Debt Ceiling Standoff Reminiscent Of Cuban Missle
CrisisAn Interesting View Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

post from Texas Liberal on 24 July 2011 11:31:10 PM. © Texas Liberal

The debt ceiling talks have begun to remind me of the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Above–Soviet missiles in Cuba. Big trouble back in 1962.) Which side will blink first? (Here are facts about the Cuban Missile Crisis.) As for the debt ceiling negotiations, I hope President Obama does not sell us out with benefit cuts and [...]

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-cuban-missle-crisis-an-interesting-view-of-the-cuban-missile-crisis/

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Debt Ceiling Standoff Reminiscent Of Cuban
Missile CrisisAn Interesting View Of The Cuban Missile Crisis

post from Texas Liberal on 24 July 2011 11:31:10 PM. © Texas Liberal

The debt ceiling talks have begun to remind me of the Cuban Missile Crisis. (Above–Soviet missiles in Cuba. Big trouble back in 1962.) Which side will blink first? (Here are facts about the Cuban Missile Crisis.) As for the debt ceiling negotiations, I hope President Obama does not sell us out with benefit cuts and [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/debt-ceiling-standoff-reminiscent-of
-cuban-missile-crisis-an-interesting-view-of-the-cuban-missile-crisis/

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Open thread for night owls: SEC put wolves in
charge

post from Daily Kos on 24 July 2011 11:30:02 PM. © Daily Kos

I would call them werewolves myself, but at New Deal 2/0, as part of his series on ?Breaking Through the Jobless Recovery,? economist William Lazonick writes How the SEC Let the Wolves into the Stock Market Chicken Coop:

In 1991, well-known compensation consultant Graef S. Crystal published In Search of Excess: The Overcompensation of American Executives in response to an explosion in executive pay that occurred in the US in the 1970s and 1980s. How, Crystal asked, did it make any economic sense for the CEOs in his sample of 200 large US corporations to be making 130 times the pay of the average American worker? And why were they making about seven times the compensation of their CEO counterparts at Japanese companies, many of which were out-competing their US rivals?
Yet the surge in top executive pay that Crystal observed 20 years ago pales in comparison to the volcanic eruption that has occurred since then. In the mid-2000s, top executive pay in the United States was about three times higher in real terms than the levels of the early 1990s. And the ratio of the average compensation of the CEOs of the largest corporations to that of the average worker climbed as high as 525:1 in 2000 before declining to what has become the ?new normal? of about 350:1 in 2010. The gains from exercising stock options represent both the largest and most variable component of top executive pay, giving CEOs, CFOs, and other top dogs a huge interest in allocating corporate resources in ways that jack up their companies? stock prices ? most notably through stock buybacks that can run into billions of dollars per year.
Large corporations use buybacks to manipulate the stock market. And the fact that top corporate executives can sell the shares that they acquire from exercising stock options without any delay means that, avoiding any risk, they can capitalize on the short swings in their company?s stock price that their corporate allocation decisions help to create. Nice work if you can get it! And guess how they got it? A gift of the regulator of US stock markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In 1982 and 1991 the SEC - the US government agency which is supposed to protect stock-market investors from stock-price manipulation and short-swing profits by insiders ? promulgated rule changes that gave the wolves free access to the chicken coop. ...

At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:

That sound you hear is millions of Republican heads exploding simultaneously, as Michael Steele once again shoves his foot down his throat:
That?s the mood the administration is beginning to take. You understand what the underlying principle of socialism is. It is government control of the means of production. In this case, it is the government controlling the means of providing health care to the American people. It is inserting itself into the very fabric of the decisions that you make, have to make every single day. It'll make the Terry Schiavo case look like a walk in the park. You know, you?re going to have meetings and committees, government agencies and bureaucrats making decisions on what kind of health care you get.
Seriously, Michael, how much did the DNC pay you to equate the Republican Party's interference in Terri Schiavo's life with socialized medicine?

Top Comments can be found here. High Impact Diaries can be found here.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/o04HcXKsKt4/-Open-thread-for-night
-owls:-SEC-put-wolves-in-charge

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Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 24 July 2011 11:30:00 PM. © Crooks and Liars

video details and more

Commander McBragg, "How is the War in Afghanistan Going?" via ZenComix

Open Thread below....

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http://crooksandliars.com/bluegal-aka-fran/open-thread-94

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THE REAL STOCK MARKET AINT SO PRETTY

post from Jutia Group on 24 July 2011 11:22:11 PM. © Jutia Group

When priced in something that has real value and cannot be debased (gold), one can clearly see that stocks have been in a severe bear market since 2000. (If one were to look at PE valuations during the same period they would see the same bear market.) In the chart below I have marked the final phase of several gold C-waves. These highly speculative periods tend to end as a parabolic blowoff rally with gold stretched quite far above the 200 day moving average. The final phase of a C wave rally also tends to correspond with another leg down in the Dow:gold ratio.

After an extended two year consolidation I think we are now due for that final explosive . . . → Read More: THE REAL STOCK MARKET AIN’T SO PRETTY

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http://jutiagroup.com/20110724-the-real-stock-market-aint-so-pretty/

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Sunday Late Night: #FU DC

post from Firedoglake on 24 July 2011 11:01:59 PM. © Firedoglake

This is a fight every roommate household has had. We recognize it. I've seen it before, and you, dear reader, if you're like me, probably have too.And the government is having this fight at the top of their lungs, risking our tenancy and our neighbors'[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/LNgjL685vr8/

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E-mails Reveal Randy Hopper Coached Mistress on
Scoring State Job

post from MAL Contends . . . on 24 July 2011 11:00:30 PM. © MAL Contends . . .

Randy Hopper has denied helping his mistress score a job in the Scott Walker administration. But e-mails obtained by Eye on Wisconsin reveal Hopper advises his mistress "might congratulate [Keith Gilkes, Scott Walker's chief of staff]" on Walker's victory, among other career assistance for Valarie Cass' getting a state job as Walker told Wisconsin, 'we're broke'. Turned out to be good advice for the communications specialist - girlfriend

By Cory Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin

In March we learned that state Senator Randy Hopper (R-Unknown) left his wife and filed for divorce last year. According to his wife he had taken up with 20-something Republican operative Valerie Cass. It didn't take long for additional reports to surface showing that this girlfriend was hired by the Walker administration under questionable circumstances and at a questionable pay rate.

Some have wondered if Randy Hopper played a role in getting his girlfriend the taxpayer funded job. A number of newly obtained emails now provide a closer view of some of his involvement.

Based on a November 30th email Hopper and Cass wasted no time in trying to score a state job for her.

See the full report at Cory Liebmann at Eye on Wisconsin.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MalContends/~3/V1bVydgZMxI/e-mails-reveal-randy-ho
pper-coached.html

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With Little Wings

Title: Look At What The Light Did NowArtist: Little Wings

Happy Sunday!

Light Green Leaves

Artist: Little Wings Price: $10.59 (As of 07/24/11 11:49 am details)

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http://crooksandliars.com/jared-shade-reynolds/cls-late-night-music-club-l-5

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Benjamin Wittes Responds: Happy to be a
government proxy

In an an arrogant riposte to an earlier posting of mine, Lawfare blogger and member of the Hoover Institute Task Force on National Security and the Law, Benjamin Wittes, proclaimed he is "Happy to be a government proxy."Wittes' tongue may seem somewhat[...]

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