Texas had some of the cheapest power rates in the country when it zapped most of the state's electric regulations six years ago, convinced that rollicking competition would drive prices even lower.
This summer, electricity there is some of the nation's priciest.
Power costs are rising in the rest of the U.S., but everything is bigger in Texas: On a hot day in May, wholesale prices rose briefly to more than $4 a kilowatt hour -- about 40 times the national average.
Remember the California electricity crisis? That was likewise engineered by the magic formula of deregulators plus Texans — the GOP plus Enron.
The criminal genius of Enron serves as the core business model for Bushian GOP. "When then-Gov. George W. Bush signed the state's deregulation bill in 1999, he assured that 'competition in the electric industry will benefit Texans by reducing monthly rates and offering consumers more choices.' The law, which took effect in 2002, left few restrictions on what power generators could charge and what consumers could pay."
"Reducing monthly rates and offering consumers more choices." Ha ha ha ha ha. Texas reaps what it sows.
With just 20 percent of today's working Americans expected to be financially secure in retirement, we will almost certainly be considering socially sanctioned suicide among our options. In a deeply tragic way, it will be fascinating to see how elder suicide will become ritualized, dignified, and euphemized as our society collectively begins to understand the gravity of the lost Bush decade — investment returns of crucial importance that never materialized. As workers now deplete their Bush-stagnant 401(k) plans to pay for their financial Bush-hardships in gasoline and real estate, there will be even less savings for them to depend upon in the coming decade.
Those who would privatize Social Security, i.e., Republicans, are exactly the ones who cannot produce a viable economy with market returns that would justify such a radical rethinking of America's most successful social program.
Some 25 million U.S. adults with health insurance in 2007 faced financial stress due to insufficient coverage, according to a study from The Commonwealth Fund.
The ranks of the underinsured have increased by 60% between 2003 — when the New York-based health research foundation performed its first analysis — and 2007.
The full results were published today in the Health Affairs journal.
Health care premiums have skyrocketed between 2000 and 2007, rising by 91% compared to only a 24% increase in wages.
Last year, 17.2 million individuals said that their out-of-pocket medical expenses were equal to at least 10% of their family annual income, compared to 8.9 million in 2003.
The study noted that adults with annual incomes below $20,000 were at the highest risk of being uninsured or underinsured,
But people in higher wealth brackets have also been affected: 22 million people with income between $40,000 and $99,999 said they had insufficient coverage, compared to 9 million in 2003.
Meanwhile, seven million people who make more than $100,000 said they were uninsured in 2007, up from one million in 2003.
Although individuals between ages 50 and 64 were most likely to be insured, fewer of them had sufficient coverage, as 65% were fully insured last year, down from 74% in 2003.
You can apply the same logic to gasoline prices, food prices, the US dollar, the trade deficit, energy deregulation, the US Attorney's office, Iraq, you name it — the Republicans touch it, and it gets ruined.
...nearly 30% of all enlisted Marines, rank E-1 to E-4, have financial problems serious enough to affect security clearances. This is causing some security jobs to go unfilled, jeopardizing not only careers, but also the country’s security. Credit scores are part of the criteria used by the military to determine security clearances and over drafts, pay day lending loans, maxed out credit cards, late payments, are all leading to poor credit scores.
But it's okay that Marines are broke because, as Dick Cheney pointed out, they volunteered for this.
A rep affiliated with LPL Financial allegedly stole $5 million from about two dozen people he knew from church and Little League.
The adviser, James J. Buchanan, has been charged with one count of fraud and 14 counts of theft, according to an indictment filed May 12 with the Maricopa (Ariz.) County Superior Court.
Each of those are felony counts.
Mr. Buchanan, who is being held in lieu of a $1 million cash bond, joined LPL of Boston in 2006.
Before that, he was affiliated with Ameriprise Financial Inc. of Minneapolis.
The alleged fraud and theft has been going on since 2001 through April, when he was fired by LPL, according to the indictment.
Maricopa County includes Phoenix and Scottsdale and the surrounding suburbs.
Investigators believe there are numerous victims and an unknown amount of damages.
Court documents paint a picture of Mr. Buchanan committing affinity fraud, a scam that preys upon members of an identifiable group, such as a religious community.
He posed as a certified financial planner, persuading many elderly clients to invest their life savings with him.
The alleged fraud began to unravel in March, when one victim reported to the Maricopa County sheriff that she had been defrauded of $200,000 after Mr. Buchanan pleaded with her to keep quiet, court documents show.
“Most of the victims reported that they invested with money with Buchanan because he was revered as an honest Christian man,” said an addendum to the case filing.
“Buchanan was a board member with his church, and offered help to many people in his membership.”
Some of the investors’ money went into Mr. Buchanan’s personal bank account, the addendum said.
Mr. Buchanan also allegedly stole $1 million from his church, the Christ Life Church of Tempe, Ariz.
One victim was a retired police officer who Mr. Buchanan talked into taking early retirement based upon the returns he promised the officer would realize on his investment.
In the investment world we have observed smooth-talking Christian thieves before, notably Leo Wells of Wells Real Estate and Wells REIT. Showy Christians distract you with great displays of their high-toned morality for one purpose: to get their hands on your wallet.
If my financial advisor or banker made a big show of his Christianity, I would withdraw my funds immediately.
Criminal court filings in California and Florida highlight the ways in which UBS -- and other banks -- worked with California real-estate developer Igor Olenicoff to establish shell companies used to avoid paying taxes.
For more than a decade, between 1992 and 2007, Mr. Olenicoff moved nearly $500 million between banks in London, the Bahamas, Switzerland and Liechtenstein using the names of at least six corporate entities, including ones named Sovereign Bancorp Ltd., National Depository Corp. Ltd. and Guardian Guarantee Co. Ltd. [...]
About a week later, in what appears to be one of the first transactions with UBS, Mr. Olenicoff instructed Barclays PLC to move $89 million to an account at UBS. More transfers took place in 2002, including the movement of $60 million to a Danish shell corporation with an account at a Liechtenstein bank that court documents don't identify.
Igor Olenicoff was a generous supporter of Mitt Romney and is #286 on the Forbes 400 list of rich folk, advertising the usual donations to orphanages to cover his larger crimes.
Republicans don't like paying taxes, but with Iraq they have proved they love wasting the taxes you pay.
Q Jeff Gannon. How did he get a White House pass, or what kind of credentials did he have?
MR. McCLELLAN: Just like anyone else who comes to the White House.
Q Hard pass?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, he had never applied for a hard pass. He had a daily pass. I think he's been coming for --
Q Was he coming for --
MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on. I think he's been coming for more than two years now.
Q Under what name?
MR. McCLELLAN: Sorry?
Q Under what name?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have to get cleared. You have to -- just like anybody else that comes to the White House, you have to have your full name, your Social Security number and your birth date. So you have to be cleared just like anybody else.
Q So he was being cleared under James Guckert, or whatever his name is?
MR. McCLELLAN: My understanding, yes.
Q Okay, and how did he get picked to get a question asked at the last news conference?
MR. McCLELLAN: He didn't. The President didn't have a list. The President didn't -- he was in the briefing room. There are assigned seats in the briefing room. We didn't do any assigning of seats, and the President worked his way through the rows, and called on people as he came to them. He doesn't know who he is.
Q Were you aware that he had another name?
MR. McCLELLAN: Was I aware? I had heard that. I had heard that, yes, recently.
Q But did you know during all this time that he really wasn't Jeff Gannon?
MR. McCLELLAN: I heard at some point, yes -- previously.
Jeff Gannon: In your denunciations of the Abu Ghraib photos, you've used words like "sickening," "disgusting" and "reprehensible." Will you have any adjectives left to adequately describe the pictures from Saddam's rape rooms and torture chambers? And will Americans ever see those images?
Scott McClellan: I'm glad you brought that up, Jeff, because the President talks about that often.
How air-conditioned is Houston? Consider this: While highs are in the 90s outdoors, chilled workers smuggle space heaters into their offices.
"They're everywhere," says Heat Throat, my informant. A free-lance paralegal, she works with several downtown law firms. Often she brings a space heater and hides it under her desk — just like most of the office's other female workers. [...]
One time, a big firm's managing partner asked to borrow her space heater to warm his own office. "I hated to let it go," she says. "But he's a managing partner, so what can you say?"
"I'm amazed by the number of people who come in looking for heaters in summer," says Pauline Berry, who works at Southland Hardware on Westheimer.
Wait until Texans find out there have been major discoveries up north where the human brain apparently still functions. Thermostats and, when they fail, cardigans.
It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy. Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one.
Obama and Clinton have wound up agreeing on nearly every major issue during the campaign; at the end of the day, they share many orthodoxies. Unless the Supreme Court were to get mired in minuscule details of what constitutes universal health care, Obama could assume that he'd be pleased with most Clinton votes, certainly on major issues such as abortion.
Obama could also appreciate Clinton's undeniably keen mind. Even Clinton detractors have noted her remarkable mental skills; she would be equal to any legal or intellectual challenge she would face as a justice. The fact that she hasn't served on a bench before would be inconsequential, considering her experience in law and in government.
If Obama were to promise Clinton the first court vacancy, her supporters would actually have a stronger incentive to support him for president than they would if she were going to be vice president. Given the Supreme Court's delicate liberal-conservative balance, she would play a major role in charting the country's future; there is no guarantee that a Clinton vice presidency would achieve such importance.
Despite its infatuation with "activist" judges, the right's response to the Clinton years was Scalia throwing the 2000 election, followed by Roberts and Alito.
This inspired idea has the delicious aroma of karma about it. Much better than VP — Justice Hillary Clinton!
Last night at the pub someone asked me what I thought Hillary was doing. Oddly enough, I've never actually seriously considered the question - mostly just thought that the theories I keep hearing (like that she wants to be McCain's runningmate!) don't sound right to me. And sure, I do think she's hanging in there just in case something does happen to change the terrain, no matter how slim the chance is, but it occurred to me at that moment that it's more than that. "I think she's running all the bases," I said. "She's the first woman in history to win a state primary, and she's won a lot more. She's running pretty close to the front-runner. It's a major historic moment." And the more I think about it, the more I think it has to be part of what's driving her. There's a bit of climbing the mountain because it's there, and wanting to be able to stand up in the end and say something like, "Never let it be said that a woman can't go the distance." It doesn't matter if someone else breaks the tape, just as long as she finishes the race. (And think how she'd feel if something did happen before Denver to tank Obama and she hadn't.) I've been unhappy with a lot of things about Hillary, but there's a part of me that kind of admires that. Because she wouldn't just be doing that for herself - she's doing it for every little girl who was ever told she can't.
This is the tragedy of this beautiful historic moment — there is so much at stake in the eyes of all American women and all American people of color. Hillary is not tearing the party apart; what she's doing is running a close race with tenacity (and occasional bad judgment) against a formidable opponent.
What's tearing the party apart is this country's history of sexism and racism. And the irony is that Democrats, more often than not, are the good guys in the struggles against both of these blights on our nation, a claim the Republican party cannot make. This election is about much more than these two remarkable and historic individuals. It's about the restoration of American values to our people and our government and our reputation around the globe — values and a reputation that have been hijacked not by bin Laden but by Bush-Cheney.
That's why we Democrats will unify behind our nominee no matter who he or she turns out to be. Meanwhile, Hillary should press on. This is no time for her to become a shrinking violet "for the good of the party." She's thinking much bigger than that.
What a sexist and inflammatory insinuation! It turns out that her rapid rise within the ranks of lobbyists is entirely justified by the richness of her background and experience. After all, wouldn't the senior partner of any top lobbying firm have started out as a receptionist with a degree in elementary education?
Ms. Iseman graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1990 with a degree in elementary education and ventured to Washington, where she was hired as a receptionist for Alcalde & Fay, a high-powered, high-profile lobbying firm based in Arlington, Va. She rose through the ranks to become a senior partner who, in 10-plus years, acquired a list of more than 30 clients including Carnival Cruise Lines, Paxson Communications, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Telemundo Network, and the cities of Miami and Palm Springs, Calif. The bulk of her work involved telecommunications.
Hopefully all that training in elementary education won't go to waste as she explains the economy, foreign policy, and the gas tax to McMaverick.
Neither has volunteered for the war their party started for reasons that have yet to be explained five years on. They are a disgrace to our nation, and a slap in the face of every American man and woman in Iraq and Afghanistan — not to mention every taxpayer who has financed Daddy's private grudge match with Saddam (and Jenna's granddad).
According to the Houston Chronicle, they will be honeymooning in Europe instead of central Asia.
I'm speaking specifically of ABC, NBC, and Fox News and all the other television outlets who magically use our broadcast air (which we own as a common good) and cable bandwidth (which we pay cash for) to receive $3 billion in campaign advertising revenues while they produce such inescapable monstrosities as Stephanopoulos, Gibson, O'Reilly, Hannity, Russert, and the endless parade of sewage-spewing "guests" and "correspondents" like Pat Buchanan and Cokie Roberts.
Unlike my coming tax rebate, which is obviously going to BP and ExxonMobil by design, I refuse to allow my political contributions to go to ABC, NBC, and Fox News.
WASHINGTON — KBR employees working in Iraq stole weapons, artwork and even gold to make spurs for cowboy boots, former company workers told Senate Democrats today.
Appearing before a Democrats-only panel looking into allegations of contracting abuses in Iraq, the one-time employees accused their co-workers of widespread improper activity.
Linda Warren, a 50-year-old Texas woman who worked as a laundry foreman and recreation director for the Houston-based contracting giant in Iraq, told lawmakers in a prepared statement that her co-workers doing construction in Iraqi palaces and municipal buildings stole wood carvings, tapestries, crystal "and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots."
Warren told lawmakers she was reprimanded by a supervisor in 2004 for giving water to Iraqi workers laboring in a sweltering laundry building.
"You can take their gold and silver, rip their tapestries off the wall, but I can't give them a drink of water," Warren, in a prepared statement, said she told the supervisor.
Warren said she was reminded that she had signed a confidentiality agreement and then told that an American woman "wouldn't last very long on the streets of Baghdad."
Looting, fraud, rape — it's just Houston business as usual.
To mark the occasion (and to help them overcome the abstinence education prescribed by their elders), we present some of the most important Republican sexual positions that have served their ancestors so well in creating an atmosphere of endless privilege, practiced ignorance, and lifelong irresponsibility.
Missionary Accomplished
Backdoor Recount
Walking the Elephant
Paging Senator Craig
De-Baathification
Reverse Cowboy
Congratulations, Jenna and Henry! Consider this your early wedding present from everyone in Skimbleland!
Natural-gas prices in the U.S. have risen 93% since August as power-hungry nations compete in a global market that scarcely existed five years ago. The trend has profound implications for the troubled U.S. economy.
Natural gas doubles in eight months. Gasoline is approaching four times the price it was when the first Clinton left office. Our all-energy-crony White House is determined to squeeze every last penny from the economy they sought to destroy.
Given the evidence of the economy, Iraq, and New Orleans, I suppose Republicans don't believe in leaving a campground in better shape than you found it.
Choosing just the right look for the wedding party can be such a risky business! I guess the young white Texas Republican chickenhawk theme is the safe choice.
Would it be asking too much to review candidates for the presidency with the objective of excluding those with a tendency to commit to 100 years in Iraq?
The irony is that the absolute peak of American optimism occurred during the years Republicans were actively impeaching President Clinton over a blowjob.
Therefore, fellatio shows positive correlation as an economic stimulus package. With fellatio in the White House, American optimism is firm and vigorous.
What we have learned since then is that White House war crimes and borrowing from China to invade Iraq stimulate only recession, i.e., economic flaccidity caused by Republican MBAs and CEOs.
On the optimistic-pessimistic scale, which would you rather see in the American economy: Democratic vigor or Republican flaccidity?
For super-rich fliers in search of the ultimate status symbol, the big problem isn't plunking down $50 million to $250 million for a new, full-size jetliner from Boeing or Airbus. It's finding someone to turn that plane into a flying palace.
These purveyors of customized interiors, called "completion centers," are increasingly sold out for years to come as demand for transport-size personal aircraft has soared from a handful a year to dozens. That means lots more work designing and installing mother-of-pearl vanities, gilded ceilings, exotic wood cabinets, hand-made carpeting, multihead showers -- even throne rooms and gyms. Some vendors design the china, crystal and sterling silver that travel on board, and a few have installed missile defense systems on the aircraft.
"We have more work than we can handle," says Jon Buccola, chief executive officer of outfitter Greenpoint Technologies Inc. of Kirkland, Wash. Greenpoint, which specializes in interiors on new Boeing 737 business jets, has won $100 million in new business since the start of the year and is talking to a potential client who won't even get his or her new aircraft until 2014, he says.
"An increasing number of wealthy individuals and heads of state are buying commercial-sized planes and are spending even more to have them customized with everything from master suites to gymnasiums." And did you take note of the private missile defense systems?
The only growth area in the American economy is the enhancement of stratospheric status symbols — the equivalent of shoe polish for plutocrats.
In its creation of a stateless über-wealthy parallel universe, the pluto-Republican view of the economy is not a chicken in every pot. It's a gym in every jet. And woe to all of you who have no jet.
Just as recent books like Jacob Weisberg’s “Bush Tragedy” have underscored the role Oedipal rivalries may have played in George W. Bush’s presidency and his decision to go to war against Iraq, so this volume underscores the role that Freudian family dynamics may have played in Mr. bin Laden’s radicalization and his declaration of war against America.
Over the past 200 years, the stock market's steady upward march occasionally has been disrupted for long stretches, most recently during the Great Depression and the inflation-plagued 1970s. The current market turmoil suggests that we may be in another lost decade.
The stock market is trading right where it was nine years ago. Stocks, long touted as the best investment for the long term, have been one of the worst investments over the nine-year period, trounced even by lowly Treasury bonds.
Sharply reduced standards of living for America's seniors, due to significantly reduced investment returns during a crucial decade, will be another of the major long-term effects of the Bush-Cheney administration, its tax policy, its wastefulness, and its insane adventure in Iraq.
It is also worth noting that during the eight years of the Clinton administration, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P; 500 went up over 300 percent. Neither of these indexes includes major amounts of Internet stock like the Nasdaq, so the Internet "bubble" didn't affect them as much.
It doesn't matter if you look at the president as the metaphorical or literal portfolio manager of the American economy. The choice is clear. Another Clinton is running for president this year: that's who I want in the White House.
Five years ago the White House was evidently expecting company in the thousands, when they built twenty-three state of the art autopsy stations: "WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2003 – Military officials this week opened a new $30 million mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, Del."
"The mission of a mortuary is to prepare remains with dignity, care and respect," [Meg Falk, director of the Defense Department's Office of Family Policy] added. "If we expose that process to the media we lose that."
Really, Meg? A hell of a lot more than dignity, care and respect has been lost. With all due respect to the extremely difficult work of the mortuary workers, the least you can do is name the place after the people who will keep it populated well into the foreseeable future.
Add another institution to those getting squeezed by America's economic crunch: soup kitchens.
Across the country, groups that provide food to people in need are scrambling to make up for a loss of government-provided surplus items as commodity prices have soared. Surpluses have dropped as some commodities, like corn, are being turned into alternative fuels and others are going overseas as the weak dollar makes U.S. exports more palatable to other countries.
At the same time, food banks and soup kitchens say that people struggling with mortgage woes, rising gas prices and layoffs are increasingly turning to them for help. [...]
When his family ran out of food last week, Daniel Wheelus went to Prodisee Pantry, in Spanish Fort, Ala., for the first time. He received a full shopping cart, including a ham, that he said would last a week for himself, his wife and three children, ages 16, 12 and 10.
"They even gave my boy some clothes for school," he said. "They really, really helped."
Mr. Wheelus, 39 years old, earns $13.60 an hour working in an oil field 45 miles from his home. But it costs him $30 a day to fill up the Dodge Dakota pickup he drives to work. His utility bills have doubled to $400 a month from last year, he says. He says he lost his house in October after missing mortgage payments following knee surgery and now owes back taxes.
Permit an all-oil, all-war, all-crony agenda in the White House and Congress, and this is what you get.
