Tag: ek Politics

Modern economic philosophy is generally considered to have started with Smith and Hobbes who were reacting against a system of monarchal merchantilism where favored courtiers were rewarded with monopolies in a planned economy enforced by a state claim of exclusive authority on violence.

Read that again because it’s important.

Their groundbreaking contribution was the concept that markets (individuals) could more efficiently allocate resources (capital) than corrupt cronyism.  You know, free market capitalism.

Compare and contrast-

End of the Affair?

The Editors of The New York Times

Published: May 14, 2012

There has been less buying and selling of stock, and there have been huge outflows of investor dollars from domestic stock mutual funds, as detailed recently by The Times’s Nathaniel Popper. If the trend continues, the result could be a less robust market, with fewer companies opting to raise money by issuing shares and fewer investors willing to put their retirement savings into stocks.

…

Policy makers should pay attention. Evidence suggests that investors are not merely reacting to tough conditions, but rather are staying away because they do not trust the market. Restoring trust is crucial to restoring the market.

American stocks have doubled in price since the market hit bottom three years ago. But trading in the United States stock market has not only failed to recover since the 2008 financial crash, it has continued to fall. In April, average daily trades stood at 6.5 billion, about half their peak four years ago. By comparison, after the market busts of 1987 and 2001, trading recovered within two years. In fact, going back to 1960, trading had never declined for three consecutive years, let alone four and counting.

Investors haven’t just hunkered down, they have headed for the exits. Since the start of 2008, domestic stock mutual funds, a common way for individuals to invest, were drained of more than $400 billion, compared with an inflow of $52 billion in the four years before that.

…

There is also the feeling that the market has become increasingly unfair to investors. For example, Mr. Popper also reported recently on rebates to brokers from stock exchanges. In general, brokers are required to find the best prices for clients who pay them to buy and sell shares. But with the nation’s 13 exchanges now paying brokers for sending them business, brokers may have an incentive to search for the biggest rebate rather than the best price. A new study has estimated that rebates could be costing mutual funds, pension funds and individual investors as much as $5 billion a year.

Also known as “maker-taker” pricing, the rebates have caught the attention of market researchers and investor advocates, including two former economists for the Securities and Exchange Commission who issued a report in 2010 saying that “in other contexts, these payments would be recognized as illegal kickbacks.”

I realize citation of major media outlets is considered but a quaint remnant of irrelevant reality by sycophants and ‘bots, but I thought I’d draw this to your attention.

The Atrios school of blogging.

JPMorgan Unit’s London Staff May Go as Loss Prompts Exits

By Dawn Kopecki, Bloomberg News

May 13, 2012 8:45 PM ET

The entire London staff of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s chief investment office is at risk of dismissal as a $2 billion trading loss prompts the first executive departures as soon as this week, a person familiar with the situation said.

Maybe it’s time to go to another bar.

No more bets for Greek euro exit

Athens News

10 May 2012

Want a flutter on Greece leaving the euro zone? It may already be too late. A surge in bets has forced Britain’s biggest bookmakers William Hill Plc and Ladbrokes Plc to suspend betting on the odds of Greece dropping out.

…

“It is safer for us to suspend betting than to keep cutting the odds,” a spokesman for Ladbrokes said. “We have been slashing the odds repeatedly over the last few days.”

Ladbrokes is still taking bets on the Greek stock market losing more than 25 percent of its value in a single day’s trading by the end of 2012.

And if you fear Greece is just the beginning of the end for the European single currency, Ladbrokes is offering odds on the euro ceasing to exist by the end of 2012, which would make punters 33 times their original stake.

Ladbrokes is offering odds of 5/6 that the euro will cease to exist by the end of 2015 and 4/1 on two or more states to leave the euro by the end of the year.

William Hill, however, has closed betting on the euro still being in existence by the end of 2015 – a possibility it sees as closely linked to what is happening in Greece – with the latest odds before suspension at 4/6 in favour and 11/10 against.

(h/t Calculated Risk)

(h/t Matt Taibbi, 991 views)

Jamie’s Cryin: Dimon, J.P. Morgan Chase Lose $2 Billion

Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

POSTED: May 11, 10:48 AM ET

This incident is certain to reignite the debate about Dodd-Frank and may undermine the broad effort to roll back the bill, which we wrote about in the latest issue of the magazine. Staffers on the Hill started mobilizing the instant the Chase news hit the airwaves yesterday, and you can bet we’ll hear more debate in the next few months about not only the Volcker Rule but the Lincoln Rule, which was designed to wall off risky swaps from the federally-insured side of these banks. I’ve heard from all sides today, with some thinking the Chase trade was Dodd-Frank compliant, and others saying it probably violated both the Volcker and the Lincoln rules.

Either way, the incident underscored the basic problem. If J.P. Morgan Chase wants to act like a crazed cowboy hedge fund and make wild exacta bets on the derivatives market, they should be welcome to do so. But they shouldn’t get to do it with cheap cash from the Fed’s discount window, and they shouldn’t get to do it with money from the federally-insured bank accounts of teachers, firemen and other such real people. It’s a simple concept: you either get to be a bank, or you get to be a casino. But you can’t be both. If we don’t have rules to enforce that concept, we ought to get some.

212 views.

China’s Big Banks Look More Like Paper Tigers

By Jonathan Weil, Bloomberg News

May 10, 2012 7:00 PM ET

After spending time combing through the financial reports of China’s biggest publicly traded, state- owned banks, I now understand what Jim Chanos, the famous short- seller, means when he keeps saying they are “built on quicksand.” He’s definitely on to something.

…

In a Bloomberg Television interview last week, Chanos said “the Chinese banks ought to be sending a thank-you note to Greece and Spain every month for keeping them out of the limelight.” It’s anyone’s guess how long they will stay this way.

Greece Moves Closer to a Second Round of Elections

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Friday May 11, 2012 12:55 pm

So we’re headed for a second election. And of course, that’s the reason Tsipras rejected the PASOK offer today. Polling shows that his Radical Coalition of the Left party now leads in a hypothetical second round. That would give him far more leverage and the potential to form the government on his terms. The legacy parties cannot form a government without Tsipras and Syriza, so he holds all the cards.

In fact, Tsipras has already changed the game in Greece. All of the talks about forming a government now start from the proposition of renegotiating the debt deal. That’s a starkly different formulation from what we saw before the election, which basically drew a contrast between the legacy parties that wanted to maintain the deal, and the fringe parties that wanted to cancel it. With the fringe parties basically winning the elections, maintaining the deal is no longer an option.

Of course, this open talk of defying the deal has pushed the country closer to default and a Eurozone exit. In a darkly amusing detail, Reuters notes that many banks, perhaps expecting this moment, “never erased the drachma from their systems” and would be ready to quickly return to the currency if Greece decided to leave the Eurozone.

Well, you may leave something out when you code new, but you hardly ever throw anything away.

Insight: When the Exxon way stops working

By Tom Bergin, Reuters

9 hrs ago

London (Reuters) – When Exxon boss Rex Tillerson walked into a meeting with the President of Ghana on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, he thought he was set to strike a deal with an important new oil producing nation.

Instead Tillerson – who had flown into town aboard an executive jet bigger than those used by many heads of state – was rebuffed by an irritated John Atta Mills, who had expected to be wooed rather than given a tough contract to rubber-stamp.

…

Exxon has struggled to access new oil and gas reserves in recent years. In March the company slashed growth plans and by some calculations slipped behind PetroChina as the world’s biggest listed producer of oil. Last week it revealed a fall in output and profits that knocked its share price.

A bossy approach worked well as long as oil-rich nations signed purely financial deals, and stuck to them. But when oil prices began to ramp up around a decade ago, a wave of resource nationalism blew through countries like Russia, Venezuela and Libya and changed the game.

…

There is little doubt that Exxon’s disputes have contributed to an increasing reliance on domestic fields. In 2011, 27 percent of Exxon’s reserves were in the United States, up from 19 percent in 2006. By comparison, only 17 percent of Chevron’s reserves are in the United States and 21 percent of Shell’s.

The problem for Exxon is that, while places like Ghana, Russia and Venezuela offer less legal certainty than developed markets, they have more oil and offer better returns.

Perhaps I don’t point it out often enough but The Stars Hollow Gazette and DocuDharma are group blogs and without member contributions they wouldn’t be much.

My activist brother thinks I’m intimidating and perhaps he’s right, however my intention is to be nurturant and encouraging in my internet interactions.

A case in point- seakit posted some interesting links to pet food recall notifications for salmonella contamination in Monday’s On This Day In History which I’ll reproduce for you.

Diamond Pet Foods

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 5, 2012 – Diamond Pet Foods today announced that it is expanding a voluntary recall to include batches of nine brands of dry pet food formulas manufactured between December 9, 2011 and April 7, 2012 due to potential Salmonella contamination.

In April 2012, Diamond Pet Foods initiated three voluntary recalls of Diamond manufactured dry dog food. Although none of the additional products being recalled have tested positive for Salmonella, the company is pulling them from store shelves as a precaution. Diamond Pet Foods is coordinating efforts with federal and state health and regulatory agencies and decided to independently expand the recall to ensure the safety and well-being of customers and their pets.

The company stated: “We have taken corrective actions at our Gaston, S.C., facility and voluntarily expanded the recall out of concern for our customers and their pets.”

Brands included in the recall include:

  Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul

  Country Value

  Diamond

  Diamond Naturals

  Premium Edge

  Professional

  4Health

  Taste of the Wild

FDA

Wellpet

Wellpet LLC Voluntarily Recalls One Recipe Of Dry Dog Food Due To Salmonella At Diamond Pet Foods’ Facility

Contact:

Consumer

877-227-9587

Media

Megan McCutcheon, Hunter PR

212-679-6600

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 4, 2012 – WellPet LLC announced a voluntary recall of one recipe of Wellness® dry dog food after being notified by Diamond Pet Foods regarding the presence of Salmonella in Diamond’s Gaston, South Carolina facility.

All Wellness products are tested for Salmonella and all lots tested negative prior to shipping to customers. The company is voluntarily recalling the select products below. This voluntary recall is being done out of an abundance of caution as these products were produced at the facility that has been linked to recent recalls of Diamond brand foods due to the threat of Salmonella.

Pets with Salmonella infections may have decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, pets may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever and vomiting. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian.

Individuals handling dry pet food can become infected with Salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with surfaces exposed to this product. People who believe they may have been exposed to Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. According to the Centers for Disease Control, people who are more likely to be affected by Salmonella include infants, children younger than 5 years old, organ transplant patients, people with HIV/AIDS and people receiving treatment for cancer.

FDA

Canidae Pet Foods

Contact:

Consumer Contact: 800-398-1600

Media Contact: Michael Lopes 800-398-1600 ext. 516 [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 5, 2012- Canidae Pet Foods announced today that it is issuing a voluntary recall of certain dry pet food formulas manufactured between December 9, 2011, and January 31, 2012 at the Diamond Pet Food Gaston, South Carolina plant.

Although there have been no animal or human illnesses related to Canidae Pet Food, and the product has not tested positive for Salmonella, the company has voluntarily initiated this recall out of caution to ensure the health and safety of consumers and their pets.

The below list of product with production codes that must have both a number “3” in the 9th position AND an “X” in the 10th or 11th position with best before dates of December 9, 2012, through January 31, 2013 which are being recalled.

  Canidae Dog, All Life Stages

  Canidae Dog, Chicken Meal & Rice

  Canidae Dog, Lamb Meal & Rice

  Canidae Dog, Platinum

FDA

Natural Balance Pet Foods

Natural Balance Pet Foods Initiates Voluntary Recall of Certain Dry Pet Food Due to the Potential for Salmonella Contamination

Contact:

Consumer:

(800) 829-4493

Media:

Daniel Bernstein

(310) 902-2554

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – May 4, 2012 – Natural Balance Pet Foods announced today that it is issuing a voluntary recall of certain dry pet food formulas manufactured by Diamond Pet Foods at their Gaston, South Carolina facility.

Although there have been no animal illnesses reported and none of the products included in the recall has tested positive for Salmonella, the company has voluntarily initiated this recall as a precautionary measure.

Pets with Salmonella infections may have decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, pets may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever and vomiting. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian. We do not have any confirmed reports of pet illnesses.

Individuals handling dry pet food can become infected with Salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with surfaces exposed to a contaminated product. Healthy people who believe they may have been exposed to Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever. According to the Centers for Disease Control, people who are more likely to be affected by Salmonella include infants, children younger than 5 years old, organ transplant patients, people with HIV/AIDS and people receiving treatment for cancer. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have received a limited number of reports of salmonellosis, the illness caused by Salmonella.

FDA

Now it’s not my point to put seakit or anyone else on the spot, but we are fast approaching June and during that month both TheMomCat and I have other engagements that require a substantial time commitment.

I am hoping our loyal readers will respond by providing the content they’ve come to expect.  It’s not really that hard and while my family and friends are careful to pronounce every emission a ‘gem’ I know that 98% of it is crap.  It’s all part of the ‘Poet’s Pledge’-

The Poet’s Pledge

I, [the Poet’s name], do hereby solemnly pledge:

• To be peculiar in the most unusual way I can cook up
• To write excellently, or more especially to be known to write excellently
• To master bards of old and bards anew, or at least never give on that I haven’t
• To advance in gestures of my own and not in the stirrings of a majority, except where money is at stake
• To be perceived as morally suspect, no matter what the truth
• To sniff at adulation and pooh-pooh honors no matter how much I crave them
• To obey whim and eschew duty, or at least appear to
• To rove ruffian-like across continents of poems with ease, or at least make them think so
• To engage in ridiculous arguments, all hot and sweaty for my own position
• To be judicious only in the judging of my own merits and mean about the others
• To die young, or if I linger, to be ignored and abused well
• To write tons of crap for every good poem I do write, and obfuscate the difference with rhetoric
• To suck up to important editors with honeyed words, and cuff the assistant editors often
• To bemoan the sorry state of poetry in my country and do not one damn thing about it
• To speak so incoherently that everyone thinks I am a genius

It’s really not that hard to be a ‘world famous blogger’.

In Poland.

Look at Amendment 1 in NC!  Obama narrowly won the state in 08, and probably has a narrow edge right now.

Is it worth the risk of losing even (a) few crucial supporters?

Let Obama lose the election on this issue, because Romney would be wonderful for gay rights. That’s totally selling out gay voters.

North Carolina, Uppity Negroes, and Pushy Homosexualists

Posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Emancipation sentiment was ascendant in the South after 1783 though Northern inventions like the cotton gin and mills hungry for raw cotton perpetuated the existence of slave labor on Southern plantations. Fearful of slave revolts as the black population grew, and shaken by the Nat Turner massacre of women and children, Southerners erected anti-emancipation laws to control slave populations. The constant agitation of slave revolt by abolitionist fanatics culminating in John Brown’s crime in Virginia, was an effective means to end even voluntary emancipation in the South. Peaceful emancipation initiatives from the North would have had a better effect and avoided war.

All those complaining about last night’s Amendment One results should take a lesson from Brother Thuersam’s historical account. The good people of North Carolina wouldn’t have passed Amendment One if homosexualists wouldn’t go around demanding basic human rights.

ENDA: That’s the Sound of Jim Messina’s Blood Curdling

By: Jane Hamsher, Firedog Lake

Tuesday May 8, 2012 12:32 pm

Unless I miss my guess, “we have heard from at least half a dozen major gay and progressive donors” is code for what used to be known in donor circles as “the Cabinet” or “the Gay 8.”  The group has grown over the years,  and it includes many of the biggest Democratic Party donors of the past decade.   In addition to Jonathan Lewis, it now includes David Bohnett (Geo-Cities), Jon Stryker (Stryker Corp), Tim Gill (Oracle),  James Hormel (Hormel), Henry van Amerigen (International Flavors & Fragrances), Linda Ketner (Food Lion), Weston Milliken (Milliken & Co.), Esmond Harmsworth (Daily Mail) and Laura Ricketts (Chicago Cubs).

While most in the group have already maxed out to Obama campaign and the DNC, that’s small potatoes.  The Obama campaign has recently been tapping members for multi-million dollar donations to the 527s  – but according to Open Secrets,  all conspicuously missing from the top 2012 election cycle donors.

The White House is pushing back on the Sargent article and telling journalists that there really are no problems.  But if that’s the case, where are the traditional LGBT 527 donors?  They should name the ones that already have, or plan to donate.

The decision of LGBT donors to shut off campaign donations over Obama’s refusal to sign an executive order on ENDA has tremendous downstream implications.  It could have serious consequences for members of congress who rely not only on LGBT donors themselves, but who will need well-funded GOTV support for 2012 as well.

LGBT donors can check to see whether the names of their representatives appear on the naughty or nice lists when it comes to signing the letter to President Obama, asking him to issue an Executive Order on ENDA.

…

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

…

Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new city administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

…

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.

…

I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’ sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

…

If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

Birmingham City Jail, 16 April 1963

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.

Greek Voters Punish 2 Main Parties for Economic Collapse

By RACHEL DONADIO and NIKI KITSANTONIS, The New York Times

Published: May 6, 2012

The parliamentary elections were the first time that Greece’s foreign loan agreement had been put to a democratic test, and the outcome appeared clear: a rejection of the terms of the bailout and a fragmentation of the vote so severe that the front-runner is expected to have extreme difficulty in forming a government, let alone one that can either enforce or renegotiate the terms of the bailout.

…

In the upper middle-class Psychiko neighborhood in Athens, many supporters of the Socialist party, known here as Pasok, said they had voted for radical-left Syriza for the first time, in protest. “I voted in anger,” said Evangelia Grillaki, 65, a retired florist. “We feel 1,000 percent betrayed. The only people who voted for Pasok are either jerks or vested interests.”

The biggest winner in the elections appeared to be Syriza, a coalition of leftist parties founded in 2004, which included splinter groups from Greece’s more hard-line Communist Party. Its campaign slogan was “They chose without us, we’re moving on without them,” and it appeared to receive the bulk of the Socialist protest vote. Led by Alexis Tsipras, an energetic 38-year-old, the party is in favor of Greece remaining in the euro zone and the European Union but has opposed the loan agreement.

Funny how it is that when regular voters are allowed to express their opinion of Bankster Bailouts they overwhelmingly reject them and the Plutocrat Pandering Politicians who are complicit in their criminality.

Fire them all.

Well, then do us all a favor and quit you incompetent assholes!

Pre-recession unemployment rate is out of reach

A new report authored by a Federal Reserve president says unemployment cannot fall to pre-recession levels without an inflationary impact. So get used to high unemployment.

By Nin-Hai Tseng, Fortune

May 4, 2012: 11:50 AM ET

On Thursday, John Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, suggested that perhaps Americans should lower their expectations given the challenges workers faces. A research note co-authored by Williams estimated that the lowest level of joblessness that can be reached without leading to inflation could be 6.5%. Before the recession, the unemployment rate was generally at around 5%.

…

In early 2009, eligibility for unemployment benefits was extended from 26 weeks to up to 99 weeks.

While such benefits reduce hardships for the unemployed, they might also “reduce the incentive of the unemployed to seek and accept less desirable jobs,” according to the report.

…

If workers are latching on to any hope that the economy has turned a corner, perhaps they’d be more realistic by hoping for a little less.

Don’t let the door hit you, you lazy useless gits.