Brusqueness

Britain in 2010 is not a happy country – too many divisions, inherent antagonisms, and ideological chasm divide the state and make it . country that could be described as “being at war with itself”.

So says Margit Sir Edward Victor Sir Edward Victor Edward Appleton in an column for MJB Times, titled GB at War Chapter II.

I can’t speak for the veracity of MJB Times, but it make little difference when . can replace “Britain” in the quote with “America” and end up with the same word-for-word import Ever since the prevarication and cover-up of shrub and Cheney, politics aren’t discussed in either polite or impolite circle at the endangerment of a black eye. And the chasm grows wider as Democrat and Republican spend their time slinging slam at each other.

Appleton:

Quite apart from the more obvious—and undoubtedly more pressure problems—like the enormous debt crisis,  the trade deficit, the war in Afghanistan, the problems? of immigration etc., the alliance government has its work cut out for itself.

Ditto Democrat Obama, who is shutting in on 1½ years of his administration with little or nothing to show for it—and that with a Democratic bulk in both house of U.S. Congress He’s managed to spend hundred of 1000000000000 of dollar bailing out rich people Sir Joseph Banks and support “wars”, both within the bailiwick of the Republicans, but his “massive health care reform” bundle has yet to see the light of day.

But mister Obama has . terrific grin Sir Edward Victor Sir Edward Victor Appleton writes,

[W]hen nick cleg and Saint David Cameron announced their coalition government . . . friendly raillery in the garden . . . [a] wave to Obama’s relaxed style was clearly intended.

Never mind that the political system of Thursday UK and US are quite different; it is the politicians who business relationship for the sameness They smiling to your face, give you [a] glad-hand, make promise to placate you—and the moment you turn your back, they pang it.

Appleton concludes her editorial with pie-in-the-sky smarm:

Here’s hoping that the new alliance government has it in them to finally create what a previous prime minister called “a state at ease with itself”.

Don’t make me yell How can a alliance possibly solve serious domestic help problems? How can Obama solve serious domestic problems when his own Party is in disarray and does not support him?

The response is obvious. In a narration of two countries, neither one of them can.

Posted from Chandler, AZ May 20, 2o1o

1. It was 1916 that Woodrow Wilson set aside June 14 as the the date for honoring the flag. But it wasn’t actually declared National Flag Day until 1949, when it was established by an act of Congress. Why June 14? Because that’s the day in 1777 that the Second Continental Congress adopted Betty Ross’ (according to popular legend, anyway) flag as the official flag of the United States.
2. You know the story – George Washington prevailed upon Betsy Ross to create a flag for the country and she sewed it up with her bare hands. It’s a nice story and all, but nearly all flag historians believe it probably never really happened. Our only source for this tale is her family – no historical records seem to back it up. No records show that the Continental Congress issued a flag to be designed, no invoice or any supporting documents have ever been found amongst Betsy’s detailed records, and no mention of a national flag appears in Congress records until the Flag Resolution of 1777.

3. The United States Flag Code specifies that the flag should never be dipped to any person or thing. As far as we can tell, this custom dates back to the 1908 London Olympics. All countries were asked to respectfully dip their flags to the Royal Box when the procession passed by King Edward VII, but Ralph Rose, the American track and field athlete holding the flag, refused to comply. His teammate Martin Sheridan later explained, “This flag dips to no earthly king.” The tradition has been upheld ever since and was officially written into the Flag Code in 1911.

4. I see this rule of the Flag Code broken all of the time, and I bet you do too: the flag should not be used for any advertising purpose, including worn on clothes or for decoration in general (it’s fine on coffins). I’m picturing myself in the early ‘90s – cutoff jean shorts with cuffs and a big, oversized American flag t-shirt – and I feel guilty for so many reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

President Barack Obama is ready to roll out an overhaul of the intricate rules and systems that govern America’s troubled financial institutions, proposing the most ambitious revision since the Great Depression.

The goal is to prevent a recurrence of the economic crisis that erupted in the United States and exploded last fall with devastating consequences still reverberating around the world.

Unlike the government’s temporary ownership stake in automakers and major financial companies, the regulatory changes set to be announced Wednesday are designed to be permanent. They could result in a major realignment of power and authority among government agencies that set the rules for banking, lending and investing and touch American lives through daily transactions, from credit cards to mortgages and mutual funds.

The proposals already are the source of a spirited debate in Congress over whether Obama’s measures will prove too timid or place too heavy a hand on the levers of capitalism.

At issue is a 21st century system of high-stakes swaps and trades, bets and losses where trillions of dollars worth of investment products have grown too intricate for a 20th century regulatory structure.

Imagine today’s financial transactions as an athletic contest where the referees have lost their vantage point. Plays occur out of their sight and fouls go undetected. Some referees halt play while others let it go on.

Even the players have had enough.

”On a macro-basis, we’re very supportive of reform,” said Tim Ryan, president and chief executive of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

In devising new regulations and oversight, the administration is looking to address four perceived weaknesses in the current system:

–The lack of an all-seeing federal entity to detect institutional stresses that threaten the financial system, and the government’s inability to step in and unwind large institutions before they choke the system. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. can do this with banks. But the government lacked the power to do the same with a behemoth such as the insurer American International Group Inc.

–The undercapitalization of large financial institutions. Heading into the financial crisis, too many banks were leveraged with significantly more debt than equity. ”If you give people enough leverage, they can lose an unbelievably large amount of their own money and that of their clients,” Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers, said last week.

–The emergence of large, lightly regulated markets, such as hedge funds, and of big insurers, such as AIG, without a federal overseer. The administration wants large private investment funds to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is weighing the creation of a federal charter for insurance firms.

–Consumers and lenders whose unwitting or reckless credit and borrowing decisions placed families under staggering debts and contributed to the instability of the financial system. Obama is likely to recommend creating a financial services consumer protection body with oversight powers over mortgages and credit cards and other consumer financial products.

Internally, the administration has vacillated over whether to streamline the vast array of regulatory agencies.

At one point, Treasury and White House officials floated the idea of a single financial services regulator to oversee banks and certain insurers. But it didn’t get a warm reception from the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee or the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The administration backed away from the idea.

But last week, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a key player in financial issues, called on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to include a single banking regulator in the administration’s overhaul plan. House Republicans want streamlining, too, but would take power away from the Federal Reserve and the FDIC.

The administration considered merging the Securities and Exchange Commission, the powerful stock market regulator, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which oversees commodity futures and some options markets. But the move would have meant congressional and regulatory turf battles. At a dinner two weeks ago, Geithner told key lawmakers he would not propose the merger.

”The Obama administration — because they’re working in a more realistic environment — are into the art of the possible,” Ryan said.

One way or another, the Fed could be a winner in the administration’s plan.

The administration and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would like the central bank to be the overarching ‘’systemic risk” regulator, lording over the financial system in search of flaws and weak stress points. Such a role would give the Fed exceptional authority as both the manager of monetary policy and the overseer of the enterprises with the biggest financial footprint in the country, if not the world.

Industry officials now expect Obama and Geithner to propose a system that makes the Fed a supervisor of systemic risk assisted by a council of regulators that would advise the central bank about potential dangers.

Also in the debate is how to handle failing institutions that pose a threat to the entire financial system. The administration wants a beefed up FDIC to carry out that function provided such intervention is triggered by Fed or Treasury regulators.

Republicans prefer that companies be restructured or liquidated in bankruptcy court.

Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, urged lawmakers to reject a regulatory system ”that depends on the infallibility of the government regulators, who have so far shown themselves unable to anticipate crisis, let alone prevent them.”

In a speech Friday to the Council on Foreign Relations, Summers offered the administration’s counterpoint: ”Any financial institution that is big enough, interconnected enough or risky enough that its distress necessitates government writing substantial checks, is big enough, risky enough or interconnected enough that it should be some part of the government’s responsibility to supervise it on a comprehensive basis.”