Category: Opinion

Obama Over Rules His Own Experts – Plan B

On By southwerkIn Opinion1 Comment
I am a more than a little annoyed by this. Didn’t this guy promise to rely on the experts and instead we get some paternalistic crap about 11 year olds? This decision is going to have serious repercussions. Teenage girls are going to get pregnant with all that entails for their futures when they should have had a choice of contraception. We are not yet a nation of Baptists who believe ineffectual admonishments against having sex is an improvement over reality. Every day in this nation, particularly in the South, teenagers have sex, millions of them. They’ve been told not to. However, since the survival of the human species has depended on the young having sex for hundreds of thousands of years, it may well be possible that a church pamphlet and a pat on the head may not discourage them.
President Obama appears to be working his way through all of his campaign promises one by one, tossing them out like softballs at a little league game. I have been disgusted a long time. I don’t know what bothers me more, his fake populism or his gutless inability to negotiate.
Below are some thought from Salon.
James Pilant
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Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

But as an American, I think it is important for my president not to turn to paternalistic claptrap and enfeebling references to the imagined ineptitude and irresponsibility of his daughters – and young women around the country – to justify a curtailment of access to medically safe contraceptives. The notion that in aggressively conscribing women’s abilities to protect themselves against unplanned pregnancy Obama is just laying down some Olde Fashioned Dad Sense diminishes an issue of gender equality, sexual health and medical access. Recasting this debate as an episode of “Father Knows Best” reaffirms hoary attitudes about young women and sex that had their repressive heyday in the era whence that program sprang.

Obama’s woman problem – Gender Roles – Salon.com

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Contraception under Attack

On By southwerkIn Opinion
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Comment: Putting religious group’s campaign against contraception into context | McClatchy

I was following my daily reading ritual beginning with Beat the Press, the next six, and then finishing with Slate.  McClatchy (fifth) is always interesting often going where the regular news media do not.

Sometimes, you read an article that is particular useful to your thinking (and one that I wish I had written myself).

This article puts the recent drive by fundamentalist and Catholic denominations to limit reproductive freedom, more precisely, contraception. The essay discusses the history of previous attempts of religion to limit rights. I was aware of these but had never thought of viewing the recent events in context.

I want to give credit to Sarah Lipton-Lubet of American Civil Liberties Union for building my understanding of the issue.

Here’s a paragraph from the story (link at the bottom of the page) –

Remarkably, contraception has recently come under attack with new vigor. Earlier this year, the House of Representatives voted to eliminate Title X, the federal program that makes contraception accessible to low-income people throughout the country, and to defund Planned Parenthood’s family planning work. Mississippi was contemplating a constitutional amendment that would outright ban some of the most common forms of birth control. And now, important new federal guidelines that will ensure insurance plans include coverage of contraception are being targeted.

Once again, I thank the author.

James Pilant

Commentary: Putting religious group’s campaign against contraception into context | McClatchy

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Lessons from the Brooklyn Groper – Falsifying Crime Reports – Salon.com

On By southwerkIn Opinion

This story talks about an obvious sexual assault with multiple witnesses and a video of the incident which the police have tried very hard to ignore.

They don’t want to investigate it because it will throw off their successful record of reduced rapes. The numbers are more than important than actually doing police work.

It is appalling: another police department manipulating crime data by falsifying their crime reports.  You would have thought the seriousness of that kind of manipulation in Puerto Rico would have caused other departments to become cautious but apparently not.

When crime reports are little more than a collection of self serving lies, the crime statistics they generate are meaningless nonsense.

But that nonsense has serious consequences.

It’s major factor in budget allocations. If there are few rapes reported than there is less money for that kind of enforcement and police will be diverted to other duties. The city may provide few rape kits and counseling for victims.

The media is, of course, influenced by this train of events. Salutory articles delineating the new wonderful statistics of falling numbers of rapes are published. The major and police are praised as conquering heroes. The only problem is that the rapists can operate with less impediment, their victims will multiply and the victims’ chances of any justice become more and more remote.

James Pilant

Lessons from the “Brooklyn Groper” – Violence Against Women – Salon.com

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Rick Scott’s Welfare Drug Test Saves No Money: Judge

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Once again, we find ourselves in the wonderful world of the upper class mind set. Obviously, people on welfare must be on drugs. Why? Because it obvious.

You might that “obviousness” wouldn’t be enough but that didn’t stop the State of Florida from charging in and creating a drug testing policy. It is a disaster with the state paying out far more money for tests than gaining in benefits.

Why do people like Rick Scott think these kinds of things are good ideas? Because people like Rick Scott are worthy. That’s right. If you earn money at a job, it’s people like Rick Scott who made it possible for you to have a living. You owe everything you are to people like Rick Scott. That’s what they believe.

Rick Scott and his friends are part of the top 1 percent in this nation.

Rick Scott got to the pinnacle of success through contacts and the manipulation of the laws that allowed him to turn once public hospitals into private facilities firing workers, reducing care and introducing fascinating new ways of billing Medicare.

Without elaborate connections, large sums of money and a willingness to forego traditional concepts of morality, these things are not possible. Those people willing to do these things consider themselves to be creators of wealth – “job creators.”

To them, that American workers are losing ground is due to the workers’ own inability to work intelligently and hard. Yes, they believe that.

They are unable to consider the circumstances of people who live without their enormous array of contacts and knowledge about how to use the levers of power. To the friends of Rick Scott, it is always a matter of hard work and initiative, for if it were anything else their enormous advantages would have to be taken into consideration, and their successes would appear more inevitable and unearned.

But those who do not have regular employment, the friends of Rick Scott only have disdain. “If there are want ads in the paper, anyone can get a job.” I’ve actually heard that. I have had many reports of people saying it and those stories astonished me but to actually hear it was still a shock. In their world, anyone can either find employment or can create an entrepreneurial job working out of the home or their car or something. Millions of Americans are unemployed right now with little chance of getting a job anytime. That is a fact, but not in the world of Rick Scott.

So, if you are unemployed, something must be terribly wrong with you. And it must be drugs. Of course, they also believe that the unemployed eat, drink, smoke, watch television and play video games too much and these also figure as candidates for these people’s unworthiness. But as I said, it is obvious that they must be using drugs. That they aren’t isn’t going to change anything in the world of Rick Scott.

Studies will be produced explaining that the dismal effects of Florida’s were actually a rousing success. (There’s already one out.) They will be trumpeted on sympathetic web sites, talk radio and Fox news. New studies will be commissioned for sympathetic academics to generate preordained “studies” which will justify further restrictions on the poor. Maybe next time, it will be tests for alcohol use, evidence of a stable marriage or a requirement for multiple approvals from the school, the county and the State before some one can get aid. The media, academia and the government have enormous sympathy and compassion for the Rick Scott’s of the world continually reinforcing their worthiness with awards, studies, gushing front page tributes, and favorable laws.

One thing that Rick Scott feels every day of his life is worthy. He has been a blessing to his fellow Americans because of his drive, his ambition and his successes. No grant, no loan, no use of a State or county road, no aid from a sympathetic relative was a critical element in his success. He will freely admit that they eased the way but he would have succeeded in spite of every obstacle on his own without help. So would the others of his class and since they did not need Social Security, student loans, publicly funded institutions of any kind, etc., etc., you don’t either.

They cannot understand why you do not understand this. They are the job creators. They are the makers of this society, the useful members. Weighing them down with obligations like taxes is a tax upon yourself because you stop them from being successful so they can help you by being more productive. It is clear to them that you should bear total responsibility for any problems without any aid whatever (save in a charitable sort of way) because that produces the best possible outcome. The spur of your pain, your struggle, will make you more like Rick Scott.

And in their eyes, then and only then, will you become worthy.

James Pilant

 

Rick Scott’s Welfare Drug Test Saves No Money: Judge

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Brooks Is Wrong: The OWS Crew Is Against Redistribution | Beat the Press

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Beat the Press points out that Occupy Wall Street is against the redistribution that has already taken place. David Brooks wants to brand the movement as some form of socialist redristributionists but they are responding to changes in the laws that have made it ever more difficult for Americans to become educated, employed or secure in any financial sense.

They don’t want the rich’s money. They just don’t want the rich continuing to take theirs.

But this kind of criticism will continue. Every kind of calumny and insult will be directed against these Americans who dare to ask the questions that so many of those in power wish never to answer.

James Pilant

Best paragraph –

The country has been seeing enormous redistribution over the last three decades, but it has all been in an upward direction. For example, the government gave trillions of dollars of below market interest rate loans to the largest banks to save them from collapse. The big banks continue to benefit from a too big to fail subsidy.

Brooks Is Wrong: The OWS Crew Is Against Redistribution | Beat the Press

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David Brooks: To Hell With the Polls! | Video Cafe

On By southwerkIn Opinion

We all know that David Brooks is one of those “very serious people” (I owe Paul Krugman for the phrase.) who believe in Centrism. That is a very pretty word that indicates that if we all play nice we will live wonderful lives. We will also have to give up social security, medicare and a host of other programs because unlike the 1%, we less significant people are the ones supposed to compromise and be nice.

I’m not nice. I believe in conflict. I believe that until we make politicians suffer and lose office over their willingness to compromise on social security that the program will be in danger from the “centrists.”

The centrists believe in politicians governing without the influence of the unlettered masses – that would be us. You, when your social security benefits are taken away from you (the ones you’ve already paid for) that is shared sacrifice when the rich get tax cuts that is a spur to the economy and a reward for the “productive” classes.

You see, centrism is a fancy word for elitists and a top down ethos of enlightened philosopher kings keeping the craven, greedy masses (yeah, that would be you) in line.

It’s a precious belief in the virtue of oligarchies. It’s royalism without the royal family just the next enlightened figure to ignore popular opinion and do what is “necessary.”

This is contemptuous of democracy and the hard working, honest American people.

And this is what passes for intelligent comment at the New York Times.

James Pilant

David Brooks: To Hell With the Polls! President Obama Should Not Campaign on Raising Taxes on the Rich | Video Cafe

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False Equivalence Watch: Et Tu, PBS? – James Fallows – Politics – The Atlantic

On By southwerkIn Opinion

I am totally with James Fallows on this issue (and we definitely don’t always agree). But it is just wrong for the beltway media to take “ a plague on both your houses” attitude on the news when it comes to discussing passing or not passing legislation. An accurate description of who voted for what and who used the filibuster is far more relevant and intelligent than an attitude that those Democrats and Republicans should play nice with each other.

I don’t want them to play nice with each other. I want the middle class in this country protected and I’m tired of compromise.

How do you tell who your friends and enemies are if the dominant media narrative is the two political parties aren’t worth a damn and you should leave politics alone because it’s a dirty business?

I don’t like the Democrats and I like the Republicans even less but if the media drives most people from political discussion and action than a small minority are going to be the activists and that is counterproductive in a democracy.

James Pilant

 

James Fallows

False Equivalence Watch: Et Tu, PBS? – James Fallows – Politics – The Atlantic

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The Average Stock Is Held For 22 Seconds! – The Logical Result of Computer Trading

On By southwerkIn Opinion
Michael Hudson

From Michael Hudson –

<em>Take any stock in the United States. The average time in which you hold a stock is–it’s gone up from 20 seconds to 22 seconds in the last year. Most trades are computerized. Most trades are short-term. The average foreign currency investment lasts–it’s up now to 30 seconds, up from 28 seconds last month.

What does that mean for you? If you are an actual human being you are competing, when you make a stock purchase, with a supercomputer, like the ones they use to analyze the weather. That is why the amount of time a stock is held is so low – computer trading.

It’s not a level playing field. A more apt comparison might be a gambling house where the table is rigged to favor the owner almost but not quite always every time. You have to have the occasional lucky winner whose stories will keep the others coming in.

An exaggeration?

Okay, how about this from 2009 –

With all of the scrutiny that high-frequency trading is now under in the media and in Congress, the New York Stock Exchange is probably none too thrilled that the Wall Street Journal has uncovered fresh details of NYSE’s giant new datacenter, which the exchange is building in a former New Jersey quarry. The new datacenter will significantly advance the amount of computer-automated trading that already dominates global markets, housing as it will “several football fields of cutting-edge computing equipment for hedge funds and other firms that engage in high-frequency trading,” according to the WSJ. So if you were recently shocked to learn that an estimated 70 percent of stock trading is just computers trading against one another, get ready for that number to go even higher.

Or this –

Fewer and fewer Wall Street traders are human beings. Instead, they’re computersthat execute trades in milliseconds (a millisecond is one thousandth of a second). A forerunner of today’s robotic trading, computerized program trading, was largely responsible for the stock market crash of October 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 22.6%.

 

This kind of computer trading or should I say, Algorithmic trading, isn’t going away. So if you are a mere mortal, you might find your ability to make money on stock a little constricted by non-human competitors.

James Pilant

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Why Don’t We Just Govern the U.S. with the Default Settings from SimCity?

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Because it’s just a video game with the scantiest connections to reality?

First, some background –

Herman Cain 999 Plan: Did It Come From SimCity?

Herman Cain Stole 9-9-9 Plan From SimCity?

Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan Straight Out of SimCity?

That’s right. There is considerable speculation that the current Republican front runner got his inspiration for his tax policy from a eleven year old video game. I’m a little disturbed by this. I was under the impression that economic policy was important. However, all that it seems to take to become a front runner for the nomination is a catchy phrase like 9-9-9 borrowed from a “non-economist.”

However, it does offer some interesting possibilities. You could set up an economic policy where everyone got 200 dollars for passing “GO.” Although where you would put “GO” might be controversial.

Alternately, you could grow up insulated from the real world in a vault hundreds of feet beneath the earth and have to enter the outside world at the age of 18 in a bright blue jump suit with a medium size pistol and a wrist computer (Fallout 3).

Oh, well – you get the picture. Maybe the fantasy world of video gaming should have some distance from being used in the real world as economic policy? However, if you would like to build your own version of the U.S. economy, and set up your own fancy numbers – here is a link for SimCity –

Here’s where you can download Sim City 2000!!

Maybe you could go with 7/11/11?

James Pilant

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The Wall Street Protests – “This has the feel of something very big happening.”

On By southwerkIn Opinion

Is ‘Occupy Silicon Valley’ next?

This is an article from Reuters written by Connie Loizos. It is in large part an interview with Paul Saffo, a futurist.   I call your attention to this paragraph. –

Saffo doesn’t know where all of this economic dissatisfaction will lead, but he is worried. “I think there’s a sea change afoot that’s going to sweep over everything the same way,” he says. “I still think there’s a lot of uncertainty, but all my instincts as a forecaster tell me this has the feel of something very big happening. I’m standing on the beach and noticing the water heading back out toward the horizon.”

I feel the same way. It’s possible this is all just smoke and mirrors but I don’t think so.

James Pilant

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