Posts Tagged ‘Ted Asreagdoo’

Pop Politico: “Anti-Dowist Philosophy”

I don’t know if you remember the days when newscasters would routinely smile when the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day in positive numbers. It was a not-so-subtle sign that “The system is working” for those who profited from the financial sector.  For the rest of us, a smile meant good news — even though we probably had no idea what they hell the numbers meant, or what all this talk about “The Dow” was about.

Something like that is happening now, as newspapers report the surge in stock markets.  And it’s clear that the move many countries have made to nationalize banks and inject capital into the system to loosen up credit may have the desired effect.  The headlines won’t say anything about “Socialism Saves Capitalism,” but that’s pretty much what’s going on. Yes, it is ironic, but if we’ve learned anything in last eight years, irony has reigned supreme among the Bush Administration and the Republican Party.

The party that supposedly hates nation-building, had to become advocates of nation-building.  The party that promotes freedom and derides “government interference” were zealous in supporting policies that lead to government intrusion into the lives of Americans. The party that believes in low taxes and curbing government growth, spent tax money and increased the size of federal bureaucracies in a way that would give FDR chills.  And finally, the party that has been ramming through deregulation policies affecting the financial sector, has had to French kiss socialism to provide a trillion dollar safety net to keep the world-wide economic panic from reaching a depression. (more…)

Mix Six: “Prince”

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The other day I was purifying myself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka and I started thinking about all the cruel, I mean, cool things Prince has done to me over the years. You know, when I covered “Nothing Compares 2 U,” I did so without his permission, and he invited me over to his house and started punching me. Because I’m a pacifist, all I could do was spit on him. And then there was this one time when I was hangin’ at Club 3121, and Prince walks up to me and says the club is only for “the select.” I replied that I wish he hadn’t disbanded the Revolution, and then he just went off on me. He took off his purple bandanna, put it around my neck, and said, “Don’t you make me ruin my favorite bandanna by chokin’ the life outta you, sucka.” I said “It’s coo’ … it’s coo’,” and Jerome personally threw me out of the club.

I love Prince!

Seriously, I do love Prince’s music, and have since I first heard him in high school. The album was Controversy, and while my high school soundtrack consisted of a lot of new wave, hard rock, and pop, soul music (which Prince’s music was considered prior to the release of 1999) was not a big genre in my record collection. I remember showing my older brother the Controversy album cover and asking him, “Hey, have you heard this guy?” He pulled out a copy of Dirty Mind from his record collection and said, “Yeah.” Stuck to the cover of his copy was a news story from the Associated Press wire (yellow paper and all) that basically recounted how shocked people were when they heard all the sexual references and noises on Prince’s records. Considering how sexually open many songs are nowadays, it seems kind of quaint to read stories like that. But the early ’80s were another time.

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Pop Politico: “Greetings from Economy Class”

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics for July states that 5.7% of Americans are unemployed. Percentages are sometimes difficult to visualize, so how about this number: 8.8 million people are officially out of work.

The number of the unemployed is actually higher, because the BLS only counts people who file for unemployment insurance.   However, in the official numbers, you can view the stats by certain categories to see who’s losing a lot of ground.  In July, whites were unemployed at around the national average (5.1%).  If you’re African American or Latino, the unemployment rates are much higher (9.7% and 7.4%, respectively).

One of the most shocking numbers is for teenagers.  Yep, teens get a category, and the rate is just a little over 20%.  For a bit of a comparison, the unemployment rate peaked at 25% in 1933 for all workers.  Of course, that’s an average, and there were parts of the country were whole populations were unemployed because of something called the Great Depression.  These days we’re not anywhere near depression levels in terms of unemployment and the economy tanking, but we are in an era where a number of factors have aligned to produce a real downward drag on sectors of the economy.  The price of oil, the credit mess, war, real estate woes, decreased consumer spending, and prices for goods and services increasing mean that we’re going to languish in the economic doldrums for the next year or so. Businesses are spending less, too. If staff cuts can balance out the bottom line, then cut away — or face extinction.

Government solutions to crises like this run the gamut of tax cuts to direct cash payments to individuals to stimulate the economy back into a period of growth.  The economic stimulus checks that went out did help goose the economy a bit as consumer spending slightly rose.  But really, people aren’t complete fools, and most paid down their debt or saved the money if they could afford to. It seems in the “rational actor” world of economics, people know we’re in a shitstorm, and they’re battening down the hatches. (more…)