"Myself I'd like to find some GAO reports and so on to verify, although we've seen story after story about "billions" disappearing and no one can account for it ... " -- comment by Robert Oak
There may be a problem in that we do not have access to information that is privileged as classified -- which is probably a problem that even Senators Webb and Dorgan encountered. The reasoning -- difficult to dispute -- is that our actual or potential adversaries can make strategic use of such information, and therefor it should not be made public. If the Select Committee has access to such information, they cannot lawfully provide it to the public, to the media or to EP.
Secrecy, however, should not prevent audits. Back in July, I posted a series of comments at this post by Robert Oak about the problem of lack of audits on war expenditures, beginning with a comment titled "War is a Racket" -- which, of course, was a citation to the well-known book by U.S. Marine Major General Smedley D. Butler. Anyone who has a problem with that kind of thinking should be disputing the claims made by General Butler.
My second comment, titled "Leahy Provisions Enacted", was thoroughly documented, including signing statements by President George W. Bush. This comment outlined the history of how the fact that wars since 2001 (and earlier) have been under war authorization -- not wars declared by Congress -- the Bush administration held that all the money spent there was not subject to the Fraud Act or any other auditing. That situation is clearly relevant to the article by Paul Craig Roberts posted today (August 14, 2011). Possibly someone thought that my comment was pro-Leahy, but if my comment was pro-Leahy (pro-Democrat?), it was also pro-Grassley (pro-Republcan?). BTW, I have, in a comment on a different topic, posted a critical review of Leahy's support of the Obama administration's preposterous position that increasing immigration will create jobs in the U.S..
My third comment was titled "Growth Industry: Paper Shredders".
Those three comments were followed by a comment by Robert Oak agreeing at least with my concluding remarks, being titled "right no real investigation and the real senators didn't run". Oak commented about the departure of Senators Webb and Dorgan, "I think they bailed on running for office not because they might lose but because they had no choice in the Senate except to be swamped and overcome with corruption."
All three of my comments were rated -1 without explanation of the grounds for that rating, even though Robert Oak's comment is rated a +2 (one of those two points was my vote).
In a final comment titled "Stay and fight!" I commented that I wished that the senators who actually represent the interests of the people would stay and continue the good fight in the Senate. That comment received no votes either way.
Possibly someone interpreted my comments as intended as an anti-war diatribe, therefore not appropriate to EP. However, my comments were intended exactly to support enactment of the WEFA provisions that were proposed by Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Leahy (D-VT), which were enacted in 2008, and as in support of the War Profiteering Prevention Act, which was last seen getting lost in a committee in the House in 2009. The provisions appear to have been enacted as amendments to other legislation at the price of an explicit statement by Congress that deepwater drilling on the Continental Shelf and fracking could not be held up pending regulatory legislation by Congress. These are clearly matters of interest to anyone who is trying to follow the interrelation of politics and the economy.
If Gen, Butler's book offends someone, I can't help it. Gen Butler's remarks are a legitimate source concerning the danger of the interrelation of war and profiteering -- a topic of tremendous and obvious importance for economic considerations and analysis. If that was the reason for my -1 rating, then okay, that's someone's opinion and I stick by mine.
I am afraid, however, that the reason for the -1 vote was that my critic believes that war profiteering and corruption in some way is essential to success of the U.S. military or that it is somehow unpatriotic to expose and criticize such corruption. IMO, the opposite is true.
For the record, my view is that if we are going to have wars, they should involve substantial sacrifice by all citizens, including at least consideration of very high tax rates on the highest income tax brackets and of universal military service. Our so-called 'off-budget' wars are an affront both to patriotism and to common sense.
The current Pentagon advisor on the National Security Council, Gen. Douglas Lute, has been Deputy National Security Advisor since mid 2007 (Bush administration) and continues in that capacity up to the present day. Shortly after his appointment in 2007, Gen. Lute stated that the United States should "consider" reinstating the military draft to relieve the "stressed" volunteer service from multiple tours of duty. This brought the wrath of Those-Within-the-Beltway down on Lute, who almost immediately followed his initial remarks with a comment that he did not see a current need for a draft. Please consult, e.g., the classic strategist Sun Tzu about the prospects for a nation that becomes entangled in drawn-out wars that are not fully supported or supportable, about the mistake of trying to do wars 'on the cheap' and about the key importance of carefully watching all expenditures involved in warfare.
This article, not verified, claims over years, the Pentagon's books are "fuzzy" and cannot account for trillions of dollars. Myself I'd like to find some GAO reports and so on to verify, although we've seen story after story about "billions" disappearing and no one can account for it, never mind our favor for profit private military called contractors.
The bottom row is the file upload tool. I might reduce the number of buttons to make it less confusing, but like I said, I don't use this stuff but others do, so I have to find out what works for others.
But no for files, images, you have to upload first to a web server or have a URL. Your computer is not a server, so you have no URL on it.
Downsized 50%, then clicked and dragged into the window pane that opens from the RTE toolbar button for graphs (icon of a graph). CONTROL-COMMAND + V won't even get the image into what appears for me in the editor.
I'm using Intel Mac OS 10.5 or 10.6
Image that should appear is of Eagle Peak, Yellowstone National Park (public domain, National Park Service via Wikipedia)
I CAN SEE IMAGE IN THE EDITOR, BUT NOT AT PREVIEW STAGE OR WHEN POSTED.
MAYBE I SHOULD LOWER RESOLUTION, NOW SET AT 200 ppi ?
Or maybe it's a Mac problem.
It doesn't matter that much for someone like myself who just posts comments.
and also can you edit your own comment so you can edit one and then put in a real quote using the double quote button?
You have permission to edit your own comments so if you make a mistake or want to reword something, you can.
On images, I just enabled some images for comments. If it doesn't work, try an optimized, small image.
Yes, comments for registered, logged in users can embed youtubes, display images and even upload some documents.
We disabled authoring as a default for too many people were violating the rules and writing posts that truly had little content or merit.
It's also a security issue. But if you want to write an article, request an author account. Bear in mind, we're pretty damn pick on that! We became a Google news source and as a result I am extremely active making sure the data is correct, the calculations are right and the citations are correct. The site motto is "No economic fiction", so it's important to make sure we do not write any. We have Fox News and Forbes for that!
I was testing the image (graph) function on Mac (Intel) using OS 10.6.
IMAGE (GRAPH) FUNCTION DOESN'T APPEAR TO WORK WITH MAC OS, ALTHOUGH IT WORKS UP UNTIL THE PREVIEW OR POST STAGE. MAYBE IT'S JUST THAT I AM POSTING COMMENTS, NOT ARTICLES, AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN IMAGES OR GRAPHS IN COMMENTS.
Haven't tested everything, but new RTE looks great so far, definitely improved.
I had images disabled for authenticated users but I just enabled it. Pay VERY close attention to image size, it should stop you from posting large images.
I'm going to turn the comments into a separate twitter feed as well, will post an announcement soon.
I have just tested the image function on Mac (Intel) using OS 10.6. Click and drag works, but only using the pane that comes up from the image (graph) button (no need for keyboard command). Guess I should have tried out a graph rather than an image (Eagle Peak, Yelllowstone Park, public domain, National Park Service).
OOOPS! NO IT DOESN'T WORK. AT LEAST NOT YET. TRY AGAIN.
TRYING IT AGAIN WITH CNTL-COMMAND + V
The only thing that maybe isn't working is that I see only the extreme right part of the pull-down menus for "Normal" "Font" and "Size" but it doesn't matter because I can see each entry's detail in the yellow bubbles that come up when scrolling through them.
Haven't tested everything, but it looks great so far.
What is the price to buy a Senator or Representative or the President? What will it cost to have my government represent me? The Chamber of Commerce seems to get everything they want.
It's really true, people think after all of that, their elected reps. have some power, but the reality is only the leadership has any power. You bill goes to committee to die, never be brought up for a vote, the house leadership decides which bills will be voted on, and the infamous bill manager can literally change a bill almost right up to the vote.
It's about as undemocratic as it gets. (well, there are a few steps more but thinking the United States is a Democracy is a joke).
"Recall Republican Senator Shelby blocked a noble [Nobel] prize winning economist earlier."
WHY does one senator have that power? You sure can't find that in the Constitution! I know, I know ... "Senate rules" ... which translates like this:
QUESTION: Why did Shelby block a Nobelist from accepting office?
ANSWER: Because he can.
And these "holds" are mostly secret! What a stinking load of doodoo!
I used to admire the Senate. But no longer. Most of them amount to a gang of thieves. And WHY would anyone think such a thing?
Because ... well ... check out writings of David Cay Johnston.
And then there's the Brookings Institution ... presumed by some to be better than, say, the Heritage Foundation ... because ... uh ... let's see ... because ... uh ... well ... Heritage is the Republicans and Brookings is the Democrats ... worse and worser all over again!
One of Dan Daveed's WHYs presumes a premise that I -- as in truth an old man -- would question.
"Why is it so many of our young people are violent, over weight, disrespectful, lazy, hooked on video games, carry guns to school. Why do we allow this to happen?"
I don't think they are any more violent than they were in yesteryear. Stats seem to be showing that more are overweight than formerly but the young people I know aren't ... and when some of them start to get that way, they manage to turn it around. They aren't disrespectful to me, although I hear complaints about that from some of my neighbors.
The young people I know have access to and probably know how to shoot, some more than others, but none of them carry guns to school or anywhere else, unless hunting. Far from lazy, I hire young people from time to time and they work hard and competently when given the chance.
Now, about those games ... those little beeper things that seem to fascinate them for hours on end ... yeah, I agree, WHY?
I guess I "allow" it ... the video games ... I could try to put a stop to it ... but I'd like to give a reason and I don't have a reason. I can't criticize what I don't understand.
One thing I see is this never ending pure economic insanity coming from the GOP, we just are hearing it in Iowa and the crazy people who vote for them makes the situation much, much worse. It' drags the "debate" into insanity land. I have no idea why people would vote against their own self-interests as well as the national interest.
i.e. they are currently voting in people who will destroy their meager retirement and health care.
On the other hand, some of the Democrat proposals, reeking of special interest agendas I can understand the hatred of that as well.
But why people are not in the streets rioting when other nations are is beyond me. The only thing I see is this never ending "divide" being used as a distraction.
I don't get it for most of these people have to at least balance their own checkbooks so one would think they could reason out some common sense solutions and get behind them.
Why do we beat the drums and rattle the sabers in prep to confront China on there side of the globe? Why don't we just stop buying Chinese goods? Why don't we put a tariff on all Chinese goods coming in to the USA including all American companies that want to sell out side U S Borders? Why don't we accuse all US companies that leave the USA of treason? Why is it are elected officials are so blind? Could it be greed? Why do we keep allowing more and more new people into our country when we know there are not enough jobs for everyone. Why don't we bring are armies home to defend are own borders? Why do we keep giving the Arab country's billions in aid when they hate us anyway and we have so many needy Citizens here at home?
Why do we not have a replacement for the space shuttle? Why is it we have to hitch a ride with the Russians to the Space Station? Why is it prices go up, wages go down?
Why is it rent goes up … jobs disappear?
Why is it we can’t make a car that gets 100 even 200 miles to the gallon? Why is it we aren’t smart enough to find an alternative fuel?
Why is it so many of our young people are violent ,over weight, disrespectful, lazy, hooked on video games, carry guns to school. Why do we allow this to happen? Why is it everyone in the middle class down to the dirt poor see all the why’s ….. but do nothing?
There may be a problem in that we do not have access to information that is privileged as classified -- which is probably a problem that even Senators Webb and Dorgan encountered. The reasoning -- difficult to dispute -- is that our actual or potential adversaries can make strategic use of such information, and therefor it should not be made public. If the Select Committee has access to such information, they cannot lawfully provide it to the public, to the media or to EP.
Secrecy, however, should not prevent audits. Back in July, I posted a series of comments at this post by Robert Oak about the problem of lack of audits on war expenditures, beginning with a comment titled "War is a Racket" -- which, of course, was a citation to the well-known book by U.S. Marine Major General Smedley D. Butler. Anyone who has a problem with that kind of thinking should be disputing the claims made by General Butler.
My second comment, titled "Leahy Provisions Enacted", was thoroughly documented, including signing statements by President George W. Bush. This comment outlined the history of how the fact that wars since 2001 (and earlier) have been under war authorization -- not wars declared by Congress -- the Bush administration held that all the money spent there was not subject to the Fraud Act or any other auditing. That situation is clearly relevant to the article by Paul Craig Roberts posted today (August 14, 2011). Possibly someone thought that my comment was pro-Leahy, but if my comment was pro-Leahy (pro-Democrat?), it was also pro-Grassley (pro-Republcan?). BTW, I have, in a comment on a different topic, posted a critical review of Leahy's support of the Obama administration's preposterous position that increasing immigration will create jobs in the U.S..
My third comment was titled "Growth Industry: Paper Shredders".
Those three comments were followed by a comment by Robert Oak agreeing at least with my concluding remarks, being titled "right no real investigation and the real senators didn't run". Oak commented about the departure of Senators Webb and Dorgan, "I think they bailed on running for office not because they might lose but because they had no choice in the Senate except to be swamped and overcome with corruption."
All three of my comments were rated -1 without explanation of the grounds for that rating, even though Robert Oak's comment is rated a +2 (one of those two points was my vote).
In a final comment titled "Stay and fight!" I commented that I wished that the senators who actually represent the interests of the people would stay and continue the good fight in the Senate. That comment received no votes either way.
Possibly someone interpreted my comments as intended as an anti-war diatribe, therefore not appropriate to EP. However, my comments were intended exactly to support enactment of the WEFA provisions that were proposed by Senators Grassley (R-IA) and Leahy (D-VT), which were enacted in 2008, and as in support of the War Profiteering Prevention Act, which was last seen getting lost in a committee in the House in 2009. The provisions appear to have been enacted as amendments to other legislation at the price of an explicit statement by Congress that deepwater drilling on the Continental Shelf and fracking could not be held up pending regulatory legislation by Congress. These are clearly matters of interest to anyone who is trying to follow the interrelation of politics and the economy.
If Gen, Butler's book offends someone, I can't help it. Gen Butler's remarks are a legitimate source concerning the danger of the interrelation of war and profiteering -- a topic of tremendous and obvious importance for economic considerations and analysis. If that was the reason for my -1 rating, then okay, that's someone's opinion and I stick by mine.
I am afraid, however, that the reason for the -1 vote was that my critic believes that war profiteering and corruption in some way is essential to success of the U.S. military or that it is somehow unpatriotic to expose and criticize such corruption. IMO, the opposite is true.
For the record, my view is that if we are going to have wars, they should involve substantial sacrifice by all citizens, including at least consideration of very high tax rates on the highest income tax brackets and of universal military service. Our so-called 'off-budget' wars are an affront both to patriotism and to common sense.
The current Pentagon advisor on the National Security Council, Gen. Douglas Lute, has been Deputy National Security Advisor since mid 2007 (Bush administration) and continues in that capacity up to the present day. Shortly after his appointment in 2007, Gen. Lute stated that the United States should "consider" reinstating the military draft to relieve the "stressed" volunteer service from multiple tours of duty. This brought the wrath of Those-Within-the-Beltway down on Lute, who almost immediately followed his initial remarks with a comment that he did not see a current need for a draft. Please consult, e.g., the classic strategist Sun Tzu about the prospects for a nation that becomes entangled in drawn-out wars that are not fully supported or supportable, about the mistake of trying to do wars 'on the cheap' and about the key importance of carefully watching all expenditures involved in warfare.
This article, not verified, claims over years, the Pentagon's books are "fuzzy" and cannot account for trillions of dollars. Myself I'd like to find some GAO reports and so on to verify, although we've seen story after story about "billions" disappearing and no one can account for it, never mind our favor for profit private military called contractors.
you have to upload the image using the "browse" button on the image upload tool.
You cannot just copy and paste an image to a server from your computer.
click on the image button, then click to the browse button, then click upload.
Works like photobucket.
Try the double quotes, please.
See the difference? While a copy and paste might work for the display, that's just because the browser and your computer know where that image is.
But EP is on a server, way far away from your computer. You must upload the image first, or put the image URL in, which would be like:
http://www.economicpopulist.org/files/u1/shocknews.jpeg
The image button tool is in the top row.
The bottom row is the file upload tool. I might reduce the number of buttons to make it less confusing, but like I said, I don't use this stuff but others do, so I have to find out what works for others.
But no for files, images, you have to upload first to a web server or have a URL. Your computer is not a server, so you have no URL on it.
No problems here other than with images. I'm thinking this is a Mac OS problem, but I'll keep trying later.
Haven't tried embedding a YouTube yet.
Downsized 50%, then clicked and dragged into the window pane that opens from the RTE toolbar button for graphs (icon of a graph). CONTROL-COMMAND + V won't even get the image into what appears for me in the editor.
I'm using Intel Mac OS 10.5 or 10.6
Image that should appear is of Eagle Peak, Yellowstone National Park (public domain, National Park Service via Wikipedia)
I CAN SEE IMAGE IN THE EDITOR, BUT NOT AT PREVIEW STAGE OR WHEN POSTED.
MAYBE I SHOULD LOWER RESOLUTION, NOW SET AT 200 ppi ?
Or maybe it's a Mac problem.
It doesn't matter that much for someone like myself who just posts comments.
and also can you edit your own comment so you can edit one and then put in a real quote using the double quote button?
You have permission to edit your own comments so if you make a mistake or want to reword something, you can.
On images, I just enabled some images for comments. If it doesn't work, try an optimized, small image.
Yes, comments for registered, logged in users can embed youtubes, display images and even upload some documents.
We disabled authoring as a default for too many people were violating the rules and writing posts that truly had little content or merit.
It's also a security issue. But if you want to write an article, request an author account. Bear in mind, we're pretty damn pick on that! We became a Google news source and as a result I am extremely active making sure the data is correct, the calculations are right and the citations are correct. The site motto is "No economic fiction", so it's important to make sure we do not write any. We have Fox News and Forbes for that!
I was testing the image (graph) function on Mac (Intel) using OS 10.6.
IMAGE (GRAPH) FUNCTION DOESN'T APPEAR TO WORK WITH MAC OS, ALTHOUGH IT WORKS UP UNTIL THE PREVIEW OR POST STAGE. MAYBE IT'S JUST THAT I AM POSTING COMMENTS, NOT ARTICLES, AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN IMAGES OR GRAPHS IN COMMENTS.
Haven't tested everything, but new RTE looks great so far, definitely improved.
2OLD4OKEYDOKE
I had images disabled for authenticated users but I just enabled it. Pay VERY close attention to image size, it should stop you from posting large images.
I'm going to turn the comments into a separate twitter feed as well, will post an announcement soon.
you click on that double quote button, then paste your quote
then hit enter. See the "" symbol on the button?
and then unclick the double quote.
To put in links you have to highlight the text to link.
So, quotes should look like this:
Notice the indent as well as the lightly colored line to the left that marks it as text from somewhere else.
Then, somewhere else you put, This is the linked reference, maybe integrated into the comment text, on where I pulled the quote from.
Quote function greatly improved because much easier to use:
John Petrie's Collection of Thomas Jefferson Quotes
I have just tested the image function on Mac (Intel) using OS 10.6. Click and drag works, but only using the pane that comes up from the image (graph) button (no need for keyboard command). Guess I should have tried out a graph rather than an image (Eagle Peak, Yelllowstone Park, public domain, National Park Service).
OOOPS! NO IT DOESN'T WORK. AT LEAST NOT YET. TRY AGAIN.
TRYING IT AGAIN WITH CNTL-COMMAND + V
The only thing that maybe isn't working is that I see only the extreme right part of the pull-down menus for "Normal" "Font" and "Size" but it doesn't matter because I can see each entry's detail in the yellow bubbles that come up when scrolling through them.
Haven't tested everything, but it looks great so far.
2OLD4OKEYDOKE
The Chamber of Commerce gets what they want because they want the same things that the lobbyists for the FIRE lobby and for MNCs want.
To get what you want, you just have to want what you're getting
What is the price to buy a Senator or Representative or the President? What will it cost to have my government represent me? The Chamber of Commerce seems to get everything they want.
folks, for those who are using the rich text editor, I've updated to a new one. I've configured quite a bit and have a few more to go.
Please leave feedback! I won't know how well it works for you unless you tell me about problems.
If the site looks funky, empty your browser cache.
I don't use those things, I write in straight XHTML and this one is advanced, has a lot of new features...
so if something isn't working let me know.
also, I would not suggest using the Word, unless you do very simple cut and pastes.
I tried it and it keeps image paths local, which creates a mess. But I have Word "Pro" or whatever but 2007 ed.
It's really true, people think after all of that, their elected reps. have some power, but the reality is only the leadership has any power. You bill goes to committee to die, never be brought up for a vote, the house leadership decides which bills will be voted on, and the infamous bill manager can literally change a bill almost right up to the vote.
It's about as undemocratic as it gets. (well, there are a few steps more but thinking the United States is a Democracy is a joke).
"Recall Republican Senator Shelby blocked a noble [Nobel] prize winning economist earlier."
WHY does one senator have that power? You sure can't find that in the Constitution! I know, I know ... "Senate rules" ... which translates like this:
QUESTION: Why did Shelby block a Nobelist from accepting office?
ANSWER: Because he can.
And these "holds" are mostly secret! What a stinking load of doodoo!
I used to admire the Senate. But no longer. Most of them amount to a gang of thieves. And WHY would anyone think such a thing?
Because ... well ... check out writings of David Cay Johnston.
And then there's the Brookings Institution ... presumed by some to be better than, say, the Heritage Foundation ... because ... uh ... let's see ... because ... uh ... well ... Heritage is the Republicans and Brookings is the Democrats ... worse and worser all over again!
One of Dan Daveed's WHYs presumes a premise that I -- as in truth an old man -- would question.
"Why is it so many of our young people are violent, over weight, disrespectful, lazy, hooked on video games, carry guns to school. Why do we allow this to happen?"
I don't think they are any more violent than they were in yesteryear. Stats seem to be showing that more are overweight than formerly but the young people I know aren't ... and when some of them start to get that way, they manage to turn it around. They aren't disrespectful to me, although I hear complaints about that from some of my neighbors.
The young people I know have access to and probably know how to shoot, some more than others, but none of them carry guns to school or anywhere else, unless hunting. Far from lazy, I hire young people from time to time and they work hard and competently when given the chance.
Now, about those games ... those little beeper things that seem to fascinate them for hours on end ... yeah, I agree, WHY?
I guess I "allow" it ... the video games ... I could try to put a stop to it ... but I'd like to give a reason and I don't have a reason. I can't criticize what I don't understand.
One thing I see is this never ending pure economic insanity coming from the GOP, we just are hearing it in Iowa and the crazy people who vote for them makes the situation much, much worse. It' drags the "debate" into insanity land. I have no idea why people would vote against their own self-interests as well as the national interest.
i.e. they are currently voting in people who will destroy their meager retirement and health care.
On the other hand, some of the Democrat proposals, reeking of special interest agendas I can understand the hatred of that as well.
But why people are not in the streets rioting when other nations are is beyond me. The only thing I see is this never ending "divide" being used as a distraction.
I don't get it for most of these people have to at least balance their own checkbooks so one would think they could reason out some common sense solutions and get behind them.
Why do we beat the drums and rattle the sabers in prep to confront China on there side of the globe? Why don't we just stop buying Chinese goods? Why don't we put a tariff on all Chinese goods coming in to the USA including all American companies that want to sell out side U S Borders? Why don't we accuse all US companies that leave the USA of treason? Why is it are elected officials are so blind? Could it be greed? Why do we keep allowing more and more new people into our country when we know there are not enough jobs for everyone. Why don't we bring are armies home to defend are own borders? Why do we keep giving the Arab country's billions in aid when they hate us anyway and we have so many needy Citizens here at home?
Why do we not have a replacement for the space shuttle? Why is it we have to hitch a ride with the Russians to the Space Station? Why is it prices go up, wages go down?
Why is it rent goes up … jobs disappear?
Why is it we can’t make a car that gets 100 even 200 miles to the gallon? Why is it we aren’t smart enough to find an alternative fuel?
Why is it so many of our young people are violent ,over weight, disrespectful, lazy, hooked on video games, carry guns to school. Why do we allow this to happen? Why is it everyone in the middle class down to the dirt poor see all the why’s ….. but do nothing?
WHY?
So were all agreed the USA is in a world of hurt.
What are we going to do about it?
November 2008 was right after Financial Armageddon and corporations fired people right and left. It was worse than 1980 and 1980 was pretty bad.
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