Hope you found time to watch the Masterpiece Contemporary flick; this:
“Re-thinking Iceland:” is a bunch of FT crapola by the same mindsets that want taxpayers to bail out bank creditors. It’s not till the end of the article that an Icelandic parliament member is allowed to say ‘it was the right thing to do’.

“Curious article: ”Why Is JPMorgan’s Gold Vault, The Largest In The World, Located Next To The New York Fed?””; is a continuation of speculation that currency wars are imminent and that the reported gold amounts held in storage are fabricated.

“Well, hot damn: “Duke [Energy Corp] Explores Rooftop Solar as Panels Slow Electricity Demand, CEO Says”.” ; another filip re Duke’s actions:
“Progress Energy Florida, which has been purchased by North Carolina-based Duke Energy, has collected more than $819 million from its customers for two nuclear projects, according to the Florida Public Service Commission.”

“Duke Energy Corporation (DUK) announced that its Buck and Riverbend steam stations, coal-fired power plants in the Charlotte area, will retire two years earlier than scheduled.”

They’re being fracked out of biz in the fossil fuel world and need to switch their biz model.

FWIW

Still Crazy after all these years

Great roundup, as always, f.

David Cameron refuses to play second fiddle to Obama when it comes
to shredding basic freedoms:

The Justice Secretary and Home Secretary indicated on Sunday that Britain would scrap human rights laws – and possibly even leave the European Court for Human Rights – if the Conservatives won the next election.

A shining beacon on a hill, indeed.

Busy all day trying to track down news articles, ubetchaiam, but hope to have the time this pm to watch the Masterpiece Contemporary movie you recommended.

Thnx so much for another nice tune, too!

Oh, good grief, and much, much worse! They will simply not give up–whether stripping people of economic well-being, self-determination or, you know, a few basic human rights.

Thanks to you, allan, for keeping us sober and clear-eyed. Keepin’ our eyes on that prize–and holdin’ on!

Regarding “. . .the rich behave more unethically and greedily. . .”

That’s a really interesting link. I think another piece like this was posted here quite awhile ago. A year or two?

F Scott Fitzgerald was as good an observer as a writer. So the study isn’t really news except for applying a method and measuring. Nowadays that’s worthwhile. A harder question, though, would be why.

The cause and effect behind greediness in individuals is largely unknown. Measuring that might be too hard to do. You’d have to get permission from someone to investigate why they are so greedy? Would someone agree to be interviewed about it? Or, simply study their life on the sly and connect the dots — there’d be a lot of assumptions along the way, I’m afraid.

I don’t think even Fitzgerald got that far. He was best at observing and labelling, which may be as far as anyone can go with this So we know the result, but not from where it came.

Aloha, fatster…! So much of it requires further comment, but, this was an obvious no-brainer… ” the rich behave more unethically and greedily than lower-class individuals.” ;-)

We do have many writers to thank for bringing that distinction home, don’t we, maa8722? Dickens, of course. And over here there’s Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Nelson Algren, and many others.

Aloha, CTuttle. Just one more drop in the bucket, perhaps, but each drop helps, and the measurement, as maa8722 noted, has its place, too.

…has its place, too. *heh* I agree, fatster, since all those unethical, greedy bast*rds are making most of the news…! ;-)

Right, CTuttle, and just imagine what they consider a no-brainer when they think of us. Dammit!

Isn’t there another comet coming in toward the end of this month, btw?

To the leader of which tax-exempt institution does this sentence refer?

When he leaves office, he will be paid $800,000 a year.

Edit: I blame the public teachers union. /s

Good evening, fatster, nice summary as always.

Thanks especially for the Bull. of Atom. Sci. link. I’ve looked at the abstracts of the 4 articles on U.S. nuclear phase-out, and 3 of them agree that it’s happening, independent of any guiding policy, because of the sheer weight of the economics. Good news, I’d say. (The 4th warns that such an exit “would” increase both CO2 emissions and electricity prices, but it may be whistling in the wind.)

Panstarrs is due this week… Look for Comet Panstarrs in March — but look hard… I do hope to be working up top of Mauna Kea shortly, to see it, but, no luck so far…!

Good evening to you, E. F. Beall, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to alert people to your good diary, which I just saw, on the sequester. I enjoyed it, as I’m sure others will.

BTW, you might find the first item under “Money Matters USA” above, fits in nicely with your analysis.

…I’d like to alert people to your good diary… *heh* It was just frontpaged, M’dear…! ;-)

That’s outrageous, allan. I was particularly struck by this: “University officials said they would not discuss the payment further, . . .” Talk about snobbery! Definitely a story that could result in more snooping and sleuthing around.

Oh, it’s early- to mid-March. Thnx, CTuttle. I do hope you get a good look at it. Panstarrs, the shy comet.

Thanks for the plug of my post, fatster.

I’m off to bed, but I’ll be sure to look at the item you suggest tomorrow.

And thanks to CT @ 15 for pointing out that I’m front-paged (again! 2nd one in a row; people will have to criticize me more to make sure I don’t get a big head).

The one good thing about the sequestration is that at the state level all the republican asshole governors will take the blame. Rick Scott’s head is about to explode over it. When I heard he was furious about it, absolutely furious, pissed as hell, well, I couldn’t help but smile. Hasta la vista baby.

With any luck, the fed level rethugs, won’t realize the damage they are doing at the state level, until it’s too late.

“Hasta la vista baby.” — and a well-deserved one, too, tuezday. Thanks so much for letting us know about Rick Scott’s reaction. Very interesting.

:)

Yes, when I heard his reaction, I thought of all the unintended consequences, which are quite juicy.

I guess a part of me still wants to believe there are two parties.

” . . . to believe there are two parties”, and one of them cares about us. Sigh.

“❖ A 4% increase in wages would help stabilize the economy, end recession. How can recovery come about without stimulus on the consumption side, which means higher wages? Classic case of micro vs macro economics .”

I wonder if the 110 billion dollars or so spent by Americans on gasoline in the next 90 days could be put to better use than just gone, with no return on investment driving the cost of all goods, products and services higher?

Yup America is getting fucked everyday with no relief from the systemic rape in sight!,,,

Congress is a crackhead….. 4 % increase in wages means more wealth extraction for oil whores…..

Servitude sucks…..

The AP plays stenographer to the right-wing Tax Policy Center:

Tax Bills for Rich Families Approach 30-Year High

… with some notably rare exceptions: Buried towards the end,

On average, households making more than $1 million this year will pay 37.2 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center.

But there are exceptions. For example, the Internal Revenue Service tracks tax returns for the 400 highest-paid filers each year. Those taxpayers made an average of $202 million in 2009, the latest year available. Their average federal income tax rate: 19.9 percent.
That’s still higher than the tax rate paid by most middle-income families, but not by much.

interesting to see Sandy Weil and Alan Greenspan calling for the break up of the big banks. I guess their PR buddies told them this would be a good move for them.

Neil Barosky had mentioned in the press there is a strong movement in the congress to start breaking up the banks BUT Obama is undermining the process

That’s how many of them got rich in the first lace. But setting the obvious identification problem ( as the econometricians call it) aside, I think that a good piece of the expjlanation for the behavior of the rich (thogh possibly not the super-rich for whom sheer power is the aphrodisiac) is that they are extremely rank-conscious. The inequality of income seems greater to a man making $300,000 a year not because some else he doesn’t know makes $50,000, but because some he does know makes $500,000. The competition is insidious and completely internalized. These are people who have no lives outside the comparison with the lives of others. Poor people simply aren’t subject to the same strain. For them mere survival is what matters.

Hi Fatster and friends

John Dear S. J.

“Going to prison for nonviolent civil disobedience against American war-making does wonders to clarify one’s relationship with the U.S. government. I highly recommend it. When I reflect back on my life, it seems I have been preparing for civil disobedience, facing jail or trial, or undergoing probation regularly for 30 years.”

Book review

http://ncronline.org/blogs/road-peace/crossing-line-tells-stories-dedication-nonviolence-civil-disobedience

Thanks for signalling this, Allen. I have come close to losing friends at my University for making the same point.

Interesting, could you give some details?

Regarding Iceland and myths. . .

My recollection is a bit hazy now, but I think the link to FT is woefully incomplete and has an agenda.

There were “IceSave” accounts hawked by Icelandic banks especially to foreigners in the UK and Netherlands, and which payed something like 8%(?). There were ads in subways, on buses, in newspapers, all over. These accounts were backed up by real estate speculation in the US, especially in California.

When that market went bust, so did the Icelandic banks, and the mostly British, Dutch, and French depositors in the EU got burned. Icelandic depositors, I think, were made whole. There were multiple demands from EU govt’s for the Icelandic gov’t to cover the losses in the EU even though Icelandic banks weren’t insured that way. Iceland refused several times, then relented to have a referendum about it, in Iceland, knowing full well it wouldn’t pass muster. And the voters answerd a stern, “No,” as expected. There were a lot of feckless threats from the EU all the while.

Iceland also belongs to a Scandanavian league which supposedly covers all banks in those countries (even though some of those banks are in the EU, though not Iceland’s). Iceland tried to divert the issue that way as an, “Oh by the way, we’re not responsible anyway because. . .” I don’t recall that outcome.

Didn’t Iceland’s taxpayers get burned simply by the devaluation? The country suffered for quite awhile regardless, but was able to control it’s own destiny since it didn’t have the Euro to contend with, and Iceland avoided vomiting up money to individual greedy claimants on the continent.

Maybe someone here has a clearer memory of all of this, and can correct any factual errors above. I was working in a big bank at the time (retired in 2009) and read about this almost daily for months.

So, if I’m essentially correct, what is the FT’s bag??

“… getting our [Republican] party into a position where we can be successful in solving the problems the country has.” Mitt

Yea, like those conservative policies in the decade leading up to 1929 or 2008.

What is killing Romney is that after a lifetime of god telling him he would be president, god chose a black “Muslim”.

That thing about Egypt getting 1/4 of it’s wheat from the US….well that isn’t going to keep happening if the Midwest doesn’t get it’s rain anymore AND/OR the XL Keystone runs thru it blighting the water tables and spilling crud all over the place.
All that $$$$ to Mubarak and now, to Morsi; I thought we didn’t LIKE Islamists?

Side note: Egypt used to be THE granary for the ancient world and was still up to the building of the Aswan Dam which halted the Niltoic overflow….which fed the crops in that desert country

AND in case you weren’t aware, enterprising types want to dam the Amazon River in South America. Kiss the Brazilian Rainforest a resounding “buh bye!”

❖ “An Iranian dhow seized off the Yemeni coast was carrying sophisticated Chinese antiaircraft missiles

American officials complaining about arms proliferation is absurd

I agree. And isn’t Egypt needing $3 billion plus? Or maybe the IMF has already helped since that figure was afoot a few months ago.

I think Kerry should not be giving Egypt hundreds of millions now. It amounts to an implicit endorsement of what’s going on there and belligerence by too many. We are again paying them to “do something” where the real reason is something else. It’s a sham.

The closest we should get to Egypt, aid wise, is to give extra money to the IMF, and let them decide what the priorities are.

Hypocrisy is one of the few things we have left to export though.

How politically tone deaf is it to “give Egypt money to build a better democracy” while laying off teachers, meat inspectors, air traffic controllers here?

They get a better democracy with American tax dollars while Americans get to suck on austerity. *shakes head*

That’s a very interesting, inspiring article, mafr. Thnx so much for alerting us to it. And . . . Good Morning to you!

That Arab Spring thingy sounded like a good idea at the time.

Good morning, fatster and friends; I would just like to call your attention to the fact that this is an important day in history: “March 4 [1969] is a Movement, not a day.” For details see my comment #144 on Box Turtle’s Monday Science page.

There’s also a bit more on the sequester, at comment # 21 of my diary on that mentioned above.

I agree. Austerity victims here at home should be addressed first.

Egypt has no money and desperately wants help from IMF and US. But any US dollar going to the military there is not a dollar for democracy or human rights. Even the right sort of aid, if it indirectly allows Egypt to shuffle other money toward tanks and planes, is a problem. It’s all fungible, no?

Hopefully any dollars Kerry was talking about are simply being reallocated from military use to benign civilian purposes, and come from prior commitments. Even so the US can’t “buy” democracy for Egyptians in Egypt. That trope is naive, but so common. It’s part of our DNA, or claimed to be.

Top o’the day to you, too, E. F. Beall. Oh, the teach-ins! Those were wonderful things. The internets have given us an amazing way to accomplish the same, but being seated together, looking into each other’s faces as we talked, etc.–well, that is something I do miss. Thnx so much.