May 2012 archive

Greek, French and German voters went to the polls this past weekend and rejected pretty much told the European leaders they were very unhappy with the austerity measures that were being forced on them to bail out European banks. It took until yesterday for the world markets to react to this new reality with the Dow closing below its inflated 13,000 mark. Germany, the chief cheerleader for austerity, is not happy with France and very displeased with the new Greek leadership that blithely told Germany what to do with its austerity measures:

Alexis Tsipras, whose bloc came second in Sunday’s vote, said Greek voters had “clearly nullified the loan agreement”. [..]

The European Commission and Germany say countries must stick to budget cuts.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday: “What member states have to do is be consistent, implementing the policies that they have agreed.”  [..]

Mr Tsipras made his position clear to reporters in a five-point plan:

 

• Cancelling the bailout terms, notably laws that further cut wages and pensions
• Scrapping laws that abolish workers rights, particularly a law abolishing collective labour agreements due to come into effect on 15 May
• Promoting changes to deepen democracy and social justice
• Investigating Greece’s banking system which received almost 200bn euros of public money
• Setting up an international committee to find out the causes of Greece’s public deficit and putting on hold all debt servicing

It looks increasingly like the Greeks will be abandoning the Euro, it’s just a matter of when:

“Germans are now predominantly of the opinion that they would be better off if Greece left the euro zone,” said Carsten Hefeker, a professor of economics and an expert on the euro at the University of Siegen. “If the country really is continuing on the path they are taking now, it would be hard to justify keeping them in. How do you deal with a country that says we don’t want to keep any of the commitments we have made?” [..]

Perhaps the one card Greece has to play is the danger its exit could pose to other, much larger members like Spain and Italy, with far greater consequences. If Greece were pushed out, Mr. Hefeker said, the bond markets would start betting on the next country to be kicked out. “Then Spain or Italy would be put under pressure, and the danger would be of the whole euro zone collapsing,” he said.

There are few options are open for the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund which is holding most of Greece’s debt and easing the threat to the banks.

First, the so-called “troika” could release just enough funds to keep the government running until the political situation stabilizes;

The terms of the agreement could be renegotiated with the creditors:

Or, lastly, the “troika” could just refuse to give Greece any money, as the IMF did over 10 years ago when Argentina faced similar economic crisis. This actually turned out well for Argentina over a shorter recovery than is predicted for Greece under the current terms.

Perhaps it is past time for Greece to go it on its own and let the Eu continue the blood letting without them.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

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May 9 is the 129th day of the year (130th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 236 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1860, James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, is born in Scotland.

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired him in writing about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The ), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, a “fairy play” about this ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland. This play quickly overshadowed his previous work and although he continued to write successfully, it became his best-known work, credited with popularising the name Wendy, which was very uncommon previously. Barrie unofficially adopted the Davies boys following the deaths of their parents. Before his death, he gave the rights to the Peter Pan works to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which continues to benefit from them.

The classic Peter Pan starring Mary Martin. This is the 1960 version for NBC. Has been very limited in its showing. The DVD is long out of print and expensive to own.

Shakespeare, so it’s by definition deep.  Read carefully, there’s a quiz at the end.

Part, The First…

Citizens:  We will be satisfied!  Let us be satisfied!

Brutus:  Then follow me and give me audience friends.  Cassius, go you into the other street and part the numbers.  Those that will hear me speak, let ’em stay here.  Those that will follow Cassius, go with him.  And public reasons shall be rendered of Caesar’s death.

First Citizen:  I will hear Brutus speak.

Second Citizen:  I will hear Cassius and compare their reasons when severally we hear them rendered.

Third Citizen:  The noble Brutus is ascended.  Silence!

Brutus:  Be patient till the last.  Romans, countrymen, and lovers- hear me for my cause and be silent that you may hear.

Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe.  Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge.

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his.  If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer- not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.  Had you rather Caesar were living and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead to live all free men?

As Caesar loved me, I weep for him.  As he was fortunate, I rejoice at it.  As he was valiant, I honour him but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.

There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition.  Who is here so base that would be a bondman?  If any, speak- for him have I offended.

Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman?  If any, speak- for him have I offended.  Who is here so vile that will not love his country?  If any, speak- for him have I offended.

I pause for a reply.

All:  None, Brutus, none.

Brutus:  Then none have I offended.  I have done no more to Caesar than you shall do to Brutus.  The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying; a place in the commonwealth, as which of you shall not?

With this I depart, that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself when it shall please my country to need my death.

All:  Live, Brutus!  Live, live!

First Citizen:  Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

Second Citizen:  Give him a statue with his ancestors.

Third Citizen:  Let him be Caesar.

Fourth Citizen:  Caesar’s better parts shall be crown’d in Brutus!

First Citizen:  We’ll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours.

Brutus:  My countrymen…

Second Citizen:  Peace, silence!  Brutus speaks.

First Citizen:  Peace, ho!

Brutus:  Good countrymen, let me depart alone.

And, for my sake, stay here with Antony.  Do grace to Caesar’s corpse, and grace his speech tending to Caesar’s glories which Mark Antony by our permission is allow’d to make.

I do entreat you, not a man depart save I alone ’til Antony have spoke.

It will be a Democratic Congress and President that will destroy the social safety. Ryan Grimm at Huffington Post reports that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi supports the Simpson-Bowles plan:

During a recent press conference, and again during an interview with Charlie Rose, the California Congresswoman said that she would support what’s known as the Simpson-Bowles plan, a budget proposal that was created by the co-chairs of a fiscal commission set up by President Obama (dubbed the “Catfood Commission” by progressives). The plan was rejected by members of the commission, failing to win the necessary votes to move to a vote in Congress. Yet the co-chairs — former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Morgan Stanley director Erskin Bowles, a Democrat — have worked recently to revive it, and the political class speaks of it as if it passed and is an official recommendation of the commission.

At the end of March, a version of the Simpson-Bowles plan was given a vote on the House floor. It was annihilated, 382-38, with Pelosi and most Democrats voting against it.

But Pelosi, the day after the vote, said that she could still support the plan if it stuck more closely to the original version put out by Simpson and Bowles. “I felt fully ready to vote for that myself, thought it was not even a controversial thing … When we had our briefing with our caucus members, people felt pretty ready to vote for it. Until we saw it in print,” she said. “It was more a caricature of Simpson Bowles, and that’s why it didn’t pass. If it were actually Simpson-Bowles, I would have voted for it.”

Yet when the Simpson-Bowles plan had been originally unveiled, Pelosi called it “simply unacceptable.”

In early April, Pelosi was asked about her initial opposition. “My problem with it was what it did as far as Social Security is concerned. Apart from that we said, there’s a lot to work with,” she told Charlie Rose. “It was a good framework in terms of revenue and in terms of cuts, in terms of defense spending and the rest. It was very bold.”

The Simpson-Bowles plan is a mix of tax increases and spending cuts that trims four trillion dollars off the deficit in ten years. Its cuts to social spending and entitlement programs made it “simply unacceptable” to the Democrats’ liberal base almost as soon as it was announced. Pelosi’s rhetorical retreat from that hard-line position has progressives worried they’ll have nobody left to defend the social safety net, even Medicare and Social Security.

Progressives need to be really worried, as Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog tells us the “push is on” to “compromise” on Social Security:

All you need to know? Pete Peterson lives for one reason only – to kill off Social Security. Every crazed billionaire has a project. This is his. (No exaggeration; check the link. It’s an excellent William Greider piece.)

From the “Summit” invite (but click fast; pages that name these names disappear fast at the “Summit” website). The underscoring below is mine:

   

Media Advisory

   PETERSON FOUNDATION TO CONVENE 3RD ANNUAL FISCAL SUMMIT IN WASHINGTON ON MAY 15

  Participants to include President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, Senator Rob Portman, Congressman Paul Ryan, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, and National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Co-Chair Alan Simpson

   NEW YORK (May 08, 2012) – Against the backdrop of the upcoming elections, and with a series of key fiscal deadlines approaching at the end of the year, the Peter G. Peterson Foundation’s 2012 Fiscal Summit: America’s Case for Action will feature the nation’s leading experts and elected officials in discussions about the fiscal, economic, and political crossroads facing the country. …

   This year’s summit will explore opportunities for compromise and establish the urgent need for action on these challenges, as well as highlight the voices of engaged citizens from across the country. The 2012 Fiscal Summit will work to generate the momentum necessary to motivate lawmakers to take action essential to preserving the American Dream.

Two videos that Gaius featured are significant because as he points out President Barack Obama is on the same page Bill Clinton, Paul Ryan and Pete Peterson.

5-25-2011 Leaked cell phone footage of Bill Clinton cozying up to Paul Ryan. The day after the stunning upset in the special congressional election in upstate New York, Rep. Paul Ryan is a man under fire.

Barack Obama’s speech on April 5, 2006 at the launch of The Brookings Institute’s Hamilton Project where Obama says that “most of us are strong free traders” and praises the goals of the Hamilton Project.

This is the “real grand bargain”

The real Grand Bargain isn’t between the Dems and Republicans. It’s between both of them and you. They’re offering to sell out your children’s Social Security, in exchange for letting you keep your own.

Send Nancy a message. Sign the petition and tell her: Draw a line in the sand on cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits

• Late Night Karaoke by: mishima
• Muse in the Morning by: Robyn
• On This Day In History May 8 by: TheMomCat
• Ahmadinejad Dealt Blow in Iranian Elections by: TheMomCat
• Cartnoon by: ek hornbeck
• Fierce Advocate by: ek hornbeck
• The Price of Arrogance by: ek hornbeck

DocuDharma

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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Richard (RJ) Eskow: Sarkozy’s Footsteps: Will the Democrats Be Next?

And another one bites the dust.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy just became the latest politician to lose his job because he wouldn’t let economic experience — or political common sense — sway him from the path of austerity.

Will Sarkozy’s downfall help Democrats learn what he never could? Democrats should consider Sarkozy’s fate a cautionary tale — and a call to action. If they rally around the cause of growth, jobs, and optimism, the nation will benefit and they’ll rewarded at the polls.

But if they keep pushing their own brand of “austerity lite,” they — and we — will have gained nothing from the lessons of Europe. iI won’t matter how much more extreme the Republicans are. Democrats, who hold the White House and the Senate, will still be seen as the party in charge — the one that presided over a terrible economy and, if the “Grand Bargainers” have their way, the one that cut popular government programs.

They’ll also run the risk of paying the same price Nicolas Sarkozy paid.

Dean Baker: Bernie Sanders Advocates a Free Market in AIDS Drugs

Drugs are cheap. Patent monopolies are expensive. These are simple facts that everyone should know but for some reason few do.

The point here is simple; the vast majority of drugs are cheap to produce. Chain drug stores sell hundreds of generic drugs for $5-$7 per prescription. They can do this profitably because few drugs require expensive chemicals or manufacturing processes.

However, many brand drugs sell for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per prescription. This is due to the fact that drug companies have patent monopolies on these drugs. The government will arrest anyone who produces these drugs without the permission of the patent holder. Since drugs can be essential for people’s health and/or life, if they can find a way to pay any price demanded by the drug companies, they will.

Official White House Transcript

The Obama Campaign’s Marriage Equality Conundrum

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Monday May 7, 2012 12:19 pm

There’s not more than a handful of voters in America who are bigoted enough to hold a position on marriage equality against a candidate for President above all else, or at least not more than a handful who wouldn’t already be voting against Obama because they already think he endorses what he has strained not to endorse. So when I say “the only people who care about this issue,” I’m talking about those gay rights activists who have given millions to the re-election effort and who want to see a President take their side on this matter of importance to them. Moreover, the only impression you get from this word-parsing and game-playing is one of a cynical campaign operation unable to articulate a strong statement of principle. It spills over into areas other than just the gay rights sphere.

In the words of Chuck Todd (about as Villager as they come) “gay money in this election has replaced Wall Street money. It has been the gay community that has put in money in a way to this President that is a very, very important part of the fundraising operation for the President Obama campaign.”

Two points- after the consistent disrespect and lack of commitment from the White House starting with Donnie McClurkin and recently evidenced by the rejection of enforcing ENDA standards on Federal Contractors and non-existent support for the opposition to NC One, why are the institutional LGBT activism organizations even giving him the time of day?

Second point- exactly what constituency is this president pandering to?

I have my suspicions and it’s not white male Republicans.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

Click on images to enlarge

May 8 is the 128th day of the year (129th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 237 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1973, A 71-day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890, ends with the surrender of the militants.

AIM was founded in 1968 by Russell Means, Dennis Banks, and other Native-American leaders as a militant political and civil rights organization.

snip

Their actions were acclaimed by many Native Americans, but on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Dick Wilson had banned all AIM activities. AIM considered his government corrupt and dictatorial, and planned the occupation of Wounded Knee as a means of forcing a federal investigation of his administration. By taking Wounded Knee, The AIM leaders also hoped to force an investigation of other reservations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and broken Indian treaties.

snip

The Wounded Knee occupation lasted for a total of 71 days, during which time two Sioux men were shot to death by federal agents. One federal agent was paralyzed after being shot. On May 8, the AIM leaders and their supporters surrendered after White House officials promised to investigate their complaints.

snip

In 1975, two FBI agents and a Native-American man were killed in a massive shoot-out between federal agents and AIM members and local residents. In a controversial trial, AIM member Leonard Peltier was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

snip

The U.S. government took no steps to honor broken Indian treaties, but in the courts some tribes won major settlements from federal and state governments in cases involving tribal land claims.

Cross posted from Docudharma

Obesity has been on the rise in the United States for years and it has now become America’s costliest disease:

U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

[..] The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese, could become the epidemic’s second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic.

[..] The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration programs for weight loss.

[..] Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight.

[..] The medical costs of obesity have long been the focus of health economists. A just-published analysis finds that it raises those costs more than thought.

[..] For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer’s care, and other pricey items.

There is a bright side to being obese:

An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man. Researchers have yet to run the numbers on what that might save.

And it’s not just adults.

Today’s Kids May Be Destined for Adult Heart Disease

Solution lies in instilling healthy habits, not adding medication, experts say

An array of factors has been deemed key to a healthy heart by the American Heart Association, including maintaining a healthy weight, being physically active on a regular basis, eating a healthy diet, not smoking and keeping blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels normal.

But half of U.S. kids meet just four or fewer of these health criteria, according to a report, Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics — 2012 Update, which was published in Circulation.

And, among those in high school, 30 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys do not get the recommended 60 minutes a day of physical activity, the report noted.

In addition, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five children had abnormal cholesterol levels, which prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue new guidelines recommending that all children 9 to 11 years old be screened for high cholesterol levels.

h/t watertiger at Dependable Renegade