You can watch the show at Bill Moyers’ site, you can watch YouTube installments here, or you can watch my copy of the show the next time you stop in at Chez TMiss, but don’t miss what Kevin Phillips, a reformed Republican, has to say about the meltdown.
This has been going on since the beginning of the 1980s. [...] Finance has been preferred as the sector that got government support. Manufacturing slides, nobody helps. Finance has a problem, Federal Reserve to the rescue. Treasury to the rescue. Subsidies this, that, and the other.
So bit by bit, they got bigger. And the other reason they got bigger was because this became a country that was further and further in debt. Consumerism was just pushed to the nth degree. People were given the sense that they had to buy everything and they had to borrow to do it increasingly.
But we’ve seen the central component of the rise of the financial sector is the rise of the debt industry. Mortgage, credit cards, all these gimmicks that Wall Street sells– just all kinds of products. And, of course, the products are laying an egg all over the world right now.
The haters, the creeps who always look for a scapegoat without a care in the world as to the actual culprits, keep blaming minority mortgages for today’s problems. After all, if redlining was good enough for post-Civil War America, then institutionalized racism is still a good idea today (and will be again if we allow these thieving pricks to steal another election). [more from Digby]
Yes, mortgage consumers of color are driving this debacle, just as all those Catholic priests would have never strayed had it not been for the seductive wiles of all those flirtatious altar boys. More on that process from Maha. [more]
Jonathan Schwarz has the solution to our financial woes, but thankfully no one listens to him so the bailout is still in play. (Sweden, like a broken clock, is usually right about twice a day.) House Republicans also have a solution, but theirs suffers by comparison, mostly because it makes no sense at all.
Swedes making more sense than Republicans. Sort of like saying that a Black & Decker kettle is slightly less black than an Ekco pot.
Feel free to explain why this distinction is important (25 words or less) in the comments. Or skip this and read the New York Times on why Bush is so full of shit. And that should put you in the mood for Barbara Ehrenreich on How Positive Thinking Wrecked the Economy.
More on the fuckedness of the economy:
James K. Galbraith: A Bailout We Don’t Need
Ken Silverstein: Six Questions for James Galbraith
Joe Galloway: Trust us? In a pig’s eye, I say
A video of city cops serving as anti-union goons for MOA Starbucks
Reporter banned from trial as judge seeks to protect commerce over 1st Amendment in a case about how a daily newspaper fucked over their carriers
If you’re not allowed to own human beings, it’s not true capitalism!
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The post-mortem anthrax case against Bruce Ivins gets stranger and stranger. Home made bullet-proof vest? Sure, in the garage right next to the weaponized urine.
It’s tough to make your case when you have all the credibility of a thrice-convicted pederast, or a yet-to-be-convicted meatpacker.
Speaking of whom, Condi, Maximum John and Rummy get called out on their lies about torture.
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Still more on Sarah:
The other half of Palin’s ticket has been paying Dutch freelancers to write letters to the editor. I’m not entirely sure this is cheating as it simply reveals how poorly newspapers vet letters to the editor. As I’ve mentioned before, I cranked out letters to the editor for the Kennedy in ‘80 campaign. But they were all signed by legit Kennedy supporters who sometimes tweaked them to better target their concerns. The outsourced Dutch letters are pure fiction in comparison.
No link (yet), but I’d bet there are some pixelshops cranking out online comments. I’ve always suspected that the Strib’s most ubiquitous commenters are really some adenoidal housewives from Mumbai.
More political skullduggery:
WI AG Van Hollen absolutely determined to fuck with cheesehead voters
McCain returns to the U.S. Senate where he hasn’t cast a vote since April 8th
Neiwert on the racist attacks on Obama
Top 40 MN donors includes frozen pizza magnate
Pro Publica interviews Barton Gellman, author of new muckraking book on Cheney
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I am a cynical guy. Years ago I thought of Harold and the Purple Crayon and the economy. It seemed to me that the graph of the Dow Jones Industrial Average was just as fictitious and whimsical as the young artist creating his entire environment.
http://finance.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJX:DJI
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8333022496731417654&ei
There is a spoof in there that I do not have the time to create.
Interested in the Anthrax / Bruce Ivins case ..
read this new exclusive story ..
http://www.ersnews.com/permas_stories_updates/anthrax.htm