jump to navigation

Looks like… 29 December 2010

Posted by marisacat in Inconvenient Voice of the Voter.
trackback

A bit chilly: This cock pheasant had to walk across ice in Fakenhham, Norfolk, on tiptoes because of the cold [Richard Brooks]

Looks like a high fashion run-way walk to me, if ever I saw one… But the Daily Mail says he is f-f-f-freezing cold on the hard, icy walk ways of Norfolk…

OR, he could be wary about heading into the New Year…

;)

About these ads

Comments»

1. marisacat - 29 December 2010

I see Bloomberg, speaking from a hardware stor in the Bronx…. :lol: claims (now) that the blizzard “overwhelmed” the response system.

Chris Christie and his Lt Governor both remain in their warmer locs. Christie at Disney World… and Lt Gov in Mexico.

What a scream.

People NEED to stop voting. period.

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 29 December 2010

this is what happens when you rip apart government services so that rich people don’t have to pay taxes.

Reply
dropout - 30 December 2010

Just hear Exon and GE paid zero taxes last year. I am sure they were not alone.

Reply
2. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 December 2010

America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane

Some social scientists think that making sure large-scale crime or fascism never takes root in Europe again requires a taxpayer investment in a strong social safety net. Can we learn from Europe? Isn’t it better to invest in a social safety net than in a large criminal justice system? (In America over 2 million people are incarcerated.)

Jobless Benefits That Never Run Out

Unlike here, in Germany jobless benefits never run out. Not only that — as part of their social safety net, all job seekers continue to be medically insured, as are their families.

In the German jobless benefit system, when “jobless benefit 1″ runs out, “jobless benefit 2,” also known as HartzIV, kicks in. That one never gets cut off. The jobless also have contributions made for their pensions. They receive other types of insurance coverage from the state. As you can imagine, the estimated 2 million unemployed Americans who almost had no benefits this Christmas seems a particular horror show to Europeans, made worse by the fact that the U.S. government does not provide any medical insurance to American unemployment recipients. Europeans routinely recoil at that in disbelief and disgust.

In another piece the Spiegel magazine steps away from statistics and tells the story of Pam Brown, who personifies what is coming to be known as the Nouveau American poor. Pam Brown was a former executive assistant on Wall Street, and her shocking decline has become part of the American story:

American society is breaking apart. Millions of people have lost their jobs and fallen into poverty. Among them, for the first time, are many middle-class families. Meet Pam Brown from New York, whose life changed overnight. The crisis caught her unprepared. “It was horrible,” Pam Brown remembers. “Overnight I found myself on the wrong side of the fence. It never occurred to me that something like this could happen to me. I got very depressed.” Brown sits in a cheap diner on West 14th Street in Manhattan, stirring her $1.35 coffee. That’s all she orders — it’s too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. She also needs to save money. Until early 2009, Brown worked as an executive assistant on Wall Street, earning more than $80,000 a year, living in a six-bedroom house with her three sons. Today, she’s long-term unemployed and has to make do with a tiny one-bedroom in the Bronx.

It’s important to note that no country in the European Union uses food stamps in order to humiliate its disadvantaged citizens in the grocery checkout line. Even worse is the fact that even the humbling food stamp allotment may not provide enough food for America’s jobless families. So it is on a reoccurring basis that some of these families report eating out of garbage cans to the European media.

For Pam Brown, last winter was the worst. One day she ran out of food completely and had to go through trash cans. She fell into a deep depression … For many, like Brown, the downfall is a Kafkaesque odyssey, a humiliation hard to comprehend. Help is not in sight: their government and their society have abandoned them.

Pam Brown and her children were disturbingly, indeed incomprehensibly, allowed to fall straight to the bottom. The richest country in the world becomes morally bankrupt when someone like Pam Brown and her children have to pick through trash to eat, abandoned with a callous disregard by the American government. People like Brown have found themselves dispossessed due to the robber baron actions of the Wall Street elite.

Reply
marisacat - 29 December 2010

Help is not in sight: their government and their society have abandoned them.

America likes to kill people. There is no other answer.

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 29 December 2010

especially if there is money in it.

Reply
dropout - 30 December 2010

Is there any other reason?

Reply
Madman in the Marketplace - 30 December 2010

sheer sadistic joy or righteous zealotry?

Reply
BooHooHooMan - 31 December 2010

Oh Andy Cuomo… a few days after Christmas, and he’s got Daddy’s cardboard box tollbooth,
I mean, EZ Pass thing set up…
collecting a little coin from the Hee Heeeebrews.

Legal/Regulatory :lol:
Rattner to Pay $10 Million in Settlement With Cuomo
By PETER LATTMAN

The financier Steven L. Rattner has agreed to pay $10 million to settle civil charges that he engaged in a kickback scheme involving New York state’s pension fund, :lol: ending a scathingly personal and public feud :lol: between Mr. Rattner and the New York attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo.

Under the settlement announced Thursday — just two days before Mr. Cuomo becomes New York’s governor — Mr. Rattner will pay restitution :roll: BULLLLLLLSHIT! to the state pension fund and will be barred from appearing in any capacity before a public pension fund within the state

for five years.
He did not admit any wrongdoing.

The surprise settlement extracts from Mr. Rattner far less than the attorney general initially sought. In two lawsuits filed last month, Mr. Cuomo sought to recover $26 million and to impose upon Mr. Rattner a lifetime ban from the New York securities industry. In October, Mr. Rattner rejected a settlement offer from Mr. Cuomo that would have required him to pay $20 million.

Despite the public rancor, :lol: Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Rattner worked over the last couple of weeks to put this case behind them. The two men met face to face last week at Mr. Cuomo’s office in Lower Manhattan, in addition to having several telephone conversations, to settle their differences and reach a deal, say people with direct knowledge of the talks who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them.

For Mr. Rattner, the settlement allows him to escape the harsh spotlight he has felt since the spring of 2009, when the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against a New York pension official that detailed accusations of improper dealings. The case came at an awkward time, casting a cloud over Mr. Rattner just as President Obama had placed him in charge of overhauling the United States automobile industry.

The S.E.C. and Mr. Rattner reached a separate settlement in October, with Mr. Rattner paying $6.2 million and agreeing to a two-year ban from work in certain Wall Street businesses. The Quadrangle Group, the private equity firm formerly headed by Mr. Rattner, also struck a deal with both Mr. Cuomo and the S.E.C., paying $12 million to end its role in the case.

Welp. Should be interesting to watch…
When people just start shooting these motherfuckers right down in the middle of the street.

Like when the local school board axe grinder decides finally, to, yaknow~ THINK BIG.

Reply
marisacat - 31 December 2010

Gosh Golly! I bet they have FORCED Rattner to be an over paid lobbyist.

How cruel. How mean.

People will shoot fat people… and Octomom – - before they start shooting oligarchs and plutocrats….

Reply
3. marisacat - 29 December 2010

Somebody has a fucking spine:

Full text from The Guardian:

Hugo Chávez dares US to cut diplomatic ties in standoff over envoy

Venezuelan president steps up rhetoric after refusing to accept Washington’s nomination for ambassador

‘We will win,’ says the banner as Hugo Chávez delivers a new year message to the armed forces.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has dared the US to expel his ambassador or cut off diplomatic ties in retaliation for his rejection of Washington’s choice for ambassador to Caracas.

Tensions have been growing over Chávez’s refusal to accept diplomat Larry Palmer and also over US criticisms of a legislative offensive by the president’s congressional allies. Lawmakers have granted Chavez expanded powers to enact laws by decree for the next year and a half, a change that opponents condemn as antidemocratic.

Chávez said he would not accept Palmer as ambassador because of comments he made earlier this year suggesting morale was low in Venezuela’s military and that he was concerned Colombian rebels were finding refuge in Venezuela.

The US state department has said it stands behind its nomination of Palmer, who is awaiting Senate confirmation. State department spokesman PJ Crowley said last week that Venezuela’s decision to reject Palmer – after initially giving consent – would have consequences on relations with Caracas and that Washington would evaluate what to do.

“If the government is going to expel our ambassador there, let them do it!” Chavez said in a televised speech last night. “If they’re going to cut diplomatic relations, let them do it! Now the US government is threatening us that they’re going to take reprisals. Well, let them do whatever they want, but that man will not come.”

I hope he slaps Ob and Hilarious around. Thwackkkkk!

And Knob and Snob too, hell why stop with Pretzel and Foggy Bottom.

Reply
marisacat - 29 December 2010

HA! via Times of India:

CARACAS: Washington has revoked the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States, the Venezuelan deputy foreign minister said Wednesday on his Twitter account, amid a bilateral row over diplomatic envoys.

“I can confirm. USA revoked the visa of ambassador Bernardo Alvarez,” vice minister Temir Porras wrote in a tweet.

The US State Department refused to say whether Washington was prepared to expel Alvarez, who is currently visiting La Paz.

But a State Department spokesman reiterated earlier US warnings that there could be “consequences” over President Hugo Chavez’s recent rejection of Washington’s nominee for ambassador to Caracas.

Reply
4. Madman in the Marketplace - 29 December 2010
5. marisacat - 31 December 2010

New hooo…

LINK

……………… 8O

Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 115 other followers

%d bloggers like this: