Replies to post #194957 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[sideeki]

I can't understand why Obama doesn't think like a lawyer. No lawyer I have ever known would give up an argument that the 14th Amendment is not an option before the debate begins. Why give away a strong argument or any argumentand get nothing in return?

In my many dealings with lawyers, I learned the rule of Purple. As explained to me the lawyer makes demands and if the other side gives a little, he just asks for more and more until, finally, the other guy gets so damn mad he turns purple and says no.

[F6]

Fox News' Laura Ingraham Blasts Obama's Meeting With MSNBC Hosts, Neglects Own Meeting With Bush

12/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/fox-news-laura-ingraham_n_2251031.html [with comments]


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Rachel Maddow Picks Up Grammy Nomination For Best Spoken Word Album

12/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/rachel-maddow-grammy-nomination-best-spoken-word-album_n_2249568.html [with comments]


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Fox Nation's Awful Rachel Maddow Headline

12/07/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/fox-nations-rachel-maddow-headline_n_2251427.html [with comments]


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Ellen DeGeneres Ad: One Million Moms Angry Over JC Penney Christmas Commercial (VIDEO [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvE9EPs-LCo {next below, as embedded}])

By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 12/06/2012 2:05 pm EST Updated: 12/07/2012 8:05 am EST

Conservative media watchdog group One Million Moms is angry about Ellen DeGeneres' new Christmas ad for J.C. Penney [ http://theclicker.today.com/_news/2012/12/05/15707730-ellen-degeneres-christmas-commercial-upsets-one-million-moms ], NBC's "Today Show" reports.

DeGeneres, a spokeswoman for the department store, is featured in a holiday ad in which she asks a group of Santa's elves to make more toys for a giveaway contest but winds up making a bunch of clumsy "small" jokes in the process.

The ad did not sit well with the group, who said the following about DeGeneres [ http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/blogs/bostonspirit/2012/12/one_million_moms_offended_by_e.html ] (via Boston.com):

Since April, JC Penney's has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets. We have contacted JC Penney's several times in the past with our concerns, and they will not listen. They have decided to ignore our complaints so we will avoid them at all costs.

Although One Million Moms is peeved about DeGeneres' ad, others don't quite understand the problem.

"THIS IS SO OFFENSIVE --? Said nobody with a brain ever," one viewer wrote, according to NBC. "There is nothing wrong with this. 'one million moms'... needs to relax, worry about raising their kids and not spending time & energy on hating a '30 second' holiday clip of elves and Ellen at a diner. Really?" wrote another.

In February, One Million Moms, founded by anti-gay, conservative Christian group American Family Association, first spoke out against DeGeneres being hired as a spokesperson for J.C. Penney [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/01/ellen-degeneres-jc-penney_n_1247657.html ].

"Funny that JC Penney thinks hiring an open homosexual spokesperson will help their business when most of their customers are traditional families," the organization wrote on its website. "By jumping on the pro-gay bandwagon, JC Penney is attempting to gain a new target market and in the process will lose customers with traditional values that have been faithful to them over all these years."

Apparently heeding no attention to anti-gay critics, however, J.C. Penny ran a Father's Day ad [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/06/jcpenney-gay-dads-catalog-cooper-smith-todd-koch_n_1575447.html ] featuring two dads this summer.

At the time, AdWeek wrote [ http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/jcpenney-hits-back-anti-gay-critics-2-dads-fathers-day-ad-140853 ]:

Given the timeliness of the gay-marriage issue, it's not surprising to see brands take a stand, but when a classic American brand like JCPenney steps up, it's pretty clear where America is headed.

DeGeneres is not the only one to draw the the ire of One Million Moms. The group has protested Urban Outfitters [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/17/urban-outfitters-lesbian-kiss-photo-one-million-moms_n_1431134.html ] (for showing two women kissing in their catalogue), Skittles [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/one-million-moms-decries-bestiality-new-walrus-skittles-ad_n_1836914.html ] (for bestiality themes) and NBC's "The New Normal" [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/one-million-moms-the-new-normal_n_1970927.html ] (for featuring gay couples).

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/ellen-degeneres-ad-one-million-moms-jc-penney-christmas_n_2251014.html [with the embedded video (as above) of the ad, and comments]


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Supreme Court to Review Gay Marriage: Everything You Need to Know Now



Alexander Abad-Santos
Dec 7, 2012

The Supreme Court decided Friday afternoon to hear California's Proposition 8 and a DOMA case. Here's what you need to know:

Prop 8: The Supreme Court has decided to hear the case. This means that: Well, here's the official word from SCOTUSblog [ http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/12/live-blog-anticipating-orders-hopefully-regarding-same-sex-marriage-sponsored-by-bloomberg-law/ ; http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/12/on-same-sex-marriage-options-open/ ; http://www.scotusblog.com/category/special-features/same-sex-marriage/ ]:



The Court will hear the case and the arguments in March and is expected to rule in June [ http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2012/11_-_November/Supreme_Court_to_consider_whether_to_review_gay_marriage_cases/ ].

Gay marriages in California won't happen unless the Court rules against Prop 8 [ http://www.latimes.com/news/local/me-prop8-marriage-20121130,0,41323.story ].

Defense of Marriage Act: The Supreme Court has decided to take up the Windsor DOMA case. It's a challenge to DOMA in New York. In Windsor v. United States [ http://www.nyclu.org/case/windsor-v-united-states-challenging-federal-defense-of-marriage-act ], the plaintiff couldn't claim an estate tax marital deduction after her spouse died.

On October 18, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York became the second federal court to rule [ http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/10/federal-appeals-court-rules-doma-unconstitutional/58102/ ] DOMA unconstitutional because the court believed the federal definition of marriage between one man and one woman (what's known as Section 3) violates equal protection and is therefore unconstitutional.

Here's the official word from SCOTUSblog [ http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/12/live-blog-anticipating-orders-hopefully-regarding-same-sex-marriage-sponsored-by-bloomberg-law/ ; http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/12/on-same-sex-marriage-options-open/ ; http://www.scotusblog.com/category/special-features/same-sex-marriage/ ]:



Basically, the Court will have to decide whether or not Section 3 (one man and one woman...) is unconstitutional.

Again, arguments will be heard in March, a ruling likely to come in June [ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/12/07/high-court-to-tackle-same-sex-marriage/ ].

Copyright © 2012 by The Atlantic Monthly Group

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/12/supreme-court-gay-marriage-prop-8-doma/59767/ [with comments]


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George Will: 'Quite Literally, The Opposition To Gay Marriage Is Dying' (VIDEO)
12/09/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/09/george-will-opposition-gay-marriage-dying_n_2267475.html [with embedded video, and comments]


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Hate mail won't stop church from hosting Muslim convention

All Saints Church in Pasadena moves ahead as host of a Muslim Public Affairs Council convention despite hate email.

By Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times
December 07, 2012

Despite receiving a slew of hate mail, All Saints Church in Pasadena is moving forward with a conference hosted by the Muslim Public Affairs Council — the first time the organization has conducted a national convention at a Christian church.

All Saints Rev. Ed Bacon described the emails his congregation received as "some of the most vile, mean-spirited emails I've ever read in my life."

"When we scheduled this event, we had absolutely no anticipation that we would have this kind of response," Bacon said, adding that none of the emails made actual threats.

Salam al-Marayati, president of the Los Angeles-based Muslim council, said his organization is working with the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and local authorities to ensure the Dec. 15 event is safe. The gathering is expected to focus on the state of the American Muslim community.

"The hatemongerers have made our convention relevant, so we saved on our marketing budget, so some of the money was transferred to extra security," al-Marayati said, half jokingly. "We are taking extra precautions, but at this point there is no threat to the convention."

Church officials believe the hate mail was prompted by an article posted by the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy. The piece alludes to connections between the council and the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Yet again, the Islamists are taking advantage of naive Christians with a desire to show off their tolerance," Ryan Mauro wrote in the article.

Institute President Mark Tooley said the piece didn't call for people to send hate mail, adding that the Muslim Public Affairs Council hasn't denied any of the article's points and instead offered only a broad response.

"I think it's wrong for people to send nasty emails to anybody," Tooley said. "For the couple of nasty emails they received, to portray themselves as victims is somewhat of an exaggeration."

The tone and candor of the emails is what caught the church's attention, said Susan Russell, senior associate at All Saints Church.

"So dripping with vitriol and the worst possible demonization of people of other faiths," Russell said. "What they offered us was basically a window into the ugly underbelly of Islamophobia."

U.S. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) commended All Saints Church and the Muslim Public Affairs Council for hosting the convention and bridging interfaith understanding.

"I was deeply distressed to learn of the hateful and vitriolic messages that the church has received," Schiff said in a statement. "Yet, these odious emails will only increase our determination to fight bigotry and increase understanding."

[e-mail]

Copyright 2012, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-muslims-all-saints-20121207,0,1762680.story [with comments]


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Despite hate mail, Pasadena church to host Muslim group’s convention


At a press conference at All Saints, Pasadena, on Dec. 6, interfaith leaders stood in solidarity with the church, which is set to host the Muslim Public Affairs Council's annual conference on Dec. 15.
Courtesy YouTube/allsaintspasadena1

Posted by Jonah Lowenfeld
December 7, 2012 | 2:59 pm

Since deciding to host the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s (MPAC) 12th annual convention on Dec. 15, All Saints Church [ http://www.allsaints-pas.org/about/ ], Pasadena has received dozens of hate-filled messages.

“We’ve begun to receive some of the most vile, vituperative, ugly, mean-spirited email correspondence I've ever read in all of my life, talking about All Saints participating in terrorism by being hospitable to Muslims,” Pastor Ed Bacon told his congregation in a sermon on Dec. 2 [ http://www.goddiscussion.com/104856/christian-church-accused-of-supporting-terrorism-for-its-interfaith-outreach/ ].

Rev. Susan Russell, senior associate for communications at All Saints, shared some of the messages with the Huffington Post [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/all-saints-church-muslim-public-affairs-council_n_2245495.html ], including one that compared Islam to Nazism and called Muslims "Body Snatchers":

Another quote reads, “You are Consorting with the Enemy that is Killing Christians Worldwide.”

Russell writes of another, from South Carolina, that reads, “The problem is that by providing cover and legitimacy to an organization dedicated to overthrowing the Constitution, and substituting Sharia law therefore, you endanger my country and my grandsons' future."

MPAC [ http://www.mpac.org/about.php ], which calls itself “a public service agency working for the civil rights of American Muslims,” is going ahead with the planned convention. On Dec. 6, the church was the site of a press conference at which Bacon and more than a dozen other faith leaders from around Los Angeles expressed solidarity with MPAC and All Saints.

“We want to convert you,” MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati said, addressing the “hatemongers” who sent the messages to All Saints. “We don’t want to convert you to our religions; we have more than enough adherents in each of our religions. We want to convert you so that we can remove that hatred and prejudice in your hearts and replace it with understanding.”

Among the Jewish clergy present was Rabbi Sarah Bassin, executive director of NewGround [ http://www.muslimjewishnewground.org/ ]: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change.

“We’re affirming the centrality that we are all belonging to the same community,” Bassin said at the press conference, a video of which is available on YouTube [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCWRG-8DcQw (next below)].

“And in that same community, we face shared struggles and we face shared interests. That’s what I believe All Saints is doing here, is creating a space for our community to address those needs together, by hosting MPAC and by opening their doors.”

Bassin is scheduled to appear at the conference on Dec. 15, where she’ll participate in a panel discussion called “Faith Authority & Freedom,” along with Bacon, MPAC Senior Adviser Dr. Maher Hathout, and Narinjan Singh Khalsa, the chairman of the LA City Human Relations Commission.

© Copyright 2012 Tribe Media Corp.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/thenon-prophet/item/despite_hate_mail_pasadena_church_to_host_muslim_groups_convention [no comments yet]


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Ann Coulter Attacks Latinos In Column, As Conservatives Seek To Reach Out To Hispanic Voters


Ann Coulter gestures while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

By Roque Planas Posted: 12/07/2012 10:17 am EST | Updated: 12/07/2012 12:21 pm EST

Republicans looking to reach out to Latinos may want to avoid the advice of Ann Coulter.

The conservative pundit penned a column Wednesday in which she lashed out at the “deluge of unskilled immigrants pouring into the country” and portrayed Latinos as a lazy “underclass” looking for a government handout [ http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2012-12-05.html ]. Coulter titles the piece “America Nears El Tipping Pointo,” presumably to make a virtue of her ignorance of the Spanish language.

In fact, Latinos use less than their fair share of government benefits [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/latino-congress-members_n_2090311.html ]. According to a study released this year by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of the entitlement benefits. In contrast, Hispanics made up 16 percent of the population but received 12 percent of the benefits, less than their proportionate share -- likely because they are a younger population and also because immigrants, including many legal immigrants, are ineligible for various benefits.

Coulter implies in her piece that non-whites are “nitwits who deserve lives of misery and joblessness.” She singles out immigrants from Latin America as particularly “nitwitty,” saying they have too many babies out of wedlock, without citing a published source for the assertion. Nearly half of undocumented-immigrant households -- 45 percent -- consisted of a spouse or cohabiting couple with one or more children, compared to 34 percent of legal immigrants and 21 percent of the U.S. born, according to a 2010 Pew Hispanic Study.

Apparently unaware that Latinos do not depend disproportionately on government benefits, Coulter writes:

That's a lot of government dependents coming down the pike. No amount of "reaching out" to the Hispanic community, effective "messaging" or Reagan's "optimism" is going to turn Mexico's underclass into Republicans … Rather than being more hardworking than American, Hispanics actually work about the same as others, or, in the case of Hispanic women, less.

In fact, Latinos -- especially immigrants -- are more entrepreneurial than the general population. As Cristina Costantini points out in a piece for ABC/Univision, Hispanics created twice as many businesses as the general public since 2000 [ http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/analysis-bill-oreilly-wrong/story?id=17702328 ], according to census data.

Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Latino vote [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/11/romneys-hispanic-vote-share-percent-148801.html ], the lowest number of a presidential candidate since Bob Dole in 1996. Romney's failure to attract Hispanic voters likely owes to the hardline positions on immigration he took to attract the GOP's right wing, many of whom viewed the former Massachusetts governor as too liberal going into the party primary.

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/ann-coulter-attacks-latinos-conservatives-hispanic-voters_n_2253721.html [with comments]


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Curtis Allgier Gets LIfe Sentence For Killing Utah Prison Guard Stephen Anderson


Curtis Allgier has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a guard during a trip to a doctor.

12/05/12 07:06 PM ET EST

SALT LAKE CITY -- A Utah inmate covered in neo-Nazi tattoos was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole Wednesday for killing a prison guard during a doctor's appointment five years ago, then leading police on a high-speed chase that ended at a fast-food restaurant, where a customer wrestled a gun from him.

Curtis Allgier offered a rambling statement that mixed apology and a tribute to his victim with a rebuttal of the evidence against him, while cursing and ranting against the court system and his lawyers.

"I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I didn't want to hurt anybody. It was an accident," the 33-year-old inmate said at the hearing.

He added, "Just because I've got tattoos on my face and I'm proud of my race, I'm not some violent monster."

Prosecutors said the June 25, 2007, shooting was no accident. Allgier wrestled a gun from Stephen Anderson of Bluffdale after being unshackled for an MRI scan at a University of Utah medical clinic, they said. He then fled on foot and stole a vehicle before leading police on a highway chase at speeds exceeding 100 mph.

His freedom lasted 45 minutes.

Allgier pleaded no contest in October to aggravated murder. He pleaded guilty to additional charges of disarming a peace officer, aggravated escape, aggravated robbery and possession of a firearm by a restricted person.

The plea deal spared Allgier a trial and the death penalty if convicted.

Third District Judge Paul Maughan opened the sentencing hearing to family members of Anderson, a 22-year employee of the Utah Department of Corrections. Anderson, 60, was survived by a wife, five adult children and 18 grandchildren.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that a daughter of Anderson's said it was "impossible to replace a man like my father."

The chase ended after Allgier got a flat tire and ran into an Arby's restaurant, where Eric Fullerton, 59, had just ordered a ham-and-cheese croissant and orange juice for breakfast.

Fullerton "went into action," grabbing the much larger Allgier by an arm and forcing him to drop the gun. Allgier punched Fullerton and then slashed his throat with a knife before finally surrendering to police.

"I didn't feel pain," Fullerton said at a 2010 court hearing. "I did feel the coldness of the blade, and I heard the sound."

In court Wednesday, prosecutors called Fullerton a hero.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/curtis-allgier-life-sentence-prison-guard-killing_n_2247965.html [with comments]


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NRA CEO Refutes Bob Costas, Says Kasandra Perkins Needed A Gun To Defend Against Jovan Belcher

12/06/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/nra-bob-costas-kasandra-perkins-gun-control_n_2253681.html [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Dana Perino: Female Victims Of Violence Should 'Make Better Decisions' (VIDEO)
12/07/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/06/dana-perinovictims-of-vio_n_2251761.html [with embedded video, and comments]


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Boy Scouts Atheist Oath Proposal Sparks Controversy In UK (VIDEO)



By Jonny Stewart
Posted: 12/07/2012 5:51 pm EST | Updated: 12/08/2012 7:07 am EST

The possibility that the Scout Association may soon allow non-believers to take an alternate oath that excludes the word "God" is causing controversy in the U.K. Responding to the criticism, Wayne Bulpitt, chief commissioner of Scouts U.K., said the organization is "a values-based movement" and that "exploring faith and religion will remain a key element of the Scouting programme.”

But a Daily Telegraph blog post [ http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/petermullen/100192624/the-boy-scouts-were-founded-as-a-christian-organisation-not-a-tree-hugging-values-based-atheist-coven/ ] took issue with Bulpitt's choice of words: "Lovely turn of phrase, Wayne! I adore that 'values-based,' 'exploring' and 'key element,'" Telegraph blogger and priest Peter Mullen wrote. "[T]he original boy scouts were not anything so woolly as 'values-based', which might mean anything from ancestor worship to declaring paid-up membership of the Amalgamated Coven of Tree-Huggers: they were founded as a Christian organisation."

According to the organizations's website [ http://www.scouts.org.uk/cms.php?pageid=131 ], the U.K. Scouts were founded in 1910 with the mission "to promote the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potential."

Billy Hallowell, Faith Editor at The Blaze, and Dan Barker, a minister-turned atheist and co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) -- whose son was turned away from joining the U.S. scouts for being a non-believer -- joined HuffPost Live's Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani Wednesday to discuss the matter.

There's been talk of the issue with stateside Scouts as well. In 2000, the FFRF responded to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling [ http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/2544-hold-bsa-feet-to-the-camp-fire ] that the Boy Scouts of America "is a private group which can exclude anybody it likes from membership" by saying "it is time to start treating Boy Scouts as the bigoted and discriminatory organization that it is."

The FFRF also pointed out that a "major source of BSA funding is United Way of America, which announces that "every group receiving funds ... maintains a policy of nondiscrimination."

According to the Guardian [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/dec/04/scouts-guides-consider-atheist-oaths ], the U.K. Scouts have had oath options for alternate faiths and countrymen for nearly half a century, "Allah for Muslims or "my Dharma" for Buddhists" and that scouts in other countries "promise duty to their own nation or monarch." The paper notes that while these alternate options have been in place, "there has been no non-religious equivalent for either Scouts or Guides, meaning young atheists have had to either "fudge the promise or forgo the woggle."

Young atheist boys have been turned away by the Scouts, including an 11-year-old schoolboy named George Pratt. "I am really disappointed about not being able to go anymore just because I don't believe in God," Pratt told the Telegraph [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9617456/Schoolboy-banned-from-Scouts-for-being-an-atheist.html ]. "My friends who are Scouts don't think it is right, either. Everyone is going caving soon and I've never been before. It is something I would love to do but I'm not allowed"

"I'm not going to change my decision though," he added.

Watch the full segment on HuffPost Live [ http://live.huffingtonpost.com/#r/segment/boy-scouts-and-religion%3A-dropping-%22god%22-from-oath/50bda1192b8c2a5da50007b6 ].

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/boy-scouts-atheist_n_2259146.html [with the first portion of the linked full segment video embedded, and comments]


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Roderick Arrington, Las Vegas Boy, Allegedly Beaten To Death After Lying About Bible, Homework (VIDEO)


Police in Las Vegas say Roderick Arrington, Jr., was beaten to death by his parents in late November.

Posted: 12/05/2012 3:58 pm EST | Updated: 12/07/2012 4:29 pm EST

Police in Las Vegas allege that a 7-year-old boy was beaten to death [ http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/story/Mother-stepfather-call-pastor-before-911/NyMuBXlsiE-Dc_bI-0kLMQ.cspx ] by his parents after failing to read the Bible or do his homework.

Roderick "RJ" Arrington Jr. [ http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/dec/03/mother-stepfather-arrested-beating-death-7-year-ol/ ], was admitted to an area hospital on Nov. 29 because he was unresponsive, according to the Las Vegas Sun. Personnel there called officers to the scene after they observed severe bruising and brain swelling, according to a police report. The boy died the following afternoon.

Police arrested the boy's mother, Dina Palmer, 27, and stepfather, Markiece Palmer, 34, and charged them with the murder of the boy. Investigators said that Palmer "stood by and let her husband" shake and beat the boy to death.

According to KLAS [ http://www.8newsnow.com/story/20250576/mother-stepfather-arrested-in-boys-beating-death ], the arrest report detailed "open abrasions on [Arrington's] buttocks, severe bruising to his thighs, marks and bruises on his back and shoulders and evidence of previous beatings."

Markiece Palmer stated the second grade student was spanked on Nov. 27 because he had lied about reading the Bible [id.]; he said the boy was also spanked the following day for not finishing his homework, according to police.

Police claim the boy's stepfather beat him with a spatula, belt and possibly a wooden paddle. Dina Palmer allegedly struck her son on his buttocks with both a belt and her hand.

The couple reportedly called a pastor before dialing 911 [ http://www.mynews3.com/content/news/story/Mother-stepfather-call-pastor-before-911/NyMuBXlsiE-Dc_bI-0kLMQ.cspx ]. KSNV writes, "Pastor Kenneth Hollingsworth says he's as shocked as anyone that Markiece Palmer chose to call him before first-responders."

The Palmers appeared in court Tuesday and each face charges of murder, child abuse and neglect [ http://www.8newsnow.com/story/20261396/mother-accused-of-killing-son-cries-as-charges-read ], the station reports.

Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/05/roderick-arrington-las-vegas-beaten-death-bible-homework-video_n_2245381.html [with the video report above (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iaG6a8cB9o ) embedded, and comments]


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[StephanieVanbryce]

The Nonsense About a Demographic Crisis

Dean Baker
Saturday, 08 December 2012 23:45

One of themes that recurs endlessly in news coverage is that the United States and other countries face a disastrous threat to their living standards as a result of a falling ratio of workers to retirees. This is one that can be easily dismissed with some simple arithmetic.

A falling ratio of workers to retirees means that a larger chunk of what each worker produces must be put aside to a support the retired population. (Btw, this is true regardless of whether or not we have a Social Security or Medicare system. The only issue is whether retirees are able to maintain something resembling normal living standards.) However, that does not imply that the working population must see a drop in their living standards.

Fans of arithmetic might note that the ratio of workers to retirees fell from 5 to 1 in the early sixties to 3 to 1 in the early 90s. This sharp drop in the ratio of workers to retirees did not prevent both workers and retirees from enjoying substantial improvements in living standards over this period. The reason is that productivity growth, what each workers produces in an hour of work, swamped the impact of a falling ratio of workers to retirees.

That will also be the case as the ratio of workers to retirees falls from the current 3 to 1 to a bit under 2 to 1 over the next 23 years under any plausible assumption about productivity growth. The chart below compares the impact of the decline in the ratio of workers to retirees in reducing the living standards with the impact of productivity growth in raising living standards, assuming that the average retiree consumes 85 percent as much as the average worker.


Source: Author's calculations.

The 1.0 percent growth bar shows the impact of productivity growth assuming that going forward it is worse than at any point in the post-war era. (Even in the period of the productivity slowdown, from 1973-1995 growth was somewhat more rapid than this.) In this case the 25.7 percent increase in living standards allowed by higher productivity growth is more than three times the 7.8 percent decline resulting from a fall in the ratio of workers to retirees.

If annual productivity growth is closer to 1.5 percent, roughly the rate that we have been seeing for the last 17 years, then the gains in living standards will be 40.8 percent, more than five times the size of the negative impact from demographics. And if productivity growth were to rebound to 2.0 percent annually (still somewhat less than the 1947-73 golden era rate) the cumulative increase in living standards would be 57.7 percent, a bit less than eight times as large as the impact of demographics in lowering living standards. (Note that these measures of productivity are adjusted to calculate the portion of growth that actually translates into potential gains [ http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-productivity-to-paycheck-gap-what-the-data-show/ ] for workers. For this reason, they are very conservative.)

In short, under any plausible scenario the potential gains to living standards from increased productivity swamp any potential negative impact from a declining ratio of workers to retirees. And these calculations do not even take account of unmeasured benefits of slower population growth, like less pollution and reduced strains on the infrastructure. It is also important to remember that these numbers show the absolute largest impact of demographics. If we were look out another 10 years to 2045, the demographics would not change, while productivity would continue to raise living standards.

In short, the idea that demographics will impoverish our children and grandchildren is absurd on its face. Readers may rightly note than most workers have not seen the gains of productivity growth over the last three decades, but this just highlights the importance of intra-generational distribution. The impact of battles over distribution of income within generations will dwarf the impact of battles over distribution between generation.

When people being portrayed as policy experts tell you that the United States or other countries face a demographic disaster because of declining ratios of workers to retirees they are mostly trying to tell you that they are not very good arithmetic.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/the-nonsense-about-a-demographic-crisis

[StephanieVanbryce]

Fed to Hold Rates Down Until Jobless Rate Is Below 6.5%

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
December 12, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it plans to hold short-term interest rates near zero as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent, reinforcing its commitment to improve labor market conditions.

The Fed also said that it would continue in the new year its monthly purchases of $85 billion in Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities, the second prong of its efforts to accelerate economic growth by reducing borrowing costs.

The announcements continued a policy shift that began in September, when the central bank first made clear that it was focused on reducing unemployment, ending long decades during which inflation was the Fed’s constant priority.

As in September, the Fed sought to make clear that is not responding to evidence of new economic problems, but instead increasing its efforts to address existing problems that have restrained a recovery for more than three years.

“The committee expects that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends and the economic recovery strengthens,” the Fed’s policy-making committee said in a statement issued after a two-day meeting in Washington.

The slow pace of inflation has made the policy shift easier. The Fed said that it expects prices to rise at or below the 2 percent annual pace that it considers most healthy. But the Fed also said that it was inclined to tolerate medium-term inflation as high as 2.5 percent without breaking its focus on reducing the unemployment rate.

The decision to publish economic objectives replaces the Fed’s earlier guidance that it expected interest rates to remain near zero until at least mid-2015. The Fed said, however, that it expected to reach its targets on roughly the same timetable.

The action was supported by 11 members of the committee, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. The only dissent came from Jeffrey M. Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, who has repeatedly called for the Fed to do less.

The Fed announced in September that it would expand its holdings of mortgage-backed securities by about $40 billion a month until the outlook for the job market showed “sustained improvement.” The central bank also said that it planned to hold short-term interest rates near zero until at least the middle of 2015.

The announcement was the first time that the Fed had tied the duration of an aid program solely to its economic objectives, omitting any end point. The Fed also broke new ground by insisting that the purchases would continue even as the economy began to recover. Both steps were intended to underscore the central bank’s commitment to reducing unemployment, formalizing a shift away from the decades when inflation was its constant priority.

This week’s meeting marked the first test of that commitment. The Fed had announced earlier in the year that it would buy about $45 billion in Treasury securities each month through the end of December. Its September announcement underscored that the two sets of purchases should be considered part of a single effort. So the decision about whether to keep buying Treasuries in the new year stood as the first checkpoint for the promises made in September.

The Fed’s asset purchases are akin to removing seats from a game of musical chairs. Would-be investors in Treasuries and mortgage bonds are forced to compete for the remaining supply by accepting lower interest rates — that is, they are forced to pay upfront a larger share of the money they are entitled to receive as the bond matures.

A number of Fed officials have said in recent weeks that they see clear evidence the new mortgage purchases are reducing interest rates for borrowers. William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, noted in a recent speech that average rates on 30-year fixed mortgages had fallen by about 0.23 percentage points since September – and even more since the first rumblings in August that the Fed was planning to start buying mortgage bonds.

Indeed, some Fed officials argue that the mortgage bond purchases have a larger impact on the economy than buying Treasuries. The purchases allow the Fed to target interest rates in a critical economic sector. Fed Governor Jeremy C. Stein also argued recently that reducing the cost of mortgage loans has a larger economic impact than reducing the cost of corporate borrowing because people are more likely to take the money that they save and spend it.

But the Fed already is purchasing more than half of the volume of new mortgage securities, leaving little room to expand those purchases without essentially replacing the private market. And by law, the Fed is barred from buying most other kinds of securities. That leaves Treasuries, which are not in short supply, thanks to the federal government’s ever-expanding debts.

The Fed also will publish later Wednesday updated economic forecasts submitted by the members of its policy-making committee. Some of those officials have sounded increasingly upbeat in recent weeks, but they also have repeatedly overestimated the health of the economy and the pace of the recovery.

The forecasts published Wednesday will all be optimistic in at least one respect. They will assume that Congress and the White House reach a deal to avert scheduled tax increases and spending cuts next year.

If not, Fed officials agree that their own efforts will be trivial in comparison to the negative consequences, and that the economy likely will return to recession.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/13/business/economy/fed-to-maintain-stimulus-bond-buying.html?ref=business

[fuagf]

The Real Cause of the Crash of 2008 .. grist for the mill .. linked here to "Fault Lines" ..

By John H. Richardson
Jun 8, 2010 at 12:11PM



What if the financial crash of 2008 was really caused by income inequality? Not greedy
bankers, not reckless homeowners, but the ever widening-gulf between the rich and the poor?

And what if the lack of social services — like health care — made things much, much worse?

This is the startling new theory from Raghuram Rajan .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raghuram_Rajan , the University of Chicago economist who became famous for standing up at a Federal Reserve meeting in 2005 and warning that Wall Street was out of control and headed for a global crash. As Edmund L. Andrews remembered in a recent post .. http://tiny.cc/k8m5rw .. on the Capital Gains and Games financial blog: "I was there, and I can confirm that Raghu was greeted almost with scorn. As Justin Lahart later remarked in the Wall Street Journal, people reacted as if he were some kind of Luddite. But Raghu was right, and many of his criticisms are now conventional wisdom."

Now Rajan has a new book called Fault Lines .. http://tiny.cc/99m5rw .. that analyzes the structural reasons for the crash, and it's another "aha" moment, especially fascinating because it mixes free-market Chicago School economics with good-government ideas straight out of Obamaland. His thesis is expressed in one of his chapter titles:

Let Them Eat Credit.

This is how he explained it to me in a recent interview. "What I'm trying to say is there's immense pressure emerging from income inequality. Losing jobs is a very, very painful thing, so there's immense pressure to stimulate the economy at that time to bring back jobs because safety net is inadequate, with unemployment benefits lasting only six months and health care that isn't adequate."

This isn't a heinous capitalist conspiracy — or a socialist conspiracy either, for that matter. It's the structure of the system, he says, a design flaw thrown up by the conflict between the rules of capitalism and the limits of democracy. "Politicians are there to do something about the pain and suffering people have, and my sense is that home ownership and housing credit was in some ways a path of least resistance — it seemed to be working, and if you pushed it there were lots of positive consequences. It gives people a stake in society, it increases as society does well to give them a share in the growth and helps them borrow to enhance their lifestyles."

This isn't an attempt to absolve the greedy bankers, he says. "But we have to ask why did the financial sector suddenly want to lend to low-income housing?"

Ditto Fanny and Freddie, the quasi-government housing lenders right-wing ideologues like to blame for the crash. And the low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve. "I think we should recognize that this is a systemic crisis. This is not one bank gone crazy. This is many banks."

The larger problem is global, he says. "The U.S. is a country that tends to over consume and over stimulate in bad times, and as a result it tends to be a net absorber of goods from rest of the world. A counterpart to that is countries like Germany and Japan and some of the emerging markets like China and Malaysia, which have benefited hugely by exporting to the U.S. — so I'm arguing that there is this pressure both from within the U.S. and from outside to support over consumption, and that is something that gives the financial sector an incentive to go overboard."

Consider Greece. The conventional wisdom, especially among conservatives, is that Greece is a classic example of the danger of overspending on government social programs. "But the fact that Greece overspent is not totally unrelated to the fact that Germany needs to export — some of what Greece was doing was buying German goods."

So Greece buys off its people with early pensions and great services, and the U.S. buys off its people with easy credit.

But the conservative idea that the social safety net just makes people lazy isn't the answer either — that if you increase unemployment insurance, Americans will turn into Europeans and kick back in their Lay-Z-Boys?

There's some truth to it, Rajan says, as we can see from Europe's high long-term unemployment rates. "I understand that market incentives work — if you tell people they will be shot three weeks from now if they don't get a job, they'll go find a job. But is that the kind of psychological pressure we want to create?"

Again, the underlying problem is structural: when the U.S. economy was producing a lot of jobs, we didn't have to worry about long-term unemployment insurance. There was a "balance of incentives and safety net. But if the economy is going to mean that we have long-term joblessness, we need to think if we're being overly harsh."

So, to sum up the problem:

"There are three big fault lines — one is rising inequality, which pushes inappropriate spending such as encouraging households to buy houses subsidized by government lending. Second is the inadequate safety net which causes a whole lot of inappropriate stimulus in bad times, and I'd say especially stimulus coming from the Federal Reserve in the form of low interest rates. Third is the fact that many countries have grown in a way that emphasizes exports, which leads to over consumption in countries like the U.S."

For Rajan's detailed and specific answers to all these problems, many of which seem extremely
smart, you'll have to go to the later chapters of Fault Lines. But here's a thumbnail version:

"Let's certainly do reforms in the financial sector, get bankers to own up the risk they're taking and penalize banks that take more risks. But we need to go beyond that, because if we don't fix this underlying source of income equality in the U.S., we're going to have a lot more people falling behind ..."

The popular panacea is the return of manufacturing jobs, which Rajan says will not happen. And trying to ride class resentment to an attack on the superrich isn't the answer either — for all his talk of income inequality, Rajan is still a Chicago School economist who believes that steep hikes in the "marginal" tax rates paid by the rich will stifle innovation. "The people who focus on the Bush tax cuts focus on income inequality at the very top, like the hedge fund guys who make billions. But I'm not so worried about that as the mass of people who can't afford a decent living with a high school education."

Instead, we need to focus on education, which, he admits, implies even
larger underlying social efforts like "fixing communities and fixing families."

"I like to say, 'Let the free market operate when people reach 20 — but before
that, you have to make sure they have the same access to the playing field.'"

He wants to raise taxes a little bit to bring down the public debt, also to cut expenditures a bit. "I'm not in the camp that sees a tax hike and redistribution as the answer to every problem, nor am I in the camp that says cut them to the bone, that taxes should never rise and just focus on reform — there's room for action on both sides but let's tackle the deep problem. Because if we don't try and solve them now, if we continue to rely on ad hoc measures, things will only get worse."

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/2008-recession-causes-060810

===== .. related to the Raghuram Rajan of that one .. Paul Krugman comes in ..

The Sarah Palinization of the financial crisis

Posted by Edmund L. Andrews - 04 Jun 2010

Of all the canards that have been offered about the financial crisis, few are more repellant than the claim that the “real cause’’ of the mortgage meltdown was blacks and Hispanics.

Oh, excuse me -- did I just accuse someone of racism? Sorry. Proponents of the above actually blame the crisis on “government policy’’ to boost home-ownership among low-income families, who just happened to be disproportionately non-white and immigrant. Specifically, the Community Reinvestment Act “forced’’ banks to make bad loans to irresponsible borrowers, while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provided the financial torque by purchasing billions worth of subprime paper.

The argument has been discredited time and again, shriveling up almost as soon as it’s exposed to sunlight. But it keeps coming back, mainly because the anti-government narrative gives Republicans a way to deflect allegations that de-regulation allowed Wall Street to run wild. It’s the financial version of Sarah Palin’s new line .. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/sarah-palin-blames-enviro_n_598977.html .. that “extreme environmentalists” caused the BP oil spill.

Paul Krugman .. http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/things-everyone-in-chicago-knows/ .. caught a whiff of it in a recent commentary by Raghuram Rajan .. http://tiny.cc/xdp5rw .. in the FT, and quickly denounced it.

But far more outrageous is this working paper .. http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/05/27/000158349_20100527154732/Rendered/PDF/WPS5324.pdf , which Bruce Bartlett brought to my attention, published last month by no less an authority than the World Bank. What galls me isn’t the argument per se; what galls me is that the World Bank would cloak a piece of political drivel with fixings of a serious economic analysis.

more: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/edmund-l-andrews/1773/sarah-palinization-financial-crisis

~~~~~ .. a 2nd article in continuance of that one ..

The Sarah Palinization of the financial crisis (cont'd)

Posted by Edmund L. Andrews - 06 Jun 2010

Since my last post, venting over those who blame the financial crisis on the government policies to help low-income people, Raghuram Rajan .. http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=faultlines&entry=4 .. has fired back at Paul Krugman over how much blame should go to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Since I mentioned Krugman's criticism of Raghu, I want to clarify a couple of points. For starters, I think Krugman was over-the-top toward him. Rajan is most definitely not a member of the right-wing fantasy history campaign. He may be at the University of Chicago, but he is not an ideologue and he is an outstanding scholar.

As many people know, Rajan gave a courageous paper at the Fed's Jackson Hole conference in 2005, in which he argued that short-term incentives on Wall Street were corrupting the financial system and posing potential big risks to the world. This was two years before the crisis got underway, and the main theme of that particular retreat was to celebrate the legacy of Alan Greenspan (prematurely, it turned out). I was there, and I can confirm that Raghu was greeted almost with scorn. As Justin Lahart .. http://blogs.chicagobooth.edu/n/blogs/blog.aspx?nav=main&webtag=faultlines&entry=4 .. later remarked in the WS Journal, people reacted as if he were some kind of a Luddite. But Raghu was right, and many of his criticisms are now conventional wisdom.

Second, Rajan's views are moderate and thoughtful compared to those of the true wingnuts.

more: http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/edmund-l-andrews/1775/sarah-palinization-financial-crisis-contd

===== .. the debate continues .. that fact in itself is testament to the
complexity of it all .. note: there is more in every link after the top one
.. some recap follows .. hope it refreshes some things for some .. enjoy ..

Causes of the Great Recession

Debate over origins

The central debate about the origin has been focused on the respective parts played by the
public monetary policy (in the US notably) and by private financial institutions practices.

2003 .. economists led by Mikhail Khazin .. book .. "Sunset of the Dollar Empire and the End of the Pax Americana" .. root cause

* the inevitable decrease of the accumulative US consumers' demand

due to the fact that the gradually decreasing (since late 1970s) Federal Reserve's interest rate will one day reach nearly 0 (happened by 2008) and could not allow for debts' refinancing anymore.

October 15, 2008, Anthony Faiola, Ellen Nakashima, and Jill Drew .. The Washington Post .. "What Went Wrong" .. authors claim ..

Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt vehemently

* opposed any regulation of financial instruments known as derivatives. .. further

* Greenspan actively sought to undermine the office of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, specifically under the leadership of Brooksley E. Born, when the Commission sought to initiate regulation of derivatives. Ultimately, it was the collapse of a specific kind of derivative, the mortgage-backed security, that triggered the economic crisis of 2008.

[ that is disputed .. others claim not trigger (see below), but contributory factor ]

.. Greenspan's role .. (the main point of controversy remains the

* lowering of Federal funds rate at only 1% for more than a year which, according to the Austrian School of economics, allowed huge amounts of "easy" credit-based money to be injected into the financial system and thus create an unsustainable economic boom)

.. also the argument that

* Greenspan actions in the years 2002–2004 were actually motivated by the need to take the U.S. economy out of the early 2000s recession caused by the bursting of the dot-com bubble — although by doing so he did not help avert the crisis, but only postpone it.

.. Some economists—including those of the Austrian School and those predicting the recession such as Steve Keen—claim that the ultimate point of origin of the great financial crisis of 2007–2010 can be traced back to

* an extremely indebted US economy.
* collapse of the real estate market in 2006 was the close point of origin of the crisis.
* failure rates of subprime mortgages were the first symptom of a credit boom tuned to bust and of a real estate shock. But large default rates on subprime mortgages cannot account for the severity of the crisis. .. rather ..
* low-quality mortgages acted as an accelerant to the fire that spread through the entire financial system.

The latter had become fragile as a result of several factors that are unique to this crisis: the

* transfer of assets from the balance sheets of banks to the markets ..
* creation of complex and opaque assets ..
* failure of ratings agencies to properly assess the risk of such assets ..
* application of fair value accounting ..

To these novel factors, one must

* add the now standard failure of regulators and supervisors in spotting and correcting the emerging weaknesses.

Causes of the Great Recession

* excessive debt levels
* subprimes
* deregulation
* over-leveraging/CDS/collateral debt obligations
* credit creation
* oil prices
* emigration - Mexicans going home -
* overproduction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession

=====

2008–2012 Spanish financial crisis

The 2008–2013 Spanish financial crisis began as part of the world Late-2000s financial crisis and continued as part of the European sovereign debt crisis, which has affected primarily the southern European states and Ireland. In Spain, the crisis was generated by

* long-term loans (commonly issued for 40 years),
* the building market crash, which included the bankruptcy of major companies, and
* a particularly severe increase in unemployment, which rose to 24.4% by March 2012.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932012_Spanish_financial_crisis

=====

Greek government-debt crisis

The Greek government-debt crisis is one of a number of current European
sovereign-debt crises and is believed to have been caused by a combination of

* structural weaknesses of the Greek economy coupled with the
* incomplete economic, tax and banking unification of the European Monetary Union.

In late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations due to strong increase in government debt levels. This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and the cost of risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to the other countries in the Eurozone, most importantly Germany.

The downgrading of Greek government debt to junk bond status in April 2010 created alarm in financial markets, with bond yields rising so high, that private capital markets practically were no longer available for Greece as a funding source. On 2 May 2010, the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on a €110 billion bailout loan for Greece, conditional on compliance with the following three key points:

1. Implementation of austerity measures, to restore the fiscal balance.
2. Privatisation of government assets worth €50bn by the end of 2015, to keep the debt pile sustainable.
3. Implementation of outlined structural reforms, to improve competitiveness and growth prospects.

[...]

Causes

In January 2010 the Greek Ministry of Finance highlighted in their Stability and Growth Program 2010 these five main causes for the significantly deteriorated economic results recorded in 2009 (compared to the published budget figures ahead of the year):[16]

* GDP growth rates: After 2008, GDP growth rates were lower than the Greek national statistical agency had anticipated. In the official report, the Greek ministry of finance reports the need for implementing economic reforms to improve competitiveness, among others by reducing salaries and bureaucracy, and the need to redirect much of its current governmental spending from non-growth sectors (e.g. military) into growth stimulating sectors.

* Government deficit: Huge fiscal imbalances developed during the past six years from 2004 to 2009, [ tiny partisan .. have to note here, during a conservative government ] where "the output increased in nominal terms by 40%, while central government primary expenditures increased by 87% against an increase of only 31% in tax revenues." In the report the Greek Ministry of Finance states the aim to restore the fiscal balance of the public budget, by implementing permanent real expenditure cuts (meaning expenditures are only allowed to grow 3.8% from 2009 to 2013, which is below the expected inflation at 6.9%), and with overall revenues planned to grow 31.5% from 2009 to 2013, secured not only by new/higher taxes but also by a major reform of the ineffective Tax Collection System.

* Government debt-level: Since it had not been reduced during the good years with strong economic growth, there was no room for the government to continue running large deficits in 2010, neither for the years ahead. Therefore, it was not enough for the government just to implement the needed long term economic reforms, as the debt then rapidly would develop into an unsustainable size, before the results of such reforms were achieved. The report highlights the urgency to implement both permanent and temporary austerity measures that - in combination with an expected return of positive GDP growth rates in 2011 - would result in the baseline deficit decreasing from €30.6 billion in 2009 to only €5.7 billion in 2013, finally making it possible to stabilize the debt-level relative to GDP at 120% in 2010 and 2011, followed by a downward trend in 2012 and 2013.

* Budget compliance: Budget compliance was acknowledged to be in strong need of future improvement, and for 2009 it was even found to be "A lot worse than normal, due to economic control being more lax in a year with political elections". In order to improve the level of budget compliance for upcoming years, the Greek government wanted to implement a new reform to strengthen the monitoring system in 2010, making it possible to keep better track on the future developments of revenues and expenses, both at the governmental and local level.

* Statistical credibility: Problems with unreliable data had existed ever since Greece applied for membership of the Euro in 1999. In the five years from 2005–2009, Eurostat each year noted a reservation about the fiscal statistical numbers for Greece, and too often previously reported figures got revised to a somewhat worse figure, after a couple of years. In regards of 2009 the flawed statistics made it impossible to predict accurate numbers for GDP growth, budget deficit and the public debt; which by the end of the year all turned out to be far worse than originally anticipated. In 2010, the Greek ministry of finance reported the need to restore the trust among financial investors, and to correct previous statistical methodological issues, "by making the National Statistics Service an independent legal entity and phasing in, during the first quarter of 2010, all the necessary checks and balances that will improve the accuracy and reporting of fiscal statistics".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_financial_crisis

Note: i read somewhere that some suggest revised figures may have been
exaggerated to facilitate the implementation of greater austerity measures.

===== .. to those who castigate Greek workers as bludgers, also please note ..

Economy of Greece .. one bit ..

The Greek labor force, which totals approximately 5 million, works the second highest number of hours per year on average among OECD countries, after South Korea. The Groningen Growth & Development Centre has published a poll revealing that between 1995 and 2005, Greece was the country whose workers worked the most hours/year among European nations; Greeks worked an average of 1,900 hours per year, followed by Spaniards (average of 1,800 hours/year).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Greece

Note: 40h/wk x 49wk = 1960 hours

=====

FACTBOX-Scandals rock Greece's conservative government
April 29 | Wed Apr 29, 2009 8:42am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/29/greece-scandals-idUSLT86754720090429