Bailouts, Bullshit, and Blackmail: How Banks Profit in the 21st Century

Democracy is Not Liberty

Climate Scandal: Story of the Century, Ignored by Mainstream News
Today these are all front page news stories: Tiger Woods crashed his car, rumored to be be cheating on his wife. The daughter of a former president is engaged to be married. Black people are disproportionately impacted by the current economic depression. Dubai World is bankrupt. Obama vows to continue war in Afghanistan. Some guy shot and killed a few cops near Seattle.

The Suffix “-Gate” is Not Clever
Fact: adding the suffic “-gate” to any other word(s), to denote political scandal does not make you clever. This has been bothering me for some time. I think “Climategate” was the last straw, so-to-speak. The namesake scandal, of course, is the Watergate incident during Nixon’s reign as president. Watergate was the name of the office park where the incident principally occurred, or at least where some participants were caught. “-Gate” as a suffice, appended to every noteworthy incident since then, is totally superfluous and devoid of any etymological meaning, except the colloquial association with the Wat

Black Friday
It will be interesting to see what sort of retail numbers come out for this bellwether weekend, and further, whether they can be sustained. Against the current economic backdrop, poorer than expected holiday sales would be really bad news.  Currently, Bloomberg is reporting that holiday spending appears to be up slightly (it would be interesting to find out what proportion of the holiday spend is being put on consumer credit cards). I wouldn’t know. I stayed very clear of all shopping venues yesterday, bringing my YTD holiday spending total to $0.  And I plan on cashing in airline

National Health Care Will Raise Taxes on Middle Class
You know the Dem’s health care bill is atrocious when when the Teamsters oppose it: “Any claim that it affects only ‘Cadillac’ plans and thus the wealthy is misleading,” said Teamsters President James P. Hoffa Jr. “This tax will fall on one-third of Americans in 10 years. … The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just dead wrong.” Hoffa sees through the smokescreen and newspeak—despite the grandiose promises of “affordable care” and “health care for everyone” and “no new taxes on the middle class”, the fact of the matter is that

55.7 Million Reasons to Reject Public Financing for Sports Arenas
The next time someone tells you that the taxpayer residents of a city or urban area need to help some billionaire businessman finance the construction of a sports arena where he’ll sell you $5 hot dogs and $9 beers, remember the Pontiac Silverdome’s epic fail. Vacant about 99% of the time since 2002, the ‘Dome has been maintained of late by the City of Pontiac, at an annual cost (to taxpayers) of about $1.5M. As recently as 2005, the City refused a $20M purchase offer. This week, the City of Pontiac (MI) accepted a bid to purchase the Silverdome, nestled among 127 sprawling