Obamacare didn't do that!

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 26, 2012 · 8:51 AM PDT

2012/08/26 · 08:51

Mainstream media may tell us that voters are leaning toward the Romney and Ryan plan to repeal Obamacare. What the mainstream media won’t tell us is where the United States stands in public healthcare and quality of life.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday August 03, 2012 · 3:15 PM PDT

2012/08/03 · 15:15

Computers have given us robo-callers, avatars, and telephone answering menus that have a very limited ability to interact with customers and screen calls. The computer has replaced people who were doing these functions. This has created millions of dislocated workers. Yet the cost of living continues to rise while these people have even less earning power. Would a knowledge revolution have caused or allowed this to happen?

Computers are fast. Computers have been involved in several Wall St. crashes. The most popular explanation for the 1987 crash was selling by program traders. Accountants investigating such a crash today may be faced with a problem similar to finding a needle in a haystack. When people work with exotic computers systems they don’t really know what’s happening, what happened or what’s going to happen. Billions of dollars disappearing without human initiation or intervention while government and investors are oblivious. This is sort of the opposite of knowledge.

Briefing: Computer traders blamed for Wall Street crash

When the Dow Jones stock market index suffered its largest ever single-day drop (May 2010), fingers were soon pointing at the high-frequency traders and the computer programs they rely on. Are computers now too powerful to be allowed in financial markets?

As the leader of one of the largest brokerage firms in the nation, Thomas M. Joyce has been an unapologetic advocate of electronic trading and one of the most vociferous critics of companies that struggled to keep up with the ever-changing stock market.
The current crisis, the third stock trading debacle in the last five months, revived calls for bolder changes to a computer-driven market that has been hobbled by its own complexity and speed. Among the proposals that gained momentum were stringent testing of computer trading programs and a transaction tax that could reduce trading.

Nimble Knight Capital

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/...

Still the economy remains an enigma to the masses. The markets at its foundation are inscrutible.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday July 09, 2010 · 5:21 PM PDT

2010/07/09 · 17:21

A few months ago it was said the Republican Party had been crushed by Democratic victories in the last national elections. Times have changed. The Republicans are no longer relevant as a political party.

A cautious observer wrote -

Why don't we wait until after the 2010 midterms and let's see how relevant they are? A year ago we had lots of diaries here on how the GOP was in a death spiral and a very cute dinosaur to highlight the fact that the GOP was on the way to becoming extinct. Haven't seen that cute dinosaur lately. If we don't recognize and battle the GOP in the 2010 cycle as a formidable adversary, we may lose control of Congress. Would that make them a relevant political force?

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday May 17, 2010 · 7:33 AM PDT

2010/05/17 · 07:33

Can the Republican Party reinvent itself and remain a relevant political force?

I don't think reinventing the Republican Party is a solution. The Republicans have to take responsibility for the mess we're in which began with Ronald Reagan's election and hop scotched from Bush to Bush presidencies leaving the country with a wrecked economy, 2 foreign wars, millions of illegal aliens, and astronomical debt.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wants to empower "radical centrists" to get the federal government's books to balance (among other things). He seems to believe that structural reforms to reduce the power of extreme liberals and conservatives would make budget-balancing possible. He touts nonpartisan redistricting, for example. Washington Post's Ramesh Ponnuru is for nonpartisan redistricting, too, for different reasons than Friedman.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday October 24, 2009 · 5:56 PM PDT

2009/10/24 · 17:56

Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo would marry the world's biggest software maker with one of the leading Internet media companies, shaking up the market for online services such as email and advertising.

After a long time talks and billion dollar buyouts Microsoft and Yahoo have finally come to an agreement.

There is evidence for and against the existence of Bubble 2.0. It depends on where you look, and what your expectations are.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday October 06, 2009 · 4:47 PM PDT

2009/10/06 · 16:47

Friends of mine have convinced me that the imminent overhaul of Health and Health Insurance industries will open floodgates to an enormous enrollment stampede, if the new government mandates universal coverage. Below is a review of related media reports on key health care reform and economic issues.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday September 27, 2009 · 5:16 PM PDT

2009/09/27 · 17:16

Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor, said he hadn't seen it but he said if voters think city schools are better today than they were under Thompson's leadership at the Board of Education, they should vote for Bloomberg.

http://www.newsday.com/...

Under Thompson?

The record will show that the control of New York City Public Schools was firmly gripped by the New York City's Mayor's office.

Rudolph W. Giuliani made New Yorkers three promises when he campaigned for mayor in the early 1990s: He would fix troubled schools, cut crime and boost the economy.

New York City schools went through eight years of political chaos during Giuliani's terms, which ended in 2002. His bare-knuckle tactics contributed to the departure of three chancellors, according to interviews with former school administrators, Board of Education members, teachers, parents, union officials and outside experts.

This was the Rudy Giuliani Show. Chancellors made guest appearances and the Board of Education, students and parents were a captive audience.

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday September 17, 2009 · 6:14 PM PDT

2009/09/17 · 18:14

New York City’s politics set waves into motion that ripple across the lands and oceans. The effects of globalization is reflected in our politics.

In June 2009, Bill Maher took on the entire political spectrum, accusing Democrats of selling out and Republicans of being "religious lunatics and Civil War reenactors."

He went on to say that every time President Obama does try to take on a liberal cause, the democrats stand in his way. He cited recent reports that Obama's healthcare plan may not materialize as promised because of high-ranking Dems. Maher then tore into the Republican party saying they are "flat-earthers" who "mostly communicate through AM radio," and "actually think Obama's a socialist." At this, he took the opportunity to say that is ridiculous because Obama's not even a liberal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday September 04, 2009 · 12:57 PM PDT

2009/09/04 · 12:57

In The VillageVoice, Wayne Barrett portrays Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor of New York City as an unstoppable glacier of conflicting interests. The only guardian of the general welfare of the public against conflicts of interest within city government is the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) -

Bloomberg appoints all five of its members. The agency described its own weaknesses in a March 2009 report, noting that New York "appears to be the only large municipality in the United States that has granted its ethics board the power to sanction violations, but not the power to investigate such violations." The same internal document points out that the COIB "regulates the very people who set its budget," meaning that "the Board invariably has before it matters involving high-level officials at the same time those officials are passing on the Board's budget, an unseemly situation."...

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 02, 2009 · 8:38 AM PDT

2009/09/02 · 08:38

Bill Maher says in the Huffington Post that

"One of the things that makes Republicans furious about our current president is their idea that Obama is always apologizing for America's biggest mistakes. Unlike President Bush. Who was one of America's biggest mistakes."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday August 29, 2009 · 3:34 PM PDT

2009/08/29 · 15:34

There is growing awareness of what appears to be a disconnection from reality at the Mayor’s Office.

Sara Kugler wrote, "The mayor, a Republican-turned-independent who already has spent more than $36 million on his re-election campaign this year, often battles criticism that he is out of touch with regular people. He built his fortune after founding the financial information company that bears his name.

Earlier this year he declared ‘we love the rich people’ while arguing against raising taxes on the wealthy, and said recently that President Barack Obama, who earns $400,000 a year and has made millions from book sales, ‘doesn't get paid that much’ and is ‘on a budget’ like millions of Americans.

Portraying Bloomberg as out of touch is a tactic often used by the Democratic frontrunner in the race, City Comptroller William Thompson Jr.
Thompson's campaign said in a statement Friday that Bloomberg ‘needs a dose of reality.’

‘Once again, Mike proves that he just doesn't get it,’ the statement said."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

vilixiliv

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday August 16, 2009 · 3:20 PM PDT

2009/08/16 · 15:20

New York’s has long been regarded as one of the country’s most successful public housing programs. While many other major cities have abandoned or demolished their mid-century high rises, NYCHA continues to operate at full occupancy, and more than 130,000 families sit on the authority's waiting list. More than 400,000 tenants, a full 5% of the city's population, live in NYCHA housing. Tenants have an average family income of $22,764 and pay an average rent of $384 per month. NYCHA also administers the country's largest Section 8 housing program, with over 90,000 private units leased using its vouchers.

http://www.plannyc.org/...

Newer
Older

RSS

Obamacare didn't do that!

How Many Times Has the Economy Crashed?

The Rise of the Democratic Party

The Next Republican Party

DotCom Bubble II

Next Bubble

New York City Schools Then and Now

Real Democrats

The Greenback Effect

Bloomberg and the Republicans

Out of Touch with Reality

New York City Housing