October 13, 2008
Sometimes good things happen to good people.
Paul Krugman of Princeton University and the NYTimes, frequently quoted in this space, was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics today.
This is worthy recognition to an outstanding thinker, who not only thinks the deep thoughts of his “dismal science,” but articulately delivers complex concepts with clarity.
Well done, Nobel committee, and Paul Krugman!
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Last post, I spoke in glowing terms of one of my favorite progressive blogs, First Door on the Left.
Len did it again today (recognizing Paul Krugman, by the way) by posting the complete transcript of Barack Obama’s fleshed out economic rescue plan delivered in Ohio today.
A Rescue Plan for the Middle Class
I know these are difficult times. I know folks are worried. But I also know this – we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because we are the United States of America. We are the country that has faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges – not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans.
We still have the most talented, most productive workers of any country on Earth. We’re still home to innovation and technology, colleges and universities that are the envy of the world. Some of the biggest ideas in history have come from our small businesses and our research facilities. It won’t be easy, but there’s no reason we can’t make this century another American century.
But it will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years. And that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.
My opponent has made his choice. Last week, Senator McCain’s campaign announced that they were going to “turn the page” on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead. His campaign actually said, and I quote, “if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” Well Senator McCain may be worried about losing an election, but I’m worried about Americans who are losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings. They can’t afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to millionaires and billionaires and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. We’ve seen where that’s led us and we’re not going back. It’s time to turn the page.
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1 Comment | 
Economic depression, Economy, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election, progressive, Recession | Tagged: Barack Obama, Faux News, First Door on the Left, John McCain, middle class rescue, New York Times, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, Paul Krugman, Princeton University, redneckette, talk radio, the only thing to fear is fear itself | 
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Posted by mudge
October 9, 2008
© Bruno1998 | Dreamstime.com
Away (from blogging — the writing, not the reading) and the economy, and especially the stock markets, continues in free fall.
Everyone is on edge, if not downright frantic, because if you’re too young to be that concerned about your retirement account and pension, you very well might be looking over your shoulder for economy-related pink slips.
The presidential campaign continues its free fall, from idealism and straight talk to Republican distortions and lies, and increasingly strident (and quite rapid, altogether a nice improvement over the “gentlemanly” Kerry debacle) Democratic responses.
And chanting relentlessly about Bill Ayers to mad-dog mobs (did Sarah Palin bring out every last one of this country’s rednecks?) while 401Ks keep decaying and mortgages keep resetting is making ordinary, moderate people downright angry.
Fiddling while Rome burns, indeed.
My approach to the meltdown? I just don’t look at my funds.
If you’re not spending it tomorrow, why make yourself crazy? If you live long enough, you’ll see the markets come back. And I’m not retiring until my 90th birthday.
Of course those now living off of their pensions and especially their IRAs and 401Ks have a right to be furious with the criminal class of plutocrats running (yeah, and ruining) this country’s biggest financial institutions. And the Republican politicians who made the world safe for their crimes.
I can imagine some really juicy show trials come January.
Meanwhile, I’m reading lots of good stuff, enough so that this past week I find myself rather tongue-tied as a result.
So, rather than fight to get the words out, here’s a laundry list of worthwhile reading.
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16 Comments | Economic depression, Economy, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election, progressive, Recession | Tagged: $700 billion Wall St. bailout, BlogExplosion, Carly Fiorino, Economy, First Door on the Left, McCain, Meg Whitman, Obama, Political Realm, progressive, Recession, The 12 Angry Men Blog, The Coyote's Byte, Tom Paine.common sense, Warren Buffet, Washington Interns Gone Bad | Permalink
Posted by mudge
October 1, 2008
© Bo Widerberg | Dreamstime.com
There’s more at stake in the present Wall Street bailout tsunami than the partisan posturing might lead you to believe.
Conservatives vs. moderates vs. progressives vs. everybody.
In a lifetime of casual reading about the Great Depression of the 1930s, the main cause that stuck in my mind was the wrong-headed protective tariffs established by the Smoot-Hawley act, which caused the economic dominos to topple all over the world.
Economists tell a different story; far less global, and very much local. David Leonhardt, in the NYTimes tells of some disturbing parallels with the current crisis.
Crisis feels altogether too bland a word for what the nation is facing today. Abyss feels more appropriate.
And if I exaggerate, that is a reflection of what I see and hear.
This one has even the normally oblivious shaken.
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8 Comments | Economic depression, Economy, History, Politics | Tagged: $700 billion Wall St. bailout, David Leonhardt, Economic depression, Henry Paulson, History, Politics | Permalink
Posted by mudge
September 28, 2008
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Trying not to feel too guilty about this month’s continuing violations of the blogger’s prime directive: Thou Shalt Blog Daily!
Guilty, your honor, with an excuse.
It’s not like there haven’t been extraordinary events to write about, in the big world out there, and in the not quite silent interior world each of us populate, eternally alone.
Faithful reader will have noted the personal elements that seem to have cost us our creative rhythm.
Complicated, lately, by the recent edition of MUDGElet No. 3’s 50-inch HD plasma television (if the empty nest had to be invaded, at least there’s an extra dividend!), just in time for the football season and the exciting (for Chicagoans, surprisingly exciting) baseball late and post-season.
Football, especially, on the elderly 13-inch conventional TV that sits on a file cabinet in our home office, pales in comparison. And the only laptop in my possession (two, actually, in my custody) belongs to my employer, and it wouldn’t occur to me to blog on those machines. Inappropriate.
So, it’s a tough call, choosing between blogging and high-definition spectator sport, especially in these personally emotionally draining times, and especially on this Sunday evening when the often frustrating home team Bears are giving the Eagles a fight.
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2 Comments | Blogging, Economy, Life, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election | Tagged: $700 billion Wall St. bailout, Blogging, McCain, Obama | Permalink
Posted by mudge
September 25, 2008
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Don’t have the energy for a full fledged rant, but several stories and commentaries crossed the screen today, and made it clear that, in an administration that never stops scamming us, they’ve totally topped themselves.
The Yiddish term is Chutzpah, whose classic definition has a young man, caught with bloody hands after murdering his parents, asking the court for mercy, as he’s an orphan.
We begin with that stalwart bastion of progressive thought, Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune. Stalwart, yes, bastion, yes, progressive? Judge for yourself.
The case against a federal bailout
Steve Chapman | September 25, 2008
The late comedian Jack Benny made a career of claiming to be a cheapskate. In one joke, a robber accosted him and said: “Your money or your life.” Getting no response, the thug repeated his demand. Benny replied, “I’m thinking about it!”
That’s the sort of dilemma posed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke in their proposed rescue of financial institutions. They predict dire consequences if they don’t get their way. But the consequences of letting them have their way are so awful that the alternative doesn’t look so bad.
What they prescribe is for the federal government to buy $700 billion worth of lousy assets from banks and other lenders, exposing taxpayers to a potentially crushing liability. This plan would nationalize the money-losing part of the financial sector, to the benefit of capitalists who have made spectacularly bad decisions—fostering more bad decisions in the future.
It would add to the liabilities of a government that is already living way beyond its means. It would give unprecedented power to a couple of officials who have proved highly fallible in trying to avert this alleged crisis. And it poses the risk of abuse and corruption because the government has no way to gauge the value of what it will buy….
Paulson and Bernanke say, and probably believe, that their program is for the good of us all. But remember what Thoreau thought of their 19th Century counterparts. “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good,” he wrote, “I should run for my life.”
The case against a federal bailout — chicagotribune.com
Read a local media observer today who thought that this was the year that Chapman’s paper, the Chicago Tribune might endorse a Democrat for president for the first time. Ever. In over 150 years.
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1 Comment | Economic depression, Economy, Politics, Presidential election, progressive | Tagged: $700 billion Wall St. bailout, Chicago Tribune, Daily Kos, Forbes, Henry Paulson, Steve Chapman | Permalink
Posted by mudge
September 24, 2008
© Martin Applegate | Dreamstime.com
Just don’t know where to start.
The news is bleak, nearly everywhere one cares to look.
Somehow, John McCain is still taken seriously, even as he escalates the stunts.
First, adopt wholeheartedly with relish the Karl Rove/Swift Boat outrageous Big Lie protocol that obliterated the last nice guy to try to win the White House.
Next, kowtow to the restive Christian wingnuts by selecting for his running mate wingnut magna, herself, Sarah Palin.
Now, clothe his attempt at abject ducking of the first debate in the name of somehow intervening in Congress’s Wall Street bailout negotiations. Senator “Fundamentally Sound” McCain. Whose economic advisor, the next Secretary of the Treasury should this country wake up to a nightmare on Nov. 5 is Phil “Stop Whining” Gramm. Yeah, I’m certain you can guys can be of assistance.
If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.
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4 Comments | Economic depression, Economy, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election | Tagged: $700 billion Wall St. bailout, Gramm, Karl Rove, McCain, Obama, Paulson, progressive, Sarah Palin, Swift Boat | Permalink
Posted by mudge
September 23, 2008
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George F. Will is one of the best known conservative commentators writing for a major daily newspaper. And, he makes no bones about his appreciation for the Chicago Cubs, who in the past few days have reached the next milestones in what should, by all rights, be their Brigadoon Year (go ahead, click the link — it’s one of my favorites, and you read it here first!).
Mr. Conservative Pundit George F. Will had some very cogent observations regarding the character of one John S. McCain, Republican presidential candidate. Unexpectedly, at least to this progressive observer, and to others who have picked up on this today, Mr. Will is not happy with Sen. McCain.
McCain Loses His Head
By George F. Will | Tuesday, September 23, 2008; Page A21
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”
Senator, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates the stock-related activities of publicly traded corporations.
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6 Comments | Economy, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election | Tagged: Brigadoon year, Chicago Cubs, Columbia University, George F. Will, Harvard Law School, Henry Paulson, McCain, Naval Academy, Obama, Palin | Permalink
Posted by mudge
September 8, 2008
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As some observers have noted after the two conventions, there were lots of distractions, lots of words, but not much in the way of substance.
Especially regarding this nation’s number one concern.
Iraq, you ask?
That’s so 2007.
No, it’s the economy — rather, the very dangerous state of the economy.
Our Republican friends, plutocrats, or plutocrat wannabe’s, don’t believe we have a problem. McCain is and has always been insulated from the real world by, first, years as a Naval officer, where the pay might not be royal but subsidized expenses are low; then years as a prisoner of war, where the cost of living takes on an entirely ugly but non-financial meaning; then many more years as a Senator, married to wealth, a combination as isolated from the real world as it gets. He relies on his good buddy and close advisor on topics economic, former colleague Phil Gramm of Texas, who believes we’re all whiners.
The Democrats talked a spectacularly good ball game, but had little substantive to offer us.
Even so, based on their track record, one has to believe that the Democrats are more likely to get it than the Republicans, who have spent the last eight years aiding and abetting the liars and thieves on Wall Street and beyond.
Meanwhile, the news, and its import, is grim and becoming even more so.
The Power of De
Op-Ed Columnist | By PAUL KRUGMAN | Published: September 7, 2008
Save the home lenders, save the world? If only it were that simple.
The just-announced federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage lenders, was certainly the right thing to do — and it was done fairly well, too. The plan will sustain institutions that play a crucial role in the economy, while holding down taxpayer costs by more or less cleaning out the stockholders.
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2 Comments | Economic depression, Economy, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election, Recession | Tagged: Barack Obama, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Great Depression, John McCain, Paul Krugman, Recession, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Posted by mudge
August 25, 2008
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MUDGE’s Musings
Confession: Yr (justifiably) humble svt has been watching these past couple of months of virulent right wing zingers aimed at Barack Obama, that are apparently drawing blood among responders to polls, with more than a little tinge of déjà vu.
The rabid Rovian mudflood machine buried John Kerry last time around, using his war record, and his wealthy wife, as its prime weapons. Now, enough true believers are buying Jerome Corsi’s latest fantasy smearfest to make it a best seller. Uh oh.
However, Obama is facing a war hero with a wife so wealthy that he can’t keep track of how many homes they own. Do the Democrats have the bare knuckled instincts to strike back against McCain’s rabid Rovians? Frank Rich of NYTimes is urging that the time for polite cheek turning is long past.
Last Call for Change We Can Believe In
Op-Ed Columnist | By FRANK RICH | Published: August 23, 2008
AS the real campaign at last begins in Denver this week, this much is certain: It’s time for Barack Obama to dispatch “Change We Can Believe In” to a dignified death.
This isn’t because — OMG! — Obama’s narrow three- to four-percentage-point lead of recent weeks dropped to a statistically indistinguishable one- to three-point margin during his week of vacation. It’s because zero hour is here. As the presidential race finally gains the country’s full attention, the strategy that vanquished Hillary Clinton must be rebooted to take out John McCain.
“Change We Can Believe In” was brilliantly calculated for a Democratic familial brawl where every candidate was promising nearly identical change from George Bush. It branded Obama as the sole contender with the un-Beltway biography, credibility and political talent to link the promise of change to the nation’s onrushing generational turnover in all its cultural (and, yes, racial) manifestations. McCain should be a far easier mark than Clinton if Obama retools his act.
Obama’s message of change needs an update, Rich says, and he makes a strong case.
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2 Comments | China, Economy, Iraq occupation, McCain, Obama, Politics, Presidential election | Tagged: China, Corsi, Economy, Frank Rich, John Kerry, McCain, Obama, Politics | Permalink
Posted by mudge
August 23, 2008
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MUDGE’s Musings
As I begin it’s near the nominal end of a summer Saturday; normally I might have had the opportunity to create some kind of post much earlier, but today was not normal, but that’s acceptable. Today was a beautiful day, and it had very little to do with the weather.
Disposed of the usual Saturday morning errand, grocery shopping, in reasonable fashion although closer to noon, having slept in somewhat later than is common.
Picked up MUDGElet No. 3 at his studio in his grandmother’s basement, took him to lunch at a sandwich shop on the way north to my favorite annual outdoor art fair. Mrs. MUDGE had determined that she was going to pass on the opportunity, due to the 90/90 (degrees Fahrenheit/percent humidity) weather, and the dire state of our discretionary art budget, and I was glad of the company.
We didn’t spend a long time there, but he especially enjoyed our stroll up and down one small section of what usually is a sprawling affair spread across several suburban downtown streets and parking areas.
Distressed economy note: fewer exhibitors, and many fewer members of the visual art loving public today (in previous years this particular event has been wall-to-wall people), but those in attendance appeared to be having a good time.
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Posted by mudge
Left-handed Complement 