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southof commented on the blog post Protesters Demonstrating in Front of Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Meeting in Chicago
$20-$25 billion not $25-$50 billion — my error.
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southof commented on the blog post Protesters Demonstrating in Front of Foreclosure Fraud Settlement Meeting in Chicago
Let’s see. Approximately 11 million homeowners are underwater, with approximately $700 billion in negative equity (i.e, the total amount of money that homes are “underwater”) — a loss of equity caused by the casino-like, speculative Wall Street financial feeding frenzy.
$700 billion/11 million homeowners means that the average homeowner is underwater to the tune of approximately $64,000. Now how much of a reduction in the principal of their mortgages is the average homeowner going to receive out of this so-called “settlement” of between $25-$50 billion?
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southof commented on the diary post How the 99 Percent Really Lost Out – in Far Greater Ways Than the Occupy Protesters Imagine by Gar Alperovitz.
“If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants” — Issac Newton. I suspect OWS could “imagine in far greater ways”… “how the 99% really lost out”. It seems to me that one of the driving characteristics of OWS is imagination — imagination to think of an alternative way [...]
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southof commented on the diary post Uh Guys….IMF Advisor says the World Banking system is about to implode. by cmaukonen.
“I know everyone is busy with the Wall Street protests going on everywhere, I do think this bares shifting ones attention to.” There wouldn’t be an Occupy Wall Street, et al.,if growing numbers of people in the US and throughout the world didn’t already have both an intuitive as well as informed sense of how [...]
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southof commented on the diary post The Next Crash Within Weeks? And Other Bankster Tidbits for the Week. by Robert Alexander Dumas.
“The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008,” said one senior London-based bank executive.” Given the overhang of toxic mortgage-related debt and associated derivatives (credit default swaps, e.g.) that remains on the books of European and American [...]
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southof commented on the blog post Biden’s Admission on the 14th Amendment Actually a BFD
Can someone give me some advice using the URL link. Pasting the http://… into the link box, doesn’t seem sufficient. What else do I have to do, so that the link works when entered into a comment or diary?
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southof commented on the diary post Telling the Truth Costs a Lawyer Her License by RogerShuler.
Moderator: need some help using the link function. Can you explain how it works at FDL. Thanks!
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southof wrote a new diary post: A Colossal Blunder
What we have been and still are witnessing is a frenzied, breathless, totally opaque, antidemocratic, stage-managed spectacle between the House and Senate leadership and the White House — designed to not only achieve preordained results, but as importantly, designed to confuse and overwhelm the American people. The labyrinthine, marathon, back and forth rounds of “negotiation” [...] -
southof commented on the diary post The Death of Keynesian Economics and the Resurrection of Supply Side Idiocracy by masaccio.
This is hardly the time to engage in austerity economics. With 9.2%(U3), and 17%+(U6) unemployment/underemployment rate, with a 74.5% capacity utilization rate in manufacturing/mining/utilities, with two million foreclosures already, and two million homes in default, with eleven million homes (23%) underwater, with wages stagnant for over a decade, with a sizable trade gap, with state [...]
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southof wrote a new diary post: Reid Plan vs. Boehner Plan – the choice between “bad and worse” – choose neither
Despite Obama’s repeated calls for “shared sacrifice,” i.e., significant tax increases on the wealthy, coupled with spending cuts — what we are left to choose from are two plans — the Reid and Boehner plans — that, while they significantly cut discretionary government programs needed by the poor and middle-class, neither plan proposes any revenue [...]
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southof commented on the blog post Unemployment Drops to 8.9%; Obama Looking Stronger for 2012
Besides the 5,000,000 workers who have apparently been abducted by aliens, or who have otherwise dropped out of the labor force since late 2008, even the “official” BLS numbers give much room for pause.
Most economists and economic analysts agree that job growth rates must be above 200,000 workers in order to make a dent in unemployment. Since Nov. 2011, the u3 unemployment rate has almost fallen almost a full percentage point – from 9.8% to 8.9%
According to BLS stats there were 152,000 new jobs created in Dec. 2010; 63,000 new jobs created in Jan. 2011, and today’s preliminary Feb. report of 192,000 new jobs created. That is, with an average of only 136,000 new jobs created over the last three months by BLSs own stats, nevertheless there has been an almost 1% drop in unemployment.
What was it that Mark Twain said? Oh yeah, now I remember. “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
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southof commented on the diary post Far left attacking Liberals by Nogod.
Think the title of the diary is backwards. After reading the diatribe – er diary, it seems clear that the title should be: “Liberals attacking “far” left.
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southof commented on the diary post Far left attacking Liberals by Nogod.
Just wondering is the term “no god” a liberal or far-left term?
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southof commented on the diary post William Daley as White House Chief of Staff: The Wrong Direction by Robert Weissman.
This “wrong ” direction is the direction Obama has been following since the beginning of his administration. Obama marches to the beat of the Wall Street elites; marches to the beat of the crass, rapacious plutocracy that increasingly controls both our economic and political lives. Obama either agrees with this plutocracy; or is under its [...]
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southof commented on the diary post Liz Warren Tells Only Half the Story by Scarecrow.
Warren has to much integrity, spunk, and intelligence to be outright “captured.” But still, for all practical purposes, rendered ineffective, and basically powerless against the powers that be; and a bit idealistic, a little more naive, and probably too ready to believe that the President and his Treasury Secretary are not in total sync. Captured [...]
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southof commented on the diary post Obama Fails to Meet Emotional Needs Of Bankers by masaccio.
Two PR stunts: 1) that the banks — who have received an embarrassment of riches from the WH — are now upset by Obama. Obama politically needs the banks as a foil; the banks politically/economically need to make it seem that Obama is not giving them everything that they want, and more. The same with [...]
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southof commented on the blog post Bernie Sanders’ Long Speech Raises Attention to Tax Cut Deal
Bernie is exposing the real intent of so many of the elements of the so-called tax-cut compromise.
That the payroll tax reduction of 2% this year, e.g., which the Govt. will repay out of general revenue, is part of the Republican strategy of gutting SS as a self-paying program, and remaking it as a welfare program.
That the two-year tax cuts for the wealthy will inevitably become permanent.
And the two-year reduction of estate taxes, and increase in the exemption amount to $5 million, also will inevitably become permanent.
A number of liberal/progressive economists have been so enamored by the $8oo billion price tag of this tax-cut “compromise” as a source of demand-side stimulus, that, in their inclination to support this “compromise, they have been operating with a form of tunnel-vision in their inability to see the larger political/economic context in which this “stimulus” occurs.
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southof commented on the blog post Obama Worked to Kill Democratic Fight on Tax Cuts
That Obama would go to almost any extent to undermine any plan that would thwart an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy, has become irrefutable by his actions over the last couple of weeks.
That the Schumer million-dollar plan, in particular, was an alternative that needed to be stopped, because there was a groundswell of support that would almost surely lead to its passage, doesn’t seem to be supported by the facts, however.
From the Brian Beutler article:
“(Estimates suggest that lifting the threshold from $250,000 to $1 million could cost as much as $400 billion over 10 years.)
A Senate Democratic aide said that, for these reasons, the idea hasn’t really gained wide traction in the caucus. And a third source noted that a number of progressive members don’t want to start negotiations by giving up what they really want: a vote to let the Bush tax cuts expire above a threshold of $250,000 a year.”
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southof commented on the diary post Yesterday the Republicans, today the Israelis: Obama, ‘jump in the lake’ by shergald.
Today: “Then today the Obama White House announced that it had given up trying to get the Israelis to agree to an extension of the freeze on the initiation of new colonies on the West Bank and around Jerusalem.” Yesterday referring to Rethugs: “I wasn’t able to budge them.” Obama is a clueless, capitulationist. Impotent, [...]
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southof commented on the diary post No tax cuts for the wealthy. Use TARP funds to “bail out” the American people. by southof.
In Dec. 2009, Pelosi and Obama thoughts on the use of TARP funds Bloomberg: “Investments that we have in jobs should be paid for by TARP funds,” said Pelosi, a California Democrat. These include helping communities employ police officers, firefighters and teachers and help revive lending to small businesses, she said. … White House spokesman [...]
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