Taxpayers Subsidize Richest Americans

The NYT reports that several hedge fund managers took home over a billion dollars in pay last year. It says, "Combined, the top 50 hedge fund managers last year earned $29 billion." Interesting that the $29 billion figure almost exactly matches the $30 billion bailout of Bear Stearns. It's more than a coincidence.

The hedge funds don't really do much useful. They don't make anything; they don't start businesses. They don't even pretend to make businesses more efficient, as private equity funds claim to do. They are basically gambling institutions, betting on various, esoteric market fluctuations. So, when they win, somebody else loses, because they are not creating wealth; they're just taking somebody else's wealth. So, the winners made $29 billion and the losers got bailed out to the tune of $30 billion by the taxpayers. The taxpayers are contributing to the unprecedented transfer of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the super rich.

Carter's Courage

Jimmy Carter has a lot of courage to take on the American Jewish community's virulent, racist, Zionist, hate-filled campaign against the Palestinians. This blog by Marc Ginsberg is just one example of the hate expressed toward him by Jews. Don't be fooled by the "more in sorrow than in anger" tone of the blog. It's a hate screed. The ironic thing is that as the Jews have garnered more and more power in the US, so that both the Republican and Democratic parties support Israel unquestioningly, the US has lost more and more power in the world, partly because of the hateful, racist, Israeli-inspired policies it pursues in the Middle East.

Maureen Dowd, Deer Hunter

Maureen Dowd's column in the NYT is the first I have seen that mentions the "Deer Hunter" movie. She says Pennsylvania is Deer Hunter country. What does this mean if it's not something weird having to do with bitterness and guns. Is it common for Pennsylvanians to play Russian roulette? Do they just naturally love Russian roulette like they love their God? Did Maureen and Hillary learn to play Russian roulette with their dads out behind the vacation cabins their grandfathers built? I don't think the characters in Deer Hunter would have been playing Russian roulette if they hadn't been messed up by the Vietnam war and faced a pretty depressing situation at home in Pennsylvania.

New Jewish Lobby

The Washington Post reports that liberal Jews have created a new lobby, J Street, to compete with AIPAC. This sounds great; we'll see how it works in practice. It seems true that there is much more political debate about Israel's future in Israel than there is in the US, where AIPAC is the only Jewish lobby, and AIPAC means Zionism supported 100% by the US.

Here's Mother Jones report of the new lobby.