SENTIMENT OF THE DAY: BUBBLE, BUBBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE

TRICK OR TREAT? SYNCHRONIZED DEBATING

Don’t Miss this exercise for the ultimate synthesis of political ridicousness.

OUR INCREDIBLE SHRINKING ECONOMY
BAILOUTS FOR RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS
CHINESE MILLIONAIRES TAKING A BIG HIT
YOUR LETTERS AND MORE

Do we have to go outside the US to get the real news about the USA?

BBC NEWS: US economy officially shrinking

The US economy shrank at an annualized rate of 0.3% between July and September, according to figures from the Commerce Department.

The gross domestic product (GDP) figures were better than expected, although they show the sharpest contraction of the economy since 2001.

Consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of the US economy, shrank by 3.1%, the first contraction since 1991.

The 0.3% fall followed 2.8% growth in the previous three-month period.

Company results

The growth data came on the same day that some of the US’s biggest companies reported their results for the July to September period:

* Broadcaster CBS made a loss of $12.46bn (£7.59bn) in the quarter. This included a write-down of $14.12bn-worth of media assets
* Electronics giant Motorola reported a loss of $397m for the quarter, compared with a profit of $60m a year ago, largely due to falling mobile phone sales
* Paper and packaging company International Paper reported a 31% fall in profits to $149m and warned demand for its products had fallen
* American Express, the credit card issuer, announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs as part of a plan to save $1.8bn by the end of 2009
* On the positive side, photographic company Eastman Kodak’s profits jumped to $96m for the quarter, compared with a $37m profit in the same three months last year
* Personal care product maker Colgate-Palmolive reported profits of $499.9m for the quarter, up 19% on the same period last year

FT: Fears the US has moved into recession gathered pace on Thursday as data showed that a sharp cutback in consumer spending in the third quarter drove the economy to shrink at an annualised rate of 0.3 per cent, its weakest performance in seven years.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Banks Getting Injections of Federal Cash Owe BILLIONS to Executives

Bank execs are owed $40 Billion in back pay and pensions as of the end of 2007?Some execs are in talks to consider capping their compensation?Banks Committing More Capital to Debt Swaps Market.

WSJ: Small Business Hit When Customers Delay Paying On Time

EXXON AND SHELL POST PROFIT OF $14,83 BILLION AND $8.45 BILLION RESPECTIVELY

NYT: FEDERAL AND STATE LAWMAKERS INVESTIGATING CREDIT SWAPS

SWINDLE
By William Greider

The swindle of American taxpayers is proceeding more or less in broad daylight, as the unwitting voters are preoccupied with the national election. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson agreed to invest $125 billion in the nine largest banks, including $10 billion for Goldman Sachs, his old firm. But, if you look more closely at Paulson’s transaction, the taxpayers were taken for a ride—a very expensive ride.

The World Tires of Dollar Hegemony

By Paul Craig Roberts

What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

NAKED CAPITALISM: ON BANKS AND PAY

Banks have proven to be remarkably immune to condemnation over senior level pay. CEOs and top level producers seem to have an undimmed sense of entitlement, even though the nine banks receiving the first Treasury handouts equity purchases earned a collective $305 billion from 2004 to mid 2007, followed by $323 billion in writedowns.

But the powers that be are keeping up scrutiny and pressure. The latest salvo comes from New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo. At this stage, Cuomo appears merely to have made a request to the nine recipients of Federal largess to cough up fairly extensive information about bonuses. If the firms fail to respond, he may try to force them to comply. The New York AG would then resort to a legal theory that is a bit of a stretch. Even if Cuomo is unlikely to win a case based on this theory, it may have enough substance to survive a motion for summary judgment from the opponents. If it does, Cuomo can then proceed to discovery, which means he can gather a great deal of potentially embarrassing information.

Moscow agrees to oligarch bail-out

Russia’s state development bank on Wednesday approved $10bn (£6bn, ?8bn) in refinancing for the country’s cash-strapped oligarchs. This came as the first step of a $50bn government bail-out that could redraw Russia’s business landscape.

CHINA MILLIONAIRES TAKE HIT

THE credit crunch and financial crisis have more than halved the combined wealth of China’s richest people, Forbes magazine said on Thursday as it released its annual Chinese billionaires list.

The ranking illustrates how fortunes have risen and fallen over the past tumultuous year as the net worth of China’s 40 richest people fell 57 per cent to US$52 billion (S$76.5 billion) from US$120 billion dollars last year, Forbes Asia said.

Coming out on top was Shanghai-based agricultural feed tycoon Liu Yongxin with a net worth of three billion dollars while 20 billionaires including paper recycling queen Yan Cheung, who was once ranked as China’s richest person, have dropped off the list entirely.

HOW CHINA COVERS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS-_FROM CHINA VIEW

AIRFARES UP UP AND AWAY

AP: Reporting from Dallas – Average U.S. airfares jumped 8.1% in the second quarter to their highest level since the government started keeping track 13 years ago.

The Transportation Department said Wednesday that the average domestic itinerary fare in the second quarter rose to $352, breaking the record of $348 set in 2001.

Comment on this post…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day By Day In Every Way, We Are Getting Closer And Closer?NERVOUS?

THIS MORNING’S POLL

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby Poll: Obama 50.1%, McCain 43.1%
Race stuck in neutral

McCain Racism, Hypocrisy on Khalidi Issue
This Is The Lowest McCain Has Sunk Yet.
By Juan Cole

McCain’s and Palin’s attacks on Khalidi are frankly racist. He is a distinguished scholar, and the only objectionable thing about him from a rightwing point of view is that he is a Palestinian.

A HOCKEY MAMA FOR OBAMA

This election is inspiring every type of creativity:

THE BILIONAIRES ARE BACK

Brothers of Bullion, Sisters of Stock Options? Compadres and Comadres of Cash?We are pleased to announce the launch of the latest Billionaires website and a new album.

TheBillionaires.org

THE CHALLENGES OF AN HONEST VOTE

GOP Voter Suppression: More Miss than Hit
By Zachary Roth – October 30, 2008, 1:10PM
Yesterday we posted a quick round-up of the various voter-suppression schemes being pushed by Republicans in swing states around the country. And after looking at the list, one thing quickly becomes clear: most of the efforts have failed.

There’s no one grand unifying theory for why that’s true.

In some cases, the courts have rejected GOP efforts to make voting harder:

* In Indiana, for instance, a Superior Court judge declined to support a GOP bid to shut down early voting centers in Democratic-leaning cities in Lake County, and the state Supreme Court chose not to immediately intervene.

* In Wisconsin, a suit brought by Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen – which he later admitted had been requested by the Republican Party – seeking to force the state election board to re-confirm all newly registered voters was thrown out by a county court.

* In Michigan, a federal appeals court today blocked the Republican secretary of state, Terri Lynn Land, from throwing 5,500 newly registered voters off the rolls because their registration cards were returned as undeliverable, after voting-rights groups sued.

In other states, Democratic state officials or voting-rights advocates have held the line:

A Denver-based independent lab that tests and certifies electronic voting machines is being suspended by the federal Election Assistance Commission for failing to comply with national standards.

SysTest Labs was responsible for verifying machines for future elections made by two vendors: Election Systems and Software (ES&S) and Premier Election Solutions, formerly known as Diebold. Both firms have sold machines currently in use in Colorado, including the ES&S iVotronic machines that are allegedly flipping votes, according to multiple voter complaints across the nation.

Closer to home, a supporter of Democratic state Senate candidate Mary Hodge alerted an Adams County poll worker last week that a vote for Hodge repeatedly switched to her opponent on a Premier machine.

RALPH NADER WRITES TO THE MEDIA

What journalistic criteria have you been employing in this presidential year that guides your pronounced non-coverage of the number three campaign that advances majoritarian agendas based on long experience, involvement, and accomplishment. These agendas are either opposed or ignored by McCain and Obama (see www.votenader.org) and are often rooted in the very investigative reports by your reporters?

It is puzzling how editors and publishers who oversee these prize winning stories seem to lose interest in covering Americans who are trying to do something with that information for a better country.

We asked one top editor of a major daily why his paper was not covering us at all and he said, “Because you can’t win.”

Comment on this post…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MEDIA INTERVIEWS; YOUR LETTERS ON CREDIT CARDS AND MY “DOGMA;” HAPPY HALLOWEEN

GARY BAUMGARTEN OF PALTALK.COM REPORTS ON OUR TALK TODAY
garybaumgarten.blogspot.com/

TALKING ABOUT CREDIT ISSUES WITH DENISE RICHARDSON ON INTERNET RADIO

or you can grab it yourself by going to listentospotlight.com, or my blog, click on share -or show title and you will find the same html code for button?

Listentospotlight.com

www.givemebackmycredit.com/blog

AD IN VERMONT CALLS FOR PROSECUTION OF BUSH

RE: OBAMA

Michel Collon writes:

Many thought that ?

With each new US president, one thinks : “He can’t be worse than the last one!”

Many thought that Kennedy would be a modern, nice president. He launched the war on Vietnam.

Many thought that the pious Carter would be a more honest president than the others. He financed Ben Laden in Afghanistan.

Many thought that George Bush Senior would be less aggressive than the cowboy Reagan. He bombarded Iraq.

Many think that Obama will be-.

NYDIA LEAF ASKS:

My question is about the GDP and what percentage of it is generated by Pentagon spending – in other words, do war and weapons contracts play a significant part in maintaining our economy? On Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” last week someone spoke about all 50 states being involved in making some component for the B-a bomber!!

I know little about financing terms but greatly appreciate your blog which is chock full of information that even I can comprehend. (I’m part of the Resistance Cinema group which has screened your IN DEBT WE TRUST on two occasions to very appreciative viewers.)

Thank you for your work!

INTERESTING ARTICLE TO REVIEW ON THIS SUBJECT

How They See it. William Matthews in Armed Forces Journal:

Should defense spending be tied to U.S. economic growth?

The $716.5 billion defense budget he sent to Congress last month “is staggering,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates conceded to the House Armed Services Committee.

“There has been, understandably, sticker shock,” he acknowledged to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Indeed.

The 2008 budget would push defense spending higher than it has been since World War II, budget analysts say, exceeding spending at the height of the Vietnam and Korean wars.

The nonwar portion of the 2008 defense budget, $481.4 billion, is 11.3 percent more than the U.S. military is spending in 2007. On top of that, President Bush is asking for $141.7 billion to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during 2008 and $93.4 billion to fight for the rest of 2007.

Sounds expensive, but according to Gates, it’s really not. The 2008 defense budget equals about 4.4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, Gates told the two congressional committees. “That’s actually a smaller percentage of GDP than when I left government 14 years ago following the end of the Cold War, and significantly smaller” than during the Vietnam and Korean wars, he said. In fact, since 1993, the U.S. has been spending “a smaller relative share of our national wealth” on defense even as the world has grown “more complicated and arguably more dangerous,” Gates said.

As defense spending has ballooned from $304 billion in 2000 to more than twice that today, senior military officials have taken to reciting the “defense spending as a percentage of GDP” argument for why defense spending should be higher still.

Gen. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, the Air Force chief, complained last fall of struggling with “budgets that are at historically low percentages of GDP” even as Congress approved a record-breaking $121.7 billion Air Force budget for 2007. In December, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief, complained that 3.8 percent was “historically low during wartime,” and called for spending up to 6 percent of GDP on defense. That would be about $900 billion annually. Schoomaker cited past defense spending: During World War II, it was 38 percent of GDP; during Korea, 14 percent; Vietnam, 9.5 percent; during the Reagan buildup, 6.2 percent.

CREDIT CARDS

Bjorn Rafto writes about credit cards:

Hey thanks for your great article on credit cards. As you probably know PBS FontlLine did an interesting article called “Secret History of the Credit Card” which can be viewed on PBS.org here: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/

I would like to make one comment about your otherwise excellent article. The substance of my comment is found in bold italics in the following paragraph:

Like many of the homeowners who accepted subprime mortgages, and like you with your credit cards, youths and adults alike signed dense agreements that are largely unreadable. The credit card banks constantly update these with those small print notices with which you get assaulted in the mail, these drafted by risk-minimizing lawyers. Of course, it’s unlikely you bother to read these. In part of the unread text, the companies give themselves the right to unilaterally change the deal even after it is signed. Other small print insures that consumers cannot sue them over differences. All grievances have to be arbitrated in a process the companies created and control.

You see legally EITHER party may “unilaterally change the deal even after it is signed” provided one follows Contract Law. The credit card company (CCC) relies on the other party’s ignorance to affect changes in the contract while allowing the credit card holder to assume they cannot similarly change the “deal” as you call it. So in affect your statement, as well as the urban myth on this, is FALSE. However, legally here is how it works for BOTH parties:

First Contract Law dictates there must be a “meeting of the minds” – which can either be verbal or written – AND “consideration ($)”. Since we are “deal”ing with written contracts here I will not mention verbal contracts or verbal modifications any further because they do not apply with CCC contracts.

So when you “apply” for that credit card by “signing” the CCC form is that a contract? NO, there is NO consideration! However, when you make that FIRST payment NOW the initial terms and considerations are locked: Agreement + Consideration = Contract. So of course you have agreed to the terms which, as you mention in your article, can encompass all kinds of things so I will not repeat them EXCEPT for one: All of these CCC agreements say the terms can be changed at any time BUT what most do not realize is all of the terms – including this very important one – OF COURSE apply to BOTH parties!

So, first how does the CCC change the terms and conditions? In EVERY case they send a written “notice” to the card holder of a change in terms along with a payment coupon. The card holder MISTAKENLY thinks the terms have already been changed but actually they haven’t. The notice is just what any notice is – it is a NOTICE – NOT a contract. How does the “notice” become a contract? In other words how does the notice of new terms lock the credit card holder into a new contract with the CCC? You should have guessed it by now and if you haven’t then review the Contract Law stated above. The proposed new terms become contractually binding WHEN the CCC craftily receives the NEXT payment!!!!!!!!!

So how do you stop that “notice” of new terms from becoming a new contractually binding agreement with the CCC? When you get the notice get on the phone with CCC, demand to talk to the supervisor and tell him – after you notice him you are recording the conversation – you do NOT agree to the new terms and will not make ANY further payments UNTIL the CCC WITHDRAWS the new terms. Get the sup’s name and follow up your phone call with your own “notice” in writing ovenight to the CCC refusing the new terms. Interestingly, if you watch the FrontLine program mentioned above they interview one individual who basically did this. When he was late on his mortgage payment (!!!!!!&%&^$^#^#^%#) the CCC sent him a notice that it was changing his interest rate. He called them and they withdrew the change BUT then the CCC sent him a new notice that they were gonna change something else so he protested that too. Of course FrontLine, throughout the 50 minute program, never got around to telling its audience what I am telling you.

So, now, how do you the credit card holder legally – just as they do – change the terms and conditions on your credit card to be favorable to you? Let’s say your interest rate is currently 12% and you would like to lower it. On your next payment make out your check for the minimum balance and place the following words – or similar words – on the back side of the check (where at the bank when you deposit a check you might write “For deposit to Account 123465): “The CCC, by cashing this check, hereby agrees to a new interest rate on account XXXXX of ZERO% as detailed in the “New Terms and Agreements” attached”

With your check enclose the new terms – remember any of them can be changed at any time PROVIDED there is CONSIDERATION – and mail it in. Also, send a separate copy of the new ters with a photo copy of your remittance directly to the CCC headquarters Return Receipt. When that check torn from the payment envelope is cashed – and it will be and the machine WILL throw away your enclosed new terms in the trash – who cares LOL. The CCC is now LOCKED into the new contract AND IT IS BINDING!

Think this is far fetched? I invite you listen to at least “Button #1? located here: The recording is by Terry Yarham out of Springfield Missouri who is affiliated with Court Mediation Services out of Alabama.

Caveat Emptar and of course, Ignorance of the Law is No excuse.

Thanks for your time

WHAT I SUFFER FROM

By Cordley Coit

Personally I feel that you suffer from leftoid delusion of trying to fit facts to dogma. You have an excellent understanding of economic and good way with words. Politics are a contact sport and many of the old new left seem to like the idea of my way or the highway. It comes from having to chose up sides on issues and die for small issues of dogma. You end up running your businesses like the ones who rejected your alternative thinking out of hand.

That places you in the gate keeper uniform like say the Boulder Stazi or the old crew at Black Dwarf in London. People who thought they owned the Left.

The Internet is different than that bleak picture of publishing where Uncle Joe could put the bullet into the skull of Walter Benjamin or Einstein and make the world fit the rosy doctrine of the day. The Internet is saucy, like Hunter Thompson or Ed Abby at it’s best. At it’s worst like a Microsoft instruction manual.

What is needed are champions of free speech not grim old men like myself locked in combat with the oppressive thinking of mid twentieth century cold cultural wars. The truth is too elusive for both of us, who failed to loosen up. Silly advise from a proud Blacklisted Journalist still part of the fight for free speech , something the clenched mind cannot understand.

Hmmmmmm??

dogma |?dôgm?|
noun
a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true: the Christian dogma of the Trinity | the rejection of political dogma.

DS RESPONDS as an exercise of free speech too. Plead not guilty to black dwarfism, stazi behavior or owning the left. I assume this rejoinder is a response to my decisison to shut down a comments section on my blog that had for some become less a platform for free speech and more for character assassination and personal insults. Is this being testy and dogmatic? I don’t think so. By the way I always leaned more to Abbie H than Joe S.

Everyone is free to be as mean and ignorant as they want to be-or to agree or disagree with whatever, but civility, honesty, and transparency are not ideas that are leftist or rightist. Use your websites to ventilate, not our Mediachannel. Bash away as you like but do so in a way that permits exchanges like this one. Or do it on a site you pay for.

I like saucy. I like debate. But getting written out of the human race and the progressive movement for taking a more nuanced view-ie not endorsing the ‘Hillary can do no wrong crowd’ does not make me open for daily bashing as a sexist or worm. A number of the people who delighted in hitting below the belt and running to the safety of anonymity post on a website that allows no commentary at all. I promise to work on my clenched mind syndrome if you agree that I don’t have to be a masochist for the mishuganah. Besides, the more minutiae on the site, the less serious discourse. There are plenty of places to find the former; far fewer for the latter. How am I doing? Am I getting looser?

Foggy Jones writes:

keep up the good work. the mainstream media is little more than a stealthy propaganda machine operated by the power elite. retired from the machine and ready to help bring them down. outsiders, children, and the lame do not have a clue, yet.

Happy Halloween, eg Satan’s day, or Devil’s day in Detroit where empty homes get torched.

We still have some openings for intern trainees on mediachannel and transcribers for our film in progress.

Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org

Make a tax-deductible donation today.

You can send a check made out to our fiscal sponsor:

THE GLOBAL CENTER
575 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2200
New York, New York 10018

or DONATE ONLINE: http://www.tinyurl.com/2zg2hb

If you have ideas or suggestions, please write to Dissector@mediachannel.org

REMEMBER: THE SITE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN.

Thank you!

SUBSCRIBE TO OTHER MEDIACHANNEL EMAILS
www.mediachannel.org/email/

HAVE FEEDBACK?
Write to us at david@mediachannel.org

Concerned about the media? TELL A FRIEND!
www.demaction.org/mediachannel/tellafriend.jsp?tell_a_friend_KEY=89

MAKE MEDIACHANNEL.ORG YOUR HOME
on the Web for news, analysis, resources and more.
www.mediachannel.org