Let Warren Unburden Them

Warren Buffett's recent opinion piece seen in many papers and online over the last few days is a fine example of how completely ridiculous the Right is in regards to federal government tax policy. He begins with an anecdote.

Suppose that an investor you admire and trust comes to you with an investment idea. "This is a good one," he says enthusiastically. "I'm in it, and I think you should be, too." Would your reply possibly be this? "Well, it all depends on what my tax rate will be on the gain you're saying we're going to make. If the taxes are too high, I would rather leave the money in my savings account, earning a quarter of 1 percent." Only in Grover Norquist's imagination does such a response exist. 

Only in all their imaginations does such a response exist. I can say with near certainty that anyone on the Right that says they do this or has known people to act in this fashion is lying. As Mr. Buffett has said many times previously, people invest to make money. Government tax policy doesn't enter into it.

And facts are facts...

Between 1951 and 1954, when the capital gains rate was 25 percent and marginal rates on dividends reached 91 percent in extreme cases, I sold securities and did pretty well. In the years from 1956 to 1969, the top marginal rate fell modestly, but was still a lofty 70 percent -- and the tax rate on capital gains inched up to 27.5 percent. I was managing funds for investors then. 

Never did anyone mention taxes as a reason to forgo an investment opportunity I offered. Under those burdensome rates, moreover, both employment and the gross domestic product (a measure of the nation's economic output) increased at a rapid clip. The middle class and the rich alike gained ground. 

They both gained ground because there was less inequality. The money that was used from the higher tax revenues paid for investments in infrastructure and education (the GI Bill, for example). This, in turn, led to a higher skilled labor force and an economy that was robust and innovative. This is not the case today.

The group's average income in 2009 was $202 million -- which works out to a "wage" of $97,000 per hour, based on a 40-hour workweek. (I'm assuming they're paid during lunch hours.) Yet more than a quarter of these ultrawealthy paid less than 15 percent of their take in combined federal income and payroll taxes. Half of this crew paid less than 20 percent. And -- brace yourself -- a few actually paid nothing. 

This is how money has been transferred upwards as Stiglitz mentions in "The Price of Inequality."

So what does Warren think should be done about this?

We need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that. A plain and simple rule like that will block the efforts of lobbyists, lawyers and contribution-hungry legislators to keep the ultrarich paying rates well below those incurred by people with income just a tiny fraction of ours. Only a minimum tax on very high incomes will prevent the stated tax rate from being eviscerated by these warriors for the wealthy. 

And what will the result be?

Our government's goal should be to bring in revenues of 18.5 percent of GDP and spend about 21 percent of GDP -- levels that have been attained over extended periods in the past and can clearly be reached again. As the math makes clear, this won't stem our budget deficits; in fact, it will continue them. But assuming even conservative projections about inflation and economic growth, this ratio of revenue to spending will keep America's debt stable in relation to the country's economic output. 

I agree and, as Warren notes, this will involve major concessions by the Right and the Left. All sides in this debate have signaled a willingness to bend so I do have some hope.

And what about that figment of the Right's imagination who is overly obsessed with "uncertainty?"

In the meantime, maybe you'll run into someone with a terrific investment idea, who won't go forward with it because of the tax he would owe when it succeeds. Send him my way. Let me unburden him. 

 Maybe I should send ol' DJ from TSM to Mr. Buffett...hee hee...:)

Vampire Capitalists Drain Life from Hostess

Everyone is lamenting the death of the Twinkie now that Hostess is declaring bankruptcy. The right is blaming the unions for staking their favorite snack food in the heart. However, the untold story is that greedy CEOs, hedge funds, and a private equity firm not unlike Bain Capital all had a hand in the demise of Hostess.

But like a zombie in The Walking Dead, Hostess will rise from the grave and start producing deathless Twinkies once again. How do I know? We've seen this horror show once before.

An article in Fortune from last July goes into detail on the current fiasco and its genesis. The last time Hostess declared bankruptcy was in 2004. A private equity firm, Ripplewood Holdings, bought up the assets:

Hostess was able to exit bankruptcy in 2009 for three reasons. The first was Ripplewood's equity infusion of $130 million in return for control of the company (it currently owns about two-thirds of the equity). The second reason: substantial concessions by the two big unions. Annual labor cost savings to the company were about $110 million; thousands of union members lost their jobs. The third reason: Lenders agreed to stay in the game rather than drive Hostess into liquidation and take whatever pieces were left. The key lenders were Silver Point and Monarch. Both are hedge funds that specialize in investing in distressed companies -- whether you call them saviors or vultures depends on whether you're getting fed or getting eaten.

The unions already took a big hit at Hostess, so the current dilemma is not all their fault: we can also blame the vulture capitalists and greedy CEOs, of which Hostess had six over eight years:

[Brian] Driscoll, the CEO, departed suddenly and without explanation in March. It may have been that the Teamsters no longer felt it could trust him. In early February, Hostess had asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a sweet new employment deal for Driscoll. Its terms guaranteed him a base annual salary of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and "long-term incentive" compensation of up to $2 million. If Hostess liquidated or Driscoll were fired without cause, he'd still get severance pay of $1.95 million as long as he honored a noncompete agreement.

When the Teamsters saw the court motion, Ken Hall, the union's secretary-treasurer and No. 2 man, was irate. So much, he thought, for what he described as Driscoll's "happy talk" about "shared sacrifice." Hall says he tracked Driscoll down by phone and told him, "If you don't withdraw this motion, these negotiations are done." Hostess withdrew the motion a few weeks later when Driscoll left -- the same Driscoll who, Hostess told the court in its motion, was "key" to "reestablishing" Hostess's "competitive position going forward."

The unions are not blameless either, as is clear from their demands for featherbedding (different drivers must be used to deliver different products). But you can certainly see why they're so intransigent in the face of such blatant incompetence and greed in management, after giving up so much the last time.

Thus, there's a whole host of reasons why Hostess is in trouble. Not the least of which is that demand is down for its products because they're simply bad for your health.

But bankruptcy doesn't mean the end of the Hostess brands, just like the last time. In bankruptcy the recipes, trademarks and facilities of Hostess will be liquidated. Which means private equity firms and hedge funds—maybe even run by the same guys—will be able to buy them for pennies on the dollar. And go right back into business, but this time with a much bigger hammer to smash the unions with.

And that's really the point here. These days the balance of power between unions and management is heavily weighted toward management. In the past labor staged strikes, but that's increasingly rare. Now we hear almost exclusively about lockouts. From Hostess, to tire factories, to sugar beet processing plants, to operas and symphony orchestras, to national basketball, football and hockey leagues, management doesn't care if they drive their organizations into the ground with lockouts, as long as they can break the unions.


Despite what Mitt Romney says, corporations, private equity firms and hedge funds are not people. Like vampires, they can die and be resurrected from the dead only to suck the life out of the people who work for and invest in them.

The entire purpose of corporations is to insulate management from personal financial responsibility for their decisions. Hedge funds and private equity firms use other people's money to engineer takeovers. Corporate bankruptcy laws encourage the hedge fund managers to destroy the company in order to start over with a clean slate. All the while these ghouls pay the ridiculously low 15% capital gains tax rates on their salaries because of a loophole in the tax code.

These vampire capitalists drain the life out of companies like Hostess, yet always increase their own wealth, without ever having to risk their own financial well-being. They can then dissolve into corporate bankruptcy, only to reform in their crypts under a new corporate logo.

Those of you who thought you had staked the last vampire capitalist when Mitt Romney lost the election were wrong. Go get your garlic, holy water and crucifixes. There's more work to do.

Florida Republicans Admit Voter Suppression

An article in the Palm Beach Post reveals that Republican efforts in Florida to change election laws to restrict early voting were intended to suppress the votes of Democrats and minorities:

“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” [former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim] Greer told The Post. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only. … ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’ ” Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants.

“They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue,” Greer said. “It’s all a marketing ploy.”

Former Florida Governor Charlie Crist concurs:

Crist said party leaders approached him during his 2007-2011 gubernatorial term about changing early voting, in an effort to suppress Democrat turnout. Crist is now at odds with the GOP, since abandoning the party to run for U.S. Senate as an independent in 2010. He is rumored to be planning another run for governor, as a Democrat.

Crist said in a telephone interview this month that he did not recall conversations about early voting specifically targeting black voters “but it looked to me like that was what was being suggested. And I didn’t want them to go there at all.”

On the bright side, it's not necessarily about racism: “The sad thing about that is yes, there is prejudice and racism in the [Republican] party but the real prevailing thought is that they don’t think minorities will ever vote Republican,” Greer said.

But a GOP consultant who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution said black voters were a concern.

“I know that the cutting out of the Sunday before Election Day was one of their targets only because that’s a big day when the black churches organize themselves,” he said.

According to the article, other former Republican campaign consultants confirm the accusations of voter suppression, which the Florida Republican Party denies. Instead they're attacking the men who ratted on them. They've indicted Greer for taking money from the party, which he admits is true but says they knew about it. And Crist became a persona non-grata when he ran as an independent for Senate.

The simple fact is, more people in this country are inclined to vote Democratic than Republican. Two-thirds of Americans self-identify as liberal or moderate, which means they're much more likely to be Democrats given the stridently radical stands of the current Republican Party.

Minority voters tend to be on the lower end of the economic scale, which means they have a harder time getting to the polls on election day. Things that make it easier for them to register and vote make it harder for Republicans to win. So Republicans want to make it harder for them to vote by restricting registration and taking away early voting.

Come on, now. Was that really so hard to admit?

Tom Ricks Pokes The Bubble

I guess this is what happens when you bring reality into the bubble...you have a 90 second interview!

I still don't get the anaphylaxis over Benghazi. The Right bitches about letting our enemies know too much information (pulling out of Irag, Afghanistand timelines) and then they turn around and bitch when we don't say enough (Susan Rice's comments following the attack). Which is it?

That's I LFMAO when I read stuff like this. What is John McCain "significantly troubled" about? The fact that he's attempting to still be politically relevant? Susan Rice was going on the intel she had at the time from the CIA (the public story). Or she deliberately made misleading statements in order to deflect attention away from the investigation that is going on behind the scenes. I'm predicting that when we catch these guys, we're going to find out and Sens McCain, Graham, and Ayotte are going to look pretty fucking dumb.

Of course, we all know what this is really about...a deflection away from the American Taliban who make the GOP look bad when they release moronic and highly bigoted videos. All that bluster makes for good theater!

I Guess The Answer Is Yes

The other say I asked if we were seeing the beginning of the end of Grover Norquist. I think it's safe to say now that the answer is yes.

Elections have consequences and the main one that we seem to be seeing so far is a return to sanity. While there has not been any sort of deal yet on avoiding the so called "fiscal cliff," the signals from many Republican leaders say that they are willing to be flexible. That's a good thing.

Right up until the election, I was pretty pessimistic at the thought of there possibly being a day when we no longer had to manage the fantasies of the Right. Now, there is indeed a glimmer of light. Sure, there will still be people like Bill Whittle running around and making money off of his merry band of followers but they won't have any effect on elections.

And that is a very, very good thing!

Uh Oh

Is this the beginning of the end for Grover?

Rewarding Bad Behavior

Israel and Hamas have agreed to yet another truce after the Hamas terrorists who run Gaza unleashed a barrage of missiles on Israel and Israel retaliated with targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders and bombings of terrorists who hide their missile launchers among Palestinian civilians. The toll after this latest skirmish was 161 Palestinians and five Israelis.

The ostensible reason Hamas started this conflict, which would be Rocky XLII if we numbered them like movie sequels, is the five-year blockade of Gaza. The blockade has left residents of the tiny strip of land starving and without any means to generate income. Israel imposed the blockade to prevent terrorists bringing missiles into Gaza. But as the daily rain of missiles upon Tel Aviv proved, the blockade is an abject failure.

Ironically, this outburst of terrorism has empowered Hamas, raising their status among Palestinians, and has opened the door to ending the blockade.

Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority, which controls the West Bank, has been trying peaceful means to move Israel towards a two-state solution. Hamas and the PA have been competing for the devotion of the Palestinian people for years now. Europe and Abbas have been using diplomatic means, trying to get the UN to recognize Palestinian statehood, but American UN Ambassador Susan Rice has vigorously blocked it as the Israelis demanded. Despite Republican assertions that the Obama administration is Israel's worst enemy.

Again and again, Israel has stymied all peaceful Palestinian attempts at resolving the issue, but has caved to terrorist demands. Every time Palestinians kidnap an Israeli soldier the Israelis ultimately cave in and release hundreds of Palestinians from prison to get one guy back. They'll even do it for a corpse. Admittedly, most of the Palestinians the Israelis release are innocent schmucks "arrested" for just this purpose. But, still...

For years now Israel has stiffed the peaceful Abbas, but now it looks like Israel will again reward terrorist Hamas by cutting a deal on the blockade. What message does this send to the Palestinians? Violence works. Terrorism works. Kidnapping works. Negotation and diplomacy? Not so much.

You have to wonder why Israel chooses to proceed this way. Are they just that stupid, or is there a more cynical reason? Do Bibi Netanyahu and the conservative Likud Party have a symbiotic relationship with Hamas? Do Likud and Hamas constantly rekindle these deadly conflicts solely to prop up their own popularity?

If so, Hamas and Likud are trading human lives for political power. To be sure, Hamas is far more disgusting in the treatment of its own people as human shields. But Israel does the same thing by having its citizens to build illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, intentionally placing themselves in grave bodily danger, which then requires the Israeli military to protect settlers on that stolen land, requiring further assimilation of Palestinian land as "buffer zones."

While Hamas is using human shields to launch attacks on Israel, Israel is using human swords to carve up Palestinian lands.

In the end, there appears to be no incentive for Likud to agree to peace. As long as Israel can portray Palestinians as dangerous terrorists like Hamas, they can avoid a diplomatic solution that would require them to give up land. It'll only cost a few Israeli lives each year to keep the conflict going, maybe even fewer if they can get all the bugs out of Iron Dome. And a random bus bombing every few months will remind Israelis how much they really need Likud in power to protect them from random bus bombings.

The status quo allows Israel to continue to slowly expand its borders every year, and allows Hamas to gain popularity among Palestinians. It's win-win for everyone. Except the millions of Palestinians who live in abject poverty, the hundreds of Palestinian children who die from malnutrition and the dozens of Israelis killed by terrorists each year.

The irony here is that if America saw more photos like this of Mitt Romney, he may have gotten a few more votes.

Giving Thanks

I am thankful for...

My beautiful children who amaze me every day...
My wife who gets better and better looking as she gets older (love that bubble butt:))
My students who hit me with a metaphorical shovel to the head on a consistent basis...
My family who, despite all the crabbiness, are damn fine people to spend a life with...
My friends who make me laugh...
Comic books which stoke my inner geek...
Music which soothes my soul in ways that nothing else can...

And finally, the American people, for not believing the lies and electing the right man for president!

The Productivity Dividend

Getting back to Stiglitz.

Many years ago Keynes posed a question. For thousands of years, most people had to spend most of their time working just to survived-for food, clothing, and shelter. Then, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, unprecedented increases in productivity meant that more and more individuals could be freed from the chains of subsistence living. For increasingly large portions of the population, only a small fraction of their time was required to provide for the necessities of life. The question was, How would people spend the productivity dividend?

This is that quote from Chapter 4 that I wanted to pull out and examine on its own. The reason for this is that it ties directly into our economy. In the United States, people spend that productivity dividend on consumption and, as Stiglitz notes, their consumption relative to others. This is where that whole "Keeping up with the Jones'" comes into play. In particular, he notes that Europe opted for more goods AND more leisure while America opted for less leisure and more goods.

So, are we really working harder and harder "for the family?" Or are we simply playing a continual game of catch up with no end regarding consumption? No doubt that our economy is heavily based on consumption but is that a good thing? Should we consider more leisure time and less of keeping up with the Jones'? As we  consider how to mend our economy, we should examine the basic question of the productivity dividend.

Another idea that came out of this quote was the issue of fear and anxiety about the future. There are many on the Right that believe America is going to end soon because of the president and the Democrats. Would they be worried about this if they had to provide the basics (food, clothing, shelter)? Further, would anyone worry as much about all the silly stuff we fret over if this were the case?

I doubt it.

I Guess That Settles That

Analysis: Tax Cuts Don't Lead to Economic Growth, a New 65-Year Study Finds

The paper is a good reminder to be humble about taxes as a tool for growing the economy. They remain, above all, a tool for collecting revenue and tweaking incentives for specific economic behavior. Congress has cut tax rates repeatedly over the last 60 years, while the country and the global economy have undergone considerable changes that probably had a greater effect on growth.

Yep, pretty much. And what did the GOP do when they saw this?

Nonpartisan Tax Report Withdrawn After G.O.P. Protest

Stomped their feet and stormed down the hallway...yelling at dad the whole way!!!

A Bubble That Has Burst

From Andy, over at electoral-vote.com

Older, male, white voters are having a lot of trouble understanding the election results. They and everyone they knew just assumed that the country would never re-elect a tax-and-spend liberal. Fox News told them this was impossible. Now reality is beginning to kick in--things have changed and are not likely to go back to the way they used to be. They are also flummoxed by the voters accepting same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana in some states. Many of them see the country as Mitt Romney does, with makers and takers and the takers are taking over. 

This is a fundamentally different situation than in the past. Then, a loss was just a loss--maybe the other side had a better candidate or ran a better campaign. Even after George McGovern and Michael Dukakis' massive defeats, Democrats didn't think this was the end of the America that they had always known. It was simply a lost election and they could try again in 4 years. The difference now is probably that way back then, everyone watched one of the three television networks and read the same newspapers. Now it is possible to live entirely in a bubble of your own choosing and simply have no idea of what is really going on in the country. 

Someone who watches only Fox News and listens to talk radio and reads redstate.com on the Internet is going to be completely detached from reality, so an election result like this comes completely out of the blue for them. For Democrats, this is not true. Someone who watches only MSNBC, reads the New York Times and follows Websites like Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, and Daily Kos, knew that it would be a fairly close election but that Obama and the Democrats had a small, but consistent, lead. The electoral vote predictors at all those places as well as here were pretty close to the final result. The new reality is that when you hide in a virtual cave of your own making, emerging out into the sunshine can be frightening.

When people look back on this election, they will note that this was the moment that the bubble burst. If you get your information from Drudge, Fox, other right wing sources and spend time frequenting places like Kevin Baker's site, The Smallest Minority, you likely think that Americans are stupid for voting for the president and the Democrats. Of course, this is not true. It's not really a question of intelligence. As I have said all along, it's a question of willful ignorance brought on by insulation. This election showed that they can't do that anymore. People saw that what they were saying wasn't real and what they were advocating was truly awful. Can you blame them with garbage like this?

Barack Obama has repeatedly circumvented the laws, including the Constitution of the United States, in ways and on a scale that pushes this nation in the direction of arbitrary one-man rule. 

Now that Obama will be in a position to appoint Supreme Court justices who can rubber stamp his evasions of the law and usurpations of power, this country may be unrecognizable in a few years as the America that once led the world in freedom, as well as in many other things. 

This "transforming" project extends far beyond fundamental internal institutions, or even the polarization and corruption of the people themselves, with goodies handed out in exchange for their surrendering their birthright of freedom.

Have you noticed how many of our enemies in other countries have been rooting for Obama? You or your children may yet have reason to recall that as a bitter memory of a warning sign ignored on election day in 2012. 

What on earth is he talking about? A country that may be unrecognizable? What enemies are rooting for him? Good grief...

Their shock (and sadly with it, their behavior) is about to get worse. The economy is improving and things are getting better, despite the dire predictions of all of America becoming like Detroit. What will they do then? People will stop paying attention to them in droves and they will go back to being a small group of people playing make believe around the 21st century equivalent of a short wave radio: the internet.

In today's world...indeed.

I've been meaning to point out this post over at The Moderate Voice for several months but lost track of it as election season heated up. The first paragraph grabbed me right away for obvious reasons.

There are myths proclaimed by some right-wing partisans and Ayn Rand acolytes that “rugged individualists” working alone have been responsible for America’s great accomplishments and that government is the enemy of progress. In their quest to reduce taxes, particularly for the wealthy, and cut the size of government, this myth has been promulgated by ideologues to gain support from the middle-class, needed to elect legislators who share their vision.

Yeah, and the American people recognized those myths for what they were 12 days ago.

Businesses could not function without the nation’s infrastructure (though it currently needs work). Building the interstate highway system, bridges and tunnels and maintaining them, was and is a federal concern. The integrity of America’s ports and airports, and air traffic control, all comes under the aegis of federal agencies. Products and people could not move if it were not for the government. Apportioning the broadcast spectrum for TV, radio, cell phone companies and so forth, insuring the safety of transmission lines, pipelines, and so forth, are all functions of the federal government. 

In short, they didn't build that. Not that the government isn't completely wonderful, though.

The federal government is inefficient in many of its operations, but its expansion has occurred during both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those who rail against the government should focus on fixing it and not just making it smaller so they can pay less in taxes. And the money saved should go to paying down the deficit. For different reasons, both the weak and strong among us need a robust federal government in today’s world. 

In today's world...indeed.

The Way Forward on Gun Violence

Police have arrested a man for plotting another movie murder spree:

A southwest Missouri man accused of plotting to shoot up a movie theater during the new "Twilight" film was charged Friday after his mother contacted police, telling them she worried her son had purchased weapons similar to those used during the fatal Colorado theater shooting.

I realize that the Twilight films are bad, but are they that terrible?

This incident shows us a new way to reduce gun violence. Forget FBI background checks and waiting periods: anyone who buys a gun should be required to have a note from their mom.

It's win all the way around: it would promote traditional family values and respect for parents. It would put a big dent in the illegal gun market; straw buyers would have to explain to their mothers why they need to buy a fifth Glock semiautomatic pistol in a month. And all those gangstas in the hood would never get their mommas to sign off on gun purchases, because those women know exactly what happens to young men with guns.

Of course, this is tongue-in-cheek. But it's clear this problem is only growing worse.

In the last 15 years hundreds of people have died at the hands of mentally unstable people who should never have been able to get firearms. From Columbine, to Tucson, to Aurora, to Oak Creek, to Minneapolis, where this September a guy who was just fired shot eight people and leaving five dead, including himself a UPS man who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Every other week another five or ten people are killed by some nut with a gun, who then kills himself or is shot by a cop.

I agree that we don't need a nanny state watching over our every move. Maybe we just need a nanny.

What David Said

Most of the media agree that the behind closed door testimony of former CIA Director, David Patraeus, still leaves much in doubt about what happened in Benghazi last September 11th. I disagree. In fact, I'd say it confirms what I have been saying all along: the administration withheld information they had on the attacks for reasons of national security.

But he said the administration initially withheld the suspicion that extremists with links to Al Qaeda were involved to avoid tipping off the terrorist groups.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this so the Right's mental meltdowns over Benghazi strike me as odd. They're saying that the administration purposefully misled the public on whether or not the attack was Al Qaeda linked and, instead, kept talking about the movie trailer. This seems odd to me for two reasons. First, since when did the Right embrace Julian Assange and call for more openness when it comes to military intelligence? It seems to me that they are now acting just the way he does which, in my view, is dangerous on a number of levels. The reason why we win and lose wars is due to intelligence and some government secrets, in particular with the military.

Second, throw a dart somewhere and you're likely to hit a conservative pundit bitching about how we announce things to our enemies (pulling out of Iraq, Afghanistan etc) and how that's bad. So why should we announce, mere days after the attack when an investigation is still under way, that we know it's Al Qaeda and we're coming to get them? This would be a terribly stupid thing to do.

I also don't get why there is all this bile being heaped upon Susan Rice. The Patraeus testimony confirms that when she made her remarks, she was going on what the intelligence said at the time...the intelligence that was not classified, mind you. Besides, she's the US ambassador to the UN, not a member of the CIA or the State Department. The attacks on her are tremendously unjustified.

Petraeus also said some early classified reports appeared to support Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, when she said five days after the deadly raid in Libya that it had grown out of a protest that was hijacked by extremists — comments that some Republicans contend were meant to downplay the significance of the attack before the presidential election. Even now, the intelligence community has evidence that some attackers were motivated by protests earlier that day in Cairo over an anti-Islamic video, sources familiar with the intelligence said.

I realize that there are still a lot of sour grapes after the complete incompetence pre and post the 9-11 attacks regarding the Bush Administration. But Benghazi isn't even in the same ballpark, folks. And we aren't even done with the investigation yet on what exactly went wrong and why. Obviously, the Right's not going to be patient about this and have even more sour grapes about the election.

Perhaps they might want to learn a thing or two about what happened on November 6th and withhold further comment until we hear more testimony from the people who were more actively involved.

We Have a Winner!

In the last 20 years we have seen a dozen Mitt Romneys parade across the landscape. There was the greedy young man with money coming out of his ears. There was the pro-choice Mitt Romney who ran against Ted Kennedy. There was Mitt Romney the gubernatorial candidate who supported gay rights. There was the severely conservative Mitt Romney who would instantly sign any and all anti-abortion bills that came across his desk. There was the self-sacrificing Olympics-saving Mitt Romney. There was the one-percent Mitt Romney talking sneeringly to wealthy donors behind closed doors about the lazy 47%, quickly followed by the candidate-of-the-100%-in-the-last-few-weeks-of-the-campaign Mitt Romney.

Now that the election is over and the Etch a Sketch has been shaken for the final time, we have a winner! Ding ding ding! The envelope please...

The sneering 1% Mitt Romney!

In a conference call with 400 wealthy donors Romney said that Obama won by promising gifts to the 47%: blacks, Hispanics, young women and college students. Some of his comments include:

With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a big gift. Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 26 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big gift to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.

You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity — I mean, this is huge.

These comments demonstrate Romney's utter lack of empathy and total inability to  imagine the lives of somebody making that $30,000 a year. Such people often have to work multiple jobs because employers intentionally limit their hours to avoid having to pay full-time benefits such as health care. A single mom with two kids who works two jobs for 56 total hours a week at Walmart and Papa Johns Pizza at $10 an hour will still only make $29K and get no benefits. $29K is not enough to pay for a car, gas, rent, food and clothing, much less any kind of preventive health care for the kids.

How can such a person ever get ahead in Romneyworld?  Every waking hour of every day is spent working, sleeping, taking care of kids or driving them to grandma's for daycare.

The time when just anyone with gumption could open a pizzeria or corner store to get a start in business is gone, destroyed by the ilks of Sam Walton and "Papa" John Schnatter and their nation-wide chains that wiped out millions of mom-and-pop operations across the country.

John Schnatter gained notoriety this past summer when he said that his pizzas would cost more because of Obamacare. Exactly how much? Less than a nickel a pizza.

Hundreds of thousands of independent small businesses have been destroyed by giant corporations like Walmart and Papa John's. Yes, big companies are more efficient and sell stuff cheaper. That's because they employ fewer people than the competitors they destroy and don't pay their workers a living wage.


Romney thinks America is still the way it was in Forties, Fifties and Sixties when S. Truett Cathy (Chick-Fil-A), Ray Kroc (McDonald's) and Sam Walton founded their empires. But more and more money and power are concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer businesses, and those businesses have monopolies on vast sectors of the economy. Companies like Chick-Fil-A, McDonald's and Walmart have locked out the majority of small entrepreneurs.

Go to any mall in the suburbs in any part of the country and you'll see the same set of 30 chain stores selling products made in Asia. Sixty years ago you would have seen dozens of independent small businesses selling American-manufactured goods in the downtown of every small city. These days most suburbs don't even have downtowns.
 I hope the 1% Mitt Romney isn't the last one we'll see. Maybe one day he'll realize the reason he lost the election was because wealthy supporters like John Schnatter and the Walton heirs created all those people who need the things Obama is fighting for.

A Hypocritical Pile of Poo

If you skip a meeting on classified intelligence on Benghazi to bitch about how the administration missed key intelligence points, you are a weenis. Furthermore, I've had it with the Right bitching about Benghazi. Where do they get the stones to bitch about intelligence failures after 9-11 and Iraq? Condeleeza Rice was handed a report that said "Al Qaeda determined to attack in US" in August of 2001. President Bush was briefed on this report. A month later 3,000 innocent civilians died and the sound from the Right?

Crickets.

Yet when three members of our armed forces and a highly trained ambassador who knew the risks being in what was essentially a war zone were killed, the Right acts as if all of our nation's women and children were raped and slaughtered. What a hypocritical pile of poo...

Great Economic News

The United States has exported 187 billion dollars worth of goods-an all time high and up 3.1 percent-for the month of September. This narrows the trade deficit to its lowest point in two years, at 41.5 billion.

Driving this uptick was the sale of the iPhone 5 as well as oil exports. A recent article in the New York Times (highlighting an IEA report) show the US is set to become the world's top oil producer in five years. In fact,

The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer by about 2017 and will become a net oil exporter by 2030, the International Energy Agency said Monday.

Wow. Imagine how different a world that is going to be. It's going to give me an enormous amount of satisfaction to have the power shift in the way it is going to do so. So how has this happened?

That increased oil production, combined with new American policies to improve energy efficiency, means that the United States will become “all but self-sufficient” in meeting its energy needs in about two decades.

Hmm...