The PBS web site has the article Why debt and money created ‘out of thin air’ are necessary, not evil.

As for those who think they do know all the answers but haven’t spent years hearing the other side, beware. And with that, here’s this week’s q-and-a, with my answers put in the kind of simple, jargon-averse terms I try to use to explain things to myself.

The answers that Paul Solman provides are pretty good, though I wouldn’t call them flawless.  As if explanation of the real world involving human beings could be flawless.  That is why his caveat above is so necessary and so ignored by the people commenting on the article.  The comments by people who think they know the one and only true answer to these questions may be the most entertaining part of the web page.

I have one quote from my Favorite Quotes page, that really applies.

Mark Twain

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

On commenter on the post thinks silver has an intrinsic value, and that he knows what it is. I asked him if he were dying of thirst, how much silver would he give for a quart of water. What does this say about the intrinsic value of silver and the intrinsic value of water? If you can’t answer the “simple” question about silver and water, what makes anyone think they have all the answers about something as complex as money?

The Real News Network has the video interview Fmr. Goldman Sachs Trader Supports Robin Hood Tax As A Way to Move Away from Financialized Economy .

You may remember this tax from my March 2010 post The Robin Hood Tax Song.

This tax is such an unmitigated good, that there is no reason to consider this tax before touching earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare.

With such an obvious solution to revenue raising and to definancializing the economy, why would anybody look to any other action before implementing this one?

So when anyone tries to tell you that there is no other solution than cutting Social Security and Medicare, you just give them the old Bronx Cheer and/or the Razzberry.

If you were in this car wanting to get somewhere and had two opposing opinions on where to drive, would you think it reasonable to just compromise by splitting the difference between the two opinions?

So why do the press and so many in the public think that two sides should always compromise, no matter what the two opposing sides want to do?

Or do you think the Democrats should suggest driving in the ditch on the left so that compromise will get us to a reasonable position?

The Real News Network has the three part series, the above title comes from the first part.

Growing Up Black in American Apartheid – Ford Pt1

On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay: Glen Ford, Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report, tells his story as a red-diaper baby, growing up facing racism in the North living with his white activist mother, and living in the Deep South with his black deejay father

Giving Grassroots Leaders a Voice – Ford Pt2

On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay: Glen Ford, Exec. Editor of Black Agenda Report, talks about helping create black radio news. He says that news media creates leaders by deciding what events are important and who is authorized to speak on the importance of those events

Black Nationalism and the Peoples’ Movement – Ford Pt3

On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay: Glen Ford addresses the question whether black Americans constitute a nation, and if so, what is their role in the movement of the whole people

It is interesting to watch Paul Jay struggle with what he elicited from the interviewee here. I think I got it sooner than Paul did.

Ford began with a discussion of two major tendencies in black politics.

“One is the self-determinationist tendency, that is, the political tendency that says black folks have every right to organize among each other for their own goals, regardless of what the larger society, i.e. white folks, think, and that that is legitimate,” said Ford.”

“There is also what I call the representationist strain, which says that black folks should have representation at all strata of the general society and that this can be achieved, and by–progress should be measured by the extent to which there are blacks in business, or blacks in politics, blacks in all of the various strata, and that this does not require any transformation of society.”

“These two tendencies coexist in conflict in every black brain,” said Ford. “And they are at war sometimes with each other. And I think that all black politics actually flows from this twoness, one the imperative to build a world that is worthy of black people, and the other to achieve black representation in the larger society.”

I don’t find it hard to make parallels that I can understand with what Glen Ford is trying to convey here.

Think about the Wall Street powers and their control over the “white” dominated government. They may be “white” like me, but they do not represent my thinking at all. If I had people like Elizabeth Warren in control of the government, then I might feel that there was some representation of the needs of people like me.

Black people may be proud that Barack Obama is President, but they don’t necessarily feel that he fully represents their interests.

To put the parallel on a more focused level, I might have some sense of some cultural pride to see the Jewish Joe Lieberman as President. I certainly would not feel that he represents my interests. If it were Alan Grayson, that might be a different story.

The Real News Network has the video German Exporters Benefit from European Austerity.  When I first read that headline, I thought I’d really like to see them justify this counter-intuitive conclusion.  Justify it they did. The Euro common currency certainly has what I suspect are unintended consequences. Either Germany is unknowingly taking advantage, or very cleverly learning how to take advantage.

But number two–and this is a very interesting point that came out of the conference–is this, that generally when an economy is successful at exporting, what usually happens is that the value of its currency goes up. So if we think about the United States, if we exported more, that would mean more people want to hold dollars. And when more people want to hold dollars, the value of the dollar goes up relative to other currencies, which in turn would make the U.S. less competitive in export. But Germany has the situation in which it benefits, ironically, from the fact that even though they are very successful at exports, they share the common currency, the euro, with the rest of Europe, and the rest of Europe remains in the tank, the rest of Europe is not succeeding in exporting, so that Germany is, ironically, benefiting by the fact that the euro does not appreciate, does not go up in value. And that enables Germany to continue to succeed as an exporter far more than they would be under other circumstances. So the situation is in–where Germany is able to dominate economic policymaking in Europe because they’re the most successful and largest economy–and they’ve also been able to rig the policymaking with respect to the euro, because it benefits them most. It benefits them most to be able to be an exporter that still can contain the euro, the value of the currency lower.

So the austerity agenda is helping the wealthy in Germany while it is hurting everybody else in Europe

There are a few other interesting points in the interview.  Watch the video below.

I found this video posted on JoeH’s Facebook page.

This should be easy enough for everybody to understand.

Mother Jones has the article Elizabeth Warren to Wall Street Regulators: Put Big Bank CEOs in Jail.

In a letter to the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Officer of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Warren lauded the overseer of the TARP bailout program for cracking down on financial industry players who wasted, stole, or abused the federal emergency funds doled out to banks during the financial crisis, and implied that the three banking regulators should also punish individuals who helped cause the financial meltdown.

Although the budget for TARP’s inspector general was “a small fraction of the size of the budgets and staffs at your agencies,” Warren pointed out, the program’s watchdog has brought criminal charges against nearly 100 senior executives; obtained criminal convictions on 107 defendants, including 51 jail sentences; and suspended or banned 37 people from working in the banking industry.

If the wording about the overseer of the TARP has you confused, read her letter.

This is the first time I have seen a comparison of one agency’s record of enforcement with these other agencies’ records. Nothing like a little evidence to embarrass the slackers.

You might want to put Elizabeth Warren’s letter in the context of The Real News Network video Justice Department Misrepresents JP Morgan Settlement.

Thanks for JacquelynW’s posting of the Elizabeth Warren story on her Facebook page.

The Daily Kos has the story GOP Rep Freaks Out when Confronted with Proof of ACA Success where the highlight the video below from CNN.

Perhaps you hate The Daily Kos, and don’t believe anything it says, but remember the video comes from CNN. CNN of late has been trying to mimic Faux Noise, but in this case, I think the anchor may have acted like a real journalist.

The ACA was modeled after Massachusett’s successful program, not Tennessee’s failed one as mentioned by the GOP Rep. The Kentucky governor said it took medicare a few years to work out all the kinks, not the 50 years mentioned by the GOP Rep. Other than letting these lies go unchallenged, the anchorwoman did a good job of showing who these Republicans really are.

I have already mentioned the Darwin Awards with regard to the people who are ideologically opposed to Obama (Care). Perhaps, as these people refuse to get health insurance because they would rather pay the penalty, their breed will die out due to the natural selection which they also refuse to believe in. What will Faux Noise do for an audience when their misinformation kills off the audience they have now?

I cannot find the article I read earlier today that explained some of the verification that the ACA web site has to do with a number of government databases. Since the Republicans got Obama to agree to additional ACA verification steps in order end the government shutdown, I wonder if these late changes had any impact on the software. Of course the software was having troubles a few weeks before this agreement was reached, so perhaps the initial troubles were not caused by this sudden change. However, the sudden change cannot be helping.

I have found two articles that may be interesting Err Engine Down: What really went wrong with healthcare.gov? and Obamacare contractors: Don’t blame us.

NancyW’s Facebook Page showed the video 9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact.

Be the first in your neighborhood to see the video. Only 10,606,175 people have seen this on YouTube so far.

Maybe after viewing this, you will understand what my blog is all about.