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Catch 22

Monday, June 6, 2011


© Ted Rall

I guess companies would be able to hire people if they were selling more products, but they can’t sell more products because nobody has enough money to buy them, because they are unemployed.

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Don’t Need to Speculate Any More

Sunday, June 5, 2011

It should be of little surprise that the banks lied to us back when oil prices spiked in the summer of 2008, hitting $147 a barrel. The banks, the Bush administration, the media, etc. blamed it on their old friends supply and demand — mainly demand from China and from Americans who wanted to drive ever bigger and more gas hungry SUVs. Even liberals fell for this, with cries of “peak oil”.

But the reality was much simpler. Investors — mainly speculators — drove up the price of commodities, including oil, looking for a relatively safe haven for their volumes of cash (since real estate was already tanking). This kind of demand is not real demand, these speculators don’t actually want the oil, they are just betting that the price will go up. And since more and more speculators were buying oil futures, the “demand”, and thus the price, did go up.

In other words, the price spike was yet another bubble, largely caused by speculators.

Why is this interesting now? Because newly published documents from WikiLeaks show that our government knew that. During the price spike, the Bush administration tried to get the Saudis to increase production, but the Saudis responded that demand for crude oil was actually down. In fact, they were giving big discounts to buyers of oil. How can the price keep rising if real demand is down? Because artificial demand from speculators was adding as much as $40 a barrel to the price of oil.

How did this happen? Before 2008, actual users of oil, including airlines, refineries, and other energy consumers were responsible for around 70% of all oil trading. But all that changed. The volume of speculative trading has grown five-fold, to where it today accounts for 70% of all trading.

And now the price of oil has risen precipitously yet again, and yet again we are being told that this is due to China, US consumption, and a new reason: unrest in the Middle East. But according to a document from WikiLeaks, Saudi Arabia has boosted its excess capacity from 2 million barrels a day to 4 million barrels, which more than covers any disruptions from countries like Libya. Speculators are driving up the price of oil and we are paying the price as speculators grease their palms again.

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A Modest Proposal

Sunday, June 5, 2011

This letter to the editor was published in a newspaper in Michigan, after Governor Rick Snyder and the Republican-controlled legislature voted to cut the school budget by $300 per student, and redistribute some of the money to increase funding for prisons:

Dear Governor Snyder,

In these tough economic times, schools are hurting. And yes, everyone in Michigan is hurting right now financially, but why aren’t we protecting schools? Schools are the one place on Earth that people look to to “fix” what is wrong with society by educating our youth and preparing them to take on the issues that society has created.

One solution I believe we must do is take a look at our corrections system in Michigan. We rank nationally at the top in the number of people we incarcerate. We also spend the most money per prisoner annually than any other state in the union. Now, I like to be at the top of lists, but this is one ranking that I don’t believe Michigan wants to be on top of.

Consider the life of a Michigan prisoner. They get three square meals a day. Access to free health care. Internet. Cable television. Access to a library. A weight room. Computer lab. They can earn a degree. A roof over their heads. Clothing. Everything we just listed we DO NOT provide to our school children.

This is why I’m proposing to make my school a prison. The State of Michigan spends annually somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 per prisoner, yet we are struggling to provide schools with $7,000 per student. I guess we need to treat our students like they are prisoners, with equal funding. Please give my students three meals a day. Please give my children access to free health care. Please provide my school district Internet access and computers. Please put books in my library. Please give my students a weight room so we can be big and strong. We provide all of these things to prisoners because they have constitutional rights. What about the rights of youth, our future?!

Please provide for my students in my school district the same way we provide for a prisoner. It’s the least we can do to prepare our students for the future…by giving our schools the resources necessary to keep our students OUT of prison.

Respectfully submitted,

Nathan Bootz
Superintendent
Ithaca Public Schools

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Late Night Political Humor

Saturday, June 4, 2011

“I’m not certain of a lot of things. But there are three things in this world that I know for certain: Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. OJ killed those people. And what my erect penis looks like in my own underwear from a bird’s-eye view.” – Jon Stewart (on Rep. Anthony Weiner’s claim that he “can’t say with certitude” whether a photo posted on his Twitter account of a man wearing just boxer shorts was actually him)

“I see only two options here: Either Anthony Weiner has too many photos of his junk to keep track of, or ‘Certitiude’ is his nickname for his penis.” – Stephen Colbert

“Congressman Weiner’s Twitter account was hacked ‘allegedly,’ and someone texted a picture of his ‘junior senator’ to a college girl. Now this is good news for me because I can Google ‘wiener photos’ at work and not get fired.” – Craig Ferguson

“Sarah Palin met with Donald Trump in New York yesterday. Then Sarah Palin left by helicopter and shot that thing off Trump’s head.” – Craig Ferguson

‎”Based on how you eat pizza Donald, I want to see your long-form birth certificate. I don’t think you were really born in New York.” – Jon Stewart (on Donald Trump taking Sarah Palin out to eat chain restaurant pizza in New York, using knives and forks)

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Chicken

Saturday, June 4, 2011


© Ed Stein

As usual, Stein adds interesting commentary:

The Republicans sure love drama, don’t they. First they threatened to shut the government down unless their demands were met. Now they’re swearing they won’t agree to raise the debt ceiling unless they get the deep cuts they want. Shutting down the government would have caused some pain, but no permanent damage. Failure to raise the debt limit would put the United States in default for the first time in its history, with truly dire consequences. Sadly, the Democrats, running scared as ever, are negotiating with these bullies, who, I have to believe, have no intention of actually letting the country default. They’re simply trying to exact as many concessions as possible before agreeing at the last second to raise the limit. I’m becoming increasingly confident that this tactic will backfire, much as the Ryan budget’s attempt to destroy Medicare did. People instinctively don’t like government at the point of a gun. That is, it will backfire IF the Democrats have the backbone to stand up to the thugs. A big if, these days.

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Conflict of Interest

Friday, June 3, 2011

While the media was preoccupied with Congressman Anthony Weiner’s wiener, the real news — released last Friday night just before a major holiday weekend so it would be buried — was the release of the data about a major conflict of interest for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Why did I mention Weiner? Because he has been pushing Thomas to release this information, so I’m probably not the only person who wonders about the highly coincidental timing of Andrew Breitbart’s attack on Weiner.

Thomas had been dragging his heels for months about releasing information about his wife’s income earned while working for Tea Party group Liberty Central, which was one of the main organizations fighting Obama’s health care reform law. Not only did she earn $150,000 from Liberty Central as its president and CEO, but after that she formed her own anti-health-care reform lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, where she was paid thousands of dollars to fight Obama’s bill. Thomas had failed to disclose his wife’s income (as required by law) on his financial disclosure forms for 20 years. Under pressure from Weiner (and others) he amended his old disclosures to reflect even more money she had earned working for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that also worked actively to fight health care reform.

This constitutes a pretty obvious conflict of interest for Justice Thomas when challenges to Obama’s health care reform law (inevitably) end up in front of the Supreme Court. How could Thomas possible be objective and fair when a major source of his wife’s income is from lobbying against the very bill he is supposed to impartially judge? US Title 28, Section 455 states “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Unfortunately, when it comes to the Supreme Court, it is up to Thomas to decide if he should recuse himself.

UPDATE: The newly released financial disclosure forms show that Justice Thomas received $100,000 in support from Citizens United during his nomination, and then ruled in favor of Citizens United without disclosing that fact or disqualifying himself. In addition, he apparently engaged in “judicial insider trading” by having his wife set up Liberty Central, which would benefit from the Citizens United decision, before the decision was decided but after the case was argued before the court.

UPDATE 2: Weiner confesses.

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Late Night Political Humor

Friday, June 3, 2011

“Today in New York City, Sarah Palin had a meeting with Donald Trump. Now, experts say if those two joined forces on a Presidential ticket it would be the greatest gift ever given to comedy.” – Craig Ferguson

“Sarah Palin had dinner with Donald Trump in New York. The first thing she did when she walked into the restaurant was shoot the rodent off his head.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Sarah Palin met with Donald Trump in New York yesterday. They spent the meeting talking about the thing most important to them: TV ratings.” – Craig Ferguson

“Somebody asked John McCain if Sarah Palin could win the presidency, and he said yes, especially if a meteor hits all the other Republican and Democratic candidates. Imagine how mad he’d be if she won.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Sarah Palin is driving all over the country in a bus, I guess to pick up where Charlie Sheen left off.” – Jimmy Kimmel

Sarah Palin (on visiting Mt. Vernon, the home of George Washington): “Even Piper was able to grasp the significance of being in the presence of our first President – who had such diverse interests – when she told me later: ‘how hard he must have worked to keep that farm going!'”
Stephen Colbert: “It’s true. I cannot imagine how hard he worked with no help other than his African volunteers.”

“Mitt Romney was on the ‘Today Show’ and admitted he likes to read the ‘Twilight’ books and watch ‘American Idol.’ If elected, he would be the 1st Mormon and the 1st 13-year-old girl to be President.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“In real life, in my memory, this guy had a lot more ‘Anthony’ and a lot less ‘Weiner.’ … “The only thing they have in common is that they both lean to the extreme left!” – Jon Stewart (on allegations that Rep. Anthony Weiner, a former housemate of Stewart’s, sent out a crotch photo from his Twitter account)

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Fork You Donald Trump

Thursday, June 2, 2011

UPDATE: Switching? The Daily Show is now more popular than the entire Fox News prime time and daytime lineup, even though Jon Stewart is broadcast late night, at 11pm. For the month of May, viewership of Stewart grew by an astounding 19%, while many Fox News shows dropped in viewership: Bill O’Reilly was down 9%, Sean Hannity down 6% and Greta Van Susteren down 12%.

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Lowering the Overhead

Thursday, June 2, 2011


© Nick Anderson

As Forbes points out, 94% of the US debt problem comes directly from policies set during the Bush administration. At the end of the Clinton administration, the CBO was projecting a budget surplus of $12.7 trillion, but today it the debt is at $14.3 trillion. How did that happen? About 50% of that is due to the Bush tax cuts, and 12% due to Bush’s increased spending for two wars and the unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Federal tax collections as a percentage of GDP are the lowest they have been in over 60 years. But the Republicans refuse to raise taxes. In fact, they want to cut taxes on the rich even more, which is what got us into this mess in the first place. If cutting taxes for the rich creates jobs, then we should be awash in them right now. Bush cut taxes dramatically, but had the worst job creation in 60 years.

For Republicans to claim that they care about deficits is the height of hypocrisy. What they are trying to do will more likely destroy our country.

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Late Night Political Humor

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

“Sarah Palin may run for President. Doesn’t that thought make you nostalgic for last week when you only thought the world was going to end?” – Jay Leno

“There are rumors that Sarah Palin will run for president. It’s a big decision. On one hand, running for president is a long and grueling process that goes on for months and years. But she could just quit halfway through, right?” – Jimmy Kimmel

“This weekend Sarah Palin begins a nationwide bus tour, which I think is a good way for her to learn the names of all the states.” – Jay Leno

“Bristol Palin said she doesn’t plan on having any more babies anytime soon. Then she added, ‘But that never stopped me before.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“I think Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin would be the perfect ticket. She can’t answer basic questions, and he has two answers for every question.” – Jay Leno

“Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child with a maid. She kept the child secret for 14 years. John Edwards is going, ‘Why can’t I meet a chick like that?'” – Jay Leno

“CBS announced some new shows coming up, including ‘Celebrity Housekeeper.’ A group of women compete to become Arnold Schwarzenegger’s maid.” – David Letterman

“You know what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls a quickie? A Minute Maid.” – Jay Leno

“Lindsay Lohan began her house arrest. When he heard about it, Arnold Schwarzenegger was like, ‘Don’t worry, Lindsay. Sometimes everything you need is right in your own house.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Tim Pawlenty is running for President. I won’t say he’s boring, but his Secret Service Code name is Al Gore.” – Jay Leno

“President Obama was in Ireland last week. While he was there, his Secret Service codename was, “the black guy that’s in Ireland.'” – Conan O’Brien

“President Obama arrived in France for the G8 summit, a meeting of the world’s top economic powers. To give you an idea of how bad our economy is doing, when the president arrived, the other countries were like, ‘What are you doing here?'” – Jay Leno

“They have just released another posthumous Osama bin Laden video. If you listen carefully you can hear his last words: ‘Will somebody please answer the damn door!'” – David Letterman

“The United States was able to find and kill Osama bin Laden because of a tip from one of his wives. When she saw a picture of his body, she said, ‘Now who can’t drive the car?'” – Conan O’Brien

“Dick Cheney has a new book coming out August 30. It doesn’t have a title yet, Might I suggest a few. ‘How to Shoot Friends and Influence People,’ ‘A Dick for All Seasons,’ ‘Torture in the Rye’…” – Craig Ferguson

“The Supreme Court has upheld Arizona’s law which penalizes employers for hiring workers who are in the country illegally. And in a related story, in Phoenix a head of lettuce now costs 137 dollars.” – Jay Leno

“Harold Camping is now predicting that the world will end in October. In show business terms, that means God has picked us up for another 22 weeks.” – Jay Leno

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Who Keeps Spam Alive? Banks!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

It is often said that the love of money is the root of all evil, and in the case of spam (unsolicited commercial email) that appears to be more than true. After all, the whole reason spammers flood your inbox trying to get you to buy drugs and porn is to make money, and several reports claim that more than 90% of all email is spam.

According to research done at several universities, the easiest way to shut down spammers is to go after the banks that process payments for them. The researchers found that the number of organizations involved in spam is generally large — including the spammers themselves who generate the emails, the botnets that use unsuspecting computers to forward on spam, the hosting providers that host the websites where spam-promoted goods are purchased, and the affiliate networks that provide the technology like shopping carts and billing systems. In their research, the spam they received contained almost a billion URLs, but all these URLs led to just 45 different affiliate networks.

But the real surprise was that over 95% of all spam transactions were processed by just three banks: Azerigazbank in Azerbaijan, St Kitts & Nevis Anguilla National Bank in St Kitts & Nevis, and Norwegian-owned DnB Nord in Latvia. This is the weakest link in the chain, and if we could shut down these banks, or at least stop them from funding spammers, then the spam problem would largely go away.

All it would take is for all the other banks to refuse to do business with banks that fund spammers. If your bank won’t hand over your credit card info to a spammer bank, that would cut off the spammer’s lifeline. A similar technique has been proposed to shut down online gambling sites.

So why haven’t the banks done this? Is it because they make too much money supporting spam?

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Testing the Water

Tuesday, May 31, 2011


© Jimmy Margulies

Or as Palin puts it, she is “weighing a run” — anchors a-weigh!

A former Palin insider explains why she runs.

UPDATE: Sarah Palin gets basic civics information terribly wrong. One gets the feeling that she and reality are not good friends. Did she quit social studies class in school half way through?

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Weather or Not You Have Selective Memory

Tuesday, May 31, 2011


© Tom Tomorrow

Has anyone else noticed that when there was lots of snow last winter, there were lots of grumblings about global warming being a myth, but now with all the crazy weather-related disasters, there is eerie silence? The silence doesn’t bother me — weather is not the same thing as climate, after all — but every time it snows and some dumb pundit makes a crack about global warming, their viewers should get steamed and have their own personal global warming under the collar.

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The 800 Pound Medicare Gorilla

Monday, May 30, 2011


© Jim Morin

According to Paul Krugman, not only is Paul Ryan lying, he is a sore loser.

Republicans responded to modest and realistic cost control efforts in Obama’s health care reform bill with screams of “death panels”, but it seems that they don’t actually care about seniors dying. Not only would the Ryan budget plan destroy Medicare as we know it and cut Medicaid by 44%, but it is so full of what Bush I called “voodoo economics” that it is unlikely to reduce the deficit at all.

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Late Night Political Humor

Monday, May 30, 2011

“One of Sarah Palin’s supporters is about to release a documentary about her called ‘The Undefeated.’ That’s like a documentary about Arnold Schwarzenegger called ‘The Faithful.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Someone made a two-hour documentary about Sarah Palin’s political life. In case you’re interested in watching a movie that’s longer than Palin’s actual political life.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Donald Trump now says he may run for president as an independent. And when Donald Trump says he’s going do something, Donald Trump . . . says he’s going to do something.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Rudy Giuliani says he may run for President. So now we’re up to 7 candidates and 35 ex-wives.” – Jimmy Fallon

“I don’t want to say Tim Pawlenty is boring, but Joe Biden is accusing him of identity theft.” – Jay Leno

“President Obama is on a visit to England. He told the Queen yesterday, ‘I like your tea parties much better than the ones we have in America.'” – Jay Leno

“They drive on other side of the road there, so Obama had to switch sides — kind of like Mitt Romney is doing over here.” – Jay Leno

“Now the pastor guy says the Apocalypse will be October 21. I know some people are saying, ‘What if I had tickets for Saturday’s Apocalypse?’ Those tickets will still be good for October.'” – David Letterman

“Be honest. How many of you were hoping this was going to be my final show? Oprah’s last show was today. I had a good cry with the girls from our book club. On her last show Oprah explained why she canceled the Apocalypse.” – David Letterman

“Oprah said, ‘Nobody but Jesus could have made this happen for me.’ That’s nice; she thanked her Son.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that Oprah has touched millions of women around the world, but unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, she didn’t leave them pregnant.” – Craig Ferguson

“The average couple fights about sex 87 times a year. And even more if the maid is pregnant. Arnold’s maid has hired a lawyer, so I guess it’s her turn to screw him.” – Jay Leno

“New video has surfaced of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1991 saying the housekeeper does a ‘great job.’ One clue might have been that he then added, ‘And she’s also a great housekeeper.'” – Conan O’Brien

“Kirstie Alley did a cartwheel on ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ But President Obama is refusing to release the pictures.” – David Letterman

“A new Facebook app is coming out that will remind users exactly what they were doing a year ago from that day. Nine times out of 10, the answer will be ‘wasting your time on Facebook.'” – Conan O’Brien

“On this date 19 years ago, Jay Leno took over ‘The Tonight Show.’ And it wouldn’t be the last time.” – David Letterman

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