Maybe not you, maybe not me, but tens of millions of people need jobs. It’s not just them that suffer from the lack of a job. Most have families.

It isn’t even limited to them. It affects the entire economy. That means it affects you and me.

Foreclosures mean the Great Recession lasts longer. More foreclosures means your home is worth less. Want to move? Lots of luck. You just discovered that you don’t own your house. It owns you.

Congress is our enemy. They shot down the elimination of tax incentives for moving jobs overseas.

The Republicans were very successful in the last election cycle. How? By promising jobs. How many job creation bills has Boo-hoo Boehner introduced in HIS House? None. Really? Not a single one.

Well, that may not be exactly true. Those family values bills he keeps giving time and attention to might create . . . Well, probably not.

Paul Ryan’s budget is predicted to end the deficit in Fiscal Year 2052 and only cause the loss of 2.5 million more jobs initially. That 2052 date is just to end the annual budget deficit. The national debt would be with us until 2087. We’re going to have to have a party to celebrate.

One representative tried to defend that by misstating that the number of jobs lost would only be 250,000. Then he claimed that the entire 250,000 would all be state and local government jobs lost.

He laughed as he claimed that was good, since they needed to go out and get real jobs. The ones that don’t exist? Who are these good-for-nothings that need to get a real job? Policemen, Firemen, Teachers. I can think of quite a few others on the government payroll who should get a real job. I wish I had saved the clip of that interview to share.

Maybe Peter King can help. His committee has announced another round of Muslim radicalization hearings. Maybe some Muslims will get pissed off and leave. Someone could pick up one of their jobs. I need to send him a thank you note for devoting all of his time to such a high priority.

Congressmen have successfully prevailed upon the SEC to ease back enforcing those new laws to restrict derivatives. That means that Wall Street will need a few dozen more parasites. Is someone keeping count of all our representatives are doing for us by making job creation their number one priority?

If we’re are not going to get more jobs from family value legislation, sending jobs overseas or by eliminating police, firemen and teachers, how are we going to increase the number of jobs?

Banks are sitting on $1.9 trillion that they refuse to loan out in this country. Other businesses are sitting on another $2 trillion that they are refusing to invest in job creation. In fact, big business is where most of those jobs losses are from. Sorry. No help from that quarter.

How about small business? Sorry. Did you know that a many of the small businesses are created by big businesses? They back some employees in start-ups for their own advantage; to get various breaks. Transferring one of their employees to a small one they create does not increase the number of jobs.

With most health care tied to employer-based insurance policies, would be entrepreneurs are reluctant to leave the nest. It happened to me in the 1970s. It is even greater a barrier now, with the high unemployment rate. Also, they can’t get necessary start-up funding.

Even that bastion of conservatism, Time Magazine, realizes that entrepreneurs are not going to be our salvation. They have an article on five myths of our economy. Let me provide a paragraph from that article:

Entrepreneurship is still one of America’s great strengths, right? Wrong. Rates of new-business creation have been contracting since the 1980s. Funny enough, that’s just when the financial sector began to get a lot bigger. The two trends are not disconnected. A study by the Kauffman Foundation found an inverse correlation between the two. The explanation could be tied to the fact that the financial sector has sucked up so much talent that might have otherwise done something useful in Silicon Valley or in other entrepreneurial hubs. The credit crunch has exacerbated the problem. Lending is still constrained, and the old methods of self-funding a business — maxing out credit cards or taking a home-equity loan — are no longer as viable.

That 1980s date mentioned in the article just happens to coincide with the frenetic push for deregulation initiated by St. Ronny, which lead to credit default swaps and other derivatives, ‘no doc’ mortgages, rescission of the Glass-Steagall Act, quadrupling of the Wall Street share of the economy and the other contributions to the economic mess. I would disagree with the article’s placing of the blame on Wall Street sucking up all of the talent. It sucked up the money. They pay more in bonuses than they invest.

Let me describe a typical small business start-up in the present. It’s an underfunded, one-man consulting firm. It doesn’t manufacture anything. It may operate out of a home office. The person may prevail upon a relative to help out. Most of these ‘entrepreneurs’ are doing this because they have no other choice. They come mainly from the unemployed and underemployed. Most will fail. It hardly seems right to count most of these as small businesses or think of them as hiring employees.

A significant number of these are financial advisers. They aren’t telling their clients anything that will help their clients. As when they were employed by the financial firms, their script is limited to advice that will benefit those in the industry. There has been a slight increase in business for CPAs. Many of these new businesses need the services of a CPA to keep them out of trouble with the IRS.

To continue carrying the burden of the real estate situation may very well lead to a double dip. With the government, the banks, big businesses and small businesses unable or just refusing to create jobs, it’s difficult to see how a double dip can be avoided. It’s hard to contemplate the misery that long-term unemployment will cause.

Our “leadership,” both public and private are sitting on their hands, They have no personal financial worries beyond reducing or avoiding taxes. I wish the rest of us lots of luck.

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It is now okay to own up to your obsession with Betty Crocker or Ronald McDonald. As a kid I found myself attracted to the Morton’s Salt young lady. A handful of salted peanuts can bring up memories of days gone by.

Carrying a torch for Sara Lee or Big Boy was never really akin to bestiality but now you are equals. I would caution, however, that some of these attractive ladies are considerably older than they appear. Even Little Debbie is 55 years old.

Though parts of the Deep South held on to their anti-miscegenation laws until the very last gasp, they were not to be found bringing up the rear in jumping into bed with big business.

I need to leave this aspect of the situation. My wife says I am already taken. Besides, in seeing a historical romance novel, I am reminded that, at my advanced age, all romance is historical.

The ruling by the Supremes makes no sense on any level nor from any perspective. I would highly recommend reading, or re-reading, the article I wrote at the time of the Citizens United ruling. Otherwise, I will have to reprint it here. The title of the article was Supreme Stupidity.

One can show how ridiculous the decision is by poking fun of corporations enjoying rights that only make sense for humans or humans trying to enjoying the special privileges and advantages only permitted to corporations. How would you like to be a corporation?

My apologies for bringing up a sore subject but it hasn’t been too long since you sent in your gift to the IRS. It helped to be able to deduct that mortgage interest, didn’t it? Did you deduct all that you spent for the principal? On food and drink? On travel? On vacation? On all of your wife’s clothes? On her trips to the beauty shop? On her lipstick and perfume? You didn’t?

Why would you not deduct everything you spent? Your fellow corporations do. Food and drink are your personal energy sources. Oh, don’t forget to deduct the toilet paper. Corporations are only supposed to pay taxes on their profits – whatever remains after all of their spending. Then they call in the experts to take advantage of the subsidies and other giveaways their lobbyists bought for them.

How much profit did you make last year? How much did you have left over for savings?

Investors in corporate human beings have the protection of limited liability. If someone slips on your sidewalk and incurs an injury costing a few million dollars, your $48,000 average income might not be enough to cover it. But, the court can hold you fully liable. That’s when you need to tell the judge that you are a corporation.

Did you commit a crime? Richard Nixon wanted to know. J. Edgar Hoover wanted to know. Did you think? Tailgunner Joe McCarthy wanted to know. They wanted to get you out of their way. They threw a few in jail. But, those human corporations never came to share a cell. There are no banks in prison for illegally taking your home. There are no health insurance corporations serving time for ripping off the government (you) of billions of dollars. There are no drug companies on death row for lying about the safety of their medications, even when the number of victims is a large multiple of those lost in the Twin Towers.

Our church had nearly 12,800 in attendance to commemorate Easter. Not a single corporation showed up to exercise their rights of freedom of religion. Why don’t they exercise their right?

Corporations fail to exercise their right to trial by jury frequently enough for my taste. I’m referring to the 6^th Amendment right in criminal trials, not the 7^th Amendment right in civil trials. I’d be willing to make a career of serving on juries for the opportunity to play a role in holding my fellow corporations people to account.

The previous paragraph begs the question of how corporations are themselves able to avoid serving on juries.

A question comes to mind. Given, a corporation can own a firearm. How does it bear that instrument? But the real question is, in those states and localities requiring the bearer attend safety classes and/or exhibit a degree of proficiency on the firing range, has their right been abridged by such a requirement?

If a corporation has the right to unlimited free speech, in order to effect the voting, how is it possible to deny them the right to vote? If having more money provides them more free speech, does having more money also translate into having more votes? If not, how is that justifiable in light of the expanded rights regarding speech?

If money is speech, is an impecunious mute denied his right? In a land proud of its political equality, why is political speech powered by a factor that is based on an inequality that we glory in? Would equating money with speech not require everyone to have the same amount of money to ensure equality? Is this just a countervailing stratagem to compensate for the loss of privileges that ensued when ‘one man – one vote’ was enforced?

If logic, common sense and comedy can be stretched to give constitutional rights to corporations, there is no possible legal rationale sufficient to keep the franchise from further extension. I am inclined to think that animate beings would be next. Bunny rabbits do present the possibility of overly diluting the prerogatives of people and human beings unless we can legally restrain their proclivities for procreation. I’m uncertain as to how to handle a case such as Harvey’s.

As corporations are inanimate, my earlier supposition that animate entities would likely be next in line could very well be mistaken. Would it be fair to give man-made, or corporation-produced, objects preference over natural ones? It might be presumptuous to favor items made by humans over those created by God nature.

Perhaps I should have read the Supreme’s decision. Surely they covered all of my questions and concerns therein. After all, they are all educated, reasonable, rational, disinterested diviners of the inner thoughts of the Founding Fathers.

Since those First Daddies readily made known their fear and hatred of corporations, they must have changed changed their minds once they got to heaven. I wish I was also blessed to be privy to the thoughts of those heavenly beings. Absent that, we should count ourselves blessed that the Almighty’s hand ensures the Court is always populated with that ability.

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We all agree.

Everyone thinks that the government’s primary responsibility is to help us. Well, at least some of us.

The problem is that we don’t agree on who the government should help. Some say help those who need help. That’s just silly.

It’s the upstanding parasitic plutocrats who will create a few more jobs in Canada, France or Brazil when they use your gift from the federal storehouse to acquire their next private jet. Mubarak set a new standard for them with nine of these upper class necessities, these ultimate penile substitutes.

The Enemy?

If your career choice is being a moonshiner, growing marijuana or holding up Seven-Elevens, government is your enemy. Otherwise, it shouldn’t be.

People are going around shouting that the government is your enemy. Listen carefully. They aren’t saying just that the government has done or is doing something to harm them – beyond requiring them to pay taxes, of course. They are saying that the very concept of government is your enemy.

Perhaps when they grow up they will appreciate the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” Perhaps not. Many demonstrate an apparently unbridgeable gap they must conquer to comprehend civilization.

“A society is judged by how it treats the least among them.” That rule has been attributed to Gandhi, Churchill, Truman and many others. Whomever, it is the very basis of civilization. Although, archeological evidence shows that our “barbaric” Cro-Magnon antecedents went to great lengths to care for members of their group needing assistance. It would seem that too many of our contemporaries have regressed a few score millennia.

Confucius, 孔夫子 K’ung Fu Tzu, is credited with one that is complimentary to it, “In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of.” According to the old sage, the poor in this country have no reason to hide their faces.

These political Neanderthals, these libertarians, these juvenile acolytes, or adulators, of the late comedian Ayn Rand are profoundly anti-civilization.

If you are of the persuasion that the United States is, or should be, a civilized nation, you must also write them off as anti-American, despite their propensity for wrapping themselves in the flag. Also, egocentric political ideologies that object to helping those in need are in contradiction to Christianity and other religions. Caring for those in need is, simply, the litmus test for determining whether one is truly civilized, truly a patriot and truly religious.

Most of these people are unaware of how anti-civilization, anti-American, anti-Christian they are. From either intellectual laziness or incapacity, they have partaken of the political pablum fed to them by those who are full, knowing members of those categories. They are simply fools and tools. Some of the true villains are those I address next.

The Smartest Man On Wall Street? In Washington? Anywhere?

The geniuses pictured above all played major, definitive roles in bringing about the worldwide economic meltdown that we continue to enjoy. Did you remember to send them thank you cards?

Some fight under the banner of the Democratic Party. Some fight under the banner of the Republican Party. Actually, they are on the same side. They all fight the class war against us.

Do these parasites really believe what they infect the world with? It’s difficult to know. They do formulate the themes of the propaganda. We must remember, it’s not that uncommon for people who create and purvey lies to be taken in by their own handiwork.

They agree on all major policies. They all want big business to be unfettered. Their “Golden Age” is sometimes called the Era of the Robber Barons.” They have modified their image since the turn of the last century but they are direct descendants of those that hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to murder people who wanted enough to feed their families and educate their children for the better life they dreamed of for them.

The Newest Wonder Boy

Now the media have a new darling. Once again we are being told how this backwoods bozo is the master of the national budget.

Of course they leave out a few details. They use the journalistic equivalent of PhotoShop to turn Miss Piggy into Helen of Troy.

Did they tell you that he received over half a million dollars from the insurance industry? Did they tell you that ranks him above all other US Representatives from Wisconsin. It also ranks him above both of that state’s Senators.

Forget that he’s a prostitute. Capitol Hill is teeming with them. My initial thoughts about him brought to mind the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. It’s hard to explain why. The Scarecrow was aware he had no brain. He wanted a brain.

They have almost nothing in common. And besides, the Scarecrow was too good of a dancer to end up on a reality show. This pitiful wannabe is likely to follow the career path of Tom Delay.

The Congressional Budget Office is a nonpartisan entity of Congress. It is responsible for providing all members their analyses of bills having an economic impact. In fact, it is generally acknowledged to lean just a bit to the right.

The CBO says that Ryan’s budget will cost a minimum of 700,000 jobs. That’s no big deal because those are jobs of government employees and those of suppliers to the government.

Another party that frequently weighs in is the Republican Study Group. It is a group of self-styled financial experts from among the Republican members of the House. They announced that the loss of those 700,000 jobs was a positive development. They say that since most of those losing their jobs are highly skilled and college graduates, putting them into the job market will further depress wages. You see, this group is not too smart. They often make such public pronouncements, that tell us what their real intentions are.

Exactly what is Mr. Ryan promising from his magnum opus? He tells us it will save Medicare. Presently, Medicare has a 20% co-pay. I, as many others, cover that with a private ‘medigap’ plan. Adding in monthly premiums, the average senior will pay as much as 22-25% of his or her medical costs. Ryan’s plan is estimated by the CBO to cost seniors at least 68% once it is phased in.

This means that most seniors will do without needed care or lean on the younger members of their family. Also, the procedure will be drastically changed. He proposes giving each senior a $15,000 voucher with which to purchase an alternative to Medicare coverage. Anyone pricing such individual plans will either laugh or cry uncontrollably.

While Mr. Ryan is generous enough to index that $15,000 for inflation, he uses the index for an almost overall inflation rate that comes in around 2%. Medical cost inflation runs from 2.9% up into the double digits. Another factor is that these plans will be purchased annually. That means that each year the rate will be further increased by the factor of age.

Not only is that amount completely unrealistic, it requires, as he puts it, ever-aging seniors to negotiate coverage details each year. They must do this with an industry famous for its perfidy; famous for its ability to increase the complexity of its products beyond outsiders’ comprehension – always to their advantage.

There are other features of his budget plan that target seniors, in addition to those aimed at children, the poor, the middle class, college students and their families, hell, everyone not in the economic top 10%.

Well, all those spending cuts will reduce our deficit. Ooops. Actually, the deficit will increase for the first 10-12 years. The budget might possibly be balanced in 70 years. I can’t wait. Seriously, I can’t wait.

With all of those cuts, why will it take his plan so long to reach its putative goal? You must remember some items, defense, for instance, will increase.

The cuts are described as modest at $4.3 trillion. I bet you thought to yourself, “Myself, that’s a bunch of cutting.” Don’t forget with whom you are dealing. The plan calls for $4.2 trillion in tax cuts. Oh. That explains a lot.

The nominal corporate tax rate, at 35% is second only to Japan. Mr. Ryan wants to reduce that to 25%. Instead of just swallowing that load, let’s take a slightly closer look at corporate taxes.

That 35% in the nominal rate. That means the law says that is the rate. Reading deeper into the tax code will bring to light a forest of deductions, exemptions, subsidies and other goodies. The ‘real’ rate then seems to become about 17%. That puts the US corporate tax rate at a much more competitive level. That puts it well into the lower half of developed nations.

Look at the chart. It would show a lower percentage but it only covers 1950-2003.

But we can’t stop at 17%. When 68% of corporations pay no tax (think General Electric’s nearly $15 billion untaxed), it lowers the effective rate even further. A quick calculation puts the effective rate at less than 5.5%.

If corporations are still moving jobs, capital and profits overseas at 5.5%, I’m guessing that lowering the nominal rate to 25% will not eliminate the deficit.

Those treating the government as their enemy may be on to something. Their aim should be slightly adjusted, however. It’s their own little darlings; their own ideological “friends” that are the enemy. It is the Paul Ryans who we and the government need protection from.

Mr. Ryan named his little plan The Path to Prosperity. He failed to say whose prosperity. I don’t think he liked the stories of Robin Hood. He seems to have identified with the Sheriff and King John. Somehow, rob from the poor and give to the rich just doesn’t have the same ring to it – at least not to me.

But, what do I know? After all, he is the media’s newest fair-haired Wunderkind*.

*German: Child Prodigy

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Medicare is wonderful. Medicare is terrible. Medicare is in trouble. Medicare is wonderful.

Medicare is also complex. People are always suggesting changes. Some wish to extend it. Some wish to eliminate it.

People are running around predicting bankruptcy for Medicare around 2017 or 2019 or whenever. No, it’s not that bad. There would be a shortfall beginning then, not a bankruptcy. It’s not a case of going from 100% immediately to 0%. As much as the politicians wish to avoid biting the bullet, they must address the problem. They faced the same problem a few years back with Social Security. It seems inconceivable that they didn’t deal with Medicare at the same time but we are not speaking of a group of geniuses here.

The most popular suggestion for changing Medicare is intended to salvage it for an extended period. Will it? Yes, but. But? Yes. Medicare is too complex for any changes to be simple.

The suggestion to which I refer is to raise the age for eligibility by two years. Now that was simple. The problem is that strange things will start to happen. Think about it.

Any 66-year old will not necessarily need more health care than any 64-year old but the statisticians will guarantee that the cost of insuring a 66-year old is more expensive than a 64-year old.

Insurance policies that account for expected payouts until Medicare kicks in at age 65 will cost more.

Health care coverage will cost you and/or your employer more. I’m not speaking of just when someone becomes a geezer. Policies will rise for everyone to adjust to the change. Also, remember that state and local governments are employers, so their costs will also be increased.

There is also the consideration of companies with a mandatory retirement at the age of 65. Will you have to go out on the individual policy market (the most expensive) and purchase a policy covering the most expensive age category the private insurance company offers? You don’t want to be ‘bare’ at that age and your income just got reduced.

The estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation is that the increase for some individuals will be above $2,000 per year. The following figures are predicated by the foundation on the implementation of the change in 2014. It also assumes that the Supreme Court will uphold the recent changes made in health care insurance. If it doesn’t, the costs would be even higher.

Predictions are that 75% of those aged 65 and 66 will pay $2,400 more. That may have gotten the attention of some people.

The young people will see an increase of about 8% in the cost of health insurance.

The increased costs to business will be in the neighborhood of $4.5 billion. That either will make US companies less competitive or cause them to eliminate health care benefits for employees.

The government would save a ton of money by not covering those 65- and 66-year olds. So, those on Medicare would benefit from lower costs. Oh, no they wouldn’t. What? Why?

Medicare, as any insurance program, is based on actuarial figures. Eliminating the youngest from the pool eliminates the healthiest from the pool. The increase would be 3%. Medicare benefits but no one else does. Wasn’t the premise to save Medicare money so that it would be sustainable? Well, it does that and that’s the way it is.

I gave a passing mention above to an increase in the costs to states. There would be another. Those 65- and 66-year olds no longer eligible for Medicare but too poor to purchase their own policies would add to the states’ financial burden through MedicAid.

There is a better way. The solution is simple. Medicare-For-All. Eliminating the 30-32% overhead we presently pay private corporations would be a good start. Allowing the CMS to negotiate prices with the drug pushers should reduce the costs by at least 50% – same as the Veterans Administration now pays. Taking advantage of other economies of scale.

You don’t think the government should get involved in health care? Eliminate Medicare? Tell that to seniors. They rate it much higher than private policy holders rate any insurance corporation.

Eliminate MedicAid? So, do we force the hospital emergency rooms to absorb the total costs of indigent care or do we just make sure they don’t obstruct the gutters?

Eliminate SCHIP. Those 7 million children will die some day anyway.

Eliminate the VA. Why should we have to pay the health care costs for veterans?

Eliminate health care benefits for government employees, They are being pampered already by getting paid 78% as much as an equivalent employee in the private sector.

Eliminate the Public Health Service. The CDC is always scaring us with new flus, the return of Smallpox, Polio and such. The PHS has to stick their fingers into such things as sewers, water purity and all of those other things distracting us from American Idol.

Eliminate the subsidy the government provides employers who give their people health care benefits.

Put them all together they may not spell M-O-T-H-E-R but they do add up to the government paying 45% of all health care costs already.

No old people were harmed in the writing of this article.

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Have you ever been angry? Surely you have experienced it at least once.

Would you consider that time of anger the optimal time for making consequential decisions?

The two definitions of mad often get so close to each other that they actually become entangled. There may be occasions when that serves a purpose but probably not while you are standing in the voting booth.

The fact that you may be justifiably angry doesn’t mean that you should cast your vote for a candidate that is venting his spleen.

There are several candidates that seem to be foaming at the mouth. They are saying things that may rev up their core constituency but should be embarrassing in the light of day.

What do you think of a politician calling unemployment insurance unconstitutional while another calls it an entitlement program? Both statements are ludicrous but they come from two candidates for the Senate who are leading their opponents in the polls. This seems strange as 80% of the people support Unemployment insurance.

How are they ludicrous? The Constitution means what the Supreme Court says it means. They say that unemployment insurance is constitutional. Further, unemployment benefits are a part of what one works for. It’s part of the package. You are paying for it. That means it is insurance, not an entitlement or welfare.

Interestingly, the winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics were announced today. Of the three winners, one is a professor at MIT. A part of his work that is being honored centers on unemployment insurance. What does he have to say on the subject? He says that it is a beneficial program for our overall economy.

It seems that, if there is some income available to an unemployed person, a person will take slightly longer to return to the domain of the gainfully employed. The income provides a greater opportunity to find the best fit for his or her talents, education, training and experience. This, according to prospective Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond, helps make the economy more efficient.

Beyond his arguments, that income has a couple of other benefits. It acts as stimulus to the economy. People rarely do anything with their unemployment benefits except spend it.

We are fortunate that this, Social Security and other programs were enacted during the Great Depression. They keep a flow of money coursing through the economy. They put a floor under us, limiting how far the economy can slide.

Were it not for the monetary flow, the fundamentals of our present economic mess strongly suggest that this would have been a deeper depression than was experienced during the 1930s. If unemployment insurance were unconstitutional, we would be well-advised to amend the Constitution in record time.

I left out the argument that the Constitution makes the government responsible for aiding the general welfare of the people.

Anger does not justify putting people in positions of power who have such unbelievable ignorance about economics and the Constitution. They represent a real danger. That danger isn’t to Democrats. That danger is to the entire country.

Where do these people come from? They have been recruited by Dick Armey, Karl Rove and a bunch of miscreants that put us and our nation in jeopardy.

Do the people of New York really want a governor that threatens to “take out” the leading reporter in the state on the state political beat? Do they want a governor who delights in sending emails with bestiality pictures attached? What is his primary qualification? He has become a multimillionaire as an attorney for mobsters.

Is politics no longer a serious matter? Does it not matter who we elect? I am as critical of the scum that rules this country as anyone. That does not mean that I want to deliberately cripple the country for the gain of those parasites.

I want our country to succeed. Do I have feelings of anger? Naturally. Am I willing to vote for people who are ignorant of history, the Constitution, economics, Christianity and the misery that persists? If you break down their rants, you cannot avoid the anger that they direct towards the people, the nation itself. Calling oneself a Christian and a patriot does not make it so.

Be angry. It is justified. But, don’t lose your cool.

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It isn’t the prettiest word in the dictionary. Don’t skip this. You might become an evictee and I have an idea.

It isn’t bad enough that people are losing their homes. The banks and mortgage companies are doing everything possible to make matters worse for their customers. In the process, they are stretching out this recession for years longer than it need be.

Do you remember the Bailout? Most people misremember it. No. It didn’t happen after Obama took office.

And just who was bailed out? First it was banks and mortgage companies and their investors. Next were foreign banks and investors. Then there was the insurance company, AIG.

Remind me. Who came up with this scheme? Oh, yeah, Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, known locally as the smartest man in Washington – faint praise, as it turns out.

On September 17, 2008, Hank told us, “Don’t Worry, The Banking System Is Sound.” Later that month he gave us a 3-page note, saying he needed $700 billion for his friends.

Surely, someone, somewhere thought to help out the taxpayer who was going to lose his home. No? Oh well. Guano happens.

Let’s simplify this by looking at just one company. You remember GMAC. How do you remember them? They financed your car? They sponsor a NASCAR racing team? They sponsored the GMAC Bowl? I think that featured those two traditional powerhouses, Troy vs. Central Michigan. I’m sure you Tivoed it. No? You don’t watch where your money goes?

Maybe they hold your mortgage. Maybe they screwed you. We all got screwed when they got several billions of our tax money but some have a more intimate knowledge of that former icon.

Nearly half the states require the courts to be involved in foreclosures. The mortgage companies have been flooding the courts with paper. The law requires a representative of the mortgage company to sign an affidavit that they have read all of the relevant documents and have full knowledge of the situation.

An employee of GMAC admitted that he signed off on about 10,000 a month. Now other employees have come forth. The courts in the State of Florida are facing a deluge of nearly half a million foreclosures at this moment.

Why would the mortgage companies do this? They don’t want the courts to have the luxury of actually examining the paperwork. That would not be to the mortgage companies’ advantage. A homeowner might catch a break. We can’t have that.

Those Congressmen taking bribes from the banks and mortgage companies thwarted a change to allow a bankruptcy court judge to modify a home loan on a primary residence, allowing them to avoid getting kicked to the street. The law permits John McCain to protect 6 of his 7 homes, if he ever had to. If you only have one home, you are out of luck.

With the taxpayers saving the banks rectums, the average Joe is the only one to face the consequences of the disaster created by the bankers and the government. Of, by and for the people, indeed.

I have a suggestion or two the redress the balance. It would also shorten the recession. Yeah, I know. It doesn’t stand a chance.

Our economy revolves around the real estate market. It represents the bulk of our savings and lately became an ATM for many. To understand the full import and impact of this sector, I refer you to an earlier post of mine: The American Dream. It would be a good predicate to the remainder of this post.

Let me begin by acknowledging that there have been people out there flipping houses to make a personal buck as they contributed to a distortion of the housing market and the bubble that burst. I would recommend freezing them out of any benefits from my suggested policy changes.

A couple goes to buy a house. It may be their first, or their second. Whatever, they hardly qualify as experts on real estate. They must rely on supposed experts: real estate agents, mortgage brokers, appraisers and real estate attorneys. Since the money these people get comes from this couple, they have every right to expect these professionals to be working on their behalf.

If these “experts” put them in a house and mortgage they cannot manage, who’s fault is that? Right. But, who gets dehoused? Right, again. Unfair is fair?

Let’s say, for arguments sake, that these experts realize the couple can afford a $100,000 house but finagle a way to put them in a $400,000 house. They didn’t do it out of the goodness of their hearts. They did it to get larger commissions. When the fecal matter hits the fan, let’s say the law requires the mortgage be refigured for a $100,000 house.

The result is that those who connived to benefit themselves at the expense of the couple forced to rely on their expertise get hoisted on their own petard. The same holds true for the packagers and investors who are aware of the fraud but feel their bribes will result in salvation by the taxpayers. There are other ramifications.

The trusting couple get a much nicer house. Now, here is the important part. That house is not added to the inventory of houses on the market. Fewer houses on the market depresses the market less. This means that the prices of homes not on the market will not be as depressed if the owner needs to sell. The market gets back to normal much sooner. All to the good.

Also, those investors speculators, being the ones who lose their shirts will have far less money to use to distort the economy in the near future. The same holds for the banks, mortgage houses and hedge funds.

As it is now, we have people needing housing. We have a record number of empty houses. This brings the value of everyone’s home down and extends the recession. All to the bad.

The idea is too fair and makes too much sense to ever see the light of day but it is fun to “speculate” on just how much it could do to correct the problems of the system as is.

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Let’s do something that the Republican Party is totally incapable of doing. Let’s be honest.

They have announced their Lemon Pledge to America, six weeks before the mid-term elections. Newt released his Contract With America six weeks before the 1994 mid-term elections.

Let’s shine a little light on their lies and cynicism.

Permit me to start this off with a reminiscence. If you are lucky, you have never heard of Zack Wamp. He just lost the Republican primary race for governor here in Tennessee.

Before that he was an 8-term congressman. Of course he ran on a pledge of limiting himself to three terms, but you have to expect that of a Republican, or most other politicians.

Zack never moved his family to the District. He lived in that C Street house of sin that is registered as a church and illegally subsidizes the rent of its tenants, all congressmen and senators.

This “church” helped hide the peccadillos of several tenants that we now know about. South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford lived there, not on the Appalachian Trail, when he was in Congress. Zach’s side dish hasn’t yet become public.

There is is a new book on this subject, out just this month. I have not yet had time to read it but I was impressed with an interview with the author and the reviews. It is C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy by Jeff Sharlet.

Although I am 20 years older than Zach, we are fellow alumni of a prep school and one of the colleges I claim as an alma mater. His family has been in real estate for decades. I was in that business for a couple of years. He was deacon of a church I attended.

Zach ran twice for Congress and lost. When the congresswoman retired, Zach was the only one with district-wide name recognition. He campaigned on the Contract With America. He used to ask me lots of questions before he won. I guess I might have been a demi-mentor. No longer.

Zach shares something other than the bachelor life in Washington with his roomies at C Street. He is a Super American. So much so that he wishes for Tennessee and other states to secede. During the governor’s race he praised Texas Governor Rick Perry for broaching the subject and said he hoped that the voters would elect Republicans in 2010 and 2012 so that the states would not have to consider secession. What was the Republican cry in the last campaign? Party First?

After the election of 1994 but before he was sworn in and took his seat, we talked. I had known Newt Gingrich about 5 years before he first was elected. I told Zach that if Newt was really serious about term limits, a key item in the Contract, all he had to do was not run for reelection. He had already been in Congress 16 years at that time.

Zach responded that the Republicans had not promised to enact any parts of the Contract. They had only promised to bring them up for discussion. They had paid for a poll to determine the top 10 issues of Americans and the majority opinion on each one. They used the results to contract with America to . . . what? Oh, according to Zach it was just to discuss those issues. Can you tell me any of those items that they actually passed? I thought not.

This time the Republican Party isn’t even going that far. Their web site asked people to click on their most important issues. Visitors did. The Party just ignored that.

What was the number one issue for the people? At 42%, stimulating the economy and job creation led the way. What trailed at the very bottom? It was tax cuts, at 4%.

So, what was the primary issue of the Republicans’ press party? Taxes, of course.

With tax cuts for the wealthy leading the way, what is their number 2? Cutting the deficit, naturally. It appears that Jesus is a Republican and is returning for a single performance, just to perform the miracle of cutting revenue while simultaneously reducing the deficit. He does this by performing the same brain wipe on all Americans that he did for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell several years back.

Next comes what they consistently call ObamaCare. If someone refers to it as ObamaCare, it really means two things. They are appealing to your emotions, rather than your brain. The other is that they are unable or afraid to discuss the merits.

Here is some of what goes into effect today, as a result of the healthcare reform:

Insurance companies will no longer be permitted to exclude children because of preexisting health conditions. Insurers also will be prohibited from imposing lifetime limits on benefits.

The law will now forbid insurers to drop sick and costly customers after discovering technical mistakes on applications. It requires that they offer coverage to children under 26 on their parents’ policies.

It establishes a menu of preventive procedures, like colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations, that must be covered without co-payments. And it allows consumers who join a new plan to keep their own doctors and to appeal insurance company reimbursement decisions to a third party.

They are promising to repeal or defund the reforms. Perhaps they should listen to the ones who own them. According to Karen Ignagni, “It is really the Manhattan Project because of the scale and the scope.” She is the chief executive of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group.

The insurance companies have been spending 30-32% of every dollar they take in on administration. The law requires that 85 cents of every dollar go to paying for care. That means the companies have eliminated thousands of jobs. They have had to retrain over half of their staffs to understand the changes and answer customers’ questions. They have had to perform major overhauls of their computer software. That is what Karen was referring to as the scale and scope.

The Republicans want to try to reverse all of that for what they perceive as political gain. Ironically, polling the public on specific aspects of the reform elicits 60-78% support for almost every part of the reform. They have objected to reality for so long that they no longer know how to do anything else.

They haven’t told us how they will override Obama’s veto. Are they convinced they will control 2/3s of both houses of Congress?

To the Republican’s dismay, a couple of facts have cropped up in the last couple of days. First, it appears that only 2% of small business owners will be effected by letting the top marginal tax rate lapse. The other fact just arrived today. It is that well over half of all people in the top 2% are better off financially than they were last year. Congratulations. Please don’t tell any average Americans though.

Well, there it is: a small dose of truth. The Republican leadership lies. They are trying to emulate their successful deceit of the people in 1994. They know that they don’t have the better argument on healthcare reform, so they feel it necessary to resort to childish name-calling. They attract, even to positions of responsibility, the radical fringe that hate America, if it can’t be exactly as they want it to be.

They hate their fellow Americans. They call them lazy when they can’t get a non-existing job. They want at least 18% of their fellow Americans to do without health care. They want to burden us with further massive debt to the benefit of millionaires. They want this, though it weakens the overall economy and puts us just that much closer to 3^rd-world status. They misrepresent every aspect of their plans.

The Democrats are not your BFFs but, vis-à-vis Republicans, it is like comparing a mud puddle to quicksand. The former gets you dirty. The other get you.

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I had been thinking in terms of a home in the suburbs being the American Dream. At the YMCA this morning, a friend said the automobile should be added, or included, as a part of that dream.

It’s difficult to imagine living in the ‘burbs without a horseless carriage. They represent a major part of the problem.

Don’t forget that, despite what logic, observation and projections tell me, my comfort level out here in Dreamland is relatively high. That is, I am certain, a feeling understood and shared by most Americans.

Part 1 covered some, not all, of the of the most obvious financial considerations of our overemphasis on the detached, suburban house as the focus of our savings. The damage done is, of course, not limited to the financial.

How about your health? Could the American Dream be partially responsible for us having shorter lifespans than people living under conditions that don’t fit into our dream?

There are those pesky cars. Sucking their tailpipes for an hour or two five days a week is not quite as good for your health as hiking the Appalachian Trail, except perhaps politically.

Everyone who enjoys commuting in populated areas raise your hands. That time may be productive for the Arabs and Japanese but probably not for you. You just can’t get away from the financial aspects here. The money diverted to unproductive energy usage is immense and immensely stupid.

The houses themselves are also villains. Since we waste so much energy commuting from our dream home to the place that underpays us, we look for savings elsewhere. Oh, yeah. Let’s see if we can save some energy in our homes.

Well, we can’t save all that much when we have to have that 70-inch diagonal flat screen with the 17 speaker sound system requiring a couple of thousand watts of amplification. But, we can slap on some more insulation.

Don’t forget to stop any warm air escaping via the doors or windows. Make that little box airtight.

Oops, that means breathing bad air. Although it varies considerably from place to place, if you have a problem with radon, you have a choice of a slow death from it or freezing to death, which I have been assured is usually quicker. And then there is always the possibility of other gasses seeping into the house from the landfill on which your house was built.

Oh, no. Your house might make you ill and you think about all of that money directed to the American Dream leaves a little less for healthcare.

You own the American Dream, or do you? I would posit that the reality is that your home owns you. How many couples are delaying a divorce because they can’t sell the house and neither party can afford it on their own?

Your career requires a change of location but your house keeps you where you don’t want to be. The employment situation is not as stable as it once was. You have to be more flexible now in many different ways than your parents even considered. Can you take that pay cut and still afford that hour commute, the gasoline, if it jumps back to $4 a gallon, the parking fees, the high insurance costs that accompany all those miles?

Back in the 1960s, while living in Los Angeles, I read the story of five aircraft engineers whose jobs left town. They found new jobs . . . in San Diego. I think that was 125 miles or so away. They couldn’t sell their homes. They couldn’t uproot the children from their lives. They just could not afford to move. But, clever as they were, they found a solution.

They pitched in together and bought a customized van. There were four captain’s chairs surrounding a table. While they took turns driving, the others would play cards, read, sleep, eat or whatever. Their answer still forced each one to spend about 25 hours a week unproductively, away from family, away from their American Dream. That answer probably wouldn’t fill the needs of every employee in the ‘rust belt’ who was replaced by a teenage slave laborer in China.

Could we increase our investment in mass transit? Could we live just a little closer together? Could we get by without a car?

While in training in the Army after basic, I was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. I met a guy there to whom it was difficult to relate. He was 25 years old. He was born in Manhattan. Until he was drafted, he had never left Manhattan.

He took his basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. His advanced training was at Ft. Monmouth. He did so well there that they put him on staff. He had to finally leave Manhattan but still never strayed more than an hour or so from home.

He had just about satisfied his military service requirement. He had a college degree. How could he do all of that and never own a car or live in a detached, single-family dwelling? How could he have been so nice, so well-adjusted, so happy without ever experiencing the American Dream? Maybe he was un-American. He had never had a driver’s license.

And just remember, this method of savings is based on borrowed money, 30-year commitments, betting that you can foretell the future and having that dream job that can’t be shipped over to Bangladesh.

This is just skimming the subject. However, so far, it seems evident that the more one looks at it, the less sense it all makes.

Stay tuned for Part 3.

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Thirteen states have filed a lawsuit claiming that the healthcare bill is unconstitutional.

Will they win or are they just wasting taxpayers money in an attempt to look good to their political bases? If you guessed the later, you didn’t require anyone to read this to you.

Given that we have five Supremes who can’t differentiate between human beings and things that human beings create, anything is possible. By the way, since voting is the most important form of free speech, why have corporations never voted? Sorry, I didn’t mean to give them any ideas.

Even if the courts were to rule in the favor of these thirteen grandstanding attorneys general, they can’t win.

They claim that it is unconstitutional to require people to purchase private health insurance. If someone doesn’t have health insurance, others must pay for it out of their taxes. The requirement is a protection measure for the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no desire to see people forced to give these private monsters more money. This law, as presently configured, gives these corporations an additional 31 or so million customers. That is estimated to increase their bank accounts by some $70 billion annually. No. I definitely am not pleased with that.

Having the public option is less rational than Medicare-For-All but it would at least provide an alternative for many of this 31 million and others. Most of that $70 billion would not go to the leeches. We have been promised that the Congress will amend the law to include the public option.

So, there is a possibility that the courts could rule in their favor. What happens? This law, as with most others of any complexity, includes a separability clause. That means, if the courts rule against any part of it, the entire law is not scrapped. The remainder remains.

Interestingly, the suit cites no case law or precedent. Why? Because there is none. Federal law overrules state law.

Under the commerce clause of the Constitution the government has broad, unchallenged power to regulate interstate commerce. Interstate commerce has historically been interpreted very broadly. Also, the right of the government to tax has been firmly established.

Even given the present makeup of the Court, there is almost no likelihood that the attorneys general can prevail with this suit. A few may prevail in their races for the governor’s seat in their state based on the publicity they will garner.

The solution, should the courts rule in their favor, is to offer the public option, or make a public program mandatory. All the former would do is offer a better deal at less cost by eliminating about 30% of the costs that unnecessary overhead represents. Making it mandatory simply means reducing the amount one pays for coverage and calling it a tax rather than a premium. The courts have already ruled that Social Security, Medicare, et al., are constitutional.

So, if they win, and their win brings a public option or Medicare-For-All, what have they won?

America’s Favorite Loon, Michelle Bachmann, or as she calls herself on her web site, Amaricas Congress Woman, has introduced a bill which calls the healthcare bill unconstitutional. If she can’t spell America’s correctly or punctuate it correctly or doesn’t know that Congresswoman is one word, her bill may need the services of an editor.

Were it anyone else, save Sarah, we would consider her to be doing this only for its symbolic effect. She, however, seems convinced that the bill will succeed. How she will attain majorities in either house no one can explain. Then, either the President must sign it or his veto must be overridden by a two-thirds majority in each house of Congress. I would be hesitant to put too much money on any of those possibilities.

Then we have the Republican leadership saying that the passage of this bill is the death knell of the Democratic Party. Before passage they were exhibiting great concern for the welfare of the Democrats (pun intended). Their solicitude was impressive and heartwarming. Despite their concern for the wellbeing of their compatriots they intend to take advantage of this misstep by the Democrats by running on the position of repealing the healthcare bill.

I can see their logic. The people will swarm to their standard in order to reinstate the bar by the insurance companies of preexisting conditions. Their support will be overwhelming for reimposition of annual and total limitations of coverage.

Kids up to the age of 26 want to be independent. They will flock to the sides of the Republicans freeing them from sharing their parents coverage. Geezers like me will truly appreciate their efforts if we don’t have to worry about what to do with all of our money. We can just luxuriate in the do-nut hole and let the drug companies do all of that worrying.

I think those cagey Republicans have discovered the magic talisman of electoral politics.

Silly suit? Of course. But look to the source. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, “Silly is as silly does.”

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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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