The current wave of mass protest against Wall Street excess has completely reframed the public conversation in the United States.  The “deficit problem” with which Washington was consumed in the first half of 2011 has not vanished from the political agenda, but its resolution will now have to be achieved against the background of a growing understanding of the sheer scale of current income and wealth inequality. If the Republicans in Congress have their way, the politicians may yet cut entitlements programs for the poor while declining to raise taxes on the rich. But if that is how the deficit problem is eventually resolved, that resolution will be more extensively recognized as class-biased in its character and impact than would have been the case before the OWS protests began. The super-rich are invisible no more, and are now being held to account.

One of the things I found frustrating when conducting a protest rally was gazing over along the periphery and seeing all of the bystanders.  They stood there, arms folded or akimbo, maybe holding shopping bags when the action was in a downtown site, and gazed upon whatever spectacle we had put together.   Sometimes one individual would lean toward another and make a comment - maybe about the protest or maybe about how they ought to take off and go do what they had originally planned.

Between applauding the death of uninsured Americans, booing gay soldiers and cheering mass executions in Texas, the Republican presidential primary race has been quite a shock to those who understood “conservatism” to mean “pro-life” and “pro-military.”

Apparently “compassionate conservatism” retired the same year as George W. Bush.

It’s moments like these that have highlighted not only the moral decay of the conservative constituency but also the depths to which Republican presidential primary candidates will dive in order to woo the teabagger demographic.

According to yesterday's GDP numbers the engine of American Consumption is back on the tracks and rolling along at a surprising clip. The odd thing is that Consumer Confidence still remains at a near historic low. Typically an increase in consumption is preceded by a rise in confidence. So why is the spending train rolling along while confidence is like a caboose sidetracked in the train yard?

A Sept. 15th report by Ross DeVol at the Milkin Institute not only predicted good GDP and consumption numbers for the 3rd Quarter but explained the root cause of the precipitous drop in consumer confidence over the Summer and its disconnect from actual consumer behavior which kept chugging along underneath.

If you're thinking that the decline in confidence had some connection to our national politics you'd be right. DeVol correlates the decline in confidence to a decline in the approval ratings of -- the Congress!

There are two basic groups of citizens when it comes to their evaluation of the socio-economic and political state of the country: those who are satisfied and those who are dissatisfied. Within each group, one can further categorized them between the somewhat (dis)satisfied and the very (dis)satisfied.

Kent State

I was thinking about recent disruptions in citizen participation with regard to the guaranteed rights as provided in the First Amendment.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Let us go back to Ohio in 1970!

http://www.nrbooks.com/kent-state-newinfo-fourdeadinohio.htm

If you line up the sides in this massacre, you will discern that 18 year-olds and 19 year-olds and 20 year- olds for the most part, are challenging 18 year-olds and 19 year-olds and 20 year-olds.

One side is in uniform (duly payed and sponsored by the government) whilst the the other side is made up of other folks with different types of uniforms that are non-military in composition.

The fire bloggers are already on "Obama's Plan" like flies on Schweddy Balls ice cream. There's so much chatter and misinformation about this plan that I hesitate to write this post and add to the problem. But certain facts seem to be clear and I'm advising an underwater guy in Vermont, so here's a quick take.

HARP is an Obama Administration plan, adopted and implemented by FHFA in 2009. It has produced about 900,000 re-finances, far less than projected. The Administration's potential influence over the FHFA is by appointment of the Director, with approval by Congress. Through a series of half steps, Ed DeMarco, appointed originally by Bush has risen to the top and appears irreplaceable. DeMarco would rival Peterson and Norquist as having the most power in Washington outside any given elected official.

The FHFA website gives the specifics of the revised rules regarding HARP. By the way, you can look up your loan there to determine if it is in fact guaranteed by one of the GSEs and if it was purchased prior to 2009 - two of the entrance requirements in qualifying for HARP - and a source of the smell sensed by fire bloggers. The program excludes a lot or worthy would-be refinancers. One of the headlines of this refi makeover is that there is now no limit on "how far underwater" one can be to still participate. Previously, the Loan-To-Value (LTV) had already been raised to 125% - but there were only 72,000 refinanced loans with  LTVs over 105%.  (A property appraised at $100K with a $105K loan has an LTV of 105%)

You know you have too much time on your hands when you spend your Friday making a horribly off-key song parody video while sitting in your car waiting for your kids to get out of school. This one was inspired by a wonderfully epicene political wonk and her Thursday segment about the Koch Brothers.

When President Obama intervened in Libya in March, 2011, political science professor Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia said, “Republicans would be blind not to see an opening. This is one of the biggest mistakes Obama has made, arguably.”

“Why Would anyone Miss War?” Afghanistan war correspondent, Sebastian Junger asks. “War,” he suggests, “can be tremendously alluring to young men.” So what is its attraction to young men and women? Our recent wars, in contrast to World Wars One and Two, have employed an all volunteer military.

While casually drifting on the Info Hiway, I ran across a few articles that made me sit up and think peak oil is nothing but a side issue.

First, here's a quote In 1924, President Coolidge wrote in 1924 ...

“... the supremacy of nations may be determined by the possession of available petroleum and its products ...”

From what I read, by the 1910s, the United States was pumping between 60 and 70 percent of the world's oil supply from our own backyard ... Texas. It wasn't too long before people began to think US oil reserves were dangerously depleted, so the search for new oil reserves turned worldwide. However, those fears ended in 1924, with the discovery of enormous new oil fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and California. Along with other finds from new fields in Mexico, the Soviet Union, and Venezuela, all combined to drastically depress oil prices. In fact, there was so much oil on the market, the price for crude fell to 10 cents a barrel.