WI goes nuts, inflation for the innocent?

[lektrode]

quite a collection out there on the wire 2nite folks - whooo, yeah, du`ude
just wait'll gas goes back to 4bux, and the 'burbs start to buckle...

"Wisconsin goes nuts", with inflation for the innocent - and Hyperinflation for the 'clueless'

• FEBRUARY 19, 2011

Wisconsin Democrats Keep on the Move


MADISON, Wis.—State Democratic senators, holed up in out-of-state hotels, gave no timetable for a return to the capital, putting on hold a fiscal bill that would limit collective-bargaining rights for most state workers.
"When we go back is ultimately up to the governor's willingness to sit down and talk about this and come up with some sort of resolution," said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who fled with 13 colleagues on Thursday to deprive Republicans of the needed quorum to pass the measure. He spoke by phone from a Chicago hotel, where he planned to stay Friday night.

Pro-union demonstrators plan another day of protests at Wisconsin's state capital. They're protesting Governor Scott Walker's budget proposal calling for unionized public employees to pay more for pensions and health insurance.


But Republicans, surrounded by thousands of raucous protesters singing and chanting on the Capitol grounds, offered little hope of compromise.



"The protesters have every right to have their voices heard, but I'm not going to be intimidated into thinking I should ignore the voices of the five-and-a-half million taxpayers," said Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Mr. Walker also bristled at comments by President Barack Obama that his bill "seems like more of an assault" on unions. "When your budget is fixed, you can stick your nose in ours," Mr. Walker said. "But in the meantime, let us fix our budget the way we said we were going to."


--- this ought to be a 'teachable moment' huh?


and then....


Talks to Cut Deficit Stumble

In Heated White House Meeting, Democrats Try to Bar Social Security From Bipartisan Negotiations


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...403847716.html

WASHINGTON—Top Senate Democrats tried to scotch efforts by Majority Whip Richard Durbin to include Social Security in comprehensive deficit-reduction negotiations, illustrating the challenge facing the bipartisan talks.
The discussion occurred during a closed-door White House meeting this week among negotiators including Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a key lieutenant.
President Barack Obama attended, although his contribution to the conversation couldn't be learned. Previously, the administration has offered general support for bipartisan debt-reduction talks.
The confrontation, as well as a flare-up on the right over taxes, illustrates the difficulty of reaching a deal on deficit-control legislation, and how fear of upsetting the party line on particular policies could trump the issue of controlling the debt.
Responding to public unease about the country's fiscal standing, six senators including Mr. Durbin are negotiating a deficit-reduction framework. They are betting that worries about federal red ink—expected to exceed $1.6 trillion this fiscal year—will put once-untouchable factors, such as entitlement spending and tax increases, into the mix.
One proposal, built off the presidential debt commission's recommendations, would establish caps on discretionary and entitlement spending. Lawmakers would then have to draft legislation to meet those caps or face automatic, across-the-board spending cuts if they fail.
On taxes, lawmakers would have two years to raise revenue by simplifying the tax code, killing deductions and credits and lowering overall rates. Under the deal being discussed, if Congress fails, provisions would kick in automatically to trim tax deductions.



[read: we're screwed if they do and screwed if they dont....]


http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.co...-innocent.html


Stoneleigh: The deflation/hyperinflation debate with Gonzalo Lira was an interesting experience. I wanted to give readers of The Automatic Earth a flavour of what was said, what issues were raised and how they were addressed. To start with here is some audience feedback posted by the moderator, Jay Carter, at Financial Survival Radio. I have commented on some of the responses sent by Jay. For those interested in hearing the debate and seeing the slide presentations made by Gonzalo and myself, it is now available as a streaming file.



http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.co...-innocent.html



methinks it'll be an 'interesting' summer... and its not even HOT yet.

[don]

Re: WI goes nuts, inflation for the innocent?

here's a seldom seen on the 'tulip peek over the hill. Dan La Botz is a teacher/organizer, hence the didactic approach ....

First, we know that when masses of workers go into motion, as they have now begun to do, political consciousness grows and changes rapidly. Workers who today simply fight to defend their union rights will, if they succeed in resisting the Right's attempt to destroy them, go on to fight to expand not only their rights but to improve their working conditions and standard of living. Most important, workers will fight to expand their power. We are just at the beginning. Second, when workers discover the strategy and tactics of their movement, those quickly spread to other groups of workers in society. When the rubber workers in Akron, Ohio discovered the sit-down strike in 1936, it quickly spread not only to the auto industry leading to the great strikes of 1937 and 38. Remarkably, the sit-down also spread to such unlikely workers as the "shop girls" of department stores. During the 1950s and early 1960s, African American civil rights activists rediscovered the power of the sit-down, transforming it into the sit-in in lunch counters, bus stations, and other private and public places across the South.

Today public workers in Wisconsin are in search of the strategies and the tactics that can defend their rights, and they are using the mass rally and the camp out at the capital. When they discover or rediscover the strategy and tactics that work, those will spread like wildfire across the country to other public workers -- and then jump to the private sector.

The Movement Is Both Economic and Political

Third, real labor movements ignore the artificial separation between economic and political, taking up either or both as they follow the logic of the struggle. Industrial workers' struggles for higher wages in the 1930s became transformed into struggles for the employers' recognition of the unions and labor legislation granting workers the right to organize. Similarly with public employees in the 1960s whose fight for the right to unions and collective bargaining flowed the other way, to a fight for higher wages. What is today primarily a political fight in Wisconsin -- that is to defend the right of public employees to have a labor union, bargain collectively, and strike -- will inevitably become a struggle for better conditions, higher wages, and health and pension benefits.

Fourth, when a real labor movement arises, that is, a movement not merely of thousands or even tens of thousands, but of millions, it necessarily becomes transformative. Labor union officials who hesitate, who waver, or who knuckle under will soon find themselves challenged by new, younger leaders who will either force those officials to fight or push them aside. Such a movement will change the unions -- often by changing the leadership first and sometime by changing the very institutions themselves. Such was the case with the rise of the industrial workers movement in the 1930s, which broke the shell of the old AFL to create the new CIO.

A Political Alternative

Fifth, and finally, a new American labor movement of millions will challenge the old political relationship between the unions and the Democratic Party. The unions will fight at first to force the Democratic Party to give up its own conservative budget, tax, and labor policies and, failing to do that, will seek another vehicle. Unions may first attempt to change the Democrats by running union candidates in Democratic Party primaries, or they may attempt to take over the state party. Whether the new American labor movement will have the power to put forward a political alternative remains to be seen.

[don]

Re: WI goes nuts, inflation for the innocent?

Michael Krieger weighs in . . .

[Spartacus]

Re: WI goes nuts, inflation for the innocent?

co-ordinated action to walk away from mortgages en masse?

Has Max LOST HIS FRICKIN MIND? I can only guess he's never heard of RICO & aggressive, promotion-seeking prosecutors who put RICO to "creative use"

Or would those prosecutors take a hands-off approach to this kind of action? Maybe my insanity accusation was premature ...

to my US colleagues: what would US prosecutors do?

What would bank legal departments do - is there a "collusive restraint of trade" tort in the US? Against organizers and/or participants? Would a coordinated mass walk-away from mortgages qualify for that?

[don]

Re: WI goes nuts, inflation for the innocent?

co-ordinated action to walk away from mortgages en masse?

Has Max LOST HIS FRICKIN MIND? I can only guess he's never heard of RICO & aggressive, promotion-seeking prosecutors who put RICO to "creative use"

Or would those prosecutors take a hands-off approach to this kind of action? Maybe my insanity accusation was premature ...

to my US colleagues: what would US prosecutors do?

What would bank legal departments do - is there a "collusive restraint of trade" tort in the US? Against organizers and/or participants? Would a coordinated mass walk-away from mortgages qualify for that?

If there's any certainties today, it's that America's sheeple "homeowners" will NOT walk away from their mortgages en masse.