Seattle Times columnist goes into a bar

Sits down on a bar stool, and the bartender says, 'That'll be $20.'

'What?  I haven't order anything yet.'

'Don't matter.  You sat down, that's $20.'

'I'm going to the bar across the street.'

'Not before you pay the $20 you owe, you ain't.  Anyways, it's the same over there.  We got a law passed; you wanna go into a bar, it costs $20 before you're allowed to order anything.'

'That's ridiculous.'

'Doncha read your own newspaper?  This is the only way we can earn a living wage and fight economic inequality.

'Well, I'm not paying.'

'Hey Max, this guy is trying to take food out of your kids' mouths.  Show him the back room.  Explain it to him, nice and slow.'

LaFayette, we are fleeing

France says au revoir to some of it's most famous citizens;

France's prime minister has slammed wealthy citizens fleeing the country's punitive tax on high incomes as greedy profiteers seeking to "become even richer".

That's because actor Gerard Depardieu has moved to Belgium, because;

Belgian income and inheritance taxes are lower than in France, and unlike France, Belgium does not impose a tax on personal wealth, making it attractive for entrepreneurs.

Among Mr Depardieu's neighbours in the village of Nechin will be members of the Mulliez family, who own the Auchan supermarket chain.

France's richest man Bernard Arnault admitted this summer that he had applied for Belgian citizenship, although he insisted it had nothing to do with paying lower taxes.

Laugh test

Just one morning's worth.  Walter Pincus has gone over there;

America in 1917 did not fight on a credit card. In 1917, President Wilson, with Congress’ support, raised taxes and sold Liberty Bonds to cover costs. 

Right, selling bonds not being borrowing.  Does the phrase 'put out to pasture' mean anything to the editors at the WaPo?

In 1916 tax revenue was about 7% of GDP, it gradually grew to a little over 14% to pay for WWI--that stands for WORLD war, i.e. a major conflict.  There was zero spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, the Dept. of Education, OSHA, Housing and Urban Development....

Then we have (also the WaPo, this time Chico Harlan) the terrors of Korea;

Economists, owners of small- and medium-size businesses, and some politicians say Samsung no longer merely powers the country, but in fact overpowers it, wielding influence that nearly matches that of the government.

Debate over how to curb the size and power of Samsung and other family-run conglomerates has turned into the key issue in South Korea’s Dec. 19 presidential election, with polls showing that about three in four voters say they feel negatively about the country’s few behemoth businesses, and candidates sparring over how far to go to constrain them.

Is that really the part of Korea that suffers from too big a role in the economy played by one family?

Finally, syndicated columnist Froma Harrop checks in with; 

Since 1960, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 78 times, 49 of them under Republican presidents. The government should hit its $16.4 trillion borrowing limit sometime before New Year’s Eve. With the fiscal cliff weighing heavy, can we skip a traumatic debate over the debt ceiling?

What's a little thing like the Constitution got to with it?  That it's congress that has the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States .  Nor is it likely that there is no connection between those 78 instances of raising the debt limit and the accumulated debt of over 100% of GDP.

We wonder what's in the funny pages this morning.

Que lastima

The useful idiots are running amok, and it's California nightmarin';

...a delegation of chefs from Alice Waters’ celebrated Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., is in Havana on a mission to encourage change in the Cuban diet by exposing islanders to healthier dishes with more fruits and vegetables, preferably grown organically and sustainably by local food cooperatives.

In the past week, members of the “Planting Seeds” delegation have held give-and-take seminars in Havana with chefs and culinary students about slow food. They also put on two massive dinners, including a five-course, five-star meal at the privately run Le Chansonnier, which drew culinary, artistic and influential leaders like President Raul Castro’s daughter, Mariela.

 We'd like to get them on a slow boat out of Cuba, along with some ordinary people, to explain just what it is about food in Cuba that needs fixing.  It ain't that;

Many Cubans who are able to cobble together hard currency opt for processed foods like canned vegetables, dried mashed potatoes or jarred spaghetti sauce. And a common household cost-cutting practice is to reuse cooking grease until each meal is infused with the same taste and odor.

It all adds up to cement Cuba’s reputation as a gourmet’s nightmare.

The real reputation being cemented here is Berkeley's. 

Wenn in Wien

Better check the calendar to make sure it's 2005 when you stroll the galleries;

An Austrian museum says a man took the concept of life imitating art to an extreme when he suddenly stripped at an exhibition of pictures and sculptures portraying nude men through the ages.

Vienna's Leopold Museum says that after taking his clothes off, the man calmly sauntered through the exhibition, dressing again only after a security guard asked him to do so.

Which, at one time, was encouraged at the very same museum; 

Vienna's prestigious Leopold Museum is usually a pretty buttoned-down place, but yesterday, some of the nudes in its marble galleries were for real.

Scores of naked or scantily clad people wandered the museum, lured by an offer of free entry to "The Naked Truth," an exhibition of early 1900s erotic art, if they showed up wearing just a swimsuit — or nothing at all.

With a heat wave sweeping much of Europe, pushing temperatures into the mid-90s in Vienna, the museum decided that making the most of its cool, climate-controlled space would spur interest in the show.

This time with the heat turned up, presumably. 

Enemies of the people, unite

You have nothing to lose, now that you've been arrested for being unfashionable in London;

Three men have been arrested in connection with continuing investigations into the manipulation of the Libor inter-bank lending rate.

Libor being a pretend interest rate that no one actually borrows at, nor believes in.  Certainly not the Bank of England;

...the strangeness of this situation was captured very well by Sir Mervyn King in testimony to the Treasury Select Committee in late November 2008, when he had this to say about Libor.

"It is in many ways the rate at which banks do not lend to each other, and it is not clear that it either should or does have significant operational content. I think it is convenient, very often, for people to justify what they do for other reasons, in terms of Libor, but it is not a rate at which anyone is actually borrowing. It is hard to see how it can actually have much of an impact."
 

Yet, now three men are in jail...er, gaol.  To satisfy the ignorant craving for a scapegoat.

Pro-choice?

Not if you're a unionized Michigander;

Lawmakers in the state of Michigan, a cradle of the US labour movement, have passed a law limiting union power, amid mass protests at the statehouse.

Republicans, who control the state legislature, have succeeded in banning a requirement that workers pay union fees as a condition of employment.

The so-called "right-to-work" bill will now be signed into law by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder.

A blow against worker inequality, no?  For the have-nots, against the haves?  Surprise, surprise, some support 'pay to non-play';

Some 12,000 people turned out amid freezing temperatures to protest against the law, according to police estimates. reading the main storytart QuoteOne demonstrator, Valerie Constance, a member of the American Federation of Teachers, told the Associated Press: "I do think this is a very sad day in Michigan history."

Sad, that some people have greater freedom to work?