Wall Street plunges after S&P downgrade (via Reuters)

Stocks plunged on Monday, with the S&P down more than 6 percent for its largest drop in nearly three years on rising fears of a recession exacerbated by the United States’ loss of its triple-A credit rating.

I wonder what would have happened if we had actually defaulted. I guess it would have been very entertaining from a news standpoint. Of course, from the point of view of an American trying to get by, it would have been less entertaining.

How bad is this going to be? I expected this to be the kind of response an actual default would have caused. So, I’m not that good a guide. Apparently these financial gurus bear more resemblance to an overpopulation of lemmings than to coldly analytical Ivy League grads.

The next shoe to drop will be the reaction of the overseas markets especially the Asian ones. If there is a sell off there. We may continue the sell off here.

Great fun. I tell my students we are in the midst of history being made. This history does not seem to me to be fairly similar to other historical eras. I think the self destructive tendencies of the Congress are worse then at any other time besides the Civil War. We could be creating a fiscal situation unprecedented in all of world history, a great power literally committing financial suicide – a great power giving up its planetary pre-eminence to avoid raising taxes on the rich.

James Pilant

 

Did Newsweek choose Michele Bachmann cover photo to make her ‘look crazy’? (via Yahoo! News)

A month after editor-in-chief Tina Brown Photoshopped the late Princess Diana walking alongside Kate Middleton onto the cover of Newsweek, sparking outrage among fans, Brown is drawing the ire of the tea party for selecting a photo of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) for Newsweek’s cover that makes the 2012 Republican hopeful look, well, crazy.

I looked at the cover. It is obvious that Newsweek chose the photo to make the presidential candidate look foolish or worse. I am no fan of Michele Bachman but this is wrong. It will always be wrong.

I expect on the front page of a tough conservative magazine less than flattering pictures of Obama, etc. On magazines like Rolling Stone, I expect satirical cartoons of any politician currently in the news. But Newsweek is not supposed to be a advocacy magazine or a satirical publication.

I expect a campaign style picture of any candidate for higher office. Anything else is insulting, and intended to be.

James Pilant

FAA probing News Corp.’s use of drones (via Yahoo! News)

From Yahoo! News

With the newsgathering techniques of its sister publications in Britain under fire, News Corp. is facing a probe into the use of drones by its U.S.-based digital publication, The Daily.

They have their own drones? And then they didn’t get permission to use them.

Here’s more –

Flight of the Paparazzi Drone (from the article which appears in Forbes)

In thinking about news organizations’ uses of drones, there are a variety of potential applications. News Corp’s The Daily used a drone to gather footage of disaster areas in Mississippi and North Dakota. While unobjectionable journalistically, it may have violated FAA regulations in doing so, as the agency currently prohibits strictly commercial use of drones. I asked the Daily about the FAA investigation and whether they had legal certification for use of their MicroDrone MD4-1000. “We’re not going to comment on our newsgathering,” said a spokesperson.

This is a you tube video of this model drone –

Microdrones MD4-1000 behind the scenes (real live footage- not stabilized by software)

Here’s another video –

Orbit MD4-1000 Microdrones filming Super Bikers From Above

 

Predator Drone Seen Hovering over Standard & Poor’s Headquarters (via Borowitz Report)

This is the lead in Andy Borowitz’s new essay. I tend to like a lot of his material and I’m happy here to call attention to particularly timely and funny column on his part.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Just days after downgrading the credit rating of the United States, Standard & Poor’s was on high alert this morning after an unmanned Predator drone was seen hovering over its headquarters in lower Manhattan.

While the mission of the Predator was unclear, some insiders speculated that S & P might be in for a downgrade of its own.

Please go to his web site and read the whole essay. It’s worth the trip.

James Pilant

Introduction (via inDiginous)

This is a call for “digital natives” to stand up and start changing the world.

Yes, my thoughts as well.

James Pilant

I'm a college student, and as I've learned from taking one too many classes on digital media, I'm apparently also part of this new breed called "Digital Natives." Rather than a silver spoons, we were raised with a silver mouse in our hands and access to millions of ideas and people online. Generally, before we even knew what that entailed. The Internet doesn't make our lives easier – it is an integral part of our daily activity. And while we take … Read More

via inDiginous

It is Time to Move the Blog.

I think I have grown as much as I can in terms of audience in the straitjacket of a free web hosting service. It has not been an unpleasant experience. I have learned a lot. But I can’t help but feel that if my blogging software offered more choices like pulling up relevant pictures, graphics, news articles and links automatically, my work would be more effective.

I have purchased a book on setting up my own web site and it will arrive on the 12th of August. Until it arrives I have studied the material available on the internet about setting up blogs. I have budgeted the money for a domain name and monthly services for a year from a paid hosting service. I plan to have everything for the move in place on September the 1st.

My big worries are that I won’t be able to arrange for hits to the site to roll over to the new one and that I could lose those people who have been kind enough to subscribe. Hopefully I can work those problems out.

I am open to any ideas. If you have any experience in these matters and would like to add your advice, please comment.

James Pilant

Post-meltdown America: An economic recovery for the wealthy (via Minding the Workplace)

David Yamada, whose blog I am a great admirer of, tell the story correctly. The great mass of Americans suffer while a small minority reap unprecedented profits.

James Pilant

As our economy teeters on the brink of another recession (even as the "old" one never seems to have disappeared), here are three indicators that the wealthiest among us have been the primary beneficiaries of any recovery from the big meltdown: 1. Executive raises make a comeback Matt Krantz and Barbara Hansen of USA Today report that executive raises in 2010 made a comeback after a leaner 2009 (link here): The heads of the nation’s top companies … Read More

via Minding the Workplace

Japan to fire top nuclear officials in wake of disaster (via 1 Real News)

This disaster happened in March. Virtually everything you can think of went wrong and now, they fire people. I’m not impressed. Once it became obvious that the people in charge were grossly incompetent, it might have been better to fire them immediately than waiting for months for what is apparently a better political climate.

James Pilant

Japan to fire top nuclear officials in wake of disaster ReutersAugust 4, 2011Japan will replace three senior bureaucrats in charge of nuclear power policy, the minister overseeing energy policy said on Thursday, five months after the world’s worst atomic crisis in 25 years erupted at Fukushima.The move comes as Prime Minister Naoto Kan calls for enhanced nuclear safety accountability and an overhaul of Japan’s energy policy, with the aim of gradually weaning it off its dependence on nuclear power as p … Read More

via 1 Real News

Fiduciary Duty and Investment Brokers (via Pilant’s Business Ethics Blog)

A re-post of one of my essays from last year.

James Pilant

Fiduciary Duty and Investment Brokers “When I was growing up in the shadow of the Edgar Thomson Works of U.S. Steel a half century ago, it was easy to tell the bookies from the bankers — and it wasn’t just by the clothes they were wearing. If you wanted to place a bet, you went to a bookie; if you wanted to invest, you went to a banker or stock broker.” This is the lead paragraph from Tom Michlovic’s opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It’s a dead on call. The Wall Street … Read More

via Pilant’s Business Ethics Blog

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Constitutional Convention?

We here in America should start practicing democracy instead of pretending. The government no longer works for human beings only for lobbyists and their employers.

When the American Government under the Articles of Confederation began to break down, the great men of the nation acted to save the country from dissolving into a dozen or so petty states.

We’re in the same situation now. We just don’t have any great men. Our current crop of politicians are contemptible. Would let a anyone involved in that disgrace of a “budget ceiling” negotiation work for you?

What should a constitutional convention do? Get rid of the Senate. The idea that the two Senators from North Dakota should have the same weight in national deliberations as the two Senators from California is bizarre and ridiculous. What’s more it allows a small minority to have veto power over the rest of the nation. That’s why we have farm supports that make no sense here financially while causing havoc overseas. You can’t make intelligent policy when a minority can derail intelligent action. Let’s have a single house legislature with the seats distributed by population. That’s democracy. Pretending that the states are actually independent countries is an idea the Civil War should have finished off for good.

The second thing we should do is get rid of the electoral college. Elect the President directly by the voters. Electing Presidents by states electoral votes is a formula for disaster. You get Presidents without actual majorities.

The third thing is to put the right to vote into the Bill of Rights. Every kind of shenanigans is now being employed and has been used throughout American history to keep people from voting. Let’s make sure everyone is on the same set of rules. It’s wrong to stop people from voting. Period.

The Constitution created a government divided in purpose to make oppression less likely. It wasn’t a bad idea but now it is no longer viable. The government and the those influencing it are more the enemies of the people than ever before, and because the government only sort of responds to the voters, that response is muted and ineffective. We need a government strong enough to resist large pressure from large economic organizations but weak enough to leave people individual rights.

To keep our rights, it is time to change the form of our government. Now.

James Pilant

https://southwerk.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/constitutional-convention/

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