An Era Of Re-Regulation? Progressives Shouldn't Celebrate Too Soon
Sorry that the links didn't copy. You can find them on the original post.
By Manifesto Joe
So, deregulation in America is supposed to have died last week? Not so fast. Laissez faire, historically, is one of those economic notions that's sort of like Jason in those bad splatter movies -- it keeps coming back.
I don't doubt that, no matter which candidate is elected president in November, deregulation will be a somewhat untouchable position for a while, where financial markets are concerned. Until several years pass, and the $700 billion payoff at taxpayers' expense is complete, we won't hear much about it.
But this is a zombie that's a re-animator's dream, having risen from rigor mortis again and again. It's a toxic idea has always served the interests of the moneyed class in most societies. Even after being repeatedly discredited by financial crises such as this one, and many before, it only takes a generation or two to resurrect it with as much "credibility" as ever.
As a one-time college textbook editor, I worked with economists, and found them to be largely a priesthood of ideologues. Their ideas don't have to bear strong resemblance to events of the real world. Among many, if not most of them, the "free market" is a quasi-religion, to be challenged only at the questioning of one's intellect and/or sanity.
Interestingly, most of them, even the "free-market" disciples, agree that the looming $700 billion taxpayer bailout of the U.S. financial system is necessary, though perhaps a necessary evil.
We come back to a condition of humans never liking to admit they are wrong. We also come back to old wisdom that one shouldn't bite the hand that feeds one. Most professional economists have "invested" a big stake in "free-market" theory, and their sources of income -- universities, "think" tanks and such -- generally expect them to maintain a certain ideological purity.
When current events fade into history, don't be surprised if we have a lot of economists, and compliant lawmakers trolling for right-wing votes, who want to start deregulating everything yet again. To broadly paraphrase the poet Santayana, most people do not remember the past, and they are therefore condemned to repeat it.
I'll steal another line, this one paraphrased from Citizen Kane: You're going to need more than one lesson, and you're going to get more than one lesson. In this case, the "you" is the American people.
What happened during the past 30 years was widespread economic amnesia, even among the alleged experts. What was forgotten was people's natural inclination to grow greedy and behave badly when not subject to certain restraints.
It's easy to blame the people who signed on to unsound subprime mortgage loans, who ran up vast credit-card debt, and so forth, if you look at the situation in just one dimension. What about the predatory lenders who offered them all this credit they could never have gotten 30 years ago?
I remember being quite impressed in the spring of 1978, as I approached graduation from college, at being offered my very first gasoline credit card. It was a big deal. "We believe that people about to graduate from college are good credit risks," I was told. Years later I was offered an actual Visa card, and the line of credit was pretty modest.
Now, all you need is a pulse. My 81-year-old mother, in assisted living, is getting solicitations. It would be possible for her to obtain one of these cards and run up a $10,000 tab in a hurry, then default. What would they do? Ruin her credit? Garnish her Social Security check?
The fault ultimately lies with greedy lenders. The great unwashed are always an easy target for blame, but the people in the suits don't have to make such absurdly generous offers to hapless people. This go-round, they approved loans and gave out other credit like it was lunch, with no thought for when the bills came due and they had to actually collect.
A wonderful analogy came from Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, a consumer-oriented research group. In a Monday piece from McClatchy Newspapers, she commented on the regulatory lapses:
"The job of regulators is that when the party's in full swing, make sure the partygoers drink responsibly. Instead, they let everyone drink as much as they wanted and then handed them the car keys."
Here's the link to the complete article.
It is important to note that Bush, possibly the Herbert Hoover of this generation and much worse, has nevertheless planted seeds for an eventual revival of the old market mentality. One couldn't expect a mediocre-at-best product of privilege to do otherwise. Here's some of what he had to say, as reported by The Associated Press:
The president favored government intervention even though it opened him up to criticism from financial conservatives who are raising their eyebrows at the pricetag of the bailout plan. "Look, I'm sure there are some of my friends out there saying, `I thought this guy was a market guy. What happened to him?'" Bush said.
"Well, my first instinct wasn't to lay out a huge government plan," he said. "My first instinct was to let the market work until I realized, upon being briefed by the experts, of how significant this problem became."
In other words, this is supposed to be an anomaly, not the logical outcome of unregulated capitalism, even though we've seen it in history over and over. Here's the full AP article about Bush's take on this, if you can stomach it.
It would be desirable in many ways to just let the avaricious fatcats go under amid this excess, but that can't be. There are dogmatic libertarians who actually think Americans could be that stupid, both individually and collectively. But we can't afford that. It comes to a kind of economic blackmail -- the risk is too great for too many people who had nothing to do with the bad decisions on either end of the credit process. So, the fatcats will be bailed out.
The hope, against hope, is that "we won't be fooled again." That they won't be able to sell this bill of goods to the next generation in 20 years, and that our own generations of today won't forget. That the libertarians will finally learn that their naivete assumes marketplace self-policing that neither people nor institutions will ever do.
Maybe, just maybe one day, we'll learn. Keep a close watch on your retirement investments in the meantime. Here's one more thought-provoking link by Steve Fraser that I urge the reader to ponder.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Republican Party Has Become Like Organized Crime
By Manifesto Joe
Yes, this has happened before, sort of. FDR did more to save U.S. capitalism than any president before him, yet he was vilified and perennially embattled for his efforts. That time, the opposition largely failed; but this time, success looks imminent. President Obama has acted similarly, yet he looks to have his majority in the Congress taken by a new Cosa Nostra that among other things takes megabucks from foreign countries. FDR didn't have to face anything quite like this.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which virtually always supports "pro-business" Republican candidates, denies that it is doing anything out of the ordinary. But money is pouring into its coffers from diverse foreign sources. This is from a recent Associated Press article, and here's a link to the entire story.
Questions about the chamber's foreign money were first raised this week by ThinkProgress, a blog of the liberal Center for American Progress. The account pointed to overseas business councils, known as "AmChams," that pay dues that go into the general fund of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. MoveOn.org sent a letter to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation.
The sources of the money are corporations as far away as India and Bahrain.
But the chamber, never lacking in preposterous rhetoric, came back with this, according to AP:
(Chamber spokeswoman Tita) Freeman dismissed the claim as the work of a "George Soros-funded, anti-business blog," a reference to the billionaire investor known for his support of liberal causes.
So, multibillionaire George Soros is anti-business? That probably came as a startling revelation to his accountants.
What Soros does have, and what is lacking in a great many wealthy individuals and multinational corporations, is a basic sense of fairness and decency. Soros may actually understand what life is like right now for millions of unemployed Americans, and for millions more who were underemployed before the steep downturn of recent years. Soros had the combination of acumen and good fortune to become a fabulously wealthy person -- but he didn't become a gangster while he was at it.
Organized crime is the only description that seems adequate for this. The Chamber of Commerce and its slush money from foreign sources is just one example of the racket. All these alleged grassroots movements like the Tea Party are being bankrolled with shadow money. Here's a link to an NPR report on the subject. The Koch brothers -- that's a name to remember. This is from NPR:
... Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, has long been rumored to be financed by David Koch, of the family that owns Koch Industries. That's one of the biggest privately held companies in America, and the family has a long history of underwriting conservative causes.
David Koch confirmed the rumors at an AFP convention last fall. "Five years ago my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity. And it's beyond my wildest dreams how the AFP has grown into this enormous organization," David Koch said, according to audio from the online news site The Washington Independent.
And then, to top it all off, our new Cosa Nostra has its own giant TV "news" network. Millions of Americans sit and absorb Fox News' mind-rotting swill day after day, being persuaded to vote against their own interests.
This demagoguery has been seen before. But it's never been bankrolled quite like now. And it's come to this after the U.S. Supreme Court, with its 5-4 right-wing majority, struck down limitations on corporate spending for political campaigns, essentially putting two branches of our government up for sale. (The third one already appears to have been paid for. And the "fourth" one -- well, as I was saying in the previous paragraph ...)
Here's how E.J. Dionne Jr. put it, describing the Supreme Court ruling:
This extraordinary state of affairs was facilitated by the U.S. Supreme Court's scandalous Citizens United decision, which swept away decades of restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections. The Republicans' success in blocking legislation that would at least have required the big spenders to disclose the sources of their money means voters have to operate in the dark.
The American people are about to be complicit in the purchase of one branch of their government by organized crime. The obvious intention is for the rest of the deal to be struck in November 2012.
It gives me sincere pain to describe one of our major political parties this way. But privately, I started calling the Republicans "the party of Satan" back around 1995, when the idiots shut down the federal government out of sheer pig-headedness. (My wife said, "You're going to give Satan a bad name.") Anyway, no skin off their butts -- most of them don't have to live even partially off Social Security or VA pensions.
We need a strong and viable conservative party as one of our two major political parties. Right now, what we have is a bunch of ruthless opportunists who are much too obviously on the payroll. They have made Faustian bargains with a variety of groups -- ranging from Religious Right kooks to the kinds of corporate powers that would, if they could, have people working 80-hour weeks for a dollar an hour, and pay no income tax. (Oh, I forgot -- some of them already have the latter worked out. And we see how well it's worked for the economy.)
What Germany and Japan couldn't do in World War II, the Republicans may soon actually succeed in doing -- with the help of their rich gangster friends. To ironically paraphrase Glenn Beck, I love my country -- and I fear for it.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Yes, this has happened before, sort of. FDR did more to save U.S. capitalism than any president before him, yet he was vilified and perennially embattled for his efforts. That time, the opposition largely failed; but this time, success looks imminent. President Obama has acted similarly, yet he looks to have his majority in the Congress taken by a new Cosa Nostra that among other things takes megabucks from foreign countries. FDR didn't have to face anything quite like this.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which virtually always supports "pro-business" Republican candidates, denies that it is doing anything out of the ordinary. But money is pouring into its coffers from diverse foreign sources. This is from a recent Associated Press article, and here's a link to the entire story.
Questions about the chamber's foreign money were first raised this week by ThinkProgress, a blog of the liberal Center for American Progress. The account pointed to overseas business councils, known as "AmChams," that pay dues that go into the general fund of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. MoveOn.org sent a letter to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation.
The sources of the money are corporations as far away as India and Bahrain.
But the chamber, never lacking in preposterous rhetoric, came back with this, according to AP:
(Chamber spokeswoman Tita) Freeman dismissed the claim as the work of a "George Soros-funded, anti-business blog," a reference to the billionaire investor known for his support of liberal causes.
So, multibillionaire George Soros is anti-business? That probably came as a startling revelation to his accountants.
What Soros does have, and what is lacking in a great many wealthy individuals and multinational corporations, is a basic sense of fairness and decency. Soros may actually understand what life is like right now for millions of unemployed Americans, and for millions more who were underemployed before the steep downturn of recent years. Soros had the combination of acumen and good fortune to become a fabulously wealthy person -- but he didn't become a gangster while he was at it.
Organized crime is the only description that seems adequate for this. The Chamber of Commerce and its slush money from foreign sources is just one example of the racket. All these alleged grassroots movements like the Tea Party are being bankrolled with shadow money. Here's a link to an NPR report on the subject. The Koch brothers -- that's a name to remember. This is from NPR:
... Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, has long been rumored to be financed by David Koch, of the family that owns Koch Industries. That's one of the biggest privately held companies in America, and the family has a long history of underwriting conservative causes.
David Koch confirmed the rumors at an AFP convention last fall. "Five years ago my brother Charles and I provided the funds to start the Americans for Prosperity. And it's beyond my wildest dreams how the AFP has grown into this enormous organization," David Koch said, according to audio from the online news site The Washington Independent.
And then, to top it all off, our new Cosa Nostra has its own giant TV "news" network. Millions of Americans sit and absorb Fox News' mind-rotting swill day after day, being persuaded to vote against their own interests.
This demagoguery has been seen before. But it's never been bankrolled quite like now. And it's come to this after the U.S. Supreme Court, with its 5-4 right-wing majority, struck down limitations on corporate spending for political campaigns, essentially putting two branches of our government up for sale. (The third one already appears to have been paid for. And the "fourth" one -- well, as I was saying in the previous paragraph ...)
Here's how E.J. Dionne Jr. put it, describing the Supreme Court ruling:
This extraordinary state of affairs was facilitated by the U.S. Supreme Court's scandalous Citizens United decision, which swept away decades of restrictions on corporate spending to influence elections. The Republicans' success in blocking legislation that would at least have required the big spenders to disclose the sources of their money means voters have to operate in the dark.
The American people are about to be complicit in the purchase of one branch of their government by organized crime. The obvious intention is for the rest of the deal to be struck in November 2012.
It gives me sincere pain to describe one of our major political parties this way. But privately, I started calling the Republicans "the party of Satan" back around 1995, when the idiots shut down the federal government out of sheer pig-headedness. (My wife said, "You're going to give Satan a bad name.") Anyway, no skin off their butts -- most of them don't have to live even partially off Social Security or VA pensions.
We need a strong and viable conservative party as one of our two major political parties. Right now, what we have is a bunch of ruthless opportunists who are much too obviously on the payroll. They have made Faustian bargains with a variety of groups -- ranging from Religious Right kooks to the kinds of corporate powers that would, if they could, have people working 80-hour weeks for a dollar an hour, and pay no income tax. (Oh, I forgot -- some of them already have the latter worked out. And we see how well it's worked for the economy.)
What Germany and Japan couldn't do in World War II, the Republicans may soon actually succeed in doing -- with the help of their rich gangster friends. To ironically paraphrase Glenn Beck, I love my country -- and I fear for it.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Only In America: Millionaires Collecting Unemployment
By Manifesto Joe
I do my share of lamenting these days about how the American people seem to have lost their minds. Anger is visible in the country today, but it seems focused on all the wrong things. I keep reading that in less than a month, it's likely that the voters are going to basically hand the country back over to the very people who were mainly behind the current economic debacle.
But now I read that U.S. millionaires, a lot of them, have been collecting unemployment benefits. I hope we have something here that most of us can agree is an outrage. I've noticed that even some conservative websites are unhappy about this news.
Here are the particulars, from Bloomberg News, plus a link to the entire article:
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires.
According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits.
Not that $18.6 million amounts to all that much in the vast federal scheme of things, in which annual deficits can reach $1.3 trillion. Hell, the country could cut that deficit by two-thirds if it just forced rich people and big corporations to pay more, or in some cases any, income tax.
But there's a principle involved here. All these people are already doing quite well. If there was ever an area in which means-testing was needed, this seems to be it.
And yes, I understand the argument, as reported in the article, that unemployment benefits are insurance benefits, and therefore means-testing doesn't enter into it.
But let's consider that aspect for a moment. Don't insurance policies often come with certain rules and limitations? Term life expires at age 65, usually. Why doesn't unemployment insurance exclude those with incomes above a certain number?
Of course, this issue has come up before with regard to Social Security as well. What the hell is a multimillionaire doing collecting up to $3,000 a month, or something like that, from Social Security?
The rapid response is that Social Security is social insurance, and again, not subject to means-testing. But consider further: You can spend most of a lifetime paying into that system, but if you die just one day before you become eligible for benefits, you don't collect a cent. Insurance is no guarantee when the insured does not meet certain criteria.
As I understand it, Social Security is set up the way it is so that the better-off in U.S. society will be politically co-opted and willing to support and participate in the system. It's essentially a regressive payroll tax, with workers and employers each paying 6.2% on annual wages up to $106,800. After that cap, nothing is paid and nothing is accrued. It's designed so that everybody who accrues benefits will at least get something if they live long enough to collect.
Unemployment insurance was probably set up with the same considerations in mind among those who wrote the legislation. Everybody gets something, so it's more likely that the well-to-do will take part and offer at least tacit support for the program.
But, it is precisely this "what's in it for me" kind of thinking that will eventually sink this country. The paying of unemployment benefits to millionaires is just one little example of such behavior.
But, from what I've been reading, we're likely to witness a mass example of all this self-centered and misdirected rage on Nov. 2. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I do my share of lamenting these days about how the American people seem to have lost their minds. Anger is visible in the country today, but it seems focused on all the wrong things. I keep reading that in less than a month, it's likely that the voters are going to basically hand the country back over to the very people who were mainly behind the current economic debacle.
But now I read that U.S. millionaires, a lot of them, have been collecting unemployment benefits. I hope we have something here that most of us can agree is an outrage. I've noticed that even some conservative websites are unhappy about this news.
Here are the particulars, from Bloomberg News, plus a link to the entire article:
Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires.
According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits.
Not that $18.6 million amounts to all that much in the vast federal scheme of things, in which annual deficits can reach $1.3 trillion. Hell, the country could cut that deficit by two-thirds if it just forced rich people and big corporations to pay more, or in some cases any, income tax.
But there's a principle involved here. All these people are already doing quite well. If there was ever an area in which means-testing was needed, this seems to be it.
And yes, I understand the argument, as reported in the article, that unemployment benefits are insurance benefits, and therefore means-testing doesn't enter into it.
But let's consider that aspect for a moment. Don't insurance policies often come with certain rules and limitations? Term life expires at age 65, usually. Why doesn't unemployment insurance exclude those with incomes above a certain number?
Of course, this issue has come up before with regard to Social Security as well. What the hell is a multimillionaire doing collecting up to $3,000 a month, or something like that, from Social Security?
The rapid response is that Social Security is social insurance, and again, not subject to means-testing. But consider further: You can spend most of a lifetime paying into that system, but if you die just one day before you become eligible for benefits, you don't collect a cent. Insurance is no guarantee when the insured does not meet certain criteria.
As I understand it, Social Security is set up the way it is so that the better-off in U.S. society will be politically co-opted and willing to support and participate in the system. It's essentially a regressive payroll tax, with workers and employers each paying 6.2% on annual wages up to $106,800. After that cap, nothing is paid and nothing is accrued. It's designed so that everybody who accrues benefits will at least get something if they live long enough to collect.
Unemployment insurance was probably set up with the same considerations in mind among those who wrote the legislation. Everybody gets something, so it's more likely that the well-to-do will take part and offer at least tacit support for the program.
But, it is precisely this "what's in it for me" kind of thinking that will eventually sink this country. The paying of unemployment benefits to millionaires is just one little example of such behavior.
But, from what I've been reading, we're likely to witness a mass example of all this self-centered and misdirected rage on Nov. 2. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wealth, Education, Youth, Ethnicity And The U.S. Economy's 'New Normal'
By Manifesto Joe
Judging from what the polls are telling us, the American people are on the verge of being rendered a drooling mass of chumps yet again -- by Republicans once more calling for continued low taxes on the wealthy and big corporate interests, while relentlessly whittling away at the labor arrangements and social safety net that made the U.S. middle class of the 20th century possible in the first place.
The most recent comprehensive polls in Texas put President Obama's approval rating in the state at 36.8%, compared with 57.5% of likely voters who disapprove. The approval rating for Obama is much lower in some of the major population areas, like where I live. Even though gubernatorial challenger Bill White, the former mayor of Houston, has distanced himself from Obama, what this probably means is that Texans are going to re-elect Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry, who would then be on track to be the state's chief executive for 14 years.
The poll, conducted Sept. 15-22 by Blum & Weprin Associates, also breaks down in some interesting ways. Obama does best among certain distinct groups.
Young Voters
Among those under 30, Obama gets 52.3% approval, compared with 38.7% disapproval. This could be spun in different ways. Republicans would suggest that Obama has retained popularity among inexperienced idealists. Democrats would suggest that perhaps the younger voters have not yet been so thoroughly immersed in the right-wing brainwashing that seems to pervade the current U.S. political climate.
Ethnic and/or Racial Minorities
Obama has a 93% approval rating among African-Americans, compared with only 5% disapproval. The obvious GOP spin: Obama is black. The Democratic spin: African-Americans are also much less likely to believe much of what the likes of Fox News disseminates. Me thinks they've been lied to before.
Among Hispanics, the trend is similar, though not as overwhelming. Some 66% approve, and 28% disapprove, of Obama's performance.
Wealth
I suppose this should be a no-brainer, since wealthier Americans have enjoyed lower taxes than residents of the rest of the developed world for many, many years, and they want to keep it that way. Obama isn't even suggesting dramatic changes, but any changes are enough to piss off richer people. That's the kind of self-centered society Americans consist of now. Those making $100,000-plus a year disapprove of Obama, 64-30. As one moves down the income categories, Obama's popularity shifts among Texans making under $30,000 a year. They like him, 51-45.
Republicans would resort to obvious elitism here -- the "successful" people tend to dislike Obama, and the "layabouts" figure him as a more likely source of new handouts. An opposite spin -- it's been my experience that most people in higher income brackets have always been there, and have no serious idea of what life is like for less fortunate folks. The latter group knows all too well.
Education
This may be the most revealing statistic. Obama doesn't do badly, in Texas at least, among the least educated. Less than high school: 44% approve, 53% disapprove. Among high school graduates, it's 43-53, statistically the same. Obama fares worst among those with "some college" -- only 18% approve, while 71% disapprove. It gets a little better among college graduates, at 32-63.
But here's the part that may be the most telling. Among Texans reporting "college-plus" as their education -- people with graduate or professional degrees -- Obama gets a 56% approval rating, compared to 41% disapproval.
We can get into some serious elitism here. There's an old saying that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, hence the Tea Party level of popularity of Obama among Texans reporting "some college." If I remember students like these accurately from my college days, they lasted in the academic world just long enough to get the idea that they really knew something, when they actually didn't know much at all. They often lacked either the intelligence or the discipline to finish the job.
Of course, the Republican spin on this would recall former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's condemnation of fellow academics. Such people, Armey said, have absolutely no idea of what it's like to go out and make a living in the real, private-sector world. This from a guy who came to prominence as an economist teaching at a state university, who was on the public payroll for years and years before gaining a more lucrative position on the public payroll as a member of Congress.
As a person who lasted in the academic world long enough to get a master's, my observation is that my peers are intelligent enough to know that the current economic morass took 30 years to make. It didn't start as soon as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took the reins of Congress in January 2007. But, it's often quite convenient for Republicans to be one-dimensional thinkers, and even to distort the facts as they see fit. If you happen to be holding the bag right now, it doesn't matter to such political opportunists what kind of policy travesties were ongoing in the 1980s. (What we have here is often too many business administration courses, and not enough history and economics.)
The New Normal
The two obvious megatrends in the U.S. economy from the 1970s until late 2007, when the bubble burst
Call it the New Gilded Age. This ruse went on for so long that, despite its rather obvious cumulative failure, "supply-side" still has a huge following. I can understand how it started. By 1980, the U.S. was suffering from what is called demand-pull inflation -- too many dollars chasing too few goods. An economic correction was admittedly needed.
But once Reagan and his cronies got in office, their long-range intentions quickly became clear. Cut taxes on the rich and on corporations, while quietly raising them on working people in the form of high Social Security payroll taxes. Look the other way while companies are exporting jobs to low-wage countries. The wealthy types that these people represented never liked the higher marginal tax rates needed to maintain even a modest welfare state, nor did they like the labor arrangements that forced them to pay living wages to Middle America. The middle class of the 20th century is gradually dismantled, leaving the U.S. with an ever-richer elite while the rest of us settle for scraps from the rich man's table.
It worked just well enough, and just long enough, for some Americans to prosper and become true believers. As for me, and many others like me, I'm still waiting for my "trickle-down" from the first time. It always felt and smelled more like "tinkle-down" to me.
Here's a link to a good article on the subject: "The New Normal: What to Expect of Our Economy."
Even a crusty old capitalist like Henry Ford understood that the economy doesn't do as well if you're not paying working people enough for them to be able to actually afford the products that they are making. Now, they often can't even afford the ones being imported from Mexico and Indonesia, being made by people who now have the jobs that used to exist here.
The demand side matters, too. But the poll numbers are clear. Americans are being duped, yet again. It looks like they are going to need more than one lesson.
And it looks like they are going to get more than one lesson.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Judging from what the polls are telling us, the American people are on the verge of being rendered a drooling mass of chumps yet again -- by Republicans once more calling for continued low taxes on the wealthy and big corporate interests, while relentlessly whittling away at the labor arrangements and social safety net that made the U.S. middle class of the 20th century possible in the first place.
The most recent comprehensive polls in Texas put President Obama's approval rating in the state at 36.8%, compared with 57.5% of likely voters who disapprove. The approval rating for Obama is much lower in some of the major population areas, like where I live. Even though gubernatorial challenger Bill White, the former mayor of Houston, has distanced himself from Obama, what this probably means is that Texans are going to re-elect Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry, who would then be on track to be the state's chief executive for 14 years.
The poll, conducted Sept. 15-22 by Blum & Weprin Associates, also breaks down in some interesting ways. Obama does best among certain distinct groups.
Young Voters
Among those under 30, Obama gets 52.3% approval, compared with 38.7% disapproval. This could be spun in different ways. Republicans would suggest that Obama has retained popularity among inexperienced idealists. Democrats would suggest that perhaps the younger voters have not yet been so thoroughly immersed in the right-wing brainwashing that seems to pervade the current U.S. political climate.
Ethnic and/or Racial Minorities
Obama has a 93% approval rating among African-Americans, compared with only 5% disapproval. The obvious GOP spin: Obama is black. The Democratic spin: African-Americans are also much less likely to believe much of what the likes of Fox News disseminates. Me thinks they've been lied to before.
Among Hispanics, the trend is similar, though not as overwhelming. Some 66% approve, and 28% disapprove, of Obama's performance.
Wealth
I suppose this should be a no-brainer, since wealthier Americans have enjoyed lower taxes than residents of the rest of the developed world for many, many years, and they want to keep it that way. Obama isn't even suggesting dramatic changes, but any changes are enough to piss off richer people. That's the kind of self-centered society Americans consist of now. Those making $100,000-plus a year disapprove of Obama, 64-30. As one moves down the income categories, Obama's popularity shifts among Texans making under $30,000 a year. They like him, 51-45.
Republicans would resort to obvious elitism here -- the "successful" people tend to dislike Obama, and the "layabouts" figure him as a more likely source of new handouts. An opposite spin -- it's been my experience that most people in higher income brackets have always been there, and have no serious idea of what life is like for less fortunate folks. The latter group knows all too well.
Education
This may be the most revealing statistic. Obama doesn't do badly, in Texas at least, among the least educated. Less than high school: 44% approve, 53% disapprove. Among high school graduates, it's 43-53, statistically the same. Obama fares worst among those with "some college" -- only 18% approve, while 71% disapprove. It gets a little better among college graduates, at 32-63.
But here's the part that may be the most telling. Among Texans reporting "college-plus" as their education -- people with graduate or professional degrees -- Obama gets a 56% approval rating, compared to 41% disapproval.
We can get into some serious elitism here. There's an old saying that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, hence the Tea Party level of popularity of Obama among Texans reporting "some college." If I remember students like these accurately from my college days, they lasted in the academic world just long enough to get the idea that they really knew something, when they actually didn't know much at all. They often lacked either the intelligence or the discipline to finish the job.
Of course, the Republican spin on this would recall former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's condemnation of fellow academics. Such people, Armey said, have absolutely no idea of what it's like to go out and make a living in the real, private-sector world. This from a guy who came to prominence as an economist teaching at a state university, who was on the public payroll for years and years before gaining a more lucrative position on the public payroll as a member of Congress.
As a person who lasted in the academic world long enough to get a master's, my observation is that my peers are intelligent enough to know that the current economic morass took 30 years to make. It didn't start as soon as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took the reins of Congress in January 2007. But, it's often quite convenient for Republicans to be one-dimensional thinkers, and even to distort the facts as they see fit. If you happen to be holding the bag right now, it doesn't matter to such political opportunists what kind of policy travesties were ongoing in the 1980s. (What we have here is often too many business administration courses, and not enough history and economics.)
The New Normal
The two obvious megatrends in the U.S. economy from the 1970s until late 2007, when the bubble burst
Call it the New Gilded Age. This ruse went on for so long that, despite its rather obvious cumulative failure, "supply-side" still has a huge following. I can understand how it started. By 1980, the U.S. was suffering from what is called demand-pull inflation -- too many dollars chasing too few goods. An economic correction was admittedly needed.
But once Reagan and his cronies got in office, their long-range intentions quickly became clear. Cut taxes on the rich and on corporations, while quietly raising them on working people in the form of high Social Security payroll taxes. Look the other way while companies are exporting jobs to low-wage countries. The wealthy types that these people represented never liked the higher marginal tax rates needed to maintain even a modest welfare state, nor did they like the labor arrangements that forced them to pay living wages to Middle America. The middle class of the 20th century is gradually dismantled, leaving the U.S. with an ever-richer elite while the rest of us settle for scraps from the rich man's table.
It worked just well enough, and just long enough, for some Americans to prosper and become true believers. As for me, and many others like me, I'm still waiting for my "trickle-down" from the first time. It always felt and smelled more like "tinkle-down" to me.
Here's a link to a good article on the subject: "The New Normal: What to Expect of Our Economy."
Even a crusty old capitalist like Henry Ford understood that the economy doesn't do as well if you're not paying working people enough for them to be able to actually afford the products that they are making. Now, they often can't even afford the ones being imported from Mexico and Indonesia, being made by people who now have the jobs that used to exist here.
The demand side matters, too. But the poll numbers are clear. Americans are being duped, yet again. It looks like they are going to need more than one lesson.
And it looks like they are going to get more than one lesson.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
RIP, Kevin McCarthy, 1914-2010: Fox News Making Pod People, One Brainwashing At A Time
By Manifesto Joe
You're next! You're next!!
That was the warning from Kevin McCarthy's small-town California doctor character in the 1956 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Directed by the great American B-movie auteur Don Siegel and co-starring Dana Wynter, the film depicts Earth people being covertly transformed into inhuman, emotionally dead "pod people" when they go to sleep. I would include a few minutes from the movie, but embedding has been consistently blocked. You can see clips on YouTube.
(I smell a Fox News conspiracy here!)
After this movie was released in 1956, there was a lot of writing about Cold War and McCarthyist paranoia. Although the greatness of Siegel's film has never been questioned, critics both right and left sensed political allegory, although the author of the source material, novelist Jack Finney, denied any such thing.
The right, at the time, wrote about the dehumanization of people under communism. The left wrote about the regimentation of Americans in the era of McCarthy-style blacklisting. I think an argument can be made in both directions: Fanatical ideologies of any mold have the potential to dehumanize the believer.
In 2010, I offer a new spin on it. Everyone I know who watches Fox News consistently displays a certain glazing of the eyes, and astounding, stupifying suspension of reason. It's a world of its own, quite divorced even from the reality of the lives of those viewers. They can be wage slaves, toiling for little more than minimum wage for rapacious corporations. Or, they can be people who make good salaries and benefits working for that vicious socialist government. Or, they can be retirees who live largely off "Socialist Security," yet see no conflict with being Tea Party activists.
They see no problem with their willingness to throw anyone and everyone who doesn't look like them, talk like them, worship like them, vote like them, etc., out into the street -- even if they aren't doing so well themselves. In that case, they blame it on people they perceive as below them, not the real culprits in higher
If that doesn't describe "pod people," I don't know what could.
And in passing, let's pay respect to a great American actor who never quite got his due. Kevin McCarthy (no relation to the late alcoholic right-wing senator) left us several days ago at the ripe old age of 96. Few obituaries noted that his sister was the late novelist Mary McCarthy, who wrote The Group. And although Kevin never quite became a star, his career on celluloid and stage was long and distinguished.
I hope the prophesy of Kevin's character in Body Snatchers will be heeded. One thing that's crucial is to understand what Fox News is: a right-wing version of the old Soviet state TV, or the newspaper Izvestia. If that's not obvious, then ...
You're next!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas (surrounded by pod people).
You're next! You're next!!
That was the warning from Kevin McCarthy's small-town California doctor character in the 1956 sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Directed by the great American B-movie auteur Don Siegel and co-starring Dana Wynter, the film depicts Earth people being covertly transformed into inhuman, emotionally dead "pod people" when they go to sleep. I would include a few minutes from the movie, but embedding has been consistently blocked. You can see clips on YouTube.
(I smell a Fox News conspiracy here!)
After this movie was released in 1956, there was a lot of writing about Cold War and McCarthyist paranoia. Although the greatness of Siegel's film has never been questioned, critics both right and left sensed political allegory, although the author of the source material, novelist Jack Finney, denied any such thing.
The right, at the time, wrote about the dehumanization of people under communism. The left wrote about the regimentation of Americans in the era of McCarthy-style blacklisting. I think an argument can be made in both directions: Fanatical ideologies of any mold have the potential to dehumanize the believer.
In 2010, I offer a new spin on it. Everyone I know who watches Fox News consistently displays a certain glazing of the eyes, and astounding, stupifying suspension of reason. It's a world of its own, quite divorced even from the reality of the lives of those viewers. They can be wage slaves, toiling for little more than minimum wage for rapacious corporations. Or, they can be people who make good salaries and benefits working for that vicious socialist government. Or, they can be retirees who live largely off "Socialist Security," yet see no conflict with being Tea Party activists.
They see no problem with their willingness to throw anyone and everyone who doesn't look like them, talk like them, worship like them, vote like them, etc., out into the street -- even if they aren't doing so well themselves. In that case, they blame it on people they perceive as below them, not the real culprits in higher
If that doesn't describe "pod people," I don't know what could.
And in passing, let's pay respect to a great American actor who never quite got his due. Kevin McCarthy (no relation to the late alcoholic right-wing senator) left us several days ago at the ripe old age of 96. Few obituaries noted that his sister was the late novelist Mary McCarthy, who wrote The Group. And although Kevin never quite became a star, his career on celluloid and stage was long and distinguished.
I hope the prophesy of Kevin's character in Body Snatchers will be heeded. One thing that's crucial is to understand what Fox News is: a right-wing version of the old Soviet state TV, or the newspaper Izvestia. If that's not obvious, then ...
You're next!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas (surrounded by pod people).
Monday, September 6, 2010
On Labor Day, MSM News Ranges From Bad To Stupid
By Manifesto Joe
Labor Day was made an official federal holiday in 1894, during the second Grover Cleveland administration. I understand that it was an effort to placate the American labor movement after certain of that number were murdered by goons/police during the Pullman strike.
Since then, it has become a sort of beer-guzzling and barbecue holiday, in which most working folks get a day off and are festive with friends and family. Well, from what the MSM is telling us, get ready for cheaper beer and lower-rent barbecue. The Third-World style of economics is upon us, and it's being reinforced with the clear subtext that there are supposed to be no alternatives.
Story No. 1: Economists are forecasting that when a recovery does finally come, the jobs will be mostly of two kinds: professional gigs that pay very good, upper-middle-class salaries, and then all the rest of the schmucks working for wages in the service sector.
Here's a link that explains the prognostication.
Kiss the Middle Class Goodbye
If the economic prognosticators are correct, the jobs of tomorrow will mostly pay either $80,000 a year (today's dollars) or $20,000 a year, with not much in between. People like me, in-between baby boomers who started careers in the '70s and '80s, will be tomorrow's dinosaurs, from back in the day when there was a viable lower-middle class in the U.S. The jobs of tomorrow will generally be for people who are either upper-middle-class professionals, or working-class slobs just subsisting on what the service sector deigns to pay. Those erstwhile lower-middle-class jobs are all in places like Mexico and Indonesia now, and that's been going on since the Reagan years.
Our politicians not only didn't do anything to stop it -- they seemed to encourage it, with tax breaks, and bad trade deals like NAFTA and such. (Yeah, even Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore had a very big hand in that one.)
Unfortunately, this is a megatrend that's going to be very hard to stop. Many of the decent jobs are gone, probably for good, and many service-sector employers live precariously off cheap labor.
The first and perhaps biggest step is for the American people to, at long last, understand who their real friends are, and perhaps more importantly who their real enemies are. Yes, many Democrats have had a hand in all this. But you won't find one Republican politician still viable today who stood up and fought against having this sort of thing happen. Go back and look at how Congress voted on NAFTA.
The immigrant-baiting found among Republicans rings hollow -- for one thing, illegal workers usually compete only for low-wage jobs, not the kind that Americans can start a kid in college on. For another, you haven't seen them ever try to ramp up penalties against the employers who hire illegal labor. An awful lot of those people are -- you guessed it, Republicans who make campaign donations.
For 30 years, the American people have had every chance to see who has stood up for them, and who hasn't. Yet, obviously many still don't get it. If they did, the Republicans would be polling something like 25% of eligible voters by now.
That's the bad news. Now for the stupid news -- story No. 2:
If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?
In the current economic climate, it seems pretty moronic to compare the lifestyles of stingy zillionaires to the hardships that many Americans have to face every grim day of their lives. But, leave it to a few big outlets of the MSM to do exactly that.
Yahoo! Finance picked up an item from Investopedia called "7 Spending Tips From Frugal Billionaires." Now this stuff (link) will really come in handy for all you working-class slobs out there. One of the examples was Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico, now believed to be the world's richest man, with $60.6 billion in holdings, according to Forbes magazine. He's lived in the same house for 40 years! Wow, like, I wonder how much money you would need to get a tour of those digs?
Warren Buffet, another of the world's richest men, was given as another example. He's lived in the same house in Omaha all these years, a little five-bedroom shack he purchased back in 1957.
Well, enough with the teases. Onward to the 7 spending tips. (My comments will be in parentheses and italics.)
Keep your home simple
Billionaires can afford to live in the most exclusive mansions imaginable - and many do, including Bill Gates' sprawling 66,000-square-foot, $147.5 million mansion in Medina, Wash. - yet frugal billionaires like Warren Buffet choose to keep it simple. Buffet still lives in the five-bedroom house in Omaha that he purchased in 1957 for $31,500. Likewise, Carlos Slim has lived in the same house for more than 40 years.
(I couldn't afford to buy a home until I was nearly 42. For 12 years plus, I've lived in the same four-bedroom house, built in 1955. By now I should surely be a millionaire, but my net worth is, alas, a good deal less than that.)
Use self-powered or public transportation
Thrifty billionaires including John Caudwell, David Cheriton and Chuck Feeney prefer to walk, bike or use public transportation when getting around town. Certainly these wealthy individuals could afford to take a helicopter to their lunch meetings, or ride in chauffeur-driven Bentleys, but they choose to get a little exercise and take advantage of public transportation instead. Good for the bank account and great for the environment.
("Self-powered transportation"! Who woulda thunk it? I've been doing that for years, forgoing the helicopter and taking my 1984 pickup truck back and forth to my night-shift job.)
Buy your clothes off the rack
While some people, regardless of their net value, place a huge emphasis on wearing designer clothes and shoes, some frugal billionaires decide it's simply not worth the effort, or expense. You can find David Cheriton, the Stanford professor who matched Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the venture capitalists at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (resulting in a large reward of Google stock), wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of the furniture company Ikea, avoids wearing suits, and John Caudwell, mobile phone mogul, buys his clothes off the rack instead of spending his wealth on designer clothes.
("Off the rack" ... Does Wal-Mart count?)
Keep your scissors sharp
The average haircut costs about $45, but people can and do spend up to $800 per cut and style. Multiply that by 8.6 (to account for a cut every six weeks) and it adds up to $7,200 per year, not including tips. These billionaires can certainly afford the most stylish haircuts, buy many cannot be bothered by the time it takes or the high price tag for the posh salons. Billionaires like John Caudwell and David Cheriton opt for cutting their own hair at home.
($45 for an "average" haircut? Where do these people get their hair cut? My wife has been cutting her own hair for many years, and when I get mine cut, about once every three months, I pay $12 and get every penny's worth. Then I wait until I'm a semi-hippie to get it cut again. Hey, what happened to that first million?
Of course, I can hear someone out there saying, "Maybe he isn't that successful exactly because he doesn't get enough haircuts." Hey, all that extra money has been going straight into my 401(k), so there.)
Drive a regular car
While billionaires like Larry Ellison (co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation) enjoy spending millions on cars, boats and planes, others remain low key with their vehicles of choice. Jim Walton (of the Wal-Mart clan) drives a 15-year-old pickup truck. Azim Premji, an Indian business tycoon, reportedly drives a Toyota Corolla. And Ingvar Kamprad of Ikea drives a 10-year-old Volvo. The idea is to buy a dependable car, and drive it into the ground. No need for a different car each day of the week for these frugal billionaires.
(We have my 1984 pickup, and my wife drives our 2004 Honda Civic hybrid. Look out, Jim Walton, I'm comin'!)
Skip luxury items
It may surprise some of us, but the world's wealthiest person, Carlos Slim (the one who could spend more than a thousand dollars a minute and not run out of money for one hundred years) does not own a yacht or a plane.
Many other billionaires have chosen to skip these luxury items. Warren Buffet also avoids these lavish material items, stating "Most toys are just a pain in the neck."
(Does this mean that our pit bull terrier, who guards the back yard, was a mistake? He damn sure eats a lot.)
What we can learn
Some of the world's billionaires have frugal tendencies. Perhaps this thrifty nature even helped them make some of their money. Regardless, they have chosen to avoid some unnecessary spending (at least on their scale) and the 6,864,605,142 non-billionaires out there can follow suit, eliminating excessive, keep-up-with-the-Jones style spending. No matter what a person's income bracket is, most can usually find a way to cut back on frivolous spending, just like a few frugal billionaires.
(I'm just trying to keep up with my Jones, not anybody else's.)
Well, there you have it, working slobs -- how to get rich. Funny, though, how often it doesn't work. Most of us have to follow those rules, quite involuntarily.
The American mentality betrays a tragic lack of respect for the dignity of labor. Recently, while I was watching a young comedian on The Comedy Channel, he observed that when one is Employee of the Month, one is a winner, and a loser, at the same time.
The joke is that, while the Employee of the Month has won an award, he's still an employee, which by the American definition is supposed to make him or her a loser. By that definition, certainly a majority of us will be losers for most, if not all, of our lives. Relatively few people can qualify as winners.
And what, then, does that make all those Americans out there who are trying to find work and can't? I presume that they are supposed to be even worse than losers.
So, happy Labor Day, all you losers out there who actually have jobs. The news ranges from bad to stupid.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Labor Day was made an official federal holiday in 1894, during the second Grover Cleveland administration. I understand that it was an effort to placate the American labor movement after certain of that number were murdered by goons/police during the Pullman strike.
Since then, it has become a sort of beer-guzzling and barbecue holiday, in which most working folks get a day off and are festive with friends and family. Well, from what the MSM is telling us, get ready for cheaper beer and lower-rent barbecue. The Third-World style of economics is upon us, and it's being reinforced with the clear subtext that there are supposed to be no alternatives.
Story No. 1: Economists are forecasting that when a recovery does finally come, the jobs will be mostly of two kinds: professional gigs that pay very good, upper-middle-class salaries, and then all the rest of the schmucks working for wages in the service sector.
Here's a link that explains the prognostication.
Kiss the Middle Class Goodbye
If the economic prognosticators are correct, the jobs of tomorrow will mostly pay either $80,000 a year (today's dollars) or $20,000 a year, with not much in between. People like me, in-between baby boomers who started careers in the '70s and '80s, will be tomorrow's dinosaurs, from back in the day when there was a viable lower-middle class in the U.S. The jobs of tomorrow will generally be for people who are either upper-middle-class professionals, or working-class slobs just subsisting on what the service sector deigns to pay. Those erstwhile lower-middle-class jobs are all in places like Mexico and Indonesia now, and that's been going on since the Reagan years.
Our politicians not only didn't do anything to stop it -- they seemed to encourage it, with tax breaks, and bad trade deals like NAFTA and such. (Yeah, even Democrats Bill Clinton and Al Gore had a very big hand in that one.)
Unfortunately, this is a megatrend that's going to be very hard to stop. Many of the decent jobs are gone, probably for good, and many service-sector employers live precariously off cheap labor.
The first and perhaps biggest step is for the American people to, at long last, understand who their real friends are, and perhaps more importantly who their real enemies are. Yes, many Democrats have had a hand in all this. But you won't find one Republican politician still viable today who stood up and fought against having this sort of thing happen. Go back and look at how Congress voted on NAFTA.
The immigrant-baiting found among Republicans rings hollow -- for one thing, illegal workers usually compete only for low-wage jobs, not the kind that Americans can start a kid in college on. For another, you haven't seen them ever try to ramp up penalties against the employers who hire illegal labor. An awful lot of those people are -- you guessed it, Republicans who make campaign donations.
For 30 years, the American people have had every chance to see who has stood up for them, and who hasn't. Yet, obviously many still don't get it. If they did, the Republicans would be polling something like 25% of eligible voters by now.
That's the bad news. Now for the stupid news -- story No. 2:
If You're So Smart, Why Ain't You Rich?
In the current economic climate, it seems pretty moronic to compare the lifestyles of stingy zillionaires to the hardships that many Americans have to face every grim day of their lives. But, leave it to a few big outlets of the MSM to do exactly that.
Yahoo! Finance picked up an item from Investopedia called "7 Spending Tips From Frugal Billionaires." Now this stuff (link) will really come in handy for all you working-class slobs out there. One of the examples was Carlos Slim Helu of Mexico, now believed to be the world's richest man, with $60.6 billion in holdings, according to Forbes magazine. He's lived in the same house for 40 years! Wow, like, I wonder how much money you would need to get a tour of those digs?
Warren Buffet, another of the world's richest men, was given as another example. He's lived in the same house in Omaha all these years, a little five-bedroom shack he purchased back in 1957.
Well, enough with the teases. Onward to the 7 spending tips. (My comments will be in parentheses and italics.)
Keep your home simple
Billionaires can afford to live in the most exclusive mansions imaginable - and many do, including Bill Gates' sprawling 66,000-square-foot, $147.5 million mansion in Medina, Wash. - yet frugal billionaires like Warren Buffet choose to keep it simple. Buffet still lives in the five-bedroom house in Omaha that he purchased in 1957 for $31,500. Likewise, Carlos Slim has lived in the same house for more than 40 years.
(I couldn't afford to buy a home until I was nearly 42. For 12 years plus, I've lived in the same four-bedroom house, built in 1955. By now I should surely be a millionaire, but my net worth is, alas, a good deal less than that.)
Use self-powered or public transportation
Thrifty billionaires including John Caudwell, David Cheriton and Chuck Feeney prefer to walk, bike or use public transportation when getting around town. Certainly these wealthy individuals could afford to take a helicopter to their lunch meetings, or ride in chauffeur-driven Bentleys, but they choose to get a little exercise and take advantage of public transportation instead. Good for the bank account and great for the environment.
("Self-powered transportation"! Who woulda thunk it? I've been doing that for years, forgoing the helicopter and taking my 1984 pickup truck back and forth to my night-shift job.)
Buy your clothes off the rack
While some people, regardless of their net value, place a huge emphasis on wearing designer clothes and shoes, some frugal billionaires decide it's simply not worth the effort, or expense. You can find David Cheriton, the Stanford professor who matched Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to the venture capitalists at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (resulting in a large reward of Google stock), wearing jeans and a t-shirt.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of the furniture company Ikea, avoids wearing suits, and John Caudwell, mobile phone mogul, buys his clothes off the rack instead of spending his wealth on designer clothes.
("Off the rack" ... Does Wal-Mart count?)
Keep your scissors sharp
The average haircut costs about $45, but people can and do spend up to $800 per cut and style. Multiply that by 8.6 (to account for a cut every six weeks) and it adds up to $7,200 per year, not including tips. These billionaires can certainly afford the most stylish haircuts, buy many cannot be bothered by the time it takes or the high price tag for the posh salons. Billionaires like John Caudwell and David Cheriton opt for cutting their own hair at home.
($45 for an "average" haircut? Where do these people get their hair cut? My wife has been cutting her own hair for many years, and when I get mine cut, about once every three months, I pay $12 and get every penny's worth. Then I wait until I'm a semi-hippie to get it cut again. Hey, what happened to that first million?
Of course, I can hear someone out there saying, "Maybe he isn't that successful exactly because he doesn't get enough haircuts." Hey, all that extra money has been going straight into my 401(k), so there.)
Drive a regular car
While billionaires like Larry Ellison (co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation) enjoy spending millions on cars, boats and planes, others remain low key with their vehicles of choice. Jim Walton (of the Wal-Mart clan) drives a 15-year-old pickup truck. Azim Premji, an Indian business tycoon, reportedly drives a Toyota Corolla. And Ingvar Kamprad of Ikea drives a 10-year-old Volvo. The idea is to buy a dependable car, and drive it into the ground. No need for a different car each day of the week for these frugal billionaires.
(We have my 1984 pickup, and my wife drives our 2004 Honda Civic hybrid. Look out, Jim Walton, I'm comin'!)
Skip luxury items
It may surprise some of us, but the world's wealthiest person, Carlos Slim (the one who could spend more than a thousand dollars a minute and not run out of money for one hundred years) does not own a yacht or a plane.
Many other billionaires have chosen to skip these luxury items. Warren Buffet also avoids these lavish material items, stating "Most toys are just a pain in the neck."
(Does this mean that our pit bull terrier, who guards the back yard, was a mistake? He damn sure eats a lot.)
What we can learn
Some of the world's billionaires have frugal tendencies. Perhaps this thrifty nature even helped them make some of their money. Regardless, they have chosen to avoid some unnecessary spending (at least on their scale) and the 6,864,605,142 non-billionaires out there can follow suit, eliminating excessive, keep-up-with-the-Jones style spending. No matter what a person's income bracket is, most can usually find a way to cut back on frivolous spending, just like a few frugal billionaires.
(I'm just trying to keep up with my Jones, not anybody else's.)
Well, there you have it, working slobs -- how to get rich. Funny, though, how often it doesn't work. Most of us have to follow those rules, quite involuntarily.
The American mentality betrays a tragic lack of respect for the dignity of labor. Recently, while I was watching a young comedian on The Comedy Channel, he observed that when one is Employee of the Month, one is a winner, and a loser, at the same time.
The joke is that, while the Employee of the Month has won an award, he's still an employee, which by the American definition is supposed to make him or her a loser. By that definition, certainly a majority of us will be losers for most, if not all, of our lives. Relatively few people can qualify as winners.
And what, then, does that make all those Americans out there who are trying to find work and can't? I presume that they are supposed to be even worse than losers.
So, happy Labor Day, all you losers out there who actually have jobs. The news ranges from bad to stupid.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Deficit Hawks Don't Seem Worried About The Cost Of Wars
By Manifesto Joe
While the "deficit hawks" in Congress are scheming for all kinds of attacks on Social Security and other flimsy strands of the U.S. social safety net, news just came out that an estimated $5 billion-plus of what was spent for rebuilding in war-ravaged Iraq was wasted. Yep, wasted.
Here's a link to a story about this.
It's funny how it is with deficit hawks, most of them Republicans -- there's never enough money to keep jobless people going, but there's always money for a war, and for its ancillary costs.
The Iraq war is now supposed to be over in terms of the U.S. combat role, or so says President Obama. Don't bet on it. The U.S. is leaving 50,000 troops in the country, and insurgents are suddenly re-emerging to launch coordinated attacks. I hope I am pleasantly surprised, but I doubt that U.S. forces will be leaving Iraq anytime soon. Expect a permanent occupation, similar to the ones in Germany and Japan, and one not nearly as tranquil.
Meanwhile, the cost will keep rising, well beyond the estimated $750 billion that the Iraq war has already cost U.S. taxpayers.
The way the Republican Party and the DINOs play politics, Obama will end up holding the bag for all this, one way or another. If he withdraws all U.S. troops eventually, expect something perhaps worse than a Vietnam scenario, with Iraq descending into chaos and civil war. "Obama lost the war!" will be the Fox News mantra.
If he keeps a permanent occupation force in Iraq, then the Michael Steeles out there will have license to rewrite history. Never mind that Obama has always regarded the Iraq war as a terrible mistake. It has become his war, regardless of Il Doofus' grotesque 2002-03 decision and regardless of the outcome. Politically, he's in a no-win situation.
Meanwhile, expect a solid bloc of Republicans and a few "Blue Dog Democrats" to try to cut Social Security and stymie extensions of unemployment benefits, while at the same time supporting every war appropriation that comes before them. For them, there's always a deficit for life -- and there's always a huge surplus for death.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
While the "deficit hawks" in Congress are scheming for all kinds of attacks on Social Security and other flimsy strands of the U.S. social safety net, news just came out that an estimated $5 billion-plus of what was spent for rebuilding in war-ravaged Iraq was wasted. Yep, wasted.
Here's a link to a story about this.
It's funny how it is with deficit hawks, most of them Republicans -- there's never enough money to keep jobless people going, but there's always money for a war, and for its ancillary costs.
The Iraq war is now supposed to be over in terms of the U.S. combat role, or so says President Obama. Don't bet on it. The U.S. is leaving 50,000 troops in the country, and insurgents are suddenly re-emerging to launch coordinated attacks. I hope I am pleasantly surprised, but I doubt that U.S. forces will be leaving Iraq anytime soon. Expect a permanent occupation, similar to the ones in Germany and Japan, and one not nearly as tranquil.
Meanwhile, the cost will keep rising, well beyond the estimated $750 billion that the Iraq war has already cost U.S. taxpayers.
The way the Republican Party and the DINOs play politics, Obama will end up holding the bag for all this, one way or another. If he withdraws all U.S. troops eventually, expect something perhaps worse than a Vietnam scenario, with Iraq descending into chaos and civil war. "Obama lost the war!" will be the Fox News mantra.
If he keeps a permanent occupation force in Iraq, then the Michael Steeles out there will have license to rewrite history. Never mind that Obama has always regarded the Iraq war as a terrible mistake. It has become his war, regardless of Il Doofus' grotesque 2002-03 decision and regardless of the outcome. Politically, he's in a no-win situation.
Meanwhile, expect a solid bloc of Republicans and a few "Blue Dog Democrats" to try to cut Social Security and stymie extensions of unemployment benefits, while at the same time supporting every war appropriation that comes before them. For them, there's always a deficit for life -- and there's always a huge surplus for death.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Obama's Vacation: Have The Republicans, At Long Last, No Sense Of Decency?
By Manifesto Joe
It's not enough that Republicans oppose anything and everything that might address the country's socioeconomic ills.
President Obama can't even go on vacation. The minute he and his family landed at Martha's Vineyard, these ludicrous hypocrites started calling him "the Clark Griswold president" -- a reference to the character played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon vacation movie series.
I suppose that if one is a ruthless, disingenuous, opportunistic gob of political pond scum, it's a good gamble that the American people, at least enough of them, are this stupid and also suffer from amnesia. Given the huge success that the right wing of the Republican Party has had at the polls over the past 30 years, there must be some truth to this.
But how many of us have forgotten Il Doofus, and how much time he spent on vacation in that prairie oasis of Crawford, Texas? Not everyone, and certainly not me.
In the first place, anybody who would want to spend an August vacation in Central Texas has got to be a drooling idiot. Where I live in Texas, today it was something like 110 in the shade this afternoon. I had to spend some time outdoors earlier, and it felt like a sauna out there. I sweated out a fresh shirt in less than an hour. At least the Obamas have the good sense to go up north to Martha's Vineyard in August. That's evidence of their intelligence.
Then, let's look at the numbers. This is from a Washington Post article:
Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.
By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer.
White House advisers made clear in the days leading up to this getaway that a president, especially a wartime president overseeing a country in the grips of economic distress, is never really on vacation.
Here's a link to the entire article.
There are plenty of grave political issues to argue about right now. This isn't one of them. But this illustrates how low, slimy and contemptible the Republican right wing has become, that they would begrudge a president of the opposing party a few rounds of golf, reading time, and some precious time with his family. Il Doofus was on vacation on Aug. 6, 2001, when he was warned that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent. He stayed in Crawford for a month after that. Funny how the Republicans never mention any of that.
The world suffers from the staggering number of people in it who are stupid, or lacking in moral character, or both. And, unfortunately, there are also a good many who have plenty of moral character on a personal level but have trouble thinking their way through a grocery list.
As long as there are all of the above in America, there will be a Republican Party. And that's sad, because the U.S. needs a responsible conservative political party, and a responsible opposition party. Right now, it has neither.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
It's not enough that Republicans oppose anything and everything that might address the country's socioeconomic ills.
President Obama can't even go on vacation. The minute he and his family landed at Martha's Vineyard, these ludicrous hypocrites started calling him "the Clark Griswold president" -- a reference to the character played by Chevy Chase in the National Lampoon vacation movie series.
I suppose that if one is a ruthless, disingenuous, opportunistic gob of political pond scum, it's a good gamble that the American people, at least enough of them, are this stupid and also suffer from amnesia. Given the huge success that the right wing of the Republican Party has had at the polls over the past 30 years, there must be some truth to this.
But how many of us have forgotten Il Doofus, and how much time he spent on vacation in that prairie oasis of Crawford, Texas? Not everyone, and certainly not me.
In the first place, anybody who would want to spend an August vacation in Central Texas has got to be a drooling idiot. Where I live in Texas, today it was something like 110 in the shade this afternoon. I had to spend some time outdoors earlier, and it felt like a sauna out there. I sweated out a fresh shirt in less than an hour. At least the Obamas have the good sense to go up north to Martha's Vineyard in August. That's evidence of their intelligence.
Then, let's look at the numbers. This is from a Washington Post article:
Veteran CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, a fastidious keeper of presidential statistics, has kept count. By his tally, Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.
By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there. And yes, Democrats let him have it, too, complaining that he was a chronic vacationer.
White House advisers made clear in the days leading up to this getaway that a president, especially a wartime president overseeing a country in the grips of economic distress, is never really on vacation.
Here's a link to the entire article.
There are plenty of grave political issues to argue about right now. This isn't one of them. But this illustrates how low, slimy and contemptible the Republican right wing has become, that they would begrudge a president of the opposing party a few rounds of golf, reading time, and some precious time with his family. Il Doofus was on vacation on Aug. 6, 2001, when he was warned that a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was imminent. He stayed in Crawford for a month after that. Funny how the Republicans never mention any of that.
The world suffers from the staggering number of people in it who are stupid, or lacking in moral character, or both. And, unfortunately, there are also a good many who have plenty of moral character on a personal level but have trouble thinking their way through a grocery list.
As long as there are all of the above in America, there will be a Republican Party. And that's sad, because the U.S. needs a responsible conservative political party, and a responsible opposition party. Right now, it has neither.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
How Hot Is It? In Texas, It's No Biggie, But Then ...
By Manifesto Joe
Six months ago, those of us living in this part of Texas were digging out from the worst snowstorm of modern times. Over a foot of snow fell, which is unheard of in these parts. Thick tree limbs snapped, and transformers blew. This city was crippled to the point of stand-still.
Six months later, we're on our 18th consecutive day of 100-plus-degree afternoon highs. Today it was 101, and this is expected to go on for another week, at least. But then, in Texas, we're pretty used to summers like this. In 1980, we had 42 such days in a row.
They are not used to it in Moscow. I saw that they had an afternoon high of 102 there not long ago, which must be some kind of record for that part of Russia. Plus, they've been having these nasty peat bog fires that have bedeviled firefighters and the military over there.
Climate change, assuming (pretty safely now) that it is real, is something that's happening so slowly that it's still a subject of debate. But climate scientists are noticing all kinds of extremes around the globe -- flooding in Pakistan, China and the American Midwest, the unheard-of summer heat in Russia, etc. -- and say those extremes are symptoms of what they've been warning us about for decades.
Even our record-shattering Texas snowstorm of February has a global-warming explanation. During the brief cold spells here, we tend to see sleet and ice storms more often than snow. Even here, in the northern part of the state, we usually don't see any of them more than two or three times per winter.
But it often gets, as they say, "too cold to snow," on the occasions when we do get stout "northers," as they are called down here. Sometimes there's ice, or sleet. At times the cloud cover breaks, and it's just clear and gets down to something like 16 degrees Fahrenheit in the very early morning.
Not in February. Here, we had a system that parked itself over the region, and the temperature held at 30 or 31. It snowed, and just wouldn't stop. The infrastructure here isn't built for all the weight that the snow accumulation posed, and it turned into a minor disaster.
If it had gotten 5 degrees colder, like it usually does here, we would have had a typical February ice storm and things would have gotten back to normal within 48 hours.
I've not dwelt much on the science of climate change, in large part because we don't stand to be that profoundly affected by it where I live. We already have extremes here -- long heat waves, brief cold snaps, tornadoes, even dust storms on rare occasions. I grew up close to the South Texas coast, and hence I've been through the dead-hit eye of a Category 3 hurricane. That's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you really don't want to have.
Climate change probably won't bring anything to this region that we haven't seen many times before. But if you watch or read mass media, of course you know that the world revolves around New York, with a few assists here and there from L.A., Washington and Chicago. It's been hot in NYC this summer, too, and they're expecting it to continue in coming summers.
Even Washington has been a blast furnace, as illustrated by this post from Truthout.
I'd have to admit that I probably don't know any more about climate science than does Sen. James Inhofe, Retardican-Okla. But keeping an open mind seems wise. And from what we've been seeing this year, my money is on the opinion of the vast majority of climate scientists. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Six months ago, those of us living in this part of Texas were digging out from the worst snowstorm of modern times. Over a foot of snow fell, which is unheard of in these parts. Thick tree limbs snapped, and transformers blew. This city was crippled to the point of stand-still.
Six months later, we're on our 18th consecutive day of 100-plus-degree afternoon highs. Today it was 101, and this is expected to go on for another week, at least. But then, in Texas, we're pretty used to summers like this. In 1980, we had 42 such days in a row.
They are not used to it in Moscow. I saw that they had an afternoon high of 102 there not long ago, which must be some kind of record for that part of Russia. Plus, they've been having these nasty peat bog fires that have bedeviled firefighters and the military over there.
Climate change, assuming (pretty safely now) that it is real, is something that's happening so slowly that it's still a subject of debate. But climate scientists are noticing all kinds of extremes around the globe -- flooding in Pakistan, China and the American Midwest, the unheard-of summer heat in Russia, etc. -- and say those extremes are symptoms of what they've been warning us about for decades.
Even our record-shattering Texas snowstorm of February has a global-warming explanation. During the brief cold spells here, we tend to see sleet and ice storms more often than snow. Even here, in the northern part of the state, we usually don't see any of them more than two or three times per winter.
But it often gets, as they say, "too cold to snow," on the occasions when we do get stout "northers," as they are called down here. Sometimes there's ice, or sleet. At times the cloud cover breaks, and it's just clear and gets down to something like 16 degrees Fahrenheit in the very early morning.
Not in February. Here, we had a system that parked itself over the region, and the temperature held at 30 or 31. It snowed, and just wouldn't stop. The infrastructure here isn't built for all the weight that the snow accumulation posed, and it turned into a minor disaster.
If it had gotten 5 degrees colder, like it usually does here, we would have had a typical February ice storm and things would have gotten back to normal within 48 hours.
I've not dwelt much on the science of climate change, in large part because we don't stand to be that profoundly affected by it where I live. We already have extremes here -- long heat waves, brief cold snaps, tornadoes, even dust storms on rare occasions. I grew up close to the South Texas coast, and hence I've been through the dead-hit eye of a Category 3 hurricane. That's a once-in-a-lifetime experience that you really don't want to have.
Climate change probably won't bring anything to this region that we haven't seen many times before. But if you watch or read mass media, of course you know that the world revolves around New York, with a few assists here and there from L.A., Washington and Chicago. It's been hot in NYC this summer, too, and they're expecting it to continue in coming summers.
Even Washington has been a blast furnace, as illustrated by this post from Truthout.
I'd have to admit that I probably don't know any more about climate science than does Sen. James Inhofe, Retardican-Okla. But keeping an open mind seems wise. And from what we've been seeing this year, my money is on the opinion of the vast majority of climate scientists. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
As Older Americans Become Paupers, Talk Of Cutting Social Security
By Manifesto Joe
I turned 54 late last month. Where I work, nearly half the work force we had 30 months ago has been laid off or pushed into buyouts. Many of those who hit the sidewalks were about my age, and from what I've heard, they've had trouble finding work. If you're over 50, people don't want to hire you.
And now, amid this rapid impoverishment of upper-middle-aged Americans, there's serious, bipartisan talk in Washington of cutting Social Security.
People in their 50s and 60s are being put into an economic vice grip. There was plenty of talk in the past about how much we baby boomers were going to be needed for the work force, since there are so many of us and fewer workers among the younger generations.
I also remember futurists of the 1960s and 1970s talking about how, by now, we were all supposed to be working 25-hour weeks. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!...
We have now seen the future, and it looks a lot more like some high-tech version of the 1930s. But since I make the comparison, let's go back in time.
One of the main reasons FDR and Congress created Social Security in 1935 was the destitution seen then among Americans born between 1860 and 1880. The old were perhaps hit hardest by the Great Depression -- a 65-year-old back then was often physically unable to work at most jobs, and unable to be hired for less-demanding
ones. And if you can imagine what it's like to be thrown out of your house and into the street as a younger person, envision what it must be like when you're old.
And yet now, in the middle of what's being called the Great Recession, Washington's "deficit hawks" are talking about raising the age for standard Social Security benefits to 70. House Minority Leader John Boehner is on record as favoring this. It's being discussed seriously by people like former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who's "serving" on President Obama's debt commission. (See previous post.)
What seems to be in the works is a deliberate impoverishment of people over 50 -- or not? Inside the Beltway, most of the big players are over 50, but they aren't the kind who will be laid off and have to live on a limited term of unemployment while they search fruitlessly for a new job. Maybe they are so out of touch with reality, as it is experienced by most people, that it isn't deliberate. Or maybe they know exactly what they are doing. The truth is somewhere in between. It's easy for someone whose ass isn't on the line to talk about breaking eggs to make an omelet, about things being tough all over, and so forth.
Another thing that apologists would point out is that the raising of the retirement age would be implemented gradually, with people born after 1964 being the main victims. They will someday grow old, too, and they will wonder how this travesty ever happened.
There are a lot of myths being floated as this debate goes on inside the Beltway. Moveon.org recently named five of them:
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income. But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.
I smell the stench of Grover Norquist here -- the concept that government must be reduced to the size where it can be drowned in the bathtub.
This is probably not something the right wing will be able to pull off in the long run. When your belly is empty and there's no roof over your head, you've got nothing to lose. It's not likely that our power elite is going to let things go that far, even when the victims are going to be those over 50.
But history teaches that many horrors can be perpetrated before action is finally taken to correct them. The idea here is to prevent this atrocity before it happens.
The boomers started out as a pretty bad-ass generation. Then they went soft during the Reagan years. Time to get tough again, fifty- and sixty-somethings. The barbarian elite is at the gates.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I turned 54 late last month. Where I work, nearly half the work force we had 30 months ago has been laid off or pushed into buyouts. Many of those who hit the sidewalks were about my age, and from what I've heard, they've had trouble finding work. If you're over 50, people don't want to hire you.
And now, amid this rapid impoverishment of upper-middle-aged Americans, there's serious, bipartisan talk in Washington of cutting Social Security.
People in their 50s and 60s are being put into an economic vice grip. There was plenty of talk in the past about how much we baby boomers were going to be needed for the work force, since there are so many of us and fewer workers among the younger generations.
I also remember futurists of the 1960s and 1970s talking about how, by now, we were all supposed to be working 25-hour weeks. Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!!...
We have now seen the future, and it looks a lot more like some high-tech version of the 1930s. But since I make the comparison, let's go back in time.
One of the main reasons FDR and Congress created Social Security in 1935 was the destitution seen then among Americans born between 1860 and 1880. The old were perhaps hit hardest by the Great Depression -- a 65-year-old back then was often physically unable to work at most jobs, and unable to be hired for less-demanding
ones. And if you can imagine what it's like to be thrown out of your house and into the street as a younger person, envision what it must be like when you're old.
And yet now, in the middle of what's being called the Great Recession, Washington's "deficit hawks" are talking about raising the age for standard Social Security benefits to 70. House Minority Leader John Boehner is on record as favoring this. It's being discussed seriously by people like former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, who's "serving" on President Obama's debt commission. (See previous post.)
What seems to be in the works is a deliberate impoverishment of people over 50 -- or not? Inside the Beltway, most of the big players are over 50, but they aren't the kind who will be laid off and have to live on a limited term of unemployment while they search fruitlessly for a new job. Maybe they are so out of touch with reality, as it is experienced by most people, that it isn't deliberate. Or maybe they know exactly what they are doing. The truth is somewhere in between. It's easy for someone whose ass isn't on the line to talk about breaking eggs to make an omelet, about things being tough all over, and so forth.
Another thing that apologists would point out is that the raising of the retirement age would be implemented gradually, with people born after 1964 being the main victims. They will someday grow old, too, and they will wonder how this travesty ever happened.
There are a lot of myths being floated as this debate goes on inside the Beltway. Moveon.org recently named five of them:
Top 5 Social Security Myths
Myth #1: Social Security is going broke.
Reality: There is no Social Security crisis. By 2023, Social Security will have a $4.6 trillion surplus (yes, trillion with a 'T'). It can pay out all scheduled benefits for the next quarter-century with no changes whatsoever.1 After 2037, it'll still be able to pay out 75% of scheduled benefits—and again, that's without any changes. The program started preparing for the Baby Boomers' retirement decades ago. Anyone who insists Social Security is broke probably wants to break it themselves.
Myth #2: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Reality: This is a red-herring to trick you into agreeing to benefit cuts. Retirees are living about the same amount of time as they were in the 1930s. The reason average life expectancy is higher is mostly because many fewer people die as children than they did 70 years ago. What's more, what gains there have been are distributed very unevenly—since 1972, life expectancy increased by 6.5 years for workers in the top half of the income brackets, but by less than 2 years for those in the bottom half. But those intent on cutting Social Security love this argument because raising the retirement age is the same as an across-the-board benefit cut.
Myth #3: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Reality: Social Security doesn't need to be fixed. But if we want to strengthen it, here's a better way: Make the rich pay their fair share. If the very rich paid taxes on all of their income, Social Security would be sustainable for decades to come. Right now, high earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,000 of their income. But conservatives insist benefit cuts are the only way because they want to protect the super-rich from paying their fair share.
Myth #4: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs
Reality: Not even close to true. The Social Security Trust Fund isn't full of IOUs, it's full of U.S. Treasury Bonds. And those bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The reason Social Security holds only treasury bonds is the same reason many Americans do: The federal government has never missed a single interest payment on its debts. President Bush wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market—which would have been disastrous—but luckily, he failed. So the trillions of dollars in the Social Security Trust Fund, which are separate from the regular budget, are as safe as can be.
Myth #5: Social Security adds to the deficit
Reality: It's not just wrong—it's impossible! By law, Social Security's funds are separate from the budget, and it must pay its own way. That means that Social Security can't add one penny to the deficit.
I smell the stench of Grover Norquist here -- the concept that government must be reduced to the size where it can be drowned in the bathtub.
This is probably not something the right wing will be able to pull off in the long run. When your belly is empty and there's no roof over your head, you've got nothing to lose. It's not likely that our power elite is going to let things go that far, even when the victims are going to be those over 50.
But history teaches that many horrors can be perpetrated before action is finally taken to correct them. The idea here is to prevent this atrocity before it happens.
The boomers started out as a pretty bad-ass generation. Then they went soft during the Reagan years. Time to get tough again, fifty- and sixty-somethings. The barbarian elite is at the gates.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Tax Cut Expiration: $175,000 A Year Is Middle-Class, Says CNN
By Manifesto Joe
The propaganda machine aimed at continuing Il Doofus' tax cuts for his rich friends is shifting into high gear, and the allegedly liberal Mainstream Media are falling for the line, and into line.
CNN is no exception. Sunday afternoon I watched a special report focusing on a family in New Jersey who were supposed to exemplify "the middle class." There was one enormous, gaping problem -- they aren't.
This was a couple with two kids. Both parents work at secure jobs. The man is a Certified Public Accountant. Their household income -- $175,000 a year.
Man, if that's middle class, I want to know which planet that's on, and how my wife and I can legally immigrate there. That's well over twice as much as my household has ever brought in, and in real, inflation-adjusted dollars.
I understand that a lot hinges on what one's definition of "the middle class" in America is. It may not necessarily be a family of middle income -- by definition, the middle class includes professionals such as doctors, lawyers, CPAs and such. These groups fall short of what is traditionally regarded as the upper class, people who can get into the Social Register and so forth.
But these groups are at the very highest end of the upper middle class, and are hardly representative of a broader view of middle America. Many more people are "lower" middle class than are "upper" middle class. In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the median annual income of U.S. households was just over $52,000.
This would probably put the aggregate midpoint of the U.S. "middle class" at somewhere around $70,000 per household, when the very large lower middle class living on median incomes is included.
This report illustrates the insularity of much of the allegedly liberal MSM. If these are "liberals," they are most certainly of the limousine variety. I guess they pay a lot more at CNN than they do the rank-and-file workers in the sector of the MSM where I work.
What to do about the expiration of the tax cuts is certainly a debatable issue. On one hand, it's worth recalling that when the previous tax rates were in effect, late in the Clinton presidency, the federal government was running a record surplus. On the other hand, letting taxes go back up broadly, now, might derail an already-weak economic recovery. I think the Obama administration is on the right track by suggesting that taxes go back up only on families making $250,000 or more a year. I'd say that is filthy rich by almost anybody's standards.
But the debate isn't helped by the kind of laughable distortion I saw yesterday on CNN. This focus couple, making $175,000 a year, were lamenting that they would have to cut back on discretionary spending by about $350 a month in order to meet the bigger tax bill.
Poor little tootsies!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
POSTSCRIPT: Here's a link to the CNN report by Allan Chernoff. It looks even more stupid on second viewing. And, predictably, there's no way for the viewer to comment negatively.
The propaganda machine aimed at continuing Il Doofus' tax cuts for his rich friends is shifting into high gear, and the allegedly liberal Mainstream Media are falling for the line, and into line.
CNN is no exception. Sunday afternoon I watched a special report focusing on a family in New Jersey who were supposed to exemplify "the middle class." There was one enormous, gaping problem -- they aren't.
This was a couple with two kids. Both parents work at secure jobs. The man is a Certified Public Accountant. Their household income -- $175,000 a year.
Man, if that's middle class, I want to know which planet that's on, and how my wife and I can legally immigrate there. That's well over twice as much as my household has ever brought in, and in real, inflation-adjusted dollars.
I understand that a lot hinges on what one's definition of "the middle class" in America is. It may not necessarily be a family of middle income -- by definition, the middle class includes professionals such as doctors, lawyers, CPAs and such. These groups fall short of what is traditionally regarded as the upper class, people who can get into the Social Register and so forth.
But these groups are at the very highest end of the upper middle class, and are hardly representative of a broader view of middle America. Many more people are "lower" middle class than are "upper" middle class. In 2008, according to the Census Bureau, the median annual income of U.S. households was just over $52,000.
This would probably put the aggregate midpoint of the U.S. "middle class" at somewhere around $70,000 per household, when the very large lower middle class living on median incomes is included.
This report illustrates the insularity of much of the allegedly liberal MSM. If these are "liberals," they are most certainly of the limousine variety. I guess they pay a lot more at CNN than they do the rank-and-file workers in the sector of the MSM where I work.
What to do about the expiration of the tax cuts is certainly a debatable issue. On one hand, it's worth recalling that when the previous tax rates were in effect, late in the Clinton presidency, the federal government was running a record surplus. On the other hand, letting taxes go back up broadly, now, might derail an already-weak economic recovery. I think the Obama administration is on the right track by suggesting that taxes go back up only on families making $250,000 or more a year. I'd say that is filthy rich by almost anybody's standards.
But the debate isn't helped by the kind of laughable distortion I saw yesterday on CNN. This focus couple, making $175,000 a year, were lamenting that they would have to cut back on discretionary spending by about $350 a month in order to meet the bigger tax bill.
Poor little tootsies!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
POSTSCRIPT: Here's a link to the CNN report by Allan Chernoff. It looks even more stupid on second viewing. And, predictably, there's no way for the viewer to comment negatively.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Joe's On Vacation: But Check Out The Flamin' Groovies, And Webb Wilder
Joe's taking a little time off. I'm turning 54, and I'm going to try to take a few days off from the whole damned world. Here's some music to keep you all company until I come back in a few days. It's called Slow Death:
That's the 1971 original by the Flamin' Groovies, an old San Francisco band. Sounds a bit like the Stones when they were at their best, and I mean that as a compliment. Webb Wilder did a great cover, which unfortunately I only could find 42 seconds of. The full play of Webb's cover is available on the streaming services last.fm and pandora, and on his album Town and Country:
So, why didn't the Flamin' Groovies become big stars? And, for that matter, why isn't 56-year-old Webb Wilder one now?
See you in early August, or perhaps earlier. -- MJ
That's the 1971 original by the Flamin' Groovies, an old San Francisco band. Sounds a bit like the Stones when they were at their best, and I mean that as a compliment. Webb Wilder did a great cover, which unfortunately I only could find 42 seconds of. The full play of Webb's cover is available on the streaming services last.fm and pandora, and on his album Town and Country:
So, why didn't the Flamin' Groovies become big stars? And, for that matter, why isn't 56-year-old Webb Wilder one now?
See you in early August, or perhaps earlier. -- MJ
Monday, July 19, 2010
Manifesto Joe's Great Moments In Conservative History, Chapter 8: Alan Simpson Licks Saddam's Jackboots
By Manifesto Joe
Alan Simpson, whose daddy was a U.S. senator and governor of Wyoming, leaves me in awe with his resourcefulness. He pulled himself up by his own Republican bootstraps to follow in Daddy's footsteps, serving three terms (1979-97) in the U.S. Senate from Wyoming. And his service to We the People endures. He's serving on President Obama's debt commission, and one of his big goals appears to be cutting Social Security, which is there, he says, as part of the effort to take care of "the lesser people."
Before pursuing this, let's take the time machine back to 1990. Bush 41 is president. Bush 43, the future Il Doofus, is a hapless failure in business who is sort of a White House Doberman for Daddy. Snearin' Dick Cheney is secretary of defense. The U.S. just got through pillaging Panama to abduct its unruly head of state, "Pineapple Face" Noriega, formerly of the CIA payroll. Dick Tracy, starring Warren Beatty and Madonna, is in theaters, and David Letterman jokes about how Dick hates it "when Pruneface kids him about Ishtar." Debbie Gibson still has videos running on MTV, and Rick Astley still has a pop music career.
And, Alan Simpson is a U.S. senator, Republican from Wyoming, and a member of a diplomatic mission to Iraq.
According to the senator at that time, Saddam Hussein mainly suffers from a public relations problem. This is what Simpson told Saddam:
"Mr. President, I can see that what you have here isn't really a policy problem; what you have is a public relations problem. You've got a problem with the haughty and pampered press. I know all about that, because I've got problems with the press back home. What you need is you need a good public relations person."
Here's a link to an article about the entire episode of April 12, 1990. I'm sure it will be noted that Simpson was joined by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, in licking the chemical-stained mud off of Saddam Hussein's jackboots. Republicans have no monopoly on foolish behavior -- they just seem to exhibit it disproportionately. And especially toward those nasty reporters.
Fast-forward to 2010. Simpson, now 78 and drawing the hefty pension of a former senator, is co-chairman of Obama's debt commission. And it looks like one of the things he wants to do is cut that nasty Social Security that the "lesser people" rely on.
Thanks to firedoglake.com for staying on this papier-mache man.
I fully expected, since we are mostly living longer, that someday we would see the age of Social Security claims raised. It seemed inevitable.
But now, in the "Great Recession," we're seeing a livelihood bubble developing for people ages 50 to 64, and increasingly, those older. Either we can't get Social Security, or the disincentives for taking it early are too great. And, we can't get jobs. For all the erstwhile talk about how much the baby boomers were going to be needed in tomorrow's work force, we now seem quite expendable. I still have the job I had in the '90s, but have seen massive layoffs of co-workers, and worry about my job daily. My wife had to re-enter the work force recently, and found herself lucky to be able to land a part-time job with no benefits.
And now, Simpson's beloved fellow Republicans in the current Senate are filibustering against an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. It's estimated that well over 2 million Americans are now without unemployment benefits, waiting for the job that never comes, and/or waiting for eviction or foreclosure.
This man is, at best, a naive product of a privileged background. At worst, he part of a corrupt elite that has been looting honest working people in the country for generations. We are the people who have been doing the grunt work at demanding jobs all over America so that presumptuous types like him can dine in style while "governing" us.
I have a better idea of something for Simpson to do in his old age: Go back to Iraq, disinter Saddam's rotten corpse, and lick his jackboots some more. That will do far less harm than he seems prepared to do right now to honest working Americans.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Alan Simpson, whose daddy was a U.S. senator and governor of Wyoming, leaves me in awe with his resourcefulness. He pulled himself up by his own Republican bootstraps to follow in Daddy's footsteps, serving three terms (1979-97) in the U.S. Senate from Wyoming. And his service to We the People endures. He's serving on President Obama's debt commission, and one of his big goals appears to be cutting Social Security, which is there, he says, as part of the effort to take care of "the lesser people."
Before pursuing this, let's take the time machine back to 1990. Bush 41 is president. Bush 43, the future Il Doofus, is a hapless failure in business who is sort of a White House Doberman for Daddy. Snearin' Dick Cheney is secretary of defense. The U.S. just got through pillaging Panama to abduct its unruly head of state, "Pineapple Face" Noriega, formerly of the CIA payroll. Dick Tracy, starring Warren Beatty and Madonna, is in theaters, and David Letterman jokes about how Dick hates it "when Pruneface kids him about Ishtar." Debbie Gibson still has videos running on MTV, and Rick Astley still has a pop music career.
And, Alan Simpson is a U.S. senator, Republican from Wyoming, and a member of a diplomatic mission to Iraq.
According to the senator at that time, Saddam Hussein mainly suffers from a public relations problem. This is what Simpson told Saddam:
"Mr. President, I can see that what you have here isn't really a policy problem; what you have is a public relations problem. You've got a problem with the haughty and pampered press. I know all about that, because I've got problems with the press back home. What you need is you need a good public relations person."
Here's a link to an article about the entire episode of April 12, 1990. I'm sure it will be noted that Simpson was joined by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, in licking the chemical-stained mud off of Saddam Hussein's jackboots. Republicans have no monopoly on foolish behavior -- they just seem to exhibit it disproportionately. And especially toward those nasty reporters.
Fast-forward to 2010. Simpson, now 78 and drawing the hefty pension of a former senator, is co-chairman of Obama's debt commission. And it looks like one of the things he wants to do is cut that nasty Social Security that the "lesser people" rely on.
Thanks to firedoglake.com for staying on this papier-mache man.
I fully expected, since we are mostly living longer, that someday we would see the age of Social Security claims raised. It seemed inevitable.
But now, in the "Great Recession," we're seeing a livelihood bubble developing for people ages 50 to 64, and increasingly, those older. Either we can't get Social Security, or the disincentives for taking it early are too great. And, we can't get jobs. For all the erstwhile talk about how much the baby boomers were going to be needed in tomorrow's work force, we now seem quite expendable. I still have the job I had in the '90s, but have seen massive layoffs of co-workers, and worry about my job daily. My wife had to re-enter the work force recently, and found herself lucky to be able to land a part-time job with no benefits.
And now, Simpson's beloved fellow Republicans in the current Senate are filibustering against an extension of unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless. It's estimated that well over 2 million Americans are now without unemployment benefits, waiting for the job that never comes, and/or waiting for eviction or foreclosure.
This man is, at best, a naive product of a privileged background. At worst, he part of a corrupt elite that has been looting honest working people in the country for generations. We are the people who have been doing the grunt work at demanding jobs all over America so that presumptuous types like him can dine in style while "governing" us.
I have a better idea of something for Simpson to do in his old age: Go back to Iraq, disinter Saddam's rotten corpse, and lick his jackboots some more. That will do far less harm than he seems prepared to do right now to honest working Americans.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Typing This On A Dell Computer Is Evidence: Capitalism Doesn't Regulate Itself
By Manifesto Joe
We Americans are indoctrinated, usually quite effectively, in the notion that capitalism is an ultimately fair, if sometimes unmerciful, economic system. It is supposed to be merciless competition itself that disciplines the market. If you make an unsatisfactory product, your competitors, in theory, eat your lunch, and your company soon goes under.
There are many examples of why this is merely theory, divorced from reality. The latest comes to us from the company that sold me the very computer I am typing this on, Austin, Texas-based Dell.
A recent New York Times article reported that Dell employees knowingly sold millions of defective computers "from 2003 to 2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo, institutions like the Mayo Clinic, and small businesses." The University of Texas, in Dell's hometown, was another victim of this corporate malfeasance.
This came out as a result of a 3-year-old lawsuit against the computer giant. "Documents recently unsealed ..." the Times report says, "show that the company's employees were aware that the computers were likely to break. Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk."
To read the full article, go here.
The obvious question is: How the hell is Dell still even in business? The Times article does mention that Dell has been going through harder times in recent years, with complaints of poor customer service (I can attest to that) among other problems. That they would knowingly sell defective machines to companies and institutions big and small seems the most damning thing.
Why are they still operating? Granted, they don't have the market share they used to, and they have a few competitors. But that is a key word -- few.
For 120 years, the U.S. hasn't seen many blatant monopolies in our economy, mostly because the Sherman Antitrust Act more or less outlawed them. Intentional monopolies, such as can still be found in some places among utilities, are an exception.
But better economists understand the very strong presence of oligopolies, and also monopolistic competition, in the contemporary corporate world. "Bigness" is the defining factor here. We've seen it all too well among the banks, some of which are now termed "too big to fail," so they rate bailouts with taxpayer money. But it exists in plenty of other enterprises that don't benefit from such wide-open subsidization. (The subsidies are there -- but often indirectly, so you have to poke around to find where they are. The tax system is a good place to look.)
Dell became so staggeringly big that it could engage in this kind of malfeasance and yet still be in business, years later. Its competitors are few, and they are huge, too. All these folks appreciate a quiet life as much as anyone else. One of the crucial lessons of real competition is that you can lose.
So, Dell has lost market share, but it retains a great deal. It's so big, it almost can't fail. I still get plenty of junk mail from them, and here I sit, typing this on a five-and-a-half year-old Dimension 3000.
The marketplace discipline that competition is supposed to bring may have been very real in Adam Smith's day. There, we're talking about microeconomics at the village smithy and yeoman farmer level -- maybe small manufacturers. But today's enterprises have grown so large, they can get away with astounding things and still pay a very limited price for their misconduct. They still have the profits from the sales of millions of faulty computers; and even the aforementioned lawsuit, yet to come to trial, won't really compensate the victims.
So, what's the alternative? There aren't many good ones. But one thing seems clear. The "free market" model of popular indoctrination looks, in reality, nothing like it does in theory.
Maybe I could go to some bank, get a loan, hire techs to start building good, moderately priced computers, and put these rapacious bastards out of business. Which bank would you suggest? One of those that's "too big to fail?"
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
We Americans are indoctrinated, usually quite effectively, in the notion that capitalism is an ultimately fair, if sometimes unmerciful, economic system. It is supposed to be merciless competition itself that disciplines the market. If you make an unsatisfactory product, your competitors, in theory, eat your lunch, and your company soon goes under.
There are many examples of why this is merely theory, divorced from reality. The latest comes to us from the company that sold me the very computer I am typing this on, Austin, Texas-based Dell.
A recent New York Times article reported that Dell employees knowingly sold millions of defective computers "from 2003 to 2005 to major companies like Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo, institutions like the Mayo Clinic, and small businesses." The University of Texas, in Dell's hometown, was another victim of this corporate malfeasance.
This came out as a result of a 3-year-old lawsuit against the computer giant. "Documents recently unsealed ..." the Times report says, "show that the company's employees were aware that the computers were likely to break. Still, the employees tried to play down the problem to customers and allowed customers to rely on trouble-prone machines, putting their businesses at risk."
To read the full article, go here.
The obvious question is: How the hell is Dell still even in business? The Times article does mention that Dell has been going through harder times in recent years, with complaints of poor customer service (I can attest to that) among other problems. That they would knowingly sell defective machines to companies and institutions big and small seems the most damning thing.
Why are they still operating? Granted, they don't have the market share they used to, and they have a few competitors. But that is a key word -- few.
For 120 years, the U.S. hasn't seen many blatant monopolies in our economy, mostly because the Sherman Antitrust Act more or less outlawed them. Intentional monopolies, such as can still be found in some places among utilities, are an exception.
But better economists understand the very strong presence of oligopolies, and also monopolistic competition, in the contemporary corporate world. "Bigness" is the defining factor here. We've seen it all too well among the banks, some of which are now termed "too big to fail," so they rate bailouts with taxpayer money. But it exists in plenty of other enterprises that don't benefit from such wide-open subsidization. (The subsidies are there -- but often indirectly, so you have to poke around to find where they are. The tax system is a good place to look.)
Dell became so staggeringly big that it could engage in this kind of malfeasance and yet still be in business, years later. Its competitors are few, and they are huge, too. All these folks appreciate a quiet life as much as anyone else. One of the crucial lessons of real competition is that you can lose.
So, Dell has lost market share, but it retains a great deal. It's so big, it almost can't fail. I still get plenty of junk mail from them, and here I sit, typing this on a five-and-a-half year-old Dimension 3000.
The marketplace discipline that competition is supposed to bring may have been very real in Adam Smith's day. There, we're talking about microeconomics at the village smithy and yeoman farmer level -- maybe small manufacturers. But today's enterprises have grown so large, they can get away with astounding things and still pay a very limited price for their misconduct. They still have the profits from the sales of millions of faulty computers; and even the aforementioned lawsuit, yet to come to trial, won't really compensate the victims.
So, what's the alternative? There aren't many good ones. But one thing seems clear. The "free market" model of popular indoctrination looks, in reality, nothing like it does in theory.
Maybe I could go to some bank, get a loan, hire techs to start building good, moderately priced computers, and put these rapacious bastards out of business. Which bank would you suggest? One of those that's "too big to fail?"
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Steele and Palin: Where Do The Republicans Find These Harebrains?
By Manifesto Joe
The day after Independence Day is as good as any to breach this subject: Where the hell are the Republicans finding all these political/historical illiterates to parade before the public in high positions?
Michael Steele
Forget for just a moment what your personal views are regarding the Afghanistan war. I will grant that it's looking more and more like a stupid quagmire that can't be won, but just put that aside for a moment.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was caught on video Thursday, at a fundraiser, saying, "This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in." Here's a link.
Um, where the hell was Michael Steele in 2001, when the (Republican) Bush administration decided to invade Afghanistan? And where the hell was he for seven-plus years after that, while the same administration neglected the pressing problems in Afghanistan while deciding to skin Saddam Hussein's scruffy ass?
This is comparable to a scenario in which some leading Democrat, in 1970, had blamed Richard Nixon for escalating the Vietnam War after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Historically, it is illiterate. Makes absolutely no sense.
So, where did the Republicans find this guy? Well, he's a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, and has a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. I always assumed you would have to have a first-rate intellect to have made it that far in life. Silly me.
And youthful error can't explain it, either. The man's 51.
Turns out that Mr. Steele has at least one prominent defender: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Republican and erstwhile Libertarian from my home state of Texas, where we've seen for countless decades that anybody can conceivably be elected to anything. I can't say I disagree much with Mr. Paul for challenging the wisdom of pursuing what is looking more and more like a futile, stupid war.
But I noticed that Mr. Paul had no comment about the historical absurdity of Mr. Steele's statement. But then, judging from Mr. Paul's views and congressional voting record, I never got the impression that he possesses a sense of the absurd.
Sarah Palin
Youthful error might explain some of this gaffe. Sarah Palin is, quite manifestly, 46 going on 19, at least intellectually. And a very, very shallow 19 at that. I think she's still trying to get that platform speech for the Miss Alaska pageant right.
Her list of gaffes is growing long. But the latest one was a topper -- it was about a Republican hero, and one not himself known for intellectual prowess.
During a recent fundraiser at California State University, Stanislaus, Ms. Palin spoke gushingly about President Reagan being a graduate of Eureka College in California.
Reagan did indeed graduate from Eureka College, in 1932. But it was in Illinois. It was described that he took "the gut course" in economics. Eureka College isn't overly well-regarded, but Ronald Reagan could boast of this: He's the most prominent economist that the college ever produced.
But, of course, it would have been wise for Sarah Palin to check on this before including it in a speech. There is a Eureka, Calif., but there's no college of that name anywhere around there.
By the way, according to Politics Daily, Ms. Palin was paid $75,000 for her speech.
Man. I wish I could be paid that well for f**king up.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
The day after Independence Day is as good as any to breach this subject: Where the hell are the Republicans finding all these political/historical illiterates to parade before the public in high positions?
Michael Steele
Forget for just a moment what your personal views are regarding the Afghanistan war. I will grant that it's looking more and more like a stupid quagmire that can't be won, but just put that aside for a moment.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was caught on video Thursday, at a fundraiser, saying, "This was a war of Obama’s choosing. This is not something the United States has actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in." Here's a link.
Um, where the hell was Michael Steele in 2001, when the (Republican) Bush administration decided to invade Afghanistan? And where the hell was he for seven-plus years after that, while the same administration neglected the pressing problems in Afghanistan while deciding to skin Saddam Hussein's scruffy ass?
This is comparable to a scenario in which some leading Democrat, in 1970, had blamed Richard Nixon for escalating the Vietnam War after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Historically, it is illiterate. Makes absolutely no sense.
So, where did the Republicans find this guy? Well, he's a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, and has a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. I always assumed you would have to have a first-rate intellect to have made it that far in life. Silly me.
And youthful error can't explain it, either. The man's 51.
Turns out that Mr. Steele has at least one prominent defender: U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Republican and erstwhile Libertarian from my home state of Texas, where we've seen for countless decades that anybody can conceivably be elected to anything. I can't say I disagree much with Mr. Paul for challenging the wisdom of pursuing what is looking more and more like a futile, stupid war.
But I noticed that Mr. Paul had no comment about the historical absurdity of Mr. Steele's statement. But then, judging from Mr. Paul's views and congressional voting record, I never got the impression that he possesses a sense of the absurd.
Sarah Palin
Youthful error might explain some of this gaffe. Sarah Palin is, quite manifestly, 46 going on 19, at least intellectually. And a very, very shallow 19 at that. I think she's still trying to get that platform speech for the Miss Alaska pageant right.
Her list of gaffes is growing long. But the latest one was a topper -- it was about a Republican hero, and one not himself known for intellectual prowess.
During a recent fundraiser at California State University, Stanislaus, Ms. Palin spoke gushingly about President Reagan being a graduate of Eureka College in California.
Reagan did indeed graduate from Eureka College, in 1932. But it was in Illinois. It was described that he took "the gut course" in economics. Eureka College isn't overly well-regarded, but Ronald Reagan could boast of this: He's the most prominent economist that the college ever produced.
But, of course, it would have been wise for Sarah Palin to check on this before including it in a speech. There is a Eureka, Calif., but there's no college of that name anywhere around there.
By the way, according to Politics Daily, Ms. Palin was paid $75,000 for her speech.
Man. I wish I could be paid that well for f**king up.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, June 28, 2010
America, 2010, and America, 1934: How Are We Different?
By Manifesto Joe
The America of 1934 was much worse off than the America of today. But there are some parallels: stubbornly high unemployment, pay cuts, political polarization, a field day for demagogues, a right-wing Supreme Court confronting a liberal Democrat in the Oval Office ... above all, a general feeling among the populace of, "When did my life become a horror movie?"
Today's America has Keynesian economic precedents, and something of a social safety net, with food stamps as the centerpiece. At least few people could actually starve, unlike the situation in '34. And the official unemployment rate is hovering at only around 10 percent. Even if one factors in the underemployment and other differences of today, the job situation of 1934 was certainly worse. There are no bums coming to my door, begging to do whatever work I have here for some food. My mother, who was 7 in 1934, had vivid memories of them. And, beans and cornbread was mostly what my grandmother had to offer a Depression-era tramp. My grandfather was making about a dollar a day.
But one of today's crucial differences, the social safety net -- such as it was at the start of "The Great Recession" -- now seems in peril.
Last week, the extension of unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed failed to clear the Senate. I've created a link. The vote was 57 for, 41 against, with 40 smug Republicans plus Nebraska Blue Dog Ben Nelson blocking the bill. Nearly 1 million jobless Americans will lose their unemployment benefits because the Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.
If this had happened in 1934, I would dare say there would have been a lot of people out on the streets all over this country the next day, and quite possibly bloody violence. It's true that Americans were remarkably stoic through 10 miserable years during the Great Depression. But in those days, there was at least enough turbulence to show that people basically knew who their enemies -- and friends -- were. In the America of 2010, at least half the country doesn't seem to get it.
Because of the Senate's inaction, there will be a spike in homelessness and hunger. There will be many more foreclosures and evictions.
There are doubtless some right-wingers who think that unemployment benefits encourage people to remain jobless. I don't think that such people have ever had to try to live on the meager sum that unemployment insurance pays. But even if their notions were so, there are few jobs compared to the number of jobless. This will force many people out of their homes, into shelters, into already-stressed food banks -- and into suicidal despair.
I find it a bit ironic that the one Senate "Democrat" who sided with the Republicans on this is from the very state where a Depression-era food riot occurred. The eruption that took place in 1932 in Lincoln, Nebraska, is now barely a footnote in history. It was one instance in which the stoicism of heartland Americans was finally exhausted.
But, history doesn't exist for many Americans of today. It's interesting to note that one of the most active Communist Party cells in America during the 1930s was in Oklahoma City, capital of what is now one of the nation's most rock-ribbed Republican states, represented by two of the most dimwitted right-wingers in the Senate. Not that being a communist was an especially bright thing, even then -- but it's understandable when you realize what daily life was like for most Oklahomans during the Depression. I lived in that state briefly during the 1980s, and by then, you couldn't tell there had ever been a Dust Bowl. Nobody seemed to remember it.
So, what's the difference between America of 1934 and America today? Back then, people seemed to have a collective memory, at least of sorts. Today, many can't remember back any further than whatever Glenn Beck told them on Fox News yesterday. And, while there were indeed demagogues back then, and right-wing ones -- they seem to have more muscle now.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
The America of 1934 was much worse off than the America of today. But there are some parallels: stubbornly high unemployment, pay cuts, political polarization, a field day for demagogues, a right-wing Supreme Court confronting a liberal Democrat in the Oval Office ... above all, a general feeling among the populace of, "When did my life become a horror movie?"
Today's America has Keynesian economic precedents, and something of a social safety net, with food stamps as the centerpiece. At least few people could actually starve, unlike the situation in '34. And the official unemployment rate is hovering at only around 10 percent. Even if one factors in the underemployment and other differences of today, the job situation of 1934 was certainly worse. There are no bums coming to my door, begging to do whatever work I have here for some food. My mother, who was 7 in 1934, had vivid memories of them. And, beans and cornbread was mostly what my grandmother had to offer a Depression-era tramp. My grandfather was making about a dollar a day.
But one of today's crucial differences, the social safety net -- such as it was at the start of "The Great Recession" -- now seems in peril.
Last week, the extension of unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed failed to clear the Senate. I've created a link. The vote was 57 for, 41 against, with 40 smug Republicans plus Nebraska Blue Dog Ben Nelson blocking the bill. Nearly 1 million jobless Americans will lose their unemployment benefits because the Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.
If this had happened in 1934, I would dare say there would have been a lot of people out on the streets all over this country the next day, and quite possibly bloody violence. It's true that Americans were remarkably stoic through 10 miserable years during the Great Depression. But in those days, there was at least enough turbulence to show that people basically knew who their enemies -- and friends -- were. In the America of 2010, at least half the country doesn't seem to get it.
Because of the Senate's inaction, there will be a spike in homelessness and hunger. There will be many more foreclosures and evictions.
There are doubtless some right-wingers who think that unemployment benefits encourage people to remain jobless. I don't think that such people have ever had to try to live on the meager sum that unemployment insurance pays. But even if their notions were so, there are few jobs compared to the number of jobless. This will force many people out of their homes, into shelters, into already-stressed food banks -- and into suicidal despair.
I find it a bit ironic that the one Senate "Democrat" who sided with the Republicans on this is from the very state where a Depression-era food riot occurred. The eruption that took place in 1932 in Lincoln, Nebraska, is now barely a footnote in history. It was one instance in which the stoicism of heartland Americans was finally exhausted.
But, history doesn't exist for many Americans of today. It's interesting to note that one of the most active Communist Party cells in America during the 1930s was in Oklahoma City, capital of what is now one of the nation's most rock-ribbed Republican states, represented by two of the most dimwitted right-wingers in the Senate. Not that being a communist was an especially bright thing, even then -- but it's understandable when you realize what daily life was like for most Oklahomans during the Depression. I lived in that state briefly during the 1980s, and by then, you couldn't tell there had ever been a Dust Bowl. Nobody seemed to remember it.
So, what's the difference between America of 1934 and America today? Back then, people seemed to have a collective memory, at least of sorts. Today, many can't remember back any further than whatever Glenn Beck told them on Fox News yesterday. And, while there were indeed demagogues back then, and right-wing ones -- they seem to have more muscle now.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Gulf Spill Notes: A Yacht Named Bob, And A Boob Named Barton
By Manifesto Joe
Joe's been kicking back a bit while recovering from an illness, but surely the faithful few out there knew I wouldn't be gone very long.
So, how can there be any doubt left as to why there are millions of gallons of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico?
BP Chief Executive Tony ("I want my life back") Hayward took a day off Saturday to watch his yacht "Bob" compete in a race. This man is one of the leaders of a huge multinational corporation, and he names his yacht "Bob"? This takes some of the mystery out of the disaster. There were even Republicans, namely Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who were bent out of shape about his little holiday. But it seemed to me that his day off wasn't a bit nonplussing. That he would name his 52-foot yacht "Bob" -- now that says a lot, I think.
A boob named Barton
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, based in Arlington, Texas, is sort of local phenom around these parts. Those of us who don't quite share his corporate-lackey political philosophy have long had to suffer through those silly campaign ads, with his Down's syndrome eyes and knee-jerk right-wing slogans ("We've got to stop librul ideas ...").
But hey, I didn't realize until last week that Oil Can Joe could emerge among House Republicans as one more of those gifts that just keeps on giving. He joins Joe "You Lie" Wilson of South Carolina, fellow Texan Randy "Baby Killer" Neugebauer and Minnesotan Michele (of the countless idiocies) Bachmann in the pantheon of House GOP fecal feet.
There were Republicans who came down on him hard after his "apology" to BP, in which he referred to the $20 billion damages fund extracted by President Obama as a "shakedown" and a "slush fund." Even after his halfhearted apology, there were actually Republicans who were calling on him to resign his committee post.
Don't do it, Joe!
The Democratic Party needs you, especially this November. Your "seat" is Republican-safe, there being so many insular fools residing in that generally suburban middle-class district. You'll be re-elected -- Bachmann may not be, so the Democrats need one more guaranteed buffoon. Stay the course, Joe!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Joe's been kicking back a bit while recovering from an illness, but surely the faithful few out there knew I wouldn't be gone very long.
So, how can there be any doubt left as to why there are millions of gallons of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico?
BP Chief Executive Tony ("I want my life back") Hayward took a day off Saturday to watch his yacht "Bob" compete in a race. This man is one of the leaders of a huge multinational corporation, and he names his yacht "Bob"? This takes some of the mystery out of the disaster. There were even Republicans, namely Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who were bent out of shape about his little holiday. But it seemed to me that his day off wasn't a bit nonplussing. That he would name his 52-foot yacht "Bob" -- now that says a lot, I think.
A boob named Barton
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, based in Arlington, Texas, is sort of local phenom around these parts. Those of us who don't quite share his corporate-lackey political philosophy have long had to suffer through those silly campaign ads, with his Down's syndrome eyes and knee-jerk right-wing slogans ("We've got to stop librul ideas ...").
But hey, I didn't realize until last week that Oil Can Joe could emerge among House Republicans as one more of those gifts that just keeps on giving. He joins Joe "You Lie" Wilson of South Carolina, fellow Texan Randy "Baby Killer" Neugebauer and Minnesotan Michele (of the countless idiocies) Bachmann in the pantheon of House GOP fecal feet.
There were Republicans who came down on him hard after his "apology" to BP, in which he referred to the $20 billion damages fund extracted by President Obama as a "shakedown" and a "slush fund." Even after his halfhearted apology, there were actually Republicans who were calling on him to resign his committee post.
Don't do it, Joe!
The Democratic Party needs you, especially this November. Your "seat" is Republican-safe, there being so many insular fools residing in that generally suburban middle-class district. You'll be re-elected -- Bachmann may not be, so the Democrats need one more guaranteed buffoon. Stay the course, Joe!
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Atlas Shagged: Colorado Springs Is What Happens When Rich Twits Refuse To Pay Taxes
By Manifesto Joe
The city of Colorado Springs, Colo., has become a microcosm of what happens when those in the community who are prospering are unwilling to pay the taxes needed to fund basic government services.
I visited C.S. way back in 1984, and was blown away by what a beautiful place it was. There were gorgeous plants and flowers everywhere. You could see Pike's Peak through some residents' kitchen windows. There were mild days and cool nights even in August. And, most of all, one was taken by how pristine everything always looked. "This is Heaven!" one resident, a former Texan, told me unabashedly.
But, one other thing I noticed: I had never seen so many extreme right-wingers congregated in one place in my whole life. And, mind you, I'm an almost lifelong Texan.
It was Religious Right Heaven. It was also NORAD ex-military Heaven. When we went to the "hipper" part of the urban area, a place just next door called Manitou Springs, a seemingly cool-looking bookstore had a display case featuring the complete works of Ayn Rand, fiction and nonfiction. (I'm still trying to figure out how one tells those apart.) This place had every kind of extreme right-winger, variously theistic to atheistic, on full display. Even at a sort of dude ranch where we went to see a popular local show combining a traditional chuck-wagon meal and Western music, somebody shoved a right-wing screed in your hands while you ate your ranch beans and got ready to hear the greatest hits of the Sons of the Pioneers. ("Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds ...")
I was absolutely blown away by the physical beauty of the place, the Garden of the Gods, the Cheyenne Mountains ... you name it. But it occurred to me -- this is a place that votes for Reagan something like 4-to-1, or more. The local daily newspaper, the only one competing with the Denver-based papers, was a place where you practically had to pass a Libertarian ideology test to go to work as a journalist there.
Now we know what happens to a place when the locals become pathologically anti-tax. It's a lot like what happened, more gradually, to the state of California in the decades that have followed the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. That place, once the envy of the other 49 states, has become such a hellhole that hardly anybody wants to be the governor. There's not enough money for basic things. I call it "Atlas Shagged."
Courtesy of Truthout, here's an exclusive video of what's happening in this once-pristine city. Last fall a proposed property tax increase was rejected by a margin of almost 2-to-1, and now they can't even afford adequate police protection in this fast-growing city. It's reported that two-thirds of the streetlights are idle, like, out. A merchant was murdered at a place where a city streetlight was nonfunctional.
I went to C.S. 26 years ago as a tourist. I wonder what effect all this is going to have on their tourist trade?
Spread 'em, Atlas.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
The city of Colorado Springs, Colo., has become a microcosm of what happens when those in the community who are prospering are unwilling to pay the taxes needed to fund basic government services.
I visited C.S. way back in 1984, and was blown away by what a beautiful place it was. There were gorgeous plants and flowers everywhere. You could see Pike's Peak through some residents' kitchen windows. There were mild days and cool nights even in August. And, most of all, one was taken by how pristine everything always looked. "This is Heaven!" one resident, a former Texan, told me unabashedly.
But, one other thing I noticed: I had never seen so many extreme right-wingers congregated in one place in my whole life. And, mind you, I'm an almost lifelong Texan.
It was Religious Right Heaven. It was also NORAD ex-military Heaven. When we went to the "hipper" part of the urban area, a place just next door called Manitou Springs, a seemingly cool-looking bookstore had a display case featuring the complete works of Ayn Rand, fiction and nonfiction. (I'm still trying to figure out how one tells those apart.) This place had every kind of extreme right-winger, variously theistic to atheistic, on full display. Even at a sort of dude ranch where we went to see a popular local show combining a traditional chuck-wagon meal and Western music, somebody shoved a right-wing screed in your hands while you ate your ranch beans and got ready to hear the greatest hits of the Sons of the Pioneers. ("Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds ...")
I was absolutely blown away by the physical beauty of the place, the Garden of the Gods, the Cheyenne Mountains ... you name it. But it occurred to me -- this is a place that votes for Reagan something like 4-to-1, or more. The local daily newspaper, the only one competing with the Denver-based papers, was a place where you practically had to pass a Libertarian ideology test to go to work as a journalist there.
Now we know what happens to a place when the locals become pathologically anti-tax. It's a lot like what happened, more gradually, to the state of California in the decades that have followed the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. That place, once the envy of the other 49 states, has become such a hellhole that hardly anybody wants to be the governor. There's not enough money for basic things. I call it "Atlas Shagged."
Courtesy of Truthout, here's an exclusive video of what's happening in this once-pristine city. Last fall a proposed property tax increase was rejected by a margin of almost 2-to-1, and now they can't even afford adequate police protection in this fast-growing city. It's reported that two-thirds of the streetlights are idle, like, out. A merchant was murdered at a place where a city streetlight was nonfunctional.
I went to C.S. 26 years ago as a tourist. I wonder what effect all this is going to have on their tourist trade?
Spread 'em, Atlas.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
A New Inductee Into The White Trash Hall Of Fame: S.C. State Sen. Jake Knotts
By Manifesto Joe
This "gaffe" was a most revealing one: Even a person who toes the Tea Party line can be highly suspect if they are not a good old-fashioned, right-thinking (white male Protestant) Murkan.
South Carolina State Sen. Jake Knotts, commenting on a Republican, Tea Party-backed candidate for the gubernatorial nomination who happens to be a female Christian from a Sikh ethnic background, said: "We already got one raghead in the White House; we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion."
Obviously I live in Texas, so I'm used to encountering such prejudices. The senator wasn't expressing an unusual sentiment, and I understand that it's even more common in South Carolina than it is here.
But it doesn't hurt to bring such malignancies to the surface. Here's a link to the story.
In the category of, sometimes it's better to laugh than to rage or cry
The Onion sometimes doesn't seem to have the quality of writers it used to have, but they got a good laugh out of me with this one. "Gulf of Mexico Inducted Into OPEC."
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
This "gaffe" was a most revealing one: Even a person who toes the Tea Party line can be highly suspect if they are not a good old-fashioned, right-thinking (white male Protestant) Murkan.
South Carolina State Sen. Jake Knotts, commenting on a Republican, Tea Party-backed candidate for the gubernatorial nomination who happens to be a female Christian from a Sikh ethnic background, said: "We already got one raghead in the White House; we don't need a raghead in the governor's mansion."
Obviously I live in Texas, so I'm used to encountering such prejudices. The senator wasn't expressing an unusual sentiment, and I understand that it's even more common in South Carolina than it is here.
But it doesn't hurt to bring such malignancies to the surface. Here's a link to the story.
In the category of, sometimes it's better to laugh than to rage or cry
The Onion sometimes doesn't seem to have the quality of writers it used to have, but they got a good laugh out of me with this one. "Gulf of Mexico Inducted Into OPEC."
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
You Heard It Here Early: Sarah Palin Is A Semiliterate Dunce And Had No Business Even Being Alaska's Governor
By Manifesto Joe
"Gov.Jindal:to avoid ravished coast, build the berms.Ask forgiveness later;Feds are slow to act,local leadership&action can do more for coast"
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted this imbecility Monday evening to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
My source? No, not Keith Olbermann -- although he is the one who most widely publicized this bit of Palin semiliteracy. I cut and pasted this off of a site called Conservatives4Palin.com. I've put a link in here, if your stomach is strong enough to read some of this moronic swill.
How titilating -- that lusty, gushing BP offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is going to "ravish" the Louisiana coast. I want to see that video on The Weather Channel.
And this person got 46 percent of the vote for vice president of the United States? Scary.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
"Gov.Jindal:to avoid ravished coast, build the berms.Ask forgiveness later;Feds are slow to act,local leadership&action can do more for coast"
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted this imbecility Monday evening to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
My source? No, not Keith Olbermann -- although he is the one who most widely publicized this bit of Palin semiliteracy. I cut and pasted this off of a site called Conservatives4Palin.com. I've put a link in here, if your stomach is strong enough to read some of this moronic swill.
How titilating -- that lusty, gushing BP offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is going to "ravish" the Louisiana coast. I want to see that video on The Weather Channel.
And this person got 46 percent of the vote for vice president of the United States? Scary.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
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