What a mauling Tom Friedman is taking, his bank account is most definitely flat.

For a better Beck experience, listen to Odelay instead.

'Spanish prosecutors will seek criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales and five high-ranking Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantánamo. By Scott Horton.'

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-13/the-bush-six-t...

Wow. Probably won't go anywhere but it is a positive sign that the rule of law still exists.

Maybe bondholders have been told a GGP bailout is forthcoming. What other explanation could there be? It's not like they can get themselves out of this mess without fed intervention of some sort.

Thanks for the CNBC link.

Wow... Steve Liesman seems to be getting more frustrated by the day. A year or so ago, while he was mostly wrong about the economy, he had some intellegent things to say. With Kudlow on it's now just a bunch of braying, and talking over people, and he's constantly rolling his eyes.

He's gonna snap one of these days.

Yeah, thanks for the link too, I usually don't watch CNBC, Liesman reminds me of someone who never got picked for volleyball in high school.

And Santelli reminds me of someone who tried way too hard to win in PE volleyball. Such a douche-bag, that guy.

Hey, Pinochet was at least treated like a criminal at the end of his life - details here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Pinochet%27s_arrest_and_trial

One can only hope that our former torturer in chief and his minions will follow the same path - first, encountering the rule of law overseas, then leading to Pinochet's ever growing legal problems at home.

As for Kissinger - well, justice isn't universal, but arresting a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for war crimes committed at the time he was working so hard for peace just makes everyone involved look bad. Besides, Kissinger was always a believer in cynical self-interest triumphing over any moral constraints, and in his case, it seems justified.

Sorry I am just catching up on all the posts CR put up today, so I am going to put this message here instead of the earlier Goldman Sachs post....

Jesse's Cafe and Zero Hedge both have info and thoughts on Goldman Sachs that I have referenced in a new post that is worth a quick look if you have not already seen their posts.

http://4best4worst.wordpress.com/

Maximus
http://4best4worst.wordpress.com/

OT... but found this gem of knowledge that's *SURPRISINGLY* relevant:

"Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism. " (Das Kapital, 1867)

You're reading a quote from Karl Marx's work; in case you didn't know.

Who knew? We went full circle... Communism stems from capitalism

Forbes has provided the counter points to every populist rant you can think up.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/02/elite-wealth-rich-leadership-wall-stree...

sportsfan (member) wrote on Mon, 04/13/2009 - 10:15pm.
Marx always said that. Nothing new there.
I can add a corollary - former communists make the best capitalists.

go long cyberpunk circlejerks

Wasn't the first time Otis left me to googling, lol.....

Re TV's every whatever, visit China and the future is now! I asked my landlord if we could get a discount on rent for undergoing the barrage as we wait for the elevator, and then continuing within the elevator. At least some of that excessive prod'n of flat screens can be shunted into omnipresent indoctrination locally.

Big government with all the bells and whistles is an impossibility. We simply cannot afford it as an economy or a people. I used to worry about the police state and the nanny state until this crisis took off. Now I realize that every choice means another valid opportunity has been neglected. The other choices not being made are very real and deal with peoples lives. As unemployment continues to skyrocket and more and more people become disillusioned you will have an accounting of past deeds.

The biggest mistake was to take away the ability of poor and middle class Americans to provide a future for themselves and their families. The different sectors all taking a cut of income grew too great and too greedy. The quarterly demands of publicly traded companies has crashed the system. The balance sheets will show increasing weakness and more and companies will increase costs as will fees and taxes from all levels of government. The system has sucked dry the productive class and limited the ability of more citizens to add themselves to the ranks. The next few years are unpredictable while keeping in mind the rest of the world bought into the "debt is good" myth. Now we all pay the price . The price is instability as the entire world settles into a different level of function. Good or bad it is irreversible and the good ole days are done.

Try to stop being afraid of the process. Take a stand, prepare, write a blog but stop reacting from fear. Your neighbors are potential friends. Learn to share. People aren't potential threats. See them as potential friends.

Sorry for the preachiness. Tired of the fear and anger. I am tired of being afraid and angry. I'm done. All I can control is me and my responses. Took awhile to see that.

wunsacon, that snark was me

i get your point about sharing information to help people.
.
i just liked the way that privacy felt.

"national health care records database" instead of national health care had a consolation prize feel to it.

like "my parents went to pismo beach and all i got was this lousy t-shirt" but in a
"my bankers got billions and all i got was this lousy database" kind of way.

'Marx said communism was a superior system that would eventually evolve from all other more primitive systems not just capitalism.'

What a fascinatingly obscure way to misunderstand Marx's belief in how societies evolve - from an overview here http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/marxism.html

'The successive stages of history include primitive communism characterized by equalitarian hunting and gathering, barbarism characterized by rule by chiefs, slave society with a slave class and agriculture, feudalism, capitalism, socialism and communism.'
or
'Historical materialism is the Marxist methodology for interpreting history. The idea is to interpret all relations between groups of people as class relations and to interpret all conflicts as reflections of class struggles. A specific sequence of historical stages is part of the doctrine. It is (primitive communism, barbarism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism socialism, communism). Each stage of history has its own ruling class which uses the state to maintain its rule. Under feudalism the ruling class is the nobility, under capitalism it is the capitalists, and under socialism it is the proletariat. Primitive communism and communism are classless. In some countries oriental despotism happens as a stage distinct from feudalism.'

In one sense, you are quite right - since the base of any more advanced stage of history are all the earlier ones it arose from, it is technically correct to say that communism evolves from 'all other' more primitive systems. However, even Marx wasn't blind enough to argue that every single social grouping would automatically evolve to higher stages, only that the form of this evolution followed his fairly euro-centric (not to mention eccentric) perspective.

And Marx most sincerely believed that only an industrial capitalist society could provide the excess production necessary to free humanity from want. In other words, feudalism would never evolve to communism, unless it went through a capitalist phase, which would then lead to a socialist stage, first. To say that Marx believed that communism would evolve directly from feudalism is to completely misread what he wrote in a number of texts, and indicates something in regards to either intellectual dishonesty or reading comprehension.

Or maybe this link (being a reasonably short text), http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/61 - could help a poor dawg in search of facts to supports his opinions. From there, you can delve deeply into Marx's thinking about such matters here - http://www.marxists.org.

However, anyone who has read more than a few lines of Marx will recognize that you are not very familiar with the direct sources of what Marx wrote, regardless of the various flaws and eccentricities that exist in his thinking.

To put it bluntly - Marx would categorically deny, with various references to his works and thought, that he is the sort of idiot that would write what you ascribed to him.

What's up, Dawg, you seem crabby.

Marx was quite dubious of communism's potential in Russia, precisely because it was not fully capitalist during his day.

He also was not exactly the critic of capitalism that many suppose. He thought it superior to previous economic systems, especially in the way it destroyed regionalism and superstition.

bleh,
yoou will like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw

Are you serious? What about the whole "secret muslim" crap? What about the whole "socialism" crap? You honestly think the Right is not full of conspiracy theories?

"What about the whole "secret muslim" crap? What about the whole "socialism" crap? "
-------------

hahaha.
Those are hardly secrets, eh?

I just tested Panorama on my iPhone which stitches together several photos into a single panoramic view.
It works surprisingly well for $10 gadget software.

Couple pay off $46,000 in debt, throw party

Muldoon said the soaring costs of their nine credit cards left them with two options: Either file for bankruptcy or make a drastic lifestyle change. They opted for the latter.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/14/debt.free.party/index.html

Werner, do not forget that that tribute-paying province called "Federal Republic of Germany" has been created as the image and resemblance of the US.

Watch this documentary and sober up a little from your dreams of national independence.

It was broadcast at Phoenix Channel, the German C-Span.

Germany made in USA Wie US-Agenten Nachkriegsdeutschland steuerten DOKU

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-534011637686733167&ei=Gk7iSZDqH...

The post-WWII German-American kinship is greater than you seem to realize.

There is way too much hype on "the economy showing signs of strength" and a "bottom to the market" considering the many news items
such as :

Fed's Fisher Forecasts Steep Contraction in U.S. GDP
* Bloomberg

Fed Buys $7.37 Billion in U.S. Debt Due in Two to Three Years
* Bloomberg

Bankruptcies surge despite law meant to curb them
* AP

Oregon's jobless rate soars to 12.1% in March
* Seattle Times

Wells Fargo May Need $50 Billion in Capital, KBW Says
* Bloomberg

The Global Financial Crisis: How bad will it get
* Debt Watch

What's the tab for the bailout? Take your pick
* MSNBC

Defaults to Surge to Record 15% on Leveraged Buyouts, S&P Says
* Bloomberg

GM Bonds Fall to All-Time Low Following Ratings Cut at S&P
* Bloomberg

N.Y. Pension Deals Seen as Focus of Wide Inquiry
* NY Times

Recession knocks VC funds to 5 1/2-year low
* SF Gate

Just how great can the economic future be with these and many other problems to be realized?

"There is way too much hype on "the economy showing signs of strength" and a "bottom to the market" considering the many news items"

.................here is UK hype............Economy will be over worst by October, says Alistair Darling ................

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5144925...

Sorry guys.

It's a hoax. I take blame for not verifying it.

But interesting nonetheless... Why is this faux quote making the rounds, and why do people find it so interesting?

The crux of the spread of this quote is essentially gradual loss of faith in our system. In fact, some would argue we don't have capitalism anymore, but some mutated monster system. Or perhaps, conspiracy theorist may say that China figured out the weakness in capitalism, and is using / exploiting it through brute force, so that eventually we'll all collapse and revert, de facto, to capitalism.

Food for thought:

One reason might be the increasing fear that people are feeling about the stock markets and even capitalism itself. We've been living in a strongly pro-capitalist environment for decades now -- at least since Reagan was elected, and certainly since the fall of the Soviet Union -- and there has been very little by way of a legitimate leftist resistance to the organization of just about everything on a capitalist basis.

The problem is that capitalism hasn't worked out as promised. Instead of wealth for everyone, we've gotten massive bubbles, falling wages and increasing concentration of wealth at the very top of the socio-economic ladder. Even Alan Greenspan, one of the great theorists and elder statesmen of modern capitalism, admitted that something is deeply wrong with the basic ideas many have held and cherished. And now, as Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme and John Thain's $87,000 mink chairs come to light, a lot of people are starting to feel revulsion toward the system that generated such startling results.

http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2009/01/did-marx-predict-the-cu...

futures tape painting a big FAIL this AM

People need to retire their credit cards. If you need something, save up and pay for it when you have saved enough money. Or, take out a short-term loan from a local (read not too big to fail) banking/credit establishment. We need to collectively stop feeding this beast. Starve it....drive a stake throught its heart.....end its reign of tyranny once and for all.

I know, fat chance.....but it's nice to dream every now and then.

Werner, your pavlovian Erklärungsnot is typical, and serves to demonstrate the thrust of the documentary. Post WII-Germany was Made in USA, and it still remains a tribute-paying province-garnison of the empire.

If you still feel smugly "German" just do a google research on why until today no peace agreement has been signed between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Allied Powers.

I give you a clue, search "Überleitungsvertrag", specially Art. 7 paragraph. 1 which gives supremacy of allied courts and organs over German counterparts. This article specifically not superceeded nor abrogated by the unification treaty, the so-called 2 Germanies + 4 Allies Treaty. In fact it was reaffirmed in that treaty, which for somebody like you, who believes Germany is an independent country, might come as an anticlimax.