TheDailyBanter.com

Higher Wages Do Not Increase Inflation

The Real News dispels the myth that higher wages increases inflation:

Gambling Against America

Matt Taibbi ponders the every day dichotomies of American life:

It’s weird enough living in a country where a man can legally own an arsenal of machine guns, but his neighbor growing a pot plant will send a team of DEA agents kicking his door in with a no-knock warrant. But this goes even beyond that. If I go online today to HaveNoLifeAndBetOnSports.com and bet fifty dollars on the Bucks against the Celtics tonight, I’m a criminal. But some gazillionaire firm in New York can legally bet against the United States of America in unlimited amounts in a trade that has nothing to do with anything, but a guess about how many other people will make the same bet.

Ken Starr Berates Liz Cheney

Ken Starr, the almighty douchebag who spent years wasting tax payers money trying to impeach President Clinton for cheating on his wife, has come out firing against Liz Cheney's all out assault on the Department of Justice.

According to Cheney, those in the DOJ defending accused terror suspects are terrorist sympathizers and un-American. The outrageous accusations have been slammed by the most ardent conservatives, and when Ken Starr comes out against you, you know you've really gone too far. Watch Starr on Olbermann last night:

Obama Blasts Insurance Industry and GOP over Health Care

In a final sprint to push his health care package through, Obama has been on the trail blasting Republicans and the insurance industry. From the AP: 

President Barack Obama accused insurance companies of placing profits over people and said Republicans ignored long-festering problems when they held power as he sought to build support Monday for swift passage of legislation stalled in Congress. "How much higher do premiums have to rise before we do something about it?" said Obama, making the first in an expected string of out-of-town trips to pitch his plan to remake the health care system. The president said dismissively that Republican critics in Congress say they want to do something about rising health care costs, but said they did not when they held power. "You had 10 years. What happened. What were you doing?" he said to applause from an audience at Arcadia University.

I'm not sure about the criticism of insurance companies putting profits over people - I mean, isn't that the point of private industry? To make a profit? Obama might as well criticize winter for making it cold. The point here is that the private insurance industry should have NOTHING to do with health care, because health care is about people, not profit.

Regardless, the fact that Obama is punching hard against opponents of reform is a positive thing, and hopefully it will bear fruit in the following weeks.

Palin Used Socialist Health Care

According to Sarah Palin, privatized health care is the best system on the planet. Except when her family couldn't afford it and jumped the border to Canada to take advantage of free health care. From the GlobeandMail:

The vocal opponent of health-care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.

“We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada,” she said. “And I think now, isn't that ironic?”

Yes, Sarah, it is ironic. It's ironic because you advocate a system of health care that leaves almost 50 million people uninsured and jacks up rates for working Americans, yet grew up leeching off government run health care. But true to wing nut logic, if private health care works for you now (because you are a millionaire), it must work for everyone. It's like the whole 'Global warming doesn't exist because it's snowing where I live' logic. In other words, nonsense.

Tony Blair's Memoirs (the funny version)

John Crace does a hilarious abbreviated version of Tony Blair's soon to be published memoirs:

For many years I toiled at the Bar, until an Angel came unto me in a dream and commanded me to go hence and do Good Work. Or failing that, become a politician. So I headed north to Sedgefield – or rather my people did – to live among the little people and preach the gospel of the downtrodden and oppressed. "Blessed are the filthy rich," I said in one of my sermons to the faithful at Communion, "For they have no need of principles, and the meek shall inherit the economic downturn."

Blair's religious and moral certainty about his actions in government has irked the British public more than anything else and he will forever be the target of vicious satire. The notion that invading a defenseless nation while rigging the economy to enrich bankers is 'God's Plan' has made Blair a laughing stock in a country that has little time for self indulgent political posturing. His self assured, non apologetic performance at the Chilcot inquiry left no doubt that Blair has convinced himself that 'doing what he thought was right' justified violating international law and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The problem is, no one else does.

Anthony Weiner Smacks Down Fox and Friends

The brilliant Anthony Weiner went on Fox and Friends and directly accused the hosts of lying about healthcare to the public:

Los Angeles Plummeting Crime Rate

The New York Times profiles the city that was once subjected to one of the most fearsome riots in modern history:

Since then [the riots in 1992], homicide is down nearly 80 percent through this year, and overall violent crime has taken a similar plunge. In 2008, the last year for full F.B.I. statistics, even Omaha, Neb., had a slightly higher murder rate than L.A.

And the trend continues: murder in L.A. is now down 50 percent from the relatively placid levels of two years ago. At this rate, blood-chasing local television news stations will have to import footage from other cities to uphold their reputation for practicing the nation’s worst and silliest local reporting. 

I'm a resident of Los Angeles and haven't seen a crime committed in the 7 years I've lived here. My home town, London, is far, far worse for violent crime, robberies and theft. People in London are usually shocked when I tell them it's worse there than in L.A, but there really is no comparison. I do live in a pretty nice neighborhood out here, but I lived in a nice neighborhood in London and still felt far more threatened there than I do here. 

Understanding the reasons behind crime and why it can spiral out of control, or rapidly decline is not an exact science. Poverty, drugs, social alienation and poor policing surely have their roles, but it's hard to pin down exactly why the crime in one big city is far worse than in another. The Times has a stab at it, admitting the causes are speculative:

A high-tech mapping strategy, where police move on crime hot spots in something close to real time, was pioneered in New York and mastered here (give praise to William Bratton, who oversaw the departments in both cities, for that effort); the stuffing of prisons with career criminals also gets much of the credit; the role played by legalized abortion, according to the authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner in their book “Freakonomics,” in preventing a generation of unwanted children from being born; and the settling down of the drug trade, the source of so much violence during the formative years of narcotic fiefdoms, to such a degree that in many parts of the city there are now more medical marijuana dispensers in Los Angeles than Starbucks outlets (regulated retailers creating an ecosystem of nonviolence).

The Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner claim is, I think, highly dubious. Abortion was legalized in the UK around the same time as it was in the States (1967 in the UK, and 1973 in the U.S) yet London experienced a massive crime wave at the same time New York and L.A were experiencing massive crime reductions. I'm more inclined to believe that effective policing is responsible for maintaining low crime rates, as I have personally witnessed the LAPD in action. They are far more intimidating than London policemen, mostly because they carry large guns and will arrest you very quickly for minor infractions. In the UK, there is a general lack of respect for the police and people will take extreme liberties with them without too much fear of reprisal. I'm not necessarily saying it's a good thing that the LAPD have a fearsome reputation, but it does, in my view, lead to lower crime rates.

Video Clip of the Week: Jon Stewart Does 'Chatroulette'

This has got to be the funniest skit I've seen Stewart do since the Glenn Beck impression. Absolutely brilliant:

Pinochet Did Not Make Chile Safe for Earthquakes

Predictably, free market ideologues have managed to inject themselves into the latest natural disaster in Chile. It is predictable because Chile was the great testing ground for Milton Friedman and 'The Chicago Boys' to experiment with extreme deregulation and laissez faire economics. And at every given opportunity, they will attempt to prove their ideas worked.

In an article in the Wall St Journal, Bret Stephens argues that Milton Friedman style economics made Chile so wealthy that is was able to withstand a devastating earthquake. It's a nice idea, much like the theory of perfect free markets, but unfortunately, it is complete nonsense and provably false. Firstly, the introduction of free market economics to Chile created a massive crisis with declining wages, unemployment and increased food prices. Contrary to reports of 'an economic miracle', Chile was plunged into a deep recession and almost went broke. To combat this, Pinochet was finally forced to nationalize key parts of the economy, notably the banks and the copper industry, to generate enough cash to keep the government operating. Only then did Chile partially recover (but never again did it reach the prosperity pre-Pinochet).  Secondly, the stringent building codes that saved Chile from disaster were implemented before Pinochet got into power. Writes Naomi Klein:

There is one rather large problem with this theory: Chile's modern seismic building code, drafted to resist earthquakes, was adopted in 1972. That year is enormously significant because it was one year before Pinochet seized power in a bloody US-backed coup. That means that if one person deserves credit for the law, it is not Friedman, or Pinochet, but Salvador Allende, Chile's democratically elected socialist president. (In truth many Chileans deserve credit, since the laws were a response to a history of quakes, and the first law was adopted in the 1930s).

Another inconvenient fact that Stephens would most likely rather ignore is that Chile plans on rebuilding the country with the money it has saved from its nationalized copper industry. From the Denver Post:

Finance Minister Andres Velasco said it was too early to estimate the economic cost of the quake. He said the Chile's policy of funneling windfall copper profits into a $14.7 billion rainy-day fiscal savings fund would help shoulder the cost of rebuilding.

"Chile has saved for a very long time in order to have the savings to be able to face situations like this," he told reporters.

So, not only did Chile survive the earthquake due to stringent regulation (the ultimate curse word in free market circles), but it will rebound because of its heavily regulated economy.

How do you like them apples Mr Stephens?