So Governor Romney has come clean and said that he looked through his taxes and paid around 13 percent every year for the last 10 years. Harry Reid's response? Prove it.
I'm trying to figure out why he would make any sort of comment at all if he's not going to release his other returns which he says he won't. He did say he would release 2011 but the deadline for that is Oct 15, 2012 (I guess he got an extension). That also makes no sense as it is right before the election. And, what if the returns do come out and Harry Reid is right or partially right? Then Mitt would be caught in a lie.
With the white board weirdness yesterday, their campaign plan seems haphazard bordering on the bizarre. Why aren't they out there talking more about Paul Ryan, who clearly has energized the crowds and the base?
Friday, August 17, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
By A Landslide
On pretty much every political and social site out there, it won't take you long to see a reference to Barack Obama as the Goldman Sachs president. In 2008, he received around 10 million dollars in contributions compared to McCain who got around 7 million dollars so there was cause to call him this back then.
But after Dodd-Frank and his continued call for actually enforcing regulations on the financial sector, the party's over for the president. As of last June, Mitt Romney has raked in 37 million dollars from the financial sector compared to Obama's paltry 5 million dollars.
So, if you are one of those folks falling all over themselves to look for a "Wall Street" candidate, it's Mitt Romney by a landslide. And please join us in the year 2012 and stop being childishly dishonest.
But after Dodd-Frank and his continued call for actually enforcing regulations on the financial sector, the party's over for the president. As of last June, Mitt Romney has raked in 37 million dollars from the financial sector compared to Obama's paltry 5 million dollars.
So, if you are one of those folks falling all over themselves to look for a "Wall Street" candidate, it's Mitt Romney by a landslide. And please join us in the year 2012 and stop being childishly dishonest.
From Russia, Without Love
Ayn Rand is back in the news now that Rand acolyte Paul Ryan has been chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate. I found this link to an Ayn Rand interview on the Tonight Show from 1967. Hearing her speak is entertaining because she sounds exactly the way you would expect a Soviet spy to sound.
The usual slam on Ayn Rand is that her Objectivist philosophy is a selfish adolescent power fantasy. And there's good reason for that. The Russian Revolution took place when Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Rand's birth name) was 12 years old. It completely shattered her world and scarred her for life. Objectivism was literally born in the mind of an teen-aged girl whose father's pharmacy was confiscated when the Bolsheviks came to power.
Her family were non-practicing Jews. She decided in high school that she was an atheist, no doubt under the influence of the Soviet school system. Rand went to Petrograd State University and was purged with other bourgeois students, but managed to get a degree due to the intervention of visiting foreign scientists. She went to the United States in 1925 and eventually became a Hollywood screenwriter.
Rand believed that reason is the primary human attribute. She rejected absolutely any form of religion, and believed the very concept of altruism was incompatible with human life and happiness.
Ironically, this flies in the face of reason. Altruism is essential for human and animal communities to survive and grow, and even for the evolution of life itself. Since Rand's death there's been a great deal of research into altruistic behavior in other species, which exists even in bacterial colonies. There may even be an altruism gene. Without altruism, the only nations that could field an army and wage wars would be pirate states that conquered other countries for profit, and doled out the spoils of war to soldiers. Otherwise, why risk your life to defend your country? Let the addle-brained fools who believe in God and an afterlife get themselves killed on the field of battle. Better to stay home and get rich selling weapons to the government.
And, of course, altruism is the very basis of Christianity ("Christ died for our sins").
At its core Rand's philosophy is a childish refutation of Soviet Russia's revolution. Objectivism is Bizarro communism: the exact opposite of communism in every respect except its embrace of pseudo-rationality and rejection of religion. Rand's philosophy epitomizes what communists portray capitalists as: supremely selfish, narcissistic, profit-seeking automata.
The problem with Objectivism is that it is inherently weak and cannot work for large groups. It glorifies selfishness instead of loyalty and steadfastness. If there is no altruism, there is no love, no trust. All alliances are fleeting conveniences, to be abandoned instantly when reason indicates selfish gain is to be had. Life for objectivists is one long Machiavellian pissing contest.
Objectivism is so preposterous that it must be the product of a Hollywood screenwriter. Which, in fact, it is.
The cynic in me says that Ayn Rand is just the L. Ron Hubbard of capitalism. But it makes me wonder: was Ayn Rand really a Soviet mole sent to Hollywood to sabotage the West with a form of capitalism that was so toxic and self-destructive that it would collapse under the sheer weight of its selfishness?
Может быть, товарищ. Может быть...
The usual slam on Ayn Rand is that her Objectivist philosophy is a selfish adolescent power fantasy. And there's good reason for that. The Russian Revolution took place when Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum (Rand's birth name) was 12 years old. It completely shattered her world and scarred her for life. Objectivism was literally born in the mind of an teen-aged girl whose father's pharmacy was confiscated when the Bolsheviks came to power.
Her family were non-practicing Jews. She decided in high school that she was an atheist, no doubt under the influence of the Soviet school system. Rand went to Petrograd State University and was purged with other bourgeois students, but managed to get a degree due to the intervention of visiting foreign scientists. She went to the United States in 1925 and eventually became a Hollywood screenwriter.
Rand believed that reason is the primary human attribute. She rejected absolutely any form of religion, and believed the very concept of altruism was incompatible with human life and happiness.
Ironically, this flies in the face of reason. Altruism is essential for human and animal communities to survive and grow, and even for the evolution of life itself. Since Rand's death there's been a great deal of research into altruistic behavior in other species, which exists even in bacterial colonies. There may even be an altruism gene. Without altruism, the only nations that could field an army and wage wars would be pirate states that conquered other countries for profit, and doled out the spoils of war to soldiers. Otherwise, why risk your life to defend your country? Let the addle-brained fools who believe in God and an afterlife get themselves killed on the field of battle. Better to stay home and get rich selling weapons to the government.
And, of course, altruism is the very basis of Christianity ("Christ died for our sins").
At its core Rand's philosophy is a childish refutation of Soviet Russia's revolution. Objectivism is Bizarro communism: the exact opposite of communism in every respect except its embrace of pseudo-rationality and rejection of religion. Rand's philosophy epitomizes what communists portray capitalists as: supremely selfish, narcissistic, profit-seeking automata.
The problem with Objectivism is that it is inherently weak and cannot work for large groups. It glorifies selfishness instead of loyalty and steadfastness. If there is no altruism, there is no love, no trust. All alliances are fleeting conveniences, to be abandoned instantly when reason indicates selfish gain is to be had. Life for objectivists is one long Machiavellian pissing contest.
Objectivism is so preposterous that it must be the product of a Hollywood screenwriter. Which, in fact, it is.
The cynic in me says that Ayn Rand is just the L. Ron Hubbard of capitalism. But it makes me wonder: was Ayn Rand really a Soviet mole sent to Hollywood to sabotage the West with a form of capitalism that was so toxic and self-destructive that it would collapse under the sheer weight of its selfishness?
Может быть, товарищ. Может быть...
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Taking One for the Team
Early next year fiscal Armageddon is scheduled to take place when the budget is sequestered -- which means automatic spending cuts to everything. Conservatives have been screaming bloody murder about how this will gut the Defense Department, claiming that the budget will be "slashed by more than $600 billion."
Turns out this claim is false.
Depending on how you want to count, the United States spends as much as the next 10 or 12 countries on defense. Yes, we are in a special situation, and we do have a larger responsibility to ourselves and the rest of the world for defense. But defense is just another government program, and is quite prone to overcharging and outright deception by private contractors to whom most of the defense budget flows. As someone who's worked in the industry I've seen firsthand how it works.
This whole problem could be solved if all those patriotic defense contractors pitched in and cut their prices by 10%. It would best for them in the long run to avoid having to make hard choices about which programs to cut, wouldn't it?
As Republican keep telling us, it's about time the people sucking on the government teat took one for the team.
Turns out this claim is false.
The oft-repeated higher figure of $600 billion is actually the total in projected deficit reduction that the government would get by cutting $492 billion from the military. The extra $108 billion in projected savings would come via interest payments the government wouldn't have to make. Since the government would be spending less, it could borrow less and thus save on interest. [...]
Both a Congressional Budget Office report and the head of the Office of Management and Budget concur that the proper figure for the cuts is $492 billion, or about $55 billion annually over nine years.Now the Defense Department's budget is $550 billion, so a $55 billion annual cut could easily be achieved by cutting a few junkets by DoD honchos, shutting down a few useless bases and eliminating a few worthless weapons systems that are sops to powerful congressmen funneling earmarks to their districts. In addition, the war in Afghanistan is drawing down, so defense spending just doesn't need to maintain its current levels.
Depending on how you want to count, the United States spends as much as the next 10 or 12 countries on defense. Yes, we are in a special situation, and we do have a larger responsibility to ourselves and the rest of the world for defense. But defense is just another government program, and is quite prone to overcharging and outright deception by private contractors to whom most of the defense budget flows. As someone who's worked in the industry I've seen firsthand how it works.
This whole problem could be solved if all those patriotic defense contractors pitched in and cut their prices by 10%. It would best for them in the long run to avoid having to make hard choices about which programs to cut, wouldn't it?
As Republican keep telling us, it's about time the people sucking on the government teat took one for the team.
Yeah, Not So Much
Remember all that business about how voter fraud was rampant and every state needed to pass laws to stop this awful law breaking.
Yeah, not so much.
The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000.
10? Good grief, someone call the CDC. This epidemic is out of control!!!
With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.
Well, now I can see why this was such a concern and why we now need photo ID's.
Oh, wait. Here's why.
Yeah, not so much.
The analysis of 2,068 reported fraud cases by News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigative reporting project, found 10 cases of alleged in-person voter impersonation since 2000.
10? Good grief, someone call the CDC. This epidemic is out of control!!!
With 146 million registered voters in the United States, those represent about one for every 15 million prospective voters.
Well, now I can see why this was such a concern and why we now need photo ID's.
Oh, wait. Here's why.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Placing the Blame Where It Belongs
There's an interesting article from Bruce Bartlett, a policy advisor to Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, in the New York Times.
In "Blaming Obama for George W. Bush's Policies," Bartlett points out that it was Bush's tax cuts, Bush's wars in the Middle East, and Bush's Medicare Part D that turned the $236 billion surplus Bill Clinton bequeathed to Bush into a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2009. And it was Dick Cheney, Bush's VP, who said that deficits don't matter.
Bartlett then likens the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama managed to push through Congress to an inadequate dose of medicine. Obama's advisors (and economists like Paul Krugman) said this was too small. It was like a tuberculosis patient taking only half the antibiotics: the disease is suppressed, but not cured. That's why there aren't more jobs: consumers don't have enough cash on hand to increase demand for products, so businesses can't hire more people to increase production.
Bartlett ends his piece with:
Now Paul Ryan, the apostle of Ayn Rand, has been anointed to deliver the ultimatum of economic blackmail: give the wealthy gigantic tax cuts or they'll tank the economy again.
In "Blaming Obama for George W. Bush's Policies," Bartlett points out that it was Bush's tax cuts, Bush's wars in the Middle East, and Bush's Medicare Part D that turned the $236 billion surplus Bill Clinton bequeathed to Bush into a $1.3 trillion deficit in 2009. And it was Dick Cheney, Bush's VP, who said that deficits don't matter.
Bartlett then likens the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama managed to push through Congress to an inadequate dose of medicine. Obama's advisors (and economists like Paul Krugman) said this was too small. It was like a tuberculosis patient taking only half the antibiotics: the disease is suppressed, but not cured. That's why there aren't more jobs: consumers don't have enough cash on hand to increase demand for products, so businesses can't hire more people to increase production.
Bartlett ends his piece with:
But it was Republican policies during the Bush administration that brought on the sickness and Republicans in Congress who have denied the economy an adequate dosage of the cure. Now they want to implicitly blame President Obama for causing the recession and the failure of stimulus to fix the problem, asserting that fiscal stimulus is per se ineffective.
There is a word for this: chutzpah.There's another word for it: sabotage. Republicans have done everything they can to keep the economy in the tank to gain partisan advantage in the 2012 election.
Now Paul Ryan, the apostle of Ayn Rand, has been anointed to deliver the ultimatum of economic blackmail: give the wealthy gigantic tax cuts or they'll tank the economy again.
They Like Him But...
Nearly all of my conservative friends are overjoyed at the pick of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's VP. I'm still trying to figure out why Mittens picked someone to fire up the base. With all of them foaming at the mouth about making President Obama a one term president, was he really worried that they wouldn't turn out and vote for him?
These same conservative friends of mine cry foul when I point out facts about Congressmen Ryan. They think I'm lying when I say he has never really worked in the private sector. They think I'm lying when I say that he has been a career politician. They really get pissed when I demonstrate how he used Social Security benefits to pull himself up by his bootstraps.
How pissed will they be when they read this?
In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.
That's not some raging liberal writing here. That's David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's OMB guy from 1981-1985. In true propeller head fashion, Stockman breaks down the numbers of the Ryan Budget and shows it for all it is...a plan that won't reduce the debt or the deficit.
Folks, here are the facts about The Great Thinker's plans. His Road Map didn't see a balanced budget until the 2060s and added 60 trillion dollars to the national debt. His revised plan was at least a little better with a balanced budget in the 2030s and 14 trillion dollars to the debt. I challenge anyone to take a hard look at these plans and check the numbers.
So what does his plan actually do? Here's an excellent primer from The Christian Science Monitor.
These same conservative friends of mine cry foul when I point out facts about Congressmen Ryan. They think I'm lying when I say he has never really worked in the private sector. They think I'm lying when I say that he has been a career politician. They really get pissed when I demonstrate how he used Social Security benefits to pull himself up by his bootstraps.
How pissed will they be when they read this?
In short, Mr. Ryan’s plan is devoid of credible math or hard policy choices. And it couldn’t pass even if Republicans were to take the presidency and both houses of Congress. Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan have no plan to take on Wall Street, the Fed, the military-industrial complex, social insurance or the nation’s fiscal calamity and no plan to revive capitalist prosperity — just empty sermons.
That's not some raging liberal writing here. That's David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's OMB guy from 1981-1985. In true propeller head fashion, Stockman breaks down the numbers of the Ryan Budget and shows it for all it is...a plan that won't reduce the debt or the deficit.
Folks, here are the facts about The Great Thinker's plans. His Road Map didn't see a balanced budget until the 2060s and added 60 trillion dollars to the national debt. His revised plan was at least a little better with a balanced budget in the 2030s and 14 trillion dollars to the debt. I challenge anyone to take a hard look at these plans and check the numbers.
So what does his plan actually do? Here's an excellent primer from The Christian Science Monitor.
Monday, August 13, 2012
It's True
Here's a photo that has been making the rounds lately...
Is it true? As we say in Minnesota, "You betcha!"
When Paul Ryan's dad died suddenly of a heart attack when the VP pick was 16, he used the Social Security death benefits to pay for college. Once again, I find it enormously frustrating that someone on the right shits all over the nice place in which he lives simply because he read Ayn Rand and is on an adolescent power trip.
Oh, and I also don't want to hear any more bitching about the "liberal media" after this piece in the New York Times.
His self-reliance followed him to summer camp, where as a counselor he canoed and hiked, and into young adulthood, where he took up deer hunting, a fact noted in his engagement notice in 2000 in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “Ryan is an avid hunter and fisherman,” the paper reported, “who does his own skinning and butchering and makes his own Polish sausage and bratwurst.”
Self reliance aided by...someone else...and something else...Social Security. In fact, isn't Paul Ryan a living example of what President Obama meant by not doing everything on your own?
Is it true? As we say in Minnesota, "You betcha!"
When Paul Ryan's dad died suddenly of a heart attack when the VP pick was 16, he used the Social Security death benefits to pay for college. Once again, I find it enormously frustrating that someone on the right shits all over the nice place in which he lives simply because he read Ayn Rand and is on an adolescent power trip.
Oh, and I also don't want to hear any more bitching about the "liberal media" after this piece in the New York Times.
His self-reliance followed him to summer camp, where as a counselor he canoed and hiked, and into young adulthood, where he took up deer hunting, a fact noted in his engagement notice in 2000 in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “Ryan is an avid hunter and fisherman,” the paper reported, “who does his own skinning and butchering and makes his own Polish sausage and bratwurst.”
Self reliance aided by...someone else...and something else...Social Security. In fact, isn't Paul Ryan a living example of what President Obama meant by not doing everything on your own?
Ryan Plan Reduces Taxes on 1% to 1%
Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's pick for vice president, wants to make Harry Reid an honest man. His tax plan would eliminate taxes on wealthy people like Mitt Romney:
Talk about picking winners and losers.
Poor people who currently pay no taxes would pay drastically more with a VAT tax, which is a sales tax on everything.
Middle-class workers would see the price of everything they buy go up almost 10% because of the VAT, and their net taxes would actually go up because loopholes like the home interest deduction would have to be eliminated in order for the Ryan plan to work at all. That's because, even though corporations are people, my friends, they would pay no taxes under Ryan's plan, and someone has to pay for the gigantic military budget increases Romney is promising.
Meanwhile, rich people could simply rearrange some deck chairs with their fund managers to pay zero tax.
And that's why porn star Jenna Jameson endorsed Mitt Romney from the stage of a strip club, saying "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."
In his 2010 “Roadmap for America’s Future,” Ryan proposed eliminating taxes on corporate income, estates, dividends, interest and capital gains. He would simplify the individual income tax system into a two-rate structure topping out at 25 percent and impose what is effectively an 8.5 percent value-added tax.Under Ryan's tax plan Romney would pay less than 1% in taxes because so little of his income is earned; most of Romney's income is in dividends, interest and capital gains. He earned a paltry $593,996 in 2010, while making $21.9 million dollars and paying only 13.9% in taxes. This is because the Bush tax cuts include a 15% capital gains tax rate, which means rich guys like Romney can loaf around and do nothing while people who actually have to bust their asses doing real work pay up to 35%.
Talk about picking winners and losers.
Poor people who currently pay no taxes would pay drastically more with a VAT tax, which is a sales tax on everything.
Middle-class workers would see the price of everything they buy go up almost 10% because of the VAT, and their net taxes would actually go up because loopholes like the home interest deduction would have to be eliminated in order for the Ryan plan to work at all. That's because, even though corporations are people, my friends, they would pay no taxes under Ryan's plan, and someone has to pay for the gigantic military budget increases Romney is promising.
Meanwhile, rich people could simply rearrange some deck chairs with their fund managers to pay zero tax.
And that's why porn star Jenna Jameson endorsed Mitt Romney from the stage of a strip club, saying "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office."
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Sometimes The Bible Is Wrong
Who was it again who was telling me that conservative Christians were nothing like Islamic fundamentalism? just-dave? Some TSM commenters?
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Veep
Today, Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan to be his vice president. Here are my initial thoughts.
By choosing Ryan, Romney has shown that he is essentially going to be a piss boy for the hard right. As Grover Norquist noted, all they really need is a guy to sign his name. I can't think of a more perfect way to illustrate a Romney presidency.
The "Ryan Budget" will now get an immense amount of scrutiny and I think that's a great thing. As is usually the case with the right, they thump their chest and issue loud declarations about how things like this will save us all before any serious analysis is done. Their emotions and beliefs kick in and they stop thinking. Well, now we get to critically examine the plan which means you can be certain his ideas for Medicare are going to be ripped to shreds.
How is Paul Ryan going to run as a Washington outsider? He's a 7 term congressmen. It will be interesting to see how that plays with the Tea Party crowd as he has never worked in the private sector.
And I'm still wondering why conservatives love Ryan so much...at least the Christian ones. As a card carrying member of the Rand Cult, that isn't really congruent. I want someone to ask him why he uses her as an ideological center-a woman who despises Christianity (and all religion for that matter) and is pro abortion.
People say the VP choice never really matters. Certainly that wasn't the CSS with Sarah Palin. I think the choice of Ryan will matter very, very much and perhaps moreso than Palin. How will this all play out?
By choosing Ryan, Romney has shown that he is essentially going to be a piss boy for the hard right. As Grover Norquist noted, all they really need is a guy to sign his name. I can't think of a more perfect way to illustrate a Romney presidency.
The "Ryan Budget" will now get an immense amount of scrutiny and I think that's a great thing. As is usually the case with the right, they thump their chest and issue loud declarations about how things like this will save us all before any serious analysis is done. Their emotions and beliefs kick in and they stop thinking. Well, now we get to critically examine the plan which means you can be certain his ideas for Medicare are going to be ripped to shreds.
How is Paul Ryan going to run as a Washington outsider? He's a 7 term congressmen. It will be interesting to see how that plays with the Tea Party crowd as he has never worked in the private sector.
And I'm still wondering why conservatives love Ryan so much...at least the Christian ones. As a card carrying member of the Rand Cult, that isn't really congruent. I want someone to ask him why he uses her as an ideological center-a woman who despises Christianity (and all religion for that matter) and is pro abortion.
People say the VP choice never really matters. Certainly that wasn't the CSS with Sarah Palin. I think the choice of Ryan will matter very, very much and perhaps moreso than Palin. How will this all play out?
Friday, August 10, 2012
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Shouldn't Romney Be Ahead By Now?
The question above is the exact question that Roger Simon asks in a new post over at Politco.
But what do the Great Gods of Politics, the opinion polls, show? They show a country that still likes Obama more than it likes Romney. And by quite a bit. As I have written for years, I have a simple — OK, simple-minded — way of determining who is going to win the presidency: The more likable candidate wins. Not always, but almost always. On Aug. 2, a survey published by the well-respected Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found Obama was leading Romney by 51-41 percent for the presidency, the eighth time in a row since January that Obama has led Romney by between 4 and 12 percentage points.
But more importantly by my Simple Simon standard of likability, Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating was 37/52 compared with Obama’s 50/45. Which means Romney had a net unfavorable rating of 15 points while Obama had a net favorable of 5 points.
Very true and nicely illustrated at our year end tennis party this summer. Two of my co-workers, both of whom voted for John McCain in 2008 (and one who is my supervisor and life long Republican), were completely confounded by Romney's statements on his recent trip abroad.
"That was just rude...what he said about London," my supervisor remarked. "What was he thinking? You don't do that. And he wants to be president?"
"Yeah," my other co-worker said, "Obama is going to wipe the floor with him in the debates. Romney's a complete idiot and I don't really like him. I am voting for Obama."
"I may actually as well," my supervisor said. "He's not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He's done a good job. I like him."
The conversation completely torpedoed the notion that your average Joe doesn't pay attention to politics until after Labor Day. People are paying attention to what Romney is doing and they don't really like what they see. Will they ever?
Oh, and why is John McCain, who has seen all 23 years of Romney's tax returns, not calling Harry Reid a "dirty liar?" I wonder why he hasn't really said much on the subject.
But what do the Great Gods of Politics, the opinion polls, show? They show a country that still likes Obama more than it likes Romney. And by quite a bit. As I have written for years, I have a simple — OK, simple-minded — way of determining who is going to win the presidency: The more likable candidate wins. Not always, but almost always. On Aug. 2, a survey published by the well-respected Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found Obama was leading Romney by 51-41 percent for the presidency, the eighth time in a row since January that Obama has led Romney by between 4 and 12 percentage points.
But more importantly by my Simple Simon standard of likability, Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating was 37/52 compared with Obama’s 50/45. Which means Romney had a net unfavorable rating of 15 points while Obama had a net favorable of 5 points.
Very true and nicely illustrated at our year end tennis party this summer. Two of my co-workers, both of whom voted for John McCain in 2008 (and one who is my supervisor and life long Republican), were completely confounded by Romney's statements on his recent trip abroad.
"That was just rude...what he said about London," my supervisor remarked. "What was he thinking? You don't do that. And he wants to be president?"
"Yeah," my other co-worker said, "Obama is going to wipe the floor with him in the debates. Romney's a complete idiot and I don't really like him. I am voting for Obama."
"I may actually as well," my supervisor said. "He's not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. He's done a good job. I like him."
The conversation completely torpedoed the notion that your average Joe doesn't pay attention to politics until after Labor Day. People are paying attention to what Romney is doing and they don't really like what they see. Will they ever?
Oh, and why is John McCain, who has seen all 23 years of Romney's tax returns, not calling Harry Reid a "dirty liar?" I wonder why he hasn't really said much on the subject.
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Could It Be ... Atheists?
Like Dana Carvey's Church Lady invoking Satan at every turn, Pat Robertson is now trying to blame atheists for the shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
As with every hurricane that approaches the Florida coast, Robertson has to blame the tragedy on gays, or abortion, or atheists:
As with every hurricane that approaches the Florida coast, Robertson has to blame the tragedy on gays, or abortion, or atheists:
What is it? Is it satanic? Is it some spiritual thing, people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God? And they are angry with the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God.
This was not the first shooting in a place of worship. Just three years ago a doctor was shot in cold blood in a Kansas church. That shooter, in case you're wondering, wasn't an atheist.
Now, why accuse Wade Page of being an atheist? There is plenty of evidence that he was a neo-Nazi, Jew-baiting, Obama-hating racist, so why not blame the Wotanists or the Folkish Asatru?
Robertson may not realize it, but atheists have much in common with him. Just like Robertson, they don't believe that Vishnu and Xenu and Odin and Zeus exist. They don't believe that Mohammed is God's one true prophet. They don't believe the angel Moroni give Joe Smith the Golden Plates. Many atheists are perfectly willing to accept that Christ actually lived, was crucified, got stabbed in the side on the cross, and got up again after lying in a coma for three days in a tomb. They may even find Christ's teachings admirable, and wish that more self-styled Christians actually followed them.
Mathematically speaking, the difference between Robertson and an atheist is the number one: Robertson disbelieves in n gods, while atheists disbelieve in (n+1).
So no, atheists don't hate God, or even the expression of God. They may hate how people like Robertson take money from old ladies to build their fancy buildings and run their big TV networks. They may hate how Osama bin Laden and the Taliban used religious fervor to recruit people to murder Americans as well as their own countrymen. They may hate how millions of people were burned at the stake for disagreements over subtle points of doctrine like the Trinity and transubstantiation. They may hate how church hierarchies have shielded child molesters and rapists for centuries. They may hate how organized religion so often allies itself with autocratic regimes. They may hate lies that make people do evil things. But hating God is like hating the tooth fairy.
People of belief seem to think atheists are amoral, nihilistic hedonists who live only for the moment. But the essence of atheism is rationality, discarding myths and illusions in search of the truth. If you're an atheist you realize that this is the only life you have, that your children, your works and other people's memories of you are the only forms of immortality that exist. There are no do-over reincarnations, no 72 virgins, and no sitting at God's feet bored out of your skull for the rest of eternity. Once you mess up this life, it's game over.
So if you're an avowed atheist, would you cap yourself after pulling such a catastrophically stupid boner like shooting up the temple of a religion that the vast majority of Americans have never even heard of?
If Wade Michael Page was an atheist, it had about as much to do with the commission of this crime as his preference for boxers or briefs. From what we know so far he was just another pathetic, drunken, failed, frustrated racist whack-job with a gun who wanted to achieve immortality in the most ignominious way possible. He won't get his wish, though: in the end he'll be forgotten by everyone except other racist whack-jobs. And bloggers who know how to use Google.
Now, why accuse Wade Page of being an atheist? There is plenty of evidence that he was a neo-Nazi, Jew-baiting, Obama-hating racist, so why not blame the Wotanists or the Folkish Asatru?
Robertson may not realize it, but atheists have much in common with him. Just like Robertson, they don't believe that Vishnu and Xenu and Odin and Zeus exist. They don't believe that Mohammed is God's one true prophet. They don't believe the angel Moroni give Joe Smith the Golden Plates. Many atheists are perfectly willing to accept that Christ actually lived, was crucified, got stabbed in the side on the cross, and got up again after lying in a coma for three days in a tomb. They may even find Christ's teachings admirable, and wish that more self-styled Christians actually followed them.
Mathematically speaking, the difference between Robertson and an atheist is the number one: Robertson disbelieves in n gods, while atheists disbelieve in (n+1).
So no, atheists don't hate God, or even the expression of God. They may hate how people like Robertson take money from old ladies to build their fancy buildings and run their big TV networks. They may hate how Osama bin Laden and the Taliban used religious fervor to recruit people to murder Americans as well as their own countrymen. They may hate how millions of people were burned at the stake for disagreements over subtle points of doctrine like the Trinity and transubstantiation. They may hate how church hierarchies have shielded child molesters and rapists for centuries. They may hate how organized religion so often allies itself with autocratic regimes. They may hate lies that make people do evil things. But hating God is like hating the tooth fairy.
People of belief seem to think atheists are amoral, nihilistic hedonists who live only for the moment. But the essence of atheism is rationality, discarding myths and illusions in search of the truth. If you're an atheist you realize that this is the only life you have, that your children, your works and other people's memories of you are the only forms of immortality that exist. There are no do-over reincarnations, no 72 virgins, and no sitting at God's feet bored out of your skull for the rest of eternity. Once you mess up this life, it's game over.
So if you're an avowed atheist, would you cap yourself after pulling such a catastrophically stupid boner like shooting up the temple of a religion that the vast majority of Americans have never even heard of?
If Wade Michael Page was an atheist, it had about as much to do with the commission of this crime as his preference for boxers or briefs. From what we know so far he was just another pathetic, drunken, failed, frustrated racist whack-job with a gun who wanted to achieve immortality in the most ignominious way possible. He won't get his wish, though: in the end he'll be forgotten by everyone except other racist whack-jobs. And bloggers who know how to use Google.
Free Pussy!
How the worm has turned. A mere 20-odd years ago the Soviet Union was an atheist country, its leaders calling religion the opiate of the masses. Now the first Communist country in the world has put three women from the punk performance art group "Pussy Riot" on trial for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." Ekaterina Samutsevich, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina have been in jail since February, and could face seven years in prison.
What constitutes "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred?" Singing a "punk prayer" called "Holy Shit" on the altar of Moscow's main cathedral. Pussy Riot (the actual name of the group, in English and not a translation from Russian) recorded their crime and conveniently posted it on the Internet for Moscow prosecutors:
The translation:
Mother of God, Virgin, deliver us from Putin
Deliver us from Putin, deliver us from Putin
Black robes, golden epaulets
All the parishioners are crawling to worship
The ghost of freedom in the heavens
Gay pride is sent to Siberia in chains
The head of the KGB, their chief saint
Leads protesters to prison under escort
In order to avoid offending the Most Holy.
Women need to give birth and love
Shit, shit, Holy Shit
Shit, shit, Holy Shit
Mother of God, Virgin, become a feminist
Become a feminist, become a feminist
The church praises corrupt leaders
The procession of black limousines
The preacher comes to your school
Go to class -- bring him money!
Patriarch Gundyayev [the head of the Orthodox Church in Russia] believes in Putin
It would be better if he believed in God, bitch
The cincture of the Virgin is no substitute for protest
The Ever-Virgin Mary will be with us!
Mother of God, Virgin, deliver us from Putin
Deliver us from Putin, deliver us from Putin
Yeah, it ain't Bob Dylan. But does it deserve seven years hard time?
What constitutes "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred?" Singing a "punk prayer" called "Holy Shit" on the altar of Moscow's main cathedral. Pussy Riot (the actual name of the group, in English and not a translation from Russian) recorded their crime and conveniently posted it on the Internet for Moscow prosecutors:
The translation:
Mother of God, Virgin, deliver us from Putin
Deliver us from Putin, deliver us from Putin
Black robes, golden epaulets
All the parishioners are crawling to worship
The ghost of freedom in the heavens
Gay pride is sent to Siberia in chains
The head of the KGB, their chief saint
Leads protesters to prison under escort
In order to avoid offending the Most Holy.
Women need to give birth and love
Shit, shit, Holy Shit
Shit, shit, Holy Shit
Mother of God, Virgin, become a feminist
Become a feminist, become a feminist
The church praises corrupt leaders
The procession of black limousines
The preacher comes to your school
Go to class -- bring him money!
Patriarch Gundyayev [the head of the Orthodox Church in Russia] believes in Putin
It would be better if he believed in God, bitch
The cincture of the Virgin is no substitute for protest
The Ever-Virgin Mary will be with us!
Mother of God, Virgin, deliver us from Putin
Deliver us from Putin, deliver us from Putin
Yeah, it ain't Bob Dylan. But does it deserve seven years hard time?
At a concert in Moscow Madonna showed her support for Pussy Riot by stripping to her bra and showing the group's name written on her back. Yoko Ono, Peter Townshend and other artists have also voiced their support for the women.
That this is all happening in front of the world, all over the Internet, shows how much Russia has changed since the days of the Soviet Union. That the Orthodox Church is letting an autocrat use them to oppress the dissent of three women shows how little organized religion has changed since the days of the tsars.
Tuesday, August 07, 2012
And That's The Problem
The recent shooting in Oak Creek, Wisconsin has been officially declared an act of domestic terrorism. Wade Page has been connected to various white supremacist movements and took it upon himself to rid the world of some non whites. Sadly, he was successful.
My first thought (as it always is) was that it won't be too long before we find out that he was taking an SSRI and suffered from some sort of clinical depression. After that, I rolled my eyes at the renewed calls for gun control as anyone with a brain can see that these incidents happen less often and violence is, in fact, continuing to drop every year. Remember, folks, the media likes to make money and they make this shit seem like it happens all the time and right NEAR YOU!!! Ahhhhh, look out!!!!
As I reflected further about this latest shooting and tried to make sense of all of it, I started thinking about Jared Loughner and how my thoughts at the time were off base. My main contention then was that people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Michele Bachmann created a culture (through their words and actions) that led to Loughner going on his rampage. But that's not quite right.
Even if the police found Palin stickers and a Limbaugh radio subscription, they still wouldn't be responsible. Even if Loughner or Page came out and said, "I love Michele Bachmann and am a proud supporter. Her talk of Muslim infiltration and enemies of the state made me do it!" they still wouldn't be responsible. The ones that are responsible are Loughner and Page. But that doesn't let the Terrible Trio off the hook. Not by a long shot.
While it's wrong to say that their creation of a culture of hate and fear caused these shootings, it's absolutely correct to say that their backwards as fuck ideology (bordering on psychotic) doesn't help.
And that's the problem.
Each of these people (along with many more like them) have a responsibility as public figures to serve the common good. When they talk about traitors and infiltration as opposed to working together and respecting everyone's rights and freedoms, the don't advance any sort of social cohesion. There may not be causation or correlation between their words and actions and this type of violence but it's continued practice and existence is divisive, not constructive.
I know that folks like Limbaugh, Palin. and Bachmann are earning their livings off of panic mongering but ti shouldn't be at the expense of this nation. This is now true more than ever as the power in our world shifts to shared responsibilities. We have no time for secret plots, dog whistles, reverse racism and subtle intimations of non whites threatening our way of life.
That is, of course, if we want to continue making money.
Monday, August 06, 2012
Is this Cool, or What?
Curiosity decelerated from 13,000 mph as it hit the Martian atmosphere to 2 mph in about seven minutes using a heat shield, a parachute and a retro-rocket that dangled the rover gently above the Martian surface and then cut loose at the last second. The rover landed a couple hundred yards from its intended landing spot after traveling eight months and 350 million miles.
People who keep saying that government in general is incompetent and can't do anything right don't know what they're talking about. The US military and NASA are perfect examples of government agencies that can accomplish the impossible with that old-fashioned can-do American attitude.
Even after getting hammered by the terrible human disasters of the Apollo 1 fire, the Challenger explosion in 1986, the disintegration of the Columbia over Texas, and the loss of the Mars Polar Lander, NASA soldiered on, landing on the moon, completing the shuttle's mission, and landed three more rovers on Mars.
There's no reason why the rest of government can't have similar successes, if our politicians would quit using the people who work there as political whipping boys and just let them do their jobs.
On Stiglitz (Part Two)
In the second chapter of The Price of Inequality, Joseph Stiglitz discusses how an unequal society is created. From the outset, he discusses how this is allowed to happen.
Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both of what the government does and does not do. Government has the power to move money from the top to the bottom and the middle, or vice versa.
Wow. What a commie.
He then goes on to discuss the concept of rent seeking and how people in power use it to manipulate the government into doing their bidding, hence the increased inequality. But aren't these people in power faced with a choice?
To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes money from those whom he is overcharging and at the time destroys value.
Right. That's the erosion of consumer surplus of which I often speak. So how does the latter (taking away wealth) actually happen? Well, it starts with many wealth creators not being satisfied with their wealth. So they seek to monopolize or rent seek even further. We saw this with the railroad barons of the nineteenth century and I think we are seeing it again today. So does Stiglitz.
Why does this happen? Stiglitz submits that Smith's invisible hand doesn't apply to our financial sector because their interest are not aligned with societal returns. They are, instead, aligned with their own interests and that of other people in the one percent. It's not a zero sum game but a negative sum game, where the gains to the winners are less than losses to the losers. As Smith himself said
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
We saw this go on with the stock pools in the 1920s and the credit default swaps and CDOs in 2008. In fact, Stiglitz argues that private financial firms act to ensure that markets don't work well. Why? Because they can make more money. If markets are competitive, after all, profits above the normal return to capital cannot be sustained.
That is so because if a firm makes greater profits than that on a sale, rivals will attempt to steal the customers by lowering prices. As firms compete vigorously, prices fall to the point that profits (above the normal return to capital) are driven down to zero, a disaster to for those seeking big profits.
He goes on to discuss how they teach students in business school to create barriers to competition and entry to a market as well as circumvent government regulation. Essentially, how to erode consumers surplus, make markets less efficient, and continue to widen the gap between the interests of the financial sector and the interest of society. In short, increase inequality.
Indeed, the financial sector has become quite adept at doing this. On pages 36-38, there is a section called "Moving money from the bottom of the pyramid to the top" in which Stiglitz offers examples of how exactly this is accomplished.
-Taking advantage of asymmetries of information (selling securities that they had designed to fail, but knowing that buyers didn't know that)
-Taking excessive risk-with the government holding a lifeline, bailing them out, and assuming the losses, the knowledge of which, incidentally, allows them to borrow at a lower interest rate than they otherwise could
-Getting money from the Federal Reserve at low interest rates, now almost zero
And the worst, according to Stiglitz?
-Taking advantage of the poor and uninformed., as they made enormous amounts of money by preying upon these groups with predatory lending and abusive credit card practices. This took many forms...changing high interest rates, sometimes obfuscated by fees...the abolition of usury laws...circumventing regulations. Rent-a-Center, for example, claimed to be renting furniture but was really selling it and lending money at high interest rates.
One poor person by themselves couldn't have done this. As there were so many, the amount of debt was astronomical. If the government had intervened in the best interests of social justice or concern of market efficiency, none of this would have happened.
Now there are many who think that it was the government, not the private sector, that drove this rush to lend to poor people through the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. To put it bluntly, this is a giant load of shit. Here is one example of why that is. And here is another. And another. And another. As we saw in House of Cards and Inside Job, this debacle originated in the private sector (specifically California) and happened simply because people in the financial sector (and then everyone else) wanted to make more money.
So, the financial sector was (and still is) more focused on circumventing regulations and exploitative activities than economic growth. As I have shown repeatedly, they don't contribute to our society in any meaningful way from an economic standpoint. Indeed, from Adam Smith's standpoint.
What other ways shift money from the bottom to the top?
-Those at the top have managed to design a tax system in which they pay less than their fair share-they pay a lower fraction of their income than do those who are much poorer. We call such tax systems regressive.
-The hollowing out of the middle class and the increase in poverty due to laws that govern how corporations interact with the norms of behavior that guide the leaders of these corporations and determine how returns are shared among top management and other stakeholders. If monetary authorities act to keep unemployment high (even because of fear of inflation), then wages will be restrained.
And who is it that heavily influences those authorities?
Moreover, the very sharp attacks on unions have weakened have weakened the individual's power over the corporation. We currently have about 7 percent of our population that are in private sector unions.
Stiglitz concludes this section by stating that market forces combined with politics (both of which should work in a balance to lessen inequality) have actually joined forces to increase income and wealth disparity.
All in all, it's not a pretty picture and it continues to get worse. There are no words that I can use to express my frustration at the right who view this information as being "commie talk." I urge all of you to read the rest of Chapter 2 of Stiglitz's book as it details more ways (too lengthy to mention here) that the wealthy are rent seekers.
Much of the inequality that exists today is a result of government policy, both of what the government does and does not do. Government has the power to move money from the top to the bottom and the middle, or vice versa.
Wow. What a commie.
He then goes on to discuss the concept of rent seeking and how people in power use it to manipulate the government into doing their bidding, hence the increased inequality. But aren't these people in power faced with a choice?
To put it baldly, there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes money from those whom he is overcharging and at the time destroys value.
Right. That's the erosion of consumer surplus of which I often speak. So how does the latter (taking away wealth) actually happen? Well, it starts with many wealth creators not being satisfied with their wealth. So they seek to monopolize or rent seek even further. We saw this with the railroad barons of the nineteenth century and I think we are seeing it again today. So does Stiglitz.
Why does this happen? Stiglitz submits that Smith's invisible hand doesn't apply to our financial sector because their interest are not aligned with societal returns. They are, instead, aligned with their own interests and that of other people in the one percent. It's not a zero sum game but a negative sum game, where the gains to the winners are less than losses to the losers. As Smith himself said
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
We saw this go on with the stock pools in the 1920s and the credit default swaps and CDOs in 2008. In fact, Stiglitz argues that private financial firms act to ensure that markets don't work well. Why? Because they can make more money. If markets are competitive, after all, profits above the normal return to capital cannot be sustained.
That is so because if a firm makes greater profits than that on a sale, rivals will attempt to steal the customers by lowering prices. As firms compete vigorously, prices fall to the point that profits (above the normal return to capital) are driven down to zero, a disaster to for those seeking big profits.
He goes on to discuss how they teach students in business school to create barriers to competition and entry to a market as well as circumvent government regulation. Essentially, how to erode consumers surplus, make markets less efficient, and continue to widen the gap between the interests of the financial sector and the interest of society. In short, increase inequality.
Indeed, the financial sector has become quite adept at doing this. On pages 36-38, there is a section called "Moving money from the bottom of the pyramid to the top" in which Stiglitz offers examples of how exactly this is accomplished.
-Taking advantage of asymmetries of information (selling securities that they had designed to fail, but knowing that buyers didn't know that)
-Taking excessive risk-with the government holding a lifeline, bailing them out, and assuming the losses, the knowledge of which, incidentally, allows them to borrow at a lower interest rate than they otherwise could
-Getting money from the Federal Reserve at low interest rates, now almost zero
And the worst, according to Stiglitz?
-Taking advantage of the poor and uninformed., as they made enormous amounts of money by preying upon these groups with predatory lending and abusive credit card practices. This took many forms...changing high interest rates, sometimes obfuscated by fees...the abolition of usury laws...circumventing regulations. Rent-a-Center, for example, claimed to be renting furniture but was really selling it and lending money at high interest rates.
One poor person by themselves couldn't have done this. As there were so many, the amount of debt was astronomical. If the government had intervened in the best interests of social justice or concern of market efficiency, none of this would have happened.
Now there are many who think that it was the government, not the private sector, that drove this rush to lend to poor people through the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977. To put it bluntly, this is a giant load of shit. Here is one example of why that is. And here is another. And another. And another. As we saw in House of Cards and Inside Job, this debacle originated in the private sector (specifically California) and happened simply because people in the financial sector (and then everyone else) wanted to make more money.
So, the financial sector was (and still is) more focused on circumventing regulations and exploitative activities than economic growth. As I have shown repeatedly, they don't contribute to our society in any meaningful way from an economic standpoint. Indeed, from Adam Smith's standpoint.
What other ways shift money from the bottom to the top?
-Those at the top have managed to design a tax system in which they pay less than their fair share-they pay a lower fraction of their income than do those who are much poorer. We call such tax systems regressive.
-The hollowing out of the middle class and the increase in poverty due to laws that govern how corporations interact with the norms of behavior that guide the leaders of these corporations and determine how returns are shared among top management and other stakeholders. If monetary authorities act to keep unemployment high (even because of fear of inflation), then wages will be restrained.
And who is it that heavily influences those authorities?
Moreover, the very sharp attacks on unions have weakened have weakened the individual's power over the corporation. We currently have about 7 percent of our population that are in private sector unions.
Stiglitz concludes this section by stating that market forces combined with politics (both of which should work in a balance to lessen inequality) have actually joined forces to increase income and wealth disparity.
All in all, it's not a pretty picture and it continues to get worse. There are no words that I can use to express my frustration at the right who view this information as being "commie talk." I urge all of you to read the rest of Chapter 2 of Stiglitz's book as it details more ways (too lengthy to mention here) that the wealthy are rent seekers.
Sunday, August 05, 2012
They May Not Like Big Government But...
Take a look at this poll conducted earlier in the year by Gallup.
29 percent of Americans are satisfied with the size and power of government. No surprise there. But only 30 percent are satisfied with the size and power of corporations. Americans may not like Big Government but they don't like Big Corporations either. Take a look at how the numbers break down by political ideology.
A couple of key numbers here...independents distrust corporations nearly as much as the government. And I was fairly shocked to see that Republicans are split on corporations. What do you suppose that means?
29 percent of Americans are satisfied with the size and power of government. No surprise there. But only 30 percent are satisfied with the size and power of corporations. Americans may not like Big Government but they don't like Big Corporations either. Take a look at how the numbers break down by political ideology.
A couple of key numbers here...independents distrust corporations nearly as much as the government. And I was fairly shocked to see that Republicans are split on corporations. What do you suppose that means?
Saturday, August 04, 2012
Friday, August 03, 2012
Thursday, August 02, 2012
A Bad Week (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Harry Reid)
I've been pretty critical when it comes to the subject of Harry Reid. In the past, I've referred to him as several limp noodles on two slices of milk dunked toast.
But his recent indictment of Mitt Romney is a stark contrast to his previous persona. I think the thing I like about it the most is how much in common it has with statements made by the right on a daily basis. In other words, it's about fucking time a Democrat started saying things that may or not may not have any basis in fact but have absolutely everything being pissed off and pulling shit out of one's ass (sort of like how the government forced banks to loan to black people and Hispanics and that's why the economy collapsed).
We really don't know if Romney paid taxes or not but what's great about Reid's statement is how fucked Romney is right now. If he does not release his taxes, the "lie" is out there and people will doubt him. If he does release his taxes and they show that he did pay them over a ten year period, Reid has manipulated Romney (just as the right manipulates the left all the time) into doing something he doesn't want to do: release his taxes...which will undoubtedly show that Romney made a shit ton of money, has hid some of it offshore, was more involved at Bain during their layoffs and outsourcing, and paid less than Warren Buffet's secretary. Heck, even the National Review is calling for Romney to release his returns now.
Of course, Romney's own tax plan doesn't help him at all.
But what does the TPC analysis actually tell us–meaning us people who aren’t campaigning to be president–about the Romney tax plan? It’s well summarized by Figure 2 from the paper, above, which decomposes the bottom line conclusion that a revenue-neutral Romney plan would give generous tax cuts to the rich paid for with net tax increases on everyone else, into two parts: (i) how much the tax cuts from the tax rate reductions are skewed toward the rich; and (ii) how much the revenue offsets from (Romney-limited) base broadening are skewed toward lower- and middle-income households. Combined, we would end up with a revenue-neutral (relative to a business-as-usual, policy-extended baseline) and highly “regressive” tax reform, with relative and absolute tax burdens falling for “the rich” (defined here as households with incomes above $200,000–about the top 5%) and increasing for everyone else.
Seriously, are you fucking kidding me? What a massively stupid idea given the current perception of government and the economy. Yes, let's give the wealthy more breaks...that's going to go over well with the middle class, non college educated whites voting in the coming election.
Add all of this in with his stumbles on his recent trip abroad and it's understandable why Romney has lost ground in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. With less than 100 days to go before the election, Governor Romney is going to have a very difficult time making up that ground. The Obama team has already pulled their ads in Pennsylvania to focus on other key swing states. In short, it's not been a good week for Mitt Romney.
And all of this just before he picks his VP...
But his recent indictment of Mitt Romney is a stark contrast to his previous persona. I think the thing I like about it the most is how much in common it has with statements made by the right on a daily basis. In other words, it's about fucking time a Democrat started saying things that may or not may not have any basis in fact but have absolutely everything being pissed off and pulling shit out of one's ass (sort of like how the government forced banks to loan to black people and Hispanics and that's why the economy collapsed).
We really don't know if Romney paid taxes or not but what's great about Reid's statement is how fucked Romney is right now. If he does not release his taxes, the "lie" is out there and people will doubt him. If he does release his taxes and they show that he did pay them over a ten year period, Reid has manipulated Romney (just as the right manipulates the left all the time) into doing something he doesn't want to do: release his taxes...which will undoubtedly show that Romney made a shit ton of money, has hid some of it offshore, was more involved at Bain during their layoffs and outsourcing, and paid less than Warren Buffet's secretary. Heck, even the National Review is calling for Romney to release his returns now.
Of course, Romney's own tax plan doesn't help him at all.
But what does the TPC analysis actually tell us–meaning us people who aren’t campaigning to be president–about the Romney tax plan? It’s well summarized by Figure 2 from the paper, above, which decomposes the bottom line conclusion that a revenue-neutral Romney plan would give generous tax cuts to the rich paid for with net tax increases on everyone else, into two parts: (i) how much the tax cuts from the tax rate reductions are skewed toward the rich; and (ii) how much the revenue offsets from (Romney-limited) base broadening are skewed toward lower- and middle-income households. Combined, we would end up with a revenue-neutral (relative to a business-as-usual, policy-extended baseline) and highly “regressive” tax reform, with relative and absolute tax burdens falling for “the rich” (defined here as households with incomes above $200,000–about the top 5%) and increasing for everyone else.
Seriously, are you fucking kidding me? What a massively stupid idea given the current perception of government and the economy. Yes, let's give the wealthy more breaks...that's going to go over well with the middle class, non college educated whites voting in the coming election.
Add all of this in with his stumbles on his recent trip abroad and it's understandable why Romney has lost ground in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. With less than 100 days to go before the election, Governor Romney is going to have a very difficult time making up that ground. The Obama team has already pulled their ads in Pennsylvania to focus on other key swing states. In short, it's not been a good week for Mitt Romney.
And all of this just before he picks his VP...
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
On Stiglitz (Part One)
I first heard of Joseph Stiglitz's new book, "The Price of Inequality," from a very conservative friend of mine on Facebook. His comment was...
How about stop focusing on making things "fair" and let the chips fall where they may? Kind of like....oh...I don;t know...OLD SCHOOL AMERICA? No, no, better to listen to the liberal commie fuck professor who never worked in the private sector and wants MORE taxes, rules and regulations to make things "fair." Fucking idiot.
Anytime I see this sort of mouth foaming, I know it must be something worth reading!
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be discussing Stiglitz's book and highlighting the parts of it that I think are important. Each post I put up will more than likely be on one specific point although not always as is the case with this first one.With over 100 pages in sourced information, there is going to be a lot to choose from and I want to make it clear from the outset that there is no way I can get to it all. This would be why I would recommend reading the book for yourself so you can study the full argument from the one who put in all the research that led him to a central and inevitable conclusion: the inequality in this country endangers our future.
Now, before we get started, I want to clear up an issue that came up in comments the last time we talked about inequality. I was tasked to come up with a number of what is too much inequality. As Stiglitz points out in the first chapter in the book, relying solely on a quantitative analysis isn't an accurate way of examining inequality.
On page 23, he discusses the Gini Coefficient and how it is used as a standard measure of inequality. A GC of 0 (in which the bottom 10 percent get 10 percent of the income, the bottom 20 get 20 etc) is the most equal. A GC of one (in which all the income goes to 1 person) would be the most unequal. In between 0 and 1 are where countries are measured. More equal societies have around 0.3 (Sweden, Norway, Germany) and less equal countries have 0.5 or above (African nations and South America). The US stands at .47, up from .4 in 1980. We are more unequal than Iran or Turkey and very much more equal than any country in the EU.
Yet, as Stiglitz notes,
Measures of income inequality don't fully capture critical aspects of inequality. America's inequality may, in fact, be far worse than those number suggest. In other advanced industrial countries, families don't have to worry about how they will pay the doctor's bill, or whether they can afford to pay for their parent's health care. Access to health care is taken as a basic human right. In other countries, the loss of a job is serious, but at least there is a better safety net. In no other country are so many persons worried about the loss of their home. For Americans at the bottom and in the middle, economic insecurity has become a fact of life. It is real, it is important, but it's not captured in these metrics. If it were, the international comparisons would cast what's been happening in America in an even worse light.
So, choosing a number shouldn't be the exclusive focus when you consider the multiple factors (some of which he mentions above) that make each country's economic concerns unique. Obviously, it's a starting point but it needs to be put into context with other, qualitative factors. An example of this would be the current economic situation in the EU. They may have 0 3 on the GC but isn't that equality an illusion considering what they are facing right now?
Further, is the GC even accurate? What are the factors that they use? Why? And why don't they leave out some factors, if any? The answers to these questions illustrate the flaws in focusing on one measure of inequality.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let's take a look at the first point Stiglitz makes in Chapter 1: the disparity in income. Stiglitz is quick to point out that he is looking at median, not average income, as that is more of an indicator of how the various income groups are doing. If you look at average income, it might seem like the lower groups are doing well since the upper groups are seeing their wages and wealth rise.
But if you look at median income, you see the following:
Median household income was actually lower in 2010 ($49, 445) than it was in 1997 (adjusted for inflation, $50, 123). Over the longer period (1980-2010), median family income essentially stagnated, growing at an annual rate of only .36 percent. Adjusted for inflation, male median income in 2010 was $32, 137. In 1968, it was $32, 844. (source and source.)
Add in the fact that the top one percent now earns 20 percent of the nation's income with the top 0.1 percent earning 220 times larger than the average of the bottom 90 percent and the picture of gross inequality is stark and evident.
So, why does this matter? Page 85.
Moving money from the bottom to the top lowers consumption because higher income individuals consume a smaller proportion of their income than do lower income individuals (those at the top save 15 to 25 percent of their income, those at the bottom spend all of their income). The result: until and unless something else happens, such as an increase in investment or exports, total demand in the economy will be less than what the economy is capable of supplying-and that means that there will be unemployment.
Unemployment can be be blamed on a deficiency in aggregate demand; in some sense, the entire shortfall in aggregate demand-and hence the US economy-today can be blamed on the extremes in inequality.
As we have seen, the top 1 percent earns 20 percent of the national income. If that top 1 percent saves some 20 percent of its income, a shift of just 5 percentage points to the poor or middle who do not save-so the top 1 percent would still get 15 percent of the nation's income-would increase aggregate demand directly by 1 percentage point. But as that money recirculates, output would actually increase by some 1.5 to 2 percentage points.
This kind of shift in income would decrease the unemployment rate from 8.3 percent to 6.3 percent. A broader redistribution, from the top 20 percent to the rest, would have brought down the unemployment further to a more normal 5 or 6 percent.
This is at the heart of what the president and the Democrats are trying to do because they know it's what must be done in order to get the economy on track. Businesses aren't going to hire more people unless more people start coming through the door and buying their goods and services. We've seen that tax cuts don't spur hiring.
Eventually, the 0.1 percent, the 1 percent, and the top 20 percent are going to realize that if they want to continue to enjoy their wealth in a healthy society, this redistribution is going to have to happen. People like Warren Buffet and Nick Hanauer have already accepted this fact. Whether or not the government "forces" them to do so is irrelevant.
It's no longer a question of "if" but of "when."
Personally, I'd like the wealthy of this country to do it on their own. That way we can leave the sensitivity about the federal government (see: paranoia, hysterical old ladies) behind in the trash heap where it belongs. Obviously, this isn't likely but we have to do it. As Stiglitz puts it,
Countries around the world provide frightening examples of what happens to societies when they reach the level of inequality toward which we are moving. It is not a pretty picture: countries where the rich live in gated communities, waited upon by hordes of low income workers; unstable political systems where populists promise the masses a better life, only to disappoint. Perhaps most importantly, there is an absence of hope. In these countries, the poor know that their prospects of emerging from poverty, let alone making it to the top, are minuscule. This is not something we should be striving for.
How about stop focusing on making things "fair" and let the chips fall where they may? Kind of like....oh...I don;t know...OLD SCHOOL AMERICA? No, no, better to listen to the liberal commie fuck professor who never worked in the private sector and wants MORE taxes, rules and regulations to make things "fair." Fucking idiot.
Anytime I see this sort of mouth foaming, I know it must be something worth reading!
Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be discussing Stiglitz's book and highlighting the parts of it that I think are important. Each post I put up will more than likely be on one specific point although not always as is the case with this first one.With over 100 pages in sourced information, there is going to be a lot to choose from and I want to make it clear from the outset that there is no way I can get to it all. This would be why I would recommend reading the book for yourself so you can study the full argument from the one who put in all the research that led him to a central and inevitable conclusion: the inequality in this country endangers our future.
Now, before we get started, I want to clear up an issue that came up in comments the last time we talked about inequality. I was tasked to come up with a number of what is too much inequality. As Stiglitz points out in the first chapter in the book, relying solely on a quantitative analysis isn't an accurate way of examining inequality.
On page 23, he discusses the Gini Coefficient and how it is used as a standard measure of inequality. A GC of 0 (in which the bottom 10 percent get 10 percent of the income, the bottom 20 get 20 etc) is the most equal. A GC of one (in which all the income goes to 1 person) would be the most unequal. In between 0 and 1 are where countries are measured. More equal societies have around 0.3 (Sweden, Norway, Germany) and less equal countries have 0.5 or above (African nations and South America). The US stands at .47, up from .4 in 1980. We are more unequal than Iran or Turkey and very much more equal than any country in the EU.
Yet, as Stiglitz notes,
Measures of income inequality don't fully capture critical aspects of inequality. America's inequality may, in fact, be far worse than those number suggest. In other advanced industrial countries, families don't have to worry about how they will pay the doctor's bill, or whether they can afford to pay for their parent's health care. Access to health care is taken as a basic human right. In other countries, the loss of a job is serious, but at least there is a better safety net. In no other country are so many persons worried about the loss of their home. For Americans at the bottom and in the middle, economic insecurity has become a fact of life. It is real, it is important, but it's not captured in these metrics. If it were, the international comparisons would cast what's been happening in America in an even worse light.
So, choosing a number shouldn't be the exclusive focus when you consider the multiple factors (some of which he mentions above) that make each country's economic concerns unique. Obviously, it's a starting point but it needs to be put into context with other, qualitative factors. An example of this would be the current economic situation in the EU. They may have 0 3 on the GC but isn't that equality an illusion considering what they are facing right now?
Further, is the GC even accurate? What are the factors that they use? Why? And why don't they leave out some factors, if any? The answers to these questions illustrate the flaws in focusing on one measure of inequality.
Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let's take a look at the first point Stiglitz makes in Chapter 1: the disparity in income. Stiglitz is quick to point out that he is looking at median, not average income, as that is more of an indicator of how the various income groups are doing. If you look at average income, it might seem like the lower groups are doing well since the upper groups are seeing their wages and wealth rise.
But if you look at median income, you see the following:
Median household income was actually lower in 2010 ($49, 445) than it was in 1997 (adjusted for inflation, $50, 123). Over the longer period (1980-2010), median family income essentially stagnated, growing at an annual rate of only .36 percent. Adjusted for inflation, male median income in 2010 was $32, 137. In 1968, it was $32, 844. (source and source.)
Add in the fact that the top one percent now earns 20 percent of the nation's income with the top 0.1 percent earning 220 times larger than the average of the bottom 90 percent and the picture of gross inequality is stark and evident.
So, why does this matter? Page 85.
Moving money from the bottom to the top lowers consumption because higher income individuals consume a smaller proportion of their income than do lower income individuals (those at the top save 15 to 25 percent of their income, those at the bottom spend all of their income). The result: until and unless something else happens, such as an increase in investment or exports, total demand in the economy will be less than what the economy is capable of supplying-and that means that there will be unemployment.
Unemployment can be be blamed on a deficiency in aggregate demand; in some sense, the entire shortfall in aggregate demand-and hence the US economy-today can be blamed on the extremes in inequality.
As we have seen, the top 1 percent earns 20 percent of the national income. If that top 1 percent saves some 20 percent of its income, a shift of just 5 percentage points to the poor or middle who do not save-so the top 1 percent would still get 15 percent of the nation's income-would increase aggregate demand directly by 1 percentage point. But as that money recirculates, output would actually increase by some 1.5 to 2 percentage points.
This kind of shift in income would decrease the unemployment rate from 8.3 percent to 6.3 percent. A broader redistribution, from the top 20 percent to the rest, would have brought down the unemployment further to a more normal 5 or 6 percent.
This is at the heart of what the president and the Democrats are trying to do because they know it's what must be done in order to get the economy on track. Businesses aren't going to hire more people unless more people start coming through the door and buying their goods and services. We've seen that tax cuts don't spur hiring.
Eventually, the 0.1 percent, the 1 percent, and the top 20 percent are going to realize that if they want to continue to enjoy their wealth in a healthy society, this redistribution is going to have to happen. People like Warren Buffet and Nick Hanauer have already accepted this fact. Whether or not the government "forces" them to do so is irrelevant.
It's no longer a question of "if" but of "when."
Personally, I'd like the wealthy of this country to do it on their own. That way we can leave the sensitivity about the federal government (see: paranoia, hysterical old ladies) behind in the trash heap where it belongs. Obviously, this isn't likely but we have to do it. As Stiglitz puts it,
Countries around the world provide frightening examples of what happens to societies when they reach the level of inequality toward which we are moving. It is not a pretty picture: countries where the rich live in gated communities, waited upon by hordes of low income workers; unstable political systems where populists promise the masses a better life, only to disappoint. Perhaps most importantly, there is an absence of hope. In these countries, the poor know that their prospects of emerging from poverty, let alone making it to the top, are minuscule. This is not something we should be striving for.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
An Engineering Solution
Last year Richard Muller, the Berkeley scientist who headed the Koch-funded global warming study, announced that global warming was actually occurring. Now he has completed another study that acknowledges that the warming measured is completely due to carbon dioxide emitted by humans.
Muller was immediately attacked by climate change deniers like Anthony Watts, who released a dueling study claiming that NOAA artificially doubled temperature increases. Note that Watts isn't saying that there's no temperature increase, he's just quibbling over the amount.
We can now see conservatives starting to pivot on climate change. They can't simply deny it any more: climate change is obviously happening, what with the increasingly weird weather we've been having (more tornadoes, more drought), measurably higher sea levels on the east coast, demonstrably earlier springs and later winters, migrating species (resulting in dying forests and rampant wildfires in the west), and the melting of the polar ice caps.
In June Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, admitted that climate change was happening. He blithely stated that it was "just an engineering problem" and we'll just adapt. Yes, it's true: rebuilding your house after it's destroyed by a hurricane or a tornado is "just a construction problem." Moving millions of people out of Miami and Manhattan after sea levels rise is "just a relocation problem." Rising temperatures and climate shifts that turn America's breadbasket into a dustbowl are "just an agriculture problem."
As we continue to burn so much oil and coal, there will be climate winners and losers. Tillerson's "engineering problems" will cost some people trillions of dollars to fix and displace millions of people. The economies of some states and countries that just happen to be in the wrong end of the climate stick may be completely destroyed. Some island countries will simply cease to exist.
Rex Tillerson profits from the thing that causes climate change, and he wants to stick the rest of us with the bill for fixing the problems that his product causes. This attitude makes him, in engineering parlance, a "dick."
But if we're going to blithely talk about engineering solutions to climate change, the most obvious one is to stop using so much coal and oil and start generating more electricity with wind, solar and other technologies. After all, there's only a finite amount of oil left in the ground, which we will nearly deplete in my lifetime. We'll never really run out because it'll get so expensive no one will ever bother to drill the last drop.
From an engineering perspective, the internal combustion engine is a dying technology, soon to be made obsolete by a lack of fuel. Best to switch sooner than later, since it's got so many other downsides to it. And if we Americans do it, we'll get in on the ground floor and become the providers for the rest of the world. In addition to being an engineering solution, it's also a business opportunity!
Muller was immediately attacked by climate change deniers like Anthony Watts, who released a dueling study claiming that NOAA artificially doubled temperature increases. Note that Watts isn't saying that there's no temperature increase, he's just quibbling over the amount.
We can now see conservatives starting to pivot on climate change. They can't simply deny it any more: climate change is obviously happening, what with the increasingly weird weather we've been having (more tornadoes, more drought), measurably higher sea levels on the east coast, demonstrably earlier springs and later winters, migrating species (resulting in dying forests and rampant wildfires in the west), and the melting of the polar ice caps.
In June Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, admitted that climate change was happening. He blithely stated that it was "just an engineering problem" and we'll just adapt. Yes, it's true: rebuilding your house after it's destroyed by a hurricane or a tornado is "just a construction problem." Moving millions of people out of Miami and Manhattan after sea levels rise is "just a relocation problem." Rising temperatures and climate shifts that turn America's breadbasket into a dustbowl are "just an agriculture problem."
As we continue to burn so much oil and coal, there will be climate winners and losers. Tillerson's "engineering problems" will cost some people trillions of dollars to fix and displace millions of people. The economies of some states and countries that just happen to be in the wrong end of the climate stick may be completely destroyed. Some island countries will simply cease to exist.
Rex Tillerson profits from the thing that causes climate change, and he wants to stick the rest of us with the bill for fixing the problems that his product causes. This attitude makes him, in engineering parlance, a "dick."
But if we're going to blithely talk about engineering solutions to climate change, the most obvious one is to stop using so much coal and oil and start generating more electricity with wind, solar and other technologies. After all, there's only a finite amount of oil left in the ground, which we will nearly deplete in my lifetime. We'll never really run out because it'll get so expensive no one will ever bother to drill the last drop.
From an engineering perspective, the internal combustion engine is a dying technology, soon to be made obsolete by a lack of fuel. Best to switch sooner than later, since it's got so many other downsides to it. And if we Americans do it, we'll get in on the ground floor and become the providers for the rest of the world. In addition to being an engineering solution, it's also a business opportunity!
Monday, July 30, 2012
They're All above Average
Ever notice that while everyone else's pay is going down, CEO pay is going up? There's a reason for that: they cheat.
When compensation committees (typically made up of other CEOs and their buddies) figure out how much execs should get paid, they typically create a "peer group" of similar companies, and use that information to determine how much their CEO should get paid.
The problem is the compensation committees cherry-pick the companies in the peer group, selecting companies like 3M that pay their execs more:
Indeed, 3M Co. was the most popular "peer group'' company in corporate America in 2011. It was included in the compensation analysis of 62 U.S. firms -- more than any other company, according to Equilar, an executive compensation data firm.
Although companies use a variety of factors in selecting peers, high CEO pay plays a factor.
"Why is the company so popular?" asks Carol Bowie, head researcher for the Americas group at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy advisory firm. "There could be a variety of reasons, but it is certainly notable that [former CEO George Buckley's] pay was high relative to other peers.I guess CEOs, like the children in Lake Webegon, are all above average.
Indeed
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody Analytics, once and for all has settled (with the help of the CBO) the 500+ comments thread from a while back over at TSM.
Some supporters thought the lower tax rates would spur much stronger economic growth, and a few even hoped there would be so many new, high-paying jobs that tax revenues would actually increase, despite the lower rates. There is no evidence that this happened, however.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the Bush-era tax cuts cost the U.S. Treasury $1.6 trillion during the 2000s. Combined with the $1.2 trillion spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the $1.8 trillion needed to fight the Great Recession, this put the federal government deeply into the red. The nation's debt load today is as heavy as it has been since the 1940s and getting heavier.
To put it simply, they didn't generate growth nor revenue. Now that that is settled (although I'm nearly certain that the financial wizards at TSM, with their vast experience and day to day work with economics, will disagree:)), how do we solve the problem of the deficit? Well, exactly like I have been saying...one third tax cuts, two thirds spending cuts.
Extend the tax cuts for everyone except high-income taxpayers. The economy isn't great, but it is strong enough to handle higher tax rates on the wealthy. And we need the extra revenue, which under reasonable assumptions would reduce the federal deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.
Raising tax rates on wealthier households is necessary, but so, too, are more cuts in government spending. Washington last summer agreed to cut $1 trillion over 10 years as part of the deal to raise the Treasury's debt ceiling. Even with $1 trillion in additional tax revenues from affluent households, it will take an additional $2 trillion in cuts, under reasonable assumptions, to get our fiscal house in order. Given how politically difficult this will be, any agreement to raise taxes on the wealthy should also include more cuts in government spending.
And what will the result of all this be?
If policymakers follow this script, federal tax revenues will eventually rise to equal just over 19 percent of the nation's GDP, and government spending will fall to the equivalent of 21.5 percent of GDP. These are roughly the average ratios seen since 1980. In other words, government's role in our economy and our lives will be about what it has been for the last three decades. The deficit will still equal 2.5 percent of GDP (21.5 percent minus 19 percent); while more than ideal, this will be manageable, given the economy's expected growth.
That's right, folks, it's just that simple. Anyone think it will happen?
Some supporters thought the lower tax rates would spur much stronger economic growth, and a few even hoped there would be so many new, high-paying jobs that tax revenues would actually increase, despite the lower rates. There is no evidence that this happened, however.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the Bush-era tax cuts cost the U.S. Treasury $1.6 trillion during the 2000s. Combined with the $1.2 trillion spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the $1.8 trillion needed to fight the Great Recession, this put the federal government deeply into the red. The nation's debt load today is as heavy as it has been since the 1940s and getting heavier.
To put it simply, they didn't generate growth nor revenue. Now that that is settled (although I'm nearly certain that the financial wizards at TSM, with their vast experience and day to day work with economics, will disagree:)), how do we solve the problem of the deficit? Well, exactly like I have been saying...one third tax cuts, two thirds spending cuts.
Extend the tax cuts for everyone except high-income taxpayers. The economy isn't great, but it is strong enough to handle higher tax rates on the wealthy. And we need the extra revenue, which under reasonable assumptions would reduce the federal deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.
Raising tax rates on wealthier households is necessary, but so, too, are more cuts in government spending. Washington last summer agreed to cut $1 trillion over 10 years as part of the deal to raise the Treasury's debt ceiling. Even with $1 trillion in additional tax revenues from affluent households, it will take an additional $2 trillion in cuts, under reasonable assumptions, to get our fiscal house in order. Given how politically difficult this will be, any agreement to raise taxes on the wealthy should also include more cuts in government spending.
And what will the result of all this be?
If policymakers follow this script, federal tax revenues will eventually rise to equal just over 19 percent of the nation's GDP, and government spending will fall to the equivalent of 21.5 percent of GDP. These are roughly the average ratios seen since 1980. In other words, government's role in our economy and our lives will be about what it has been for the last three decades. The deficit will still equal 2.5 percent of GDP (21.5 percent minus 19 percent); while more than ideal, this will be manageable, given the economy's expected growth.
That's right, folks, it's just that simple. Anyone think it will happen?
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
No Apologies Anywhere
As Mitt Romney travels abroad, it's important to point out his standard line about President Obama apologizing too much for the United States is one gigantic load of bullshit.
The Washington Post has an article detailing where this lie (see: Breaking the 8th Commandment) originated. More importantly,.the Fact Checker illustrates, in a very complete way, how this is lie is a four Pinocchio whopper. Example:
The Heritage Foundation list is also a stretch. Again, nothing akin to the word "apology" is ever used by Obama. In most of these cases, Obama is trying to make a clear distinction with his predecessor, much as Ronald Reagan did with Jimmy Carter, or George W. Bush with Clinton. Guantanamo or the war on terrorism figures in four of the so-called apologies -- and it is noteworthy during the 2000 campaign that Obama's GOP opponent, Sen. John McCain, also had said he would close the facility. Obama's comments express a disagreement over policy, not a distaste for the nation.
If one actually pays attention to what the president said as opposed to listening to the greatest propaganda experts since Goebbels, there is nothing close to an apology in any of his speeches.
Of course, he is Barack X, so there's no way that he can possibly be tougher than a Republican so...
The Washington Post has an article detailing where this lie (see: Breaking the 8th Commandment) originated. More importantly,.the Fact Checker illustrates, in a very complete way, how this is lie is a four Pinocchio whopper. Example:
The Heritage Foundation list is also a stretch. Again, nothing akin to the word "apology" is ever used by Obama. In most of these cases, Obama is trying to make a clear distinction with his predecessor, much as Ronald Reagan did with Jimmy Carter, or George W. Bush with Clinton. Guantanamo or the war on terrorism figures in four of the so-called apologies -- and it is noteworthy during the 2000 campaign that Obama's GOP opponent, Sen. John McCain, also had said he would close the facility. Obama's comments express a disagreement over policy, not a distaste for the nation.
If one actually pays attention to what the president said as opposed to listening to the greatest propaganda experts since Goebbels, there is nothing close to an apology in any of his speeches.
Of course, he is Barack X, so there's no way that he can possibly be tougher than a Republican so...
I Love My Wife
Unless you live on a desert island and are completely self sufficient, you are part of our society which is, in fact, a collective. Grow the fuck up.
----Mrs. Markadelphia, last week.
----Mrs. Markadelphia, last week.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Romney Didn't Build That
Last week President Obama gave a speech in which he said:
But if Republicans are going to carp about this niggling detail in Obama's speech, it's only fair to look at the niggling details of the business that W. Mitt Romney claims makes him qualified to lead this country, Bain Capital. Did he really build that?
I draw upon information on Romney's biography from this Wikipedia entry.
Romney went to public primary school, then attended a prestigious prep school paid for by his wealthy parents. He went to prestigious Stanford for a year, paid for by his wealthy parents. At age 19, during the height of the Vietnam War when men of the same age were volunteering for service or being drafted, Romney went to France for 30 months, presumably at the expense of his wealthy parents and/or the Mormon Church. Romney used four student deferments and a ministerial deferment to avoid serving in Vietnam (in 1969 his high number in the draft lottery kept him safe).
To be fair, being a missionary isn't necessarily draft dodging: all Mormons are expected to go on a mission. The Mormons I've known personally went on missions long after Vietnam was over. To be equally fair, however, the Mormons I know didn't go to France to live in a castle, eat brie and convert Protestants and Catholics to Mormonism. They went to third-world countries to build houses and feed starving kids.
Romney returned to the US and attended BYU, again presumably on his parents' dime. He then went to Harvard Business School. By all accounts Romney wasn't a stellar student (I have to wonder why all those pundits on Fox News aren't after Romney for his college transcripts).
Afterwards Romney went into management consulting. He was eventually hired by Bill Bain at Bain & Company. When Bain wanted to start a new venture in private equity and asked Romney to run it, Romney initially refused. After Bain restructured the deal so there would be no professional or financial risk to Romney, Mitt took the job. That was Bain Capital, Romney's baby.
Romney then went around trying to convince wealthy people to invest in the company. As detailed on this blog, he got about a third of the capital to start Bain from foreign sources, including many investors who eventually wound up in jail or were associated with Salvadoran death squads. I don't believe in guilt by association myself, but it's something that Republicans apparently value highly, because they constantly bring up Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, two men with whom Obama has only passing association.
Bain Capital's basic business model was explicitly to never do anything on their own: they talked other people into giving them money to perform corporate surgery on troubled companies. Bain bought businesses with borrowed money in highly leveraged buyouts. He then tried to turn them around by changing management practices, reorganizing, firing employees, etc. On several occasions the companies Bain bought went bankrupt after Bain forced them to take out loans in order to pay Bain lots of cash.
Romney never created anything in business from nothing, with his own money, his own ideas and his own initiative. The path for him was always paved by someone else: parents, teachers, professors, the Mormon Church, Bill Bain, wealthy investors, original company founders.
Are there people who do create something from nothing, people who got no help from parents, who got where they are solely through hard work and individual initiative? Yes, but they're extremely rare, and many Republicans would rather these people not be in this country. Take, for example, Harold Fernandez who is now a cardiac surgeon. Originally from Colombia, he entered this country illegally at age 13 on a leaky boat filled with illegal immigrants. He graduated valedictorian of his class and enrolled at Princeton with a fake green card and a stolen Social Security number. But even so, Fernandez didn't do it all alone: he got scholarships that were endowed by wealthy donors who were giving back to Princeton for all that Princeton gave them. Through their generosity, a person of meager means can enjoy the same advantages that Mitt Romney did.
I don't pretend I did it all myself: my parents were borderline poor, so I qualified for about $3,600 dollars in Pell grants over four years. That was almost enough to pay for tuition at a public university at the time. I also had a job and lived at home. My dad often asked to "borrow" a hundred bucks here or there to make ends meet. That small investment the government made in my education resulted in me paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal taxes, a fabulous return on the investment.
My dad, a rabid Tea Partyer, tried 50 years ago to create a business from nothing, but eventually gave up as larger companies squashed him in both building maintenance and real estate. Why? Because to succeed while going truly alone is almost impossible. My dad would hire other guys, but would never partner with them. That doomed him to always staying small. He ultimately went to to work as a bus driver and is now retired on Social Security and a pension from a municipal bus company.
And even the star of Mitt Romney's "You Didn't Build That" ad, Jack Gilchrist, received more than a million dollars worth of government contracts, tax-exempt revenue bonds, and federal Small Business Administration loans.
And, of course, Gilchrist didn't really build that company. His dad did.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.Republicans have gone wild over the speech, intentionally misrepresenting what Obama said. "That" is a collective demonstrative pronoun relating to "roads and bridges." Yes, he could have said "those" or "that infrastructure" to be clearer. If Obama's intention was to say that business owners didn't build their own businesses, he would have said, "If you've got a business -- you didn't build it."
But if Republicans are going to carp about this niggling detail in Obama's speech, it's only fair to look at the niggling details of the business that W. Mitt Romney claims makes him qualified to lead this country, Bain Capital. Did he really build that?
I draw upon information on Romney's biography from this Wikipedia entry.
Romney went to public primary school, then attended a prestigious prep school paid for by his wealthy parents. He went to prestigious Stanford for a year, paid for by his wealthy parents. At age 19, during the height of the Vietnam War when men of the same age were volunteering for service or being drafted, Romney went to France for 30 months, presumably at the expense of his wealthy parents and/or the Mormon Church. Romney used four student deferments and a ministerial deferment to avoid serving in Vietnam (in 1969 his high number in the draft lottery kept him safe).
To be fair, being a missionary isn't necessarily draft dodging: all Mormons are expected to go on a mission. The Mormons I've known personally went on missions long after Vietnam was over. To be equally fair, however, the Mormons I know didn't go to France to live in a castle, eat brie and convert Protestants and Catholics to Mormonism. They went to third-world countries to build houses and feed starving kids.
Romney returned to the US and attended BYU, again presumably on his parents' dime. He then went to Harvard Business School. By all accounts Romney wasn't a stellar student (I have to wonder why all those pundits on Fox News aren't after Romney for his college transcripts).
Afterwards Romney went into management consulting. He was eventually hired by Bill Bain at Bain & Company. When Bain wanted to start a new venture in private equity and asked Romney to run it, Romney initially refused. After Bain restructured the deal so there would be no professional or financial risk to Romney, Mitt took the job. That was Bain Capital, Romney's baby.
Romney then went around trying to convince wealthy people to invest in the company. As detailed on this blog, he got about a third of the capital to start Bain from foreign sources, including many investors who eventually wound up in jail or were associated with Salvadoran death squads. I don't believe in guilt by association myself, but it's something that Republicans apparently value highly, because they constantly bring up Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, two men with whom Obama has only passing association.
Bain Capital's basic business model was explicitly to never do anything on their own: they talked other people into giving them money to perform corporate surgery on troubled companies. Bain bought businesses with borrowed money in highly leveraged buyouts. He then tried to turn them around by changing management practices, reorganizing, firing employees, etc. On several occasions the companies Bain bought went bankrupt after Bain forced them to take out loans in order to pay Bain lots of cash.
Romney never created anything in business from nothing, with his own money, his own ideas and his own initiative. The path for him was always paved by someone else: parents, teachers, professors, the Mormon Church, Bill Bain, wealthy investors, original company founders.
Are there people who do create something from nothing, people who got no help from parents, who got where they are solely through hard work and individual initiative? Yes, but they're extremely rare, and many Republicans would rather these people not be in this country. Take, for example, Harold Fernandez who is now a cardiac surgeon. Originally from Colombia, he entered this country illegally at age 13 on a leaky boat filled with illegal immigrants. He graduated valedictorian of his class and enrolled at Princeton with a fake green card and a stolen Social Security number. But even so, Fernandez didn't do it all alone: he got scholarships that were endowed by wealthy donors who were giving back to Princeton for all that Princeton gave them. Through their generosity, a person of meager means can enjoy the same advantages that Mitt Romney did.
I don't pretend I did it all myself: my parents were borderline poor, so I qualified for about $3,600 dollars in Pell grants over four years. That was almost enough to pay for tuition at a public university at the time. I also had a job and lived at home. My dad often asked to "borrow" a hundred bucks here or there to make ends meet. That small investment the government made in my education resulted in me paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal taxes, a fabulous return on the investment.
My dad, a rabid Tea Partyer, tried 50 years ago to create a business from nothing, but eventually gave up as larger companies squashed him in both building maintenance and real estate. Why? Because to succeed while going truly alone is almost impossible. My dad would hire other guys, but would never partner with them. That doomed him to always staying small. He ultimately went to to work as a bus driver and is now retired on Social Security and a pension from a municipal bus company.
And even the star of Mitt Romney's "You Didn't Build That" ad, Jack Gilchrist, received more than a million dollars worth of government contracts, tax-exempt revenue bonds, and federal Small Business Administration loans.
And, of course, Gilchrist didn't really build that company. His dad did.
The Ebb and Flow of Jobs
The other day my colleague on this blog said that jobs lost in 2008 will never come back. While some jobs may not be coming back in the next few years, he's wrong in the long term: we have seen this kind of job exodus in the past, and lot of jobs have actually returned. But it won't make Americans happy, because when those jobs do come back there may not be as many of them, they may not be in the same place and they will probably pay a lot less.
First, the article Mark referenced about the rising middle class across the world is correct: people in the developing world have been enjoying greater prosperity, in large part because American and European companies have been shipping jobs there for decades. As more people are employed in those countries the demand for their labor goes up, so their wages goes up, so more people are enjoying middle class incomes.
But as a result of these jobs being exported to other countries, competition for workers has decreased in the United States. This, combined with the destruction of labor unions, has resulted in stagnant and/or falling wages for the majority of Americans. American tax policies tilted in favor of multinational corporations have expedited job losses. Not only do Americans lose income when jobs are offshored, they wind up having to pay more taxes (or suffer larger deficits and government interest payments) because companies get a tax break for firing Americans.
Now, there are significant costs with offshoring jobs: relocating manufacturing to China has large transportation costs. For example, the United States exports iron ore to China and imports finished steel back from China. Over time transportation, energy and Chinese labor costs will continue to rise. At some point the cost of the energy required for transportation will exceed the labor cost differential between the US and China, the Chinese government will no longer be able to subsidize production, and it will no longer be cheaper to import Chinese steel. Steel production could then move back to the United States. (It could move somewhere else in the meantime, like Africa, if they have the raw materials and build the infrastructure to make exploiting low-wage workers profitable.)
How do I know this will happen? It already did in the automobile industry.
After WWII a lot of manufacturing was relocated to Japan there because labor was so cheap. "Japanese" became synonymous with "cheap," and not in a good way. Over time Japanese corporations began to expand their operations from the simple to the complex. Honda, for example, started out making motorcycles. Then they started making tiny cars for the Japanese market. In the 70s those cars were small and flimsy, but they were fuel efficient. During the energy crisis a market developed in the United States for those cars. Over time the quality of Japanese cars improved, and their exports grew. Then the Japanese made bigger and fancier cars specifically for the American and European markets. Over time time the Japanese standard of living rose to equal or exceed that of America, which meant that wages increased. Japanese auto manufacturers responded by building robots that reduced the number of employees required.
But Japan is an island with almost no resources: no coal, no iron ore, no oil. They have to import almost everything required for the production of automobiles, and then they have to ship all those heavy cars overseas. It became more and more difficult to make cars profitably in Japan, even with robots.
So Japanese car manufacturers started building factories in the United States. Production of cars used to be located primarily in Detroit at unionized factories, but the new Japanese factories were built in the non-union southern states. Toyota and Honda will build 15 million cars in the United States in 2012. Some German car makers also have plants in the USA. Even Ikea has an American factory.
At some point the same thing will happen with other industries that are currently located in China and India. Certain jobs will return to the United States as the rising price of energy drives up transportation costs. As wages in India rise and wages fall in the United States, even jobs like call center techs may move back here because the wage differential is too small to make up for deficiencies of offshoring customer service jobs: time zone differences, language differences, cultural differences, and the difficulties of managing off-site employees. Anyone whose ever called an offshore tech support line knows what I'm talking about...
In the long haul, sources of energy, the location of raw materials and the attendant costs of moving those raw materials and finished products will ultimately determine where jobs go.
There are, however, some jobs that will never come back due to changes in technology: the need for ferriers and harness makers all but disappeared when cars displaced horse-drawn carriages. The need for typists and typesetters has all but disappeared as computers entered the workplace. In the future, as oil supplies dwindle millions of people will lose their jobs in refineries and oil fields.
New jobs will be created as new sources of energy are developed. Because established business is only concerned about next quarter's profit numbers, they are terrible at investing in revolutionary new technologies.
At the same time Republicans are excoriating President Obama for loan guarantees for Solyndra (guarantees which the Bush administration was pushing for as well), the Chinese government is subsidizing renewable energy technologies, positioning themselves to dominate our energy future.
First, the article Mark referenced about the rising middle class across the world is correct: people in the developing world have been enjoying greater prosperity, in large part because American and European companies have been shipping jobs there for decades. As more people are employed in those countries the demand for their labor goes up, so their wages goes up, so more people are enjoying middle class incomes.
But as a result of these jobs being exported to other countries, competition for workers has decreased in the United States. This, combined with the destruction of labor unions, has resulted in stagnant and/or falling wages for the majority of Americans. American tax policies tilted in favor of multinational corporations have expedited job losses. Not only do Americans lose income when jobs are offshored, they wind up having to pay more taxes (or suffer larger deficits and government interest payments) because companies get a tax break for firing Americans.
Now, there are significant costs with offshoring jobs: relocating manufacturing to China has large transportation costs. For example, the United States exports iron ore to China and imports finished steel back from China. Over time transportation, energy and Chinese labor costs will continue to rise. At some point the cost of the energy required for transportation will exceed the labor cost differential between the US and China, the Chinese government will no longer be able to subsidize production, and it will no longer be cheaper to import Chinese steel. Steel production could then move back to the United States. (It could move somewhere else in the meantime, like Africa, if they have the raw materials and build the infrastructure to make exploiting low-wage workers profitable.)
How do I know this will happen? It already did in the automobile industry.
After WWII a lot of manufacturing was relocated to Japan there because labor was so cheap. "Japanese" became synonymous with "cheap," and not in a good way. Over time Japanese corporations began to expand their operations from the simple to the complex. Honda, for example, started out making motorcycles. Then they started making tiny cars for the Japanese market. In the 70s those cars were small and flimsy, but they were fuel efficient. During the energy crisis a market developed in the United States for those cars. Over time the quality of Japanese cars improved, and their exports grew. Then the Japanese made bigger and fancier cars specifically for the American and European markets. Over time time the Japanese standard of living rose to equal or exceed that of America, which meant that wages increased. Japanese auto manufacturers responded by building robots that reduced the number of employees required.
But Japan is an island with almost no resources: no coal, no iron ore, no oil. They have to import almost everything required for the production of automobiles, and then they have to ship all those heavy cars overseas. It became more and more difficult to make cars profitably in Japan, even with robots.
So Japanese car manufacturers started building factories in the United States. Production of cars used to be located primarily in Detroit at unionized factories, but the new Japanese factories were built in the non-union southern states. Toyota and Honda will build 15 million cars in the United States in 2012. Some German car makers also have plants in the USA. Even Ikea has an American factory.
At some point the same thing will happen with other industries that are currently located in China and India. Certain jobs will return to the United States as the rising price of energy drives up transportation costs. As wages in India rise and wages fall in the United States, even jobs like call center techs may move back here because the wage differential is too small to make up for deficiencies of offshoring customer service jobs: time zone differences, language differences, cultural differences, and the difficulties of managing off-site employees. Anyone whose ever called an offshore tech support line knows what I'm talking about...
In the long haul, sources of energy, the location of raw materials and the attendant costs of moving those raw materials and finished products will ultimately determine where jobs go.
There are, however, some jobs that will never come back due to changes in technology: the need for ferriers and harness makers all but disappeared when cars displaced horse-drawn carriages. The need for typists and typesetters has all but disappeared as computers entered the workplace. In the future, as oil supplies dwindle millions of people will lose their jobs in refineries and oil fields.
New jobs will be created as new sources of energy are developed. Because established business is only concerned about next quarter's profit numbers, they are terrible at investing in revolutionary new technologies.
At the same time Republicans are excoriating President Obama for loan guarantees for Solyndra (guarantees which the Bush administration was pushing for as well), the Chinese government is subsidizing renewable energy technologies, positioning themselves to dominate our energy future.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Well, At Least He Admits It
Oh well, at least GOP State House leader Mike Turzai admits what the real purpose of the law. All I have to do is let them speak:)
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