Tuesday, April 19, 2011

S&P Downgrade of US Credit Fixed!

The recent threat by rating agency Standard & Poors, to downgrade its rating of US Bonds, is easily neutralized by but this simple step:  Return the top marginal tax rate to the levels which obtained at the end of the Reagan Presidency.

Sound simple?  Hell yes!  Likely, with the Rethuglican pin-heads and Democratic wimps in DC?  Hell no!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

The New Kleptocratic Normal

It has been reported that the economy is adding jobs and unemployment has fallen to 8.8%; however, as the New York Times reports, many of those new jobs do not suffice to supply life's necessities.

I have read recently that working for no pay is the 'new normal.'  Does anyone think that the kleptocrats are not winning the class war?

The Westboro Ruling: Playing Catch-up with Blind Pigs.

It is not appropriate to say of Justice Samuel Alito, that 'Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometime.'  A friend has pointed out that it would be a severe cut on blind pigs.  Nonetheless, Alito is the only one of the Supreme Nine who got it right about the hateful disruption of military funerals by Rev. (sic) Phelps and his minions.  From CNN:
The justices, by an 8-1 vote, said Wednesday that members of Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars. The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The father had this response the Supreme Court ruling:
 "My first thought was that eight justices don't have the common sense that God gave a goat.... We found out today that we can no longer bury our dead in this county with dignity."
Justice Alito, the sole dissenter, wrote that the
"...outrageous conduct caused petitioner great injury, and the court now compounds that injury by depriving petitioner of a judgment that acknowledges the wrong he suffered ....In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner." 
Alito has been on the wrong side of virtually every issue, since he joined the court, but he certainly got it right this time.

Sorry for the long hiatus.

Much of my recent time has been taken up with business travel.