rant

i don't vote, not since i realized my one vote does not, and probably in my lifetime, ever will count, and yeah, i know black men got to vote before any women did, and women fought and probably died for the right to vote, but what's the point until the US gets rid of the two-party good ole boy system?

Obama's election makes it appear that the US is not as prejudiced as it once was
and, as we all know appearances are everything (ask any advertiser)

change

*from here to * cribbed from http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/924/in1.htm, an Egyptian newpaper

Not one of the 23 Senators and 133 House Representatives who voted against the war in Iraq are on Obama's transitional team or even on a short-list for an important post in his Cabinet.

Obama's keeping on Robert Gates as secretary of war, despite the continued slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan under his capable mismanagement, his uncompromising position on missiles for Poland, and his shady past (including Iran-Contra).

Transition Economic Advisory Board: Anne Mulcahy and Richard Parsons, both of whom were Fannie Mae directors when the company fudged accounting rules. Mulcahy and Parsons were executives of their respective companies, Xerox and Time Warner, and were charged with accounting fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also on this team is Robert Rubin, who per Bloomberg was "chairman of Citigroup's executive committee when the bank pushed bogus analyst research, helped Enron cook its books, and got caught baking its own. He was a director from 2000 to 2006 at Ford, which also committed accounting fouls and now is begging Uncle Sam for Citigroup-style bailout cash."

Larry Summers, who was Clinton's treasury secretary, will head the National Economic Council -- the president's senior economic adviser. It was Summers who forced through the deregulation of financial markets in the 1990s and imposed disaster capitalism on Russia. Considering that he is a chief architect of the current financial meltdown, we should be wondering why Obama isn't preparing an arrest warrant for him, instead of offering him the most powerful economic role in the world. As chief economist for the World Bank, Summers wrote a memo saying the WB should actively encourage the dumping of toxic waste in developing countries, particularly "under- polluted countries in Africa," since poor people in developing countries rarely live long enough to develop cancer, making him a particularly bizarre appointment for Obama.

Summers, Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary, and Peter Orszag as budget director are all protégés of Robert Rubin, who held two of their jobs under President Bill Clinton. All three advisers are believers in what has been dubbed Rubin-omics: balanced budgets, free trade and financial deregulation, a combination that supposedly was responsible for the prosperity of the 1990s.

The list of establishment appointees to his transitional team devoted to "change" goes on and on. Is this really the best he could come up with?

How about Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, or James K Galbraith, for starters? Someone who represents labour such as Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO?

Something to suggest that change is really what this administration is about?

*

the bail/sell/out
Obama seems to think it's a good idea
keep redistributing the wealth
among the wealthy
$700 billion is what the gov't is telling us
so far

what's that trickle-down theory again?

just this week the government admitted we were in a recession
and, oh by the way, a recession
since Dec 2007!
okaay, what's the word on depression?
national or personal?
we are not as bad as during the 1930's
but the FDIC does not reassure me
how many trillions of dollars is the US in debt already?

a government report showed employers in the U.S. slashed 533,000 jobs last month, the biggest decline in 34 years.

Since the start of the recession, the economy has lost 1.9 million jobs, the number of unemployed people increased by 2.7 million and the jobless rate rose by 1.7 percentage points.

Job losses were widespread, hitting factories, construction companies, financial firms, retailers, leisure and hospitality, and others industries.

The few places where gains were logged included the government, education and health services.

what is money?
seriously
can you eat it?
can it keep you warm?
what can you trade it in for?
less and less

cept all of a sudden gasoline
what's up with that?


oh yeah, Obama's public works construction program
the infrastructure definetly needs to be rebuilt
bridges
roads
public buildings
water/sewer?
levees?

and the request for input from 'all of us' on health care

where's that money coming from?
more taxes on middle income folks?
-the bailouts are already coming from there

print more (monopoly) money?

from the next superpower
- China?

from FTdotcom (Financial Times): Chinese bargain hunters are preparing to descend on American cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco, where homeowners have suffered some of the steepest price falls in the US.

SouFun, the biggest real estate website in China, is organising a trip next month to look at properties in California and possibly Nevada. Liu Jian, the company’s chief operating officer, said about 300 people had expressed interest in the idea in the three days since it was advertised, though the company would take only a small group on the first trip.

'SouFun'?
doankno how that translates in Chinese, but can think of several in English


if something doesn't change it is no longer alive


k, so, i'm trapped in a land that looks and feels like Antarctica, and have cabin fever already, and am sick of the preponderance of political and economic news, and/or my attention to it, so c'mon cool science news, any weird/cool news, and/or a good online free chips limit hold'em poker game, something i find funny, or really, any miracle


If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you. - Paul Newman