending, without increases in spending of other sectors of the overall economy like Business and Consumers, decreases Aggregate Demand.  In the absence of Demand businesses stop producing now surplus goods and services (there’s no demand for them you see) and reduce marginal expenses (fire people and close factories) and hoard capital (money).

Pretty predictive huh?

And in terms of replicable- we have seen this same phenomena time after time ever since there have been economies and the end result is always the same.  Voodoo economics believes in Tinkerbell and Pixie Dust.

How to Kill a Recovery

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: March 3, 2011

Republicans believe, or at least pretend to believe, that the direct job-destroying effects of their proposals would be more than offset by a rise in business confidence. As I like to put it, they believe that the Confidence Fairy will make everything all right.

…

(W)e have a lot of evidence from other countries about the prospects for “expansionary austerity” – and that evidence is all negative. Last October, a comprehensive study by the International Monetary Fund concluded that “the idea that fiscal austerity stimulates economic activity in the short term finds little support in the data.”

And do you remember the lavish praise heaped on Britain’s conservative government, which announced harsh austerity measures after it took office last May? How’s that going? Well, business confidence did not, in fact, rise when the plan was announced; it plunged, and has yet to recover. And recent surveys suggest that confidence has fallen even further among both businesses and consumers, indicating, as one report put it, that the private sector is “unprepared to fill the hole left by public sector cuts.”

…

Over the next few weeks, House Republicans will try to blackmail the Obama administration into accepting their proposed spending cuts, using the threat of a government shutdown. They’ll claim that those cuts would be good for America in both the short term and the long term.

But the truth is exactly the reverse: Republicans have managed to come up with spending cuts that would do double duty, both undermining America’s future and threatening to abort a nascent economic recovery.

I’m not taking any bets on whether Obama caves again or not, or what the results will be when he does, just over/unders on how long it will take.

Mar 05 2011

Late Night Karaoke

Mar 05 2011

Tax Revenues Are Falling

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

David Cay Johnson, professor at Syracuse University, author of “Free Lunch” and columnist for Tax.com, spoke with Rachel Maddow about the Republican plans to cut funding to the IRS and the direct impact that will have on the governments ability to collect taxes and reduce the deficit.

Taking the Revenue Out of the IRS

Johnson also reported in an article at Tax.com, that tax revenues in 2010 were smaller than in 2000 before the Bush tax cuts.

We take you now to the official data for important news. Federal tax revenues in 2010 were much smaller than in 2000. Total individual income tax receipts fell 30 percent in real terms. Because the population kept growing, income taxes per capita plummeted.

Individual income taxes came to just $2,900 per capita in 2010, down 36 percent from more than $4,500 in 2000. Total income taxes and income taxes per capita declined even though the economy grew 16 percent overall and 6 percent per capita from 2000 through 2010.

Corporate income tax receipts fell 27 percent and declined 34 percent per capita, even though profits boomed, rising 60 percent.

Payroll taxes increased slightly overall, but slipped per capita because the nation’s population grew five times faster than the number of people with any work. The average wage also declined slightly.

You read it here first. Lowered tax rates did not result in increased tax revenues as promised by politician after pundit after professional economist. And even though this harsh truth has been obvious from the official data for some time, the same politicians and pundits keep prevaricating. Some of them even say it is irrelevant that as a share of GDP, income tax revenues are at their lowest level since 1951, when Harry S. Truman was president.

No matter how many times advocates of lower tax rates said it, tax rate cuts did not pay for themselves, did not spur economic growth, did not increase jobs, and did not make America better off.

(emphasis mine)

The full transcript for the video can be read a Rachel’s blog.

Mar 05 2011

Tax Revenues Are Falling

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

David Cay Johnson, professor at Syracuse University, author of “Free Lunch” and columnist for Tax.com, spoke with Rachel Maddow about the Republican plans to cut funding to the IRS and the direct impact that will have on the governments ability to collect taxes and reduce the deficit.

Taking the Revenue Out of the IRS

Johnson also reported in an article at Tax.com, that tax revenues in 2010 were smaller than in 2000 before the Bush tax cuts.

We take you now to the official data for important news. Federal tax revenues in 2010 were much smaller than in 2000. Total individual income tax receipts fell 30 percent in real terms. Because the population kept growing, income taxes per capita plummeted.

Individual income taxes came to just $2,900 per capita in 2010, down 36 percent from more than $4,500 in 2000. Total income taxes and income taxes per capita declined even though the economy grew 16 percent overall and 6 percent per capita from 2000 through 2010.

Corporate income tax receipts fell 27 percent and declined 34 percent per capita, even though profits boomed, rising 60 percent.

Payroll taxes increased slightly overall, but slipped per capita because the nation’s population grew five times faster than the number of people with any work. The average wage also declined slightly.

You read it here first. Lowered tax rates did not result in increased tax revenues as promised by politician after pundit after professional economist. And even though this harsh truth has been obvious from the official data for some time, the same politicians and pundits keep prevaricating. Some of them even say it is irrelevant that as a share of GDP, income tax revenues are at their lowest level since 1951, when Harry S. Truman was president.

No matter how many times advocates of lower tax rates said it, tax rate cuts did not pay for themselves, did not spur economic growth, did not increase jobs, and did not make America better off.

(emphasis mine)

The full transcript for the video can be read a Rachel’s blog.

Mar 05 2011

Random Japan

Stats

¥4,800 Price of a one-way ticket from Tokyo to Bangkok offered by travel agency H.I.S. from March 15 to May 8

¥68 billion Estimated sales of e-books in Japan during fiscal 2010, according to the Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute

216.8 million Number of appliances and electronics disposed of in Japan last year, according to the environment ministry

840 Students at an elementary school in Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, stricken with food poisoning after eating a school lunch of “potato-miso soup, salad… and radish

Government By Tweet  

Yea, That Will Work  

These Tests May Seem Important  

Truthfully They’re Pointless

Eels He Imported Fake Eels  

Fake Eels?  

How-to books on living comfortably on welfare selling well





TOKYO  

A healthy economy affords almost everyone a livelihood. For those who fall through the cracks, there’s welfare relief. An unhealthy economy swells the welfare rolls. Japan’s current economy is extremely unhealthy. The welfare system is strained to the breaking point. “Strange world,” muses Shukan Shincho (March 3), referring to a recent spate of briskly-selling how-to books offering advice on milking welfare for all it’s worth and more. Why struggle? is the implied message. You can live pretty comfortably on welfare, if you know the ropes.

By 2005, the nation was some 15 years into its ongoing “lost decade,” and 1 million households were on welfare. By last November 1.42 million households were – 1.97 million individuals. Welfare payments in 2009 came to 3 trillion yen.

Mar 05 2011

Random Japan

Stats ¥4,800Price of a one-way ticket from Tokyo to Bangkok offered by travel agency H.I.S. from March 15 to May 8 ¥68 billionEstimated sales of e-books in Japan during fiscal 2010, according to the Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute 216.8 millionNumber of appliances and electronics disposed of in Japan last year, according to the environment ministry …

Continue reading

Mar 05 2011

Old News from Afghanistan

Tetanus
“Children die from tetanus…”

Kandahar, Afghanistan, October 13, 2010…

The Red Cross reported a “drastic increase” in the number of amputations from war injuries, reflecting the nature of the violence.

Reto Stocker, the Red Cross chief in Kabul, said the casualties being seen at Mirwais hospital were only “the tip of the iceberg.”

This was near the beginning of Obama’s “surge” around Kandahar, and because of intense fighting almost everywhere in the district, many people with treatable injuries and illnesses couldn’t get to clinics or hospitals.

“The result is that children die from tetanus, measles and tuberculosis – easily prevented with vaccines – while women die in childbirth and otherwise strong men succumb to simple infections.”

Mar 05 2011

This Week In The Dream Antilles

And what a weak week it was in Weequahic.  Also, in the Dream Antilles.  Your bloguero’s seasonal affective grouchiness (SAG) kicked into high gear as Old Man Winter continued to torture the inhabitants of the Northeast with inclemency and frigidity .  Meanwhile, the radio station was broadcasting the Mets from sunny Port Saint Lucie in Florida.  It did not help your bloguero’s disposition at all that Luis Castillo was playing second and Ollie Perez was on the mound.  These two guys, who should have been traded or fired at the end of last season, still get paid 8 figures to do nothing.  Your bloguero would be willing to do nothing for low 6 figures, and he’ll negotiate.  You know where to send the offers.

The week ended with Bloguer@s: Play the Game Right, a meta discussion of recent flameouts at Port Writers Alliance blogs.  The post spares you the details but notes that most of the hostilities are provoked by uncontrolled ego and ego’s stepchild, defensiveness.  Your bloguero asks, “Can’t we play the game right?”

In  Obama: Get Our Your Comfortable Shoes you will find a video of President Obama on the campaign trail in 2007 telling workers in South Carolina how he’ll put shoe leather to the pavement and walk the pick line with them if they have to strike.  Right.   Get out your Guccis.  And Wisconsin?  No, he’s not going there.  Nope.  He’s not even going to give a sternly worded letter to the Governor.  Posts like this heighten the contradictions, as if they needed heightening.

The Times had an article explaining how books were going to be sold in odd locations like clothing stores.  Books And Non Books notes in passing that the “books” being sold aren’t literary gems, they’re non-books.  Put another way, the publishers are going to foist a lot of paper junk on shoppers in the vain hope of keeping themselves above water.  News like this makes your bloguero think about withholding the life preserver.

Duke Snider, RIP notes the passing of a childhood hero, Brooklyn Dodger outfielder Duke Snider.   Your bloguero didn’t think Snider was better than Mays or Mantle, the other iconic New York outfielders of the era, but he loved the Dodgers, and Duke was a part of that team.

Thank You For Supporting Wisconsin’s Workers thanks readers of The Dream Antilles for going to demonstrations on Solidarity Saturday and for buying pizza for Wisconsin’s demonstrators.

Your bloguero notes in passing that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is supposed to be posted early Sunday morning. Well, things happen.  The best laid plans of mice, etc.  See you next week if the creek don’t rise on Sunday early.

Mar 05 2011

Original v. Cover — #68 in a Series

So very Mary Pictures, Images and Photos

This week’s selection was recorded and released in 1966, was included on the original recording group’s debut album, and as a single, became their first Top 100 hit, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The song was covered by Manhattan Transfer and reportedly admired by Leonard Bernstein, who included a brief analysis of the song in the “What is a Mode?” episode of his Young People’s Concerts series.  

Mar 05 2011

Random Japan

Stats ¥4,800Price of a one-way ticket from Tokyo to Bangkok offered by travel agency H.I.S. from March 15 to May 8 ¥68 billionEstimated sales of e-books in Japan during fiscal 2010, according to the Tokyo-based Yano Research Institute 216.8 millionNumber of appliances and electronics disposed of in Japan last year, according to the environment ministry …

Continue reading

Mar 05 2011

Popular Culture (Music) 20110304. Deep Purple Mark I

There are bands and there are bands.  This band has gone through so many transitions that even I, The Geek, can not keep up with all of them, but I do know that in their original lineup that they were close to, if not actually, great.

Deep Purple were a sort of late on the invasion set band from England, only releasing their first record in 1968.  They did some original material, but their first hit was a cover of Hush, by Joe South, written for Billy Joe Royal, and it was an OK hit.

I only intend to treat the Mark I lineup, because I personally found their material to deteriorate quickly after the band were realigned, although their big hits were later.  Please come with me and explore what was to later become one of the first big hair bands, and one of the loudest in concert.

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