Purple-in-Tampa says …
In the era of Industrial Capitalism, FDR and Keynes could serve the interest of the Capitalist and the workers at the same time. In today’s world the Wall Street game plan is to loot as much as possible while it is still possible. The greed of the elite can not be stopped easily!
Obama and GOP Shared Austerity Vision Will Deepen Recession
By Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, March 2, 2013
This Real News Network interview with Professor Dr. Heiner Flassbeck of Hamburg University (recently with UNCTAD) provides a cogent overview of why the impact of the sequester and any budget deal will be to weaken an already-struggling economy. I personally enjoy Flassbeck; he’s articulate and manages to get more information into his interviews than most of experts while keeping his remarks accessible to a broad audience.
Dr. Heiner Flassbeck: “The massive sequester cuts to government spending are a disaster – what’s needed is a wage-led recovery.”
The panicked selling and fear mongering that Obama and his surrogates are engaging in is reaching the level of stupidity like Rep. Maxine Waters, D-CA., predicting 170 million jobs would be lost with sequestration. The entire civilian labor force is only about 155 million. What is she thinking? OH she doesn’t!
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66 Responses to Trail Mixers Say: Sequester This!
Now on The Trail
So I watched 60 Mins. tonight ……. The Chinese built empty cities that no one can afford ? And those empty cities are the retirement accounts of the Chinese middle class ?
The biggest boom in the history of man , followed by the biggest bust. This makes us look like bingo players.
Only a few words in the English language carry much impact anymore because of their overuse. One word still carries with it a singular connotation that is properly descriptive and has never lost its power to shame. It refers perfectly to our elected leaders and the issue of sequester. Cowards!
I’m at least one and a half threads late, but Happy Birthday, Jamie.
As for this topic, I want my side, i.e. the White House to deal with truths, not unsupported speculation.
The cable man came today. Our blizzard last Monday, really did a number on my service. The cold turkey of losing your connection to the world is like being cast out on the ’40 Mile Desert’.
As I stood outside watching the cable guy crawl over the house the sand hill cranes were leaving for Canada. Flock after flock flying North, all singing like crazy. It was 81F degrees.
Sand hill cranes all pick-up and leave at once , the entire group just leaves at the same time . To be outside, and see them all make this group decision. Just amazing.
Up to 500,000 birds spread over thousands of square miles , just all start flying on the same plan. On the same day.
Every Spring.
The truth is , “we’re a downright mean country”.
That truth came from the White House, just not the right occupant.
“we’re a downright mean country”
Jace -
As one reads history, and grows old , the answer is yes .
But , Lincoln was right, we are the last best hope.
Bob and his sandhill cranes remind me of the scallops in Tampa Bay. Instead of flying away, they all eject their sperm at the same time.
CBob,
And I still believe that. Hopefully the ‘better angels of our nature’ will reassert themselves soon.
jace
Bill -
I see you just had the hottest summer on record . All the Southern land masses with you, just did the same thing.
Faltus -
That’s the next frontier, how life speaks in words we still don’t understand, in languages that are millions of years old.
3 examples: elephants, whales, and bees.
English is what, 800 years old ? Bees have been talking to each other for tens of millions of years.
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank them both up.
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank them both up.
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank them both up.
She put the lime in the coconut, she drank them both up.
She called the doctor , and woke him up and said doctor .
” Ain’t there nothin’ I can take ” ?
From today’s Wikipedia “featured article”:
“As of 2013, it costs more than eleven cents to produce a nickel; the Mint is investigating using less expensive metals.”
CBob, mate you’re making the mistake with bee language that it was born de novo and suddenly 3m years ago and there has been no variation over the millions of years.
I have it on good authority that the bee evolved over many millions of years and are still evolving with many different variants found throughout the world.
Here’s some examples of regional differences:
ฉวัดเฉวียน -- Thai
זמזום -- Hebrew
гудзенне -- Belarusian
bourdonnement -- French
See all the different ways they say “bzzzz”.
Similarly to English which is an evolving language and has been evolving for at least 1400 years, and here is an example:
Using our time machine, we know this reads as:
Make no mistake about it, English of today is vastly different to English of a century ago and an English speaker of a century ago would be hard pressed to understand the gibberish we speak today. But then we would be hard pressed to understand their speech of a hundred years ago too. We may sound the same but that’s about it.
One of the funniest moments I had with this occurred when some preacher fellow was telling me how it was sinful to be gay and that I had to be earnest in my search for God. And then, thinking he was clever in a literary manner, said to me that this was the importance of being earnest. He looked at me with a quizzical face when I guffawed and cachinnated with great vigour. I tried to explain to him the irony of his comments.
Quoting the title of Oscar Wilde’s famous play would automatically put him offside with his God since Wilde was as camp as a row of tents. That was the overt irony. Covertly, “earnest” was the late 19th C. code word for a gay man. So “earnest man” then = “gay man” today. I informed him that it seemed rather contradictory that he would be actively advocating me becoming gay while at the same time railing against it. God would be amused at this godbotherer’s inability to understand his own language.
However, the point here is that most people at this period of the 21st C wouldn’t have the slightest idea of this connection either -- unless of course they had studied Wilde at University.
English, like all other living languages, is a changing item.
I know this to be true of birds. Our piping shrike aka magpies have regional variations to their caroling. And like all living things, bee language also changes with the years and geographical locations. But neither you nor I can chart this because we have not the slightest idea of the subtleties attached to their language so we can only surmise.
Now time to buzz off.
Ignex -
Many thanks for that post. For years here, I when out and sucked-up that bit of info, and smeared it here.
So what have we learned this thread ?
A. China is full of empty cities.
B. A nickel now costs 11 cents.
Ignex -
Both facts seem to be married together.
I learned the Belorussian word for “bzz”: “goo-dzen-yeh”.
Nice post, Bill. Thanks. ‘Night, all.
Now comes Xrepublican respectfully before the great experts on words and worlds here in thoughtful assembly gathered, and asks his important question.
If a man who washes clothes is a landerer, and a woman who does the same is a laundress, and if a woman flyer is an aviatrix and a man who flies is an aviator, then what does one call a female Hoosier, a Hoosierix, a Hoosieux, a Hoosiess ?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Well anyhoo, this particular mind wants to know.
Bill -
A US court has just called the Sea Shepherds , …….. pirates .
The Japanese whale fleet can now really go to work. In the name of “science”.
The whale killers are now ‘science’.
The whale defenders are now ‘pirates’.
Homely.
The other end of homely -
“See she forgot all about the library , like she told her old man now. “
Early one summer morning, it was July 6th, 80,000,037 bc to be precise, young Sephrona Apia awoke from a sensational dream and with the overwhelming urge to speak. This was an art as yet unimaginable amongst even the most progressive minds in beedom.
And so it was that a small and very young, though widely recognized as precocious, bee first brought language into the world. Sephrona’s original words have echoed down the ages into our own day. Her immortalwordsw were “HzzuszzhziZZouszzhzzizz”. As you will have noticed, from the very beginning the bee language was agglutinative. With language bees could now warn each other of danger. Countless hives and trillions of bees have been saved by the simple invention of language -- just because Sephrona Apia had an idea. It was one small buzz from a bee, a giant Huzzah! for beekind.
21,537,220 years elapsed before the notorious Zasu Honeybee burst upon the world stage with the signals she invented for communicating visually. Visible words were to be a great boon for hearing-impaired bees in particular. When trained to read and write, deaf bees could join the others in the search for nectar. No longer would they be confined to the sheltered workshop of the hive.
Zasu contrived to describe the distance, direction, and value of places that other bees had never seen. Her method was the dance. Soon teachers were instructing young bees in hives all across the world in Zasu’s Dance of the Flowers. Watch the hips, they would say, every move tells a story.
Traditionalists found all this very disturbing. Dancing was ruining the morals of the younger generation. But once a new and better way is found, others will follow. Today, there is not a single hive in all of beedom that does not profit from Zasu’s Dance. No longer notorious, Zasu Honeybee, the dancer with an important message, is now universally revered.
Argghhh ! 3 #@&%ing cheers for Pie Rats !
CBob, mate you pegged that business with the Sea Shepard in one. We are a very conflicted society over this thorny issue. We have one of sovereign rights -- the Japanese are violating our economic zone by undertaking an illegal activity, viz, whaling. And we should be sending our Customs boats down there to supervise the activity. Hell, we chased a Peruvian long line fishing boat half way round the world and dragged it back to Oz for prosecution. And yet we get the stupidity of the US Supreme court interfering in an Australian sovereign issue. If it were you guys, there would be an uprising with pitch forks and torches chasing every last desperado out of town. Our government is in a quandary. To enforce the law means pissing off our second largest trading partner. (The US is our third with China the first) Yet not to enforce the law means pissing off a whole lot of people in Oz. So they have opted for the do nothing position and allow the Sea Shepard the same freedoms as the Japanese fleet. Then the Sea Shepard acts as a proxy law enforcement agency giving the Oz govt deniability yet making a point to the Japanese.
The big scandal in Oz is the misuse of aid money sent to Japan by our government and citizens to assist in the reconstruction after the tsunami. Our money has been diverted into whaling with the excuse that it is part of re-establishing Japanese culture. Bunkum. Right at the moment we have a very low opinion of Japanese morality and the howls of protest have given the Japanese pause for thought. They are really going out of their way to piss off their friends big time. This business with China is just another example of their global desire to piss people off. Don’t worry, they are desperate to alienate the Koreans too. God only knows what the game plan is here but it certainly is not harmony or happy relations.
I demand the replacement value for my nickels.
I can not watch this on U-Tube. But! If I paste the URL here , with Craig’s secret ‘v’ I can see & hear it , so one more time.
Time is short and here’s the damn thing about it
You’re gonna die, gonna die for sure
**And you can learn to live with love , or without it
But there ain’t no cure
It’s just a slow turning
From the inside out
A slow turning
Pay Me In Nickels.
The Nickel Question is not solved by eliminating Nickels. The problem is solved by allowing the price of the Nickel to float against other currencies.
If the Nickel costs 11c to make, Nickels ought to have a 12c face value, so the Mint can get a little vig for their effort.
But CBob, don’t think for one minute I am anti-Japanese. Next week we have our wonderful young Japanese love child arriving to spend a week with us. She comes from Fukushima and was near the Daiichi nuclear plant when disaster stuck. WHO said that the people in the area worst affected by the Fukushima nuclear accident have a higher risk of cancer and so the power plant paid out a few billions in pre-emptive compensation payments. Our girl was one of the recipients. She decided to grab the money and run. For the last two years she has been travelling the world following a profound yolo philosophy. Her indoors and I met her in Vanuatu last year and it was love at first sight.
Xrep, thoroughly enjoyable piece mate. But then I usually enjoy your thought provoking vignettes mate.
You get 3 koala stamps.
Bill,
Oz obviously needs more subs. The sub moves underwater to snag the unwary poacher’s net. Once the net is snagged the sub dives, pulling the poacher down under, as it were. The Ozzie gummint then explains that the accident was caused by the dead poachers.
Repeat until the difficulty resolves itself, probably after the 2d or 3d ‘tragedy’.
Bill -
Oh no , our pirates have to use your ports (Whale Wars) . The Japanese whalers have won.
Sea Shepherd can only fly drones now. And watch. As the Japanese whalers go about their business. In the name of ‘science’, for fish markets, in Japan.
It’s a really slimy deal , a US Federal Court has ruled that the Sea Shepherds are pirates. They cannot dock in any port anywhere.
And the Japanese whaling fleet flying a flag of ‘Research”, can now kill minke whales at will.
There’s no one down there now to stop them.
CBob, no worries mate, they revictualate at either Hobart or Launceston in Tasmania, the home of the International Whale Authority. No government in Australia would be game to even touch them. Tasmania is the home of Sea Shepard’s greatest advocate, former Senator Bob Brown, former leader of the Greens in the Australian Senate. No one will touch him -- he knows where the bodies of Australian politics are buried -- and ipso facto, no one will touch the Sea Shepard. While Brown is on board, the Sea Shepard has a free pass.
Xrep, mate, after I finished pissing myself laughing with your excellent suggestion, I shot it off to the PM, Ms Gillard. It sounds so crazy it just might work.
I’ll wear those koalas with pride, Bill.
I can’t remember the rating system is it wombats, then koalas, the ‘roos ?
I’m a Minnesotan. Our most popular terrestrial totem is the Golden Gopher, which in real life is the pestiferous 13 Lined Ground Squirrel. This is not official. Officially our terrestrial totem is the White-tailed (Virginia) Deer, another %@%#ing pest, but at least you can get a good meal out of a deer. Gophers ain’t even got a cuppa coffee.
We also, and very proudly, claim an amphibious totem, the Great Northern Loon, and an aquatic totem, the Walleye Pike (called Perch Pike in Canada, but wadda they know, eh?) Anywhat, with totems like these, you know we can’t take ourselves too seriously.
Our official state muffin is the blueberry, but I’m too dam’ patriotic to eat one. No kidding, the legislature took the time to deliberate and declare for a !&*%$#-@*>&x##%ing muffin. We actually paid them to do that, so I get all choked up every time I see one of the dam’ things. I don’t know if I’m supposed to stand up and salute it or walk over and bite it.
Good night Mr.and Mrs. America, and all the Pie Rat ships at sea.
G’dai, Oz.
Xrep, sorry, missed your question in the excitement but it does deserve an earnest answer from a not very earnest man.
The answer is quite simple:
I won’t linger on the pornography of regional disabilities save to say that should I meet such an unlucky lass, my first words would be:
“Hoosier Daddy?”
Night Xrep.
Now onto the Washington Għanafest. First entrant, Obama, sitting between Boehner and Pelosi, pulls the microphone towards himself, and armed with a single wagogo, begins to sing.
Boehner looks up in disgust, grabs the mike and commences to tap out a tune on bongos craftily made from two empty sauerkraut tins welded together.
Pelosi is now red in the face. She grabs the mike with gusto, then gets her Italian Mandolin strung with specially seasoned pasta and commences to bash out a Tarantella Napoletana with bolognese sauce.
First round of the Għanafest. Who can deal out the worst insults? Who won?
All of you in internet land can cast your votes. Voting lines are now open.
And with that final entry, it’s good night from me.
And it’s a good night from him.
Good night.
LOL!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/03/mark-sanford-jenny-sanford_n_2804059.html
Why am I not surprised?
dat boy is a few french fries short of a happy meal.
To you people who live down that way, do you think he can win? How many points does being a hypocritical sinner give ya? Maybe if he had an abortion but was very sorry about it, that would help. It doesn’t really matter that he’s a guy, being a liar also helps.
Oh Ann grow up already! The media couldn’t keep ahead of Mitt’s lies.
Having all those qualities is a good thing for a Repub candidate. It lets the powers that be know you’ll do the job right. Not bad for the voters either, gives them an opportunity to practice forgiveness.
I think Sanford has been watching too many episodes of ‘The Good Wife’
I agree with Purple-in-Tampa.
I used to teach my economics students that employers “had to” pay higher wages as the economy grew, as they had to “compete” for labor, which raised the price of labor. But big business has “fixed” the labor market. What they can’t outsource, they suppress, by using their political power to crush labor unions. My appreciation of the crucial role of unions has grown over the years.
Big businesses really do not compete for labor anymore but have conspired to keep unemployment rates high, and wages low, while corporate profits soar.
Obama is a sell-out. He is as much a tool of big business as Bush was. Even now he keeps talking about how cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other social programs are “necessary.” The only reason he hasn’t cut them is that he can’t get the GOP to agree to cut them. They want tax cuts for the rich also, and Obama will probably give in to their demands, as he has so many times in the past.
There may be a liberal shift going on, but Obama isn’t part of it.
We need a REAL liberal to run in 2016, someone to the left of Hillary. I still don’t trust her or her super-egotistical husband.
I watched about 5 minutes of Morning Joe… the only time I watch is while on vacation. They were blah, blah, blahing over the sequester. Chuck Toad said he thought they might finally come to some agreement in September. At that point I said, “what bullshit”… and turned off the tv. I’ll be hot tubbin’ this afternoon… it’s good for what ails ya.
Jerry Clower story:
Van Cliburn did a benefit concert at his former high school in the dead of winter. When concert night came it was a huge blizzard and only about 7 hardy souls showed up for the show. Van Cliburn comes out on stage at show time and announces that due to the weather, and in order to let the 7 make it home earlier, he was canceling the concert until another less dangerous night. This one old farmer stands up with his hat in his hands and says, “Mr. van Cliburn….we done traveled a long way thru this snow storm to catch your show…..couldn’t you sing us just one song before we go?”
About can Sanford win: There ain’t no telling at this point….he’s got up a mess of signage in folks’ yards but SC goobers, while they can always be depended upon to vote republican, may not always be so forgiving of a fool-man.
Some times nothing can be a real cool hand.
--Mark Sanford
Farewell to Bobby Rogers of the Miracles
Love the music and hula of the bees. Well done XR. The overall creativity and general knowledge in this place never ceases to amaze me. Bill Woerlee and CBob can take bows today as well.
Austerity maybe okay for the Austerians, but not here in America. If we’d wanted a tight-ass, tightwad, pinch-faced, pinch-penny, we’d have elected willard whatizface.
Don’t tell me that we ordered a big bowl of prosperity and got a little cup of austerity instead. Americans won’t put up with the same old shift.
Lo’ the 10 fat cows arose,
And ate the 10 thin cows.
Now we want those fat cows, dammit. Medium rare on a sesame seed bun with sliced onion and tomato, lettuce, and mayo.
If wallop and bowles want to live like Darfurians, that’s their business, but anyone who tries to put the screws to the 99% will be on the ash heap of history in no time.
Mittens and Mrs. Mittens are trying to rehabilitate themselves. They should just go away
He remains a clueless git and she remains Nancy Reagan
She blames faux news and liberty broadcasting for willard’s poor performance at the polls. She thinks they quoted her husband too often. Probably so.
She blames faux news and liberty broadcasting for willard’s poor performance at the polls. She thinks they quoted her husband too often. XR
Not too mention accurately
it’s perfect…..even republicans hate mitt
For CBob. Nilsson does Verdi:
Wow. Nilson gave me the chills.
I’d better store her away for those hot days in July.
At least mz rmoney isn’t blaming the 47% for willard’s loss. They all seem to have voted for him.
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