Some Assembly Required

As usual "Some Assembly Required" has some interesting tid-bits: Here are a few --
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Previews: An 'industrial action' planned for November 24th will be the largest coordinated strike in Portuguese history as the workers protest a 10.7% unemployment rate with 600,000 unemployed. Finance Minister, Teixeira dos Santos said that fiscal consolidation will be “harsh and demanding” with wage cuts of 10%, but it must be done or “the nation’s situation will be much worse than people imagine”. Meanwhile the Catholic run charity Cáritas Portuguesa reports that the number of people seeking assistance has grown from 5,000 to 62,000 in a year. The National Food Bank is currently sustaining some 280,000 Portuguese. Cáritas Portuguesa has warned that “the blackest phase of the crisis has not yet occurred” as unemployment will continue to rise and become a long-term issue

Politics, Explained: Congressmen are getting richer, you are not.

For Whom The Bell Tolls: To mark the 18th month since the end of the recession, NYC is laying off 6,201 city employees and leaving another 4,165 jobs unfilled. That's 10,000, do I hear 12?

Progress: The war in Afghanistan is going so well that the Army, for the first time, now feels it is safe to bring in heavily armored Abrams main battle tanks.

ne's opinion.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
SAR #10324

Economics trumps reality, but only for a while.

Playing Hangman: The most astounding part of this long, slow charade is that the rescues of the banks and bond holders keep being described as sovereign bailouts. Nonsense. No one cares if Ireland or Greece or Portugal fail as countries and their people suffer grinding poverty for decades. The object of the exercise is to keep the European financial system going, just a little bit longer. Certainly they don't expect us to believe that forcing Ireland ever deeper in debt is going to attract new investors – as Roubini says, ain't no-one coming from Mars to bail them out. It's just another set of bank bailouts on the sly.


So, didn't that whet your interest -- or, do you feel like hiding under the covers? I did that when I was a kid, I played Polar Bear. Kids born in the next 20 years won't know what a Polar Bear WAS.