Saturday, January 31, 2009

BAILOUTS MAKING MONKEYS OUT OF US ALL

BAILOUTS MAKING MONKEYS OUT OF
US ALL
IT GETS WORSE!
READ:
AP Investigation: Banks sought foreignworkers

A friend of mine sent me the below clever forward about the first bailout package set forth by the Bush Administration. I thought, GOOD ANALYSIS, FOR SURE, THE WALL STREET GANGBANGERS MADE MONKEYS OUT OF YOU AND ME... Bailouts make no sense at all... Especially the bonus part... (giving billions and billions of bonuses to top executives for failure... YIKES! BEAM ME UP SCOTTIE!)

Goes to show you... only the very rich can expect government help... THE POOR? Well the hell with the poor... Reagan started bashing the poor when he coined the phrase WELFARE QUEENS...

WELFARE QUEEN: The term entered the
American lexicon during Ronald Reagan's 1976
presidential campaign when he described a
"welfare queen" from Chicago's South Side.
Since then, it has become a stigmatizing label placed
on recidivist poor mothers, with studies showing that
it often carries gendered and racial connotations.
Although american women can no longer stay on welfare
indefinitely, the term continues to shape American
dialogue on poverty.

So when Governor Ronald Reagan aimed his political
ambition to the White House, the legend of the
so-called welfare queen became a rhetorical red meat
for Mr. Ronald Reagan, who had conveniently
“employed the graphic anecdote as a devastating
campaign weapon” given the fact that the poll at
the time showed that the food stamp program was rated
the most unpopular social welfare program. As the
president of the United States, Ronald Regan
continued doing what he had been doing since he was
the Governor of the State of California –
cutting social programs in the names of fighting
"waste, fraud and abuse,” cutting domestic
programs like food stamps and school lunches,
preaching fiscal frugality and distrust of
government; forcing welfare mothers to work; feeding
of rugged individual heroism, as he stated in his
1981 inaugural address – “We have every
right to dream heroic dreams…I am addressing the
heroes of whom I speak – you, the citizens of
this blessed land.” – meaning, everyone can
pull themselves up by the bootstraps; poor people are
heroes too who can take care of themselves; they are
not society's or government’s responsibility.
from this site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen


You're on Welfare... if you get help from the government to feed your children but if you are a wealthy corporate executive, you are not a Welfare recipient, you are just getting a BAILOUT to help the American Economy... WHAT? Scottie where the hell are you? thinkingblue
Once upon a time a man appeared in a village and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and, as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He next announced that he would now buy monkeys at $20 each. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.

Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer increased to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce it was an effort to even find a monkey, let alone catch it!

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50 each! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would buy on his behalf.

In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: "Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has already collected. I will sell them to you at $35 ... and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys for 700 billion dollars.


They never saw the man or his assistant again, only lots and lots of monkeys!



Now you have a better understanding of how the
WALL STREET BAILOUT PLAN WORKS!

IN A NUTSHELL

What Does Greater Fool Theory Mean?

A theory that states it is possible to make money by
buying securities, whether overvalued or not, and later
selling them at a profit because there will always be
someone (a bigger or greater fool) who is willing to pay
the higher price.

-OR-

When acting in accordance with the greater fool theory,
an investor buys questionable securities without any
regard to their quality, but with the hope of quickly
selling them off to another investor (the greater fool),
who might also be hoping to flip it quickly.
Unfortunately, speculative bubbles always burst
eventually, leading to a rapid depreciation in share
price due to the selloff.

The GREED goes on and on while America sinks. thinkingblue

also on youtube

The Bailouts - Welfare for the rich!



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

January 27, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
The Same Old Song

By BOB HERBERT

What’s up with the Republicans? Have
they no sense that their policies have sent the country
hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from
reality that in their delusionary state they honestly
believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and
their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the
very things that got us to this deplorable state?

The G.O.P.’s latest campaign is aimed at undermining
President Obama’s effort to cope with the national
economic emergency by attacking the spending in his
stimulus package and repeating ad nauseam the Republican
mantra for ever more tax cuts.

“Right now, given the concerns that we have over the
size of this package and all the spending in this
package, we don’t think it’s going to
work,” said Representative John Boehner, an Ohio
Republican who is House minority leader. Speaking on
NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mr. Boehner said
of the plan: “Put me down in the ‘no’ column.”

If anything, the stimulus package is not large enough.
Less than 24 hours after Mr. Boehner’s televised
exercise in obstructionism, the heavy-equipment company
Caterpillar announced that it was cutting 20,000 jobs,
Sprint Nextel said it was eliminating 8,000, and Home
Depot 7,000.

Maybe the Republicans don’t think there is an
emergency. After all, it was Phil Gramm, John
McCain’s economic guru, who told us last summer that
the pain was all in our heads, that this was a
“mental recession.”

The truth, of course, is that the country is hemorrhaging
jobs and Americans are heading to the poorhouse by the
millions. The stock markets and the value of the family
home have collapsed, and there is virtual
across-the-board agreement that the country is caught up
in the worst economic disaster since at least World War II.


The Republican answer to this turmoil?

Tax cuts.

They need to go into rehab.


The question that I would like answered is
why anyone listens to this crowd anymore. G.O.P. policies
have been an absolute backbreaker for the middle class.
(Forget the poor. Nobody talks about them anymore, not
even the Democrats.) The G.O.P. has successfully
engineered a wholesale redistribution of wealth to those
already at the top of the income ladder and then, in a
remarkable display of chutzpah, dared anyone to talk
about class warfare.

A stark example of this unholy collaboration between the
G.O.P. and the very wealthy was on display in the pages
of this newspaper on Jan. 18. The Times’s Mike
McIntire wrote an article about the first wave of federal
bailout money for the financial industry, which was
handed over by the Bush administration with hardly any
strings attached. (Congress, under the control of the
Democrats, should never have allowed this to happen, but
the Democrats are as committed to fecklessness as the
Republicans are to tax cuts.)

The public was told that the money would be used to
loosen the frozen credit markets and thus help revive the
economy. But as the article pointed out, there were
bankers with other ideas. John C. Hope III, the chairman
of the Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, in an
address to Wall Street fat cats gathered at the Palm
Beach Ritz-Carlton, said:

“Make more loans? We’re not going to change our
business model or our credit policies to accommodate the
needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make
more loans.”

How’s that for arrogance and contempt for the public
interest? Mr. Hope’s bank received $300 million in
taxpayer bailout money.

The same article quoted Walter M. Pressey, president of
Boston Private Wealth Management, which Mr. McIntire
described as a healthy bank with a mostly affluent
clientele. It received $154 million in taxpayer money.

“With that capital in hand,” said Mr. Pressey,
“not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride
out the recession, but we also feel that we’ll be in
a position to take advantage of opportunities that
present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”

Take advantage, indeed. That, in a nutshell, is what the
plutocracy is all about: taking unfair advantage.

When the G.O.P. talks, nobody should listen. Republicans
have argued, with the collaboration of much of the media,
that they could radically cut taxes while simultaneously
balancing the federal budget, when, in fact, big
income-tax cuts inevitably lead to big budget deficits.
We listened to the G.O.P. and what do we have now? A
trillion-dollar-plus deficit and an economy in shambles.

This is the party that preached fiscal discipline and
then cut taxes in time of war. This is the party that
still wants to put the torch to Social Security and
Medicare. This is a party that, given a choice between
Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, would choose Ronald
Reagan in a heartbeat.


Why is anyone still listening?


http://thinkingblue/blogspot.com

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Give Us Our Daily American Bread

I picked this doozy of an article, off the yahoo news menu... Not a good read to start your day. I think I feel sick. After grasping what we allow Big Corporate Greasy Spoon, to put into our bodies, via the mouth, to help shorten our lives, I've decided to, never eat out again.

That'll be the day. I need a little therapy for my Kitchenheimer's now and then and besides, it taste so good as you’re stuffing it down. (as long as you prepare yourself for the inevitable belly acid, yikes!)

I guess eating out is fine (in moderation) if and only if you practice diligence in choosing body fuel that is the least toxic. Thanks HEALTH YAHOO for adding to my 2009 awareness cache. I think?
clipped from health.yahoo.com

20 Worst Foods in America, 2009

Can an appetizer with the caloric equivalent of 13 Krispy Kreme doughnuts be justified? No. The 2,710-calorie Awesome Blossom has been purged from Chili's menu
The deep-fried onion wasn't the only thing to withdraw from last year's race--more than 10 other items from 2008's lineup have been removed from menus
The bad news? There are plenty of frightening foods still at large
Worst "Healthy" Sandwich
Blimpie Veggie Supreme (12")
Veggie Supreme sandwich sounds healthy, but
comes with three different kinds of cheese, and it’s drenched in oil. After Blimpie gets done with this vegetarian nightmare, you’d be better off consuming two Big Macs
Worst Kids' Meal
Chili’s Pepper Pals Country-Fried Chicken Crispers
1,110 calories
8-year-old boy should eat around 1,600 calories a day
This single meal plows through 75 percent of that allotment.
Worst Dessert
Romano’s Macaroni Grill Dessert Ravioli
Worst Burger
Chili’s Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger
Worst Starter
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Sunday, January 11, 2009

Why Is It Ok For Israel (ANYONE) To Kill?

U.S. seeks ship to move arms to Israel
By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. is seeking to hire a merchant ship to deliver hundreds of tons of arms to Israel from Greece later this month, tender documents seen by Reuters show.

The U.S. Navy's Military Sea lift Command (MSC) said the ship was to carry 325 standard 20-foot containers of what is listed as "ammunition" on two separate journeys from the Greekport of Astakos to the Israeli port of Ashdod in mid-to-late January.

A "hazardous material" designation on the manifest mentions explosive substances and detonators, but no other details were given.

"Shipping 3,000-odd tons of ammunition in one go is a lot," one broker said, on condition of anonymity.

"This (kind of request) is pretty rare and we haven't seen much of it quoted in the market over the years," he added.

The U.S. Defense Department, contacted by Reuters on Friday in Washington, had no immediate comment.

The MSC transports amour and military supplies for the U.S. armed forces aboard its own fleet, but regularly hires merchant ships if logistics so require.

The request for the ship was made on December 31, with the first leg of the charter to arrive no later than January 25 and the second at the end of the month. Continued...

-----

Why is it OK for Israel (for anyone) to kill?

I am saddened by what is going on in the Gaza strip. Israel’s, killing, maiming of innocent children, hardly qualifies under the axiom of "THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS". What end? It seems there's no end, only beginnings for more mayhem. Technological war, blitzkrieg itself, just perpetuates the disquiet and thus, allows no healing, only relapse.

During his visit to Israel on July 2008, President-elect Barack Obama told the media: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.” However, on the slaughter of Palestinian children by Israeli forces, Obama has failed to condemn Israel and seems to espouse sickening contradictions. From: http://www.countercurrents.org/hassan070109.htm

There is so much depravity in this world perpetrated by man on man. We are supposed to be the intelligent animal. Will we ever start using that intelligence? Dismally, I think not. thinkingblue

PS: If the Palestinians were launching a blitzkrieg upon Israel and innocent Israeli children were being slaughtered with the help of a Super Power, I would feel as appalled. No one is in the right here, only wrong is going on. It is wrong to kill, it is especially wrong to kill innocent children who did not ask to be born into insanity. There are no words for the gloom that's happening, it should not be taking place and should end. But if everyone looks away, worse, condones it, these macabre wrongs will never be righted and the guiltless will go on suffering, deeply paying for the inanity of those who are suppose to protect them. The silly sophomoric,” IT’S YOUR FAULT, NO IT’S YOUR FAULT, MOST ASSUREDLY IT’S THEIR FAULT”, doesn’t work any more! If we care anything about our planet, if we care anything about our children, we must all seek ways to end the savagery.

Below are links to information I have found on the net.

http://www.wearechangevancouver.org/

http://www.wearechangevancouver.org/

The 2009 Gaza Massacre

Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Saturday, January 10, 2009

House Passes 2 Measures on Job Bias

House Passes 2 Measures on Job Bias
An update on the clipped, “One last Bill for …", January 6th clipmarked article.

It looks like Congress (under Obama) has grown some brass balls (MUCHO CAHONES) and closed a loophole, the Bush/ Supreme Court, had used to “screw” women in the work force …

It’s been a long time coming!

Perhaps the weight they’ve (mostly republican corporate sympathizers) have put upon the average American’s back is starting to crumble and take the whole country down. (republican corporate sympathizers included) So it’s time to take a second look at the hardships they’ve created for those (the majority) at the bottom.

I have been disappointed in the past at how the R-conservative’s have buffaloed the D-liberal’s into accepting the many inequities they, so joyfully spread over the land, in the guise that it’s GOOD FOR AMERICA. Maybe now, with Obama at the helm, we can once again laud their efforts to bring about LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. :-D thinkingblue

PS: Let’s see Bush carry out his last threat to VETO this one… Any wagers?

------
WASHINGTON — The House voted on Friday to give women powerful new tools to challenge sex discrimination by employers who pay women less than men for the same or substantially similar work.Skip to next paragraphEnlarge This ImageLauren Victoria Burke/Associated Press
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, center, and Representative Zoe Lofgren, right, met on Friday with Marsha Greenberger, left, of the National Women’s Law Center and other women’s leaders.
The action shows how Congress, working with President-elect Barack Obama, intends to make a swift, sharp break with civil rights policies of the Bush administration.
“In the first week of the new Congress, this is the legislation we are putting forward: pay equity, fairness to women in the workplace,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California. “These are our priorities. This Congress has heard the message of change in the election.”
The House passed two related bills on Friday. One, approved 247 to 171, would give workers more time to file lawsuits claiming job discrimination.
The bill would overturn a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court that enforced a strict 180-day deadline, thwarting a lawsuit by Lilly M. Ledbetter, a longtime supervisor at the Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Ala. Three Republicans voted for the bill.
The other bill — passed 256 to 163, with support from 10 Republicans — would make it easier for women to prove violations of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which generally requires equal pay for equal work.
President Bush threatened to veto both bills, saying they would “invite a surge of litigation” and “impose a tremendous burden on employers.” Congress will not give him the opportunity.
Mr. Obama is eager to sign the bills, and it appears he will be able to do so. Supporters of the legislation said they believed they could come up with the 60 votes needed to ensure passage in the Senate, after two vacant seats are filled.
The United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers opposed the bills. Jeri G. Kubicki, a vice president of the manufacturers group, said the bills would “open the floodgates to unwarranted litigation against employers at a time when businesses are struggling to retain and create jobs.”
In the Ledbetter case, a jury found that Goodyear had paid her less than men, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, threw out her complaint. It said she should have filed her claim within 180 days of “the alleged unlawful employment practice,” the initial decision to pay her less than men performing similar work.
“The Ledbetter decision is unacceptable and must not stand,” said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. Under the decision, Mr. Miller said, employers can get away with years of pay discrimination “if they hide it for the first 180 days.”
The bill would relax the statute of limitations, making clear that each new paycheck violates the law if it results “in whole or in part” from a discriminatory pay decision made in the past.
Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, the senior Republican on the committee, said: “This bill would allow an employee to bring a claim against an employer decades after the alleged initial act of discrimination occurred. Trial lawyers, you can be sure, are salivating at this very prospect.”
Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said that while women had made gains since passage of the Equal Pay Act, pay disparities persisted.
“The Paycheck Fairness Act closes numerous loopholes that have enabled employers to evade liability,” said Ms. DeLauro, the chief sponsor of that bill. “It stiffens penalties for employers who discriminate based on gender. And it protects employees from retaliation for sharing salary information.”
Under the 1963 law, an employer can justify paying women less than men if it shows that the disparity is based on any factor other than sex. Employers have successfully used this defense in many cases, arguing that unequal pay was justified by the education, training or experience of male employees.
Some courts have also held that a company can legally pay men more than women because of “market forces” or the higher salaries that men received in previous jobs. Democrats said those factors — market forces and prior salaries — were themselves sometimes tainted by discrimination.
The bill would make it harder for employers to use such defenses. Employers would have to show that the pay disparity was based on “a bona fide factor” other than sex, and that the factor was “consistent with business necessity.”
The bill would also allow women to obtain compensatory and punitive damages from employers who violated the equal pay law.
The White House said the bill would allow “unlimited compensatory and punitive damages, even when a disparity in pay was unintentional.” Under the new standard, it continued, “judges and juries would supplant the free market system” in determining wages.
---
Let's keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!! thinkingblue

Thursday, January 08, 2009

MEET JOHN DOE

I watched an old movie on TCM Turner Classic Movies the other day called MEET JOHN DOE.. I swear this movie is relevant today... There was an especially poignant scene played by James Gleason (Henry Connell)... where he got drunk and told John Doe played by Gary Cooper, what America means to him... A real tearjerker... Anyway, I hope you can get the time to watch this movie, it is riveting even by today's standards... You can watch it at this link: http://www.thethinkingblue.com/pics/meetjohndoe.html



Tuesday, January 06, 2009

One last Bill for workers, to be VETOED by Bush.

Right to the end, with economy going down the old flusher and many breadwinners out of work, to begin a long tedious quest to keep their families from homelessness and starvation; Bush and cronies at the helm, (but with a countdown) still waging the battle to keep hard working Americans from their civil rights. What the...? I had heard about Ledbetter vs. Goodyear when John McCain didn't even bother to show up for the vote, which helped it to fail in the Senate.
One thing for sure, if the McCain (ugh) Palin ticket would have won... This would be a non-issue and what is even more frightening... McCain would have stacked the court with one or two more judges who most certainly would have been against WE THE PEOPLE... http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/04/23/republicans-kill-fair-pay-bill.aspx
Will it ever end? I can answer that one... it's a NO BRAINER... Not if the Republicans have anything to do with it!


Obama to "update" the social contract

Seems like we need to fix this attack on civil rights, with a little common sense from the Congress of these United States. 
Justices’ Ruling in Discrimination Case May Draw Quick Action by Obama
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are planning swift action to overturn a Supreme Court decision that made it much harder for people to challenge discrimination in employment, education, housing and other fields.
The decision, involving a woman named Lilly M. Ledbetter, who had accused her employer of sex-based pay discrimination, was issued in May 2007. Since then, courts around the country have gone far beyond the facts of that case and cited it as a reason for rejecting lawsuits claiming discrimination based on race, sex, age and disability.
In some cases, after initially ruling for employees, judges have reversed themselves and ruled in favor of employers.
judges said they had to switch
because of
Supreme Court decision
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Friday, January 02, 2009

Racial Evolution of Porgy and Bess

READ ARTICLE: http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/1997-11/porgy.html

Gershwin’s play Porgy and Bess, inadvertently highlights the tensions between the races through the decades. This article chronicles how this genius work of art affected American society during its journey to the ultimate goal of “ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL”.

Now that America has succeeded in its struggle to finally cross the barrier of racial divide (once called equal but separate) and elect an African American as its top executive and commander in chief, a look back at this poignant and beautiful work seems apropos.

The music in this opera will forever be remembered and embraced by any who possess the almost magical ability to empathize with other creatures of existence. Once heard you'll never forget songs like, IT AIN’T NECESSARILY SO http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/g/george_gershwin/it_aint_necessarily_so.html and SUMMERTIME http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/g/george_gershwin/summertime.html Thanks to http://delanceyplace.blogspot.com/ for bringing this to my attention. www.thinkingblue.blogspot.com
Porgy and Bess reflects the odyssey of the African American
in American culture.
--Lawrence Levine
While Porgy and Bess has become a cultural artifact, one of
the controversies over the opera reflects the complex way the issue
of race continues to be played out on the American scene. A new
documentary, Porgy and Bess: An American Voice, explores the
opera's place in contemporary music against the backdrop of the
developing history of race over the last sixty years.
The story is a simple one, set in Charleston, South Carolina,
at the turn of the century in a small black enclave called Catfish
Row. It tells about Porgy, a crippled beggar who travels about in
a goat-drawn cart, and who falls in love with Bess, a woman of
uncertain reputation who is under the domination of a stevedore
named Crown. Crown kills a Catfish Row inhabitant in a craps game
and flees.
When he returns for Bess, he is killed
in a fight with
Porgy.
Porgy goes to jail
clipped from www.neh.gov
The Complicated Life of Porgy and Bess
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