Why Do They Hate Social Security So Much

What is it about a self-financed pension system that is funded 20 years in the future that enrages them so? What is so galling to them about the idea that millions of seniors don’t have to beg for sustenance as was the case before Social Security?

And yet, the moneyed elite and their idiot minions in the conservative base have been on a rampage against it from the minute it was passed into law in the 1930’s. And now they - and Obama, their enabler - want to cut benefits as a means of bringing down the country’s deficit when SS has absolutely nothing to do with the deficit, never has and never will. The Social Security Trust Fund has $2.7 trillion in the bank, actually it is held in US Treasury Bonds, the same bonds that foreign governments and rich people own.

The meme in Washington among the punditocracy is that ‘entitlements’ must be cut if there’s any chance of bringing down the deficit. Entitlements is in quotes because SS and Medicare are self funded; they are not entitlements, you only receive those benefits if you’ve paid into the program. Medicaid, on the other hand, the federal program that provides medical assistance to those who otherwise can’t afford it or have no access to insurance, is an entitlement because any American who fits the qualifications is eligible for aid.

Those three programs make up about 60% of the US budget, $2 trillion out of $3.4 trillion so they are easy targets for regressives. If you’re interested in this budget stuff, I highly recommend a web site called usdebtclock.org. It keeps a running total of debt and income totals; it’s truly fascinating to watch the numbers rolling along. But, once again, SS and Medicare really do not belong in the budget because they are self funded, so having them there clouds the issues.

It’s worth spending a few minutes on how SS became part of the budget. Lyndon Johnson started the practice of folding SS into the budget to try to mask or minimize the cost of his Vietnam war. SS being so large it made his war expenditures a much smaller part of the total budget. The reality was the same but the perception was different.

In 1980 Reagan doubled down on the scam. He looked 30 years ahead and said, My god, the Baby Boomers are going to overwhelm the system when they start retiring in the next century so we need to raise payroll taxes now to put some money away for the coming crunch. SS payroll taxes are as regressive as you can get. Not only does everybody pay their 6 ¼ percent regardless of how poor they are but the wealthy are exempt for all income over about $120,000 annually. So, raise taxes on the lower classes and it looks like you have an extra $200 billion a year coming in which you can then use to lower taxes on the wealthy, which is exactly what Reagan did.

It’s more familiarly called slight-of-hand. The additional money coming in off of the increased SS tax is borrowed from the SS trust fund, so it’s not really the government’s money, but it looks like the budget is more balanced than it really is. Despisers of SS say the SS Trust Fund is just a bunch of IOUs; very true, but China holds a trillion dollars of those same IOUs and you wouldn’t hear any American politician or pundit say that to China, now would ya?

The way Obama wants to reduce SS benefits is called chained CPI or consumer price index and it’s supposed to reflect the ability of people to substitute cheaper items when the price of the things they want to buy rise too much; so buy margarine instead of butter, pork instead of beef. This is Obama’s plan, the Repugs have not proposed it and if Obama gets his way the same Repugs who hate SS will use Obama’s Chained CPI to campaign as the true defenders of the program… fucking hypocrites, but that’s what will happen and it could easily cost the Dumbocrats in the next election, if they don’t find some intestinal fortitude take a stand against Obama.

The loss to SS recipients would not be a lot of money – 3% over 10 years up to 10% over 30 years if they live that long. But they don’t have a lot of money to begin with. The average monthly check is about $1200. That is not the high life. In many parts of America that is just scraping by. Some 60% of recipients depend on SS for 80% of their income. A lot of people like myself receive far less. Even the largest checks do not involve a lot of money. A fellow I talked to recently, who paid taxes at the maximum, said he’ll receive $2600 per month at 62. Plenty enough for me, but hardship for a lot of Americans.

And why are SS recipients, which to be clear include the disabled as well as seniors, being asked to make this sacrifice. What is the purpose? What is to be gained, vis-à-vis the budget?

This cut in benefits will reduce the total budget by about $163 billion over ten years, $16.3b per year. To put that number in perspective, last year GE, one of the world’s largest, most profitable corporations earned nearly $14 billion, of that they paid no taxes, but instead received a $3.7 billion refund. If they had paid the standard corporate tax rate of 35%, then the Treasury would’ve received about $5b. So add up the tax they should have paid and the refund they shouldn’t have gotten and that comes to $8.7b or more than half the savings the government would gain by screwing pensioners. Now that’s only one corporation, though admittedly one of the sleaziest. Or how about the $8b in corporate welfare that goes to the largest oil companies? Exxon needs a subsidy? Ripping off SS recipients is more important than ending that subsidy?

Meanwhile, once again, it’s not the government’s money anyway, it only looks better on their bottom line: it’s our money, we paid for our benefits. The government can borrow that money if they want, but if they renege on their commitments and raid the Trust Fund they’ll be stealing. In this case stealing from the poor to feed the rich, which is nothing new in today’s America, but still…

  

It's the Paradigm

Bankia, one of Spain’s largest banks, is needing a €23 billion bailout, to compensate for their over-zealous investments in the country’s late real estate boom gone bust. Throw in a few other teetering banks and the price tag rises to €50. The only way to thrive or even survive in a scenario of irrationally exuberant lending is to borrow more to keep the growth paradigm going. In other words, as long as the value of property is expanding, it’s not necessary to be rational in your investments. But then, as always happens with bubbles, they burst - it is a part of their nature, after all.

There are two ways that happens, though they’re often intertwined. One is inflated prices. At a certain point, prices have to reflect reality. The other is larger economic movements. The general economic malaise that pervades the country depresses optimism and growth. Either way, the loan is defaulted and somebody is going to have to pay.

Spain wants the European Central Bank to bailout the banks directly. That makes sense, since it’s the system, the paradigm, which encourages, almost demands imprudent lending. Used to be you had to put 20% down to buy a house. A buyer who’s accumulated that much cash will generally be a low level risk. However that would also constrict the market and slow down construction so we can’t have any of that. Instead the establishment wisdom is to push the economy to the limit, go for broke, the more growth the better.

The country is also at fault since it could’ve established rules and policies designed more for stability and prudence than growth at any cost. That would not be an easy task in today’s financial environment. There are only so many Hugo Chavez’s in the world who could ignore the dictates of the establishment view.

The borrower, of course, must take a substantial portion of the blame for the broken contract, but ultimately is has to rest with the bank to assume responsibility and take the loss. Banking is about risk; banksters know the level of risk they are undertaking. If you aren’t smart about lending your money, who else is supposed to compensate for your inadequacy?

Actually it’s the taxpayer who coughs up since some type of deposit insurance is essential to a functioning banking system. (But not in Cambodia, here you’re on your own.) There should be no question or hesitation when a bank gets into trouble; it should be shut down and small depositors paid off. There’s no good reason to keep a stupidly or irresponsibly run bank alive. Also as long as the taxpayer is on the hook to insure depositors the government has responsibility to properly regulate to prevent speculation that has the potential to get the bank into trouble. However, since the banksters own the government, at least in the US, we know there can be no changes on that front.

In Europe it may be different, since they have a more socialist, egalitarian political outlook and the people are hopping mad. Still, there’s a very powerful push on the part of the financial establishment for European countries to ‘take their medicine’, that is, to strip any benefits that might aid the 99% so that they’d have the money to feed the banksters.

Still, can you imagine, Spain coughs up €50 to protect the banks at the same time they’re slashing safety net funds in an economy with 25% unemployment? In fact, latest news is that the Spanish government has accepted a $125 billion loan to bailout its banks… anything to protect the banksters.

The European establishment may be forced to change the paradigm but Americans will never get it together if the recent recall result in Wisconsin is any indicator. Governor Scott Walker, who was elected in a Tea Party surge in 2010, started off giving $180 million in tax breaks to business and then discovered there wasn’t enough money to pay public employees. His ultimate goal, unstated in the campaign, was to break the public unions, which he proceeded to do by virtue of Repug control of both houses of state government.

This didn’t sit well with the unions or the progressive community so they fought back with a signature gathering campaign to recall the governor. The got the necessary signatures, all right, but lost badly in the election with Walker sustained in office by a 53% to 46% vote. There are two immediate reasons why the Repug won. The most important was the flood of money from right-wing billionaire assholes. According to the US Supreme Court - which today garners the support of only 44% of the people - money has the right of free speech. The other reason was that Obama gave the campaign neither financial or moral support. The feckless wonder did not stand by the people. The Dem running against Walker had $4 million and was outspent 8 to 1. Obama made $3.5 million in one fundraising event but couldn’t see his way to helping a fellow Dem.

The fundamental reason for the Dem’s defeat is that Americans, at least a lot of them, are political morons. It’s called the Fox News effect: A recent study showed people who watched Fox were less informed than people who watched no news at all. It’s people who rail against socialism at the same time they love their Medicare, that socialist program that would save the country $400 billion a year if it applied to everyone. It isn’t just the average low IQ wingnut dolt that doesn’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. You’ve got Romney and the Repugs insisting on programs of slashing public services to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy as a path to economic recovery when that’s been an abject failure since Reagan.

Once again Americans face a disheartening lack of choice this November, though the country will slide downhill a little slower with Obama at the helm. In the end result, the people get the politics they deserve… unfortunately.

  

It Doesn’t Compute

April is supposed to be the height of hot dry season here in Cambodia. The sun is now directly overhead and most years there’ll be few clouds and no rain for months around this time or it may rain once or twice between January and May. This year we’ve had clouds nearly every day with occasional rains which have been very heavy at times. The rain cools things off a bit, otherwise it’d be in the mid to upper 90’s with humidity up around 50% - super sweaty weather for sure. The rain also relieves me of having to water my plants which now takes about an hour every other day.

Last month America experienced an unprecedented late spring heat wave in which not only about fifteen thousand high temperature records were broken but they were surpassed by 20 and 30ºF  margins, even in one case 40ºF - equivalent to 22º C. In many cases overnight lows were higher than the previous record highs.  

And yet, mention of global warming by America’s politicians is either off limits, for those who you believe still have a brain left, or derided as a monstrous hoax by the idiot/lying class of conservative politicos. Besides it’d be too much trouble to actually do anything about it so we’re just going to keep drilling baby drilling. That’s the ‘practical’ option; after all, think about all those windmills and solar panel arrays and geothermal sites that would have to be developed as an alternative. Or how about the great inconvenience to all those people who’d have to conserve energy by turning off lights they aren’t using. No, as long as there’s a drop of oil or cubic meter of gas in the ground, it’s easier and simpler to stay on our present path.

But it’s kind of depressing just the same to think there are no good options on the table, none that would change the present trajectory to destruction. Bill McKibben, leading climate campaigner, has stated unequivocally that full development of the Canadian tar sands spells certain doom since it’s the dirtiest oil on the planet requiring a lot of energy for processing. The Keystone XL (for extra large) pipeline that’s supposedly essential to the exploitation of that oil is planned to bring the oil to the Gulf coast strictly for export, it’s not even for America’s use. Routing the pipeline across Canada to the Pacific Ocean is possible but it would be much more expensive going over the Rockies, besides the people on that route decidedly don’t want it. The Alberta tar sands don’t produce crude oil, rather a thick tar like substance called bitumen. It is highly corrosive to pipelines and a section operating in Michigan has experienced twice as many leaks as a typical crude pipeline.

An oil platform in the North Sea has recently had a gas blowout and copious amounts are now bubbling to the surface. There’s now a two kilometer exclusion zone for ships, four for airplanes and six for any kind of drilling work, otherwise an explosion of magnificent proportions is possible. It could be six months before the leak can be plugged. The methane that is leaking has 20 times the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is now big business in many parts of the US. In addition to large quantities of methane leaking out when fracking is used to bring oil up from layers of shale, it also causes earthquakes, permanent contamination of groundwater and results in large quantities of toxic liquid waste to be disposed of. The toxic chemicals used in the process are trade secrets so the people are not allowed to know what their environment is being poisoned with. Typical of America where the corporations own the government, but how do the people who run those corpses live with themselves, how do they sleep at night knowing the havoc they are wreaking on the environment?

Now that global warming has reduced summer sea ice, the Arctic is now open for exploration. There couldn’t be a more difficult or more dangerous place on the planet to experience a blowout. If one happened in winter with the sea covered in thick ice,  temperatures of minus 40 or 50 degrees and darkness all the time, drillers would just have to wait until the next summer to even begin to tackle it. By then the ocean could well be beyond repair.

Meanwhile with the developed world in the economic doldrums, demand for fossil fuels there is not growing much, but here where I am in Asia growth is very fast. Cambodia which is growing at 7% is typical of this area. At that rate an economy doubles in 10 years and since we are starting from such a low point, electricity demand is growing 25% per year. India and China, which combined have nearly a quarter of the world’s population, are growing even faster at 8 or 9%. China is adding to it’s wind and solar power production very quickly but at the same time is still adding the equivalent of a 1 megawatt coal powered plant every week. They’re also buying cars like crazy and why not? Isn’t everybody supposed to be rich, to be able to live like Americans?.

It doesn’t compute, the numbers don’t add up, the world cannot continue on its present path. And yet it will, until it can no longer, because the voices of reason are overwhelmed by the quest for profit.

On another note, America’s political left will once again yearn for a presidential candidate who not only represents their own views, but the people at large. After all, it isn’t just people who call themselves Democrats who want a single payer, Medicare for all, health care system, it’s desired by 2/3rds of the population. It isn’t just Democrats who want taxes raised on the wealthy before Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are cut, it’s a large majority of all Americans. It isn’t only radical socialists who want to eliminate subsidies for the big oil companies, the world’s most profitable corporations, it’s the people at large. It can’t happen because of the obscene power of the corporations and because the Dumbocrats who’re supposed to represent progressive policies are feckless crybaby wimps, gutless wonders who have no fight in them.

The Senate recently held a vote to eliminate big oil subsidies, the Repugs said we’ll filibuster, the Dumbos said, Okay great, we give up. Instead why not say, Okay great, go ahead and filibuster, go ahead and spend a week or two or more explaining to the people of America why it’s so important to subsidize the oil companies while you, the masses, face budget cutbacks in all the programs you so greatly depend on for your quality of life.

But I’ve said it all before and I’m having a difficult writing lately because it seems so hopeless. I greatly admire those political, social, environmental campaigners who never give up, who keep pounding at the truth to try to break through the fog of corporate media and hegemony but I find it hard to maintain any faith that any of it will make a difference.

Still I’m heartened by the people’s response to the one percent’s harsh prescriptions on the lives of the rest of us. In Greece, for instance, jobless, homeless people are taking over and squatting in unused public buildings, with many also being used as community space. Some 70 buildings have been converted in Athens. Crises bring adaptability and change, or at least the opportunity for such. FDR took that opportunity and ran with it, to the great benefit of the people at large and the great frustration of the 1% who are still livid after all these years about Social Security, for instance, and the way it keeps millions of seniors out of poverty or at least off the streets.

Obama’s good at talking the talk, but he walks, along with the Congress, with the banksters. He just signed into law the JOBS act. The acronym stands for Jumpstart Our Startup Businesses. It aids startup businesses by exempting them from normal accounting rules and reporting. According to Matt Taibbi, one of the best investigative reporters of the financial scene who writes for Rolling Stone magazine, who coined the giant vampire squid moniker for Goldman Sachs, it’s basically a license to commit fraud. So after financial shenanigans brought down the world economy, the president and congress are eagerly facilitating further fraud.

Meanwhile the Repugs have given Obama a great electoral gift by waging a war on contraception in particular and women’s health in general. Thanks to sanctimonious Rick Santorum who believes that sex should only be for procreation and blubberhead Rush Limbaugh who called a young woman a slut because she advocated for contraception health coverage, Obama now has a 20% lead amongst women. There’s always been a political gender gap in America with men typically voting Repuglican while women vote Dumbocrat, but before the recent conservative tirades against women the gap was a few percentage points. With the manic Repug quest for ideological 19th century purity, Obama is way out in front.

I guess it’s a good idea that the Repugs are shooting themselves in the feet. Though I couldn’t personally bring myself to vote for Obama it’d be good if he gets to appoint supreme court justices and as I’ve mentioned previously he’s a good ambassador to the world even if he’s a mediocre president for the American people.

Repuglican Circus

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reportedly made a joke recently about the two front runners in the Repug primary… One of the candidates is a polygamist and he’s not the Mormon. Gingrich, the serial philanderer, who was forced out of congress for ethics violations is the darling of the conservatives… they really believe he’s into their small government, family values shit. He swears he’s not a lobbyist, but nonetheless received $25,000 per month from Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, government mortgage insurers, for his services - not to lobby, mind you, but as a historian.

They also like Santorum, a true conservative who equated being gay to fucking dogs and children, who lost the last contest he fought for US Senate from Pennsylvania by a deluge of eighteen percentage points… real popular guy, that. However, lately he’s on the up and up, winning three contests in a row and shaming Romney, the putative frontrunner.

Then there’s Ron Paul, who, true to his libertarian principles, wants to eliminate Social Security, Medicare and any other part of government that might, incidentally, do anything good for average Americans, who is also noted for putting out a little racist mag.

And what about the turkeys who fell by the wayside (but not before offering a few laughs to the peanut gallery)? Like the pizza guy who regularly pays hush money to keep sexual abuse incidents quiet, who didn’t know that China has had nukes since the early sixties. Or how about the dim bulb from Texas who couldn’t remember which three government departments he wanted to eliminate?

The grand prize will likely go to “Corporations are people” Romney. People own them and work for them, don’t they? Yes, but when’s the last time Texas executed one? That’s how you know what a person is. Dumbocrats will also gleefully take his comment that he doesn’t care about very poor people out of context, though even in context it shows how far out of touch he his. He went on to say that they are taken care of by the country’s safety net… except it’s the worst safety net in the developed world and leaves millions of people in desperate straits. But give him credit, he’s the first major politician who’s uttered the words poor people since Lyndon Johnson… except, that is, to berate them for being poor because they’re lazy. Newt would solve that problem by having them work their way through middle school as janitors. Not only would they learn the value of hard work, schools wouldn’t have to soak downtrodden and long suffering middle class taxpayers (who, in the world of America today, have incomes up to $250,000) for the cost of a low end but livable wage for school janitors.

Let me recount a story about laziness and opportunity amongst poor kids. Some twenty or thirty years ago a wealthy New Yorker found himself teaching a ghetto class of teenagers. I don’t remember what brought him there, whether it was purely voluntary or he was required to be there for some reason. He wound up liking the kids so much he offered, on impulse, to pay all costs of higher education for any kid who did well in school. Almost all the kids in that class went on to college compared to almost none in other classes in the same school. Community colleges used to be free. City College of New York where I got my B.A. used to be free. Otherwise I couldn’t have gone since I was a single parent working for peanuts driving a cab. Society should first provide opportunity then talk about lazy poor people who don’t take advantage of it.

Anyway, forget about Newt, he hasn’t got a chance in a million of being the nominee. Though they may love him in their hearts, even dumb as doorknob Repugs know he can’t win against Obama. Though after Santorum’s recent wins, the Repugs might actually rather go down in flames rather than have a chance at the presidency.

So back to Romney. His other glib great-to-take-out-of-context remark was the one about liking to fire people. In context he added; who provide services to me I don’t like. He was referring to medical insurance and, having hundreds of millions in the bank, he does have a few choices. And no matter how big the co-pays he’s not likely to be forced to declare bankruptcy because of them. Seventy percent of Americans are forced into bankruptcy because of medical bills, sixty percent of those had insurance but couldn’t cover the co-pays, a situation which hasn’t changed a bit with Obamneycare.

In spite of the obvious heartlessness and cluelessness of his statements, his sleaziest attribute by far is the way he made his fortune as a vulture capitalist. Putting it in simplest terms, you look for a healthy going concern to buy. You use a small amount of your own money and borrow the rest using the assets of the company as collateral. Once you’ve got it in your clutches you load it down with debt to pay your creditors or you strip it of its assets to pay those debts, either way the company is toast. You don’t care what happens to the company because you’ve made your money by charging exorbitant fees in the process of destroying it. In that way he bought a Florida company employing 700 people with $30 million of his own money and then earned more than $500 million while bankrupting it and destroying 700 jobs.

            Meanwhile he might well be the next president. If the vote is close the Repugs will steal the election and the Dumbos will figure, as they did in the cases of both Gore and Kerry, that if the Repugs are smart enough to steal it they must deserve it so it’s a waste of time trying to fight for an honest vote count.

Anyway, it won’t make much difference to the American people since he’d be governing from almost the same position as Obama minus a few details. The banksters love Romney, but they’re doing really well under Obama, who’s doing his best to burnish his creds with them. Obama’s new chief of staff, Jack Lew, came right out of Citigroup. William Daley, the previous one, came directly from one of the other megabastard banks into the most important position in the white house. Do you think it’s possible that Obama, if he looked really hard, could find one person in the whole US of A to run his staff who wasn’t a sleazoid, scumbag bankster? Evidently not.

            Obama’s justice department is pushing hard for the states to accept a settlement with the banks over mortgage fraud. It’s a total sell-out, free pass, get-out-of-jail-free card. The banks get to pay $25 billion where the damage is up around $700 billion. They get to do that without admitting any wrongdoing or anybody going to prison for malfeasance. The $25 billion is nothing especially since the banks can borrow it from the Fed at close to 0% interest.

As it stands now Obama will have the advantage of saying the economy is improving since it’s been growing at about 2% and unemployment is going down. But when you look more closely at the numbers you see a completely different picture since some 90% of the growth in the economy has gone to the top 10% in the form of rising stock values and the new jobs created pay a lot less than the ones that have been lost. New manufacturing jobs pay only half what they paid just a few years ago. Once again income is being transferred from the poor to the rich.

So where are we then? Well, Americans will have a choice this November between a cool guy who’s a center right conservative and a doltish megamillionare who’s a center right conservative. And the banksters will be shitting their pants with glee either way.

Uncle Tom + Manchurian Candidate = Obama

I can’t help thinking Obama is a melding of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom with the seminal movie, The Manchurian Candidate. Uncle Tom is the good ‘Negro’ who always cautions patience, compromise and deference towards society’s masters. Speak softly, don’t make waves, never challenge the powers that be. Obama always starts his negotiating from a compromise position and then gives away the store to the opposition. That’s because he’s really the Manchurian Candidate, a plant; the perfect foil sent by the enemy to further their own goals. He’s ideal for the task: he’s a totally likable fellow who’s got the rhetoric of progressivism down even when his policies are exactly opposite. He’s got all the right credentials and background and being of half African descent, nobody would ever guess he’s been programmed to work for the other side.

After three years on the job, governing from the center right, how could it be otherwise. The only thing that distinguishes his impact from that of a theoretical ‘Moderate Republican’ is his federal court picks, on every other score, it’s clear he’s doing the work of society’s controllers. He’s even been offering up cuts in ‘entitlements’ as ways to cut the deficit before the Repugs even demanded it. He’s given up the one best campaign issue for Dumbocrats, the one factor that has always distinguished the party from the opposition. Is he doing it because he believes he’s truly representing the will of the American people?


Not if you believe polling has any legitimacy since more than 80% of Americans say no cuts to Social Security and nearly 80% say no cuts to Medicare. Neither are really ‘entitlements’ since both are totally self-funded programs: to receive benefits requires having put money in. Medicaid, which is an entitlement because low-income people are entitled to benefits based solely on their citizenship, is supported by nearly 70%.


He consistently chooses the worst possible people for his economic team, like Jeffery Imelt, CEO of General Electric, to lead his Commission on Jobs and Competitiveness. GE has created a lot of jobs recently but they’re all outside the US. GE made $14 billion in profits last year but not only didn’t pay taxes on it but received a $3 billion refund. There are half a dozen progressive economists I could name offhand who would actually represent the American people rather than the elite, and do a far better job on jobs and competitiveness than Imelt. That’s Obama’s Uncle Tom coming out; he wants to be one of the guys, to be liked and respected by the bigtimers.


When his base, the people who worked and campaigned for him, try to push a progressive agenda he slams and slanders them as unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, radical, professional leftists. According to Mr. O, the more than 60% of Americans and 90% of self-identified Democrats who want single-payer health care, the same single-payer he advocated as a candidate, are asking for the impossible. It is much better in his mind to make the despised insurance industry central to his health plan, thus his Manchurian Candidate side. He doesn’t want to upset or incur the wrathful opposition of the big guys so he’s happy to settle for a half-assed plan.


Problem is, you don’t inspire your constituency with half-assism. He’s made it very clear that he thinks insulting his base improves his electoral chances with independents; after all, if you’re a progressive, who’re you going to vote for, Rick Perry? That may be true, except you don’t work for or campaign for someone who shits on you while kowtowing to right wing nuttery. You don’t show any enthusiasm for a leader who stops at nothing to protect and coddle thieving banksters while watching obliviously as millions of Americans are kicked out of their homes by those same heartless fat cats. Okay, he’s not totally oblivious to the plight of average Americans; he does mention them in passing now and then while he’s haplessly, fecklessly betraying them. Anyway, if 80% of Americans are opposed to cuts in Social Security and Medicare, who are the independents he’s trying to appeal to?


His latest jobs plan is another in a long line of policy farces. Sixty percent of the plan goes to tax breaks which will have very minimal effect on jobs. If you give the average American a tax break today, they will most likely pay down debt or buy something made in China; how does that create jobs? And since he has no fight in him, he’ll get the tax breaks because the Repugs like that part and give up the actual job creation part because they don’t.


He’s doing the job his enemy controllers sent him to do, and most American readers of this post will hold their noses and vote for him; but not me, as long as the results are essentially the same then it’s better to have a village-idiot Repug in the job than an enemy plant who talks the talk of empathy and caring while stabbing you in the back.

Obama the Disappointer

Obama has declared his candidacy for the 2012 elections... and it’s only 18 months before the poll takes place. America’s excruciatingly long and drawn out election season is one of the tell-tale signs of American political ossification. The process is hopeless; I can’t see anything good or reasonable or logical coming out of the congress or the president today. To do it right there needs to be regional primaries so candidates can focus on one area instead of wasting time and energy jetting back and forth across the country. One per month for four months starting in May of election year would allow campaigning to start at the beginning of 2012 instead of spring of 2011. Makes too much sense so can’t happen.

Mr O has three things going for him. For one, he’s a great ambassador to the world. He’s a very calm, steady and likeable guy and, as a representative of a long exploited and repressed minority, a great testament to the potential of American democracy. Compared to Bush in this regard, he’s a minor deity.

He’ll appoint decent people to the judiciary. If a Repug gets elected, it’ll mean another generation or two of feed the rich, starve the poor decisions from the bench.

Finally, most of his competition ranges from the laughable to the risible. The ones that are halfway reasonable and/or competent will have a difficult time getting through the tea-party electoral gauntlet. If a thoughtful, charismatic, moderate Repug showed up he or she’s likely to be toast.

At this point, I can’t see many thinking progressive people voting for Obama; rather, as true of every election for decades, they’ll be voting against the fearsome and/or cartoony right-wing opposition. I can’t think of a single major political initiative or stance that Obama’s taken that meets my standard of forward looking or compassionate. After compromising and kowtowing to the opposition while slamming and slandering his base, the people who worked for and voted for him, the so-called enthusiasm gap is wider than ever. Once again, Democrats, progressives, people who care will have a choice between crap and disaster.

The epitome of Obama’s disconnect from the reality of the common folk, the people who elected him was his choice of Jeffery Imelt, CEO of General Electric, to head his commission on jobs and competitiveness. GE is good at creating jobs, only most are in other countries, not in the US. The one area they have been hiring in is accountants who jobs it is to find legal loopholes to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. And at that they’ve been doing a great job. GE enjoyed profits of over $14 billion last year – five million earned in the US - but not only isn’t pay any taxes but getting a $3 billion refund.

There are all kinds of reasons why the US government thinks it needs to subsidize one of the largest, most profitable corporations in the world, but none of them are good. All of them are based on the wholesale purchase of government by the wealthy and powerful. They have their cockamamie supply-side theories and arguments for feeding the rich – they’ll create more jobs – but that has repeatedly shown to be ridiculously off the mark. Right now the country’s wealthiest citizens are sitting on $19 trillion of assets, while the corporations have nearly $2 trillion of cash reserves. How shoveling more money at them is suddenly going to create jobs is a conundrum only a wingnut teabagger could grasp.

GE also got billions from the bailout money since at one point they were making half their profits from financial services. So, funding for food stamps, Medicaid for the poor, Pell grants to enable more people to attend college, relief for people suckered into taking out mortgages they couldn’t afford to pay back, aid to the states who are in dire financial straits? Nope, we just don’t have the cash. Welfare for the world’s richest corporations and tax breaks for the already fantastically wealthy when the government is running a deficit equal to 12% of GDP; no problem, they obviously deserve it.

If deficit reduction is one’s goal, there is no way any amount of cutbacks on programs for the people at large can make up for the wealthy and corporations not paying their fare share of the cost of government. Neither can any amount of economic growth make up the difference without raising taxes on those who can afford to pay. Moreover, it’s living in Fantasyland to think the US can continue to run huge budget and trade deficits while printing oceans of money without the bill someday coming due.

Since I began writing this post Obama has gotten populist. Just after he declares his candidacy he says we’re going to tax the rich. (Where’s he been since his election in 2008?) We’re going to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion in 12 years, he says. Why stretch it out over 12 years, you ask, why not just say $340 billion a year? Well, I guess, because $340 billion doesn’t sound like much against a $1.6 trillion deficit, not even 25%, in fact.

Obama’s not leveling with the people – he obviously thinks it’s not politically tenable to tell the truth, assuming he does understand the situation – but that’s not anywhere near enough to tackle the deficit. Concurrently, deficits are also good for politicians since they make it seem the economy is doing a lot better than it really is. I mean, if I could borrow ten thousand dollars to gild my lifestyle, I’d be feeling great... until the bill came due. At this point the bill will not only be a crushing debt burden but a wholesale crash of the economy.

The catalyst for the coming financial implosion will come from rising commodity prices. As the value of the dollar slides, the price of commodities, since they are priced in dollars, will rise and increase inflation in America. As the price of oil, the largest component of America’s trade deficit, also moves up because of instability in producing regions combined with resource depletion, those rises will be intensified and the US will run hard up against an intractable, unsustainable situation. Rising inflation, according to current economic thinking, will require rising interest rates which will then increase the burden of servicing America’s huge debt.

Obama’s now only tinkering with the problem when the situation is just dire, which only makes it worse in the long run. When the situation becomes catastrophic, because it wasn’t dealt with when only dire, nothing less than great sacrifice on everyone’s part will make a difference. For every dollar of ease gained from borrowing, there’ll be equivalent pain in paying it back.

There only alternative to repaying loans is printing money and thus cheapening its value, which then brings an inflation death spiral. 2012 will be a tough year economically and an albatross around Obama’s electoral neck, but the Repugs will only have their failed policies of the past to cling to and thus look even worse than Obama.

The one thing the Repugs are good at is stealing elections and since no prominent Dumbocrat has ever had the courage or commonsense to call them to account for their thievery, not even those who’ve had elections stolen right out from under them, you can bet if the election is close the Repug will win.

I’m not optimistic. My cynicallity quotient is in the stratosphere. I’d hardly vote for Obama because he’s a likable guy and will appoint a few judges. Better to give the whole government to the Repugs and hope for a revolutionary backlash. If the people of Yemen can rise up, why not Americans?

Repug Response to Doomsday: Bring it On

Some people in the past have accused me of hoping for Armageddon, like I really want the world to suffer. Admittedly part of me feels like we should just do it, you know, get it over with so we can start fresh. At the rate the world is being trashed, we might even be better off, at least in the long run, if we let the organized world unravel before the entire sphere is poisoned. Only a bad-assed torturer wants to see famine, flood, disease and environmental degradation; I only want the world to wake up.

For years now, I’ve kept thinking it can’t get any worse before the people wise up to challenge the status quo. Now for sure they will demand fairness, equity, intelligence in governance. But then the morass the country is in far surpasses my worst expectations and yet the American people don’t seem to notice but only want to go even more negative, choose the least enlightened path, bring the country back to the glory days of Herbert Hoover. And so it’s not just possible but likely the Repugs will take back the congress. Unbelievable, almost unimaginable, but true.

And what would be top of their agenda? Witch hunts: the search for semen stained dresses and minute personal failings. That’ll show em for totally letting us off the hook for lying about wars and giving us a pass on admitted and egregious crimes against the constitution. Democrats don’t want to bring up the past, they want to just move on and be one big bipartisan happy family. This is like a young doe trying to make nice with a hungry tiger. In fact, cats like to play with their prey before they eat them, so they can have some fun together until lunchtime.

Their second priority is to rein in government spending to tackle the deficit. It’s those entitlements that are the problem. All those lazy Americans depending on government handouts; i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, Food Stamps, are going to have to take a hit if the economy is to be righted. According to Alan Simpson, former senator from Wyoming who Obama appointed to the government’s deficit reduction commission, Americans only want to suck off the government’s tits and what they really need is hard lessons in taking care of themselves.

Their other major goal is to continue Bushman’s tax cuts for the wealthy. The fact that tax cuts run counter to deficit reduction doesn’t seem to matter much in Repug theory.

And most amazingly, or maybe not, the people are eating it up. Yeah, bring it on.

One problem the Dumbs have, as a result of their general incompetence and extreme fecklessness, is the enthusiasm gap. The Tea Partiers are fired up about the country being run by a socialistic black man who wasn’t even born in America and is a Muslim besides. They are going to vote.

Professional Leftists - in the immortal words of Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary - on the other hand are going to stay home in droves. What was his big complaint about we, the radical leftist fringe that is never happy with the Obama administration? How about that we’d never be satisfied until we had Canadian-style single-payer health care. The fact that every single poll taken during the health care debate showed large majorities of Americans as a whole – around 60% - and overwhelming majorities of Democrats – around 90% - were in favor of single-payer never seemed to matter or even register… no, universal health care is so far out radical it’s like asking for the moon.

Gibbs’ idiotic outburst wasn’t the first time administration officials had gone out of their way to insult, trample on, stab in the back the people who brought them into office. He thinks the people who elected Obama really wouldn’t be happy until Dennis Kucinich was president. Well, Dennis is certainly one of the very few Dumbs willing to speak truth to power and to actually represent the majority’s wishes, but he never was very electable. No what we really wanted was the Obama we were promised. Instead we got a corporate shill more interested in compromise with the party of NO than actually accomplishing anything of lasting value. One who snatched worthlessness from the jaws of opportunity.

The other major Repug goal is to shut down the government. More power to them, I say, maybe this time they really will be so bad, the people will finally take matters in their own hands and even the Dumbs will have to respond. But I doubt it. If the Dumbs controlled congress by 80% or 90% in place of the 60% they have now, they’d still find excuses to kowtow to the Repugs and ignore the will of the majority of Americans.

No matter how much shit gets thrown in the face of the American people, they still can’t seem to smell it. They still want to elect a government intent on throwing money at the wealthy in spite of the fact that they have a bigger share of American income than any time since 1928. And in spite of the reality that that income disparity is one of the root causes of America’s problems today.

If they can’t smell the shit when it’s thrown in their faces maybe they will when they are buried up to their necks in it. One can only hope. Meanwhile I’m thrilled I don’t have to live there (couldn’t afford to if I wanted on my Social Security) otherwise I’d be ten times as angry and depressed about the US as I am now.

Obama Is Losing It.

Mr. O has been saying some really stupid things lately. Instead of trying to find ways to put thieving banksters in prison he praises them as savvy businessmen and says he doesn’t begrudge their obscene compensation. He went on to make a totally spurious comparison to fabulously paid sports stars.

While it’s true that most major teams in America are subsidized by local and state governments in the form of taxpayer built stadiums the amounts involved are minuscule compared to the bank bailouts. Moreover sports stars aren’t rewarded for failure and aren’t responsible for high unemployment and foreclosures that have made life hell for millions of Americans and brought hardship to people all over the world.

In fact, it does take savvy (not to mention arrogant, greedy and shameless) businessmen to demand that government - the same one they otherwise love to hate - rescue their institutions from their own malfeasance and then use the free money they receive to reward themselves with fabulous compensation. Goldman Sachs earned about 13 billion dollars last year, just about the same amount they received from the AIG bailout, so their profits are totally the result of government welfare.

They’ve also used their generous gifts from the people to lobby against legislation that would protect Americans from a similar meltdown happening again. Regulation? That’s a dirty word, the market will take care of everything; and if it doesn’t there’s always another bailout from Uncle Sam.

Meanwhile they are creating the conditions for a new bubble by engaging in the same risky behavior that brought them to the brink of bankruptcy in the first place. Why not? Obama will be there for them in their hour of need. If anyone is interested in the details, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine wrote an excellent article describing their current scams. It was also published a couple days ago on commondreams.org.

After hurting the banksters’ feelings by calling them fat cats, he seems to be wanting to get all chummy, to show them he’s really on their side… and keep those campaign dollars rolling in. Moreover, now that the Extreme Court has opened the door for unlimited corporate expenditures on political campaigns he maybe figures they will spend billions if need be to defeat anyone who tries to restrain them and their profits. The too-big-to-fail banks have made so many billions they could give every candidate they like millions of dollars with out even feeling the pinch. Result: a government bought and sold, as if it wasn’t mostly already.

They may be savvy businessmen but their work adds nothing of value to society: they are leaches, parasites, predators. That’s not even considering their deceit or thievery. That refers strictly to their function in the economic world, the malfeasance is merely the frosting on the cake.

Big time banks skim the cream off the top of the economy, while serving no social purpose. They drain the lifeblood of society by grabbing much too big a share for themselves. If they have the rights of people, they should also have the responsibilities and face the same penalties for breaking the law. At this point, many deserve the death penalty.

The vast majority of Americans, both left and right, socialists and teabaggers, feel only anger and vitriol against the banksters, so how can Obama defend them? What can he gain by siding with those sleazebags?

The other ludicrous garbage, not to mention deceit, that’s come out of his mouth was in reference to a bipartisan meeting he’s arranged on health care legislation. He said to the Repugs, If you can show me a better plan that can increase coverage, lower costs and rein in insurance company abuses, you tell me, I want to see it.

Did he somehow forget that he was an advocate for single-payer health care and campaigned on that basis for many years prior to becoming president? Has he been hit with a stroke of amnesia?

He’s spent a whole year emasculating every important legislative program in order to placate the Repugs and a handful of conservative Dems with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Wake up Mr. President, time to represent the people interests instead of your savvy fat cat businessmen friends. Time to can the empty rhetoric and get real.

Maybe he’s expecting to use the health care summit to try to shame the Repugs, make them look bad, but, Mr. O, why bother? Why don’t you just pass your little-bit-is-better-than-nothing health care plan with whatever legislative maneuvering you have at your disposal and then talk about what a great advance it is in spite of the fact that it doesn’t control costs, doesn’t cover everyone and doesn’t even begin to increase coverage until 2013. Don’t mention how it sets up tiers of coverage leaving many people with low quality care and pays for increased coverage (at least the Senate version) by taxing the only people who do have quality insurance.

The only improvement I can see over the presidency of Bushman is the appointment of a decent Extreme Court justice. Otherwise the whole mess stinks to high heaven.