starve the beast

i think most of you reading here have heard of Lemon Pledge.  It's a furniture wax that contains no wax.  You probably also know that recently the Republicans came out with a "Pledge to America."

Most of us regard a pledge as given by someone you hope you can trust,  someone that will keep your children and my children safe.

Well when people are confused about evolution or global climate change, they endanger your children and my children, by weakening science, by weakening education, by making it harder to deal with problems like cancer and floods that kill people and wreak economic havoc when they're not handled right.

When politicians allow crazy, nasty talk to be part of their "contribution" to American democracy, when they allow crazy, nasty talk to be part of how they participate in self-government of our country, they hurt everybody because when government doesn't work well-- when our justice system doesn't have enough judges to function, when our state budgets can't withstand a recession, when we can't even talk about health care or the deficit or tax relief for the middle class without going crazy ... we end up with a country that doesn't work so well.

There's a reason most people don't want to live in places without a working government -- Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, the Wild West just to name a few. 

Because it's not safe for you, for me, for our children.

Poverty, bad education, unaffordable health care, crumbling roads and bridges, pollution in our air and water, contaminated food ...

... they don't magically take care of themselves.  We all need to be involved in making these things better for everyone in the country.

So when we can't govern ourselves because of the screaming or the misinformation or the dishonesty, people suffer, people die.  Needlessly.

That's what happens when anyone lies about the facts.  Or get them wrong.  Or get all crazy and can't have a constructive conversation about it because they are focused on some personal failing.

This new pledge is the same old pledge we have seen for the past 30 years.  Nothing has changed.
They want to drown the government in a bathtub.  They want to starve the beast.  If you want more of the same put them back in so they can continue to run this country into the ground.  This new pledge is like Lemon Pledge, it's a fake, it has no wax, nothing that will make this country run more smoothly. 

Starving the Beast(cutting taxes) means taking your Social Security and Medicare, it means roads, bridges and infrastructure will continue to deteriorate.  It's a buzz word you should recognize.  The Republicans started this a long time ago, running up the deficits, knowing that if they wrecked the economy eventually they would have to go after Social Security and Medicare.

Here's the findings on cutting Social Security and Medicare: "On Social Security, 73 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independent voters are opposed to cutting it in any way. On Medicare, 75 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of independents are opposed to eliminating it."  We do agree on the most important things.

The new Pledge to American was drafted by a lobbyist.  One who represented pharmacetical compaines, oil companies and insurance companies.  If you want backward and regressive offshoring of jobs etc. then vote to see your taxes go down and your country rot. 

The job situation is not going to change with tax cuts.  High unemployment will continue even with Republicans in charge and may last even longer because they want to cut instead of stimulate the economy. 

Unemployment is a function of lack of demand; there is no other reason for it. 

If we were a country with political clarity our problems could be attacked positively.  The right claims that there are jobs just no one to fill them.  So where are the big labor shortages, have you seen any in your community, ads for all those jobs in the paper?  I haven't seen any in mine.

"Job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared. Unemployment has surged in every major occupational category. Only three states, with a combined population not much larger than that of Brooklyn, have unemployment rates below 5 percent."  Paul Krugman

Even highly skilled people who are willing to move can't find jobs.   So where are these jobs the right says are available?

"I've been looking at what self-proclaimed experts were saying about unemployment during the Great Depression; it was almost identical to what Very Serious People are saying now. Unemployment cannot be brought down rapidly, declared one 1935 analysis, because the work force is "unadaptable and untrained. It cannot respond to the opportunities which industry may offer." A few years later, a large defense buildup finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs — and suddenly industry was eager to employ those "unadaptable and untrained" workers."  Paul Krugman

When demand increases workers will find jobs and not until then.  We need to invest in America and if you keep voting Republicans in this will not happen.  Think about your children next time you vote, do you want them living in a third world country or at least having a fighting chance that they might get to live like you did.

Increase or cut

Bush's tax cuts, Obama's tax increase, which is it?  Well we all know that during the Bush administration Congress passed legislation reducing taxes for ten years.  At the end of the ten years the tax rates were scheduled to revert back to their original levels.  So Bush and the Republican congress played politics with the expiration date of the tax cuts.  Great plan if you lose the Presidency, House and Senate.

Today, President Obama inherited a dilemma, he doesn't want the taxes to revert to their original levels especially for the middle and lower classes.  But he also understands, as do all the major economists, Alan Greenspan included, that to reduce the deficit taxes must go up somewhere.

Internal Revenue Service statistics indicate that only 3 percent of small businesses would be subject to the higher tax if President Obama pushes for the group making $250,000 and over. Innumerable studies of previous tax increases suggest that it would have a minimal impact on hiring.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, "Ninety Seven percent(97%) of all businesses owners do not earn enough to be subject to the higher rates, which would be levied on income over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for families."

Now here is an interesting factoid, the I.R.S. classifies small businesses differently from the public perception of the neighborhood laundry or the small mom and pop corner grocery store. A report released by the Joint Tax Committee in July found that many of the tax returns categorized as small businesses were actually filed by wealthy taxpayers who earned business income through limited partnerships or S corporations to allow their firms to avoid paying corporate taxes.

You have heard of sole proprietors?  Well many of the above are wealthy individuals with NO EMPLOYEES and guess what else, they won't be hiring any time soon.  Those S corporations consisting of lawyers, hedge fund managers, lobbyists, consultants, actors, athletes, authors and even some doctors will certainly be enlarging their employee base...right?   How many employees do you think they have, and how many more do they need, and how exactly is that tax money going to create jobs?

Using mom and pop business's as a political tool to get more money for the wealthy won't work this time around. The tax money is not coming out of the business, it is coming out of the pockets of the individuals that made the money.  Once it is in their pocket it is no longer used in the business.  If those business owners(that might actually grow their business) were to expand, they would do it before taking the money out, which means before taxes. 

A business decision to hire new employees is based simply on the calculus that the new employees hired will make more profit for the business, and ultimately it's owner. An additional tax of 3% or 4% on those increased profits, after the  profits are removed from the business, does not affect that calculus.

If i can hire an additional employee who will make another $20,000 per year in profits for me, i will do that whether or not i have to pay another $800 in taxes on that profit.  Mitch McConnell and his conservative buddies want you, the middle class, to loose your tax cut unless his wealthy buddies get theirs.  The right is using a false pretext, using small business to convince you and make you sympathetic, to make you feel like it is coming out of your pocket. Its not.

The key to new jobs is that if demand doesn't go up no one hires, regardless of a tax break or not.

Here is another point about higher taxes.  Employers at the end of the year try to find ways of reducing their tax liability by buying things they can deduct.  In some ways that buying keeps other business operating.  Farmers buy new equipment, companies buy new computers and i think you get the idea here.  Higher taxes can actually stimulate business.  You don't pay taxes on the money you invest in the company.

Back in the day when taxes were higher companies plowed their money back in by hiring more employees and expanding business instead of paying higher taxes.  Now they are just sitting on it, putting it into bonds and waiting for the market to move.  They should really be using the money not hoarding it.

"Between 2003 and 2007 we experienced the first-ever economic 'recovery' on record where productivity and profits grew but poverty went up and median incomes fell. The middle class and low-income families did not benefit from the gains accrued over the last decade, which was due to the failed economic policies of the Bush administration and the focus on tax cuts for the wealthy that did not lead to growth in investment." Melissa Boteach

Profits and productivity do not mean more jobs.  How many friends do you have that are working double time at their jobs for fear of being laid off?  Giving tax breaks to the wealthy will not change that scenario.
                                           

Jobs in the service sectors are about the only things that can't be out sourced or moved offshore any more.  We've let China and the European countries lead the way in alternative technology that we invented.  We are no longer investing in the USA and a tax break for the wealthy will not create more jobs.  If the mom and pops are where the jobs are then lets give them the tax breaks they need to at least keep what little we have left churning at home.  Those real mom and pops don't make over $250,000 a year and they will get a break.

Eye of AllOne

Before i get into the meat of this piece i wanted to post this picture for everyone to see.  To me it looks like a large eye with eyelashes.  i thought it was so beautiful i tried getting the whole thing into the view finder but missed one portion.  It was so big and gorgeous that to get that sense yourselves you should double click on it and really give it a look.

i like it so much i'm calling it the
Eye of AllOne.  i imagine this is how ancient religions got their myths started.  One could easily equate this with any God they believed in.  So since i think we are all connected by and through AllOne here it is.

Now for the meat.......So, what could a conservative and a liberal agree on?   How about we start with government spending.  i know you want less, we all want less, liberals and conservatives alike; but how concerned are you about a massive defense establishment which spends $1 trillion of your tax money every year in peacetime?   Please realize this amount does not include counting the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Also remember that our nation maintains over 700 military bases all over the world. 

For everyone out there that is concerned what would the founding fathers say about that?  All those military bases?

That $1 trillion-a-year defense budget didn't prevent the 9/11 attack, we don't like to think about that, but it didn't.  The actual attack for the perpetrators may have cost a mere half million to pull off.  So have we been wasting that $1trillion or is it being spent wisely?  Apparently the libertarian Cato Institute thinks we have been spending too much and recommends cutting the defense budget in half . 

Guess what? 

We liberals agree!

And there's probably a lot more we could agree on.

Jim Hightower recently wrote, "the true political spectrum in our society does not range from right to left, but from top to bottom.  Let's put aside the labels of left and right for a bit and figure out how to wrest power from the tiny minority who have manipulated the law, politics and the media to maintain it.  Get your facts straight and then let's work together to bring back government of the people, by the people and for the people."

The first step to changing how we interact and treat each other as a species starts with each individual deciding there is a better way. i know there are better ways. Only very rarely does something truly need force to create change.

i think we all realize there are no easy solutions.   Historical events are not linear, they don't fit together nicely.  There are many complex narratives concerning how we got here, no one example completely delivers any one pat answer, for there is none.  We shouldn't buy into the simplistic commentaries that blame taxes, welfare, war or even the wealthy.

Vast numbers of decisions that were made over time did get us here today.  We can look at how we want to do things differently in the future but that means taking stock of where we are today.

When we emphasize identity politics we create factions that are manipulated against each other to the detriment of all of us.  So keep that in mind as you read the following.

One interesting conversation of late is the income gap.  For decades we have been told that you don't raise taxes on job creators(wealthy).

Well you do know the wealthy do not spend all their money unlike the lower and middle classes.  The lower and middle classes spend everything; all of it goes back into the system, which churns the economy. The theory is that if we catered to the middle class the middle class will have money to spend and the wealthy will come out of the woodwork to provide something(jobs) to separate them from it.  According to the Congressional Budget Office this churning from 1979 to 2007 gave the top 1% a whopping 281% increase in their after tax incomes.  The bottom fifth of the nation enjoyed a measly 16% increase.

Assuming the wealthy are "job creators" what does it say about the fact that even back in 2004, after the tax cuts, the economy shed over 3 million jobs?  It tells us that in spite of just receiving a massive upper-class welfare package, the rich did NOT create jobs.  If anything, the businesses they own or are shareholders in laid off, outsourced and offshored jobs rather than create them.

When you drive the middle class into penury by giving the wealthy tax breaks that will not create jobs because there is no demand for whatever commodity they want to sell, you have to re-evaluate.

Americans are no longer employable on the global market.  Our basic cost of living is too high and we cannot compete with labor in developing nations.  Henry Ford once said that he wanted to pay his employees enough money to buy his cars. Wal-Mart wants to pay its employees so little that they have to shop at Wal-Mart.  This is where we are today and we need to remember it is today not yesterday.

The wealthy (who own and operate corporations) have a single purpose - that is to increase the size of their portfolio and corporate profits by any means necessary. 

Creating jobs in the USA stands in direct opposition to increasing profits.  The long range goal of any corporation (small business or large) is to eliminate or reduce labor costs as much as possible.   This takes us back to the cause of the civil war.  The reason the south fought was because the north threatened a source of free or low-cost labor. 

There has been no new net job creation in the U.S. since sometime in the 1990s.

The rich are not concerned with unemployment, they are concerned with profits. 

The wealthy do not create jobs in the USA anymore.

Extending the tax cuts for the wealthy is giving more upper-class welfare to people who helped create the mess we are in today.

So if you want to see the deficit reduced think a bit more about where those tax cuts are going and who they are really benefiting.  The wealthy can afford to pay.

Hope you enjoy the pictures...see ya next week.

Tax Cut or Stimulus

So the other day President Obama proposed spending $50 Billion on infrastructure projects; he wants to boost jobs and fix things around the country but Republicans are against it.

If you are on the conservative side of the coin you will probably scream bloody murder that the first stimulus program did nothing. Welllllll i hate to disagree with you but it did have an impact.

Anyone who actually examined where the money went from the stimulus understands it kept millions of people working when there were no other alternatives. Those people that actually "followed the money" understand that Republican governors all over the country took it, ran with it and held press conferences saying "Look what we did for you with it" without ever acknowledging that the it was stimulus money. They used it(stimulus money) in their communities, then bad mouthed it(stimulus money) politically. Here is a short list of some of them:
Govs. Mitch Daniels (R-IN),Dave Heineman (R-NE), Sonny Perdue (R-GA), and Phil Bredesen (D-TN),Mark Sanford (R-SC)you remember him, even went to court then quietly took the money. Gov. Pawlenty(R-MN)refused to sign a letter requesting money but his budget already included it(stimulus money), he was counting on the money to balance his budget but he didn't want to tell you that. i could go on but won't.  Forty Seven Governors signed up for the money that alone tells you how dire the situation was.

This report finds that, without both the stimulus and financial policies, the "GDP in 2010 would be about 6 1/2 % lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8 1/2 million jobs on top of the 8 million already lost, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation." Now read that again because naysayers that believe we shouldn't have done anything have to understand where we would be today if we hadn't done the stimulus. Eight and a half million more people without jobs. Isn't it bad enough already?

The reports authors Mr. Blindi and Mr. Zandi estimate the total direct cost of the recession at $1.6 trillion, and the total budgetary cost, after adding in nearly $750 billion in lost revenue from the weaker economy, at $2.35 trillion, or about 16 percent of G.D.P.

By comparison, the savings and loan crisis cost about $350 billion in today’s dollars: $275 billion in direct cost and an additional $75 billion from the recession of 1990-91 — or about 6 percent of G.D.P. at the time. This recession was not President Obamas fault, he's been trying to put band-aids on a gaping wound.

The above may have been too many facts to take for some. i understand i can get a little long winded but having information is important to understanding the issues.

Anyone who has spent any time reading here knows i'm all about spending tax dollars to benefit all of us. Putting our tax dollars to work on roads etc. will benefit some out there and if i ever drive over those roads it will help me too.

To me, the only problem with this $50 billion is it is too small to have the kind of impact that really helps enough people get jobs.

i get lots of conservative bulk e-mails and one thing i always notice is how they appeal to the emotions first. They give you a sob story to make you feel taken advantage of or fearful of something and then leave it to you to reach a conclusion that will not help your bottom line. i wish it wasn't the case. i wish more people would read both sides before reaching any conclusion, because so many buy into the crap that cutting taxes will create jobs.  It doesn't.  Delete the crap e-mails do your own research.

Now on the other hand extending the Bush tax cuts provides for every $1.00 spent $0.10 to $0.40 cents in economic activity, compared with spending a $1.00 on infrastructure and getting $1.20 in economic activity. Republicans all support extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans as a means of boosting the economy but if you look at the numbers above its obvious which one gets more bang for the buck and which one will actually create jobs and boost the economy. Looks like tax cuts give a smaller economic return which doesn't support that "trickle down theory" we are always bombarded with. i could go on and on but won't. You are probably bored by now. i hope you enjoyed the pictures and please think more deeply about where this country is headed. We need to cut back the money we spend on the military(that will reduce our deficit)and invest in ourselves. President Obama can't do it alone, he needs your help, don't vote against yourself in these up coming elections.  Voting for tax cuts won't help you, but it will help those 2% at the top of the food chain.



If you need a tree cutter and you are on St. Croix Louis Broadman is your man.  He did a great job on cutting ours down.  In case you are appalled that we cut down the tree it was rotten in the middle and posed a huge threat.

Hurricane Earl

Hurricane Earl was a beauty.  Nicely formed, tightly compacted
and barreling along as a Category 3.  We have been

here before and followed it closely.  As it approached it picked up on the wind velocity and ended up walloping the north shore of St. Croix(where we live) more forcefully than anticipated. 

We had expected winds of maybe 40mph but by the time we were finished with Earl he had left us reeling.  After an early morning flooding in the living room we decided more panels were needed to protect the western side of the house; storms don't usually come in from that side but with Earl he did.  Up the panels went around 9:00am and we settled in to wait out the storm.  

Have any of you noticed that some of the names for storms this year are cartoon characters?  Fiona from Shrek, Hermine from Harry Potter, Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, Igor from Frankenstein...hmmmmm.

i've always been concerned about a tree in our front yard that if it fell could do serious damage to the cars.  i suggested moving my car but we decided anywhere we put it was dangerous.  So i suggested cramming it up against the patio just in case the tree came down.  We literally only moved the car about six feet but wouldn't you know it was exactly where the tree wanted to go.  That sweet tree didn't come crashing down it just gently leaned over during the course of the storm, finally breaking at the end.

i would have posted last Wednesday like i usually do but wouldn't you know the power was out.  We spent days cleaning debris, scooping leaves out of the pool and general cleanup.  We still have the panels up because we anticipate more storms this season and don't want to have to do it all again. 

The power went out about 1:15pm Monday and we had it restored Saturday night around 10:00pm.  We had gotten used to the oil lamps, the hand crank radio and a really nifty IKEA goose neck solar lamp i bought in San Diego.  i wish i had more of those for all my friends, they work great.  Its a wonderful feeling to get light from the sun, and its free.

We have a generator but the noise drives you mad so we only run it in the morning and evening for showers, the refrigerator, and ugh the washing.  i'm glad to have that noise silenced.

Hurricanes are stressful.  No matter how much you prepare there is always something. The most positive thing about hurricanes is the aftermath, when everyone kicks in to help each other.  Every hurricane season i remark about how wonderful it is to see so many helping others only to watch it all fizzle out once things are more normal.  i wish there was some magic elixir we could all take that kept us so communally oriented.

This is just a quickie blog, hopefully Wednesday i'll be back to normal, stay tuned.  And thank you for the lovely dish towel, you know who you are.