Dr. Coburn, a committed Southern Baptist, has his own version of the Hippocratic Oath: First, hurt everyone you can. I think this is in his list of the Commandments too.

I have a suggestion for an offset for Oklahoma aid: let’s cut all road, sewer and airport construction in Oklahoma.

Try the nut loaf. Tastes just like meat loaf, I promise.

When I say knowledge is irrelevant in our current degraded state, I mean that the decisions are not based on actual knowledge. We have the knowledge to identify and solve most of our problems reasonably effectively. Our elites simply deny that fact, and argue at the top of their lungs that we don’t actually have problems, that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. Their devotees, their cult believers, chant the same verses in unison with them, just as they learned them in front of the televisions.

Most people think they are engaged in political discourse when they repeat talking points they heard on TV or radio or read somewhere, with no understanding of the sources or the data, if any, that backs them, and no ability to form sensible judgments about the sources, the data or the talking points. It’s like ritual chants at football games, one side of the stadium shouting We Are and the other responding N D. I don’t think it really matters whether you are a “we are” or an “N D”. It’s just about the shouting.

That isn’t public discourse, and it leads nowhere. It is the product of empty minds filled with junk from commercials and PR hacks.

We need to find ways to break through that kind of false discourse, and then have something to replace it. I don’t know how to do the first thing. I do know that substantially all of our knowledge class has decided to quit thinking about the problems and focus on getting rich. See my post on the courtier Larry Summers. That means that there are few legitimate good ideas for dealing with the oligarchy in a reasonable way to protect the rest of us.

I’m just sure some enterprising capitalist will figure out a way to sell water to those people. And Jim Imhofe will be thrilled at the success of the free market in survival.

I wonder what the mechanism is.

Unfortunately we can’t read the paper for free because it is owned by Elsevier, and costs $30.

I can’t find it through my library either.

I urge you to read this essay. I’ll send you a copy if you write to me at masaccio68 at gmail

I hope everyone will check in with Gar Alperovitz to see what he thinks. He is one of the few people trying to come up with something new, and Dave Dayen is the best.

Those are fascinating and revealing quotes from the Rule of St. Benedictine. The level of practice of the Rule seems to have deteriorated over the centuries.

This is officially proof that SC-01 is truly and fully hypocritical. It’s Family Values are those of Ashley Madison.

Cruz is a perfect illustration of the massive success of minority rule in America. It would be hard to imagine a system that would permit one idiot to wreck the country, but we have a system that allows any combination of 100 Senators to do it.

Screw the filibuster. We need to get rid of the Senate.

Maybe we could ask Cohen how many of his children he wants to sacrifice in this hostility (as you know we don’t have wars any more).

There is no credit problem at present. The giant banks are at their lowest loans to deposit ratio in decades. That’s just a stupid lie from the banksters, easily refuted with the google.

Well, less leverage wouldn’t, but the banks would have to spin off some of their businesses, and those new businesses would have to hire people. At least, that’s my guess.

I think the point of Brown-Vitter is that a 15% capital requirement for the six largest banks and lower rates for the rest is designed to force the worst offenders to slim down. I think $500 billion in assets should be enough to satisfy Lloyd Blankfein’s ego. There are a number of good possibilities from that kind of divestiture, not least of which is that it may lead to more jobs that pay reasonably well, and fewer that pay outlandish amounts.

People pay their debts because they are conditioned to pay their debts. I bet 90% of the people I represented in bankruptcy were ashamed that they couldn’t pay. It ruined marriages, family relationships and long-term friendships. I even know one person who was told to take the issue to the elders of the church to see if she shouldn’t pay them; she left that church.

I often thought that my primary role was to give people permission to file bankruptcy.

I have written a number of posts encouraging people to consider carefully their own needs before beggaring themselves to pay some thug bank.