Weekend Economists Put Down the Duckie! November 7-9, 2014

[Demeter]

An all star celebrity sing-along from the 1988 prime time PBS pledge drive special. The catchy song was written by Chris Cerf and Norman Stiles. The celebrities, in order of appearance: John Candy (as Yosh Schmenge from SCTV), Andrea Martin (as Edith Prickley from SCTV), New York Mets Keith Hernandez & Mookie Wilson, Jane Curtin (of SNL and Kate & Allie), Madeline Kahn, Joe Williams, Paul Reubens (as Pee Wee Herman), Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Wynton Marsalis, Celia Cruz, Ihtzak Perlman, Gordon Jackson & Jean Marsh (as Angus Hudson and Rose Buck of Upstairs Downstairs), Paul Simon, Jeremy Irons, Pete Seeger, Rhea Perlman and Danny Devito, and NY Giants Sean Landeta, Mark Ingram, Karl Nelson and Carl Banks.

Much thanks to NantoVision1, who uploaded this to youtube!

Yes, a combination of a favorite pet or toy, jazz and blues, and perhaps a chocolate coating, will get us through the changes of Life: seasons, elections, economies, politics, war, life....

How about a second dose? Here's a 1935 Disney classic:

It is the 200th anniversary of the inventor of the saxophone! Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (6 November 1814 – c. 7 February 1894)

The saxophone (also referred to as the sax) is a family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone family was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1840. Sax wanted to create a group or series of instruments that would be the most powerful and vocal of the woodwinds, and the most adaptive of the brass—that would fill the vacant middle ground between the two sections. He patented the saxophone on June 28, 1846, in two groups of seven instruments each. Each series consisted of instruments of various sizes in alternating transposition. The series pitched in B♭ and E♭, designed for military bands, has proved extremely popular and most saxophones encountered today are from this series. Instruments from the so-called "orchestral" series, pitched in C and F, never gained a foothold, and the B♭ and E♭ instruments have now replaced the C and F instruments in classical music.

The saxophone is commonly used in classical music (such as concert bands, chamber music, and solo repertoire), military bands, marching bands, and jazz (such as big bands, jazz combos, reggae/ ska bands, etc.). Saxophone players are called saxophonists.

The saxophone was developed in 1841, by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, and clarinetist working in Paris. While still working at his father's instrument shop in Brussels, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and the agility of a woodwind. He wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown. An instrument that overblew at the octave, would have identical fingering for both registers.

Prior to his work on the saxophone, Sax had made several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics and extending its lower range. Sax was also a maker of the then-popular ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument. His experience with these two instruments allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones. Adolphe Sax created an instrument with a single reed mouthpiece like a clarinet, conical brass body like an ophicleide, and the acoustic properties of both the French horn and the clarinet.

Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applied for, and received, a 15-year patent for the instrument on June 28, 1846. The patent encompassed 14 versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass. Although the instruments transposed at either F or C have been considered "orchestral", there is no evidence that Sax intended this. As only 3 percent of Sax's surviving production were pitched in F and C, and as contemporary composers used the E♭ alto and B♭ bass saxophone freely in orchestral music, it is almost certain that Sax experimented to find the most suitable keys for these instruments, settling upon instruments alternating between E♭ and B♭ rather than those pitched in F or C, for reasons of tone and economy (the saxophones were the most expensive wind instruments of their day). The C soprano saxophone was the only instrument to sound at concert pitch. All the instruments were given an initial written range from the B below the treble staff to the F, one space above the three ledger lines above staff, giving each saxophone a range of two and a half octaves.

Sax's patent expired in 1866; thereafter, numerous saxophonists and instrument manufacturers implemented their own improvements to the design and keywork. The first substantial modification was by a French manufacturer who extended the bell slightly and added an extra key to extend the range downwards by one semitone to B♭. It is suspected that Sax himself may have attempted this modification. This extension is now commonplace in almost all modern designs, along with other minor changes such as added keys for alternate fingerings.

Sax's original keywork, which was based on the Triebert system 3 oboe for the left hand and the Boehm clarinet for the right, was very simplistic and made playing some legato passages and wide intervals extremely difficult to finger, so numerous developers added extra keys and alternate fingerings to make chromatic playing less difficult. While the early saxophone had two separate octave vents to assist in the playing of the upper registers just as modern instruments do, players of Sax's original design had to operate these via two separate octave keys operated by the left thumb. A substantial advancement in saxophone keywork was the development of a method by which the left thumb operates both tone holes with a single octave key, which is now universal on modern saxophones. One of the most radical, however temporary, revisions of saxophone keywork was made in the 1950s by M. Houvenaghel of Paris, who completely redeveloped the mechanics of the system to allow a number of notes (C♯, B, A, G, F and E♭ to be flattened by a semitone simply by lowering the right middle finger. This enables a chromatic scale to be played over two octaves simply by playing the diatonic scale combined with alternately raising and lowering this one digit. However, this keywork never gained much popularity, and is no longer in use.

Happy birthday and many happy returns for Adolphe from all of us, for all of us!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Sax

[Demeter]

1. I'm starting the Weekend Early, just in case!

[Demeter]

2. Election Analysis by Andy Borowitz

Obama Urged to Work Closely with People Suing Him

President Obama is under increasing pressure to work closely and coöperatively with a group of people who are suing him in federal court, the people suing him confirmed today.

“Over the past six years, President Obama has been stubborn, arrogant, and oppositional,” John Boehner, the Republican Speaker of the House, said. “His refusal to work with people who are suing him is just the latest example.”

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, echoed the Speaker’s criticism, adding, “Time and time again, the President has refused to pick up the phone and talk to me, despite my saying that I was doing everything in my power to make him a one-term President.”

Other members of the G.O.P. caucus blasted the President for being aloof and frosty to Republicans who had questioned his American citizenship, the authenticity of his birth certificate, and the legitimacy of his Presidency. “That’s no way to get things done,” Senator James Inhofe, of Oklahoma, said. “He’s got a real attitude.”

Boehner concluded his comments, however, with an olive branch of sorts for Obama. “Mr. President, we Republicans are eager to sit across the table from you and get to work for the American people,” he said. “Otherwise, get ready to be impeached.”

Obama Urged to Work Closely with People Suing Him

In Final Indignity, Fence Jumpers Abandon White House

In what many in Washington are calling a final indignity, a group of White House fence jumpers announced on Wednesday that it no longer has any interest in trespassing on President Obama’s living quarters. The news came from a spokesman for the fence jumpers, Taggart Wentzel, the author of a four-hundred-page anti-government manifesto who has been arrested for jumping the White House fence three times since Obama moved in.

“We have no plans to jump the White House fence in the future,” said Wentzel. “We’re moving on.”

Explaining the group’s decision, Wentzel said, “It just seems like everyone in the White House is going to be sad a lot of the time. It’s kind of mean to intrude on people like that.”

Wentzel said that the group was actively investigating whether there was any barrier around Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell’s office, and, if so, “we’d definitely consider jumping that.”

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest criticized the fence jumpers’ decision, calling it “premature.”

“We’re still going to be here another two years, doing a lot of important stuff,” Earnest told reporters. “All we’re asking is that the fence jumpers give us another chance.”

In Final Indignity, Fence Jumpers Abandon White House

Obama Orders Two-Year Supply of Crossword Puzzles

Saying that he wanted the remainder of his second term to be as active as possible, President Obama announced on Friday that he had ordered a two-year supply of crossword puzzles.

In signing an executive order for the puzzles, which range in difficulty from medium to advanced, the President laid out an ambitious plan to complete as many as thirty of them a day, for a total of ten thousand by the time he leaves the White House, in January, 2017.

The President said that he hoped that Republicans in Congress would support his plan for the puzzles, but added, “I don’t need their support. All I need is a pen.”

Obama’s executive order for the puzzles comes on the heels of another ambitious plan, announced by the President on Thursday, to watch all five seasons of “The Wire.”

Obama Orders Two-Year Supply of Crossword Puzzles

[Demeter]

3. Exit Polls Indicate Nation Suffering from Severe Memory Loss By Andy Borowitz

Exit Polls Indicate Nation Suffering from Severe Memory Loss

Exit polls conducted across the country on Election Day indicate a nation suffering from severe memory loss, those who conducted the polls confirmed Tuesday night.

According to the polls, Americans who cast their votes today had a difficult time remembering events that occurred as recently as six years ago, while many seemed to be solid only on things that have happened in the past ten days.

While experts were unable to explain the epidemic of memory loss that appears to have gripped the nation, interviews with Americans after they cast their votes suggest that their near total obliviousness to anything that happened as recently as October may have influenced their decisions.

“I really think it’s time for a change,” said Carol Foyler, a memory-loss sufferer who cast her vote this morning in Iowa City. “I just feel in my gut that if these people were in charge they’d do a really amazing job with the economy.”

MORE...

[Demeter]

4. Congressional Seats Sell for Record Four Billion Dollars By Andy Borowitz

Congressional Seats Sell for Record Four Billion Dollars

Congressional seats are on pace to fetch a whopping four billion dollars on Tuesday night, a record-smashing sales figure that has exceeded the expectations of even the most optimistic insiders.

The seats, which include four hundred and thirty-five in the House of Representatives and thirty-six in the Senate, have attracted buyers from a broad spectrum of industries, including investment banking, energy, pharmaceutical, and gun.

“With all of the uncertainty in the world today, the United States Congress is considered a very safe place for the rich to invest their money,” said Charles Michollot, of the auction house Sotheby’s. “Congressional seats are like Manhattan real estate—they aren’t making any more of them.”

But Anton Pickardin, of the rival auction house Christie’s, sounds more skeptical. “I hate to be a wet blanket, but these sales figures lack rhyme and reason,” Pickardin said. “When someone is willing to pay millions of dollars for a pre-owned Mitch McConnell, you know that people have lost their minds.”

But Sotheby’s Michollot remains confident that, even at these hefty prices, congressional seats are a wise investment. “When these seats go up for sale again, in 2016, four billion dollars is going to look like a bargain,” he said.

[Demeter]

25. Ben Webster (Tenor Sax) - Over The Rainbow

[Demeter]

9. Triumph of the Wrong PAUL KRUGMAN, WHO ISN'T AN INTENTIONAL SATIRIST, I DON'T THINK

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/opinion/paul-krugman-triumph-of-the-wrong.html

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet midterms to men of understanding. Or as I put it on the eve of another Republican Party sweep, politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. Still, it’s not often that a party that is so wrong about so much does as well as Republicans did on Tuesday.

I’ll talk in a bit about some of the reasons that may have happened. But it’s important, first, to point out that the midterm results are no reason to think better of the Republican position on major issues. I suspect that some pundits will shade their analysis to reflect the new balance of power — for example, by once again pretending that Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposals are good-faith attempts to put America’s fiscal house in order, rather than exercises in deception and double-talk. But Republican policy proposals deserve more critical scrutiny, not less, now that the party has more ability to impose its agenda.

So now is a good time to remember just how wrong the new rulers of Congress have been about, well, everything.

First, there’s economic policy. According to conservative dogma, which denounces any regulation of the sacred pursuit of profit, the financial crisis of 2008 — brought on by runaway financial institutions — shouldn’t have been possible. But Republicans chose not to rethink their views even slightly. They invented an imaginary history in which the government was somehow responsible for the irresponsibility of private lenders, while fighting any and all policies that might limit the damage. In 2009, when an ailing economy desperately needed aid, John Boehner, soon to become the speaker of the House, declared: “It’s time for government to tighten their belts.”

MORE CARPING AT LINK

[Demeter]

10. The Governing Party DAVID BROOKS

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/opinion/david-brooks-the-governing-party.html

YES, THE MAN IS AN IDIOT, MANY TIMES OVER. BUT HE HIT UPON ONE SOLID FACT:

Republicans didn’t establish this dominant position because they are unrepresentative outsiders. They did it because they have deep roots in four of the dominant institutions of American society: the business community, the military, the church and civic organizations...Republicans won this election in part because they re-established their party’s traditional personality. The beau ideal of American Republicanism is the prudent business leader who is active in the community, active at church and fervently devoted to national defense.

AND OH! THE BOG IS OUT IN FORCE IN HIS COMMENTS!

WHERE IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ENTRENCHED AND ENSCONCED? THE DYING UNIONS?

[Demeter]

11. TWO TELLING COMMENTS

jlasf


When Brooks writes, "The beau ideal of American Republicanism is the prudent business leader who is active in the community, active at church and fervently devoted to national defense," it is offensive to Democrats. Implicit in his comment is that Democrats are not prudent business leaders who are active in the community, active at the church and fervently devoted to national defense. This is of a piece with the conservative belief that only Republicans are patriotic Americans and that liberals are unpatriotic.


Mary


No mention of women or anyone of color.

[Demeter]

20. Maybe we will be seeing more of the saxophone in high places again

The occasion was the 40th anniversary of the Newport Jazz Festival, held in a tent on the lawn of the White House.

American President Bill Clinton Plays Saxophone at the Arsenio Hall Show.

[Demeter]

5. Greg Palast’s Election Day dispatch from Dixie, for Al Jazeera.

Here in Greensboro, Reverend Barber recites local history. It was in this small southern town that, in 1960, the beating of students conducting a sit-in at the local Woolworth’s launched the wave of non-violent protests that became the Civil Rights Movement. The state has made it an official tourist destination.

Rev. Barber’s rally also marks the 35th anniversary of the killing of five protesters by the remnants of the Ku Klux Klan, an event without a tourist marker. “We’ve been through too much to go backwards!" his is deep voice rising with the gospel sound of Sam Cook’s “A Change is Gonna Come.”

Greensboro is the residence of an astonishing 3,735 voters who supposedly cast ballots in the presidential election illegally in both North Carolina and Virginia. Or, at least, that is how they are listed in the Interstate Crosscheck files.

Read today’s complete report for Al Jazeera, Crosscheck in the Crosshairs, about the swift actions taken by voter groups across the South and across the nation to stop Interstate Crosscheck from bleaching the voter rolls whiter than white...

Jim Crow Returns

[Demeter]

19. Musical interlude

[Demeter]

6. Mitt Romney totally should have run for president in 2014 By Aaron Blake WAPO

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/11/07/mitt-romney-totally-should-have-run-for-president-in-2014/

How good was Tuesday's electorate for Republicans? So good that that Mitt Romney led Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

That's the finding of a just-released poll from Democratic pollster Democracy Corps for the progressive group Women's Voices Women Vote Action Fund. The poll shows those who voted Tuesday favored Romney over Clinton, 46 percent to 45 percent.

Before you all start throwing things at us (or, more appropriately, at Democracy Corps), let us emphasize that Tuesday's electorate was not a presidential electorate. As we've written ad nauseum, presidential electorates are usually much better for Democrats, while midterm electorates are usually much better for Republicans -- a gap that has been exacerbated in the age of Obama.

The Romney result simply reinforces that fact, and shows how starkly different this electorate was than 2012 was or 2016 will be. That's because basically every other national poll has shown Clinton leading all comers in 2016, often by double digits....And to Republicans who would celebrate the fact that Romney would have beaten Clinton among Tuesday's electorate: Just remember that you still have major problems when it comes to presidential electorates — not to mention the Electoral College. And it's also true that Romney probably would have lost if Tuesday's election was actually a presidential one.

[Demeter]

7. JPMorgan to cut 3,000 more retail banking jobs

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/07/us-jpmorgan-redundancies-idUSKBN0IR1LG20141107?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), the largest U.S. bank by assets, said it would cut 3,000 more jobs than previously expected in its retail banking division. The bank said it would reduce 4,000 jobs in its card, merchant services and auto unit, up from the 2,000 previously announced. The bank is also cutting 7,000 jobs in its mortgage banking unit, up from 6,000.

JPMorgan will have eliminated 27,000 jobs by the year-end from its consumer bank unit over two years, even after additions for more risk controls and regulatory compliance. Some 18,000 jobs will have been taken out of mortgage banking, where the company has less work to do refinancing loans and handling troubled mortgages left from the financial crisis. Many big banks, including Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), have been laying off mortgage workers as higher interest rates make refinancing less attractive to homeowners. JPMorgan said it expects 146,000 Chase Bank jobs by the year-end, down by 11,000 from a year earlier.

The bank expects its 2016 retail banking expense base to be $2 billion lower than in 2014, JPMorgan's retail bank head Gordon Smith said in an investor conference on Friday.

[Demeter]

8. Majority of new October jobs pay below average wage

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/majority-of-new-october-jobs-pay-below-average-wage-2014-11-07?siteid=YAHOOB

The U.S. is becoming an engine of job creation once again, but it’s more like a four-cylinder instead of an eight-cylinder one. The 214,000 gain in new jobs in October marked the ninth straight month in which net hiring topped 200,000. The last time that happened was in 1994. Yet only about 40% of the new jobs created in October were in fields that pay above the average hourly U.S. wage of $24.57. That’s down from 60% in September.

The mediocre nature of many new jobs and slow wage growth are perhaps the biggest obstacle to a full-blown economic recovery. The biggest increase in hiring in October occurred at restaurants and bars, which added a seasonally adjusted 42,000 positions. Retailers hired 27,000 workers. Temps accounted for 15,000 jobs. Transport — think package deliverers — took on 13,000 new employees. All these industries pay less than the national average.

Some of the new jobs are also unlikely to last long. Restaurants and retailers, for example, tend to beef up staff ahead of the holidays and slim down after New Year’s. Temp jobs, on the other hand, have often been converted into full-time positions. Companies use temps sometimes as a trial for a full-time job. Whatever the case, it’s not a good idea to give too much weight to the composition of hiring in any one month. Some 60% of the 256,000 jobs created in September, for instance, were in fields that pay above the average U.S. wage. That’s higher than normal.

There’s also been a pronounced shift in 2014 toward higher paying jobs vs. the prior year. A MarketWatch analysis shows that roughly 58% of the new jobs created this year pay above the average hourly wage, compared to less than 50% in 2013. Still, both the composition of jobs and the trend in hourly pay bear close watching over the next few months. Both have to improve to get the U.S. economy fully back on track more than five years after the recovery started.

[Demeter]

21. It's PINK!

[DemReadingDU]

12. DemocracyNow - Matt Taibbi

11/7/14
Matt Taibbi and Bank Whistleblower on How JPMorgan Chase Helped Wreck the Economy, Avoid Prosecution

A year ago this month the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the banking giant JPMorgan Chase would avoid criminal charges by agreeing to pay $13 billion to settle claims that it had routinely overstated the quality of mortgages it was selling to investors. But how did the bank avoid prosecution for committing fraud that helped cause the 2008 financial crisis? Today we speak to JPMorgan Chase whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann in her first televised interview discussing how she witnessed "massive criminal securities fraud" in the bank’s mortgage operations. She is profiled in Matt Taibbi’s new Rolling Stone investigation, "The $9 Billion Witness: Meet the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking."

video and transcript
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/11/7/matt_taibbi_and_bank_whistleblower_on

[Demeter]

26. To the moon, Alice!

[hamerfan]

28. With a Sesame Street twist

[Demeter]

13. Well, it was a struggle, but the markets have been reinflated

as has the GOP.

[Demeter]

23. American Jazz Greats- Saxophone

[Demeter]

14. Judge Approves Detroit’s Plan to Exit Bankruptcy

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/us/detroit-bankruptcy-plan-ruling.html?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews&region=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=21892695&pgtype=article

Less than 16 months after Detroit became the largest city in the United States to file for bankruptcy, a federal judge on Friday approved a plan intended to help it escape years of financial ruin and begin the hard work of becoming viable again.

Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan found that the city’s plan to shed $7 billion in debt and to invest about $1.7 billion into long-neglected services was fair, feasible and in the best interest of Detroit’s creditors. The decision came with remarkable speed and with far less discord than many had foreseen given the size of the city and the complexity and depth of its financial woes.

Many bankruptcy experts had predicted that the closely watched litigation would take months or even years longer, as it has in smaller cities and counties. Vallejo, Calif., spent nearly three years in bankruptcy. Stockton, Calif., just got permission to emerge after 27 months. And Jefferson County, Ala., which spent a little more than two years in bankruptcy, now faces more litigation a year after its case was supposed to have ended.

After many months of private mediation sessions, Detroit’s exit plan was more a deal than a court-imposed solution, largely agreed to by the major groups involved, including the city’s retired workers and financial creditors. That significantly quieted the court fight and limited the possibility of years of appeals...MORE

UNSEEMLY HASTE, ALL AROUND. I HOPE THE VULTURES ALL GO BANKRUPT AND END THEIR DAYS AT THE END OF A ROPE.

[Demeter]

24. Cry Me a River

[Fuddnik]

15. Quack fucking quack.

Obama is already playing footsie with Boner and the Turtle for fast track on TPP.

You'd think he got his wish or something.

[Demeter]

16. The Deal to Sell 6,000 of Detroit's Blighted Properties Falls Apart

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-05/the-deal-to-sell-6-000-of-detroits-blighted-properties-falls-apart#r=hp-ls

Just a week after his surprising bid to buy more than 6,000 tax foreclosures in Detroit, casino and real estate developer Herb Strather has withdrawn his offer, the Detroit Free Press reports. Strather’s bid was unexpected because the county and city stuffed the bundle with thousands of properties that would require an estimated $24 million to demolish, purposefully making the package so unattractive that no one would want it. That way the county could legally transfer the properties to the city, which has a newly rejuvenated land bank that’s leading the local blight-removal effort.

Strather didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. Last week he told Bloomberg Businessweek that he’d hoped to keep some of the best parcels for his investment fund and find a way to get the city to use federal funding to demolish the decrepit properties. The Wayne County’s deputy treasurer, David Szymanski, said a plan like that wasn’t “going to fly,” and the land bank said it’s allowed to demolish only properties it owns.

Szymanski said his office met with Strather and laid out the expectations that the developer take responsibility for demolishing the blighted properties and participate in other programs the land bank runs that gives neighbors the chance to pay $100 for empty lots. Those expectations were public before the auction closed, and Szymanksi says, “I don’t know how somebody could interpret” the original guidance to allow a plan to offload the worst properties on the city. Szymanski says Strather also met with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan before withdrawing his offer.

Strather was the only bidder, so the properties now go to the city. Szymanski says he anticipates the city will ask the county to transfer the properties directly to the land bank. The process could take as little as three weeks. “When you are talking about transferring 6,000 properties, it might take a few minutes longer,” he quips. Strather’s bid in the end will be more like a hiccup on the path of what was planned all along.

[Demeter]

18. Musical Interlude

[Fuddnik]

22. Demolition?

[Demeter]

17. No Bank Failure---Yet

But it's still early.

[Demeter]

27. Germany's Unpaid Debt to Greece: Economist Albrecht Ritschl on WWII Reparations That Never Were

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/27261-germany-s-unpaid-debt-to-greece-albrecht-ritschl-on-germany-s-war-debts-and-reparations

Michael Nevradakis: Many people are not aware of the occupation loan that the Nazi regime forced Greece to give during World War II. Tell us a brief history about this issue.

Albrecht Ritschl: The very basics of this are that Germany exacted a forced loan from the Bank of Greece during the occupation, and that forced loan was not paid back, and there was probably no intention to. What we had here was an attempt to disguise, to camouflage, so to speak, occupation costs as a forced loan - and this loan had several bad aspects. It fueled hyperinflation in Greece, which was already on the way due to the Italian occupation, and most importantly, it drained Greece of vital resources. It led to a catastrophic decline in economic activity; it probably did nothing to make the German occupation in any way less unpopular than it had been before. It stiffened the resolve of the Greek resistance; it did all sorts of very tragic and bad things.

Did the Nazis also extract forced loans from other countries that they occupied?

Yes, this was a very common and widely used instrument. Just to explain a little bit what was going on, the Nazis implemented a fixed-exchanged currency system in the occupied countries, manipulating the exchange rates to the reichsmark, to the German currency at the time, more or less at will. That system was centralized at Germany's central bank, the Reichsbank in Berlin, through a system of short-term accounts, like overdraft accounts, and Germany went into overdraft with respect to the occupied countries - that created the illusion of payments.

When German officers went into French, Belgian and Dutch factories - those were the three countries where Germany got most of its resources out, and requisitioned machinery and raw materials - they would pay, and these payments would essentially be credited to the account of their respective national banks at the Reichsbank. The forced loan from Greece followed a very similar pattern. Now as I have already said, the vast bulk of these loans were essentially from Western Europe. Greece, due to the small size of its economy, was only a very small part of this. Nevertheless, the effects on the Greek economy were devastating.

What happened after the end of World War II as far as the forced loans from Greece and the other countries are concerned - and the reparations and the repayments of German war debts in general?

You will be surprised to hear that nothing happened, and the reason is the following: After the Allied invasion and the collapse of the Nazi regime, the first thing the occupation authorities did was to block all kinds of claims by and against the German government, under the legal fiction that that the German government and the German state didn't exist anymore. And the question was then what to do with it as soon as new state structures were created in the late 1940s. That was highly controversial, because many of the governments in Western Europe were saying, "We are all too happy to restart trade and some sort of economic relationships with occupied Germany, and by the way, we still have these unsettled clearing accounts with the Germans . . . how about the Germans just deliver goods to us in order to run down the deficits on these accounts?"

MORE

[xchrom]

29. China Beats On Trade

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-october-exports-up-116-percent-year/year-above-forecast-2014-11

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's exports rose an above-forecast 11.6 percent in October from a year earlier, while imports rose 4.6 percent, leaving the country with a trade surplus of $45.4 billion for the month, the General Administration of Customs said on Saturday.

The figures compared with market expectations in a Reuters poll of a 10.6 percent rise in exports, a 5.5 percent increase in imports and a trade surplus of $42 billion.

September's surprisingly strong export growth of 15.3 percent led some analysts to question the accuracy of the official numbers amid signs a resurgence of speculative currency flows through inflated trade receipts.

Annual growth in the world's second-largest economy slowed to 7.3 percent in the third quarter - the weakest since the height of the global financial crisis - as a cooling property sector weighs on domestic demand.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-china-october-exports-up-116-percent-year/year-above-forecast-2014-11#ixzz3ITqTCm4s

[xchrom]

30. Investors Are Missing One Major Thing About Third-Quarter Earnings

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-earnings-outlook-might-be-less-rosy-than-investors-think-2014-11

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With the U.S. third-quarter earnings season almost at an end, many investors are breathing a sigh of relief as more companies surpassed profit expectations than in any quarter since 2010.

But some analysts say investors may be brushing off their worries about corporate profits a little too soon.

While most Standard & Poor's 500 companies beat analysts' expectations for third-quarter earnings, many just barely topped estimates, said Pankaj Patel, head of quantitative research at Evercore ISI in New York.

Of the S&P 500 companies that had reported results as of early this week, 66 percent exceeded expectations, according to Evercore's data analysis. But that figure falls to just 43 percent after stripping away companies that beat expectations by 5 percent or less, Patel's research shows.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-earnings-outlook-might-be-less-rosy-than-investors-think-2014-11#ixzz3ITr0eYeB

[xchrom]

31. SEC Wants Texas Businessman Sam Wyly To Pay $255 More For Involvement In Fraud Scheme

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-sec-seeks-to-double-200-million-damages-award-against-businessman-wyly-2014-11

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will ask a federal judge to more than double the money Texas businessman Sam Wyly must pay from $200 million to $455 million for his involvement in an offshore fraud scheme, a lawyer for Wyly said on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin in New York has already ordered Wyly and the estate of his late brother Charles to pay $187.7 million plus interest to the SEC, which the regulator has said should total just under $300 million.

Sam Wyly, 80, who last appeared on Forbes' list of the 400 richest Americans in 2010 with a net worth of $1 billion, is responsible for around two-thirds of damages and has filed for bankruptcy in Dallas, saying he cannot afford the SEC's claim as well as potential tax claims from the Internal Revenue Service.

Scheindlin will preside over a hearing Wednesday at which the SEC will have an opportunity to convince her that the damages should be even higher.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-sec-seeks-to-double-200-million-damages-award-against-businessman-wyly-2014-11#ixzz3ITrYXTjo

[xchrom]

32. Berkshire Earnings Beat Expectations By $283 Per Share

http://www.businessinsider.com/berkshire-hathaway-q3-earnings-2014-11

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway just reported third quarter operating earnings per share of $2,876, crushing estimates by $283 per share. Expectations were for earnings to come in at $2,593 per share.

Net earnings per Berkshire shares totaled $2,811.

Revenue in Berkshire's third quarter came in at $51.2 billion, up from $46.5 billion a year ago.

Earnings for holders of Berkshire 'B' shares are equivalent 1/1,500 of the Class A amount.

On Friday, Class A shares of Berkshire Hathaway closed at $214,970, a new all-time high.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/berkshire-hathaway-q3-earnings-2014-11#ixzz3ITwp2ast

[DemReadingDU]

33. President Obama to nominate Loretta Lynch as attorney general

11/7/14
President Obama will announce his choice of U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch as the next U.S. Attorney General this weekend, the White House says. The president will formally announce his intention to nominate Lynch Saturday.
Lynch, whom the White House describes as "a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country," will be introduced at the White House Saturday, alongside current Attorney General Eric Holder.
The plan comes after NPR's Carrie Johnson reported Thursday that Lynch, a lead federal prosecutor in New York City, could be nominated within days.
"Lynch, a graduate of Harvard Law School, worked her way up the ladder in Brooklyn," Carrie said, "a huge office that handles everything from old-school Mafia busts to new forms of cybercrime."
Carrie also reported:
"If she's selected by President Obama to lead the Justice Department, Lynch would become the first African-American woman to serve as attorney general. She was born in Greensboro, N.C., in 1959, a year before black students there sat down at a whites-only lunch counter and helped catalyze protests around the country."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/07/362374823/loretta-lynch-to-be-nominated-as-next-u-s-attorney-general?


via twitter...

11/7/14
David Dayen ‏@ddayen 14h14 hours ago Likely AG nominee Loretta Lynch was on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2003-2005

David Dayen ‏@ddayen 14h14 hours ago 2. Lynch was also involved in the abominable HSBC settlement for a paltry $1.2bn for laundering money for Mexican drug cartels.

David Dayen ‏@ddayen 14h14 hours ago 3. Lynch began career as a litigation associate for Cahill Gordon & Reindel, who advises virtually every big bank in bond underwriting

David Dayen ‏@ddayen 14h14 hours ago 4. Lynch then became a partner at Hogan Lovells, one of the largest lobbying firms in the country.

David Dayen ‏@ddayen 13h13 hours ago Loretta Lynch joined the board of the New York Fed in Jan. 2003. The board hired a new President later that year: Tim Geithner.

emptywheel ‏@emptywheel 13h13 hours ago Here's link to AG nominee Loretta Lynch wrist-slapping HSBC for laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists. http://www.justice.gov/usao/nye/pr/2012/2012dec11.html …

emptywheel ‏@emptywheel 13h13 hours ago @Gomez163 Oh, I'm fairly certain @ddayen's already working on a doozy. That HSBC settlement is one @mtaibbi has written a lot abt too.

David Dayen ‏@ddayen 13h13 hours ago @emptywheel @Gomez163 I just learned some amazing stuff about DPAs. Do you know who did the 1st one w/a corporation? It was only in 1994.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · 10h 10 hours ago I think if you're trying to show a change from the Holder era, installing the lead on the HSBC case is not a promising start.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · 10h 10 hours ago Lynch allowed HSBC to pay a fine equivalent to five weeks of profit after admitting to laundering $800 million for drug cartels.

Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · 10h 10 hours ago I don't see any possible way HSBC settlement was a good deal. Someone had to do time.

[Demeter]

34. So I guess she won't be going after Eric Holder?

[Hotler]

55. that is what I was thinking also.

she is being picked because she will turn a blind eye to Wall St. crime. I have no hope. I see no future.

[Demeter]

35. I've been mending all morning

With my semi-retirement (not working to death) my strength and will to live are returning. Hence the mending.

I'd like to say that half the mending is done, but that isn't true, regrettably. It's a good thing it was a cool summer...all the Kid's summer clothes were in the pile!

But Maybe a quarter of the mending...anything that used black or white thread...is done. Next up--orange, her favorite color. The Kid has pink and white complexion, so she can wear any color, even gray and orange. She's not sallow like the rest of her family.

And we are off to a craft fair, a movie, the library: it's a Kid Day. See you all later tonight, when my eyes give out from sewing.

My favorite piece of jazz, featuring, oddly enough, the sax!

[Demeter]

36. The trap is sprung

[MattSh]

37. I'm going to start off with this today...

Why? Because it fits my mood in general, that's why...

World Destruction - featuring Afrika Bambaataa & Johnny Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) - from 1984 (seems appropriate)

Speak about destruction. (x3)
This is a world destruction, your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
Countries are fighting with chemical warfare.
Not giving a damn about the people who live.
Nostradamus predicts the coming of the Antichrist.
Hey, look out, the third world nations are on the rise.
The Democratic-Communist Relationship,
won't stand in the way of the Islamic force.
The CIA is looking for other detectives.
The KGB is smarter than you think.
Brainwash mentalities to control the system.
Using TV and movies - religions of course.
Yes, the world is headed for destruction.
Is it a nuclear war?
What are you asking for?
This is a world destruction. Your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
The rich get richer.
The poor are getting poorer.
Fascist, chauvinistic government fools.
People, Moslems, Christians and Hindus.
Are in a time zone just searching for the truth.
Who are you to think you're a superior race?
Facing forth your everlasting doom.
We are Time Zone. We've come to drop a bomb on you.
World destruction, kaboom, kaboom, kaboom!
I going out of my mind that makes two of us-I going out of my mind
This is the world destruction, your life ain't nothing.
The human race is becoming a disgrace.
Nationalities are fighting with each other.
Why is this? Because the system tells you.
Putting people in faceless categories.
Knowledge isn't what it used to be.
Military tactics to control a nation.
Who wants to be a president or king? Me!
Mother Nature is gonna work against you.
Nothing in your power that you can do.
Yes, the world is headed for destruction.
You and I know it, the Bible tells you.
If we don't start to look for a better life,
the world will be destroyed in a time zone!
I in a time zone (x3) Speak about destruction (x1) I in a time zone (x3)
Speak about destruction (x1)

[MattSh]

38. COMMENT: If Estonia is so great, why is everyone leaving? | Business New Europe

Earlier in October, the New York Times published the latest in a long series of optimistic profiles of Estonia. By this point so many similar pieces have been written in outlets like The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg BusinessWeek that one can identify a recipe. First the journalist takes a breezy trip through Tallinn, noting its “European feel” and its clean streets, cobblestones, and old churches. Next the journalist speaks with an entrepreneur in the technology community, highlighting the country’s business-friendly tax policies and its successful incubation of firms such as Skype. Finally, the journalist will offer an extended meditation on Estonia's sleek, high-tech, and internet-friendly government.

The NYT’s article followed this recipe to a T. In language that sounds almost as if it was lifted from Estonia's economic development agency, the article highlighted a “society that lives first and foremost online” where “everyone files taxes on the web within minutes.”

The NYT piece, and the virtually identical articles that have appeared in the publications highlighted above, all make Estonia sound as if it has discovered some sort of secret recipe. Who wouldn’t want to live in a society in which every government service is provided online? Who wouldn’t want to skip the line at the DMV? What person in their right mind would like to continue using arduous paper forms to pay their income taxes?

The problem is that all of these articles miss the forest for one particularly interesting-looking tree. The simple reality is that Estonia is not, as it might appear, a dynamic and forward-looking place, but one of the most demographically distressed countries on earth. Over the past 20 years Estonia’s population has cumulatively decreased by almost 15%. That’s right: one out of every seven Estonians living in the country in 1992 has either died or emigrated.

Complete story at - http://www.bne.eu/content/story/comment-if-estonia-so-great-why-everyone-leaving

[Demeter]

40. The only thing I know about Estonia

is that their language is related to Finnish. So they are both lost in Europe, along with the Magyars.....

A joke I heard in Finland....the precourser Uralic tribes were crossing west over the Urals from Siberia on their way to Europe, when they came to a signpost with two arrows: The North-pointing arrow said: this way to Baltic Sea, the frozen tundras of Finland and nine months of winter. The South-pointing arrow said: this way to the fertile sunny fields of Hungary. The ones who could read went south.

When I was in Finland in 1979 the big thing for Estonia was tourism...drinking ships cruising the Baltic. There wasn't anything else going for them except maybe some fishing.

[MattSh]

43. Sometimes I think that's the only thing...

our esteemed media, such as the NY Times, knows too. Maybe you can write for them too?

I've wondered many a time if those who write articles about East Europe have ever set foot here.

[MattSh]

44. And maybe that fishing thing ain't working so well now either...

One of those Baltic countries, not sure which one, exported something like 90% of their catch to Russia. But then Russia said "you sanction us and we'll sanction you." And now they have to find somewhere else to sell their fish.

[MattSh]

39. Has Washington Just Shot Itself in the Oily Foot? | New Eastern Outlook

By now even the New York Times is openly talking about the secret Obama Administration strategy of trying to bankrupt Russia by using its oil-bloated Bedouin bosom buddy, Saudi Arabia, to collapse the world price of oil. However, it’s beginning to look like the neo-conservative Russia-haters and Cold war wanna-be hawks around Barack Obama may have just shot themselves in their oily foot. As I referred to it in an earlier article, their oil price strategy is basically stupid. Stupid, as all consequences have not been taken into account. Take now the impact on US oil production as prices plummet.

The collapse in US oil prices since September may very soon collapse the US shale oil bubble and tear away the illusion that the United States will surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia as the world’s largest oil producer. That illusion, fostered by faked resource estimates issued by the US Department of Energy, has been a lynchpin of Obama geopolitical strategy.

Now the financial Ponzi scheme behind the increase of US domestic oil output the past several years is about to evaporate in a cloud of fictitious smoke. The basic economics of shale oil production are being ravaged by the 23% oil price drop since John Kerry and Saudi King Abdullah had their secret meeting near the Red Sea in early September to agree on the Saudi oil price war against Russia.

Wall Street bank analysts at Goldman Sachs just issued a 2015 forecast that US oil prices, measured by a benchmark called WTI (West Texas Intermediate) will fall to $70 a barrel. In September 2013, WTI was more than $106 a barrel. That translates into a sharp 34% price collapse in just a few months. Why is that critical to the US shale production? Because, unlike conventional crude oil deposits, shale oil or tight oil as industry calls it, depleted dramatically faster.

A comprehensive new analysis just issued by David Hughes, a Canadian oil geo-scientist with thirty years’ experience with the Geological Survey of Canada, using data from existing US shale oil production that has now become public for the first time (the shale oil story is very recent), shows dramatic rates of oil volume decline from US shale oil wells:

Complete story at - http://journal-neo.org/2014/11/06/has-washington-just-shot-itself-in-the-oily-foot/

[Demeter]

41. I see lots of silver lining there

The sooner the lying, the conspiracies, and the Ponzis collapse, the better for us all. No ugly eco-destroying pipelines, no water-poisoning fracking, no giddy inflation.

The collapse of the petrodollar hegemony is the last chapter in the immolation of the West: our 1% Elitists and their technocratic henchmen have undermined the economies of all of Europe, the US and Mexico with their insane policies of austerity and aggression in the Middle East and Asia.

Canada may fall as collateral damage due to its close ties with both Europe and USA. Certainly, the collapse of oil prices will not help Canada's western provinces.

[Demeter]

42. Robert Reich on the election

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/891688834177047

If you want a single reason for why Democrats lost big Tuesday it’s this: Median family income continues to drop, the first “recovery” when this has occurred. Meanwhile, all the economic gains are going to the richest Americans. If the Republicans think they can reverse this through their supply-side, trickle-down, fiscal austerity policies, they’re profoundly mistaken. The public will soon discover this. But if the Democrats believe they can reverse it simply by raising taxes on the rich and redistributing to everyone else, they are mistaken, too.

We need to raise the minimum wage, invest in education and infrastructure, lift the cap on income subject to Social Security payroll taxes, resurrect Glass-Steagall and limit the size of the banks, make it easier for low-wage workers to unionize, raise taxes on corporations with high ratios of CEO pay to average worker pay, and much more. In other words, we need an agenda for shared prosperity. Over the next two years the Democrats have an opportunity to advance one. If they fail to do so, we’ll need a new opposition party that represents the interests of the vast majority.

[antigop]

62. no, no, no. Not just low-wage workers to unionize. ALL WORKERS need to easily unionize. nt

[Demeter]

45. The Right to Food: An Interview With Hilal Elver

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/27322-the-right-to-food-an-interview-with-hilal-elver

AN EDUCATIONAL, NON-PROPAGANDA/SPIN ON AGRICULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND POLITICS. READ-WORTHY!

[Demeter]

46. 5 investing tips for people who don’t have a lot of money

https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/5-investing-tips-for-people-who-dont-have-a-lot-of-money-2014-11-08



Sellers of lottery tickets suggest all you need is a dollar and a dream. Forget that nonsense: If you want a decent shot at making money, you’ll need at least $50—and instead of lottery tickets, try a few carefully chosen mutual funds....Looking to get started as an investor? Here are my top five suggestions for those without much money:

Your employer’s plan

This is a no-brainer, and not just because of the tax advantages and possible matching employer contribution. Many 401(k) and 403(b) plans, especially those offered by large employers, include a select list of low-cost mutual funds. That makes it relatively easy for employees to build sensible portfolios. On top of that, there’s no required minimum investment. Got younger colleagues or children in their 20s? Prod them to sign up for their employer’s plan. When I was at Forbes magazine in the late 1980s with a miserably low salary and a young family to support, I initially didn’t contribute to the retirement plan. To my surprise, I got a call from the company’s treasurer, who cajoled me into signing up. He said I’d quickly get used to living without the money—and he was right.

Vanguard’s target funds

Target-date retirement funds, which offer diversified portfolios geared to folks retiring at or close to the year indicated in each fund’s name, have been criticized as cookie-cutter solutions that are either too risky or not risky enough. Ignore the naysayers. I think the funds are a great choice for most investors, who would struggle to put together anything better on their own or working with a financial adviser. Vanguard Group’s target-date funds charge average annual expenses of just 0.17%, or 17 cents a year for every $100 invested, and have a $1,000 minimum. Each fund owns a mix of market-tracking stock- and bond-index funds. That mix becomes more conservative as a fund approaches its target date.

Schwab’s index funds

Charles Schwab offers five conventional stock-index mutual funds and three bond-index funds, all with $100 minimums. Its U.S. total stock-market fund charges a slim 0.09%, its international-index fund levies 0.19% and its total bond-market fund costs 0.29%. All three funds would make good core portfolio holdings.

Exchange-traded funds

Instead of buying index-mutual funds, you could open a brokerage account and purchase exchange-traded index funds. Both types of funds seek to track the performance of an underlying market index. ETFs, however, are listed on the stock market and can be traded anytime the market is open, while mutual funds can be bought and sold just once a day, at the market close. Merrill Edge, ShareBuilder, TD Ameritrade and TradeKing have no required minimum to open a brokerage account, while E*Trade will let you start an account with $500. Schwab requires $1,000, but it will waive that minimum if you add $100 a month to your account. Some brokerage firms let you trade certain ETFs without paying a commission. That’s attractive. But before buying, check that a fund’s annual expenses are low, preferably below 0.2%. As a rule, ETFs should have lower fees than comparable mutual funds, because they don’t incur the cost of handling shareholder accounts; that’s done by brokerage firms. You might start with three ETFs: a broadly diversified U.S. stock fund, U.S. bond fund and foreign-stock fund.

Actively managed funds

Regular readers know my fondness for index funds. What if you prefer actively managed funds? Artisan Funds, Buffalo Funds and Scout Investments will waive their regular minimums if you agree to invest $50 or $100 automatically every month. Alternatively, for a $500 initial investment, you can buy into the Homestead Funds and some of the Nicholas Company funds.

But if you want active management and you can get together $1,000, I would consider one of T. Rowe Price Group’s target-date retirement funds. That $1,000 minimum applies if you buy the funds in an individual retirement account. I’m not predicting the T. Rowe funds will perform better than other funds mentioned here. But I like the broad diversification they offer.

A final point: An account with $100 or $1,000 won’t do you much good. Want to amass decent money? In your initial years as an investor, the key driver of your account’s growth won’t be the investment returns you earn. Rather, what matters is the dollars you sock away, so be sure to save as much as you can each month.

[Demeter]

47. In Memoriam: Tom Mogliozzi

Thomas Louis Magliozzi (June 28, 1937 – November 3, 2014) and his brother Raymond F. Magliozzi (born March 30, 1949) were the co-hosts of NPR's weekly radio show, Car Talk, where they were known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers". Their show was honored with a Peabody Award in 1992... On June 8, 2012, it was announced that Car Talk would stop producing new episodes in September 2012, though NPR will continue airing reruns of the show.wikipedia

PODCAST: Tommy, Riposa in Pace

http://www.cartalk.com/content/1445-tommy-riposa-pace

NPR'S OBITUARY

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/357428287/tom-magliozzi-popular-co-host-of-nprs-car-talk-dies-at-77

TOM'S LIFE IN HIS OWN WORDS

http://www.cartalk.com/content/tom-and-rays-bios-photos-2

Why Everyone Who Loves Public Radio Should Thank Tom Magliozzi

http://wnpr.org/post/why-everyone-who-loves-public-radio-should-thank-tom-magliozzi

Car Talk is the most important program in the history of public radio.

There, I said it.

Now, I didn't say it was the best show. The car guys themselves would laugh that off. And I didn't say it was the most influential. It didn't spawn legions of glasses-wearing hipster storytellers like Ira Glass's This American Life, or define the radio newsmagazine like All Things Considered.

But it was the most important because it completely flipped upside-down the idea of what public radio was supposed to sound like. In doing so, it gave us our one true, top-of-the-charts hit. That's why losing Tom Magliozzi to Alzheimer's Disease this week is such a blow to us....

[Demeter]

48. THE MAN HIMSELF

[xchrom]

49. 3D Printing Could Become A $13 Billion Industry

http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-from-earphones-to-jet-engines-3d-printing-takes-off-2014-11

New York (AFP) - Many manufacturers are at an early stage of discovering the benefits of 3D printing, but one of the clearest strengths is customization.

At Normal, consumers can use a mobile app to photograph their ear, transmit the shots to the New York startup's 3D printing facility and then receive customized earphones within 48 hours.

The process marries today's click-and-go speed with a made-to-order ethos that recalls the days of visiting the tailor or the cobbler.

The company's motto: "Normal: one size fits none."



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-from-earphones-to-jet-engines-3d-printing-takes-off-2014-11#ixzz3IZXTf9hK

[xchrom]

50. GORBACHEV: 'The World Is On The Brink Of A New Cold War'

http://www.businessinsider.com/gorbachev-says-the-world-is-on-the-brink-of-a-new-cold-war-2014-11

Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader, has warned that the world is edging closer to a new Cold War, in comments made on the eve of celebrations to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"The world is on the brink of a new Cold War," said Mr Gorbachev, speaking at an event, near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to mark the 25th anniversary. "Some are even saying that it's already begun."

The 83-year-old, who ordered his Soviet troops stationed in East Germany to remain in their barracks on the night of November 9 1989, has been scathing in his view of what he termed Western "triumphalism".

"Taking advantage of Russia 's weakening and a lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and domination in the world. And they refused to heed the word of caution from many of those present here," he said.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/gorbachev-says-the-world-is-on-the-brink-of-a-new-cold-war-2014-11#ixzz3IZbnHS6m

[xchrom]

51. Jim Yong Kim's Efforts To Reform The World Bank Are In Trouble

http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-yong-kims-efforts-to-reform-the-world-bank-are-in-trouble-2014-11

The fury would not have been much greater if anti-capitalist activists had taken over the vast atrium of the World Bank's headquarters in Washington, DC.

Yet the protesters who did so last month were the Bank's own employees. The goodwill that first greeted the modernisation plans of Jim Yong Kim, the Bank's president since 2012, has turned to rancour.

Mr Kim (pictured) stressed the need for reform from the moment he took charge. He saw, correctly, that the Bank had to do things differently to remain relevant in a world with no shortage of the two things that used to guarantee it lots of business from the governments of poorer countries: cheap capital and economic expertise.

In July the Bank started to implement a new structure which shifts power and money away from country and regional executives to some 14 centralised thematic "global practices" (water, health etc). On October 30th it announced 500 lay-offs over the next three years.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-yong-kims-efforts-to-reform-the-world-bank-are-in-trouble-2014-11#ixzz3IZecnREM

[xchrom]

52. CHINA PLEDGES $40 BILLION FOR NEW 'SILK ROAD'

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_APEC?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-09-04-39-49

BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping is promising $40 billion to help Asian nations improve trade links in a new effort to assert Beijing's ambitions as a regional leader.

Xi made the pledge in a meeting with leaders of Pakistan, Bangladesh and five other Asian nations ahead of this week's Asia-Pacific economic summit, state media reported Sunday.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering brings together leaders of the United States, China, Japan and 18 other economies, giving Beijing a prominent platform to assert its ambitions for a regional leadership role to match its status as the world's second-largest economy.

The summit Monday and Tuesday also gives opportunities for regional diplomacy, including a possible ice-breaking meeting between the leaders of China and Japan after two years of tensions in an island dispute that raised concerns of a military confrontation between Asia's two largest economies.

Beijing has launched a series of initiatives this year aimed at increasing its influence in what it sees as U.S.-dominated regional and global trade, finance and security structures.

[xchrom]

53. WHY MANY AREN'T CELEBRATING LOW US UNEMPLOYMENT

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ECONOMY_JOBS_ELECTION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-08-12-42-44

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The unemployment rate no longer seems to reflect America's mood.

Friday's strong jobs report showed that the jobless rate - the most closely watched gauge of the economy's health - is down to 5.8 percent. A year ago, the rate was 7.2 percent. Five years ago, it was 10 percent.

It's the kind of sustained decline that would normally suggest a satisfied public.

Not so much anymore. After Tuesday's midterm elections, exit polling showed how little falling unemployment has resonated. Most voters said they cast their ballots out of fear for the economy, stripping the Democrats from the Senate majority and implicitly rejecting President Barack Obama.

[Demeter]

54. ELECTION ANALYSIS AND ROUNDUP

BASED ON THE AMOUNT SPENT ON CAMPAIGNING:

How Much Was Your Ballot Worth in 2014?



http://angrybearblog.com/2014/11/how-much-was-your-ballot-worth-in-2014.html

Full Show: Facing Down Corporate Election Greed Bill Moyers

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-facing-corporate-greed/ VIDEO AT LINK

In the midst of the midterm elections and the obsession with which party would control the US Senate, there were races at the local and state level with deeper implications for the future of the country.

In the small city of Richmond, California, a slate of progressive candidates faced off against a challenge from pro-business candidates backed to the tune of more than $3 million by the energy giant Chevron. For years, Chevron has treated Richmond like a company town and its large refinery there has been a constant source of health and safety concerns.

Since 2007, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, a Green Party leader, and her allies on the city council have faced down not only Chevron but other corporate interests like the real estate and financial industries as well. This year, Chevron fought back with an expensive barrage of negative campaign media. But on Election Day, the progressive slate triumphed, despite the roughly $250 per vote Chevron spent.

McLaughlin – who this year was term limited as mayor but won a city council seat — and Harriet Blair Rowan, a college student and journalist who uncovered the Chevron money story for the news website Richmond Confidential, talk with Bill this week about the role unlimited sums of corporate cash have played in Richmond. They discuss the great success of the billions spent by wealthy individuals and companies in other races across the country and how to fight back, using Richmond’s example as a model for future fights of organized people versus organized money.

How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades By Juan Thompson THE INTERCEPT

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/11/07/voter-suppression/

On Tuesday, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minoritized, and women — was down. Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s, despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs.

Yes, President Barack Obama’s poor performance and approval rating undoubtedly played a role in the lower turnout. But the evidence is piling up that systematic voter suppression, including voter ID laws and dubious vote-fraud prevention software, played a significant part in keeping people from casting ballots, as well.

Take the situation in Texas, where Democrat Wendy Davis lost badly to Republican Greg Abbott in the gubernatorial race. More important than her expected defeat is that the Lone Star State had the lowest voter turnout in the country at 33%, down from 38% four years earlier. It’s difficult to determine to what precise extent Texas’s new voter ID law is to blame for the poor turnout, but “there are somewhere between 600,000 and 1.4 million registered voters in Texas without state ID,” according to Kathleen Unger, whose nonprofit, VoteRiders, works to get people the documents they need to vote. Working through local organizations, two-year-old VoteRiders went into Houston’s Harris County this year in response to what Unger called its “very restrictive” voter ID law. Despite such efforts, some Texans were still unable to vote. Think Progress’ Alice Ollstein recently documented how some Texas voters were dropped from the rolls or denied ballots because they couldn’t afford new IDs. Ollstein couldn’t quantify such incidents, but a recent Government Accountability Office report on voter ID laws in Tennessee and Kansas found they decreased turnout in those two states in 2012. In Texas, there are indications the same thing happened this year, including the fact that provisional ballots increased by half on Tuesday to 16,463, an uptick from the 8,000 issued in 2010. Provisional ballots are given to voters who have difficulty proving their eligibility, and because some thwarted voters don’t even bother to cast them, they are a proxy for larger problems...

MORE

President Flim-Flam Leads Dems to Midterm Massacre by MIKE WHITNEY

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/07/president-flim-flam-leads-dems-to-midterm-massacre/

“The Republican victory does not represent a shift by the American population to the right, but demonstrates the bankrupt and reactionary character of the Democratic Party and the mass disillusionment with the Obama administration. In the absence of any progressive alternative to the two right-wing, corporate-controlled parties, the majority of potential voters stayed home. Voter turnout hit another record low, with only 38 percent going to the polls….Voter participation by young people fell particularly sharply. Barely one-third of eligible voters went to the polls in California, the most populous state.”

–Patrick Martin, Republicans win control of Senate in US congressional elections, World Socialist Web Site

“You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you’re making progress.”

–Malcolm X

The White House has denied claims that the midterm elections were a referendum on Barack Obama, but the polling data shows that they were. According to a CBS News exit poll:

“Fifty-four percent of those surveyed said their opinion of the president influenced their vote… 34 percent said they wanted to make a statement in opposition to Mr. Obama, while 20 percent said they voted in support of him.”

Those differences were more stark among Republican voters “61 percent (of whom) said they cast ballots to take a stand against the current administration. (Only) Thirty-five percent of those who voted for GOP candidates said Mr. Obama didn’t play a role in their decisions at the polling places.” (2014 midterm elections look like a referendum on Obama, CBS News)

There’s no doubt that antipathy towards Obama played a significant role in Tuesday night’s bloodbath. Even so, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest insists that, “Most voters are deciding who to vote for based on the name that’s on the ballot, not the name that’s not….It’s up to those individual candidates, those Democratic candidates, to make decisions for themselves about how best the president and his support can be used to their benefit in the elections.” In other words, the Democratic candidates that went down in flames on Tuesday, can only blame themselves. While that might be a good way to deflect responsibility, it certainly doesn’t square with the facts. Just get a load of these exit poll results from Forbes:

“45% of voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country. It was the top issue of four listed on the exit poll ballot. Voters were generally pessimistic about it. Only 1% checked the box that said the economy’s condition was “excellent.” 70% said it was not so good or poor. 78% were worried about its direction in the next year. In another question, voters split pretty evenly: around a third of voters said it was getting better, getting worse, and staying about the same.

More voters expected the life for the next generation of Americans to be worse rather than better, 48 to 22%.” (Election Results From A To Z: An Exit Poll Report, Forbes)

What a damning survey. What a damning indictment of Obama. The vast majority of the people think the economy still stinks and that living standards for their kids are going to get a whole lot worse. And you wonder why the Dems got their heads handed to them on Tuesday? It’s because they failed on the number one issue, that’s why. But the implosion of the Democratic party pales in comparison to the bigger issue, that is, that more and more people are dropping off the radar and out of the system. THAT is significant. Take a look at this from NPR’s All Things Considered on Wednesday:

Robert Siegel: “…as of today, according to numbers from the Associated Press, a bit over 83 million people voted. As a share of the voting-eligible population, that is 36.6 percent … if the national turnout rate doesn’t reach 38.1 percent, it would be the lowest turnout since the midterm elections of 1942. And as Michael McDonald points out, that was in the middle of the Second World War.” (Midterm Elections May Have Had Record Low Turnout NPR All Things Considered)

Now you might think that the bigshots in Washington don’t care if you vote or not, but you’re wrong. They do care. You see, they put together this shiny-new system called “democracy” that conceals their looting operations behind a masque of “public approval”. That approval comes in the form of balloting which they see as a necessary component for keeping the serf-sheeple in line and for shifting ever-larger amounts of the nation’s wealth to their criminal friends on Wall Street. Only now, it looks like the curtain has slipped a bit, and more people are opting out of this Potemkin-charade of “representative government”. Check this out from the World Socialist Web Site:

“Voter turnout was at record lows, with two-thirds of those eligible to vote staying away from the polls. This mass abstention was particularly pronounced among the poorest and most oppressed sections of the working class—those most disillusioned by the empty promises of Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.

In Michigan, for example, voter turnout in Detroit was only 31 percent, well below the 40 percent level predicted by city officials. This shortfall accounts for the entire margin of defeat for the Democratic candidate for governor, Mark Schauer, running against Republican incumbent Rick Snyder…

Perhaps the most revealing finding in the exit polls was that two-thirds of those who cast ballots Tuesday viewed the US economic system as deeply unfair and rigged in favor of the wealthy. There was evidence in the exit polls that millions are losing faith in the capitalist system altogether, and not merely expressing discontent with the conditions of economic slump that have prevailed since the financial crash of 2008.” (Republicans, Obama prepare post-election escalation of war, social attacks, Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web Site

People are throwing in the towel, they’ve had it up to here with this crummy system that only delivers for the 1 percent. Everyone knows that the country is ruled by an oligarchy of racketeers who don’t give a rip about anything except pumping up the bottom line and stiff-arming working people. Why participate in a system like that?

And don’t give me that hogwash about the “differences between the two parties”. What a laugh. Did you notice how Obama snuggled up to Mitch McConnell just hours after the Dems took their biggest shellacking in history? It’s all a show. These guys are all in bed together. They don’t care about you and me. It’s a joke. Just look at the cynical game the Dems are playing to convince their constituency that they actually have “heartfelt convictions” and that they’re true liberals. They’re always blabbering about same sex marriage and “a woman’s right to choose”. Why do you figure that is? It’s because their corporate Sugar daddies tell them to steer-clear of any issue that might cost them some of their precious money, like higher wages, better benefits, job security, health care, pensions, unions etc; all the things the Dems say they care about, but never lift a finger to support.

Remember how President Dipstick flew over Wisconsin blowing kisses to the people below while Scott Walker was busy dismantling collective bargaining rights for public workers? That’s the Dems attitude towards working people in a nutshell. That’s why they’re all about gay rights and abortion. It’s because they threw working people under the bus 30 fu**ing years ago. Abortion is the last thing they can hang their hat on. It’s pathetic. Here’s how Joseph Kishore sums it up over at the WSWS:

“The Democratic strategy of appealing to affluent layers of the middle class on the basis of identity politics while working with the Republicans to step up attacks on workers’ jobs, wages and living standards produced an electoral disaster. In a contradictory way, reflecting a system monopolized by two right-wing parties of big business, the election showed that appeals on the basis of race, gender and sexuality move only a small fraction of the population, while the broad masses of people are driven by more fundamental class issues—issues on which the Democrats have nothing to offer…

Underlying these processes is a profound crisis—not only of the Democratic Party, but of the entire political system. Both parties represent the interests of a tiny layer of the corporate and financial elite in alliance with the military-intelligence apparatus. Beyond the confines of the top 5 or 10 percent of the population, the state confronts a working class that is angry, dissatisfied and increasingly hostile.”
(The Democratic Party implosion, Joseph Kishore, World Socialist Web Site)

The system is in crisis, and the reason should be obvious to anyone willing to pull his head out of the sand long enough to see what’s really going on. It’s because capitalism doesn’t deliver the goods. It’s that simple. Everything is stacked in favor of the moneybags bloodsuckers on top. They don’t even try to hide it anymore...

Anyway, take a look at this Cockburn article I dug up from the CP archives. It pretty well sums up the editorial position of the magazine… And it was written back in November, 2003:

“In these last days I’ve been scraping around, trying to muster a single positive reason to encourage a vote for… Obama-Biden, as opposed to the McCain-Palin ticket?…

In substantive terms Obama’s run has been the negation of almost every decent progressive principle, a negation achieved with scarcely a bleat of protest from the progressives seeking to hold him to account. The Michael Moores stay silent. Abroad, Obama stands for imperial renaissance. He has groveled before the Israel lobby and pandered to the sourest reflexes of the cold war era. At home he has crooked the knee to bankers and Wall Street, to the oil companies, the coal companies, the nuclear lobby, the big agricultural combines. He is even more popular with Pentagon contractors than McCain, and has been the most popular of the candidates with K Street lobbyists. He has been fearless in offending progressives, constant in appeasing the powerful.”…

“Obama invokes change. Yet never has the dead hand of the past had a “reform” candidate so firmly by the windpipe.” (Change You Can See, Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch)

Cockburn knew that Obama was a fake and that the Democratic leadership had no intention of changing anything. The plan was to crank the Bush agenda up to full-throttle; expand the wars, increase the surveillance, eviscerate civil liberties, and shift more of the nation’s wealth to their feral-tycoon bosses on Wall Street. That was the plan and that’s what they did.

MORE

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [e-mail].

[DemReadingDU]

61. Ohio, only $1, last place

I don't believe it.

[Hotler]

56. Great WEE Dememter. Thanks for sharing. n/t

Ladies and gentlemen please give a warm welcome for Stan Getz.

[Demeter]

59. I figured we all needed a mental health weekend: some fun and frolic

I sure needed to put down the duckie.

[Hotler]

57. Let me add one more. Stan Getz with the Bill Evans Trio.

A long listen, but worth it.

[Demeter]

58. WELL, HUSH MY MOUTH! WE DID LOSE A BANK--IN CALIFORNIA!

Frontier Bank, FSB, Palm Desert, California was closed today by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Bank of Southern California, N.A., San Diego, California, to assume all of the deposits of Frontier Bank, FSB.

The two branches of Frontier Bank, FSB, doing business as El Paseo Bank, will reopen as branches of Bank of Southern California, N.A. during their normal business hours...As of June 30, 2014, Frontier Bank, FSB had approximately $86.4 million in total assets and $82.1 million in total deposits. Bank of Southern California, N.A. will pay the FDIC a premium of 1.06 percent to acquire all of the deposits of Frontier Bank, FSB. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of Frontier Bank, FSB, Bank of Southern California, N.A. agreed to purchase essentially all of the failed bank's assets....

The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $4.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, Bank of Southern California, N.A.'s acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Frontier Bank, FSB is the 17th FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in California. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Palm Desert National Bank, Palm Desert, on April 27, 2012.

ISN'T PALM DESERT A RITZY PLACE? AND THEY'VE LOST TWO BANKS IN 2.5 YEARS?

Palm Desert, CA, is the geographic center of the Palm Springs Desert Resorts region and an oasis of excitement which includes world-famous shopping on fashionable El Paseo, unrivaled outdoor entertainment venues, world-class golf and incredible art and architecture galore...

REAL ESTATE AD... http://www.palmdesertrealestateinfo.com/?gclid=CKLAjt3t7cECFeNaMgodBWkAaQ

http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/california/palm_desert

As of 2014, Palm Desert's population is 48,959 people. Since 2000, it has had a population growth of 11.95 percent.
--------------------

The median home cost in Palm Desert is $321,600. Home appreciation the last year has been 22.90 percent.
--------------------

Compared to the rest of the country, Palm Desert's cost of living is 32.50% Higher than the U.S. average.
--------------------

Palm Desert public schools spend $10,116 per student. The average school expenditure in the U.S. is $12,435. There are about 22.3 students per teacher in Palm Desert.
--------------------

The unemployment rate in Palm Desert is 4.90 percent(U.S. avg. is 6.30%). Recent job growth is Positive. Palm Desert jobs have Increased by 1.17 percent.

BILL GATES HAS A HOME THERE...ONE OF MANY....SNOWBIRDS, RESORTS, GOLF COURSES...AND WHITE LIKE RICE.

[bread_and_roses]

60. "Al Gallodoro, "World's Greatest Saxophonist" "

http://www.algallodoro.com/

In - I think it was 2007 - I was priveleged to attend the 100th anniversary picnic of AFM Local 443. I am an ignoramous in music (as in so much else, alas) but it was so marvelous to hear various musicians playing pick-up with each other. There is something about hearing music outdoors that is particularly magical.

Now, as I said I am not much for jazz, and particularly not much for the horns.... that's not an aesthetic "judgement" just a personal preference. Since any form of art that one doesn't like deprives one of that form of pleasure, I wish it were otherwise, but that form just doesn't speak to me.

However, during the picnic, I was chatting with someone when suddenly this breath-taking, utterly compelling solo just floated through the air - clear, perfect, magical. I was literally dumbstruck. I had never imagined a horn could sound like that. Everyone fell utterly silent. It didn't last that long. It was Al Gallodoro, already into his 90's, still playing, still performing.

I am so glad I was there.