Mountain Time Zone Perspective: November 2008

Lincoln's Grave Warning Realized

Eight Principles of Uncivilization

by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine

‘We must unhumanise our views a little, and become conﬁdent
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.’

We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.

We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.

We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our ﬁngernails.

The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will ﬁnd the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.

The Dark Mountain Manifesto

(excerpt)
Walking on lava

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilisation
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who witness extreme social collapse at first hand seldom describe any deep revelation about the truths of human existence. What they do mention, if asked, is their surprise at how easy it is to die.

The pattern of ordinary life, in which so much stays the same from one day to the next, disguises the fragility of its fabric. How many of our activities are made possible by the impression of stability that pattern gives? So long as it repeats, or varies steadily enough, we are able to plan for tomorrow as if all the things we rely on and don’t think about too carefully will still be there. When the pattern is broken, by civil war or natural disaster or the smaller-scale tragedies that tear at its fabric, many of those activities become impossible or meaningless, while simply meeting needs we once took for granted may occupy much of our lives.

What war correspondents and relief workers report is not only the fragility of the fabric, but the speed with which it can unravel. As we write this, no one can say with certainty where the unravelling of the financial and commercial fabric of our economies will end. Meanwhile, beyond the cities, unchecked industrial exploitation frays the material basis of life in many parts of the world, and pulls at the ecological systems which sustain it.

Precarious as this moment may be, however, an awareness of the fragility of what we call civilisation is nothing new.

‘Few men realise,’ wrote Joseph Conrad in 1896, ‘that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.’ Conrad’s writings exposed the civilisation exported by European imperialists to be little more than a comforting illusion, not only in the dark, unconquerable heart of Africa, but in the whited sepulchres of their capital cities. The inhabitants of that civilisation believed ‘blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion,’ but their confidence could be maintained only by the seeming solidity of the crowd of like-minded believers surrounding them. Outside the walls, the wild remained as close to the surface as blood under skin, but the city-dweller was no longer equipped to face it directly.

The remainder of the essay can be read online: Dark Mountain manifesto.

Paul is the author of One No, Many Yeses and Real England. He was deputy editor of The Ecologist between 1999 and 2001. His first poetry collection, Kidland, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry. His website is www.paulkingsnorth.net

Dougald writes the blog Changing the World (and other excuses for not getting a proper job). He is a former BBC journalist and has written for and edited various online and offline magazines. His website is www.dougald.co.uk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The "Eight principles of uncivilisation" are expanded in the Dark Mountain manifesto (also available as PDF or purchased as a limited-edition, hand-stitched pamphlet.

See the site for the blog and information about their upcoming festival May 28-30.

Several Energy Bulletin contributors are on their Blogroll, including John Michael Greer, Sharon Astyk, Rob Hopkins and Dmitry Orlov. Also mentioned are Wendell Berry and Ivan Illich.

George Monbiot recently wrote a column in the Guardian about Dark Mountain Project: I share their despair, but I'm not quite ready to climb the Dark Mountain.

On Common Dreams, Robert C. Koehler wrote a related piece: Dark Green.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Original article available here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our American Objectives

"Our national goals must be to rejuvenate the domestic economy; transfer the economic basis of our nation from consumptive to productive; recapitalize education and the technologies industries; achieve complete energy independence; move towards renewable energy sources;
restore public confidence in the government's ability to undertake large national infrastructure projects, and re-assert its right to set goals and policies to ensure those projects proceed smoothly; define the overarching standards for a reconstructed America including a federal review of the building and planning codes now in use, and probably the writing of new mandates that set out 21st-century standards and priorities for energy use, urban and transportation planning, and environmental design, which once put into law and accepted into general use, will be very difficult to change; commit funding for a massive 10- or 20-year program that will upgrade or replace failing components of America's infrastructure as the nation is broke (as it was in FDR's day) and this kind of spending needs to be seen as the long-term investment in our economic future that it is; restore a fair, honest, broad-based system of public contracting that will put large numbers of Americans to work on these new projects (and write the new rules in a way that ensures that the firms doing the most innovative work don't have to compete with unfair behemoth corporations like Halliburton and Lockheed for the lion's share of the funding) so that once there is a healthy, competitive construction industry that knows how to build sustainable projects—and is relying on the government to keep it in business—we will get a political constituency that will fight to ensure that the rebuilding will continue for the next several decades, regardless of what political party is in power; use the forces of globalization and information to strengthen and expand existing democratic alliances and created new ones; employ these alliances to destroy terrorist networks and establish new international security structures; lead, through our historic principles, on international cooperative efforts in spreading economic opportunity and democratic liberties, nation building, counter-prolification, and optimum environmental protection and safeguards; and cherish, honor, and protect our history and traditions of liberty and freedoms domestically particularly with respect to the Bill of Rights."

"The renewed social contract for America with its middle class and poor must:

Raise the minimum wage still higher and on a regular basis. It has fallen far behind increases in inflation since the 1970s, and that affects higher level wages as well.
Encourage living-wage programs by local governments. Governments can demand that their contractors and suppliers pay well above the minimum wage. There is substantial evidence that this does not result in an undue loss of jobs.
Enforce the labor laws vigilantly. Minimum-wage and maximum-hour laws are violated to a stunning degree. American workers shouldn't be forced by their employers to understate the number of hours worked or be locked in the warehouse so they can't leave on time. Workers often make only $2 and $3 an hour.
Unions are not seeking a free pass to organize secretly when they advocate for open check-offs on cards to approve of a union vote. They are seeking to organize without persistent and often illegal management interference. Penalties for illegally deterring such organizing are so light, it makes little sense for management not to pursue strategies to stop organizing even at the cost of prosecution.
Request that trading partners develop serious environmental standards and worker-protection laws. This is good for them, bringing a progressive revolution and a robust domestic market to their countries. It is good for America, which will be able to compete on a more level playing field.
Demand that the president, governors and mayors speak up about unconscionable executive salaries and low wages. The influence from the top cannot be underestimated. A president who looks the other way sends a strong signal to business. A president who demands responsible treatment of workers will get a response. Business does not like such attention.
These measures should be accompanied by serious investment in modernized infrastructure and energy alternatives, which can create millions of domestic jobs that pay good salaries. It should also be accompanied by a policy that supports a lower dollar -- contrary to Rubinomics -- in order to stimulate manufacturing exports again. Accomplishing this may require a new system of semi-fixed currencies across the globe. The unabashed high-dollar policy of the past twenty years has led to imbalances around the world that have contributed fundamentally to US overindebtedness.
And finally, the nation needs more balance on the part of the Federal Reserve between subduing inflation and creating jobs. Americans can live with inflation above 2 percent a year. There is no academic evidence to support a 2 percent annual target, although the Fed has made this its informal target."

The Continuing Case for The Second Bill of Rights for All American Citzens

...from Michael Lind on Salon.com on 11 January 2010 ....

The Case for Economic Rights

FDR said it and it holds 66 years later: There are benefits and opportunities every American should expect to enjoy

Three score and six years ago, the greatest president of the 20th century gave one of his greatest speeches. On Jan. 11, 1944, in a State of the Union address that deserves to be ranked with Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" and King's "I Have a Dream" speech, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for recognition of a "Second Bill of Rights." According to FDR:

"This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights -- among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty. As our nation has grown in size and stature, however -- as our industrial economy expanded -- these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness."

Roosevelt did not argue that economic rights had superseded basic, old-fashioned political and civil rights. The argument of authoritarians and totalitarians that economic rights are more important than non-economic liberty was abhorrent to him. Instead, with the examples of the fascist and communist regimes of his time in mind, he argued that the purpose of economic rights was to support and reinforce, not replace, civil and political liberties:

"We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 'Necessitous men are not free men.' People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed."

President Roosevelt was not promoting economic rights that were necessarily enforceable in court, but rather economic benefits and opportunities that every American should expect to enjoy by virtue of citizenship in our democratic republic. Many of the rights he identified have been secured by programs with bipartisan support. These include:

"the right to a good education" (the G.I. Bill, student loans, Pell Grants, Head Start, federal aid to K-12 schools) and

"the right of every family to a decent home" (federally subsidized home loans and tax breaks for home ownership). But even before the global economic crisis, the U.S. fell short when it came to full employment --

"the right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation"

-- and a living wage --

"the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation."

Roosevelt's vision was controversial at the time and is contested today. When it comes to providing a safety net for Americans, there are three distinct paradigms, which I would describe as economic citizenship, welfare corporatism and faith-based charity.

Supporters of faith-based charity among "theoconservatives" such as Marvin Olasky argue that modern social insurance like Social Security and Medicare was a mistake. The medieval British and colonial American systems of relying on religious institutions to care for the sick and poor should have been continued and built upon, with government subsidies to "faith-based institutions."

The secular business-class right, however, has shown little interest in faith-based charity, perhaps because it is difficult for rent-seeking bankers, brokers and other private sector actors to extract huge amounts of money from tax-exempt church hospitals and church soup lines. The right's preferred alternative to the progressive vision of economic citizenship is what I call "welfare corporatism." Whereas economic citizenship views protection against sickness, unemployment and old age as entitlements of citizens in a democratic republic, welfare corporatism treats these necessities of life as commodities like groceries or appliances, to be purchased in a market by people who are thought of as consumers, not citizens.

Let's contrast ideal versions of the two approaches. In the ideal America of economic citizenship, there would be a single, universal, integrated, lifelong system of economic security including

single-payer healthcare,

Social Security, unemployment payments and

family leave

paid for by a single contributory payroll tax (which could be made progressive in various ways or reduced by combination with other revenue streams). Funding for all programs would be entirely nationalized, although states could play a role in administration. There would still be supplementary private markets in health and retirement products and services for the affluent, but most middle-class Americans would continue to rely primarily on the simple, user-friendly public system of economic security. As Steven Attewell points out, the Social Security Act of 1935 was intended not merely to provide public pensions for the elderly but to establish a framework for a comprehensive system of social insurance corresponding to President Roosevelt's "right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment." Attewell writes: "We need to go back to the original drawing board -- the Social Security Act of 1935 -- to finish the job it began and create a truly universal and comprehensive social welfare state."

In the utopia of welfare corporatism, today's public benefits -- Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and, in a few states, public family leave programs -- would be abolished and replaced by harebrained schemes dreamed up by libertarian ideologues at corporate-funded think tanks like the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Tax subsidies would be funneled to insurance companies, brokers and banks. Social Security would be replaced by a bewildering miscellany of tax-favored personal savings accounts. Medicare would be replaced by a dog's breakfast of tax subsidies for purchasing health insurance and personal medical savings accounts. Unemployment insurance would give way to yet another Rube Goldberg scheme of tax-favored unemployment insurance accounts. As for family leave -- well, if you're not wealthy enough to pay out of pocket for a nanny for your child or a nurse for your parent, you're out of luck.

The strongest case for economic citizenship instead of welfare corporatism is economic. Economic citizenship is more efficient and cheaper in the long run, because the government need only meet costs, while subsidized private providers must make a profit. The Democratic and Republican supporters of welfare corporatism justify their system of massive subsidies for for-profit healthcare and retirement security with the claim that market competition will keep down prices. If only that were true. Competitive markets are probably impossible to create, in the highly regulated insurance sector and the highly concentrated financial sector that sells private retirement goods and services.

It follows that a policy of subsidizing oligopolies and monopolies, via government subsidies to consumers, in the absence of government-imposed price controls, is a recipe for cost inflation, as the providers jack up their prices, sending the consumers back to Congress to demand even more public subsidies. By its very nature, welfare corporatism funnels public resources, in the form of tax breaks, to rent-seeking, predatory firms in the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector, with ever-swelling dead-weight costs on the economy. Welfare corporatism equals corporate welfare.

Unfortunately, most progressives have failed to make the case against the libertarian myth of market competition in the provision of social insurance. All too many, including President Obama, have made the too-clever-by-half argument that the public option would keep prices down by means of market competition. In other words, the center-left has borrowed a bogus argument about competition from right-wing free-market fundamentalism in order to defend a token public program that ceased to be of any interest once Obama and the Democrats in Congress ruled that Americans with employer-provided insurance would be banned from joining the public option. When you're reduced to parroting the opposition's erroneous theories, in the process of begging for a slight modification of the opposition's pet program, you clearly don't have the nerve or the patience to play the long game in politics.

In a response to one of my earlier columns, Will Marshall wonders how I can dare to criticize the legacy of Bill Clinton, a Democrat. My reasons should be clear by now. I am not a partisan Democratic operative focused on winning the next election. I am interested only in strengthening the republic through a gradual expansion of economic citizenship in the tradition of Franklin Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights. If this means criticizing Democratic presidents who expand welfare corporatism instead of economic citizenship, so be it.

As part of his opportunistic policy of triangulation between his own party and the opposition, Bill Clinton joined the Republicans in a three-pronged assault on New Deal economic citizenship. He and the Republican Congress abolished Aid to Families With Dependent Children, a flawed and unpopular means-tested program for the poor that should have been reformed as a national program rather than turned over to the states as the neo-Confederate right insisted. Instead of piecemeal expansion of single-payer healthcare, Clinton pushed a version of employer-based welfare corporatism plus subsidies that came out of the playbook of moderate Republicans like Nixon. And we now know that Clinton secretly agreed to support Newt Gingrich's drive to partly privatize Social Security, in return for dedicating the federal government's imaginary future surpluses to what was left of Social Security. In 2005, Will Marshall argued in favor of private accounts, on the grounds that they would soften up Americans for cuts in Social Security: "If today's workers start saving and investing more in stocks and bonds, the returns they earn would allow us to trim their Social Security benefits later, without reducing their overall standard of living."

While George W. Bush pushed for partial privatization of Social Security, he failed because of massive public opposition. But Bush and the Republican majority in Congress succeeded in enacting the Social Security drug benefit, a flawed but genuine expansion of economic citizenship. Clinton is the only president to have successfully supported the destruction of a New Deal entitlement, while Bush presided over the greatest expansion of the Rooseveltian entitlement system since Lyndon Johnson passed Medicare.

For his part, Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton, rejected single-payer in favor of a moderately conservative welfare corporatist approach to healthcare reform. In contrast, Obama's proposal for student loan reform, an idea discussed in the Clinton years, would move in the right direction, away from welfare corporatism and toward economic citizenship, by replacing subsidized third-party lenders with direct government provision of student loans to needy college students.

Parties are coalitions of interest groups, they are not public philosophies, and presidents, great and minor, are and have to be opportunists. In contrast, reformers only have a chance of succeeding if they stick to their basic principles and keep their eyes on the prize. Progressives should support any politician, Democrat or Republican, who expands economic citizenship to the detriment of welfare corporatism, and they should oppose any politician, Democrat or Republican, who expands welfare corporatism to the detriment of economic citizenship.

Any more questions?

23 November 2008

Sunday 23 November's Links for Enlightenment and Information

http://www.group30.org/index.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/22/georgias-dem-senate-candi_n_145733.html

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2008/112008/weissman.html

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/22-1

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/11/21/20081121boot-theft1121-ON.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/nutrition/20recipehealth.html?_r=1&em

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/price-fishback-what-do-the-new-deal-and-world-war-ii-tell-us-about-the-prospects-for-a-stimulus-package/#more-3329

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=arEE1iClqDrk&refer=home

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/2008/11/pr20081124/index.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Hewlett-Packard-better-shape-Dell/story.aspx?guid=%7BDADE8110%2DF1D6%2D44E8%2D95BC%2D7D96CC1FF93F%7D

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/11/24/dell-and-hp-holiday-fortunes-rest-on-wal-mart-this-season-yeah/

*****

22 November 2008

Sign of Things to Come: 10 % Unemployment in Southern California Inland Empire

The Inland Empire is a region in Southern California east of Orange County and Los Angeles, and consists of such cities as San Bernardino, Riverside, and Ontario. This area has long been a growing region but the current recession has become a depression with unemployment nearing 10 % and forecasted to be near 13 % in the coming months of 2009. Of course, real unemployment will be actually be around 20 % to 25 % in this area which has long been blessed with economic vitality and prosperity.
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One shudders when one thinks that this may be the future in many, if not most places, in the coming six months to a year. It is easy to imagine it becoming widespread.
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The incoming Obama administration faces dire economic circumstances nationally. Hopefully the new administration will be as successful as the new Reagan administration was in 1981 in turning things around, but it will be a daunting and overwhelming challenge requiring a different approach and tactics. The Reagan experience took until late in 1982 to mid 1983 to get things fully reversed. If that time frame is repeated, we may looking at sometime in 2011 before an improvement becomes steady. And most observers and analysts feel this economic downturn and recession is going to be far, far worse and longer lasting than the one in the early 1980s. That may push the window for visible and noticeable improvement out beyond Summer 2011...
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nojobs22-2008nov22,0,7791795.story
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*****

21 November 2008

Friday 21 November's Links for Enlightenment and Information

...And since its Friday, what the hey, lets add some entertaining links into the mix as well...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Fate-of-Lakotahs-Highlight-by-Stephen-Lendman-081121-854.html

http://www.propublica.org/article/i-beg-your-pardon-1120/

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122721995964045669-lMyQjAxMDI4MjI3MTIyMTE5Wj.html

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/514

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/21shell.html?_r=1

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1118/p01s03-woap.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/usDollarRpt/idUSN2041155720081120

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/after-aig-paulson-needs-perspective/story.aspx?guid=%7B50E3CD3B%2D3D91%2D4C66%2DB17C%2D104854A3D437%7D

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122705706314639537.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1872

http://www.upi.com/news/issueoftheday/2008/11/21/US_intel_panel_warns_of_coming_national_decline/UPI-79781227285980/

http://www.twincities.com/election2008/ci_11032633?nclick_check=1

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/21/BA1A1494TB.DTL

http://www.zoombli.com/PrimaryLanding/landingaro.aspx?Referrer=fc-B29usacpa37-aro&cm_mmc=Value%20Click-_-Run%20of%20Network-_-Pup%20Under-_-usacpa37:%20Large%20Pop-Up:%20B29:%20usacpa37:%20aro

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-11-20-chinaparks_N.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-11-20-Kennedy_N.htm

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/worlds-first-plug-in-electric-car-china-byd-f3dm.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112000949.html?hpid=topnews

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/22siegelman.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

http://lolfed.com/

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/new-york-cheat-sheets/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opinion/21krugman.html?em

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/greathomesanddestinations/21expat.html?em

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/11/20/will-stevens%e2%80%99s-ouster-be-good-for-alaska/

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1121/p01s03-usec.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1121/p25s12-almo.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1117/p14s02-wmgn.html

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_11037204

http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=pot-joins-the-fight-against-alzheim-2008-11-19&ec=su_potalzheimer

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-young/so-you-want-a-big-electri_b_145077.html

http://lincvolt.com/

*****

20 November 2008

Thursday 20 November's Links for Enlightenment and Information

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE4AJ1GV20081120?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f621914a-b6e9-11dd-8e01-0000779fd18c.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081120/wall_street.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/8b5f0d60-b743-11dd-8e01-0000779fd18c,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F8b5f0d60-b743-11dd-8e01-0000779fd18c.html&_i_referer=

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/politics/2008/10/wall-streets-25-biggest-losers.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSQiBCOuoGGM&refer=home

*****

No to Bailout of Automobile Manufacturers

It has been about two months since Congress enacted legislation authorizing $350 billion for use by Treasury Secretary Paulson to address woes in the financial and credit markets. Many across the nation were opposed to this bailout of monied financial powerhouses for a number of various reasons, mostly on the belief it was unfair, wrong, and questionable as to whether ist would do any good. This writer strongly reluctantly agreed to support the concept. And unfortunately, the fears by many seemingly have been realized. The money authorized in the legislation signed by President Bush has done nothing to even minimally revive the economy, and much of the money has been squandered by banks on executive bonuses and perks, acquisitions of competitors, and other wasteful and unproductive activities. As each day passes, more and more of the public continues to reverse their prior support for the first bailout package.
-
The original purpose of the bailout legislation was to address real estate loans inventories that were extremely troublesome for the financial markets. But Paulson has waffled and seesawed on the plan he wants to employ, and now his strategy is to give banks money to address bad consumer debt that is largely unsecured. Clearly the approach on trying to address the ongoing financial collapse by Treasury officials and the Fed has been completely unproductive and largely wasteful. And as each day goes by, things are getting collectively worse.
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Now the Big Three automobile manufacturers have come to Washington DC with hat in hand asking for an indeterminate amount of money for largely unknown purposes. This industry has been in a long slow decline for decades and has been marked by extremely poor management and seriously flawed business plans. The products they put out are clearly inferior in quality and value relative to competitors.
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This writer believes Congress just needs to say "No" to Detroit. It would be far better for these three dinosaurs to fall into bankruptcy. Out of that process would emerge manufacturers better able to compete and produce quality motor vehicles of value. Maintaining the status quo with an input of federal taxpayer cash is just delaying the inevitable. The Big Three are corporations of yesteryear and incapable of moving their businesses into the 21st Century with alternative fuel vehicles that are quality built, at a fair price, and capable of meeting consumer demands and expectations.
--
While there is a substantive risk GM and Chrysler are likely to go into bankruptcy and very well may disappear completely from the landscape, the idea of throwing federal taxpayers dollars at this troika of losers is absolutely the wrong thing to do, and especially given the current overall economic circumstances and environment we are now in the midst of and will be for the coming 18 - 24 months at least. It is a far better idea to let these two fail rather than keep their sick diseased carcusses on life support through the use of a taxpayer funded bailout.
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George Will says much of what I believe in his comments in the link below.
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http://dailymail.com/Opinion/gwill/200811190171
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*****

19 November 2008

Citigroup (Citibank) Going Down in a Matter of Days

As I expected, the demise of Citigroup is now at hand. Information is emerging that strongly indicates the bank will fail in a matter of days, perhaps as soon as the end of this week. The FDIC will give the bank a chance to find a buyer, and it is likely it will, given the history and name of Citigroup in the financial world as well as in the minds of consumers. Will it be Barclays, another European bank, or perhaps one of the former investment banks (JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs) looking for a deposit bank to ease the transition into becoming commercial banks themselves ? We will have to wait to see. One big thing looming will be the impact of this monumental collapse and the jolt on the financial markets. The days following the realization of this will be ones of great strife and misery for all the major indices. The Dow could drop into the mid to upper 6000s; the NASDAQ will go below 1000; and the S&P 500 will sink to below 500.
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And the media will be in an uproar and panic. It will be ugly.
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http://www.247wallst.com/2008/11/market-assuming.html#more
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*****

Wednesday 19 November's Links for Enlightenment and Information

http://onthehillblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/progressives-press-ahead-with-single.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/business/economy/19ports.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.alternet.org/environment/107134/finding_the_best%2C_local_food_near_you_just_got_easier/?page=entire

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like/?page=full

http://www.alternet.org/story/107340/

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/business/economy/20econ.html?8au&emc=au

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2008/11/bottom-up-bailout-rather-than-trickle.html

*****

18 November 2008

Monday 17 November's Links for Enlightenment and Information

http://www.citizenlink.org/

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Well-Great-Depression-2-20/story.aspx?guid=%7BB28B49B5%2DEFD1%2D4941%2DB57E%2DA2BA1545BA09%7D&dist=SecMostRead

http://www.alternet.org/environment/107455/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/climatewarmingantarcticaglaciers

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/11/16/depression_2009_what_would_it_look_like/?page=full

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/17/paul-krugman-schools-geor_n_144298.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/17/the-amazing-story-of-saxb_n_144307.html

http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7474&catid=&volume_id=398&issue_id=405&volume_num=43&issue_num=07

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1127

http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=1258

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27719011

*****

16 November 2008

New Housing Starts Worst Since 1940

According to most experts and analysts, this will be the depressing news in the coming days.
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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Housing-starts-seen-lowest-over/story.aspx?guid=%7B4CA0BEBE%2D9AAF%2D4F47%2DAEE8%2D86042D8CEB2D%7D
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*****

Explaining the Downfall of Wall Street

Michael Lewis is the author of the non-fiction best selling book Liar's Poker in 1989 that strongly captured the culture and excesses of Wall Street and high stakes finance. The era in which Lewis described in his book continued until recently and only worsened tremendously. This article written by Lewis goes back to what Wall Street has been about over the last two plus decades and what happened to end the Era of Greed. He basically states that the years of chicanery, artifice, subterfuge, lies, deception, cheating, and fraud finally reached a breaking point. Years of blind faith on the part of all participants finally reached a breaking point as reality set in. And the consequences are grave and will continue to be for many if not most of us for a good bit of the foreseeable future.
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http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom?tid=true#page1
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*****

The Massive Ticking Time Bomb

Issues about currency and their valuation relative to other economic indices are often difficult to understand, let alone explain. The information in this rather lengthy article does about as a good a job as possible in trying to overcome those obstacles. It also provides a good historical review of why past currency agreements were made, and why another one is all but necessary very soon given the current and ongoing economic downturn .
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http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=16872fed-798c-476b-a6c4-303923cd6388&p=1
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*****

State Budget Deficits Increase Broadly

The news is grim about the economy from the perspective of state and local governments. Most states are looking at budget deficits for the upcoming year and probably beyond into 2010 and 2011. Most states will respond with cuts in social services programs, particularly for children, the poor, and seniors. Transportation projects, some desperately needed, will be shelved. There is likely to be layoffs of public employees, most likely to be ones that have daily contact with the public and will result in poorer and longer waits for service. What will not happen is pay cuts for executive branch officials as well as other highly paid bureaucrats. And is some states, the spectre of tax increases looms in spite of the overall downturn and malaise across the nation.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/us/17fiscal.html
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http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1114/p01s05-usec.html
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*****

12 November 2008

Updates on Undetermined US Senate, US House Contests

We are more than a week out past Election Day 2008, and a few races for seats in the US Senate and US House are still undecided. Here is a brief update on them.

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Alaska US Senate seat: The counting of absentee mail - in, and military ballots is underway, and results thus far have changed the lead from incumbent Ted Stevens to challenger Mark Begich. Stevens has lost his over 3300 vote lead and now trails by a margin of a mere few votes. Many more votes still remain to be tallied, but most analysts and observers feel Begich will only see his lead grow, leading to the defeat of the longest current sitting Republican member of the US Senate. In addition, Stevens' felony convictions will likely result in having him expelled from the remaining weeks of the current 110th Congress, perhaps as early as next week.
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Alaska at - large US House seat: Like Stevens, longtime GOP incumbent Don Young is seeing his once sizeable lead over challenger Ethan Berkowitz diminish, but just slightly A lead of approximately 17,000 votes has edged down to around 15,000. Young may just hold on to his seat after all.
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California Fourth Congressional District seat: This contest remains undecided still, as Republican Tom McClintock holds a 1283 vote edge over Democrat Charlie Brown. Many more provisional, mail - in, and absentee ballots remain to be counted, however.
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Minnesota US Senate seat: This tight contest has only gotten closer in the days following the vote in The Land of 10,000 Lakes. Republican one term incumbent Norm Coleman has but a 206 vote margin over Democratic challenger Al Franken. There will be a recount which will commence on Thursday 20 November to determine finally who wins this expensive and strongly antagonistic race.
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Ohio Fifteenth Congressional Districts seat: Republican Steve Stivers still has a 149 vote lead over Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy as no counting of any provisional or absentee ballots has begun in this district.
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Virginia Fifth Congressional District seat: The counting of absentee and provisional ballots has begun and it has resulted in a reversal of the lead as Democratic challenger Tom Periello has a lead of 745 votes over six term incumbent Republican Virgil Goode. This is a reversal of 1391 votes since all of the regular voting precincts reported. If Periello's lead holds, or grows as is expected, this would be a pickup for Democrats in the US House and would also result in the delegation to the US House from The Old Dominion having a majority of Democrats by a 6 - 5 margin for the upcoming 111th Congress in the U S House of Representatives.
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*
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The election to finally decide the seat in the US Senate from Georgia is Tuesday 2 December; and two congressional districts in Georgia will have elections on Saturday 6 December. As of now, Democrats are favored to win all three of these contests. The runoff contest in Georgia is already ugly.
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*****

Which America Do You Witness and Experience Most Every Day ?

...From Chris Hedges as written on 10 November 2008 in the blog truthdig..com:
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America the Illiterate
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We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
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There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
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The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
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The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.
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Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.

The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.
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The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates, George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates, Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.
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In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King” and perhaps as educational. “Culture,” she wrote, “is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment.”
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“There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect,” Arendt wrote, “but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.”
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The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.
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As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers—our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues—who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.
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The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.
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*
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It is not surprising that many, if not most of us, are strongly exposed to the less preferable side, or the illiterate side, as described in this article on a regular, even daily basis. It portends to a grim future for the nation if we are not there already...
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*****

11 November 2008

The Price of Bush for Republicans

This rather lengthy article does a superb job of explaining and analyzing why George Bush has effectively destroyed the Republican Party as it has been known for over a generation, and what it will mean in the coming years, as well what the GOP may and have to do to resurrect itself.
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http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/22665562
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*****

Attention, Newman ! Attention, Clavin !

It has long been known the Unites States Postal Service (USPS) is a bureaucracy that is bloated and full of waste. Numerous people are employed by the service that are simply unnecessary and clearly a waste of money. Images in popular culture of fictional postal workers such as Newman in the television program Seinfeld and Cliff Clavin in Cheers often reflect the image of postal employees quite accurately for many users of the service and have been etched in the mindsets and attitudes of the public, albeit inaccurately. The news today that the Postal Service will be eliminating tens of thousands of jobs and employees in the next year of so is long overdue. The use of electronic mail (email) has largely ended the practice of mailing letters by much of the public, effectively making the mail a government subsidized perk for use by corporations, advertisers, and marketers. It is quite within the realm of belief that the USPS will all but disappear within a generation.
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http://www.ksla.com/global/story.asp?s=9247633
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*****

Arizona to See the End of Payday Lenders

It is very pleasing indeed to see Arizona join a growing list of other states that is banning the greedy and excessive practices of payday loan centers. 15 states now effectively ban payday lenders: Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont and West Virginia. Voters in the Grand Canyon State voted down a ballot proposition on Election Day (Tuesday 4 November '08) basically written and sponsored by the payday lending industry that would have permitted high interest loans and other unwise and selfish lending practices to continue after legislation passed last year would have ended it. These modern day loan sharks, a scourge upon the land and an eyesore throughout most communities, now must do business along the lines of other financial institutions. Having to abide by these limits and restrictions will inevitably lead to their disappearance rather soon.
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Hopefully the other states in the Mountain States region, as well as those along the Pacific West Coast and the Great Plains, will adopt similar stringent measures to kill this plague and pestilence from all our communities and neighborhoods everywhere throughout the West.
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/11/10/20081110biz-payday1110.html
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*****

09 November 2008

Stevens' Lead Slipping Away in Alaska

The analysis in the blog fivethirtyeight.com shows a growing likelihood longtime Republican Senator Ted Stevens will inevitably be passed once counting begins of absentee, early, and military ballots. This blog believes that Mark Begich, the Democratic challenger, will end up with an approximately 3000 vote victory.
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It will be interesting to see what develops over the next two weeks.

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/uncounted-votes-may-push-begich-past.html

*****

Senator Bernie Sanders on the Current American Economy

...From the Sunday 9 November blog buzzflash:

As the Bush administration sputters to an end, the official unemployment rate rose from 6.1 to 6.5 percent in October, and the number of unemployed persons increased by 603,000 to 10.1 million -- a 14 year high. In the last year alone of the Bush Administration, unemployment has increased by 2.8 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.7 percentage points. The news is deeply disheartening.

And these figures are conservative. They do not include workers who want a full-time job but are working part-time or workers who have given up looking for work completely. The number of involuntary part-time workers rose by 645,000 last month to 6.7 million. The figures do not include another half million workers so discouraged they have stopped looking for work. If we total these numbers, the unemployment and underemployment figures are very stark: almost 17 million Americans are jobless or unable to find the full-time employment they want.

These are very difficult times for Vermonters and Americans throughout this country. Consumer confidence is at an all-time low; while the foreclosure rate is at an all-time high. More than 100,000 Americans filed for bankruptcy just last month. Many of those fortunate enough to have a job are seeing their wages go down, while prices have been going up. Recent declines in the stock market are shattering the retirement dreams of many older Americans and forcing many more to delay their retirement plans for years to come.
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Since Bush has been president, nearly 6 million Americans have slipped out of the middle class and into poverty; over 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance; more than 4 million Americans have lost their pensions, and median income for working-age Americans has gone down by over $2,000.

In these very difficult economic conditions, doing nothing is not an option.
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When the Senate reconvenes on November 17, I intend to fight for an economic recovery program that is significant enough in size and scope to respond to the major economic crisis this country now faces.

If we can commit more than $1 trillion to rescue bankers and insurance companies from their reckless and irresponsible behavior, we certainly should be investing in millions of good-paying jobs that rebuild our nation and improve its economy.

In my view, the size of this economic recovery plan should be, at a minimum, $300 billion.

This economic recovery package should first improve our crumbling infrastructure by improving our roads, bridges and public transportation. We need to bring our water and sewer systems into the 21st century. We need to make certain that high-quality Internet service is available in every community in America. Not only are these investments desperately needed, but also every $1 billion that we put into these initiatives will create up to 47,000 new jobs.

We also need to make a major financial commitment to energy efficiency and sustainable energy. With a major investment, we can stop importing foreign oil in 10 years, produce all of our electricity from sustainable energy within a decade, and substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions. We can also make the United States the world leader in the construction of solar, wind, bio-fuel, and geothermal facilities for energy production, as well as create a significant number of jobs by making our homes, offices, schools, and factories far more energy efficient.

In these harsh economic times, we should also make sure that, at the very least, all Americans have access to primary health care and dental care, which we can do by substantially increasing funding for the highly-effective community health center program. We should extend unemployment benefits, so that more than 1 million Americans do not run out of their benefits by the end of this year. We should assure that no one in America, in these hard times, goes hungry or homeless.

Finally, with towns and states such as Vermont facing deep deficits, we must make a major, immediate financial commitment to states and municipalities. Their crisis will only grow worse as homes are foreclosed, as incomes decline, and as fees on sales of homes and motor vehicles diminish. For too long, unfunded federal mandates have drained the budgets of states and communities. The strength and vitality of our communities must be restored.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is the junior U.S. senator from Vermont.

This is a superb proposal that hopefully will be enacted largely in the form Senator Sanders is proposing. As he firmly states, the economy across the nation is in a freefall that requires bold and decisive action.

*****

08 November 2008

Latest on US House Representation

Its been five days since Election Day, and slowly the final numbers for the US House of Representatives that will be sworn in and seated on 3 January 2009 for the 111th Congress is coming into view. As of now it appears Democrats will have 257 seats to 178 for Republicans, a gain of 21 seats in this election for Democrats. Six races, however, remain undecided or unfinalized to some extent. Democrats may yet get to 260 seats for the next Congress. Here is the latest on these contests.
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ALASKA, at-large statewide district: Eighteen term incumbent Republican and scandal - ridden Don Young leads challenger Ethan Berkowitz by under 17,000 votes out of over 210,000 cast and counted thus far, or by 52 to 44 percent. It is estimated that perhaps as many as 80,000 or more absentee and military ballots remain to be counted. It may be until near or after Thanksgiving that we get a final result. Another factor in this race is the presence of Alaskan Independence Party candidate Don Wright on the ballot, where he has recieved nearly nine percent of the total vote thus far.

Even if Young does eventually lose this race, he may end up back in Washington DC as a US Senator to replace embattled Ted Stevens, who stands to be expelled from the Senate should he hold on to get re-elected in spite of being criminally convicted of seven felonies recently.
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CALIFORNIA, Fourth Congressional District: Nine term incumbent Republican John Doolittle, beset by enormous scandals including being linked to bribery with Jack Abramoff, announced last January he would not seek re - election. The contest to fill the seat, which covers a broad expanse of northeast California, is between Democrat Charlie Brown and Republican Tom McClintock. Results at this point show McClintock with a less than 1100 vote lead out of over 313,000 cast and counted thus far. However, thousands of mail in and provisional ballots remain to be counted. A final result should be announced sometime in the next ten days. This was one of only two congressional seats being vacated in California among its 53 seat representation, with District 52 being vacated by Republican Duncan Hunter, a former GOP presidential candidate after fourteen terms representing this district which covers northern and eastern San Diego County, a bastion of conservatism. The GOP successfully held this seat.
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A curious and interesting development in California, other than in the two seats previously mentioned, was the unanimous re - election of all 51 incumbents in the other congressional districts throughout the state.
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LOUISIANA, Second Congressional District: The Pelican State is unique in that it does not decide elections this year of two of its congressional districts until after the general election, with this year's contests being resolved by voters on Saturday, 6 December 2009. The general election earlier this week was essentially a primary runoff contest in this district. Nine term incumbent Democrat Willam Jennings "Bill" Jefferson , easily the most corrupt member of Congress, will face Republican challenger Anh Cao for this seat. Jefferson is under federal indictment for 19 counts of corruption and FBI agents have raided his office and home, finding $90,000 in cash wrapped in foil and frozen food containers in his freezer. In spite of his legal and ethical ills, Jefferson is favored to win re - election in this district which makes up areas around New Orleans and most of the city itself. His next term in the House may be short lived.
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LOUISIANA, Fourth Congressional District: Like the Second Congressional District in Louisiana, this district will hold its election for this seat on Saturday, 6 December 2009, after conducting a primary runoff on Election Day, 4 November 2009. Eleven term incumbent Republican Jim McCreary, who won the seat initially in a special election in April 1988 to fill out the remaining eight months left in a term vacated by Buddy Roemer, announced last December he was retiring. Republican John Fleming is matched up against Democrat Paul Carmouche to succeed McCreary. This district covers most of western and northwestern Louisiana and includes the city of Shreveport. Polling at this point indicates no clear favorite in the race which means the Democrats could make this a pickup.
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OHIO, Fifteenth Congressional District: This district covers parts of central Ohio, including parts of the city of Columbus and areas to the immediate south and north as well as wide expanse to the west. The district has been represented in Congress since January 1993 by Republican Deborah Pryce. Pryce announced almost 15 months ago she would retire and vacate the seat at the end of her current term. Republican Steve Stivers is seeking to hold the seat against Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, who lost narrowly to Pryce in 2006. Currently Stivers leads Kilroy by 149 votes out over 259,000 cast and counted thus far, but over 27,000 mail in and provisional ballots, largely from perceived Democratic strongholds, remain to be counted. If Kilroy overcomes Stivers' current lead, this would another pickup for Democrats in the House. Final results are expected to be announced within the next two to three weeks.
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VIRGINIA, Fifth Congressional District: 646 votes currently separates Democrat Tom Periello from six term incumbent Republican Virgil Goode. Goode is losing the election at this point due to a number of controversies and questionable actions over his time in office, which includes a switch from the Democrats to an independent status to joining the Republicans within a three year span from early 2000 to August 2002, as well as the groundswell from the Obama presidential election success and associated Democratic coattails in The Old Dominion. An unknown number of uncounted votes remains to be tallied, and the balance of which party has the greater number of representatives in Virginia is also at stake. This district covers much of central and southern Virginia including the city of Charlottesville. Final results are anticipated in the next one to two weeks, but a recount may be necessary if the margin of victory remains at 0.5 % or less. Goode was the first Republican to represent this district since 1889.
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*****

Two More Bank Failures; 19 Seized by FDIC Thus Far in '08

Two more bite the dust...Stay tuned to see who is next...
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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Los-Angeles-based-Security-Pacific/story.aspx?guid=%7B027849E0%2DACF4%2D40FB%2D91B6%2DCA343484CD4F%7D&dist=SecMostRead
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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-security8-2008nov08,0,4251813.story
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6101117.html

*****

A Shift of the Political Paradigm

...From Jerome Karabel as written in The Huffington Post on Friday 7 November...

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THE POLITICS OF REALIGNMENT
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Over the past one hundred years, there have only been two presidential elections that fundamentally changed the course of American politics -- Franklin Roosevelt's victory in 1932, which ushered in a generation of Democratic rule, and Ronald Reagan's triumph in 1980, which marked the beginning of 28 years of Republican dominance of national politics. Though it is far too early to be certain, Barack Obama's victory could well be the third such realigning election in the past century -- one that will be seen by historians as the beginning of an emerging Democratic majority.
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To be sure, Obama's six-point victory fell well short of a landslide. But landslides are not necessarily "realigning" elections -- those that change the contours of American politics, giving one party a long-term advantage. Witness Lyndon Johnson in 1964, who won by 23 points over Barry Goldwater, and Richard Nixon in 1972, who beat McGovern by the same margin; both triumphs were followed just four years later by the opposition party winning the White House.
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On the other hand, an election that is not a landslide can nevertheless be a realigning one. The classic example is Ronald Reagan's nine-point victory in 1980, which reconfigured American politics by defining government as "the problem not the solution." For the next quarter of a century, Reagan's free market ideas dominated politics, and battles for the presidency were fought largely on Republican terrain. Bill Clinton himself, the only Democrat to reach the White House between 1980 and 2008, admitted as much when he declared in 1996 that "the era of big government is over." In this sense, Barack Obama was surely right last January when he declared - provoking much controversy in Democratic circles - that "Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that... Bill Clinton did not."
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Yet it was not fully apparent that 1980 was a realigning election until four years later, when Ronald Reagan defeated Walter Mondale by more than 18 points. So whether 2008 will ultimately be seen as a moment of realignment depends in a good part on what happens during the next four years. Though Barack Obama's historic victory fell short of a landside, it has within it the seeds of a basic realignment of American politics. Far more than merely a response to the Wall Street meltdown, it was also a product of long-term trends favorable to the emergence of a Democratic majority that could dominate American politics over the next quarter century. Six trends, in particular, stand out:
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1. Young people flocked to Obama in unprecedented numbers, with those 18 to 29 preferring him to McCain by 66 to 32 percent. This is of great long-term significance because historically realignments have begun with the young, who in their twenties often develop party allegiances that stay with them the rest of their lives. Just as the Democratic loyalty of the generation of that came of age under Franking Roosevelt was integral to the Democratic Party's political dominance through the mid-1960s, so too was the Republican tilt of the Reagan generation crucial to Republican dominance over the past quarter century. And this year was part of a long-term trend towards the Democrats; the last time that a Republic presidential candidate won among 18 to 29 years olds was in 1988, when George H.W. Bush led among them by 5 points.
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2. The rapidly growing Hispanic population is shifting decisively to the Democratic Party. Obama carried Hispanics by 66 to 32, a vast improvement over Kerry's 58 to 43 margin. Because of widespread anger among Hispanics about how Republicans have handled the volatile immigration issue, this shift is unlikely to be a one-time affair. The loyalty of Hispanics is probably the decisive political battleground of the future; 12.5 percent of the population in 2000, Hispanics are expected to comprise nearly 20 percent of all Americans by 2020 and over 30 percent by 2050. Especially ominous for the Republican future was the vote among young Hispanics, who preferred Obama by the stunning margin of 76-19.
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3. Obama has broken definitively with the long-term pattern of Democratic dependence on states with a declining proportion of the electoral vote. Because of their relatively slow projected growth, such Democratic strongholds as New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts are almost certain to lose electoral votes in 2012. In the absence of movement into rapidly growing Red states, this decline would over time have sapped the strength of the Democratic Party. But Obama shattered the Red-Blue divide, winning such rapidly growing states as Florida, Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada and running highly competitive races in several other Red states. Of greatest import in the long term, the Democrats have shown that they can compete in every region of the country, including the rapidly growing parts of the South and Mountain West. The same cannot be said of the Republicans in much of New England, the mid-Atlantic states, and the Pacific West.
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4. What demographers euphemistically call "generational replacement" will gradually erode the Republican base. McCain's greatest strength was among those over 65, among whom he beat Obama by 53 to 45 percent. Over time, however, the ranks of this age group will grow thinner and thinner. And the cohort that follows them, those between 45 to 64 are largely the Baby Boom generation. Despite the conservatizing effects of age, this is not a group the Republicans can count on.
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5. Obama did well among the swing voters whom the Democrats need to build a majority coalition, winning 52 percent of "independents" (who now comprise 29 percent of the electorate) and 60 percent of moderates. This compares favorably to Reagan's performance in 1980, when he won 55 percent of independents and only 49 percent of moderates. If these gains among independents and moderates can be sustained in 2012 and beyond, will not solidify a Democratic majority.
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6. Republicans have for some time been hemorrhaging support among the college-educated. This trend accelerated in 2008, with Obama winning 53 percent of college graduates. As recently as 1988, Republicans carried college graduates by 13 percent (56-43) -- a pattern that made sense given that Republicans have traditionally enjoyed wide support among middle and upper-middle class voters. But this pattern has been changing for two decades and reached a turning point this year. With college graduates voting far out of proportion to their numbers in the population and now constituting 45 percent of all voters, this is a group that Republicans simply cannot afford to lose.
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Together, these six trends suggest that the majority coalition that the Democrats put together in 2008 is likely to strengthen in the years ahead. True, some of the factors contributing to Obama's victory -- the extraordinary unpopularity of the Bush administration, the timing and sheer magnitude of the Wall Street meltdown, and Obama's remarkable persona charisma -- will not be transferable to other Democratic candidates. The roots of Democratic ascendance, however, extend beyond long-term demographic trends to the ideological crisis now facing the Republic Party, which has elevated an anti-government instinct to a matter of fundamental principle. Recent events have not been kind to this world view. For beginning with Hurricane Katrina and extending through the Wall Street debacle, the necessity of effective government as an agent of the common good - the core principle of progressive politics for more than a century -- has become increasingly obvious.
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Whether Obama and the Democrats take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to write a new chapter in the history of American progressivism remains to be seen, but the opportunity is there for the taking. If they do, 2008 may look in the long historical view much like 1980 -- a year in which an impressive victory well short of a landslide marked the beginning of a more fundamental realignment of American politics.
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*
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A superb analysis of what happened this past Tuesday, and the author makes a powerful argument that these trends will continue for some time. But history will show if this merely a blip like 1976 or a longterm trend like 1932.
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*****

More Statehouses with Democratic Majorities

Election 2008 was an election that showed broad increases for Democrats, and that was true also on the state level. Three states - DE, NY, and WI - now are fully Democratic, while two states - AK and MO - went from full Republican leadership to split leadership. All together, Democrats have the full control of 17 states; Republicans have control fully in eight state; and 25 have divisions in either one or more legislative houses and / or the office of governor.
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The recent elections gave Democrats a total of 29 governors with Republicans having 21, a change of one more for Democrats staring in 2009 as MO opted to go with a Democrat to replace a retiring Republican.
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States with a Democratic governor and Republican state legislatures include WY, MT, AZ, CA, NV, KS, OK, VA, TN, KY, MI, OH, and PA - a total of 13 states. States with a Republican governor and Democratic state legislatures include HI, AK, LA, MS, AL, IN, RI, CT, and MN. NE has a Republican governor and a uni-cameral non-partisan state legislature that generally takes on a Republican philosophy.
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2009 will be a year with just two gubernatorial elections - in Virginia and New Jersey. 34 states will hold elections for governor in 2010.
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http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=354086
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_Governors
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_legislatures
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*****

National Unemployment Numbers Soar

The sad thing about these statistics is that they do not tell the full story. If everyone that is not working is added to these numbers, including the underemployed (ME !); those only working parttime because they cannot get fulltime work; and those who have given up hope in finding work, the true number is somewhere between 15 and 20 %. And many economic experts foresee the official government number to go to 9 % in the coming months. That would mean the true numbers would be nearing some numbers of the Great Depression 75 years ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/business/08jobs.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6098162.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/business/economy/08econ.html?pagewanted=all

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081108/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/the-track-record/

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/06/unemployment-reporting-a-modest-proposal-u3-u6/

*****

Mass Transit Ballot Questions Pass in CA, Seattle

Mass transit across the western US is still largely in its infancy, but increasingly citizens are showing a willingness to make public investments in projects in a number of diverse and even surprising areas. San Francisco and Portland have long been the leaders in mass transit across the western US, and in recent years Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake, and Los Angeles have also started and completed projects to an extent with more to come. The recently completed election saw citizens throughout CA approve a measure for a high speed train system to link San Francisco and Sacramento with Los Angeles and San Diego. This is quite an ambitious endeavor that will take a number of years to complete and be fully realized. Voters in the Seattle metro area also approved a mass transit ballot measure that will further link the region together. Citizens of Santa Fe, NM also voted to expand mass transit. And hopes remain for a regional train connecting Albuquerque to Casper still becoming a reality in the next decade, as well as a high speed rail system from Anaheim to Las Vegas.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-transportation6-2008nov06,0,1481126.story
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/07/BAV6140IK5.DTL
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http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/11/california-vote.html
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lightrailinitiative/2008357499_soundtransit06m.html
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http://www.progressiverailroading.com/news/article.asp?id=18549
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http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/2008/11/transit-election-results-central.html
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*****

07 November 2008

Latest on Undecided US Senate Races

One of the four yet to be determined United States Senate contests from Tuesday 3 November was settled on Thursday 5 November in Oregon where GOP incumbent US Senator Gordon Smith conceded defeat to Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley. Merkley's victory gives Democrats 57 seats at this point for the upcoming 111th Congress to be sworn in and seated on 3 January 2009.

Three other states still have results that remain to be finalized with outcomes uncertain.

Georgia has the most orderly process in place as there will be a two candidate runoff election on Tuesday 2 December between Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin. Chambliss defeated Martin in the general election by over 111,000 votes but the presence of Libertarian Allen Buckley in the race and his amassing of over 127,000 votes, more than 3 % of the total, kept Chambliss from getting the required 50 % to win the election outright. A large number of campaigners from the Obama presidency are poised to come to The Peach State to lend their support and expertise to the Martin campaign, and i is anticipated Willard "Mitt" Romney, Mike Huckabee, and even Sarah Palin will come south to Georgia to campaign for Chambliss. Georgians are in for over three weeks of an intense besiegement from these two renewed campaigns.

In Minnesota, GOP incumbent Norm Coleman leads Democratic challenger Al Franken by only 236 votes out of the over 2.861 million votes cast. A recount of all votes in the election will commence next week.

And in Alaska, embattled GOP incumbent Ted Stevens leads Democratic challenge Mark Begich by 3353 votes out of the over 209,000 cast. It is expected that between 14,000 and 15,000 absentee ballots and military ballots remain to be to counted, which could take two weeks and perhaps longer. This seat will be in limbo for the time being.

Democrats could win all three seats, giving them 60 in the US Senate. But it will take a reversal of results thus far in order for that to happen. Expect Republicans to retain at least one of these three and all three is certainly not out of the question.

*****

06 November 2008

Update and Recap of Election 2008 Results

Election Day 2008 was a one of great historical significance. It was truly something special and amazing to witness and experience. One could describe it as a revolution that took place in a way. America took a giant step forward to realizing the promise and the dream of the ideals long known for what the nation is supposed to stand for. As Robert Reich said so eloquently and simply in his blog: "America, I am proud of you. And I am proud of us."
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Barrack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States of America. What a moment in history for all of mankind and Americans in particular.
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Most other election results are now final, over 24 hours after polls closed. But a few contests remain undecided at this moment. Many of these key undetermined races are for US Senate seats.
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OREGON: The Beaver State is horribly slow to count all ballots. At this late point only 79 % of precincts are reporting ! But at least the news is good at this time. In the race for the US Senate seat in Oregon, Democratic challenger Merkley has opened a margin of over 12,000 votes over Republican incumbent Smith of the over 1.444 million votes cast and counted thus far. The results have swayed from one candidate to the other over the last 29 plus hours, so a final result and winner is by no means a sure thing. Stay tuned.
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MINNESOTA: All 100 % of precincts are being shown as reporting. The US Senate race between GOP incumbent Coleman and Democratic challenger Franken is headed for a recount. At this moment, Coleman leads by just 477 votes out of over 2.861 million cast and counted. The third party candidate, independent Barkley, took 15 % of the votes cast which without question had a major role in how and why this vote turned out so close. It will be at least a few weeks before we know who will be certified by election authorities as having won this election in The Gopher State.
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GEORGIA: There will be a runoff election in the coming weeks for the US Senate seat in The Peach State. Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss just missed getting 50 % of the vote. Democratic challenger Martin ended with 47 %, and Libertarian Buckley got 3 %. So voters in Georgia will get to cast a vote again soon for just either Chambliss or Martin. It is this writer's guess that Chambliss will narrowly retain his seat when all is said and done.
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ALASKA: Clearly this is of the big shockers as voters in The Last Frontier stunningly chose to return longtime GOP incumbent Stevens, recently convicted in the last ten days of seven felony criminal convictions, back to the US Senate. With 99 % of precincts reporting, Stevens leads Democratic challenger Begich by 3353 votes out of over 209,000 cast and counted thus far. What also makes this strange is that with Stevens being re-elected, he will get to serve in the US Senate as it is certain he will be expelled from the institution by a strong majority of members from both parties. This could very well happen in the first week or so in January when the next US Senate is sworn in and seated.
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The fallout of all this overshadows another corrupt Alaskan politician also winning a close contest to return to the US House. GOP incumbent Young scored a win over Democratic challenger Berkowitz by less than 18,000 votes for a 52 - 44 margin.
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What will happen next is largely up for conjecture. Alaska Governor Palin could resign and have the new governor, current Lieutenant Governor Parnell, appoint her to fill Stevens' seat in the US Senate when the expected expulsion becomes official. Young could also be moved up to the Senate and Palin, or someone else, could be appointed to the US House at-large seat from AK that Young now and will continue to hold with his seemingly surprising win on Tuesday.
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If Minnesota, Oregon, and Georgin are not wacky and unbelievable enough, these circumstances that in play in Alaska now and down the road are one for the ages. Once again, stay tuned.
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IDAHO: We waited as long as we could early Wednesday 5 November morning to see this race through to the end, but it was not to be at that time. But it can now be reported as final. In what can only be called as a big upset, Democratic challenger Minnick scored a narrow win over first time GOP incumbent Sali in the contest for the First Congressional seat from all places, Idaho. The Gem State has been a deep and strong bastion of GOP strength for nearly 20 years and longer, so this result is nothing short of shocking. Minnick ended up winning by a little more than 4200 votes out of the nearly 347,000 cast and tallied. All 100 % of the precincts in this district are reporting. The victory in Idaho by Minnick splits the state's two member US House delegation evenly between the two parties for the first time in over 14 years.
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CALIFORNIA: In another surprising result, not one incumbent was ousted from the 53 races for the US House seats from The Golden State. At this moment, it appears that not one seat turned over from one party to the other, although results from District Four are somewhat close as the GOP candidate McClintock leads the Democratic candidate Brown by just 451 votes out over 311,000 cast and counted with 100 % of precincts reporting with the Republican incumbent having vacated the seat. It is highly unusual in an election of this magnitude not too have at least some change in a state with such an enormous delegation.
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NEW MEXICO: The 2008 election turned The Land of Enchantment to solid blue as Democrats swept rather easily all elective offices being contested, four in all. Outside of the New England states of MA, RI, CT, VT, and NH, NM is the only state in the Union that has an elected delegation in both houses of Congress that is completely Democratic. This turn of good fortune will pay off handsomely as NM can expect to do much better in getting additional federal dollars in the next few years for a wide and extensive variety of needs the state and its citizens are experiencing.
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WYOMING: The opposite of New Mexico is The not so Equality State, Wyoming. The voters in the state gave John McCain his largest margin of victory on Tuesday by a 66 - 32 spread that was even greater than in Idaho and Utah. Wyoming also sent three Republicans to Washington DC by tremendous margins. While the other states in the eight state Mountain States region are largely balanced in their representation to at least a minimum extent, Wyoming voters opted to not participate in the revolution on Tuesday. These decisions will come back to haunt them as the state will see little in the way of any federal dollars outside of for maintenance and repairs in national parks and other federal lands. Any hopes for federal monies to repair, improve, and upgrade Interstates 80, 25, and 90 are now gone as well as monies for water projects, education, and other infrastructural needs that are becoming increasingly pressing across the state. Wyoming is doomed to be a pariah in the next several years in the nation's capital and among its movers and shakers.

The only other delegation to Washington DC that is entirely Republican is from Alaska. Six of seven of the representation from Oklahoma is Republican and five of six from Kansas is Republican.
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THE SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES: The defeat of GOP incumbent Chris Shays in Connecticut's Fourth Congressional District also completely eliminates any GOP representation from the US House from this six state region. All 22 Congressman from the six states are Democrats, and 10 of the 12 US Senators from the region are Democrats, with only the two US Senators from Maine, Collins and Snowe, from across the aisle. This is a stunning turnaround for this region in just a generation, when the GOP once had a majority of federal legislative seats.
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THE MID ATLANTIC STATES REGION: The numbers from these five states (NY, NJ, PA, DE, and MD) are nearly as striking as those from the New England states region. 53 of this region's 70 US Representatives are going to be Democrats with the seating of the 111th Congress. In New York its 26 -3 Democrats and 7 -1 for Dems in Maryland. The delegation in the US Senate from this region is 9 -1 for Democrats with Specter from PA the sole Republican. Like New England, this region was once balanced between the two parties even as recently as less than two decades ago. No longer.
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THE SOUTH ATLANTIC COAST STATES REGION: Changes tilting the balance of power more towards Democrats is also occuring in this part of the nation which consists of five states (VA, NC, SC, GA, and FL). There have huge changes in demographics in the last few decades in particular with many new residents in these states coming up from other parts of the nation, especially from the Northeast. The 111th Congress will consist of 36 Republicans and 32 Democrats, the closest spread since since before 1980. The delegation in the US Senate remains tilted towards Republicans with a 6 -4 edge, but it could turn even if Chambliss falls in GA in the upcoming runoff election.
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One additional item to consider is South Carolina, clearly the state least like the other four. Throw out the numbers from The Palmetto State and the Dems are tied in the Senate and trail the GOP by one in the House. South Carolina inevitably will change along the lines already seen in the other four states in the region in the coming decade and beyond as it gets discovered by outsiders.
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DIXIE / OLD CONFEDERACY: These seven states ( AL, MS, LA, TX, AR, TN, and KY) are characterized by an overwhelming strong Republican presence in both the US House and US Senate. 11 of 14 US Senators are Republicans with two of the Dems from Arkansas. In the US House, 39 of the 69 members of the next Congress will be Republicans, but throw out the numbers from TX and its almost even with 19 Repubs and 17 Dems which somewhat still reflects the historical traditional importance of Democrats in the region that goes back several generations.
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GREAT LAKES - RUST BELT STATES REGION: There are six states that make up this region: WV, OH, IN, MI, IL, WI, and MN. Democrats have considerable strength in these states as 11 of 14 US Senators ( or see Minnesota above) and 46 of 80 Representatives are Democrats. This region ranks fourth behind New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Pacific Coast in strength for Democrats.
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GREAT PLAINS STATES: Seven states are part of this region: OK, KS, NE, SD, ND, IA, and MO. The region moderates in its political views and outlook the further north one goes. The US Senate has nine Republicans and five Democrats with OK and KS having full GOP Senatorial delegations. 17 of the 28 US Congressman for the next Congress are Republicans. Next to the Dixie / Old Confederacy States region, this is the Republicans strongest area.
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MOUNTAIN STATES REGION: Long a bastion of GOP strength, results from recent elections are reversing this. For the first time in many years, Democrats will make up the majority of seats in the US Congress with 17 of the 28 seats in the next Congress being Democrats. This is a reversal from the 110th Congress. On the US Senate side, Republicans hold the edge narrowly with nine of the sixteen US Senators starting in 2009.
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PACIFIC WEST COAST STATES REGION: 46 of 70 congressional representatives and seven of ten Senators (or see Oregon above) in the next Congress will be Democrats, about a 2 -1 margin. Four of the five states of this region (CA, OR, WA, and HI) have a long tradition of being majority Democrat for the most part, while the other state Alaska is just the opposite.

Results for the US House still are yet to be determined in regard to what the final numbers for each party will be.
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And, in conclusion, clearly the best moment on Tuesday night Election night was when Barrack Obama told his daughters as his acceptance speech at Grant Park in Chicago that he loved them dearly and that they would be getting a puppy to come with them to The White House in January. Very touching and quite sweet bringing a smile to all including yours truly.
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*****

I AM the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.

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