Seven Sharks in the Tank

Well, it’s Friday again already and I still haven’t written about Bill Moyers' Journal. Do you remember Moyers? He’s a Texas reporter who was a press flack for JFK and LBJ. According to Tim Weiner’s Pulitzer-winning “Legacy of Ashes,” Johnson asked Moyers to Chair the “303 Committee” that oversaw CIA covert operations. Moyers wisely declined that post and went on to work for NBC, CBS, and now PBS, where he does a weekly news show Friday nights.

His show last week was about the US economic meltdown and one of his guests was Kevin Phillips, a former Nixon staffer and author with a reputation for predicting the future stemming from his 1969 book “The Emerging Republican Majority.”

Phillips spoke with authority. Actually, he had me when he described Phil Gramm as “appalling.” He called the financial crisis the “denouement of a twenty-five year debt build-up,” and detailed how the US has bailed out the financial sector since the 1980’s, even as it left the manufacturing sector to fail. He said the current crisis will be “on a par with the 1930’s,” predicting a fall of 20-30% in the value of homes with similar losses in our retirement accounts. He decried “consumerism pushed to the Nth degree," and said that “we have never had such polarization of prosperity.”

Phillips said that there is no one answer to this crisis because there is more than one problem, “there are seven sharks in the tank:”

-Financialization (meaning that the business of America is mere accounting tricks)

-Debt buildup (that would be public and private)

-Falling home prices

-Soaring commodity prices

-Flawed economic stats (like when you figure the price of buggy whips into the Consumer Price Index)

-Peak oil (unlike other commodities, oil really becoming scarce)

-Collapsing dollar

Phillips rightly blamed politicians of both parties for our predicament, but he did mention that “McCain has said that he doesn’t know economics, and what he says proves that on a daily basis.”

He did say that he’d been impressed by Obama, because “when I met him, he told me that he’d read my book.”

Gimee Three Steps, Mister

Lately I've noticed myself waxing between ranting and snarking about the tendencies of music people to isolate and remove themselves from fan contact. This story today made me feel a little dickish about my views:


AUSTIN, Texas — Country singer Billy Joe Shaver shot and wounded a man in self-defense outside a bar, his attorney said Monday.

A drunk, aggressive stranger with a knife followed Shaver into the parking lot of Papa Joe's Texas Saloon in Lorena on Saturday night, said Shaver's attorney, Joseph A. Turner of Austin. Turner would not say whether anything had occurred inside the bar.

Police in Lorena — about 80 miles north of Austin — have not issued an arrest warrant, but Shaver will turn himself in if they do, Turner said.

"We're working with the police to get this resolved," Turner said.

The victim was shot in the cheek but was talking and alert afterward, according to police.

(AP via chron.com)

Until I saw this at Billboard:

Arrest Warrant Issued For Billy Joe Shaver
Billy Joe Shaver
April 03, 2007, 10:45 AM ET
Police have issued arrest warrants for country singer Billy Joe Shaver after he shot and wounded a man outside a Texas bar, the entertainer's attorney said.

After Shaver left a bar in Lorena on Saturday night, a drunk, aggressive stranger with a knife followed him into the parking lot, said attorney Joseph A. Turner of Austin. Shaver shot him in self-defense, he said.

Police in Lorena, about 80 miles north of Austin, issued arrest warrants late yesterday (April 2) on charges of aggravated assault and possessing a firearm in a prohibited place, Turner said.


Any fan of Billy's knows what a Christian man he is, so shooting a man in the face has to have an explanation somehow that makes sense. Right? I mean, look at that photo above with David Allen Coe. He is sweet as can be. I guess fans are so crazy these days it just pays to keep a loaded gun handy at all times?