The Real News has what is now a four part series on The LIBOR Fraud.

Part 1 of the series is Baltimore, Big Banks and a Criminal Conspiracy, an interview with William Black the author of The Best Way To Rob  A Bank Is To Own One.

This LIBOR fraud is a little complicated so it might help you get a handle on all the news stories you will see if you hear this explanation from an expert.

In some ways, Part 2, Will Obama Admin. Prosecute the Big Banks for LIBOR Manipulation?, an interview with Michael Greenberger is even more damaging.

I have not had a chance to view parts 3 and 4 yet.

This USA Today story, Draghi: Central bank can help debt problem; markets cheer, quotes the head of the European Central Bank:

Draghi said the “ECB will do whatever it takes to preserve the euro,” apparently providing the assurance markets needed to rally.

The article also presents this explanation:

Marc Ostwald, an analyst at Monument Securities, welcomed Draghi’s comments that high borrowing rates could hurt the bank’s efforts to control inflation.

I say that if experts need to talk nonsense to justify the correct actions, then let them spout on.

If the ECB’s mandate were restated to one of preventing flation of any kind, de or in, then they would not have to turn language on its head to justifying doing what they need to do.

Talking Points Memo has a transcript of Obama’s Full Remarks On Guns From Urban League Speech. I don’t believe these have been conveniently edited to make it seem that Obama said the opposite of what he actually said.  I think the excerpt below is also faithful to the spirit of what he said.

But what I said in the wake of Tucson was we were going to stay on this, persistently.  So we’ve been able to take some actions on our own, recognizing that it’s not always easy to get things through Congress these days.  The background checks conducted on those looking to purchase firearms are now more thorough and more complete.  Instead of just throwing more money at the problem of violence, the federal government is now in the trenches with communities and schools and law enforcement and faith-based institutions, with outstanding mayors like Mayor Nutter and Mayor Landrieu – recognizing that we are stronger when we work together.

So in cities like New Orleans, we’re partnering with local officials to reduce crime, using best practices.  And in places like Boston and Chicago, we’ve been able to help connect more young people to summer jobs so that they spend less time on the streets.  In cities like Detroit and Salinas, we’re helping communities set up youth prevention and intervention programs that steer young people away from a life of gang violence, and towards the safety and promise of a classroom.

But even though we’ve taken these actions, they’re not enough.  Other steps to reduce violence have been met with opposition in Congress.  This has been true for some time – particularly when it touches on the issues of guns.  And I, like most Americans, believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms.  And we recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation -– that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage.

By contrast, Mitt Romney seems to have said that he doesn’t think there needs to be any new laws about guns.  As John Stewart pointed out in his commentary, there are people who think we need to pass laws about wearing costumes to movie theaters.  Perhaps Romney thinks this is the way to solve the problem.  Costumes are certainly not protected by the Second Amendment although they might be protected by the First Amendment.

So if we have a complaint about society, would it be better to protect our right to say something before we protect our right to shoot something?

ABC News has the article Senate Passes Cuts for All but Richest Americans. As one comment posted on the article says, a better headline would be the one I chose.

“With the Senate’s vote, the House Republicans are now the only people left in Washington holding hostage the middle-class tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and nearly every small business owner,” Obama said in a written statement.

On the Republican side, we have the statement:

Republicans say raising taxes on higher earners saps money from business owners who would otherwise create jobs. Democrats say that’s overblown.

To say that the Republican point of view is overblown, is putting it rather mildly. I prefer Harry Reid’s comments:

“Here we go again,” Reid muttered. Some of McConnell’s remarks, he added, were “poppycock.”

It does not make any difference how low you make the taxes, a business owner would be a fool to create more jobs when there aren’t enough customers to keep the existing employees busy.  As self-proclaimed experts on capitalism, how could the Republicans be so dumb as to pretend not to understand this?  In fact, I bet that most Republicans are not that dumb.  They just think the electorate is that dumb.  So far the facts seem to be proving them out on this judgment.

Here is Lewis Black giving the same diatribe about the distortion of Obama’s remarks that I have been ranting about for a week.

If the above video doesn’t play for you try this direct link.

I have heard suggestion that Obama should be more careful that he doesn’t say things that can be taken out of context and distorted I have been thinking of what he could say. “Me President, want second term.” is all I can think of. Anything beyond that will be distorted.

When I posted the remarks of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, I made no editorial comment.  I realized that uproar people some people would cause if I were to mention something like gun control, so I refrained.

I have been thinking how wrong that restraint was.  I am not going to allow the NRA to abridge my First Amendment rights, so I won’t worry them about their Second Amendment rights.  I like to think that there is a reason why the First Amendment comes before the Second Amendment. If we don’t talk about the issue when something like this happens, when will we talk about it? How dare the NRA try to intimidate us from talking about the issue?

John Stewart tries a little humor about this serious subject.

If you are not privileged enough to be using a browser for which the above embedded video works, use the direct link.

The article Oregon judge rules it’s OK to strip naked in protest of TSA is another example of why Oregon is such an interesting place to live.

Not that seeing a 50 year old man strip naked is so interesting.  To think that a judge could be so open minded (I know, some would say his brains fell out) as to actually get over the fact that there was a naked man standing in the airport and consider the civil liberties aspects of the case is  just so refreshing.

Someone who doesn’t listen carefully, posted this snippet of the President’s remarks in Roanoke Virginia.

If you have a hard time catching what the President said, match it up with this transcript from the White House web site.  The transcript seems accurate to me.

 If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help.  There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.  Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.  Somebody invested in roads and bridges.  If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.  The Internet didn’t get invented on its own.  Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

I started to hunt this down, when a certain Boston newspaper reported Mitt Romney mocking the phrase, “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”  It took them over 20 column inches before they  put some context around the phrase:

In Virginia, Obama’s blunt “you didn’t build that” was accompanied by, “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.”

For several days, I have taken The Boston Globe at its word  and had to admit that Obama did not state his case very well.  Reading more in the UK Guardian made me start to have doubts about even the Globe’s belated attempt to set the record straight.  So I finally found the video and transcript above.

Nothing in the whole Boston Globe article makes it clear that in the quote “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”, the word that does not refer to the business.  It refers to the roads and bridges that the business person most assuredly did not build.

Even the person who posted the video clip still managed to misinterpret what the President said.  If you want to believe the President said it the way Mitt Romney and The Boston Globe imply that he did, then there is nothing I can do to stop you.

I found the article The American Election Is Really A Battle For The Future Of Capitalism in the British web site of The Guardian. I first liked it for the opening:

‘Look, if you’ve been successful, you did not get there on your own. When we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative but also because we do things together.” So said President Obama, campaigning in Roanoke Virginia, last week. He went on: “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help”.

This British newspaper adds more detail about what Obama actually said in Virginia than made it into the Boston newspaper that I quoted in my previous post In Roxbury, Romney hits Obama’s business message. In the Boston paper’s version, the enough of the President’s words to make his meaning clear did not come until over 20 column inches into the story.  I guess you have to read the British press (not Murdoch) to find out what is going on in the U.S. country.

Beyond the opening remarks, I also liked The Guardian story because it explains the impact of Romney style capitalism.

The public understands that if you finance buying a house with a bank providing 90% of the asking price, and the house doubles in value, then your own 10% stake multiples elevenfold. Romney would apply the same logic not to the wealth-generating activity of starting innovative companies but to buying existing companies. Banks were only too keen to lend vast sums of money for such schemes, as they did right up to the financial crash in 2008. The companies’ own profits would service Bain’s debt.

Bain Capital would make the company more valuable – taking production offshore to low-cost countries, selling off redundant land, slashing research and investment budgets. And the general rise in property prices would help matters still more. When the companies’ profits had risen, they would then be floated on the stock market for a much higher price and, hey presto, everybody got very rich.

If you need someone to do the math of how you get an elevenfold increase in your investment when the asset doubles in price, just ask, and I will provide.  Otherwise, consider it as an exercise for the reader.  If you fail the exercise, you ought to seriously consider whether you are qualified to comment on capitalism and economics.  (Look at the numbers 200, 110, 90, and 10 to see if you can find the elevenfold relation there somewhere and what those other numbers have to do with it.)

I knew Mitt Romney knew more than he was letting on.

Mitt Romney agrees that to build a business, people need roads, education, fire and police departments, and that we have to pay taxes to support those things.

According to a certain local newspaper as quoted in my previous post In Roxbury, Romney hits Obama’s business message.

In Virginia, Obama’s blunt “you didn’t build that” was accompanied by, “There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.”

So essentially Romney’s closing remarks amount to “Take that Barack Obama, I agree with what you meant, but not the way you said it.”

Romney even admits that people in government service aren’t created out of thin air. We pay taxes for those people, and he just doesn’t want to do that anymore. As Elizabeth Warren says, he believes, “I’ve got mine paid for by the people who came before me, so why should I fund anymore for the people who come after me? What’s in it for me?”