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Demeter

(85,373 posts)
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 07:47 AM Apr 2013

Weekend Economists Sink the "Iron Lady" April 13-14, 2013

?w=470

Margaret Thatcher, Baroness, first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. Predictions are she will be the last female PM, as well. The "Iron Lady" is so reviled by the 99% of the UK (and abroad) that her death sent the little ditty "Ding, dong, the witch is dead" to the top of the charts in Britain:

'Ding dong! The Witch Is Dead': BBC faces dilemma as anti-Thatcher song tops charts

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/world/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-bbc-faces-dilemma-as-anti-thatcher-song-tops-charts#ixzz2QLHUZxAd

The BBC is in a bind after opponents of Margaret Thatcher pushed the song "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" to the top of the British charts in a posthumous protest over her divisive policies.
The online campaign to drive the "Wizard of Oz" song to the No. 1 spot on the U.K. singles chart was launched by Thatcher critics shortly after the former prime minister died Monday of a stroke at age 87.

As of Friday, the song was No. 1 on British iTunes.

Still, many people say the campaign - which aims to see the song played this weekend on the BBC's Official Chart Show - is in bad taste. Some have called on the BBC to promise it won't broadcast the song.

John Whittingdale, a lawmaker from Thatcher's Conservative party, told the Daily Mail tabloid that many would find the ditty "deeply insensitive."

"This is an attempt to manipulate the charts by people trying to make a political point," he said.
In a statement, the BBC said it had not yet decided on whether it would feature the song on its show - which normally plays all the week's best-selling hits.

"The Official Chart Show on Sunday is a historical and factual account of what the British public has been buying and we will make a decision about playing it when the final chart positions are clear," the taxpayer-funded BBC said.

Not all Tories agreed that the song should be yanked.

"No song should be banned by the BBC unless its lyrics are pre-watershed," said former Conservative lawmaker Louise Mensch, referring to British restrictions on adult content.
Mensch, a prominent Conservative voice on Twitter, said in a message posted to the site that Thatcher, famously known as "the Iron Lady," would not have wanted it any other way.

"Thatcher stood for freedom," she wrote.


And besides, she's still dead. Regardless of its tastefulness, the Baroness won. She trashed the Brits and their economy. As I was driving home very late last night (long story see below) the BBC had a mealy-mouthed economist talking about how Mrs. Thatcher didn't cause Britain's economic problems, which were part of a global trend...

Perhaps not. But I always thought that the purpose of society was to mitigate and compensate for global trends to reduce suffering, not grinding one's stylish pumps into the down-trodden public's face.

And for curiosity's sake, what started that world-wide decline? Deregulation in Britain and the US, union-busting, tax cuts....all the neoliberal crap that Saints Maggie and Ronnie imposed upon the West against our wills. And as for that radio contest:

BBC defends Baroness Thatcher Ding Dong song decision

Ben Cooper says the decision is a "compromise" but not a "fudge"...The BBC has defended its decision not to play in full on Radio 1's Official Chart Show a song at the centre of an anti-Baroness Thatcher campaign.

A five second clip of Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead will be played in a news item on Sunday's show. BBC Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper said the move over the Wizard of Oz film track had been a difficult compromise. He said he had to balance respect for someone who had just died with issues around freedom of speech.

Sales of the song, from the 1939 musical starring Judy Garland, have soared since former Prime Minister Lady Thatcher's death on Monday, aged 87.


Speaking to BBC News, Mr Cooper said: "You have a track which I believe is disrespectful. It is not a political track, it is a personal attack on an individual who has just died. But on the other hand, if I ban the track then you have arguments about censorship and freedom of speech. I also took into account the very difficult scenario of the fact there's a grieving family involved here who have yet to bury a loved one. So those sort of elements were in my thinking to come up with this decision that I would play not the track in full, but a clip of the track within a journalistic environment."

The single is set to take the number three spot in Sunday's countdown, according to the Official Charts Company.

Meanwhile, a serving police officer who posted offensive messages on Twitter following Lady Thatcher's death has resigned. Sgt Jeremy Scott, of the Metropolitan Police, is reported to have written that he hoped her death was "painful and degrading". Scotland Yard said Sgt Scott's resignation was accepted with immediate effect. The Met's Commander Allan Gibson added: "This officer's behaviour was completely unacceptable and it is right that he has resigned."

In his BBC blog, Mr Cooper explained that - as controller of Radio 1 - there were times when "you find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place". And the corporation released a statement, saying: "The BBC finds this campaign distasteful, but does not believe the record should be banned. "On Sunday, the Radio 1 Chart Show will contain a news item explaining why the song is in the charts, during which a short clip will be played, as it has been in some of our news programmes." BBC director general Tony Hall said: "I understand the concerns about this campaign. I personally believe it is distasteful and inappropriate. However, I do believe it would be wrong to ban the song outright as free speech is an important principle and a ban would only give it more publicity."

The original song was performed in the Wizard of Oz by characters celebrating the demise of a much-hated witch.

Rival campaigns are under way to get a song considered to be more favourable to Lady Thatcher into this week's countdown as well.


Like what?

89 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Weekend Economists Sink the "Iron Lady" April 13-14, 2013 (Original Post) Demeter Apr 2013 OP
An Apology to those Expecting Their Weekend to start on Friday Demeter Apr 2013 #1
It's much harder to play cards by candlelight, too Demeter Apr 2013 #2
Close enough and congrats. n/t kickysnana Apr 2013 #4
An interesting night to remember! DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #7
I used to have a wind-up, solar radio Demeter Apr 2013 #10
Nothing like a little candle light... westerebus Apr 2013 #49
It sounds so much better after you edited it! Demeter Apr 2013 #51
Where there's a will there's a way. westerebus Apr 2013 #67
NO BANK FAILURE THIS WEEKEND Demeter Apr 2013 #3
Gold at 21-month low, hits bear market territory; silver drops 5% Demeter Apr 2013 #8
LET'S HAVE OUR OWN HIT PARADE CONTEST! Demeter Apr 2013 #5
This one works hamerfan Apr 2013 #83
The Darker Side of Margaret Thatcher: From Austerity to Apartheid Demeter Apr 2013 #6
Thatcher's Mean Legacy: The Queen Mother of Global Austerity and Financialization DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #9
Video Michael Hudson: Thatcher Gave More Power to Finance DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #11
More Hudson: Thatcher’s Legacy of Failed Privatizations DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #12
Meh. I was hoping for a Jonathan Winters weekend... Hugin Apr 2013 #36
Gottfried: Jonathan Winters was mad brilliant Hugin Apr 2013 #37
Dayton-born, Springfield-raised, comedian Jonathan Winters dies DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #38
At the rate we are losing public figures Demeter Apr 2013 #46
The truth about Margaret Thatcher AN OPPOSING VIEW IN HER SUPPORT Demeter Apr 2013 #13
Thatcher’s Divided Isle By A. C. GRAYLING Demeter Apr 2013 #14
TheAutomaticEarth: The Lady Who Made Greed Look Good DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #15
BUT THE KNIFE COMES HERE! Demeter Apr 2013 #21
+++ DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #24
The Iron Lady Official Trailer #2 - Meryl Streep Movie (2012) DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #16
Thatcher said: we have no alternatives. Progress requires that we prove her wrong. Fabius Maximus Demeter Apr 2013 #17
THE WIKI REPORT Demeter Apr 2013 #18
Personality Analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s Handwriting Demeter Apr 2013 #19
I used to work with a lady who had a real knack for analyzing handwriting DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #23
Chris Martenson video - S&P Market May Fall More Than 40% DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #20
YES, BUT WHEN? Demeter Apr 2013 #26
Let me peer into my crystall ball DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #30
ALTERNATE MUSICAL TRIBUTE (ILARGI) Demeter Apr 2013 #22
Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children' Demeter Apr 2013 #25
Whew! I'm exhausted already Demeter Apr 2013 #27
Thatcher is Dead—Long Live Chávez! Demeter Apr 2013 #28
Post-Neoliberal Dawn Demeter Apr 2013 #29
Musical interlude, Toussaint Louverture Fuddnik Apr 2013 #44
Wow, get to see him if you can before he stops touring Warpy Apr 2013 #53
I've seen him probably a half dozen times. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #63
The Know-It-All Party: Anti-Euro 'Alternative for Germany' Launches xchrom Apr 2013 #31
I was up 'til way after 3:00am watching Richard Wolff on LinkTV. Fuddnik Apr 2013 #41
+1 xchrom Apr 2013 #43
Spanish banks repossessed 30,000 family homes in 2012 xchrom Apr 2013 #32
30,000! How do Spanish banks process this many reposessions in one year, 115 per day!! DemReadingDU Apr 2013 #45
My loathing of that monstrous person is so consuming bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #33
What you said, B&R. Hugin Apr 2013 #42
Bitcoin Is Up 92% Since Yesterday xchrom Apr 2013 #34
I'm amazed the Treasury hasn't arranged a bailout for them Demeter Apr 2013 #47
WARREN BUFFETT WINS AGAIN: Train Traffic Is Going Through The Roof xchrom Apr 2013 #35
hmmmmmph!!!!!!!! heaven05 Apr 2013 #39
U.S. Urges Japan to Refrain From Competitive Yen Devaluation xchrom Apr 2013 #40
Threatening the door after the horse has bolted Demeter Apr 2013 #50
! xchrom Apr 2013 #54
Except that "urging" has no effect! OrwellwasRight Apr 2013 #85
Goodness, gracious! 19 recs! Demeter Apr 2013 #48
Jesus! Put a warning on that thing! Warpy Apr 2013 #52
Sorry, Warpy Demeter Apr 2013 #55
Well, shall we get back to the business at hand? Demeter Apr 2013 #56
You forgot the "Montressor!", Demeter - and thanks for the smile, Warpy bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #64
Edgar Allen Poe -- The cask of Amontillado Demeter Apr 2013 #77
And by the way, Sunday is 38F, windy, and occasionally sleeting Demeter Apr 2013 #78
Judge Rejects $20-Million Severance For American Airlines CEO Demeter Apr 2013 #57
Goldman deal with union group lets Blankfein keep dual roles ET TU, LLOYD? Demeter Apr 2013 #58
Moyers: Imagine If America Had Adopted Martin Luther King's Economic Dream MUST READ Demeter Apr 2013 #59
Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer; Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions Demeter Apr 2013 #60
Obama's New Treasury Secretary Pushes Austerity That Spreads Global Misery Demeter Apr 2013 #61
IT MUST BE BEDTIME--MY EYES ARE CLOSING Demeter Apr 2013 #62
"Anti-Thatcher party in London's Trafalgar Square" bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #65
We would have been summarily shot in the streets Demeter Apr 2013 #79
I have joined the 21st century with a smart phone... kickysnana Apr 2013 #66
Brave Soul! Demeter Apr 2013 #80
There's Been A Big Global Move Against Tax Havens In The Past Week xchrom Apr 2013 #68
Portuguese union rallies thousands in anti-austerity protest xchrom Apr 2013 #69
‘Rust in hell’: Irish nationalists slam ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher xchrom Apr 2013 #70
One Europe and So Many Thatchers xchrom Apr 2013 #71
What Thatcher Didn't Understand: Inequality Hurts the Rich and Poor Alike xchrom Apr 2013 #72
New bailout deal will cut borrowing xchrom Apr 2013 #73
IMF to cut US growth forecast amid downbeat retail and confidence data xchrom Apr 2013 #74
IMF frets on sidelines while global economic divides widen xchrom Apr 2013 #75
Lloyd Blankfein's $21m haul makes him the world's best paid banker xchrom Apr 2013 #76
here's a photo we can all enjoy - bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #81
Forbes: "one of the worst British political leaders of modern times" bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #82
If Forbes Says It-It Must Be True Demeter Apr 2013 #84
To clense our spirits: A real (& beautiful & pure of heart) IRON LADY bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #86
The real "Iron Lady" - Black Caviar - has been retired bread_and_roses Apr 2013 #89
Sorry folks, I meant to do more Demeter Apr 2013 #87
Our Policy Recommendation for the Millenium Demeter Apr 2013 #88
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
1. An Apology to those Expecting Their Weekend to start on Friday
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 07:56 AM
Apr 2013

Friday night was the monthly Euchre Night. It is the hostess' policy to celebrate the birthdays for the month at the game night, so my attendance was obligatory.

We had just about finished our pre-game potluck when the power went out. As our hostess rummaged about for enough candles to see the cards, time ticked on.

We finally got started, but it was 11:30 PM by the time I got home, far too late to start anything.

It was very 18th century, playing cards by candlelight. And the cards and conversation ran very strangely. For one thing, I had 3 loners! That's more than I've had for a year, maybe two years. As a result of the fact that I actually had jacks in many a hand, I and two of my partners racked up 56 points each, resulting in a three-way tie for First Place...the first time that's ever happened, too!

So I came home a winner, a bit wealthier than when I arrived. Also got some lovely little gifts, and a card that had me shouting with laughter. I wish I could reproduce it here.

But with the Iron Lady staring down at me....it just wouldn't be appropriate!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
2. It's much harder to play cards by candlelight, too
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:00 AM
Apr 2013

We are so spoiled by Thomas Alva Edison. Not to mention Detroit Edison....

So the evening took a lot longer to wrap up.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
7. An interesting night to remember!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:19 AM
Apr 2013

Eucher is fun, and 3 loners too, Congratulations!


A couple years ago, we had a power outage. After that, I went and bought a battery-operated light/lantern. It illuminates the entire room! (but it uses 4 D batteries)

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
10. I used to have a wind-up, solar radio
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:26 AM
Apr 2013

Whenever I get the rest of my life back in some kind of order ( ) I plan to go all survivalist.

westerebus

(2,976 posts)
49. Nothing like a little candle light...
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 03:39 PM
Apr 2013

resulting in a three way... that had me shouting with laughter... so I came home a winner...

edited for levity

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
3. NO BANK FAILURE THIS WEEKEND
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:02 AM
Apr 2013

Not much of anything, really. Gold plunged, gas prices eased, but that ole Man Market, he just kept inflating along....

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
8. Gold at 21-month low, hits bear market territory; silver drops 5%
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:23 AM
Apr 2013

Gold futures closed at their lowest level in 21 months, tallying a roughly 20% decline from their record level from August of 2011 to meet the standard for a bear market. Recent cuts to gold-price forecasts continued to hurt sentiment, prompting investors to lose confidence in gold as a safe-haven investment. Gold for June delivery dropped $63.50, or 4.1%, to settle at $1,501.40 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, after a dipping to a low of $1,491.40. It fell 4.7% for the week.



Given that settlement for the most-active contract, prices have dropped 20.5% from the record settlement of $1,888.70 an ounce reached on Aug. 22, 2011. “If you use the standard of a 20% drop from a peak, then it’s already there,” said Brien Lundin, editor of Gold Newsletter.

With speculators now holding a record level of short position, the market may also be primed for a short-covering rally, though the best opportunity to buy gold may not come until the typical summertime bottom in late July, he said. Based on most-active contracts, FactSet data show gold futures haven’t settled this low since July 1, 2011. As for the recent declines, “give credit where credit is due — to Goldman Sachs, for a masterful sell raid on gold,” said Gene Arensberg, editor of the Got Gold Report. Goldman Sachs cut to its gold forecast for 2013 this week to $1,545 an ounce, down from a prior forecast of $1,610. “Without Goldman’s very public call to short gold when it was most vulnerable, there is no way gold would have broken down today,” said Arensberg.

Cyprus and the Fed

Gold also fell along with other commodities, including oil, following a weak batch of U.S. economic data and as the psychological impact of potential selling of the precious metal from Cyprus continued to take a toll. The financially troubled country has reportedly agreed to sell excess gold reserves to help with its bailout efforts.

“The rumors yesterday about Cyprus possibly selling some gold from its Central Bank reserves had a psychological impact ... despite the fact that the amount of gold being mentioned could easily be absorbed by the market,” said Frederic Panizzutti, senior vice president at MKS Group...


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gold-prices-slip-with-weekly-declines-in-sight-2013-04-12?siteid=YAHOOB
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
5. LET'S HAVE OUR OWN HIT PARADE CONTEST!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:06 AM
Apr 2013

Which song would you like to honor Mrs. Thatcher's reign of terror service to the world?

Post below this thread...

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
6. The Darker Side of Margaret Thatcher: From Austerity to Apartheid
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:16 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/darker-side-margaret-thatcher-austerity-apartheid?akid=10303.227380.Yv2zxV&rd=1&src=newsletter821675&t=10&paging=off

Thatcher became synonymous with austerity economics as she dealt a major blow to the union movement and ushered in a wave of privatization...She famously declared to critics of neoliberal capitalism that, quote, "There is no alternative."

TINA...Thatcher's BFF!--Demeter

AMY GOODMAN INTERVIEWS TARIQ ALI, British-Pakistani political commentator, writer, activist and editor of the New Left Review.

TARIQ ALI: Amy, there’s no doubt about it. She transformed British politics. She basically won over the opposition. Her legacy is still very much in force, so she’s not at all dead in terms of what is going on in this country. Her policies are being carried out by the coalition government. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, New Labour prime ministers, were completely enthralled to her. She was the first person invited by Blair to 10 Downing Street when he became prime minister, to show how much he owed her, and Gordon Brown did exactly the same thing. So we have had a continuum, that the process Margaret Thatcher started off was carried on by Blair, who used rhetoric on the Iraq, Kosovo and Afghan wars very similar to the rhetoric she used on the Falklands. And this policy has continued. So her legacy is effectively to have wrecked Britain economically and to have made it a total vassal state of the American empire.

AMY GOODMAN: Tariq, can you talk about the legacy of Thatcherism for the working class in Britain?

TARIQ ALI: Well, basically, she took on the workers’ movement, which had become very strong. Trade unions were very powerful in this country, and they were effectively challenging capital by demanding a share of the take, and being quite successful. The miners’ union, one of the most respected unions in the country, challenged her. She organized the state, the use of the police, use of the secret services, to defeat them. And she did it, and she referred to union militancy as "the enemy within." She was very hot on enemies, either abroad or at home. And that phrase, "the enemy within," has been used subsequently against dissidents of other sorts by her successors.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about her foreign policy, from the Falklands War—and we only have a minute—to her support of the apartheid regime, calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist?

TARIQ ALI: Well, she did call Nelson Mandela a terrorist, but one should remember that the Western governments as a whole were not at all friendly to the ANC, sustained and maintained apartheid, with a few exceptions in Scandinavia, throughout it. And Thatcher was upfront about it. Her foreign policy was deeply conservative and reactionary, and that foreign policy has not changed since she was forced out on Europe. Europe is still a big, big divisive issue in the country and within the Conservative Party as a whole.

And so, on every level, Amy, domestic level, international level, Thatcherism continues. One shouldn’t imagine that it’s over. And I hate to say this, but the fact that we haven’t come up, or no one has—neither the center-left or anyone else has managed to come up with an alternative to the Wall Street crash of 2008, does indicate that there was some truth in her statement that there is no alternative, at least as far as the mainstream is concerned...


"WON OVER" THE OPPOSITION? HOW ABOUT CRUSHED IT? WHEN IS A COUP NOT A COUP? WHEN THE BBC SUPPORTS IT?

AND THERE ARE ALWAYS ALTERNATIVES....THERE STILL ARE. MAGGIE, HOWEVER, HAS CHEATED NEMESIS.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
9. Thatcher's Mean Legacy: The Queen Mother of Global Austerity and Financialization
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:25 AM
Apr 2013

4/8/13 Thatcher's Mean Legacy: The Queen Mother of Global Austerity and Financialization
By Michael Hudson and Jeffrey Sommers, Counterpunch | Op-Ed

We typically honor the convention to refrain from speaking ill of the recently departed. But Margaret Thatcher probably would not object to an epitaph focusing on how her political legacy was to achieve her professed aim of “irreversibly” dismantling Britain’s public sector. Attacking central planning by government, she shifted it into much more centralized financial hands – the City of London, unopposed by any economic back bench of financial regulation and “free” of meaningful anti-monopoly price regulation.

Mrs. Thatcher transformed the character of British politics by heading a democratically elected Parliamentary government that permitted financial planners to carve up the public domain with popular consent. Like her actor contemporary Ronald Reagan, she narrated an appealing cover story that promised to help the economy recover. The reality, of course, was to raise Britain’s cost of living and doing business. But this zero-sum game turned the economy’s loss into a vast windfall for the Conservative Party’s constituency in Britain’s banking sector.

By underpricing her privatization of British Telephone and subsequent vast monopolies, she made it appear that customers would be the big gainers, rather than large financial institutions. And by giving underwriters a windfall 3% commission (formerly based on floating the stock of much smaller start-up companies), Mrs. Thatcher oversaw the start of Britain’s Great Polarization between the creditor 1% and the increasingly indebted 99%.

much more...
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15609
or
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/08/the-queen-mother-of-global-austerity-financialization/

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
11. Video Michael Hudson: Thatcher Gave More Power to Finance
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:26 AM
Apr 2013

4/9/13 Michael Hudson: Thatcher deregulated banking and made London the center of speculation and financialization
appx 15 minutes



DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
12. More Hudson: Thatcher’s Legacy of Failed Privatizations
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:31 AM
Apr 2013

Via NakedCapitalism

4/8/13 Michael Hudson: Thatcher’s Legacy of Failed Privatizations

Yves here. Be warned this piece is long but very much worth your time, since it demolishes the myth of the attractiveness of privatizations by looking at its record in England, where it was first undertaken on a widespread basis.

By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is “The Bubble and Beyond.”

As in Chile, privatization in Britain was a victory for Chicago monetarism. This time it was implemented democratically. In fact, voters endorsed Margaret Thatcher’s selloff of public industries so strongly that by 1991, when she was replaced as prime minister by her own party’s John Major, only 35 percent of Britain’s voters supported the Labour Party – half the proportion registered in 1945. The Conservatives sold off public monopolies, used the proceeds to cut taxes, and put the privatized firms on a profit-making basis. Their stock prices rose sharply, making capital gains for investors whose ranks included millions of Britons who had been employees and/or customers of these enterprises.

Yet by 1997 the Conservatives were voted out of office by one of the largest margins in their history. What concerned voters were the results of privatization that Mrs. Thatcher had not warned them about. Prices did not decline proportionally to cost cuts and productivity gains. Many services were cut back, especially on the least utilized transport routes. The largest privatized bus company was charged with cut-throat monopoly practices. The water system broke down, while consumer charges leapt. Electricity prices were shifted against residential consumers in favor of large industrial users. Economic inequality widened as the industrial labor force shrunk by two million from 1979 to 1997, while wages stagnated in the face of soaring profits for the privatized companies. The tax cuts financed by their selloff turned out to benefit mainly the rich.

much more...
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/michael-hudson-thatchers-legacy-of-failed-privatizations.html

Hugin

(32,778 posts)
36. Meh. I was hoping for a Jonathan Winters weekend...
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:12 AM
Apr 2013

Rather than adding the freshly canonized St. Maggie to the Conservative Pantheon of St. Ronnie.

The continuing blight of privatization and total vilification of civil services and service lies at the core of my distaste for them. They led the psychopathic authoritarians current corporate crusade which is banging on the doors of our most basic social safety nets.

Hugin

(32,778 posts)
37. Gottfried: Jonathan Winters was mad brilliant
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:18 AM
Apr 2013

By Gilbert Gottfried, Special to CNN





(CNN) -- Jonathan Winters was not always in his right mind. I don't mean that only in the showbiz sense, but in the mental health sense. Jonathan, who died Thursday, was a nut as a comic, but also manic depressive and was institutionalized at least once in his life. He was also brilliantly talented. And the combination of his mental troubles and amazing talent made him the legendary performer that he was. He recognized this himself, telling an NPR reporter in 2011, "I need that pain — whatever it is — to call upon it from time to time, no matter how bad it was."

That's a common concern for performers when they go into therapy or other treatment; ditto performers who give up drugs and alcohol. They worry: If I don't have that pain, where do I draw my creativity from?


Jonathan needn't have worried. He was a bottomless well of creativity. He was someone who could pick up a paper clip and do three hours of impromptu comedy on it.

I was always a fan of the way he could work without a net. There was a fearless, just crazy attitude about him--of not caring, not being afraid -- that always appealed to me. He influenced me and many other comics.

When you watch Robin Williams, you can see a lot of Jonathan Winters. Robin is the first one to admit that; he worshiped Jonathan Winters. He insisted that Jonathan be written in as a regular on "Mork and Mindy." They wrote him in as an overgrown child, which was perfect casting.



More rememberance and photos, here: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/12/opinion/gottfried-jonathan-winters/index.html

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
38. Dayton-born, Springfield-raised, comedian Jonathan Winters dies
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:29 AM
Apr 2013

Big news in this area where I now live

8/12/13 Springfield legend Winters dies at 87
Jonathan Winters, the Springfield-raised comic genius who once told his wife he’d come back to Ohio and sell farm equipment if his comedy career in New York didn’t pan out, has died.

Winters, 87, died Thursday evening of natural causes at his home in Montecito, Calif., long-time family friend Joe Petro III said.

The comedian’s son, Jay, and daughter, Lucinda, were with their father, Petro said. He was preceded in death in 2009 by his wife, Eileen, a Dayton native.

more, with additional links to articles, and pictures
http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/local/comedian-actor-jonathan-winters-dies/nXKwJ/

and the Dayton paper
Jonathan Winters, the Dayton-born improvisational comic best known for unique sound effects, quirky characters and unpredictable comedy sketches, died Thursday at age 87.
more...
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local-obituaries/dayton-born-comedian-jonathan-winters-dies/nXLLN/




 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
46. At the rate we are losing public figures
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 02:49 PM
Apr 2013

I won't have to beg for topics for weeks....

How about Jonathon Winters Fest Next weekend?

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
13. The truth about Margaret Thatcher AN OPPOSING VIEW IN HER SUPPORT
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:32 AM
Apr 2013
http://articles.marketwatch.com/2013-04-09/finance/38369142_1_falkland-islands-fire-stations-great-britain

Most of the people criticizing Margaret Thatcher, who died on Monday, have one thing in common: They never lived in Britain before she came on the scene to transform it. It is hard to describe what a breath of fresh air she was when she came to power, and the degree to which she changed the trajectory of British society and the economy. Not every change she introduced was good, and she made many mistakes. But, on balance, her record wasn’t simply positive; it was necessary.

Our family moved to London in 1977, two years before Maggie became prime minister. It was a horror show. It is hard to describe now a country where strikes were such a regular occurrence that trying to engage in any economic activity was a crapshoot. Would the trains be running this week? Would the newspapers be published? Would the airlines be flying, the garbage be collected, the power be on? Flip a coin, take a bet. You simply didn’t know. British industry was in collapse, propped up by ever-increasing amounts of taxpayer subsidies. “Made in Britain” was a stamp of embarrassment on almost any manufactured product. (I knew somebody who made the mistake of buying a British-made car from this era. It turned into a cash cow for every autobody shop in northern New England for 20 years.) In 1978-79, the so-called “winter of discontent,” garbage bags piled up in great mounds on the streets of Great Britain: The waste collectors were on strike. The army had to be called in to man the fire stations: The firefighters were on strike as well. The Times of London didn’t appear for a year.:The print workers were on strike.

Inflation was skyrocketing. The country imposed capital controls to stem the outflow of money. Ironically, Britain before Margaret Thatcher looked a little like Argentina today — the irony being that Argentina was the country she defeated in 1982, when its junta invaded the Falkland Islands. (Days before “Mrs. T” died, a referendum on the Falkland Islands’ status returned a nearly unanimous vote by its inhabitants to remain British, vindicating yet again her decision to go to war. The Argentine government responded to the vote by saying the actual inhabitants of the island should have no say in their future. Really, you couldn’t make this up).

The prime minister before Thatcher, Jim Callaghan, admitted that the country was effectively ungovernable and said if he were a young man he would probably emigrate. In 1974, massive power strikes had plunged the country into a three-day week: It literally didn’t have enough energy to run for five days. In 1976 the British had to go to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout. It couldn’t pay its bills. The country that in the 1940s had run the developing world had, by the 1970s, joined it.

We live in an era when many super rich people pay little or nothing in taxes, so it may be hard to imagine a time when the top tax rates were too high. But in the 1970s, the top British tax rates on investment income were nearly 100%, so if you invested, it was heads you lost, tails you lost. Then people wondered why no one was investing. Sometimes it is the trivial details that stick in the mind. The government telephone monopoly would only permit three types of telephone. You could not plug in your own. After we arrived, it was nearly a month before we had a phone. I later learned that the telecom union also blocked the introduction of the fax machine into the U.K. for years, for its own interests. The British economy was the “sick man of Europe” for decades after the Second World War. In 1980, Britain’s output per person, measured in “purchasing power,” was 20% below that of France. Today, its output is 7% above France’s. Much of that gain took place under Maggie, and most of it is due to changes and reforms she introduced. Gross domestic product is hardly the only measure of economic success, but it is probably the least flawed.


Modern American “conservatives” are engaging in paeans of praise for Maggie today, but in reality many of Mrs. T’s opinions were far from their modern orthodoxy. They would probably have considered her a liberal. She was pro choice on abortion. She believed in (and supported) socialized medicine and universal health insurance. She negotiated the transfer of Hong Kong, a British territory, to communist Chinese rule without firing a bullet. And while she cut taxes from ludicrous sky-high levels, she left them far higher than conservatives would accept today. Thatcher left the top tax rate in Britain at 40%, a level modern Republicans consider akin to communism. And it kicked in at far lower levels of income than does the 39.6% rate under President Obama...It is very easy to point to Thatcher’s errors and mistakes. She kept interest rates too high for too long at the start of her tenure. Like Paul Volcker, the Fed chairman of the same time, she squeezed inflation from the economy at too high a cost. She had too little empathy for the working class communities of the post-industrial north. She had too little respect for manufacturing and too much for “financial services.” She allowed unemployment to skyrocket. In retrospect, the shock treatment to the economy should have been softened, with more, and better, ameliorative measures. Industrial skills were lost, and bonds between generations of craftsmen broken...Yet the real villains were the generations of stuffy, smug and snobbish politicians, self-satisfied British businessmen, and destructive, corrupt and self-interested trade union “barons” who presided over the disgrace of economic and financial decline for decades before Maggie arrived on the scene. The working people who lost their jobs and livelihoods in the 1980s paid the price for mismanagement that had begun in the late Victorian era and continued unchecked since.

To compete with BMW or Toyota, you have to make cars as good as BMW or Toyota. Anyone knows that, right? You can’t make rubbish cars and then rely on the British taxpayer to subsidize you. Yet that was British Leyland’s industrial model for years. Thatcher came along and ended the subsidies. Then everyone blamed her for the company’s troubles. It was the same for Britain’s once-famous shipbuilders. Mismanagement and union destructiveness had left them at the mercy of far better French, Japanese and Korean rivals. If you want to understand the British economy before Margaret Thatcher, don’t watch “The Iron Lady.” Go to Netflix or Amazon and order the DVD of “The Man in the White Suit,” a British comedy made in 1951 starring Alec Guinness. It shows British management and workers uniting in an unholy alliance to stop a bright young entrepreneur and suppress his new world-beating technological innovation. It was a comedy that revealed just what would happen to Britain over the next 30 years.


Margaret Thatcher’s critics, particularly liberals, miss the point.

I was a fan of Mrs. T. But the best argument for Maggie is not so much that she was good or bad but that she was necessary. She became famous for the acronym TINA. “There is,” she would say, “no alternative.”

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
14. Thatcher’s Divided Isle By A. C. GRAYLING
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:36 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/opinion/thatchers-divided-isle.html?_r=2&

IT is hard to think of a more divisive figure in British politics than Margaret Thatcher — at least since the days of the predecessor whom she most admired, the early 19th-century prime minister Lord Liverpool...The high point of Liverpool’s term (1812 to 1827) was the victory over Napoleon at Waterloo; its low point was quickly dubbed Peterloo, the occasion on which British soldiers used their sabers and muskets to disperse workers rallying for better wages, labor conditions and suffrage at St. Peter’s Fields in Manchester in 1819...Mrs. Thatcher’s 11-year tenure had much in common with Liverpool’s, both in its length and its attitudes toward organized labor. Her admirers laud her for breaking Britain’s once-powerful trade unions, and liberalizing the City of London’s financial services industry; these acts, they say, halted the country’s economic decline. Her detractors blame her for destroying much of the country’s manufacturing base by refusing to aid struggling industries, and effectively annihilating the mining sector by emasculating the National Union of Miners. Her premiership will always be remembered for the bloody battles between workers and the police, and the high unemployment and sudden appearance of industrial wastelands that followed.

If Argentina hadn’t invaded the Falkland Islands in April 1982, she might not have even won the 1983 election. National pride raised her approval ratings, and the implosion of the opposition Labour Party sustained her party at the polls for nearly another decade. Mrs. Thatcher’s own downfall was the so-called Poll Tax, a highly unpopular flat-rate levy on every adult, officially known as the Community Charge. The law was passed in 1988 and caused violence in many cities, including the London riot of March 31, 1990, before it was scheduled to take effect. The tax eventually helped precipitate her resignation from the premiership.

Mrs. Thatcher left behind a changed and divided Britain. She dismantled local government structures, leaving London without a unitary authority to manage its affairs, which meant that urban decay and the effects of unemployment were not adequately countered. Her attitude on how people should live could be described as either Samuel Smiles (“Self-Help”) or Gordon Gekko (“greed... is good”). Despite being a woman who had shattered the political glass ceiling by becoming leader of her party and then prime minister, she did little to advance the cause of women generally, and would not publicly support the feminist movement. She was also unfriendly toward homosexuals, suggesting in her 1987 speech at the Conservative Party Conference that no one had a “right” to be gay. By the time the Tories were defeated by Tony Blair’s re-branded centrist “new” Labour Party in 1997, she had become a highly toxic liability for Conservatives. The strain of politics she imposed on her own party effectively disabled it for a generation. The Tories now govern again, after more than a decade of Labour Party rule, but only in coalition with a minority party, the Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives are unlikely to remain in power after the next election, to be held in 2015 or earlier, because the internal party divisions Mrs. Thatcher bequeathed still exist, especially when it comes to further European centralization and integration — a policy she famously denounced with the words “No. No. No.” Today, Euroskeptics in Parliament are holding the party leadership hostage; they have extracted a pledge from the prime minister to hold a referendum on continued British membership in the European Union, despite the risk that leaving the union could have disastrous economic consequences.

The curious feature of Mrs. Thatcher’s legacy is that although she struck an ax-blow deep into the heart of Britain, it is society, not the political sphere, that remains deeply divided by a widening gap between rich and poor. By contrast, the country’s politics have almost ceased to be ideological, as if exhausted by the Thatcher era. All the main British political parties now strive for the center ground, and the differences between them are about managerial style, not questions of principle. The loss of ideology in British politics is neither good nor bad. It was inevitable when Britain became part of the larger political entity of Europe — a political entity Mrs. Thatcher vehemently disliked — which imposes constraints on how far the ideology of any national party can go.

With her contempt for softhearted liberalism, her hatred of trade unions, and her doctrinaire free-market principles, Mrs. Thatcher’s impact in her own day was huge. And its effects remain. She began the deregulation of banking that led ultimately to Britain’s contribution to the global financial crisis of 2008. She reversed the trend of greater social integration and diminishing of the wealth gap that had characterized Britain in the three decades after 1945. Postwar convergences in class and wealth disappeared and former divisions resurfaced as consumerism and social incivility followed quickly on her brusque reorganization of British society. In Britain, that is the chief memory of her that will most likely linger once the obsequies are done.

A. C. Grayling, a philosopher, is the master of the New College of the Humanities and the author, most recently, of “The God Argument: The Case Against Religion and for Humanism.”

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
15. TheAutomaticEarth: The Lady Who Made Greed Look Good
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:38 AM
Apr 2013

4/8/13 Ilargi: The Lady Who Made Greed Look Good

Oliver Stone's 1987 film Wall Street was as much an answer to as a parody of a mind change that had pervaded the world since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher came to power in their respective nations.

But in the upper echelons Gordon Gekko's "Greed is Good" was never truly seen as a parody, just as the message of the film was completely lost on the people it was about. And still is. It's too convenient when justifying your behavior to yourself and others, like Ayn Rand is again today. The world is full of people who still today will sing the praises of the Iron Lady and The Great Communicator, of the Falklands and Grenada.

Reagan and Thatcher made it acceptable, nay, hip, to borrow one’s way (back) to wealth, or the illusion thereof, and a little cheating and lying was sort of alright on your way to the top provided you lied and cheated while you were already a mover and a shaker. That mindset has never left us anymore.

The likes of Jon Corzine and Fred Goodwin and Angelo Mozilo owe Thatcher eternal gratitude. As does the entire Bush family, obviously. And the dim non-wits who as we speak plunge Britain into its darker shade of pale. You can too borrow it all, as long as you keep a straight face. You can take away the little man's benefits, and still have him believe he's destined for greatness. Which he too can borrow his way into.

more...
http://www.theautomaticearth.com/Finance/the-lady-who-made-greed-look-good.html

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
21. BUT THE KNIFE COMES HERE!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:00 AM
Apr 2013

...In the greater scheme of things, the western world was at its (non-borrowed) richest sometime in the 1970's. Bold statement, I know, and one we will get back to one day with numbers and all. Then Maggie came and declared that any grown up man who rides public transit is a loser. She went for the easy and obvious choice of dividing her own voters into winners and losers, and she had the smarts to pick who was which.

You could be the most loving family man, caring for the weakest amongst you, you could be a nurse or a social worker, a cop or a fireman with tons of heart dedicated to those around you, but if you couldn't afford to, or simply didn't, drive a car to work, Maggie Thatcher declared you a loser.

That set the tone. That's how bankers got to be the demi-gods they are today. That's also how McFa(s)tFood and WalMart got to stuff their shops full of losers who make a few bucks an hour with no benefits to speak of. The answer to the fact that our summit of wealth had passed in the 1970's, was to start borrowing from our children, throw the weakest among us under the bus and train, and hand over power to the Eton and Harvard educated elites waiting in the wings.

Hey, sure, it's all a matter of choice. If you think putting people down is the way to go, all I can do is hope you will be put down...

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
16. The Iron Lady Official Trailer #2 - Meryl Streep Movie (2012)
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:46 AM
Apr 2013

The Iron Lady Official Trailer #2 - Meryl Streep Movie (2012)

THE IRON LADY is a surprising and intimate portrait of Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep), the first and only female Prime Minister of The United Kingdom. One of the 20th century's most famous and influential women, Thatcher came from nowhere to smash through barriers of gender and class to be heard in a male dominated world.



 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
17. Thatcher said: we have no alternatives. Progress requires that we prove her wrong. Fabius Maximus
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:46 AM
Apr 2013
http://fabiusmaximus.com/2013/04/09/thatcher-said-that-we-have-no-alternatives-progress-requires-that-we-prove-her-wrong/

Summary: The people in Europe’s periphery suffer from a lack of alternatives. This locks them into two ugly choices: suffer years of austerity (with no end in sight), or futile (perhaps nihilistic) protests. In fact, the West as a whole has a lack of alternatives. Here we discuss that problem, and possible solutions.

(1) The importance of alternatives

“There is no alternative. Either society has laws, or it has not. If it has not, there can be no order, no certainty, no system in its phenomena. If it has, then are they like the other laws of the universe-sure, inflexible, ever active, and having no exceptions.”

— Herbert Spencer’s Social Statics (1851) — He laid the foundations for modern conservatism. He also coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” in 1864.


“Because there really is no alternative.”

— Catch phrase of the late UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, about the necessity to adopt conservative and neoliberal economic measures for the maintenance of capitalism.


Social evolution runs far faster than Darwinian evolution because its teleological. When people have a vision of a better society, sometimes they are willing to risk large rapid changes to achieve it. But this requires an alternative that looks better than what they have, attainable, and practical. Otherwise political progress either runs slowly, or stagnates entirely. For example, monarchies worked poorly FOR Europe during the millennium in which they were the dominant political form. There were alternatives (eg, the Republic of Venice, the Swiss Confederacy), but these were not considered realistic by a sufficiently large combination of the elites and masses. Various belief structures precluded experimentation with other forms of politics...The potential for overthrow of these regimes came with the long strain of philosophical work beginning with Machiavelli’s The Prince and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (see Wikipedia) in 1651. Once the first regime fell in 1783, the evolutionary process accelerated with fantastic speed — with most monarchies replaced in the following 140 years.

The development of Marxism (and its successors) accelerated the pace of social evolution again, so that the conflict among different social forms bathed the 20 century in blood on a scale seldom seen in history. The result gave a clear winner: various combinations of free-market capitalism and representative democracy (each having a wide range of forms). Various rear-guard retreats are still fought with some intensity, such as by evangelical Christians and Salafist Moslems — but their difficulty coping with modernity gives them low odds of gaining power...But what happens as the contradictions and flaws accumulate in free market republics? In what direction does the arrow of evolution point? What political model motivates and directs social reform?

(2) We yearn from change. And we get…

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

— “The End of History?”, Francis Fukuyama, The National Interest, Summer 1989


“Think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Forty years ago we were debating what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today nobody debates these issues. We silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating because of some virus, an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is that it’s much easier to imagine the end of life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.”

— Slavoj Žižek in Žižek! (2005 film documentary)


We wish our political and social systems would run better, more honestly and efficiently. We wish for them to run better than they have run in the past; better than they probably can run in the real world. But how to make such reforms? Some people hope for reform through religious reformation (eg, libertarians, looking for the day when people can live in peace and prosperity without government). Some seek simple, near-magical political transformations (eg, a Constitutional Convention at which right-thinking folks will implement what they cannot through conventional politics). Some seek a leader to achieve changes that we cannot envision, using his (or her) charisma to overcome problems to which we — who do not play 12-dimensional chess — cannot see the solution. This state of mind leads to delusions and then disappointment. The Left is in the midst of this process with Obama, as his second term reveals his true politics (as the GOP foretold, but predicting the result 100% wrong). Others despair, and default on their political responsibilities as citizens (participating only by complaining).

(3) What comes next?

“Mark this well, you proud men of action: You are nothing but the unwitting agents of the men of thought who often, in quiet self-effacement, mark out most exactly all your doings in advance.”

— Heinrich Heine’s History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany (1834)


“The world revolves around the inventors of new values; invisibly it revolves. But around the actors revolve the people and fame: that is the way of the world.”

— Nietzsche’s Thus spake Zarathustra , #12 (1885).


“Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”

– John Maynard Keynes, chapter 24 of the General Theory, pg. 383 (1936)


“Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair than the sage among his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but the things of the Moment, to be overturned with the turning of a page.”

— From Gordon R. Dickson’s Tactics of Mistake (1971)


This is a familiar problem for humanity, a commonplace in history. Eventually creative individuals will imagine new solutions. Or leaders under pressure will break through the walls of conventional thinking, taking bold steps that incrementally force new solutions, as Octavius did for Rome. Or both will occur on separate tracks, as happened in the Great Depression. Although running on a conservative platform — attacking Hoover’s budget deficits — FDR ran larger deficits to finance counter-cyclical fiscal stimulus programs. He took the US off the gold standard to allow monetary stimulus. In 1936 Keynes published his General Theory explaining why these were the correct steps to take, allowing economics to help build the great post-WWII global prosperity. Perhaps we have reached the limits of our current political and economic systems. They might have lost their vitality, their ability to inspire citizens, retain their loyalty, and control the wilder vices of greed and dominance. There might be no effective marginal reforms that make a difference. If so, history will run in circles until new forms of organization are discovered or imagined. That will happen, eventually.

On another day we will discuss how this happens. See Max Weber’s Theory of Social and Economic Organization (1922). Or Nietzsche. It’s not always a pretty process.

“Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, we will always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist or are at least in the process of formation.”

–- Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx (1859)


(4) For More Information SEE COMPENDIUM OF RESOURCE LINKS AT OP

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
18. THE WIKI REPORT
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:54 AM
Apr 2013

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (née Roberts, 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and the Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and is the only woman to have held the office. A Soviet journalist called her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As Prime Minister, she implemented policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.

Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975, Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition and became the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became Prime Minister after winning the 1979 general election.

Upon moving into 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives intended to reverse high unemployment and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an ongoing recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983.

Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987. During this period her support for a Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax&quot was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. On 8 April 2013, Thatcher died of a stroke in London at the age of 87.

Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts in Grantham, Lincolnshire, on 13 October 1925. Her father was Alfred Roberts, originally from Northamptonshire, and her mother was Beatrice Ethel (née Stephenson) from Lincolnshire. She spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned two grocery shops. She and her older sister Muriel (1921-2004) were raised in the flat above the larger of the two, located near the railway line. Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher, and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist. He came from a Liberal family but stood—as was then customary in local government—as an Independent. He was Mayor of Grantham in 1945–46 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950.

Margaret Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School.[6] Her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement; her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. She was head girl in 1942–43. In her upper sixth year she applied for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, but she was initially rejected and was offered a place only after another candidate withdrew. She arrived at Oxford in 1943 and graduated in 1947 with Second-Class Honours in the four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree; in her final year she specialised in X-ray crystallography under the supervision of Dorothy Hodgkin.

Roberts became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946. She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich von Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state.

After graduating, Roberts moved to Colchester in Essex to work as a research chemist for BX Plastics. In 1948, she applied for a job at ICI, but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated".
She joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates. Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the Conservative party's approved list: she was selected in January 1951 and added to the approved list post ante. At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1951 she met Denis Thatcher, a successful and wealthy divorced businessman, who drove her to her Essex train. In preparation for the election Roberts moved to Dartford, where she supported herself by working as a research chemist for J. Lyons and Co. in Hammersmith, part of a team developing emulsifiers for ice cream....

MORE

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
19. Personality Analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s Handwriting
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:56 AM
Apr 2013
http://strengthandsong.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/personality-analysis-of-margaret-thatchers-handwriting/

?w=470

...Here are a few thoughts on her personality based on analysis of her handwriting:

Thatcher’s figure-eight ‘g’s and ‘f’s tell us that she is a very fluid thinker. This ability enables her to speak well, write well, and overall communicate effectively. She can move from topic to topic without getting lost. For example see ‘good’ in the last line.

The most prominent things to me in Thatcher’s handwriting are her mid-air ‘t’-bars. They rarely touch the actual ‘t’-stem, but seem to be flying away from them out toward the right. When ‘t’s are crossed only on the right side, this indicates a writer’s tendency to lose his/her temper rather easily. Stay out of Thatcher’s way when she’s angry! For example, see… well, every ‘t’-bar.

Also note the length of her ‘t’-bars – they are often quite long. The length (whether all the way on the right or more centered) shows us that Thatcher is a very enthusiastic woman with some serious drive. Whatever she cares about she goes after wholeheartedly and with gusto. This trait also indicates forward thinking. This is a great stroke to have in your handwriting. For example, see ‘Thatcher’ in her signature.

Thatcher’s writing slants uphill, which let’s us know that her outlook is optimistic. She sees the future as bright, and her actions in the present reflect that. Again, a very positive trait.

The personal pronoun ‘I’ in Thatcher’s writing is a straight line with no loops or flourishes. This lets us know that she is independent, able to stand on her own two feet without huge amounts of support from family members. She knows who she is apart from other people, and she acts based on what she personally believes is best. The large spaces on either side of her ‘I’ further indicate her independence and also her need for personal space. For example, see ‘I did appreciate it’ in the fourth line.

Lastly (though there is much more to be said!), Thatcher underlines her name, a sign of self-reliance and the ability to lead. She has confidence in her own abilities, and others naturally feel confident in her as well. This places her in a position to lead effectively and accomplish basically anything she sets her mind to accomplish....

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
23. I used to work with a lady who had a real knack for analyzing handwriting
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:10 AM
Apr 2013

We co-workers would bring her in samples from our family and friends, and it was amazing the traits she would pick up on.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
20. Chris Martenson video - S&P Market May Fall More Than 40%
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 08:58 AM
Apr 2013

4/10/13 S&P 500 May Fall More Than 40% By Fall: Chris Martenson
Even though the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) are hovering at all-time highs, Chris Martenson, author of PeakProsperity.com and the “Crash Course” Series, is forecasting a major market correction. Martenson predicts the S&P could fall 40% to 60% to the 600-800 level by this fall. His last major market call was in March 2008, before the financial crisis.

click link for video...
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/p-500-may-fall-more-40-fall-chris-120957460.html
appx 6 minutes


edit to add chart for S&P 500
http://www.fedprimerate.com/s-and-p-500-index-history-chart.htm
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
26. YES, BUT WHEN?
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:16 AM
Apr 2013

It used to be "Sell in May and Go Away".

Last year, it was more like April.

With the highs that the DOW is hitting this week...a word to the wise is unnecessary.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
25. Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children'
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:13 AM
Apr 2013
http://m.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/09/russell-brand-margaret-thatcher

The actor and comedian recalls a bizarre recent encounter with the Iron Lady, and how it prompted him to think about growing up under the most unlikely matriarch-figure imaginable...When I was a kid, Thatcher was the headmistress of our country. Her voice, a bellicose yawn, somehow both boring and boring – I could ignore the content but the intent drilled its way in. She became leader of the Conservatives the year I was born and prime minister when I was four. She remained in power till I was 15. I am, it's safe to say, one of Thatcher's children. How then do I feel on the day of this matriarchal mourning?

...Thatcher was so omnipotent; so omnipresent, so omni-everything that all opinion was redundant... I see her in her hairy helmet, condescending on Nationwide, eviscerating eunuch MPs and baffled BBC fuddy duddies with her General Zodd stare and coldly condemning the IRA. And the miners. And the single mums. The dockers. The poll-tax rioters. The Brixton rioters, the Argentinians, teachers; everyone actually. Thinking about it now, when I was a child she was just a strict woman telling everyone off and selling everything off. I didn't know what to think of this fearsome woman. Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society", that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness... if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.

Perhaps, though, Thatcher "the monster" didn't die yesterday from a stroke, perhaps that Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party. By then, 1990, I was 15, adolescent and instinctively anti-establishment enough to regard her disdainfully. I'd unthinkingly imbibed enough doctrine to know that, troubled as I was, there was little point looking elsewhere for support. I was on my own. We are all on our own. Norman Tebbit, one of Thatcher's acolytes and fellow "Munsters evacuee", said when the National Union of Mineworkers eventually succumbed to the military onslaught and starvation over which she presided: "We didn't just break the strike, we broke the spell." The spell he was referring to is the unseen bond that connects us all and prevents us from being subjugated by tyranny. The spell of community.

...................


"The News" was the pompous conduit through which we suckled at the barren baroness through newscaster wet-nurses, naturally; not direct from the steel teat. Jan Leeming, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart – delivering doctrine with sterile sexiness, like a butterscotch-scented beige vapour. To use a less bizarre analogy: if Thatcher was the headmistress, they were junior teachers, authoritative but warm enough that you could call them "mum" by accident. You could never call Margaret Mother by mistake. For a national matriarch she is oddly unmaternal. I always felt a bit sorry for her biological children Mark and Carol, wondering from whom they would get their cuddles. "Thatcher as mother" seemed, to my tiddly mind, anathema. How could anyone who was so resolutely Margaret Thatcher be anything else? In the Meryl Streep film, The Iron Lady, it's the scenes of domesticity that appear most absurd. Knocking up a flan for Denis or helping Carol with her algebra or Mark with his gun-running, are jarring distractions from the main narrative; woman as warrior queen...It always struck me as peculiar, too, when the Spice Girls briefly championed Thatcher as an early example of girl power. I don't see that. She is an anomaly; a product of the freak-onomy of her time. Barack Obama, interestingly, said in his statement that she had "broken the glass ceiling for other women". Only in the sense that all the women beneath her were blinded by falling shards. She is an icon of individualism, not of feminism...I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others. Is that what made her so formidable, her ability to ignore the suffering of others? Given the nature of her legacy "survival of the fittest" – a phrase that Darwin himself only used twice in On the Origin of Species, compared to hundreds of references to altruism, love and cooperation, it isn't surprising that there are parties tonight in Liverpool, Glasgow and Brixton – from where are they to have learned compassion and forgiveness?.. If you behave like there's no such thing as society, in the end there isn't. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. It isn't sad for anyone else... All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people's pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate. I can't articulate with the skill of either of "the Marks" – Steel or Thomas – why Thatcher and Thatcherism were so bad for Britain but I do recall that even to a child her demeanour and every discernible action seemed to be to the detriment of our national spirit and identity. Her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship – it's just not British.

HIGHLY EDITED...BUT I THINK I GOT THE MEAT
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
27. Whew! I'm exhausted already
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:21 AM
Apr 2013

At least, where the late Margaret Thatcher is concerned...

I have to get some stuff done today, then I can come back and try to empty out the overflowing inbox, which exceeds 200 items....but do keep on posting! This is one of the strongest threads we've ever compiled!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
28. Thatcher is Dead—Long Live Chávez!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:25 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/12/thatcher-is-dead-long-live-chavez/

...Two deaths with diametrically opposite meanings, evident from the immediate responses they provoked. One was greeted by millions of mourners packing the streets of Caracas, waiting for days to catch a glimpse of their departed leader. The other prompted spontaneous street parties in Brixton and Glasgow and a barrage of comical send-ups about the impending privatization of hell. But while revelers gathered spontaneously to celebrate the physical death of the Iron Lady of neoliberalism, Margaret Thatcher, voters in Venezuela are heading to the polls to drive nails into her coffin and bury her legacy by electing a revolutionary successor to Hugo Chávez.

The Fourth World War started in Venezuela, and it was a war against Thatcher and her ilk. In February of 1989, Ronald Reagan had only recently handed the baton over to George H.W. Bush, and Thatcher was gearing up to impose the Poll Tax, which would see epic riots in Trafalgar Square the following year. Meanwhile in Venezuela, a seemingly different sort of government was taking power with a surprisingly similar outlook. Centrist social democrat Carlos Andrés Pérez had been elected on an anti-neoliberal platform that promised debtor-nation resistance and derided the IMF as a “bomb that only kills people.”...Chávez is gone and the war against neoliberalism continues. If Chávez was rarely respected by the foreign press in life – indeed, here was a figure about whom literally anything could be said, written, and published – why would we expect anything different in death? Thus alongside the popular ebullitions of grief over Chávez and joy over Thatcher, there were the reactions to the deaths of Chávez and Thatcher in the nominally progressive Guardian.

Whereas the paper’s obituary for Thatcher was polite to a fault, that pinnacle of absurdity that is Rory Carroll had only one month earlier granted a veneer of respectability to those who would bid the late Venezuelan President “good riddance.” Carroll is still evidently smarting from the day that Chávez himself subjected the journalist to a stinging history lesson. Despite the fact that he tells this story constantly, however, he can’t seem to remember what actually happened...The bastion of U.S. liberalism that is The New Yorker has hardly fared better. Staff writer and apparent bully Jon Lee Anderson has found himself embroiled in a scandal that, while ostensibly about fact-checking, was in reality something far worse. The New Yorker eventually corrected two of Anderson’s more straightforward errors, in which he erroneously claimed that Venezuela led Latin America in homicides, and his utterly baffling suggestion that Chávez came to power in a coup rather than an election. But there is little recourse to be had regarding Anderson’s most rhetorically slippery phrases, much less his overarching narrative in which Venezuela’s poor are “victims of their affection” for Chávez.

After all, when it comes to the late Comandante, no holds are barred.

If Chávez was and continues to be roundly slandered in the press, however, we can take some consolation in the fact that most Venezuelans simply don’t believe the hype. All reputable polls suggest that right-wing opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski will be roundly defeated on Sunday by Chávez’s preferred candidate, the former bus driver and union leader Nicolás Maduro. Such decisive poll numbers, however, are but a reflection of the deep contradictions within anti-Chavista forces over strategy and program....
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
29. Post-Neoliberal Dawn
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:27 AM
Apr 2013


Frantz Fanon once argued, somewhat notoriously, that “For the colonized, life can only spring from the rotting cadaver of the colonist.” To celebrate an enemy’s death by necessity carries within it, however negatively, a positive political program, and those who took to the streets to spontaneously celebrate Thatcher’s demise were invariably firing shots at neoliberalism itself.

But unfortunately for those gathered in Brixton, neoliberalism and its ideological partner, austerity, are today on the offensive in Britain and much of the global core. In no way does Thatcher’s death mark the destruction or even decline of her ideological legacy, and in this sense the celebrations are as catharthic as they are premature. It is across the globe that the greatest strides have been made to destroy Thatcher’s legacy in the intransigent insistence that there is, in fact, an alternative to neoliberalism.

As I argue in We Created Chávez, far less interesting than Chávez the man are the decades of revolutionary struggle that preceded him, crystallizing around Chávez as a symbol of and a mechanism for driving forward the struggle against neoliberalism and capitalism. Even in life, Chávez was far more than the sum of his acts, he was a vessel into which the popular sectors of Venezuela deposited their post-neoliberal aspirations. But the vessel’s shape was soon determined by its content, as Chávez became a socialist battering ram propelled by forces he did not himself control. To paraphrase C.L.R. James’ description of Toussaint L’Ouverture, Chávez did not make the revolution, the revolution made Chávez.

The Bolivarian Revolution has lost something powerfully important in this individual that was Hugo Chávez, but perhaps it is better that he departed us physically amid the upswing of the historic movement he embodied, and to which he can still lend his image to press forward the momentum of the struggle. This certainly seems preferable to death amid the decadence of a flailing system, the death of Thatcher, out of whose rotting corpse the post-neoliberal world must invariably bloom.

George Ciccariello-Maher, teaches political theory at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the author of We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution (Duke University Press, May 2013), and can be reached at gjcm(at)drexel.edu.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
44. Musical interlude, Toussaint Louverture
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 12:02 PM
Apr 2013


Damn I missed Santana. Between the Republican convention and the hurricane, they canceled the concert.

Warpy

(110,907 posts)
53. Wow, get to see him if you can before he stops touring
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 04:06 PM
Apr 2013

He's getting up there with the rest of us and lets the other guitarists do a lot of the heavy lifting, but it's still one of the 3 best concerts I've ever seen.

I saw him once in the 70s and again 2 years ago here.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
63. I've seen him probably a half dozen times.
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 07:57 PM
Apr 2013

Probably the best was when he opened for Clapton. Then they did a 30 minute encore together.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
31. The Know-It-All Party: Anti-Euro 'Alternative for Germany' Launches
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:28 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/alternative-for-germany-party-to-challenge-european-common-currency-a-894081.html

A little suspense is pre-programmed. On its Facebook fan page, the Alternative for Germany has been counting down the days until the conference on Sunday, when the party will be officially launched. "Five, four, three, two …" There's even a punchy slogan: "Straight talk instead of S€datives". Bernd Lucke, the 50-year-old who is co-founding the party and will likely be its first national leader, says the mood is "euphoric."

The Alternative for Germany party wants to shake up the traditional party landscape in the country during federal elections this September with its message of "putting an end to the euro." The party is calling for the "orderly dissolution of the euro currency zone." So what do they want to do, return to the deutsche mark? Lucke describes that path as "one option." The party still hasn't defined much in terms of its party platform, but its founders have argued for the right to hold national referenda as well as streamlining tax laws. More than anything, they aim to attract voters with their "no" to the common currency.

"The euro is dividing Europe," says Lucke, whose day job is as an economics professor at the University of Hamburg. "No common currency is required to ensure Europe's peaceful unity," he adds.

The party wants to offer something different than the euro rescue policies to which Chancellor Angela Merkel's government repeatedly claims there are "no alternatives." Backers of the new party hold little regard for the rescue funds and bailout packages created in recent years and feel they have a better solution for escaping from the crisis. And even though the euro-exit scenarios they provide remain vague, their criticisms of Chancellor Merkel's policies have fallen on welcome ears. In recent weeks, the new party claims to have attracted more than 7,000 members, and state party groups are forming all over the country. Around 1,300 supporters are expected at Sunday's party convention. The venue can't fill any more.

Fuddnik

(8,846 posts)
41. I was up 'til way after 3:00am watching Richard Wolff on LinkTV.
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:48 AM
Apr 2013

He talks about democratizing the workplace, and proportional representation in the legislatures, instead of "winner takes all" elections, such as Germany has.

Sounds like the cure for our one party, "The Money Party" system.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
32. Spanish banks repossessed 30,000 family homes in 2012
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:32 AM
Apr 2013
http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/04/11/inenglish/1365695461_539388.html

Rising mortgage foreclosures and the eviction of families from their homes has become a burning social and political issue in Spain of late. But the debate on how to address the problem has been clouded by a lack of accurate figures. In order to remedy this, the College of Property Registrars has carried out a study.

According to the report, which the college released on Thursday, the number of first homes taken over by banks in 2012 because of non-payment of home loans amounted to 30,034, or 115 a day. The study received responses from 934 registrars’ offices throughout Spain, about 85 percent of the total.

The majority of families whose homes were foreclosed on ended up being evicted with only a minority being allowed by banks to stay, paying monthly rent to do so.

The college’s figures exclude garages, offices, storage spaces, and industrial and commercial property. They also apply only to individuals, excluding property owned by corporate bodies. The number of first and second homes foreclosed on by banks last year amounted to 38,778, of which 77 percent were first homes. “This is without doubt a very significant figure as the loss of the family home has a much greater social impact than that of a second home or other types of property,” the report says.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
45. 30,000! How do Spanish banks process this many reposessions in one year, 115 per day!!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 12:05 PM
Apr 2013

I've heard several people say that if economy got so bad that most people couldn't afford to make their house payments, who would kick them out of their house? Where would the money come from to pay others to kick out the homeowners? And who could keep up with processing all those foreclosures?





bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
33. My loathing of that monstrous person is so consuming
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:35 AM
Apr 2013

that all I can do is K & R. I literally see red - can't read about her, can't look at her. I hope she and her pal Ronnie are in some hell where they go hungry, cold, hurting in the midst of feasting and play. I hope they are encased in silence and isolation while watching others hug and love and talk and laugh. I hope they are encased in ice on a blasted and frozen moonscape while they watch others walk in sun and flowers. An apotheosis of everything that is wrong, sick, twisted in our range of human possibilities.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
34. Bitcoin Is Up 92% Since Yesterday
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:54 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-up-92-since-yesterday-2013-4

The remarkable ride for Bitcoin traders continues today.
The virtual currency is now trading at $115, nearly double where it was yesterday, when Bitcoin plummeted to a low of $60 following a 12-hour trading halt on the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox.
On Wednesday, the currency topped out at $266 after staging an incredible run from levels around $15 in January.
The chart below, which goes back to April 6, shows the big crash this week and the big rebound over the last 24 hours or so.




Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-up-92-since-yesterday-2013-4#ixzz2QLqtULid
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
47. I'm amazed the Treasury hasn't arranged a bailout for them
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 02:52 PM
Apr 2013

Last edited Sat Apr 13, 2013, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

or that the stock market hasn't decreed a mulligan.....

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
35. WARREN BUFFETT WINS AGAIN: Train Traffic Is Going Through The Roof
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:57 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-wins-again-train-traffic-is-going-through-the-roof-2013-4

EUROPEANS have long pitied Americans for their rotten passenger trains. But when it comes to moving goods America has a well-kept freight network that is the most cost-effective in the world. It is, however, a capital-intensive business. Since the Staggers Act of 1980 deregulated the sector (see chart), rail companies have invested about 17% of their revenues in their networks. This is about half a trillion dollars of private money over the past three decades. Even the American Society of Civil Engineers, which howls incessantly (and predictably) about the awful state of the nation’s infrastructure, shows grudging respect for goods railways in a recent report.

The downturn has actually helped propel capital spending on everything from tracks to IT. Last year $23 billion was spent, a record in real terms. The plan has been to modernise the network while business is relatively quiet and money is cheap. Railway firms thereby hope to find themselves in a better position to handle rising traffic in future. In 2009 Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment firm, bought Burlington Northern Santa Fe, a railroad company based in Texas. Mr Buffett described the purchase as an "all-in wager on the economic future of the United States".




Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-wins-again-train-traffic-is-going-through-the-roof-2013-4#ixzz2QLrdkKpN
 

heaven05

(18,124 posts)
39. hmmmmmph!!!!!!!!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:39 AM
Apr 2013

good riddance for now and forever. Don't rest in peace. The people you affected do not have peace, or a decent meal and/or decent habitation. So you and ronnie can slap each other on the back and guffaw in HELL if there is a place like that after death for people like you two. Go to hell!!! Never two people in modern times that deserved it more.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
40. U.S. Urges Japan to Refrain From Competitive Yen Devaluation
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 10:40 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-12/u-s-to-press-japan-to-refrain-from-competitive-devaluation.html

The U.S. Treasury Department said it will press Japan to refrain from competitive devaluation while stopping short of accusing it of manipulating the yen in a report on exchange rates.

The Treasury will pressure Japan to adhere to international commitments “to remain oriented towards meeting respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments and to refrain from competitive devaluation and targeting its exchange rate for competitive purposes,” the department said in its semi-annual currency report to Congress released in Washington yesterday. The report also declined to name China a currency manipulator.

“This is a shot across the BOJ’s bow,” Kit Juckes, a global strategist at Societe Generale SA in London, said in an e-mail. “Everyone still supports Japan’s fight against deflation, but the U.S. would much rather the yen did not weaken significantly further.”

The Bank of Japan (8301) surprised markets on April 4 by doubling monthly bond purchases to almost match the Federal Reserve’s monetary easing, and by setting a two-year horizon for achieving its goal of 2 percent inflation. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said yesterday there’s no time limit to the stimulus.

OrwellwasRight

(5,170 posts)
85. Except that "urging" has no effect!
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 03:09 PM
Apr 2013

We have been "urging" China to quit manipulating its currency for about a decade, to little success. Just when they cover about 1/4 or 1/3 of the spread between its manipulated and rightful value, they start moving in the wrong direction. Both the Chinese and Japanese economies rely much more heavily on exports than the US economy. It is good for their own job creation to keep their currency values down. And if all the US is going to do is "urge" them to change, there's not much of a downside for them to ignore the US's pleas. Meanwhile, we have trouble exporting because our goods and services are artificially more expensive than they should be when compared against Chinese and Japanese goods. Too bad for US manufacturers and their employees I guess.

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Economy/New-Report-End-China-Currency-Manipulation-Create-Jobs

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
48. Goodness, gracious! 19 recs!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 02:54 PM
Apr 2013

I don't think this thread has EVER attracted that many "votes"!

Thank you all for joining in as we roast the lady....

Warpy

(110,907 posts)
52. Jesus! Put a warning on that thing!
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 03:52 PM
Apr 2013

I almost punched my monitor out!

They're going to be hard pressed to find a song favorable to that vicious old bag. Good luck to them.

In the meantime, I feel cheated. When asshole Reagan died, it was nothing but wall to wall praise all over the media. I had the feeling that if I'd stuck my head up to yell how I really felt, I'd have been arrested for blasphemy.

I'm delighted two of them are finally gone. Now if only we can manage to kill off their horrible policies!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
55. Sorry, Warpy
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 05:02 PM
Apr 2013

I didn't want to put one of her "fluffy pet grandmother" photos up. I thought this one revealed the person within.

We are all cheated, by Thatcher, by Reagan, by Obama. Can you imagine the adulation, the syrup, the nausea? I don't know whether I want to live long enough to find out....

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
56. Well, shall we get back to the business at hand?
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:05 PM
Apr 2013

I know I have whined enough about the weather...just look up previous complaints, and you've got today...except that it's the middle of April, for the love of god!

bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
64. You forgot the "Montressor!", Demeter - and thanks for the smile, Warpy
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:09 PM
Apr 2013

actually ... I forget what that's from, and am not too sure of the spelling - but AM sure it's from somewhere And thanks for the smile, Warpy ...needed it after looking at that rotten foulness pictured

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
77. Edgar Allen Poe -- The cask of Amontillado
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:55 AM
Apr 2013

Montresor was the murderer, burying his victim behind a wall of wine....

Plot summary

Montresor tells the story of the day that he took his revenge on Fortunato, a fellow nobleman, to an unspecified person who knows him very well. Angry over some unspecified insult, he plots to murder his friend during Carnival when the man is drunk, dizzy, and wearing a jester's motley.
He baits Fortunato by telling him he has obtained what he believes to be a pipe (about 130 gallons,[1] 492 litres) of a rare vintage of Amontillado. He claims he wants his friend's expert opinion on the subject. Fortunato goes with Montresor to the wine cellars of the latter's palazzo, where they wander in the catacombs. Montresor offers wine (first Medoc, then De Grave) to Fortunato. At one point, Fortunato makes an elaborate, grotesque gesture with an upraised wine bottle. When Montresor appears not to recognize the gesture, Fortunato asks, "You are not of the masons?" Montresor says he is, and when Fortunato, disbelieving, requests a sign, Montresor displays a trowel he had been hiding.
Montresor warns Fortunato, who has a bad cough, of the damp, and suggests they go back; Fortunato insists on continuing, claiming that "[he] shall not die of a cough." During their walk, Montresor mentions his family coat of arms: a golden foot in a blue background crushing a snake whose fangs are embedded in the foot's heel, with the motto Nemo me impune lacessit ("No one insults me with impunity&quot . When they come to a niche, Montresor tells his victim that the Amontillado is within. Fortunato enters and, drunk and unsuspecting, does not resist as Montresor quickly chains him to the wall. Montresor then declares that, since Fortunato won't go back, he must "positively leave [him]".
Montresor walls up the niche, entombing his friend alive. At first, Fortunato, who sobers up faster than Montresor anticipated he would, shakes the chains, trying to escape. Fortunato then screams for help, but Montresor mocks his cries, knowing nobody can hear them. Fortunato laughs weakly and tries to pretend that he is the subject of a joke and that people will be waiting for him (including the Lady Fortunato). As the murderer finishes the topmost row of stones, Fortunato wails, "For the love of God, Montresor!" Montresor replies, "Yes, for the love of God!" He listens for a reply but hears only the jester's bells ringing. Before placing the last stone, he drops a burning torch through the gap. He claims that he feels sick at heart, but dismisses this reaction as an effect of the dampness of the catacombs.
In the last few sentences, Montresor reveals that in the 50 years since that night, he has never been caught, and Fortunato's body still hangs from its chains in the niche where he left it. The murderer concludes: Requiescat In Pace! ("May he rest in peace!&quot .

A nice tale for a horrid lady's memory, don't you think?

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
78. And by the way, Sunday is 38F, windy, and occasionally sleeting
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 10:01 AM
Apr 2013

But the daffodils and primroses aren't waiting any longer. The buds are swelling, the willlows leafing out, ready or not, here come Spring!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
57. Judge Rejects $20-Million Severance For American Airlines CEO
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:06 PM
Apr 2013

AND WELL SHOULD IT BE REJECTED!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/12/177020407/judge-rejects-20-million-severance-for-american-airlines-ceo?ft=1&f=1001

A severance package of $20 million might have seemed reasonable to American Airlines CEO Tom Horton, but a U.S. bankruptcy judge says it's too much.

The proposed payout, part of a deal that would merge American parent AMR and US Airways Group, first caught the attention of U.S. Trustee Tracy Hope Davis, a Department of Justice official monitoring AMR's Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

According to Reuters, she objected to the amount of the payment "relative to severance for non-management employees." On Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane said the payment also violates a 2005 federal code aimed at reining in excessive payments to executives of bankrupt firms, The Dallas Morning News reports.

Horton, who became CEO 16 months ago just as AMR was filing fopr bankruptcy protection, first joined the company in 1985, but also spent several of the intervening years at AT&T.

His package, agreed in February as part of the merger deal, would amount to $19.9 million divided equally between cash and stock. Under the agreement, Horton would step down as CEO of the new company and instead become non-executive chairman. Judge Lane had verbally approved the merger last month, but held off on a decision about Horton's severance.

Lane on Thursday rejected an argument by AMR that the severance provisions of the federal bankruptcy code would not apply because the payout would happen only after the merger and therefore would technically be paid by the new merged entity and not bankrupt AMR...

TWIST IN THE WIND, MFER!

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
58. Goldman deal with union group lets Blankfein keep dual roles ET TU, LLOYD?
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:09 PM
Apr 2013

JAMIE DIMON JUST SUCCESSFULLY RAN THIS GANTLET LAST MONTH...

http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-goldman-sachs-reaches-deal-halt-move-split-164634590--sector.html

For the second year in a row, Goldman Sachs Group Inc fended off a shareholder proposal that could have led to a messy public vote to strip Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein of his chairman's title. By striking a deal for modest changes to the company's governance policies, Blankfein again potentially avoided the kind of embarrassment suffered by Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co, who faced substantial opposition on a similar vote last year, or Citigroup Inc's then-CEO Vikram Pandit, whose executive pay plan was rejected by shareholders last year.

CtW Investment Group, an adviser to union pension funds with $250 billion of assets, said on Wednesday it agreed to withdraw its proxy proposal seeking a split after the company agreed to give Goldman's lead director, James Schiro, new powers such as setting board agendas and writing his own annual letter to shareholders. "It clearly is a compromise. I don't see how either Goldman or the unions came out way ahead," said Ralph Cole, senior vice president at Portland, Oregon, investment firm Ferguson Wellman Capital Management, which does not own shares in Goldman. "The only person who 'won' is Blankfein. He continues to hold the dual role."

Unions and other activists have made it a priority to try to split the chairman's and CEO's roles at many companies to improve oversight. JPMorgan faces a challenge on Dimon's role again this year from a coalition of public-sector worker pension funds, for instance. Already many companies are moving in that direction. Among those in the Standard & Poor's 500 index, 43 percent split the Chairman and CEO jobs as of November, 2012, up from 25 percent 10 years earlier, according to a survey by executive search firm Spencer Stuart. Just 18 of the companies had a formal policy requiring the split of roles, however.

Governance experts praised the Goldman deal as likely to improve oversight and probably the best terms that proxy-measure sponsor CtW could have achieved. "From the shareholder point of view, I think this is the best real deal they could get," said Paul Hodgson, an independent governance analyst in Maine. Winning a shareholder vote would have been difficult given how many Goldman employees hold stock in the firm, he said.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
59. Moyers: Imagine If America Had Adopted Martin Luther King's Economic Dream MUST READ
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:15 PM
Apr 2013

INSTEAD OF MAGGIE AND RONNIE'S NIGHTMARE

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/moyers-imagine-if-america-had-adopted-martin-luther-kings-economic-dream?page=0%2C1&akid=10298.227380.1rp7VV&rd=1&src=newsletter820872&t=10&paging=off

BILL MOYERS: Welcome. You may think you know about Martin Luther King, Jr., but there is much about the man and his message we have conveniently forgotten. He was a prophet, like Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah of old, calling kings and plutocrats to account, speaking truth to power. Yet, he was only 39 when he was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th, 1968. The March on Washington in ’63 and the March from Selma to Montgomery in ’65 were behind him. So were the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. In the last year of his life, as he moved toward Memphis and fate, he announced what he called the Poor People’s Campaign, a “multi-racial army” that would come to Washington, build an encampment and demand from Congress an “Economic Bill of Rights” for all Americans — black, white, or brown. He had long known that the fight for racial equality could not be separated from the need or economic equity – fairness for all, including working people and the poor. That’s why he was in Memphis, marching with sanitation workers on strike for a living wage when he was killed.

With me are two people steeped in King’s life and work. Taylor Branch wrote the extraordinary, three-volume history of the civil rights era, “America in the King Years.” The first of them, “Parting the Waters,” received the Pulitzer Prize. He now has distilled all that work, adding fresh material and insights to create this new book, “The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Right Movement.”

James Cone, a longtime professor of theology at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, wrote the ground-breaking books that defined black liberation theology, interpreting Christianity through the eyes and experience of the oppressed. Among them: “Black Theology and Black Power,” “Martin and Malcolm and America,” and this most recent bestseller, “The Cross and the Lynching Tree.”

Before we talk, let’s listen to these words from Martin Luther King, Jr., spoken at Stanford University just a year before his assassination. It’s as if he were saying them today:

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: There are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful for situation. And in a sense this America is overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity. This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, and culture and education for their minds, and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. […] But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
60. Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer; Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:29 PM
Apr 2013

FULL TITLE: Margaret Thatcher Was a Privatization Pioneer, and This Is the Story of How Her Agenda Did Nothing But Make Life Worse for Millions of People By Michael Hudson

http://www.alternet.org/margaret-thatcher-was-privatization-pioneer-and-story-how-her-agenda-did-nothing-make-life-worse page=0%2C1&akid=10314.227380.IxsjhS&rd=1&src=newsletter822988&t=20&paging=off

As in Chile, privatization in Britain was a victory for Chicago monetarism. This time it was implemented democratically. In fact, voters endorsed Margaret Thatcher’s selloff of public industries so strongly that by 1991, when she was replaced as prime minister by her own party’s John Major, only 35 percent of Britain’s voters supported the Labour Party – half the proportion registered in 1945. The Conservatives sold off public monopolies, used the proceeds to cut taxes, and put the privatized firms on a profit-making basis. Their stock prices rose sharply, making capital gains for investors whose ranks included millions of Britons who had been employees and/or customers of these enterprises.

Yet by 1997 the Conservatives were voted out of office by one of the largest margins in their history. What concerned voters were the results of privatization that Mrs. Thatcher had not warned them about. Prices did not decline proportionally to cost cuts and productivity gains. Many services were cut back, especially on the least utilized transport routes. The largest privatized bus company was charged with cut-throat monopoly practices. The water system broke down, while consumer charges leapt. Electricity prices were shifted against residential consumers in favor of large industrial users. Economic inequality widened as the industrial labor force shrunk by two million from 1979 to 1997, while wages stagnated in the face of soaring profits for the privatized companies. The tax cuts financed by their selloff turned out to benefit mainly the rich.

Opinion polls showed that voters had opposed privatization at the outset (as did the press and many Conservative back benchers), but the Conservatives pointed out that Tony Blair rode to victory in part by abandoning “Clause Four” of the Labour Party’s 1904 constitution, advocating state control over the means of production, distribution and exchange. Most voters wanted tighter regulation in the public interest, but not a return to state ownership. On the other hand, they feared the prospect of selling off the post office, the BBC and the London tube (subway) system.

Nearly everyone agreed that companies were run differently in private hands than was the case under public ownership, even when the same managers remained in charge. Privatization was praised by Mrs. Thatcher and her allies – and blamed by many others – for managing these companies to generate capital gains for stockholders rather than to serve broader social ends...

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
61. Obama's New Treasury Secretary Pushes Austerity That Spreads Global Misery
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 06:37 PM
Apr 2013
http://www.alternet.org/economy/obamas-new-treasury-secretary-pushes-austerity-spreads-global-misery?akid=10314.227380.IxsjhS&rd=1&src=newsletter822988&t=16&paging=off

The two most revealing sentences about the gratuitous Eurozone disaster – the creation of the deepening über-Depression – was reported today. The context (rich in irony) is that U.S. Treasury Secretary Lew spent his Spring Break in Europe meeting with his counterparts. The Wall Street Journal’s article’s title explains Lew’s mission and its failure:“U.S. Anti-Austerity Push Gets Cool Reception in Europe.” Here are the sentences that capture so well why Germany’s destructive economic policies caused the über-Depression: ““Nobody in Europe sees this contradiction between fiscal policy consolidation and growth,” said Mr. Schäuble. “We have a growth-friendly process of consolidation.” Wolfgang Schäuble is Germany’s finance minister. “Fiscal consolidation” is his euphemism for austerity. “Austerity” is an infamous word to tens of millions of Europeans. “Growth-friendly” is his euphemism for causing the über-Depression. I have explained in a recent column that current unemployment rates in the European periphery are often multiples of the average unemployment rates in large European nations from 1930-1938. Current unemployment rates in the U.K. and France are broadly comparable to their average unemployment rates in 1930-1938.

Schäuble’s economic policies (austerity) have proven catastrophic. They are contrary to everything we have learned in economics. In my April 9, 2013 column criticizing the New York Times’ coverage of the self-destructive austerity the EU and the IMF inflicted on Cyprus I quoted Paul Krugman’s devastating criticism of the EU austerians’ dishonest response to their failures and the massive misery they have inflicted.

“Thus in January 2011 Olli Rehn, a vice president of the European Commission, praised the austerity programs of Greece, Spain and Portugal and predicted that the Greek program in particular would yield ‘lasting returns.’ Since then unemployment has soared in all three countries — but sure enough, in December 2012 Mr. Rehn published an op-ed article with the headline ‘Europe must stay the austerity course.’

Oh, and Mr. Rehn’s response to studies showing that the adverse effects of austerity are much bigger than expected was to send a letter to finance minsters and the I.M.F. declaring that such studies were harmful, because they were threatening to erode confidence.”


Schäuble’s claims about austerity repeat two of the great lies that are driving the über-Depression: (1) austerity in response to the Great Recession stimulates economic growth and (2) everyone agrees this is true. The third great lie is that “there is no alternative” to austerity. Economists have known for at least 75 years that austerity is likely to make economic contractions more severe. The eurozone’s infliction of austerity has produced precisely the self-inflicted damage that economists predicted. The European leaders who caused this wholly gratuitous economic disaster, unsurprisingly, will not admit or remedy their errors. But America has its own variant of this insanity and Lew is one of our most self-destructive austerians. Like Schäuble, Lew is a lawyer. As Obama’s OMB Director, Lew prepared a budget and a rationale for that budget that was an ode to austerity. I demonstrated this in detail in a prior column. Lew was also one the group of Obama aides noted for their protection of Wall Street’s interests who led the effort to inflict austerity and begin to unravel the safety net through what they called the “Grand Bargain” (actually, the Great Betrayal).

Obama’s decision to send Lew, the great proponent of self-destructive austerity, to Europe to urge them to end their self-destructive austerity exemplifies the incoherence of the administration’s financial policies. The fact that Obama is simultaneously proposing the Great Betrayal – its sixth form of austerity that Obama has agreed to inflict on our Nation since 2011 – produces a level of incoherence, incompetence, and hypocrisy so epic that it is likely to cause economists to act like manic depressives bouncing between wild-eyed gales of laughter and crying jags.

Putting two lawyers together to discuss macroeconomic policy also leads to discussions that cause economists’ jaws to drop in shock. If you understand economics you may wish to put on a neck brace before reading the next passage lest its incoherence cause whiplash.

“Standing next to Mr. Schäuble, Mr. Lew said pointedly that deficit reduction needed to be balanced with growth and investment policies. While growth targets may be different for different countries, he said, ‘I think it is fair to say that zero isn’t a good target for anybody and negative is very bad.’” “Growth targets” are meaningless in this context. You cannot counteract austerity dragging your economy deeper into recession or depression by saying: “we are targeting a growth rate of four percent.” There is no magic incantation that can remove austerity’s destructive effect. A country cannot “balance” austerity with “growth and investment policies.” Austerity is an anti-growth policy. It frequently makes the debt-to-GDP ratio larger because it causes such a large fall in GDP. Krugman explained this in the same article I cited above.

“Meanwhile, austerity hasn’t even achieved the minimal goal of reducing debt burdens. Instead, countries pursuing harsh austerity have seen the ratio of debt to G.D.P. rise, because the shrinkage in their economies has outpaced any reduction in the rate of borrowing.”

Investment programs can be very helpful in conjunction with overall stimulus budgets, but they cannot counteract austerity. This has been one of Obama’s recurrent blind spots. He seems to believe that if he can implement a new $2 billion infrastructure investment or jobs program that can overcome the damage to the economy caused by austerity in the form of a combined $300 billion in reduced spending and increased tax revenues. The net effect is $288 billion in lost demand due to austerity. This slows growth. If the austerity is large enough it causes growth to turn negative and throws the Nation back into recession or depression. We may know why Obama has this blind spot about the damage he is inflicting through austerity – he gets his advice from Lew.



Bill Black is the author of 'The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One' and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He spent years working on regulatory policy and fraud prevention as Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention, Litigation Director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and Deputy Director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement, among other positions.

bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
65. "Anti-Thatcher party in London's Trafalgar Square"
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:12 PM
Apr 2013
http://news.yahoo.com/anti-thatcher-party-londons-trafalgar-square-195601564.html

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of opponents of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher partied in London's Trafalgar Square to celebrate her death, sipping Champagne and chanting "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead."

Thatcher's most strident critics had long vowed to hold a gathering in central London on the Saturday following her passing, and the festivities were an indication of the depth of the hatred which some Britons still feel for their former leader.

"We've been waiting a long time for this," Richard Watson, a 45-year-old from eastern England wearing a party hat, said. "It's an opportunity of a lifetime."

As a huge effigy of Thatcher — complete with hook nose and handbag — made its way down the stairs in front of the National Gallery, the crowd erupted into cries of "Maggie! Maggie! Maggie! Dead! Dead! Dead!" and sang lyrics from the "Wizard of Oz" ditty "Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead."


I sure as hell wish a bunch of us had done that when that piece of filth Ray-Gun died.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
79. We would have been summarily shot in the streets
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 10:04 AM
Apr 2013

Reagan's teflon protected him for a long time, and then there was the manner of his dying, and the tears for Nancy and Ron, Jr. and all. That family was pitiful....not elevated to nobility like Thatcher's.

kickysnana

(3,908 posts)
66. I have joined the 21st century with a smart phone...
Sat Apr 13, 2013, 09:17 PM
Apr 2013

now I need "Smart Phones for Dummies" because I cannot figure out how to close features. Everything I open stays open.

It is a beginner model only 3G but cheaper than my ancient cell phone to use.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
80. Brave Soul!
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 10:06 AM
Apr 2013

I am still struggling on with my partially non-functional "dumb" phone.

I haven't had the time or strength of will to pursue a replacement, after wasting over an hour the last time I tried....back in January.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
68. There's Been A Big Global Move Against Tax Havens In The Past Week
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 08:11 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.businessinsider.com/good-news-on-tax-havens-2013-4

The mega-research project on tax havens I told you about in November has borne its first fruit. In a data dump 160 times the size of that which put Bradley Manning and Julian Assange in jail, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has used over 2.5 million documents to publish the names of beneficial owners of numerous offshore accounts, based primarily in the British Virgin Islands.

According to the New York Times, the report "disclosed confidential information on more than 120,000 offshore companies and trusts and nearly 130,000 individuals and agents, including 4,000 Americans." The headlines at the ICIJ website tell the story (though you should read them yourself):

"Dutch Banking Giants Help Clients Go Offshore"
"Billionaires Among Thousands of Indonesians Found in Secret Offshore Documents"
"The Swiss Lawyers Who Help Europe's Richest Families Park their Wealth Offshore"
"French Banks Traded in Secrecy"
"Lawyers and Accountants Help Rich Manage Their Money"

The list goes on and on. Besides naming the names of the clients, however, the stories frequently highlight the enablers -- global banks, accounting firms, tax lawyers, and so forth -- without whom none of this would be possible.

Read more: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/moiCu/~3/brdBCkV0jGQ/good-news-on-tax-havens.html#ixzz2QRHeYP1J

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
69. Portuguese union rallies thousands in anti-austerity protest
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 08:23 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/13/portuguese-union-rallies-thousands-in-anti-austerity-protest/




Thousands of people on Saturday rallied in the streets of Lisbon to protest rising poverty resulting from the government’s belt-tightening measures.

The anti-poverty march was organised by Portugal’s leading union, the CGTP, and capped about a week of protest activities that have been held throughout the eurozone country.

“Unemployment in Portugal is a national disgrace” and “a minimum wage increase is a necessity” protesters chanted.

They also called for the resignation of the government whose pledges to straighten out Portugal’s finances in return for a 78-billion-euro ($102 billion) bailout have been deeply unpopular.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
70. ‘Rust in hell’: Irish nationalists slam ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 08:25 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/14/rust-in-hell-irish-nationalists-slam-iron-lady-margaret-thatcher/



Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s hardline approach to IRA hunger strikers and her staunch support of Unionism means few nationalists in Northern Ireland are mourning her death.

Thatcher presided over the province for more than a decade of strife, death and destruction as the “Troubles” raged.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) tried to kill her with a huge bomb that ripped apart the hotel she was staying in for the 1984 Conservative Party conference in the English resort of Brighton.

She survived unscathed, but her death 29 years later prompted celebrations among some nationalists, who can never forgive her for her ‘the lady’s not for turning’ position as IRA member Bobby Sands and nine other young men starved themselves to death protesting for political prisoner status.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
71. One Europe and So Many Thatchers
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:05 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/one-europe-and-so-many-thatchers.html

Margaret Thatcher's death has achieved the impossible -- for a day she united Europe.

At least, Europe's media all seemed agreed that the passing of Mrs T (as Thatcher was often called in the U.K.) was the story of the day, and that love or loathe her brand of politics it changed Britain and the world.

You could often tell the political slant of a newspaper this morning, just from the choice of Thatcher's picture that editors made for their front page. In the U.K., for example, the conservative Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have pictures in which Thatcher is set against a dark backdrop and the light around her head resembles a halo. Their coverage is equally gushing.

Liberation, the French left wing daily, also gives over their entire front page to a picture of the Iron Lady. In their photograph, however, she strikes an arrogant pose and the headline pulls no punches: “The Grim Reaper,” it . Inside, economist Denis Clerc writes that Thatcher brought economic success and social catastrophe to Britain. “Under Thatcher the rich became richer and the poor became poorer," says Clerc. "At the same time she succeeded in getting Britain out of the profound economic crisis into which it had plunged.”

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
72. What Thatcher Didn't Understand: Inequality Hurts the Rich and Poor Alike
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:18 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/what-thatcher-didnt-understand-inequality-hurts-the-rich-and-poor-alike/274940/

In the aftermath of Margaret Thatcher's death this week, the television-watching public was treated to an incessant loop of her quip that the political left "would rather the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich." This rebuke was not, in fact, originally Thatcher's: conservative economist Milton Friedman fired off different versions of the attack throughout his influential career. But it did tidily sum up the argument Thatcher sold to the British public on her way to Downing Street.

The obvious problem with the statement is that it simply assumes left-wing policies can't improve the incomes of the poor. The cross-country data that we have generally suggest that they can and do.

But there is an even deeper flaw with Thatcher's barb. It presumes that nobody could ever seriously support making the poor poorer in order to make the rich less rich. Admittedly, the idea seems ridiculous on first glance. But there's substantial evidence that suggests inequality, in and of itself, generates a whole slew of social problems that are harmful to individual and collective wellbeing. It is therefore conceivable that policies that reduce inequality could be worth pursuing even if they leave everyone, the poor included, with less income than they would otherwise have.

In The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett draw upon decades of research to show that, among rich countries, high levels of inequality correlate with lower levels of social cohesion and social mobility, worse mental and physical health, and higher levels of crime, violence, drug use, and imprisonment. These problems do not merely afflict the poor. Rather, they touch people across the social spectrum. The implication is that large income gaps, by themselves, are significant contributors to these particular sources of human misery.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
73. New bailout deal will cut borrowing
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:24 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/new-bailout-deal-will-cut-borrowing-1.1359044

The Government expects Ireland’s borrowing requirement in the years to 2020 to be “significantly” reduced as a result of a new deal with the euro zone powers to postpone bailout loan repayments by an average of seven years.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said the arrangement should further reduce the interest the State pays to issue new debt to private investors as the Government plots its exit from the bailout at the end of this year.

The deal was signed off yesterday in Dublin Castle at a meeting of EU ministers, which continues today.

The talks were marked by an agreement at Germany’s behest to examine new changes to the EU treaties to reinforce the legal standing of the regime under which the European Central Bank is to supervise commercial banks from next year.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
74. IMF to cut US growth forecast amid downbeat retail and confidence data
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:33 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/12/us-economy-budget-imf-world-forecasts

America's budget wrangling is holding back recovery in the world's largest economy, according to a leaked draft of forecasts from the International Monetary Fund that coincided with data showing a dip in consumer confidence and weaker spending in the nation's shopping malls.

Official figures from Washington showed that retail sales in March dipped by 0.4% in March – worse than Wall Street had been anticipating and the second monthly fall since payroll taxes and income tax rose at the start of 2013.

Chris Williamson, economist at Markit, said: "This weakness is possibly linked to increased payroll and income tax hikes which took effect at the start of the year, and will inevitably add to worries that the US economy is slowing as we move into the spring as automatic budget spending cuts come into force. With this in mind, the Fed will be more cautious about sending signals that it is preparing to ease back on policy stimulus."

Meanwhile, the monthly snapshot of sentiment conducted by Michigan university showed consumer confidence dropped to its lowest in nine months.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
75. IMF frets on sidelines while global economic divides widen
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:36 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/14/imf-frets-as-global-economic-divides-widen


IMF chief Christine Lagarde warned that world’s biggest banks remain a menace to financial stability. Photograph: Pascal Lauener/REUTERS

As crisis-weary finance ministers and central bank governors from around the world kick back in Washington this week, on the sidelines of the twice-yearly International Monetary Fund meetings, they could be excused for feeling a tinge of optimism in the spring sunshine.

In the US, the bombed-out housing market is bouncing back; the stock market has hit fresh all-time highs; and there are hints that the Federal Reserve is starting to think about slowing the pace of its drastic quantitative easing programme. The latest data on consumer spending last week raised questions about how solid the recovery is – but there is hope.

Japan's experiment with its radical new policy of Abenomics – the attack on deflation launched by new prime minister Shinzo Abe – may be in its early stages, but at least the country's new policymakers have a plan. And even in the eurozone, where keeping the single currency afloat still demands relentless wrangling, the mood of imminent crisis has abated since the bailout with Cyprus was agreed.

But in a scene-setting speech in New York last week, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde stressed the deep divisions that remain in what she described as a "three-speed" global economy.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)
76. Lloyd Blankfein's $21m haul makes him the world's best paid banker
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 09:44 AM
Apr 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/apr/12/goldman-sachs-lloyd-blankfein-pay

Goldman Sachs paid its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, $21m last year – and granted him a further $5m in bonus shares in January.

The Wall Street bank handed Blankfein $13.3m (£8.7m) in restricted shares and a $5.7m cash bonus on top of his $2m annual salary last year.

His total 2012 pay was $9m more than in 2011, and the highest since the $68m he received in 2007, before the financial crisis struck.

The payout, disclosed in a filing with the US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), makes Blankfein, 58, the world's best paid banker.

bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
81. here's a photo we can all enjoy -
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 12:37 PM
Apr 2013

orange plastic bags, ROFL http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/13-4

An effigy of late British former prime minister Margaret Thatcher is carried during an anti-Thatcher party celebrating her death in Trafalgar Square in central London on April 13, 2013 (Carl Court / AFP)

An effigy of the former Conservative leader was carried through the crowd beneath Nelson's Column, complete with her trademark string of pearls and bouffant hair made from orange plastic bags.




bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
82. Forbes: "one of the worst British political leaders of modern times"
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 12:42 PM
Apr 2013
http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/04/14/thatchers-last-wish-another-clunker-from-the-iron-lady/?partner=yahootix

Thatcher's Last Wish: Another Clunker from the Iron Lady
Eamonn Fingleton, Contributor

... a final terrible idea from a woman who, pace all current hagiography, will be remembered as one of the worst British political leaders of modern times.

Let’s be clear first on the larger politics. The voters who elected Thatcher in 1979 were motivated powerfully by humiliation at the UK economy’s constant loss of position in global competition since the early 1950s. So how did Thatcher do in reversing the trend and what in particular did she do to improve the UK’s trade position? The eulogizers are quiet on the subject. Advisedly so. The fact is that under Thatcherism the UK’s trade position went from the merely weak to the totally disastrous. The UK ran a current account surplus of 0.6 percent of GDP in 1978, the last full year before Thatcher came to office. As of 1989, the last full year before she was ousted by her own party, the current account DEFICIT had reached an appalling 3.9 percent of GDP. In the meantime Thatcher presided over a savage program to destroy the UK’s core exporting industries. She was smitten by the erroneous notion that advanced nations should leave “rust bucket” industries behind and move to a postindustrial model. Not a view shared by Germany, which has now long eclipsed the UK as Europe’s premier economy.

bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
86. To clense our spirits: A real (& beautiful & pure of heart) IRON LADY
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 05:25 PM
Apr 2013

She has captured hearts and minds and loyalty in Australia, England, the US, and everywhere... She has appeared on the cover of Vogue ... so what she's a mare?

BLACK CAVIAR

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/superracing/black-caviar-shows-sydney-how-great-she-is-as-she-rides-into-legend/story-fn67siys-1226619862373

IT'S a story we'll tell for decades to come: how the great Black Caviar thundered to her 25th straight victory and took her place alongside Phar Lap.

The crowd at Randwick - and the many thousands more cheering from afar - knew history was being made.

As the gates flew open, the atmosphere was electric, every hair on end.

In less than 70 seconds, Black Caviar proved herself yet again a once-in-a-century racehorse.




In horse racing, 25 wins in a row, 15 of them group 1s (highest level) is - otherworldly.




bread_and_roses

(6,335 posts)
89. The real "Iron Lady" - Black Caviar - has been retired
Wed Apr 17, 2013, 12:36 PM
Apr 2013
http://www.drf.com/news/black-caviar-unbeaten-australian-champion-retired

Australian Horse of the Year Black Caviar has been retired unbeaten in 25 career starts.

Two-time reigning Australian Horse of the Year Black Caviar has been retired, her connections announced Wednesday morning.

The 6-year-old Bel Esprit mare swept all 25 of her career starts, including 15 Group 1 events. She bankrolled $7,497,754 while earning both Horse of the Year and champion sprinter honors in Australia in 2011 and 2012.


And unlike the ghoul in female form who departed for the lowest circle of hell last week, she will be missed. Happily, her retirement from the track means an indulged and well-cared for life producing beautiful foals.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
87. Sorry folks, I meant to do more
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 06:50 PM
Apr 2013

This damn paper route takes the life blood out of me...of course, had it been warmer, it would have been much less exhausting. Maybe next weekend...

Here's best wishes for a peaceful, productive week that confounds the banksters and confines them to penal servitude for life.

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