December 2008 archive

Burning the Midnight Oil is the evolution of the Midnight Oil series that evolved on Daily Kos earlier in the year.

Burning the Midnight Oil is a place for me to compose diaries that normally end up crossposted hither and yon, normally including Docudharma. It also has an eclectic RSS sidebar of some interesting blogs, but there are more interesting examples elsewhere on the Intertubes.

It also has a regular series of “New Oil” posts of links encountered on my way around the blogosphere, which then becomes “Burning Fires” as the next lantern is opened up to get its New Oil.

Since there’s only been one visitor to the Midnight Oil that I am aware of, I thought as a Christmas pressie, I’d share the New Oil for the last two months.

John Odum had an interesting post up at OpenLeft yesterday. Good food for thought.

The Rise of the Angry Center?

Odum, December 23, 2008, OpenLeft

I have had a number of “I’d Like For Christmas” essays over the past three weeks … now its your turn.

To say you’d like Pedestrian/Cyclists transport infrastructure in the Infrastructure Stimulus Package, sign the Rails to Trails Infrastructure Petition and share it with your friends (as I’m doing here).

To say you’d like Rail and other Public Transport infrastructure investment, sign the Transportation for America Petition and pass it along.

To say you’d like a Green Stimulus Package, sign the Sierra Club Green Stimulus Package Petition and pass it along.

My Christmas List, below the fold.

1. The Washington Post reports Unemployment Filings Reach 26-Year High.

   The number of people filing for unemployment benefits hit a 26-year high last week, as the deepening recession forced more employers to cut jobs.

   First-time claims for unemployment rose 5.4 percent, to 586,000 for the week ending Dec. 20, the Labor Department reported this morning. The last time claims were that high was Nov. 27, 1982. The four-week moving average, which is a less volatile indicator, rose to 558,000 from 544,250, also a 26-year high.

   Orders for durable goods, such as appliances and televisions, dropped 1 percent to $186.9 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. It was the fourth consecutive monthly drop but a much smaller decline than the 8.4 percent drop in October, thanks largely to orders for defense-related goods.

   I sure am glad to see the Military-Industrial-Complex is still trundling along.

2. The LA Times reports the Obama economic team tries to allay worries about stimulus plan. Vice President-elect Joe Biden met with seven economic advisors in Washington in an effort to “refine plans for a massive stimulus proposal, promising the money would not go toward dubious pork-barrel projects.” The Obama administration’s stimulus plan would cost as much as $775 billion over two years.

   Transition team advisors described plans to shore up decaying bridges, roads and schools that have long been neglected — part of an effort to build a broad public consensus and win a swift victory in Congress. Obama’s team hopes the president-elect signs a stimulus bill soon after he is sworn in Jan. 20.

   “It’s important for the American taxpayer to know that . . . this is not going to be politics as usual,” Biden told reporters. “And we will not tolerate business as usual in Washington.”

   Biden singled out special-interest projects. “There will be — I will say it again — there will be no earmarks in this economic recovery plan,” he said.

Four at Four continues with an update on Afghanistan and Iraq, and an uptick in tourism on the West Bank.

Yahoo News/AFP reports that the Elie Wiesel Foundation lost nearly everything in the Madoff scheme.  I’m sure you are all aware of Holocaust survivor Wiesel and his work.  Lest we think these Wall Street schemes only effect the rich and the rich wannabees.

“We are writing to inform you that the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity had 15.2 million dollars under management with Bernard Madoff Investment Securities,” said the foundation, which aims to combat anti-Semitism, on its website.  “This represented substantially all of the Foundation’s assets,” it said.  “We are deeply saddened and distressed that we, along with many others, have been the victims of what may be one of the largest investment frauds in history.”

Wiesel, 80, a Nobel laureate and prolific author who survived the Holocaust, created the foundation some 20 years ago to foster international dialogue and youth programs to teach tolerance.

I suspect we will see, in time, that the machinations of Wall Street and the big banks will begin to effect everyday people more and more everyday.  Madoff is the tip of a very big iceberg.  

Yet, I have heard shockingly little from O and the Congressional democrats on new regulation, much less holding these scumbags accountable, other than the ridiculous bail out schemes we have seen to date.  Instead, the people at the center of these ridiculous financial instruments and schemes (e.g., Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin) have been systematically invited in to advise O.  It is time to call these people out for what they are, scumbags, and assure they have nothing to do with government, the banking industry or Wall Street anytime in the future.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20…