Crony capitalism is biggest threat to economy of India, current coal mining scandal exemplifies-BBC

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9/4/12, "'Coalgate controversy': India police raid coal firms," BBC, Analysis by India correspondent, Soutik Biswas

"India's coal scandal exposes its opaque policy making and brittle governance.

It also points, as many believe, to the rise of crony capitalism which has emerged as the biggest threat to the economy.

The auditor's report on the sale of controversial coalfields makes it clear that everybody has some responsibility for the mess.

Bureaucrats dithered and continued non-transparent policies to hand out licenses, ruling politicians at the centre and in the states allegedly pushed favoured companies, and the companies themselves exploited the system.

The government mooted the idea of auctioning coalfields to maximise revenues in 2004. But only in 2010 did it become law. The government says policy takes time to translate into law.

But, as the auditor's report clearly says, many companies were helped hugely by this delay."

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Chris Matthews, 'white' media poster child at his island summer home with other millionaires and billionaires, power couples like John & Teresa Kerry

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Above, Chris Matthews and wife Kathleen at their summer residence in Nantucket, Labor Day weekend, 2005, photos Washington Life, Oct. 2005

Oct. 2005, "INSIDE HOMES, NOT JUST FOR SUMMER ANYMORE," "These Washingtonians’ Isle of Choice is Definitely Nantucket"

"Washington Life spent Labor Day weekend on Nantucket taking in the cool island breezes and visiting with many of our readers and friends. Chris and Kathleen Matthews and Barbara Harrison and her husband John Chester Pyles, III recently purchased houses on the island, joining the swelling ranks of prominent Washingtonians who summer there, including: John Kerry and Teresa Heinz, Tim Russert and Maureen Orth, Bill and Alison Paley, Bob and Carol Foley, Robert and Marion Rosenthal, David and Alice Rubenstein, Robert and Mary Haft, Evan and Cindy Jones, Bob and Laurie Monahan, Smith and Elizabeth Bagley, Terry and Margaret Lenzner, Max and Heidi Berry, George and Evelyn Constable, and Molly Raiser

But, as Barbara Harrison explains, Nantucket is “not just for summer anymore” (see an insider’s tour of the new Harrison-Pyles’ compound).

It’s hard to imagine that Kathleen and Chris Matthews, who purchased Joan Bingham’s modest Nantucket-style shingled house on the dunes, ever have time for weekend getaways. Still, the broadcasting power couple somehow manage to regularly retreat to their new home away from home, a major feat given that Kathleen anchors ABC-7 news at Five, hosts “Capital Sunday,” and is working on a new prime time news magazine while her husband is busy with his new “Chris Matthews Show” in addition to hosting MSNBC’s “Hardball.”...

Meanwhile, in between photos, Kathleen managed to entertain Wayne and Catherine Reynolds and Gahl Burt who stopped by for lunch.

While Kathleen was teaching her course, “Tower of Babble: Making Sense of News in the New Millennium,” at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, she and Chris, a native Philadelphian, rediscovered Nantucket where they honeymooned 25 years ago. Asked whether they have animated political discussions at home, Kathleen responds, “We have our sparks that fly.” The couple certainly keep the sparks flying on the Washington social scene while helping their many charitable causes, including the Catholic Charities Foundation, Shakespeare Theatre, Black Student Fund and Girl Scouts, among others."…

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9/3/12, "Chris Matthews: "White" Media Poster Child," Diana West, DianaWest.net

"For last week's column on the hypocritical "white" media, I chose Brian Williams as my poster-child illustration. Just as apt a choice for Top "Whiteness" Media Hypocrite (if not miles and miles better, as this WND story below demonstrates) is the always undelectable Chris Matthews."

Picking up in the middle (but read it all):

Matthews says he’s also troubled by racially polarized neighborhoods.

“Aren’t you surprised we haven’t integrated in terms of residence, living together, door to door?” he said during one of his “Hardball” episodes last decade. “It’s still a black neighborhood (there) and a white neighborhood here.”

Matthews ought to know. He and his wife live in a predominantly white zip code in the leafy and affluent suburbs of Chevy Chase, Md. Just 5 percent of his neighbors are black, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

His million-dollar home [DW: likely "multi"-million] is nowhere near the “ghettos” where Matthews, the self-anointed, prime-time champion of racial equality, suggests more whites need to live.

“We passed the civil-rights bill, and still the country is basically white here and black over there,” Matthews griped. “There’s ‘hoods, there’s ghettos, and there’s whites living in the ‘burbs. It hasn’t changed a lick.”

Doesn't seem to bother Matthews, whose neighborhood and parish Catholic school couldn't be more thoroughly and completely white -- whiter than the GOP he just can't stop compaining about. Meanwhile, quite recently, Matthews has been bragging about living in "black-majority DC"!

Please. And where does he go for a break?

To his summer house on 87.85 percent white Nantucket -- once again, whiter than the GOP!

And the man never blushes."

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Fact-checking BBC and WNYC radio hosts anxious to re-elect Obama, BBC host wonders how Obama will deal with 'billionaire' Romney

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We're all fact-checkers now.

2:27AM, New York time, Tues., 9/4/12, on BBC Radio, the UK government owned radio network:

A BBC host was chatting with Anna Sale of WNYC radio (local NY City NPR affiliate) about the US presidential election. The BBC host asked Ms. Sale what Obama was going to do about the "BILLIONAIRE" he was running against. (He especially enunciated the word "billionaire"). Anna Sale, though apparently a genius and former "Racial Justice" fellow, made no attempt to politely correct this obvious lie. I guess Ms. Sale is no longer interested in justice or is uninterested in justice for white people.

In June 2012, Forbes estimated Romney's net worth to be $260 million.

The BBC host was only off by $800 million but he knew the WNYC employee wouldn't correct him.

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Ed. note: Rather than encouraging legitimate political discussion, apparently the UK government prefers to lie, falsely inflame hatred and envy, and divert attention from examination of Obama's extensive record. Romney is very rich of course but he's nowhere near the $44 billion that Obama pal Warren Buffet is worth. Or even the $20 billion Obama pal George Soros has. Obama himself is worth $6 million.


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Obama supporters, gov. union leaders, have invested $1.56 billion with Bain Capital since 2000

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California State Teachers Retirement fund alone has pumped $1.5 billion into Bain Capital.

9/1/12, "Look who parks their cash at Bain," NY Post, Deroy Murdock

"Government-worker pension funds are the chief beneficiaries of Bain’s economic stewardship.... Since 2000, Preqin reports, the following funds have entrusted some $1.56 billion to Bain:

* Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund ($2.2 million)

* Indiana Public Retirement System ($39.3 million)

* Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System ($177.1 million)

* The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System ($19.5 million)

* Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ($117.5 million)

* Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada ($20.3 million)

* State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ($767.3 million)

* Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System ($231.5 million)

* Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island ($25 million)

* San Diego County Employees Retirement Association ($23.5 million)

* Teacher Retirement System of Texas ($122.5 million)

* Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System ($15 million)

These funds aggregate the savings of millions of unionized teachers, social workers, public-health personnel and first responders. Many would be startled to learn that their nest eggs are incubated by the company that Romney launched and the financiers he hired.

Leading universities have also profited from Bain’s expertise. According to Infrastructure Investor, Bain Capital Ventures Fund I (launched in 2001) managed wealth for “endowments and foundations such as Columbia, Princeton and Yale universities.”

According to BuyOuts magazine and S&P Capital IQ, Bain’s other college clients have included Cornell, Emory, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Notre Dame and the University of Pittsburgh. Preqin reports that the following schools have placed at least $424.6 million with Bain Capital between 1998 and 2008:

* Purdue University ($15.9 million)

* University of California ($225.7 million)

* University of Michigan ($130 million)

* University of Virginia ($20 million)

* University of Washington ($33 million)

Major, center-left foundations and cultural establishments also have seen their prospects brighten, thanks to Bain Capital. According to the aforementioned sources, such Bain clients have included the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Ford Foundation, the Heinz Endowments and the Oprah Winfrey Foundation.

Why on Earth would government-union leaders, university presidents and foundation chiefs let Bain oversee their precious assets?

“The scrutiny generated by a heated election year matters less than the performance the portfolio generates to the fund,” California State Teachers’ Retirement System spokesman Ricardo Duran said in the Aug. 12 Boston Globe. CalSTRS has pumped some $1.25 billion into Bain.

Since 1988, Duran says, private-equity companies like Bain have outperformed every other asset class to which CalSTRS has allocated the cash of its 856,360 largely unionized members.

Is Bain really a gang of corporate buccaneers who plunder their ill-gotten gains by outsourcing, euthanizing feeble portfolio companies and giving cancer to the spouses of those whom they fired? If so, union bosses, government retirees, liberal foundations and elite universities thrive on the wages of Bain’s economic Darwinism.

If, however, these institutions relish the yields that Bain Capital generates by supporting start-ups and rescuing distressed companies, 80 percent of which have prospered, then this money is honest — and Team Obama isn’t." via Hot Air

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Ed. note: The bright white background behind part of this post was put there by criminal hackers.

US Military celebrates National Empty Chair Day

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9/4/12, "Image: How the US military celebrated the first National Empty Chair Day," Israel Matzav

"Obama forgot his seat belt. Heh (Hat Tip: Jack W)."

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Ed. note: I'm assuming this picture isn't actually of the military but was someone's creation in observance of the special day.


via Legal Insurrection

Thousands gather in N. Carolina to hear VP nominee Paul Ryan, 100's in overflow seating, thousands turned away, media focus on a few protesters

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9/3/12, "Ahead of DNC, Ryan Throws Down Challenge to Obama in North Carolina," Breitbart News, Joel B. Pollak

"Republican nominee for Vice President Paul Ryan addressed a packed crowd today at East Carolina University Greenville, NC. He was standing more than two hundred miles east of the site where the Democratic National Convention is due to begin tomorrow....

The audience--two thousand inside the gymnasium, several hundred in overflow seating next door, and thousands more turned away--stood patiently in the humid, sweltering late summer heat to see the Ryan, drawing numbers reminiscent of the closing weeks of the 2008 campaign, when Gov. Sarah Palin drew enthusiastic standing-room-only crowds even as the Obama/Biden ticket honed in on victory. Today, polls heading into the convention show the Romney/Ryan ticket either winning or closing the gap quickly.

The Ryan event was aimed not only at voters in a must-win swing state, but also sent a signal of strength and defiance as Democrats begin making their pitch to the nation. The Obama campaign has struggled to stay on message, as several surrogates--including master political strategist David Axelrod--have failed to answer “yes” to journalists who have asked the simple question whether Americans are better off today than in 2008.

Ryan took full advantage....(video at link)

Mainstream media journalists were at the event in abundance--though they paid what seemed to be disproportionate attention to a small group of Obama supporters who had gathered to demonstrate against Ryan. Ryan spoke evenly, citing facts and figures, punctuating crowd-pleasing lines with explanations aimed at a national audience.

Aides strolled through the crowd--including foreign policy adviser Dan Senor, who watched from the back of the room. The next stop for the Romney/Ryan team is Vermont, where they will prepare for the October debates, keeping a low profile while the Democrats stage their convention. Other Republicans will remain on the front lines in Charlotte. For now, Ryan has thrown down a challenge that Obama must answer." photo Breitbart, via Free Republic

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Olympics hurt UK retail sales, August 2012 weakest since Nov. 2011, sharp drop in visitors to central London shops-BBC

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9/3/12, "Retail sales 'hurt by Olympics' in August," BBC

"Retail sales in the UK were lower in August as the popularity of the Olympics hit traffic at stores, a survey has shown. Retail sales fell 0.4% on a like-for-like basis from the same month last year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Excluding Easter, it was the weakest month since November.

"The feel good factor from the Olympics failed to inspire spending," the BRC said.

In particular, online shopping grew 4.8% in August, the lowest increase since the BRC started collecting the data in October 2008.

"There's no evidence here of any Olympic boost to retail sales overall," said BRC director general Stephen Robertson....

Shops in central London saw a sharp drop in visitors during the Olympic Games."...

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Eurozone manufacturing drops for 7th month in a row in August 2012, France and German continue downward spiral

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9/3/12, "Eurozone manufacturing contracts more than thought: PMI," AFP, via Business Recorder, Pakistan

"Eurozone manufacturing activity contracted for a seventh month in a row in August, and more than initially thought even if there was a slight improvement on July, final survey data showed on Monday.

The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a survey of thousands of eurozone manufacturers compiled by Markit research firm, came in at 45.1 in August, down from a flash estimate of 45.3 although up from 44.0 in July.

Any score below the neutral 50 mark indicates contraction.

The surveys are an important leading indicator of economic activity....

"Only Ireland saw manufacturing output rise, while larger nations like France and Germany remain in reverse gear," he added.

"The situation in Italy is also becoming more of a cause for concern." Italy's score hit a 10-month low of 43.6.

Taking manufacturing and services data together, Dobson has already tipped a drop in eurozone GDP for the third quarter of up to 0.6 percent."...

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