Monthly Archives: April 2013

Feds spend at least $890,000 on fees for empty accounts

"It is one of the oddest spending habits in Washington: This year, the government will spend at least $890,000 on service fees for bank accounts that are empty. At last count, Uncle Sam has 13,712 such accounts with a balance of zero.They are supposed to be closed. But nobody has done the paperwork yet. So even as the sequester budget cuts have begun idling workers and frustrating travelers, the government is required to pay $65 per year, per account to keep them on the books. In this time of austerity, the accounts are a reminder of something that makes austerity hard: expensive habits, built into the bureaucracy in times of plenty." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFeds spend at least $890,000 on fees for empty accounts

Tax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

"The staff photographer for President Bush took a million photos. The President kept all of them. This week, the GWB Presidential library opens in Dallas. If someone wants to view a million photos of Bush, he can. I don’t know who goes to a Presidential library. There are 13 of these libraries. Bush’s cost $250 million. It has 15 acres of fake prairie. It has 227,000 square feet. To house what? They cost millions a year to run. They are built by private donors. No one knows who. No one knows why. What we do know is that taxpayers funded a full-time photographer who spent 8 years taking pictures of George W. Bush." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

Tax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

"The staff photographer for President Bush took a million photos. The President kept all of them. This week, the GWB Presidential library opens in Dallas. If someone wants to view a million photos of Bush, he can. I don’t know who goes to a Presidential library. There are 13 of these libraries. Bush’s cost $250 million. It has 15 acres of fake prairie. It has 227,000 square feet. To house what? They cost millions a year to run. They are built by private donors. No one knows who. No one knows why. What we do know is that taxpayers funded a full-time photographer who spent 8 years taking pictures of George W. Bush." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTax Money: One Man Shot a Million Photos of President George W. Bush

The Corruption of Capitalism in America Excerpt: Chapter 17, Serial Bubbles

"Never before in history had the nation's financial system been pummeled by two gigantic bubbles and two devastating crashes in such a brief interval. That Greenspan's heir apparent managed to detect the Great Moderation at the midpoint of this cycle of financial violence was only added testimony to the degree to which monetary policy had become unhinged. It was no longer plausible, therefore, to describe the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the various venues for equity derivatives as a free market for raising and trading equity capital issues. Instead, they were violently unstable casinos, ineptly stage-managed by a central bank." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Corruption of Capitalism in America Excerpt: Chapter 17, Serial Bubbles

Again, Reuters Compares Central Bankers to Superheroes!

"Another day, another editorial in Reuters about central banking superheroes. Are you convinced yet that this is a dominant social theme? And how exactly does this work? Is it coincidence? Do all the Reuters columnists sit down in a room together and decide that they will write editorials, serially, comparing central bankers to Superman? Lord, help us. Good things come in threes, and since this is the second article in a week comparing bankers to superheroes, we expect at least one more." Continue reading →

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Privatization Is the Best Response to FAA Deliberately Inconveniencing Air Passengers

"The sequester cuts about $637 million from the FAA, which is less than 4% of its $15.9 billion 2012 budget, and it limits the agency to what it spent in 2010. The White House decided to translate this 4% cut that it has the legal discretion to avoid into a 10% cut for air traffic controllers. Though controllers will be furloughed for one of every 10 working days, four of every 10 flights won’t arrive on time. ... To run smoothly and efficiently, our ATC system should be given independence from the government. We should privatize the system, as Canada has done very successfully. Unlike the U.S. system, Nav Canada is self-supporting and not subsidized." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPrivatization Is the Best Response to FAA Deliberately Inconveniencing Air Passengers

Rep. Barbara Lee: Repeal AUMF to stop ‘this state of perpetual war’

"Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) on Wednesday called for the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be repealed. 'I’m convinced that if we do not repeal this authorization to use force that I voted against in 2001, we are going to see this state of perpetual war forever,' she told Current TV’s John Fugelsang. Congress approved the AUMF just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, giving the President authority to wage war 'against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks.' Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against it, describing it as a 'blank check' for war." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRep. Barbara Lee: Repeal AUMF to stop ‘this state of perpetual war’

Egypt holds Swiss teacher over ‘terrorist name’

"A Swiss primary school teacher from the canton of Bern who went to Egypt for a holiday is being held there on suspicion of being a terrorist because of his name. Rolf Künti, 29, went to the North African country with a colleague for a one-week holiday. But on the day of his planned return to Switzerland he was detained on Monday at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport where he was told by customs he was banned from leaving, according to Swiss media. 'They told me that my name was that of a terrorist if you translate it into Arabic,' Künti is quoted as saying by 20 Minuten, the online news site." Continue reading →

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Sen. Rubio ‘open’ to cutting off all Muslim student visas

"Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Wednesday said that he was 'open' to considering the idea of halting all student visas from Muslim countries as a reaction to this month’s Boston Marathon bombings, even though the two men suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings emigrated from Russia as refugees. 'We need to be open to changes that provide more security,' Rubio replied. 'I don’t like profiling anybody or singling or generally leading, on the other hand student visas are something this country does because it’s in our national interest but you don’t have a right to a student visa.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSen. Rubio ‘open’ to cutting off all Muslim student visas