The US social scientists are still g(r)azing

The Diabolical Hand – Joseph Vogl on the Demystification of the Market

Despite all the crises that have shaken the world economy and financial system, the idea still appears to be widespread that the market is not only a place of rational adjustment but also of self-stabilizing forces. Large parts of economics and finance are based on this assumption. In his essay “Das Gespenst des Kapitals” (The Spectre of Capital), Joseph Vogl analyses our knowledge of the economy and asks, how in the face of the crises of the market can we speak of the economic world as a sensible and rational system? The capitalist economic system is based on the idea that the market economy is self-regulative and develops self-stabilizing forces. According to the theory, supply and demand are adjusted to one another by the price and goods are efficiently and justly distributed. The state should intervene only in the case of so-called market failure, as for example with cultural institutions. Apart from these exceptions, the market economy is regarded as the most efficient form of the organization of exchange relations. Crises are explained not by causes within the system itself, but by market-external factors such as mistaken economic policy.

Competition in all areas of life

The influential idea of a self-regulating, rational market is at the center of Jospeh Vogl’s essay. To sum up this idea he coins the term “ecodicy”, alluding to the term “theodicy”, which Leibniz coined in the eighteenth century to describe the doctrine that justifies the omnipotence of God despite all the calamity and obvious evil of the world. Vogl describes how economics, borrowing from theology, has built up a comprehensive doctrine of justification that, despite all economic and financial crises, still defends the idea of market development based on reason.
And defends it with enormous success: the dominance of this hardly questioned idea has led, Vogl believes, to the biggest “mass social experiment” of the present, the transfer of the principle of competition to all sector of society. Since the free market is seen as the guarantee for the efficient distribution of resources, non-economic areas such as the health and education sector have also increasingly been organized in accordance with market principles and man subjected to the economic perspective in all his social relations.

The beginnings of ecodicy

Vogl shows that the rational market is above all a powerful idea and not a description of reality by tracing the emergence of this idea in the economic discourse of the eighteenth century. Ecodicy finds its still best known metaphors especially in the writings of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith: like an “invisible hand”, writes Smith in his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the market adjusts the selfish interests of individuals and turns them to the common good.
According to Smith and economic theory in his wake, this constant desire for harmony is a natural law of society. More: the market first brings forth society. The capitalist economic order is therefore not only the best conceivable order, but also the morally imperative one. To the state falls the sole task of ensuring ideal market conditions. It should never intervene in market activity – not even with good intentions.

“The future is always already priced in”

Since the days of Adam Smith, however, the economy has changed fundamentally. Vogl describes how the circulation of fiat money as global currency and the abolition of fixed exchange rates for currency in the 1970s gave birth to the modern finance economy, through which value creation was possible not merely by the production of goods but alone through money. Endless concatenations of debts finance present investments at the expense of the future. Ever more complex financial instruments make scarcely intelligible transactions profitable, a process that Vogl, using the example of futures trading, describes as follows: “Someone who does not have a commodity, and neither expects to have nor wants to have it, sells this commodity to someone who expects to have or wants to have it as little as does the seller, and does not in fact receive it”.
Because financial markets are constrained to speculation by future price developments, there has been a feverish search since the 1970s for formulas to calculate future market trends. This “Nobel Prize-winning transformation of guessing games into the science of finance” transfers the idea of a rational market of commodity goods to financial markets. Calculations of this sort are possible at all only on the assumption that market movements are subject to internal laws and do not operate in a completely arbitrary manner. The contemporary study of finance teaches that the regulation of supply and demand, decisive for the balance of the market, is secured by the calculation of risks: investments regarded as safe have the prospect of only low profits, since they are expensive; risky investments, on the other hand, promise high returns. “The future”, as Vogl puts it, “is always already factored into the price”.

The perfect storm – the end of ecodicy?

But there are crucial differences between commodity markets and financial markets: the latter, exactly because of the element of speculation, compel conformity. Rising stock prices lead not to a decline in demand, but rather to its further increase. Falling prices, on the other hand, increase the flight from the affected stocks and accelerate the crash.
Thus “price fluctuations on financial markets” lead “to rational adjustment reactions; these in turn to coherent orders; and these finally, through positive feedback, to a ‘perfect storm’”. The influential equilibrium theorem of classical economics is turned into its opposite: the market mechanism does not turn the actions of individuals in a positive direction, as Adam Smith maintained; on the contrary, financial markets produce “systematic irrationality through rational decision-making processes”. So seen, crises are not anomalies, but part of the system and consequently inevitable. Alluding to Smith’s image of the invisible hand, Vogl writes: “If here the effectiveness of an invisible hand is in play, then it is of diabolical nature”.
The stability of our economies crucially depends on the smooth functioning of the financial markets. The globalized economy, however, can hardly any longer be politically controlled – as a result of the extensive deregulation measures of the 1980s, which were possible only on the basis of the faith in a self-regulative market. The lack of political influence stands in sharp disproportion to the distribution of risks: everyone must bear the costs of saving the financial system. This configuration, urges Vogl, must be opposed, and to that purpose we urgently need a demystification of the market and the end of ecodicy.

Anja Riedeberger is a cultural and media scholar and works at the Goethe Institut in the Science, Scholarship and Current Events Department. Translation: Jonathan Uhlaner

democracy is overrated

As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Protesters around the world have something in common: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.


“Our parents are grateful because they’re voting,” said Marta Solanas, 27, referring to older Spaniards’ decades spent under the Franco dictatorship. “We’re the first generation to say that voting is worthless.”
__________________________________

Isaiah Earhart
Seattle

Why is the NYT coverage of international protests so much more robust than their protest coverage of the very appropriate protest occupation of our own Wall Street.The Times has even given the protesters the aura of dignity and thoughtfulness. I am glad to read it. The protesters deserve it.

Capitalism will, by its own mathematical certainty, will concentrate vast wealth at the very top for the least moral among us. Democracy has been completely circumvented by huge corporations and the sociopaths that run them. I hope this inevitable change from this predatory system to a system that values the human being and our Earth's vital commons is a peaceful transition.

Meanwhile, we need another party to vote for.


sethwulsin
Cartagena

The headline for this article is extremely misleading, making it look like the protesters scorn the principle of voting, when it is the corruption of the voting process - the undermining of the vote, that protesters are fed up with.




SteveBrant
Los Angeles, CA

I love this very thorough article. Yes, there are protests against corrupt systems that don't really represent the people in countries all over the world... even in the largest democracy on the planet. People now realize that after they vote, the politicians they elect don't really take care of them. Those politicians take care of the very wealthy, who really run the country.

Of course, in the most famous democracy on the planet - the USA - there are no such protests, because our elected representatives always put "we the people" first.

Oh, but wait a minute... there are people protesting here in the USA! And for the same reasons too!

In the heart of Capitalism (Wall Street), we have Occupy Wall Street ( http://occupywallst.org/ )

And the protests have spread to Chicago ( http://occupychi.org/ )

And they're spreading to Boston ( http://occupybos.wordpress.com/ )

And they're spreading to California ( http://occupyca.wordpress.com/ )

And perhaps other locations too.

Yes, Nicholas Kulish and the rest of staff of The New York Times... people all over the world are fed up with no longer being represented by the people in their governments.

Even here in the USA!


Dan
Madrid

"these protesters share something else: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over. "

Protesters feel contempt towards the so-called, supposedly democratic political process. Protesters are angry at the farcical nature of a system which pretends to represent the interests of ordinary people, but really constantly and zealously subordinates those interests to those of corporations and rich people.


Sylvanus
New York

What has coincided with the spread of this disillusionment? The spread of neoliberal policies, that, in effect, place the wealthy and large, international corporations in charge, worldwide. No state can effectively contest them. Indeed, governments, while nominally democratic, become captives of finance. (See the writings of Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF.) Globalization, with no boundaries related to environmental or labor regulation, frees capital from ability of nation states to control it. If corporations don't like a state's policies, whether regulation of capital or the environment or labor laws protecting workers, financiers threaten to leave and take their capital with them. 400 families in the US now control as much wealth as the bottom 40-50 percent of US citizens. One billionaire in Mexico possesses as much wealth as 150 million Mexicans. The same pattern increasingly applies worldwide. Thus the similarity of the complaints of citizens worldwide.




Josh
Santa Barbara, CA

I have little respect for the system because it is corrupted beyond words by moneyed interests. The game is not fair, anywhere, and while it will never be perfect, powerful institutions in the most free country in the world are consolidating wealth, destroying societal progress, and making it so the rules continue to be written in their favor, regardless of how inexplicably disconnected from the public interest and public opinion this might happen to be. An injustice this massive and profound requires some feathers to be ruffled. You will not get away with this, This is OUR country, and we are going to reclaim it. You may not hear us yet, and can try to ignore us, but we're not going away. See you on Wall Street in a few weeks. Maybe by then, the Times will give this rising domestic outcry the attention it deserves.



Gayle
Vermont

I was there for the civil rights movement. I was there for the anti-war movement. I was there for the women's march on the Pentagon...and then for two decades I got co-opted into believing the system was actually gonna work for me. Now, I'm almost sixty, unemployed for three years with a husband who just lost his job through an e-mail. Our health insurance is $800 a month, and he gets $160 a week in unemployment. Well guess what we've got? Time. I stand in solidarity with those on Wall Street and am ashamed that it took this long to bring me back to the essential truth of what this country is about. Unbridled corporate greed.




pdxtran
Minneapolis

Taking part in the 2004 campaign of a presidential candidate who thought and spoke outside the box was quite a disillusioning experience. We had to beg and plead for local press coverage, and it was only through relentless guerrilla marketing that we gave this candidate his best national showing, 17% of the caucus vote.

National media, including the New York Times, mentioned him as a footnote or carried articles ridiculing him. Yet he drew increasingly large crowds in my area, and if I had received a dollar for every time someone told me, "I love him, but he can't win," I could have afforded a nice vacation.

I always knew this candidate was a long shot, but what left a bitter taste was the way the media and his own party disrespected him.

To top it off, John Kerry, whom I did work hard for, seemed less interested in investigating possibly election fraud in Ohio than his own volunteers and the minor parties were. He conceded while people were still standing in line in Ohio.

In 2007, I saw the national media pretend that only Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were running for the Democratic nomination, and this was before a single caucus or primary vote had been cast. I knew then that these were the two candidates the powers that be found socially acceptable. I almost voted 3rd party, except that I didn't want Sarah Palin within striking distance of the White House.

The more I see of American politics, the more I believe that it's all theater on the national level. Politicians are playing good cop/bad cop with the American people, but in the end, the right-wingers always seem to get most of what they want.

Almost all politicians seem out of touch with the everyday concerns of the American people, the most striking current example being their obsession with the deficit as millions are unemployed.

The demonstrations are an attempt to hit the politicians and bigwigs with a figurative two-by-four. There doesn't seem to be any other way to attract their attention.



Dave K
Cleveland, OH

To quote trader Alessio Rastani on the BBC on Monday:
"What I would say to everybody is 'get prepared'. This is not a time right now to ... uh ... wishful thinking the government is going to sort things out. The governments don't rule the world. Goldman Sachs rules the world."

When financial insiders are saying things like that, how could anyone have anything but disillusionment about the democratic process?

The only time real progress has been made for working people, both in the US and in foreign countries, is when they have taken to the streets, threatening to shut things down completely in a general strike unless they got what they needed. That's how Americans won the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, OSHA, and the right to collectively bargain. So why would the 'paper of record' argue that it's in We The People's interest to do anything else?




Maxomus
New York

I for one am not frightened, but encouraged by this article. Justified civil unrest, which somehow is held in utter contempt here in New York by our own police force and much of the well-heeled citizenry, is the seed for a global revolution—their worst fear—TRUE equality for all. Change on a global level is being empowered (and orchestrated) by the Internet, somewhat, but more so by poverty, unemployment, hunger (1 in 4 American children go to bed hungry) and lack of fulfillment in life—the true driving force behind this movement. Availability of truthful information is now accessible to everyone, no longer a private toy of the ultra-wealthy to manipulate world markets (and its people) with.

What is it we seek? Honesty among our leaders? Sorry, too late for that—we assumed for too long at the voting booth that they would work to maintain our society while improving our lives, and have our best interests at heart. Our governments have failed us; they are owned by thoroughly corrupt private interest groups, and so patriotism will take on its true meaning, as promised in our Constitution: a governing body OF the people, FOR the people and BY the people, as the Western governments are beginning to behave like the garbled tongues at the Tower of Babel. What is unfolding before us on YouTube is the Family of Man in action—we are in touch with each other, we empathize and take action against famine in Somalia, unjust government practices in the U.S. and in India, Israel—anywhere where corruption has put a chokehold on ordinary life. Humanity endures abuse until it becomes unbearable—and it is unbearable for me as a compassionate man, raised and tutored by Franciscan nuns— to know that 25% of our children are hungry while the upper 5% consume 40% of available goods. This will not be tolerated by honest folks for much longer.



Peter
Kenosha, WI

The whole world is a mess. The comments I see here daily and in other newspapers will soon spill out into the streets, in the USA too. Obama is just an empty suit while the Republicans will stop at nothing, even pushing the whole nation off a cliff in order to bring him down.

In Europe the euro currency has become a "too big to fail" project -- a political Trojan horse for the unelected Eurocrats smoking their bong pipes behind the closed doors in Brussels to cement their pipe dream of political and economic union in Europe, never mind that Europe is a geographic entity and not a cultural or a political one and that the people don't want it anyway.

What I fear is that somewhere soon, a young-ish intelligent charismatic person with long term malignant goals and the will to carry them out will appear. A Hitler like figure. The times are ripe for that person.


Elizabeth
Florida

Maybe everything in life is cyclical because if you read history and life in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries you get an eerie feeling that what we are witnessing with the hijacking of government by the uber wealthy is a "back to the future, let 'em eat cake" reality.

We could have seen it coming if we were not blinded by the small trickle that flowed to us from the corporate barons and the self serving elected officials. That trickle was easy credit which fooled us into thinking that we are on the rise and we are one of them. How insane it is for example that in this country if you close your credit accounts or do not use them it goes against your credit rating!!!!

I for one am heartened by what is happening although I hesitate to say I know how it will end (the French revolution is swirling in my head.)

In his poem Morte D'Arthur, Lord Tennyson wrote: "The old order changeth, Yielding place to the new, And God fulfills Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should so corrupt the world."

That "good custom" - capitalism - has corrupted the world. Unchecked, not monitored, ruled by a few is corosive and needs to be brought into balance.

random voices

A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy
By MICHAEL POWELL
The Oxford don, a liberal atheist who is arguably the world’s most influential evolutionary biologist, continues to turn the prevailing view of evolution and natural selection on its head.

HG
Califormia

According to Karl Popper's definition of science, Evolutionary Biology is not science in the sense that it is not falsifiable. The theory cannot be examined by controlled experiments.

The very fact that Prof. Gould and Prof. Dawkins cannot agree with each other is evidence that evolutionary biology is not as rigorous a science as Physics. Even Physicists dare not refute the possible existence of God the first cause. I am amazed by Mr. Dawkins's audacious claim that his theory refutes the existence of God.

Refuting the literal story of Genesis is not a difficult task. Anyone with common sense will know that there is no way Noah can have the engineering know-how to build the arc, let along preserve all forms of living beings. Can anyone build the arc with today's technology?

It is a trap for rational, secular minds when reading the Bible. It is easy to say: "How can anyone with basic intelligence believe this literally?" Well, metaphorically, it makes sense to many people. And that doesn't make them stupid.

Dawkins's fundamental pitfall is that he believes whoever disagrees with him is stupid. From what I know, this is not the feature of a top-notch thinker. All top thinkers I know are humble because the more you learn, the more you realize the limit of human knowledge.

________________________

Stocks Decline a Day After Fed Sets Latest Stimulus Measure
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and CHRISTINE HAUSER
Investor pessimism about the outlook for the United States and European economies was deepened by weak data for the euro zone and a grim assessment from the Federal Reserve.

James J. Connolly
Waterford, Connecticut

The world economic system is now in free fall, folks. First time since the 1930s.

The folks at the controls (banks, the Fed, Democrats, Republicans, EU, IMF) have no idea what they are doing.

The man behind the curtain is panicking, and he has reason to do so.

Prepare for 30 percent unemployment nationwide, mass layoffs of public employees, and a nationwide moratorium on future foreclosures as Obama's main campaign platform for 2012.

Stop the nonsense about a double recession.

The Second Great Depression is here.

Capitalism is in its death throes, and the subservient governments of Europe and North America have failed to prop it up after trying every trick in their books.




anges
Midwest

Perhaps the Fed's own thrashing about on monetary policy contributes to "spooking" the economy. After an heroic response to the events of the autumn of 2008 during which Bernanke helped prevent a catastrophic worldwide economic meltdown, the Fed has since started one horse after the next, all of which have keeled over well before the finish line.

We had QE and then QE2 and now the "Twist" and several other perturbations of the money supply. None of this has done a bit of good - and no wonder. The economic problems are endemic: over-reliance on consumerism, massive private and government debt, uncompetetive labor costs, a failing educational system, a stupendous system of entitlements and public pension costs -- on the state level especially -- that cannot be honored. All these lie at the root of our economic problems and there is no way out other than austerity, frugality, a reduction in labor costs and a rationalization of our balance sheets. The Fed has, instead, sought a magic solution to our ills, a "Hey, Presto!" monetary gimmick (e.g. ultra-low interest rates) that will cause everything to spring back to prosperity -- as if the past thirty years of foolishness never occurred.

The best thing the Fed can do now is -- nothing. Let interest rates rise to where the genuine demand for money puts them and quit goosing the money supply. At the moment, it is impossible to adequately assess risk and credit requirements because the money markets are so distorted by the Fed's incessant thrashing and magical thinking.

We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago. But, he needs to stop his Ben the Great magic act so that we can, as a nation and as individuals, address our real problems. These problems are real, profound and pervasive -- and they cannot be solved by monetary gimmicks.

Suzanne
Florida

Large corporations keep saying they don't understand why their stocks are so depressed: bookings look just fine for the next 18-24 months. Yet the media screams that the sky is falling. Why am I starting to get the notion that this "whole recession thing" is some gigantic scam? Who is making the money or otherwise profiting from this psychologically induced recession? Yes, it sounds like a crack-brained conspiracy theory, but there are a number of ways to deal with credit and demand issues constructively and NO ONE is doing it. Have I been viewing the class warfare too myopically? Are the masses in the process of losing the last battle, while never having known they were involved in a war until recently?
This isn't the death throes of capitalism, but it may be the death throes of democracy.


Boat52
Naples, FL

"We all owe Mr. Bernanke a debt of gratitude for his actions three years ago." No we don't because he didn't do anything other than debase the currency, inflict significant damage millions of savers who have witnessed the vanishing of their interest income, and dump huge sums onto to bankers so that they could earn bonuses even greater than before the financial crisis. The above statement should read: "Bankers all owe a debt of gratitude for his actions." It is time for a regime change at The Fed and a return to an interest rate environment that rewards capital formation and savings rather than one that stimulates more debt accumulation.


___________________________

WikiLeaks’ Founder, in a Gilded British Cage
By DAVID CARR
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is more hunted than hunter these days, an itinerant with no permanent address save for a country manor provided by a former British journalist.

Martin
New York

Assange should get the Nobel prize. He has exposed more corruption and official crime than all the world's journalists of the past 10 years. And so of course they villify him or talk about personality. Wikileaks represents an enormous challenge to a press which has turned from exposing corruption to joining it, from informing to distracting and deceiving.



hn
london

We live in a police state where you can be "free" as long as you don't disturb the big Capital and the governments which main function is to protect the Banks and the big corporations. The war in Iraq started on a lie, as is well known now. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It seems that hundreds of thousands died because of that lie.

People are still dying there because of the false reasons given for the war. Iraq is a mess now but it is also a big source of profit for many American companies. 



Then comes Julian Assange, who was brave enough to publish documents about the war, revealing information that gave us a better idea of what happened during the war in Iraq. Better than anything the press did, actually. 

And all this journalist can do is to write a cynical story portraying Assange as a paranoid, funny character. Assange is living the way he is so we could know more. He really deserves better than to be portrayed as a caricature.


caseycsw
13350

Assange is a modern day hero for exposing the murderous underside of the US corporate empire, and some day it will be recognized on a universal basis. For now we must endure NY Times articles portraying him as a seething and scheming Shakespearean figure, tragic because he has allowed himself to end up cornered in a "gilded cage". Actually, this article is more benign than most of the more sophisticated attacks on his reputation that the Times has deployed in the past. Just as the Gray Lady continues to ignore progressive opposition to the current state of affairs, while trumpeting the latest Tea Party sneeze almost as readily as Fox News, it occasionally stops to actually focus on left-wing demonstrations by bashing their intent and spirit altogether, such as in the wonderfully demeaning piece by Ginia Bellafante, "Gunning For Wall Street, With Faulty Aim"
(http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/nyregion/protesters-are-gunning-for-wa...
This, of course, is hardly surprising since many of the Wikileaks have pointed to the close bond between mainstream journalism and the corporate elites. Murdoch's hacking scandal is proof-positive. But it is truly sad to see the Gray Lady, once a staunch advocate for liberal and progressive causes, tied and bound by the sophisticated "right-wing lite" ideological wiring of her own gilded cage...



Jim Prince
New York

Dominique Straus Kahn goes free without a trial.

Barack Obama gets Nobel Peace Price with no qualification. Actually he is now blocking the freedom of Palestinians to have a free state and live in dignity.

You know they will get Julian Assange, one way or the other.

This is the new world order!

How can you tell we are in deep s...?

...perhaps when we cannot pay the tips for the miscellaneous costs of flying prisoners.

EIGHTY-NINE QUESTIONS: WHAT DID LIBYA DO FOR THE C.I.A.?

by Amy Davidson

How many more ways can evidence of America’s rendition and torture practices come to light? Earlier this week, it was thanks to a dispute over who would pay for muffins, airphone calls, and a plane to fly prisoners to secret prisons. Now, it’s with papers in a binder marked “C.I.A.” found in one of Qaddafi’s offices in Tripoli. (Jon Lee Anderson was on the scene for The New Yorker.) What next—an Eastern European military officer’s divorce trial, an election campaign in Asia, an iPhone prototype left in a bar? (That’s another story.) A program that involved hiding people from our country’s laws and courts, and outsourcing their interrogation to willing torturers—including, according to the documents, Qaddafi—left traces scattered around the world, waiting to be stumbled upon. A way they haven’t been cataloged, though, is the way they should have been: through a true reckoning by our own government. Instead, President Obama decided, in effect, that what was done was done. But it isn’t.

The “C.I.A.” binder was accompanied by two marked “MI6,” and the office they were in belonged to a man the Times described as “Libya’s former spymaster.” The paper also noted that, in the circumstances, their authenticity was hard to verify. (The C.I.A.’s response was not exactly a denial: “It can’t come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats.”) Peter Bouckaert, the emergencies director of Human Rights Watch, sat down and read through the binders. There were talking points for Qaddafi, logistical details for flights, and what seems to have been the bartering of Qaddafi’s opponents, some of whom had ties to Islamist groups, for his cooperation. One of them is now a rebel leader.

All in all, there were “thousands of pieces of correspondence from US and UK officials,” according to the BBC, which then quoted Bouckaert:

It wasn’t just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence…The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it’s very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves.

Its dealings in Libya are not the C.I.A.’s only problem; nor is the C.I.A. the only problem. The Washington Post has two new pieces in its “Top Secret America” series that one should read. The first, by Julie Tate and Greg Miller, is on the C.I.A.’s shift away from learning things and toward killing people considered dangerous (and who makes that call?), with analysts becoming “targeters.” The other, by Dana Priest and William Arkin, is about the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, which has held some thousand prisoners “in jails that it alone controls in Iraq and Afghanistan.” (“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.) The “C.I.A.” binder in Tripoli included “a list of 89 questions for the Libyans to ask a suspect,” the Times said. We should have at least that many—many more—for our own government.

________________


In democracies it is really easy. Economic power buys military power and military power buys political power. As one former US president so eloquently put it; "Its the economy, stupid"
by henkers




"(“We’re the dark matter. We’re the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” a SEAL told the Post.)" This may come across to many as simply a grandiose brag by one of the US Navy commando troops very proud of his groups' "accomplishments". However when put in general everyday language, the above statement is saying, "We enforcers turn all the words that make up orders/mandate/regulations/laws/edicts/directives/etc. issued by government legislators, executives (including the President), judges and bureaucrats into physical force upon the intended victim(s)." The point the SEAL was making - though I am certain he intended it to mean none other than for his particular military group - is that enforcers are *key* to all the words issued by their bosses in government. He's correct! And it is true for all government enforcers, including the domestic ("law enforcement officers") variety that without these initiators of physical force all those numerous official commanding words would be nothing but soundwaves and/or scribbles. Want to see these wars end?! Encourage and promote non enlistments in the military. No high ranking military or politicians are going to get out in the field - or even push the necessary buttons to launch weapons - and get their own hands dirty and/or bloody. No, rulers (and their adjutants) will always depend on underlings who have not yet been sufficiently persuaded by others that it is not in their own and anyone's longterm best interest to be a party to these actions. With far fewer troops available to each government, foreign wars will not be possible and only defense actions against invaders will be considered. This is not simply idealistic dreaming. It is a call to all individuals who want to see wars end to take personal responsibility for not approving with their continued voluntary association those among them who choose to continue to participate in wars, despite reasoned persuasion to get truly productive jobs.
 by KittyAntonikWakfer




Time for Obama to plan his own exit ... From office.
by sloper




It beggars the definition of word 'hypocrite' to contemplate that our government, which for decades, has excoriated Libya and Gadaffi as brutal barbarians, but at the same time, in secret, hires them to carry out the very worst barbarities on prisoners (kidnappees) in American charge. Americans who engage in this kind of activity are worthy only of death. They should be exposed, tried and executed as a warning to others who seem to feel being in the government is a free pass on morality and accountability.
by cythara




In simple terms, the USA, the great champion of moral authority in the world (as it sees itself) is by that definition the more guilty of the torture and murder it conducts (directly or by proxy) than the Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's - those over whom the US claims moral superiority. Obama is to my knowledge the only US President to have imposed a death sentence on a US citizen without the benefit of any legal process for presumed treason - putting him on a par with those same Gadaffi's,Hussein's Assad's and Khameni's. Time for Ms. Davidson to begin calling spades - well - shovels might be a start.
by JohnGilmore

9/11: "Specific, credible, but unconfirmed."

Johndrake07
NYC

Can you say 'False Flag Operation' - as if we need more justification for continuing the phoney war on tourists, excuse me, terrorism, this the eleventh year and counting?

The Great Distraction continues, and so does the non-stop filling of the sinkholes with trillions of taxpayer dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, along with the drain plug being quietly pulled on Syria and Iran.

Our officials aren't really concerned with protecting us from another 9/11 event or blow-back from our adventures abroad. Their concern is whether the American Public will wake up from their media-induced stupor and demand an end to this massive ripoff of trillions of dollars that could better have been spent fixing the ills in good ol' USA. But that would actually mean getting the money out to the people - in jobs, infrastructure repair, school improvement, road and rail rebuilding, and a host of other actions that would have a beneficial return on investment. Of course, that would also mean that the money spigot would be shut off to war profiteering, fraud, overcharges, millions diverted to off shore accounts, kickbacks to politicians and legislators, support and bail outs to failing and criminally negligent banks, and an end to the spinning and revolving door of job opportunity for our elected officials and their industry counterparts.

So, we can expect that the meme of 9/11 with all its fear mongering, Arab bashing, pseudo reconciliation, flag waving, crackdown of our freedoms here so they won't crackdown on them over there, not to mention the continuing dissolution of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, will continue unabated. After all, it is in their best interests to do so.

Police officers investigate a small cooler that was left unattended, causing sections of Times Square to be evacuated May 7, 2010 in New York. The cooler was determined to not be a threat, and the streets were reopened shortly after an hour of being closed.

Why are US in Iraq?

Hayward's Kurdistan deal: Another reminder that BP should be broken up

By Steve LeVine 

Former BP CEO Tony Hayward is receiving hearty handshakes for the $2.1 billion deal he has organized for fields holding a reasonably rich 356 million barrels of oil in Kurdistan. The agreed merger of Hayward's Vallares with Turkey's Genel Energy is his "continuing professional rehabilitation," Forbes says in one on-line piece, and "Tony Hayward's Revenge" in another. "Tony Hayward Makes a Comeback," says the Wall Street Journal. "Turkish Delight for Hayward" says Upstream magazine.
Are these assessments correct -- has Hayward (pictured above in less-happy times), 17 months after the devastating BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, demonstrated again that he has the right stuff? Mmmm ... no. What he has demonstrated anew is his taste for living on the edge, cutting corners and risk-the-company deals.
Those are not necessarily deadly attributes in the highly risky oil business. What makes them so hazardous is that Hayward does not appear to know his deals could jeopardize the company he happens to be running. He just stands on the ledge whistling. It is the same attitude -- one still apparent in his former company, BP (more on this below) -- that helped cause the Gulf spill of 5 million barrels of oil.
One can see what attracted Hayward to Kurdistan. He is in line to earn $24 million in shares in the merged company, and possibly more based on performance. He again is CEO of an oil company, albeit a pipsqueak compared with his old one. He is in one of the most exciting frontier oil regions of the world.
On the downside, Kurdistan is in perpetual dispute with Iraqi national leaders in Baghdad. The primary risk is that the entire deal could go south should Kurdistan and Baghdad plunge again fully into daggers drawn regarding the right of Kurdistan to sell and export oil. If that happens -- if Kurdistan or the Vallares properties alone are unable to freely export oil -- it would demolish the main rationale for Hayward's plans to list the merged company on the London stock exchange.
All of this risk-taking suits Hayward's new partner, Genel chief Mehmet Sepil. Last year, he was fined $1.5 million in Great Britain for insider trading, and thus could not have listed his company on the London exchange on his own merit, write Christopher Thompson and Anousha Sakoui at the Financial Times.
So the Hayward style (which to be fair was also his predecessor John Browne's style) continues in the land of wildcatting. But with his departure, it was supposed to be eradicated from BP itself. Yet as suggested above, there is evidence it has not.
We see this most recently in Russia, where Hayward's successor, CEO Bob Dudley, happily signed a blockbuster Arctic deal with Rosneft a few months ago that flouted contractual fidelity to an existing Russian partner. Courts effectively vacated the deal, and ExxonMobil, unhindered by any pre-existing marriage, picked it up last week in BP's place.
This has been so much blood in the water as far as BP's Russian partners are concerned, and they had masked Russian forces raid BP's Moscow office in supposed search of incriminating documents.
BP shareholders are clearly worried. In a piece this week, the Wall Street Journal's Guy Chazan reported that BP shareholders are demanding that management show that it knows how to right the company. He quotes Paul Mumford, senior fund manager at London-based Cavendish Asset Management, which owns BP shares: "BP is increasingly viewed as a company that's lost its way."
A few months ago, this blog argued that BP is such a serial offender, that it was time for shareholders to take matters into their own hands, and either totally shake up or say goodbye to the company. One option that's been discussed since the summer is breaking up BP into three or more parts. That is sounding more and more sensible.

Ex-BP Chief’s Firm to Buy Iraqi Oil Company in $2.1 Billion Deal
By JULIA WERDIGIER

LONDON — Tony Hayward, who resigned as chief executive of BP amid the fallout from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill last year, is set to become the head of another oil company.

Vallares, the investment vehicle Mr. Hayward co-founded with the financier Nathaniel P. Rothschild this year, agreed on Wednesday to buy Genel Energy International, an oil producer in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in a $2.1 billion deal.

Mr. Hayward will be chief executive of the new company, called Genel Energy. Rodney Chase, the former deputy chief executive of BP, would become chairman and Mr. Rothschild nonexecutive director.

Under the terms of the transaction, Vallares will issue $2.1 billion of new stock at £10 ($15.99) a share to acquire Genel in a reverse takeover. The owners of Vallares and Genel will own equal shares in the combined company. The Turkish billionaire Mehmet Karamehmet currently owns 56 percent of Genel, while the company’s chief executive, Mehmet Sepil, owns 29 percent.

The deal comes months after Vallares raised £1.35 billion ($2.1 billion) from investors through a London stock listing in June, with the expectation of buying oil and natural gas assets in Russia and the former Soviet states, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Genel has stakes in two producing oil fields, a major natural gas discovery and significant exploration acreage in Kurdistan, the semiautonomous northern province of Iraq, Vallares said.

“Our investors are acquiring a strong existing business with excellent producing assets, a fine team of technical and operating staff already in place, and immense potential for future growth,” Mr. Hayward said in a statement on Wednesday. “The Kurdistan region of Iraq is undoubtedly one of the last great oil and gas frontiers.”

Mr. Sepil, who will become president of the new company, was fined £967,000 by the British financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority, in February 2010 for trading in Heritage Oil based on inside information about drilling tests.

The newly combined entity plans to file a prospectus in October, allowing it to move forward with its listing in London. The deal is subject to the approval of the Kurdistan government, which the company expects to receive later this month.

Following the transaction, the company plans to have sufficient funds “to participate aggressively in the significant consolidation we expect to see in the region over the next few years and to expand elsewhere if good opportunities arise,” it said in the statement.

tim ohanlon...
aberdeen

Nathan Rothschild's listed cash shell Vallares is involved in a quiet, no holds barred fight in the distant oil fields of Kurdistan, with a secretive Chinese military controlled company Poly Energy. The fight which has important implications for Western oil companies is to acquire control of one of the largest oil field in Kurdistan, Tak-Tak.

Tak-Tak, one of the last so-called elephant fields is relatively under explored, but from the little that has been explored, experts estimate a reserve of approximately six. billion barrels in the ground
The field is presently owned by Sinopec a Chinese state company and Genel Energy, a company owned by Memet Kara Memet, the richest Turk in the world.

This is when Tony Hayward, the former boss of BP, who is Nathan Rothschild's partner in Vallares, sensing a good opportunity moved in, only to find himself in a head to head with Poly energy, who backed by the Chinese state, are trying to acquire complete control of the biggest block in Kurdistan for China Inc.

Poly Energy is, we understand, being advised by Shiv Shankaran Nair, a reclusive Maltese millionaire and deal maker, who has thrived on front ending transactions for Chinese State Companies in Africa.
Nair who counts The Barzanis, who run Kurdistan almost as a personal fiefdom, as his personal friends , has been shuttling between Kurdistan, Beijing and Ankara on behalf of his Chinese client, trying to persuade the Kurds to allow a 100 % Chinese takeover of their biggest field.

The Vallares bid which is around the 2.1 billion USD mark in a mix of cash and equity options has been trumped by a straight cash offer of 3 billion USD by the Chinese.
The only victor out of this fight is the diminutive Turk, Memet Karamemet, who is rubbing his hands in glee seeing an asset he paid a hundred million dollars for six years ago, being fought for at ten times what he paid for it

Also sprach Obama: A speech for all and none

Karen Garcia
New Paltz, NY

It was vintage Obama -- long (too long) on righteous indignation and populist pablum, short on specifics. Did you miss the part where he said his fantastic job creation plan, two-thirds of which is tax cuts, will be paid for by even more draconian cuts to the social safety net?

Pay attention, not to a president air-kissing the elite politicians in the hallowed halls of Congress, but to that secretive politburo known as the Super Committee, which met for the first time (that we know about) on Thursday. Among the items they will be considering is an increase in the Medicare eligibility age to 67. That, and other measures, such as a possible reduction in Social Security benefits based on chained CPI measures, are too steep of a price to pay for a few tax cuts. Moreover, the proposed halving of the payroll tax will have the net effect of not filling the coffers of the Social Security trust fund. Get a few thousand now, lose your retirement later. Sounds more like cynical chutzpah than a big bold plan to me.

Again, the president reverted to the same old tactic of speaking Republicanese to placate the Congress. The programs he suggested, for the most part, have their provenance in GOP Land. Tax breaks to businesses who hire are nothing new.

The optics of the speech were in-your-face terrible. Who had the bright idea of seating tax-evading, anti-union offshore jobs shipper Jeffrey Immelt of G.E. in the First Lady's box? At least the camera operator had the good sense to pan in on him rising to his feet in gleeful applause when Obama talked about the great trade deals with South Korea, Panama and Columbia -- allowing G.E. and its ilk to outsource even more jobs and hoard obscene corporate profits.

I wish Obama had explained to the American people just what got us into this mess (Wall Street and deregulation) in the first place. Instead, he continued in austerian mode and just nibbled around the edges. Scary stuff.

http://kmgarcia2000.blogspot.com/



Marie Burns
Fort Myers, Florida

Uh, I thought the American people HAD been demanding action on jobs. I guess Congress doesn't read the public polls, all of which show overwhelmingly that Americans think the biggest problem in the country is unemployment. You wrote in a blogpost today, "I don’t want to wax all sentimental about the genius of the common man. But the fact is that both the origins of this crisis and its perpetuation overwhelmingly reflect the errors of the very people now lamenting the annoyances of democracy that keep them from imposing their preferred policies." I listened to a little bit of C-SPAN's post-speech phone-in, and while it's true that the people who called in weren't Nobel material, every one I heard, from left and right, complained about unemployment.

And as if to prove the point that the Very Serious People aren't listening to these people, Peter Walsten of the Washington Post reported yesterday: "More than two dozen senators [the usual suspects] from both parties met privately this week to revive hopes of a grand debt-cutting bargain -- exploring how to push the newly formed debt 'supercommittee' to find far more than its assigned goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions.... [President] Obama, too, is expected to press the committee to exceed its deficit-reduction goal. In his speech Thursday night, he called on Congress to increase the super­committee's deficit-cutting goals to cover the costs of his jobs plan."

Meanwhile, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke thinks people like me are a big part of the problem: In a speech yesterday, he said, "Even taking into account the many financial pressures that they face, households seem exceptionally cautious." As Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times put it, "Consumers are depressed beyond reason or expectation." Maybe Bernanke should talk to Tom Friedman. Friedman called us "self-indulgent" this week.

Any way you look at it, we ordinary Americans get no respect.

The Constant Weader at www.RealityChex.com


MNW
Connecticut

In my view we need to address specific targets.
There is hiring and there is demand for products and services. It is the chicken/egg dilemma - which is first.
Some entity has to step up and be first. Should it be hard-pressed consumers in the lower/middle class or Corporations with accumulated profits and overpaid upper management?
The answer is obvious - Corporations must stop outsourcing, reducing the workforce, decimating benefits, hoarding profits, etc.
Start hiring regardless. Reduce upper management salaries/perks. Bring back overseas profits without the blackmail of lesser taxes on those profits. They owe it to the society that put them where you are in every sense of the word. We are ALL in this together - we are an interdependent society.
Listen to Warren Buffet - a man of good conscience - promoting higher taxes on million dollar incomes and raising the 15% capital gains tax plus other sensible taxation measures. He would work effectively with persons in upper income brackets to bring about much needed change in the areas of deficit/debt/taxation matters.
Corporations want the lower corporate taxes to be found abroad, but not the higher income taxes that those countries require - to fund social programs for their society. Corporations want it both ways. If they move Headquarters to other countries to take advantage of lower corporate taxes then their upper management should be required to move there also to pay the required higher income taxes. It is called a balanced equation/system. Make "balance" the new byword for the benefit/fairness of us all.
Examine the tenets of Capitalism. An aspect of a capitalistic system is that INCOME in the system takes two basic forms - profit on one hand and WAGES on the other. Wages implies WORKERS and it is here that our system of Capitalism is currently failing us as a nation and as a society.
Until a credible balance returns to the two factors of profits and wages/workers we will remain in a precarious position regarding our viability as a functioning national entity on the world economic scene.
The first step to correct a Capitalistic system gone .......... haywire is to return manufacturing plants/processes to this country. If the government must step in to advance this necessary condition, then so be it. Wages and workers are at stake in the US and profits must be put back to work in the US for the benefit of all - the enterprise itself, management, employees, shareholders, investors, society, and even good government itself.
One of the functions of profits is to use them to expand an enterprise, creating more jobs and wealth here in the US. Creating more jobs creates more demand and creates more wealth for everyone. Isn't this what we currently need - more jobs and by extension more wealth?
End the damaging outsourcing of jobs and end the damage being done to our middle class and its economic viability - do that as soon as possible.



Andrew
Colesville, MD

Obama’s job creation proposal is a temporary alleviation of the economy malady at the best. The establishments and theirs aids confound temporary Xanax with cure; Aspirin is not an elixir. They prefer the demand side to supply side economics, unfortunately neither works.

It is wrong to say lack of consumption demand caused mass unemployment and economic stagnation. Demand deficiency is the not the cause rather the effect. The basic cause of capitalist economic crises is its structural deficiency and inextricable internal contradictions such as that between unlimited surplus value or profit extraction and relative over-population, including unemployment and under-employment and the vicious cycle thereof, ad inf.

There is adequate consumption demand supported with unemployment compensation, food stamp, welfare, child assistance, income tax credit, Medicaid, severance payment, Medicare, Social Security, pension and 401K, etc., in addition to capitalists’ own luxury consumption demand. Demand does not cause economic crises at all. If it did, wherefrom does the exorbitant profit come? Remember 70% of national income comes from consumption. Putting demand as a cart ahead of the capital horse is the best way to lurk the Ponzi blackmail of capital that is the real culprit. Obama wants to harmonize the capital and labor relationship serving as a runaround for capital to continue riding roughshod over labor.

Capital is the only pivotal force that debilitates the economy and abuses its power onto the working class. Every sincere & honest politico-economic calamity fighter must stop mollycoddling capital and masquerading pro-capital act as fair & balance neutrality.

Overproduction & over-accumulation of capital must stop before suffering further deterioration of economy. Unfettered labor productivity development, which incites excess capital, including cash hoarding & excess working population, including unemployment, must rein in hard through profit-sharing.

_________________________________

I do think Andrew goes the closest to the heart of the matter.  The problem is:

1. How do you tel that to democratically entitled folk?
2. How do you steer the ship into the right direction?

Obama and the powers that be are obviously interested in neither.  The ship is adrift in stormy seas, the increasingly restless passengers are looking for terra firma, an accident will take or tell us there.   As the elites are always interested in the status-quo ante, only an accident will take us there. 

When did WWII(I) start?

...September 1, 1939?  Not really -- the Germans started it much earlier and the Allies a bit later.  How did the US get involved?  Japanese oil.

When has WWIII started?  Then, that is, pick your date after 9/11/2001.  How the other(s) may get involved?  Oil/vital resources.

Did Qaddafi indicate a change of taste from western to eastern currencies in exchange for the Libyan oil?

Libyan Historical Echoes

A. T.

Scarborough-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Libya has over 140 tribes and is a colonial construct cobbled together by the Italians from Fezzan (the south), Tripolitania (the west) and Cyrenaica (the east) using concentration camps (Suluq, Al-Maghroun, Al-Abiyar and Al-Agheila), by executing its religious and political leaders (Omar Mukhtar), and by manipulating various civil wars as they broke out. Just as with Iraq and the others, pundits, media and governments and those pandering to them, project their own false reality on the situation – its easy to invent “we are one country and one people all wanting the same thing but terrorized by a tyrant.” But the shallowness of that protestation becomes immediately evident the second a victory seems imminent. Then, opponents are not countrymen, but “rats” to be exterminated. Those actually familiar with that region and its history and its people, on the other hand, point out that this is just another chapter in a long history of civil wars between Benghazi (Cyrenaica) and Tripolitania. For some reason, NATO countries orchestrated a victory for Cyrenaica, so the tribes of the East will now prosper at the expense of all others. Ghadaffi is, after all, the name of a Tripolitanian tribe, not just that of a man or a family. Democracy demands that each region choose whether it would like to be part of a greater Libya and, if so, how to insure the rights and equal participation of all, with particular sensitivity to the weaker tribes of the former Fezzan to the South and the tribes just crushed by NATO. But there is no reasonable expectation this should come to pass after a war that caused more death than it prevented and that had no believable objective directed towards building a pluralistic society.

________



From the above comment, one gets the idea that, in the good British imperial tradition, Libya will enjoy a precarious stability, at best.  Hot peace can be maintained for now (read, as long as the rate on US Treasuries is low). The Russians are happy to see their oil-income go up amid instability in the oil-exporting countries.  The Chinese interests will have to be factored in the Libyan peace as well.  Whom should we invoice for the target practice?  BTW, Bush's Mission Accomplished moment is being mirrored when they want us to think it's over in some quarter of the Arab Spring.  Has anyone heard the Fat Lady?

US in one line: No organized labor

NYTimes reports:

On Wednesday, 300 foreign students walked off the job and staged a protest rally at a packaging warehouse for Hershey’s chocolates, saying this wasn’t the America they had paid to see.  When they tried to organize, they said they were warned to stop complaining or they would be kicked out of the program.

Context:


The students, from Turkey, China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Mongolia, Moldova, Poland and Ghana, were hired under the J-1 visa program, which allows foreign university students to work in the United States for two months and then travel. The idea is to let them practice English, make some money and learn what America is like.

These students found themselves working in an industrial park, packing candy and moving boxes, many on the overnight shift. Though they had each paid from $3,000 to $6,000 to participate in the J-1 program, rent and other fees were deducted from their paychecks.

NYTimes whitewash:

There is much good to see in this country. And no one should want to sugar coat the tougher side of life here either, including long shifts at backbreaking jobs for low pay that is familiar to American workers. But no workers should have to put up with bullying from bosses or threats of firing (or in this case deportation) if they want to organize. That sort of “cultural experience” should shame us all.

REALITY:


We don't do organized labor, for we restrict the 1st Amendment to noise generating ends, and suspend it when the the owners feel threatened.  Yup, the J-1 students must also be their temporary property.   How do they perceive America?  Why bother to ask, the scheme seems to be working...

Morality comeback?

Morality has long lost its place among the yardsticks with which we tell each other and ourselves how well we do.  The Darwinian justice of the markets was expected to exact the price of the socially under-performing actions.  Hence everything has turned into a market, from markets of ideas to dating markets, from job markets to derivative markets.  While many a population has followed its respective market gyrations, trying to understand and work the market magic to its advantage, the elites scorned disdainfully at any idea of morality.

The recent blowups in Iraq have brought back the moral dimension into the public discourse.  Have a look for yourself: 

Steve Bolger

New York, NY

Pathetic. Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, but America the Stupid still propagates the lie. This country is so comprehensively dishonest it deserves its impending total collapse.

James O'Donnell III

Fremont, CA

If America’s leaders had a shred of human decency, Congress would’ve ended this criminally misguided debacle years ago, and several thousand Iraqis would still be alive today.

Instead, refusing to acknowledge our grave miscalculations (and ignoring the advice of our top military men), America had to “Surge,” giving Iraqi civilians the deadliest year of the war, just to pad the ego of an infantile failure of a president who couldn’t abide the idea of losing a war on his watch.

For the record -- which has been deliberately muddied by the Neocons and “mainstream” media -- the Surge was an abysmal failure: it exacerbated the ethnosectarian bloodbath and birthed fresh grievances with atrocities like the purge of the vast majority of Baghdad’s Sunnis (which created a million NEW refugees). It achieved none of its stated goals for political reconciliation or restoration of services.

Post-Surge Iraq is a civil war constrained only by its newly segregated population, divided by concrete blast walls erected by a brutal occupier.

Now Obama is our president, and despite his “anti-war” image, he’s been pushing Iraq to accept a prolonged U.S. military presence -- 10,000 soldiers in addition to the nearly 200,000 mercenaries we employ. He’s done so without a single strategic shift to acknowledge (and begin reversing) the terrible damage wrought by America’s profiteering policy of domination and control.

The decent (and intelligent) thing to do would be to admit our mistakes and begin making amends, relinquishing our geopolitical and economic ambitions where Iraq is concerned.

We owe the Iraqis and our own sacrificed soldiers no less.

But in Iraq and elsewhere our leaders continue down the morally grotesque GWoT path forged by Bush/Cheney. It’s a reminder that the true face of “evil” is something far more mundane than that which we usually imagine. In fact, it’s so common we see it every day.

It is the face of moral cowardice.

James O’Donnell III

Invitation2Artivism.com

harkadahl

London

A farcical, incompetent, malevolent assault on an innocent nation and it's long suffering people. The USA ought to hang it's head in abject shame (if it ever understood the notion of shame).

Donna

Cornwall, U.K.

As the mother of a former US Marine who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, I bucked the tide of military families by protesting the waste of war at every opportunity.

While my son accepted the fact that serving in a war zone was his job, and remained apolitical, I felt it was my job, as a mother, to condemn the immorality of squandering blood and treasury on an illegal invasion waged by warmongers -- on both sides of the Atlantic -- who lacked counterinsurgency tactics and an exit strategy.

No military parent wants to feel their child was killed in vain. But with Iraq's deadly internal strife continuing 8-1/2 years after the invasion, what else is one to think?

The cold arrogance of politicians willing to sacrifice other people's children in unwinnable wars still boggles the mind and sickens the heart.

Citizen

RI

Many comments are against the wars. Interesting, since there were also many comments FOR going in to Libya. As a country, we never like the war we're in, but that never stops us from entering or causing another one.

I'll wager that the next time the president makes the case for "intervening" in some two-bit third world country's issues, half of the people commenting against our current wars will be behind him, telling us how so very vital such and such's internal issue is to our national security, and how we desperately need to send in our troops to help straighten them out.

I am sickened by our addiction to war.

And this comment transitions it to Libya:

Alfred Noble

Geneva, Suisse

US OUT OF LIBYA NOW!!

Why is the US funding hardline Islamic Rebels in Libya?

The Rebels are guilty of far worse Human Rights Crimes than Ghadafi ever was guilty of.

Why are we the world's policeman?

We've wasted $1.2 Trillion in Libya now and are still flying DAILY bombing missions.

street professor

sydney, australia

"Democracy” comes out of the payload of a bomber aircraft, apparently… Saving them Libyans from themselves with NATO 'freedom bombs'.

Can't be long before Hillary asks Gaddafi to step down again, because the US knows what is best for the Libyan people. Free health care, education, housing, cheap oil, a massive water project and the highest standard of living in Africa isn't acceptable to the US.

You Libyans need 'US style democracy'.... heaps of debt, privatised Central Bank, high income taxes, high cost of education/health care and constant wars. Just ask the Iraqis to see how much fun it is.

Next stop, we'll help those Syrians out.

HAIDER ALI

NEW YORK

The great robbery of the century. First, the western countries sent the mercenaries for looting and plundering in Libya, and then seized the Libyan bank accounts and assets. And now they are releasing those funds to the rebels to buy the garbage from them(west), as well as pay them the consulting fees and etc.

Perhaps, if the Libya did not have $30 billion in the USA bank, it might not have this trouble.

Anyhow,the traitors will meet their consequences, and to capture the Libya like Iraq and Afghanistan will be foiled in the desert. We must feel sorry for the deaths in Iraq today, and take a lesson from this tragedy.

Lyle Vos, Democratic Candidate for President 2012

NY NY

Why doesn't the press confront Obama about Libya? Who is paying for the US war against Libya?

WHAT THE SILENT MAJORITY DOESN'T UNDERSTAND IS THAT IT WILL EVENTUALLY LOSE THE COMFORT OF WHATEVER IT INVESTED IN THE STATUS QVO.  YOU TELL ME THE MORAL, PLEASE!

There are few honest people in this crappy world!

It so happens that our mass media are designed to con-front our common sense, in judgment and values, with the worst in ourselves.  This is so much so that even when you see through the crap they put on public display, you think you are alone.

A fellow traveler at Patrice Ayme's blog, Keith to be more precise, pointed my attention to the following:

Here’s something by Max Blumenthal (author of Republican Gommorrah) who draws in all sorts of threads:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/640055/why_anders_behring_breivik_cannot_be_dismissed_as_a_%22madman%22/#paragraph2
In the comment section you might (or might not!) like the link to a Chris Hedges article on fundamentalism:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fundamentalism_kills_20110726/

And that's how I've discovered Chris Hedges, what a revelation!  Hedges looks at how the institutionalized LEFT has failed the people.  Was it easy money that did it?

After all, I think there are many more of us, except that we are being kept at distance from each other, or when we come in close proximity we do it at 120mph moving in opposite directions...

Surely you didn't buy the circus our Congress had kept on display for so long.  I saw this morning I was not alone  :-)  when I read the comments from Krugman's op-ed in NYtimes.

I

honeyspider

Seattle

Calm down, Paul. Your the-sky-is-falling rhetoric is not helping your case.

"Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy.... The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further."

That's not what Keynesian Economics says and you know it. Keynesian fiscal policy calls for deficit spending to prop up demand. Fiscal stimulus is proportional to the size of the gap between government spending and tax revenue, not the total amount of spending.

The "worst" thing you can do, according to Keynes, is to reduce the short term budget deficit, by any means. Whether it's cuts to domestic spending or tax increases makes very little difference. Now, this deal makes minimal reductions to the short-term budget deficit (on the order of $100 billion), not great, but not the end of the world, and not enough to make the difference between recovery and recession, but even if it were, raising taxes by the same amount would have exactly the same impact.

"Indeed, slashing spending while the economy is depressed won’t even help the budget situation much, and might well make it worse."

Oh, please. This is the mirror image of "tax cuts pay for themselves" and it's just as erroneous for exactly the same reason.

"And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options.... But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not."

Sure, let's invoke a constitutionally questionable unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by citing the 14th Amendment. I'm sure investors around the world will happily continue buying treasuries at 3% while Congress moves to impeach the President for treason and we wait 6 months for the Supreme court to decide whether the U.S. will default on it's debt. You're not even making sense any more.

II

kathleen

Oakland, CA

This deal may provide the impetus to go with a four-party system, since liberals/progressives have been completely ditched (and dissed) by President Obama, and across the aisle, moderate Republicans are split from the Teapartiers.

Given this most recent capitulation by the President, I will find it very hard to remain a Democrat, let alone support his candidacy. I do not appreciate the scorn he has shown to those responsible for his gaining office, and I am repulsed his cozy relationship with all the Wall Street tycoons, Jeff Immelt being the last straw in that department. It is obvious who matters to this administration.

This was no negotiation. I am close to believing it was all in the plan from the start. I do not intend to vote for a Republican, regardless of which party they belong to.

It is a pity that America has come to this point, that we have declared ourselves to be a can't-do nation: can't maintain a safety net, or our infrastructure, or a decent system of education, none of it, AND we have to continue to unfairly enrich the already-wealthy.

We don't even have a President who can utilize his co-equal power and his bully pulpit to effectively prevent such a debacle. Instead it's been lots of lines drawn in the sand, only to be erased, and lots of deadlines, only to be extended, until finally, the extortionists' deal is done. For now. Because surely, now that they've tasted success, this will not be the last use of extortion; once again it's been proved quite effective!

In each "negotiation" the Republicans have become ever more emboldened to demand more in the next round. I am beginning to wonder whether I even want to live amongst people who behave so badly, who would treat so many with such contempt; who would so readily revoke longheld quid pro quo promises of Social Security and Medicare; and who would seek to deny Medicaid and food security to the destitute.

And still there are no jobs for the jobless. What are the people to do? 

 

 

III

SD

WNY

An excellently guided series of points by Paul, save - ironically - for the title. The President (and top congressional Democrats) didn't surrender! He and they got exactly what they wanted from the beginning: the promise of deep, long-term cuts to social security and medicare. That is the only reasonable way to interpret it (on top of Rep. Conyers point blankly commenting that the President has been the one insisting that SS must be a part of the deal), there have been so many possible alternatives to this deal not taken that it's the only interpretation worth taking. Had he not extended the useless, $600 billion dollar two-year "Obama/Bush Tax Cuts" in December, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he included a debt ceiling raise in that deal to extend the tax cuts, when it wasn't politically contentious, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he addressed health care cost inflation with his health care reform bill, instead of *only* coverage, we wouldn't be talking about the debt ceiling now. Had he allowed the negotiations to pass the arbitrary August 2nd deadline, it wouldn't have led to a default. The treasury has enough projected revenue for August to cover the loan interest payments. What it would've led to is a re-prioritization of spending, meaning that Social Security checks likely wouldn't have gone out in full or on time for August/September. The Republicans have already been blamed for their intransigence. That's the narrative. Failure to meet the deadline is no risk for Democrats right now. Once those SS checks fail to make it out on time, imagine the sheer volume of complaint calls and media panic hitting freshman tea-partiers. If the Paul Ryan Budget put their feet to the flames, this would've engulfed them. Had he been willing to put his re-election framing as the "reasonable" and "conciliatory" moderate behind the interests of the nation, we wouldn't be dealing with this terrible debt ceiling deal right now.

 

 

IV

LukeLiberty

California

I think those posting here are living in an alternate universe. Krugman's analysis is linear and does not address the fundamental dynamic of the ratio of debt to GDP, and the fact that it is structurally escalating. His strategies might work in times of better ratios, but there is a point of elasticity with debt. We are past it. As far as the "historical record" about tying slashed spending to jobs and economic well-being, the largest drops in government spending occurred after WW2, and the private sector went to work. And does confidence matter? Yes, which is why companies simply stopped hiring and/or got health care waivers after the HCR passage. Hirings dropped 90% within 2 months of HCR passage.

Instead of being grateful for the greatest prosperity in history, we have done what many lottery winners do - gluttonously spent even more than we have. We have demonized each other in a fight by politicians and moneyed interests to keep power and money, at the expense of the next generations. The complainers on this board do not realize it, but the greatest friends of their children and grandchildren are the ones who say the spending madness has to stop. We can't do anything on a progressive agenda to help humanity if we have no resources or have to borrow to do it. We can spend what we don't have... but only up to a point. We are past that point, after decades of indulgence and denial. Krugman's point of view has a Nobel Prize behind it. The one expressed in these paragraphs has mathematics. Math wins.

 

 

V

Where are we going?  Lower.  How low?  Until we can see the starry sky and moral law above us.

 

oh no, we americans are not socialist!

NYTimes is doing someone's work again and publishing the following piece

To Reach Simple Life of Summer Camp, Lining Up for Private Jets
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Even as the economy limps along, more of the nation’s wealthier families are cutting out the car ride and chartering planes to fly to summer camps.

We, the never socialist people, comment:


of 4Next
1.
Arkymark
Vienna, VA
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
See, they do need lower taxes.
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8.
Unemployed in the Midwest
Midwest
July 25th, 2011
7:31 am
I just woke on day 20 of my first unemployment in 25 years, and as usual am reading all the papers to stay current. This is just a horrifying article, what a punch in the face to the millions of families struggling. Clearly there winners in this bizarre economy, but an article like this could actually be a tipping point.
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3.
Mary
NY
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
After camp is finished, maybe these kids return to their 20,000 dollar backyard playhouses. Somtimes, I think the NYT publishes these types of articles to push our middle and working class buttons.
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11.
TB
New Jersey
July 25th, 2011
7:32 am
Please don't raise their taxes. It might create a hint of discomfort in their lives.
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20.
Raymond
BKLYN
July 25th, 2011
7:33 am
And this luxury for rich kids, while a third of US children are in households below the official poverty line, a very low standard indeed. But, hey, this is America, USA No.1, the model for all the world to follow. Raising taxes on the rich, to say the Eisenhower era level, would be treason.
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5.
C Murray
Alexandria VA
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
Well, I think that these parents, more than likely, could afford to pay a little more in taxes than the other 96% of American's, contrary to what the Republican's seem to think! These people have way, way too much money, they should humble themselves and have their kids take a Greyhound Bus, like I did in the late 60's! PITTIFUL!!
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12.
bbl229
New Fairfield, Ct
July 25th, 2011
7:32 am
I think these people could afford to pay a little more in taxes don't you?
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2.
Madame de Farge
usa
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
Better than using that money to create jobs!
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19.
Rich
Washington
July 25th, 2011
7:33 am
Arrrrrgggggggh.......and the right has the temerity to hold America hostage to protect Connecticut hedge fund managers and their Jets?

Let them eat cake, indeed.
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18.
mikelpeters
New Jersey
July 25th, 2011
7:33 am
I can only imagine the self of entitlement these teens and families must have arriving in a jet. An absolutely horrible example to set during these times of economic troubles. So much for the quality time with your children during the road trip.
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14.
EW
NY
July 25th, 2011
7:32 am
..."brought on two extra people to help handle the traffic last weekend."

See? Trickle-down DOES work!
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16.
terypat
Fall River, MA
July 25th, 2011
7:33 am
God forbid we require these parents to depreciate their jets over seven years, because we all know the toll these planes take carting around precious 13 year old cargo to summer camp and no doubt private school in the fall! Don't you realize the major impact that will have on her trust fund? The horrors!
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15.
Scott Contreras-Koterbay
Johnson City, TN
July 25th, 2011
7:32 am
Seriously? No, I mean... SERIOUSLY? Rich people bemoan and bedevil the notion of entitlements for people of lower incomes, but even if they are able to afford it this still speaks of an egregious mindset filled with a sense of entitlement. Perish the thought that the children might not see their parents for seven weeks while at camp, or that the parents might have to schedule a complete day to either bringing or picking up their children.
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17.
Mayim
NJ
July 25th, 2011
7:33 am
yeah and we should't vote to tax the wealthy cause we wouldn't want their kids to have to fly commercial or horrors, drive or take a train or bus.
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13.
Charles Teague
New York, NY
July 25th, 2011
7:32 am
Please don't do stories like this.
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28.
HylasBrook
Canaan, NY
July 25th, 2011
7:43 am
The rich simply have too much money. Their current tax rate is lower than it was under Reagan. While they can throw money away on private jets and chartered jets, working Americans struggle each day.

This article has a good point -- President Obama wants to raise some revenues to address the US's deficit. One of the things he's suggested is changing the depreciation on private jets and big yachts from 7 years to 5 years.

Yet this small amount of revenue is too much for the Republicans. They prefer to cut funding for the FAA, for better tornado tracking, and better emergency response systems for natural disasters.

Which is more important to Republicans - letting a 50K a year government employees keep their job or making it easier for the wealthy to afford their private jets?

You decide. And remember that November 6, 2012.
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4.
Ira. B.
New York City
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
I just returned from visiting day weekend in Maine. By car. It only takes 6 hours from New York, and we got to stop for Lobster at the Chauncey Creek Lobster on the way in and pizza at Frank Pepe's on the way back. Sure beats a peanut butter sandwich (or even a lobster) flying private.

Also, talk about leaving a carbon footprint!
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21.
Bill
New York
July 25th, 2011
7:42 am
This is just weird. And gross.
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6.
Justin
Portland, Maine
July 25th, 2011
7:30 am
Oh good, less traffic for us commoners to deal with on I-95.
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24.
decell
new orleans
July 25th, 2011
7:42 am
I know people have the right to make choices with their money, but I am offended to read that campers take private planes. Have their parents heard about the starving children in Somalia? Do they think about the impoverished kids in cities who never get a couple of weeks of fresh air? What values are they teaching their children? It's time for higher taxes on those making above $250,000 a year.
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26.
Cheri
Tucson, AZ
July 25th, 2011
7:43 am
Is flying their kids to summer camp on private jets the way the rich create jobs with their extended tax breaks? All those who want to raise the debt ceiling at the expense of the poor, elderly, and middle class ought to be proud.
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25.
Jeanne Elias
Waitsfield, VT
July 25th, 2011
7:42 am
Oh Please!!! This is too much! Now tell me that the little Anna is going to work for the Peace Corps some day and help all the unfortunates in some exotic foreign country.
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36.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
Disappointed
France
July 25th, 2011
8:05 am
I hope kids are taught at these camps to appreciate nature and the damage that senseless consumption does to it.
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32.
FilmMD
New York
July 25th, 2011
8:04 am
This story is actually really depressing.
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7.
Joseph L Cooke
Washington DC
July 25th, 2011
7:31 am
My grandson traveled to his summer camp yesterday in a Cessna 182. His parents are not wealthy, but didn't want their 10 year child fondled or sexually molested by TSA thugs.
Recommend Recommended by 15 Readers [ISN'T THERE A SPECIAL CATEGORY FOR THIS COMMENT?]

60.
nana2roaw
albany, ny
July 25th, 2011
8:08 am
During the Depression, the rich were decent enough or perhaps fearful enough to tone down ostentatious displays of wealth. During World War II, their children fought bravely beside the most impoverished of their fellow countryman. Today's upper class now fights modest tax increases that would stabilize our economy so that they can build $250,000 playhouses for their toddlers and fly their tweens in private jets to rustic summer camps. Like Dick Cheney, their priorities do not include military service. It appears that they no longer consider the rest of the citizens of this country their fellow Americans.
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95.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
bh
alexandria, va
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
poster #3--exactly. These stories DO push our working- and middle-class buttons. That's exactly why we should have more of them. This kind of wealth should not be allowed to be invisible. Then people might know just what kind of a farce it is to have a million-dollar bonus when working people are losing their homes.
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69.
sjd4
Durham, NC
July 25th, 2011
8:10 am
I work in a homeless shelter. I see the ravages of poverty on bodies and souls. I see the effects of the increasing gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor. The increase in the use of private jets for the convenience of the extremely rich who are seeking summer recreational activities highlights the widening gap between the bulging wealth of the rich and the deprivations of the poor. I wonder if the children of the wealthy wouldn't benefit more from a week of service in the inner city, or Appalachia, or a migrant farm camp.
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68.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
orange kayak
charlotte, nc
July 25th, 2011
8:10 am
The sad part is that these kids will grow up so detached from normal teenage expectations, like having to work and commit for things, that their wealthy parents will have to provide for them for the rest of their lives. I have seen all too often that this level of lavish treatment on kids pretty much ruins them for any chance of a normal life with modest expectations. Best chance for them is to marry well and try to keep it rolling!
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46.
Ingrid S
Maine
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
The averaged per capita income in Maine is just short of $25,000. So that $3700 bargain chartered plane ride is nearly two months of the average Mainers pay.
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33.
CrabbyTom In NC
Wilmington NC
July 25th, 2011
8:04 am
Wow, really? If ever there were an argument for letting the tax cuts on the rich expire, this is it. I suppose the jobs the "job creators" are creating is for private pilots. Meanwhile, it costs taxpayers just as much to safely shepherd one of these rich kid buses as it does to guide a commercial jet filled with the suckers paying the bill for these spoiled brats (their parents included in that characterization).
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29.
le
NYC
July 25th, 2011
7:43 am
Shameful -- I'm speechless.
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27.
Andy
Jersey Shore
July 25th, 2011
7:43 am
These people need a tax cut!
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22.
MK
CT
July 25th, 2011
7:42 am
Well as the tax structure turns more in their favor (thanks to GOP)they have more disposable income to indulge in these things. Nevertheless, I am happy for them as they do not have to drive long distances to meet their children. My eight year old decided that instead of going to a summer camp she would rather spend some time with her grandma and whatever money she will make us save will be used to buy her a computer.
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9.
Jenny Emery
North Granby, CT
July 25th, 2011
7:31 am
Must be a slow news day, waiting for the debt impasse to break
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7.
Joseph L Cooke
Washington DC
July 25th, 2011
7:31 am
My grandson traveled to his summer camp yesterday in a Cessna 182. His parents are not wealthy, but didn't want their 10 year child fondled or sexually molested by TSA thugs.
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49.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
vballboy
Highland NY
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
So wealthier tourists represent an economic engine of sorts. Many regions that have lost thier core businesses have tried to turn to tourism as an economic opportunity.

I just wonder if the number of private planes flying kids to summer camp in the northeast has increased over the years? It feeds into the idea that the wealthy (I assume these are millionaires) could pay a little more in taxes until America emerges from the economic downturn.

These folks certainly made out well over the years from the Bush tax cuts, that favored their large returns compared to working folks who got checks for $400 or the like.

Yes, America can also cut spending by some equal percentage across the board for all programs until a target amount is achieved. Please cut the military budget soon. It is one-third of all tax allocation annually.

But households making $250k or more per year could pay a few more percentage points for, say, three years. Could they not do without the proviate jts for kids to go to camp?
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30.
Arthur Shatz
Bayside, NY
July 25th, 2011
7:43 am
What business is it of anyone's if these families can afford to do this. They're not asking anyone else to pay for it, unlike some other elements of our society that always seem to want some one else to pick up the tab.
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41.
American Who Served
Maryland
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
Disgusting, and these greedy people refuse to pay their fair share in taxes! America has indeed changed for the much worse.
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38.
Mr. E
New England
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
Of course wealthy parents send their kids by plane ... spending a significant amount of time with their children would be out of the question!
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35.
michaelannb
springfield, MA
July 25th, 2011
8:05 am
Contempt. Anger. Sick to my stomach. They use THEIR money to ruin the air we all have to breathe. And I suppose these summer camps pay some token service to protecting the environment? or maybe not.
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31.
Goldman Sacks
Opinion/Editorial
July 25th, 2011
8:04 am
Most of the patents - the Kids too - must be rock solid Republicans who are fighting to maintain the Bush tax breaks and who won't give on this Debt Ceiling Impasse.........flying you Kids to camp in a private jet and they can't manage an increase in their taxes...........give me a frigging break!
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37.
Marian B
Hackensack
July 25th, 2011
8:05 am
If they can afford this, they can afford more taxes.
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10.
ToddLC
Los Gatos, CA
July 25th, 2011
7:31 am
Just the type of people Obama wants to tax into submission.
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23.
Jacob handelsman
Houston
July 25th, 2011
7:42 am
That's the beauty of capitalism....If you work hard enough to become well-off, you and your family get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.Of course,if you're a socialist like Obama or a Welfare entitlement junkie like most of the Democratic party and their constituemcy, Life is just too unfair for those who are unable or unwilling to succeed. We'll just take from those who have and give it to those who don't.
Recommend Recommended by 11 Readers
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66.
RH
Albany, NY
July 25th, 2011
8:09 am
The constant publishing of these articles on the rich, while most Americans suffer in a horrible economy, only reinforces the notion that our elites and the press that waits on them are completely out of touch with the rest of the country. If this article, the recent one last week about the extravagant playhouses for children, and others of their ilk do not inspire us to descend into the streets, I don't know what will. Please NY Times, please save your front page for stories about the reality of 95% of this country - living on an average income of $35,000 per year, like my own family of four.
Recommend Recommended by 10 Readers
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62.
Both Ways
nj
July 25th, 2011
8:09 am
I did not read the article. The headline alone was enough. One day, maybe, this country will wake up. The disparity in wealth will come home to roost. If the poor and middle class realized that it is myth that they have any chance of obtaining this kind of wealth, then we may get polices that reduce the disparity. But then again, maybe pigs and not just rich kids will fly!
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50.
The knob
South Acworth, nh
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
I for one am very, very glad this poor child's family won't have to pay more taxes so my family can get the medicare benefits they need.
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40.
Paladin
San Francisco
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
So this is how the wealthy engage in job creation these days: mumsey and daddy sending Biff and Boopsie off to summer camp by private jet. How reassuringly republican...
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34.
The Republicans say no to higher taxes.
New York
July 25th, 2011
8:05 am
Who is kidding who. The Republicans refuse to raise taxes while the rich spend foolishly.
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58.
Paul Gebhard
saratoga springs, NY
July 25th, 2011
8:08 am
And taxes don't need to be raised on the richest Americans? ....Give me a break!
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34.
The Republicans say no to higher taxes.
New York
July 25th, 2011
8:05 am
Who is kidding who. The Republicans refuse to raise taxes while the rich spend foolishly.
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78.
Rich Carrell
Medford, NJ
July 25th, 2011
8:16 am
Hey, it's America. People can do what they want with their money. The problem lies with how they have accumulated the money. Was it at the expense of other people's jobs? Was it the result of tax breaks or subsides for their company? Maybe they should show this story to FOX and see if they repeat it. Not a chance.
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75.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
Paul Kramer
Poconos
July 25th, 2011
8:15 am
Trips for vacations and to camp (vacation without parents) used to be done by car; i.e., without jets or ipods. We kids got a sense of geography, what made states different, heard accents and generally made our own associations The radio played pop rock (Summer in the City), country (Ode to Billy Joe), gospel (Lean On Me), bluegrass (Gentle on My Mind), soul (Just My Imagination), folk (Turn, Turn, Turn) and regional hits. It might be a small world nowadays but such overlooks an authentic world that now lies unnoticed.
Recommend Recommended by 8 Readers
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57.
Claire
Chevy Chase MD
July 25th, 2011
8:08 am
Let's make sure we continue giving tax breaks to these folks. They are so deserving and needy.
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72.
nancynancy
United States
July 25th, 2011
8:10 am
Today, the country crumbles around us with the economy, environment, and health and educational systems in tatters. When the rich fly their kids to camp on private jets, we hope they will be haunted by the headless ghost of Marie Antoniette who pranced about her dairy farm oblivious to the starving French people. "Let them eat cake."
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73.
Fca
Atl
July 25th, 2011
8:12 am
In Lawrenceville GA there is a facility that provides services for adult mentally disabled that is struggling to provide necessary services. Where is the magic?
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54.
Sam
New York
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
Well, I'm glad to see that those Bush tax cuts are stimulating the economy.
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39.
Matthew
Washington, DC
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
Usually I laugh when someone proclaims the NYT has a liberal bias outside of the opinion pages. There is, however, no actual news in this featured article other than "the rich suck".
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90.
BLM
Niagara Falls
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
No doubt the ride was deductable.
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88.
Ed
Cleveland
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
Private summer camp jets and $50,000 playhouses. These are the people that the Republicans say can't afford to pay more in taxes? The politics of running this country are really screwed up. The Democrats have lost their way. The Republicans are on a crusade to protect the rich. And the Tea Party members are just plain crazy. Where are the voices talking about how those of us who can should be willing to pay a little more to help those who can't, and to see to it that basic piblic services in this great country are fully funded? Stinginess and greed rule the day.
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87.
R.F.
Shelburne Falls, MA
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
Last week there was your article about the playhouses of the children of the obscenely rich. Now this! Did it ever occur to these people that they could contribute tens of thousands of dollars to a worthwhile charity and still fly their spoiled kids first class to summer camp? I can only hope that the NY Times' motive behind these two articles is to cast some shame on the uber rich.
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55.
Harry
Madison, WI
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
It's this kind of thing that makes me think that the wealthy in this country could stand to pay higher taxes.
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45.
innermostinn
Vineyard Haven,MA
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
& so many kids cannot even afford camp! This is such a telling photo of what is wrong in our country today.
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94.
Sandy
Pennsylvania
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
Please don't make these people suffer by raising their taxes. Just imagine the sacrifices they'd have to make. It would be inhumane.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
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91.
Dennis Ferguson
SC
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
Why waste a lot of money on infrastructure when you can just take a private jet to anywhere you want to go? This is what it has come to. If gerrymandering is not dealt with, this country is going to become just another banana republic.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
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80.
TWVS
Mpls, MN
July 25th, 2011
8:16 am
Vomit. Maybe they could take a detour and do some community service in Afghanistan, Libya or Iraq instead.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
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86.
John Cane
Burlington, Vermont
July 25th, 2011
8:26 am
Just another example of the wide divide between the wealthy few and the rest of America. I wonder how many of these jets provide tax write offs for their owners as we wait to see how the debt crisis is settled?
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71.
HIGHLIGHT (What's this?)
RC
Pompano Beach FL
July 25th, 2011
8:10 am
This article, listed on the front page, with a comment board immediately open, is meant for the sole purpose of generating ire and contempt.

No doubt that it will succeed in doing so.

If someone can afford a private jet... so be it. And I can admit, that whatever contempt and perhaps envy that I may feel, is mostly attributable to sour grapes.
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65.
Mikesbsc
Charleston, SC
July 25th, 2011
8:09 am
This shows that the Republicans are right. If taxes were raised on the wealthy, and corporate jets were taxed, then these families would drive their cars and put a lot of private jet pilots out of work. A clear example of "job crushing" tax increases. And think of the inconvenience for these children!
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61.
Analysse
New York, New York
July 25th, 2011
8:09 am
The NYT seems never to tire of its obsession with the lives of our wealthy class. Ok, perhaps you don't have to be a millionaire to snag a $750 ride on a private jet to the exclusive summer camp where your kids are ostensibly learning how to 'slum it'. But you do have to be wealthier than any working or middle class families I know.

Yet even as so many American taxpayers continue to face financial distress; and, on a week when we've just witnessed a terrible terrorist attack in Norway, when our own government is being held hostage to an extremist political agenda, this is what you choose to put front and center online? Shame on you, NYT, what an insult to your readership and your profession.

Of course in the interests of fair and balanced reporting, you really are obligated to now run a story about how families live who can't even afford to send their kids to an average summer camp. But what, go slumming into the middle class? You must be gasping at the thought.
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44.
Roland Berger
St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada
July 25th, 2011
8:07 am
Why using a car when one can fly to anywhere in the world? Driving cars is (was?) for middle class.
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43.
Ned Waller
Atlanta
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
After all has been said about the debt limit crisis (and little has been done) this articles makes it clear that the Republicans' intransigence to eliminating tax subsidies for private jets is really about about protecting family values and children. In these difficult economic times we should be grateful that the US government helps subsidize wealthy families' summer travels.
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42.
KS
NY, NY
July 25th, 2011
8:06 am
America, land of opportunity...

My guess for coming summer camp trends:

- Transport by imperial litter, so kids can imagine they're Cleopatra.

- Now that space flight has been privatized, summer camp in orbit. Not only can the kids look down on everyone else, but they'll burn a few oil fields worth of rocket fuel, and make their parents even richer!
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115.
rqtguru
Silver Spring, MD
July 25th, 2011
8:35 am
Lets give them a tax break for using their private jet to get the kids to camp. We can get the money from cutting VA, and Medicare! Lets do it the GOP (Gold Over People) way!
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NO, WE ARE NOT SOCIALIST, JUST THINK SO WHEN THE CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST.