We went to see "In the Heart of the Sea", supposed to tell the TRUE story which led to the creation of Moby Dick. It was great! All the whales were CGI, and the cinematography was stunning. The closest thing to a similar plot was the Odyssey. But the most unusual part of the movie was the lesson in economics:

The board of inquiry wanted the sailors to lie and say the ship ran aground. They didn't want people to know that a giant, vengeful whale destroyed the ship and pursed the sailors until they escaped the sea or died. Otherwise, they couldn't get insurance for their ships, nor sailors. The story ends with the announcement of oil coming from the ground: the petroleum strike of 1850. Probably the only reason there are any whales alive today, that plus Moby Dick, the Avenger!

and Ron Howard goes into such detail that his movies are always a must-see!

The ads on TV looked good, and I planned a rare trip to the theater to see it, But the St. Pete Crimes panned it, so I didn't.

I'll take your word over theirs. Maybe tonight.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/clinton-vs-sanders-how-their-infrastructure-plans-measure?akid=13740.227380.6Po4EJ&rd=1&src=newsletter1046797&t=27



Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has announced a plan for infrastructure investment. How does her plan stack up against that of her chief competitor, Bernie Sanders? Also, how will Clinton and Sanders pay for their plans? On that question, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently came up with a set of principles we can use to judge this.

Clinton’s Infrastructure Plan

Clinton on Monday announced a plan for investing in infrastructure improvements. Meteor Blades laid out the need for infrastructure investment at Daily Kos in “Clinton proposes $275 billion spending for infrastructure“:



Clinton’s infrastructure plan is detailed at her website in “Hillary Clinton’s Infrastructure Plan: Building Tomorrow’s Economy Today.” Here is a distillation:

● $250 billion dollars in infrastructure investment, spread out over five years as additional spending of $50 billion each year.

● An additional one-time $25 billion to seed a national infrastructure bank. The bank will support up to an additional $225 billion in direct loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of credit enhancement. These are loans to states and cities which will require tolls, fees, etc. to pay off.

● Spending priorities include “smart investments in ports, airports, roads, and waterways”; “giving all American households access to world-class broadband and creating connected ‘smart cities'”; “building airports and air traffic control systems”; “a smart, resilient electrical grid”; “safe and reliable sources of water”; “a national freight investment program”; “upgrade our dams and levees to improve safety and generate clean energy”; safe, smart roads and highways that are ready for the connected cars of tomorrow” and “the new energy sources that will power them.”

● A promise of “a faster, safer, and higher capacity passenger rail system.” But the plan does not mention high-speed rail. (Note that a single high-speed rail system from Los Angeles to San Francisco is expected to cost up to $60 billion, which alone is almost one-fourth of Clinton’s entire five-year infrastructure investment for all infrastructure needs.)

Sanders’ Infrastructure Plan

Clinton’s $275 billion infrastructure plan offers modest spending and contains few specifics. Contrast that with candidate Bernie Sanders, who has proposed a highly detailed, $1 trillion plan. Sanders’ infrastructure plan was originally introduced in January as a Senate bill called the Rebuild America Act. A summary is laid out on his campaign issues page, Creating Jobs Rebuilding America. The plan calls for spending $1 trillion over the same five-year period. Here’s what his plan includes:

● A $125 billion National Infrastructure Bank to leverage private capital to finance new projects.

● $75 billion to upgrade our passenger and freight rail lines.

● $12.5 billion to improve airports across the country.

● $17.5 billion to upgrade air traffic control systems.

● $15 billion to improve inland waterways, coastal harbors and shipping channels.

● $12 billion each year on high-hazard dams that provide flood control, drinking water, irrigation, hydropower, and recreation across the country; and the flood levees.

● $6 billion a year so states can improve drinking water systems.

● $6 billion a year to improve the wastewater plants and stormwater infrastructure.

● $10 billion a year for power transmission and distribution modernization projects.

● $5 billion a year to expand high-speed broadband networks in underserved and unserved areas, and to boost speeds and capacity all across the country.

Warren’s Key Tests For Corporate Tax Plans

Clinton’s infrastructure plan says only that it will be paid for through “business tax reform.” It does not detail the nature of the reforms that would pay for this spending. Similarly, Sanders does not yet have a specific individual and corporate tax proposal, but he has proposed a financial transaction tax and says he will close loopholes. As we wait for the candidates’ plans for raising revenue through individual and corporate taxes, Sen. Elizabeth Warren has recently outlined a set of principles that we can use to judge the plans the candidates eventually offer... Warren laid out three principles for tax reform that benefits middle-class families and small businesses, not just wealthy multinational corporations:

1) Increase the share of revenue that corporations pay. The tax code now is so tilted toward the big corporations that any “revenue neutral” plan leaves the country with too little money to fund basic services.

2) Level the playing field between small and big businesses. The business tax code is rigged against small businesses, making it harder for them to compete.

3) Promote investment and jobs in the U.S. Lower tax rates and loopholes for hiding profits overseas encourages more outsourcing of jobs and investment. “Our tax code should protect jobs and investment here at home, period,” Warren said.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/6-noxious-facts-about-americas-billionaires?akid=13731.227380.2Aw98j&rd=1&src=newsletter1046705&t=13

Dilbert nails it here.

I've been sitting at that table many times in my work life, just to end up killing myself to make sure the change actually works.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33942-bank-crimes-pay-under-the-thumb-of-the-global-financial-mafiocracy

On Nov. 13, the United Kingdom's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced it was charging 10 individual bankers, working for two separate banks, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, with fraud over their rigging of the Euribor rates. The latest announcement shines the spotlight once again on the scandals and criminal behavior that have come to define the world of global banking.

To date, only a handful of the world's largest banks have been repeatedly investigated, charged, fined or settled in relation to a succession of large financial scams, starting with mortgage fraud and the Libor scandal in 2012, the Euribor scandal and the Forex (foreign exchange) rate rigging. At the heart of these scandals, which involve the manipulation of interest rates on trillions of dollars in transactions, lie a handful of banks that collectively form a cartel in control of global financial markets - and the source of worldwide economic and financial crises.

Banks such as HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS anchor the global financial power we have come to recognize as fraud. The two, after all, are not mutually exclusive. In more explicit terms, this cartel of banks functions as a type of global financial Mafia, manipulating markets and defrauding investors, consumers and countries while demanding their pound of flesh in the form of interest payments. The banks force nations to impose austerity measures and structural reforms under the threat of cutting off funding; meanwhile they launder drug money for other cartels and organized crime syndicates.

Call them the global Mafiocracy.

In May, six major global banks were fined nearly $6 billion for manipulation of the foreign exchange market, which handles over $5 trillion in daily transactions. Four of the six banks pleaded guilty to charges of "conspiring to manipulate the price of U.S. dollars and euros exchanged." Those banks were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, while two additional banks, UBS and Bank of America, were fined but did not plead guilty to the specific charges. Forex traders at Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and other banks conspired to manipulate currency prices through chat room groups they established, where they arrogantly used names like "The Mafia" and "The Cartel."

The FBI said the investigations and charges against the big banks revealed criminal behavior "on a massive scale." The British bank Barclays paid the largest individual fine at around $2.3 billion. But as one trader at the bank wrote in a chat room conversation back in 2010, "If you aint cheating, you aint trying." The total fines, while numerically large, were but a small fraction of the overall market capitalization of each bank - though the fine on Barclays amounted to some 3.4% of the bank's market capitalization, the highest percentage by far among the group.

Despite the criminal conspiracy charges covering the years 2007 through 2013, the banks and their top officials continue to lay the blame squarely at the feet of individual traders...

more

maybe Mom can post again come February 28th, at which point it will be obvious that Bernie's won the nomination....if she still wants to return to junior high, that is.

Don't know if it's true, and won't bother to ask, either.


I'm going to spend the day admiring my beautiful new front door...thanks, Mom!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/12/bill-black-a-jihadist-against-the-banks.html



Video:

From the interview: