There has been much criticism of the 9/11 Commission and rightly so.  But to those of us who has followed the convoluted path to its creation we know that the Mr. Bush did not even want a bipartisan commission at all to investigate the tragedy.

We know that Mr. Bush and his administration stonewalled for months on end and the the Republican controlled Congress only alloted a paltry 4 million dollars for the Commission.  We have followed the unceasing efforts of the 4 New Jersey widows who were the prime movers in the creation of the commission.

Now we know that there was a viper in the midst of the Commission: the commission's executive director Philip Zelikow.

A new book The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.

The author Philip Shenon writes:

However, Zelikow failed to disclose several additional and egregious conflicts-of-interest, among them, the fact that he had been a member of Rice’s NSC transition team in 2000-01. In that capacity, Zelikow had been the “architect” responsible for demoting Richard Clarke and his counter-terrorism team within the NSC. As Shenon puts it, Zelikow “had laid the groundwork for much of went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?”

I am reminded of the fact that a young Fred Thompson served on the impeachment inquiry of Richard Nixon by the House.  Fred Thompson was a mole for Mr. Nixon in the investigation.  So Mr. Zelikow now served the same function in the 9/11 commission.

It is time for a citizens inquiry into 9/11 with full transparency.

(a big thanks to Talkingpointsmemo.com) 

You only get one guess as to the Democratic Party Senator from Colorado who voted for retroactive telecom immunity (along with 13 other Dem Senators) yesterday.  Right!  Ken Salazar vote to grant immunity for telecoms who illegally tapped your phone lines at Mr. Bush's request in exchange for money. 

There was no "patriotic" duty as Mr. Bush has stated that the telecoms did it for but only for cold hard cash and contracts for government work at our expense.

You and I work and pay taxes in order for Mr. Bush to bribe telecoms to tap your private telephone conversations in exchange for money.  There is the lie by Mr. Bush to say that it is for the "safety" of his "homeland" and the "volk" but now we know.

So, my question is, Senator Salazar, why would you vote to give criminals a free pass?  You, as a lawyer and former attorney general, are sworn to uphold the law.  You as a oath taker have to abide by the law and make sure that the laws that you write are constitutional.  

I fail to understand what reasoning that could possibly stand scrutiny for allowing rampant and widespread phone tapping without a court order just on Mr. Bush's flimy excuses for justification.  Specifically Mr. Bush has used the AUMF as the reason he can tap your phone without judicial oversight.  We now know that even the Republican controlled Senate rebuffed his efforts to include specific language for domestic military intelligence operations. 

Why would you, Senator Salazar, uphold through legislative action multiple acts of law breaking, specifically ignoring the FISA court, by telecom companies?  This would be a clear case in which justice will be denied to tens of thousands of Americans.   This would include numerous citizens of Colorado that you would deny relief to. 

Is this what you want your legacy to be:

A government that spies on its citizens, on Americans, without oversight is not democracy; it is tyranny. And yet this is what the Bush administration continues to try and do.

- Steve Clemons

Call or visit Senator Salazar's office to tell him "NO" for the Senate Intelligence Committee's bill for retroactive immunity for telecom companies.  The time is no for him and his "gang of 14" to stand for the rule of law and the laws that we have in place (FISA court) rather then uphold a lawless administration that bribes telecom companies to tap and tape our private phone conversations.

Just say "NO" Senator Salazar for the people you represent and to uphold your oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

If Congress doesn't fully fund the troops then Congressional Democratic members will be "stabbing the troops in the back" was the braying of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney and their toadies in the media.

How about now, when Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are about ready to leave, and this is how they will fund the troops:

...by failing to spell out a full-year funding request, the administration will be effectively leaving office without ensuring the money is in place to sustain that U.S. commitment.

Read the rest here.

I want the next president to use the so-called "bridge funding" for redeployment out of Iraq.  

Here is a question:  Why not bribe the entire population of Iraq?  We'll give you the money, ask for forgiveness, but then it will be up to you, the Iraqi people, to have self determination on whether or not the nation, that we broke and cannot fix through militiary power, will stand or separate.

Support Senator Dodd's filibuster effort to stop retroactive immunity to the biggest telecommunications companies. Those companies have cooperated with Mr. Bush's idea to spy on Americans talking to one another illegally.

The FISA court allows wiretapping with a court order.  However Mr. Bush has seen fit to ignore the law and the FISA court.  It is clearly evident that he has committed thousands of criminal acts.

Now Mr. Bush and a complicit Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid, will now allow a revision of FISA to have retroactive immunity for these lawbreaking companies.

We now know that those companies are not breaking the law through a fever of patriotism but to enhance their bottom line.

It is time to fully support Senator Chris Dodd's effort to derail this bill that will deny justice to millions of wronged Americans.  

Furthermore any Democratic Senator who votes for retroactive immunity and Senator Harry Reid, who brings up the bad Intelligence Committee version first, should face an economic boycott for their support of illegal spying on Americans privacy.

Wall Street brokers are a bunch of scared lemmings.  I've been reading the reports by journalists about the ups and downs of the stock market with regard to the bursting of the housing bubble.  What is clearly the case that the stock market reminds me nothing more than a bunch of gossiping, emotionally driven fools who take our money for their own ends.

Paul Krugman is absolutely correct in the fact that the banks are truly bust.  There is no illusionary perception that causes a "run" on the bank which the Federal Reserve can save.  This time the bank is truly bust because of bad debts.

All of the elaborate debt vehicles to sell to the sheep were figments of the imagination by the lending predators.  

When the Fed has to loan banks more money, for the fourth time in the last six month, which is to a total of about 200 billion dollars, shows that the danger is to the entire financial industry in America because there is no "faith" or "trust" left by Americans.

The stock market as represented by NYSE, NASDAQ, S&P 500 et al is being driven by emotion only.  As far as I can tell there is only the front end and back end of commissions by brokerage houses that make money now.  Investors both large and small are whipsawed by fear now.

Rather than being honest with the American people there are those in power who would rather paint a rosey picture like Mr. Bush who still claims that the economics of America are "fundamentally sound".  Is that the truth?

How can he say that when he has accelerated the dismantling of the backbone of America- it's industrial base.  We have become a third world economic state because the fact is that we now export our raw materials to be manufactored into products by other countries.

While Wall Street financiers celebrated the decimation of the working middle class of America with the rise of the so-called "service economy" it has now come to roost.  Without tangilble goods there is no "there" to backup loans just as the sub prime crisis is just the initial sympton of the much larger disease that has eaten through the banking and financial institutions of this nation.  

The ticking time bombs to come are in the commercial sector of this mess.  Remember that even the upper income people are now falling under the bursting bubble because they used those loans to speculate on housing prices to rise on double digit annual rate.  But there are now reports that the commercial sector is beginning to feel duress due to the slowing economy as consumers, which constitute 67 percent of economic activity, start to hold back on spending. 

This is a case of a house of cards.  Once spending at the consumer level falls, witness the Christmas season just past, then businesses will pull back on manufacturing and reducing inventory levels.  Businesses will not invest in new equipment or plants.

However with the runaway price of oil there is finally the spector of "stagflation" which means now an economic recession coupled with much higher costs to the consumer in the price of gas and heating oil.  So as the economy falters, even with the late intervention of a short term rate cut that is too late as is the economic stimulus package of tax rebates but no public sector spending projects, the cost of manufactoring and transportation will continue to increase the price of consumables and durable goods.

How will this impact your financial security?

As I read from one of the community blogs- "Isn't it great to have your retirement 401k in the stock market?"

A word to the wise:  Keep yourself "liquid" now. 

If we had universal medical care then this would not even be brought up.

From MSNBC:

The folks who invented the credit score for lenders are hard at work developing a similar tool for hospitals and other health care providers.

The project, dubbed “MedFICO” in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive.

Isn't this just another way to waste money and invade the privacy of our lives?  

This to me is just a scam of having a new special interest group that is for the continuation of the current corrupt and wasteful medical system.

There should be laws enacted to either ban or strictly regulate such companies that want to have MedFICO running our lives.

Maybe Speaker Romanoff, at the state level, or Rep. DeGette/Salazar/Perlmutter/Udall should be aware that their voters do not want another privacy invading rating agency for one's health to rule over them! 

Isn't it time for the Speaker of the House to listen to the people of America? This is a reply that I sent to this article from Reuters about the continuing intransigence of Speaker Pelosi's refusal to do her constitutional duties with regard to the lawless reign of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney:

It is time for House Leader Pelosi to step down and let a House Speaker who takes the Constitution seriously.

It is not a matter of "impeachment" being divisive but the facts show that Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney are causing a constitutional crisis that dwarfs Mr. Nixon's "imperial" presidency which is divisive to what the voters see as a president who views himself above the law and has made a mockery of "the checks and balances" between our three, co-equal, branches of government.

If Speak Pelosi continues on her path then she will be an unwitting hand in the erosion of the democratic institutions that bind this nation together.

It is time for her to not be re-elected to the Speaker's post again because she is now a part of the problem.

Reuters reporter Thomas Ferraro writes:

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s drawing heat from fellow Democratic lawmakers as well as people across the nation for refusing to move to impeach President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.

“I go through airports, and people have buttons as if they knew I was coming,” Pelosi said with a smile, mimicking a protester pointing to an “Impeach” button on their chest.

I propose that there be a resolution presented to the Democratic Party caucus that Speaker Pelosi should face censure for not upholding her oath to the Constitution and that she not run for re-election for Speaker of the House again.

A panel of Colorado legislators recommended today that state Rep. Douglas Bruce be censured and that he apologize to his colleagues for kicking a newspaper photographer.

The recommendation goes to House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who will make the final decision. Bruce kicked Rocky Mountain News photographer Javier Manzano on Monday during a prayer on the floor of the House...

More than a dozen reporters and photographers followed Bruce from the hearing, asking for his reaction to the committee's recommendation of censure.

He was stone-faced and silent for the first time all week.

While many people don't play the game of chess there has been one American who played the game and made the game widely recognized throughout the world- Bobby Fischer.

In the United States chess is a recreation not a profession.  However, during the 50's, 60's, and 70's Grandmaster Fischer lived on chess alone.  He was the only American player who did not have a "job" that supported his chess playing.  Whereas in the rest of the world chess players were often supported by the state Fischer survived and even prospered in the U.S.A.

He, though his genius on the chess board, eventually became only the second American born world chess champion.  He was, at the height of his power, the strongest rated player and had an E.L.O. rating of 3120 (during his phenomenal 20-0 winning streaking against the best chess grandmasters in his run up to the World Chess Championship in 1972).  He was the youngest person ever to attain the rank of grandmaster (age 15).

What he did during the Cold War was to symbolically represent the "free world" against the "communist system" on the chess board during his championship match against the reigning world champion the Soviet's Boris Spassky. Even to the point that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made his famous phone call to Fischer to ask him to please play the match.  He won the world championship that symbolized the triumph of the West in all of its political ramifications. (If you read the post 1972 chess literature in Russia there was much recrimination as to why Spassky lost and the Soviet chess establishment was reorganized.)

He abdicated his championship for refusing to play against Anatoly Karpov in 1976 because of valid conditions he wanted.   

Eventually he was forgotten.  

However, with the film "Searching for Bobby Fischer" that reawakened awareness of the genius and tragedy of Bobby Fischer.  

I know that he exerted great influence in my coming to play the game as did my compatriots at the Omaha Central High School Chess Club during the mid-70's.  I was the Chess Club president and our club teams competed in Scholastic state and national tournaments.  Our teams ranked 3rd nationally and 16th nationally in '75 and '76 (winning state titles in both years).   

(I even wrote a chess column for the school newspaper in junior high school!  Just as Bobby wrote a column in the Boy Scouts national magazine.) 

Even now I still play and teach chess at my job, Boys and Girls Club- Cope Branch, with the club members.  (Cope members have won the intra club championship the last two years.) 

It is with sadness that Robert J. Fischer has died at the age of 64.  

Racist, ethnic jokes are a part of the National Western Stock Show? (h/t to HuffingtonPost.com)

Rocky Mountain News reporter John C. Ensslin writes:

A Greeley businessman apologized Wednesday after a joke about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama fell flat during the National Western Stock Show's annual Citizen of the West banquet...

"I gasped," said Gov. Bill Ritter, who was sitting at the table with Farr.

Mayor John Hickenlooper said, "I don't think he (Farr) intended any mischief or malice, but it was inappropriate."

Ensslin digs into a little history of the Stock Show:

* Rodeo announcer Hadley Barrett commented during a horse show that a horse buyer had "jewed down" the price.

Ah, the "good ol' days" of the "Wild West" that is the myth versus the reality. Where people think that by wearing a cowboy hat and boots puts them in touch with the wide open, frontier plains and endless blue sky. 

While Rome burns Nero fiddles away into the night.  Isn't this the kind of blatant disregard that Mr. Bush has for the suffering of the American people as the economy fails?  Isn't Mr. Bush's fetish for "tax cuts" as a panacea for any economic ill that befalls the people of this nation shows that he is an ideological zealot?  Zealots and ideologues ignore reality because they believe they can impose their "vision" in order to remake reality.  

New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes:

...staunch economic conservatives like Keith B. Hennessey, the new director of Mr. Bush’s National Economic Council. They have reservations about the need for an economic rescue package and maintain that if the White House proposes one, it should use the plan as leverage to press lawmakers into making the tax cuts permanent.

Does the Republican partisanship as exemplified by Mr. Bush show to millions of Americans face losing their homes who doesn't care? 

When the initial "billions for billionaires" tax cuts in 2001 was proposed there were many economists who tried to warn Mr. Bush that it was the wrong way to stimulate the economy.  Couple what he did with a lax regulatory hand, enabled by Alan Greenspan, and cheered on by Republican controlled Congress that allowed for criminal behavior by financial institutions to flourish has now come to roost- monsterous bad debt. Paul Krugman explains why the Federal Reserves bailout for banks will fail:

But the Fed can come to the rescue. If the rumor is false, the bank has enough assets to cover its debts; all it lacks is liquidity — the ability to raise cash on short notice. And the Fed can solve that problem by giving the bank a temporary loan, tiding it over until things calm down.

Matters are very different, however, if the rumor is true: the bank really did make a big bad loan. Then the problem isn’t how to restore confidence; it’s how to deal with the fact that the bank is really, truly insolvent, that is, busted. [my emphasis]

What has been forgotten about Mr. Bush is what Ron Siskind writes:

''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

The problem is that in the real, fact based world, the people are the ones who suffer the most by those who think that they are the masters of the Great Game.

My question:  what will be effective for both the short term for the economy? What will be effective to repair the systemic damage done by Mr. Bush for the long term (over the next decade)? 

No matter if you invest in a company and then find out that the company was Enron.  No matter if the accounting firm was Arthur Anderson who had a financial stake in making sure that Enron colluded in the fraud.  No matter if such stellar investment houses like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, et.al. makes money off the front end and the back end of investors.  What are the ethics in business practices that allows for corporations to flee investors because there are inherent conflicts of interest between businesses, accounting firms, and investment corporations.

There are solid reasons that watchdog agencies to oversee that such inherent conflicts of interest are minimized.  The creation of the SEC was in direct response to the lack of ethical and sound business practices during the Hoover era.

What is happening now is bad for investors given the today's 5-3 Supreme Court decision to throw out a lawsuit by investors against Charter Communications.  AP reporter John Yoost writes:

The justices ruled against investors who alleged that two suppliers colluded with Charter Communications Inc. to deceive Charter's stockholders and inflate the price of the cable TV company's stock.

The only door open for investors to find legal relief is through the SEC. Bloomberg News writes:

The decision reinforces a 1994 Supreme Court ruling that federal securities law bars suits for "aiding and abetting" another company's wrongdoing. Congress changed the law in 1995 to permit aiding-and-abetting suits by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but not by private shareholders.

This case was closely watched with amicus briefs by heavyweights on both sides Planadvisor.com's Rebecca Moore writes:

The WSJ noted that both sides of the issue lined up strong support. Siding with the trial bar were two House committee chairmen, 18 pension funds, 32 state attorneys general, and the SEC. Backing big business were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the Nasdaq and NYSE Euronext exchanges; seven high-profile New York lawyers; and the Justice Department's solicitor general, who represents the views of the White House

Given the pro business tilt of the Supreme Court against enforcing sound business plans and ethical business practices by said businesses is it time for individual (you and me) and institutional investors to pull out of the stock market.  Given that SEC regulators were asleep to keep the playing field fair to investors then why should you and I invest in a gamed stock market?

What is happening is a complete erosion of trust in our business model that is championed by Mr. Bush and the  economic theory of  the Chicago School's championed by Milton Friedman of "monetarism". (Naomi Klein's eviserates  the real world outcome of such theory by renaming it "the shock doctrine" by which Friedman's lassiez faire capitalist system is just as revolutionary as Mao Tsetung's Great Leap Forward in its methodology.)

Can investors be given bad information and make good investment decisions?

Who is leaving the game "to have some fun now"? 

David Swanson will interview Jamie Leigh Jones on Tuesday evening, January 15th (8 to 9 p.m. ET), and she'll take questions from the audience. You can listen and participate at http://www.thepeoplespeakradio.net and I certainly hope you will, because I have absolutely no idea myself what I can say to her. What excuse can any of us offer? What words can convey the depth of our shame? What can we commit to doing to help her and others like her?

Isn't it time for Rep. DeGette to get in on helping Ms. Jones?  If Ms. Jones Representative is fighting for her then it should be, in the name of justice, for Representative DeGette and Speaker of the House Pelosi to lend their creds for Ms. Jones.

Contrary to what is being said about this being confined to what an employee, Ms. Jones, has given away when she signed an employee contract with her employer and the clause about "binding arbitration" there is the political dimension.  If there is enough popular pressure put on politicians then such contracts with "binding arbitration" will be subject to legislation that will effectively ban such legal clauses that benefit companies and deny justice to the wronged employee.

Clearly the behavior of Halliburton in this case shows that the use of such legal device as "binding arbitration" works only for the benefit of the corporation.  This "benefit" is at the expense of pursing justice for the wronged.  From the journalists reports that the criminal behavior of Halliburton is worth pursing from a political perspective.

Although Ms. Jones may not see justice served to those who raped her, emprisoned her, and destroyed evidence of their crimes to shield the perpetuators but the legal device that denies her justice should, though legislative action, never be used so again by the outright banning of "binding arbitration". 

It is time for Rep. DeGette and Speaker of the House Pelosi to get behind legislation that will ban such business practices that effectively deny justice to wronged employees. 

Isn't that what is really the result of this?  Bush wants to continue to kill American troops long after he is out of office.

From Newsweek:

In remarks to the traveling press, delivered from the Third Army operation command center here, Bush said that negotiations were about to begin on a long-term strategic partnership with the Iraqi government...

Most significant of all, the new partnership deal with Iraq, including a status of forces agreement that would then replace the existing Security Council mandate authorizing the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq, will become a sworn obligation for the next president...

Last month, Sen. Hillary Clinton urged Bush not to commit to any such agreement without congressional approval. The president said nothing about that on Saturday, but Lute said last fall that the Iraqi agreement would not likely rise to the level of a formal treaty requiring Senate ratification. Even so, it would be difficult if not impossible for future presidents to unilaterally breach such a pact.

Well here's my view that the next president should disavow any pact signed by Al-Maliki and Mr. Bush because the the pact was signed under duress by the Iraqi government.  The Iraqi government is not a free agent due to the continuing military occupation by a hostile force nor does the Iraqi government have legitimacy because it is not a true representative body of the people of Iraq.  The use of military force to overthrow a government and replace it with a puppet regime is illegal under international law.  Hence, the new American President should have the authority, with legal standing, to aborgate the pact.

Ask the presidential candidates if what Mr. Bush is doing legal. 

Giving a free pass for the biggest telecom companies like Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc. is harmful to the rule of law by which all people and organizations must abide by in this country.

Many people would give the telecom companies such a pass because will live in this supposed "global war on terror" that Mr. Bush has created.  Those people would rather give up the rule of law in order to remain "alive".  However we now know that such an espionage tool that the telecom companies allowed Mr. Bush's government to use was "shut off" whenever the government did not pay their bill on time.

So it was not a patriotic duty that the telecom companies performed at all.  What companies do is to make money.  Period.  Their loyalty to this nation stops when the bill isn't paid.

Mr. Bush's crying and whining about making sure that the telecom companies have "retroactive immunity" from citizen lawsuits is an affront to the people of this nation.  We know that the telecom companies would only play ball when the bill was paid.  

It seems to me that the telecom companies really do not care about the safety of this nation's people but only to how much money they can rake in. The lives of the people they could care less about.

From what I've read today Senate Majority "Leader" Reid will allow the temporary "Protect America Act" to remain in force for another eighteen months. (h/t to Dailykos blogger's McJoan and KargoX).

Why?

I support Chris Dodd and his fight to preserve the Constitution against the depredations by Mr. Bush's lawless ways to preserve Republican power.  This is what the telecom immunity is about to expose that the war on terror is truly about:  Republican power.  

Why else would a political operator like Karl Rove have this nation's highest security clearances other than to shape Mr. Bush's administration into a tax payer supported political machine?  A Republican machine that subverts the very notion of what government and governance should be about.

The "retroactive immunity" that Mr. Bush so cravenly wants is nothing more than to spy on Americans for political power just as everything that Mr. Bush's "non-policies" are about from the "Clear Skies" Act  and "Health Forests" Initiative of 2003 to the illegal presidential powers he has arogated to himself through the use of bogus "presidential" signing statements.

This is denial of justice to millions of people if Mr. Bush gets what he wants: Telecom companies will not face lawsuits by Americans because they were spied upon without "probable cause" in their own homes and using their own phones.

Los Angeles Times writer Tom Hamburger writes:

WASHINGTON -- Alarmed at the increasingly populist tone of the 2008 political campaign, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is set to issue a fiery promise to spend millions of dollars to defeat candidates deemed to be anti-business.

"We plan to build a grass-roots business organization so strong that when it bites you in the butt, you bleed," chamber President Tom Donohue said.

I wrote back to the LATimes:

It is high time that the Chamber of Commerce should be under strict scrutiny by lawmakers because of their abuse of the political system which hurts all Americans.

I would advocate that Congress should conduct an investigation into the methodology by which "dues" are paid and if those "dues" are used for political advertising then there ought to be complete transparency in the process.

If Tom Donohue thinks that he can be a political "boss" that is able to harm Americans through threats and strong arm tactics then he will find out that Americans will not kow tow to his wrong headed ideas that Americans should be enslaved to big business.

It is high time that the Chamber of Commerce under the misguided ideas of Tom Donohue ought to reigned in.

The FEC should impose strict guidlelines on the Chamber of Commerce and other business associations to let Americans know that corporations are spending millions of dollars of revenue that is counter productive to their shareholders.

With such shining examples as Wal Mart the Chamber of Commerce should be more concerned with cleaning up the behavior of some of its largest members because Americans are sick of being treated as slaves.

The so-called "grassroots" organization that Tom Donohue speaks of is nothing more than an astroturf operation that does not have the support of Americans because his rhetoric is that of the mob boss.

I call on all progressive minded business leaders to repudiate Tom Donohue's call to arms against the American people.  Politicians and political candidates are responding to the American people on the way business has operated over the last seven years.

I call on all progressive people to let progressive businesses and nonprogressive businesses know that Tom Donohue no longer has the best interests of businesses at heart.  

Who would've thought it?  Under the regime of Mr. Bush the American middle class has shrunk.  Not only has the size of the middle class has shrunk but the median income has declined but expenses have gone way up.

But what of the rest of the industialized countries?  Is income falling too for their citizens? 

From BBC news: 

The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest...

Mr Cooper said: "The UK has been catching up steadily with living standards in the US since 2001, so it is a well-established trend rather than simply the result of currency fluctuations."

Should there be blame?  Fortune Magazine's Geoff Colvin has a response:

We Americans pride ourselves on being a hard-working bunch, so here's a thought to spoil your Labor Day rest: By global standards, we're lazy. We've been getting lazier. And the days of the American dolce vita may be numbered...

When it comes to what we might call hard work, meaning the proportion of workers who put in more than 48 hours a week, America is near the bottom of the heap. About 18% of our employed people work that much.

It could be due to two factors: 1). the destruction of our industrial base and 2). the increasing use of part time workers to replace full time workers.  What happens is that when the government agencies track employment they count people who work two part time jobs as being seperate. 

With the removal to third world nations of our manufacturing base there is no longer a large percentage of "blue collar" full time, middle class workers now. 

I would say that Geoff Colvin is a lazy because he didn't do the research for his column.  Hence his column comes off as being "half baked".