Ain't Free Market

Truth? Only compromised deals where everyone is equally at fault.... or some similar bullshit.

Daily Kos: Some Things Are True

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Indeed, why.

The coming economic catastrophe: Why do we still listen to free-market ideologues? - By Joseph E. Stiglitz - Slate Magazine

Just a few years ago, a powerful ideology—the belief in free and unfettered markets—brought the world to the brink of ruin. Even in its heyday, from the early 1980s until 2007, American-style deregulated capitalism brought greater material well-being only to the very richest of the richest country of the world. Indeed, over the course of this ideology's 30-year ascendance, most Americans saw their incomes decline or stagnate.

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Joy.

Murdoch and the British phone-hacking scandal: Why the U.S. should prosecute News Corp. and strip its TV licenses if it's guilty. - By Eliot Spitzer - Slate Magazine

Much more importantly, the facts already pretty well established in Britain indicate violations of American law, in particular a law called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The Justice Department has been going out of its way to undertake FCPA prosecutions and investigations in recent years, and the News Corp. case presents a pretty simple test for Attorney General Eric Holder: If the department fails to open an immediate investigation into News Corp.'s violations of the FCPA, there will have been a major breach of enforcement at Justice. Having failed to pursue Wall Street with any apparent vigor, this is an opportunity for the Justice Department to show it can flex its muscles at the right moment. While one must always be cautious in seeking government investigation of the media for the obvious First Amendment concerns, this is not actually an investigation of the media, but an investigation of criminal acts undertaken by those masquerading as members of the media.

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A Growing Trend of Leaving America - US News and World Report

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Landmark transplant uses stemcell-coated artificial windpipe | The Raw Story

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Let's Not Be Civil

Starting off with Krugman and Stiglitz today.

FINALLY! Damn right.

Let’s Not Be Civil - NYTimes.com:

"So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters."

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Look up the etymology of the term 'heads will roll'.

Society | Vanity Fair:

"Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late."

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The real parasites, indeed.

When Alan Met Ayn: "Atlas Shrugged" And Our Tanked Economy | The Awl:

"For those who are inclined to find such ideas ludicrous, the book will fail, and utterly; its premises betray a bottomless ignorance of the deep interconnectedness of humankind, and the needs—economic, social, emotional, intellectual—of one human being for another. In the real world, someone is growing lettuce, someone else is writing a book or feeding a baby, yet another is designing the rails of a high-speed train. Someone else is teaching six-year-olds to read. All of us benefit from all of these activities—sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. Each life can and does touch many thousands of others. The idea of the Nietszchean Superman who acts against his fellows (whom Rand called 'the mob' and 'looters' and whatnot) is consequently fatally flawed. Not even the Superest Superman can grow all his own food, make all his own paper, design and build his own cars and airplanes, etc. (Hadn't Rand ever read Robinson Crusoe?) Humanity is a collaborative project, as well as a project of individuals."
.....
"The real parasites, it turns out, are not the looting masses but the Objectivist elites (what is it that these hedge fund managers 'create' again?), rabidly pursuing their own 'happiness' at the cost of our social safety net, our environment and the prosperity and well-being of the world's people. So much for the triumph of individualism."

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AMERICAblog News: Conservative David Frum: Two cheers for the welfare state:

"If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid'--an Axis of Not-Evil!--'mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.'"

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Wait for it...

The scariest car crash ever caught on video was real

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Duh.

Cursing makes you feel better when hurt: study | The Raw Story

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