Editorial: If U.S. is serious about debt, there's a single-payer solution.

Editorial: If U.S. is serious about debt, there's a single-payer solution.

WordPlay | Asheville FM | Community Radio

CATCH PART 2 OF THE MAD HATTERS' REVIEW SHOW TODAY, 5-6PM -- Recitations of contributors' writings.


WordPlay | Asheville FM | Community Radio

Civil War: Collaboration with Jean Detheux, with music by Guthrie Lowe & Dave Nagel

Civil War from Jean Detheux on Vimeo.

First collaboration with writer Carol Novack, done in 2007.
A more recent one, "Destination," is also on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/26782140.

Music of Civil War is by Guthrie Lowe, with additional music by Dave Nagel.

Destination: My prose poem with music by Don Meyer -- made into brilliant Visual Music by Jean Detheux

Destination from Jean Detheux on Vimeo.

Destination from Jean Detheux on Vimeo.

Daily Kos: Iceland's On-going Revolution

A country with guts and brains that nobody talks about.


Daily Kos: Iceland's On-going Revolution

Fatal politics: Quotes for America these days of OUR LORD of the tall fairy tales: I

If you lead an ass by its tail, it will drag its head backwards where you want it to go. If you don't give it water, the ass will swallow its own shit.  

 

 

copy right, please, CN, 8/1/11

The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt | | AlterNet

The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt

As Congress nears a vote on the various debt ceiling deals, let's look at the lies and misinformation that got us into this mess.

July 28, 2011 |

Editor's Note: This article has been corrected to reflect more accurate calculations.

There is one simple truth about the discussion of the looming U.S. debt crisis: it is largely a compendium of half-truths, distortions, myths and outright lies.

For example, is it true that the U.S. debt is unsustainable, which is spurring the budget-cutting fever? Far from it. While U.S. debt is at one of its highest levels ever in terms of gross domestic product, the estimated interest payments for all of 2011 on the $14.3 trillion public debt will be a mere $430 billion. This is only 18 percent more than the $364 billion paid way back in 1998, while the U.S. economy has grown nearly 30 percent since then. Rock-bottom interest rates on U.S. government debt account for the low payments today, but the practical effect is that servicing the debt as a percentage of GDP is near the lowest it’s been in decades.

Or what about hysterical headlines like “U.S. Debt Default Looms” (courtesy of NPR) unless Democrats and Republicans agree to raise the debt ceiling? They are completely untrue. Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, says, if there is no agreement by Aug. 2 to allow the U.S. Treasury to borrow more funds, then “the government instead would choose among cutbacks on various expenditures such as state and local aid, medical aid, for war, for infrastructure. It would extraordinarily unusual for a government in such a situation to attack its creditors.”

If no deal on the debt ceiling is reached this sucks for the rest of us, such as the millions depending on their portion of the $23 billion in Social Security payments scheduled for Aug. 3. A short delay would do no serious harm, but a longer delay, perhaps just a week or two, would be devastating.

For one, removing income support payments would have a major ripple effect in our consumer-based economy. Spending would drop precipitously on items like food, medicine, transportation, clothing and household goods. Peter Bratsis, a professor of Political Theory at the University of Salaford in England and a Greek-American, says his home country is a cautionary tale. Speaking from Greece, Bratsis said since the debt crisis hit last summer many people’s income have dropped up to 25 percent as wages, pensions and social welfare have been sacrificed to please the banks. As a result “Greece is in an economic depression. In Athens, on every block, you have shuttered bakeries, cafes, shoe stores, plumbers and other small businesses that are closed because either people don’t have the money to spend or are afraid to spend.”

Second, says Wolff, “The U.S. Government is one of the largest buyers, if not the largest purchaser of commodities in the world of oil, of computers, of weapons. In an already shaky global economy, the biggest buyer of goods would be making cutbacks. This would be stupefyingly dumb.” He adds that by playing chicken with the national debt, Washington has already irreparably wounded the economy. “The world depends on the U.S. economy running smoothly. A default would lead governments and companies to rethink their relation to the United States, and this has already happened.”

The point is while the dangers are rife in a delay in raising the debt ceiling the doomsday scenario of a government default on debt is not going to occur. The creditors will be kept happy and there will be no default because that is how government works in a capitalist economy. And even if the impasse dragged on, the Fed could dip into its $550 billion in reserves, including more than $400 billion in gold at current prices, to keep making debt payments.

One blatant lie is that Republicans and Democrats, the Congress and the White House are serious about reining in budget deficits to reduce the long-term debt. They are not. The Congressional Budget Office calculates that the deficit from 2011 to 2013 will be $3.5 trillion. Over the decade it will be $8.5 trillion. Now, lots of numbers are being thrown about on spending cuts over a 10-year period, but they keep dropping – the Senate Democrats are proposing $2.2 trillion in cuts and costs savings while the Republicans weigh in at $915 billion.

------- ACCESS THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE VIA THE LINK:


The 6 Biggest Lies About the U.S. Debt | | AlterNet

the short review: Carol Novack

Interview and "Necessary Fiction" Review.


the short review: Carol Novack

Daily Kos: With Voter Suppression, the Right Wing Rolls Out a Dubious, Nationwide Attack on Americans

Daily Kos: With Voter Suppression, the Right Wing Rolls Out a Dubious, Nationwide Attack on Americans

LITnIMAGE

My flash fic, "Sophia's Secret," may be found here:


LITnIMAGE

MadHat's July Newsletter

Dear Friends:

We’re going sawed off shotguns with our new Blog and getting  impressive submissions to the MadHat Press  poetry chapbook contest,  judged by  CA Conrad.  So please consider submitting to either or both and spreading the word.  And don’t forget to tell every poor cooped up urban dweller about MadHat’s Little Mountain Retreat (& B&B) in gorgeous Asheville, NC.

Former & Forthcoming Review & Blog Contributors & Book Reviewers:

We’re seeking book reviewers to write short reviews  Review and Blog contributors’ new books for our Blog, which means that both putative reviewers and contributors with new books are invited to send requests with details/links to mhrblog@madhatarts.com.  If you already have a reviewer searching for a venue, have her/him send the review to us, bearing in mind the guidelines listed on the blog.  We will also publish a few reviews in our Review issues.   We are not ruling out reviews of art, inventive electronic literature, et al.  Query and we’ll respond.

Contributors are also invited to submit news of book publications and readings/performances.  Please write “NEWS” in the subject line of your email to our blog staff and limit your descriptions to seven lines max.

And:  Contributors are invited to curate MadHat/Review readings/performances/multimedia spectacles/fundraisers in their home towns.  Email askalice@madhatarts.com if you want to host an event.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

If you haven’t had a chance to peruse our new, inclusive organization’s website, please do.  We’re really excited about our new projects, which include the expansion of the reading series to Asheville, as well as maintaining a presence in NYC.  Our Mad Hatters’ Review Poetry, Prose, and Anything Goes Series will be represented in NYC at 4 pm on July 30^th at The First Annual New York Poetry Festival on Governor’s Island.  Our next Asheville reading, once again at The Black Mountain College Museum & Arts Center, will take place on August 18^th, and I’ll be flying up to NYC in October for a Mad Hatters’ Review Editors’ Reading at our old haunt, The KGB Bar (October 27^th).  All readings and performances will be posted on the blog.

Contributors Jeff Davis (Issue 12) and Lori Horvitz (Issue 13) will join me in hosting a Mad Hatters’ Review radio show this Sunday on Jeff’s Word Play series.  Tune in to Asheville FM 5 – 6pm (EST USA) to hear recitations of works published in the Review.

MadHat Press is embarking on its first full-length publication, a book of poems by our wise and exceptionally prolific friend Hugh Fox.  We hope to have the book out by October.  It will be available for purchase via our Press page, as well as amazon.com, et al.  

The expenses of preparing to open a Retreat have been an enormous strain on the bank account of the Publisher.  There will also be expenses associated with the Press, the non-profit organization, and ongoing expenses to produce the Review.  So once again, I’m asking for contributions, fully deductible for US tax payers.  Your gift of any amount will no doubt yield beneficial Karmic consequences, as well as this Publisher’s heartfelt gratitude.  We need donations to survive!

Wishing you a wonderful, relaxing season without tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis, toxic spills, and nuclear fallout,

Carol Novack, Publisher

askalice madhatarts com

P.S.  If you’re on Facebook, please LIKE MAD ABOUT MADHAT ARTS.

Man wins right to wear colander in license

Now, here's a religion worth joining!


Man wins right to wear colander in licence

PANK Blog

PANK Blog

Giraffes in Hiding – The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack: A Review by Ethel Rohan

Carol Novack’s Giraffes in Hiding – The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack is a quirky and remarkable collection of forty-one poetic fictions, fusions, and prose poems. This exceptional collection makes for a challenging and absorbing read. To read this book is to set out on a journey that stretches the mind and imagination in surprising and wondrous ways. The language and imagery here are both unexpected and often exquisite, as are the elements of magic and the absurd. Giraffes in Hiding – The Mythical Memoirs of Carol Novack is unlike any other collection I have read and is welcome nourishment for me as a reader and writer. ...

Bill Clinton: GOP Voting Crackdown Worst Since Jim Crow | TPMDC

Our poor Constitution. It's in shreds and will be a slab in the morgue of democracy very soon.

Bill Clinton: GOP Voting Crackdown Worst Since Jim Crow | TPMDC

Opening B & B/Mt Retreat for Visiting Artists, Writers, Musicians, etc

Opening B & B/Mt Retreat for Visiting Artists, Writers, Musicians, etc
Asheville, NC

Special opening discounts.

Michele Bachmann and evangelicals: Can a woman really be accepted as a leader? - By Libby Copeland - Slate Magazine

Michele does everything God tells her to do and obeys her husband. So what if God tells her to ban all non-Christians from the USA and arrest them in their homes? What if God tells her to bomb the Muslims? What if? A frightening thought. Ya gotta love the Repugs. Each candidate is scarier than the next.


Michele Bachmann and evangelicals: Can a woman really be accepted as a leader? - By Libby Copeland - Slate Magazine

Don't Look on the Bright Side: Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us | | AlterNet

Precisely what I've been saying for years. Pollyanna (that blindfolded little girl) is killing our country.

"Instinct paralyzes the populace with numb plumped lips, viola hips, deals the finishing touch with its sting.  No matter that rations dwindle in recession and there’s naught but figments left to bring to the picnic. The Players believe they will find the solution.  It’s a cinch, really, they say, Greek chorus style:  Where there’s a will . . . 

Oh, yes, cock your eyebrow; cock it like a gun. Now lower it, lower it. Admit it.  I am not the enemy.  It is not my fault that everything will not be alright.  It is not my fault you have nothing to bring but rhetoric." (from PICNIC  in Exquisite Corpse, Giraffes in Hiding)

Don't Look on the Bright Side: Pessimism, Not Magical Thinking, Is What Will Save Us | | AlterNet

By Marty Kaplan, Smirking Chimp
Posted on June 28, 2011, Printed on June 29, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/151454/don%27t_look_on_the_bright_side%3A_pessimism%2C_not_magical_thinking%2C_is_what_will_save_us

It gets worse. If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim. The new normal of high unemployment and stagnant wages will likely not turn out to be just a phase. The next generations may indeed do worse than the ones before them. Thanks to the Supreme Court, big money will keep tightening its stranglehold on elections and lawmaking. Financial reform and consumer protection will never survive the onslaught of lobbyists. Reckless bankers will go on making out like bandits, and the public will always be forced to rescue them. The Internet, along with cable and wireless, will be controlled by fewer and more-powerful companies. The world will keep staggering from one economic crisis to another. We will not have the leadership and citizenship we need to kick our dependence on oil. We will not even keep up with the Kardashians.

Add your own items to the list. Whatever global threats scare you -- climate change, the Middle East, loose nukes, pandemics -- and whatever domestic issues haunt you -- failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, rising poverty, obesity -- the odds are that the honesty, discipline, resources and burden-sharing required for a happy ending will not, like Elijah, show up at our door.

Sure, there's some good news around, and there are advances ahead. Gay marriage is legal in New York, and perhaps one day the resistance to it will seem as unfathomable as the opposition to women's suffrage. Technology is growing exponentially, and today's iGizmos will doubtlessly seem like steam engines tomorrow. We will some day actually be gone from Afghanistan. Justices Scalia and Thomas will eventually retire. French fries or salami will turn out to be good for us, at least for a while. Some Wall Street slimeballs will be nailed, some good guys will win elections and some little girl will be rescued from a well.

But it would pretty much take a miracle for our intractable problems to become tractable. Without one, political polarization is not about to give way to kumbaya. Cultural coarsening is not going to reverse course. The middle class will not be resurgent; the gap between rich and poor will not start closing; the plutocrats calling the shots will not cede their power. No warning on its way to us -- no new BP, no next shooting, no future default -- will bring us to our senses about the environment, assault weapons or derivatives for any longer than it takes for the next Casey Anthony or Anthony Weiner comes along. .................. (click on link to access the rest of the article)

Vispo by Tray Drumhann | Mad Hatters' Review Blog

The gems keep coming. Check out the recent creations on the Mad Hatters' Review Blog!


Vispo by Tray Drumhann | Mad Hatters' Review Blog

Brow Beat : Peter Falk, RIP

A wonderful actor. Feeling so sad.

Brow Beat : Peter Falk, RIP

kaffe in katmandu // SAME AS by CAROL NOVACK at:

kaffe in katmandu // SAME AS by CAROL NOVACK at: