The FBI is making a diligent search for Al Qaeda operatives in the U.S. this week. They want to give them tickets to travel to Syria and Yemen, where Al Qaeda is now allied with the U.S. in the ever changing U.S. War against Terror.
Republicans don't like to talk about it. Democrats don't like to talk about it. The Pentagon and CIA don't like to talk about it. Erstwhile potential candidates for President don't like to talk about it.
In particular Al Qaeda will deny it. Al Qaeda are getting their asses kicked badly enough without being openly associated with their (former) Great Satan, the United States of Christian Crusaders and Jew Lovers.
But the fact of the matter is the U.S. has new enemies, and so does Al Qaeda. The most prominent are ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and the government of Syria led by President Assad.
New enemies means new friends. Al Qaeda was already fighting two major U.S. enemies, Assad and ISIS. But they were also still fighting some of our friends in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Yemen situation is the tipping point, which is actually quite queer, but then you can't find a group of queerer idiots than the people who run the U.S. government and security establishment. They don't like the Houthis (formally Ansar Allah).
As far as I can tell, the U.S. people (except our own ultra-orthodox nut cases) should like the Houthis, but then not only am I not in charge, and Barack won't even return my phone calls.
The Houthis are Shia Islam, which is the nepotistic branch of Islam that believes that actual descendents of Mohammed should be in charge. In any case they started out peaceful, were oppressed by the U.S. and Saudi backed puppet government of what's-his-name (do you have as much trouble keeping track of all the U.S. puppet governments as I do? Could we not just have one Puppet to Rule Them All, or maybe at most one per continent?), and did just what the Tea Party would do: got out their guns.
I won't boor you with detail, but here we are in March 2015, and the Houthis have kicked the butt of the current U.S. puppet, "President" Hadi. They don't control all of Yemen yet, and the International Community (that would be the U.S. and its hand-puppet Merry Olde England) are pretending that Hadi is still the Government of Yemen.
Fortunately Hadi still has some people fighting with him against the "rebels." Guess who. No, Guess again. Have you not been paying attention? Al Qaeda.
Now the circle is complete. I'm not saying Al Qaeda is a U.S. sock puppet. That will come later. But they can't fight those terrible Houthis and ISIS and Syria's Assad without weapons.
You know the type. Well, maybe you don't get around that much, so let me tell you about the type. They say they like Allah and Mohammed, but what they really like is weapons and mayhem. So if you want to be friends, just hook them up with the world's biggest producer of arms and mayhem. The United States of America, Inc. It will make them the Mouse that Roared.
As in the Arms for Contras campaign, it is a bit too early for Republicans in Congress to berate Democrats as yellow-bellied liberals for refusing to directly send arms and trainers to Al Qaeda to help fight terrorism. No, helping will be done through the CIA/Pentagon black budgets, filtered through Saudi or United Arab Emirate obscure trading companies.
So let me be the first to say, thanks for switching sides! Welcome to the Good Guys! I hear you are good soldiers. I am glad you are now fighting against the enemies of the U.S. If I'm ever in Yemen or Syria, I'll buy you a beer. I hear any one of you is the equivalent of 3 Navy Seals on the battlefield, and at a tenth the pay.
I'm glad you are now fighting for my country. Because I sure as shit would not do it myself.
Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democrats. Show all posts
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Friday, April 11, 2014
Paul Ryan's Budget Deficit
Republican politicians like to rant against taxes and blame all taxation on Democratic politicians. So you would think that Republicans in the federal House of Representatives would present a balanced budget.
Why did the House Republicans pass a budget this week, written by Paul Ryan, that would not balance the budget (barring an economic miracle) until 2024, a decade from now?
It is not just politics as usual, even though everyone knew this budget bill, which passed 219 to 205, won't become law. It will die in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and in any case President Barack Obama won't sign it.
Take a step back and look at the bigger picture, both economic and historical. Deficit financing did not become a regular part of the American economy until the Great Depression. In 1933 progressives of both parties (Democrat and Republican), led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, tried "pump priming," getting the economy headed back to normal by government deficit spending. Soon income tax rates were raised too. But what really ran up a deficit, and revitalized the economy, was World War II.
After World War II the U.S. had an unprecedented amount of debt, but we were the only industrialized nation that had not been devastated by the war. More important, both parties had seen what a little economic heroin could do for politicians. So while conservatives talked of balanced budgets, they became rare even in years when the economy was booming.
Now tax rates are far lower than they were from 1935 until 1980. Republicans can take most, but not all, of the credit for that. But if anything Republicans have been worse than Democrats about spending taxpayer dollars.
Ryan's budget advocates cutting back on payments for food stamps, health care, education and transportation. But it does not cut back on military and homeland security spending, or on subsidies and tax breaks for corporations and the rich. It does not prioritize dealing with the national debt. The Democrats will say its domestic spending cuts amputate important programs, but in fact Ryan's cuts are band-aid sized cuts. They are meant not to antagonize too many senior voters, just mostly the type of people who vote Democrat, if they can get a valid voter ID card.
Ryan's budget tries to please Tea Party Republicans with the smell of budget cuts without alienating the big defense corporations or too many middle class voters.
And in his heart-of-hearts, Ryan may worry that without the deficit spending his plan envisions, the economy might stall, which would reduce tax collections, increase the deficit, and make it harder for him to reward his sponsors with government contracts.
Then there is the over $17 trillion dollars of federal debt. Currently the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are pretending they are keeping interest rates low to stimulate the economy, but the rates are way under what they have been historically in a growing economy with well less than 7% unemployment and no overall inflation. The main result of the low interest rates is that the government can finance its debt cheaply. Since that is the main result, that is the real purpose.
Normal interest rates are about 5%. 10% of $17 trillion is $1.7 trillion. 5% is half of that, so $0.85 trillion. Per year, in interest alone. A trillion is a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. So take my word for it, as valueless as the dollar has become since the Great Depression, and as large a the economy has become, we are talking a high-magnitude earthquake-like impact on the federal budget and on the economy if interest rates normalize. If we actually had an old-fashioned strong economy interest rates could easily climb above 5%, if we had free markets or the Fed were to do its job of keeping inflation under control.
Folly begets folly, and investors around the world see U.S. debt as a safe thing right now. Just a switch in that attitude, which would result in investors refusing to buy bonds until interest rates were higher (like 5% on 10 year bonds), would throw the U.S. into bankruptcy.
Its kind of like global warming. You have politicians who are in denial, and you have politicians who see the problem, but are not willing to act on something decades away. Only the debt crisis is probably well less than a decade away. It could start any time, and the longer it takes, the worse it will be.
The problem may be fixable. Democrats and Republicans alike would have to give up quite a bit. Each party uses federal money, or exemptions from taxes, to buy campaign donations and votes. Each party would have to give up much of its gravy train. And each could do that, without harming the economy overall.
Homeland security spending is nearly a complete waste. Cut that budget by 90%. Cut the military budget by 50%. And yes, it would take toughter-than-Ryan cuts in food stamps and education subsidies. Cut payments to health-care organizations and doctors, focusing on high-cost low-benefit drugs, diagnostic procedures, and surgeries. Raise the IRS budget, double it, and have them go after tax shirkers at all levels.
What, cut education subsidies? Yes, cut them. I support public schools, and I served on a public school board for 8 years, and I was the most liberal member of a liberal board. But I also saw the details of how federal money is doled out. Cut the money in half, remove the red tape by 100%, and let the school boards micromanage how to best educate their pupils. Some will screw up, many will be mired in mediocrity, but most will do better with half the money.
Alternatively taxes on the rich, and in fact on individuals making $50,000 a year or more, will soon need to be doubled. That is right, doubled. Read my lips: doubled. With no exemptions for capital gains, dividends, or inheritances. Even small inheritances.
Or we could do some combination of severe spending cuts and severe tax increases.
I imagine I have alienated just about everyone by pointing out the problem and the only ways it can be solved. I know plenty of people who get food stamps and never worry about how that food is really being paid for. I know soldiers and veterans, and I know people who make plenty of money and consider themselves over-taxed even after they take their tax breaks. No one likes to hear the nation is sick, and they all have to take some medicine.
So as an analyst, my prediction is the federal government is not going to act any better than heroin addicts would act (I've known some of them too). It will continue to borrow money until no one will lend it money.
Then it will either collapse in agony or go out and hit someone over the head and take the money it needs for its addiction. And blow off its creditors.
Disclaimer: I am registered to vote in California, but with no political party.
Why did the House Republicans pass a budget this week, written by Paul Ryan, that would not balance the budget (barring an economic miracle) until 2024, a decade from now?
It is not just politics as usual, even though everyone knew this budget bill, which passed 219 to 205, won't become law. It will die in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and in any case President Barack Obama won't sign it.
Take a step back and look at the bigger picture, both economic and historical. Deficit financing did not become a regular part of the American economy until the Great Depression. In 1933 progressives of both parties (Democrat and Republican), led by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, tried "pump priming," getting the economy headed back to normal by government deficit spending. Soon income tax rates were raised too. But what really ran up a deficit, and revitalized the economy, was World War II.
After World War II the U.S. had an unprecedented amount of debt, but we were the only industrialized nation that had not been devastated by the war. More important, both parties had seen what a little economic heroin could do for politicians. So while conservatives talked of balanced budgets, they became rare even in years when the economy was booming.
Now tax rates are far lower than they were from 1935 until 1980. Republicans can take most, but not all, of the credit for that. But if anything Republicans have been worse than Democrats about spending taxpayer dollars.
Ryan's budget advocates cutting back on payments for food stamps, health care, education and transportation. But it does not cut back on military and homeland security spending, or on subsidies and tax breaks for corporations and the rich. It does not prioritize dealing with the national debt. The Democrats will say its domestic spending cuts amputate important programs, but in fact Ryan's cuts are band-aid sized cuts. They are meant not to antagonize too many senior voters, just mostly the type of people who vote Democrat, if they can get a valid voter ID card.
Ryan's budget tries to please Tea Party Republicans with the smell of budget cuts without alienating the big defense corporations or too many middle class voters.
And in his heart-of-hearts, Ryan may worry that without the deficit spending his plan envisions, the economy might stall, which would reduce tax collections, increase the deficit, and make it harder for him to reward his sponsors with government contracts.
Then there is the over $17 trillion dollars of federal debt. Currently the Treasury and the Federal Reserve are pretending they are keeping interest rates low to stimulate the economy, but the rates are way under what they have been historically in a growing economy with well less than 7% unemployment and no overall inflation. The main result of the low interest rates is that the government can finance its debt cheaply. Since that is the main result, that is the real purpose.
Normal interest rates are about 5%. 10% of $17 trillion is $1.7 trillion. 5% is half of that, so $0.85 trillion. Per year, in interest alone. A trillion is a thousand billions, and a billion is a thousand millions. So take my word for it, as valueless as the dollar has become since the Great Depression, and as large a the economy has become, we are talking a high-magnitude earthquake-like impact on the federal budget and on the economy if interest rates normalize. If we actually had an old-fashioned strong economy interest rates could easily climb above 5%, if we had free markets or the Fed were to do its job of keeping inflation under control.
Folly begets folly, and investors around the world see U.S. debt as a safe thing right now. Just a switch in that attitude, which would result in investors refusing to buy bonds until interest rates were higher (like 5% on 10 year bonds), would throw the U.S. into bankruptcy.
Its kind of like global warming. You have politicians who are in denial, and you have politicians who see the problem, but are not willing to act on something decades away. Only the debt crisis is probably well less than a decade away. It could start any time, and the longer it takes, the worse it will be.
The problem may be fixable. Democrats and Republicans alike would have to give up quite a bit. Each party uses federal money, or exemptions from taxes, to buy campaign donations and votes. Each party would have to give up much of its gravy train. And each could do that, without harming the economy overall.
Homeland security spending is nearly a complete waste. Cut that budget by 90%. Cut the military budget by 50%. And yes, it would take toughter-than-Ryan cuts in food stamps and education subsidies. Cut payments to health-care organizations and doctors, focusing on high-cost low-benefit drugs, diagnostic procedures, and surgeries. Raise the IRS budget, double it, and have them go after tax shirkers at all levels.
What, cut education subsidies? Yes, cut them. I support public schools, and I served on a public school board for 8 years, and I was the most liberal member of a liberal board. But I also saw the details of how federal money is doled out. Cut the money in half, remove the red tape by 100%, and let the school boards micromanage how to best educate their pupils. Some will screw up, many will be mired in mediocrity, but most will do better with half the money.
Alternatively taxes on the rich, and in fact on individuals making $50,000 a year or more, will soon need to be doubled. That is right, doubled. Read my lips: doubled. With no exemptions for capital gains, dividends, or inheritances. Even small inheritances.
Or we could do some combination of severe spending cuts and severe tax increases.
I imagine I have alienated just about everyone by pointing out the problem and the only ways it can be solved. I know plenty of people who get food stamps and never worry about how that food is really being paid for. I know soldiers and veterans, and I know people who make plenty of money and consider themselves over-taxed even after they take their tax breaks. No one likes to hear the nation is sick, and they all have to take some medicine.
So as an analyst, my prediction is the federal government is not going to act any better than heroin addicts would act (I've known some of them too). It will continue to borrow money until no one will lend it money.
Then it will either collapse in agony or go out and hit someone over the head and take the money it needs for its addiction. And blow off its creditors.
Disclaimer: I am registered to vote in California, but with no political party.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Republicans, Democrats, and Zombies
I am busy with freelance work, but thought I would write a brief note or rant on some topics of the day.
Saw Warm Bodies, the zombie comedy, last night. It only had 2 stars at Netflix, so I was ready for disaster, but actually it was quite good. I'm guessing the low star rating is because either it pissed a key reviewing group off, or it is not genre-specific enough. It is a zombie movie, but without enough gore to satisfy horror movie fans. It is a Romeo and Juliet, but probably repulsive to lovers of romance. It is a political and social allegory, but not strident enough for leftists. It has a happy ending, which is especially disappointing to certain types of people.
Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans are holding the nation hostage, and why not? They've owned us since the two-party system solidified after the Civil War. While I sympathize with the social concerns with which the Democrats use taxpayer dollars to buy the votes of the people that the Democrats allow the corporations to underpay or underemploy, I agree with the Republicans (who are secretly big spenders, having been born into big-spending families) that the national debt is a problem. I dislike much of the Affordable Care Act, but I am in the under $75,000 per year, over 55 but too young for Medicare crowd that the Act helps so much. My cost for insurance will go down, and the Sickness Industry will continue to overcharge just about everyone for their services.
Will the Republicans force the U.S. to default on its debt? Was a time when cutting back spending or raising taxes would at least allow the U.S. government to muddle through. No longer. The interest on the debt, if combined with the inability to issue new debt to repay old debt, is looking to spiral out of control. And if there is danger of default, interest rates will skyrocket. Only fools hold U.S. federal bonds now. Mostly the same fools who sold all their stock market holdings at the bottom in 2008.
The silver lining would be the rest of the earth would be released from bondage to the U.S. There would probably be a world-wide recession or depression, but at least U.S. imperialism would be over. No pay, no work, even for soldiers. Oh, wait, maybe not, the contract U.S. soldiers sign does not allow them to negotiate for pay. They can be kept until the end of their enlistment even without pay.
The big business guys, as greedy as they are, are (mostly) not entirely irrational. They have been pressuring the non-Tea Party republicans to raise the debt ceiling. Then the budget bickering can continue.
And the new, non-happy ending info I picked up from my freelance work this weekend is that solar and wind energy require massive amounts of copper. The copper is mostly dug out of huge open pit mines and results in major pollution issues. The energy needed to mine the copper comes from mining coal ...
Too much, too many people, too much. But I have a pleasant life, for now, with the apples nicely ripening, the pears all picked, and an apple pie I made last night waiting to feed my face, should the zombie apocalypse cut off food supplies. Or should the politicians hurl us back into the pit of the war of each against all.
Saw Warm Bodies, the zombie comedy, last night. It only had 2 stars at Netflix, so I was ready for disaster, but actually it was quite good. I'm guessing the low star rating is because either it pissed a key reviewing group off, or it is not genre-specific enough. It is a zombie movie, but without enough gore to satisfy horror movie fans. It is a Romeo and Juliet, but probably repulsive to lovers of romance. It is a political and social allegory, but not strident enough for leftists. It has a happy ending, which is especially disappointing to certain types of people.
Meanwhile the Democrats and Republicans are holding the nation hostage, and why not? They've owned us since the two-party system solidified after the Civil War. While I sympathize with the social concerns with which the Democrats use taxpayer dollars to buy the votes of the people that the Democrats allow the corporations to underpay or underemploy, I agree with the Republicans (who are secretly big spenders, having been born into big-spending families) that the national debt is a problem. I dislike much of the Affordable Care Act, but I am in the under $75,000 per year, over 55 but too young for Medicare crowd that the Act helps so much. My cost for insurance will go down, and the Sickness Industry will continue to overcharge just about everyone for their services.
Will the Republicans force the U.S. to default on its debt? Was a time when cutting back spending or raising taxes would at least allow the U.S. government to muddle through. No longer. The interest on the debt, if combined with the inability to issue new debt to repay old debt, is looking to spiral out of control. And if there is danger of default, interest rates will skyrocket. Only fools hold U.S. federal bonds now. Mostly the same fools who sold all their stock market holdings at the bottom in 2008.
The silver lining would be the rest of the earth would be released from bondage to the U.S. There would probably be a world-wide recession or depression, but at least U.S. imperialism would be over. No pay, no work, even for soldiers. Oh, wait, maybe not, the contract U.S. soldiers sign does not allow them to negotiate for pay. They can be kept until the end of their enlistment even without pay.
The big business guys, as greedy as they are, are (mostly) not entirely irrational. They have been pressuring the non-Tea Party republicans to raise the debt ceiling. Then the budget bickering can continue.
And the new, non-happy ending info I picked up from my freelance work this weekend is that solar and wind energy require massive amounts of copper. The copper is mostly dug out of huge open pit mines and results in major pollution issues. The energy needed to mine the copper comes from mining coal ...
Too much, too many people, too much. But I have a pleasant life, for now, with the apples nicely ripening, the pears all picked, and an apple pie I made last night waiting to feed my face, should the zombie apocalypse cut off food supplies. Or should the politicians hurl us back into the pit of the war of each against all.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Sequester, Marijuana, and Useless Politicians
A tidal wave of criticism has hit the federal budget cuts popularly called "the sequester." I kind of like the budget cuts. They are not exactly how I would do things, but let's step back and look at the bright side of the news, the silver lining.
Those liberals who pretend that racking up an ever-higher national debt is not a problem might want to go back to high school and study the section of algebra dealing with compound interest. That includes you, Robert Reich. Until they do that there is probably no point arguing. This particular essay is for those of you who understand that debts do need to be repaid, and the United States of America could become a third-rate nation again (as it was in 1781) if it does not get its finances straightened out pretty quickly.
Every politician has his paymasters and even is, to a small degrees, subject to the voters of her district. The military budget is based on putting military bases or contracts in almost every Congressional district. No pol wants cuts to affect their district. Social Security payments go out to every district. Farm payments mostly to to farm states, but they have disproportionate influence in the U.S. Senate because even states where heat-seeking drones would have trouble finding a few voters still get 2 Senators. And so on, so that any cuts in the federal budget hurt some people in enough congressional districts to preclude that particular budget line getting cut in a fair and open vote.
Everybody's priorities differ. I would cut the military budget by 90% if the American people would lend me an ax, but I am countered by people who would feel a lot safer if the military budget were doubled and the Medicaid budget were cut by 90%. It is true on every issue. One citizen's subsidy is another's tax burden.
We have three choices: pay more federal taxes, reduce the federal budget, or implode financially some time between now and (I'm guessing) 2020.
I actually am willing to pay somewhat more in federal taxes, but as a humble, not particularly successful journalist I am at the low end of the income and taxation spectrum. I wish I was making a million a year and could pay just $300,000 or so in taxes. But I know if I was the kind of person who thought $1 million a year was just deserts for having gone to med school or law school or business school or even the school of hard knocks, it would seem to me like I could get a lot of pleasure out of that $300,000, and maybe the recipients of federal largesse could try a little harder rather than sitting around waiting for my money to be transferred into their greedy and lazy hands.
And who do the politicians want as a friend in the primary? Me, with my $25 donations, or the $1 million per annum income guy with his $10,000 donations and bundling of ten such donations just to sit at a table near the guy who doles out the dollars and tax breaks?
The federal government is not a socialist government. It owns no industry (well, maybe a few ammunition plants and the like). It spends other people's money, and for the most part does not spend it very productively. It does not even tax the rich to subsidize Social Security.
And let's take some responsibility, folks. Yes, us. We want to stop wasting public safety money criminalizing marijuana, but nothing ever changes at the national level. The Democrats almost never deliver on any of their promises, Obama in particular.
Then there are you Republicans out there who should know the value of social peace and good infrastructure. Without social peace there will be no profits. Social Security, food stamps, and federal spending on education and healthcare buy some social peace. Cut them out, and the Bolsheviks will come back out of the woodwork (where I happen to know they are still lurking, like bedbugs, and increasingly pesticide-resistant).
You Republicans elected the Republican twits in Congress, and they are in a majority in the House of Representatives. They are too busy striking poses for Tea Party fanatics to actually spend some time governing. As a result, the military budget has been cut along with the rest of the lot. We might have to make do with one less aircraft carrier. Which still means we have just about all of the functioning aircraft carriers in the world.
So programs that genuinely protect public safety are being cut. But a lot of bullshit is being cut too. The problem is not the budget cuts, but the failure to get rid of loopholes and agricultural and industrial subsidies. Make the oil and gas companies pay some taxes for a change. Tax the alcohol producers.
Fortunately the economy is growing. This is a testament to the people who get up and work every Monday, including the honest, productive business managers and owners. With a growing economy tax revenues should grow, even with all of the tax-dodges out there.
That will not be enough, not for a while. The Congress is supposed to run the Pentagon, but the Pentagon runs Congress. The rich should be thankful they had the opportunity to get rich by exploiting their fellow Americans, but all most of them do is bitch. ["This cocaine isn't very pure!" or "Why is that homeless person ruining the view from my Mercedes?" "Or, what do you mean I can't deduct my wife's collection of $10,000 boots as a business expenses?"] Especially the ones who get their money from trust funds and inheritances. Despite my dislike of Lenin and Stalin, the idea of just lining up the trust fund set for liquidation does have a certain emotional appeal.
I say, let's sequester more in 2014. Let's sequester 20% of the military and homeland security budget, 20% of the subsidies to corporate farming, and 20% of anything that goes to anti-marijuana majority states until they let my people go.
I mean it. Let my pot heads go. Did you hear that, Representatives? President Obama? Senators? If you can't even accomplish that, what do we need you for?
Those liberals who pretend that racking up an ever-higher national debt is not a problem might want to go back to high school and study the section of algebra dealing with compound interest. That includes you, Robert Reich. Until they do that there is probably no point arguing. This particular essay is for those of you who understand that debts do need to be repaid, and the United States of America could become a third-rate nation again (as it was in 1781) if it does not get its finances straightened out pretty quickly.
Every politician has his paymasters and even is, to a small degrees, subject to the voters of her district. The military budget is based on putting military bases or contracts in almost every Congressional district. No pol wants cuts to affect their district. Social Security payments go out to every district. Farm payments mostly to to farm states, but they have disproportionate influence in the U.S. Senate because even states where heat-seeking drones would have trouble finding a few voters still get 2 Senators. And so on, so that any cuts in the federal budget hurt some people in enough congressional districts to preclude that particular budget line getting cut in a fair and open vote.
Everybody's priorities differ. I would cut the military budget by 90% if the American people would lend me an ax, but I am countered by people who would feel a lot safer if the military budget were doubled and the Medicaid budget were cut by 90%. It is true on every issue. One citizen's subsidy is another's tax burden.
We have three choices: pay more federal taxes, reduce the federal budget, or implode financially some time between now and (I'm guessing) 2020.
I actually am willing to pay somewhat more in federal taxes, but as a humble, not particularly successful journalist I am at the low end of the income and taxation spectrum. I wish I was making a million a year and could pay just $300,000 or so in taxes. But I know if I was the kind of person who thought $1 million a year was just deserts for having gone to med school or law school or business school or even the school of hard knocks, it would seem to me like I could get a lot of pleasure out of that $300,000, and maybe the recipients of federal largesse could try a little harder rather than sitting around waiting for my money to be transferred into their greedy and lazy hands.
And who do the politicians want as a friend in the primary? Me, with my $25 donations, or the $1 million per annum income guy with his $10,000 donations and bundling of ten such donations just to sit at a table near the guy who doles out the dollars and tax breaks?
The federal government is not a socialist government. It owns no industry (well, maybe a few ammunition plants and the like). It spends other people's money, and for the most part does not spend it very productively. It does not even tax the rich to subsidize Social Security.
And let's take some responsibility, folks. Yes, us. We want to stop wasting public safety money criminalizing marijuana, but nothing ever changes at the national level. The Democrats almost never deliver on any of their promises, Obama in particular.
Then there are you Republicans out there who should know the value of social peace and good infrastructure. Without social peace there will be no profits. Social Security, food stamps, and federal spending on education and healthcare buy some social peace. Cut them out, and the Bolsheviks will come back out of the woodwork (where I happen to know they are still lurking, like bedbugs, and increasingly pesticide-resistant).
You Republicans elected the Republican twits in Congress, and they are in a majority in the House of Representatives. They are too busy striking poses for Tea Party fanatics to actually spend some time governing. As a result, the military budget has been cut along with the rest of the lot. We might have to make do with one less aircraft carrier. Which still means we have just about all of the functioning aircraft carriers in the world.
So programs that genuinely protect public safety are being cut. But a lot of bullshit is being cut too. The problem is not the budget cuts, but the failure to get rid of loopholes and agricultural and industrial subsidies. Make the oil and gas companies pay some taxes for a change. Tax the alcohol producers.
Fortunately the economy is growing. This is a testament to the people who get up and work every Monday, including the honest, productive business managers and owners. With a growing economy tax revenues should grow, even with all of the tax-dodges out there.
That will not be enough, not for a while. The Congress is supposed to run the Pentagon, but the Pentagon runs Congress. The rich should be thankful they had the opportunity to get rich by exploiting their fellow Americans, but all most of them do is bitch. ["This cocaine isn't very pure!" or "Why is that homeless person ruining the view from my Mercedes?" "Or, what do you mean I can't deduct my wife's collection of $10,000 boots as a business expenses?"] Especially the ones who get their money from trust funds and inheritances. Despite my dislike of Lenin and Stalin, the idea of just lining up the trust fund set for liquidation does have a certain emotional appeal.
I say, let's sequester more in 2014. Let's sequester 20% of the military and homeland security budget, 20% of the subsidies to corporate farming, and 20% of anything that goes to anti-marijuana majority states until they let my people go.
I mean it. Let my pot heads go. Did you hear that, Representatives? President Obama? Senators? If you can't even accomplish that, what do we need you for?
Monday, November 14, 2011
Occupy Political Offices
"Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes."
When Herman Cain can put his hands upon
Any skirt that he should chance upon
Heaven knows,
Anything goes.
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose.
Anything goes."
When Herman Cain can put his hands upon
Any skirt that he should chance upon
Heaven knows,
Anything goes.
I chanced upon yet another ancient surprise this weekend, the Child Labor Amendment, proposed in 1924. Mostly child labor has since become illegal or highly regulated, but in 1924 children were still working under appalling conditions in a variety of industries. Not only was there not a federal law prohibiting child labor, but the Supreme Court had struck down, over the years, a number of state laws prohibiting or regulating child labor (just as they had struck down other labor laws.). For instance, in 1923 the Supreme Court ruled that even in the federal district of Washington, D.C., a minimum wage law for women and children was unconstitutional, in Adkins v. Children's Hospital.
The Amendment was opposed not just by the crueler members of the business community, but by the Catholic Bishops. In their wisdom they felt the amendment would lead, eventually, to government control of child rearing. In Catholic Countries they took a different attitude. There the Church used the Government to force Catholicism upon all children. That would be a central dogma of fascism in the next two decades, and in Spain until the death of General Franco.
Text of this amendment, worth considering (for style, not content) by those who are moving to amend the U.S. Constitution:
Section 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age. Section 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress.
28 states passed the amendment before the drive petered out.
At least they needed laborers in the 1920s. The U.S. people had made out like bandits in World War I. In fact, the U.S. people acted exactly like bandits in World War I. We sold our excess products to the warring parties and loaned Britain and France vast sums of money. Then we entered the war at the last minute and helped Britain and France to loot Germany. Holding most of the world's money at the end of the war, and reaping interest and principal on the loans, enough trickled down from the big New York banks to allow the entire nation to have a party that included a real estate boom and a stock market anyone could get rich playing.
Then things fell apart. Capitalism fell apart without any help from government regulations. Don't forget that.
Occupy Wall Street and its spawn continues to evolve and exchange DNA with labor unions and political ideas and trends of all kinds. Can Occupy, or some related organization-like substance, do what the Tea Party did in 2010? Which is to say, convert ideas into practice.
That would take something the Left is very bad at: winning political offices. Winning here meaning elected our own people, and ones with backbone, rather than allowing career politicians to slightly change their election rhetoric and appear to be aligned with us.
We have a big disadvantage compared to the Tea Party: a lack of billionaires willing to fund our campaigns in the way necessary to actually win political elections. But we also have some serious cultural issues of our own holding us back. First, like the Tea Party, we mostly don't really like government. But, like the Tea Party, we should not let that stop us. We should capture the government that is there now and make it smaller. We should cut Pentagon spending and eliminate an entire branch of the armed services, the Marine Corps. We should minimize the DEA. We should abolish the system of farm subsidies. We should kill federal transportation dollars and allow the states to take care of their own highways.
We should also close all tax loopholes used by the rich. All capital gains in liquid assets (stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments) should be taxed at the regular income tax rates, with capital gains taxed the year they accrue (not waiting until an instrument is sold, as is currently the practice). The oil and gas industry should lose its subsidies and tax breaks. Once we start paying down the deficit run up by the Pentagon and oil companies, we can adjust tax rates to optimize happiness for the rest of us.
But to do all that, we need our own people in office. We need the kind of backbone in the state legislatures and Congress that the Tea Party has now. And that means pissing off the Democratic Party establishment. Pissing on them until they go away and we can occupy their old offices. Face up to reality: in the short run we can't occupy many offices held by Republicans. But we could occupy a significant number of offices held by establishment Democrats.
That means taking risks, just like the Tea Party took risks in trying to win offices from the Republican Party. The mainstream and Wall Street Republicans told the Tea Party that if they ran their own candidates in primaries, even if they won the primaries they would just lose the general elections and put more Democrats in office.
For decades I have heard the same argument from establishment Democrats: run your own candidates in the primaries, and even if they win, they would just lose the general elections and put more Republicans into office. We wouldn't want that, would we?
People are mad at incumbents, but they need some outside agitation to make offices actually change hands. This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Now is the time to start organizing campaigns for 2012. It is not easy. The banks have robbed us, and the law allows them to give themselves bonuses. We are not allowed to rob banks to finance our campaigns; that would be against the gruel of law. But ways and means must be found, or America will become increasingly like a capitalist gulag for the vast majority of American citizens.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Afghanistan War Loses Support in Congress
“If we’re going to cut programs for children who need milk in the morning, if we’re going to cut programs for seniors who need a sandwich at lunch, if we’re going to cut veterans benefits, then, for God’s sake, let’s bring back our troops from Afghanistan.” Thus said Representative Walter B. Jones in a recent speech in Beaufort, North Carolina. Jones is not a Democrat. He is a Republican, and a very conservative Republican on most matters. His district is likewise very conservative, and includes one of America's largest Marine Corps bases, Camp Lejeune (where I was born and raised).
Congress is beginning to rebel in earnest against Barack Obama's war policy in Afghanistan. Recently Jones and Democrat Jim McGovern of Massachusetts sponsored an amendment to H.R. 1540, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2012, to speed the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. The vote on H. Amdt. 344 (follow the link to see how your Rep voted) to require from the President "A plan and timeframe on accelerated transition of military operations to Afghan authorities." That is pretty tame by my we should have never gotten in standards, but 8 Democrats joined 207 Republicans to vote against it. 26 Republicans and 178 Democrats voted for it. The amendment failed.
What is going on? Why is the Community Organizer President wasting U.S. blood, and $10 billion a year or so in taxpayer money, on occupying Afghanistan? Why are otherwise ideologically pure Republicans turning against the occupation?
I have observed that whether people are left, liberal, moderate, conservative or right-wing, some reality will seep in through ideological filters some of the time. Mostly people buy into ideological and (filtered) factual bundles because they have limited time and knowledge; it is the easy way to go. But push their noses close enough to manure, or roses, and most people can tell the difference, regardless of ideology.
Right-of-center is a bundle of people, but beware of over-generalizing. No every right-of-center person fits the leftist view of being a biblical fundamentalist war mongering anti-immigrant anti-environment racist. Very few, in fact, fit that description. Avoid talking about the Bible and even the fundamentalists can be pretty astute about real world issues.
The people of the United States of America has been in a new world of hurt since the Great Recession began. A good many people who were middle-income learned suddenly what it is like to be at the bottom. To want to work, but to have not jobs available. To need to patch something, but be unable to afford the patching material. To lived crowded in with relatives that, truth be told, they would just as soon see once a year at a family reunion.
The Afghanistan war never made sense to me and my peace movement friends. The U.S. could have saved over $100 billion and many lives by sending in the CIA, not the Marines. In the end it was the CIA that got Bin Laden.
So what is wrong with President Obama? We aren't in community organizing mode anymore. Barack is now in the eye of the corporate security state. He has not visited the grieving parents of the children the U.S. military has "accidentally" killed in Afghanistan. He has not stood as a soldier and watched people watching him, hoping he would step on an IED. He lucked into the Presidency without having any real accomplishments before arriving in that esteemed office. He wanted to be President, and for that he was more than happy to become the most important piece on the military-industrial complex chess board.
Community Organizer has lately shown willingness to take lunch away from American children to appease two bullies, the Pentagon and the super-rich Americans who are happy to deduct heavy taxes from their employee's payrolls but don't want to (and mostly don't) pay taxes on inheritance, dividends, and capital gains.
If you can't smell what's happening here, you have lost your sense of smell. In a contest between Barack Obama and Walter B. Jones, I'd vote for Walter. Hopefully more Republicans will join Jones in the next vote on funding Afghanistan that comes before Congress. After all, the Constitution says Congress is supposed to make policy. The President is only supposed to carry out the laws and policies enacted by Congress.
See also the NY Time article, An Antiwar Republican, No Longer His Party's Pariah
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saving Wall Street, Pros and Cons
Readers of this column know that I don't much approve of how this nations' government or economy are run. But you know I like to illuminate the stuff in the box by gazing at it from outside the box. Right now the stuff in the box is a bail out for some of America's biggest investment banks, which in turn will bail out some of their biggest clients, who are holding mortgage-related investments. In all cases, we are talking about obscenely rich people who could care less about ordinary people and have repeatedly shown that with their actions.
Yet joining the criticism of the strange coalition of left-of-center Democrats and right-wind House Republicans who "opposed" the Treasury plan mainly to make political hay just seems like jumping on a pile of big guys who have already caused permanent injury to a quarterback who had a million dollar arm just a few moments earlier. The House Republicans say they don't want ordinary taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. That is a laugh, except that some of their constituents are so brain dead they probably swallowed that poll-driven excrement without a thought.
,
I agree with progressives that a bottom-up rescue plan would be better. But we are stuck with the decision makers that the American voters chose, and the way things work is most incumbents will be re-elected to Congress in November. I have never drunk the free-markets always work kool-aid, but I also know that a credit freeze will almost certainly throw this country into an economic depression, and quickly. It would be very hard to dig our way out of such a Depression. In 1929 when the last Depression began the national treasury was almost debt-free. That is not the case today. The government won't be able to spend its way out of a Depression because no one will be willing to finance that level of spending. The only alternative is the kind of inflation that destroyed Germany in the 1920's, or enduring the pain until the business cycle eventually gets back on track by itself. The possibility of the complete collapse of civilization as we know it is no longer totally improbable in the short run.
So I am for the $700 billion (probably more like $1 trillion, by the time it is over) bail out of Wall Street. In effect taxpayers are buying assets that may increase or decrease in value. Congress did insist on some good changes to the original plan. It could be much worse.
It is not the first bailout in American history, and it is not always Wall Street that gets bailed out. Remember that IRS "refund" check you got a few months ago? That, aside from being a shameless election year ploy, was a bailout for us all. And some bailouts are so institutionalized we don't think twice about them, like receiving unemployment insurance or Social Security disability payments, or food stamps.
The problem with bailouts evenly distributed among the citizens or taxpayers is that they just don't work in the kind of situation we have right now. Quite a few people may have caught up on a single mortgage payment with the tax refund, but they are in trouble precisely because they habitually spend more than they make, so most of them were probably in trouble again the next month. They need their life styles to be cut back. If they did that it might be worth the government doing something about refinancing their mortgage payments.
When Wall Street was raking in profits 3 years ago, it was because they concentrated the profits from millions of relatively small transactions. In this crisis we see the concentration of millions of small losses (small here might mean up to $1 million dollars per mortgage). To deal with the crisis quickly, the fire must be put out where it is burning, not where we would like to fight fires in the future.
What is sad is that once the crisis goes away, no fundamental reform is likely. There were a few fundamental reforms in the Great Depression partly because the crisis was not averted early on, in 1930. Some radicals might argue, (and I'm tempted) that therefore it would be best to let Wall Street and the entire free-market Capitalist religion fall. The problem is that good cultural, political and economic systems don't automatically spring up after bad systems have crashed. In the last Great Depression many nations ended up with Fascist governments (See my fascism pages): Italy, Germany, and Spain of course, but also France, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and others. Even the New Deal had many fascist-type elements, most notably the death-grip on power held by President-for-life Roosevelt.
Yet joining the criticism of the strange coalition of left-of-center Democrats and right-wind House Republicans who "opposed" the Treasury plan mainly to make political hay just seems like jumping on a pile of big guys who have already caused permanent injury to a quarterback who had a million dollar arm just a few moments earlier. The House Republicans say they don't want ordinary taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. That is a laugh, except that some of their constituents are so brain dead they probably swallowed that poll-driven excrement without a thought.
,
I agree with progressives that a bottom-up rescue plan would be better. But we are stuck with the decision makers that the American voters chose, and the way things work is most incumbents will be re-elected to Congress in November. I have never drunk the free-markets always work kool-aid, but I also know that a credit freeze will almost certainly throw this country into an economic depression, and quickly. It would be very hard to dig our way out of such a Depression. In 1929 when the last Depression began the national treasury was almost debt-free. That is not the case today. The government won't be able to spend its way out of a Depression because no one will be willing to finance that level of spending. The only alternative is the kind of inflation that destroyed Germany in the 1920's, or enduring the pain until the business cycle eventually gets back on track by itself. The possibility of the complete collapse of civilization as we know it is no longer totally improbable in the short run.
So I am for the $700 billion (probably more like $1 trillion, by the time it is over) bail out of Wall Street. In effect taxpayers are buying assets that may increase or decrease in value. Congress did insist on some good changes to the original plan. It could be much worse.
It is not the first bailout in American history, and it is not always Wall Street that gets bailed out. Remember that IRS "refund" check you got a few months ago? That, aside from being a shameless election year ploy, was a bailout for us all. And some bailouts are so institutionalized we don't think twice about them, like receiving unemployment insurance or Social Security disability payments, or food stamps.
The problem with bailouts evenly distributed among the citizens or taxpayers is that they just don't work in the kind of situation we have right now. Quite a few people may have caught up on a single mortgage payment with the tax refund, but they are in trouble precisely because they habitually spend more than they make, so most of them were probably in trouble again the next month. They need their life styles to be cut back. If they did that it might be worth the government doing something about refinancing their mortgage payments.
When Wall Street was raking in profits 3 years ago, it was because they concentrated the profits from millions of relatively small transactions. In this crisis we see the concentration of millions of small losses (small here might mean up to $1 million dollars per mortgage). To deal with the crisis quickly, the fire must be put out where it is burning, not where we would like to fight fires in the future.
What is sad is that once the crisis goes away, no fundamental reform is likely. There were a few fundamental reforms in the Great Depression partly because the crisis was not averted early on, in 1930. Some radicals might argue, (and I'm tempted) that therefore it would be best to let Wall Street and the entire free-market Capitalist religion fall. The problem is that good cultural, political and economic systems don't automatically spring up after bad systems have crashed. In the last Great Depression many nations ended up with Fascist governments (See my fascism pages): Italy, Germany, and Spain of course, but also France, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and others. Even the New Deal had many fascist-type elements, most notably the death-grip on power held by President-for-life Roosevelt.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
John McCain and Barack Obama Already Failing
The Friday, June 6, 2008, vote to kill the progress of the Climate Change bill in the Senate of the United States of America should be like a cold shower on Monday morning after a long weekend of partying. John McCain may offer experience and Barack Obama may offer hope, but whichever one gets elected will be the President of a quagmire of special interests, giant egos, and partisan back stabbing. The two-party system has failed, or at least the two current parties are both failing to deliver what America needs. Both McCain and Obama promise to bring the two parties together, to end partisan feuding. But they intend to do this by compromise, by standing in the middle of the quagmire and inviting everyone to drown.
The bill is Senate Bill 3036, Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008, meant to address the issue of global warming. In the Senate, having passed out of committee, the bill needed 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote. It gathered only 48 votes. The Democratic Party leadership refused to allow a full debate, and the offering of amendments, on the bill. Four Democrats [Brown, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu] voted against the bill and six [Biden, Byrd, Clinton, Conrad, Kennedy, Obama] could not be bothered to vote. McCain was also too busy trying to lead us around the quagmire to vote. Republicans voting Yes included Collins, Dole, Martinez, Smith, Snowe, Sununu, and Warner.
While the bill itself could be criticized from any perspective, mostly not strong enough for environmentalists and too strong for those who don't take global warming seriously, at least it would have gotten the ball rolling. Policy could be tweaked in future bills. Now there will be no action until at least 2009. Given that Al Gore was Vice-President to Bill Clinton and nothing was done about climate change, nothing at all, for those 8 years, you might think environmentalists in the Democratic Party would be wondering about the quality of their party leadership.
There are things, sociopathies if you will, that are wrong with the American people, and those sociopathies are reflected and amplified in the two alternately ruling parties. We have become a lazy, greedy, immoral, and spineless people. We whine about conditions, but won't even vote for independents or third party candidates on the one day a year (or every two years), the five minutes every two years we are given the opportunity to vote.
Don't forget that the Senate is an undemocratic institution by design. States with just a few people in them get as many Senate votes as states like California, Florida, Texas and New York.
Send both the ruling class and your fellow Americans a message this November. Yell it from the roof tops. Vote for Cynthia McKinney for President and for the best candidates in each race regardless of political party. Vote for Cindy Sheehan and Carol Wolman for Congress. I can't vouch for each and every Green Party candidate, but here is a list of California Green candidates [See also my Green Party pages].
And plan on a social system based on anarchism. America is falling apart so quickly, that might be your only real choice anyway when the government collapses. At least when the government collapses the national debt will disappear. Setting up a new national government, which would have to re-assume the national debt, would be economic folly of the first order.
Yes, it is true. If the Democratic Party succeeds in crushing the Green Party, my fallback position is not to become a war crimes supporter by becoming a Democrat. For voting purpose I would become independent, but for organizing purposes I would promote an anarchist social organization.
The bill is Senate Bill 3036, Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2008, meant to address the issue of global warming. In the Senate, having passed out of committee, the bill needed 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote. It gathered only 48 votes. The Democratic Party leadership refused to allow a full debate, and the offering of amendments, on the bill. Four Democrats [Brown, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu] voted against the bill and six [Biden, Byrd, Clinton, Conrad, Kennedy, Obama] could not be bothered to vote. McCain was also too busy trying to lead us around the quagmire to vote. Republicans voting Yes included Collins, Dole, Martinez, Smith, Snowe, Sununu, and Warner.
While the bill itself could be criticized from any perspective, mostly not strong enough for environmentalists and too strong for those who don't take global warming seriously, at least it would have gotten the ball rolling. Policy could be tweaked in future bills. Now there will be no action until at least 2009. Given that Al Gore was Vice-President to Bill Clinton and nothing was done about climate change, nothing at all, for those 8 years, you might think environmentalists in the Democratic Party would be wondering about the quality of their party leadership.
There are things, sociopathies if you will, that are wrong with the American people, and those sociopathies are reflected and amplified in the two alternately ruling parties. We have become a lazy, greedy, immoral, and spineless people. We whine about conditions, but won't even vote for independents or third party candidates on the one day a year (or every two years), the five minutes every two years we are given the opportunity to vote.
Don't forget that the Senate is an undemocratic institution by design. States with just a few people in them get as many Senate votes as states like California, Florida, Texas and New York.
Send both the ruling class and your fellow Americans a message this November. Yell it from the roof tops. Vote for Cynthia McKinney for President and for the best candidates in each race regardless of political party. Vote for Cindy Sheehan and Carol Wolman for Congress. I can't vouch for each and every Green Party candidate, but here is a list of California Green candidates [See also my Green Party pages].
And plan on a social system based on anarchism. America is falling apart so quickly, that might be your only real choice anyway when the government collapses. At least when the government collapses the national debt will disappear. Setting up a new national government, which would have to re-assume the national debt, would be economic folly of the first order.
Yes, it is true. If the Democratic Party succeeds in crushing the Green Party, my fallback position is not to become a war crimes supporter by becoming a Democrat. For voting purpose I would become independent, but for organizing purposes I would promote an anarchist social organization.
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