If taxpayer money was given to "bail-out" AIG, by the Congress, then Congress should and can demand it back!

Why the Milton Friedman brand of economics which conservatives embrace is absurd.
Here's what is so ironic about it.
Milton Friedman lived and penned his economic theory during the 50s and 60s, the very decades that prove he was wrong. He was concerned about the three recessions of the late 40s and 50s. In all cases, the economy rebounded and went on to be the best growth perhaps ever for America. The middle grew like never before. The very decades he was living through, were decades of growing govt., growing welfare programs and growing taxes as a percent of GDP. Freedoms grew as well, civil rights etc. The best prosperity we've ever had was when govt and taxes grew. Six out of ten elderly people were in poverty at the beginning of this era and by the 60s only one in six was in poverty. The largest growth in home ownership was also in this period.

The same is true for Europe, which grew economically while government programs grew and taxes as percent of GDP grew. And these are all strong democracies.

In both cases worker productivity grew while govt grew, and real wages grew.

How many times have you recently heard conservatives say that liberalism is a threat to freedom? It simply is not true, as proved repeatedly by history. The same is true for economic well being and growth under big governments.

It seems that European nations have done a better job of spending public money responsibly and productively. The countries in Europe with big welfare states have similar and in some cases better economic mobility than Americans. They have similar or better worker productivity and similar or better real wages(buying power). Germany pays workers 127% of American worker pay, even after higher taxes and much bigger entitlement programs.
In other words, they make more than us, while getting free health care, education etc, much longer vacation time, shorter work week, and even after paying higher taxes.

The only country that perhaps went a little too far in welfare is Sweden, where productivity is still 88% of America's. And real pay is 98% of in America. France, Holland, Norway all have higher productivity than America. Norway, Holland and Germany all have higher real wages.

I learned this from the new book "The Case For Big Government" by Jeff Madrick.

Another interesting new book is "What is America?: A Brief History of the New World Order" ever wonder how the modern conservative mindset came about? You'll find out here.

Want to really understand why global warming coudn't possibly be a natural cycle like skeptics often claim?

I highly recommend the book "The Carbon Age" by Eric Roston
Fascinating book. Here's one of the take home messages from the book.

It took 60 million years for coal to develop in the earth, by precipitating out of the short term carbon cycle, and being locked away in coal deposits and into the long term carbon cycle. Now we are releasing this 60 million year accumulation of carbon back into the atmosphere and thus, back into the short term carbon cycle, in 150-200 years, or a geological nanosecond. This is an unprecedented occurance, probably in the history of the planet.
I would like a skeptic to explain how this is part of a natural cycle, or is anything like any natural cycle that the earth has been through before. I mean ones that didn’t wipe out 90% of life on the planet.

I also agree that this website is hard to navigate. I don't think it's just you, Hud.

Thom -- You give these Ayn Randians too much air time, without giving their opposites any airtime.
Randians haven't won any elections. They're a small percentage of people.
Randians say they don't want controls on the market, but here's the key:
It isn't that Randians don't want controls on the economy, it's that they don't want government controls on the economy -- they have no objection to the controls inherent in monopolies and back-room deals. Isn't that control too? They don't seem to object to stopping unions. Isn't that control? Lobbyists perform control of a sort too. I haven't heard Randians condemning that kind of control.
What opposite? you say. How about some real long-term solutions, rather than just trying to get the government to rescue us. While I agree that one of the functions of government is to keep things fair and keep the playing field level, governments are short-sighted and not creative, they react rather than invent.
The long-term solution we pose is to stop artificially propping up old-fashioned cut-throat feudal Capitalism, and let it evolve to the next incarnation of capitalism: Co-operative or Progressive Capitalism. If businesses, big and small, were owned by the workers rather than stock-holders, many of the evils inherent in hierarchical Capitalism would go away naturally: If workers owned the business and shared the profit (or loss), they would be motivated to work to the very best of their ability, they would run the business democratically, thus learning democracy on a very real level, and the business would be run for long-term viability rather than short-term profit percentage.
One of the evils built into stock-based Capitalism that most people are unaware of is that, to keep the stock value up (and that's what businesses depend on to stay afloat), they don't just have to be profitable, or have increasing profit, they must have an increasing PERCENTAGE of profit. That means a business that is doing well, making a steady profit, selling a steadily increasing amount of their product, paying all of their bills with money left over, is, in stock market terms, failing.
In order to have an increasing PERCENTAGE of profit, the costs of manufacturing (or advertising, or whatever) must be a steadily decreasing percentage of the equation. This means the company must keep decreasing the cost of labor and/or materials. That means overstressed workers, poorer quality materials, or cheating someone somewhere. Stock-based Capitalism demands underpaid workers and poorly made goods in order to feed the ever-growing need for profit for the stock-holders, who do no work, but "let their money work for them". That's another way of saying the game is rigged to make the rich richer and the poor and middle poorer. It's a part of the system, it's the only way it CAN work when it's set up that way.
If the workers own the company, instead of the stockholders, the company only needs to make enough money to keep paying its workers and buy materials and do Research and Development, and do maintenance. The drive is to keep the business alive, long-term, by providing a superior product at a fair price and paying the workers a living wage. This builds a strong middle class which has money to buy things, which keeps the economy going. (And Yes, tariffs are needed to keep this fair.)
In Argentina, workers have been taking over abandoned factories (and other businesses) and running them. They face artificial difficulties in that there are conspiracies fighting against them succeeding, both in government and in businesses owned by Economic Royalists. But they are succeeding anyway. More slowly than we would like, but they are.
This is the next stage of the evolution of Capitalism. Businesses still compete against each other in an open marketplace. But the people who do the real work also get the reward for the work, and the responsibility of the sense of ownership. The quality of goods and materials would improve. We win all 'round.

They seem unclear on the concept of bonuses: a bonus is extra money as a reward for doing well. If they have a "contract" to get bonuses even when they do poorly, it isn't a bonus, it's a salary.
These people have done so poorly, they shouldn't be getting bonuses, they should be getting blacklisted.

With apologies to Bill Maher, I have a "New Rule" I'd like to propose -

A company that's "too big to fail" is too big to EXIST!

peace,

mstaggerlee

“Of course, the New Right is WRONG! - that doesn’t make wrong the new right!”

As I listened to the Sunday TV talk shows this weekend, my rage just grew and grew.

"Yes," all the pundits agreed, "the AIG bonuses are absolutely unfair, but they are contractually obligated to pay them, so we have no choice in the matter."

What a crock! Why is is that contracts with executives seem to be written in stone, but contracts with labor collectives seem to be written on much flimsier stuff? How many unions over the past decade or so have seen the pension plans that were created BY CONTRACT, to which they contributed their own money, earned with their daily labor, simply taken over by the company to cover bad executive decisions, simply negotiated into oblivion? What about those CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS? Are they less important, because one of the parties to that contract is less worthy? I think not.

These AIG execs may indeed have fulfilled the conditions under which they were supposed to collect a bonus. BIG DEAL - the company I work for used to give annual bonuses, too - but only if the company was PROFITABLE! AIG was NOT - in fact, they were so far from profitable that they damn near pulled the entire system down with them. If these men feel that their efforts are deserving of some reward, how about this - they get to KEEP THEIR JOBS, when MILLIONS of others lose theirs. AIG worrys that they will be unable to retain or recruit "the best and the brightest" if they reneg? If "the best and the brightest" brought us to this day, maybe they just ain't so freakin' bright! Maybe there are better, brighter people who are now living in tents, who'd like those jobs!

peace,

mstaggerlee

"Of course, the New Right is WRONG! - that doesn't make wrong the new right!"

Fortunately my Air America Station here in Portland, Or (KPOJ) still carries Thom.

Re: CIA DOMESTIC HIT SQUAD

Sy Hersh's coming exposure of such abominations will merely corroborate what has been reported but not mainstreamed for many years; with Sy's bylline, however, perhaps we'll get traction at last.

These kinds of domestic assassination units have operated for DECADES.

There are two primary factions at low-intensity war with each other for domination of the national security paradigm:

(1) the 'JFK/George Kennan/Stansfield Turner/Elliott Richardson' faction;

(2) the Wm. Colby/Richard Helms/George H.W. Bush/Cuban Exile/Richard Nixon/J. Edgar Hoover/Alexander Haig/Curtis LeMay' faction (the latter also known as "The Octopus.")

These two primary factions (with, of course, many affilliated slippery alliances and temporary coalitions, as well as double agents and defectors from one faction to another) have engaged in everything from leaking embarrassiung personal skeletons ott he press, to framing up opponents on false criminal raps, to murdering them, over the course of more than 50 years..

With the exceptions of Nixon and Bush/Cheney, however, these antics were kept relatively removed from the operation of the democratic institutions of government, and the generalized domestic loss of fundamental liberty was not at hand.

The Cheney regime, however, crossed a line previously crossed in such brash manner only by Nixon, and envisioned such overt measures as domestic concentration camps a la GITMO. The ubiquitous telecom surveiilance regime is now in place. In my opinion, it is indeed quite likely that the anthrax attack on Daschle and Leahy was an "Octopus" operation.

Thom, you're not crazy or paranoid. Please keep on this (and get a remote starter for your car).

Thom,

The discussion of merit pay for teachers brought to mind my time
in graduate school in Rochester New York almost 20 years ago.
Then and there, the local school district engaged in an attempt
the set up a merit pay system for its teachers. The community,
the school district and the teachers worked hard to come to
mutually agreeable terms for this effort. But as I recall the
sticking point was just how merit should be determined. There is
one person, prominent in this effort, whose name I recall, Adam
Urbanski, a spokesman for the teacher's union. A quick web
search confirmed my memory and revealed that Urbanski is now a
vice president of the American Federation of teachers. Urbanski
has considerable practical experience on this topic, is very
thoughtful and well spoken. I think that he's make a great guest
to expand and inform the discussion on this important topic.

Thanks

Thom, I'm pro-single payer system all the way. Even though I hear much talk about preventive care and health maintenance, I think they should go a step further and give people an incentive to change their behaviour...and in so doing, help finance the system as well. I'm suggesting that foods that contribute greatly to sending people into the health care system early because of obesity-related disease should be taxed in the same way cigarettes and alcohol products are. I know it would be a dogfight with lobbyists from the various food industries but smart minds focused on the endgame should be able to come up with something.

Also, kudos for you on fixing that gold commercial. I was telling a co-worker the other day that it drove me crazy how you had the inflection in the wrong place and then noticed just a few minutes ago that you finally fixed it. Now I can sleep at night. Thx!

[...] the top ten of Talker’s Magazine’s “Heavy Hundred” talk show hosts) has abandoned Air America as well. One time CEO Mark Green is pulling out as well, to get back into NYC politics. [...]

First they took my Air America station away (in Eugene Oregon of all places).And now, I cant find Thom on the web at Air America. My quality of life has been impacted negatively. So, today I signed up to Thomcasts.

I don't know what they are yet, or how to use them..and I get that our economy is changing in all kinds of ways, so we need to pay for things which were once free. Now hopefully, I wont be cut off from regular doses of sanity Hartmann-style. And the people I work around are gonna enjoy the lack of advertisements too.