The Dow touched 13,000 today on news that the Greeks will be bailed out with another $140 billion, of course that money really goes to the big banks, not Greece. The new so-called bailout will only be delivered if the Greek government complies by the end of the month with a long list of austerity measures that will ensure the continued decline of their economy.

The Greeks must also prepare two state industries for handover to the pirates by June, and the banker appointed to be in charge of their government plans to literally loot the entire country. Absolutely every public asset of value is being sold off for a pittance to the corporate robber barons. The Communist Party of Greece is on the rise, their slogan could simply be, “We told you so.”

The most powerful man on the planet dropped into visit the people in Iowa who helped launch his climb to power. No, I don’t mean President Obama, I mean Vice President Xi Jinping (shee jeen ping). In a year he will ascend to the Presidency, or as he’s known in China, Comrade Chairman of Communist Party Central Committee.

Despite a heavy diplomatic schedule, Comrade Xi insisted on stopping to visit the farm family in Iowa who put him up in their spare room for two nights in 1985. He was a minor party official from a remote agricultural province back then, seeking to improve pork production in China. He succeeded, and next year he will begin overseeing a five year plan that will leapfrog the People’s Republic past the United States as the world's dominant economic power.

The evening news starts almost every day with a scary story about the price of gas going to $5.00 by Memorial Day, and how bad that would be for the economy. They usually follow with a story about Iran threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz, or maybe that will be lead story today.  They don’t mention that that currently the largest manufactured export from the US is gasoline.

The oil companies are even closing refineries because they can’t get rid of enough gasoline to justify running them, but still the corporate media dutifully report that the “shortage” of gasoline is driving up the price.

Tales from Uncle Remus (apologies to the author, the part of Brer Fox will be played by Brer Rabbit)

Brer Rabbit had a problem. He had been elected to be leader of the Free Forest after defeating grumpy old Brer Bear and his running mate Brer Cuckoo Bird, but lately it was a hard life in the forest. So Brer Rabbit set about first thing to fix the healthcare system of the forest. The ideas he was able to get passed by the Critter Congress weren’t all that good, but they were a big improvement over letting the predators run the system. They tended to eat the sick, especially the middle-class animals who they hated most awful.