German
German
Windmill Pipe
Windmill Pipe Whenever we have spates of low temperatures, we either turn off water to outbuildings and drain the pipes or allow certain faucets to drip during the cold nights. We let water drip in our old farmhouse as well. Pier and beam houses (set on river rocks in this case) grow notoriously cold underneath in the winter. There
Hooray For Hol… er, Bollywood!
Hooray For Hol… er, Bollywood!
I didn
Big Sports, Biig Money
Big Sports, Biig Money Who is the highest paid state-employee of your state: The Governor? The President of the state University? The guy who decides what the slogan should be for the license plate? If you live in Connecticut, among other places, it
Governor Rick Perry:
Governor Rick Perry:
Apparently, Being Silly For Girls Starts Early
Apparently, Being Silly For Girls Starts Early At age nine, my son is beginning to understand a fundamental truth regarding the complex nature of the male/female relationship, which he summed up with the following conclusion: Girls make boys act stupid. He then offered irrefutable evidence to support his theorem: Brittany told Joey to act like a monkey at lunchtime. And he did. Until Mrs. Flipendorf caught him stealing someone
My Day In Court With The DoD: Everyone Was Wearing Black Suits But Me…
My Day In Court With The DoD:
I was all excited this morning because I was finally going to get my day in court regarding my case against the Department of Defense. Were they finally going to pay me the $1,780 they owed me
Botching The Digital Switchover
Botching The Digital Switchover
Well, that didn
State Department Warns Idiots… As Only An Idiot Would Do
State Department Warns Idiots… As Only An Idiot Would Do As Uncle Hugh used to say, “For a good time, don
Calfornia Rep Files Bill To Legalize Pot
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.
TMA Calls For Transparency Over Insurers
AUSTIN, Texas
CNN Probes Bush Role In Grave Robbery
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Jindal
Mr. Jindal
Bill Filed To Lower Voting Age In Texas Primaries
HOUSTON, Texas
50.000 Troops To Remain In Iraq Post-2010
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Bush Surprises SMU Class
DALLAS, Texas
Study: Sex Ed Horrible In Texas Schools
AUSTIN, Texas
Don’t Worry, Be Nationalized — Bank Nationalization Goes Mainstream
Bank Nationalization Goes Mainstream DALLAS, Texas It’s now official. The idea to nationalize the major U.S. banks has gone mainstream. How do we know? The discussion on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos last week revolved around not whether nationalization had merit as a way to clean up the nation’s financial mess, but whether the federal government’s seizure of these banks should be called “nationalization” in the first place. “Nationalization somehow makes people more anxious,” stressed Business Week columnist Suzy Welch. “So do it, but call it something else?” asked Stephanopoulos. In the context of a wider economic program, yes, she replied. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman took a page from the finance blog Calculated Risk by offering the phrase “pre-privatization” in place of the anxiety-ridden word “nationalization.” Conservative columnist George Will sat there beside himself among the other three panelists. “With credit now treated essentially as a public utility, the difference between what we have and what nationalization would be is marginal. One number: the market capitalization of Bank of America is $19 billion. Since October they have received $45 billion in public funds. So what’s the difference?” he asked flippantly. Indeed, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters later in the week that the government’s role in aiding the banks is merely “semantics.” The banking system is so bad (its assets are less than its liabilities) that the far right has also voiced the need to nationalize the banks at least temporarily. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan recently told The Financial Times that nationalization was perhaps the “least bad” option. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do,” said the so-called “Maestro.” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina struck back at critics scoffing his view of the government taking majority ownership in the major banks. “The truth is we’ve put more money into the Bank of America than it’s worth,” he told The Charlotte Observer earlier this month. “That’s not nationalization. That’s just stupid.” Graham continued, “It’s not responsible to take options off the table that might work. I never suggested that the government take over every bank in America. I did say it might be better in some cases to take over a bank and restructure it.” Ah, but the “nationalization” process is taking place as we speak. In fact, Krugman called the process “as American as apple pie.” “We have nationalized 14 banks already this year. We don’t call it that but there were 14 banks, two a week, that the FDIC seized because they didn’t have enough assets to pay their depositors. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation says, ‘Ok, we are taking over. We are cleaning out the stockholders.’ We are going to do exactly, what Nouriel [Roubini] said, we should be doing for some major banks. So actually nationalization properly understood is as American as apple pie,” said Krugman on Stephanopoulos’ show. Let’s replay that quote again.