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63 Views
00:00:00 02/09/12
Digital Revenue System
[LESS INFO] 63 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:00 02/09/12
DIGITAL WAVE PROFIT FORMULA PROVIDES AN EDUCATIONAL TRAINING ON HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE. IT’S AN EASY, QUICK WAY TO SET UP SHOP ONLINE AND CHOOSE A STRATEGY TO MAKE MONEY PART TIME FROM HOME.
0 Views
15:22:58 02/05/12
5 Devastating Bloggers Pitfalls You Must Avoid To Be ...
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 15:22:58 02/05/12
How to Start a Blog & Make Money Online: http://goo.gl/kwl6I -- Avoid these easy to fall into traps to become a successful blogger and make money online! -- How To Start a Blog Tips from http://blogsuccessjournal.com
Author: BlogSuccessJournal
Tags: blog blogging how to start a make money online work from home
Posted: 05 February 2012
Rating: 0.0
Votes: 0
0 Views
23:51:42 02/03/12
Financial Fridays: Easy Ways To Save Money
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:51:42 02/03/12
Financial Fridays: Easy Ways To Save Money
Learn some easy tips to save money that can really add up in a year. From: wmurtv Views: 8 0 ratings Time: 01:46 More in News & Politics
0 Views
05:01:30 02/03/12
TLDR: Valentine's, Invoicing, Reinstalls, and Elected Officials
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 05:01:30 02/03/12
Five Ways to Make Online Invoicing Easier http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/02/02/five-ways-to-make-online-invoicing-easier/ How Elected Officials Should Be Using Social Media http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2012/02/02/how-elected-officials-should-be-using-social-media/ Geeky Valentine's Day Gifts http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/02/02/geeky-valentines-day-gifts/ How to Do a Clean Reinstallation of OS X Lion http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/02/clean-install-os-x-lion/ Back Link of the Day http://jknproductions1212.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/chris-pirillo-and-the-gnomies/ Thanks to Josh Noyce of jknproductions1212 for writing about Gnomies and linking to us -- more than once, even! If you'd like to be mentioned as a Back Link of the Day, link to one of our posts on LockerGnome.com from your site and -- this is the important part -- tell us about it! Webinar: YouTube, Live Streaming, and Optimizing Video Distribution http://www.gnomies.com/youtube-webinar/ The other night, we had our first official Gnomies webinar, and the topic was "YouTube, Live Streaming, and Optimizing Video Distribution." Being able to participate in future events like this is just one of the many, many perks of being a registered Gnomie! http://www.lockergnome.com/subscribe/ Join us when the countdown ends! http://www.gnomies.com https://profiles.google.com/chris.pirillo http://twitter.com/ChrisPirillo http://www.facebook.com/chrispirillo
0 Views
05:01:30 02/03/12
TLDR: Valentine's, Invoicing, Reinstalls, and Elected Officials
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 05:01:30 02/03/12
Five Ways to Make Online Invoicing Easier http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/02/02/five-ways-to-make-online-invoicing-easier/ How Elected Officials Should Be Using Social Media http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2012/02/02/how-elected-officials-should-be-using-social-media/ Geeky Valentine's Day Gifts http://www.lockergnome.com/social/2012/02/02/geeky-valentines-day-gifts/ How to Do a Clean Reinstallation of OS X Lion http://www.lockergnome.com/osx/2012/02/02/clean-install-os-x-lion/ Back Link of the Day http://jknproductions1212.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/chris-pirillo-and-the-gnomies/ Thanks to Josh Noyce of jknproductions1212 for writing about Gnomies and linking to us -- more than once, even! If you'd like to be mentioned as a Back Link of the Day, link to one of our posts on LockerGnome.com from your site and -- this is the important part -- tell us about it! Webinar: YouTube, Live Streaming, and Optimizing Video Distribution http://www.gnomies.com/youtube-webinar/ The other night, we had our first official Gnomies webinar, and the topic was "YouTube, Live Streaming, and Optimizing Video Distribution." Being able to participate in future events like this is just one of the many, many perks of being a registered Gnomie! http://www.lockergnome.com/subscribe/ Join us when the countdown ends! http://www.gnomies.com https://profiles.google.com/chris.pirillo http://twitter.com/ChrisPirillo http://www.facebook.com/chrispirillo
0 Views
23:00:00 02/01/12
Knitting Sock Patterns Easy
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:00:00 02/01/12
http://knittingsuperstar.plus101.com
---Knitting Sock Patterns Easy. Feel very comÂfortÂable readÂing knitÂting patÂterns and abbreÂviÂaÂtions, and be aware of the danÂgers you need to watch out for.
PracÂtice corÂrectly perÂformÂing the many interÂmeÂdiÂate knitÂting stitches, such as SSK, S2KP, YO, Ptbl, and many more...
Know how to choose the right yarn so that your project comes out the way you imagined.
IdenÂtify which knitÂting prodÂucts will make your life easÂier, and where to buy them withÂout spendÂing a ton of money
Learn how to knit in the round, so you can easÂily make mitÂtens, hats,
gloves, socks, and sweaters
PracÂtice comÂmon interÂmeÂdiÂate techÂniques like pickÂing up and knitÂting
stitches, knitÂting two tubes at a time (2-at-a-time), creÂatÂing gusÂsets, and seamÂing with KitchÂener stitch
Have difÂferÂent cast-on and bind-off techÂniques in your reperÂtoire so you
can amaze your friends with your knitÂting prowess.
Be comÂfortÂable subÂstiÂtutÂing yarns and adjustÂing the sizes of your patterns.
Read your work and keep track of where you are withÂout writÂing anyÂthing down and a whole lot more!
Feels great right? ImagÂine being able to do all that and more!
Knitting, Sock, ,Patterns, Easy, knit sock pattern, knitting needles, circular knitting, knitting socks circular, knitting for beginners
0 Views
06:22:10 01/31/12
Shhh! Brett's Talking: How to win a state primary
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 06:22:10 01/31/12
Shhh! Brett's Talking: How to win a state primary
Why are the GOP front-runners in Florida talking about NASA and Cuba ad nauseam? Brett Erlich explains the go-to trick candidates use as they run in state after state. It involves a little help from some pocket change, and it's easy to learn for most folks ... "except for Mitt Romney. It took them a while to convince him they actually make money in denominations this small." From: Current Views: 222 35 ratings Time: 02:02 More in Shows
0 Views
22:15:00 01/25/12
Ed Begley, Jr. on Going Off the Power Grid - GeekBeat Reviews
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:15:00 01/25/12
People wonder where to start saving money on power and becoming a little more energy independent. Ed Begley, Jr. talks to us about easy ways to start down that road.
0 Views
22:15:00 01/25/12
Ed Begley, Jr. on Going Off the Power Grid - GeekBeat Reviews
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:15:00 01/25/12
People wonder where to start saving money on power and becoming a little more energy independent. Ed Begley, Jr. talks to us about easy ways to start down that road.
0 Views
22:15:00 01/25/12
Ed Begley, Jr. on Going Off the Power Grid - GeekBeat Reviews
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 22:15:00 01/25/12
People wonder where to start saving money on power and becoming a little more energy independent. Ed Begley, Jr. talks to us about easy ways to start down that road.
9 Views
19:54:10 01/21/12
Technology to Help You Find Shoes
[LESS INFO] 9 VIEWS | ADDED 19:54:10 01/21/12
"http://www.lockergnome.com/mattryan/2012/01/17/how-to-save-money-on-shoes/ - If you go to the wrong places, shoes can cost a pretty penny (just ask Imelda Marcos). But with access to information at your fingertips that the Internet makes easy, comparing the cost of a pair of shoes you fancy from different sources can save you a bundle. Here are some ways that you can save money on shoes. You can watch the entire live TLDR episode here: http://youtu.be/Joq7Ot4sHWI http://www.gnomies.com http://www.lockergnome.com/subscribe/ https://profiles.google.com/chris.pirillo http://twitter.com/ChrisPirillo http://www.facebook.com/chrispirillo"
0 Views
23:00:00 01/13/12
Make Money Mailing Cheap Little Postcards!
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 23:00:00 01/13/12
http://postcardcash.homestead.plus101.com
---Make Money Mailing Cheap Little Postcards. Work at Home Jobs Mailing Cheap Little Postcards. Creating extraordinary incomes for ordinary people.
Make, Money, Mailing, Cheap, Little, Postcards, postcardcash, homestead, Work at Home, Jobs, Marketing, System, making, opportunity, Work, Business, Easy
0 Views
00:00:35 01/05/12
Occupy Wall Street Media Team Evicted From Rented Studio, 6 Arrested
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:35 01/05/12
If you had any remaining doubt that we're now living in a police state here in the U.S., what happened early this morning at the Occupy Wall Street Livestream office should make it painfully clear.
Ever since September 17th, 2011 and Zuccotti Park, Global Revolution Media has been a large supplier of the media coverage has been covering the Occupy Wall Street movement both here in the U.S. and internationally, providing followers of the movement with raw video footage and keeping their viewers informed.
Monitoring livestreams coming across the internet, the media team picks the best ones for rebroadcast. This small team of dedicated media broadcasters serving the Occupy movement makes finding information quick and easy, making following a plethora of events and breaking occupy news possible for followers. The Global Revolution media team operated out of a leased studio office at 13 Thames Street in Brooklyn, but continuing to do so is in doubt at this time, and the future of the operation in jeopardy.
Via Liberating Flames : >
Earlier this morning, Global Revolution Studios was ordered to vacate from their building by the NYPD in conjunction with the building department. It took three separate departments visiting 13 Thames to finally come up with a reason to remove the Global Revolution team with a posted notice despite having all applicable paperwork for the department of buildings in order. The reason given to me by the Global Revolution team is “A made up sprinkler condition.” Supporting this allegation of falsified conditions is that the very same building passed the same inspection standards back in 2011 in the month of November with no comments or concerns as to the buildings integrity or its sprinkler system.
It’s also odd how the first floor and cellar is imminently perilous to human life, and the floors directly above are perfectly fine. Even the person living illegally in the basement is perfectly fine where he is, meaning it’s specifically the area that Global Rev occupies and nothing else. One could accurately allege that this was a direct attack against one of the major voices of the movement and considering Global Revolutions direct affiliation with the Occupy movement; has made it an obvious target for this attack on free speech. The overreaching plan of these actions has been to suppress the ability of Occupy to communicate and to share the movements’ collective stories as they unfurl. By being a nexus of streams and information, authorities are attempting to do a top-down decapitation of the movements’ media coverage by once again isolating the information to the general public.
Six key members of the team were arrested at the Thames Street location, "charged with Trespass, Obstructing Governmental Administration and Resisting Arrest. They are likely to remain in jail overnight," according to Global Revolution's TV blog .
“We can do all of this from laptops”—Vlad Teichberg, GlobalRevolution.TV, after the #OccupyWallStreet and international live news protest channel was evicted from its NYC base .
Thames Street isn't the first home occupied by Global Revolution, and doubtful it would be it's last. In the beginning, activist Vlad Teichberg of Global Revolutiona worked in a small, dark, second-floor room in a clapped-out building on Lafayette at Bleecker. (His neighbors include the War Resisters League, the Socialist Party USA, and the Libertarian Book Club.) This is the original home office of globalrevolution.tv, which channels vérité video from occupations around the world through hosting sites such as Livestream.com .
Via NYMag : >
Teichberg is a 39-year-old Russian immigrant with stooped shoulders and a mop of brown hair who grew up in Rego Park and is so jacked in to the electronic grid that he comes across like a character out of Neuromancer. But what makes him so interesting is that you could just as easily imagine him making a cameo in The Big Short. A math prodigy who was a Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist before matriculating at Princeton, he left college (temporarily) after his sophomore year and went to work for Bankers Trust, the first in a string of Wall Street gigs at firms including Deutsche Bank, Swiss Reinsurance Corp., and HSBC. And what did he do in those places? He created, modeled, and traded derivatives, including some of the first synthetic CDOs. As he told the London Times, he was “one of the people [who] built that bomb that blew up the whole economy.”
Teichberg’s time in the Wall Street armament factory gave him a close-up view of everything wrong with the place: the culture of greed, the insane levels of risk, the corruption of the credit-rating agencies. “By 2001, it was obvious to me it was going to blow up,” he says, “and I wanted to be nowhere near it.” But he didn’t leave. Instead, hopping from job to job, he tried to put brakes on the process, devising new ways to value risk more accurately, only to be rebuffed by his bosses. At the same time he starting taking the money he was making on Wall Street and funding ways to undermine it.
More via SuperChief : >
A resident has confirmed 5 arrested, one of whom is Vlad Teichberg operator of the livestream. He also claims that police damaged camera equipment upon entering the building Tuesday afternoon.
...
Residents are reporting to Superchief that they suspect the order to vacate is a targeted attack – likely towards a Global Rev organizer Vlad Teichberg, and his 4-month pregnant wife. They report that they were able to remove an 800 pound server containing their video archives and their important documents last night.
Police did not specifically issue an order to vacate last night. Rather, they are enforcing a year-old order to vacate – which may or may not be selectively enforced now based on the Occupy presence in the space.
Those arrested were first taken to Central Booking on Centre Street, and are now at the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn at at Union St and Montrose Avenue.
Will update as more information becomes available...
Update 1 : Video footage of the police arrests show that no one from Global Revolution was "resisting arrest" as claimed. Arrests begin around 4 minutes into the video, and continue until the end when with no reason given NYPD arrest 2 people who were down the street observing on the sidewalk, view here .
Update 2: See the post here .
1 Views
00:00:35 01/05/12
Occupy Wall Street Media Team Evicted From Rented Studio, 6 Arrested
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 00:00:35 01/05/12
If you had any remaining doubt that we're now living in a police state here in the U.S., what happened early this morning at the Occupy Wall Street Livestream office should make it painfully clear.
Ever since September 17th, 2011 and Zuccotti Park, Global Revolution Media has been a large supplier of the media coverage has been covering the Occupy Wall Street movement both here in the U.S. and internationally, providing followers of the movement with raw video footage and keeping their viewers informed.
Monitoring livestreams coming across the internet, the media team picks the best ones for rebroadcast. This small team of dedicated media broadcasters serving the Occupy movement makes finding information quick and easy, making following a plethora of events and breaking occupy news possible for followers. The Global Revolution media team operated out of a leased studio office at 13 Thames Street in Brooklyn, but continuing to do so is in doubt at this time, and the future of the operation in jeopardy.
Via Liberating Flames : >
Earlier this morning, Global Revolution Studios was ordered to vacate from their building by the NYPD in conjunction with the building department. It took three separate departments visiting 13 Thames to finally come up with a reason to remove the Global Revolution team with a posted notice despite having all applicable paperwork for the department of buildings in order. The reason given to me by the Global Revolution team is “A made up sprinkler condition.” Supporting this allegation of falsified conditions is that the very same building passed the same inspection standards back in 2011 in the month of November with no comments or concerns as to the buildings integrity or its sprinkler system.
It’s also odd how the first floor and cellar is imminently perilous to human life, and the floors directly above are perfectly fine. Even the person living illegally in the basement is perfectly fine where he is, meaning it’s specifically the area that Global Rev occupies and nothing else. One could accurately allege that this was a direct attack against one of the major voices of the movement and considering Global Revolutions direct affiliation with the Occupy movement; has made it an obvious target for this attack on free speech. The overreaching plan of these actions has been to suppress the ability of Occupy to communicate and to share the movements’ collective stories as they unfurl. By being a nexus of streams and information, authorities are attempting to do a top-down decapitation of the movements’ media coverage by once again isolating the information to the general public.
Six key members of the team were arrested at the Thames Street location, "charged with Trespass, Obstructing Governmental Administration and Resisting Arrest. They are likely to remain in jail overnight," according to Global Revolution's TV blog .
“We can do all of this from laptops”—Vlad Teichberg, GlobalRevolution.TV, after the #OccupyWallStreet and international live news protest channel was evicted from its NYC base .
Thames Street isn't the first home occupied by Global Revolution, and doubtful it would be it's last. In the beginning, activist Vlad Teichberg of Global Revolutiona worked in a small, dark, second-floor room in a clapped-out building on Lafayette at Bleecker. (His neighbors include the War Resisters League, the Socialist Party USA, and the Libertarian Book Club.) This is the original home office of globalrevolution.tv, which channels vérité video from occupations around the world through hosting sites such as Livestream.com .
Via NYMag : >
Teichberg is a 39-year-old Russian immigrant with stooped shoulders and a mop of brown hair who grew up in Rego Park and is so jacked in to the electronic grid that he comes across like a character out of Neuromancer. But what makes him so interesting is that you could just as easily imagine him making a cameo in The Big Short. A math prodigy who was a Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist before matriculating at Princeton, he left college (temporarily) after his sophomore year and went to work for Bankers Trust, the first in a string of Wall Street gigs at firms including Deutsche Bank, Swiss Reinsurance Corp., and HSBC. And what did he do in those places? He created, modeled, and traded derivatives, including some of the first synthetic CDOs. As he told the London Times, he was “one of the people [who] built that bomb that blew up the whole economy.”
Teichberg’s time in the Wall Street armament factory gave him a close-up view of everything wrong with the place: the culture of greed, the insane levels of risk, the corruption of the credit-rating agencies. “By 2001, it was obvious to me it was going to blow up,” he says, “and I wanted to be nowhere near it.” But he didn’t leave. Instead, hopping from job to job, he tried to put brakes on the process, devising new ways to value risk more accurately, only to be rebuffed by his bosses. At the same time he starting taking the money he was making on Wall Street and funding ways to undermine it.
More via SuperChief : >
A resident has confirmed 5 arrested, one of whom is Vlad Teichberg operator of the livestream. He also claims that police damaged camera equipment upon entering the building Tuesday afternoon.
...
Residents are reporting to Superchief that they suspect the order to vacate is a targeted attack – likely towards a Global Rev organizer Vlad Teichberg, and his 4-month pregnant wife. They report that they were able to remove an 800 pound server containing their video archives and their important documents last night.
Police did not specifically issue an order to vacate last night. Rather, they are enforcing a year-old order to vacate – which may or may not be selectively enforced now based on the Occupy presence in the space.
Those arrested were first taken to Central Booking on Centre Street, and are now at the 90th Precinct in Brooklyn at at Union St and Montrose Avenue.
Will update as more information becomes available...
Update 1 : Video footage of the police arrests show that no one from Global Revolution was "resisting arrest" as claimed. Arrests begin around 4 minutes into the video, and continue until the end when with no reason given NYPD arrest 2 people who were down the street observing on the sidewalk, view here .
Update 2: See the post here .
5 Views
19:00:30 12/28/11
Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011
[LESS INFO] 5 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964
This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy.
One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality.
But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night.
Why Austerity?
"Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth.
But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s.
It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled.
Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels.
For a one-percenter, what's not to love?
Austerity Comes of Age
The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades.
But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform.
It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term.
With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd.
The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine
That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: >
Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation.
And the British love it.
What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States.
And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: >
"Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings."
Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists
The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend.
That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments?
The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better.
But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip.
Death of a Delusion
And then something else came into the picture: Reality.
Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century.
Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare.
As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough.
And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed.
That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all.
The Afterlife
President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays.
Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works.
Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge.
Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.
1 Views
19:00:30 12/28/11
Notable Death of the Year: RIP Austerity Economics, 1921-2011
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 19:00:30 12/28/11
"Smokestack Lightnin'," with Hubert Sumlin backing Howlin' Wolf in 1964
This is the time of year when we're reminded of all the famous people who died over the last twelve months, a list which includes two of my favorite guitar players ( Hubert Sumlin and Cornell Dupree ). But there were also some notable non-human deaths in 2011, especially in the world of economic policy.
One of those deaths should have completely altered the political debate in Washington. The name of the deceased was "Austerity Economics," and it was first glimpsed in a 1921 paper by conservative economist Frank Wright. Austerity died of natural causes brought on by prolonged exposure to reality.
But the debate in Washington didn't change nearly enough after its passing. In the nation's capital, dead things still rule the night.
Why Austerity?
"Austerity economics" backers claim that today's economic woes can only be fixed by dramatic reductions in government spending, which will lead to increased private-sector confidence and therefore to greater investment and growth.
But it's never worked. And if investors have lost confidence in the U.S. government's fiscal stability, they're sure not acting that way. There hasn't been this much demand for Treasury bonds since the government began tracking it twenty years ago, and they haven't performed as well since the go-go 1990s.
It's easy to understand austerity's attraction for power elites inside and outside of government. The people who suffer from austerity budgets aren't the kinds of people they know personally, since they're typically public employees like teachers, police, firefighters and the administrators of social programs; people who need government assistance, like the poor; and middle-class people with the temerity to either grow old or become disabled.
Austerity's attraction became even greater in the U.S. because once it became conventional wisdom that tax increases on the wealthy was "politically infeasible." That made it a program whose sole purpose was to cut government spending, lowering the pressure to increase taxes on the wealthy from today's historically low levels.
For a one-percenter, what's not to love?
Austerity Comes of Age
The idea's been around in one form or another since that 1921 paper, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been imposing it on Third World nations for decades.
But 2009 was the year that austerity really came of age. That was the year that a wealthy stockbroker's son named David Cameron began campaigning for Prime Minister of Great Britain on an explicitly pro-austerity platform.
It was also the year that Cameron helped to form a group named European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) dedicated to electing like-minded politicians across Europe and helping them collaborate on ways to slash government spending. It was also the year that right-leaning Angela Merkel won reelection as the Chancellor of Germany with a stronger mandate than she'd been given in her first term.
With Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, Great Britain was the only major European power not yet in the hands of the corporate-backed austerity crowd.
The Global Sado-Erotic Thrill Machine
That changed with Cameron's election as Prime Minister in May 2010, an event that threw pro-austerity Americans into throes of near-erotic ecstasy. And if that sounds like hyperbole, consider conservative Anne Appelbaum's reaction to Cameron's budget in September of 2010: >
Vicious cuts." "Savage cuts." "Swingeing (sic) cuts." The language that the British use to describe their new government's spending-reduction policy is apocalyptic in the extreme. The ministers in charge of the country's finances are known as "axe-wielders" who will be "hacking" away at the budget. Articles about the nation's finances are filled with talk of blood, knives, and amputation.
And the British love it.
What can I say? There are people who collect serial-killer memorabilia, too. But Appelbaum wasn't just speaking for herself. It became unacceptable for any politician in Washington, Democrat or Republican, to advocate anything other than an austerity budget for the United States.
And it was more than an economic strategy to its backers. Austerity became a way to demonize those who had suffered most from the banking abuses and self-indulgences of the wealthy, a totemic "blame the victim" response that turned the political debate into a grotesque inversion of morality. Again, Appelbaum: >
"Not only is austerity being touted as the solution to Britain's economic woes; it is also being described as the answer to the country's moral failings."
Bad Metaphors vs. Good Economists
The Democratic President of the United States, Barack Obama, jumped onto the bandwagon with both feet by repeatedly lecturing Americans on the need for government to stop "spending beyond its means." Obama recycled the popular conservative metaphor of a family that has to sit around the kitchen table and decide how much money it has to spend.
That's one of the worst metaphors in modern politics. Does a family establish its own currency -- especially one that has the unique position of the dollar? Can a family borrow money at rates so low they're effectively less than zero? Would a family let Grandma go hungry because Junior bought too many Porsches out of the family kitty and then gambled it away on lousy mortgage investments?
The world's top economists, those who had successfully predicted the crisis of 2008, tried telling the rest of the world what was wrong with the idea: Joblessness and consumer fears were killing any chance of real recovery. More short-term spending was needed to get the economy moving again. Austerity would make things worse, not better.
But nobody listened. Austerity's S%M-like attraction had the world's elites in its grip.
Death of a Delusion
And then something else came into the picture: Reality.
Cameron's austerity budget had a shattering effect on the already-struggling British economy. His government's financial stability was downgraded five times during his first year in power and retail sales had fallen 2.5 percent. Household income was projected to fall an additional 2 percent if his austerity plans were carried forward. Britain's modest employment gains were reversed, youth unemployment reached record levels, and income inequality was the worst it had been in more than half a century.
Anne Appelbaum's erotic dreams had become Great Britain's nightmare.
As Europe's ruling austerity class pushed forward with their plans, even the IMF tried to dissuade them. It was clear to anyone who wasn't blinded by ideology or political cynicism that austerity economics was a failed program. Even in countries like Greece, where government was far graver than elsewhere, the austerity programs imposed from outside threatened to destabilize society while other reasonable measures like improved tax collection were still not taken seriously enough.
And now the entire Eurozone hangs in the balance. Bankers became wealthy by treating governments as if they were mortgages, lending recklessly and pocketing their fees without considering the long-term reliability of their loans. European leaders insisted for months they were take the kind of sensible steps that should've been taken in the United States by requiring bankers to accept at least part of the losses for the bad loans they had issed.
That plan was quietly dropped last month. "Austerity economics" never calls for austerity from those who have gotten rich by being irresponsible, only from those who didn't benefit from it at all.
The Afterlife
President Obama has dropped his austerity rhetoric, at least for the time being, but the Republicans have not. Listening to Mitt Romney discuss economics is like having a doctor wave a dead chicken over your head and saying he's decided to cast a spell on you rather than operate on that thing they found in your X-rays.
Aside from the bill introduced this month by the House Progressive Caucus to almost no media attention, there's no comprehensive plan for dropping this country's ineffective austerity strategy and replacing it with an agenda that works.
Rational solutions to our economic problems are being ignored. There won't be a real debate about alternatives to austerity until an entire political party, not just part of it, adopts this kind of program. Until then there will be chaos. And where there is chaos, austerity's powerful advocates can step in and take charge.
Austerity economics died in 2011 and is survived by the British, German, and French governments as well as the GOP and large portions of the Democratic Party. Instead of sending flowers, the family has asked the public to abandon all hopes of future economic growth.






