SARAH PALIN USES A HAND-O -PROMPTER

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Colbert's take on this RETARD masquerading as a Presidential candidate is hilarious.

MGM TO SELL IT'S 50% OF BORGATA

BORGATA

The hammer continues to fall hard and heavy on AC these days, it was announced today that MGM that it would divest itself of its silent partnership with Borgata ( Boyd gaming) and sell all of its AC holdings. This coming fast on the heels of the announcement the other day that Pinnacle Inc. the owners of the old Sands property had put all of its AC holdings up for sale as well.

NJ Pols hold meeting in AC about AC's Future

While more and more of the casino rats jump ship daily the State is now worried that the days of easy money rolling into the State treasury from AC's once flourishing gaming halls are coming to a rather rapid close. My guess is that these well heeled gentlemen will all call for more meetings. What we need are more customers and less meetings.

EL NINO RETURNS

The strongest El Nino weather event in over a decade is now happening in the Pacific. The monumental snow storms hammering the Eastern US are a result of this event. The EL Nino will continue right into spring this yr. according to the article I've linked at the title page.

BLIZZARD !!

Blizzard conditions are raging outside as I write this with over a foot and half or more already on the ground and strong winds causing huge drifts along buildings and fences. The heavy wet snow is also taking down trees and power lines as the power has been going off and on all night here. This storm is not going to be the winters last and its a good bet this winter will be a record one for snow and rain along the jersey coast.

Beach Erosion?

The strong Nor'easters are also causing significant narrowing of all the local beaches. This is a normal variation and not a disaster as its being played by the "sand lobby" and its political cheering section locally and DC. Its another example of disaster mongering by the well connected Corp and political set.We can almost count on a call for more billions by this greedy crowd after these storms pass. They'll whine about how their projects have worked but they need to fix them now.

THE UGLY FACE OF "THE GREAT RECESSION"

Graph showing the extent of job losses after every recession since 1974

The arrow is pointing @ this recession's % of jobs lost graphed by months since the official start of the recession in Dec. 2007. This is indeed "The Great Recession" as many are now calling it. Least we forget who brought us this disaster. This is the result of 8 yrs. of mis-management in DC by the GW BV$H administration. This is the legacy left to our current President. The GOP doesn't bring up this man's name anymore in polite conversation the same way they tried to forget Herbert Hoover. The road back from this creatures reign will be long and hard and many young people will probably never know decent work because of the trends in our declining economy. Some of the disaster is also the result of 30+ yrs. of larger trends in the economy. America is not the same place it was in 1980. Its IMO in far worse condition then back then.

@ the title a good article about today's job nos.

Published on Thursday, February 4, 2010 by TruthDig.com

Volcker Rules

by Robert Scheer

Finally President Barack Obama has come to his senses on financial regulation. His endorsement of what he calls the “Volcker Rule” for once puts him squarely on the side of ordinary Americans as opposed to the banking bandits who have so thoroughly fleeced the public.

The proposal from former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker basically involves restoring the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1930s Glass-Steagall banking regulations to prevent another Great Depression. It means separating the activities of commercial banks, entrusted with the deposits of ordinary folks, from the antics of the financial high rollers who are presumably dealing with wealthier and more knowledgeable investors. Commercial banks were intended to be heavily regulated and insured by the government to protect the savings of unwary citizens. Less risk-averse investors and the firms that handled their funds could fend for themselves, and if there was a collapse there would be no innocent victims requiring a government bailout.

This setup worked splendidly for more than six decades, until the rules were changed to permit the merger of the two types of banking activity, which never would have happened had President Ronald Reagan renamed Volcker as head of the Fed back in 1987. To reappoint Volcker would have been the logical move given his spectacular record in taming inflation, which he brought down to 3.6 percent after it had risen to 11.3 percent thanks to the energy crisis of 1979. Reagan went with Alan Greenspan instead because of their shared ideological fervor for unfettered free markets. But the repeal of Glass-Steagall required bipartisan support, and that eventually came with the presidency of Bill Clinton, who reappointed Greenspan and his fellow free-market ideologues Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers to head the Treasury Department. They joined forces with the Wall Street lobby, and as a result Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999 when Clinton signed the law eliminating it.

Unfortunately, and despite the collapse of the banking system brought about by the shenanigans of the “too big to fail” conglomerates permitted in the new deregulatory environment, Obama has wasted the last year and trillions of taxpayer dollars bailing out Wall Street without putting significant new rules in place to govern reckless behavior. Only now, with the economic disaster bankrupting the government, has he turned to Volcker for leadership. And in testimony Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, Volcker offered the essential justification for needed banking legislation:

“The basic point is that there has been, and remains, a strong public interest in providing a `safety net’—in particular, deposit insurance and the provision of liquidity in emergencies—for commercial banks carrying out essential services. There is not, however, a similar rationale for public funds-taxpayer funds—protecting and supporting essentially proprietary and speculative activities.”

Investment houses would still be permitted to play freely at the Wall Street casino, but they would have to pay the consequences of their own failure. In the event that the largest of them approached collapse, the government would still step in—not to save them but to dispose of the body in a way that did not endanger the health of others. As Volcker put it, when it would come to dealing with the impending collapse of an investment giant: “The mandate is to arrange an orderly liquidation or merger. In other words, euthanasia, not a rescue.”

Euthanasia was applied to Lehman Brothers but not Goldman Sachs, which was allowed to suddenly jump over the wall to become a commercial bank and thus eligible for TARP funding and many billions more from the government.

The biggest banks, whether originally commercial or investment banks, are now screaming their predicted pain at the prospect of new regulations—and no wonder. An analysis of the five top banks affected, led by Goldman Sachs, shows they stand to lose $13 billion in revenue next year if the proposed regulations pass, according to Bloomberg. But there is hope for at least some bipartisan support for the restoration of a wall separating these two very different sorts of banking activities, as indicated by a bill co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to explicitly restore the safeguards of Glass-Steagall.

Please don’t let your eyes glaze over on this issue as a matter of arcane economic regulation. It’s the ballgame as far as breaking the death grip of Wall Street over our economy. The projected $1.6 trillion deficit is only the first installment on decades of crippling debt that will pile up because of the irresponsibility of a radically deregulated banking system. This should be the only reminder we need that little else matters in the way of public policy discussion as long as Wall Street bleeds us dry.

Copyright © 2010 Truthdig, L.L.C.

Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Robert Scheer sums it up pretty good. We need to get these Vampires under control again or they'll gamble us all back into the ditch. Like most degenerate gamblers they cannot control themselves and the rest of us are tired of the Gov't using our taxes to enable them further.

BI-PARTISANSHIP TODAY

Think bi-partisanship is good for America? Its what were told day and night lately, but when the Gopers ruled funny thing you never heard them calling for this, did you? Read Cenk Uygur's excellent article on why this is and why so called bi-partisanship is really bad news for America these days. Read all about it @ the title link.

GROUNDHOGS DAY!!

It's that day again and yes, Phil saw his shadow. Snow predicted tonight!