Reading and watching the news is disconcerting and disorienting.

Liz Cheney, a graduate of law school and self-proclaimed patriot, calls the Department of Justice the Department of Jihad. Why? Because seven attorneys in that department once represented terror suspects before the courts.

This law school graduate says that lawyers agree with their clients. She thinks some people should not have a right to an attorney. I must have misread or misunderstood our Constitution and legal system because Liz shouts quite loudly and clearly that she is a patriot. Should I have put that in all caps?

Who is a patriot? Is Liz, who has no understanding or appreciation of our Constitution a patriot? How about her father? He violated the Constitution more times than he received deferments to avoid serving the country he loves so much.

Patriotic teabaggers call our president a Nazi. They blather about how inept our government is; how much they distrust it; how much they hate it.

Patriots want to take away your right to redress, your right to sue. They want to give businesses and corporations immunity from responsibility for ruining your life.

I am beginning to believe that I no longer understand my mother tongue. Let me explain what I think patriotism is, or used to be, and what Joe Main Street thought it was.

Most people probably thought patriotism was a virtue. They thought it was simply a love of country. They thought it was exemplified by soldiers who sacrificed their life and limb for our country, for his fellow countryman.

Watching the teabaggers and their ilk, I see no love of anything. I see hatred of minorities. I see hatred of fellow Americans. I see hatred of anyone different. Really, we are seeing hatred of themselves.

There is another word that people throw around. Nationalism. People, not just in this country, usually see patriotism as a positive and nationalism as a negative trait. Actually, they are the same. People like to portray themselves as patriots and furriners as nationalists. Many word carry emotional baggage. These are just two.

Is patriotism really a positive thing? Many thinkers over the centuries have not necessarily thought so. Let me list a few quotes on the subject. The first is what we used to like to think of it as, when we were in junior high civics class.

“Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.” – Adlai E. Stevenson

But far more observers held a less favorable view.

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” – Oscar Wilde

“Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy” – George Bernard Shaw

“You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.” – George Bernard Shaw

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” – Samuel Johnson

“Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.” – George Jean Nathan

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.” – Bertrand Russell

“Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen” – Ambrose Bierce

Most of those quoted must have missed civics class. They likely do not differentiate between patriotism and nationalism.

So, maybe we can’t define it as love of country but does that mean the teabaggers are right? Is patriotism merely hate of your government and your fellow man?

The word has an unarguable hold on us, regardless of how it is defined. Those of the lunatic right know this. They jumped out in front to wear it as a badge of honor. Whatever its real meaning or their lack of devotion to its commonly accepted tenets, it has a political value.

But, one should always remember that admonition, “Never trust anyone who wears his religion or his patriotism on his sleeve.” If you love your fellow man and the ideals for which your country stands, there is no need to advertise it. People will know. If you abide by the teachings of your religion, showing the love and morality of that god, there is no need to advertise it. People will know.

If you see any love for you or me coming from the Cheneys, check to see if there has been an invasion from outer space by creatures using our bodies as hosts. If you see a teabagger or Republican politician having a kind word for Obama, your are likely having an implausible dream.

Is our country perfect? No. Are our leaders motivated by our best interest? Seldom. Are our Congressmen and Senators intelligent, reputable people? I’ll have to get back to you on that. No luck so far.

My last word of warning. Distrust and avoid anyone wearing this underwear.

It is becoming ever more difficult to claim your American citizenship when traveling abroad. The teabaggers and others of that ilk are a cause of either consternation or bemusement or amusement among those looking at us from outside these borders. I care enough about my country and fellow countrymen to not enjoy others seeing us as the global village idiot.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

It isn’t even close to Halloween but this post should spook you.

Why would I try to scare you? Can’t it wait until the end of October? No. I’m funny that way.

Just saying the word economics causes most people’s eyes to glaze over. Actually finding out what is going on in the economy has the opposite effect. It is called the dismal science with good reason.

Stay with me here. I can assure you that you will not be as happy as you are at this moment.

All of these figures are beyond the experience of real people, so let’s start with something we can use as a baseline; something with which to compare all of the other numbers. It has been published that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of this country for 2009 was $14.2 trillion.

That number tells us the total amount we had available for everything that year. To me it sounds pretty impressive. It’s greater than my allowance. Take that number to heart, so that it can provide some perspective for all of these other numbers.

Commercial banks are holding $13 trillion in CDSs. Let me qualify that. Deposits at those banks are guaranteed by the government; by you. Also, the overwhelming percentage of CDSs are private arrangements. They are not known to any government agency because there are no regulations that pertain to them. Several of these banks have been designated “too big to fail.” A fair translation of that is, “pays too much in bribes to fail.”

So, if $13 trillion is known, how much is unknown? That is difficult to answer, as it is unknown. We do have estimates though. The one I feel approaches reality puts it at $595 trillion worldwide. Perspective? Our economy, at $14.2 trillion is the world’s largest. Japan’s is second largest. It is approximately one-third the size of ours. That puts the estimated amount at a multiple of the entire Earth’s annual product. Remember, this number is only for CDSs. It does not include loans, credit card debt, mortgages and other such normal debt instruments

It’s probably time for us to make certain that we know what a derivative or Credit Default Swap is. A derivative is an artificial financial construct based on something else; supposedly something of value. A CDS is one type of derivative.

Some have called them insurance. This has led some in Washington to call for them to be regulated as insurance is. There is just one problem. They are not really insurance.

You likely have purchased insurance for your automobile, perhaps your home or apartment or any number of other items. Why did you do that? You, presumably, don’t want to wreck your car or watch your house burn down. Insurance may replace a portion of your loss but you will still have a loss and probably some significant inconvenience.

If I bought an insurance policy on your car, I would only benefit if your car was damaged or destroyed. How comfortable would you feel if you knew I owned a policy on your home or car? Don’t be too thankful that I haven’t. There is a good chance that someone else already has. A CDS is a bet that a financial contract will fail. It can be, and is, bought by people who don’t live in your house. It is either a break-even deal or more beneficial if the deal fails. Can we all say foreclosure?

AIG has been the biggest player in this field. AIG just glossed over one aspect of these “insurance” policies. They didn’t bother to back them up with the ability to pay if the “insured” properties went down the tubes.

Further complicating this picture is that the people putting these CDSs together combined good and bad mortgages into a single instrument. Then they sliced and diced these packages. What does that mean? It means that a mortgage that, on its own, is solid can be part of a package that turns sour. Someone who makes all of his payments, in full and on time, can find his home being in danger of foreclosure.

The damage done to the real estate market has caused market values to decrease significantly. Many are caught in the resulting vice. They can’t afford to sell their house, even were they to find a buyer. I have seen estimates that as many as 40% of all mortgages are under water; meaning you owe more than the market value of the house. Remember, you are giving these felons the money they need for all this at an interest rate of zero.

Not all CDSs are tied to home or even commercial real estate. People have bought them based on the potential for a business to fail. Some of these people own the involved business. Some do not. Either way, they may benefit if the business fails. Could someone lose their job because their employer benefits more from a business failure than from success? Youbetcha.

You and I are forbidden buying insurance policies on assets we do not own. It is strictly illegal, and rightly so. Inherent in these instruments is the logic of burning down someone else’s house for your profit.

You may be vaguely aware that the European Union and its monetary unit, the Euro, are in a precarious position. This is based primarily on the situation in Greece. That country’s leadership has made a few economic missteps. Those missteps were so serious that the entire European Union is in deep doodoo.

It turns out that our largest Wall Street institutions have been helping the Greek politicians. For close to ten years they have been using CDSs to help them cover up the problems.

Now the speculators are ready to use these very CDSs to bring down the economy of Greece. Not only does this harm Greece, it brings a degree of instability. That instability brings other economies to the brink. Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal appear to be next dominoes in line.

If you think, “Well, it serves them right. Their loss is our gain.” think again. The potential damage to the EU is not limited to the EU. They, as the U.S., are to too big to fail – maybe. We may have to tighten our belts, once again, if we still have belts.

The UK and US are in jeopardy in two ways. First, they are so tied into the EU that the resulting harm from the fall of these dominoes is unavoidable. That alone might deal the UK and US serious but absorbable blows. The problem is the second part. The UK and US are still in economic ICU on their on hooks.

Since writing the above I finished reading one more economist urging the need for treating CDSs as insurance and putting those selling them under the jurisdiction of the insurance regulators. Do you think that will work as well as it has in the past?

As it is illegal for you and me to purchase insurance on someone else’s assets, all it would take is a ruling, by the SEC, the DoJ, or any of several Federal agencies that they are not legal for the banks either. Just make a declaration that all such contracts are void. That would save AIG some of our money, as it would have no obligation to pay those who purchased CDSs.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

My last post was about a health issue, not healthcare reform. Writing so frequently on healthcare reform and the economy has built up a tremendous reserve of frustration.

I wanted to take a psychic break by expounding on other subjects but it seems not to be possible to get away from these matters. Storming once more into the breech they come again to the subject of reform.

Just now I feel more inclined to address the method than the substance. Could it be that there is so little substance to speak to?

I can’t help but wonder if anyone in Washington actually knows the definition of the word reconciliation. The dictionary says it is the reestablishing of cordial relations. All I see is animosity and hostility. How could a spirit of reconciliation engender such enmity and division? So, with the understanding that the term itself is inappropriate, let’s get on to the real problem.

That problem is the disdain so many Senators have for democracy. They seem to think that their prerogatives are more important than representing the needs and opinions of the people.

While the people have been confused, frustrated and angered at the shenanigans taking place in Congress, the majority still support the need for reform and, specifically, the public option. Many of those opposed do so out of a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the problems and possible solutions.

Throwing around such accusations as this being an attempt to take over healthcare or mischaracterizing it as socialism come from ignorance or deliberate lies. The government has Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, medical care for the active military and veterans, coverage for civilian employees and other programs which it operates or for which it pays. It also subsidizes, through tax breaks, most private policies. The government already pays for 45% of healthcare costs, not including the subsidies.

The private insurance industry is permitted to skim off the cream. It is allowed to reject anyone they wish. They reserve the right to not pay the costs for whatever they wish to avoid. They skim the money to provide their executives multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses, private jets, lavish parties and such. Can you guess who bears the brunt of their exercise of these privileges?

At this time, several companies are attempting to increase premiums in a range from 22% to 59%. This while they are reducing the actual total amount they are paying out for your health care. Last year our health costs amounted to 17.3% of our entire economy. My untutored guess is that the above-cited increases might make the economic burden even greater. You get another guess as to who will get screwed.

Takeover? No. This is an attempt to provide almost everyone with health care and save our economy. As a nation, we cannot afford to rank 37^th in the world in health care. Nor can we afford an ever greater percentage of our total resources being designated as profits for the industry that has put at such a lowly ranking.

We shouldn’t forget the millions they spend on bribes. Is it possible this is a consideration when these “public servants” refuse to permit democracy to exist in the chambers of the Senate?

This talk of reconciliation may actually result in a vote. Even more important than the outcome of that vote is the fact that it will provide us undeniable evidence of who hates democracy and has no concern for their constituents. Every one of those opposing reconciliation needs to be thrown out of office. If your Senator opposes it, you have an obligation to yourself, your family, your country and the Constitution to oppose them. Yes, it is that simple.

My apologies for the preachy tone but it comes from frustration with our elected officials.

Now for the free offer. As mentioned earlier, my last post was on a health issue. It was one that is mired in misinformation. My book, Why Are You Mad?, is on the subject of mental illness. While this subject is not of interest to everyone, it does contain some nutrition information that is of universal concern. It speaks to another area drowning in misinformation: fats, saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, the whole panoply.

So, to anyone interested, I am offering a free copy of my book. Just send me an email and I will attach a copy of the book to the return. It will be in the form of a PDF file. If anyone prefers an actual dead tree version, I will send you one for $10 – $8 off of the retail price.

Why am I doing this? I did not spend 14 years of research and almost 3 years writing it because I wanted it to make money. I wrote it to provide as many as possible with an understanding of the subject. For those not interested in the overall subject, I feel that the dietary information is likewise of importance, but to everyone.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

The bulk of this post is a reprint of a article by Joseph Mercola, M.D. Following his remarks, I have just a couple of comments on the other issues about corn.

I’m guessing that you have seen some ads on television lately that are sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association. They have someone challenging another’s statement that HFCS is bad for you. Naturally, the lady is unable to support her claim. Her friend then pushes the idea that sugar is sugar.

I had heard that HFCS was bad for you but, as the person in the ad, I would not have been able to argue the point forcefully. Read this article and you will find it easy to refute the Judas Goat.

Study after study are taking [s-v] their place in a growing lineup of scientific research demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all it’s myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll.

And fructose in any form — including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose — is the worst of the worst!
Fructose is a major contributor to:

• Insulin resistance and obesity
• Elevated blood pressure
• Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
• Depletion of vitamins and minerals
• Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout

A Calorie is Not a Calorie
Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium — and in fact, every living thing on the Earth--uses glucose for energy.

If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you’d consume about 15 grams per day — a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it’s mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects.
It isn’t that fructose itself is bad — it is the MASSIVE DOSES you’re exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:
1. Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.
2. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.
Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it’s about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar.
HFCS is either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, and sucrose is 50 percent fructose, so it’s really a wash in terms of sweetness.
Still, this switch drastically altered the average American diet.

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight — the low-fat diet foods — are often the ones highest in fructose.

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.

Fructose Metabolism Basics
Without getting into the very complex biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism, it is important to understand some differences about how your body handles glucose versus fructose. I will be publishing a major article about this in the next couple of months, which will get much more into the details, but for our purpose here, I will just summarize the main points.

Dr. Robert Lustig[i] Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:

• After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.
• Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is “burned up” immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.
• The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.
• Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.
• When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!
• The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.
• Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain’s communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

If anyone tries to tell you “sugar is sugar,” they are way behind the times. As you can see, there are major differences in how your body processes each one.

The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome — not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.

Panic in the Corn Fields
As the truth comes out about HFCS, the Corn Refiners Association is scrambling to convince you that their product is equal to table sugar, that it is “natural” and safe.

Of course, many things are “natural” — cocaine is natural, but you wouldn’t want to use 142 pounds of it each year.
The food and beverage industry doesn’t want you to realize how truly pervasive HFCS is in your diet — not just from soft drinks and juices, but also in salad dressings and condiments and virtually every processed food. The introduction of HFCS into the Western diet in 1975 has been a multi-billion dollar boon for the corn industry.

The FDA classifies fructose as GRAS: Generally Regarded As Safe. Which pretty much means nothing and is based on nothing.

There is plenty of data showing that fructose is not safe — but the effects on the nation’s health have not been immediate. That is why we are just now realizing the effects of the last three decades of nutritional misinformation.

As if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with fructose that disprove its safety:
• More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCS[ii].
• Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.
• Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically modified corn, which comes with its own set of risks.

The FDA isn’t going to touch sugar, so it’s up to you to be proactive about your own dietary choices.

What’s a Sugarholic to Do?
Ideally, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.

I also realize we don’t live in a perfect world, and following rigid dietary guidelines is not always practical or even possible.

If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:
1. Use the herb stevia.
2. Use organic cane sugar in moderation.
3. Use organic raw honey in moderation.
4. Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.
5. Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave’s meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.
6. Avoid so-called energy drinks and sports drinks because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and chemical additives. Rehydrating with pure, fresh water is a better choice.

[i] Robert H. Lustig, MD: UCSF Faculty Bio Page, and YouTube presentation “Sugar: The bitter truth” and “The fructose epidemic” The Bariatrician, 2009, Volume 24, No. 1, page 10)
[ii] “Why is the FDA unwilling to study evidence of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup?” 20 Feb 2009, Grist

The corn growers, quite naturally, like to have more markets for their produce. In addition to HFCS, they have put a great deal of political effort into ethanol. this is not the greatest boon to mankind since sliced cornbread.

Ethanol requires a large expenditure of energy to produce. Various studies show it using somewhere between the same and 29% more energy to produce than they get as output. The amount of extra energy required varies in those studies depending on whether all aspects are included or it is restricted to the production process alone.

Additionally, the growers have been successful in keeping out ethanol from Brazil that is made from sugar cane, a far more energy-efficient source.

The consequences of this are serious. These uses skew the allotment of acreage away from more rational crop assignment. The major diversion of produce to sweetener and ethanol makes livestock feed more expensive. That increases your cost of groceries, unless you are a vegan.

If we ever wise up and ban HFCS and eliminate the government subsidies for ethanol, the growers will suffer a devastating economic blow. There will be severe dislocation in agriculture. While the banks conned Washington by claiming some financial institutions were too big to fail, the agricultural sector will come to the District, hat in hand, with a similar, but somewhat more honest, claim that the sky is falling.

I’m not predicting that sanity will prevail. I’m not setting a date certain. If it does happen, though, I can guarantee who will get the bill for the bailout.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

Not that long ago he was calling those bonuses obscene and shameful.

Which is it?

Larry Summers was in full support of anything that the Wall Street casinos wanted. Tuesday he was calling it the “bloated financial system” as he claimed to support Obama’s plan to develop strict regulatory controls.

Which is it?

Larry may have decided it was momentarily more politic to go along after Obama seemed to finally put Volcker in the driver’s seat. It is difficult to credit this apparent 180 from a career dedicated to the complete absence of regulation. It is also difficult to credit Volcker’s advancement absent the firing of Summers and Geithner.

So, Larry’s zig, or zag, is easily understandable. What about Obama’s?

I am beginning to try to apply a combination of psychological and political approaches to the President’s multifarious positions. His oft-stated desire for political comity, i.e., bipartisanship, seems to be more deep-seated than a mere political position.

His approach, however, seems to be to stake out a position on what people usually, superficially refer to as the left, then follow that with a position, equally superficially, referred to a being of the right. Is he hoping that people will average them out? Is he hoping he is defining the range of positions? Neither seems realistic.

Leaders lead. Leaders do that by issuing clear-cut marching orders. Confusion is destructive of effective leadership. The general public needs a slogan. It needs something that fits on a bumper sticker. Complexity lends itself to easy attacks.

We have a perfect example before us. Medicare-For-All is simple, easy to understand. Two thousand pages of intentionally obscure prose meant to hide an even greater ripoff by the health industry has confused the public. Complexity simply offers more targets. It is more difficult, if not impossible, to defend.

Beyond simplicity, the public needs drama. It needs spectacle. Look at what is most successful at the movie theater: car chases, explosions, computer graphics, 3-D. Avatar garnered a “Best Movie” nomination. It did so without accruing a single nomination for any of what are considered to be essential elements of a best movie. Where are its nominations for writing, acting, directing, etc?

Ostentatiously firing Larry, Tiny Tim, Rahm Emanuel and a few others would catch the public’s attention. It would indicate to them an as yet unseen degree of firmness. It would engrave a line in stone, rather than drawing a line in disappearing ink.

Giving Congressional Democrats their marching orders instead of hinting that he might be willing to go with reconciliation or recess appointments, if forced into it, would be dramatic. It would be seen as leadership. People will only follow a leader if they think he is leading. Other politicians and media mavens may find the nuances of congressional maneuvering fascinating. John Q. Citizen does not.

Professors of Constitutional Law can get by without being famous for their leadership skills. Those skills are not requirements for the backbenchers in Congress. They are necessary to command the potential of the bully pulpit. When times are tough, the people become desperate for leadership. That desperation in troubled times explains why the Germans accepted Adolph Schickelgruber. If good men don’t provide the needed leadership, the people will turn to almost anyone claiming to provide it. Have you heard of the Teabaggers?

Leaders also need an enemy. The Republicans are benefiting from the fact that they have identified an enemy. Why are they questioning Obama’s birth certificate? Why are they constantly calling him by the names of past enemies? They are giving their dupes an enemy. Obama needs to give his followers an enemy. He needs to quit trying to bring to the table one or two of those mythical, reasonable Republicans. Declare them the enemy. That should be easy, as they have already self-identified themselves so.

They accuse him of being soft on terror. He could, with greater accuracy, call them soft on the Constitution.

Exhibit a backbone. Give us a bumper sticker. Identify the enemy. Rid himself of the dead weights. Issue a call to arms. He would be pleasantly surprised how much more productive his administration can be.

Let me say that, as a former politician and someone degreed in political science, the above represents what I know to be the reality, the Realpolitik. I wish it were different. I wish the public was politically sophisticated enough to understand the complexities of the issues. I wish they were able to sit back, unemotionally, and evaluate the statements and actions of politicians of all stripes. The problem is that we live in the real world. We rarely get our druthers.

I want our country to succeed. I therefore want Obama to succeed. His presence in the Oval Office has been grounds for hope, hope for change. But, however needful we are of hope, it does not guarantee change. The change has to begin with him. He must change before he can lead the country to the change it needs. Oration is a great tool of leadership but few complex projects require only one tool.

By the way, Obama should have learned enough by now not to throw around the term free market without understanding its meaning. Perhaps, if he replaced his economic team of ideologues, he could find someone to provide the real definition.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

I’m certain you have at least heard the name of Christopher Bond, Senator from Missouri. You, however, may be forgiven for not recognizing Martha Johnson’s name.

Miss Martha was the President’s nominee to head up the General Services Administration. It’s difficult to think of a political appointment to a less political position. The GSA is primarily the nation’s landlord and maintenance arm. They do the grunt work so that government employees have a roof over their heads.

What connection is there between these two?

Little Chris (Kit) was pissed about something to do with a new Federal building in Kansas City. So, he did what any grammar school kid would do. He took “his” ball and refused to let the others play. He put a hold on her nomination.

Believe it or not, the Democrats finally showed some backbone and forced a vote. What was the outcome of this controversial nomination? She was confirmed: 96-0.

Senators are so impressed with themselves that they refer to the Senate as the world’s most exclusive club. Sometimes they call it the world’s most exclusive debating club. One problem – they no longer debate. They just pose for the cameras and talk past each other.

Given how impressed they are with themselves, they feel they deserve special privileges. So, they give themselves a bunch of special considerations. My problem with that, beyond the attitude that engenders it, is that essentially all of these privileges are anti-democratic. Somehow that doesn’t seem meet in, arguably, the world’s most successful democracy.

The privilege pertinent to the above embarrassment is the rule that permits any Senator to put a hold on any nominee or bill, for any reason, or for no reason. Any single Senator can put the whole country on hold, at his pleasure. It this any way to run an airline?

Now, another Senator has taken the next illogical step. He has put a hold on all nominations. Who is this terrorist? He goes by the American-sounding name of Richard Shelby. Unsurprisingly, he comes out of Alabama, our leading state – at least alphabetically.

Surely there is a serious national danger that calls for such a drastic measure. What could it be?

Old Dick wants a government contract to go to a defense contractor who would do assembly work on a new tanker back home in Alabama. I’m convinced that he merely wants government-funded jobs for his constituents. It has nothing to do with his being on the contractor’s payroll.

Actually, the Dick has another reason, as well. He wants the FBI to build an explosives testing facility in Alabama. We mustn’t locate such a facility too conveniently to the FBI’s primary offices in Virginia. That would only help one part of the government function more efficiently. That would violate one of his “conservative” tenants.

The Dick is famous for how tentative his tenants can be. He once pontificated, “Far too many of the president’s nominees were never afforded an up or down vote because several Democrats chose to block the process for political gain.” That, of course, was when Bush had a majority of Republicans in the Senate.

Another rule has become a “privilege.” That is the rule requiring a super majority. When the Democrats had 60 votes, that meant any Democratic Senator could stand in the way until he/she got what they wanted. That worked out so well we ended up with a joke called a healthcare reform bill. It was more like a ménages à cent.

Now, with the Republicans having 41 votes, one of that group can either stop the majority or broker a deal to get what they want. What about what the people want? Silly question.

How do they justify these privileges? They sometimes resort to calling them a part of the system of checks and balances. Pure BS.

The Constitution provides for several checks and balances. There are what are considered to be the main ones: between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. We also have another between the two branches of Congress. The primary one was to be between the people, on the one hand, and Congress and the White House on the other. That one has been effectively eliminated by the Senate.

There are several ways to eliminate these anti-democratic privileges. The Vice President could, at the beginning of the next session, declare them eliminated. It seems he is not so inclined. The Senate Majority Leader could also lead. Not much chance of that.

The Constitution begins, “We the People.” Forget the Constitution. The Rules of the Senate take precedence. The people have been beaten into complete submission. Do you really think the people are prepared to take time away from their 50″ flat screens and video games to regain the power promised by the Constitution? Sure, there are the teabaggers but they are a thankfully small group of yoyos that are too easily led by faux populists such as Dick Armey and the corporate interests he represents. They are ready and willing to blindly follow con men to support policies that are against their real self-interests.

It doesn’t make much sense to depend on such as the corporately mislead teabaggers to help rid us of the corporate-owned legislators. What is the solution? Realistically, there seems not to be one. They say knowledge is power. How I wish that were true.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

You knew it was coming. Perhaps you didn’t expect it this soon but it’s here.

A corporation is running for Congress.

It’s happening in the 1^st Congressional District of Maryland. That’s Silver Spring, MD.

I have included the first campaign ad. Also, you will find the web site. You won’t even have to make a donation.

Here you can see the new uniform requirements for Congressmen who are not themselves corporations.

If you look closely, you may see that the Nascar driver on the left may be practicing to actually run for Congress. Just check out his middle finger.

Here is the campaign ad for your viewing pleasure.

Don’t forget to visit their Web Site .

And, don’t forget to thank the Supreme Court.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

I was wrong, horribly so.

We are now the only developed country in the world that allows corporations to legally spend unlimited amounts to control the government. Aren’t we special?

Stay with me a couple of minutes. You will see how stupid and/or corrupt at least five of the Justices really are.

How did we get here and what needs to be done? It is simple but the ramifications cannot be overstated.

First we are dealing with a bunch of hypocrites. The radicals of the Court loudly proclaim that they believe in following the intent of the Founding Fathers. They also maintain that the courts should not legislate, nor usurp the legislative role. Yeah, sure.

No Supreme Court has come close to the activism of the present Court. They have overturned more legislation, by far, than any Court of which I am aware. That tendency alone was sufficient to make all predictions on the latest travesty easy. Commentators from the entire spectrum got it right. This ruling was no surprise.

How about their claimed devotion to what they term ’strict construction?’ That is also a gross mischaracterization. What was the Founding Fathers’ opinion of corporations? It may not be common knowledge but is far from a secret to any scholar or amateur enthusiast of our founders.

With the exception of Alexander Hamilton, all of the founders hated and/or mistrusted and/or feared corporations and the threat they represented to the nation to which they had given birth. This at a time when corporations were relatively rare and weak compared to the present. Back then one must prove a societal need, a benefit to the public, in order to obtain a charter.

Corporations are not mentioned in either the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. The last time I checked, the wording was still “We the people . . .” Corporations had only the latitude to function as was delineated in its charter. Where did this idiotic concept of corporations having a legal personality originate? Not from the Supreme Court. It came from an essentially parenthetical couple of sentences by one Justice.

The year was 1886. The case was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The doctrine of corporate personhood was included by Justice Morrison Remick Waite before the beginning of arguments. He stated, “The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.”

So, two sentences by a single, junior Justice changed the Constitution, laws and the dictionary definition without argument, without discussion, without any attempt at rationality. It subsequently became the very foundation of corporate law.

Let’s look at this. It doesn’t require looking too deeply. It doesn’t require a degree in Constitutional Law. It does require more intelligence than five of the present Justices. It requires common sense. It requires an absence of devotion to the plutocracy, a jettisoning of ridiculous ideologies. Here we go.

Everyone acknowledges that a corporation is property. It, and/or its shares, not only can be owned, by its very nature it must be owned. If it is a person, it enjoys the constitutional prohibition of slavery. You are not permitted, under any circumstances to hold a person as property. Ask your wife.

A corporation speaks with one voice. Although the textbooks tell you that the shareholders control it, or that the directors control it on behalf of the shareholders, the reality is that management rules. Management’s priorities are rarely the same as the stockholders. Stockholders also are further removed from participation by mutual funds, hedge funds and similar devices. Does anyone believe that corporate lobbying efforts are always (sometimes) consonant with the interests or opinions of shareholders?

While many other legal and logical arguments reach the same, or supportive, conclusions, no serious arguments have been proposed that contradict those arguments. We have no need to pursue any further the irrationality of claims for corporate personhood. Let’s proceed to the ramifications.

The last presidential campaign was easily the most expensive in history. The estimates I saw last year were well over $1 billion but less than two. I haven’t seen your checkbook but to me that is significant change. Actually, I consider that amount obscene. It distorts and corrupts. There is no upside for anyone who values their right to vote.

Now let’s look at real money. The major Wall Street casinos have announced record, or near record, profits. These profits are after record amounts being set aside for bonuses. Have you paid attention? These bonuses total about $150 billion.

If Wall Street decided to redirect only half of that amount to campaign finance, we would never have to watch another non-political commercial in an election year (every other year) again. Although that might seem initially to be an attractive side-benefit, all you have to remember is how quickly campaign advertising begins to pall.

While we know better, politicians owned by special interests insist that they are not swayed by lobbyists’ bribes. Given the amounts now available to them, they likely will not even bother to address such questions. The $150 billion cited above represents only that available from the major institutional players of one corrupt industry. Factor in the insurance industry, PhRMA, agribusiness, energy and a host of others wanting laws that benefit them, to our detriment.

There would not even have been the sham of the healthcare debate with its foreordained outcome. The drug pushers could sell morphine as a toothing medication for infants again, as Bayer did before it became famous for its aspirin. The Department of Agriculture could eliminate all of those pesky areas and become a foundation to channel taxpayers dollars directly to ConAgra, ADM, et al. Exxon and its peers would not have to waste another nickel cleaning up after themselves. There no longer would be a need to debate global warming, or spending any funds on research. Government could really be streamlined.

How much have you ever donated to a political campaign? Look on the bright side. Now there is no need to.

I believe that there has never been a law or ruling which so drastically changes and damages our system.

Many people get upset about the power of the government. Permit me to reminisce. Back in the late 1960s or early 1970s there was a little flap at Delta Air Lines, where I was working. You need to understand that at that time aircraft mechanics were treated like royalty. They were the princes of the industry and highly prized by the airlines.

One of these princes let his sideburns grow to the level of the bottom of his ears. No, they were not mutton-chop sideburns. Though wild hairstyles could be seen everywhere across the country, his could not be considered wild by any definition. He was fired.

Except when I was in military service, I would never expect the government to be so intrusive, so controlling of the minutiae of people’s lives. Corporations are not bound to respect any of your rights, beyond the prohibition of discrimination. The government is constrained by the Constitution. With the Founding Fathers, I have always feared corporations far more than I feared the government – until now.

All is not lost. The Court struck down campaign finance laws, not corporate laws or regulations. The Congress unquestionably has the authority to control corporate behavior through changes in corporate law. It could be done by regulation. You and I are, as people, are not controlled by laws in this area so it cannot be claimed that corporations are being discriminated against or denied that to which people are entitled.

I would ask that you notify me the next time you see a bunch of corporations exercising their right of freedom of assembly or, perhaps, their freedom of religion. I would love to attend a baptismal ceremony for one of these ‘guys.’

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

Have we weathered the economic meltdown? Have we survived? How are you doing? Is it over?

Unemployment continues to rise. Foreclosures continue to increase. Foreclosure rates are expected to increase. Small- and medium-size businesses still can’t borrow to expand or even purchase inventory. The Wall Street casinos are up but America is not.

Is it over? Obviously not. When will it be over? Don’t hold your breath.

Have you watched your spending? Have you been more careful in using that charge card? Have you been paying down on that card, those cards? Hey, you’ve been good. Congratulations. You are part of the problem.

Our basic problems began in 1973. Remember the oil embargo? Remember stagflation? Remember WIN?

The oil embargoes of 1973 and 1979 brought severe and sudden stress to our economy while we were still paying the price of the “Guns and Butter” policy of the Vietnam War. Instead of behaving sanely, as Brazil, we elected St. Ronny.

When all of this began, in 1973, we reached the all-time peak of family income earning power in real, uninflated terms. With the exception of a small increase in the 1990s, it basically been downhill ever since.

With the Reagan Administration came the Chicago School of Economics, the Laffer Curve, Trickle-down Economics, polluting trees and our favorite veggie – Catchup. They told us we could have a great party and never have to pay for it. The secret was credit.

In 1981 we were the largest exporter of manufactured goods. Now we are the largest importer. In 1981 we were the largest importer of raw materials. Now we are the largest exporter. In 1981 we were the largest creditor nation. Now we are the largest debtor. We have become the very definition of a third-world nation.

Our economy is consumer driven. If we consume, the economy rolls right along. If we rein in, even just a bit, the economy falters.

The Japanese miracle of the 1960s and 1970s was fed by a savings rate of a little more than 20 percent. Our own major periods of economic expansion saw savings rates of 20, even 30 percent. The Chinese savings rate has been in that same range of late. Other success stories, such as Korea, are based on the same. It isn’t a secret. It never has been. High rates of savings makes good economic sense for national economies.

We are now saving and the result is that our consumer-driven economy is stalled. Saving isn’t quite as pleasurable as spending for most folks. It just makes more sense.

The Reagan people had a different idea. Make everyone feel good by letting them use credit to live the good life. Don’t worry about paying it back. Other countries would be happy to sell us everything they could. Then, they would become so dependent on our spending, they couldn’t call the loans. They didn’t dare make us pay our bills. That would mean they would have no customer for the products of their growing economies. They would just have to keep selling us stuff and holding our IOUs.

The government could also throw a wonderful party, on credit. Let our grandchildren pay for it. In the meantime, the politicians that gave you your every desire would benefit from your appreciation. One of the most expensive gifts they gave us was a military that costs more than those of all other countries on Earth combined. Boy, did we feel macho.

Reagan called himself a conservative. Milton Freeman called himself a conservative. Authur Laffer called himself a conservative. All of the politicians who flocked to Ronnie’s banner called themselves conservatives. Actually, none of them had the foggiest idea of what the word meant. Calling themselves conservative didn’t make it so. They were frauds. They were imposters. They were Fagins. Conservative was just a useful label.

We enjoyed the party. We looked at the numbers they wanted us to look at. We ignored the fact that two-income families were now earning less in real terms than single-income families used to enjoy. We bought but didn’t actually pay for things we hadn’t realized we needed. We heard others complain of their jobs being shipped overseas. So, that’s bad but it really wouldn’t hurt us.

We couldn’t ignore but did manage to give only cursory attention to the fact that Saudi Arabia, China and others technically owned us. After all, they couldn’t do anything about it without destroying their own economies. Let them eat rice cakes, with oil.

It is obvious that we had to increase our savings rate. We have to control our spending. But doing so means less need for the things and services people sell. That translates to fewer jobs. We cannot get around the fact that it means delaying the recovery. That means the misery this country is experiencing is far from over.

Surprise! We have to pay for our profligacy. They lied to us. We have misbehaved and have to suffer the consequences.

We could rev the economy up as Wall Street is revving up their ‘numbers.’ That would shorten the misery, for now. It would make it worse the next time though.

The necessity is for us to survive. That means jobs. But, the private sector can’t provide them, certainly not enough of them. That leaves the government. That means that the government has to create jobs. They built sewer systems. They built roads. They built much of the infrastructure that, after more than 70 years, is crumbling all around us. Should we ask the private sector to be real nice and replace our infrastructure, since they eventually would be unable to function without it?

My dad survived for a period because of the WPA. It gave him a breathing spell. He then figured that everyone had to eat and, with the WPA, there was at least some money in people’s pockets, so he started his own grocery store. It wasn’t being a History professor. It wasn’t his dream, but it meant he survived, even thrived, and provided for his family. Without the WPA you might not be benefiting from my blog.

If and when we ever get the economy rolling again, it can provide the means to pay off the debt, if we insist the politicians actually learn. It isn’t easy. It isn’t quick. It isn’t punishment for being good. Rather, we must behave ourselves for an extended period, to atone for nearly 30 years of partying.

p.s.

My apologies for such a long period since my last post. Illness, a funeral and travel kept me occupied for some of the time. Frustration at the national comedy and anger at a sewage dump named Kiffin left me unmotivated for a while. I think I’m getting back up to speed.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.

Roger Lowenstein is the author. He states the case well and doesn’t need me to interpret for him.

His advice will likely go against everything you have been told on this subject. So, what? You were told that for someone else’s benefit.

John Courson, president and C.E.O. of the Mortgage Bankers Association, recently told The Wall Street Journal that homeowners who default on their mortgages should think about the “message” they will send to “their family and their kids and their friends.”

Courson was implying that homeowners — record numbers of whom continue to default — have a responsibility to make good. He wasn’t referring to the people who have no choice, who can’t afford their payments. He was speaking about the rising number of folks who are voluntarily choosing not to pay.

Such voluntary defaults are a new phenomenon. Time was, Americans would do anything to pay their mortgage — forgo a new car or a vacation, even put a younger family member to work. But the housing collapse left 10.7 million families owing more than their homes are worth. So some of them are making a calculated decision to hang onto their money and let their homes go. Is this irresponsible?

Businesses — in particular Wall Street banks — make such calculations routinely. Morgan Stanley recently decided to stop making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. A Morgan Stanley fund purchased the buildings at the height of the boom, and their value has plunged. Nobody has said Morgan Stanley is immoral — perhaps because no one assumed it was moral to begin with. But the average American, as if sprung from some Franklinesque mythology, is supposed to honor his debts, or so says the mortgage industry as well as government officials.

Former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. declared that “any homeowner who can afford his mortgage payment but chooses to walk away from an underwater property is simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.” (Paulson presumably was not so censorious of speculation during his 32-year career at Goldman Sachs.)

The moral suasion has continued under President Obama, who has urged that homeowners follow the “responsible” course. Indeed, HUD-approved housing counselors are supposed to counsel people against foreclosure. In many cases, this means counseling people to throw away money. Brent White, a University of Arizona law professor, notes that a family who bought a three-bedroom home in Salinas, Calif., at the market top in 2006, with no down payment (then a common-enough occurrence), could theoretically have to wait 60 years to recover their equity. On the other hand, if they walked, they could rent a similar house for a pittance of their monthly mortgage.

There are two reasons why so-called strategic defaults have been considered antisocial and perhaps amoral. One is that foreclosures depress the neighborhood and drive down prices. But in a market society, since when are people responsible for the economic effects of their actions? Every oil speculator helps to drive up gasoline prices. Every hedge fund that speculated against a bank by purchasing credit-default swaps on its bonds signaled skepticism about the bank’s creditworthiness and helped to make it more costly for the bank to borrow, and thus to issue loans. We are all economic pinballs, insensibly colliding for better or worse.

The other reason is that default (supposedly) debases the character of the borrower. Once, perhaps, when bankers held onto mortgages for 30 years, they occupied a moral high ground. These days, lenders typically unload mortgages within days (or minutes). And not just in mortgage finance, but in virtually every realm of our transaction-obsessed society, the message is that enduring relationships count for less than the value put on assets for sale.

Think of private-equity firms that close a factory — essentially deciding that the company is worth more dead than alive. Or the New York Yankees and their World Series M.V.P. Hideki Matsui, who parted company as soon as the cheering stopped. Or money-losing hedge-fund managers: rather than try to earn back their investors’ lost capital, they start new funds so they can rake in fresh incentives.

Sam Zell, a billionaire, let the Tribune Company, which he had previously acquired, file for bankruptcy. Indeed, the owners of any company that defaults on bonds and chooses to let the company fail rather than invest more capital in it are practicing “strategic default.” Banks signal their complicity with this ethos when they send new credit cards to people who failed to stay current on old ones.

Mortgage holders do sign a promissory note, which is a promise to pay. But the contract explicitly details the penalty for nonpayment — surrender of the property. The borrower isn’t escaping the consequences; he is suffering them.

In some states, lenders also have recourse to the borrowers’ unmortgaged assets, like their car and savings accounts. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond found that defaults are lower in such states, apparently because lenders threaten the borrowers with judgments against their assets. But actual lawsuits are rare.

And given that nearly a quarter of mortgages are underwater, and that 10 percent of mortgages are delinquent, White, of the University of Arizona, is surprised that more people haven’t walked. He thinks the desire to avoid shame is a factor, as are overblown fears of harm to credit ratings. Probably, homeowners also labor under a delusion that their homes will quickly return to value.

White has argued that the government should stop perpetuating default “scare stories” and, indeed, should encourage borrowers to default when it’s in their economic interest. This would correct a prevailing imbalance: homeowners operate under a “powerful moral constraint” while lenders are busily trying to maximize profits.

More important, it might get the system unstuck. If lenders feared an avalanche of strategic defaults, they would have an incentive to renegotiate loan terms. In theory, this could produce a wave of loan modifications — the very goal the Treasury has been pursuing to end the crisis.

No one says defaulting on a contract is pretty or that, in a perfectly functioning society, defaults would be the rule. But to put the onus for restraint on ordinary homeowners seems rather strange. If the Mortgage Bankers Association is against defaults, its members, presumably the experts in such matters, might take better care not to lend people more than their homes are worth.

Roger Lowenstein, an outside director of the Sequoia Fund, is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. His book “The End of Wall Street” is coming out in April.

Just one final fact: 65% of all residential mortgages in Nevada are under water.

I hope this helped.

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©2010 The Couth Hillbilly. All Rights Reserved.