Another excellent presentation by author and journalist Chris Hedges. Here he discusses his book “Death of the Liberal Class” and the destruction of critical culture, which flourished before World War I, but was destroyed soon afterwards. He provides a short, but spot on overview on the history of the American labor movement, the historical congealing of the forces aligned against it, and its relationship to the modern Occupy Wall Street movement.

Of particular importance and relevance is the history of the rise and dominance of state/corporate propaganda from World War I. This apparatus was originally employed against the Germans, but was then quickly turned against the labor movement. This is particularly relevant and telling history, which he begins to get into the meat of around the 12-minute mark in the video.

Hedges is one of the few people to openly and persistently discuss what I personally feel to be some of the most important and least talked about history in America; that of the ubiquitous but sublimated role of propaganda. Here, Hedges goes into some detail about the creation of the Committee on Public Information (The Creel Commission), and the employment of modern propaganda in America through the ideas of people like Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays. These are names known to very few Americans, but whose impact on our nation and our world is incalculable.

They’re baaaack. Like an energizer bunny of mendacious stupidity, SOPA-sponsor Lamar Smith has changed tactics, and is now back to pushing provisions of his internet censorship agenda under the guise of protecting Americans from…wait for it…child pornographers. Yes, the new bogeyman with his online 24/7 surveillance act, H.R. 1981 is ostensibly child pornographers, as if *any* such activity like that is legal, and so needs all of these extra-judicial tools of control to stop it. Seems that “Stop Online Piracy” (SOPA) doesn’t resonate with enough people, so now he is resorting to giving private corporations, in conjunction with the government, wide-ranging arbitrary powers over just about any kind of content on the internet under the rubric of it being “The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″.

Tracking the private daily behavior of everyone in order to help catch a small number of child criminals is itself the noxious practice of police states. Said an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “The data retention mandate in this bill would treat every Internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American.” Even more troubling is what the government would need to do in order to access this trove of private information: ask for it.

——

In Communist countries, where the ruling class routinely dug up embarrassing information on citizens as a bulwark against dissent, the secret police never dreamed of an information trove as perfect for targeting innocent people as a full Internet history. Phrases I’ve Googled in the course of researching this item include “moral panic about child pornography” and “blackmailing enemies with Internet history.” For most people, it’s easy enough to recall terms you’ve searched that could be taken out of context, and of course there are lots of Americans who do things online that are perfectly legal, but would be embarrassing if made public even with context: medical problems and adult pornography are only the beginning. How clueless do you have to be to mandate the creation of a huge database that includes that sort of information, especially in the age of Anonymous and Wikileaks? How naive do you have to be to give government unfettered access to it? Have the bill’s 25 cosponsors never heard of J. Edgar Hoover?

Unfortunately, this original crappy legislation has been moved through Congress, but what Smith seems to be doing now is working to amend that legislation with a new effort giving many more sweeping powers of oversight and control of content on the web. All in the name of “protecting our children,” of course. There is nothing more pathetic in politics than when people use “our children” as a human shield to ram through some of the most pitiful and self-serving policies around. As if Smith or many of his cohorts give a s**t about America’s “children,” in a country setting new records in child poverty, and where public education, public health, and child care are being drained of any support in the name of maintaining our global military presence and an ever-bloated national security state.

This act was already pushed last year, but it seems Lamar Smith is trying to re-energize this in light of the failure of SOPA, due to the overwhelming opposition against it. This new effort is looking “To amend title 18, United States Code, with respect to child pornography and child exploitation offenses,” making child pornography “double illegal,” I guess, and most everything else we say and do on the internet liable to oversight and censorship. (Lamar is definitely one Mr. Smith who needs to go AWAY from Washington, and as soon as possible.

This whole legislative effort is quite the act of political engineering, in that Smith and his cohorts are framing this in a manner which makes it politically untenable to oppose it. After all, if you are against corporate control of content on the internet, then you must be for child porn! It was bad enough having to engage in arguments with people about the negative impacts of online piracy, as if one was a cheerleader for it, just because one doesn’t abide well with the idea of sweeping arbitrary powers of control over online content by large media corporations, working in cahoots with government. I figure if this tack doesn’t work, they’ll resort to that old chestnut of blaming al Qaeda for digital “threats,”, and start claiming that you must be “for the terrorists” if you don’t support SOPA and PIPA.

What’s really scary about this bill, though, isn’t just the fact that this gives such sweeping power over internet content, but that it requires ISP’s to keep all of that personal and financial information stored for such an extended length of time. Besides the crazy amount of storage space that requires these companies to invest in, it makes every single ISP and web server a honey pot target for financial and identity theft.

So let’s make this perfectly clear everyone. These legislative efforts have NOTHING to do with internet security, property rights, protecting people from child pornography, etc… This is about control, plain and simple. Control over information, and the means and the ability for people “to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). In other words, this is about the very core of power itself, and about who wields preeminent power over society. Information is the fundamental ingredient of power, its primary source and enabler. This is more true than ever in today’s “Information Age.”

So don’t worry, your information will be “stored securely” so noone else can access it! But if they do access it, your ISP will give you “prompt notice” so you can change all your credit card numbers, hide your kids, hide your wife, and hide your husband. This bill has currently cleared its committee, this meaning that the next step is a full vote. This bill needs to be stopped, and if I might go one better, Lamar Smith needs to be stopped, for the good of the internet and YOUR privacy.

This legislation needs to be stopped. Now.

Paul Krugman brought something up in one of his recent blog postings which went directly to the very same point that I was thinking when I heard about Romney’s supposed campaign trail flub about liking to ‘fire’ people. I thought it was unfair to go after Romney on the rhetorical point about what so-called ‘consumer choice’ entails, when it seemed apparent to me what he was trying to mean (though using the word ‘fire’ does reveal its own contextual mindset. Another issue for another day).

It was the very subject which he was talking about when making the comment which was much more shocking, actually. Treating insurance and medical care like its some kind of brand of DVD player one is out shopping for, or is similar to quality of service at a restaurant that one shops around for, pretty much demonstrates how flagrantly out to lunch Romney is when it comes to understanding the scope of reality that ‘market economics’ actually entails in the real lives of those who aren’t billionaires.

Aaron Carroll has an excellent analysis of Mitt Romney’s faux pas on firing people. No, Romney didn’t actually say that he enjoys firing people - but what he really did say, that competition works in health care because you can fire your insurance company, was actually worse. Carroll:

The real issue, unfortunately, is that very, very few people have the luxury that Gov. Romney is endorsing. Let’s say that you are self-employed, and lucky enough to have found a company to provide you with health insurance. Then, let’s say you develop cancer. You suddenly find out that your insurance company stinks. So you fire them, right?

Of course not. You’re screwed. Now you have a pre-existing condition. There’s not an insurance company out there that wants to cover you. So you don’t fire them. You scream, and curse, and cry, but you’re stuck. Only healthy people have the luxury of picking and choosing.

Let’s also not forget that most people don’t find out that they’re not getting “good service” until they’re sick. Healthy people don’t make much use of their insurance, so they don’t know how bad it is. They only find out after they’re ill, and then it’s too late. It’s only fun to fire the insurance company if you’re sure you can go to another company to get what you need. Almost no one can.

Why, it’s as if Romney doesn’t understand his own health reform, which was in large part about ensuring not that you can fire your insurance company, but rather about ensuring that your insurance company can’t fire YOU.

And this is a bit subjective, but isn’t it awesome how Romney’s lack of empathy shines through? He evidently has no sense of what it’s like NOT to be the very wealthy son of an already wealthy father; no idea how the fear of unemployment or medical bills afflicts ordinary Americans.

The lack of empathy expressed for the experience of the large majority of Americans by ultra-rich political figures like Willard Romney continues to amaze. “United We Stand,” indeed. Yeah, sure. These people should NEVER be trusted with political power.

Go to the original post Here.

Good to see Bill Moyers back on the media scene. This is an insightful report on the wide variety of people who have involved themselves with the Occupy movement, and why they support it. I definitely recommend it for people who keep asking what this movement is supposed to be about, or for those that continue to assert that somehow people are ‘confused’ as to why they are protesting, or that they don’t have a ‘coherent point’ to make. Plus, it has the added bonus of featuring Bill Black, author of The Best Way To Rob a Bank Is To Own One . Black is one of the most articulate and knowledgeable voices out there regarding the criminality of today’s nexus between Wall Street and Washington.

I was recently introduced to this rather patronizingly dismissive debunking of the Occupy Wall Street movement by media commentator/columnist Bill Whittle. He claims to have the “solution” to the OWS movement, for which all he needs is “three and a half days” of each protestor’s time.

Now, this date’s from the fall, and so much has transpired since then, one has to wonder if Mr. Whittle is still holding onto these original, rather limited perspectives. Whittle’s assumptions, which he so smugly delivers here, are misdirected to say the least, if warranted at all.

The fact that he defines this ever-growing body of protest as a bunch of “kids” who are simply part of the “self-esteem” generation, is demonstrably ill-informed (to say nothing of patronizing). Perhaps by now he has come to realize that the movement is made up of millions of people from just about every demographic of society, including war veterans, retirees, professionals, business owners, former police captains, airline pilots, etc.. on and on. The sense of entitlement Whittle begrudges in his screed, may be more accurately and effectively directed towards those who feel they can wield power with impunity, and whom the Occupation movement is challenging. People here are not protesting to get things free and easy. They are protesting the fact that the ability to achieve much of anything in the economic or civic sphere in this country is becoming increasingly impossible due to a system that is un-ignorably increasingly rigged and corrupt.

Plus, it does seem a bit strange for Whittle to proclaim that the movement is nothing but a bunch of kids who have lived soft and spoiled lives. He directly implies that they don’t know how to work for anything, that they just like cheap, modern conveniences, and are throwing a temper tantrum to have those things without having to earn them. However, how is it that these supposedly spoiled “kids” are expressing that desire for selfish comfort, thus displaying their supposedly soft, lazy, sacrifice-adverse character, by consciously living in difficult, improvised, and often physically uncomfortable conditions, eschewing most of those same spoiling comforts they are said to be whining for. This belies Whittle’s suggested solution for these “kids,” where he claims they should have to deal with the “reality” of living primeval lifestyles in order to better appreciate all the wonderful things that corporations are said to provide, while in actuality many of those manning the occupation camps are living lives much more spartan and voluntarily self-sacrificing in their creature comforts than most Americans (outside of the military). And on top of it all, many of them having the shit kicked out of them by hyper-militarized police forces, some of whom have clearly acted outside the realm of any law or code of decency. Not exactly what a self-absorbed, spoiled, rich, entitled kid normally does.

As for the argument that people are calling for an end to corporations, or implying that the message is “corporations are the evil of the world,” misinterprets and/or misunderstands the fundamental premise of the Occupy movement, and the nature and purpose of dissent amongst many Americans today. This is a point we at USTV Media have addressed before repeatedly. For those who are following the events and the discourses among people involved with this movement, this accusation is a corrosive distortion, one which is a dramatic oversimplification of the moral argument being forwarded. A distortion which I also suspect is often on purpose, at least on the part of certain factions who have a vested interest in discrediting the movement.

This brings to mind some of the critiques I’ve heard regarding those who support the occupation movement as being “hypocrites,” because many may claim an admiration for someone like Steve Jobs, yet are supposed to be “against corporations,” and “against the rich.” The OWS movement has nothing to do with people being against gaining wealth, becoming rich, doing well, being a successful entrepreneur, etc… It’s a protest against people getting rich and powerful through cheating and criminality, and succeeding through rigging the game, through corrupting the political and economic process in order to favor the few at the expense of the many. It is a political protest movement against a system becoming ever more inherently corrupted and illegitimate.

The claim being made by Occupy isn’t that “all corporations are bad,” which is a patently ridiculous cartoon characterization of not only the problem, but the fundamental point of the Occupation movement. The issue is injustice and corruption, and the inherent criminality which has now become ascendent in our system. It is the fact that our political system no longer even pretends to adhere to equal rights and equal justice under the law. Others have elaborated on this much more thoroughly and much more lucidly than I can here, particularly Glenn Greenwald, who goes into this in seering detail with his new book With Liberty and Justice for Some. Then there is Matt Taibbi’s reporting on the criminality of Wall Street, and how large financial corporations have become “too big to jail.”

The fact is that the corporate structure has metastasized into the primary medium for certain interests to wield inordinate and civically corrosive influence over government decision making today, turing the government into a tool to confer privilege on insiders. It has become the main instrument for placing the decision-making power of the nation into the hands of the few over the will of the many. And not in a “republican” way, but in a authoritarian, oligarchic way.

It is helpful to remember that the original American Revolutionaries were not against commerce, providing goods and services, etc… Hardly! What they were against was the use of the chartered corporation as a tool of the monarchy to suppress and even crush economic (and eventually political) competition against its reign of power, and against the protestations of its usurping the wealth of the inhabitants of the colonies for the benefit of the few who made up the elite class of royal privilege. The rebellion (including that of the Boston Tea Party, if one will recall), was an act of vandalism which destroyed the “private property” of a what was in some respects the Wal-Mart of their day; The East India Company, which was a corporation chartered by the crown, and used as a tool of imperial expropriation. It was because of such abuses by it and other similar chartered corporations of the Crown, that the original American government even debated whether to outright ban the existence of corporations within constitutional law. This was because of the abuse they had experienced under the monarchy, which had wielded them as an instrument of such oppression. I recommend Ted Nace’s excellent tract Gangs of America, if one is interested in the role of the corporation in American history.

Again, does this mean that the people involved with Occupy are against commerce, entrepreneurship, markets, etc… of course not. Does it mean that corporations should be “banned”? Are people calling for that? Whittle’s underlying assertion that modern life is somehow made possible only by the corporate state is way off the mark. He uses “cheap electricity” as an example to make a point, but forgets to mention that electricity used to be cheaper, at least for the people of California, back when the public utility ran it, and before corporations like Enron got into the game, exploiting it for the private gain of the few at the expense of the many. Again, we have the conflation of a protest against domination of government by the few for the benefit of the few, with somehow being a rant against entrepreneurial economic activity. Any actual critiques I’m familiar with from people who support the OWS movement about the role of corporations within society are no less radical than those first posited by the Jefferson, Paine, Franklin, and others of their time. Conflating the protestations against corrupt and unjust power, as somehow being a rant against invention, provisions of goods in a modern, mass technological society, provision of electricity and the like, simply misses the point entirely.

- Andy Valeri, USTV Media

Postscript: Whittle says we should be grateful and thankful for Monsanto and Shell. Really? His merging of the interests of a company like Monsanto with that of the independent, hard working, self-reliant American farmer, a vision of which he conjures up in his presentation, in order to establish some kind of emotional bond with the point he’s trying to drive home, is simply sick. Clearly, Mr. Whittle hasn’t bothered to talk with many, if any, of those American farmers he wants you to thank, has he? Monsanto’s record in destroying the livelihoods of countless independent American farmers (and millions others around the world, particularly in India), is simply criminal. Perhaps Mr. Whittle should go to Nigeria and ask some of the people there how grateful they should be for Shell, considering the devastating political and environment havoc that their presence there has caused so many in that nation. Or perhaps he can go to Alaska and find out how thankful the fisherman there are for Exxon. I really do encourage people do some research into the full scope of Monsanto’s activities. “Grateful” or “thankful” are not the first words that come to mind in regards to what a warranted response to their activities should be. A couple of good places to start might be with the documentary film The World According To Monsanto, or the excellent Vanity Fair expose’ on Monsanto, Harvest of Fear. And of course, Monsanto is the leader in the whole GMO endeavor (or ‘Frankenfoods,’ as the Europeans call it, having wisely banned them), with the corporation paying no head to the Very Real Danger of Genetically Modified Foods. And on top of all this, there are recent reports out of WikiLeaks exposing More Evidence of Monsanto’s Bullying and Influence-Buying. This behavior is unfortunately par for the course for this corporation.

And regarding some of this nation’s original history, particularly in regards to the role of the corporation, This piece touches on the topic of the original American corporation, and how the Founders first approached the issue. Short, but good for an introductory perspective.

It’s also interesting to speculate as to what Thomas Jefferson may have thought about the impetus of the Occupy movement. A few thoughts of his may give us a clue…

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”   

“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”  

“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.”

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.”

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.”

“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

I dare say he likely would have had some words of approval for the general thrust of the OWS effort.

The total number of people employed rose by 80,000 in September of 2011. That is slightly worse than consensus expectations for a gain of 85,000. This report was slightly weaker than the ADP report on Wednesday. That report showed 110,000 private sector jobs created, and the expectations were for the BLS to show 117,000 new private sector jobs. The “actual” BLS number of private sector jobs was 104,000. Government payrolls declined by 24,000. The Federal Government employment fell by 2,000 jobs. The State level dropped 20,000 but the Local levels laid off 2,000. The pace of government lay offs fell from last month when a total of 33,000 government jobs were lost (revised from a loss of 34,000). The unemployment rate, which is derived from a separate survey, fell to 9.0%. The consensus was looking for it to be unchanged.

The Household survey was noticeably more upbeat than the establishment survey. pointing to a gain of 277,000 jobs. This is the third month in the row of sharp job gains according to the household survey. It has shown a total of 1.006 million jobs gained over the last three months. The Civilian Participation rate was unchanged at 64.2% for the month, but is down from 64.5% a year ago. This means that the drop in the unemployment rate for the month is real, not a statistical illusion. Unfortunately the same can not be said about the drop in the unemployment rate from a year ago, when it was 9.7%. More than half of that drop is a mere statistical artifact coming from a small percentage of the population actually being in the workforce. However the participation rate is up from the 27 year low it set in July of 64.0%. The percentage of people over the age of 16 who actually have jobs rose slightly to 58.4% from 58.3% (employment to population ratio, or the employment rate). That is the third month in a row it has increased. However, it too was coming off of a 27 year low in July. The employment rate was higher than the year ago level of 58.3%. This is the first year over year increase in the employment rate so far in this cycle

While this month’s employment gains from the establishment survey were slightly below expectations, that is more than made up for by very large upward revisions to the August and September numbers. In September, we “actually” gained 158,000 jobs, not the 103,000 reported last month. In August, we gained 104,000, not the 57,000 jobs we thought last month, well above the unchanged reading that was first reported. The upwards revisions were a very positive sign. The upward revisions came mostly from the private sector. The private sector revisions were for both months. In August, a total of 72,000, not 42,000 jobs estimated last month, were gained. In the first report, just 17,000 private sector jobs were estimated to have been gained in August. In September, 191,000 private sector jobs were added, not the 137,000 reported last month. The government lost 33,000 jobs, not 34,000 in September. In August, it added 32,000 jobs, not the 15,000 reported last month, or the original estimate of 17,000 government jobs lost. Thus, if one adds the revisions to the job gains for October, we have 182,000 more people working today than we thought we did yesterday. On the private sector side, the gain is 188,000.

The unemployment rate is derived from a separate (household) survey from the total number of jobs (establishment) survey. The household survey was much more upbeat than the establishment survey, as it has been for most of the year so far, with a gain of 277,000. In showed a gain of 398,000 jobs in September. In August, it showed a gain of 331,000 jobs. The household survey numbers do not get revised. However, generally the numbers from the household survey are considered less reliable than are the numbers from the establishment survey. That does not mean they should be disregarded entirely, and the divergences between the two series are often the biggest near turning points in the economy. The household survey does a much better job of picking up people who are self employed, and of very small start up businesses than does the establishment survey.

The unemployment rate fell to 9.0%, after three months in a row of being stuck at 9.1%. A year ago the unemployment rate was 9.7%. The civilian participation rate, or the percentage of people in the labor force, both employed and unemployed was unchanged at 64.2%. It hit its lowest level since May1983 in July at 63.9%. We were also coming out of a nasty recession in May 1983, and women were still far less involved in the workforce than they are today. The participation is down from 64.5% a year ago. The employment to population ratio, or the employment rate, rose for the third month in a row, rising to 58.4% from 58.3% in September. The July level of 59.0% number was the lowest since July 1983. It was at 58.3% a year ago. A rise in the participation rate makes it harder for the unemployment rate to fall, but is still good news. However, it is also true that the drop in the unemployment rate from 9.7% a year ago to the current 9.0% is in large part an illusion caused by the fall in the participation rate from 64.5% to the current 64.2%. A fall in the unemployment rate from a falling participation rate is not really such great news.

For all employees, the length of the average work week was unchanged at 34.3 hours. A year ago it was also at 34.3 hours. For production and non-supervisory employees, the length of the average workweek ticked up to 33.7 hours from 33.6 hours in September. It is up slightly from 33.5 hours a year ago. While a rise of an average of 6 minutes per week might not sound like a big deal, multiply it by the 131.516 million workers in the economy (establishment survey), and yes it is a big deal (to the extent it was really a six minute increase, and not smaller due to rounding). The very flat trend in average hours over the last year or so is extremely strong evidence that the overall anemic job growth is not due to excessive regulatory fears by businesses from things like the Health Care reform act. If the reluctance to higher were due to fears of higher costs that will be imposed starting in 2014 due to the act for hiring an marginal employee, but that there were still profitable business opportunities available, then the obvious thing for a business to do would be to have its existing workforce work longer hours. With the average work week still very low by any historic standard (although up from a very low 33.0 hours for production workers at the bottom of the recession) it is clear that the problem is that there are not enough customers, not that businesses are afraid of Obamacare.

Average hourly earnings for all employees rose to $23.19 from $23.14 and are up 1.84% from $22.77 a year ago. Average hourly earnings for production employees rose $0.03 to $19.53 for the month, and is up 1.56% from $19.23 a year ago. The year over year changes are well below the rate of headline inflation over the last year, so in real terms, wages are moving backwards. Income growth in the middle and lower half of the income distribution has been sorely lacking, not just recently, but for over a decade. Well, actually, it has been pretty bad for the bottom 90% of people, but particularly anemic for the lower half of the income distribution. Higher incomes for those who are working means higher sales and more quickly repaired household balance sheets. Slow growth or actual declines mean lower sales and less progress on balance sheet repair. The anemic growth in average hourly earnings is not a good thing for the economy, although it is good news for corporate profits, and hence the stock market, at least in the short term. It also means that it will be tough for a generalized increase in overall prices (a.k.a. inflation) to occur, as opposed to increases of relative prices of highly visible prices such as food and gasoline.

The other significant positive aspect of this report is significant progress on the duration of unemployment problem. Half of all the unemployed have now been out of work for 20.8 week, an awful level, but much better than the 22.2 week figure of last month, and below the 21.3 week level of a year ago. For perspective though, prior to the great recession the highest the median duration of unemployment had ever reached was 12.3 weeks near the bottom of the Reagan Recession of 1982-83. Since the definition has changed, the comparisons based on the average duration of unemployment over the long term are less meaningful, but it dropped to 39.4 weeks from 40.5 weeks in September. A year ago, under a definition that maximized the length of unemployment at two years rather than the five years now “allowed” the average duration of unemployment was 33.9 weeks.

While the unemployment rate is better a year ago, but part of that is a mirage due to falling participation rates. Still, significant progress has been made over the last year, with a net gain of 1.824 million private sector jobs gained. Unfortunately when one factors in the continual bleeding of public service jobs, the total employment gains over the last year fall to 1.522 million total jobs gained. If we were in normal times, rather than trying to dig out of a deep hole, that would be an impressive performance. Unfortunately we are not in normal times.

- Posted by Dirk van Dijk, Chief Equity Strategist at Zacks Investment Research of Chicago. Follow Dirk on Twitter @DirkHvanDijk

On New Year’s Day, C-SPAN did an in-depth interview with Chris Hedges, probing the author’s entire body of work. During this engaging discussion, the Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent spends three hours taking viewers’ calls, emails and tweets on topics such as terrorism, religion and politics.

This Book TV program is a comprehensive and fascinating conversation with one of America’s most important and critically lucid reporters. Hedges details in sweeping detail exactly why and how America has found itself in the sorry state that it is in today, and accurately characterizes our condition as one of a collapsing corporate empire.

This is a must see program for anyone interested in coming to grips with the full scope of the problems we face, and the course of action we can and should be looking towards ahead.

Watch The Program

So has anyone noticed the Bill of Rights has become pretty much a dead letter? Maybe what is the final blow (after years of a series of blows), was this, the so-called “National Defense Authorization Act,” (more like the National Elite Power and Privilege Protection Act), passed on December 15th, which was, ironically enough, “Bill of Rights Day,” marking the 220th anniversary of its adoption. The gods of history have a sense of humor, if nothing else. Nothing like being killed on the day you were born for poetic drama.

Read about it here.

Jon Jost wrote about this insidious piece of legislation and its ramifications, in a post on his lucidly pointed blog Cinemelectronica…

While the circus of the Republican nominee selection process travels the country putting on its dog and pony show, back in DC, in the furious rush to wrap up “business” before the Christmas break, our wonderful Congressmen and women have hobbled together a fantastic new bill, the annual National Defense Authorization Act – to say “law” – which Barack Obama, our erstwhile scholar of the Constitution, and our erstwhile “liberal” President, had promised to veto if it retained a certain element that had been tacked on in the devious manner of our politicians, a “rider” having to do with giving the Executive the (unconstitutional) right to declare someone “a terrorist” or even someone as being vaguely in some way connected to a claimed “terrorist” and to arrest them, lock them up, hide them, and throw away the key. American or not, where ever they are. However, as is his way, Mr Obama did his feint to the left, and now is ready to sign this new bill/law. And bye-bye to what is left of the Constitution’s “Bill of Rights.”

Read more about what all this means here from Robert Scheer.

Glenn Greenwald effectively dissects and debunks the myths about the NDAA, which are being propagated by its supporters and Obama defenders. This, like practically all of Greenwald’s stuff, is essential reading.

The Punk Patriot pretty much explains what this law potentially entails for American citizens, summing it up in his direct, to-the-point style in this video… (Note: Alert! - This video features the repeated use of graphic language)

This is bad stuff folks. Bad stuff. And how anyone can rationalize voting for Obama or ANY of the constitutional traitors in Congress who voted for this is beyond me. Would love to hear your rationale, if you’ve got one.

As housing prices have fallen, millions of homeowners have found themselves owing more on their houses than the houses were worth. That greatly increases the risk of foreclosure. If the house is worth more than the mortgage, the rate of foreclosure should be zero. Regardless of how bad your cash flow situation is, do to job loss, divorce or health problems for example, you would always be better off selling the house and getting something, even if it is less than you paid for the house, then letting the bank take it and get nothing. By propping up the price of houses, the tax credit did help slow the increase in the rate of foreclosures. Still 22.5% of all houses with mortgages are worth less than the value of the mortgage today. Another five percent or so are worth less than five percent more than the value of the mortgage. If prices start to fall again, those folks well be pushed under water as well.

On the other hand, it is not obvious that propping up the prices of an asset class is really something that the government should be doing. After all, it is hurting those who don’t have homes and would like to buy one. Support for housing goes far beyond just the temporary tax credit we had last year. The biggest single support is the deductibility of mortgage interest from taxes. Since homeowners are generally wealthier and have higher incomes than those that rent, this is a case of the lower middle class subsidizing the upper middle class. If you are in the 35% bracket, then effectively the government is paying 35% of your mortgage interest, if you are in the 10% bracket, the government is effectively picking up only 10% of the tab. The same incidentally holds true for other tax deductions, such as charitable contributions. Also, even if they are home owners, people with lower incomes are more likely to take the standard deduction rather than itemize their taxes. The mortgage interest deduction only applies if you itemize.

There has been much discussion of trying to rationalize the tax system and bringing down tax rates, but to do so the base would have to be broadened through the elimination of deductions. The mortgage interest deduction is one of the biggest of these. An attempt that leaves the mortgage interest deduction in place would have to be mere tinkering around the edges. While the concept of lower rates and fewer deductions is a good one, transitioning from here to there in the current weak housing market is going to be difficult to say the least. The value of the mortgage interest deduction has largely been capitalized into the prices of existing homes. If it were to suddenly go away in a big tax reform, the result would be another sharp drop in housing prices, and with it the wealth of the middle class. I would greatly prefer a slow phase out of the mortgage interest deduction. Conceptually I am all in favor of getting rid of it, but doing so suddenly could have devastating consequences.

Despite the seasonal bounce in the unadjusted numbers, the second down leg in prices is probably still underway. Fortunately will probably be a much shorter leg than the first one. Still, that is bad news for the economy. Used homes make very good substitutes for new homes, and with a massive glut of used homes on the market, there is little or no reason to build any new ones. With used home prices falling, they undercut the prices of new homes. A homebuilder simply can not compete with a bank that just wants to get a bad asset, a foreclosed home, off of its balance sheet. Residential investment is normally the main locomotive that pulls the economy out of recessions. It is derailed this time around and there seems to be little the government can do to get it back on track. Eventually, a growing population and higher household formation will absorb the excess inventory. The key to higher household formation (Economist speak for getting the kids to move out of Mom and Dad’s basement and into a place of their own) will be more jobs. Unfortunately, residential investment is normally a key source of jobs when the economy is coming out of recessions. Sort of a tough chicken and the egg problem.

If the prices existing home prices can stabilize, and not just because of an expensive artificial prop, it will be extremely good news for the economy. It will stop the foreclosure problem from getting worse, since being “underwater” is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for a foreclosure to happen. It means that the wealth of the average American is not being eroded. That should help consumer confidence. It also lays the foundation for a pick up in new home construction. When that happens, the economy will see a huge benefit. This recovery has been lacking the normal locomotive, residential investment, which historically has pulled it out of recessions. When that locomotive gets back on track, the economy will pick up speed. Under the new GSE refinancing program, there are some incentives for people to use the refi to shorten up the maturity of their mortgage. That would help people get back into a positive equity position sooner, but not add a lot of immediate purchasing power to the economy. Paying down your mortgage is a form of “forced savings,” and a 15 year mortgage includes much more of this forced savings than does a 30 year mortgage.

Four months of ever so slight improvement on a seasonally adjusted basis is not enough to declare the end of this downturn, but it is a hopeful sign. The seasonal adjustments though are going to start to turn negative over the next few months, and thus the seasonal adjusted numbers will start to look weaker than the unadjusted numbers. Don’t get to frightened if that happens, even though the news reports will probably start to get hyperbolic about it. We are getting closer to the bottom in housing prices, but are not there yet.

- Posted by Dirk van Dijk, Chief Equity Strategist at Zacks Investment Research of Chicago. Follow Dirk on Twitter @DirkHvanDijk