Charitable New Year

OK, peeps, it was a rough year, and that's why even though the top 10 philanthropists in 2009- including Bill and Melinda Gates- gave two-thirds less this year (in toto) than in 2008. Poor babies.

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=122093340&m=122093325

Nation Digest: Obama creates National Declassification Center

Good news. Really good news, for a representative democracy. This should up our transparency score internationally. At least, it's a start.

Pretty disappointed to learn, though, that it was environmental crimes being hidden, rather than aliens, in Area 51. Although by now...

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

WHITE HOUSE

Obama creates center for declassification

President Obama used an executive order Tuesday to create the National Declassification Center, which will oversee efforts to make once-secret government documents public.

The order comes as part of Obama's promise to push government to lean toward disclosure as it tackles the need to keep certain information from the public.

In a post on the White House blog, William H. Leary, senior director of records and access management at the National Security Council, writes that the effort is aimed at shifting the burden of defending secrecy to the government.

"While the Government must be able to prevent the public disclosure of information that would compromise the national security, a democratic government accountable to the people must be as transparent as possible and must not withhold information for self-serving reasons or simply to avoid embarrassment," he wrote.

As a candidate, Obama promised to run the most open and transparent administration ever. He has released White House visitor log data for the first time, though only months after the visits. But his decision not to release some information about detainee torture and his acceptance of closed-door negotiations on the health-care bill in Congress have brought criticism from good-government groups.

In the executive order, Obama instructs the government not to keep secrets forever, eliminates the ability of intelligence officials to veto declassification decisions, and requires agencies to conduct reviews of their classification procedures.

--- Michael D. Shear

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902770.html

Gilded Age Take Two

"Taxpayers have put up an estimated $17.5 trillion toward guarantees, loans, and bailouts since 2008, and what have they to show for it? They've seen their net worth drop by an estimated $14 trillion. The nation's jobless rate hit 10.2 percent in October- it's half again higher for people between the ages of 20 adn 24...

"Banking interests have been the beneficiaries of that $17.5 trillion in guarantees, loans and bailouts, and what have they to show for it? At top-tier firms such as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase, the aid has meant record profits- which means record bonuses. Those two outfits, along with Morgan-Stanley, all of which received funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program, will reportedly dole out an unprecedented $29.7 billion in bonuses for 2009, almost half of that by Goldman Sachs alone, meaning it will enrich its 31,700 employees by an average of $415,000 each." Editor's Letter, Vanity Fair, January 2010.

Anybody out there thinking, "I'd take a tenth of that $415,000 and put it to really good use?" Yeah, I am.

Durable Goods

For the FFM because we talk about this quite a bit:

You probably already heard on NPR this morning that "durable goods" are those that are bigger purchases expected to last 3 years or more. Three years? Computers don't count as "durable goods."

And that's all I am going to write, not because I am lazy, but because I'm making your pear pie.