626 was designed to be a monster. But now, there’s nothing to destroy. You see, I never gave him a greater purpose. What must it be like — to have nothing? Not even memories to visit in the middle of the night.
When I was a little girl, my mama used to lock me in the attic when I was bad, which was pretty often. And I would- I would pretend I was a princess… trapped in a tower by a wicked queen. And then suddenly this knight… on a white horse with these colours flying would come charging up and draw his sword. And I would wave. And he would climb up the tower and rescue me. But never in all the time… that I had this dream did the knight say to me, “Come on, baby, I’ll put you up in a great condo.”
That’s a good point, but I was thinking more in terms of her promo, which she is very serious and practical about. It’s interesting that she’s focusing on Australia (OMG, I just realized that the dog is supposedly named Oz, LOLOLOLOL). Instead of building up a charitable credit.
On the other hand, it was depressing to see how little you actually had to do to get the “humanitarian” label, so it shouldn’t surprise me that she feels she can skimp on the charity stuff. She got people to call her a humanitarian with little effort, but she’s been unsuccessful in attaining the coveted “fashion icon” label, no matter how hard she tries.
September 15 will mark the tenth anniversary
of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and near
meltdown of Wall Street, followed by the Great Recession.
Since hitting bottom in 2009, the economy has grown steadily, the stock market has soared, and corporate profits have ballooned.
But most Americans are still living in the shadow
of the Great Recession. More have jobs, to be sure. But they haven’t seen any rise
in their wages, adjusted for inflation.
Many are worse off due to the escalating costs of
housing, healthcare, and education. And the value of whatever assets
they own is less than in 2007.
Last year, about 40 percent of American families
struggled to meet at least one basic need – food, health care, housing or
utilities, according to an Urban Institute survey.
All of which suggests we’re
careening toward the same sort of crash we had in 2008, and possibly as bad as 1929.
Clear away the financial rubble from
those two former crashes and you’d see they both followed upon widening imbalances between the capacity of most people to buy, and what they as workers could
produce. Each of these imbalances finally tipped the economy over.
The same imbalance has
been growing again. The richest 1 percent of Americans now takes home about 20 percent of total income, and owns over 40 percent of the nation’s wealth.
These are close to the peaks of 1928 and 2007.
The U.S. economy crashes
when it becomes too top heavy because the economy depends on consumer spending
to keep it going, yet the rich don’t spend nearly as much of their income as
the middle class and the poor.
For a time, the middle
class and poor can keep the economy going nonetheless by borrowing. But, as in 1929 and 2008, debt bubbles eventually burst.
We’re getting dangerously
close. By the first
quarter of this year, household debt was at an all-time high of $13.2 trillion.
Almost 80
percent of Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck. In a recent Federal
Reserve survey, 40 percent of Americans said they wouldn’t be able to pay their
bills if faced with a $400 emergency.
They’ve
managed their debts because interest rates have remained low. But the days of low rates are coming to an end.
The underlying problem isn’t that Americans have been living beyond their means. It’s that their
means haven’t been keeping up with the growing economy. Most gains have gone to
the top.
It was similar
in the years leading up to the crash of 2008. Between 1983 and 2007, household
debt soared while most economic gains went to the top. Had the majority of households
taken home a larger share, they wouldn’t have needed to go so deeply into debt.
Similarly,
between 1913 and 1928, the ratio of personal debt to the total national
economy nearly doubled. As Mariner
Eccles, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1934 to 1948, explained: “As
in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the
other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing.”
Eventually
there were “no more poker chips to be loaned on credit,” Eccles said, and “when
… credit ran out, the game stopped.”
After the
1929 crash, the government invented new ways to boost wages – Social Security,
unemployment insurance, overtime pay, a minimum wage, the requirement that employers
bargain with labor unions, and, finally, a full-employment program called World
War II.
After the
2008 crash, the government bailed out the banks and pumped enough money into
the economy to contain the slide. But apart from the Affordable Care Act, nothing
was done to address the underlying problem of stagnant wages.
Trump and
his Republican enablers are now reversing regulations put in place to stop
Wall Street’s excessively risky lending.
But Trump’s real contributions to
the next crash are his sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, rollback of overtime
pay, burdens on labor organizing, tax reductions for corporations and the
wealthy but not for most workers, cuts in programs for the poor, and proposed cuts in Medicare and
Medicaid – all of which put more stress on the paychecks of most
Americans.
Ten years after Lehman Brothers collapsed,
it’s important to understand that the real root of the Great Recession wasn’t a
banking crisis. It was the growing imbalance between consumer spending and
total output – brought on by stagnant wages and widening inequality.
“The evolution of the film’s color scheme underscores the emergence of Diana’s power…As the film’s plot becomes more violent and Diana gets introduced to the “real world,” a cyan and orange color palette begins to take over.”
My father told me once, he said, “If you see something wrong happening in the world, you can either do nothing, or you can do something.” And I already tried nothing.
Diana, I know this is confusing… It’s not confusing! It’s unthinkable!
All human beings were of course unique, and they only discovered that when someone else fell in love with them or when no one ever fell in love with them.
In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto, “Anyone can cook.” But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau’s, who is, in this critic’s opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau’s soon, hungry for more.
“Hey you’re s’posed to be the fastest thing in the Valley, man, but that can’t be your car. It must be your mama’s car! I’m sorta’ embarrassed to be this close to ya!” Harrison Ford in American Graffiti (1973), DIR. GEORGE LUCAS.
Her name appears on the NWU 2003 Commencement program with a Bachelor of Science in Communication from the School of Communication, formerly the School of Speech. It is in a long list of names and you will see the degree if you scroll up slowly, though the formatting is wonky. .
It appears she did not do any double major but a vanilla Communications degree.
US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill visited Argentina in August 2002 right around her 21st birthday which explains why some articles say 20 and some say 21.
I don’t know if NWU has fall and spring commencement but she likely missed fall commencement deadlines and/or needed a couple more credits and so went for spring commencement even if she had already started auditioning.
ps: several articles stated the internship was 6 weeks not 6 months, which makes more sense.
Thank you for finding that commencement program! I knew I’d seen it around but I couldn’t .
I’d also add that most–if not all–universities and colleges in the US, require you to apply for graduation. You have to prove to the registrar that you have met the requirements for graduation. You do not inadvertently end up on the commencement program by accident.
Actually, having a degree isn’t a specific requirement to become a foreign service officer. State Department leaves that door open. It’s statistically unlikely that someone would become a foreign service officer without one though.
House of Brat 