Yes, you. You are the enemy.

Actually, it’s not you. It’s nothing personal. It’s your attempts to exercize those Constitutional rights you used to have.

With me, it is personal. I was once a commissioner of police. One of my grandfathers was a sheriff; the other was a chief of police. In tracing my ancestry I discovered several family members that served as sheriffs, even extending back to England.

One day my chief was speaking with one of our citizens. The person said to his child that he better behave or the police would come to get him. The chief admonished him not to engender fear of police in his child.

He stated that the police were there to serve and protect citizens. They were his friend. That lesson stuck with me but, today, that lesson seemingly has been largely lost.

What happened? Those riot cops don’t look all that friendly. They have been immitating the military, in both equipment and attitude.

They see themselves as being immune from the laws that give them warrant. They seem to be more the army of an invading enemy than our protectors.

This past year they have been more frequently the agents of disorder, rather than those seeking to exercise their rights of assembly, speech and petitioning for redress.

How many incidents just this past year have produced video for the media of unprovoked assault of peaceable, unarmed fellow citizens? It took several days before the media admitted there was a story.

Those imaginary liberal media, you know, the ones owned by super-conservative mega-corporations, waited until the “law enforcement” proved they didn’t know how to play bridge legally.

Do these policemen feel themselves in jeopardy? Are these the perpetrators of violence from whom we are being protected? Who is out of control? Who is menacing whom? Who is trashing the Constitution?

Once there was the occasional Rodney King atrocity. Now, almost every city with an Occupy presence seemed to be using the same handbook. The problem was, as a few courts reminded them, that these were citizens with rights, not their spouse’s paramours.

I was taught to respect the police. I complied, because I generally saw them as deserving that respect. Of late, I have had my doubts.

The Police Union?

The Occupy Wall Street movement is aimed at those responsible for, among other things, gambling away the retirement funds of untold millions. A large segment of those lost retirement funds belonged to unions and their membership. It was natural, therefore, that the labor unions supported the Occupy movement.

There was one little problem that nagged at me. The Wall Street casinos had also gambled away the retirement funds of the police unions. Surely, they weren’t stupid enough to support those who stole from them against their fellow victims. That’s just what they did. But, why?

My wife has a cousin who is a state legislator. He is also a captain of the fire department and former state president of their union. I asked for his take on why they would be so ready to break the law and violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow Americans, particularly their fellow unionists fighting for redress for them as well.

Mike admitted that the police union had almost always been a thorn in the side of the union movement. They see themselves as special. They see themselves as a breed apart. That seems in tune with the ‘law unto themselves’ demeanor that is far too frequently apparent.

As commissioner of a small town police force back in the 1970s, I never had to deal with that bullying attitude that fellow commsioners often lamented. I was aware that the profession particularly appeals to that mentality but had no first-hand experience in dealing with it. It is not by any means universal but it has always been there and seems to have grown into a significant problem of late.

Is This What a Free County Looks Like?

It’s difficult to watch a video of New York City’s phoniest and correlate that with the memories of those who served our city, or the respect, even love, shown my grandfather when I was a kid.

One grandfather died before I was born but the chief of police was also the city manager and in charge of the water department. He was more than fully employed during the Great Depression. One day he saw a man with some of his kids. They were all barefoot. He told the man to gather up the rest of his kids and bought them all shoes.

It had been payday. When my grandfather got home, my grandmother was waiting for the pay envelope. He finally admitted that he had bought shoes for the guy’s 8 kids. She reminded him that he also had 8 kids to provide for. He may have been in trouble at home but his kind of bond with the community won’t show up on the local news in Manhattan.

Okay. So things change. But, now all police misbehavior is excused as necessary. Homeland Security says so. Whatever fails to come under that umbrella, is serious enough to invoke the Patriot Act. I find the title ironic for a statute that violates so much of the Constitution.

You don’t need a copy of the Constitution if you have pepper spray, a helmet with face shield, jack boots, a big gun, body armor and an attitude. Are the police just simple minded or bullies. I think many are complex enough to qualify on both counts. If they were rational, acting on behalf of their own self-interest and devoted to upholding the law and the Constitution, they would be joining the protestors, not harassing them.

As a former foreign correspondent, I found the following interesting. Last week an international group that ranks press freedom around the world released their report for last year. Thanks primarily to the beatings, incarceration and other means of interference with the press with regards to the Occupy movement, the U.S. dropped from 20^th to 47^th.

Maybe it’s just one more of the burdens of getting old. You have a memory to compare with the present. I find it impossible nowadays to think of this as a country as free as the one I grew up in.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

What caused the debt? That sounds like an easy question. Could that be the problem?

One would hope that our “leaders” could get their arms around a simple question. Well, apparently we never learn.

The short-bus riders on The Hill are pretending to deal with what to do about the debt. It seems logical to ask the question in the title of this article before addressing any possible solutions. Knowing how you got here might be helpful in finding your way back.

Back to the initial debt question.

Even conservative economists acknowledge the role the tax cuts of the early aughts played in eliminating the surplus and creating a major portion of the debt. No rocket science required. No dispute, except among those who prefer playing politics and maintaining “Their” seat in Congress.

Rule of thumb: If a politician considers his career more important than the well-being of the people or the country, he/she does not belong in any public office.

Should American corporations enjoy loopholes that let them snub their noses at our country? Other countries aren’t so considerate. They use our government’s protection, services, infrastructure, airports, ports, education of their employees and enjoy other benefits of being and operating in our country.

Over two-thirds of the largest paid no corporate tax. They are freeloaders. They are parasites. And, many still get subsidies. Even some foreign corporations have discovered how to do the same. That means that you are paying their way. It means you are subsidizing them to send our jobs overseas and pay taxes to other countries. It’s difficult to fully appreciate your generosity.

Our glorious new Secretary of Wars is visiting our money in Iraq and Afghanistan. He tells us that we are close to defeating al-Qaeda. After only 10 years and we are close to defeating them? All 24 of them? Why not throw in another couple of hundred thousand and finish them within this decade?

They tell us they are drawing down a couple of squads this year from the 100,000-plus US troops over there. Why didn’t they mention our mercenary forces? They actually outnumber our troops. Whatever, I have been told in the utmost of secrecy that those military operations added somewhat to our present debt.

The oil industry needs subsidies? Enough said.

There have been various other expenses. We average consuming 170 pounds of sugar every year for every man, woman, child in this country. Aren’t we sweet? But, that just isn’t enough. Somehow, that industry just can’t survive without my pocket change. Ooops! They do survive without it. They get some of that Chinese money that puts us in debt.

If it were only the sweet guys. But, no. You either don’t have enough fingers and toes to count those struggling to get by on corporate welfare, or you belong in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum.

Luckily, I already had 3 years of Chinese language courses in grad school. I can beg in their native tongue.

Cargill, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), Land O’Lakes, Monsanto, Dole, Chiquita, Perdue Farms. These are needy family farmers that can’t afford to increase their fleets of corporate jets as much as they would like unless you go deeper into debt. Please, consider helping your neighborhood agricorp.

One more biggie; the drug lords. Medicare Part D. That needn’t cost the government any money, except they agreed to refrain from negotiating with the pushers and pay whatever their asking price is. Medicare is much larger than the Veterans’ Administration. They could have a lot more bargaining weight than the VA, which pays half as much as Medicare.

So, where do we cut?

That’s easy. First you cut Medicare and Social Security. Why? Because old geezers don’t need no stinking private jets, or sufficient and decent food (cat food is cheap and convenient), or full doses of their meds. They can move in with their kids. If those kids are unemployed they can squeeze out a little to help with the mortgage.

Neither Medicare (except Part D) nor Social Security has added a single nickel (or yuán 元) to the national debt. They are paid completely from taxpayer contributions via the payroll tax. Both are, and have been, running large surpluses. Those surpluses are projected to disappear in the future; Medicare, in about 12 years, or so. Social Security in several decades. Whatever, neither has contributed to our present debt problem.

We can save a few farthings by cutting the funding to such frills as air traffic control, highway maintenance, matching funds to states and local governments for practically everything they do (cops on the beat, firemen on pumpers, education, etc.), courts, passports, parks, prisons, paychecks for the troops we claim to support, the FBI, airport security, medical research, subsidies to hospitals and too many more to list.

The President says the Social Security checks may not go out on time next month. I might get upset if they decide not to send my Social Security checks. The IRS charges penalties if my taxes are late. Does anyone have any ideas about what size of a penalty I should impose?

Are our “leaders” serious? Are they planning and preparing for any of those doomsday scenarios that  are no longer unthinkable? Since it has never happened before, we really can only guess at what we will face. No. They are not planning and preparing. No. They are not serious.

Pay Up.

That first item I mentioned as playing a major role in creating our present mess needs revisiting. We have the lowest income tax rates in more than 60 years. Low taxes means the creation of jobs, so we are told. Then why are we creating the fewest jobs of the last 6 decades in the decade since the latest tax cuts? Because that old saw is a lie. With all of the misinformation, ideological nonsense and other lies getting the attention of the media, it’s time to cut through the BS and look at the realities.

For real? That’s the top marginal rates for the wealthiest taxpayers? Actually, not. That fails to take into consideration two fairly important factors. The wealthy have more deductions than those seniors without a private jet (by the way, those jets are deductible). They have so many it pays them to compensate CPAs and tax attorneys very well to make sure they don’t miss any.

The other factor is that most of the wealthiest don’t work for most of their income. They let their money work for them. That’s called capital gains. That little scam is taxed at less than working for a living. The capital gains tax rate is only 15%. Money gets a nice little benefit when it works. You don’t when you work.

You might be interested in a couple of further points about the other countries listed on these graphs. First, surveys have shown that the citizens of each of those countries are significantly happier with their lives than are Americans. Second, the overwhelming majority in each of those countries prefer their health care system to the American system. Are we missing something?

But, Mitch McConnell just repeated on the tube, with 9.2% unemployment, it isn’t the time to raise taxes, particularly on those poor benighted job creators. Well, have I got news for you. All of those other countries in the graph above that have much higher taxes, are all also doing better with employment. Look for yourself.

Note: Since this graph was constructed US unemployment has increased .5%. The others are the same or lower.

Social Security and Medicare are entitlements. We are entitled because we pay for them and were promised, by law, that we would receive them.

So, our “leaders” decide to make those who are entitled to be paid bear the burden while those who are not entitled cavort in their private jets and enjoy unconscionable incomes and subsidies. The 400 wealthiest are worth as much as 150,000,000 Americans on the other end. Yet, many pay no income tax.

We partied on a credit card for the past 30 years and the loudest voices scream for more tax cuts. I’m getting just a mite upset with some of my fellow Americans for wanting more tax cuts so we can consume our way out of debt, while damning everyone but themselves for the debt and proclaiming their patriotism. The new American motto seems to be, “No pain, just gain.”

I was not totally into the celebrations of this 4^th of July. I am not quite in the mood to lead everyone in a chorus of, I’m Proud to Be an American.

Will our honorable representatives treat us fairly? Surely, you jest. I’m inclined to agree with Jay Leno, “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.”

. .

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Simon Johnson last week wrote a piece for the New York Times. His contention is that the fiscal conservatives, Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats and others, cannot, in his words, be taken seriously.

I share that sentiment. I also share his fear that they will define the debate.

Fiscal Austerity and America’s Future

By Simon Johnson

There are three main views of the financial crisis and the most recent recession. In the first two views, the debate over the fiscal deficit is quite separate from what happened in the crisis.  But in the third view, the financial crisis and likelihood of fiscal austerity are closely linked.

The first is that something went wrong with the financial plumbing central to the world’s economy. Failed plumbing is a serious business, of course — great real estate can be ruined by a burst pipe. But it’s a technical issue; nothing deeper is at stake.

The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation ended up addressing a myriad of technical issues. Clearly, “fix the plumbing” is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s interpretation of what we need to do – he insists that making the system safer just requires “capital, capital, capital.” Note, however, that the leading global experts on capital think that the Treasury’s specific approach is wrong-headed, not making progress and likely to lead us into great danger.

The second view is that the financial system is more deeply broken.

Opinions vary in terms of the relative importance of various elements, including too-big-to-fail incentive problems that encourage banks to take on excessive risks — and to be supported by the credit markets when they do take on these excessive risks.

Both focus primarily on the nature of the financial system, somewhat in isolation from the rest of the economy.  But a third view is increasingly emerging that implies both the first two views are too narrow.

The first and second views are mutually exclusive – either our financial system is badly broken, or it is not and technical fixes will suffice. But a third view increasingly challenges the first view even more deeply, and may end up incorporating or subsuming the second view.

This deeper critique is posed probably in its sharpest form by Arianna Huffington in her new book, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream (in the spirit of disclosure, let me note that I am a contributing business editor at The Huffington Post). Her point is that we should not think of the last financial crisis in isolation, but rather as the outcome of a longer-run pattern of behavior.

Excessive consumer debt is an outcome of prolonged inequality – in trying to remain middle class, too many people borrowed too much, while unscrupulous lenders were only too willing to take advantage of such people.

Raghu Rajan, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary, also have new books with related themes that link persistent inequality of income to the onset of financial crisis through various mechanisms. Mr. Rajan’s Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy is more about the global economy (and overspending at the level of the American economy); Mr. Reich’s Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future focuses on the social and political impact of the crisis (and why, without addressing inequality, our financial problems will recur).

The distribution of income in the United States is undoubtedly becoming more unequal. Specifically, over recent decades, it has become harder for people with only a high-school education to build a secure middle-class future for their families.

We can argue about proximate causes, including the relative roles of new technology and globalization, but there is no question that unionized jobs, well-paying assembly-line work and prosperous small-business niches have all tended to disappear.

The financial crisis may be behind us, but the link to the likely intense debate this fall regarding fiscal policy is direct. We are told that fiscal austerity requires outright and immediate further cuts in the benefits previously promised to people at the federal, state and local level.

Never mind that this is simply not true — at least in the form currently presented. A vocal class of people — including some at the upper end of the income distribution – incessantly insist that entitlements must be cut while refusing to address the real causes of both our recent surge in government debt (the financial crisis, caused by perverse incentives in the financial system) and the genuine longer-term issues we face (which are about controlling the future increase in health care costs, not cutting the level of benefits today).

Editor’s Note: Here is one example. Does it seem a bit convenient that all “conservative” solutions boil down to two strategies? One is to cut taxes, heavily tilted toward the wealthy. The other is to cut benefits, tilted exclusively toward the poor and middle class.

The poor and middle class pay a higher percentage of their incomes for Social Security and they pay an overwhelming percentage of the total amount. Somehow, something that the poor and middle class pays for gets translated into welfare. It becomes a target for cutting of benefits.

Scaremongers speak of Social Security as though it is in imminent danger of total collapse. The facts are otherwise. It will continue to generate a surplus until 2027. That surplus will pay full benefits until about 2070. The only adjustment needed to extend that indefinitely is to eliminate the break that the wealthy presently enjoy by not paying the full FICA tax.

The self-described fiscal conservatives really cannot be taken seriously. In the financial reform debate, they either didn’t show up or preferred to keep the existing system in place, and they refuse to put serious health cost control measures on the table.

If the “conservatives” don’t really want to reduce the shocks that have caused government debt to explode recently — or to deal with the underlying, longstanding health care cost issues in a reasonable fashion — what exactly is going on?

That’s a question they should answer for themselves, and hopefully they will be pressed on this in public debates during the campaign for November’s elections. But there is a striking similarity between the longstanding stated intention to “starve the beast” (meaning to press for reduction in government by creating binding constraints, like a perceived crisis) and what we are seeing play out today.

And there is very real danger that this strategy will work, in the sense that the contours of a coming “fiscal crisis” — what will be discussed and how the issues are framed — will largely be structured by scaremongers who wish to cut pensions and health care benefits for middle Americans in the years ahead and who will work hard to keep meaningful tax reform off the table.

People who push for this view are not being fiscally responsible, and they are well down the road to exacerbating developing world-type problems in the United States – and to creating the conditions for another financial crisis.

Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of 13 Bankers.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Is it a miracle or just a coincidence? In my last article I made mention of David Stockman. The very next day he shows up with an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times.

For any of you who either were not old enough or not interested enough to pay attention at the time, David was Reagan’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget. More than that, he was that administration’s economics guru.

For those of you with little faith in my mastery of the joke known as economics, here comes a Republican trying to catch up. Not just any Republican, mind you. This is Ronny’s own personal point man; the Superman of Supply-Side; the Titan of Trickle-Down.

Below I have provided his opinion piece in its entirety. He has come a long way but has yet to complete his journey to reality. Therefore, I have interspersed a few of my own observations for your elucidation.

July 31, 2010
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse

By DAVID STOCKMAN
How my Republican Party destroyed the American economy.

If there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase.

Today’s, older but wiser, David fails to point out that the increase is the result of Bush’s tactics, represents the same rate as under Clinton and is lower than the Reagan and Bush I rates.

More fundamentally, Mr. McConnell’s stand puts the lie to the Republican pretense that its new monetarist and supply-side doctrines are rooted in its traditional financial philosophy. Republicans used to believe that prosperity depended upon the regular balancing of accounts — in government, in international trade, on the ledgers of central banks and in the financial affairs of private households and businesses, too. But the new catechism, as practiced by Republican policymakers for decades now, has amounted to little more than money printing and deficit finance — vulgar Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes.

He blames it on Republican policymakers “for decades now.” Presumably, that includes his tenure of 1981-1985. He played a key role in developing and promoting the myths he now decries. As for his use of the word Keynesianism, we must give him some latitude, as, for much of his career it has been one of a conservative’s favorite profanities. That has apparently kept him from understanding just what Keynes meant. To oversimplify, old John Maynard meant that when the economy was in need of help that it was acceptable to incur debt for purposes of stimulus. He did not expect Reagan, Stockman and the entire Republican hierarchy to use debt to buy votes, even during the economic ups.

This approach has not simply made a mockery of traditional party ideals. It has also led to the serial financial bubbles and Wall Street depredations that have crippled our economy. More specifically, the new policy doctrines have caused four great deformations of the national economy, and modern Republicans have turned a blind eye to each one.

The first of these started when the Nixon administration defaulted on American obligations under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement to balance our accounts with the world. Now, since we have lived beyond our means as a nation for nearly 40 years, our cumulative current-account deficit — the combined shortfall on our trade in goods, services and income — has reached nearly $8 trillion. That’s borrowed prosperity on an epic scale.

That period of 40 years of which he speaks puts him in the center of all of this economic misbehavior. As for Nixon’s ad hoc expedient of letting the Dollar float, it was in part a necessary move but, as Stockman implies, left room for considerable shenanigans. As shown by the graphs in my last article, Lie To Me, they filled that room.

It is also an outcome that Milton Friedman said could never happen when, in 1971, he persuaded President Nixon to unleash on the world paper dollars no longer redeemable in gold or other fixed monetary reserves. Just let the free market set currency exchange rates, he said, and trade deficits will self-correct.

Oh, Milton, Milton, Milton, that demigod of economics, the one most responsible for foisting the hallucinations of the Chicago School of Economics onto our already overburdened shoulders. They forgot, if they ever knew, just what criteria must be met to have a free market. There was no free market in currency exchanges. The kindest words we could offer is that they were so encumbered by their ideological cocoon, so protected from reality, that they really thought a free market existed.

It may be true that governments, because they intervene in foreign exchange markets, have never completely allowed their currencies to float freely. But that does not absolve Friedman’s $8 trillion error. Once relieved of the discipline of defending a fixed value for their currencies, politicians the world over were free to cheapen their money and disregard their neighbors.

In fact, since chronic current-account deficits result from a nation spending more than it earns, stringent domestic belt-tightening is the only cure. Stockman continues to be so tied to the ideology that he thinks austerity is the answer even when the economy is down. FDR learned that lesson in 1937 when backing off of a Keynesian stimulus put the economy into a recession inside the depression. When the dollar was tied to fixed exchange rates, politicians were willing to administer the needed castor oil, because the alternative was to make up for the trade shortfall by paying out reserves, and this would cause immediate economic pain — from high interest rates, for example. But now there is no discipline, only global monetary chaos as foreign central banks run their own printing presses at ever faster speeds to sop up the tidal wave of dollars coming from the Federal Reserve.

The second unhappy change in the American economy has been the extraordinary growth of our public debt. In 1970 it was just 40 percent of gross domestic product, or about $425 billion. When it reaches $18 trillion, it will be 40 times greater than in 1970. This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.

Remember, the bulk of this debt was incurred during the economic ups. Also, the 3 decades ago puts it at the beginning of his tenure.

In 1981, traditional Republicans supported tax cuts, matched by spending cuts, to offset the way inflation was pushing many taxpayers into higher brackets and to spur investment. The Reagan administration’s hastily prepared fiscal blueprint, however, was no match for the primordial forces — the welfare state and the warfare state — that drive the federal spending machine.

The traditional Republicans wanted matching spending cuts but not the Reagan Republicans. That’s why it was referred to as the Reagan Revolution. Remember who was the economic general during Reagan’s first term. Once again, David is trying to deflect the blame to others. Also, he has to get in a few licks on entitlements, even though he elsewhere speaks of deficits caused by tax cutting. It reminds me of Reagan blaming the Chicago welfare queen who picked up her check in a Cadillac but never really existed. The 80s were vintage years for political fiction.

Soon, the neocons were pushing the military budget skyward. And the Republicans on Capitol Hill who were supposed to cut spending exempted from the knife most of the domestic budget — entitlements, farm subsidies, education, water projects. But in the end it was a new cadre of ideological tax-cutters who killed the Republicans’ fiscal religion.

I can’t fault him on that paragraph.

Through the 1984 election, the old guard earnestly tried to control the deficit, rolling back about 40 percent of the original Reagan tax cuts. But when, in the following years, the Federal Reserve chairman, Paul Volcker, finally crushed inflation, enabling a solid economic rebound, the new tax-cutters not only claimed victory for their supply-side strategy but hooked Republicans for good on the delusion that the economy will outgrow the deficit if plied with enough tax cuts.

I find it interesting that, although the true believers give credit to Reagan for bringing inflation under control and enabling a solid rebound, the primary insider credits Paul Volcker, you know, the one Geithner and Summers are trying to push out of Obama’s line of sight.

By fiscal year 2009, the tax-cutters had reduced federal revenues to 15 percent of gross domestic product, lower than they had been since the 1940s. Then, after rarely vetoing a budget bill and engaging in two unfinanced foreign military adventures, George W. Bush surrendered on domestic spending cuts, too — signing into law $420 billion in non-defense appropriations, a 65 percent gain from the $260 billion he had inherited eight years earlier. Republicans thus joined the Democrats in a shameless embrace of a free-lunch fiscal policy.

True.

The third ominous change in the American economy has been the vast, unproductive expansion of our financial sector. Here, Republicans have been oblivious to the grave danger of flooding financial markets with freely printed money and, at the same time, removing traditional restrictions on leverage and speculation. As a result, the combined assets of conventional banks and the so-called shadow banking system (including investment banks and finance companies) grew from a mere $500 billion in 1970 to $30 trillion by September 2008.

But the trillion-dollar conglomerates that inhabit this new financial world are not free enterprises. They are rather wards of the state, extracting billions from the economy with a lot of pointless speculation in stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. They could never have survived, much less thrived, if their deposits had not been government-guaranteed and if they hadn’t been able to obtain virtually free money from the Fed’s discount window to cover their bad bets.

I get the distinct impression that he shares my concern that this is the area of greatest danger. He fails, however, to note that most of the new “money” being circulated is not printed. It is “created” by banks loaning money they do not actually have. They used to loan 5, then 10, dollars for every dollar they actually had. It is hard to accurately measure but appears now to be north of 50 to one for the biggest players.

The fourth destructive change has been the hollowing out of the larger American economy. Having lived beyond our means for decades by borrowing heavily from abroad, we have steadily sent jobs and production offshore. In the past decade, the number of high-value jobs in goods production and in service categories like trade, transportation, information technology and the professions has shrunk by 12 percent, to 68 million from 77 million. The only reason we have not experienced a severe reduction in nonfarm payrolls since 2000 is that there has been a gain in low-paying, often part-time positions in places like bars, hotels and nursing homes.

This is probably the area most resistant to reversal.

It is not surprising, then, that during the last bubble (from 2002 to 2006) the top 1 percent of Americans — paid mainly from the Wall Street casino — received two-thirds of the gain in national income, while the bottom 90 percent — mainly dependent on Main Street’s shrinking economy — got only 12 percent. This growing wealth gap is not the market’s fault. It’s the decaying fruit of bad economic policy.

The day of national reckoning has arrived. We will not have a conventional business recovery now, but rather a long hangover of debt liquidation and downsizing — as suggested by last week’s news that the national economy grew at an anemic annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. Under these circumstances, it’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach — balanced budgets, sound money and financial discipline — is needed more than ever.

First, I notice he sees the Wall Street institutions as casinos, as I have for so long. His improved vision, vis-a-vis the Reagan Republican economic ideology, despite his failure to admit to his role, should have given him some level of acceptance of Keynes. However, you’ve come a long way baby . . . it’s just that he was so far on the wrong track that he still has a long way to go.

David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, is working on a book about the financial crisis.

The book is certain to be interesting to economists and psychologists but you will get a better understanding of the subject from this blog, and it’s free. Anyway, if David can move that far in the “right” direction, there continues to be a modicum of hope for our survival.

Please note that the pre-Reagan conservatives are in many regards far closer to my so-called progressive position than to those who today claim to be conservative. Although he tried to shift to Nixon more blame than is probably deserved, when thinking of what conservative means, remember that Nixon hung the portrait of his favorite president in a prominent place in the Oval Office. Who would ever guess that it was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Believe. Regardless of what the facts are, believe.

Have you heard about the Democratic tax increase? Or, maybe they called it the Obama tax increase.

What, exactly, are they talking about? They are talking about George W. Bush’s tax increase. Bush’s? How can that be?

Bush said that, as a result of the downturn attributed to 9-11, we needed to stimulate the economy; create more jobs.

His solution? Tax cuts. Surprise. Surprise.

When Bush and his Republican Senate and House passed the tax cut they knew that there would be a tax increase on January 1^st of 2011. That makes it their tax increase, no one else’s.

Probably the most offensive aspect of the effort to extend Bush’s tax cuts is the hypocrisy of its supporters. Many congressmen are claiming that the reason they voted against an extension of unemployment benefits is because the bill contained no budget cuts to offset the cost. What were the costs? About $30 billion.

Sure, $30 billion is a lot of money but the human costs of cutting the lifeline of the unemployed is impossible to tally. Well, surely these fiscal conservatives also want budget cuts to offset the loss of revenue. I’m sorry. They don’t. After all, the tax cuts will only come to about $1.7 trillion by 2014. You probably should also include interest payments. That puts the costs at about $2 trillion. Of course, there is no guarantee that the tax cuts would end in 2014.

I’ve said this before and I will continue saying it until everyone understands: there are no such things as tax cuts if they create debt. They are merely deferments. They shift the burden to others. Because of interest, they cost more than stated, as in the last paragraph.

The consensus among economists is that there are far more effective ways to stimulate the economy. So, Bush said we will give the significant cuts to the top two percent. Why? Because everyone knows that they are the ones who create jobs. I’m sorry. For some reason I got left out of that “everyone.” I think the reason for my absence can be attributed to my familiarity with the facts.

Stimulating the economy is most effective when the funds are targeted at the areas most in need of attention and where the return is greatest. Where did those $250 refunds go from the last stimulus? The biggest slice went to paying down credit card debt. Paying down your debt is commendable but hardly stimulative. Most the the rest did go for consumption. Admittedly, that helped stimulate the economy. The problem is that the economy that was most stimulated was China’s.

The aspects of the tax cuts that are the points of contention are the marginal tax rates in the two top brackets: over $209,250 and over $373,650. At the point of the first, the rate would be 3% for everything between those two amounts. Above the later, the increase would be 3.6%. Those increases are only on taxable income. No one pays tax on their entire income. The wealthier you are, the greater the likelihood of being able to take advantage of a mass of deductions.

In fact, the reality is that few making as little as half a million a year will pay as much as $5,000, if any in extra taxes. In terms of what those congressmen consider wealthy you need to be considerably above that piddling amount. Just being in the top two percent doesn’t make you attractive enough to be a real friend.

Eighty percent of stock is owned by the top one percent. That makes you attractive.

If giving the plutocrats a tax break at your expense doesn’t benefit you by stimulating the economy, why would you support it? Because they tell you it creates jobs? It doesn’t.

Yeah, I know. Outgoing Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and others told a big enough lie that many believed it. The numbers they put out differed but Kay’s claim was that it created 8.1 million jobs. Maybe in China, but not here.

Even with the supposed jobs resulting from the tax cut, Bush, according to the Wall Street Journal, only managed about 3 million jobs created during his first 7 years. The number was 23 million during Clinton’s 8 years, without a stimulating tax cut. Bush’s final year saw an actual loss. The mess he left caused a loss of 8 million jobs over the last months of his administration and the first year of his successor.

But, you say, I’ve always heard that the wealthy are the ones who create jobs and the more money they have the more jobs they create. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? It seems to make sense, doesn’t it? Only if you think the economy is that simple and every wealthy person’s every waking moment is how to benefit those less financially fortunate.

No president since Herbert Hoover has created so few jobs as Junior while everyone since WWII has done it with higher tax rates on the top end. If a low tax rate on the wealthy is the key, how did presidents out-perform Bush when his top rate was 36% and theirs was 91%? In several comparisons, the higher the top marginal tax rate the greater the job creation. I don’t care if that is counter to the received truth that Junior read on those stone tablets or not.

Put the tax rates in perspective. Allowing the increases called for in Bush’s tax bill will put them back to where they were during the Clinton administration. They will still be less than they were under Reagan. Show me any proof that reducing taxes on the uber-wealthy creates jobs and I will let you borrow the Holy Grail that I possess. The Holy Grail may exist. I don’t know. But, I know the other doesn’t.

It may be a shock to some that, if you reduce revenue while you are in debt and running a deficit, you will have a larger debt. Look at this chart.

Okay, class. What do we see? The presidents responsible for the largest increases in our debt gave us the largest tax cuts deferments. They also created the fewest jobs.

Let’s review the claims of the fiscal conservatives. They say tax cuts for the wealthy creates jobs. Wrong. They say tax cuts generate more revenue than they cut. They say that tax cuts more than pay for themselves. Wrong. Not only do they not pay for themselves, they don’t even pay for the increased interest on the debt.

Do you remember David Stockman? He was Reagan’s economic guru. Remember Supply-side economics? Remember Trickle-down? Did you read David’s book – the one he wrote after he left the White House? He admitted that he and the other advisers knew at the time that it was all a sham. I think we have more than sufficient data now to support his contention.

The question is not why the fiscal conservatives continue to spout such nonsense. They are just trying to serve their masters. The real question is why is so much of the public still so gullible?

I have some partial answers. First, they don’t understand the issues. They think they do. But, that’s not quite the same. They say that it’s the philosophy on which this country was founded. Emphatically not true. They say it works. I’m going to tear out my hair. They think those saying it are telling the truth and share their values. I’m going to tear out your hair. No. No. No. No.

They lied. They are lying. They will continue to lie. It’s their job.

Do they care about you? You don’t have to be unemployed to grasp that they routinely vote against your interest. You just have to know the facts. Facts to them are like sunshine to a vampire. They are far more closely related to Kim Jong Il than to you and me.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

No. I’m not talking about a do-it-yourself lobotomy. I am, however, speaking of something with about the same level of difficulty – taking control of the government away from the oligarchs, the career politicians and the corporations.

That seems like a nice little project to keep us busy for a few weeks.

Am I a committed revolutionary? Am I a delusional idealist? Am I a disgruntled geezer? Well, . . .

First An Apology

It may appear that I have been among the missing for a couple of weeks. Life is messy. My wife fell and broke her arm in three places. An aunt died and a new granddaughter was born. An upgrade of the blogging software created some problems, for which a jury-rigged solution has been found.

Some may suspect that I harbor some tendencies usually described as OCD. I signed up for ancestry.com about 3 weeks ago. I have already exceeded 900 people on my own family tree and 465 on my wife’s. One strand has reached as far as 1370, to Salisbury, England, famed as the location of Stonehenge. I thought I remembered when we were building it.

I am writing this from Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee’s nicest state park. It may seem ill-advised to come to a place so named when my wife was the 6^th of 7 members of her family to fall within a period of less than 3 weeks. But, it’s her family’s annual reunion.

Back To Matters At Hand

It costs tons of money to keep getting reelected. Congressmen spend more time raising money for their reelection than for any other purpose. Who has the greatest amount of disposable funds? Corporations. You cannot help but feel an obligation to the one who owns you. You and I get left out of the game.

People say we can just vote them out. That’s theoretically true. However, the primary factor in how people vote is name recognition. Next comes party affiliation. Other factors include personality, looks and other such important considerations.

It would be nice to have legislation providing for term limits. That is not going to happen. The pigs will not limit their time at the trough.

First we need a simple stratagem. Then we need to identify our allies, actual and potential. These are key. Let’s take the latter first.

Enemies and Friends

The hue and cry of recent political campaigns has everyone thinking that the tea partiers are off to one side of the spectrum and the progressives are on the other. And never the twain shall meet. Hold on. Don’t jump to conclusions, particularly the obvious ones.

The political divisions that are generally accepted are artificial. They were designed to keep us busy chasing chimera. They were structured to ensure that there appeared to be no solution to our lack of power.

There are many possible political positions. Disagreements do not always mean that the parties to a disagreement are thereby mortal enemies. The powers-that-be have told you that these petty disagreements are of paramount consideration. This is untrue. This is done to distract you from the fact that we share, or should share, unifying principles that dwarf those that get our undies in a wad about.

With all of the matters over which we express dissention, we ignore the unifying element. And it is?

There is a basic division. There has been since the begnnings of civilization. There have been those with power and those who have been the victims of that power. Any progress on the spectrum of civilization is measured in terms of how much say-so the people have over their own fates.

Is the result of the exercise of power always bad? In the hands of one or a few, very seldom is it otherwise. Once upon a time there was an historian named John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, (1834–1902). He was known simply as Lord Acton. In a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887 he expressed a sentiment you have likely heard many times, at least in part: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. It is a difficult proposition to dispute.

You may use money to clothe your body, fill your belly, provide shelter or a trip to Disney World. But, how many clothes can one wear? How much can one eat. How many houses can you use? There are practical limits on how much money one can spend to provide the necessities. Even Bill Gates would have trouble spending all of his money on Mickey Mouse t-shirts and ears.

Corporations have even more money. When you have more than you can spend to gratify your needs and sate yourself in pleasure, you look for another outlet. That usually exhibits itself as a desire for power. Money can be converted to power.

There are quite a few wealthy people with infantile personalities who only see money as a means of keeping score in the silly little game they play. Most of these are found to gather around Wall Street. Those who are slightly more advanced crave power. It is also the sign of a stunted personality but marginally more complex than simple addition.

All developed societies also have a sub-class of people who have personality disorders centered around diseased egos. These people rarely have sufficient disposable funds to transmute into power but they are willing to grovel at the Berluti Rapiécés Reprisés- or Prada-clad feet of the self-styled Masters of the Universe. They are frequently called politicians; sometimes prostitutes.

The oligarchs, the corporations and the politicians are the enemy. Getting rid of the influence of the oligarchs and corporations simply requires ridding ourselves of the scourge of career politicians.

Who are our allies? Everyone else. You mean those funny people screaming at the politicians and cameras that  wear tea bags as earrings? You mean those bleeding-heart matrons and self-important college kids who should be studying? Yes and yes. How can that be?

Let’s get down to basics. It may be that the government is too big. It may be that the government is not doing enough for us. It may be both, but that is not the point. The point is not the size or involvement of the government.

The problem is that government is not responsive. It is not responsive to our needs or our wishes. It ignores us except for the incessant blather intended to rile us up or quiet us down, depending on the immediate needs of the masters or their flunkies.

It sometimes seems that almost everyone uses the term populist with their own special meaning. The media and many politicians spit it out as though it were some foul-tasting excrement. Some associate it with whatever  the unwashed are saying. Few ascribe to it any element of nobility.

There are two interest groups. The people and those who wish to exert power over the people. Populism is politics that favors the interests of the people. Politics that favors the interests of the other side are sometimes called corporatists. Benito Mussolini defined corporatism and fascism as the combination of corporate power with the power of the state.

Listen closely to the stances of the people who are the angriest. Anger reduces ones analytical powers. You see someone having been screwed out of his retirement savings by corporate thieves and/or financial parasites mouthing the talking points of the politicians and media mouths that owe their livelihoods to those selfsame thieves and parasites. Couched in colorful language, it is gobbled hook, line and sinker by its victim.

Oh. We need to leave it to the “free market.” As if they could define or recognize a free market, even if one existed. Prayer in the schools, sex education, anything to distract or manipulate the people. Those are not what we should be bothering with; certainly not being divided by. That is what the powers-that-be intend.

Hell, we have two major wars and numerous smaller fires that need to be put out. We have 10 million unemployed. We have an environmental and economic disaster in the Gulf. We have real problems while career politicians try to score points against each other instead of solving them.

Family purchasing power reached its peak in 1973. Even with a slight uptick in the 1990s, the trend for nearly 40 years has been down. Is that the fault of the Democrats or of the Republicans? Yes.

Since 1981 we have gone from the world’s biggest exporter of finished goods to the world’s largest importer; from largest importer of raw materials to the largest exporter. We have gone from the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation. Is that the fault of the Democrats or of the Republicans? Yes.

Is our infrastructure important to you? Do you know how old it is? Sink holes in Florida or steam pipes exploding on the streets of Manhattan, you have no idea where the next failure will happen. Who didn’t invest enough in infrastructure, Democrats or Republicans?

Who’s been screwing you? The corporations, the oligarchs, the politicians, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Tea Party, the liberals, the conservatives are all working very hard to screw you, and most of you aren’t even that attractive. The person out there under the banner of the Tea Party has much, much more in common with the college student who campaigned for Kucinich than either has with any of the corporatists or their flunkies.

The Strategy

Now that we know who our friends and enemies are, what do we do? How do we do it? It is even simpler than it sounds.

Vote against every incumbent. That means for the Senate, for the House of Representatives, for your state legislature, for judge, for sheriff, for city council, for county commission, for any position that attracts career politicians and is not term-limited. I did not list the presidency, as it is term-limited. The same is the case for governor of most states. You are more than welcome to vote against them too, but they are less critical.

Does that mean you should vote for a Democrat because there is a Republican in office? No. Vote for a different Republican in the primary, if you still believe it makes a difference. It is important to get incumbents out, regardless of the party.

Will this result in a different balance in the legislatures. Possibly. Probably, but not significantly, even if there were a real difference. Keeping or getting rid of a party is not the issue. Such thinking is based on the bull they have been feeding the public for generations.

Admittedly, it is, it will be, difficult to break the intellectual bonds but it is absolutely necessary. Keep focused on the goal, the real goal.

You may have a particular incumbent that you are fond of. He may deserve your positive feelings or he may not. It doesn’t matter. Are there any incumbents who can be described as good guys? Possibly. It doesn’t matter.

The purpose is not to get rid of the bad guys. The purpose is to change the way we do the public business. The purpose is to break the death grip that corporations have on the government. Will there be casualties? It is likely there will be a few nice guys lose an office. Is that vital? No, but accomplishing the goal is as vital to the survival of our society as any issue before us.

Even nice guys don’t own the seat they hold. We own it. We can find other nice guys to sit there.

There is another consideration here. While polls show public approval of the Congress to be in the teens, almost all incumbents are reelected. Why? Because it is easier to blame some faceless congressman from several states away. Your congressman has name recognition. He belongs to the right party for your area. He is probably personable. But, the odds are he has sold you out. You don’t really know. And, once again, it doesn’t matter. Get rid of him.

What this accomplishes is sending a message. We are the government. Elected officials must serve our interests. Failure to do so will guarantee replacement. Getting rid of even a few good guys will show that we are serious; we are united.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

The theme of this post is not as portentous as the title might lead you to believe.

Some of my local readers didn’t want to put their question on the blog. They didn’t want to appear dense. The problem was not theirs. It was entirely my fault.

They didn’t get the significance of the picture that accompanied my last post. I failed to explain; to make the connection.

There is the possibility that even my explanation will be inadequate but I hope that is not the case.

Let me explain.

My explanation here will make more sense if you have first read the previous post.

The subject of that post was ideologies and labels. Most people think that devotion to an ideology or a political label implies that they understand the meaning of what they have chosen to associate themselves with. They think it means others will see them as intelligent.

Actually, it means the opposite, at least in part. No ideology is sufficiently complex to really explain all of the variables, varieties and vagaries of the economy, the political landscape or human behavior. Despite the efforts put into the development and refinement of ideologies they are no more than extremely limited attempts to explain what the adherents think they understand. It is a shorthand for trying to convince oneself and others that they have found the Holy Grail.

Labels similarly fall short. There are, for instance, among the broad set of people identifying themselves as conservative, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, religious conservatives, foreign policy conservatives and every possible combination of those elements, which are less than precisely distinct anyway. Is one conservative no more than an ideological clone of all the rest? Obviously not. But still, one label is commonly used for all.

Even when you apply one label to yourself and another to someone with whom you disagree, you are, as in the picture, binding yourself to that other person. His or her positions have a great effect on yours. That person may be different in some respects but even holding different ideologies and labels in no way frees you from them.

Labels and ideologies allow you to think you understand yourself and that other person. It doesn’t. They allow you to accept or dismiss another complex human being. They allow you to eliminate thinking. More accurately, they keep you from thinking.

There is no such thing as absolute freedom. I would never promise that but I can offer you a significant increase of freedom. Liberate (if I may use that term in this context) yourself from ideologies and labels. Think. Actually look at the world, the issues, the people, yourself and try to evaluate them without resort to cant, argot, jingoism, jargon, dicta and dogma.

Am I promising that you will be able to always come up with the correct answer as I do? No. Your view of the world will still be affected to some extent by your past associations, the present and the future. You will still be limited by your resources and the effort you apply.

So, why bother? Because the freedom will surprise you. Because you will realize that neither you nor others necessarily have all the answers. That should lead you to being more tolerant of others. If you help it spread you might find that others are more tolerant of your erroneous ideas.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

First, let me reiterate my detestation for all ideologies and labels. To the extent that I use them in this post, it seems necessary and is for the convenience of the reader.

The imminent retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens highlights the problems caused by both. Stevens is commonly referred to as the most liberal Justice on the Supreme Court. He hates being so described.

Stevens was, and remains, a lifelong Republican. He was nominated by a Republican president, Gerald Ford in 1975. But, he and his retirement are just the impetus. This post is about far more.

Why is a Republican called the most liberal member of the Court? Well, it seems that terms such as liberal, conservative, left, right, capitalism, socialism, even populism are thrown around willy-nilly by people who think they know what these words mean.

The right of privacy is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution or its Amendments. However, through the years the Supreme Courts have firmly stated and reconfirmed that it is such a basic right that many other protections that are included would be meaningless without it. They have ruled that it is an implicit right.

Justice Stevens followed that tenet in his opinion in re the Patriot Act. The ‘conservative’ members of the Court just ignored their own claims of conserving the Constitution.

In the recent decision to give corporations free speech, Justice Stevens did something almost unheard of. He not only dissented; he actually read his dissent aloud in the courtroom. He felt that the Declaration and Constitution were clear in their intent when stating “We the People” and “government of, by and for the people.”

As Justice Stevens himself noted, with the single exception of Ruth Ginsburg, every departing member of the Court, since Stevens himself came aboard, was replaced by someone to his or her right.

I have written before of the Founding Fathers’ fear that corporations would destroy their work. Here again, the ‘conservatives’ ignored the Constitution. It makes you wonder if you understand the meaning of the title they claim of being “Strict Constructionists.”

If ‘Constitutional scholars’ have wandered so far away from the Constitution, we common folk may be excused for being less than precise in our usage.

I find it odd that people are so drawn to the label of conservative, given the politicians who claim it today. The original conservatives were the supporters of the king’s prerogatives. The Founders were on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

The king claimed the right of his troops to be boarded in your home. Our Constitution proscribes that practice.

The king preferred that people not criticize him openly. The Constitution says we can criticize George III or George W.

The Founding Fathers not only were progressive, they stated that times would change. They devised a document that allowed for our social and political progress. They were certain that we would improve upon their situation, their conditions and their document. They themselves were no strict constructionists. Oddly, to be a strict constructionist one would have to be against strict construction. One would have to be a progressive. Oooh. There. I said it.

Back in the 1980s a nationwide survey of historians was taken as to the greatest Senator of all time. The winner was Robert “Fighting Bob” Lafollette. He received this signal honor about 60 years after his death in 1925. Lafollette became a Senator in 1906 and died in office. Prior to that he was the Governor of Wisconsin. Prior to that he was a member of the House of Representatives.

Lafollette was a Republican. So, why was he held in such high esteem? Most people credit another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, with first promoting universal health care in the 1912 platform of the Bull Moose Party. Lafollette did it earlier. He also suggested unemployment insurance, social security and a host of other measures, some which appeared in FDR’s administration, some which have yet to appear.

How could a Republican other than Teddy Roosevelt be so liberal? Well, he wasn’t. He felt that conservative values meant that the benefits of our system should be broadly enjoyed. He felt an (perhaps Christian) obligation toward the well-being of his fellow Amercians.

He felt that America, its democracy, its protections, its potential, should not be denied to his fellow citizens. He thought America was too good, too great to be seen as selfish and stingy. He felt that as more people benefited from America’s system, the easier it was to conserve that system.

Lafollette wanted to conserve the benefits and promise of America. For that, he was fondly remembered and honored by those of the fraternity that keeps the record of our achievements and our failures.

At some point, conservatism became almost solely about conserving the treasure and prerogatives of the wealthiest among us. An article of faith was that government should be small. Why? Because a small government cost less but, more importantly, a small government had insufficient power and resources to interfere with their ‘Robber Baron’ activities and their credit default swaps.

Later, it subsumed the idea that to preserve all of that it was necessary to be isolationist. It also so feared the Bolshevik Revolution that it branded any deviation from laissez-faire capitalism as communist, socialist, anti-American, liberal, union, et al. It wasn’t necessary to understand any of those things. It was only necessary to have a knee-jerk reaction to any word the plutocrats told us was bad.

As this restrictive perversion of conservative began to wane, after the embarrassment of Joe McCarthy, the true believers realized they needed an infusion of bodies and money. They had finally realized that the military-industrial complex could be a goldmine. It could also co-opt the label of patriotism

Have you ever wondered why a Republican President, a 5-star general warned us against that group? Could it be that he still considered himself a real conservative? Did you ever wonder why the John Birch Society and its descendents called Ike a communist dupe; why they questioned his patriotism while advertising their own?

Where to get the people? Lyndon Johnson gave them a present. He was able to get civil rights acts passed. There go the racists.

Then there was Roe v. Wade. Then there was prayer in the schools. That caused the social conservatives to go looking for champions. They now had the numbers to go with their financial resources.

But who was running the show? Was it the social conservatives? No. They just provided the volume. The tune was still called by the ones that paid the piper. The plutocrats and their prosti . . . er, politicians worked in close harmony.

The new conservatives commandeered the Republican Party. They told the social conservatives they would overturn Roe v. Wade. They would put God back in the classroom. They would . . . Well, did they? Not just yet. After all it’s only been about 50 years.

With the Republican ‘conservatives’ enjoying electoral success, why were these promises not kept? If these new conservatives had actually accomplished these things, they would no longer have the means of motivating the troops. If the voters who had been convinced that their leaders were really conservatives felt that everything was right with the world, they wouldn’t need to come down to the polling booth. Those politicians would lose their faithful. They would lose their jobs. Better to keep them angry and going to the polls than actually come across on the promises.

Along came a spider. A part of those controlling the ‘conservative movement’ thought, “Why not control the world?” These were largely macho draft dodgers and other wannabes who thought war was as portrayed in John Wayne movies. We call them neoconservatives.

They believe that everything they dislike domestically can be overrun through bluff, bluster and making up the rules as they go along. They believe that everything they dislike internationally can be gotten rid of by a crude use of America’s supposedly unlimited military might. Unsurprisingly, they think of themselves as realists, as smarter than average.

There is nothing wrong with the concept of conservatism, beyond how it is being used and who is using it. In the form exercised by many in the past it has much to commend it. But, it has been commandeered by the political dregs of the country as a method of fooling large numbers in order to obtain and maintain control.

I can easily identify with many conservative precepts. Similarly, I can do the same with liberal and progressive. I cannot identify with capitalism, communism, socialism and such. They are tools to be used by people who understand them and their limitations. I feel most comfortable calling myself a populist but not in the sense that far too many use it. I see a bifurcation of those whose highest priority is people (Populists) and those whose highest priority is corporations (Fascists).

Take your pick. There are those two. There is room for conservative, liberal and progressive inside populism. There is only room for plutocrats, politicians and dupes among the fascists.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

We need to send some senators to Guantanamo. They are far more dangerous to our country than any of the people already in residence there.

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.

.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Do something. If it doesn’t work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.
Jim Hightower

There are social conservatives. There are national security conservatives. There are fiscal conservatives. There are ideologues who call themselves conservative but are really either lemmings or traitors.

For those who might not remember everything they learned in their ninth-grade biology class, or grew up where science was declared to be the exclusive bailiwick of Lucifer, the HMS Beagle was the boat that bore Charles Darwin on his famous voyage to the Galapagos Islands.

Those who figuratively missed that boat can be identified by their lemming-like behavior. Lemmings are small rodents that will follow a predetermined path to destruction rather than change direction or think. It’s easy to understand how GOP Congressmen could be mistaken for lemmings.

It was the nonsense of conservative economics that brought us both the Great Depression and our present debacle, whatever the name by which it comes to be known. Once the Great Depression started, the strict application of those policies that caused it ensured that it would be deeper and longer than necessary. Once again the lemmings in Congress are calling for adherence to the policies that gave us the present global, economic meltdown.

We have been bad little boys and girls. We have been living on credit, debt, since the early Eighties. The government is guilty of it. Business is guilty of it. Consumers are guilty of it.

So, how do we discipline these bad little boys and girls? Give them a tax break, of course. At least that is the prescription of the people who authored this mess. Just borrow some more money from China to help the economy. Actually, the purposes are to stay in accord with the dogma and to buy votes.

No method of stimulating the economy is less efficient than tax cuts. One person pays down his credit card, creating no jobs. Another spends it at Wal-Mart, creating jobs in China. We have bridges falling down, pipes bursting, seven billion gallons of clean water leaking every day, sewers collapsing. It’s called infrastructure. Tax cuts take money away from the repairs required to keep all systems, our society, operational.

Listening to the regressives is listening to the very ones who caused these problems. They say the market is the best way of determining what is economically best. But, didn’t they take our tax money to help solve their economic problems? They say regulation is an unnecessary burden. Didn’t the lack of regulation allow them to create this mess?

Our esteemed federal legislature failed to include regulations in the bailout funding. That oversight funded $18.4 billion in bonuses, private jets, $1.22 million office redecoration, Wall Street lobbyists working against their benefactors’ interest, auto manufacturers lobbying against laws requiring higher mileage standards and buying other financial institutions, rather than making loans. Are the ones who benefited from the lack of regulations correct that they are unneeded? Or, is it the recipients that are unneeded?

The lemmings tell us that tax cuts are the best stimulative policy. All of the tax cuts since Reagonomics came into the ascendancy were paid for with borrowed money. While borrowing in an economic downturn is a necessary evil, borrowing in good times only makes our situation worse.

While the public may not be well informed on the topic of economics, they are not complete do-dos, as are a large number of Members of Congress. The public had some suspicion that W and his policies were culpable in bringing on their difficulties. They voted for a different direction. They replaced many of the lemmings. The result? As seen by the remaining lemmings, the people want more of the same snake oil the regressives have been selling for the past 28 years.

According to that sage known to us as anonymous, “The more you do of what you’ve done, the more you’ll have of what you’ve got.” Do we really want more of the same?

Lemming graphic by Josh Neuman

Elephant graphic by Barry Blitt

Bookmark It

Hide Sites