Miscellaneous News

The LGBT community is all up in arms over Michigan's Blue Cross Blue Shield declining to pay anymore for "sex reassignment surgery."

Well, no insurance company should be paying for it anyway since it is elective surgery.

I have long stated on this blog my objections to this kind of mutilation and believe any doctor who performs it is acting unethically.

Call me a reactionary, but tough shit.
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It's "cry me a river" time now that an executive who resigned AIG published a letter outlining his cruel fate.

Whatever DeSantis's role at AIG, there is a crucial difference between the work of the plumber and that of the finance executive—besides the enormous disparity in pay. The plumber performs a socially useful labor. The financiers have played a socially destructive role, as the collapse of AIG and the larger economic crisis have made clear. Their entire raison d'etre is to enrich themselves and their cronies.

The difference is plumbing is an honest profession while being a robber baron is not.

I like this response.
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Unfortunately for Lawrence B. Salander, there is no government bailout for him.
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I hope the planetarium doesn't close.
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Nadya Suleman doesn't care one bit about her kids, according to a nurse.
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The former DNC chair has a petition on health care reform for people to sign. The idea of dual health care systems is virtually identical to what John Edwards proposed in his last presidential campaign.
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Obama

had better get his shit together on the economy and get rid of the likes of Summers and Geithner or the public is going to lose all faith in his ability to turn things around:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that our economic recovery measures are being designed and implemented exclusively from Wall Street's point of view. The needs of investment bankers, stock speculators, corporate bankers, hedge fund operators, and insurance moguls are taking total precedence over the needs of the American taxpayers and the American people, particularly including those who have led frugal, responsible lives and have much of their assets in savings. A day of reckoning will come in response to the printing of almost $3 trillion in greenbacks that have been given to these institutions, and the effects of this behavior will hit hardest on those whose holdings are primarily in American dollars -- the "prudent" savers among us -- and on working Americans whose salaries are not adjusted according to fluctuations in monetary rates. It will hit hardest on those with fixed incomes.

Summers and Geithner (and to a slightly lesser extent Bernanke) seem to be striving to return Wall Street to the "good old days" of business as usual c. 2005-2006. They seem intent to measure our economic performance by the Dow, and wish to restore the health of our megabanks and mega-brokerages. I do not believe this to be the solution.

They are not trying to design a new, stronger, more resilient financial system less vulnerable to bubble-and-bust. I do not believe that Summers and Geithner are the guys for that job, but that's the job we need to have done. Instead they are trying to rehabilitate the current system, and it is the current system that has failed. Geithner is a bean-counter and might make a better Treasurer than Secretary of the Treasury. Summers, through and through in his heart and in his mind, is an investment banker -- it is all he knows and all he sees. He completely identifies with their needs and aspirations and will do everything he can to make life good for his colleagues in that field. But it is regulating, and indeed governing, in the exclusive interests of these very people that have caused our ruin and that will prevent our recovery if we continue to do it.

The AIG debacle is just a big red flashing light -- important to deal with, but not the actual danger. We are absolutely right to be outraged by those bonuses but we are ignoring the greater lesson of them -- the "bonus system" of compensation itself that encourages exactly the kind of dangerous behavior that has given us the current disaster. Think: What are those bonuses granted for? Designing and marketing innovative financial instruments; hawking the greatest volume of high-risk investments to unsuspecting investors; selling the most snake-oil insurance policies; outsourcing jobs and entire industries to overseas firms; and in more industrial fields, closing manufacturing plants and laying off the most employees in the name of "productivity." Are these the things we really want to reward at the level of a winning lotto ticket (another recent abomination created with the purpose of shifting the tax burden onto the backs of the poor)?

And yes, our economic policies should move sharply to the left. No more Chicago school, neoliberal, or Friedmanite nonsense.

Has the Kool Aid Finally Worn Off

for Frank Rich? For the first time in many months he finally makes some coherent sense regarding Obama.

Well, when you are in fact a product of the Chicago School, and Obama actually taught at the University of Chicago, and when you surround yourself with Friedmanites of the Democratic persuasion, or neoliberals, any economic policy which seeks to prop up the status quo is going to fail. The status quo, which for the past thirty years has been Friedmanism or some variation thereof, has been a complete failure. If one wants to use the Katrina comparison, you can't plug a leaking levee with a bandaid.

And Geithner and Summers HAVE to be ditched.

Is Obama Stupid?

He is if he pisses away all of the goodwill given him by the American people just to keep the handful of crooks who helped create this mess afloat:

Barack Obama and the Altar of Greed

By David Michael Green

March 20, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Barack Obama is dumber than a bag of hammers.

I never thought I'd say that about the guy. I thought he would probably disappoint me with many of his policies. I thought he would probably fail to be bold enough for his times. I thought he might miss opportunities to do great things because of his seeming desire to be Mr. Rogers, complete with cardigan. But I never expected him to be really dumb.

But if you're willing to risk the entirety of a potentially great presidency on making sure that a handful of already wealthy sociopaths who got rich destroying the global economy are not denied massive taxpayer-funded bonuses to keep them in jobs they've already completely mishandled, despite the fact that many of them took the money and left the job anyhow - if that's you, and you're the new president of the United States with a load of challenges and lots of public good will solidly behind you - well, then, you're dumber than a bag of hammers.

Like I said, I never thought I'd say that about Barack Obama. But then I never thought I'd witness such inane stupidity (or, worse - is it venality?) from the man.

If you think that I'm exaggerating when I say that Obama may be betting his entire promising presidency by taking the wrong side in this AIG scandal, think again. His presidency rises and falls on essentially one question: Is he doing everything he can to fix the economy? In order to fix the economy, given the astonishing mess he's inherited, he is going to continue to need unprecedented forbearance from the public and Congress so as to take unprecedented steps. People are already freaking out at what has been done and what has been spent, and we're only just starting the rescue, with all its enormous costs. The Republicans, who made this mess, are going to try to block Obama at every turn. The president needs to convince the public to trust him and follow him, if he is going to win the legislation necessary fix the economy.

But if people see that Obama is using their hard-earned tax money to reward the predatory parasites at AIG, even after they've wrecked everything in sight, how is he ever going to get public support for spending another trillion bucks to repair the economy? And if he can't get the tools necessary to do the job, how can he ever expect it to get fixed? And if it doesn't get fixed, how can he expect to have a successful presidency?

He can't, and he won't. And, thus, it is no exaggeration to say that this vibrant and well-liked president, who carries the hopes and aspirations of a nation on his shoulders with a robust foundation of good will to match, is potentially giving away everything in order to make sure that a band of corporate pirates keep their stolen taxpayer money. And doing that, ladies and gentlemen, is as dumb as... Well, you know.

Or maybe even a lot dumber still. Month after month of headlines detailing the latest scandal, many of them involving not just the theft of people's savings but crashing the global economy as well, and you begin to wonder if there's any bottom to the barrel of fiscal depravity and governmental enabling. Obama is now charting new paths in that direction. Just the concept that AIG executives who brought down the roof should get anything besides pink slips and orange jumpsuits is sickening, let alone that they should get bonuses.

But wait, it gets better. Then we're told that the bonuses are necessary because only these criminals can undo the mess they've created. So they're paid millions to stay. As if those who know how to wreck a global economy also know how to fix it. As if these are the only folks in the world who have these skills.

These people need to be in jail, not getting obscene bonuses.

And Obama may end up being a one-term president and handing the GOP the keys to the White House if he keeps these Chicago Boys as his advisers:

The public doesn't necessarily want to hear that right now, and certainly doesn't put a lot of trust in the source. But then there's old Brilliant Barack, staffing his economic team not only with Wall Street hacks, but tax-cheating, TARP-blowing, Wall Street hacks at that. And then these flunkies tell us there's just no way that public money can be stopped from being used as a reward for the scam artists who got us into this mess originally. And guess what? All of sudden, miraculously, the worst offenders in the Republican Party start to sound credible.

And if that happens, Obama's already sinking chances of passing massive rescue legislation sufficient to end this nightmare will diminish fast.

And if that happens his chances of fixing the economy will fall rapidly.

And if that happens his presidency will swirl down the toilet.

And if that happens it will be Jeb Bush in a walkaway in 2012.

God help us all if this happens.

Meanwhile, Obama

is trying to do a tightrope act regarding those Wall Street bonuses everybody else is worried about.

The media feign outrage people are actually waking up to the fact they have been robbed blind.

The Big Topic of Discussion

has been the AIG mess, and Paul Krugman weighs in.

Although I have given Obama the benefit of the doubt since his victory in November, and hence there has been little criticism of him on this blog since that time, I have always been concerned about the fact he received no real scrutiny in the primaries as to his actual beliefs regarding policy. There were danger signs all around he was little more than a neoliberal, not a true Democrat, but of course people could not bring themselves to vote for McCain. That was understandable, but the problem is the economic problems CANNOT be solved by the same old, same old discredited policies of the past thirty years.

And yes, these same "wheeler-dealers" responsible for the mess to begin with are now in the Obama administration. And yes, people like Geithner and Summers need to be ditched, and the administration be fumigated of the Robert Rubin influence.

A Couple of Articles

about the crappy economy:

Obama's biggest problem is his advisors, who are still part of the same old cadre that got us into this mess in the first place, and they are in denial.

Galbraith has some good historical background, and his solutions are good. Social Security and Medicare should NOT be cut but strengthened, for starters:

We should offset the violent drop in the wealth of the elderly population as a whole. The squeeze on the elderly has been little noted so far, but it hits in three separate ways: through the fall in the stock market; through the collapse of home values; and through the drop in interest rates, which reduces interest income on accumulated cash. For an increasing number of the elderly, Social Security and Medicare wealth are all they have.

That means that the entitlement reformers have it backward: instead of cutting Social Security benefits, we should increase them, especially for those at the bottom of the benefit scale. Indeed, in this crisis, precisely because it is universal and efficient, Social Security is an economic recovery ace in the hole. Increasing benefits is a simple, direct, progressive, and highly efficient way to prevent poverty and sustain purchasing power for this vulnerable population. I would also argue for lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare to (say) fifty-five, to permit workers to retire earlier and to free firms from the burden of managing health plans for older workers.

Let me tell you, at 54 I would take Medicare at 55 in a heartbeat.

Of course tax policy needs to be changed where the very wealthiest and corporations pay FAR more than they do now. Changing it would go a long way in reversing the disastrous path this country is now on.

And just what about this current global meltdown? Is Wall Street using all of the bailout money to stage a revolution of sorts?

And if this is true then we really are truly fucked.

Miscellaneous

Natasha Richardson likely had "talk and die" syndrome, and therefore she didn't get the immediate help she needed. By the time she entered the hospital, it was too late.

This is an interesting statistic:

A 2007 review in the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience found "talk and die" patients were about 2.6 percent of those who died of head injuries.

Tragically the first ambulance sent to help Richardson at the time of her accident was turned away.

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In response to widespread outrage over outrageous bonuses being paid to executives who are with companies being bailed out by the federal government, the House has decided to levy heavy taxes on those bonuses.

Naturally a few of the Republicans, though judging from the vote not all of them, still think it is okay to pay obscene bonuses funded by the taxpayers.

Boy, Do I Agree

with this sentiment on AIG:

Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council, declared in a CBS television interview, "The easy thing would be to just say, you know, ‘Off with their heads,' and violate the contracts. But you have to think about the consequences of breaking contracts for the overall system of law."

With this turn of phrase invoking the guillotine, Summers inadvertently put his finger on an essential element of the AIG bonuses furor. Like the nobility at the time of the French Revolution, America's ruling financial oligarchy is an entirely parasitic social layer, whose relentless defense of its wealth and privileges stands as the basic impediment to meeting the most basic needs of society as a whole.
In reality, the AIG bonuses are hardly an aberration. Citigroup's CEO Vikram Pandit hauled in $10.82 million of compensation in 2008, Reuters reported Monday. This payout came as the bank received a $45 billion capital injection from the US government.

Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis fared only slightly worse, getting $9.96 million as his bank also received $45 billion in bailout funds.

Moreover, these obscene pay packages and bonuses are only a small part of the money handed out to the financial elite.

And then there's this opinion piece, which basically says "Your money or your life."

What is wrong with this country is the massive wealth transfer upward to fewer and fewer hands while everybody else is forced into impoverishment because of it. By rights the bonuses should be denied, but who is bribing our politicians to continue with the obscene handouts? The same economic elite.

On the Contrary,

Larry Summers, as well as all of the other neoliberals, needs to be sacked on his butt.

But The New Republic more often than not supports neoliberal positions and neoliberals, whether or not those positions and individuals are good for the country.

And speaking of Summers and his cohorts, how about AIG?

Maybe I have become infected with that dreaded political disease, "group-think." I am as fed up with AIG as I have ever been at any American company since Enron, and maybe even including Enron. I hope it is not merely because I have been told by every elected official, every news reader, everyone, that I should feel this way. I would hate to become so wooly-pated that someone might confuse me with a marino.

The idea that these outrageous bonuses that this bankrupt company is paying to their executives out of OUR pockets constitute some kind of unbreakable contractual obligations is palpable nonsense. It's just an excuse, and a bad one at that. It's almost as if Summers or Geithner asked them to provide an excuse, ANY excuse, and they could try to make it fly no matter how wacky it was. They made the auto companies break their contracts with the unions, right? Those weren't as binding? Unlike GM, this company engaged in utterly irresponsible behavior and was instrumental in CAUSING our current financial problems. They should go bankrupt. They should already BE bankrupt. Unlike GM, this mess was, in fairly large measure, AIG's fault.

There are so many options to stop this that I have no way to list them all. Tax those bonuses at a 100% rate, which might be the best option because they could do that to ALL bonuses -- not just AIG's -- above a certain amount, or any amount paid by companies that are losing money. Take over AIG's obligations to policy holders at pennies on the dollar and let the rest of the company go belly-up Chapter 7, which is probably the most just and fair outcome. Mandate that AIG receive no further help unless these bonuses are NOT paid, and let the poor "betrayed' millionaire executives try to sue to compel payment. Those court proceedings would be a real hoot!

Or storm their offices with torches and pitchforks and drag the bonus recipients, and the executives who ordered them, out by their feet. Indeed, this last might be my personal preference. Looters deserve looting -- an eye for an eye.

If this is not stopped my confidence in Obama's power and wisdom will wane. I'm really quite ticked off.

I have said repeatedly Obama's sentiments are neoliberal, not progressive or even liberal. And if he doesn't ditch the neoliberalism and neoliberals like Geithner and Summers, he will fail as president.

Then we will be REALLY screwed.

The Booming Economy

The Wall Street problems should give people and especially politicians a clue that the right-wing ideology governing our economic policies does not work.

The crisis with AIG is even worse:

At the same time, there were frantic negotiations over the fate of AIG, which faces bankruptcy unless it can raise tens of billions of dollars in capital. When US markets opened Monday, AIG was asking for emergency loans from the Fed to stave off collapse.

A failure of AIG threatens to bring down the entire credit system both in the US and internationally, because the company holds a large stake in the multi-trillion-dollar, unregulated market in so-called “credit default swaps.” AIG has sold CDS contracts to banks, hedge funds and big investors all over the world, under which it guarantees the mortgage-backed debt of a wide range of companies in the event that they default. If AIG should go under, the value of the debt which it insures would fall to an unknown level, destabilizing the credit markets and threatening a chain reaction of defaults and bankruptcies.

The events of the past two weeks demonstrate that the American financial aristocracy is plunging the entire country into bankruptcy. These events are themselves climatic moments in a protracted process.

For three decades, the “free market” has been elevated to the status of a secular religion in the US, with the capitalist market as its god and socialism as its devil. This period, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has seen the wholesale dismantling of the productive base of the US economy, at the cost of millions of jobs and the living standards of the American working class.

In the name of the supposed infallibility of the market, the operations of big business have been deregulated, removing all legal restraints on corporate profit-making and fueling the accumulation of ever more obscene levels of wealth in the hands of a financial oligarchy. A vast process of social plunder has occurred, in which the wealth of the country has been redistributed from the bottom to the very top.

More bailouts are on the way.

I may not subscribe to the WSWS's ideology, but they hit this issue on the head.

Quite frankly, what in the hell did these disciples of deregulation think was going to happen?