Thanks to reader SharonG for suggesting the Pando article The Wolf of Sesame Street: Revealing the secret corruption inside PBS’s news division.

On December 18th, the Public Broadcasting Service’s flagship station WNET issued a press release announcing the launch of a new two-year news series entitled “Pension Peril.” The series, promoting cuts to public employee pensions, is airing on hundreds of PBS outlets all over the nation. It has been presented as objective news on  major PBS programs including the PBS News Hour.

However, neither the WNET press release nor the broadcasted segments explicitly disclosed who is financing the series. Pando has exclusively confirmed that “Pension Peril” is secretly funded by former Enron trader John Arnold, a billionaire political powerbroker who is actively trying to shape the very pension policy that the series claims to be dispassionately covering.
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A stealth takeover of the public airwaves

A billionaire political activist like Arnold exerting financial – and thus ideological – control over PBS news programming is the culmination of a larger campaign by ideological and corporate interests to politicize public broadcasting. As Pando’s Yasha Levine and others have documented, on National Public Radio that campaign has involved the radio network promoting politically skewed coverage of political front groups and corporate interests that are now permitted to finance NPR’s journalism. That trend shows no sign of abating under NPR’s new CEO, who came to the job after a career as a financial-industry lobbyist, Republican Party benefactor and board member of corporate-financed conservative think tanks.

On PBS, the campaign has been even more intense. During fights over funding for public broadcasting during the Bush era, one FCC official told the Washington Post that under withering pressure from conservative ideologues and corporate special interests, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting became “engaged in a systematic effort not just to sanitize the truth, but to impose a right-wing agenda on PBS.”

I have known that ever since Congress started pressuring PBS to have more balance (meaning more right-wing content), that PBS is no longer the source of truthful information that it was. With Congress holding part of the purse strings, what else could PBS do? It now seems that the congressional pressure has even reached the choice of CEO for NPR.

McClatchy DC has the story Yellen Grilled in First Testimony as Fed Chief. Chairman of the House committee, Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, got his comeupance.

But when pressed by Hensarling on why growth has been so sluggish, Yellen reminded him that the Republican fools in Congress refused to use the only effective tool, fiscal policy, to solve this problem. They dropped the problem in the Fed’s lap. The only tool that the Fed had at its disposal to deploy was one that has been known to be ineffective since the depression of the 1930s.

As it turns out, the outcome of deploying this policy is exactly what was predicted, but the Republicans refuse to budge. Not only that, but the Republicans have convinced Obama to reduce the deficit which only works against what the Fed was trying to do.

If the Republicans would let the government use money wisely to buy needed infrastructure at a time when costs are low, the economic problem would be cured rapidly and we would have bought infrastructure on the cheap.

With the current Republican policy, if we ever get out of this recession, we will be left with our infrastructure in a shambles at a time when fixing them will be very expensive in a robust economy.

The beauty of a country that is sovereign in its own currency, such as the USA, is that it can always afford to buy goods and services denominated in its own currency when they are not being put to use in the private sector. What a shame to waste this well designed situation.

Oops!, I only dreamed the above response.  The real excerpt from the article is:

But when pressed by Hensarling on why growth has been so sluggish, Yellen reminded that “these are very unusual times” that required creative approaches since the main tool, low interest rates, cannot go lower than zero.

You know that if Elizabeth Warren had been testifying, her response would be a lot closer to what I wrote than what Yellen actually said.  One of the foci of the Warren campaign for the Senate was to point out how woefully we were under-investing in our infrastructure compared to the countries that were out-competing us in international trade.

Gawker.com has the article by William Warwick, Woody Allen Is Not a Monster. He Is a Person. Like My Father.

I admire Woody for rejecting Hollywood awards culture and consistently churning out reasonably watchable films. (Though I didn’t care much for Blue Jasmine; I prefer Match Point, which I suspect is closer to a darkness of which Woody is a part.)

Yet I know too that Dylan Farrow is telling the truth. And it makes me sick to witness the vile double standard by which our society measures abuse survivors – questioning their credibility based on their behavior, when that behavior is likely the result of the trauma they have endured. Who in the world finds it plausible that Dylan was an emotionally disturbed kid who concocted a false memory from her inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality, rather than a kid who had been systematically traumatized within the sanctity of an otherwise reasonably stable home and so could not fully integrate the experience?

We don’t really just condemn the sexualization of children. Instead, we condemn the very existence of child abuse altogether. It’s as if the crime includes being victimized by it, or responsible for bringing it into the light. We take an ontological roach spray to the whole event, either denying its status in reality altogether, or competing with one another to proclaim the most exquisite forms of torture for the perpetrators. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen the most strident liberal break character to loudly call for the prison rape of perpetrators.

I post this article because it is thought provoking about the topic.  It comes from someone who has lived the experience and has figured out a way to come to terms with it.

I still won’t go to Woody Allen movies or watch any of his public appearances.  If he publicly repented, I don’t know if that would change my mind.

Naked Capitalism has the story How Obamacare Raids the Assets of Low-Income Older Americans.

One feature of Obamacare that Lambert Strether has mentioned in passing in his posts is that individuals over 55 who are enrolled in Medicaid are subject to having expenses like being in a long-term care facility, home services, and related drugs and prescriptions clawed back from their estates.

If Medicaid is to be part of the new Government Health Insurance plan, then it ought to be considered insurance. Typically, insurance pays for expenses that would be financially catastrophic if they should occur. Depending on what your heirs had to give up to support you in life, the loss of your estate to pay for things that you were “insured” for instead of covering the sacrifices of your heirs can be considered financially catastrophic.

Yes, this is a complicated issue, but the government should no more participate in handing poverty down through generations than it should participate in handing wealth down through generations.

If we are not ready for “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, then I also think we are not ready for “From each according to what’s in it for himself, to each according to what his wealth allows him to protect.”

The Daily Kos has the article Elizabeth Warren still taking on the banksters, regulators which features the video below.

Here is a transcript excerpt that was in The Daily Kos article.

“In 2013 alone, JP Morgan spent nearly $13 billion to settle claims with the federal government. Claims relating to its sale of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities, its illegal foreclosure practices like robo-signing, its manipulation of energy markets in California and the midwest, and its handling of the disastrous London Whale Trade,” Warren said. “You might think that presiding over activities that led to payouts for illegal conduct would hurt your case for a fat pay bump.” […]

“I think this raises questions over whether our enforcement strategy is working or whether it’s actually so bad that we’re making it more likely for big banks to break the law,” Warren said, adding that it is now a common belief in the banking industry to make money by any means necessary because the government fines will never reach the level of profits potentially made through questionable and illegal practices.

“Does anyone on this panel seriously think the government’s current enforcement system for financial crimes is actually working in the sense of deterring future lawbreaking?” Warren asked the regulators.

I am waiting to see what action Senator Warren takes with the Commodities Futures Trading Commision (CFTC) who appointed a woman from this bank to an advisory commission. This woman was head of the part of bank that settled with the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) for the energy manipulation that Senator Warren mentions in the beginning of her question.

See my previous post Twitter 2, JP Morgan, 0: Bythe Masters Withdraws After One Day Appointment as CFTC Advisor for more details on the issue that Elizabeth Warren should hit next. If she can’t get a forum at her committee, she should take to the floor of the Senate.

The Daily Kos has the article CNN breaks mold and tells truth about CBO report.

The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor, so it will appear almost entirely as a reduction in labor force participation and in hours worked relative to what would have occurred otherwise rather than as an increase in unemployment (that is, more workers seeking but not finding jobs) or underemploy­ment (such as part-time workers who would prefer to work more hours per week).

What the Republicans don’t say is that the people who decide to leave their jobs because of the ACA can do so because they are no longer trapped in jobs they don’t like with employers they don’t like because they need the employer provided health care insurance.

Taking a strong hold that employers have over workers reduces one more power they have to hold salaries down.

People who have been delaying retirement because of the need for health care insurance for a younger spouse can now retire.  They leave open a job for younger workers to take probably at a lower salary.  You’d think companies would be happy for this part.

The people who have a creative idea for a start up company can now leave their jobs and strike out on their own because they can afford their own health care insurance.  This is the kind of movement we have always depended on to get us out of past recessions.

Why are the Republicans so dead set against the 99% getting a fair shake for once?

The Consortium News has the Gareth Porter story How Misread Cables Fed Iran Hysteria.

When Western intelligence agencies began in the early 1990s to intercept telexes from an Iranian university to foreign high technology firms, intelligence analysts believed they saw the first signs of military involvement in Iran’s nuclear program. That suspicion led to U.S. intelligence assessments over the next decade that Iran was secretly pursuing nuclear weapons.
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Iran produced voluminous evidence to support its explanation for each of the procurement efforts the IAEA had questioned. It showed that the high vacuum equipment had been requested by the Physics Department for student experiments in evaporation and vacuum techniques for producing thin coatings by providing instruction manuals on the experiments, internal communications and even the shipping documents on the procurement.

For those who are so sure that we shouldn’t negotiate with Iran because they are also so sure that Iran is building a bomb and lying about, I bring up the quote from Mark Twain again.

“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.”

I am not claiming that I know for sure that Iran is telling the truth.  I am just doubting that people can know for sure that they aren’t.

If we start bombing people over what we think we know, we could find out that we were wrong all along, as we have found out many times before.

While you are at it, you might want to read the other Consoritum News article Where the Real ‘Iran Threat’ Lies by Lawrence Davidson

The investigative reporter and author Gareth Porter has recently published a book entitled  A Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. An impressively written and researched work, it is also frightening in its implications. For if Porter’s allegations are accurate, it is not Iran that the American people should fear – it is their own politicians, bureaucrats and an “ally” named Israel.

According to Porter, there has never been a serious nuclear weapons program undertaken by Iran. By the way, this is a conclusion that is supported by the heads of all American intelligence agencies reporting annually to Congress. Unfortunately, this repeated determination has been scorned by the politicians and poorly reported by the media.

This still involves the reporting by Gareth Porter, so I am not claiming that there are two sources for this information (well, other than our own intelligence agencies).

The Real News Network has the interview Tapering of Quantitative Easing Is Throwing Emerging Markets into Chaos – And Big Banks Are Getting Richer.

The interview was going along very well, until Jan D’Arista said the following:

But as in every other case, the Asian crisis, etc., and the one that we’re facing today, there’s a tipping point, the tipping point when the exchange rate becomes overvalued. And that means that while imports are cheaper, exports become more expensive, and you develop a current account deficit, meaning the difference between what the country imports and exports widens and it’s exporting less. And, therefore, to make up that difference it has to start using its foreign exchange reserves.

When Jane D’Arista said “And, therefore, to make up that difference it has to start using its foreign exchange reserves” about the trade deficit of the emerging countries, she left an awful lot of the explanation to our imaginations. The main reason why this situation might cause a loss of foreign reserves would be that the countries had pegged the value of their currencies to some external factor like another country’s currency. If the emerging market economies had floating rates, then this would not be so big a problem.

But at the beginning of the paragraph she said “But as in every other case, the Asian crisis, etc., and the one that we’re facing today, there’s a tipping point, the tipping point when the exchange rate becomes overvalued.” That implies that these countries had floating exchange rates. That is also why they had a trade deficit; because their currencies became overvalued.

So why exactly do these countries have to make up for the loss of foreign reserves? Did they start borrowing denominated in foreign currencies? This would be a very dangerous thing to do, but countries or citizens of those countries do seem to do this.

Perhaps the inflow of foreign capital buying up local debt instruments led to an excess of foreign reserves which the countries hated to see diminish when it started flowing out so they thought they had to replace the diminishing foreign reserves?

In any case, it would be nice if the interviewer had caught this, and had asked her to explain.

Maybe one of you astute readers can figure out what she was trying to say.

FT Magazine has the story Welcome to Bakersfield, California: How an ordinary town became one of the home foreclosure capitals of America.

It is difficult to find an excerpt that gives you the flavor of the article, but here is my attempt.

Crisp & Cole began paying straw buyers up to $20,000 each so they would pose as home buyers on loan application documents, federal prosecutors say. The properties were then flipped from “owner” to “owner”, generating fees for the firm and profits for people with pieces of the deals. “What we found is that local people with knowledge of how the system worked were taking advantage,” says Kirk Sherriff, an assistant US attorney in Fresno, California, where the case is being prosecuted.

I hope that those who still think that Barney Frank, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, and home ownership promoting politicians created the great financial collapse will read articles like this.  They will see examples of how the crisis was really started.  This is not to say that the people mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph might have been more aware of what was going on and should have tried harder to stop it.  Of course, with deregulation fever affecting almost everyone, they might have known that they couldn’t get any enforcement actions to stop these frauds.

Naked Capitalism has the story Twitter 2, JP Morgan, 0: Bythe Masters Withdraws After One Day Appointment as CFTC Advisor.

No, this was not a world-record revolving door stint. Blythe Masters, head of JP Morgan’s commodities group, was announced yesterday as having joined a Commodities Futures Trading Commission advisory committee. I didn’t bother writing it up because what could you say beyond what appalling evidence it was of how much the Administration was willing to toady to JP Morgan (Acting CFTC Commissioner Mark Wetjen was responsible for this tasteless idea). The Federal Energy Regulatory Committee settled with JP Morgan for $410 million over charges of manipulating the energy markets. Masters also got away with – lying to regulators during the FERC inquiry. She was lucky to escape civil charges. And that’s before we get to the fact that the missing-in-action-as-far-as-big banks-crimes-are-concerned Department of Justice, was, predictably, not willing to take up the case. By any commonsense standard, Masters should have been under the hot lights.

Now this is definitely something that deserves a Congressional investigation. Even before that, you would expect the Whitehouse to do its own investigation. Perhaps the DOJ should be investigating how this appointment could happen. Maybe the acting CFTC Commissioner Mark Wetjen should be summarily fired.  This cannot be allowed to quietly disappear.

Perhaps Elizabeth Warren will save the day by insisting on an investigation.