From the RSAnimate series, in this video, Matthew Taylor explores the meaning of 21st century enlightenment and how the idea might help us meet the challenges we face today. It’s probably the smartest 11 minutes on YouTube.
Continue reading...Money and the Economy
Why didn't the stimulus work as expected?
With 500,000 new people applying for unemployment last week, the most number since November, it appears that the economy, propped up by temporary census workers and last year’s stimulus package, is falling again. The Right is saying that the stimulus was a waste of money, the Left is saying it wasn’t big enough. The truth is, even if it helped a little, it’s not doing enough. Eric Martin at Obsidian Wings does a great job of pointing out one of the most important reasons: Further weakening the effort, a self-styled group of “moderates” in the Senate pared...
Continue reading...It's International Beer Day! Thank Jimmy Carter!
SEE UPDATE/CORRECTION BELOW Today is International Beer Day,* and if you’re a lover of fine micro-brews (and I know you are), you have but one person to thank. No, not Jim Koch. The person you must thank is none other than former President Jimmy Carter. E.D. Kain explains: To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large...
Continue reading...How long until we're employed again?
The economy seems to be leveling out, but how long will it take to get employment back to where it was before the Great Recession? Brookings has this frightening chart with some explanation: In recent months, on this blog, we described the job gap — the number of jobs it would take to return to employment levels from before the Great Recession, while also accounting for the 125,000 people who enter the labor force in a typical month. After today’s employment numbers, the job gap stands at almost 11.3 million jobs. How long will it take to...
Continue reading...Stimulus bill more stimulating than expected
CC photo from Argonne National Laboratory Conservative critics love to talk about how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the “stimulus package,” has clearly not worked, because the economy hasn’t recovered yet. All I had to do was a cursory Google search to find this: According to the latest survey of its members by the National Association of Business Economists: “The vast majority (73%) of respondents reported the fiscal stimulus enacted in February 2009 has had no impact on employment to date. While 68% also believe a jobs bill, such as the one recently...
Continue reading...The Number of the Beast
You’d be remiss to not check out Richard Eskow’s new post on his blog: Revelation/Channel 13: “Biometric ID,” The Mark of the Beast, and Immigration Reform, where he does a spectacular job explaining why many evangelical/fundamentalist Christians will fear the proposal in immigration reform requiring workers to carry biometric identification by comparing it to the the “Mark of the Beast” referenced in Revelation, and why the administration may want to tread carefully on this: If Arizona’s draconian new law has put immigration back in the public consciousness, the proposal for a national “biometric ID” is about to...
Continue reading...BREAKING: Bankers are greedy and evil
JPMorgan Chase wants you to sign the slip. According to the American Banker, in a mailing from JPMorgan Chase to customers whose debit cards had been switched from Washington Mutual when JPC bought WaMu, the bank strongly urged cardholders to sign the slip rather than enter their PIN when making debit card purchases. The mailing continues, “It’s not a credit card, so the money still comes out of your checking account. But by choosing ‘credit,’ you won’t have to enter your PIN in public.” Brilliant. JPMorgan Chase wants you to be safe. Sadly, it’s also terribly dishonest....
Continue reading...SEC Employees Fiddle With Themselves As Wall St. Burns
An internal audit of SEC employee computer use has uncovered some staggering details about exactly what employees and contractors were doing with their time and their laptops. The results: “During the past five years, the SEC OIG (Office of Inspector General) substantiated that 33 SEC employees and or contractors violated Commission rules and policies, as well as the government-wide Standards of Ethical Conduct, by viewing pornographic, sexually explicit or sexually suggestive images using government computer resources and official time,” said a summary of the investigation by the inspector general’s office. The aerial view presented in the above...
Continue reading...It's all about the Benjamins, baby
So, the new $100 bill unveiled by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, is pretty baller. Heck, it’s basically the Avatar of money, what with the spankin’-new 3-D features. Other thing that is awesome: The website for the Bureau is moneyfactory.gov. In other dollar news, according to a recent Marist poll, a substantial majority—79%—think it’s a bad idea to change the face on the $50 bill from Presidents Grant to Reagan. I’ll just point out: This means more people think Obama is a secret Muslim Socialist Nazi Pig-dog than think Pres. Reagan should be on money.
Continue reading...Meet the next Senator from Nevada and learn about her Chickens for Health Care initiative
Sue Lowden, one of the Republican candidates for the Nevada Senate seat currently held by Sen. Reid, currently holds a substantial advantage in polling, and will likely become the next senator from the Silver State. And, she has quite a novel approach to health care reform. Namely, she wants to take health care back to the “good old days,” when our forebears bartered or haggled for care. Here’s what she said: Let’s change the system and talk about what the possibilities are. I’m telling you that this works. You know, before we all started having health care,...
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