'Unregulated' internet: Per-service, per-page fees

Yeah, the problem with the Internet is that it's too free.  We need to find a way to chop it up into parcels and price-tier it like real estate, which can be leased out to Web surfers.  That will make the 'Net more efficient and free-markety like.  FCC -- bad!  :-(   Free enterprise -- good!   :-)

 

 

Your Rights Online: Look Forward To Per-Service, Per-Page Fees

By timothy

December 18, 2010 | Slashdot

 

URL:  http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/12/18/1428230/Look-Forward-To-Per-Service-Per-Page-Fees

Another victim of BHO-GOP tax deal: U.S. foreign aid

"I have identified and will propose a number of cuts to the State Department and Foreign Aid budgets. There is much fat in these budgets, which makes some cuts obvious. Others will be more difficult but necessary to improve the efficiency of U.S. efforts and accomplish more with less. We must shift our foreign aid focus from failed strategies rooted in an archaic post-WWII approach that, in some instances, perpetuates corrupt governments, to one that reflects current realities and challenges and empowers grassroots and civil society," said Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Yep, now we gotta trim the fat to pay for those tax cuts.

Obama is such an amateur. He should have seen this coming: first the Republicans run up the deficit with tax cuts on the rich, then they preach about cutting spending on worthwhile programs to close the budget gap. But they trim the fat oh-so selectively. They tell the rank-and-file they're "starving the beast," but it's just a pretext to cut unwanted programs while leaving others untouched.

Furthermore, Rep. Ros-Lehtinen made her foreign policy priorities clear: shunning, threatening, and sanctioning other nations, including Cuba, Iran, and North Korea:

"My worldview is clear: isolate and hold our enemies accountable, while supporting and strengthening our allies," she said. "I support strong sanctions and other penalties against those who aid violent extremists, brutalize their own people, and have time and time again rejected calls to behave as responsible nations. Rogue regimes never respond to anything less than hardball."


Ros-Lehtinen: My mission is to cut the State and foreign aid budgets
By Josh Rogin
December 8, 2010 The Cable

URL: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/08/ros_lehtinen_my_mission_is_to_cut_the_state_and_foreign_aid_budgets

Poll: Americans trust Obama slightly more than GOP

So are Americans dumb, or naive, or still brainwashed by that half-African/Muslim hopey-changey thing?  

Anyhow, Americans trust Obama marginally more than they do congressional Republicans to deal with the country's main problems in the coming years, 43 percent to 38 percent.

I say they're slightly dumb; Beck says George Soros is behind it... Nevertheless, it doesn't matter, we're all screwed: Wall Street owns them all.

In poll, many still skeptical of GOP

By Dan Balz and Jon Cohen

December 15, 2010 | Washington Post

URL:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121407681.html?wpisrc=nl_politics

WR Pitt: Sanders' words for the ages, down the well

Everybody who cares about the Little Guy, read this.

What Bernie Said, Part II

By William Rivers Pitt

December 16, 2010 | tr u t h o u t 

URL:  http://www.truth-out.org/what-bernie-said-part-ii66016

Wall St. bonuses could have financed all U.S. mortgage modifications

Jeez, I'm glad somebody finally made the connection and told us in numbers what the opportunity cost of the Wall Street bailouts was.

 

That $143 billion in bonuses which Wall Street is giving out this year is our money.  They were (are?) insolvent (not illiquid) back in 2008, remember?  And yet they've never showed negative profit, never had to show the real (market) value of their bad assets, never skipped their six- and seven-figure bonuses.  Why not? 

 

TARP and the other bailouts were wrong and ineffective because, among other things, there were no strings attached.  The bailouts were not just free in the zero-interest sense, but also in the responsible and moral sense.  We saved those slimy bankers because we thought we were all in this together, that we'd all sink or swim together.  But they've shown us -- dramatically -- that that is not and never was the case.  In reality, they are the master caste and we exist to serve them.  Get used to it.

 

Half Of Bank Pay Could Modify Every Underwater Mortgage

By Ryan Grim
December 15, 2010 | Huffington Post

 

Wall Street banks are on pace to pay out some $143 billion in compensation for 2010, just shy of their record year of 2007.  But given the widespread layoffs of mid-level employees as a result of the financial crisis, average compensation set a record. At the top six banks, compensation rose 10 percent over 2007.

 

By spending just half of that money elsewhere, the banks could modify the loans of every homeowner with an underwater mortgage, cutting principal and interest rates down to the current market value, according to a new report by critics of excessive compensation.

 

The $143-billion figure represents total compensation, including salaries for secretaries and entry-level employees as well as mammoth senior-level bonuses.  But salaries for lower-level financial employees have largely flatlined in recent years as executive compensation has soared. Compensation for bank tellers, for example, has risen a meager 5 percent in real terms since 1999, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

 

The report, compiled by a coalition of groups that includes the Service Employees International Union, notes that the compensation could buy health insurance plans for two-thirds of the uninsured.

 

The figure represents total compensation, not simply year-end bonuses, but even half of the compensation could cover a third of the uninsured.

 

Bonus season comes as Congress is pushing through a tax-cut deal that will allow the wealthy to inherit up to $5 million tax-free, while lowering taxes on additional inheritance. It also extends the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy for two years.

 

A small tax on financial transactions would effectively reduce compensation and bonuses, while cutting the federal deficit and reducing financial speculation, but the fee -- known as a "Tobin tax" -- is barely under consideration in Washington.