Why is the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers Helping the Republicans?

Robert Reich

Monday, November 26, 2012

Why is the White House trying to scare average people about the consequences of the “fiscal cliff?”

If the President’s strategy is to hold his ground and demand from Republicans tax increases on the wealthy, presumably his strongest bargaining position would be to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire on schedule come January – causing taxes to rise automatically, especially on the wealthy.

So you’d think part of that strategy would be reassure the rest of the public that the fiscal cliff isn’t so bad or so steep, and that at the start of January Democrats will introduce in Congress a middle-class tax cut whose effect is to prevent taxes from rising for most people (thereby forcing Republicans to vote for a tax cut for the middle class or hold it hostage to a tax cut for the wealthy as well).

I dunno, what’s not to get?

It’s TRUE!  I read it on the… oh, wait.

File under reality outstripping satire.

Facebook charges you to talk to more than 15% of your "friends".

brucedixon, Corrente

Mon, 11/26/2012 – 3:15pm

This might be old news to you, but not to me. In a conversation with Davey D today, really on the new FCC rulings being promulgated, he noted in passing that Facebook is now charging you for the privilage of talking to all your “fans” and “friends.” I spent a few minutes online right after the conversation, and confirmed it. According to Facebook’s own advertising department, on the average, about 15% of the folks you imagine are getting your stuff are getting it. The other 80 or 85%….. not. That’s one in five if you’re lucky, one in seven if you’re not.

Ever wondered what that “promote” button at the bottom of your posts is? That’s the doorway to talking to ALL your followers or friends or fans. It’s the ONLY doorway, and it’s a toll booth.

This is not a bug, it’s a feature. Facebook is not a level playing field, and it’s certainly NOT a meritocratic online universe in which you can “earn” an audience and then once that audience is built get to address them merely by posting on your Facebook page in the certainty that they will see it. What would be the profit in that? If you want to talk to ALL of”your” friends instead of the random percentage FB allows you have to pay Facebook for the privilege, about $1 per click thru item per “friend.”

I’m not talking about John “Wet Start” McCain and his bestest bud Lindsey Graham.  Clearly the voters of Arizona and South Carolina have spoken and they like having liars and hypocrites as representatives of their States.

That’s Democracy.

No, I’m talking about the Russerts and Gregorys and Stephanopouloses and Schieffers and their Producers who’s Rolodexes always seem to come up 22 Black.

I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

If only it were a gamble.

You know, I do have other interests.

My comment at the moment was-

Fields have different expressions depending on how you interact with them.

Nothing so hard about that.

But the Standard Model is only as useful as Newtonian Mechanics.  Good for some things, not so much for others.

This is the kind of pithy insight that has some of my acquaintance begging me to get a crack habit twitter account.

Well, I have one and a few blogs that I frequent which leads me to gratefully accept affirmations of sanity.

Supersymmetry Fails Test, Forcing Physics to Seek New Ideas

By Natalie Wolchover, Scientific American

November 29, 2012

As a young theorist in Moscow in 1982, Mikhail Shifman became enthralled with an elegant new theory called supersymmetry that attempted to incorporate the known elementary particles into a more complete inventory of the universe.

“My papers from that time really radiate enthusiasm,” said Shifman, now a 63-year-old professor at the University of Minnesota. Over the decades, he and thousands of other physicists developed the supersymmetry hypothesis, confident that experiments would confirm it. “But nature apparently doesn’t want it,” he said. “At least not in its original simple form.”

…

“Supersymmetry is such a beautiful structure, and in physics, we allow that kind of beauty and aesthetic quality to guide where we think the truth may be,” said Brian Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University.

…

“I think it is a mistake to focus on popular versions of supersymmetry,” said Matt Strassler, a particle physicist at Rutgers University. “Popularity contests are not reliable measures of truth.”

William Randolph Hearst is famously remembered for this apocryphal quote–

You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.

I don’t labor under the illusion that there was a golden age of truth and nobility in the press which is why stories like this don’t surprise me a bit.

Julian Assange Refuses to Submit to Erin Burnett’s Planned Hit Job

By: Kevin Gosztola, Firedog Lake

Wednesday November 28, 2012 11:12 pm

From the beginning, Assange tried to discuss what he found to be important and not trivial or plain disingenuous and ignorant. As the clip shows, he got into how companies are working in countries to engage in widespread surveillance showing documents. Burnett reacted, “I’m curious though about this – A lot of people share this fear about being under surveillance, right? Some people might say you go way too far on it, but people do share your fear. But you are someone trying to champion and like I said benefiting by the Internet by putting out information governments don’t want people to have.”

“Some people might say” is Burnett saying what she thinks. She thinks Assange’s fear of the surveillance state goes to(o) far. She does not want to talk about this issue and, though Assange began the interview ready to talk on this topic, Burnett is prepared to steer this to Ecuador (but not before casting his agenda as something that is nefarious and shady).

…

Erin Burnett did not get the segment she wanted except if you go to CNN Video where they are featuring a part of the segment that makes it seem like all Assange was asked to do was come on and talk Ecuador and refused to cooperate with Burnett.

Now I’m going to stop right there because Kevin Gosztola’s link doesn’t go anywhere in particular and it took me a while to figure out what he was referencing.  I think it was this-

Edited Segment

Continuing-

Assange was clearly told he could come on and they would talk about the book. She opened with a question about his thoughts on the Internet. Then, she gradually moved the discussion into one about Ecuador because all she wanted to do was make the point that in her mind she sees Julian Assange, who she thinks is probably a criminal, seeking asylum in a country where the government has no respect for press freedom and he is being used or manipulated for their purposes.

If Burnett had her way, the interview would have been some looney segment about Ecuador exploiting him for their ends to get away with violating freedom of the press. And she would have touted it as “aggressive journalism,” when it is not aggressive at all to set someone up who is the target of one of the most powerful governments of the world and has been granted what someone would consider a refugee status to push for safe transport to Ecuador.

Kevin Gosztola very helpfully embeds the full segment and I thought I’d share it with those of you who think that there is a real journalist in it who’s analysis might interest you (hint: it’s not the one who worked for Goldman Sachs and is engaged to a Citigroup executive).

Full Segment

What?  He’s not dead yet?

Two and a Half Men star urges viewers to stop watching sitcom’s ‘filth’

Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Monday 26 November 2012 16.14 EST

The 19-year-old actor, who reportedly earns $350,000 per show, making him the highest paid teenager in US television, made the pleas after embracing the Forerunner Chronicles, an Alabama-based Christian group which warns about evil in entertainment.

…

Whereas other child actors tend to grow up to find alcohol and drugs, Jones said he found God after meeting Christopher Hudson, a preacher known as Forerunner who makes YouTube videos warning about evil influences in Hollywood and government.

Jones said he felt awed by Hudson. “I’m like, ‘Dang, man of God, Forerunner, right here. I can touch him, I can give him a hug…’ Like, seriously. God is great. It’s just, like, one of those those things.”

It may surprise you to learn that I agree 110%.  Ashton Kutcher is NOT funny and never has been, Jon Cryer has only ever been funny once.

In Drive to Unionize, Fast-Food Workers Walk Off the Job

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, The New York Times

Published: November 28, 2012

Fast-food workers at several restaurants in New York walked off the job on Thursday, firing the first salvo in what workplace experts say is the biggest effort to unionize fast-food workers ever undertaken in the United States. The effort – backed by community and civil rights groups, religious leaders and a labor union – has engaged 40 full-time organizers in recent months to enlist workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino’s, Taco Bell and other fast-food restaurants across the city.

…

Over the decades there have been occasional efforts to unionize a fast-food restaurant here or there, but labor experts say there has never before been an effort to unionize dozens of such restaurants. The new campaign aims in part to raise low-end wages and reduce income inequality, and is also an uphill battle to win union recognition.

Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor at the City University of New York, said there had been so few efforts to unionize fast-food workers because it was such a daunting challenge.

“These jobs have extremely high turnover, so by the time you get around to organizing folks, they’re not on the job anymore,” she said. Nonetheless, she said the new effort might gain traction because it is taking place in New York, a city with deep union roots where many workers are sympathetic to unions.

…

Richard W. Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell, said the organizations backing the fast-food campaign seemed intent on finding pressure points to push the restaurants to improve wages and benefits.

“But it’s going to be a lot harder for them to win union recognition,” he said. “It will be harder to unionize them than carwash workers because the parent companies will fight hard against it, because they worry if you unionize fast-food outlets in New York, that’s going to have a lot of ramifications elsewhere.”

Euro Zone, IMF Reach Deal to Cut Long-Term Greek Debt

By REUTERS

Published: November 26, 2012 at 8:39 PM ET

The IMF’s share, less than a third of the total, will only be paid out once a buy-back of Greek debt has occurred in the coming weeks, but IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the Fund had no intention of pulling out of the program.

To reduce Greece’s debt pile, ministers agreed to cut the interest rate on official loans, extend their maturity by 15 years to 30 years, and grant Athens a 10-year interest repayment deferral.

They promised to hand back 11 billion euros in profits accruing to their national central banks from European Central Bank purchases of discounted Greek government bonds in the secondary market.

They also agreed to finance Greece to buy back its own bonds from private investors at what officials said was a target cost of around 35 cents in the euro.

…

Germany and its northern European allies have hitherto rejected any idea of forgiving official loans to Athens, but EU officials believe that line may soften after next year’s German general election.

Schaeuble told reporters earlier that debt forgiveness was legally impossible, not just for Germany but for other euro zone countries, if it was linked to a new guarantee of loans

…

A source familiar with IMF thinking said a loan write-off once Greece has fulfilled its adjustment program would be the simplest way to make its debt viable, but other methods such as forgoing interest payments, or lending at below market rates and extending maturities could all help.

…

No figures were announced for the debt buy-back in an effort to avoid triggering a rise in market prices in anticipation of a buyer. But before the meetings, officials had spoken of a 10 billion euro buy-back, that would achieve a net reduction of about 20 billion euros in the debt stock.

How the official sector restructures, Greece edition

Felix Salmon, Reuters

Nov 27, 2012 14:36 UTC

This deal isn’t just the latest chassé in the long dance between Greece and its creditors; it’s a blueprint for every other European country with unsustainable official-sector debts as well. Including Greece itself, which will surely require another deal like this down the road. And it encapsulates the big difference between the way the private sector likes to deal with big debts, in contrast to the way the official sector does it.

The private sector likes a big one-and-done deal, where you start with a massive debt stock, and then you swap it for something smaller. The key number is the “NPV haircut”: the value of a bond is the net present value of its future cashflows, and so a big cut in coupons, or a terming out of interest payments, can be just as drastic, from a bondholder’s point of view, as a cut in principal. There’s nothing sacred about principal: what matters is the mark-to-market value of the bond.

The official sector, by contrast, holds principal highly sacred. That allows the Germans and others to say that they aren’t forgiving any debt; it also means that no national parliament needs to ratify a bill writing off any Greek debt. On the other hand, the official sector is happy to term out maturities until, as Buchheit puts it, the 12th of never, and also cut coupon payments at the same time.

…

This is the big difference between the private sector and the official sector. The private sector, if it’s owed $1 billion on April 15, expects $1 billion on April 15, whether the debtor can really afford it or not. Failure to make that payment is a default, and if default is a real possibility, then there’s certainly no way the private sector will lend the country new money to make the payment.

The official sector, in contrast, if it sees a big $1 billion payment due on April 15, will simply term it out for a few years. That doesn’t impair the value of the asset on any official-sector balance sheet: it was $1 billion before, and it’s still $1 billion. And so it doesn’t really help with respect to anybody calculating Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio, since the nominal amount of debt outstanding never actually does down. But in reality, Greece’s ability to manage those debts is much greater than it would be if the debts were mostly private. Because the official sector, deep down, in its heart of hearts, doesn’t actually expect to ever be repaid.

‘Cannibal cop’ planned to kidnap, eat woman for Thanksgiving: prosecutor

By BRUCE GOLDING, The New York Post

8:48 AM, November 21, 2012

Forget white meat or dark meat – he wanted “girl meat” for Thanksgiving.

Gilberto Valle, the NYPD officer busted by the feds as an alleged cannibal wannabe, saw his alleged holiday hopes dashed yesterday when prosecutors said he’d planned to dine on human flesh tomorrow.

…

Public defender Julia Gatto argued that Valle’s online chats were only “sick, twisted” sexual fantasies he shared on the Web with like-minded fetishists.

Gatto said her own, reluctant investigation into her client’s “subculture” – which she likened to “Star Trek geeks and science-fiction movie guys who dress up and go to conventions” – had apparently uncovered the site Valle frequented.

“All over the Web site, it says: No matter how real this sounds, this is all fantasy,” she insisted.

It is well known that we now have the problem relatively under control.

Man pleads not guilty to cooking wife

UPI

Published: Nov. 22, 2012 at 8:51 AM

VISTA, Calif., Nov. 22 (UPI) — A California man pleaded not guilty to the murder of his wife, who police found dismembered, with body parts cooking on the stove and her head in the freezer.

…

Police found three pans of “meat” cooking on the stove and realized it was pieces of the victim, Anna Faris, 73, Deputy District Attorney Katherine Flaherty said. They found Faris’ head in a plastic bag inside the freezer and multiple pieces of freshly cut bone throughout the house.

“They also found a work area set up in the bathroom, with saws, a boning knife and other cutting instruments,” Flaherty said.

“There is no evidence of cannibalism at this time,” she added.