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| 0670022195
| 9780670022199
| 0670022195
| 3.30
| 3,174
| Mar 01, 2011
| Mar 03, 2011
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really liked it
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Plastic Duckie, You’re the one. Well, one of 28,800 anyway. Donovan Hohn begins his tale with an accident at sea. A container ship, in the face of fif Plastic Duckie, You’re the one. Well, one of 28,800 anyway. Donovan Hohn begins his tale with an accident at sea. A container ship, in the face of fifty-foot waves, rolls sufficiently to dump more than a few containers, those box-car sized giant legos that we use to transport stuff from here to there. One such dumpee held a large quantity of plastic bath toys. Included were beavers, frogs, turtles and the most-familiar, ducks. Not rubber, mind you, but plastic. His aim is to find as many places as possible where the friendly critters might have beached. Did they all? Beach, that is? What happened to these things? That is the crux of the investigation. Or at least the Maguffin of the story, as Hohn, in questing after ultimate ports of the lost bath toys, finds many items of interest along the way. The location of the spill is discovered in short order, but we learn that such information is a closely held corporate secret. Hohn sets off on a variety of individual adventures. He travels on a thousand-foot-plus container ship through the very waters where the bath toys had taken a tumble. They disembarked south of the Aleutians, in a current known as the North Pacific Subpolar Gyre. I presume they proceeded to gimble in the waves. (Ok, Ok, pushing it. I know). Is there any chance that they managed to find their way into Arctic waters and then through and down to the Atlantic coast? I’m not telling. [image] From the author's site He joins Chris Pallister, head of an Alaskan NGO, trying to clean up the mass quantities of floating crap that winds up on parts of the Alaskan coast. Chris had had an eye-opening experience in the political world the first day he [Pallister] reported to duty [as a staffer for Alaska’s Republican senator Frank Murkowski] …Murkowski assigned him the task of rifling through the Endangered Species Act for loopholes.There are those who contend that Chris’s efforts do nothing to solve the problem, that cleaning up the extant mess only gives cover to those who are responsible for it, and drains available resources from better targeted efforts. Hohn sails with marine scientists and checks out a Pacific location known as the Great Garbage Patch. It turns out there is an explanation for why flotsam collects in certain places, and one may conjure images of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. He sails on a Canadian Ice Breaker, visits far-north native communities, visits the factory where the floaters were born, even checks in with the child psychology professionals who had a hand in the toys’ design. As with any good book there are at least as many questions raised as answers found. And as with most good stories, it is about the journey, not the destination. We learn something about giant container ships, why they are so gigantic, how they fare in the ocean, and learn what special oceanic tricks might have caused the ducks to dive. We learn a fair bit about ocean currents and the more sprightly gyres. There is significant information on the status of the Arctic Ocean and a compelling discussion on the nature of “the commons." Here are a few more nuggets. Albatrosses go after floating plastic because it tends to be encrusted with barnacles. Only 5 percent of plastics get recycled. Among the many theories of the nature of the North Pole, Plato thought that the pole lay at the head of a giant tunnel through which water circulated to the earth’s core. Sounds like a theory Ted Stevens could get behind. One of my favorite factoids in the book was why the federal government promoted the use of bath toys in the 1940s. It is bound to make you smile. So, read, enjoy, learn. [image] Donovan Hohn - from the Telegraph This brings us to some other aspects. First I have to offer up a large asterisk. I found this book to be a rather slow read. But I am not sure how much was the book and how much was me. For reasons that I will not go into here, my spirits have been at a low ebb for a week or so, and I might have had a tough time getting through The Tale of Jemima Puddle Duck let alone a somewhat lengthier tale of her distant relations. But now that I have made my excuses… For a book like this to succeed it must engage the reader, it must offer new information, and it must put you at ease with your Virgil. It does not hurt if it is a fast read, and it is a good thing if the reader cares about the author’s quest. There is a wealth of information here, but I felt that information appeared at the peaks of waves and the distance between peaks was sometimes too great. Hohn seems like a pretty decent guy, likeable, intelligent, inquisitive. He reports about his struggles coping with being away from home for considerable durations, once as his first child is about to pop out. Kudos to the missus for her extreme understanding and forebearance. Hohn comes across well, but I felt that there was maybe a bit too much of his personal experience bobbing to the surface at times, and that it slowed down the story he was telling. I will not tell the final result of his journey of discovery, but I did feel that he drifted off course a time or two and that also slowed things down. So bottom line is that this is a book that has a wealth of information to impart. You will be surprised enough at some items and will learn enough overall to make this a worthwhile read, despite running into an occasional doldrum. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages A nice article about Hohn and the beginnings of the book, from the University of Michigan Time to sing along July 19, 2017 – National Geographic - reporting about a new study on plastic in our environment - A Whopping 91% of Plastic Isn't Recycled - by Laura Parker If you want more detail, here is the study from the journal Science to which the NatGeo article refers - Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made - by Roland Geyer, Jenna R. Jambeck and Kara Lavender Law January 25, 2018 - NY Times - Everything is definitely not ducky - Billions of Plastic Pieces Litter Coral in Asia and Australia - by Veronique Greenwood March 22, 2018 - National Geographic - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch Isn’t What You Think it Is - by Laura Parker - Interesting new science on the contents of the infamous patch. [image] This dead albatross chick was found with plastics in its stomach on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Marine plastic can be dangerous to wildlife. - text from the above article - Photograph by Dan Clark, USFWS/AP March 28, 2018 - NY YTimes - Rubber, Yucky? Say it ain't so - Your Cute Rubber Duck May Be a Haven for Bacteria - by Ceylan Yeginsu July 11, 2018 - National Geographic - The last straw? A Running List of Action on Plastic Pollution - By Brian Clark Howard and Sarah Gibbens September 24, 2018 - Adrift is a poem by Bao Phi inspired by the rubber duckie spill January 4, 2019 - Floating trash collector has setback in Pacific Garbage Patch - By Laura Parker April 1, 2019 - Two whales wash up dead with more than a hundred pounds of plastic in their stomachs - by Walter Einenkel ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 23, 2011
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Jun 2011
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May 23, 2011
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Hardcover
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| 0061936464
| 9780061936463
| 0061936464
| 3.82
| 3,238
| 2011
| May 31, 2011
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it was amazing
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How can I sell thee? Let me count the ways. Actually, I don’t need to. In The Red Market investigative journalist Scott Carney seems to have taken car
How can I sell thee? Let me count the ways. Actually, I don’t need to. In The Red Market investigative journalist Scott Carney seems to have taken care of that. He covers the wealth of ways in which business people in the people business sell parts of people to other people. He covers the selling of bones, kidneys, human ova, personal gestation services, blood, and more. Geographically, most of Carney’s work is in India, where he lived for several years, but he forays out to Cyprus, Spain and the USA for personal investigations. [image] Scott Carney - image from Living Beyond Your Fears The impact of what he reveals here is global. It appears that the West (primarily) has found new sources of third-world raw materials to exploit. And as with prior versions of such practices, the locals do not fare very well from the transaction. In addition, it appears that third-worlders are being employed to do some work that gives the term “labor-saving” new weight. Carney’s focus is on the supply side of the equation, in particular its impact on the suppliers in this international meat market. The material here is the stuff of horror films, reminiscent at times of the X-files or Sweeney Todd, although the consumption involved is not savory. Carney was teaching in India when a young woman in his program died. It was through his experience seeing that her remains were returned to the USA that he became aware of the way that once a person has passed on, pressure builds for their remains to be passed along. He begins by digging into the business of grave-robbing in India, an enterprise that has supplied high-quality, sparkling product, intended largely for Western medical training. When the police arrived to investigate in early 2007, they could smell the stench of rotting flesh from nearly a mile away. Sections of spine strung together with twine dangled from the rafters, an officer told me. Hundreds of bones were scattered on the floor in some sort of ordering system.Carney offers a professional’s description of how the preparers transform a body into a sack of bones. (Included at the end of this review, for the ghoulishly curious) He writes, in addition, about the history of grave-robbing, particularly in the West. That is engrossing stuff. One of the unanticipated aftermaths of the great tsunami of 2004 was the creation, via a large population of displaced and impoverished people, of a ready source of kidneys. Desperate people sell one of their two kidneys in order to get enough cash to keep their families going just a little longer. On the grounds of a dairy farm shanghaied transients are hooked up to tubes and their blood is siphoned off multiple times a week until they are near death. When their utility as milk-able blood-cows is about to expire they are put on a bus and sent out of town for someone else to deal with. Corneas are taken from barely living or just killed prisoners in Chinese prisons. In Cyprus, mostly Eastern-European women are given large doses of hormones to encourage the production of multiple ova, which are then implanted in Western customers. In India, women serving as surrogates live for months under conditions of virtual imprisonment until their product is C-Sectioned out of them. Carney paints a bleak picture. The only part of the Red Market that seems to work well is the donation and marketing of human hair. Brokers for blood products, particularly, reminded me of how Wall Street fused hordes of junk financial products into one gigantic stinking pile of finance and sold it in a way that no buyer could discern the actual source of the underlying stench. When it comes to blood there are major brokers who collect blood from sources as solid as 9.5% APR mortgages. The quality of that blood is, to be generous, not reliable. In addition to the reality on the ground, Carney looks at underlying issues, the role of anonymity in organ donation, the relationship between the free market and voluntarism, how changes in law affect such trade. He looks at the likelihood that new scientific developments might mitigate worldwide demand and examines the nature of fluctuating demand. Carney points out the very definite class difference in who benefits the most from this trade Sometimes Carney shows a bit of naiveté, such as in the following Obscuring the source of raw materials for any market is almost always a bad idea. We would never allow an oil company to hide the locations of its oil rigs, or not to disclose its environmental policies. And when an oil rig fails and leaks millions of barrels of petroleum into the ocean we demand accountability. Transparency is capitalism’s most basic safety feature.Perhaps he has not noticed that corporations are quite successful at minimizing transparency. In doing this he ignores his own evidence of under-the-table payments to law enforcement personnel in India, a decidedly capitalist nation. The grainy black-and-white images that appear throughout the book seem well-suited to the material. Carney writes in a first person voice that gives the reader a you-are-there feel. He is very readable, and that eases the discomfort of absorbing his subject matter. In The Red Market, Scott Carney has done an outstanding job of shining a bright light into one of the darker dungeons of human commerce. While I thought that his solutions were a bit fuzzy, the upside here is that The Red Market offers a significant contribution to our base of knowledge about some serious public health, and human rights concerns. While some parts of the book have been previously published in magazines, (Carney has been writing for many well-known publications for years) this is his first book. It is a stunning debut and promises to be the beginning of a long, productive and valuable career. =============================EXTRA STUFF Carney’s blog (http://redmarkets.com/) is well worth a look. There is much material there that supplements this book, including links to related articles, as well as material on other projects. The book itself contains a wonderful bibliography for anyone interested in looking a bit deeper into specific areas. While reading The Red Market I was reminded of several other books that touched on related subjects. Little Princes re child-stealing for fun and profit Larry’s Kidney re traveling abroad to pick up hard-to-find parts and services Long for This World re our quest for immortality The Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks for the deep respect research science has for test subjects or “donors” Dirty Pretty Things is the only film addressing issues raised here that popped to mind. But I am sure there are more. Not a High School Science Project - the ff is quoted from the book First the corpses are wrapped in netting and anchored in the river, where bacteria and fish reduce them to loose piles of bones and mush in a week or so. The crew then scrubs them and boils them in a cauldron of water and caustic soda to dissolve any remaining flesh. That leaves the calcium surfaces with a yellow tint. To bring them up to medical white, bones are then left in sunlight for a week before being soaked in hydrochloric acid.This means you, Norm. A very nice review by Michiko Kakutani appeared in today's New York Times. A fascinating article from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist - Human Corpses are Prize in Global Drive for Profits ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 11, 2011
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May 12, 2011
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May 11, 2011
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Hardcover
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| 1568586442
| 9781568586441
| 1568586442
| 4.05
| 3,524
| Sep 23, 2010
| Oct 17, 2010
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it was amazing
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CSI: Democracy That piercing stench is the aroma of failure and betrayal lying in a dumpster outside a lobbyist’s condo. Chris Hedges, toting his kit, CSI: Democracy That piercing stench is the aroma of failure and betrayal lying in a dumpster outside a lobbyist’s condo. Chris Hedges, toting his kit, approaches the body and examines it for evidence of foul play. A uniform steps aside, giving Hedges room. He bends down and opens the surprisingly fat wallet. It is clear that the vic was once a powerful presence, as Hedges can see from the wallet’s contents, scattered about the corpse. The Social Security card is worn at the edges, but it remains whole, although oncoming rain is likely to fray it even more. A union membership card has been cut to bits and scattered. The victim was no kid. He had clearly been around a long time and had more than his share of scar tissue. A closer examination would later reveal several very old fractures from when the vic was a much younger fellow, maybe from the 50s. They had healed badly, leaving bones that supported his body, but with the right leg shorter than the left and so a tilt. If the vic had had any more tracks in his arms he would have been Grand Central Station. Whatever he’d shot up left a green tinge. Had he kept it up, he might have been confused for the Hulk’s skinnier, weaker cousin. His shoes, found nearby, were a travesty, holes completely through the bottoms, with the uppers clearly separated from the soles. It was clear from the condition of the vic’s feet that he had ignored their care altogether. Nails like seashells, filthy, ridged, untrimmed. The vic had a name, Liberalism. Now Hedges had to put the pieces together, examine the clues and see just what it was that dragged this once-hardy character so low. He calls on his team and together they set about the task. And that is what Hedges does, pokes through the corpse of contemporary American liberalism for reasons, and ultimately, implications, bringing in considerable analysis and quotable extracts from some of our leading minds. [image] Chrius Hedges - Image from UC Observer So what is the “liberal class” on which Hedges performs his post mortem? It is a media that purports to support middle-class people but reports lies and propaganda that help build support for our invasion of Iraq, and promotes our corrupt financial system as a safe place for families to park their savings. It is religious institutions, churches and synagogues that fail to criticize the extreme right wing of America’s churches, the ones that foment greed, racism and violence, while encouraging their members to look solely inward, instead of engaging in a mission of holding evil-doers morally accountable. It is the universities that minimize dissent from the established range of political views, in order not to antagonize their corporate supporters. It is labor unions, which once fought for worker rights, for social and political rights of working class people across the board, but which now “have been transformed into domesticated negotiators with the capitalist class.” It is the Democratic Party that sells itself as the voice of the people, but that instead abandoned working people by passing legislation such as NAFTA, that offered support to Republican plans to shred the social safety net, that goes along with corporate looting of the national treasure, and that refuses to stand up to right wing assaults on civil liberties. Those people. He looks into the history of what we think of as liberalism, noting its heyday from the late 19th into the early 20th century. Hedges sees a major turning point in government control of speech during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, when opposition to American entry into World War I was faced with legislation like the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalized not only espionage but also speech deemed critical of the government.” A year later, the Sedition Act was passed, expanding governmental interference with free speech. The president also established the CPI, or Committee for Public Information, or propaganda central. The Ministry of Truth with stars and stripes. This is fascinating material and was news to me. The CPI was shut down after the war, but the era of mass propaganda had arrived. Certainly there had been plenty of attempts to control public opinion through media manipulation in the past (Remember the Maine) but advancing technology made it increasingly powerful. The near collapse of the economy in the Great Depression, also largely due to corporate malfeasance, led up to liberalism’s last great stand, the New Deal, which succeeded in saving capitalism from its own excesses. The body of liberalism has always been susceptible to the external assaults of fear-mongering, racism, and nationalistic saber rattling by the right. Hedges sees the willingness of the left to kowtow to the crazier elements of the right as being based on the fear, by those who have attained position of privilege, that standing up for what is right might endanger their position in society. I suspect that many who sell us out to the corporatocracy never really had our interests at heart, only our votes. This shows up in the willingness of organized labor to purge their ranks of people deemed out of the mainstream. Of course, in doing so, they minimize pressure on themselves from within their own organizations to fight harder for their members. But they also out chest-pound the militarist, or anti-communist, or anti-islamic chest-pounders they see as external threats to their power. See George Meany allying labor with support for the Viet Nam War. I was of two minds about this book. On one hand I found much here that makes sense. I have read Hedges before so know that he is an exceptionally bright guy who uses his prodigious critical faculties to figure out and report to us what is actually going on out there. I am mostly simpatico with his political leanings. On the other hand, I reacted to the book, at first, as I might to a cranky uncle, who rants incessantly about the failure of this or that politician. You know the one. Whatever your politics, left right or whatever, there is always a cranky uncle who just goes on and on about this or that failure or betrayal. The proper thing to do is to smile, excuse yourself from the room, and find some other air to breathe. It took me a while to get into the book, because I needed to breathe other air. It is not that the cranky uncle is necessarily wrong, just that the drone of what sounds like complaining starts to erode patches of skin after a time. Universities no longer train students to think critically, to examine and critique systems of power and cultural and political assumptions…Really? All of them? He also spends a chapter on the futility of war, with a focus on Afghanistan. I wonder if Europe felt it would have been a better approach to Hitler to have laid down their arms. Clearly there are times when the use of weaponry to preserve one’s existence is justified. Was the American Revolution won by mass demonstrations? The union preserved? While I agree with his positions re Iraq, and how the US mission in Afghanistan has become something other than what it was sold as, I take issue with his portrayal of war as completely indefensible. But once one gets over the tonality, and generalizations like the ones noted above, it becomes clear that there is actual coherence to what he has to say in Death of the Liberal Class. Just because Hedges might benefit from de-caf, and goes too far at times, does not mean that he is wrong in his overall take. Underlying all is the notion of permanent war, used as an excuse by government to do whatever the hell they please, the Constitution be damned. And once rights are abridged too far during real (WW I, WW II, et al) or even a faux wars (Cold War, Global War on Terror) they rarely make it back. Another major theme is the creation and growth of the cult of the self. Americans are raised to be, above all, consumers, and this has observable roots, and extreme implications. Hedges brings in many sources to back his analysis of liberalism’s corpse, on almost every page it seems. One may agree or disagree with his analysis, but he has plenty of company to buttress his take on things. Hedges paints with a very broad brush and in so doing, I think he overlooks some bright spots in the liberal world. For example, after years of Fox going unchallenged as a purveyor of lies and misdirection, MSNBC finally entered the fray, with at least some people there willing to point out where Fox lies and why, a task that was clearly beyond the three major networks. Of course, one must truly wonder how long a leash the politicals on MSNBC will be allowed, given that its ownership is as corporate as the network it counters. There is way, way far to go, but same-sex couples may legally wed in all 50 states, the pervasiveness of sexual predation has been getting a lot more sunlight than it ever had, and that is most definitely progress. Of course there are so many areas in which we are heading, no racing, in the wrong direction that occasional victories often seem Pyrrhic. Even after the mess Wall Street made of our economy, hell, the world’s economy, the government has done almost nothing to prevent them from doing it all over again. Unionization continues to plummet. The radicalized Supreme Court keeps broadening corporate rights and narrowing personal liberties. The wealth of the nation continues to flow to the incredibly wealthy at the expense of all of us, and the minions of the rich convince the victims of this economic rape that they had it coming. So if Hedges winds up seeing a dark age ahead, he has a pretty good basis. For a recent betrayal just take a quick look at this steaming turd the Obama administration tried to serve up to the American people as a reasonable compromise with the sociopaths of the right. Death of the Liberal Class is a grim read, but it is an enlightening one. It makes it clear why those of us on the left feel so betrayed by so much (not all) our leadership. It is because we have been, over and over and over. There is much detail in Hedges’ book that is worth knowing. Hopefully, some people will find a way to beat back the darkness. Maybe we can take some encouragement from the recent (2018) mid-term elections, and the 2020 excision of a cancerous growth. But while more and more people realize just what is going on, while more and more people feel the pain of growing concentration of wealth and rights, we are still afflicted with media that sets its own agenda, sells the corporate Kool-Aid about deficits and taxation, and depicts almost all who object as extremists. Hedges does not offer much in the way of tactics for resistance or even ways to evade subjugation. He seems to be despondent about the prospects for actual democracy going forward, but at least he has chalk-outlined the shape of the beast. Whether it was a lifetime of that special wartime hooch or corporate sweeteners, it was clear that the vic had issues with substances. But the body met its demise from a combination of external assaults, personal weaknesses and self-inflicted injuries. Skin that had turned blue from lack of oxygen, now, under the darkening sky of impending night, as a result of multiple stab wounds to both the front and back, shone a dark and sickly red. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s Twitter, FB and Youtube pages You can find a nice collection of his writings at Truthdig.com Items of interest -----7/11/11 - An interesting article regarding censorship -----11/8/11 - NY Times - Promises Made, and Remade, by Firms in S.E.C. Fraud Cases - just in case you are looking for recent evidence that even a supposedly liberal government is a captive to Wall Street money, proving yet again that there is no law, only power. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 30, 2011
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May 16, 2011
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Apr 30, 2011
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| 0385529953
| 9780385529952
| 0385529953
| 4.16
| 9,455
| Sep 21, 2010
| Nov 02, 2010
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it was amazing
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You don’t have to be Dorothy or “The One” to know that there is something foul going on behind the economic curtain. Matt Taibbi, a former contributin
You don’t have to be Dorothy or “The One” to know that there is something foul going on behind the economic curtain. Matt Taibbi, a former contributing editor at Rollingstone, rips away the misinformation that cloaks some of the most nefarious behavior in American history. He looks at a few elements of what can only be described as institutional organized crime and explains just what is going on in clear, understandable terms. The engine for looting the old ghetto neighborhoods was the drug trade, which served two purposes with brutal efficiency. Narco-business was the mechanism for concentrating all the money on the block into that Escalade-hungry dealer’s hands, while narco-chemistry was the mechanism for keeping the people on his block too weak and hopeless to do anything about it. The more dope you push into the neighborhood, the more weak, strung-out, and dominated the people who live there will be.Taibbi goes into detail on how this scam has been inflicted on so much of the population. He takes aim at the ethos of smug Ayn Rand acolytes, reserving particular scorn for Alan Greenspan. While Greenspan may indeed be, as Taibbi calls him, the “Biggest Asshole in the World,” it is the worldview of Rand’s followers and their impact on our economy has been remarkable and not in a good way. He shows how. Taibbi looks also at how commodity speculation has resulted in misery for all of us, how myopic government officials are racing to sell off public property and long-term revenue streams in return for short term payments solely to keep themselves in office through the next election cycle, how private interests have made a scandal of our national health care system and he offers a close look at the “vampire squid” that is Goldman Sachs. The latest economic downturn is not the first one, or even the largest, in which they have had causal impact. My one gripe with the book is Taibbi’s fondness for the foul. For example, while one may sympathize with Taibbi’s view of Alan Greenspan and his fellow Ayn Rand acolytes, it does his argument no service to call them “jerk-offs.” While such heartfelt expression may be satisfying, and might be standard fare for his Rollingstone readers, it makes his book inaccessible to any who are not already on board with his analysis. Once readers from an alternate view come across Taibbi’s merry profanity, they have an easy excuse to dismiss him. Griftopia reminded me of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine in its visceral impact. This is very compelling stuff. By the time you finish reading the book, you may want to invest in pitchfork and torch futures. Taibbi offers plenty of fuel with which we might light up the night. If only. January 14, 2019 - NY Times - Malaysia Blames Goldman Sachs for Stolen Billions - by Alexandra Stevenson OTHER READING April 19, 2012 - TARP on steroids for the EEU furthers the demise of democracy and guess who helped set it up?- The European Stabilization Mechanism, Or How the Goldman Vampire Squid Just Captured Europe June 21, 2012 - a Taibbi Rollingstone piece on how Wall Street rips us all off, The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia ==============================THE AUTHOR Links to the author’s Twitter and FB pages I could paste a gazillion Taibbi refs here, but if you are interested in more than the few listed here, the Google machine will happily spit up scads when you enter the author’s name. Matt at Rollingstone (he left there in February 2014) Matt’s pre-2011 blog My look at another Matt Taibbi book, the Divide ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 13, 2010
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Dec 16, 2010
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Dec 13, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 0618773479
| 9780618773473
| 0618773479
| 4.06
| 56,697
| Dec 14, 2005
| Sep 01, 2006
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it was amazing
| How to explain a place where hollow-bellied horses chewed on fence posts , where static electricity made it painful to shake another man’s hand, wh How to explain a place where hollow-bellied horses chewed on fence posts , where static electricity made it painful to shake another man’s hand, where the only thing growing that a man or cow could eat was an unwelcome foreigner, the Russian thistle? How to explain fifty thousand or more houses abandoned throughout the Great Plains, never to hear a child’s laugh or a woman’s song inside their walls? How to explain nine million acres of farmland without a master? America was passing this land by. It’s day was done.The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is far from public consciousness today, and that is a shame. There are lessons to be gleaned from that experience that apply directly to challenges of the 21st century. If we are not to be doomed to repeat the mistakes that were made before, it is critical that we know what happened then, how it came to be, and what might be done to prevent it, or things like it, from happening again. [image] Timothy Egan - image from Willamette.edu Timothy Egan takes on that task in The Worst Hard Time. In an interview with Author Magazine Egan tells of seeing his son’s American History text and being appalled that the Dust Bowl had been relegated to a single paragraph. In another interview he says, I want to see if history got it wrong. With the Dust Bowl, it wasn’t that history got it wrong, it’s just that they got a different take. Here’s the largest Diaspora in American history and our view of it is entirely from Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, where everyone left and went to California. Well, two thirds of the people didn’t leave.His methodology is not to lay out a raft of facts and statistics, but to follow several families through the ordeal of the Dust Bowl years. He focuses on the area where Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas meet. He does get in the numbers but the human experience is how he makes the era emotionally accessible. Egan has a gift. He is a wonderful story teller, with a feel for portraying people. Egan’s time as a young man writing a novel (unpublished) helped him find his voice and it is in full throat here. I was reminded of excellent war books that paint a picture from the point of view of soldiers on the ground. Sebastian Junger’s War and The Good Soldiers by David Finkel are recent examples that pop to mind. Egan’s people cover a wide range, cowboys, farmers, schoolteachers, immigrants. The primary actors are supported by a cast that includes racists, unscrupulous politicians, town boosters, journalists, a forward-looking conservationist and the odd president or two. But he incorporates more than just a few points of human reference, bringing to his tale a sense of narrative arc, a perspective he brings to all his writing. In the Writers Workship interview he says, “I don’t want a phone book of episodic oral history. I’m looking for beginning, middle and end. I want things to happen. I want the reader to see change. All the things you want in fiction.” Take a landscape that is prone to drought, a place that has almost no river water, a place where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain fast and relentlessly. Remove from that landscape the grass that has evolved over thousands of years to survive in such conditions, grass that fixes the soil to the ground. Throw in a government policy that promotes populating a place that had been called the American Desert well before the 1930s, giving land away to get people to settle there. Plow it under and plant as much grain as you can. The result? After decades of misguided land use, then several years of severe drought, the topsoil goes airborne and the wind becomes a vehicle for destruction on a biblical scale. This was an era when simply breathing was a life-threatening exercise, as thousands were affected by pneumonia caused by constant dust bombardments filling up their lungs. The Red Cross gave out thousands of face masks to help people fend off the flying dirt. They would be covered within an hour. Lives were extinguished by perennially awful conditions, and help was not a thing one could count on. Worldwide economic conditions contributed to the creation of the Dust Bowl, and did not aid in its recovery, but ignorance, greed, shortsightedness and damn foolishness were big players as well. I was blown away by scenes that could have come from the time of plagues in Egypt, from a science fiction tale about surviving on a hostile new planet, or, worse, from a horror movie. Infestations of centipedes, clouds of locusts, Sunday community events centered on slaughtering rabbits by the thousand, trying to find one’s way from place to place through blinding clouds of soil, machinery failing because of the extreme static electricity in the air, rapidly forming dunes stopping traffic. It is a chilling tale. There are also heartening stories of communities banding together to help each other forestall foreclosures, and of an enlightened scientist determined to save the land from such callous disregard. At the end of the book Egan looks at some of the present-day foolishness that is contributing to future catastrophes. He could have gone on for a lot more, but showed considerable restraint. That sort of perspective is in good supply these days in the work of serious writers. Michael Lewis, in The Big Short offers a pointed look at how short term gain crushing long term investment did serious damage not only to Wall Street firms but to the nation, and indeed the world. Jared Diamond’s Collapse looks at the damage to civilizations that a solely short-term perspective can have. The Worst Hard Time is an outstanding book. The National Book Award people certainly thought so, bestowing on it their 2006 award for Best Nonfiction Book. Egan makes the time come alive, shows how the Dust Bowl came to be, looks at the impact it had on area residents, what was done to try to fix the problem, and sounds an alarm for us all to make sure we don’t repeat the errors of our past. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal and Twitter pages Egan’s columns for the New York Times Interviews ——Houghton Mifflin - A conversation with Timothy Egan ——Duncan Entertainment - Landslide -- A Portrait of President Herbert Hoover - by Tracey Dorsey ——The Writer’s Workshop - Nature Bats Last: A Talk with Timothy Egan - by Nick O’Connell —— Author Magazine - Timothy Egan Interview Items of Interest ——There is an outstanding 1998 PBS documentary in their American Experience series on the 1930s, Surviving the Dust Bowl ——A seminal documentary from the time, The Plow That Broke the Plains ——A new (April 9, 2015) piece by Chris Megerian in the LA Times on how bad drought conditions are becoming in California, California faces 'Dust Bowl'-like conditions amid drought, says climate tracker ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 15, 2010
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Nov 18, 2010
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Nov 15, 2010
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Paperback
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| 0465014917
| 9780465014910
| 0465014917
| 4.05
| 5,624
| 2010
| Mar 02, 2010
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it was amazing
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This book should be required reading for every person with a child in public school, for every person who was educated in public schools, for every pe
This book should be required reading for every person with a child in public school, for every person who was educated in public schools, for every person who offers an opinion on what should be done with our public schools, for every politician who offers criticisms of public education or solutions to educational challenges, and for every person who has the right to vote in the United States. The author has drilled down beneath the quotidian sound bites of educational policy discourse to offer a hard-hitting, fact-rich examination of what has happened and what is happening in and to American public schools. Ravitch’s background is as an education historian. She had been a player in designing a history curriculum for the state of California, and in 1991 was offered a position in the Bush (the 1st) Administration Department of Education. She became a supporter of much of the Republican policy view of the time, tilting toward things like vouchers, charter schools, privatization, reducing the power of teachers’ unions. [image] The author She has a lot to say about No Child Left Behind, market-based school models, accountability, and the impact of billionaire-based foundations that have become players in the national discussion of what to do with our public school system. She reports on many studies that examined outcomes. Where did the notion of charter schools originate? What was their original purpose? Are charter schools better than regular public schools? Are there downsides to downsizing? How important are credentials for teachers? Do academic outcomes differ when unionized systems are compared to systems where there are no teachers union? What is the impact of the increased focus on testing? Although she does mention some of the crazies who infest our educational system with outlandish, anti-scientific notions, and faith-based demands, they do not get all that much attention. I thought their toxicity merited a bit more of a look, particularly those in Texas who have such a major impact on textbooks nationwide, but that is a minor beef. I also found it a bit hard to swallow that she claims the NCLB proponents did not intend for the program to destroy the American public education system, but she offers plenty of evidence that indicates it was designed from the start to do exactly that. Your homework for tonight is to read Ravitch’s informative, thoughtful, insightful look at where our public schools stand and how they got there. It is highly educational. There will be a quiz. ==============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, blog, Twitter and FB pages 5/12/11 NY Times Gail Collins had a wonderful column re all this on May 11, 2011, Reading, ’Riting and Revenues 5/17/2011 - The headline of this short NY Times article, does not actually capture the larger picture, namely that the state was overriding local wishes and forcing charter schools on localities that did not want them and has now met with resistance in the form of a court decision saying it was not ok to do that. In Georgia, Court Ruling Could Close Some Charter Schools 7/16/11 A Washington Post Op Ed dealing with the issue of How Important is Class Size After All? 7/17/11 "Charter School Battle Shifts to Affluent Suburbs" - in an affluent New Jersey suburb, a battle looms because some locals want to create a Mandarin-immersion charter school, using public money for what seems pretty obviously a private party. 9/14/11 A very intriguing piece in Smithsonian Magazine Smithsonian Magazine about the world's most successful school system 10/13/2011 Jeb Bush's advocacy of on-line learning offers another example of a right-wing desire to privatize education, from Mother Jones. Also from this source, how the ever-present unscrupulous are cashing in on the charter movement 11/19/2011 Lee Fang, of The Nation has written an amazing article on the nuts and bolts of how our public school system is under attack by the profit sector. Of perhaps the greatest interest here is how the electoral process is being routinely undermined so that voters are distracted by issues A, B, and C, while the real goal, D, slips under the radar. This is a must read. How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools 2/17/2012 This NY Times article tells how a Chicago Charter School network is finding new ways to pad it's income and push out students it does not want 2/26/2012 This NY Times article by Michael Winerip shows that a high profile charter school advocate has based her rep on success with schools in DC when she was in charge. There is only one problem. There is a strong possibility that the improved numbers were fake. So why is the head of the Department of Education appearing at events with her? The same sort of cheating appears to be happening in Atlanta. Amid a Federal Education Inquiry, an Unsettling Sight 4/20/2012 - Teach the Books, Touch the Heart, By Claire Needell Hollander - A New York City middle-school teacher talks about the value of teaching literature instead of solely teaching to mandatory multiple-choice literature-challenged tests. 4/27/12 - In A Very Pricey Pineapple, an op-ed by NY Times columnist Gail collins, she points out who has not been left behind by NCLB. 5/22/12 - This NY Times article Public Money Finds Back Door to Private Schools shows how the religious right has found a way around the legal, separation-of-church-and-state, impediments to vouchers for religious schools, and come up with a tax-code-based workaround, neo-vouchers. This is a compelling example of the religious right nursing at the public tit while decrying the existence of breasts 1/1/15 - I just came across this article by David Sirota, even though it came out in June 2013. Definitely worth a look - New data shows school 'reformers' are full of it 2/13/16 - A brief piece on how teachers are blamed for the ills of society - Stop Humiliating Teachers - by David Denby 6/28/16 - A substantial piece in the New York Times on Detroit's experience with large scale charter schooling - For Detroit’s Children, More School Choice but Not Better Schools - by Kate Zernike -- Must-read material for any interested in the subject 8/14/18 - A NY Times op-ed on the relationship between charters and ongoing segregation - School Choice Is the Enemy of Justice - By Erin Aubry Kaplan 9/5/18 - NY Times - Lawmakers Cut Education Budgets. Then Teachers Got Angry. - by Dale Russikoff - The title of this piece is misleading, suggesting a one-time cut in education spending, and selfish teachers griping. It is anything but. Teachers in Arizona were responding to year after year after year of education cuts, while taxes on the wealthy were being cut year after year after year, and money intended for public education was being channeled to supporting private schools. Teachers finally had enough and started to organize. Of course, Arizona is a dead-red Republican state, so the GOP and the Vermilion Varmints from the world of Koch unleashed a torrent of cash to keep the teachers from having their say, probably paying off some judges as well. Compelling reading and an eye-opening look at how democracy is being attacked by big money interests in the arena of public education. 2/11/19 - NY Times - How West Virginia’s Education Bill Will Punish Children - by Lauren Peace - WV legislators seem determined to enable privatization of public education and kill teacher unions, what we have come to expect from Republicans 5/26/19 - NY Times - Bernie Sanders’s Education Plan Laments Rise of Charter Schools - while not a huge fan of Bernie, I am with him on this one ...more |
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Oct 31, 2010
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Nov 04, 2010
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Oct 31, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 0061711527
| 9780061711527
| 0061711527
| 3.67
| 16,142
| Jan 25, 2011
| Jan 25, 2011
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it was amazing
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Once upon a time it was considered attractive for women to have some actual flesh on them; small boys wore pink dresses while little girls wore blue;
Once upon a time it was considered attractive for women to have some actual flesh on them; small boys wore pink dresses while little girls wore blue; childrens television shows were not designed specifically to sell toy lines, and manufacturers did not push pink-colored merchandise for a vast range of products to enhance their bottom lines. Pre-teen girls were not encouraged to dress like streetwalkers and bump and grind like exotic dancers. Surely girls were never presented with a global range of options and encouragement to pursue their dreams, career-wise that is, unfettered by domestic and sexual expectations. But the environment today is different in type, comprehensiveness and degree from the world of our mothers. [image] Peggy Orenstein - image from Barb - photo by Michael Todd When my youngest was a wee lass, she was fond of presenting herself to anyone who would attend, resplendent in a T-shirt that sported a bevy of Disney heroines, and demand of her audience, “Who’s your favorite princess?” I still had visions back then of her playing hardball on a mostly boys team, and build on her utter fearlessness on the monkey bars to work up to a bit of serious climbing some day. I viewed her princess fixation as a passing phase. Yes, her favorite color was pink, and it is only recently, well into teen years, (when this was written) 0that her favored palette has broadened. (Whew!) But my daughter was hardly alone in her predilections. She (and her parental units) had been deluged with a marketing environment that has forced little girls into a pink mindset like a prince trying to stuff an evil-stepsister foot into a tiny glass slipper. So what’s the deal with all the pink that is engulfing today’s young girls? Peggy Orenstein, parent to a budding princess of her own, took notice, did some investigation and came up seeing red. Cinderella Ate My Daughter tells what she found. She covers a wide swath. Orenstein wonders what is actually wrong with the Cinderella image. Nothing at all if your goal is to be valued solely for your looks and to be rescued from a poor existence by a handsome and wealthy guy. There can be no higher value in a princess than materialism. She also notes that princesses are not exactly the girl-bonding sort. There is very little room on a throne. Hardly a recipe for winning friends and influencing people. Self realization has been replaced by self-marketing. One subject that permeates is the impact of corporate marketing. From a Disney exec’s multi-billion dollar eureka moment, when he came up with the notion of selling princess clothing and sundries to a huge girl market, to the sexualized dolls and gear of the late 20th and early 21st century, to the “pinking” of everything, top-down product pushing has had a major impact on the world. Do we really need pink soccer balls? Pink baseball caps? Casey Stengel is spinning in his grave. The reason for this silliness is nothing less than the profit motive. If you can sell more product by differentiating into multiple versions, it is nothing less than the American way. Orenstein talks with a marketing exec who credits “the pink factor” with increasing sales. But the downside to advanced marketing prowess and relentless market segmentation is actual long run harm. Pink is associated with all things girly-girl. And that carries baggage. A fixation on pink makes it that much tougher for girls to be all they can be if who they are falls outside the extant confines of what it means to be a girl. Ostracism for being different is quite real. And having primed girls to define themselves by the things they buy, the market now offers them more and more sexualized products. Bratz sashayed onto the market as a sort of slut-Barbie, to be followed by others from that sort of stable. Whereas dolls were once a sign of innocence, many of them have become something much darker. Don’t be fooled by products flogged as “sassy.” Take a look in your magic mirror and see that “sassy” translates to “sexy.” Orenstein looks also at where nature and nurture diverge, reporting on some very surprising studies. Can the brain be changed by one’s environment? Is gender preference for types of toys nature or nurture? Are children maturing faster today than they have in the past? There is also a wonderful discussion of the Brothers Grimm. And you will be surprised to hear of the impact one former president had on things girlish. As with the BP disaster, the impact of all this gender stereotyping and sexual hyping will be emerging for many years to come. For our young girls, it might be better not to be in the pink if it means increasing sexualization of childhood and decreasing social, educational, recreational and career options due to having to survive in an ofF-red monoculture. When short term financial gain is all, and long term consequences are merely corporate externalities, not only are our girls harmed, but our nation suffers. What talents, what potential progress might be stifled by a culture that steers girls into a curved cattle chute that dissuades difference? Such a culture does less to empower and more to make young women handmaids to the bottom line. Perhaps in some future column or later edition of the book, I would like to see more on sociobiology. We need a baseline. If girls are being moved away from some natural state, what can science tell us about what the parameters of that natural state might be? What behaviors are inherited from our cave-dwelling or pre-agricultural days? But that is a quibble. This is an outstanding, if alarming, overview of just how the world is conspiring against our girls, covering many areas of interest, from neuroplasticity to changing views on weight, from the impact of Barbie and American Girl dolls to girls in on-line culture. Cinderella Ate my Daughter is a compelling read, but it is not a pretty picture. ==============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages 2/4/11 I came across a really good review of this in the NY Times. I am so jealous. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/boo... And I hear that Cinderella will be making its well-deserved way onto the NYT bestseller list 'ere long. 9/14/11 I received this alarming bit this morning, a serious eye-roller. What are these people thinking! 3/30/12 - Puberty Before Age 10: A New ‘Normal’?, by Elizabeth Weil - A fascinating article on early development in girls 12/2/12 I just came across this excellent GR review by my pal Cathy 3/29/13 This report on sexualization of girls from American Psychological Association is chilling stuff 4/2/13 This seemed the best review in which to place this link. My son posted it on his FB page. From Womens Press, Losing my religion for equality…by Jimmy Carter 5/29/13 Just in case you do not get down to comment #64, GR friend Caroline, has alerted us all to a wonderful piece on CNN's Opinion page, by David M. Perry, For strong daughters, stop with the sex stereotypes. I would add even for those who might not be so strong. Many beasts remain to be slain. 6/13/13 GR, and actual, friend Cathy turned up this item about some more wonderfulness. If you find yourself in Berlin this summer and feel a need for some serious eye-rolling, you might want to check out this exhibit, Barbie’s Dream House? 2/28/14 A different Disney princess song - enjoy 4/5/14 An interesting piece from Slate on the innateness of gender-based toy selection 7/14/14 - I came across an article about a wonderful project, looking at what might have happened were Disney princesses living in the real world, dark but fun 8/12/16 - An interesting NY Times article on one of the downsides of an excess focus on appearance - For Teenage Girls, Swimsuit Season Never Ends - by Lisa Damour PS - My who’s your favorite princess child is now (2023) running marathons on the other coast and wherever they are held, managing medical trials for a new drug, studying for a Masters degree and is soon to be married, to an accomplished cancer researcher, which is much better than a prince. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Sep 29, 2010
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Oct 03, 2010
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Sep 29, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 0061733210
| 9780061733215
| 0061733210
| 3.70
| 1,064
| May 25, 2010
| Jun 08, 2010
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it was amazing
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Rivlin has pulled together a lot on information on several types of enterprises that exist to exploit the poor people of our country. Although pawnsho
Rivlin has pulled together a lot on information on several types of enterprises that exist to exploit the poor people of our country. Although pawnshops are noted in the sub-head, they receive little attention. Of far greater concern here are check cashing stores, (tax) Return Anticipation Loans, or RALs, rent-to-buy shops and predatory sub-prime lending. It is quite clear that small loans make huge profits. You will be shocked when you learn what actual APRs are being charged. I was not unaware, in general, of the issues Rivlin covers, but he goes into this range of businesses in serious detail and I learned a lot. He interviewed many players from businesses to consumer advocates to clients. I was reminded of the recent Michael Lewis release, The Big Short. Here also we get to meet people who had the prescience to see what was possible, on both sides, before the enterprise became mega. There are heroes and villains in Broke, USA, and some who shade towards gray, but you will never look at your neighborhood check-cashing place the same way again. I was most intrigued by a section in which Rivlin shows that at the same time that a major bank was denying loans in a particular neighborhood, and closing its branches, it was buying up sub-prime lending shops in the same area, without attaching the familiar corporate logo to them, so was more than willing to lend, but only at usurious rates. Rivlin demonstrates that there is no economic basis for the extreme rates charged to poor people for loans. Lenders can make money by charging only a modest amount above the rates available to people with good credit. This is a hard-hitting and important work, and deserves a prominent place in every discussion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and a hearing in every state and locality with an interest in protecting its citizens from the jaws of predators. It will make you angry. It should. =============================EXTRA STUFF January 24, 2012 - Another way in which predators feed on the poor and middle class in my owed private Idaho - Zombie debt creeps onward in Idaho courts May 17, 2012 - A Barbara Ehrenreich article on how local governments and the private sector are squeezing the poor. Dickens would find 21st Century America far too familiar. October 22, 2014 - A NY Times report on the increasing impact of foxes in hen-houses, States Ease Interest Rate Laws That Protected Poor Borrowers January 24, 2018 - Barbarians inside the gates - The CFPB Is Now the Predatory Lender Protection Bureau The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was once an agency dedicated to preventing banks and credit-card companies from scamming ordinary Americans. Now, it is an agency dedicated to protecting potential financial scammers from legal penalties.February 7, 2019 - Truthout - Trump Moves to End Consumer Protections From Payday Lenders - by Jake Johnson - The sort of horror we know to expect from this administration April 16, 2019 - Mick Mulvaney’s Master Class in Destroying a Bureaucracy From Within - By Nicholas Confessore - As so often happens at the NY Times, the headline offers a tilt that is a bit misleading. Use of the buzzword bureaucracy in the title suggests that Mulvaney is out to reduce that other oft-cited, rarely-justified bête noire, waste and mismanagement. The article is actually a blow-by-blow look at how Mulvaney is dismantling the agency that was set up specifically to protect consumers from predatory financial institutions. Mulvaney is more than happy to side with wolves over sheep. It is well worth checking out how the destruction of our democracy is being implemented. ...more |
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not set
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Jun 2010
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Jun 21, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 0393072231
| 9780393072235
| 0393072231
| 4.30
| 162,662
| Mar 15, 2010
| Mar 15, 2010
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really liked it
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Michael Lewis looks at a handful of people who saw what was happening in the US economy, tried to sound an alarm, but also used their knowledge to mak
Michael Lewis looks at a handful of people who saw what was happening in the US economy, tried to sound an alarm, but also used their knowledge to make barrels of cash. If the tales told here, following the fiscal 9/11 that is Wall Street ethics, do not scare you away from investing with any Wall Street firm, I do not know what will. Lewis may single-handedly revive stuffing cash in mattresses as a savings option. [image] Michael Lewis - image from Boston’s WBUR - photo by Robin Lubbock What becomes clear is that there is no substitute for doing the hard work of gathering and analyzing data. That, really, is what the people portrayed here did. And they were confident enough in their analysis that they used it to personal advantage. Not all are Gordon Gecko types, sociopathic greed machines. Some even tried to warn legislators and corporations at risk just how crazy the bubbling market had become. I suppose it should come as no shock that short-term gain, even if based on insanity, will always triumph long-term rationality if it means reducing the next quarter’s profits. Well, almost always. One key is the willingness of ratings agencies, like Moody’s and S&P, to hold their noses and rate as triple-A offerings that should have been rated as triple-crap. As long as the ratings agencies are reliant on businesses which bring products to them to rate, it is difficult to see how meaningful change can be effected. Lewis has produced a very interesting portrait not only of a group of super-bright analysts, but of Wall Street gone wild. The book offers insight into the details of how the mess was made possible. It is one of the best looks at the financial crisis I have seen. Maybe I should invest in a better mattress? 1/22/16 - Saw the film tonight, and it is fracking brilliant! =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to Lewis's personal and Facebook sites Reviews of other books by the author ----- Boomerang ----- Moneyball ...more |
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not set
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May 2010
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Jun 03, 2010
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| 0061937193
| 9780061937194
| 0061937193
| 3.59
| 651
| Apr 23, 2010
| Apr 27, 2010
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liked it
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Richard Florida covers a lot of turf here, arguing that systemic economic changes happen infrequently, but dramatically, changing not only the technol
Richard Florida covers a lot of turf here, arguing that systemic economic changes happen infrequently, but dramatically, changing not only the technology that supports us, but the geography in which we live our lives. Florida posits that because some natural level of innovation is suppressed by a lack of capital investment during dark economic times, it builds up and and bursts forth once things start to improve. Florida posits a “Spatial Fix” element to resets, noting mostly the suburbanization of the 1950s, as part of a post WW II reset, but says that spatial fixes are only one element of a reset and that when they reach their limits, the cycle begins again. He argues that, geographically, the current or impending reset will involve the rise of megaregions. The Boston-New York-Washington, or BosWash megalopolis is the one most familiar to American readers, but there are many others, both globally and within the USA. Although they may not be knit together politically, they cohere economically, are the driving force behind most economic growth and will continue to surge as engines of future development. One point Florida raises is our national focus on home ownership. He says that one effect of our high rates of such attachment is that it keeps many people from moving on when they are no longer viable in a particular locale. If people cannot sell their homes when they might want to move to a more lucrative career opportunity, such attachment serves as a brake on not just personal freedom, but innovation overall. He suggests we rethink the tax advantages we heap on home ownership, and increase the percentage of housing used as rental. I take issue with a lot of what Florida uses as backup. He cites increasing productivity of labor during the 30s but makes no mention of the slave-wages workers were getting or the complete lack of job security. Of course productivity was rising, but the benefits were not going to the workers. Also, government was helping out business as Democrats were busy saving capitalism from its own excesses. No mention of that here. Re New York and London as financial capitals, Florida sees them remaining where they are atop that pile for quite some time, based on the diverse economies that underlie them both. He cites Jane Jacobs liberally here, arguing for diversity as a key to urban vitality. Tokyo, for example, with only 1 percent of its workforce non-Japanese will never be able to offer the diversity of a place like New York. “It is somewhat ironic that in this era of supposedly frictionless communication and highly mobile talent, the local cultural and social life determines who gets the talent. Even though talent is mobile and can flow freely, the issue remains: where does it want to go? That’s why I’m betting that New York and London will remain the key global financial centers for the foreseeable future.” (p 60) He sees generational change as places like Detroit, heavily reliant on manufacturing and home to an increasing proportion of working class people, will, in the natural course of events, eventually depopulate considerably. They cannot sustain the populations they had when they were meccas of production. So what should the government do re directing aid? Should it try to prop up declining locations or direct aid to individuals, try to offer educational opportunity to the displaced and let them land where they may? He believes that large urban renewal projects and govt bailouts of industries are counter-productive. He urges investment in small entrepreneurship, and in developing arts and culture. He adds in developing high-speed rail as a way to link rust belt cities into hubs. Pointing to what he sees as increasing importance of “megaregions” in economic affairs, both nationally and globally. The high-speed Rail systems will help knit these regions together. While I take issue with how Florida goes about supporting his notions, he has a lot to say that is very thought-provoking. I do wish he would have offered some nods toward the benefits of unionization as a means of helping real flattening of economic pyramids. But the needs of labor that is not in his creative sweet spot does not seem to stimulate much interest. So, is a reset inevitable? What happens if there is not a reset? Should government encourage a reset? How to cope with the downside of reset? It is an interesting read. Not, perhaps, entirely convincing, but worth a look. ...more |
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not set
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Apr 2010
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May 31, 2010
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Hardcover
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| 0061579076
| 9780061579073
| 0061579076
| 4.03
| 97
| Nov 12, 2009
| Dec 01, 2009
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it was amazing
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This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in
This is a must read for anyone who is interested in international affairs, ecological threats or climate issues. The changes that are taking place in the Arctic will have great impact on the rest of the world. Alun Anderson offers a look at various aspects of that change with an eye to the potential dangers and benefits. Anderson looks first at the people who inhabit the north, the Inuit, whether in Canada, Greenland, the USA or Russia, reports on the issues faced by local residents, their hopes for the future and the challenges they face. Next he writes about the alarming decline in arctic ice coverage, looking at several of the factors that contribute to the change. The obvious decreases in area covered by ice does not take account of the decrease in ice depth or age. New ice is shallower, more susceptible to melting and, being lighter, is more easily pushed to warmer seas by arctic winds. How will Arctic territorial claims by the several nations with Arctic borders be resolved? How much of the Arctic is national territory and how much is international waters? Who will have a say in how conflicting claims are resolved? Oil drilling in the Arctic. Is it possible? If so, how will it be done, how much, by whom, with what benefits and what risks. So much information here, and so many questions. There are opportunities to adapt, but the potential dangers are, well, chilling. UPDATES 10/18/11 - NY Times article - Warming Revives Dream of Sea Route in Russian Arctic 05/06/12 - The scientists at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology have come up with yet more confirmation for global warming being the cause of Arctic de-icing. 5/23/2012 - Obama OKs Arctic Drilling 7/2/2012 - What to expect with spills in the Arctic - Shell Clarifies: It can 'Encounter' 95 Percent of an Arctic Oil Spill, Not Collect It 8/28/2012 - NY Times article - Satellites Show Sea Ice in Arctic Is at a Record Low 6/22/14 - The name Hank Paulson might ring a bell from the economic collapse of the late Bush administration. He is now counseling the world to not ignore the signs of impending climate disaster the way he did the signs of impending economic meltdown when he was in office. In this small NY Times article, he sees an opportunity for the USA and China to work together to make a difference. The piece is titled, The Coming Climate Crash, and I am certain Paulson is sincere, but in the absence of any gray matter in today's nihilistic, scorched-earth Republican Party, no common sense recommendations have a prayer when they have to compete with what he calls short-termism. Of course Paulson engages in the sort of self-serving, narrow-view interpretation of the past that one can expect from Republicans who have been bounced out of the public sphere (see recent pronouncements from professional liar Dick Cheney, griping about ISIS miseries in Iraq), somehow ignoring true details of their involvement in creating the messes they would have the rest of us pay to clean up now. He ignores the corruption that was inherent in causing the economic crash at his peril. All that said, it is encouraging whenever one of the dark-side sorts sees the light on any policy matter of substance. And while there is certainly room for debate on whether the carbon tax is the best approach to reducing emissions, it is encouraging that he is one Republican who seems ready to set aside the politics of blame-the-black-guy to seek actual solutions. Take it all with a grain of salt. Paulson will not be facing voters, ever, so can say things that politicians faced with the Deliverance demographic and the desire for Koch Brothers support would never admit to. Science is real. It is getting corrupt legislators to vote in the actual interests of their voter-constituents and not merely serve the demands of their funder-constituents that is the real challenge. And all the research in the world, and intelligent policy planning will not move that mountain. Still, it is a net positive to hear from a Republican that reality exists and should be addressed. It is a rare thing and should be cherished. October 9, 2015 - This LA Times article, What Exxon knew about the Earth's melting Arctic, By SARA JERVING, KATIE JENNINGS, MASAKO MELISSA HIRSCH AND SUSANNE RUST lets us know what Exxon knew and when they knew it as regards global warming. Yet another sociopathic corporation lying to the public with a straight face. Strong stuff. November 2015 - The latest National Geographic focuses on global warming. It includes this story about How Melting Ice Changes One Country’s Way of Life Although the book here is about the Arctic, there is plenty going on in Antarctica as well. You mighr want to check out Countries Rush for Upper Hand in Antarctica, a NY Times Magazine piece By Simon Romero, with photographs by Daniel Berehulan, about the international competition going on right now for for resources real and potential at the bottom of the world. The March 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine has an amazing article about the challenges and dangers of resource extraction in the Arctic - In the Arctic’s Cold Rush, There Are No Easy Profits - By Joel K. Bourne, Jr. - Photographs by Evgenia Arbugaeva - check it out [image] The new Goliat platform awaits commissioning in a fjord near Hammerfest, Norway, last April. Now moored in the Barents Sea at 71° north, it’s the world’s northernmost offshore oil platform. -= from the NatGeo article September 19, 2016 - Arctic Ice Shrinks to Second Lowest Level on Record by The Associated Press - in the New York Times March 22, 2017 - Washington Post - The Arctic just set a grim new record for low levels of sea ice - by Chris Mooney April 26, 2017 - National Geographic - An interesting piece on the vulnerability of once-frozen archaeological relics to thawing and increasingly destructive erosion by a tumultuous Bering Sea - Alaska’s Thaw Reveals—and Threatens—a Culture’s Artifacts - by A. R. Williams -- Photographs by Erika Larsen [image] This centuries-old ulu, or cutting tool, was plucked from the thawing ground at Nunalleq. Embodying the native Yupik belief that everything is constantly in transition, the handle can be seen as either a seal or a whale. October 2017 - National Geographic Magazine - They Migrate 800 Miles a Year. Now It’s Getting Tougher, By Gleb Raygorodetsky - on the Nenets, reindeer herders of the Russian Arctic, and how their lives are being impacted by global warming and development [image] A Nenet herder leading his charges past a Russian gas pipeline - from the above article - photo by Evgenia Arbugaeva November 25, 2017 - NY Times - Why Lost Ice Means Lost Hope for an Inuit Village - by Livia Albeck-Ripka January 2018 - National Geographic Magazine - Last Ice - The Arctic’s perennial sea ice cover—the ice that survives the summer melt season—has shrunk dramatically - by Tim Folger [image] Dripping wet, a polar bear climbs onto an ice floe in northernmost Hudson Bay. Polar bears perch on sea ice to ambush seals—the source of 90 percent of their calories—when the seals surface. National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala is leading an effort to preserve some of the bears’ dwindling habitat. “In Russia we found bears stuck on islands eating grass and seabirds,” he says. (text from NatGeo - photo by Paul Souders) - from the above article February 22, 2018 - Washington Post - Arctic temperatures soar 45 degrees above normal, flooded by extremely mild air on all sides - by Jason Samenow [image] The temperature difference from normal over the Arctic averaged over the next five days in the GFS model forecast. (University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer) March 23, 2018 - National Geographic - Arctic Sea Ice Is Second-Lowest on Record - by Craig Welch [image] Arctic ice is getting thinner as the planet warms - Photograph by Rich Reid, National Geographic Creative - from above article January 21, 2019 - NY Times - Greenland’s Melting Ice Nears a ‘Tipping Point,’ Scientists Say - by John Schwartz ...more |
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| Jan 22, 2009
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really liked it
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Ahamed has written a fascinating account of how four central bankers were at the core of the economic madness that gripped the world after World War I
Ahamed has written a fascinating account of how four central bankers were at the core of the economic madness that gripped the world after World War I and led to the second great war. The personalities are interesting, and the scent of the times wafts from the pages sufficient to sting the nostrils. This is a book written for a popular audience. No great knowledge of economics is required. But that sure would help. It is not only our elected officials, Wall Street brokers and government officials who are ignorant of the rules of economics. I, and surely many of you are as well. For me, it is a sort of blockage, like being able to read music. I taught myself to play the guitar at age 15, not well, but at all, and played for some years thereafter, writing a few songs, even performing on stage a few times, but I was never able to learn to read music. I tried several times, but was never able to get past a crude identification of the difference between whole, half and quarter notes. In the same way, whenever I have tried to crack the code that is economics, the result was intellectual cacophony. As that pertains here, while the story is fascinating, and the wealth of information proffered expands our knowledge of the times, one can only grasp a percentage of what is offered if one is economically tone deaf. I just do not get how a currency can be based upon the presence of gold or any other substance for that matter. Why not seashells or jelly beans? As a considerable portion of the book focuses on the ramifications of the gold standard, my intellectual economic disability severely reduces the understanding I can gain here. If you get the gold standard and are comfortable with discussions of macro economics, this will be mother’s milk for you. Great stuff. For the rest of us, it is a fascinating look at a tumultuous period with color portraits of some of the central players in the world economy. Ahamed appears to be blaming the four economic titans on which he focuses for the ensuing economic and military maelstrom. But what should they have done, what could they have done, had the power to do, differently that would have changed the outcome? To lay blame at their door seems a convenient way to personalize blame for undercurrents that are all too widespread in humanity, short-sidedness, greed, mean-spiritedness, and downright stupidity. OK, wise guy, what should they have done? Yes, people, individuals, particularly powerful, influential individuals matter. But history is not just a series of he did this and she did that. There are currents to history that flow, regardless of how large the fish may be that inhabit the waters. The economic miseries of today are not merely a product of the madness of King Dubyah. The latter reflects the former and not the other way around. One reason to read this book is to see how our current fiscal crisis might resemble those of the past. And indeed it does. Perhaps the mis-steps that were taken might be avoided today if we are to learn from history. But if there is one thing that we learn from history it is that people rarely, if ever, learn from history. It is an easy and interesting read. Whatever the conclusions the author may draw from his story, and whatever the cranial incapacities of an individual reader, the story itself is quite intriguing. ...more |
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| 3.84
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Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was a scorching look at how western capital exploits third world countries in order to use their resources
Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was a scorching look at how western capital exploits third world countries in order to use their resources and encourage them to take on unsupportable mounds of debt to ensure their future subservience. He is back in familiar, shark-infested waters showing how the forces that made an art of international rape and pillage are applying the same methods inside the USA. [image] John Perkins He touches on a wide range of topics, all relevant, and all interesting, yet I felt that the book was all over the place and needed some editorial direction. But, while it may have left me unsatisfied as a focused, cogent argument, each of the individual chapters are rich with information and insight. Among the items of interest are looks at the true cost of the US military, the varying public and legal expectation of corporations regarding a requirement that they behave in a responsible manner, the impact of debt on a range of actors, from foreign nations to Joe Six-pack, the ability of corporations to externalize their costs onto the public, and the significance of shifting from an economy that produces things to one that produces paper. Perkins offers some directions for changing from our suicidal status quo. I found much of his program bromitic and naïve. But I may be wrong. He suggests that we, as concerned citizens, take specific actions to change corporate behavior. Creating, and participating in, movements to demand change. A movement by people refusing to buy sneakers manufactured in sweat shops was one such effort that has had some success. Buying locally produced food is another. His approach at least offers individuals an opportunity to take concrete personal action. And that is a worthwhile thing. It is certainly true that some such activity has had noticeable market effect. Hopefully some change can be effected at a higher, governmental level. But as long as government and the corporatocracy are so closely intermingled, government is unlikely to offer much. Personally, I favor torches and pitchforks, but that is probably not a viable program in a world so rich with automatic weaponry. Bottom line is that, while Hoodwinked is no Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, it is a worthwhile read in which the elements offer sufficient fodder to make a decent meal. =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to the author’s personal, Twitter and FB pages ...more |
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| May 26, 2009
| May 26, 2009
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it was ok
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Senator Dorgan offers us a limited survey course on public policy, looking at war profiteering, the financial crisis, the need for health coverage ref
Senator Dorgan offers us a limited survey course on public policy, looking at war profiteering, the financial crisis, the need for health coverage reform, wildly irresponsible fiscal policies, the wall-street debacle, increasing concentration of wealth at the top, energy, immigration, tax policy. As a survey it is certainly a useful volume. But only if the reader has just returned from a trip to, say, Mars. There is very little that is new or news here, and getting even to what is book-worthy requires slogging through large dollops of stale, stump-speech humor (and even when he produces something relatively funny, he feel a need to throw in a “just kidding,” lest someone who voted for Herbert Hoover take offense) and bucket-loads of not-my-fault. It’s not folksy, it’s annoying. I am not sure who Dorgan’s projected audience is. Wonkish types know the policy issues as well as he does and the general public is unlikely to pick up a policy book by a Senator. It is not likely to be an election ad. The guy is not running for higher office, as far as I know. Make no mistake, I like Dorgan. I think he is a decent guy with a better-than-average take on a wide range of political issues. I might even vote for him were he running in my state, but the book left me dry. One positive is that he offers a list of ways one might address the issues he identifies. Of course his solutions are not always comprehensive enough for my taste. He focuses in particular on the financial crisis, with particular emphasis on the greed of insiders and the unwillingness of Washington to do their regulatory due diligence, war and profiteering, energy policy and health care. If you read policy books and real newspapers, there is little here that will be news to you, a detail here and there, maybe. Re fuel, he seems to be in love with the expansion of diesel, of the bio and petro varieties, but indicates no knowledge of the greater harm to the environment caused by diesel fuel over alternatives. More efficient? Perhaps. More polluting? Definitely. Also he is far too eager to embrace expanded drilling in some sensitive areas. He presents his solutions as common sense, and often that is true. But one cannot help but wonder how much common sense it makes to subsidize growing crops for ethanol when there is a strong possibility that it takes more energy to produce ethanol than the resulting ethanol actually generates. One must wonder if local political calculations play a role in that notion. How about removing tax incentives for oil companies that are awash in tens of billions in annual profit and using that money for development of renewable alternatives? Re health, he devotes considerable space to decrying the eating habits of the American populace. Yet I found no evidence that he has a problem with the massive subsidies in place to encourage growing corn. Current subsidy programs ensure that food is plentiful, cheap and of increasingly lower quality. It costs much more to eat a healthful diet than it does to scarf down subsidized fructose products. Yet again, the lower-income citizens are being blamed for behaving in an economically sane manner. A comprehensive health care plan would include elimination, or at least significant reduction in subsidies for growing corn. If we want Americans to eat a more healthful diet, subsidizing the planting of fruits and vegetables makes a lot more sense. He decries the availability of sweetened drinks in public schools but offers only passing reference to the fact that public schools are so stressed for cash that they need to constantly be on the lookout for potential new sources of revenue. Just look at California where the voters, via the much-gamed initiative system, vote to mandate the provision of this or that service, yet always vote down propositions that would actually pay for them. Their public school system has declined from one of the best funded to one of the worst as a result. I was most impressed by his reporting on corruption issues, war profiteering by the usual suspects among American corporations, and by some of the specifics regarding corruption by government officials in Iraq. He quotes an All Things Considered report: “A secret order from the Iraq prime minister’s office bans the Commission on Public Integrity (CPI) from investigation top Iraqi officials unless they have the consent of Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki.” Dorgan tells a tale of an Iraqi whistle-blower who was repeatedly back-stabbed by American officials, Condi Rice in particular. Some of that was news to me. It is my impression that Dorgan is basically a decent guy, with his heart in the right place. I am glad that he has been on the right side on a wide range of policy issues. But the Bush war-mongers are still on the street. The wall-street thieves (with very few exceptions) are still gaming the system for their personal gain. 249 pages of campaign literature is worth a lot less than blanketing the airwaves with demands for prosecution of those who illegally authorized torture, those who lied us into war, those who attempted to drown our government in bathtub by looting the public treasury, those who are too big to fail but not too big to steal. I want our leadership to get serious about holding accountable the criminals who have been running our country. There is nothing wrong with putting out a book on policy issues, but I want some actual action to follow. Make some noise senator. ...more |
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| 9780393071016
| B0051BNVIG
| 3.83
| 8,750
| Dec 01, 2008
| Dec 01, 2008
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really liked it
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This is a reworking of a book Krugman released in 1999, now new and improved. It is a popular-audience piece on the current economic debacle, focusing
This is a reworking of a book Krugman released in 1999, now new and improved. It is a popular-audience piece on the current economic debacle, focusing on the mechanics of banking. Krugman gets what is going on in the world of economics better than just about anyone. The Nobel committee would agree. He links the current downfall to several that have come before across the world and shows how we have arrived at a sort of financial perfect storm condition. It is readable and very incisive.
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Jan 11, 2009
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| 1591841917
| 4.03
| 1,174
| 2007
| Dec 27, 2007
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really liked it
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Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston goes into real detail about how the wealthy are ripping us all off. He examines a host of issues and connects
Pulitzer Prize winner David Cay Johnston goes into real detail about how the wealthy are ripping us all off. He examines a host of issues and connects dots. [image] David Cay Johnson - image from Wisconsin Public Radio Johnston does his best to raise your blood to a boiling point, going into real detail about how the wealthy are ripping us all off. He examines a host of issues and connects dots, offering many examples of how public money is filling the pockets of private enterprises with minimal benefit to the people footing the bill, from a ritzy golf course for the well-heeled in Bandon, Oregon, to the implementation of Byzantine rules that make AMTRAK responsible for the mismanagement of rail lines it does not own, to tax policies that encourage companies to send jobs overseas, to the use by governments of eminent domain to take property from some to give it, not to the town, or state, but to other private interests, the increasing public subsidization of religion, the impact of home security alarm systems on law enforcement, the ripoff that is title insurance, the reduction in public investment in education, while increasing tax breaks for millionaires, how Enron created a managed electricity market in Texas and looted millions from the public while hiding behind government regulatory cronies… the list goes on, and on and on. There are some bright spots in this record. Johnston writes about one lobbying firm that works to challenge some of the rampant giveaways bestowed on business. He tells of representatives from Consumers Union and Public Citizen who fight the good fight whenever opportunity allows. But if you are not completely enraged by the time you finish this book, you must be one of the evildoers. P 114 Thus does Caesar render that which is his onto the faithful, tearing down a wall that Thomas Jefferson thought crucial to the liberty of the people. “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.” Posted Originally in November 2008 Re-posted 11/13/15 =============================EXTRA STUFF Links to Jonson's Twitter and FB pages. Johnson has his own site, but it looks like nothing more than a promo for one of his books. Interview with Bill Moyers Some nice opinion pieces by Johnson on Al Jazeera America ...more |
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Nov 2008
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Nov 24, 2008
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| 9780393326055
| 0393326055
| 3.92
| 2,000
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| Aug 17, 2004
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it was amazing
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Krugman is the most intelligent analyst of economics out there today. He offers, through his columns what is the intent and impact of Bush policies.
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Oct 2003
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Oct 25, 2008
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| 0807043419
| 3.63
| 108
| 2002
| May 15, 2003
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really liked it
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Reich has knowledge and experience far out of proportion to his diminutive stature. Reich sees the growing economic distance between the uppers and th
Reich has knowledge and experience far out of proportion to his diminutive stature. Reich sees the growing economic distance between the uppers and the rest of us. He offers wisdom, solutions and a decent measure of humor. This is a guy who is worth hearing.
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| 0452287081
| 3.87
| 37,774
| 2004
| Dec 27, 2005
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really liked it
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This is a remarkable work, decades in the making. Perkins is the real deal, an economist who worked for international consortia to pillage the third w
This is a remarkable work, decades in the making. Perkins is the real deal, an economist who worked for international consortia to pillage the third world. The modus operandi was to perform economic analysis of target nations that indicated a rate of growth far in excess of any real possibility in order to justify offering those nations huge loans, loans they were never expected to be able to repay. The point of this was twofold. First, the money loaned would find its way right back into the pocket of American corporations, because it would be used for major construction projects, roads, dams, electrification projects. The economic benefits would never accrue as predicted, so the host country would be saddled with crushing debt and then be forced by entities like the IMF to slash and burn domestic social services in order to make interest payments. The benefits of the “development” would go to the elite of the host nations, at the expense of the lower classes. In fact, he offers data showing that poverty increased over the term of such foreign investment. Local elites were essentially bribed to go along, and they in turn acted as enforcers for the American elite that was pushing the product. John Perkins began as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador. He managed rather well with this experience and was recruited by a corporate type into the MAIN corporation, the actor in most of the hit man activity. In fact the title was not a case of advocacy hyperbole. The people in this line of work actually refer to each other and themselves as Economic Hit Men, or EHM’s. I learned several things in reading this. First was that conquest via excessive indebtedness was a conscious policy, with the short term profitability of development by Bechtel or equivalent being icing on the cake of overall domination. I learned about SAMA, or the Saudi Arabia Money-Laundering Affair. Perkins talks about several of the leaders he came to know, Trujillo in Panama, Jaime Roldos in Ecuador, other leaders of less-than-presidential caliber. P 15 My job…was to forecast the effects of investing billions of dollars in a country. Specifically, I would produce studies that projected economic growth twenty to twenty five years into the future and that evaluated the impacts of various projects. For example, if a decision was made to lend a country $1 billion to persuade its leaders not to align with the Soviet union, I would compare the benefits of investing that money in power plants with the benefits of investing in a new national railroad network or a telecommunications system. Or I might be told that the country was being offered the opportunity to receive a modern electric utility system, and it would be up to me to demonstrate that such a system would result in sufficient economic growth to justify the loan. The critical factor, in every case, was gross national product. The project that resulted in the highest average annual growth of GNP won. If only one project was under consideration, I would need to demonstrate that developing it would bring superior benefits to the GNP. The unspoken aspect of every one of these projects was that they were intended to create large profits for the contractors, and to make a handful of wealthy and influential families in the receiving countries very happy, while assuring the long-term financial dependence and therefore political loyalty of governments around the world. The larger the loan, the better. The fact that the debt burden placed on a country would deprive its poorest citizens of health, education and other social services for decades to come was not taken into consideration. P 16 …talked about the deceptive nature of GNP. For instance, the growth of GNP may result even when it profits only one person, such as an individual who owns a utility company, and even if the majority of the population is burdened with debt. The rich get richer and the poor grow poorer. Yet from a statistical standpoint, this is recorded as economic progress. …Over the years, I’ve repeatedly heard comments like, “If they’re going to burn the U.S. flag and demonstrate against our embassy, why don’t we just get out of their damn country and let them wallow in their own poverty?” People who say such things often hold diplomas certifying that they are well educated. However, these people have no clue that the main reason we establish embassies around the world is to serve our own interests, which during the last half of the twentieth century meant turning the American republic into a global empire. Despite credentials, such people are as uneducated as those eighteenth century colonists who believed that Indians fighting to defend their lands were servants of the devil. P 17 [quoting his teacher Claudine] “We’re in a small, exclusive club,” she said. “We’re paid—well paid—to cheat countries around the globe out of billions of dollars. A large part of your job is to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire—to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, these leaders bolster their political position by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. Meanwhile, the owners of U.S. engineering and construction companies become very wealthy. P 23 [The source of the Boogey man image appears to be Indonesia. Apparently there were pirates from a place called Bugi.] …the infamous Bugi pirates, who still sailed the seas of the archipelago, and who had so terrorized early European sailors that they returned home to warn their children, “Behave yourselves or the Bugimen will get you.” P 49 ..I knew enough history to know that suppliers who are exploited long enough will rebel. I had only to return to the American Revolution and Tom Paine for a model. I recalled that Britain justified its taxes by claiming that England was providing aid to the colonies in the form of military protection against the French and the Indians. The colonists had a very different interpretation. What Paine offered to his countrymen in the brilliant Common Sense was the soul that my young Indonesian friends had referred to—an idea, a faith in the justice of a higher power, and a religion of freedom and equality that was diametrically opposed to the British monarchy and its elitist class systems. What Muslims offered was similar: faith in a higher power, and a belief that developed countries have no right to subjugate and exploit the rest of the world. Like colonial Minutemen, Muslims were threatening to fight for their rights, and like the British in the 1770s, we classified such actions as terrorism. P 58 Panama was part of Columbia when the French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps, who directed construction f the Suez Canal, decided to build a canal through the Central American isthmus, to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Beginning in 1881, the French undertook a mammoth effort that met with one catastrophe after another. Finally, in 1889, the project ended in financial disaster—but it had inspired a dream in Theodore Roosevelt. During the first years of the twentieth century, the United States demanded that Colombia sign a treaty turning the isthmus over to a North American consortium. Colombia refused. In 1903, President Roosevelt sent in the U.S. warship Nashville. U.S. soldiers landed, seized and killed a popular local militia commander, and declared Panama an independent nation. A puppet government was installed and the first Canal Treaty was signed; it established an American zone on both sides of the future waterway, legalized U.S. military intervention, and gave Washington virtual control over this newly formed “independent” nation. …the treaty was not signed by a single Panamanian. P 72 – re Guatemala United Fruit Company had been [Guatemala’s] equivalent to the Panama Canal. Founded in the late 1800s, United Fruit soon grew into one of the most powerful forces in Central America. During the early 1950s, reform candidate Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala in an election hailed all over the hemisphere as a model of the democratic process. At the time, less than 3 percent pf Guatemalans owned 70 percent of the land. Arbenz promised to help the poor dig their way out of starvation, and after his election he implemented a comprehensive land reform program…United Fruit launched a major public relations campaign in the United States, aimed at convincing the American public and congress that Arbenz was part of a Russian plot and that Guatemala was a Soviet satellite. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a coup. American pilots bombed Guatemala city and the democratically elected Arbenz was overthrown, replaced by Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, a ruthless, right-wing dictator. Thje new government owed everything to United Fruit. By way of thanks, the government reversed the land reform process, abolished taxes on the interest and dividends paid to foreign investors, eliminated the secret ballot, and jailed thousands of its critics. Anyone who dared to speak out against Castillo was persecuted. [Torrijos then asks Perkins] “Do you know who owns United Fruit?” “Zapata Oil, George Bush’s company—our UN ambassador.” ...more |
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| 9780670019076
| 0670019070
| 3.73
| 1,022
| Apr 15, 2008
| Apr 15, 2008
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really liked it
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I became interested in the book when I saw Phillips on Bill Moyers. Moyers offered a strong endorsement, saying that this was the best thing out there
I became interested in the book when I saw Phillips on Bill Moyers. Moyers offered a strong endorsement, saying that this was the best thing out there to help understand what was happening in the financial crisis. From what I have seen, tough sledding and all, he was right. A better title, might have been Bad, Worse, Worst Money. [image] Kevin Phillips - image fromi BillMoyers.com This is a very thoughtful, information-rich look at the shaky underpinnings of the circa 2008 American economy. The precarious position of that time was not due merely to crony capitalism or the corruption of the few. It is endemic in our system, part of a global irresponsibility. Booms brought about by credit expansions out of proportion with real economic growth are doomed to bust. But burst housing bubbles have a greater and longer-lasting effect on the economy that mere Wall Street meltdowns. He shows how the government consciously attempts to mask the true inflation rate (and thus the value of the dollar) by tweaking calculation of the Consumer Price Index to keep it artificially low. As many public benefit programs are tied to this, it acts as a means by which those on, say, Social Security, are forced to accept annual increases that do not come close to covering the increase in real prices. Phillips notes changes in the world, the shift from private corporate control of oil to state control. (although not noting the increase of corporate control over states) He sees the increase in foreclosure being a result not just of consumer exuberance, but of lender malfeasance. This has been well documented since the book came out. As boom times extend there is a tendency for such economies to begin to produce less and less stuff and more and more “financial instruments.” In short, more money but less real product, with much of the paper being traded back and forth backed up by exactly nothing. At some point it goes boom. He notes one credible source that believes the The Great Recession fiscal problems were the worst in history. Really? Worse than the Great Depression? The book is not long, only 207 pages, but it is no one’s idea of a fast read. Although it is not completely opaque, Phillips style is somewhat turgid, despite his many years on NPR. It is thick going for the content, but it may be that no one can make a breezy read out of such serious material. Obama did what he could to save the nation from a complete economic implosion. But many of the protections installed when it was still possible for bills sponsored by Democrats to reach the president have been removed or cut back. Just as polluters took over the management of government agencies charged with controlling pollution, the economic bad actors that brought us the last major threat to not only our domestic, but the global economy, retain an outsized influence over legislators and rule-makers. Phillips' look at the private acts and public inactions that nearly destroyed our economy is worth studying to better understand the forces that seek to shift more and more wealth from the middle and working classes to the uber-wealthy. Yes, it most certainly can happen again, (a major financial crisis, that is. republicans are threatening to create one on their own in 2023, if they do not get what they want) and in the absence of significant regulatory control of the financial markets, it most definitely will happen again. Review originally Posted October 2008 Published - 4/15/208 Phillips' stuff -----Profile on Wikipedia -----writings in The Nation -----writings in articles in The American Prospect ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Oct 2008
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Oct 13, 2008
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 3.30
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really liked it
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Jun 2011
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May 23, 2011
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| 3.82
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it was amazing
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May 12, 2011
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May 11, 2011
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| 4.05
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it was amazing
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May 16, 2011
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Apr 30, 2011
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| 4.16
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it was amazing
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Dec 16, 2010
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Dec 13, 2010
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|||||
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| 4.06
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it was amazing
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Nov 18, 2010
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Nov 15, 2010
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|||||
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| 4.05
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it was amazing
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Nov 04, 2010
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Oct 31, 2010
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|||||
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| 3.67
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it was amazing
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Oct 03, 2010
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Sep 29, 2010
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|||||
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| 3.70
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it was amazing
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Jun 2010
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Jun 21, 2010
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|||||
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| 4.30
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really liked it
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May 2010
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Jun 03, 2010
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|||||
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| 3.59
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liked it
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Apr 2010
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May 31, 2010
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|||||
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| 4.03
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it was amazing
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Mar 2010
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May 19, 2010
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|||||
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| 4.02
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really liked it
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Jan 2010
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Jan 29, 2010
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|||||
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| 3.84
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liked it
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Nov 2009
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Nov 12, 2009
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|||||
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| 3.48
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it was ok
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Jul 28, 2009
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Jun 17, 2009
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|||||
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| 3.83
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really liked it
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Jan 2009
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Jan 11, 2009
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| 4.03
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really liked it
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Nov 2008
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Nov 24, 2008
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|||||
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| 3.92
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it was amazing
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Oct 2003
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Oct 25, 2008
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|||||
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| 3.63
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really liked it
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Jun 2003
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Oct 25, 2008
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|||||
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| 3.87
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really liked it
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Oct 2006
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Oct 24, 2008
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| 3.73
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really liked it
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Oct 2008
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Oct 13, 2008
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