h/t John Scalzi

(h/t unusualmusic)

“Free-marketers” are not really about a free market. That ethos is a tool to excuse the flaws in a system set up by people who are rich or hope to become so, to be quietly set aside when it turns around to bite the wielder–as does from time to time, but we can’t have that, can we? Market corrections are fine when they put blue-collar workers out on the street, but God forbid the executives of an investment firm have a drop in their 401(k) plans.

It’s to be expected, but the real grind-mythago’s-ass feature is the duckspeak they employ to try to pretend they’re doing something other than spending everyone’s money to protect their own. Yes, Henry Paulson, I’m looking at you and your “Recent market conditions are an exception from the norm. At this time, the Federal Reserve’s recent action should be viewed as a precedent only for unusual periods of turmoil” blathering.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if a Paulson-equivalent stood up and said “Jesus, people, we have the power to stop the money bleed; you think we’re going to sit here and let our stock holdings go down the tubes?” At least in public. You know that’s exactly what they tell each other in private.

Melissa Gira Grant, another former sex worker, says, “A mid-range online escort who books her own clients makes $200 to $300 an hour.”

In San Francisco or Los Angeles, she might charge $300 to $500 per hour, Monet says.

Grant’s rule of thumb: “If you look at what a lawyer makes (in a particular city), that’s what an escort makes,” she says.

Well, sir, let me tell you. I was in the military for twelve years, and the government provided *my* health care. And it was first rate.

It is true, as the McTools point out, that this will encourage more lawsuits; what they don’t want to spell out is that it increases lawsuits because victims are not at a financial disadvantage, either paying out-of-pocket for legal fees, or hoping that their claim is worth enough to persuade a lawyer to take their case on contingency. (In other words, unless your claim is big, your insurance company can gleefully deny it because they know you won’t sue.) This makes the financial incentives to pursue a valid claim much, much bigger.

Insurance companies aren’t really in the business of insurance anymore. They’re in the business of persuading you to hand over the money they invest, and they don’t take kindly to being told they have to give some of it back.

• Estimating the true fiscal gap
• Eliminating tax loopholes, especially for the wealthy
• Deconstructing the fantasy of spending cuts without tax increases

And a series of links for further reading.