Skip to main content

Reading Obama

It's 2007 in America and bad investments about bad loans are crashing the economy.

“For the public, it was tempting to see all this as a righteous comeuppance for greedy bankers and hedge fund managers; to want to stand by as firms failed and executives who'd drawn $20 million bonuses were forced to sell off their yachts, jets, and homes in the Hamptons. I'd encountered enough Wall Street executives personally to know that many (though not all) lived up to the stereotype: smug and entitled, conspicuous in their consumption, and indifferent to the impact their decisions might have on everyone else.

The trouble was that in the midst of a financial panic, in a modern capitalist economy, it was impossible to isolate good businesses from bad, or administer pain only to the reckless or unscrupulous. Like it or not, everybody and everything was connected.”

A Promised Land by Barack Obama p. 178.



Reading this book, written by a man who wants to be a good leader for the American people, is a great antidote to all the threats and chaos perpetrated on the American people by Trump. There was a financial crisis and Obama chose to work with people, not obstruct solutions merely for a campaign talking point. 



"The "border crisis" is not an emergency if you're willing to wait until after the election to fix it." Twitter

They have to be possessive about that issue, because it's just a distraction, but it's a useful political distraction. Biden has been tougher on the border than many progressive would prefer, he's more hawkish with Israel than progressives would prefer, but if you think not voting is going to send him a message, you're mistaken, it just gives Trump, who is fading, a chance. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

Character list of Inherent Vice the novel

Fay "Shasta" Hepworth played by Katherine Waterston in the 2014 movie Larry "Doc" Sportello: Our hero, gumsandal.  Shasta Fay Hepworth: Former beautiful love interest. Mickey Wolfmann: Real estate tycoon, Shasta's sugar daddy, paying for apartment in Hancock Park. Mrs. Sloane Wolfmann: wife. Has her own side piece Mr. Riggs Warbling Deputy DA Penny Kimball: lawyer from district attorney office, who fooled around with Doc for a time. Works next to Rhus Frothingham (female book, male in movie).  Aunt Reet: Aunt in real estate. "Bigfoot" Christian Bjornsen: Hollywood detective and actor. Married to Chastity. Spoiler: His partner Vincent Indelicato is wacked by Adrian Prussia, but Puck did the actual job. Mrs. Chastity Bjornsen: Gets on the phone on page 260 of the paperback to defend Bigfoot's day off from work. Calls Doc Mr. Moral Turpitude, accuses him of running up Bigfoot's mental health bills.  Denis: friend who he goes and gets a pizza with...

AOC

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...