Driven to the Poor House:

All the news recently has been about the American auto industry and its colossal failure to adequately plan for the future. President Obama has agreed to push for more bailout money for GM if they can get their act together within 60 days and their boss takes his multi-million dollar retirement. Chrysler, a company that most of forgot even existed, has just 30 days, and they've got to get into bed with Fiat, another company that most U. S. citizens didn't know existed.

In the meantime, a European idea that tries to bailout the auto industry from the bottom up is taking shape. How about trading in your old (pre 2001) gas guzzler for a new, fuel efficient car and receiving a premium trade in value, say something in the neighborhood of 4K? Well, if you still have a job and you haven't been evicted from your house and if your credit card debt isn't eating you alive and your employer is still covering you with health insurance, this might just be your opportunity to go from that old pick up truck or SUV to a car that gets mileage as good as cars did thirty years ago. (See The New York Times' story.)

Big Brother Update:

A group of academic researchers in Toronto have provided evidence that China—it isn't clear whether it is the Chinese government or private individuals—have developed a spy network throughout 103 countries to track the affairs of the Dali Lama, by infecting computers with spyware. The New York Times' John Markoff reports on the story in today's paper.

The Chinese government has denied involvement, stating that it does not condone or participate in cybercrime, But behavior on the part of Chinese officials indicates knowledge of individuals' activities that could only be obtained through such efforts.

The Economy: How bad is it?

Microsoft has begun to layoff workers. Does that give you some notion about the relevance of Microsoft's new ad campaign? (See The New York Times' article in today's paper.)

Note: In 1992 Microsoft shares were selling for $2.50. By 1999 the price had risen to $60, and some 10,000 Microsoft employees had become millionaires through their stock options.

American Gulag:

In the continuing saga of the Pennsylvania judges who sold children into slavery, The New York Times reports the story of the two men robed in black in Luzerne County and their abuse of power. Hundreds of children were sold so that these two men and their families could live a lavish lifestyle in Florida. The question now is where else is this sort of behavior taking place?

The Beauty of the Free Market:

Private enterprise is always superior to government. So let's turn government institutions into businesses. They'll run efficiently. They'll make money. Everyone will be better served.

Thus the mantra of the right for decades, and now it is all unraveling. Nowhere in the U. S. has this philosophy proven more obscene than in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, where hundreds of children were sold into slavery by judges receiving kickbacks from companies who ran youth prisons for profit. (See John Schwartz story in today's New York Times.)

Sounds like a chapter in an economics textbook to me.

Reversing Reaganomics:

After decades of Republicans' defining American freedom as a reduction of government oversight of business, we are about to enter an era when, presumably, business, especially financial institutions, will be required to operate under the public scrutiny.

Reagan and his ilk promised the American taxpayer that like Bernie Madoff and institutions like A.I.G. would only and always behave in the public interest because feeding their own greed could only be achieved by behaving honestly. Which is like saying we don't need traffic cops because drivers will never break traffic laws as it is not in their self-interest to do so.

Welcome to the new world of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, new head of the financial police.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade" — Sec. of State Clinton:

For the first time a high ranking public official admits that America and Americans play a significant role in the problem that affects not only American citizens but other countries as well.

America's High Priests:

Daphne Merkin examines America's worshipful attitude of wealth and those who create it, even if they did so by scamming us, in today's New York Times. Most of her op-ed focuses on Bernie Madoff and the easy time he had in duping his victims, but the following reflection about George Soros is telling:

I remember attending a small dinner party where George Soros was one of the guests; it made sense to me that he held the floor when he discussed matters he was expert on, but I couldn’t figure out why all of his opinions, on whatever subject — be it interior design or the value of single-sex schools — were treated as equally valid. And then it occurred to me: he was much wealthier than the other dinner guests, which meant that everything he said was ipso facto of sovereign interest.

What America Needs Is a Good 5 Cent Cup of Joe:

Remember Starbucks? There for a while the company name seemed like it was going to become synonymous with coffee the way Kleenex became synonymous with tissue. Now that we're all worried about AIG executives running off to foreign shores and Swiss banks with the national treasury, what happened to America's premiere coffee company? Dan Mitchell takes a look in today's Washington Post. Have you tried their new instant brand?

And yes I am old enough to remember when you could get a bottomless cup of joe for a nickel. Of course you couldn't drink more than three cups of it or you'd end up in the emergency room. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Redirecting Rage:

Gail Collins wants us to pause a moment in our rage over the scandalous behavior of AIG, the giant insurance company whose specialty was fraud, to focus on the long simmering scandal at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and its $300 million shrine to little Georgie Bush, the man whose face was the vanguard for the current financial collapse.

Southern Methodist has set aside 25 acres of ground for the shrine and is calling for all super rich Texans to make their tax deductible donations to create housing for the treadmill that Georgie used in the White House and carried around the globe on Air Force One.

(Remember Georgie? He was the guy who spent more time on vacation than any president in history, and he did that while the country was fighting two wars, one of which was fought on completely phony reasoning, and he led the nation towards financial collapse. What could be a more perfect selection of a leader to enshrine in Texas?)

Here's Collin's kicker: "Why does the Bush center need donations anyway? His administration believed the profit motive makes everything efficient — derivatives markets, health care, invasions. If he wants a monument, let him build an amusement park."

On Education:

"Universities aspire to prestige, and that is achieved by increasing selectivity, getting a research mission and having faculty do as little teaching as possible, not by teaching and learning, and taking students from Point A to Point B." — Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability; quoted by Tamar Lewin in "State Colleges Also Face Cuts in Ambitions" in today's New York Times.

Obama Catches the Flak for AIG Bonuses, but It Was Bush Who Approved Them:

With all the criticism exploding around the giant bonuses granted to AIG employees who in fact destroyed the company they worked for, one important fact is being overlooked. The bailout of AIG was passed by the previous congress and administration. (See The Washington Post story.)

Wonders of the Free Market System:

According to the neo-liberals who advocate a total free market system that eliminates as much government as possible, removing government oversight from the water supply is the greatest of God's blessings. And there is no better place to prove this theory than in South America, especially a country like Chile. Alexei Barrionuevo reports on the success of the program in today's New York Times. Why would a village of 800 people need clean water any way?

Taxpayer Bailout Money To Pay Millions in AIG Bonuses:

One of the lynchpins in the financial collapse has been AIG, which was a leader in the faulty derivitives scam. The taxpayer had to bail them out in order to keep the economy going, we were told, so where's the bailout money going? Millions are being paid to keep AIG's "best and brightest" living in the lap of luxury. The average citizen is expected to sacrifice for the country, but not the people who led the way to the meltdown. (See The Washington Post story.)

Stewart vs. Cramer:

A cable comedian demands to know why the 4th estate is a propagandist for crooks: View the full episode here. Once again morality comes from the mouth of a clown.

China vs. India:

Westerners seem dumbfounded that the world's largest democracy could be starving nearly half of its children to death. According to New York Times, some 42.5 percent of India's children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition. The comparable number for China's children is only 7 percent. While The Times' article examines the numbers and reports on the horrors of malnourished women and children in India, it says little about the difference between the two cultures. Their histories are vastly different, reflecting the values of any governing group.

It should be noted that The Times' story makes it relatively clear that India's problem does not stem from a lack of food, but from a will to properly care for its citizens.

Bill Gates Loses $20 Billion:

But regains title as world's richest man! What a weird world we live in. Pity the poor billionaires who have suffered more than the rest of us. Well, if you measure suffering in the amount of money lost. Some 30 percent of the world's billionaires dropped out of the billionaire category with the recent financial collapse. Once again, there are fewer than a thousand billionaires in the world. But never fear. Some billionaires actually increased their fortunes, like Mexico's top drug lord, whose fortune is based on selling cocaine to Americans. Naturally, he also helps keep various National Rifle Association members wealthy too by importing guns from the United States, so he's certainly doing his part to support the economy. (See MSN Money for more about the world's richest folks and their current plight in the economic downfall. Remember, in a free market, wealth trickles down, but poverty comes in a flood.)

Unemployment Racing Towards Double-Digits:

The unemployment rate has broached the 10 percent level in four states, and the total number of people looking for work now has reached 12,500 nation-wide. (See The New York Times' story.)

HISTORY—When Did the South Go Republican:

Richard Reeves tells the story of "How Kennedy Won the House and Lost the South" in his opinion piece for The New York Times. Although Reeves mentions the race factor in his discussion, which focuses on changes in the Rules Committee that has a strangle hold on bringing legislation to the floor of the House, he doesn't include the South's religious bigotry against Catholics.

The sort of liberalism that Kennedy represented was often associated with Roman Catholicism in those days. Southern Democrats generally appealed to white voters by "keeping the black man down," and they believed the northern Democratic strategy was an attempt by Catholics and Jews to "raise the black man up" in order for the former two groups to achieve power within the party. The fact is that there wasn't a politician alive at that time who thought that Kennedy's Catholicism would directly affect any of his political positions. Regardless of the feeling among the electorate who might have feared that Kennedy would "take his orders from the Pope," the real concern was of a shift in the power base that he represented. Kennedy was a northern Democrat.

More Suicide Bombings in Iraq:

As Obama attempts to prepare America for the pullout from Iraq, forces there are gearing up for the free for all struggle for power that seems inevitable once the withdrawal comes. Unlike Vietnam, where a very strong power was ready to move into any political and military vacuum that would develop once America withdrew, no such force appears to exist within Iraq, thus the "you break it" analysis of Colin Powell. (See The New York Times' story.)

"It's just a great big black hole":

That's how The New York Times reports one machine toolmaker in Michigan as feeling about the current economic state, with unemployment now reaching a twenty-five-year high of 8.1 percent.

In other economic news, Wall Street staged a modest rally in response to climbing unemployment with the Dow rising 32.5 points

Mexico at War:

More people were killed in Mexico's drug war in 2008 than American servicemen in the entire Iraq war. And the guns used in the killings are coming from the United States. The problem is now so bad that American universities are advising college students not to travel to Mexico during spring break. (See the NPR story.)

Too Good To Pass Up:

Chicago, IL: Cook County Sheriff declares Craigslist biggest pimp of all! Yes, that's right. The sheriff and his department recently busted 76 men and women for prostitution who had been running ads on the Craigslist "erotic services" site. Back in 2007 several Chicago-area men were arrested for running a prostitution ring with girls as young as 15. Seems like there ain't nothin' that can't be pimped.

One Man's Pork:

When Sen. John McCain complained about pork, he wasn't talking about the massive Bush give away programs that funneled billions to private contractors, often without any bidding or oversight. He was talking about funding for states that might benefit Democratic constituencies. McCain wasn't even talking about funding a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. After all, Alaska got that money anyway, they just used it for some other project.

And now there was poor John McCain from Goldwaterland forced to stand next to the new president while the latter announced no more funding for Blackwater et al. (Read the transcript of Obama's announcement, furnished by The Washington Post.)

In the meantime, the Republicans are dancing like barefoot boys on hot coals while they try to figure out what their strategy is for the coming midterm elections now that the two men left standing in their party are a black man and a pompous, drug addicted, fat southern wannabe good ol' boy. Oh, and let's not forget the discredited former Speaker of the House who pretends to be an historian. Uh, what's his name? (See Perry Bacon's Washington Post story.)

Right now, the best thing that could happen to the Republican Party is disbandment.

Desmond Tutu Calls for Justice:

Nobel Peace Prize winner explains why African countries should support the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudanese president Bashir and aid in the issuance of an arrest warrant:

African leaders argue that the court’s action will impede efforts to promote peace in Darfur. However, there can be no real peace and security until justice is enjoyed by the inhabitants of the land. There is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative — allowing accountability to fall by the wayside — is worse.

(Desmond Tutu "Will Africa Let Sudan Off the Hook?" The New York Times)

How We Got Here:

In his op-ed piece today, Paul Krugman explains in a succinct summary how we landed in our current economic mess: "a world awash in cheap money, looking for somewhere to go."

Krugman doesn't mention the other element—greed. The huge masses of money might have gone into medical care, AIDs research for instance, and development of so called third world countries. Instead far too much of it simply chased other money. Eventually, the dog caught his tail.