Lin Only Knows I'm a Hypocrite

Just a few weeks ago, Tebow talked “God” and I turned off. Oh, enough already God, if he’s watching, is not weighting the scales in a stupid football game.

I changed mind, well not about the weight on the scales, but now I see that all that talk, when spoken by Jeremy Lin, is just the signs of a sincere young man who just wants to do well, make his Mom Dad proud, and win some ball games.

... The kid is fantastic. I have watched the last three Knicks games cover to cover and have not done that since Michael Jordan was pouring ‘em in at the Garden, sending Ewing and Oak off dejected, and breaking my heart.

Lin, who I see already has a pretty lengthy Wikipedia page, burned Kobe’s flat and lifeless Lakers for 38, followed that up the next night with a workmanlike effort in Minnesota. At the end though Lin was responsible for a thrilling finish in a win over the T’wolves.

Last night, in a game where the Knicks looked listless throughout, Lin poured in 28, and matched that with 10 assists. In his short run, he already has created the expectation of a double-double. He had a ton of T-O's last night, but sunk the T’wolves who had great guard play themselves.

You have to love Lin;s toughness especially in this compacted season with all the back to back games. Late in the fourth Lin ignited the oddly pro-Knick crowd with a fierce drive down the lane which resulted in a foul and three. Down by 17 the Knicks climbed back within two, then fell back to 10 with minutes left. They crawled back with good team defense, suffocating team defense, and then with 20 or seconds the Knicks had the ball and it was in Lin’s hands. Lin held the ball for the last shot. One of those games where it seemed the last team to make a bucket would win. Lin dribbles in place, dribbles in place, dribbles in place... Then with a few seconds left he starts to moves towards the lane, pulls up for a three at the top of the key—And Drains it! Half a second left on the clock.

After the game when the reporter tried to heap praise on Lin and ask about the unbeaten streak since he started. Lin notes the contributions of the team, singling other players out-- has done that very post game I have seen-- gets a big kiss which brings a big smile from one his teamaates, and comments that he is thankful to God. What a nice kid…

Clinton's Legacy, For Joe B

Yes it will always be, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” It will always be the dress.
It will also be 4% unemployment at the end of the second term. In 1992 before Clinton took office, unemployment was 7.5%. The economy added 21 million jobs in Clinton’s eight years from 1992 to 2000. In comparison Reagan, the hero of conservatives everywhere, in his two terms added a healthy, but not quite comparable, 16 million.
When Reagan took office deficits were running 2.5% of GDP, when he left by virtue of a combination of tax cuts and increases in defense spending they were running at 6%. (Consider that when Newt talks about his role in the Reagan legacy.) By comparison the deficits under Clinton were less than 1% of GDP. We may recall Lloyd Bentsen’s famous debate comments about growing the economy on the strength of billions in “hot checks”. Reagan did. Clinton did not. From 1998 to 2001 before the Bush tax cuts the Federal government ran surpluses. Yes, there was still debt, but it was not being increased.
Of course those were different times, when both parties in Washington were not paralyzed by piles of corrupt campaign cash and every small step forward was not met with an entrenched and deep pocketed interest. Clinton, prodded by Gingrich, passed Welfare Reform. Clinton cut taxes for 15 million grasping for the lower rungs of the economic ladder, and paid for it by raising taxes on the richest 1.2 million Americans. He also passed a funded program to get kids Health insurance (CHIP) which added about 7 million to the roles of the insured.
Joe, I know you’re really proud of what you perceive to be tweaking the libs on this page with your supposed facts, but you sound silly. Yes, we know the Republicans hated Clinton. He was dragged through the mud of his personal failures. We all remember Gingrich righteously leading the charge. A tremendous amount of opportunity for progressive change was lost as a result, but to reduce it all to the dress sounds to this observer like the faint howl of somehow who knows better, but won’t admit it, can’t admit it because it would cause the whole house of cards on which he has built his oh so fragile belief system to crumble.
Sad, really. At least you can for now point to the comparisons between Bush ’43 and Obama. Bush with his spiraling deficits, the worst job growth of any president since 1945, two wars brought to inconclusive turns without the capture of Bin Laden, a domestic policy that shredded the Bill of Rights, a foreign policy that made America look to the world like a country with no principles beyond self-preservation. Hold on to that, Joe. It should comfort you in your isolation. Take strength from the millions of others just like you as you work through your choices. Who’s leading now, again? Oh yeah! Santorum surges. He will face America’s enemies head on. He’s just scared of homosexuals. Millions of Americans are laughing at the folly of the Republican primary process, but take strength. Soon a candidate will emerge who has been able to capture 30, oh maybe, 40% of the Republican votes, and with that strength you will head into the fall to battle Obama. Oh, I’m so ascared…

Time to Act in Syria

The Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975. Pol Pot was there leader and over the course of a few years one to two million people were killed. The weapons for this destruction were a combination of communists zealots, many not yet in their 20’s, economic engineering and agricultural controls which resulted in successive and disastrous crop yields, and the inaction by the world community. The world watched. The world knew. The world did nothing. Gerald Ford was President.

In 1982 the Syrian president, Haffez Al Assad, the current president Bashir Assad’s father, conducted a scorched earth operation against the town of Hama in order to quell a revolt by the Sunni Muslim community against his regime. Amnesty International reported deaths of 5,000 to 25,000. Thomas Freidman of the New York Times who visited the sight weeks after the massacre famously created the term Hama rules for these circumstances. Friedman wrote, “Hama Rules were the prevailing leadership rules in the Arab world. They said: Rule by fear — strike fear in the heart of your people by letting them know that you play by no rules at all, so they won’t ever, ever, ever think about rebelling against you.” At the time of the massacre, the world did not know, but when Freidman visited weeks later the world did know. According to Friedman the Syrian regime wanted the world to see what they had done. Ronald Reagan was President.

The Serbian Nationalist government laid siege to Sarajevo from 1992 to 1996.  The Bosnian Muslims had declared their independence and the Serbs were determined not to allow it. 15,000 people were killed during the years of random shelling into civilian neighborhoods of the city which held the Winter Olympic Games just eight years earlier. Clinton was the President, and he resisted American military involvement even as Europe, especially Tony Blair, requested American assistance.

Overlapping these atrocities, in an orgy of ethnic genocide in Rwanda 800,000 Hutu & Tutsis, 20% of the country’s population, were massacred.  Clinton has called his failure to act one of the worst mistakes of his presidency. The world knew. The world did not act.

Towards the end of the siege of Sarajevo 1995 Serb Nationalists rounded up 8,000 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, boys and men, and massacred them. The horror of the mass graves finally caused Clinton to act militarily in Bosnia after years of prodding from Blair and the world community.

From 2003 to 2008 when a treaty was signed, the world watched and waited and did not act while the Sudanese government massacred or starved to death up to several hundred thousand people.  On Bush’s watch, while America fought for the ostensible freedom of the Iraqis, the world allowed Sudan to devolve into indiscriminate chaos and brutality.

Now in Syria we see the Hama rules playing out again. Multiple press outlets report the death toll at 6,000 or more and rising. The past few days the violence has escalated substantially and in shadows of Sarajevo in 1995 the government is bombing its own people without discrimination, lobbing missiles into civilian neighborhoods of Homs, since the elder Assad’s days the home of the Syrian resistance. Hospitals have been routed and the dead are buried at night. The government looks at both medical care and burials as symbols of the resistance.  This is ethnic genocide. Assad, an Alawite, is literally massacring the Sunni population of Homs. Along with the Asaad government the other villains here are the governments of China, and Russia. Both governments vetoed a UN Resolution over the weekend. Russia supplies arms to the Syrian regime.    

The world is paralyzed with inaction.

So we have seen this play before. I am no military expert, but I do believe that when good people know of wrings of this level, they must push their government for action. The time for that action is now. I know McCain and a few others have started to raise their voice on this, and I have also seen Ron Paul state specifically that the US has no business in the “Syrian Civil War”.  Therein we see the limitation of isolationist principles. In that world when the schoolyard bully kicks the smaller boy, we do not stop the fight, we do not even look. We simply walk on.

The world ignores evil at its peril. The time for action is now.

Just the Facts from Allen West

Allen West, Republican firebrand from Florida, recently released a chart showing with some accuracy what has happened during the Obama presidency. He calls it "What our President has done for this country". I have seen the chart reposted on FB. West notes that unemployment is up from 7.8% when Obama took over to 8.3% now. Most Republicans don’t even buy that number pointing to the number of people that have given up looking and so no longer counted. West also points to the dramatic growth in the deficit from just over $10 trillion to just over $15 trillion as well as the drop in home prices. Gas prices he notes are up since the depths of the economic crisis to nearly $4.00, but does not mention that was about where they were before the collapse on Wall Street. Typical. To be fair West generally covers the whole panoply of issues which now dog us as a nation, and which we see on the news every day are far worse in other corners of the world. I have included a link to West Chart at the bottom of this essay.

There are those that would challenge the accuracy of West pronouncements. He has burned bridges with almost everyone expect his Tea Party core with his wild rhetoric, recently urging Nancy Pelosi and President Obama to leave the country. But to me--with a little googling-- the numbers appear to be essentially accurate. Though it is always tempting to blast the messenger, especially a yahoo like West, but there is basic truth in the numbers, so perhaps there is something else to see here. What the President has done for his country? Well let's see...

I don't have all the specifics, but West’s Chart fits well within the Republican refrain and mostly this does look to be an accurate reporting of essentials facts. As always the suggestions are that employment, home values, and the debt were all under control until Obama took office. People who accept that premise will find it easy to overlook the fact that 4.5 million jobs were lost in the last year of the Bush presidency and vote for whatever Republican wins the nomination. West notes that the net job loss under Obama is an additional 1.2 million.

On the debt, it is true that Under Obama it has grown from $10.6 trillion to $15.2 trillion. Tax revenues have plunged as a result of the deteriorating economic circumstances, and this has been exacerbated by the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which the Republicans insisted on in the run-up to the crisis they created over their newfound urgency over managing the debt.

The cost of maintaining the social safety net has also had a dramatic effect on the debt. Yes, expenditures for food stamps are way up as would be expected in an economy with high structural unemployment, that is  a very large number of long term unemployed, as well as decimated savings accounts and home values caused by the calamity on Wall Street.  One of the things West does not address is the number of Americans that have been foreclosed. That number is more than 10 million since 2008. People thrown out of their homes, in a jobless economy are going to need support. When the crisis came this time, there simply was no place for many Americans to go. By the end of 2008 Americans were leveraged to the hilt with too much debt and too little savings.

Of course we can make the old argument that this entire mess was the Republicans fault, with misguided policies, and poor oversight of a financial industry run amok with cheap cash and little regulation.  But, I think it’s far more illuminating to talk about what the Republicans would do now. On the basic stuff, there is not a hair’s difference between the Libertarian Ron Paul, the Big Business “moderate” Romney and the two conservatives Santorum and Gingrich.  

All propose deep cuts in discretionary spending. Ron Paul the most aggressive budget cutter proposes a trillion in cuts next year that everyone knows will go nowhere.  Romney proposes a more moderate path, but one that the Wall Street Journals has branded as too timid. Romney couples his cuts with pandering and absurd increases in defense spending and a moronic hands off Medicare pledge that even Obama is not airtight on, especially at we look to the future demographic changes.  Romney’s moderate plan would require a 21% cut on the discretionary spending by the end of his first term.

A lot of things would have to go. This is why you saw what appeared to be heartless discussions at the debates. Something’s gotta go. One in six Americans on food stamps? Make that one in four or five, that’ll get people off the couch and back to work. The cost of college loans are too high and anyhow Obama edged the banks out of the profit picture. Easy solution for that. Go back to the policies in place during the Bush administration. Let the free market determine who does and does not get to go to college and for gosh sakes let the banks get their cut.

Programs to help 20 million people with underwater mortgages are not reaching enough people so the housing market continues to struggle. The Republican plan? Step back. They argue that 10 million homeowners losing their homes was not an adequate correction. The free market should be allowed to run its course. Let another 10 million lose their homes through foreclosure. That housing stock would then be thrown on the market, causing another steep drop in home prices that West notes have dropped 13% since Obama was elected. I’m surprised it’s only 13%. Structural unemployment deepens and worsens leading logically to lower tax revenues, and higher government expenditures and deepening deficits.

Sounds pretty concerning. But the Republicans have a one size fits all plan that solves the challenge of how you get the economy rolling even as you dramatically reduce government support for middle and working class people and the poor. They propose revving up the economy with deeper tax cuts than Bush even proposed. Bush tax cuts were linked to expansive government spending. The tax cuts, two wars, and an unfunded Medicare drug plan caused the deficit under Bush to nearly double from about $5 trillion to about $10 trillion. Most Republicans now argue that the tax cuts were not deep enough and that the budget cuts need to be deeper. And real. They would argue that Romney at 14% of his millions pays too little in taxes. Romney himself has argued for zero tax on manufacturing, and zero tax on the repatriation of the hundreds of billions in corporate profits now sheltered overseas. Of course when Bush got legislation to do just that in 2004, and American business brought home $300 billion in overseas profits, it did not create job growth as promised. Even before the recession at the end of his second term, and even with the unprecedented tax cuts passed in his first term Bush presided over the worst record of job growth of any president since 1945. The Republican plan is to double down on those policies.

Somewhere in here most Americans know that painful budget cuts are coming. No one wants to replicate the experience in Greece. Support for a wide swath of government initiatives will have to be reduced.  While I don’t believe that those policy proposals will be pass easily of r be easily implemented I think most Americans know they are overdue. In time, Social Security and Medicare will need to be reformed. Retirement ages will rise, and benefits for the very well to do may have to be curtailed. Since both are largely funded from taxpayer contributions this will NOT go down easily. However, compromise will be possible when reality sets in. Part of that reality is that cuts will have to be coupled with increases on tax rates for the wealthy. The country simply cannot afford to weaken the safety net for the poor, increases expenses for college and other programs for the middle class, and protect at all costs the wealthy who have seen their income sky rocket.

I am sure Mr. West is sincere in his belief that the country has gone to hell in a hand basket since Mr.  Obama was elected. I have heard many conservatives talk in near apocalyptic terms about a second Obama term. I continue to be amazed at the partisanship that does not see fault or failure in Iraq or with the economic catastrophe in 2008, but predicts the end of the world as he know it if Obama wins reelection.  But it is time to move on. Blame has been apportioned on partisan terms and so be it.  It is time to weigh the future.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=301176246597806&set=a.164982930217139.27930.153872224661543&type=1&theater

Romney Piles on With an Ounce of Hopelessness

All the gaffes come down to Mitt being needy, striving for something, but not having any real grasp about how real people live. They say he is having trouble connecting with people.  I am reminded of the damaging images of Bush ’41, photo’d at the grocery, marveling at the scanning technology that almost everyone alive had seen at all kinds of stores by that time.  Much was made of how Ole ’41 loved his pork rinds. But when you send your man-servant  to buy them, and have no real concept of even the kinds of stores that they might be bought in, well, you might as well stick with the truffle oil and caviar.

It rings just as false as the baseball hat loyalty s*** on which Hillary tripped repeatedly. While Clinton was mindlessly pandering to parochial sports fandom, Mitt, like Bush before him, is striving for something more, something that transcends even sports in our sports crazed country: Acceptance by the common man.  They all want to be perceived as real. Clinton did it with the Sax… and the donuts. Reagan and W chopped wood on their ranches until the hollowness of the images sickened me. Some people can’t even fake it. Romney wants to be seen as real, but is so far removed with his vast fortune and eons past being a salaried employee 15% tax bracket.

Real people do not bet $10,000 to prove a point. Most people even those who have had the responsibility-- and certainly anyone with a real heart-- get no joy from firing people. Not even the guy that was a total a-hole and deserved it. Romney did not say "Fuck the poor" he said he doesn't worry about them. I guess I would have to say that I personally don't "worry" about them either.  It implies an awake-at-night thought process, that honestly I don't have. That being said I can say I am acutely aware of the distressful numbers.  45 million live below the poverty level, which is defined as $22,500 for a family of four. If anyone can explain how a family of four live on that, I would love to hear. It concerns me, even I would say disgusts me, to know that those with extreme wealth in this country can’t be bothered to care. That to me is the crime of what Romney said. He said he’s not worried, but what came across is “I don’t care”. He seems not to know poor people, or certainly really nothing about the circumstances of their lives, and so perhaps it is hard to care. Ignorance is a powerful drug.

I remember so many years ago, I mentored a kid who lived in the projects on W 62^nd St in a two bedroom apartment with his mother, brother, and two sisters. Oftentimes, the mother had a boyfriend who might stay there which meant six people in two bedrooms. In the summer there was no AC and the third floor on which the family lived was brutally hot. Wintertime seemed to veer between excessive heat, and extreme chill. For some reason the heat was never properly regulated. The lobbies and elevators smelled of urine. I do not believe that hunger was primary issue, there seemed enough to eat, but dollars were stretched with wholly unhealthful food, few fruits and vegetables, lots of fried and processed items. To the extent that better food was economically viable, healthful food knowledge was limited. The groceries and bodegas that served the community were notoriously dirty and overpriced.

When crack came, it captured every ounce of the hopelessness that permeated the projects there on 62^nd Street and elsewhere. My friend had already lost one male role model of a sort to gun violence, and when crack arrived violence was everywhere. So many of the young people whose shadows drifted across the b-ball park’s brick walls in the late summer afternoons were lost in the blink of an eye.  For a while my friend was one of them. Sneaking into an abandoned house-- what would have seemed aimless teenage hijinks in Streamwood, the town in which I grew up-- was met with police force and a night in the tombs, the aptly named and notorious Manhattan Detention Center. That arrest for my friend’s brother meant the first mark on what for so many became endless police records.  Anger quickly gave way to frustration and a sense that there was no way out. For many that was true.  

I know it took an extraordinary effort on the part of my friend to make his break for South Carolina, warmer climes, a yard and all that, and some semblance of a life with his lady and his kids. He did not rise above poverty, or maybe just barely, but he rose above the hopelessness of 62^nd street. His mother I hear still occupies her apartment in the projects. All of his siblings were lost to drugs. He has had to turn his back on each of them.

“Worrying” about poor people is such an abstract thought. I think about my friend all the time, and his siblings, and what has been lost. Poverty in America is different than other places in the world. I do believe that many people go to bed hungry in America, but people do not starve to death for the most part of lack of food. I gather that was Romney’s point. In the rare air in which he breathes there are standards for society after which you can turn your head and your heart to other things. In Romney’s mind those standards have been met, or nearly so. But when I think of the poor, I know so much has been lost, and really for all of my life I have often thought of how little anyone cares. That goes for both parties.  Poor people don’t vote in great numbers and of course contribute little monetarily to the candidates.

Our economy now churns out millionaires and billionaires like a pez dispenser. The NY Times reports that hundreds perhaps thousands of people will see their wealth rise to millionaire status as a result of the Facebook IPO. Some millionaires will soon change the “M” to a “B”. Bless them, they were in the right place at the right time, and some of them I am sure are pretty smart. But I have to ask where in us as a society or a people do we find it acceptable to accept 45 million people without health insurance, partially, though not completely, overlapping with about the same number living below the poverty line.  Santorum said a few days ago that people die because of bad decisions about their health, not a lack of health insurance. We all know that’s not true. We have all seen the stories, at least anecdotally. We all know the truth of it. Some people make decisions daily between food and heat, or rent and medicine.  It seems like some of us buy the claptrap that suggests that somehow poverty does not hurt or barely exists for no other reason than the mere thought that to admit the truth is to encourage some agent of the government to take more of what we ain’t got. We pit the poor against those in the middle, meanwhile the wealth of the mighty grows in multiples.

No, I can’t really say I am worried, but I if I were being honest I would have to say my soul is bruised by the depravation we all know, that exists all around us. Sometimes when I go to bed at night I worry about that. Romney, alas, can’t be bothered.

Politics as Usual

It should be noted that Bush protesters often called him a war criminal. Some depicted him on protest-posters with a Hitler mustache. Jefferson and Adams who would become lifelong friends said awful things about each other, and were vicious in their political dialogue.  That being said it has been a long strange political season.  

“We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and my dear friend chairman of the Democratic National Committee — we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table. Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else … Get the hell out of the United States of America.”—Allen West, R-Florida, Jan-28, 2012

***

“Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8. At last — I can honestly voice a Biblical prayer for our president! Look it up — it is word for word! Let us all bow our heads and pray. Brothers and Sisters, can I get an AMEN? AMEN!!!!!!” --Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal

The Full text of Psalm 109:8-12 below. It should be noted the Kansas speaker only referenced 109:8:

⁸ May his days be few;
may another take his office!
⁹ May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow!
¹⁰ May his children wander about and beg,
seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!
¹¹ May the creditor seize all that he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!
¹² Let there be none to extend kindness to him,
nor any to pity his fatherless children!

In response to the public response to the email Speaker O’Neal released the following statement:

“One has to be thick-skinned when serving in public office, but I’ve been disappointed with the over-the-top attacks, particularly those directed at family and associates. Appropriate discourse is a two-way street and I, for one, intend to be more respectful and vigilant in my communications.”

Just a few weeks before Speaker O’Neal a separate apology for calling Michelle Obama ” Yo ’Mama” so I guess we’ll take him at his word for that.

***

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid…. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they'd have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."—Newt Gingrich—Nov-21, 2011

***

“There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”—Rick Perry Campaign Ad

***

 Denying that lack of proper medical insurance coverage costs lives “…People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their health care. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to, and it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit.”—Rick Santorum, Dec-05, 2011

At the same event Senator Santorum made a lengthy defense of his position on gay marriage and homosexuality in general:

“Really- wow- um okay, well let’s see if we can have a discussion. We can flesh out some, well, let’s look at what’s going to be taught in our schools because now we have same sex couples being the same and their sexual activity being seen as equal and being affirmed by society as heterosexual couples and their activity,”

Santorum does not in these comments or the extended version of them quoted elsewhere address gay marriage or homosexual rights, but rather his views on gay “sexual activity”.

 “…if we say legally if this type of relationship is identical to other type relationships than of course more of it will be taught because this is what the law says.”

***

“There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that (HPV) vaccine. She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result. There are very dangerous consequences.”—Michelle Bachman Sept-12,2011

Perry did not defend his decision. Though Public health advocates noted 35 million doses had been administered and the drug had a good public safety record, Perry did not defend the mandate and instead apologized. Since 2000 he had received $30,000 in campaign funds from the vaccine maker, Merck. The drug maker made $360,000 in contributions to the Republican Governor’s association in the same period.

***

“I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these (Occupy) demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! … It is not a person’s fault if they succeeded; it is a person’s fault if they failed.”—Herman Cain, Oct-05, 2011

Cain later used the “I don’t have the facts to back this up” introduction to his theory that the Democrats unhappy with his strength at the polls were responsible for breaking the story of his alleged extra-marital affair. Most dems at the time were thrilled with is rise. Cain claimed the payments to the woman—to which is wife was reportedly unaware—were an effort to help the woman “during these difficult economic times”.

At least we end with a smile… Ah Herman, we sure do miss you…

The GOP is Brain Dead

Richard Cohen Writing for the Washington Post:

"The Republican establishment that has now risen up to smite the bratty Gingrich has only itself to blame. For too long it has been mute in the face of a belligerent anti-intellectualism, pretending that knowledge and experience do not matter and that Washington is a condition and not a mere city. The endorsement of Gingrich by Cain was not a bulletin. It was a feeble blip on a scope. The GOP is brain-dead."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/establishment-republicans-have-only-themselves-to-blame/2012/01/30/gIQAmECOdQ_story.html?hpid=z2

The State of Our Disunion

For frustrated and disappointed progressives who say there is no difference between the President and the Republican field the State of the Union speech showed again the bright and shining contrast between Obama and the Republican field. I am so disappointed with the lack of fight this president has shown on some issues and the lack of strategic foresight he has shown on others but my eyes are open, and as I have said previously I will pull the lever for the president without a shadow of doubt this November.

 Two issues among the many the president raised really caught my ear. The first was an alternative minimum tax for million/ billionaires so the rich (Romney, for example) have to pay their fair share. Thanks to the sort-of Republican sort of front-runner America has seen truly how it works for those among us with extreme wealth and privilege. I hope Obama stays on this issue through the summer and fall. America needs the education.

The second issue Obama raised that should be trumpeted is a minimum corporate tax so that US corporations cannot shift their income to foreign subsidiaries that claim income outside the US, and expenses here in the US. This type of fiscal slight of hand is very easy to do. The complexity of the tax code and the financial shell game that has been invented to exploit it have exacerbated the flight of capital and as importantly jobs to distant shores. The result is corporations like GE with $5.0 billion in profits in 2010 paying little in corporate taxes even though the rate for corporate profit is set at 35%. Another company, Exxon with $3.2 billion in profit in 2010, claims to have paid $2.6 billion in taxes that year, but obfuscates by including state and local taxes which it merely collects, but does not actually pay, and payroll taxes which as every small business person knows has nothing to do with the corporate tax on profits.

If it all sounds confusing that’s the goal. Tax policy has gotten not only less progressive, in that collections are increasingly weighted to the middle class, but also eternally more opaque and complicated.  Business interests and private citizens have with large capital campaign expenditures skewed the tax code to their benefit. The middle isn’t just getting squeezed, they’re getting screwed and they know it.

Neither of Obama’s tax proposals will pass this year, and without a dramatic swing in congress maybe not next year, but this goes to the core of the fairness issue, and the principle that all segments and members of society contribute and pay taxes to support the government according to their ability to do so. Much has been made of how the top 1% pays a disproportionate share of the overall income tax, but little has been noted about the wildly disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth concentrated in these very same hands. The six Walton heirs for example control as much wealth as 100 million Americans. We could call these people “those at the bottom”—but when those at the bottom are 1/3 of the American population that label doesn’t seem a particularly good fit.  

I was buoyed recently when I caught a snippet of recently released tapes from JFK in which he is heard saying, “…the prosperous hate us…” So it goes and it always has, the battle between the haves and the have nots to control the levers of power.  However, it seems only fair to point out how we arrived at this place in our history. Big money contributes substantial sums to conservative causes and candidates that speak their language. Socially conservative voters, dutifully reinforced in their rage, enter the polling stations and support candidates who as a first order of their legislative agenda vote for the whole panoply of fiscal issues that the rich really desire: Lower taxes, less regulations, weaker government oversight, etc.  Of course these fiscal policies do not advance causes that help the poor and middle class from whose ranks the socially conservative, religious right, and Tea Party rise. But the rich with their available and now completely unregulated campaign contributions make up the narrow sliver of the country that the Republicans are truly defending as they run.  The enduring element is that taxes for the rich and connected are kept low.

The cumulative effect of the last 30 years has been the economic collapse of 2007/2008, sky high deficits that reign in the government’s ability to do almost anything, and a tax policy so skewed to the well to do that it has led to a disparity in wealth between the top and the bottom that the country has never seen. In our gridlocked country the cost of government grows, deficits balloon, and education, infrastructure and other needs of the nation are slimly or poorly met.

Democrats, influenced by big-money Wall Street interests who support them at astounding levels are also responsible. As most Americans now know, big money is an equal opportunity corruptor. Clinton after all repealed Glass-Steagall which prevented the banks from betting their depositor’s money on Wall Street. The Dodd-Frank Bill Obama signed did not erect nearly as firm a firewall, and as everyone knows the six banks left after the too-big-to-fail crisis of 2008 replaced a dozen or more which existed before.

In addition to the decimation of the real estate markets in Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, and really across the country Romney’s tax bill is exhibit A in an examination of the results of the policies that have been enacted roughly going back to the Reagan years. Considering the hard choices about education, infrastructure & housing, and medical care and retirement America needs to make, 15% taxation at Romney’s level of income is obscene as are the miniscule tax bills for Exxon and GE.

Americans get the inequity at a visceral level. In 2008 and 2009 the country was in shock over its financial demise. The average person lost about 1/3 of the value of their 401K. Housing prices were and are down by about the same amount, much more in speculative hot spots like Florida and Nevada. Anger developed on both sides of the political spectrum quickly as a response to it.  As with the student unrest in 1968 the US is not alone. Governments around the world are seeing people in the streets.

Everyone knows that something has been crapped up. The right assumes that big government is the cause. The Tea Party had elements that came out simply in response to the election of a black President, but it was initially organized around the issue of the bailouts to the big financial firms and the succeeding stimulus bills under Bush and Obama. The anger, especially initially, was directed at establishment Republicans as well as Democrats. This is one of the reasons the Republicans in the house are so hemmed in now from moving any legislation. Many in leadership are afraid of the Tea Party which is ironically the source of their power. The bailouts were largely seen by TP Republicans as a wasteful giveaway to entrenched financial interests.  On the left the Occupy movements also casts shadows of doubt on both parties, as well as institutions of business and finance.  

Neither party has effectively harnessed the deep misgivings that people have with the direction the country has gone. The anger so many people about the massive inequities in the society and as importantly and maybe more so their general belief that the game is fixed have been responded to ineffectively by both parties, which only further feeds the anger and resentment among the electorate. The polarization and paralysis in Congress, a direct result of the way money has distorted the process, only intensifies that anger. Majorities of 60% and more can agree on raising taxes on the super wealthy in order to pay for programs to benefit the unemployed and yet nothing gets done. Billions are spent every election cycle now to make sure the dial never moves far. Lobbying accounts for billions more.

As a liberal I have enjoyed the vicious ugly family squabbles we have seen among the Republican candidates and the wild and immature way the conservative electorate has responded to it, with each new candidate at the dance being treated as prettier than the last. But I hold little illusion that if the Democrats were the party out of power, their race for the nomination would look similarly raging and confused. People are pissed off and have yet to find an effective vehicle for their anger, but with so much around it has slopped over into all of the available and various buckets.

So what is there to unify America?  Well, I truly don’t know. At the moment the distance from the American dream seems far away for a lot of Americans and the vaguely held understanding that the game has been fixed to make the attainment of it nigh on impossible is firmly entrenched.   Is Obama the answer for all that ails us? I doubt it. Even with his fairly moderate policies, he has been painted as a crypto fascist socialist raving eyed nut by many on the right. The rhetoric, while have some historical precedent, is nonetheless stunning. In the last week we have seen stories of elected leaders calling on others to pray for his death. There is just so much blind rage in the country it really is a dangerous time.  Fascist and Neo-Fascist movements have germinated in the past from similar circumstances.  

In both parties, most cannot hear the opposition over the sounds over their own constituencies. So perhaps we can hope for little new enlightenment or accomplishment this election cycle. Let us at least hope for this: The situation does not become worse. We can vote to elect a president who at least will continue the dialogue about the inequity in our society, however feeble his efforts in addressing them. Or we can elect a candidate from the other party who no matter their private thoughts will not even acknowledge the catastrophic circumstances of late 2008 and 2009 or the dire need for action which preceded this president. Whomever the Republicans nominate they will be politically, if not morally and personally committed to policies to the right of what we have seen. For me I have no doubt.

Socio-Capitalism

The Challenge of China-- Foxconn Cont'd

I do not see it as a sad state of affairs, or at least not completely. As I said in the essay it is quite a complex scenario that at least in my view defies easy labels and slogans.  I guess that is part of the point that I did not make well. Millions, perhaps hundreds of millions have been lifted from abject poverty. Perhaps they are not Americans, but I have looked in their faces and seen their smiles. It is not all good, but much of what I have seen is, and I am fortunate to have been witness. As late as last week, I shared meals with office workers who are maybe just a generation from the peasant life. To put this in perspective this would sort of what it would be like if Daniel Boone were my uncle. The Chinese have crammed decades of development into thirty years, not quite two generations.   In forty years they have risen from the madness of Mao and the cultural revolution to the gleaming cities of Shanghai.

 I was thinking as I sat at yet another business dinner with a dozen people, only one of whom actually spoke English, how much I like these people, their easy smiles, their laughter,  their (in some cases) truly revolting eating habits. Late last week, we had a traditional lazy Susan Chinese meal. As always way too much food was ordered. I was actually wondering who would get the doggy bags, but then there were four QC guys, No English at all their, just country people with a thin veneer of training, in which we entrust our quality control. (Good Luck with that…) Well, those guys ate, and they ate, and they ate, until their plates were piled high with the refuse of chicken feet, crab shells, & snails. They ate like people, who perhaps at another time in their life did not have so much. And I thought that with one or two exceptions everyone at this table was born after the Cultural Revolution in the late 60’s, and many after the reforms of Deng in the late 1970’s. These people have little context in which to put their current surroundings, other than WOW, what a feast. I do not mean to suggest that they are unwise just that the primary prism through which they see relations between the US and China is the one that puts this food in front of them and that of their families.

 What I do see as sad, is the way the US has divested itself in research & development over these past couple decades. Americans can blame the Chinese, but there are 3 billion people in the world living on wages or farming that barely sustain them. High labor low cost merchandise were it not be made in China would certainly be made somewhere else other than the US. Indeed, as worker protections and wages rise in China some of the lowest cost manufacturing is already starting to migrate. Pandering to the right,  pissed off at the commies, or the left, through protectionist measures, will not solve the issue. Neither in fact really even addresses the challenges.  What the US needs is retraining, and investment and a vision for the future. The Chinese are going to and are well on the way to beating America in the rush to create the newest green technologies, high spread trains, and so forth. The jobs created by his will require high degrees of education and substantial training. In other words these are high wage jobs that we should be chasing. In this race, speed to market and technology beats low wages. That we are losing that battle, lost in political hackery and jingoism is the real cause to be sad. All consumers, everywhere around the world, make decisions based on the best value, or the lowest cost or both. This is not intrinsically American by any means. It is easy to forget that even here in America, the median wage is below $30,000 per year. At $30K per year, strolling the aisles, the Chinese t-shirt at $15 looks a lot more appealing than the American one at $25, and  the truth is that America manufacturing will never again produce the lowest price t-shirt, or imitation jewelry, or even cutlery, but the things we can produce, the things we should produce are lost in the failure of Solyndra and mindless politics.

As the US argues with yahoos on the right on whether or not global warming exists, the Chinese are planning for the post fossil fuel world. They will not accede to Kyoto for reasons of current development, but they have made long term investments in the range of nearly a trillion dollars in green energy and so have placed their bets on the future. What can we say? The entire Republican field argues that Global Warning is some sort of leftist commie plot? These same politicians endorse tax policies that rewards the  transfer of jobs and capital overseas. That's a reason for sadness...