Brits: Brilliant Kooks: Pundit Christopher (Atheist) Hitchens defaces odious poltcl sect in Beirut, gets smashed (nearly)

Late last month, Beirut (in the persons of 6 Syrian Social Nationalist Party adherents -- were they the same "burly youths" of everlasting sociliast fiction?) attacked the redoubtable stalwart and always-somewhat drunk Christofer Hitchins, a laudable Trotskyist writer most closely associated with a militant Kurdish social revolutonary party.

His travelling companion and fellow freelance reporter of the world's political hotspots, Michael Totten, who recounted this latest obyssey most vividly (or is that most bonvivantly?), tells well the story that self-satirizes its own narrative, and gently lets Hitchens off without a hitch.

--Politicarp

Pop Music: Lionel Richie: Dancin' on the Cielin'

USA: Economy: Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner in crucible, Obamonomics in question

The New York Times article by Jackie Colmes, "Treasury Secretary facing defining moment" (Mar18,2k9), is the first profile of the Treasury Department's head that I've read to date. I found this Colme's item quite interesting. First, it gives us some specificities regarding Geithner's achievements and overall "career path" to his present Cabinet-status in the US government of these 'troubling times.' Second, Colmes attempts to be precise about the Secretary's immediate political situation; so, to an avid political reader who reflects on wide-reading, the Colmes piece has verisimilitude. For now, I'll just trust the basic informativity of Geithner's profile here established.

The piece doesn't take up the matter of Timbos unpaid income taxes, belatedly now repaid. He also apologized. It was a lapse of memory, he felt.

--EconoMix

International: Economy: Read about the Gaussian math that "Whiz" applied to credit risk -- refWrite page 2

USA: Economy: Christian political leader blasts American financial & business leadership of 'collapse'

In a recent article, Dr James Skillen (executive director of Citizens for Public Justice USA until October 2009) bristled indignantly, "Can Trust Be Restored?" (Root & Branch (Feb23.2l9).

Let me put it more bluntly. People are not just angry about bankers’ big bonuses and auto company CEOs’ private jets; they are angry that they got taken by “the system” — by banks, by mortgage companies, by investment advisers, and by the government that aided and abetted and gave no warning of the coming collapse. As in a stagecoach robbery, writes Janet Tavakoli, “Wall Street bankers made off with the loot without firing a shot. They were enabled by Washington overseers and financial regulators who—when not beneficiaries of the good times—behaved like ostriches. Meanwhile, news of the fact that no one in the US has been brought to justice has not escaped notice” (Financial Times, 2/5/09). The authorities oversaw and even encouraged the increasing leveraging of debt until the whole country was overextended, leading to the crash. One of the biggest culprits, according to John Kay, was the “diversified financial conglomerates” created after Washington abolished the Glass-Steagall Act that separated commercial and investment banking. The conglomerates, says Kay, “are riddled with conflicts of interest” and their growth “served only the ambitions of the greedy men who ran them and the financial interests of traders, who were allowed to play with sums of money that should never have come into their hands” (Financial Times, 2/11/09). With government having not yet done much to change the system and after several months of trying to prop up all kinds of financial services companies, the hole is getting deeper. Even two months ago, Niall Ferguson could write, the Fed itself “increasingly resembles a public hedge fund, leveraged at more than 50:1” (Financial Times, 12/19/08).

International: Economy: Bailout billions paid to French & German big banks by AIG

BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, blogs on the nexus between these corporate entities: Goldman Sachs (USA), American International Group (USA), Societe General (France), Deutsche Bank (German), and Barclays (Brit)... "and the whole world" (quips Fox's early morning show host Doucey) -- all these, say Peston and Doucey, were getting paid off by AIG with tax monies. "The Goldman infallibility myth" (Mar16,2k9).

USA: Economy: like alchemical formula 'as below, so above' the rot at the top was reflected far down the wealth chain

Reuters offers a very fact-assertive and thawt-provoking news report on an aspect of the American economy at this point in its upheaval, and the onslawt of "depression"; the article is reported by Emily Kaiser and edited by David Dalgleish ("edited" here means Dalgleish removed something from Kaiser's article). "U.S. household wealth falls $11.2 trillion in 2008," (Kaiser, Mar12,2009):

Home mortgage debt fell at a 1.6 percent pace -- the third consecutive quarter of declines -- and consumer credit dropped at a 3.2 percent rate.

The build-up in household debt was one of the most striking elements of the five-year housing boom, which peaked in 2006. Consumers recorded double-digit annual increases in mortgage debt from 2001 through 2006, some of that in the form of cash-out refinancing that helped fuel strong spending.

Just how much rising wealth contributed to consumer spending is a subject of much debate but it is thought to be somewhere around 5 cents on the dollar. It is less clear how much households will cut back now that their wealth has been depleted.

Is this 'the unmasking of capitalism' that Goudszwaard 'radical Christians' are nowadays talking about?

Terrorism: Northern Ireland: IRA resurgents kill Brit soldiers, policeman

I've been hearing thru blogs (closer to the situation in Ulster), there seems to be widespread discontent in the working-class ranks of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party members and their more independent brethren ("the prods"). But word most timely now comes via BBC that the Loyalists 'will not strike back' at the IRA resurgent terrorist splinter-groups (Mar11,2k9). At least so says Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group (UPRGP) who had met Sinn Fein's Tom Harley on Wednesday. Gallagher advises the "loyalist paramilitary UDA.

--Politicarp

Calendar: Lent Music: Thankyou Bob Dylan

Here's a snippet of the lyrics by Bob Dylan for his great song, Knockin' on Heaven's Door (original version with HT to Maggie's Farm

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore.
It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door
Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore.
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door."

Knockin' knockin' ....


Owlb