The Hackenblog

Prop. 13 property taxes in the voters’ hands, John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, June 6, 2008 (via)

Bookmark for me. Might be interesting for you. The comments are instructive and depressing.

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I loathe American irony, but I found this apt:

Voter Registration in all 50 States. Ginger doesn’t want to hear you didn’t know how to register to vote. She knows baby is muuuuuch smarter than that.

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“Democrat Barack Obama told voters Saturday he would push an aggressive economic agenda as president: cutting taxes for the middle class, raising taxes on the wealthy, pouring money into ‘green energy’ and requiring employers to set up retirement saving plans for their workers.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania, a key battleground in the fall campaign, Obama said he would take a much more hands-on approach than would Republican John McCain. He again criticized McCain’s proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax. It would ‘actually do real harm,’ Obama said, by reducing revenue for road and bridge construction even as oil companies make record profits.”
Obama says he would cut taxes for middle class, By Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer, Saturday, June 14, 2008

Hey there Patriotic Middle Class Taxpayers, wouldn’t you rather pay less taxes and have those taxes pay for stuff like this than for horrific, bloody, unjust, tragic, stupid wars that further de-stabilize unstable places, but make Junior Bush feel like his penis is bigger? Fuck yeah! Me, too! Lower taxes, cooler services, and, y’know, like, a future for everyone!

The rest of you can get hip to the scene and STFU, thanks!

Vote Obama or we’re not just doomed, we’re fucking doomed.

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“Democrat Barack Obama said Friday he would apply the Social Security payroll tax to all annual incomes above $250,000, which would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans.

“The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax ‘on every dime they make,’ while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only ‘a very small percentage of their income.’

“The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all income up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama’s plan, the tax would not apply to incomes between that amount and $250,000. But all annual income above the quarter-million-dollar amount would be taxed under his plan.

“Obama has talked before of establishing such a ‘doughnut hole’ in the amount of income subject to the Social Security tax. Friday marked the first time he named a restart level: $250,000 and above.”
Obama wants payroll tax on incomes above $250,000, By Charles Babington, Associated Press Writer, Friday, June 13, 2008

Yesss! The rich are different: they have more money!

This is fair: 15% on $50K is $7,500, which is a lot for someone earning $50K/year. It leaves this taxpayer with $42,500 to pay the rest of their taxes, shelter costs, food, gas, whatnot. 15% on $500K is $75K, which is more than the $50K/year person even grosses so STFU, thanks!

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This is what he thinks. Thanks for the fact check, Dr. Krugman.

This is what the real deal is: Make permanent estate tax with $3.5 million exemption and 45 percent rate. 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Proposals (what a handy chart this is!)

The Mayerson verdict: Anyone who is heir to an estate worth more than $3,500,000.00 can afford 45% tax on the rest of it. Go out and earn back what you paid in taxes, you spoiled jerks. It’s good for you and the economy!

Is it November yet?

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“SAN FRANCISCO - California’s highest court Wednesday refused to stay its decision legalizing same-sex marriage in the state, clearing the final hurdle for gay couples to start tying the knot this month.

“Conservative religious and legal groups had asked the California Supreme Court to stop its May 15 order requiring state and local officials to sanction same-sex unions from becoming effective until voters have the chance to consider the issue in November. The justices’ decisions typically become final after 30 days.

“An initiative to ban gay marriage has qualified for the Nov. 4 ballot. Its passage would overrule the court’s decision by amending the state constitution to limit marriage to a man and a woman.”
Calif. court refuses to stay gay marriage ruling, by Lisa Leff, Associated Press Writer, June 4, 2008

Seriously Californians, get registered, get with it and vote this gay hatin’ constitutional amendment down in November. Prop 22 slipped in because no one thought anyone would be crazy enough to vote for it. Hey, as Scotty said to Chekov on the bridge of the Enterprise, “Fool me once…” etc.

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“But as strange as that is, a stunning revelation came from a very senior Japanese executive, who sent these notes from a meeting with a top Japanese financial official:

The depth of the problems at Bear Stearns which led up to the buyout are not clear. Mr. X wondered why they did not try to use committed credit lines before agreeing to the JPM Chase deal. These lines were significant and included large amounts committed by Japanese banks, who are now relieved that they did not have to extend the credit.

“Maybe Bear assumed at the rate of its cash depletion that it would burn through those credit lines quickly and being more leveraged might make other solutions more difficult, but the tone of the Japanese notes is that the credit lines were large enough in aggregate to have made a difference.

“And even odder: those credit lines are still in place. Why did the Fed stump up a whole $30 billion? This seems a tremendous oversight on its behalf. Of course, those lines probably terminate upon a change in control, but the Fed probably could have leaned on the banks to keep them in place (after all, they are lending against a better balance sheet with JPM, although adding the Bear lines to whatever credit facilities they now have with JPM might put them over their limits for exposure to any one bank. But the Fed could have offered to backstop the excess, which would be a smaller commitment than the one it made).

“Stranger and stranger….”
Why didn’t Bear use its credit lines?, Naked Capitalism, March 21, 2008

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“Finally, there are the “Tier 3″ sex workers, who can charge in excess of $10,000 per rendezvous. They may have only four or five clients, and they typically charge their clients an additional monthly surcharge for their various needs—rent, clothing, medicine.

“Both Tier 2 and Tier 3 workers can typically do more to safeguard a client’s privacy. There are no guarantees, of course, but they tend to shun contractual relationships with agencies that advertise their services. There is less of a paper trail. They typically will only take a john via a referral, and even then, they may require that the john ‘date’ them for weeks before deciding to offer up sex. I have heard of Tier 2 and 3 sex workers who vet prospective clients for months, sometimes hiring a private detective to see if the john is stable—psychologically and financially. As a former attorney general, Spitzer must have known all this.

“What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York’s sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That’s one helluva conversation. But it’s what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse. Over the course of a year, they will sometimes persuade the woman to take on a new identity, replete with a fake name, a fake job, a fake life history, and so on. They may want to have sex or they may simply want to be treated like King for a Day.”
Skinflint, by Sudhir Venkatesh, Slate, March 12, 2008

I mean, wtf? guys? I hate to tell you this but there’s more to life than your dick and you ego.

And Spitzer, you threw away your chance to make the world a better place. You, your dick and your ego can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned.

And, sisters, $10K a month to prop up some guy’s ego and maybe blow him? Advantage capitalism. Christ. I know women who work two jobs for the luxury of doing that. Oh, but they’re in love, so that’s different.

How lucky I found this, too!

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Whoa!

PRESS RELEASE

February 28, 2008

——-
BECOME A PART OF THE MANGA WORLD WITH POP JAPAN TRAVEL’S MIND OVER MANGA TOUR
——-

Japanese dojinshi, comics published by the artist and sold at special events across Japan, have become a driving creative force, and a sensational way to connect with other fans. In the past, Pop Japan Travel has visited these dojinshi markets, but only as spectators. That’s about to change.

This August, aspiring dojinshi creators, established small press comic artists and manga admirers alike will have an unprecedented opportunity. Pop Japan Travel’s Mind Over Manga Tour offers guests the chance to go behind the scenes of one of Japan’s most respected dojinshi events, Comitia — and if you choose, print and sell your own comic or art book directly to Japanese readers!

If you apply and qualify, Pop Japan Travel will:

*-Translate your book into Japanese so that the locals can understand it
*-Print your book and deliver it directly to the event at Tokyo Big Sight
*-Help you sell your book and discuss it with readers at a booth at the event

Since 1984, Comitia has been one of Tokyo’s most popular dojinshi events. Run four times a year, it focuses on original, creative art rather than fan fiction. That has made it a key launchpad for new manga artists, with thousands of circles participating each year. It takes place at Tokyo Big Sight, which otaku will recognize from Comic Party, Genshiken and many other anime and manga series!

Even if you don’t choose to sell your own book, you’ll get an up-close look at the way Japan’s manga market operates. And the tour will also include the chance to meet and pick the brains of some Japan’s most important manga and dojinshi artists, plus a visit to a cutting-edge anime studio and Hayao Miyazaki’s Ghibli Museum.

Naturally, Mind Over Manga also includes our tried-and-true tour of Tokyo, providing a mind-blowing look at the world’s most populous urban area, plus a few excursions outside the city and an optional three-day tour of Osaka and Kyoto, Japan’s thousand-year capital.

The exact itinerary and price for the tour are still pending, but we wanted to spread the word as quickly as possible so you could start drawing!

Tour dates and activities are subject to change. Check out our Web site, www.popjapantravel.com, or contact travel@popjapantravel.com for details.

——-

DIGITAL MANGA’S POP JAPAN TRAVEL is the original and premiere provider of pop culture themed tours of Japan. Since 2003, PJT has operated more than 15 tours with themes focused on Japanese anime, manga, games and more. Pop Japan tours offer a careful balance of the hyper-modern world of J-pop culture and the rich traditions of ancient Japan, and PJT is the ONLY tour agency to provide exclusive experiences such as visits to anime and game studios, meetings with manga artists, and more. Pop Japan Travel tours are organized in cooperation with IACE Travel, one of Japan’s largest travel agencies.

###

Oh. My. God. This is wonderful! For people who like this kind of thing.

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“There has to be cheap accomodation somewhere in the city so that there are garrets in which artists can starve - a city in which every spare inch is going to be transformed into expensive apartments for financial consultants is going to squeeze its painters and poets until they go elsewhere. No matter how noisy and irritating they are for people in adjacent properties, there have to be night clubs and cafes, or certain sorts of fertile meeting will never happen.

“There has to be tolerance of mildly antisocial behaviour and eccentricity for people to find their voice - it may be regrettable, but is clearly the case, that graffiti artists are as significant a part of the art world as classically trained painters. Bohemians may not be convenient or good neighbours, or polite tenants, but they are a crucial part of the mix of a healthy and flourishing city. Currid makes this point, but not its corollary - that policies like those of Mayor Guiliani may do irreparable damage at the same time that they scour a city clean.”
The Warhol Economy, RozK!, February 10, 2008

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“Economists teach that if the economy is going into a recession, lower interest rates and give people money. That wisdom is so conventional that the only quibbling seems to be over timing, amount, and who gets the money.

“But this recession has one very special feature: Never in history have we hit a recession with the American consumer so loaded down with debt. Shouldn’t that cause someone to pause before concluding that more consumer spending is the way out of this hole?”

~snip~

“There’s another implication to this huge debt load: interest. Interest operates just like a tax–it has to be paid month after month, in good times and in bad. Unlike a tax, however, interest isn’t calculated on something good like income; it is calculated on debt loads. For the average family carrying credit card debt, interest payments alone have become a more significant household expenditure.

“In 2006, credit card companies collected about $90 billion from American families in interest, fees, late fees, penalties and the like. That’s $90 billion that didn’t go to buying socks or movie tickets or Big Macs. The American consumer can’t keep it up.”
Same Solutions, Different Problems, by Elizabeth Warren, Credit Slips, January 27, 2008

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Planet Karen

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“However, as the internet gains traction as a viable gown resource, the possibility of brides price-comparing and ‘buying the same dress somewhere else’ becomes even greater. There are discounters and consigners and Craigslist and you can even buy cheap knockoffs from China. So stores are freaked out - after all, they’re losing their competitive edge. Their response strategy? Limiting the amount of information that a bride can leave with. If she can’t look it up, she can’t find it cheaper. Hence, no photos.

“But surely you could write down its brand and style name, so you could look it up for future reference? Nope. Many stores literally rip the labels out of sample gowns, so that you cannot even tell which dress you are trying on.

“I read about this shocking tactic in a handy book, but found it hard to believe until I experienced it firsthand. I was in a pretty posh store, and I liked a dress by designer Melissa Sweet. But it was pricey, and I wasn’t ready to buy. I asked the owner, “Which dress is this again, so I can remember it?” She said, “It’s the Melissa Sweet.” I said, “I know, but which one? I know they all have style names, or numbers or something.” “Nope,” she said, looking down at her hands. “That’s all you need to know.”

“Wow! Wow. Well, all I need to know is that I won’t be making my purchase here!”
Shopping for The Dress, Curious Shopper, January 10, 2007

Heh, wedding industry, take that!

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I got to wake up with a sore throat, but that just means I’m getting it out of the way for the rest of 2008.

And since it IS 2008, I can post this again!

Journal of Bloglandia, because Blogtopia (y!sctp!) was taken.

and

The Journal of Women on Comics, women read comics and write great things about them.

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(via)

“James Monroe looks like some sort of Cro-Magnon man, Andrew Jackson looks bewildered, and John Quincy Adams looks like a child molester or ax murderer, possibly a combination of the two. Martin Van Buren is about the only one that looks mostly normal, but then he was kind of odd looking in real life so, they probably just didn’t know how to deal with that.”
Mad and bewildered Presidents, TMTGM, December 27, 2007

Maybe I don’t get it, but I really hate dollar coins.

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“Each one of those cases is a person who had insurance and got sick. They filed for payments authorized by their coverage and Blue Shield said no and attempted to cancel their policies. These sick people then had to fight tooth and nail to get the payment to their doctors so they would not be liable for the bill. In over 200 of those cases they lost and the companies dropped them completely from coverage. Of course that means that they then have a pre-existing condition and thus would have a next to impossible time getting coverage from another company.

“It is a disgusting practice that is all about trying to squeeze out a few more dollars in profits. It is illegal and I am glad to see the state launching the investigation and moving to fine them. It sure would be nice if that dissuaded the companies from trying this in the first place, but I don’t hold out that much hope that it will.”
Blue Shield Illegally Canceling Policies, Working Californians, December 13, 2007

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Journal of Bloglandia (ISSN1950-7645)

Journal of Women on Comics (ISSN1940-7637)

Please cross-post, thanks!

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“Councilmember Greig Smith and I joined with Heal the Bay Director of Programs, Meredith McCarthy yesterday in City Council to proclaim December 20th as “A Day Without a Bag” in Los Angeles. Each year, Angelenos consume some 6 billion plastic bags, almost 600 bags per person per year! Only 5% of these bags get recycled (and it is important to know that we have made it possible for you to recycle plastic bags by putting them in your blue bins–here is a helpful list of what you can put in the blue bin), so the rest wind up in landfills, the Los Angeles River, Echo Park Lake, Santa Monica Bay, and our streets.

“On December 20th, we are encouraging Angelenos to use reusable bags and get into the habit of using these bags for our shopping needs. We have only been using plastic bags since around 1977, so the habit shouldn’t be a tough one to break, but we hope the blogosphere will help do its part to spread the word. If we can begin to live without consuming the amount of plastic bags we currently do, we can save landfill space, clean up our waterways, and reduce the amount of oil consumed and global greenhouse gases emitted in the manufacture of these bags.”
A Day Without a Bag, Eric Garcetti, December 8, 2007

I am SO with this idea. When I lived in Poland and Prague, you had to bring your own bags, usually string, but often canvas. And although I never win the Trader Joe bring your own bag raffle, it’s a habit I never quite lost.

Oh, and you don’t have to be in LA to do this. You can celebrate a day without a plastic bag on December 20 wherever you are.

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“President Bush, seeming very much the clown-in-chief, led the way last week by proposing a mortgage crisis bail-out that would appear to have no chance whatsoever of working as advertised. He called it, arrestingly, the New Hope Alliance. It blithely assumed that those ’servicing’ mortgages — that is, collecting the monthly payments — have the ability to suspend scheduled upward re-sets of adjustable mortgages for five years for certain select homeowner payees — so that theoretically said homeowners could avoid foreclosure.

“What might have worked in 1934, when the originators of mortgages were local banks that also ’serviced’ them (i.e. collected the monthly payments) is unlikely to avail today since the mortgages have been sold off in bunches to pension funds, hedge funds, money markets, and foreign investment funds — none of which have an interest or the ability to renegotiate loans with millions of schlemiels from Cleveland to Denver to Fresno — while the companies ’servicing’ these contacts are mere errand boys, with no say over the terms of anything they collect on.”

~snip~

“Anyway, this argument is academic because the New Hope Alliance is just a political sham. The purpose of it is not to save the hapless occupants of over-leveraged houses, but first to buy a little more time so that the worker bees in the financial industry can justify awarding each other multi-million-dollar Christmas bonus packages, and second, to postpone the ‘workout’ of all this bad investment as far into the future as possible.

“I have been wrong in the past about timing things, but I don’t see any way on God’s green earth that such a workout of mis-investment can be put off until somebody else is sworn in to lead the government in January 2009. The capital allocation system is already listing and groaning like a leaky ship in a hurricane.

“Maybe all the players really know that keeping the ship afloat until Christmas is really the best they can hope for. Christmas means a lot in this country. It represents all Americans’ old hope that miracles can happen. Bums turn out to be Santa Claus. Old curmudgeons are transformed overnight into loving uncles. Angels save us when we jump despairingly into icy torrents. And Goldman Sachs executives pass out multi-million-dollar checks to the wizards who ‘innovated’ an ingenious way for the rest of their country to commit financial suicide.”
Spirit of the Season, James H. Kunstler, December 10, 2007

A Christmas Clusterfuck, brought to you by JHK.

Why don’t we just nationalize…oh wait, that would really freak everyone out. Never mind.

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Goddammit.

“One common assumption about the subprime mortgage crisis is that it revolves around borrowers with sketchy credit who couldn’t have bought a home without paying punitively high interest rates. But it turns out that plenty of people with seemingly good credit are also caught in the subprime trap.

“An analysis for The Wall Street Journal of more than $2.5 trillion in subprime loans made since 2000 shows that as the number of subprime loans mushroomed, an increasing proportion of them went to people with credit scores high enough to often qualify for conventional loans with far better terms.

“In 2005, the peak year of the subprime boom, the study says that borrowers with such credit scores got more than half — 55% — of all subprime mortgages that were ultimately packaged into securities for sale to investors, as most subprime loans are. The study by First American LoanPerformance, a San Francisco research firm, says the proportion rose even higher by the end of 2006, to 61%. The figure was just 41% in 2000, according to the study. Even a significant number of borrowers with top-notch credit signed up for expensive subprime loans, the firm’s analysis found.”
Subprime Debacle Traps Even Very Credit-Worthy, By Rick Brooks and Ruth Simon, WJS online, December 3, 2007 (via Dr. Kruguman via Dr. Delong)

I would say buyer beware, except I’ve been talked into bad deals my own self.

Okay, let’s bail ‘em all out. 60 year mortgages for everyone who wants one!

And while I have you, when did bankers get so stupid? The greed thing I can sort of understand, some people call it market capitalism, but the stupidity part puzzles me.

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“It was Keynes, too, who anticipated and helped prepare for the ‘craving for security’ that Europeans would feel after the three decades of war and economic collapse that followed the end of the Gilded Age. Thanks in large measure to the state-provided public services and safety nets incorporated into their postwar systems of governance, the citizens of the advanced countries lost the gnawing sense of insecurity and fear that had dominated and polarized political life from 1914 through the early Fifties and which was largely responsible for the appeal of both fascism and communism in those years.

“But we have good reason to believe that this may be about to change. Fear is reemerging as an active ingredient of political life in Western democracies. Fear of terrorism, of course; but also, and perhaps more insidiously, fear of the uncontrollable speed of change, fear of the loss of employment, fear of losing ground to others in an increasingly unequal distribution of resources, fear of losing control of the circumstances and routines of one’s daily life. And, perhaps above all, fear that it is not just we who can no longer shape our lives but that those in authority have lost control as well, to forces beyond their reach.”
The Wrecking Ball of Innovation, a review of Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life, by Robert B. Reich. Review by Tony Judt, NYT Review of Books, December 6, 2007

This isn’t an easy read, but I highly recommend it. Not only are we living in interesting times, we’re living in vicious times, too.

I’ve always liked and respected Robert Reich, but after I read his first post-Clinton book, I could not help but think he was something of a lamb among wolves, or maybe just Border Collies with OCD, in the Clinton administration. This review doesn’t change my opinion.

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“Lori Condinus already knows which way Tuesday night’s Anaheim City Council meeting will go, and it won’t be her way. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be there to lobby for a doomed housing project in Anaheim’s resort district.

“‘We’ve been there supporting this project all the way,’ said Condinus, 42, a switchboard operator at the Anaheim Hilton. ‘We’ll have our voice there . . . win, lose or tie.’

“Condinus’ voice has been no louder than others in this fierce, yearlong debate over whether housing belongs in the city’s tourist district.

“But her words at a February council meeting — ‘If we are good enough to work here in the resort, why aren’t we good enough to live here?’ — became a rallying cry for low-wage earners who pressed the Walt Disney Co., the City Council and other business leaders to approve the condominium and low-cost apartment plan. ‘It just came from the heart,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know so many people would pick up on it.’

“Plans for the housing project near Disneyland unraveled last month when the deal between SunCal Cos. and the owners of the 26-acre parcel near Disneyland fell through.

“That news prompted Councilwoman Lucille Kring earlier this month to withdraw her support of the proposal. Kring cast the tiebreaking vote in a 3-2 decision seven months ago that approved the 1,500-unit project — sparking three ballot initiatives, two lawsuits and regular City Hall protests.

“There are few details about what might replace the massive housing project, but Councilman Harry Sidhu said new potential buyers want to build a hotel on the land, currently occupied by two mobile home parks.

~snip~

“Even if the council votes as expected to overturn a zoning decision that had allowed the project, Condinus believes she and hundreds of other religious and union leaders and community officials have made their point.

“‘We have put Disney and other big corporations on notice,’ she said. ‘We want more than a paycheck. We want social responsibility and accountability. We’ve told them, ‘You’re making a lot of money, so how do you put it back into the community that’s working for you?’

“Over the last year, Disney officials have argued that the lack of low-income housing is a problem that needs to be solved (but not by them evidently GM). But Disney and many others involved in tourism worried that the more than $6 billion in public and private funds poured into the resort district since 1994 would be wasted if new housing began invading the area. (invading? GM) They feared that the resort district would return to its former self: an area marked by a prevalence of seedy motels, tacky shops and neon signs. (from low-income housing? How unkind. GM)

“‘The lack of affordable housing is a national problem and it needs to be addressed in a thoughtful and meaningful way,’ said Rob Doughty, a Disney spokesman. ‘It’s not going to be resolved by one entity, but in partnership with a lot of entities.’ To that end, a Disney executive is leading a 12-member task force that is working on creative ways to build additional housing units for families of all income levels.

“‘We’re looking at how to bring more federal and state dollars to Anaheim for affordable housing,’ said Todd Ament, president of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce and a member of the housing committee. ‘We’re working with developers to make them aware of sites in Anaheim that are available for affordable housing.’

“Though Condinus believes strongly in the SunCal project — which proposed building 225 low-cost apartments — she said she would have been happy to support a compromise plan.

“‘Had other options been proposed,’ she said, ‘I’m sure there would have been people to get behind it.’

“Condinus said she would continue to push for more affordable housing, but from a different platform.

“She has taken a leave of absence from the hotel to work full time in Garden Grove as vice president for Unite Here, the hotel and restaurant workers union that represents about 5,000 laborers, many of whom work in the resort district.

“Although her job status has changed, Condinus said her plight and her long commute were unchanged. She still lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Upland because she can’t afford to live in Anaheim. (Upland is 29 miles from Anaheim [by the way, these are City Hall addresses], which, in LA drive-time is an hour to two hours each way.)

“‘The business owners in the resort district have spoken loudly; they don’t want us there,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t want us in the resort district, then where can we live so we don’t have to spend hours on the freeway just to make a living?’ (see?)

“Sidhu, who agreed with Disney and tourist officials that housing is inappropriate in the 2.2-square-mile resort district, said he would join Kring and Mayor Curt Pringle on Tuesday in voting to repeal zoning that allowed the project. But Sidhu said the demise of SunCal’s proposal won’t end the housing debate in Anaheim.

“‘I sympathize with these housing advocates,’ he said. ‘As a free market guy, if there’s another development that comes along outside of the resort district, I’ll support it. We need more affordable housing in this city. It will continue to be a problem. And if there’s a way we can provide more, we will.’”
Low-income housing backer in Anaheim won’t give up. Even though the outcome of a City Council vote on Tuesday should halt the debate for now, supporters says the fight will go on, by Dave McKibben, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, November 24, 2007

Lori Condinus is my new hero.

Class warfare in the Enchanted Kingdom. I really hate Disney, they don’t even pretend to be human anymore, and the Anaheim City Council has pretty much handed the city over to them.

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“As for what I wrote in 1996: the world looked very different then. On one side, Social Security projections were much more pessimistic than they are now, basically because the projections assumed that the 1973-1995 era of very slow productivity growth would go on forever. On the other side, the 90s were the era of the great pause in health expenditures, the (it turned out) brief era in which the rise of managed care stabilized health spending as a share of GDP. So Medicare and Medicaid looked less important as sources of fiscal problems than they do now.

“John Maynard Keynes is supposed to have said, ‘When circumstances change, I change my opinion. What do you do?’”
They hate me, they really hate me, Dr. Krugman, NYT Blog, November 21, 2007

Dr. Krugman loves blogging, I can tell.

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“What this means is that even the very rich cannot escape into their own little bubble of purity and excellence, of ‘haute’ this and ‘haute’ that. Ride around in a limo and you still have to sit in traffic created by ordinary people who can’t afford to live near where they work. Fly in a private jet and you’re still dependent on archaic, underfinanced, systems of air traffic control. Travel first class on the Acela train and you still have to stare out at the rotting environs of Philadelphia and Newark. Oh, and you lobbied against higher taxes and regulations on business? Then think twice before you sink your teeth into that chocolate and gold dessert. The vermin are always with you.”
Roaches in the World’s Most Expensive Dessert, by Barbara Ehrenreich, November 19, 2007

Yeah, you rich anti-tax freaks, quit voting against the world you have to live in with the rest of us mortals.

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Or this guy will be your boss someday:

(Via Liz, chez Siva)

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But this would be a mighty fine start in the meantime:

OneCareNow”

“The OneCareNow Campaign supports Senate Bill 840(Kuehl) as the one healthcare reform proposal in California that will provide high quality healthcare for all while controlling costs.

“We reject AB 8 and any other junk insurance compromise between the Governor’s plan and the Assembly Speaker’s that doesn’t provide universal coverage and funnels most healthcare dollars through private health insurers, which are the primary obstacles to real healthcare reform.

“The public doesn’t want a last minute, back room rush job. A new poll found more than two-thirds of California voters — a margin of 68 percent to 25 percent — said they prefer ‘making sure we pass healthcare reform that gets it right and improves the system, and not take the risk of passing bad legislation.’ On August 11, the Great LA Healthcare Rally showed massive support for SB 840 as the healthcare solution for California. SB 840 has passed the California Senate and is now in the Assembly waiting for the Governor to learn why private health insurance companies have and will always fail to control healthcare costs.”

Rah!

Oh, by the way:

“Keeping people hopeless and pessimistic - see I think there are two ways in which people are controlled - first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them… An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.” Tony Benn

And all of this is via Loganotron on November 12, 2007.

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“But most important, I think, is the golden rule that all revolutions get stuck at some point. Every revolution contains within itself the pull towards its own demise. And usually this demise is symbolized by one person.

“Think of the French Revolution, which brought all kinds of new democratic ideas, but was corrupted by the advent of the dictator Napoleon. Napoleon brought the achievements of the Enlightenment to the rest of Europe yet ruled like an old-fashioned monarch, installing his family on thrones across Europe. The Russian Revolution was halted in the same way by Lenin’s violence and particulary by Stalin’s crazed powerlust.

“The Napoleon or Stalin of the sexual revolution was called Hugh Hefner. This Playboy magnate appeared to be a supporter of the counter movement. For example, he helped to sponsor the district court cases that eventually led to the famous American lawsuit Roe versus Wade. But he also signalled in the derailing of the sexual movement. Playboy magazine standardised sexuality on a gigantic scale. The women featured there were stripped down to the bare essentials in more ways than one. Like the famous playboy bunny, Hefner turned them into completely predictable images of sex. His enterprise made him incredibly rich and made sexuality incredibly boring.

“You might say that we are living in the hefnerist era now. The liberal achievements of the sexual revolution exist in name only. Its creativity and playfulness have been destroyed by huge industrial concerns like Playboy and other marketing companies that use sexuality and porn in a routine and commodified way. But this does not mean that we should return to the period before the sexual revolution. I think both anti-porn feminists and conservatives are wrong when they battle against the pornofication of society. The democratization of sex is a vast achievement which should not be reversed…. or restricted to ‘haute couture’.”
Sexing the Handbag, by Dylan van Rijsbergen, Sign and Sight, October 31, 2007 (via 3quarksdaily)

Yikes.

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COUNCIL PRESIDENT GARCETTI JOINS CITY ATTORNEY ROCKY DELGADILLO, COUNCIL MEMBER JAN PERRY IN CALLING FOR LOCAL ORDINANCE BANNING HOSPITAL PATIENT DUMPING (2-page pdf)

Makes me sick. So, in future, the hospitals will drive them up to Pasadena/Glendale/Burbank or out to the Valleys, or down to Long Beach/Commerce and out that way. I hate to say it, but this is a moral problem (I hate moral problems). However, the good news is that the solution is economic:

It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. It is time to extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants it. Especially those who need it. It’s past time to do the right thing and extend Medicare to anyone and everyone who wants or needs it.

Are we clear? Good.

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And they’re wrecking it for the rest of us.

“We need not countenance their existence forever. One need not bring back Stalin to reduce or eliminate the rich. Scandinavian countries do quite well in minimizing their presence. And there is little mystery in how to reduce or eliminate the economic power of the rich. Steeply progressive income taxes, elimination of inherited wealth through estate taxes, and income redistribution along with a robust welfare state can do it.

“If Americans examined the deeper damage that the rich do to society, perhaps they might be willing to try cutting the rich down to size.

“Let’s look at how the rich damage American society.”
A World Without the Rich, Michael Blim, 3 Quarks Daily, October 29, 2007 (via Wood S Lot)

But, as the French Revolution so thoroughly proved, the rich will always be with us.

(more…)

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Would be nice.

“Disasters, though, have a way of stripping away those signs of comfort and rather starkly revealing land-use patterns as well as the philosophies that underpin growth. The flooding in New Orleans that followed Hurricane Katrina, for example, wiped out mostly suburban-style ranch houses that had been built slab-on-grade, without the raised foundations and other low-tech flood-protection mechanisms that once distinguished the city’s houses.

“There is a reason that the oldest neighborhoods in New Orleans virtually never flood. They were built on naturally high ground, produced over the centuries by deposits of Mississippi River silt. And there is a reason that wildfires in Southern California prey mostly on subdivisions built in the last 50 years or so, when suburban expansion and faith in American know-how were at their height.

“We can draw a final connection here, even if it is only a metaphorical one. The way that American home builders keep pushing out into new territory, developing parcels of land once considered unsafe for residential construction, is an architectural version of the way that banks and lenders have acted over the last decade, practically tossing money at borrowers once dismissed as too much of a credit risk. The goal in both cases is to maintain a pace of growth and expansion that is ultimately unsustainable.

The crisis in the credit markets, by pulling down the broader economy, has shined some needed light on predatory lending and slowed its spread. Though history suggests that we probably shouldn’t hold our breath, perhaps the fires, by the sheer scale of their destruction, will have a similar effect on the way we build.”
It’s time to recognize, not defy, wildfire risks. To break the cycle of build and burn, those who create and approve subdivisions in Southern California must take site and climate into consideration, by Christopher Hawthorne, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 28, 2007

Sustainable development? We don’t need no stinking sustainable development.

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