prole

Thank you.

Yeah, but, like, Christianity is the same... Look, the diversion worked! Hey Mikey, he likes it!

"The bill, LD 1346, establishes a "training wage" for employees under 20 years of age at $5.25 per hour for their first 180 days of employment and increases the amount of hours minors can legally work. The proposed "training wage" is over two dollars less than the state's current minimum wage...Republicans claim rolling back the child labor laws would give employees and employers greater flexibility and let students save more money for college." APRIL FOOLS!! uh, no not really...

Seven words you can't say in Spray?

Perhaps he's changed his mind.

These cozy relationships between corporations and the State haven't really worked out so hot. Finance, industry, energy; When will we learn the lesson?

The story that Krugman isn't telling (but one you can read between the lines of Jay's posts) is that, rather than part of the problem, increasing unemployment is actually an important part of the structural adjustment process that austerity is intended to achieve. For neoliberals, (re)imposing labor discipline (i.e. lower wages, fewer rights, diminished expectations, etc.) is seen as key to restoring American competitiveness. "No pain, no gain" was the slogan for IMF-imposed structural adjustment programs that took place in the debt-plagued Third World that all those kooky anti-globalization activists were so hot about. Same here. A large (but hopefully depoliticized) pool of unemployed keep wage demands low and stripping collective bargaining rights prevents any uppidyness in the near and medium term. The theory goes that once living standards and wage demands are low enough again, employers will swoop back in to put li'l ol' us back to work on new terms. Fucking delightful, eh?

STFU. All of you.

I don't give a fuck as long as the price of my Mountain Dew doesn't go up by two cents.

Amazing what throwing around a few billion will do to shape the nature of "reality".

Perfect example of rigging the debate. One wishes the Democrats were as imaginative.

It's unfortunate that the conservative insurgency didn't share the political defeatism on display here when they were building the box y'all are content to think inside.

We're not politicians, we're citizens. We're not constrained by focus-grouped-out-the-ass politics and the fear of "political suicide" when we talk about potential solutions. Politicians don't talk about raising taxes or the impact of giving away tax cuts instead of funding its obligations because it's not part of the story or because it wouldn't go a long way toward solving the mess, they don't talk about it because they think it would be "political suicide". I expect politicians (silly me) to exercise leadership, to get the story right, and frame issues. Instead, American politics has drifted into a model of governance where our political leaders have become Burger King employees "giving us what we want" based on constant polling and focus grouping. The problem with that, of course, is that we don't always know what we want or what's needed for the long term health of the community. California is a perfect example: people don't want taxes but they want and need services. They have an initiative process and legislative constraints that compound the schizophenia and build the kind of straightjacket that Washingtonians are finding themselves in. Ignoring the facts and ignoring fiscal reality is exactly what pols are doing when they don't address how we got here (worse when they find scapegoats who've nothing to do with it), and leave one half of the revenue story completely off the table. Claiming that raising taxes is "impossible" and leaving it at that means they're putting their own skin ahead of what's best for the communities they're supposed to serve. A one-term wonder making noise, raising hell, putting forward good ideas and changing the parameters of the debate are worth twenty legislators willing to play in the neoliberal cat box these douchebags have created for us.

I'm actually curious to read the logical gymnastics they used to reach this outcome

And yet, Eymanoid ditto-heads aren't obstacles to solving the crisis, progressives are. Thanks for "keeping it real". While I agree that it's a stupid law, there was, well a vast majority of voters who went for it - so it wasn't just crackpots and lost souls. Maybe people are just stupid and vote against their best interest - I dunno. But a majority went for it and here we are. Glad to see we're on the same page as far as that goes. It seems like the main difference is your continued willingness to play what is essentially a rigged game. If we all know that the extension of tax cuts and the passage of "stupid laws" punctuated by the economic crash got us here and is keeping us here, why are you so willing to play inside the box built for us by the anti-gubmint wonks and the sheeple they duped? "Just doing the math" makes sense when it's math, not when it's just politics. Accepting the narrowed narrative framework and the rigged playing field created by folks who knew exactly what they were doing when they passed this crap means you've already lost.

And yet, Eymanoid ditto-heads aren't obstacles to solving the crisis, progressives are. Thanks for "keeping it real".

Welcome to the Hotel California...

Gregoire's not the only one that's busy making sure that "painful cuts" are the only feasible option.

Your taste in "ruin porn" is as weak as the rest of your game. Here's some help, though I don't know how it will help shed any light on your air of smug celebration as whatever positive effects the processes of "creative destruction" you worship have had have been so uneven, fleeting, and geographically dispersed as to be almost irrelevant to most Americans. http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/ http://invinciblecities.camden.rutgers.edu/intro.html http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html

Link. Go blow yourself.

It's comforting to know that in these turbulent times some folks can rely on their religious faith.