The Guardian reports: Financial workers at Wall Street’s top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year – despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock […]

by cactus Why is Obama being treated so well by the right wing? No, seriously. I mean it. Remember when Clinton was President and the right treated us to all sorts of stories about black helicopters, foreign military bases on US soil, and how Clinton was gonna turn us all over to the UN or […]

Avedon Carol in The Sideshow guides us to this item: America’s Largest RN Organization Says: If We Can Nationalize Banks, Why Not Healthcare? […]” Consider that on the same day our government moved to take over collapsing banks, the U.S. Census Bureau released data that 16 percent of Americans under 65 are uninsured, and in […]

Lifted from comments from Tax cuts for rich….Movie Guy says: I’ll skip the usual political commentary and comparison of supposed high office politician “plans” and focus on what is really happening based on my understanding. The events of the past thirty days or so have resulted in significant withdrawals from the stock market including massive […]

Steve Benen at The Washington Monthly points to a WSJ article that cautions us: THE ULTIMATE BUSH LEGACY FOR BIG BUSINESS…. Bush’s presidency may be winding down, but he’s not quite done with his conservative domestic agenda. Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal […]

by cactus Some thoughts on the bail-out: 1. Goldman’s market cap is about 50 billion. The gubmint is gonna buy $10 billion worth of (non-dilutive, non-voting) shares, for which it gets essentially, well, nothing. Nothing at all. Goldman will go about its business. So… Goldman is getting an infusion equal to 20% of its worth, […]

by noni mausa Lifted from comments at Economist’s View on a post about information cascades (following the crowd…when does the crowd start?): I participated in a classroom project modeling the allocation of funds to community projects by a “city council” of students. There were five or six groups of us, and at the end of […]

by cactus There seems to be a fair amount of anger in some corners about Krugman’s Nobel. A few thoughts about the complaints: 1. Kary Mullis believes in astrology. William Shockley was certain that black people were inherently mentally inferior to white people. Mullis received a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing Polymerase Chain Reaction […]

by reader noni mausa Vote. I was taught, by example, how to vote. My parents got up in themorning and dressed as though for church. The day was somehow quieterthan other days, even in a household with five kids. We drove to the polling site and while one parent went in to vote, theother would […]