300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds

I was introduced to this short video in the Acknowledgments of Richard Heinberg's "The End of Growth", a book I am currently reading (along with "The Fourth Turning" by William Strauss and Neil Howe) and after viewing it just moments ago, I wanted to share this with people who have never seen it.

Enjoy "300 Years Of Fossil Fuels In 300 Seconds":

Neil Barofsky Interviewed By Dan Rather: "You Should Be Scared. I'm Scared. You Can't Not Be Scared . . . "

A short and bitter interview with the former Special Inspector General for TARP, Neil Barofsky, who warns that the next round of bailouts would have to exceed $5 Trillion in up front costs for the biggest institutions. Barofsky says he has no idea where the US could come up with that kind of money.

When pressed by Dan Rather who asks "Are you scared?", Barofsky answers, "You should be scared. I'm scared. You can't not be scared. You can't look at what happened in the run up to 2008 and see how it's not going to repeat itself, given what we've done."

Bad Economy Hurting Florida Voters

"Greed, Greed, And Fuckin' More Greed!" An Angry Irishman Vents About Banksters, The Credit Crisis And The Collapse Of The Celtic Tiger Economy

I love this guy, whoever he is. And I love how he tells the interviewer to Fuck Off at th end of the interview. This is the kind of truth you will not hear on mainstream TV in America:

Business/Economic/Housing/Layoffs News for August 17, 2010

10 Signs The U.S. is Becoming a Third World Country

Denmark Starts to Trim Its Admired Safety Net

China Favors Euro Over Dollar as Bernanke Alters Path

Late mortgage payments spike in 2Q vs year ago

Production, Housing Starts in U.S. Probably Increased in July

Mish: The Most Precious People On Earth

The End of Outsourcing (As We Know It)

Japanese Stocks Decline on Concern Economic Growth Is Slowing

View Cloudy, Dow Declines for a 5th Day

Obama Says Private Accounts Would Endanger U.S. Social Security Benefits

Easier Loan Standards Fail to Boost Demand, Fed Survey Shows

Government Bails Out Bank CEO After He Expenses Mansion, Jaguar, And Porsche

MAP OF THE DAY: The 22 Cities At Risk Of A Double Dip

Fortune: Is this finally the economic collapse?

Rebuttal To David Harvey's "Econopocalypse"

A few days ago, I posted a speech by Marxian Economist David Harvey in a video titled "Econopocalypse: David Harvey's Talk At The Royal Society Of Arts Taken Up A Notch With Whiteboard Doodles".

Today, I found a rebuttal to Harvey's talk titled "Crisis of Capitalism, The Critique". If you never viewed the orginal Econopocalypse video, I would suggest you do so before you see the following rebuttal.

Enjoy.

Former US Comptroller David Walker Says U.S.A. Is On The Same Path As Greece

Walk Away From Your Mortgage!

From the New York Times Magazine article "Walk Away From Your Mortgage" which this video is referencing:

John Courson, president and C.E.O. of the Mortgage Bankers Association, recently told The Wall Street Journal that homeowners who default on their mortgages should think about the “message” they will send to “their family and their kids and their friends.” Courson was implying that homeowners — record numbers of whom continue to default — have a responsibility to make good. He wasn’t referring to the people who have no choice, who can’t afford their payments. He was speaking about the rising number of folks who are voluntarily choosing not to pay.

Such voluntary defaults are a new phenomenon. Time was, Americans would do anything to pay their mortgage — forgo a new car or a vacation, even put a younger family member to work. But the housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?

Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral — perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with. But the average American, as if sprung from some Franklinesque mythology, is supposed to honor his debts, or so says the mortgage industry as well as government officials. Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. declared that “any homeowner who can afford his mortgagepayment but chooses to walk away from an underwater property is simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.” (Paulson presumably was not so censorious of speculation during his 32-year career at Goldman Sachs.)

Elizabeth Warren on "Life After Tarp" or "How We've Increased Moral Hazard In The Finance Sector"

Here's hoping that Elizabeth Warren will quit teaching at Harvard and leave her Congressional post for a run at the Presidency.