Fevers were running high in the wake of 9/11, and many high-level officials from the president to CIA bomb-ticking “24” paranoids—to say nothing of amateur sadists at Abu Ghraib —lost control of reason. No amount of rationalization will justify the use of unduly “harsh treatment,” or if you will, “torture.” Granted legitimate POWs are a respectable cut above the thugs of al Qaeda and deserve relatively humane treatment from thei...

For months now I have been reading blogs, economic columnists, guests on talk shows, congressional committees and whatever, yet all more or less say the same thing without going to the core issue that the financial system is essentially inefficient and amoral. It is indeed the invisible hand of corruption. The juxtaposition of the auto industry and the banking system is a case in point, symbolic of what is wrong with the economic base. The outrage toward the Big Three—far from big for some...

For many years now I’ve advocated an economy that gets the best bang for the buck. In face of calamity calls for cutting costs on social security, Medicare and Medicaid, I argued that this big three accounts for millions of jobs and release of capital owing to direct and immediate benefit to the sectors of retirement and healthcare. Others would argue that if eliminated the regressive payroll tax would put more spending power into the hands of working people who would on a steady basis sti...

  Though behind in fringe benefits why does Toyota and other foreign auto manufacturers located here are on a par —in some even exceed— in wages with the Big Three? The simple answer is the long-lived strategy of keeping up or one step head of organized workers. Little credit is ever given to unions for instigating a universal awareness of workers’ rights for the past eighty years while simultaneously relegating the concept to class warfare, which in reality doesn&rsquo...

A bad bank is not really a bank at all: it’s a toxic dump. It will never "earn" the "privilege" of bearing the name of a stadium. It’s more like an asylum or nuclear waste storage located in a remote wasteland . I cannot imagine it occupying space on Wall Street though ironically the renowned path has become a wasteland in itself. I suggest, since Obama wants to save jobs, that 30,000 Circuit City soon to be ex-employees could stock up all the "troubled assets" at bargain prices. ...

And what is its purpose? However large or small capital and labor, services come into play such as a bank to coordinate an economy in a community. Capital purchases material and labor to kick start and sustain an economy. Yet there is this myth that capital troves alone are responsible for a thriving business activity as though capital were always on reserve for the taking without ever referring to its accumulation predicated on previous labor that had brought material onto a productive level a...

How is it most of the bluedogs always manage to scrounge up dissenting votes for their party, but somehow Republicans always seem to stick to their guns when in opposition? The recovery package vote yesterday was reminiscent of the Clinton tax vote of '93 when there was not a single conservative yes vote in the Senate whereby a tie was unlocked by VP Gore's vote.  Not much change over the years. If Obama wants real change via bipartisanship  he'll have to resort to tort...

Bill Gates on the one hand stated that we are in need of high quality immigrants to meet our technical advances; on the other hand, Microsoft is laying off 5000 workers. That’s not good news for Obama’s quest to save jobs, let alone create more. Furthermore, even if there were a need for more techies, our education system doesn’t fill the need, and if the demand for them from the recovery package became reality the tech companies would simply continue hiring foreigners. Nor do...

  The thousands of city dwellers who bought a home in Levittown and millions of others elsewhere was for the purpose of establishing a homestead in which to build a family, or enhance its lifestyle—surely, they were not thinking of making an investment, or furthest from their mind that the $8000 Levitt home in 1948 could be worth $7000 in 1949. Of course, the moneychangers of "irrational exuberance" in ensuing decades saw it differently. Promote the euphoria of suburbia to insure a...

Why does the "other" party play into FDR’s "fear in itself"? How can the party of states’ rights object to bailing out the states desperately cutting budgets to the detriment of their financial status? What better way to kick off the economy than to assist locales in Medicaid, school budgets and repairs, community colleges, and a host of other ways to reduce unemployment roles and deterioration of infrastructures? Apparently, the party perceives aid as just another road to perks rath...

Now that it's a foregone conclusion the domestic autoworkers will be subject to wage controls will their management also be struck with rollbacks as well? Also a foregone conclusion is that most JoeUsers' unionbashers will applaud the ostensibly competitive rollback and future controls and thus ironic that in a sense it is redistribution of wealth which so many ironically argue against even though much of the "wealth is from the much renounced legacy.

"Many Iraqis, however, believe al-Zeidi was a hero for insulting an American president widely blamed for the chaos that has engulfed their country since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003." Total hogwash! Regardless of the errors of his ways Bush--goes without saying--does not deserve this arrant disrespect. I thought Iraqis were sandal-footed?--guess the perpetrator got the shoes from the US Army. Well, at least the shoes were bomb-free.  

Obama's decision to resign from the Senate was an enormous blunder. He should now renege on his resignation and storm the Senate to fight for the auto industry with a loud vote. Btw, does anyone know if Biden gave up his vote, too?  What jerks.

BLAGOJEVICH IS SCUM FROM HELL  AND SEAN HANNITY IS ECSTATIC! -- HOPING THE SCANDAL WILL NAIL OBAMA.

    I’d be the last guy to defend a CEO making 21mil a year even if his company was stumbling over bales of profit, let alone one losing billions. Hell, Lou Gehrig cap in hand had to beg for a $40k contract, so I seethe when an A-Rod winds up with a 250mil multiyear contract, and Manny turns down Torres’ offer of 40mil for two years because he—in his old age no less—wants 100mil for four years! Then there are these part time pitchers with 4.0 ERA getting 1...