With no aggregate demand, there's no real investment to be had. So the 1% piss their money away on the ponies. As they always did, but now that's all they do:

But less well understood is the role of austerity in making all of these solutions more difficult. With few attractive options to lend to businesses, which have little incentive to invest in plant and equipment in a stagnating economy, excess liquidity piles up on the balance sheets of banks and corporations. With lax regulation bankers have more and more incentive to undertake the dangerous gambles like those at JP Morgan. People must demand and politicians must enact an end to the policies of the austerity buzzards who are squashing jobs and economic growth, and preventing investments in people and in the transition to a green economy. As Keynes understood, unless the government takes a lead in job creation, a stagnating economy with massive liquidity will only encourage more speculation and more financial instability.

Ya know what I think we need?

Eesh:

The desperate cunning scheme to get Greeks to pay property taxes by bundling them with electricity bills didn’t last long. You guessed it, people stopped paying their electricity bills [to the PCC] and now it looks like the power company – which had to be bailed out last month – has stopped even trying to collect the levy.

The PCC experience suggests we really could be moving towards the IOU stage of this crisis as liquidity issues bite.

Say, I've got an idea!

It would be irresponsible not to speculate. --Peggy Noonan

NATO Summit. Guides: from OccupyChicago (PDF) and Occupy Peace. Coverage and media: Mainstream wrap-up. TimCast (independent video streamer). Guardian live blog. Inflammatory headline watch: Chicago braces for violence at NATO summit

Participants: The NATO guest list is rawther long and includes every shade of left opinion -- including OccupyChicago. And the ClownBloq (avec entartistes?). For unaffiliated out-of-towners, organizing bus travel fraught (true for Occupy DC also).

Legalities: NATO could be the first public test of H.R. 347 "restrictive zones" (a la Zucotti Park "frozen zone").

Authorities: DHS leads NATO security through Secret Service and Federal Protective Services divisions, working with the CPD (12,500 strong). (What was "shocking" six months ago is normal now.) Northern Command Gen. Jacoby reminds the troops (3000) they may not "solicit prostitutes." Philly PD sends 67 officers to assist. (Oh great. But shows independent streamers are important.) interestingly, Charlotte, too. (Historically, forces from multiple jurisdictions face chain-of-command and communications issues, risking violence.)

Police tactics: A field guide for NATO. Kettling is costly! CPD chief McCarthy will control deployments of tear gas, bean bags, etc. "We're going to take people who are committing crimes out of those crowds."

Gear: For NATO, $1 million. Including LRAD sound cannons. "This is simply a risk management tool."

Venues: NATO Summit its

Indybay Media:

UC Police Assert Private Control Over Gill Tract
Farmers Respond: Farmland is for Farming

This morning, over 100 police officers armed with projectiles, batons, and pepper-ball guns descended on the Gill Tract Farm to attempt to force an end to efforts to reclaim the Gill Tract for community use.

The land, which is owned by UC Berkeley's Capital Projects Development arm, was reclaimed by Occupy the Farm on April 22 and has been used for community-friendly farming education for the three weeks since. Today, using all the power at its disposal, the University of California has reasserted its control over the land.

I love this story. What a good thing.

VOA. The parties can't get an austerian coalition government together.

Document the atrocities! --Eschaton

Dimon London Whale Fiacso. Obama on ABC's The View: “We don’t know all the details. It’s going to be investigated but this is why we passed Wall street Reform". Ben Smith, Politico, last graf: "[I]t would help Obama’s reelection campaign if Schneiderman gets around to the more glamorous work of putting people in handcuffs sometime in the next six months". From The Department of Fat Chance, or trial balloon?

Barack Obama, the Great Deceiver. Here's the conclusion:

Those of us who care about decency, the rule of law, constraints on corporate power, civil rights, and economic protections for the downtrodden have become complacent, and we are now reaping the bitter harvest of our neglect. Many of these protections seemed so fundamental that there has been a tremendous amount of denial over the speed at which they are being stripped from us. But these gains were not granted freely or easily by those in authority. They came about as a result of long, persistent, difficult campaigns. If we want to preserve the rights previous generations fought hard to win, we have to make this battle our own.

Needless to say, Yves does not run a blog that everybody hates and nobody reads. So this post is a big deal.

I'm looking for (I suppose) companion vegetables for Rosa Rugosa

Follow the bureaucratic tentacles:

A new trove of heavily redacted documents provided by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) on behalf of filmmaker Michael Moore and the National Lawyers Guild makes it increasingly evident that there was and is a nationally coordinated campaign to disrupt and crush the Occupy Movement.

In enterprise of martial kind, when there was any fighting,
He led his regiment from behind — he found it less exciting.
But when away his regiment ran, his place was at the fore, O —
That celebrated, cultivated, underrated nobleman, The Duke of Plaza-Toro!
-- Gilbert & Sullivan, "In enterprise of martial kind," The Gondoliers

Readers, note request at end. I'd really, really like reputable local sourcing in swing states!

Romney Liberty University speeh. Evangelical Christian Leaders Praise Romney. "Graduate Lindsey Burnette described Romney as 'Christ-like'". Stephen Jones, class of 2012 said, "I think the one thing that is going to be the glaring problem is going to be the deity of Jesus Christ. I think that, if you compare him to Obama, I think yes, we'll side with him a lot better than we will Obama."

Sabbath day gasbags. Meet the Press, the Bobblespeak Translations: "GREGORY: you said that crazy London trader was a tempest in a teapot and then he lost $2 billion DIMON: that's true but in my defense I'm an idiot". Obama on Dimon and Blankfein, February 10, 2010: "I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen". So I wonder if Obama's position is evolving?

Discuss.

At least 37 dismembered bodies are stuffed into a bag and dumped on a highway in northern Mexico.

Let's remember: Things can always get worse!

The commendably brief post in its entirety:

Mint The Coin

A nice $1 trillion platinum coin.

It gets better or at least more interesting:

Big Picture.

... and overwhelmed. I've been a bit absent lately partly because documenting the atrocities for the horse race is a grueling task -- although IMNSHO there are few better equipped for it [lambert blushes modestly] -- but also because I've been silently preparing for a site upgrade that I hope will be ready for testing in the not too distant future. This is a huge time commitment, but has to be undertaken:

“McLemore Avenue,” the 1970 album by Booker T & The MG’s, was a tribute to the Beatles’ 1969 album, “Abbey Road.”

NOTE Via.

I think the concept is obvious from the name, so read the post for organizing and management details, and tips on how to start your own. Here's the part that caught my eye:

People who liked libraries or cooperatives were the first tier of folks that joined. The second tier were mostly college educated folks with jobs– young couples, people who bought fixer-uppers, etc. After the word got out, the Tool Library started to attract more working class and poor residents from the neighborhood. Although no demographic data is officially collected, Froehlich estimates that currently, the membership is about two-thirds individuals and families who would be characterized as middle class or “professionals” and one-third working class or poor.

It's nice to see classes mixed, no? Tends to create empathy, humanize "the other."

AFP:

The marches on Saturday will launch a four-day protest that will end on May 15, the anniversary of the movement's birth -- a date that led them to being dubbed 15-M.

The movement, which relies heavily on online social networks to campaign and organise, has inspired similar protests from London to the United States' Occupy Wall Street.

This time, Spaniards have even more to protest: a recession, unemployment at 24.4 percent, and 52 percent for the young, and more than 30 billion euros ($39 billion) worth of austerity cuts so far this year.

In London, too:

I give up. Why can't they? --X, I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

Gay marriage feeding frenzy. "If his evolution continues to fall short, then those interested in equality in this country must abandon their support". Dustin Lance Black on April 26, 2012, before Robama had the most glorious evolution in the history of the world. So what does not "falling short" mean? What did it take for Robama's gay bundlers to open the money spigot again? "My personal view." No ENDA, no executive order, and leaving it up to the states. "Honey, I've changed!"

What's the matter with Dupont Circle?! Can nobody see the Lucy and the Football moment on tap here? Meanwhile, "liberal bloggers" (fine, fine triumphshillism here) get a smidge of compliance-inducing reflected glory in Pravda. But since Robama's "personal view" doesn't imply party discipline, Ds continue to throw gays under the bus in state elections. And "the convention is staying in Charlotte". Dance with the bank that brung ya!

Just a cost of doing business!

Great shredding from Marcy.

I have one of those horrible colds one gets in the spring when it gets cool after being warm.

If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog. --Harry Truman

Gay marriage feeding frenzy. There isn't too much love in the world. And words (even if not performatives) do count. Glenn Greenwald: "[A]n important, and positive, step no matter what else is true about Obama and no matter what else he has done". Perez Hilton: "Better late than never". Best headline: "Questions linger after gay marriage frenzy" (George Stephanopoulos, nine questions).

Steney Hoyer has a change of heart. The Onion: "Casual One-Nighter Gives Strom Thurmond Change Of Heart On Gay Issue". Chris Floyd: "President Strom Thurmond announced today that his thinking on race relations has 'evolved,' saying that he now favors equal rights for Negroes. ... The president made it clear that he was simply stating his personal view on race relations, and that he would respect the decisions of individual states on the issue. In most states, various levels of racial segregation are enforced by law". "They also said they were not changing positions on an Executive Order that would ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation against federal contractors". "But the Obama administration has gone out of its way to create an impression that it has done much more for gay people than it actually has". "Obama's gay marriage announcement followed by flood of campaign donations." And the rollout was long-planned. So maybe Biden only seemed to drive the timing. Trial balloon for bagging Charlotte, no doubt because of incidents like this: Lesbian seeking marriage license arrested in NC. Good for her!