Good morning, again, everyone. Your thoughts, Kay, parallel my own. If terrorists want to get a good bang for their buck why target a Wal-mart? So far in the news, one alleged terrorist targeted a Christmas tree lighting ceremony and another a military recruitment center. Wal-mart doesn't seem to be high on the agenda. So the announcement, basically, served only to keep the anxiety level high and provided the 'evil empire' with free publicity.

On the tax cut issue, HuffingtonPost had this article this morning. The bottom line (to use a business phrase) is that most economists consider tax cuts an inefficient way to create a minimal number of jobs. But tax cuts are an article of faith in the Republican sect of the Church of Commerce--they are no more questioned or questionable than the existence of God.

Here is another entry in the 'please tell me why these banks are "too big to fail"' file. These are not 'unfortunate' errors. The banks consider these homeowners 'collateral damage' in a situation over which no one has any control and therefore no one (and certainly not the banks themselves) has any share of blame. I am afraid their arguments strike me much like the arguments of a teenage defendant in a murder case just decided with a guilty verdict yesterday in Chicago. The boy's attorney claimed that although their client struck several blows to the victim during the riot in which that victim was killed none were 'killing' blows and, therefore, his client was not guilty of murder. In both cases, the parties were there, they were involved, and someone much more innocent than they suffered. How about some justice? At least the boy was convicted of murder, as he should have been. The banks, unfortunately, have powerful enough friends that they get off.

Rain at Rainy Day Things has a good post on the Social Security tax 'holiday' that was part of the package Obama agreed to this last week. As I wrote a while back, the triage has started. Those who depend on Social Security are only the first who will be considered 'expendable.' And I am not at all comforted by the report from one of the talking news heads yesterday that the revenues Social Security will loose from the 'holiday' will be made up from general revenues.

I put this piece from the Agonist in the 'hypocrisy watch' folder. It doesn't require any comment from me since the author's last line says exactly what I thought as I read it.