TampaYankee

Maybe so, but his past errors were in, in part, being too optimistic about the nature of traders not to fuck the Golden Goose for short-term gain. He really didn't buy deeply enough in his own irrational exuberance warnings. However, his latest comments blow in the other direction of hard times if not doom and gloom, depending on what happens with taxes and jobs spending and deficit reduction. Not only that but his trend is in line with other economists including Mark Zandi, Simon Johnson and Paul Krugman, not generally of the same stripe of thought. IMO it really doesn't matter whether it is a double dip recession or not. If the recovery remains flat or tepid then to paraphrase Bette Davis in All About Eve -- fasten your seatbelts it's going to be a bumpy ride. (Japan just went through a lost decade for failing to address their economic and banking problems years ago.) So far, Congressional spending for jobs recovery has stalled. Unless it turns around strongly after the election I see a weak economy stretching out for the better part of a decade. What many fail to acknowledge is that 70% of our GDP is driven by domestic demand. With 15% - 17% real unemployment, substantial demand is unlikely to increase enough to bring back a strong economy. Likely we will limp along with gradual improvement for some years. Of course that is very bad news for the deficit as that gets lowered only by government tax receipts. People who don't have a job don't pay taxes. I hope I am proven wrong.

Charlie, I'm curious -- what are the graphics to which you refer?

...as in my case too.

(David Stockman was OMB Director under Ronald Reagan) Op-Ed Contributor Four Deformations of the Apocalypse By DAVID STOCKMAN Published: July 31, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1 IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nations public debt if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 will soon reach $18 trillion. Thats a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nations wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase. More fundamentally, Mr. McConnells stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes. This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one. The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income has reached nearly $8 trillion. Thats borrowed prosperity on an epic scale. It is also an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct. It may be true that governments, because they intervene in foreign exchange markets, have never completely allowed their currencies to float freely. But that does not absolve Friedmans $8 trillion error. Once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors. In fact, since chronic current-account deficits result from a nation spending more than it earns, stringent domestic belt-tightening is the only cure. When the dollar was tied to fixed exchange rates, politicians were willing to administer the needed castor oil, because the alternative was to make up for the trade shortfall by paying out reserves, and this would cause immediate economic pain from high interest rates, for example. But now there is no discipline, only global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve. The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Partys embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits dont matter if they result from tax cuts. In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administrations hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces the welfare state and the warfare state that drive the federal spending machine. Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans fiscal religion. Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts. By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy. The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008. But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadnt been able to obtain virtually free money from the Feds discount window to cover their bad bets. The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes. It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans paid mainly from the Wall Street casino received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent mainly dependent on Main Streets shrinking economy got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the markets fault. Its the decaying fruit of bad economic policy. The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing as suggested by last weeks news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, its a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline is needed more than ever. (Amen)

Alan Greenspan: Extending Bush Tax Cuts Without Paying For Them Could Be 'Disastrous' Sam Stein stein@huffingtonpost.com http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/01/alan-greenspan-extending_n_666549.html Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that the push by congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the costs elsewhere could end up being "disastrous" for the economy. In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Greenspan expressed his disagreement with the conservative argument that tax cuts essentially pay for themselves by generating revenue and productivity among recipients. "They do not," said Greenspan. "I'm very much in favor of tax cuts but not with borrowed money and the problem that we have gotten into in recent years is spending programs with borrowed money, tax cuts with borrowed money," he said. "And at the end of the day that proves disastrous. My view is I don't think we can play subtle policy here." The comments from the former Fed chief were an elaboration of a position he outlined in an interview earlier in the week. Speaking with PBS' Judy Woodruff, Greenspan expressed his opposition to passing legislation that would hold tax rates steady (under law the tax cuts Bush passed ten years ago are going to expire, thereby bringing rates back to Clinton-era levels). President Obama has pledged to continue the tax breaks for those individuals making under $200,000 and those families earning less than $250,000. But Republicans want the entire package kept in place. Even so, they have declined to say how they would pay for it, saying, in part, that keeping the Bush tax cuts in place will pay for itself. In addition to throwing cold water on that theory, Greenspan also weighed in on broader economic issues and trends. The former Fed Chairman relayed some sobering economic predictions, saying he expected the nation's unemployment rate to remain at its current level, mainly because there were few tools left to change it. "I see it [as] we just stay where we are," he said. "There is a gradual increase in employment but not enough to reduce the level of unemployment ...There is nothing out there that I can see which will alter the trend or the level of unemployment in this country."

I can see why you consider some interchangable. I propose this be labed as Tomcal's Hall of Fame.

I suspect Mac computers will remain relatively immune to hacker attacks, mainly because they still are a small market share and will remain so as long as they are not price competitive. That is not in the offing anytime soon. However, the IPhone and IPad Os's are potentially big targets with their potential market share growth. I have already read elsewhere where the IPhone OS is already under hacker attack. Depending on shared similarities, potentially that could spill over the the computers IMO. Time will tell.

Good info JKane, thanks. I avoid the standard pay security suites with all the leaden bioler plate that attends them. Not only expensive but very burdensome performance wise. That performance factor was what inspired me to tube them. I presently use the free versions of Avast antivirus, COMODO firewall, Ad-Aware to sweep tracking cookies, and Free Windows Registry Repair to clean that out -- all downloaded from download.com. I also have some additional tools which I won't go into due to the nature of the environment out there. I used to pay for Registry Mechanic and one of their spyware apps until I caught them charging my credit card for re-upping my license without notice and without my permission.

Great experience to have had. Great memory to have. YOu say you have 30+ years of these? We may need to provide you with your own memoirs forum for the benefit of all of us who combine voyeurism with an appreciation of history.

You are correct that exsmokers find second hand smoke very irritating in both a physical and psychological bent. I started smoking the same week of the original Surgeon General's warning. Yeah, I know not my smartest moment but I was a high school kid surrounded with smoking parents and brother, not mention peers -- probably the most important influence. I smoked off and on in fits and starts for seven or eight years, quitting each time the cigarette tax went up. I quit for good when I got married at age 25 -- good being almost 30 years. I stupidly started again in my 50s when I started spending time in MTL strip clubs, spending quality time with smoking escorts and having a boyfriend half my age who smoked. Just sort of slipped into it. Eventually, not too long, a year or so, I shed myself of boyfriend, cut back on hiring and strip clubs and quit smoking again. Of all my times quitting it was the hardest but not monumentally difficult (Luckily, I have always been able to quit without tremendous difficulty.) I'm finally done with it. Neither love nor money nor cute bouncing asses and flopping dicks on stage will rekindle my desire for cigarettes -- although I might still entertain a good Cuban cigar and snifter of Cognac with the right guy should the opportunity arise.

Of course, Mother Theresa and many others are most worthy and deserve mention. I could easily think of tens, hundreds, probably even thousands if I had the time and perspicacity. I will focus on a few, who may not even be the greatest but immeidately come to mind. First my mother, who endured a difficult life yet managed to raise two boys who became quite successful according to the standards of her generation. She taught me what endurance and strength-of-will meant. Second, Joan of Arc for the unbridled charisma that girl must have possessed to achieve here place in history as she did. Third, Opra. I'm not a big fan or a detractor but I knew of Opra before she was Opra. She was an obscure news reader in Baltimore in the mid seventies when I lived in the area. Nothing in her public presence then showed the potential for what she was to become. In that rise to fame I think she has been a positive inspiration to thousands of women of varying circumstances. I mention because I actually saw what she was and where she has come mostly on the strength of her own will.

Good catch.

Priceless... lol

United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia To Block BlackBerry Over Security Fears ADAM SCHRECK | 08/ 1/10 01:45 PM | AP http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/01/uae-saudi-arabia-blackberry-ban_n_666581.html DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The UAE said Sunday it will block key features on BlackBerry smart phones, citing national security concerns because the devices operate beyond the government's ability to monitor their use. Officials in neighboring Saudi Arabia indicated it planned to follow suit. The decision could prevent hundreds of thousands of users in the Mideast country from accessing e-mail and the Web on the handsets starting in October, putting the federation's reputation as a business-friendly commercial and tourism hub at risk. BlackBerry data is encrypted and routed overseas, and the measure could be motivated in part by government fears that the messaging system might be exploited by terrorists or other criminals who cannot be monitored by the local authorities. However, analysts and activists also see it as an attempt to more tightly control the flow of information in the conservative country, a U.S. ally that is home to the Gulf business capital Dubai and the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi. This isn't the first time BlackBerry and Emirati officials have had run-ins over security and the popular handsets, a fixture in professionals' pockets and purses the world over. Just over a year ago, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion criticized a directive by UAE state-owned mobile operator Etisalat telling the company's more than 145,000 BlackBerry users to install software described as an "upgrade ... required for service enhancements." RIM said tests showed the update was in fact spy software that could allow outsiders to access private information stored on the phones. It strongly distanced itself from Etisalat's decision, and provided details instructing users how to remove the software. Within hours of the Emirati decision to block BlackBerry services, a telecommunications official in neighboring Saudi Arabia said the desert kingdom would begin blocking the BlackBerry messaging service starting later this month. The Saudi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said the country's telecommunications regulator would issue a statement on the move soon. Ali Mohammed of Saudi Telecom, however, said the company had "not received any instructions about BlackBerry from the ministry." Like in Saudi Arabia, government censors in the UAE already routinely block access to websites and other media deemed to carry content that runs contrary to the nation's conservative Islamic values or could stoke political unrest. In announcing the ban, the UAE telecommunications watchdog said it will suspend BlackBerry messaging, e-mail and Web browsing services starting October 11. It was unclear if the ban would affect only local users or foreign visitors with roaming services as well. Regulators say the devices operate outside of laws put in place after their introduction in the country, and that the lack of compliance with local laws raises "judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE." The government said it is singling out the BlackBerry, and not other phones that can access e-mail and the Web, because the devices are the only phones in the country that automatically send users' data to servers overseas. Unlike many other smart phones, BlackBerry devices use a system that updates a user's inbox by sending encrypted messages through company servers abroad, including RIM's home nation of Canada. Users like the system because it is seen as more secure, but it also makes BlackBerry messages far harder to monitor than ones sent through domestic servers that authorities could tap into, analysts say. "This is the irony, that it's the device with the highest security features," said Simon Simonian, an analyst at Dubai-based investment bank Shuaa Capital who follows telecommunications. "These same security features corporations like have become an issue of national security for the government." Emirati authorities are eager to portray an image of the country as a safe, stable society free from the extremism found elsewhere in the region. They have taken steps to crack down on terror financing and efforts by neighbor Iran to sidestep international sanctions over its nuclear program. Regulators said they have sought compromises with RIM on their concerns, but failed to reach an agreement on the issue. "With no solution available and in the public interest ... BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry E-mail and BlackBerry Web-browsing services will be suspended until an acceptable solution can be developed and applied," Telecommunications Regulatory Authority director-general Mohamed al-Ghanim said in a statement carried on state news agency WAM. "The TRA notes that BlackBerry appears to be compliant in similar regulatory environments of other countries, which makes noncompliance in the UAE both disappointing and of great concern," he added. A spokeswoman for Research in Motion said the Canadian company had no immediate comment. Other countries, including India and the Gulf state of Bahrain, have also raised concerns about BlackBerry messaging features, but have not decided to block them outright. "The UAE doesn't want to take any chances and they want to monitor what is going on in the country," Simonian said. Research in Motion said in a statement last week it "respects both the regulatory requirements of government and the security and privacy needs of corporations and consumers." The company declined to disclose details of talks it has had with regulators in the more than 175 countries where it operates, but defended its phones' security features as "widely accepted" by customers and governments. Etisalat and Du, the UAE's two state-run phone companies, said they would comply with the directive and are working on alternative services for their BlackBerry customers. RIM does not disclose the number of BlackBerry users in the country. Simonian, the Shuaa analyst, estimated that there are "hundreds of thousands" of BlackBerry users in the country, but likely fewer than the half million users cited by local media.

And they say nothing ever happens in August. Looks like these guys parents had little to do in Decembers.

Welcome Charlie, I have missed reading your posts over the years as well as the opportunity to enjoy another dinner with you, cash4trash, coop and all of the others in that group that we had in NYC some years back. Sorry about the bumpy start. Hopfully the cruising will be much smoother.

Hmmm..... I believe this line of reasoning has already been 'refudiated' by the powers that be.

I hope you are getting rich.

Good thread Lucky, thanks. A few comments about the registration process... For general members (not escorts) the process is very brief -- we need to know your screen name (not already in use by someone), a password, your age info, and email address. The email address must be unique to a single MER account. When you submit your registration information, a verification email automatically is sent to your registered email to verify that it exists and is active. You must open the verification email and click on the link which activates your login. If the link does not work then copy the link URL into your browser's address window and click return to go the the appropriate web page. You account will be activated. Then login with your screen name and password. That is all. NEVER use the verfication code again. It is a one time process. Discard it after successful verification. That is all it takes: 1) submit your account data, age and email. Check your email and respond to our verification email. Remember that sometimes mail ends up in a SPAM or bulk folder so check there if it does not show up in your Inbox. For escorts the process is similar with the exception of the entry of the profile data. After profile is submiitted a verification email is sent with the same process as above. Hope this adds clarity for those uncertain about the process. If problems persist with login may I suggest clearing your browser cache/temp files and if that doesnt work then restarting your browser. Report problems via the Contact Us link at the bottom of every webpage or at admin@maleescortreview.com

Not sure where you are staying but there are a couple of familiar American Bank branches and ATM machines available. You might start off conservative in funds and recharge as necessary. Here is a list of banks in bali: http://www.baliblog.com/travel-tips/bali-travel/banks-and-credit-cards-in-bali.html Good luck.

Actually, HooBoy started his website for one reason. He had an exceptional escort experience with Aaron Lawrence and wanted to sing his high praises to the world. He attracted an initial following and fell in love with the concept of people sharing their own positive experiences for the benefit of both clients and escorts. (As an aside, HooBoy naively signed up with an internet host (all most all of us were naive in those days) that metered traffic. He woke up one day to a bill for service of $25K. Needless to say he went into orbit, skewered the company online (which was not sympathetic in the least) and begged for recommendations for an alternate host provider. He struggled with that episode (legally) for a long time after he moved on to another host. With regard to negative reviews, HooBoy was very conflicted. He disliked having to post them because of the negative nature of them, whether deserved or not. He was a very positive upbeat person much of the time and tried to be all of the time. He desired to stress the positive and downplay the negative. Nevertheless, he recognized some negatives came with the gig and in some cases were very important for warning clients of potentially dangersous situations. He just wanted everyone to have a great time with a great escort and share that escort name and experience with the rest of the community

Always wanted to go, never made it, so I am not the expert. From what I have gleaned over the years from message boards and internet searches, Bali really doesn't, or didn't, have an 'out' gay scene. The website: http://www.baligayguide.com/ makes it seems that some effort has been made to get a community going but you probably have discovered this already. Previously, it was my impression that any hook-ups would come from interactions at the beaches, in bars, or on the streets. Maybe things are changing a little? If you go it would be great to get a first-hand update. Good luck with your efforts.

Im up for long weekend in the Hamptons also.

I never thought Ellen was right for the show from the beginning -- too-nice-and-upbeat a personality. But I don't watch the show anyway and really never cared who they got.

Actually, I was clueless and remain so. Maybe I will be enlightened when it washes up on our Yank shores.