Under the legislation, class-action suits seeking $5 million or more would be heard in state court only if the primary defendant and more than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state. But if fewer than one-third of the plaintiffs are from the same state as the primary defendant, and more than $5 million is at stake, the case would go to federal court.
As usual, the usual response relies on rhetoric more than substance:
"The House of Representatives joined the Senate in sending a clear message to the nation: the rights of large corporations that take advantage of seniors, low-wage workers and local communities are more important than the rights of average American citizens," said Helen Gonzales of USAction, a liberal, pro-consumer activist group.
Where does she come to that conclusion? All the legislation does is move the venue from the private sector to the federal sector. This, IMO, eliminates the bias of judges, who have to worry about catering to their constituents, the appointed judges who don’t. There is no heirarchy that states the little guy has to have more legal rights than a corporation, or vice versa. They should both be treated equally in the eyes of the law. IMO, this legislation moves in that direction.
And, of course, it doesn’t stop there:
"It’s the final payback to the tobacco industry, to the asbestos industry, to the oil industry, to the chemical industry at the expense of ordinary families who need to be able go to court to protect their loved ones when their health has been compromised," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts. "And these people are saying that your state isn’t smart enough, your jurors aren’t smart enough" to hear those cases.
I’m just waiting for Barbara Boxer‘s response. I’m she won’t let me down when taking rhetoric to the absolute lowest point it can get.
OK, just your usual environmental whackos making everyone else’s life miserable for the sake of supporting their myopic view of the envirnment. But, I just loved visualizing this scene:
Some 20 Greenpeace protesters led by director Stephen Tindale stormed the trading floor and brought business in Brent crude oil and gas oil futures to a halt before being beaten back by outraged traders.
Is there ANY video of this? I gotta have it! It would fit in perfectly with my Monty Python clips. Actually, it reminds me more of The Young Ones, but no one remembers them.
15
Feb
Todd Zywicki makes some pretty heavy observations that just flies in the face of political correctness. First of all, everyone knows that credit cards have created a modern financial boobie trap for everyone not disciplined enough to balance their checkbook every single day of their life. I just saw on tv a couple of days ago a story of a family that was prosperous until they both lost their jobs, and credit cards subsequently drove them into bankruptcy. Although I see many advantages to relying on credit cards for almost every transaction I make, the thought of suggesting those advantages publicly scares me to silence. I’ll support abortion before I’ll speak my mind on credit cards. So, to read this opinion by Todd just floored me. Here, in picture form, is the heart of his opinion:
Basically, in short, all credit card debt has done for the most is replace non-revolving credit. I have both. Non-revolving is fine for short term emergencies ( such as divorce ) and long term planning ( buying a house ). Revolving credit fills the void of every other financial function there is. Purchasing things, paying bills, etc.. I use the hell out of my credit cards. Sure, I’ve gotten in jams before, but, as in the illustration I used above, the jam was not because of credit cards, it was because of something else. The credit card balances made things seem worse, but, but the time I had to worry about the credit cards, I was already worrying about other things. The credit cards at no point in my life have ever caused the problem. So, IMO, the rush to legislate credit card practices is a bit premature. If you cap the credit card interest rates, I’m quite certain the cost of doing business will simply be shifted to other functions of the banks. And, the ones that will be hurt the most will be the lower income people who will lose out first when banks tighten credit to eliminate the riskier debts that the lower income represent. So, as with most federal regulations that affect the private sector, it sounds good, but we’re better off without it.
Position statement necessary, my primary source of income is from private bank stock.
— Moon
13
Feb
Now, I was a vocal critic of Terry Mcauliffe for very clear reasons. IMO he gave the DNC no clear guidance on how to establish itself as a party of certain principals and views. He reacted solely to what Republicans were doing usually in a nasty attack oriented way. That doesn’t attract anyone, and, obviously, alienates some. The losses the Democrats endured during the Mcauliffe era are well documented. I had heard that the Democrats were looking inward, evaluating what went wrong, and trying to establish core issues it could focus on to give its people something to grab on to.
So, who do the choose to run the party? Howard Dean.
There are a ton of articles like this. The liberal isolationist theology was epitomized by Dean in his campaign. Although his banshee yell stole the healdines as the demise of his candidacy, it was just the icing on the cake. His campaign was disorganized, confused, and broke. Even worse, it was based only on attacking everyone else from Bill Clinton to Dubya. This is definitely not the direction the DNC needs to be taking in order to get its momentum back. And, putting this in perspective to a Hillary run, my guess is she and Bill will allow Dean to fall flat on his face. As much as I’ve complained about Bill and Hillary, they do represent the direction the Democrats need to be taking in order to be viable again, that being moderate politically and having specific issues to address. John Kerry donating $750,000 immediately after Dean’s ascent tells me there is going to be one hell of a fight between the extreme liberal and moderate factions of the Democrat party for at least two years.
My prognostication? The Democrats, under Dean’s very public leadership, will take one more beating in 2006 and Dean will be gone with a Clinton successor taking his, and the party leadership’s place.
13
Feb
This is pretty fun. For what it’s worth, I made it to 100% on the first try! Be sure to leave your scores as comments.
– Moon
11
Feb
We want everything to be above average. We want more benefits for our future retired, so we’re going to borrow to fund their savings, then hand them the debt along with the accounts. We want more savings, so we also have IRAs and 401ks and maybe we’ll switch to consumption-based taxes. But we also want more consumption (which is less saving) so we give people tax cuts and borrow to make up the difference. And we want more conservation of energy and protection of the environment, so we say that on earth day, but we want low gas prices and are willing to fight wars for that and chew up the environment for that, so that in case we do drive a lot it won’t cost a lot. And we want job growth, so we cut taxes mostly for the high income and hope they’ll spend it, and we borrow to make up the difference, but we also want them to save it, because we heard somewhere savings equals investment, and we want more investment, because we want job growth. Yes, we want job growth and also productivity growth, but guess what’s in the denominator of productivity? Yes that’s right – jobs. How can we want a ratio to grow and also want its denominator to grow? We must really, really want its numerator to grow and yes friends we do: The numerator of productivity is output and we want lots of output. But we don’t want people to buy that output because we want to increase savings, right? Puzzling thing that: Where’s the output going if people are saving for the future instead of buying for the present? Well now, there’s a paradox. If we all work hard and save for the future, and invest so our productivity grows so all that hard work produces really a lot then we’ll really have one hell of recession as torrents of output flood the markets and nobody is buying because we’re all saving so everybody gets laid off to reduce inventories. So we’ll all lose our jobs and be poor as church mice and have nothing to live on in the future because we saved so hard and ruined our economy. There must be a solution: Aha! Don’t save in monetary form. Save real goods and services. Buy 2 cars, 1 to drive and store one for the future. Buy 2 haircuts, 1 to wear now and one for later after you lose your hair. Fill your closets with canned goods. Load up on cancer drugs now, before you get cancer. Don’t just fill your tank with gas, fill your back seat! Don’t forget the funeral industry — next time a family member dies, bury a few live ones too so that you have some funerals saved up.
Or, how about this: Buy less for ourselves, but keep the economy going by buying more for the needy elderly, thereby setting a social norm that elders are to be well cared for. If we succeed is passing that norm on to the younger generation, that will serve our future consumption needs better than a closet full of haircuts. And buy less for ourselves but spend more on the education, health and well being of the younger generation, so that they will have high productivity and be able to support us in the style we are accustomed to. And buy less for ourselves but pay people to develop technologies that will help us live unreasonably long and comfortable retirements far beyond the expected useful lives of mortal body parts. And buy fewer, smaller cars but pay more for them because we employ more engineers to design them better and more workers to build them better — where better means that they are more fuel efficient and less polluting and last longer and are safer. These would all be ways of spending our money to keep the economy going while also providing for ourselves in our old age more effectively that stuffing our closets with canned tuna. And how about spending some of our money on repairing the strip-mined countryside and the Super Fund toxic waste sites and decaying infrastructure and over-fished oceans and dying coral so that once we’re done with all this working and saving and ready to retire, there’s an attractive planet to enjoy?
10
Feb
Doris Matsui to seek husband’s seat
"I am asking those who supported him to now support me," said Doris Matsui, with her family by her side just four days after burying Robert T. Matsui, who represented the Sacramento area.
She immediately received the endorsement of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, who represents the San Francisco area in Congress.
OK, a female Democrat is endorsing a female Democrat before the first female Democrat even knows who’s running in the Democrat primary. Well duh, no story there.
But, wavy lines start emerging on my screen as I seem to vaguely recall the name Doris Matsui………..
Flash back to early 1996……
In three days of hearings next month, Lake will say that had he known, he would have prevented Chinese weapons trader Wang Jun from taking coffee with the President on Feb. 6, 1996, a meeting even Clinton said later was "clearly inappropriate." When it comes to blame, Lake may spare no one–not even White House chief of staff Leon Panetta.
As for Herman, Republicans want to know how much she knew about all the telephone tag being played between her Office of Public Liaison at the White House and the fund raisers at the D.N.C. Herman was in charge of "outreach" to various ethnic groups–an effort that White House documents show included fund raising in some cases. Republican Senators are particularly interested in Herman’s relationship with Huang, the D.N.C. fund raiser who once worked for the Lippo Group of Indonesia and who made 76 visits to the White House, sometimes to see Clinton, sometimes to see Ickes and sometimes to see Doris Matsui, the woman in Herman’s office who organized support from Asian Americans.
Yeah, that’s what it was, sorta. The key word in that partial story wasn’t Doris Matsui, it was "weapons trader Wang Jun". What eventually happened after that?
A little opinionated, but definitely based on facts. Don’t wanna believe it? Well, here’s the Cox Report of 1999. In 1997 Clinton established most favored nation status with China. This was their payback to the American People. All arranged by Doris Matsui.
However, I’ve saved the best for last. I didn’t need any wavy lines for this memory: John Huang got "inside" the Clinton White House via Doris Matsui. Within a few months US National security was compromised, world security was compromised, but even more egregious, this was the headline for a while, and it returned again in 2000 and possibly helped convince just enough people that Al Gore should not be president:
Gore Pleads Ignorance On Buddhist Fund-Raiser
The party sponsored the event and asked Gore to attend. One of the DNC’s senior fund-raisers, John Huang, organized the event, and has since been relieved of his fund-raising duties.
Yeah Nancy, that’s one heck of a representative you’ve endorsed.
With all precincts reporting Tuesday, Matsui had nearly 72 percent of the overall vote and 88 percent among Democrats in a race marked by low turnout. She is expected to be sworn in Thursday.
This one is different for an obvious reason, Yasser Arafat is not in the mix. I always felt there could be no permanent peace with Arafat because he was a career terrorist that had no clue how to manage a peace time government. With Abbas in charge, you have a man who knows how to be a diplomat, how to negotiate in good terms, and, how to run a peace time country. There is a major chance here for permanent peace. Bush is playing it perfectly IMO, not meddling, as other presidens have done, but, rewarding the peace process financially on both sides. I’m kind of leery of Hamas, who are still referring to Israel as the "Zionist occupation". How Abbas deals with Hamas IMO will be crucial to any chance of peace.
And, of course, in order to keep the peace process proceeding, Abbas will have to stay alive. That is a tall order IMO.
7
Feb
Here’s the headline:
Bush sends $2.57 trillion budget proposal to Congress
Here’s Nancy Pelosi’s response:
House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California called Bush’s budget "a hoax on the American people. The two issues that dominated the president’s State of the Union address — Iraq and Social Security — are nowhere to be found in this budget."
Anyone want to take a stab at why her rebuttal is stupid?
Here’s one hint. The key that you have to remember is that Bush’s Social Security plan is purely speculation at this point. How the hell would it be in the budget? I will give credit to CNN for pointing that out:
Aides said accurate cost estimates could not be made since the plan is still being developed.
Well, duh! Heck, it might not even pass!
Then, part II: Iraq: CNN once again does a good job pointing out what is commonly known to a lot of people, but apparently not by the House Minority Leader:
The plan does not include an additional $80 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the administration has said it will seek in coming weeks. That money is authorized and spent through a separate budgeting process.
The real hoax here is trying to take Nancy Pelosi seriously as THE HOUSE MINORITY LEADER. And, if you follow that link, you’ll see she’s already crowing over her comments.
Whew.
Becker of the Becker-Posner blog takes an vastly different angle at supporting Privatized Retirement Accounts. This is definitely something to think about:
Tax revenue from social security taxes at present exceed payments to retirees. This excess is counted as part of the growing Social Security Trust Fund, but in fact also enters into the consolidated Federal budget account, and helps reduce the reported spending deficit. Reported deficits during the past decade would have been much larger if social security was not running a surplus during this whole time period……
So the really strong arguments for privatization are that they reduce the role of government in determining retirement ages and incomes, and improve government accounting of revenues and spending obligations. All the other issues are really diversions because neither advocates or opponents of privatization are asking the most meaningful question about privatizing social security.
For economists, I think this is definitely something to think about. As a non-economist, I personally never would have. However, living in the political arena, my thought is that if they did pull the privatized portion of contributions out of the federal budget, the feds would just report the deficit anyway.
