The Biggest Hypocrite in the World

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, says she has no sympathy for the Greeks, whom she characterizes as "tax evaders," and claims she reserves all her sympathy for the poor children of Niger. Of course the problems of the world economy, from Niger to Greece, and just about everywhere else, are largely the product of the Friedmanite policies imposed by the IMF. But just the gall of someone pretending that she "cares" about the poor people of anywhere, while the policies she advocates help insure that the poor will remain poor. Lagarde sounds like someone who would murder her own parents, and then ask for clemency because she's an orphan.

When Will They Ever Learn?

The Facebook IPO, which was the most anticipated event of the season, has turned into a fiasco. Not only is the stock falling in price but now investors are suing Facebook and lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, accusing them of hiding weak growth forecasts. Same old same old, the history of every financial bubble. Remember the tech stock mania of the late 90's? Any company that could put up a website would then go "Public" and become instant billionaires. Never mind that many of these companies had never actually made a profit. Then it all imploded in 2000. But the get rich quick crowd never learns. They keep chasing after one money making craze after another, as if there really were a magic box that can turn $100 into a million or a billion. These bozos would be better off buying lottery tickets, for all the good that does.

What The Fuck!

An article in Huffington Post "George W. Bush Requests More Taxpayer Dollars Than Any Other Former President" says that ex-Prez chuckelhead will receive $1.3 million in taxpayer dollars for fiscal year 2013, including $85,000 in phone costs and $26,000 in printing costs, according to a budget proposal compiled by the General Services Administration. This is on top of the $191,300/year pension he's already getting! That's the reward for goofing off his entire life and then going on to be the most disastrous 2 term president in this country's history. To think that we're laying off teachers and letting the country's infrastructure go to ruin in the name of "cutting wasteful spending." The biggest waste is in giving so much money to that loser.

The Need to Think

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country. Abraham Lincoln's Annual Message to Congress December 1, 1862 The recent episonde of "Frontline" about the Obama admin's handling of the financial meltdown, which could be considered a success after three years, although it is coming under attack from both the left and the right. The biggest question is why the Obama admin did not pursue deeper reform. While it's tempting to make Tim Geithner into the villain of the story, the real problem is how the Friedmanite dogma has been established; that the best economic policy is to keep corporate interests happy. This has been accepted as "received wisdom." Who has any new ideas. The Right, especially the "Tea Partiers," don't have any solution other than cockamamie ideas of bringing back the gold standard. On the Left there is mostly confusion. While the Occupy Movement is admirable in some ways there doesn't seem to be any coherent solution. Many in the Occupy movement identify themselves with something called "Post-Anarchism." These vague Utopian notions only lead to disappointment and despair, as seen with the New Left in the sixties and seventies. The real division isn't so much between Right and Left, but between those who refuse to think and those who think in purely abstract theoretical terms. What we need is someone who can come with ideas that actually yield results.