From the "Sink your life savings in a boat" Dept.

Boston Globe story on the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation:

Just months before the start of last year's stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.

... Bodie, the BU professor who advised the agency, questioned why a government entity that is supposed to be insuring pension funds should be investing in stocks and real estate at all. Bodie once likened the agency's strategy to a company that insures against hurricane damage and then invests the premiums in beachfront property.

... The Government Accountability Office is preparing a new review of the investment policy, but in the meantime it continues to place the agency on its list of federal programs at "high risk."

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo comments, "Bush was able to do for the PBGC what he tried and failed to do for Social Security."

Fifteen Guys Named Joe

With the Senate Democratic caucus just two votes shy of a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) no longer has the clout he once did. But Senate colleagues have taken a lesson from him. In a Senate now dominated by Democrats, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) thinks Fifteen Guys Named Joe can have similar clout.

Last week Democratic Senators Bayh, Tom Carper (DE) and Blanche Lincoln (AR) took to the pages of the Washington Post to explain the raison d'être for their new Moderate Dems Working Group:

The stakes are too high for Democrats to fear a policy debate. Such debates produce better legislation. On nearly all important votes, a supermajority of 60 senators will be needed to pass legislation. Without Democratic moderates working to find common ground with reasonable Republicans, the president's agenda could well be filibustered into oblivion.

And you will help Republicans do that if you don't get what you want, is that it?

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Losing sight

from Atlantic:

Wall Street is a very seductive place, imbued with an air of power. Its executives truly believe that they control the levers that make the world go round. A civil servant from Washington invited into their conference rooms, even if just for a meeting, could be forgiven for falling under their sway. Throughout my time at the IMF, I was struck by the easy access of leading financiers to the highest U.S. government officials, and the interweaving of the two career tracks. I vividly remember a meeting in early 2008—attended by top policy makers from a handful of rich countries—at which the chair casually proclaimed, to the room’s general approval, that the best preparation for becoming a central-bank governor was to work first as an investment banker.

As a former government regulator told me, you had people who wanted nothing more from their job than to be the good cop ... and then you had those who always wanted to be something else. They wanted to be one of the Big Money Boys. And they lost sight of who they served and what it was they were hired to do.

Behold AIG

Four years ago, I wrote a column describing the modern corporation as a science-fiction monster – an artificial life form neither biological nor technological, but legal, a soulless creation possessing only appetite and instinct. Behold AIG.

Friday, the New York Times reported that the insurance giant is suing the U.S. government for $306 million. After receiving almost $200 billion from U.S. taxpayers to keep it from collapsing, AIG has taken legal action against its benefactors – us – who hold an 80% stake in the company. All this while sparking national outrage by paying bailout-funded bonuses totaling $165 million to some of the same avaricious jerks that brought our economy to its knees.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Reassurance

Tom Friedman today cites Congress for more posturing than progress on the economy and the president for joking about his lousy bowling skills on Jay Leno’s show. Friedman writes, “There don’t seem to be any adults at the top.”

But Friedman’s reactions frame a much narrower time span than mine. In the context of the last eight years, I had the opposite reaction, at least to the president on Leno.

Obama was cool, friendly, confident and in control. Putting aside the “special Olympics” flap, when he joked his jokes were funny, self-deprecating and not mean-spirited. Watching was unexpectedly emotional. It was joyful, reassuring.

The last eight years have been, emotionally, somewhat akin to the experience of a four or five year-old losing his parents on a crowded city sidewalk. Surrounded by strangers in a strange, potentially dangerous place, you realize that the world has gone suddenly very wrong. Your parents are no longer beside you. Your head snaps around searching for them. The panic builds as you realize you are lost.

Then you spot them down the street and a sudden wave of joy and relief washes over you. The panic subsides. Everything is going to be all right now.

I’m not suggesting Obama is a parent figure, and things may not be all right, but after eight, long years of George W. Bush, Obama's appearance on Leno evoked that kind of emotional response. Congress may still be filled with childish fools, but there’s an adult in charge again at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Unserious

Here on the left, we're shrill. We're unhinged. Amateurs. Unpatriotic. For eight years we warned America about war crimes, torture, rendition, phony intelligence, domestic surveillance, insider deals, greed, corruption and the gutting of the Constitution. We can't be taken seriously. Not like the professionals.

Not like these guys:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

[h/t Scrutiny Hooligans]

Less Than Stimulating

When President Obama warned Republicans last week not to "come to the table with the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis," one idea he may have had in mind is a second American Jobs Creation Act. The GOP proposal was rejected in the Senate last week, but lives on in conservative rhetoric.

The first AJCA, enacted under President Bush in 2004, allowed corporations with offshore profits to repatriate them at a steep tax discount – virtually a tax holiday. Like many conservative tax giveaways, the AJCA was supposed to create jobs and boost the economy. There were doubters.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Re: Stimulus Package

I want a better bill with more capital spending. One thing you'll notice in this debate, however, is that critics want more capital spending in the mix (infrastructure,etc.), but none of them offer a shopping list. Why not?

I have a feeling that the folks in the White House aren't fools. If there were more "shovel ready" projects out there, they'd be in the bill.

And if there were more non-shovel-ready projects proposed in the package, critics would complain that they are "not stimulative" because they take too long to get money into the economy. (Remember, big projects are what I do, and they take 12-18 months to go from proposal to "shovel ready.") Yes, the bill isn't anywhere near perfect. Things this size never are. Obama's efforts are also suffering from the mistrust engendered by the previous administration's efforts.

One of the things economists fear is that the spending won't be large enough to jump start the economy. My feeling is that Congress put in as many "good" projects as they could find and then filled it out with other stuff to ensure the spending was as immediate enough and large enough to meet the threshhold needed, warts and all. I saw the WS Journal article listing most of the bill as "pork" and "not stimulative." But phrases like "loaded with pork" or else "not stimulative" aren't terribly descriptive. Anything that's not a tax cut, is pork to Republicans. Where's their alternative? I mean, to more tax cuts? Where's their shopping list?

As I said over at Scrutiny Holligans, it's a bit like getting babies to eat their vegetables, isn’t it?

Standing Athwart Recovery

Conservatives are never ready to stand athwart history, yelling Stop when faced with sending troops to war or bailing out a financial system they destroyed. But when it comes to government spending that might help out ordinary people they consider bad apples, conservatives go all Jack Benny and complain, "I'm thinking it over!"

On the economic stimulus package, they’re thinking it over.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

And Justice for Some

President Barack Obama’s order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison highlights one of the Bush administration’s few successes - the campaign to undermine America’s belief in the rule of law.

The propaganda effort over Guantanamo detainees continued to the end of the Bush administration. The Pentagon claimed on January 13 that 61 former Guantanamo detainees had “returned to the fight.” On MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Seton Hall Law School Professor Mark Denbeaux challenged the dozens of contradictory Pentagon estimates. Such figures, Denbeaux asserts, are offered without identities or purported terrorist activities to support Pentagon claims, and include several ex-detainees who appeared in a documentary about Guantanamo and others whose lawyer criticized their detentions in print.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Guantanamo Closing Countdwon

When President-elect Barack Obama appeared Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” he was measured in answering whether or not he would close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay in his first 100 days in office:

OBAMA: It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize and we are going to get it done but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom who may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication.

And some who may not have been dangerous to start.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Betcha didn't know the south won the Civil War?

Everything you know is wrong. Just ask Firesign Theater.

Better yet, just ask Rush - Democrats created the economic meltdown.

Digby responds, at her best:

The right wing understands something that progressives just refuse to engage in and that is that most people, particularly the media, understand their world through stories. And so they consciously craft plots and narratives to explain events that favor their worldview. Right now, after eight years of Bush and a decisive election repudiating Republican rule, it seems impossible to believe that their story makes any sense to people. But they will tell it anyway, full in the knowledge that within a few months any talk of Bush will be as stale as Rickrolling and the focus will be completely on Obama. And they will already be well on their way to setting forth an alternate reality that slides neatly into familiar grooves worn smooth by decades of right wing propaganda.

[. . .]

Nobody has yet repudiated conservatism or explained why the country is in this mess, because Democrats decided that they didn't want to play the blame game. And if we're lucky, it won't matter because the country will turn around quickly, the Democrats will get the credit and the modern conservative movement will slink off into obscurity having been rendered irrelevant for all time by the the irrefutable progressive success of Barack Obama and the Democratic congress. But I think it's a mistake to assume that's how it will go.

Along with good policy, you need rhetoric and narratives that give people something to believe in --- and someone to blame. History has shown that it's never smart to let demagogues go unanswered under the assumption that people will see through them, particularly in a time of great stress and dislocation.

And the dingo ate the Rush's baby.

Rough Weather Ahead

From Rep. Heath Shuler's (D-NC) district, in a state with unemployment already above the national average:

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Thousands of people flocked to a western North Carolina job fair this week, backing up traffic on an interstate ramp and more doubling the number of job seekers who came last year.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reported Wednesday that about 2,000 people attended the job fair Tuesday to talk to some of the 56 employers who participated. Last year, about 800 people attended.

This morning ABC radio news and AP (above) reported on it. Photos here. Video here.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

On Building a Progressive Infrastructure

The Firedoglake article below was well received around the web. Johnson argues for the grassroots thinking more long term and getting into the habit of funding a "progressive infrastructure" for promoting a broad public agenda rather than specific issues.

I think the Left should be growing a professional cadre of thinkers and activists. The big focus, however, is still on funding think-tank based activities to array against Heritage, Hudson, AEI and Cato, etc. Even given the success of Obama's online fundraising campaign, don't count on millions flowing to progressive think tanks anytime soon. George Lakoff's Rockridge Institute closed this year from lack of funds.

I sent Dave Johnson a little missive on Blue Century's activities. We'd welcome some think-tank help with creating effective messages. But while others are still talking about what progressives should be doing, by staying grassroots we're already doing it.

Don't just think big. Think small, too.

Blue America: Progressive Infrastructure

By: Dave Johnson Saturday December 13, 2008 11:00 am

“You Have Bad Luck”

It's an article of faith among free-marketeers that Americans are overregulated. But most Americans have forgotten what freedom from regulation really looks like.

The Washington Post details the foot dragging and stonewalling of safety enforcement at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration since 2001. The Bush administration took a somewhat different view of the agency’s mission.

The agency's first director under Bush, John L. Henshaw, startled career officials by telling them in an early meeting that employers were OSHA's real customers, not the nation's workers. "Everybody was pretty amazed," one of those present recalled. "Our purpose is to ensure employee safety and health. . . . He just looked at things differently."

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

Business Week's Top Ten Worst Predictions of 2008

The Worst Predictions About 2008

10. A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, the title of a book by conservative commentator Shelby Steele, published on Dec. 4, 2007.

Mr. Steele, meet President-elect Barack Obama.

The House that Jack Bought

The Agonist primer on the financial meltdown.

Read it before you hear about in on the Nightly Business Report

It's Still a Wonderful Life

This year’s election was right out of Frank Capra. An army of Obama volunteers fanned out like Boy Rangers, knocking on doors, making calls and registering voters. At 11 p.m. on Election Night, when networks called the race for Obama, little guys around the world began crying and chanting, “Yes, we did!”

Capra himself couldn’t have done it better.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...

"Can't Do Anything Right"

Duncan Black's assessment of Imperious Leader. The occasion?

Bush withdraws pardon of Suffolk real estate scammer

White House issues extraordinary statement saying Bush was reversing his decision to pardon Issac Robert Toussie.

What has George W. Btfsplk touched that hasn't turned to excrement?

Landing a Left Hook

Conservatives are creatures of habit. Once they have a play that works for them, they will run it over and over and over again. One reason they continue to do it successfully is that liberal activists are also creatures of habit - predictable, often less prepared and less disciplined. Liberals are still learning how not to play their adversaries' game, and not to bring a knife to a gun fight.

Read more at Campaign for America's Future ...