Month: March 2011

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The Bucket Shops

But it wasn’t magic. It amounted to the return of the age-old scam called “bucket shops.” Also sometimes known as “boiler rooms,” bucket shops emerged after the Civil War. Usually, they were storefronts where people came to bet on stocks without owning them. Unlike their customers, the shops actually owned blocks of stock. If customers were betting that a stock would go up, the shops would sell it and the price would plunge; if bettors were bearish, the shops would buy. In this way, they cleaned out their customers. Frenetic bucket-shop activity caused the Panic of 1907. By 1909, New York had banned bucket shops, and every other state soon followed. [Village Voice, 2009-01-28]

Thank God, the state governments banned them.

And lucky you– the federal government, much, much later, let them come back, under Greenspan and Rubin, Clinton and Bush. Then they were called derivatives and sub-prime mortgages and credit default swaps. And like the bucket shops, they were a kind of parody of investment. You were betting on the betting on the speculators who were betting on mortgage rates and stock markets to rise, or fall, or collapse. It didn’t matter: it wasn’t in the broker’s interest for stocks– and you– to do well. They paid themselves well, in bonuses and incentives. And the consequences included the biggest financial meltdown since the era of Herbert Hoover

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Old City Hall, St. Mary’s, Ontario, 2011.

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Why the Suit?

This week’s notes:

There it is again– a man wearing a dark pants and a matching jacket and a light shirt with a dark cloth tied tightly around his neck. A man in a suit. What is a suit? Why do powerful men all around the world wear one? Why, for heaven’s sake, do Japanese businessmen wear suits? Why did Malcolm X?

There has been a bit of noise this week about the IBM computer that supposedly defeated some of the top human Jeopardy Contestants. I have rarely heard such unmitigated bullshit in the past few years.

Consider this:

The computer was allowed to store the IMDB and several encyclopedias including Wiki on it’s hard drives. The human was not even allowed to use Google.

The computer did not express the slightest desire to play the game or win. The IBM programmers did. They cheated by having the IMDB and Wiki with them when they played while the human contestants, of course, did not even have a dictionary.

Some of the observers were dazzled that the computer was able to understand a rhyming word– what animal living in a mountainous region rhymes with “Obama”. They were surprised that the computer had been programmed to “know” that llama rhymes with Obama? You are indeed easily impressed.

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The Coming McCarthyism

The proposed legislation would remove the presumption of relevance from that showing and require also, before the information is examined, proof of how it relates to an investigation – which is to say, information may be sought only to confirm facts already known, not to investigate and determine what the facts are. The same illogical requirement would be imposed regarding phone records, even though one cannot know how numbers dialed to or from a telephone relate to an investigation until one knows what those numbers are and to whom they belong.

… from an OpEd piece in the Washington Post, by Michael Hayden, former CIA director, and Michael Mukasey, chief civil rights abuser under Bush.

If you care about civil liberties and democracy, you should read this quote carefully. Mukasey and Hayden are actually, literally, complaining that Homeland Security would actually lose the right to investigate any citizen they feel like investigating even if there is no evidence at all– nothing– that the individual has committed any crime. It’s another sorry chapter in the Republican “why should we have to wait until after someone has committed a crime before we can lock them up” theory of jurisprudence.

Part of the ongoing Republican strategy of demanding the preposterous and settling for the ridiculous.

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Five Perfect Movies

Five Perfect Movies:

  1. City Lights (Charlie Chaplin)
  2. Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman)
  3. Dr. Strangelove Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick)
  4. The Third Man (Carol Reed)
  5. The General (Buster Keaton)

Okay — it’s much harder for a movie to be “perfect” than a song. There is so much more material to deal with and it’s easy to have a moment or two go out of balance.

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Five Perfect Songs

There are five perfect songs. Here they are:

  • Sam Stone (John Prine)
  • All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
  • Anchorage (Michelle Shocked)
  • I Fought the Law (Bobby Fuller Four)
  • You Don’t Own Me (Leslie Gore)

That’s it.

About Sam Stone:
But life had lost its fun
And there was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the GI bill
For a flag-draped casket on a local heroe’s hill

“Suspicion” (Elvis Presley) comes close, but no cigar.

Other Honorable Mentions:

“Reelin’ in the Years” (Steely Dan) A truly awesome recording but I can’t overlook the pettiness of “the things that pass for knowledge I can’t understand…”

“Homeward Bound” (Simon and Garfunkel) a fine, fine song, but “all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity” is a little precious.

“Four Strong Winds” (Ian & Sylvia) is a bit slight, so you have to repeat the chorus and that gives it a bit of a sense of aimlessness and repetition and violates the rule of economy.

The Beatles’ best song is “Girl”:

Was she told when she was young that pain would lead to pleasure?
Did she understand it when they said,
That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure
Will she still believe it when he’s dead?

But “Eleanor Rigby” is also very nearly perfect.

“Go Your Own Way” (Fleetwood Mac) is too slight.

“Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits is very, very good.

“Echo Beach” (Martha & the Muffins) Actually, this song is darn near perfect as well. Darn near.

“The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (The Band) Great, great song, but a bit murky, and the Band’s own recording of it is not as perfect as the song. As is “This Wheel’s on Fire” and “Tears of Rage”. I do actually like the cover version of “Dixie” by Joan Baez, featuring crack Nashville session musicians. It’s from an album that appeared to be an effort by Baez to reach out to the alienated silent majority of Americans who seemed to despise her.

Levon Helm (who wrote “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”) despised her version, but one suspects that that is because Levon Helm despised Joan Baez.

“Satisfaction” (Rolling Stones) Okay. So this one is perfect too. Six perfect songs. But it has to share with “Light My Fire” (Doors).

“Like a Rolling Stone” (Bob Dylan) Violates rule of economy, but also a great, great song. “Tangled up in Blue” might actually be a better song.

“Thunder Road” (Bruce Springsteen) Can’t sustain that great take-off, “you can hide ‘neath your covers and study your pain” though he tries, brilliantly. In the end, it’s just a trifle indulgent, a trifle too self-consciously monumental. A trifle. On some days I prefer “Jungleland”.

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” (Bob Dylan) is as good or better than any other song on the list. All right, seven.

“One of These Days” (Emmy Lou Harris) Lovely, enchanting piece, reminds me of “As I Went Out One Morning” (Bob Dylan): both are elegantly economical, tight, balanced.

“Someday Soon” (Judy Collins) Okay– another one. Eight.

All right: 9– “The Hammond Song”, by the Roches. Actually, this song is obviously flawed, but there are moments when it does sound just perfect to me. So 8. Wait — 9. I forgot about one of the most perfect, crystalline, renditions ever: “Wayfarin’ Stranger” by Emmy-Lou Harris with that absolutely wonderful lead by Tony Rice and mandolin by Albert Lee.

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The Psychopathic Justice

The New York Times Article

In his dissent in Mr. Florence’s case, Judge Louis H. Pollak, a former dean of Yale Law School, was also skeptical of the majority’s theory. “One might doubt,” he wrote, “that individuals would deliberately commit minor offenses such as civil contempt — the offense for which Florence was arrested — and then secrete contraband on their persons, all in the hope that they will, at some future moment, be arrested and taken to jail to make their illicit deliveries.”

The older I get and the more I see of cases like that of Mr. Florence the more I believe that the difference between criminality and civility in our society depends upon who was first to pull out the gun.

Mr. Florence got a ticket once. In 2003 he committed a traffic offense. He paid his fine. He obtained a letter from the court certifying that he had paid his fine– God knows why he even thought for a second he would ever need it. Just because he was black? Because he was a financial adviser to a car dealership and made a decent wage? Because he drove a BMW?  [You know, I suspect that a certain segment of the population has already sighed a little sigh of condescension: well– he’s black and driving a BMW…..]

Then, in 2005, Mr. Florence was pulled over. His wife was driving and his four-year-old son was in the back. The cop called up the record of the offense and arrested Mr. Florence on the spot. Mr. Florence showed him the document from the court showing that he had paid the fine for the offense. The cop– representing you and me and all other white taxpayers, and Clarence Thomas, one must suppose, because he sure as hell didn’t seem to represent any coloured taxpayers– arrested him anyways. He was held for eight days.

You don’t believe that? I don’t either. Here’s a direct quote from the NY Times article:

Mr. Florence was nonetheless held for eight days in two counties on a charge of civil contempt before matters were sorted out.

Say what you want about the NY Times, they almost always have the facts right, so I believe it.

But here is the issue germane now– maybe– to the Supreme Court: he was ordered to strip, bend over, and separate his cheeks while a group of manly police officers looked on.

Mr. Florence is asking the court to rule that such intrusive, humiliating actions are not justified by the law. The prosecutors argue that such procedures are justified by the enormous risk of people driving around with drugs or weapons stuffed into their anuses on the off chance that a police officer might stop them, call up a paid traffic ticket on their computers, and prove incapable of decoding the information correctly and decide this person was a threat to society and needed to be locked up in the same jail cell as a rich convict who had secretly arranged the entire thing from his prison cell and doesn’t care where the contraband has been.

The black man on the Supreme Court will relish ruling against him, but what about the seven sane members (Scalia, in my view, is nearly a psychopath) who might consider Judge Pollak’s perspective above.

What kind of person believes the police should have the right to pick up a man — seemingly at random– and strip search him and hold him for eight days… for a traffic offense (if one were to assume, crazily, for a moment, that Mr. Florence was even guilty of not paying the fine)?

Yes, the Supreme Court said, “that’s all right, that’s all right, that’s all right with me…”

[Update 2022-04-30]

And of course it was a 5-4 decision.  But don’t worry– Amy Coney Barrett has assured us that the Court is not political and of course the 5 who voted in favor of this outlandish travesty were not Republican Appointees (oh yes they were).

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Bill’s Top 50 Canadian Singles of All Time

Bill’s Personal Choices: Canada’s top 50 singles.

On the CBC’s list:

There are some great songs on the list, but “Four Strong Winds” as number 1??!! “Snowbird”, that bland, vacuous, treacly, schmaltz at #19? “Life is a Highway”? Tell me, do you think anyone else ever thought of the highway as a metaphor for life? Or flogged “all night long” as a chorus? “Summer of ’69”? An embarrassing rehash of Bob Seger’s most obvious lyrics.

There was an obvious, alarming tendency to prostrate us all before the gods of international popular acceptance. So Sarah McLachlan had to be on the list, even though it’s hard to think of a single song by her that was so outstanding that it deserved to finish ahead of, say, “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” written by Bruce Cockburn and performed by the Bare Naked Ladies. Or even fluff like Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”, which I can’t believe even she herself took seriously…. (“Court and Spark” would have been a far more interesting choice.) And where, in heaven’s name, are the Northern Pikes and Crash Test Dummies? Oh– I get it. Didn’t have any U.S. hits.

If you think “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” is so great (#6), tell me, when was the last time you actually listened to it?

And all those factories and businesses that the railroad brought to Canada– “for the good of us all”?

It could have been worse. Celine Dionne and Walter Ostenak did not make the list, though Paul Anka did.

My number one is Neil Young’s “Helpless”, because it captures that resigned Canadian acceptance of over-arching doom, and its shadings of hopes and dreams– so Un-American in it’s denial of personal control. And it has one of the greatest lines ever, in Canadian music: “In my mind, I still need a place to go; all my changes were there”.

“If I had a Million Dollars”– is it a novelty tune like “Hockey Song”? Maybe. But it’s also wittier and funnier and quintessentially Canadian– who else would buy Kraft Dinner with their million dollars?

Bill’s Highly Disputable List of Top Canadian Popular Songs.   Not quite 50 yet…

No, “Snowbird” does not make the list.

Rank Song Artist
1 Suzanne [1966] Leonard Cohen
1.1 Helpless Neil Young
2 Famous Blue Raincoat Leonard Cohen
4 Early Morning Rain Gordon Lightfoot
4.1 That’s What you Get for Lovin’ Me Gordon Lightfoot.
5 Cowgirl in the Sand Neil Young
6 Echo Beach Martha & the Muffins
7 Lovers in a Dangerous Time Bruce Cockburn.
8 Venice is Sinking Spirit of the West
9 Old Man Neil Young
9.5 The Weight the Band
10 Both Sides Now Joni Mitchell
11 Heart of Gold Neil Young
12 Barrett’s Privateers Stan Rogers
12.5 Superman’s Song Crash Test Dummies
12.75 Dream Away Northern Pikes
13 Court and Spark Joni Mitchell
14 Tears of Rage the Band
14.1 Where Evil Grows Poppy Family
14.2 American Woman The Guess Who
15 You Were on my Mind Ian & Sylvia
15.5 Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm Crash Test Dummies
16 Montreal Blue Rodeo
17 Stage Fright The Band
19 Born to be Wild Steppenwolf
20 First We Take Manhattan Leonard Cohen
21 Down by the River Neil Young
22 Hallelujah Leonard Cohen
23 Wake Up Arcade Fire
24 Scared Tragically Hip
25 Old Man Neil Young
26 Hey Hey, My My Neil Young
27 Home for a Rest Spirit of the West
28 Carrie Joni Mitchell
29 If I Had a Million Dollars Bare Naked Ladies
30 What a Good Boy Bare Naked Ladies
31 Tokyo Bruce Cockburn
32 Universal Soldier Buffy Ste. Marie
33 Tell Me Why Neil Young
34 Raised on Robbery Joni Mitchell
35 1234 Leslie Feist
36 Take This Longing Leonard Cohen
37 Which Way You Goin’ Billy Poppy Family
40 Sh-Boom [1955] the Crew Cuts
41 Superman’s Song Crash Test Dummies
42 Woodstock Joni Mitchell
43 So Long Marianne Leonard Cohen
44 For Free Joni Mitchell
45 A Man Needs a Maid Neil Young
46 Heart Like a Wheel Kate and Anna McGarrigle
47 Complainte Pour Ste-Catherine McGarrigle Sisters
48 Black Day in July Gordon Lightfoot
49 Come Calling Cowboy Junkies
50 Come all Ye Fair and Precious Ladies Rankin Family

Absolutely positively never ever going to make my list: K. D. Lang’s awful, overwrought delivery of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, the pinnacle of self-serving, claustrophobic, look-at-me-sing-oh-god-I’m-so-humble-I-can’t- believe-it-narcissism.  Her rendition robs the lyrics of every ounce of meaning and context and it’s a performance calibrated for people with a shallow understanding of “she tied you to her kitchen chair/she broke your throne and she cut your hair”, a vague sense of titillation, and a conviction that the louder, more ostentatious voice, the deeper the meaning.

And that goes double for Rufus Wainwright’s whiney, weaselly cover.  And shame on “Shrek” for trivializing the whole thing by putting into a cartoon about a troll that farts.

Check John Cale’s version for a corrective.

 

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The Republican’s Strategy

Okay. Does anyone need to have it explained to them again what the Republican strategy is?

When Bush took office ten years ago amid “controversy” over whether his tax plan would create a deficit (with the liberals foolishly believing that the Republicans were sincere about wanting a balanced budget), I argued that it was actually clearly the intent of the Republicans to create as big a deficit as possible because it serves their policy wishes.

  • firstly, it gloriously appears to justify cutting expenditures on programs that benefit the average American
  • secondly, it seems to prove that governments can’t be trusted to spend wisely (even though it’s usually the Republican government that can’t balance the budget)
  • thirdly, it creates the kind of noise Republicans need to try to generate mass hysteria about some kind of “crisis” that requires draconian measures to deal with.

They did it with Reagan (who raised the deficit from 45 billion to 450 billion) and they did it with Bush (who took a surplus and turned it into a deficit in only one year) and they will do it again next year with Palin or Gingrich or whomever.

Don’t believe me? How many Republicans made it a campaign issue when Bush ran up the deficit within less than a year of taking office after Clinton left a surplus?

But the whole strategy is rarely as naked as it is in Wisconsin where Governor Walker took a budget that was virtually balanced, handed out huge tax cuts to corporations, proclaimed a crisis when the cuts put the budget in deficit, and then, after refusing the offers of the public sector unions to rescind some of their own wages and benefits, attacked their right to collective bargaining.

It’s absolutely naked: there is a war, in the U.S., of the rich upon the poor. And you watch and you wonder, in amazement, that the poor, believing some insane illusion about justice and prosperity, refuse to fight back. Why the hell should the public sector employees have rescinded their own wages and benefits so that Wisconsin corporations could get a larger tax break?

Why is no one asking stockholders and profitable corporations to make some sacrifices because times are tough and the nation has to pull together and we are at war and so on?

Corporate share of federal taxes in the 1950’s: 30%

Corporate share of federal taxes in 2009: 6.6%

What the hell’s going on here: 30% of General Electric’s massive income comes from…. lending.

GE is a bank.

And here we are again– how rich America goes after the wealth of working America. They found out there was no way around paying people to work, so they evolved ways of reabsorbing that wealth through interest rates, hidden fees, tricked out mortgages, and shifting the tax burden.

The war on Iraq mattered because of the oil. It’s an achievement to not only persuade Americans to fight an entire war to sustain your investments, but also to pay a disproportionate cost of it by borrowing the money, running the federal budget into a deficit, and cutting taxes on the rich.

Now think about that– what sector of the economy gives you the warm fuzzies about productivity and employment and enduring prosperity: manufacturing.

What GE used to be known for.

What sector of the economy makes you think about scumbags, liars, and cheats: that’s right– banking.

GE is a bank.

 

I’ll bet you think I’m kidding when I tell you that the American tax system is so twisted that it actually transfers wealth from the working classes to the rich– here’s more detail on that. General Electric, one of the most profitable corporations in American history, pays no taxes at all. In fact, the U.S. government appears to “owe” GE about $4 billion.

This is the result of various strategies. When Republicans talk about reducing the tax burden for Americans, they deliberately identify the beneficiary as “Americans” when, in fact, I doubt they have proposed a single policy in the past 30 years that benefits average working Americans. It’s code, and the corporations and the rich know understand it. As when they propose to cut the budget, partly, by laying off tax collectors. The message is, we’ll make it less likely that you’ll get caught cheating on your taxes.

GE smartly hired people from the IRS to work for them, and to lobby the government on their behalf.

America– I’m sorry if you feel bad because I think you have the dumbest voters on the planet, but think about the fact that the people you elected are asking you to make serious sacrifices for the good of the nation, because times are tough, while simultaneously reducing the tax burden on those most able to pay is mind-blowing.

You are suckers.

Is GE embarrassed at all by this? Why, in America, should they be?

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The Music From “Shark vs Eagle”

I made this list because all of the music selected for this movie, “Shark vs. Eagle”, an odd, quirky little film by Taika Waititi, is unfamiliar to me, but interesting on some level.

That’s all: here it is.

“80’s Celebration”
Performed by The Reduction Agents

“I Love You, Awesome”
Written by Samuel Flynn Scott & Conrad Wedde
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

“Lily’s Theme (Apples & Tangerines)”
Written by Samuel Flynn Scott
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

“Cosmic Danse”
Written by Luke Buda
Performed by Luke Buda

“Seaworld”
Written by Luke Buda & The Phoenix Foundation
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

“The Pool”
Written by J. Milne
Performed by The Reduction Agents

“I Don’t Want”
Written by Age Pryor
Performed by Age Pryor & The Marvelous Medicine

“Blue Summer”
Written by Luke Buda
Performed by Luke Buda

“I Don’t Want (Reprise)”
Written by Age Pryor
Performed by Age Pryor & The Marvelous Medicine

“Seaside”
Written by Luke Buda
Performed by Luke Buda

“Funny Shadow”
Written by Tessa Rain
Performed by Tessa Rain and Age Pryor

“The Body Breaks”
Written by Devendra Banhart
Performed by Devendra Bernhardt

“Brain”
Written by Samuel Flynn Scott/The Phoenix Foundation
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

“Let’s Dance”
Written by David Bowie
Performed by M. Ward

“Wholly Molly”
Written by Samuel Flynn Scott
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

“This is the One”
Written by Ian Brown / John Squire
Performed by The The Stone Roses (as Stone Roses)

“Idillio Italiano”
Written by The Doro Kraus String Quartet
Performed by The The Stone Roses (as Stone Roses)

“Hitchcock”
Written by William Ricketts/Luke Buda/The Phoenix Foundation
Performed by The Phoenix Foundation

Soundtrack List

01 – Lily – The Happiest Man – 0:50
02 – The Phoenix Foundation – I Love You, Awesome – 2:49
03 – The Phoenix Foundation – Blue Summer – 3:37
04 – Luke Buda – Cosmic Danse – 1:28
05 – The Reduction Agents – The Pool – 2:29
06 – Lily – Apples and Tangerines – 1:51
07 – Jarrod & Lily – Mum and the Cow – 0:19
08 – The Phoenix Foundation – Hitchcock – 3:27
09 – Age Pryor and the Marvelous Medicine – I Don’t Want – 4:32
10 – The Phoenix Foundation – The Hill 1 – 0:49
11 – The Phoenix Foundation – Sea World – 3:39
12 – Luke Buda – Seaside – 3:08
13 – Jarrod, Mason & Lily – Tomorrow – 0:40
14 – The Phoenix Foundation – The Breakup/The Hill 2 – 3:26
15 – Tessa Rain and Age Pryor – Funny Shadow – 2:49
16 – The Reduction Agents – 80’s Celebration – 2:21
17 – Jarrod – Justice is Waiting – 0:41
18 – The Phoenix Foundation – The Hill 3 – 0:53
19 – The Phoenix Foundation – Brain (Live at Helens) – 3:52
20 – The Phoenix Foundation – Wholly Molly – 2:09
21 – The Phoenix Foundation – Apples and Tangerines – 4:11
22 – Lily & Jarrod – Do the Blues – 0:43
23 – M. Ward – Let’s Dance – 5:06
24 – The Stone Roses – This is the One – 5:01
25 – The Phoenix Foundation – Going Fishing – 4:57
26 – Taika Waititi – Not So Hidden Track – 2:53

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Foreign Aid

I have an absolutely brilliant idea for aid organizations in the U.S. Go to the government, congress, and the president, and make a simple proposal.

Propose that the government hold a referendum on how much of the U.S. budget should be devoted to foreign aid.

Many U.S. politicians whine on and on about what the American people want: well, here’s your chance to put your money where your mouth is. Let’s see what the American people want to do about foreign aid.

So let’s ask the American voter: how much should we give to poor countries to help them out, as a percentage of the federal budget? The results will be binding upon the government. It will allocate the amount chosen by the tax-payers (either an average or plurality) for foreign aid, working through existing, reputable agencies, for the next four years. Say, offer a choice of a) 10%, b) 7%, C) 5%, D) 1%, E) less than 1%.

No shenanigan’s here: ask what absolute amount– not how much it should increase or decrease (they will almost always say “decrease” because the perception is that we already give too much).

I am very sure that American aid agencies will benefit beyond their wildest imaginations! They will receive 10, 20 times what they normally receive. The world will be blessed.

You see, it is true that most Americans think that foreign aid should be cut. At this time of fiscal crisis, that’s the first item on the list. Fair enough– so what do you think it should be cut to?

Well, first of all, how much do you think we spend right now? The answer might surprise you. The average American voter thinks the U.S. spends 10, 15% on foreign aid. They think that because, though they don’t think of themselves as being that generous, they think those liberals in the government probably are, and they probably give too much. Twelve percent? Are you nuts? In this day and age? We got needs at home! We need to take care of our own first.

All right — so how much do you think is the right amount? I would guess that they would find 5% pretty reasonable. That’s not really very much for a wealthy country like the U.S. If U.S. citizens are suffering under this recession and under the relentless attacks on working Americans by the Republican Party, they are at least, generally not starving to death, as they are in the Sudan, Ethiopia, and even areas of Pakistan after the flooding this past year.

Well, times are tough: maybe 4%.

What does the U.S. actually give in foreign aid?

Here’s the number: .4%

Yes, 4/10s of 1%.  You read that right.

So even if they chose a ridiculously low amount like 2%, the poor of the world  would rejoice.