In all the rhetoric that escalated the conflict between the Bush administration and Ahmadinejad, I had to at least respect the sovereignty of Iran even though I disagreed with much of the politics. This is because Democracy gave Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government legitimacy. Even though it is very apparent that Ahmadinejad does not truly represent character and beauty of the Persian people, as an elected official he was legitimately chosen to be their leader.
The events of the last week and half have been disheartening. With a blatant election fraud hanging over Iran, I truly wonder what can come of the relations with a nation hell bent on obtaining nuclear weapons.
Democracy and compassion is what gives government legitimacy, not nukes.
So if there is any good to come from this is that the Iranian/Persian people may finally be viewed separately from the policies of their government and seen as the proud, compassionate and brilliant people they are. We support your right to vote.
More incentive to buy a new home in California. This one is literally for a new house though. The legislature approved $100M dollars to go towards a tax credit for the new construction. It is state tax credit of 5% of the new home price to the maximum of $10,000. And to think all the squabbling over a budget might actually end up helping me.
This started March 1, 2009 and will end one year from now though I suspect the money will run dry before the date does. The credit will be given in equal amounts over a 3 year period. Other things of note:
there are no maximum income requirements
you do not have to be a first time home buyer
it needs to be your primary residence for at least 2 years
Although I have posted this video in the past, I realize I had not properly emphasized the significance on its impact to my thinking. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices and discusses them at TED. Haidt’s studies have shown that humans have a ”first draft” of morality based on the following criteria:
Harm/Care
Fairness/Reciprocity
Ingroup/Loyalty
Authority/Respect
Purity/Sanctity
Depending on political persuasion, an individual will value some of these five moral systems more than others. Liberals tend to value Harm and Fairness far more than Authority, Ingroup and Purity while conservatives tend to value all 5 more equally.
I first watched this presentation during around the close of the primaries for the election. The most profound idea that made this talk so relevant was the evidence that we need the participation of both liberals and conservatives to build a successful nation (further discussion at www.civilpolitics.org). I implore you take the 15 minutes and listen to this discussion.
Prop 8 was funded by a Mormon church of Latter-day Saints. Tax exempt status is a precious reward for non-political charity organizations. In this time of financial trials, no political organization should be given the ability to pay no taxes and influence elections though direct funding. Please don’t let this offense slide.
Sign the petition to have their actions reviewed by the IRS:
Maybe ‘too big to fail’ is just too big… Doesn’t that seem a little odd that the government bails out banks that are too big to fail to just have them buy up more banks that then makes the company that was in trouble even more dangerous to our economy if they fail? Hmm.
Kai Ryssdal: Congress is in full oversight mode this week. There are hearings on everything from financial reforms to how this whole thing happened in the first place to what’s going on with the bailout package.
Some banks are thinking about using their share of the bailout money to buy other banks. Bigger’s usually better in the financial world. Except, says commentator Robert Reich, for what that means to the rest of us.
Robert Reich: According to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the biggest Wall Street banks now getting money from the government are just “too big to fail.”
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke uses a different euphemism — he calls them “systemically critical.” The point is that if any one of them goes down, it could take the whole financial system with it. So we taxpayers have to keep them up.
We’re hearing the same argument elsewhere in Washington for saving General Motors. It’s just “too big to fail.” So Congress is considering a bailout that would keep GM afloat and sweeten a merger between GM and Chrysler.
Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe — just maybe — it’s too big, period.
We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws? Somewhere along the line policymakers decided that antitrust would only be used where there was evidence a company had so much market power it could keep prices higher than otherwise.
We seem to have forgotten that the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful. Too powerful in that so many other companies depended on them, so many jobs turned on them and so many consumers or investors or depositors needed them, that the economy as a whole would be endangered if they failed. Too powerful in that they could wield inordinate political influence of a sort that might gain them extra favors from Washington.
Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies. They’ve prodded Bank of America to take over Merrill Lynch and Countrywide. JPMorgan to acquire Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. And now they’re urging General Motors to absorb Chrysler.
So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just — too big!
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