So saith McClatchy News Service.
But as it’s been said over and over again, the tax cuts under George Bush were irresponsible in the first place, and Obama’s plan merely restores the tax code to it’s Clinton Era state, when the rich were doing just fine as I recall. It would be nice if the journos over there at Micky-C’s would point that out.
This is kind of interesting: Eric Massa’s office just announced that he has appointed a member of his staff to be the point man for ensuring transparent spending of the stimulus package in the 26th (erm. That’s the 29th) district. I’m not entirely sure how much impact a junior representative can really have in how the money gets spent, but if he has people monitoring what does get spent in the district, that’s probably a helpful thing in terms of building trust in a district where trust of President Obama is likely relatively low.
“On Tuesday night, President Obama spoke extensively about accountability and transparency in government, and that is exactly why I have appointed Michael Heenan to serve as your District Recovery Director,” said Congressman Eric Massa. “The families of New York’s 29th District deserve transparency and accountability in their government, and by dedicating one of your Congressional staff members to work hand in hand with Governor Paterson’s office, we will achieve just that. Mr. Heenan has proven himself to me and he will prove himself to the families of Western New York.”
Now, the question is: will they be developing some method of reporting these stats online in some sort of database? It might seem redundant at first, but knowing the breakdown of monies spent in the district would be a boon to local reportage.
This is kind of interesting: Eric Massa’s office just announced that he has appointed a member of his staff to be the point man for ensuring transparent spending of the stimulus package in the 26th district. I’m not entirely sure how much impact a junior representative can really have in how the money gets spent, but if he has people monitoring what does get spent in the district, that’s probably a helpful thing in terms of building trust in a district where trust of President Obama is likely relatively low.
“On Tuesday night, President Obama spoke extensively about accountability and transparency in government, and that is exactly why I have appointed Michael Heenan to serve as your District Recovery Director,” said Congressman Eric Massa. “The families of New York’s 29th District deserve transparency and accountability in their government, and by dedicating one of your Congressional staff members to work hand in hand with Governor Paterson’s office, we will achieve just that. Mr. Heenan has proven himself to me and he will prove himself to the families of Western New York.”
Now, the question is: will they be developing some method of reporting these stats to the rest of us? It might seem redundant at first, but knowing the breakdown of monies spent in the district would be a boon to local reportage.
Fighting29th.com has a post stitching together local media expectations of the president’s speech tonight. As usual, there’s nothing terribly original from local media, which takes it’s queues from the national. In fairness, I suppose we’re all guilty of that.
But what is genuinely breathtaking is the ability of the media to go from zero to one hundred in less than three seconds of self-critique. How did we go from a president of whom no one thought much and no one asked much to a president whose expected to deliver Olympic-quality oratory every single time? We just wanted something that looked kind of like a plan before, and sage talking heads would bobble up and down that yes, he kind of made sense. Now, discussion of Barack Obama’s latest speech looks like Monday Night Football pregame discussion. Bet that someone is mapping the progress of Obama’s “stats” for later discussion.
Ask and they will tell you that there’s no question about it: Barack Obama’s got a tall order ahead of him. He needs to reassure the public that he knows what’s going on and what to do next. He needs to steady panicked markets. He needs to use inclusive language to bring Republicans onboard.
But while that’s great for MSNBC’s ratings, a rational assesment of the situation doesn’t look nearly like that. The support of the public has been iron-clad so far, though in truth, the administration is new enough to be experiencing some of the forgiving nature of a public that so recently voted for him. Given his ability to speak – of hope and of challenges, both – we can be assured that Americans will largely stay put in their opinion polls.
As for the panicked markets, I’ve discussed before the fact that much of the marketplace today is absorbed in the fate of banks. They’re not going to be improving their mood while the bank situation resolves itself because no option that makes sense makes them happy. Tough shit, kiddies: you break it, the government may need to buy it.
And as for Republicans, I’m afraid its going to be up to them to get on board. Left as they are with such preposterous wingnuts, the more sensible members of that party, such as exist now, are going to need to find away to get a voice in the discussion. They’ve done OK in the Senate in terms of voting for the stimulus, but the problem on their side of the isle is largely rhetorical. It’s the kind of challenge where the most extreme elements of the party scream that day is night and the more moderate voices are forced to speak in that same language.
And to an extent, we are all stuck speaking the language of the hard right. How else could we end up talking about “nationalizing” banks and “bankruptcy” for GM as though they were two different things?
Today’s bug squashing day here at DFE, so I’m not updating the site much. But then, I haven’t been updating the site too much, anyway.
But I saw this video, sent by friend of the site JF, which got me to thinking:
The message is fine and certainly amusing. But it’s not that which got me thinking, it was the music. This video will probably not outlast the week, since YouTube uses software that listens to the audio output of a video to discover potential violations of copyright, which this video technically does. The author is probably not making any money off the video, but YouTube is, so the use of Amy Winehouse’s material without paying her – and the record company – is illegal.
But there is no vehicle for us small time bloggers to even pay a record company for the rights in the first place. That means that a law which is entirely reasonable on it’s face is preventing the kind of free flow of information that the web is meant to produce. At least in this particular facet of creativity. And at the same time, an entirely new type of revenue stream is being blocked from the record companies. But I don’t think it needs to be this way.
Now, if a local radio station wants to play Winehouse’s music, they pay what is known in the industry as a performance royalty. Basically, for every play of copyrighted music on a commercial radio station, television station or any other commercial enterprise, the performer and the company make a few pennies. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but for an international star, a few pennies per day per radio station adds up quickly. In fact, for reasons I won’t get into, performance royalties tend to be the only money most rock stars ever actually make.
So why not put the YouTube commercial service to good use? You’ve seen the advertisements that come up on the bottom third of the screen when watching a YouTube video? What is preventing YouTube from selling those blocks off as performance royalties? If I want to use Saved By Zero in a YouTube video, I look it up in a database and apply to use it. YouTube looks up my average video views and determines whether a sufficient number of commercial plays will happen in a sufficient amount of time. If so, I’m cleared to use it.
Of course, more than one ad could be used in a given video, depending on length. There’s lots of other factors, but there’s lots of smart folks at YouTube and Google who could figure it out if they wanted to.
And of course, the record companies have to consent, which is unlikely. I’m not expecting my plan to be put into action in any event. I’m simply pointing out that there is an entirely reasonable business model for making content-rich, copyright-safe videos possible on the Internet if only the record companies could get their heads out of their asses and start living in the 21st century.
It bears mentioning – as often as possible, to as many people as possible – that the exact same greed that got us into the current economic crisis with the shady profit structures of the Subprime crisis is what drives “the Markets.” Keep in mind whenever you read or watch news reports about how “the Markets” just don’t like the Obama plans, or how they lack specificity, that banks are publicly traded companies. Of course the market goes down regardless of what the president says: no matter what he says, anything realistic is going to suck for the banks and the markets.
If you’ve ever wondered why I’ve stopped posting articles about the stock market to the news section, this is why. We have been conditioned by the media and their corporate handlers that “confidence in the marketplace” is the only thing we’re supposed to care about. It’s a crock of shit. The markets are where rich people get richer by betting on “the ponies.”
OK, childish post title. So, sue me.
But in addition to the announcement of some weird beer happenings, there is also this: Lendevours reports today that the fight over grocery stores selling wine has spilled over into the wine festival circuit in New York. Meanwhile, Sarah and I shopped at the Penfield Weggies Sunday, and they had a guy soliciting petition signatures supporting the sale of wine in grocery stores. That’s right, a Wegmans guy.
Overall, I’d say I’m fairly agnostic on the whole affair. As a personal issue, buying wine at the grocery store along with all the other fixin’s for a good meal makes sense to me. At the same time, do you really want the sixteen year old who got drunk on Natural Ice last night to be your only reference when purchasing a bottle of French wine? I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as knowledgeable about wine – and I’m not that knowledgeable about wine – if it weren’t for the kind and patient folks at Schubert’s Wine on Park Avenue.
And while we’re discussing it, how does this fight relate to the recent tagging of Marketplace Liquor for selling wine gift bags? ((Can’t find a link right now, and don’t feel like looking deeper)) Back around Christmas time, Marketplace was fined for selling gift bags to throw wine bottles into, because they’re considered grocery items according to some arcane law or another. Sarah and I went there expecting to find martini rimming sugar a few days ago, but that’s a grocery item as well.
So, are these two events related? Was this some in-the-paint elbow throwing between the grocers and the liquor store owners? And if not, will the laws preventing liquor stores from selling grocery items be relaxed if the opposite is allowed?
It’s not entirely clear to me why Rochester Business Journal thinks that this deal means that Labatts Beer may start being produced at High Falls Brewery. To me, it just reads like a big beer conglomerate is buying a beer company. KPS is based in New York City. Some more details might have been helpful, but I guess they wanted to scoop the local media, which was more important.
Once again, I find myself explaining concepts discussed in the media but rarely ever explained by the media. Today’s discussion is “nationalization” of the banking industry.
Or, how about “bankruptcy?” In a bankruptcy of a business, the debt and assets of the company are assumed by the government, who then restructures the company and if necessary, sells of the company’s debts to cover the liens against the company. Then the company is either released to continue or else is sold outright to some buyer who wants a good deal.
If this sounds at all familiar, that’s most likely because this is precisely the remedy proscribed by Dean Baker, Paul Krugman and almost every single other serious minded economist whose looked our current situation. To the extent that the federal government is involved in the day to day operations of businesses in bankruptcy, yes, it is nationalization. But this kind of thing happens all the time to all kinds of businesses without a peep of objection from the Republicans in Congress. In fact, it even happens to local banks all the time, which is one reason that we have a thing called the FDIC.
But it doesn’t happen to the big boys who have the money to pay off politicians and drive the conversation in the most objectionable direction possible.
Interesting side note: guess what the Republican, Dick Shelby proscription is for the Detroit automakers? If you guessed “nationalization,” you’re right!
It’s exactly this kind of clumsy language that cost Mrs. Clinton the primary and it’s exactly this kind of clumsy language we hope she can avoid in the future in her role as the chief diplomat of the worlds last remaining superpower.
I understand what she’s saying – and even agree with it, to the extent that a failed world economy necessarily means more human rights violations around the world – but seriously? Without being a career politician, I can think of better ways to says this.
