Economics

On Tuesday Nov. 18 the 1 Sky campaign plans to greet lawmakers in DC with a rally, and their Iowa branch plans to visit Congressional offices at the same time. DC rally first, Iowa action follows:

It's not too late to be part of this amazing action happening this Tuesday, November 18th. Send a strong message to your representative by delivering a welcome card which calls for bold action. You can download the welcome card here. Over 4,000 people have already signed up! Do your part by signing up today, and downloading the card.

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If you work in the DC Metro area:

Join us on Tuesday, November 18th at 12 noon as hundreds come together on Capitol Hill to call for Climate Action Now! We’ll be hearing from climate movement leaders like Bill McKibben, Mike Tidwell and Gillian Caldwell as we welcome our newly elected leaders and call upon President-elect Obama to attend the crucial United Nations Climate Conference in Poznan, Poland, in December.

After the rally, delegations will deliver welcome-and-take-action cards to President-elect Obama's office and to Members of Congress. Join us!

The Jewish morning prayer service ends with the Psalm of the day. Psalm 82 concludes the service on Tuesdays, which is also Election Day in this Country. I find it an interesting coincidence that the Psalm, written more than two millennia ago and admonishes hypocritical leaders who favor the powerful over the poor, is read on Election Day. When I read it, I always imagine a biblical era prophet chastising contemporary Republicans.

The Birnbaum Siddur or Prayerbook reads right to left with the odd pages written in Hebrew while the even pages contain translations of the Hebrew text in archaic King James style English. I choose to pray with Birnbaum when it's an available option, over books with easier to understand English, because I'm used to its liturgical translation. Although I know how to read Hebrew and recite some prayers in that ancient tongue, I understand little of the language and pray mostly in English. Using other English translations throws me off.

Containing just 8 sentences, Psalm 82 is among the Bible's shortest chapters. Below is the Birnbaum version of the Psalm.

So let me get this straight : The US had 750 billion dollars to bail out Wall Street; a sector of the US economy which has been historically controlled by "white" or US Americans of European ascendancy. The US Congress found 750 billion dollars for them and their European and Asian investors. A bailout, by the way, that now said banks are pooh-poohing, lest the US Treasury and tax-payers find out the depths of their accounting infamies. Yet there's no money to pay back reparations to African Americans for the evils of slavery and Jim Crow laws?

Discuss.

[A scene from the movie Birth of a Nation (1915). Image found in Wikipedia under "Lynching in America")

More than 12 years ago:

I so miss Bill Watterson.

This just in straight from the Treasury:

I just found out that the "Rich People's Election Ransom Request Act", aka, the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008" is being put to a vote at 1:00 pm.

Please go to the Sunlight Foundation's Read The Bill First! petition and sign it.

Then use our "Instant Congress Phone" widget to find your US Senators and  Representative. If you feel like sharing who you called, their phone numbers and what you told them over the phone, please use our comments section.

In my case it's Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton and your Carolyn Maloney. Am asking them to give the people time to take a look at this proposal and comment on it.

Sen. Charles Schumer
202-224-6542 [voice]
202-228-3027 [fax]

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
202-224-4451 [voice]
202-228-0282 [fax]

Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (NY14)
202-225-7944 [voice]
202-225-4709 [fax]

FYI : Chuck Schumer's office sounds busy (I've called 5 times). I still have to call Maloney.

"To fix prices at a higher level than they should be is going to compound our problem."

Ron Paul's assessment of the current crisis is very simple : The government wants to fix prices; to keep the prices of housing, of securities and of the banks at their pre-crisis levels. This obviously goes against the "natural" flow of the markets and it's what historically brought us the much invoked "Great Depression". You can keep prices artificially for so long.

In other words, this bail out will accelerate us into another Great Depression. The bail out is not going to get us out of it.

(H/T The Mess That Greenspan Made)

I don't believe we're right now in a downward spiraling financial fiasco. We've been in a downward spiraling financial fiasco for 3 years but most intensely for about 10 months now.

It's not just the oil crisis.

It's not just the credit crisis.

It's not just the foreclosure orgy.

It's not just the financial burden of the Iraq War.

It really wasn't 9/11 either.

Yes, all of these have accelerated the crisis. Yet the crisis was here all along.

It is called Trickle Down Economics: