[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Strategic Default For Me But Not For Thee
- [Hullabaloo]
There's a been a rumbling from above for some time now that people who walk away from their homes when the economics no longer makes sense are behaving very badly. This is known as "strategic default" which simply says that homeowner looks at the numbers and determines that she is economically better off if she gives the house back to the bank .
Apparently this is immoral. Why this should be I don't know.
[Read the whole thing. -L]
- Why the Idiocy about Unemployment?
- [Michael Moore]
My wife, a labor economist, is upset with NPR's "The Take Away" (and many other news programs) for reinforcing the myth that somehow the unemployed are to blame for not having a job. We all should be angry as well because the jobs just aren't there. In fact, the latest unemployment statistics show that there are five unemployed workers available for every vacant job…
<b>Every child knows how to play musical chairs. When you take away 8 million chairs, a lot of people are forced to scrounge around looking for seats that aren't there. Providing nourishment for the chairless is not the cause of the disappearing chairs. It's just the decent thing to do…</b>
Economist Dean Baker suggests that the Republicans are trying to keep unemployment as high as possible right now because they think that high jobless numbers will spell disaster for the Democrats in November…
…the Democrats are pushing austerity and deficit reduction–the financial industry's pet issue. If the Democrats are so worried about unemployment benefits deepening the deficit they should start plugging that money hole by raising taxes on billionaire hedge funds executives. Just ask the billionaires to pay the same income tax rates as the rest of us, instead of dodging behind the lower capital gains rate. Is that really such a hard sell, Democrats? <b>If the public knew that the top ten hedge fund managers were averaging $900,000 an hour (not a typo) during the worst economic year since the Depression–and paying lower income tax rates than the rest of us–the American public would be outraged.</b> Of course, to push this plan the politicians would need to have the guts to upset billionaires…
We're at a critical point in the jobs crisis. Nearly 30 million of us don't have jobs or have been forced into part-time jobs. It's not like there's no work to do. We have millions and millions of kids to educate. We desperately need to slash our energy use–and with an army of workers, we could weatherize every home and business in the country. Our bridges and roads will take decades to repair. We need to build an entire national system of efficient public transit.
When Wall Street is in trouble, we come to the rescue with trillions in bailouts. We've poured hundreds of billions more into two wars. But when it comes to investing in our people to get needed work done, we can't seem to summon the will or find the cash.
…There is no economic theory that can explain this obscene gap. It has nothing to do with talent or productivity or even luck. It's just raw power.
[Boldface emphasis added by yr humble linkspammer. -L]
- REMnux, the Malware Analysis Linux OS
- [Slashdot]
Trailrunner7 writes "A security expert has released a stripped-down Ubuntu distribution designed specifically for reverse-engineering malware. The OS, called REMnux, includes a slew of popular malware-analysis, network monitoring and memory forensics tools that comprise a very powerful environment for taking apart malicious code. REMnux is the creation of Lenny Zeltser, an expert on malware reverse engineering who teaches a popular course on the topic at SANS conferences. He put the operating system together after years of having students ask him which tools to use and what works best. He originally used Red Hat Linux, but recently decided that Ubuntu was a better fit. REMnux has three separate tools for analyzing Flash-specific malware, including SWFtools, Flasm and Flare, as well as several applications for analyzing malicious PDFs, including Didier Stevens' analysis tools. REMnux also has a number of tools for de-obfuscating JavaScript, including Rhino debugger, a version of Firefox with NoScript, JavaScript Deobfuscator and Firebug installed, and Windows Script Decoder."
The Link(s): Fri, Jul 9th, 3pm by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.