Middle Class Massacre

Obama's State of the Union Address.

2012-01-28T02:25:00.000-08:00

Obama said a lot of great things in his State of the Union Address the other night. It is very frustrating that he and the American people know the path that we should be on, but it seems impossible to get the rest of government on the right track.

One of my Facebook friends posted what I guess was a mock bumper sticker that said "Republicans 2012: Keeping millions out of work to put one man out of a job." which about sums up what is going on in Congress. They all know what the right thing to do is, but because of their own political agendas they won't even bother to try doing it. And on their agenda is making sure Obama is not re-elected.

What is really scary is Newt Gingrich portraying himself as underdog of the middle class when he is just the opposite.

I would rather have a do nothing President like Obama than a phony like Gingrich who will tell everyone that is going to put out the fire while not bothering to tell everyone that he will be using gasoline.

Our path to economic destruction appears to be inexorable, it is just a matter if you want to take the slow route with a do nothing President like Obama or the quick route with a Republican president.

Offshoring of American jobs: What the US government needs to do, but won't.

2012-01-12T20:28:00.000-08:00

Taken from Wikimedia Commons

The massive off-shoring of jobs from the United States has only been around for less than ten years but we already have national unemployment rate of over eight percent. If the United States government continues to take no action, having a totally liassez faire attitude towards business and economics, unemployment will continue to rise inexorably.

The United States government needs to take action now, by making a law that forces American companies or companies that do business in the United States to pay off-shored workers at least the current federally mandated minimum wage. They also need to add high taxes to overseas telecommunication in order to make off shoring less attractive and give American workers a chance to compete for jobs.

This kind of action will be labeled protectionism, which the right-wing yahoos have tried to label as a taboo, worse than incest or bestiality. But it is not a taboo. We don't try to protect what we have? The rich don't try to protect what they have by off-shoring their money and refusing to pay taxes? You don't try to protect what you have by having locks on your doors?

Protectionism is not a bad thing. We need to put the brakes on off-shoring and free trade. We need balanced trade and jobs paying livable wages for anyone who wants to work. We will not get this by letting the wealthy live tax-free or letting business do anything they want without regard to the law. We will not get this by allowing federal debt to exceed our GDP. We desperately need to stop big business and special interests running this country into the ground by taking away jobs from Americans.

We can only do this if American politicians start developing a conscience and start serving the American people and not serving big business and special interests who want to send your jobs overseas and see the American middle class completely disappear.

Don't believe the [insert adjective here] media.

2012-01-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

This past summer, some right-wing nut job posted signs all over the town where I work that stated "Don't Believe the Liberal Media!" The first thing that came to my mind when I saw those signs was that they should read "Don't Believe the Corporate Controlled"Media."

I personally feel that the media is far from liberal. It focuses on criminal trials of celebrities and baby murderers and totally ignores or downplays topics like the fact that US Debt exceeds our GDP, that we appear to be in an endless war in the Middle East that we cannot afford, that information technology as well as move to free trade is taking away jobs from Americans, that political lobbies run by multinational corporations, and other special interest groups hold more sway over government than do the needs of the American people, and that we cannot have clean elections without violating the rights of multinational corporate entities, that claim that they have the same rights as individual American citizens.

Over the past several years laws have loosened up about corporate media control and the amount of media a company can control nationwide and in specific markets and this has had an overall detrimental effect on news coverage, but the media won't report that either.

Made in China: You get what you pay for

2012-01-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

During my childhood when the term "Made in Japan" went from being synonymous with cheap imitation to being synonymous with a quality product, I was thrilled. I had grown up loving Japanese monster movies and anime. These were the people after my own heart, and I felt they deserved to become the successes they were because to me their pop culture was much more interesting than American pop culture. Perhaps a silly reason to be routing for them, but I was routing for them.

While all of this was going on I think the powers-that-be, evil people who control the means of production in the West, started to rub their greedy hands together and say if the little island nation of Japan can go from zero to manufacturing whizzes in a matter of years, then their Chinese cousins on the verge of numbering in the billions could do so also. And they can do so in a lot cheaper fashion because there are so many of them. So many workers will mean millions upon millions of people willing to manufacture things at minimal cost.

This came to pass in the 1990's and the early 21st Century. And now we get tons and tons of cheap manufactured goods from China. But they are not only cheap in price, they are also cheap in quality. But I think for many Americans, it doesn't matter, one TV breaks go out an buy another one. This is the dream for those who profit from a consumer driven economy. Consumer driven economy requires that people keep consuming and this new model of consumerism made possible by cheap labor and production costs.

I am also noticing that China is becoming the clothing manufacturer of choice for many name brands on both the higher and lower end of things. And from my personal experience I do not think it is a good thing. A couple of years ago I had bought this one Stratford dress shirt from JC Penny because JC Penny marketed it as a very durable product. And it was. It was made in Vietnam and it was a great deal for the price, I still wear it on a regular basis to this day. When I went back a year later to buy another shirt, I had found that they had changed their manufacturing to China, but I gave it try expecting the same quality. Unfortunately the "made in China" version did not really live up to the quality of the Vietnam shirt. While it has held together OK, the fabric has become pilled. It is also a lot thinner fabric than the Vietnam shirt. I feel that this was sort of a bait and switch on the part of JC Penny, but I guess they are just trying to keep the price down, which is OK if the quality doesn't go down with it.

I had a similar experience with a Tommy Hilfiger rugby shirt that I bought a few years ago. It was made in Sri Lanka, and it was terrific, very durable and comfortable. And again I went back to the outlet store where I bought it with the intention of buying several more like it. Unfortunately, Hilfiger also switched to China as its manufacturer. The new line of rugby shirts appeared to be so poor in quality, I just walked out of the store disappointed.

Also for electronics, I am only buying products made in Korea as they seem to get the whole quality over cheapness thing that Japan had gotten for while. Nowadays Japanese have also seemed to have outsourced their electronics manufacturing to China with the same poor quality results.

But as long as people keep buying, I guess manufacturers don't care. I would say that we should not buy products made in China just based on the poor quality issue, but sometimes I realize you don't even have a choice. I can no longer find headphones made anywhere other than China, perhaps in the $100 range, but who wants to pay that much for headphones. Therefore, I can totally understand the lure of cheap Chinese goods. Of course the government could add tariffs to Chinese goods to make them less appealing, but why would they do that? It would be nice to see made in America once in a while as well, but without an attempt to balance trade this will never happen. The corporations rule and plutocracy will prevail as the middle class are crushed under a pile of broken consumer electronics made in China.

Gearing up for war with Iran while our national debt will exceed GDP.

2012-01-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like we are getting closer and closer to a possible war with Iran. Their recent threat of closing off the Straight of Hormuz is their way of drawing a line in the sand, a way of saying "go ahead make our day."

Well, as much as I know many Americans would like to may their day, we really really can't. Our national debt now exceeds our Gross Domestic Product. That means we do not produce enough in this country to cover our debt even if we could. This means that we really cannot afford to impose our will on the Middle East, as much as we would like to. We are really living beyond our means like the typical baby boomer with ten maxed out credit cards.

It is time for the United States to stop spending money,and the first thing we can stop spending money on is trying to impose our will on other countries through military might.

I believe that we can be just as effective by refusing to do business with the Middle East by moving to green energy independence, a move that the United States is just not making and US government is not encouraging. My guess is because big oil, the companies that control the world's old supply, don't us to. But this is much cheaper than sending more and more troops to the Middle East.

As far as keeping Israel, the Holiest of Lands, safe let's just give them some weapons and say good luck guys, you are on your own on this one, we can't afford to help you anymore beyond giving you the means to defend yourselves.

The United States really has to know its limitations and stop being the world police when we can no longer afford to do so.

Another big problem for retailers: Flash robs

2011-12-28T04:44:00.000-08:00

I just saw a report on television about the "flash rob" that went down at "The Mall of America" in Minnesota. A flash rob is when a large group of people get together at a set time using social media like Facebook or Twitter and plan a robbery. The retailers and law enforcement are overwhelmed by the number people and cannot effectively deal with the situation.

Events like this will add to burden that owners of brick-and-mortar stores have to face, and ultimately lead to them not being economically competitive and shutting down.

Again here, the Internet is to blame for the changing economy, an economy that cannot support enough jobs for the people who want and need them. So far law enforcement has yet to come up with an effective method in dealing with them. If they ever do, I bet it will be really expensive, and there will be no way to pay for it with constant right-wing movement to eliminate government and government jobs.

Also, if the kids in this latest "flash rob" had jobs they wouldn't have had to participate in this phenomenon. My guess is that the kids who participated in this came from poor homes, and the Internet is now being used to have the poor turn on the middle class in their most sacred of haunts, the shopping mall. And this all happens while the wealthy watch from a safe distance.

To recap, as the middle class dies, the malls will close, and the poor masses will be left to riot on the streets. And will have the Internet to thank for it all.

The death of retail stores and jobs....

2011-12-13T04:27:00.000-08:00

Now, I hate being a Luddite, I think overall progress is usually for the common good. But I really don't understand what will happen when retail sales jobs start to disappear. Retail sales for many people is a great way to enter or re-enter the workforce, especially if you have no special skills and don't have more than a high school diploma or a bachelor's degree.

What will kill retail? People walking around brick-and-mortar stores with their iPhone/Android apps that show if they can get a cheaper deal for the same product online. Already struggling electronic stores will probably fold by the end of next year. I haven't seen these apps in action, but I would imagine this might be useful for high-end clothing as well.

I think many stores will be forced to close because their overhead expenses are much higher than some guy or gal selling merchandise out of their basement using the Internet.

When Republicans keep saying that the future of economic growth is in small business, what do they mean? I think they mean that everyone will be selling stuff out of their basement over the Internet. But how practical or easy is that? How practical or easy is it to start any small business for that matter? How easy is it to raise capital to start a small business, especially now when the banks are tight about who they loan money to? I don't believe that the Republicans think about these things when they say that things like small business is the future of the economy. But what else are they going to say when they know that the Internet is slowly killing traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, and what else are they going to say when they want to eliminate as many government jobs as possible because their wealthy "1 percent buddies" are the only ones who can afford to pay taxes and they don't want to.

It used to be that you worked hard and saved money to start a business of your own, but how will that be possible when their are no more jobs left. And who will loan you money when you don't have a job.

Some people say that the new economy created by the innovations of the Internet and wireless technology are exciting, and that innovators like Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder, and Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon will be revered as major driving forces behind great economic change and the emerging new economy, but I think ultimately they will be hated for making so many jobs disappear especially in the retail sector, a major employer of the post-industrial world.

Curb government waste through transparency not tax cuts and caps.

2011-12-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

On a federal, state, and local level Americans need to know how their tax dollars are being spent. But often government budgets are hidden or when they are made public they have line items like "necessary annual expenses" therefore you won't really know how your money is being spent. Also there is a lot finagling with tax dollars through common high finance practices that you have be a CPA or tax attorney to understand.

The George Orwell novel, "1984" warned of the horrors of a totalitarian government where their leader "Big Brother" is always watching you. Well in a democracy in the digital age all citizens have the potential to be government's "Big Brother." Through the use of the Internet we have the potential ability to see how all of our money is being spent. I don't understand why there hasn't been a more vocal movement to do this. Instead you have politicians pushing tax caps which may control spending, but does nothing for potential corruption of tax dollar use. You also have right-wing yahoos like Grover Norquist getting politicians agreeing not to raise taxes through a pledge. Wouldn't it be great if someone could get congress members to sign a pledge to always act ethically, and keep all of their actions as transparent as possible. The recent insider trading scandal that the news program "60 Minutes" recently aired shows how politicians will take every opportunity to take advantage of their position and pay little regard to ethics. Therefore it would be an impossible task to get them to sign an ethics pledge.

There are federal laws on the books that encourage transparency of spending through the use of the Internet but there is little enforcement of this.

In conclusion, we have to stop looking at capping and restricting new taxes without first looking at how our money is being spent. We must control corruption before we look at controlling spending.

Republicans want endless war in the Middle East, but who is going to pay for it?

2011-11-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Last month Obama announced troop withdrawal from Iraq, and got a lot of flack from the Republican presidential candidates in spite of this move being supported by 75 percent of American citizens in a recent survey.

If we are committed to endless war in the Middle East there has to be a large commitment of United States money for this endeavor, but who is going to pay for it? Certainly not the top one-percent of earners who absolutely refuse pay any more taxes. And you have the right-wing going after big government to be downsized. Isn't the military part of big government? If the United States kept to itself, they could save a lot of money and not to mention a lot of lives, by greatly downsizing the military.

But the right-wingers have the nerve to say that Obama is doing the wrong thing by pulling out of Iraq. And anyway, he is only pulling out of Iraq, because the United States has its sights now set on Iran. Oh, it will start with sanctions, and when Iran refuses to give up its nuclear program, it is going to end with a United States invasion. The US military probably couldn't be in both places, and Afghanistan, and Libya and any other Middle Eastern country on the verge of collapse, without having to start-up the draft. And the draft would be political suicide for any President proposing it. Obama will be a lame-duck if he wins the next election so he may reinstate the draft and so might a new Republican president.

The United States involvement overseas especially in a military capacity has got to stop. If we cannot support an economy that offers full employment for anyone who wants it, then we cannot support endless war in the Middle East. That's the bottom line, and that's what you have to tell your elected officials. We cannot pay for a war that no one wants to pick the tab up for either. The rich have to pay their fair share of taxes if this country is going to survive, and if we are going to impose our will on other nations as well.

How do you stop the "Wall Street Occupation"? Turn it into a job fair!

2011-11-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

I am glad the people occupying Wall Street have not given up in spite of the NYC's many efforts to remove them. I am upset at the police officers that have to intervene when the demonstrations get a little out of hand. I understand that they are just doing their job, what their superiors tell them to do, but I do not think they understand that they are on the same side as the Wall Street protesters. Soon their jobs will be in jeopardy as well, and maybe they will come to their senses and join the protest or start demonstrating themselves.
A lot of politicians have come to give a little lip service to this event, or events plural as they have sprung up in other cities as well, but still no one is taking any real action.
If the wealthy one percent really cared, what they should do is hold a jobs fair at Zuccotti Park and make sure all of the protesters have what everyone wants, a decent paying job and some dignity. But as you guessed, they don't care. These protests could swell to massive riots and they still wouldn't care. They know they have the politicians right in their pockets and that plutocracy with prevail.
Corporate America's profits are the only things swelling right now and yet they still have no interest in creating jobs in this country. Republicans, the purveyors of plutocracy, only propose more breaks for big business, small business and the wealthy. They have plenty of breaks, big business doesn't pay any taxes usually, and they still haven't created any jobs. You can give the top one percent all the breaks in the world, but it won't matter, they still won't do anything for the American economy in return. Republicans don't get it, there is no return on your money when you invest in the wealthy.
Again if they really cared, you would see a big job's fair in NYC, but they don't. That is why it is up to government to step in and create jobs for these people, but they won't either because the wealthy have the politicians in their pockets. The plutocratic powers-that-be will continue to shrink government leading to even more layoffs. Someone needs to take action, someone needs to come to our aide, to help out the Wall Street protesters, but no one ever will.

Job stimulus bill fails while a job crushing bill passes.

2011-10-23T18:26:00.000-07:00

Although it is impossible for me to post here on a regular basis, I am compelled to write about the failure of the job stimulus bill that was recently voted on and rejected by the Senate and the free trade act with South Korea that sailed right through congress.

With all of the media coverage about the failed job stimulus bill and the Wall Street occupation, the media somehow forgot to cover the free trade agreement with South Korea that was just approved by congress. No one was on TV debating this issue, how disgusting.

Let me tell you something about South Korea, with this free trade agreement the United States will be importing tons of stuff from Korea, but the Koreans will probably import next to nothing of American goods. The Korean government will tell its people to only buy Korean made goods and don't touch American made products. In his book, "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and The Secret History of Capitalism" Korean-born economist Ha-Joon Chang illustrates how South Korea pumped up its economy by forcing its people to buy only Korean made products and nothing else. They did before and they most certainly will do it again. They couldn't care less about the collapse of the United States economy. They will flood our markets with tons of cheaper Korean made goods and they will not want to buy any American products in return.

I will be surprised if the Koreans will buy even one American car. But you are going be kissing even more manufacturing jobs good-bye, if there are any left in the United States to say good-bye to. And then this is only the beginning. South Korea is the starter county for free trade with all of Asia which will pretty much spell the economic end of the middle class as we know it. You think unemployment is bad now, just wait...

And while all of this is going on President Obama couldn't get much needed jobs stimulus bill passed because it increases taxes on the wealthy. Shame on the two democrats that voted against this bill. I hope they loose their Senate seats, of course the monsters who replace them will not be any better.

I just saw another article from npr that said that the Senate doesn't want to pass this bill because over 50 percent of them are millionaires themselves, and I believe that close to 100 percent of them have nothing approaching a conscience.

Congresses actions are just throwing gasoline on the economic collapse fire. This is why we so desperately need clean elections. Elections that are state run, where candidates cannot take money from outside sources for their campaigns. Everything is paid for by the state and everyone is given an equal shot to be elected.

Regardless of what your social studies teacher told you, the United States is not a democracy, it is a plutocracy, and these recent congressional actions prove it.

What would Apple do? Run a totally protectionist country that's what!

2011-08-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month The Wall Street Journal ran an article about how Apple, the corporate computer giant, has more money that the US government and an opinion piece suggesting how Apple would run the United States government since they seem to be doing such a great job in running a profitable company.

First of all it upset me that there is a company, and probably lots of other US companies, that have more money at their disposal than the US government. Can't they pay for all of the wars in the Middle East and leave the US Government out of this?

The opinion piece upset me because the author cited all the things that he thought Apple would do to run a successful country, but he forgot some important aspects of the Apple business model.

Apple's brand is the cutting edge, because they operate in a country that made the cutting edge possible through a high standard of living. Living in the United States has had the same appeal as Apple products, because this is such a great place to live, everyone wants to immigrate here, just like everyone wants to buy Apple products because they can perform like no other products. They are always the first to market with innovative ideas, and the United States has traditionally been the first choice of many citizens of other countries looking to escape their less than desirable living conditions. Therefore, the United States has the cutting edge thing down pat, especially when it comes to quality of life.

The other thing that Apple does so well, which was completely overlooked by the WSJ author was that Apple's business model is totally protectionist. You have to buy all your apps, music, videos, and other content for Apple devices directly through their iTunes store. Apple hardware and software comes directly from Apple. There is no other competition. You buy from the iTunes store and nowhere else. There is no opportunity for free market competition. They set the price they want, they make the profits they want. That is what has made Apple so successful. That, the cutting edge thing, and nothing else.

If anyone dare suggest protectionism for the United States economy, they will be at the very least verbally drawn and quartered by politicians , the media and the wealthy lobbyists that control them. How can you isolate the United States in the new global economy? It would be such a step backward. It would be a step backward for wealthy people who want to bring labor costs down to nothing, and the American standard of living to unimaginable lows.

But this doesn't make any sense, don't you want to protect what you have? The wealthy want to protect what they earned by not paying any taxes. I wish this country could protect what it has through tariffs and limited trade, but Washington will not do this because it has its hands tied by big business and big money.

We must adopt the Apple model of protectionism if this country is to survive, and escape this bottomless pit of recession. Only this will save us.

Congress and Budget Blithering

2011-07-31T05:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted here at all this year. Just like many of the people who would take the time to read this post, I am a working stiff. I have work off-the-books overtime just to keep my job, and I have to enroll in courses and study just to prepare for the time when I may no longer have a job, which may be soon. The economy isn't getting any better, and I need to brace myself for when I have to start collecting unemployment just like many of you are or will be.

I am only posting here now because I am so upset about the banter between President Obama and Speaker of the House John "Bonehead" Boehner over raising the debt ceiling and passing a budget. President Obama has been very weakly trying to get across the message that we need to tax the wealthy, while Boehner very loudly states he just wants budget cuts, cuts and more cuts.

Boehner's Congressional District suffers over 9% unemployment just like the rest of the country, how high does unemployment have to get before someone runs against this Bozo and takes his seat away from the Nazi Republicans out to destroy this country.

Federal budget cuts will just amount to more unemployment. The government needs to step in an create jobs, not take more jobs away. Already the US Post Office plans to cut thousands of jobs, and if Boehner gets his way more Federal jobs will just disappear, but no one is calling him a "job killer" the label that House Republicans put on the health care reform bill. Let's face it private industry is not going to pick up the slack for all of the government jobs we are going to loose with the substantial budget cuts that Republicans pose.

Actually, private industry will wind-up suffering as well, as budget cuts result in the end of government contracting, and laid-off federal employees will stop spending money in the retail and food markets which will beget more lay-offs. The unemployment that the budget cuts will create will cause such a great feedback loop of more unemployment that the economy will have no other recourse but to crash again, this time probably harder than before.

In their book "Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit from the Next Global Meltdown," authors, David and Robert Wiedemar and Cindy Spitzer predict that government jobs will be a safe haven from the next big ecnomic downturn which they predict will befall us within the next couple of years. (They were right about the real estate bubble in a previous book published before the crash, but who couldn't see that coming?) With all of the Federal spending cuts coming their will be no save haven in Federal jobs or any government jobs for that matter.

Let's face it, there is a huge budget deficit and the only way to close the gap is raise revenue and tax the crap out of the rich and add large tariffs to imported goods, something Congress and the President are very reluctant to do because the rich have them in their pockets.

You know the wealthy have Boehner in their pocket because he comes from a fairly rural district with 9% unemployment. A few of his siblings are even unemployed according to Wikipedia. With his background he should really be a Democrat, but you know the wealthy and the corporate interests are bank rolling him, so he will keep fighting to run this country into the ground.

If the Republicans have their way and all we have is cuts, cuts and more cuts to the budget in a time where the Federal government really needs to step in and spend money to create jobs, you are going to see an economic collapse greater than the one we saw in 2008.

As predicted, the rich will continue with their tax breaks

2010-12-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

I can't believe there was a double-team press conference with President Obama and former President Clinton, telling the American people that our economic stability depends on the rich retaining their tax breaks. Completely outrageous. How are we going to pay for the endless war in the Middle East? Not to mention the extension of unemployment benefits? Why is thought that by letting the rich hang on to their money, they will spend it to stimulate the economy and not horde it for a rainy day, and the forecast looks like nothing but blue skies ahead for the rich while it pours down on the middle class?

Government needs to take control of this horrible economic situation, and stop letting the rich, the plutocrats, run this country into the ground. Now more that ever it is easy to communicate with your congress representatives. Take the time to contact them and tell them that you do not want to see the rich continue their tax breaks.

Democrats and Republicans, the old two man con?

2010-11-26T05:21:00.000-08:00

Here is a theory of mine that I would like to share with you. I think the American people are being set-up, with one of the oldest tricks in the book, the two man con. I think at some point after the FDR presidency the wealthy powers-that-be got together to figure out how they could stop the scourge that is the American middle class. Using their money and influence they financed the campaigns of both Republicans and Democrats and pulled the strings so that whoever was elected would be the candidate that would do their bidding.

Their first soldier was Richard Nixon who went to China to lay the groundwork for the mess we have now, the one where all of our manufacturing jobs are moving over there. After Nixon managed to engage himself in criminal activity, the American people wanted anyone but a Republican. What the proponents of plutocracy came up with was Jimmy Carter an inexperienced Georgia Governor from a peanut farming family.

President Carter did an incredibly poor job, especially when it came to handling the economy, it would almost seem that his policies help exacerbate the stagflation that lead to his ultimate defeat by super Republican, Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan, a former B-movie actor turned puppet for the Republican party, did intentional and irreparable damage to social security, and drove the national debt sky high.

The gilded age he created was so great that he got his Vice President, George Bush, senior in for another term before the economy collapsed in in the late eighties and early nineties.

Then the proponents of plutocracy found Bill Clinton, who they assumed was another inexperienced Southern hick Governor this time from Arkansas. But, "Slick Willie" lived up to his nickname, and this Rhodes scholar was no hick by any means. He knew how to play ball like a Republican, so much so, one would wonder if he was a shill from the Republican party with his approval of NAFTA among many other very conservative policies. Also, thanks in part to the Internet economic bubble, he managed to even get elected for a second term.

The Republicans were not going to stand for three terms of Democrats. If they let this go on the United Stated could have the longest Democratic presidential run since FDR, and there was no way that was going to happen. The powers that be then stuck Al Gore with the unpopular Joe Lieberman which lead to a narrow defeat in Florida, by George W. Bush.

Bush appeared as clueless wonder, that relied heavily on his Vice President to make important decisions. Decisions that would ultimately lead to the financial mess we are in now. For his second term W. was virtually unopposed by John Kerry, another very conservative Democrat, that offered very little different from the Bush campaign, and therefore he was was easily defeated.

But W. who cared more about sending soldiers to the Middle East and sending jobs overseas did absolutely nothing to help the United States economy which had turned into one great Ponzi scheme.

Realizing that the no one in as single election term, Republican or Democrat could get the economy out the quagmire it had been placed in the purveyors of plutocracy knew that they had to get yet another inexperienced Democrat in office, to make sure that the Democratic party will look completely inept and they could have four years to find another Republican to at least appear to come to the rescue.

They found Barack Obama, who had about seven years of experience representing Illinois in the United States Senate, and that's it. Just as the powers-that-be have planned, he appears to be either taking no action or similar action that Republican president would have taken in reaction to the current economic crisis; like Nero, he just fiddles while Rome burns.

So there you have the basic pattern, aggressive Republican (Nixon) inept Democrat (Carter) aggressive Republican (Reagan & Bush), inept Democrat Bill Clinton (inept only in that he was a very economically conservative Democrat), aggressive Republican (George W. Bush, but it was really Dick Cheney), inept Democrat Barack Obama. Isn't there anyone else out there who thinks this pattern is not coincidence? Can we do anything to stop this? If we re-elect Obama will we get four more years of him doing next to nothing to further the economy along? Or will he be followed by another heroic looking Republican, who will pretend to be coming to save the day when he or she is actually just furthering along the destruction of the United States as we know it?

Government's answer to controlling spending: Layoffs and more layoffs

2010-11-21T06:39:00.000-08:00

The Tea Party republicans are really making their voices heard, "We don't want to pay any more taxes, period!" Actually, it is more like we don't want to pay any taxes, but that's another story. The general politicians response on the federal, state, and local level is to have hiring freezes, pay freezes and now they are talking about layoffs, major layoffs.

Now, gee, with unemployment rates in many states at an all time high, do more layoffs really make sense? The government is still going to have to pay out unemployment for many former employees for who knows how long.

This is not a smart strategy. I am sure there is waste in many other areas of government that have nothing to with employee salaries and benefits, but they are not favorable targets like poor working class people.

Ages ago government jobs had to offer great benefits and pensions in order to compete with private industry. Now private industry jobs are disappearing faster than ever, and therefore government no longer wants to offer jobs with benefits to its workers. Instead of just laying off people indiscriminately, government should go to their workers' labor unions and ask them to grandfather their benefits, and make sacrifices in order to keep their jobs, and not even think about job cuts to contribute to the welfare rolls.

I recently heard a quote from some congressional committee looking to save money, that many federal employees are making six figure salaries and doing much better than their private sector counterparts. The reason federal workers in the DC area make so much money is because housing is so damn expensive, to quote former NY gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan, "The rent is too damn high!" Therefore they have to pay workers big salaries. Housing subsidies for government workers would be one way to justifiably lower federal workers salaries, but just making stupid comments like federal workers are making more than private sector workers is just ridiculous, and meant to get Tea Party yahoos all roused and riled up.

During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created the Work Projects Administration, which actually created jobs for the many unemployed. This is what we need now, not Tea Party Republicans pushing their government shrinking agenda.

Laying off government workers is not a solution to our economic woes, it will just contribute to already out of control unemployment, and do little else. It is just another way the rich want to make sure that they don't have to pick up the bill through increased income taxes which is what they should be doing.

Apple and Amazon and proprietary software: not a model for free trade.

2010-09-14T08:29:00.000-07:00

Both Apple and Amazon like to maintain monopolies and don't like free trade, at least when it comes to selling applications and software for their products.

When you buy an iPod or an iPhone you have buy all the mp3s and Aps through Apple's iTunes. There is no chance for buying competitively priced products when you own one of these devices.

It's the same when you buy Amazon's Kindle, the electronic book reader. You can only buy books through the Amazon website. So if you buy a Kindle you have to buy all your books from Amazon and there is no chance for getting them through another source. There was controversy as well, when Amazon set the maximum price for a book at $9.99 and refused to let publishers charge more, when actually they should charge less because in the electronic format you can reproduce books infinitely at very little cost. The publishers wanted to charge whatever the market will bear. The controversy ended when iPad came out and let publishers charge whatever they wanted.

Now you can buy a competitors product and have more options, but you are then shut out from many of the cool apps or other exclusive content from these companies.

In other words their business model is protectionist, and these companies are thriving on it. Why can't this model work for trade in the United States?

Now if it is OK for these companies to have devices with exclusive content, why isn't are trade regulated that way? Why isn't it OK to regulate who you trade with and what gets traded with tariffs and regulations?

It is OK for these companies to make money with exclusive content, but when you try to protect jobs by saying things like you can only hire American workers for certain jobs that is not OK. Or companies that offshore workers have to pay higher taxes which would give them incentive not to offshore workers, that won't work either.

The Apple and Amazon business model should be the model for how the United States handles trade and protects jobs for its workers.

FDR bashing, the new right-wing hobby.

2010-02-13T23:36:00.000-08:00

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was probably one of the greatest presidents that the United States has ever had. His four term legacy led to the right seeking term limits of presidency and the office has never wielded quite the same power again.

Now the right-wing dings are trying to re-write history to show that his so-called socialist policies like social security extended the great depression and did not end it.

Everyone knows that FDR's policies set up the United States for the Golden Age of prosperity that was 1950's and 60's, and since then it has been systematicaly destroyed under the guidance of Richard Nixon and more recently and more devastatingly by Ronald Regan (and Clinton and both Bushes didn't help things either).

They are now calling Obama a socialist and he is far from it. He is not touching income tax on wealthy Americans and he probably never will. It looks like the change he promised is not coming, and the US Government is proving once again it is really big business's bitch.

Please right-wingers, don't drag FDR's name (or his initials for that matter) through the mud. And face facts, the country did improve greatly after his presidency. And it is right-wing ideology that is destroying this country, not a move towards socialism.

Health Care Reform that I would like to see..

2010-01-24T21:09:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like health care reform is probably dead in the water now that Ted Kennedy's seat in the Senate went to Republican Scott Brown. Massachusetts seems to be rapidly going from a liberal Democrat state to a conservative Republican state, and given the amount of educated people there and the fact that there are no jobs for educated people in MA, you would think that this wouldn't happen.

Anyway as I have stated before if this health care reform plan doesn't take off, you won't see anyone take a middle ground. As a working class American currently with health care benefits, there are two reforms that I would like to see. One, if they could force doctors and hospitals to take anything qualifying as health insurance and not give them a choice as to whether or not to be a participated provider. I would like to see a mandate from Congress that says, if you are a doctor or hospital and you want to practice medicine you must accept all health insurance, there is no choice to opt out.

Two, medical offices, health insurance, and hospitals have to be run as not-for-profits, this way there will be no temptation from these organizations to give profits priority over peoples lives.

Members of congress are so out of touch with reality that they would never propose such things. I hope Obama's strategy calls for some contingencies, and they just don't give up like the Clintons did back in the 1990s.

The health care reform bill looks like it will just raise health care costs...

2010-01-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

The proposed health care reform bill seems very strange to me, with no clear explanation from the government or the media how this bill will actually work. The bill that formed in Senate which seems to be the leading plan for reform has a tax on high cost health insurance plans to pay for things. Now who pays this tax, the worker or employer? I can't get a clear picture from the articles that I read, maybe I'm a little slow, but I think things are being left vague on purpose.

And what if these plans become unpopular and the health insurance companies stop offering them, then where does the money come from. I read an article that said the bill has no provision for inflation, what if all of our plans reach the $8,900 ceiling for individuals and $24,000 ceiling for families, then we all have to pay the tax?

This might make our health care plans worse in order to avoid that price cap. It would make much more sense to tax rich people. The House version of the bill had a tax on invidiuals making over $500,000 and families making over a million dollars. This makes more sense to me. Heck, I would even say we should be taxing individuals making over $150,000 and famlies making over $300,000. This would raise even more money. But somehow, maybe through heavy lobbying by the wealthy, the US government can't get away from supply-side economics, I guess Ronald Regan's hypnotic powers haven't worn off yet.

This looks like it will be fiasco, we really need to explore the one payer plan for this county, but it doesn't look like that will ever happen. And Ted Kennedy's seat now going to a Republican it looks like it is over for health care reform.

When will we pull troops out of the Middle East? Probably never.

2009-12-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

There is so much bad stuff happening that will eventually destroy this country or at least turn it into a third world nation. The endless war in the Middle East is just one of them.

The other day I had Tivoed what I thought was going to a lecture by Texas Congressman Ron Paul about his book "End the Fed." I just wanted to see what the right-wing yahoo's reasoning was for getting rid of the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately it was not a lecture, but video of Paul hobnobbing with scariest looking right-wingers you've ever seen. They must be the nouveau riche or nouveau crazy or both. Anyway, someone asked him something like when would the United States pull out of the Middle East his answer was something like "When we run out of money."

Well, I think we already ran out money with a jumbo national debt which looks like we will have no way of repaying. But war rages on. I could not believe that Obama is sending 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan, and looks like things are heating up enough in Iran that the United States will have to get involved some how.

Meanwhile, In Yemen it looks like Al Qadea is growing stronger. Will we have to invade them as well? Where does it end? And what about Pakistan?

This all seems to be spiraling out of control and while the media reports that the economy is not getting any worse, it doesn't seem to get any better.

I think that USA can no longer to afford to be policeman to the world and or Christian Crusader. We have to learn how to be oil independent and quickly. But each time I think that someone somewhere will stop this seemingly inexorable path to oblivion it looks like we just continue deeper and deeper into the quagmire.

Where's the green revolution investment bubble?

2009-12-05T12:41:00.000-08:00

A friend pointed out an article in the lampoon newspaper "The Onion" that reports how the US investors are desperately looking for another bubble to invest in like the Internet, real estate and sub-prime mortgage bubbles among others. See link here: http://http//www.theonion.com/content/news/recession_plagued_nation_demands

While this article is a parody, this is really how our economy works since the powers that be in the US are phasing out the manufacturing sector and some of the service sectors in our economy. Our economy just seems to be one big Ponzi scheme or three-card monte game.

The next bubble was supposed to be the green revolution, an economy that revolves around alternate energy sources. This was one of the platforms that Obama based his presidential election campaign on.

This for some reason has not taken place and the green revolution doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight.

Sure there are all electric cars coming to market like the Nissan Leaf, and Honda has a hydrogen version of the Accord but there is no re-fueling infrastructure to support them. I also saw a report on Nova about new thin solar panel cells and at the time the television program was produced the company that was manufacturing them, United Solar Ovonic, had a two year back log. Now by checking out Google News I have found that this company is laying off workers because their supply is surpassing demand. This doesn't make any sense. If the US Government was really committed to the green revolution this is where they should step in and help create a green infrastructure of electric and hydrogen fueling stations and help green companies like United Solar Ovonic find a market for their product.

This is not happening and investors are not coming to the rescue, because they do not see the money making potential in green technologies. But why? Because as I have stated here before, I think investors and the US government know that whatever green technology comes about oil will be sure to undersell it and ruin it. Even if it green ventures never become truly commercially successful, they could at least help the economy by driving the price of oil way down. This in itself would be a big help to the economy, but investors are not in the altruism business they are in the money making business therefore it will never happen. But at least government should be stepping in to help out, but they are not.

This also is why you cannot expect a free market to operate altruistically, and you need government to step in to be the altruist, but they cannot because big business keeps their hands tied through lobbying. Investors are not going to get the green revolution going because they are afraid they won't make any money and government hasn't stepped in to make sure that the right thing is done.

It is all up to the US Government to get the green revolution bubble going. This should be the priority over having another bailout for failing US banks and business, and it is not only the economy at stake, it is the environment as well.

Tax caps spell a slow death for government services

2009-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:00

I heard NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg at a press conference once say something like "Everyone wants great service [from their city government] but no one wants to pay for it. "

This must be true for the the proponents of tax caps, who want to put the slow kill on local government spending. A much better course of action would be for municipalities to post their incoming revenue and budgets on the Internet therefore citizens can see where money is being spent, and make sure that waste and abuse by officials are kept under control. But of course politicians would rather push tax caps because they probably have something to hide.

Tax caps are big in Massachusetts. They limit the amount of property and school taxes a municipality can impose. As a result of tax caps, Massachusetts schools and public services like libraries, police, firefighters, public works and recreation programs are slowly being shrunk into nothing.

Some tax caps are set below the Consumer Price Index and therefore the municipality cannot even attempt to keep up with inflation and services must be cut.

What surprises me is that this trend appears to the worst in the most affluent and educated communities. Massachusetts is the state that spawned the Kennedys for goodness sake, I always thought it was full of liberal intellectuals not right-wing yahoos. Newton, MA, a very wealthy suburb of Boston, recently cut city services through tax caps. This included closing four branch libraries. The branch libraries eventually re-opened staffed solely by volunteers. Soon they will need volunteer police and sanitation workers. I'm assuming they already have volunteer firefighters, but usually wealthy people are more concerned with making sure there mansions are safe from the threat of fire than they are with any other type of municipal services, so I bet the firefighters are still paid.

This trend will continue throughout the country as jobs continue to move off shore, and the rich being the only ones with money refuse to pick up the tab through taxation. If someone in your community starts the rally for tax caps it would be a good idea to counter attack buy starting a movement to make your local government's budget available online so everyone can see where the money goes, and then help local politicians make a decision as to what services need to be cut or if there is really a need to raise taxes.

A single payer plan may be better than government subsidized insurance

2009-08-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

I think that a government sponsored health care plan will only drive up medical and insurance costs. We really need the single payer system that UK and Canada have. It has its drawbacks but like with our Medicare system, once doctors realize that Uncle Sam is paying the bill they are going to try to squeeze out as much money as they can get. This will drive up premiums across the board. Remember doctors are smarter than you and me, that’s why they went to medical school and you didn’t. If there are angles in working the system, they are going to find them

If you are getting Uncle Sam involved for subsidized care, the industry needs to be heavily regulated with price controls. Back in 1993 when the Clintons had their proposed health care reform on the table, there was talk of price caps for health care. I remember some representative from the physicians lobby stating on television that no other industry in the United States has pricing caps and guidelines, and then why should the health care industry have them. I desperately wanted someone to say because no other industry has such a direct impact on human life. You need to have price controls to allow people to live and not be made penniless through jumbo health care bills, as many Americans are. Of course the media didn’t bother to come back with that or any other opposing statement.

The scary thing about the single payer plan is that health care can be rationed out, and that the older you get, the longer you have to wait for a medical procedure. This is where having private hospitals on top of a single payer system comes in. Even with the single payer system there will still be a health insurance industry and plenty of opportunities for doctors to make money. You will have to have insurance for when you can’t get service quickly enough from the single payer system. You will have to seek care from a private hospital when you feel it is a life or death situation and the public system is not responding quickly enough. Therefore for the people who can afford it, you will have to pay for extra insurance just in case you can’t get the care you need from a single payer system.

Although I am really for health care reform, I believe it should be done with caution and a lot of regulation. Even though the single payer plan has its drawbacks, it is a better plan than a Federal sponsored insurance program put out there to compete with private insurance. The federal insurance plan could work as well, but not without strong price controls and caps.

Economic downturn a conspiracy to increase military ranks?

2009-04-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

We all know how unpopular the draft is. We also know that the US has committed itself to get a handle on the Middle East situation, by first invading Afghanistan to topple the Taliban and then attacking Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein. It looked like Iran would be our next target, but now it seems that we are gearing up to invade Pakistan (a country with definite nuclear capability).

As these events transpire the American military is looking more and more like "The Little Dutch Boy" with the Middle East as one great collapsing dyke.

They need help, and the only way to do that is to get more men in the military.

I think this whole economic collapse may have been staged to avoid the unpopular move of having a draft to increase ranks. By giving young and men fewer and fewer employment options, the powers that be, hope to heard masses into the military. If I am right, the economy will not be getting better anytime soon.

The way tax refunds should be given out..

2009-02-24T19:06:00.000-08:00

Taiwan like the rest of the world is also having its own economic crisis. Their government's stimulus package gives tax rebates in the form of use-them-or-lose-them vouchers which must be spent on goods or services. They cannot horde their rebate money away, which is what most rich people do when they are given any type of tax break.

This is a much more sensible way to stimulate the economy. The money will actually get out there and do the job it's supposed to do, not sit in a bank where it will never see the light of day again.

I was thinking that the US government could even issue bonds where the quarterly interest is paid out in the form of vouchers that must be spent. This would allow money to be continuously pumped into the economy.

Stupid Cal-ee-forn-ians!

2009-02-24T18:30:00.000-08:00

You had a recall election to oust poor Governor Gray Davis to put in the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, an action movie actor who can't even pronounce your state's name properly.

California's economic crisis is now worse than ever, and he's raising your taxes and keeping your tax rebates.

There seems to be three kinds of people in Cal-ee-forn-i-a, the middle class and poor people who are getting the hose, and the hundreds(perhaps thousands) of rich folks in your state who are doing the hosing and laughing at you.

Los Angeles County has more millionaires per capita than any other county in the United States as reported by TNS financial services.

Please the next time you guys elect a Governor make sure it is someone who will tax the crap out of all those millionaires and use the money help your disaster area of a state.

But your state is a model for the rest of the country. People don't like taxes therefore they elect Republicans, but when they need the money the Republicans raise taxes anyway. They make sure they raise taxes on everyone except their rich buddies who finance their campaigns.

The Republicans should adopt the slogan "The masses are asses" but they like to pretend that they are your friend. They are not your friend they are money's friend. They are going to make sure the working class breaks their backs to pay the bills while they enjoy their champagne and caviar and then point their fingers and laugh at you.

California can set an example by increasing taxes on the wealthy and using them to repair their greatly damaged economy.

Tax payers should have the right to see exactly how their tax dollars are being spent.

2009-02-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

I think anti-government people think government officials squander their tax dollars on personal matters among other things. They are afraid of government corruption. There is no doubt that government corruption does exist, but perhaps not on the level that the right wing yahoos think or say there is.

One way to combat this is to give the tax payers an open window on where their tax dollars are being spent by using the Internet. All federal, state, and local government agencies should be required publish their budgets on the World Wide Web in an easy to follow format, and perhaps with a more detailed spread sheets that accountant watchdogs can scrutinize. Tax payers should have the right to trace where there tax dollars go, and the Internet can make this all possible.

I'm surprised that no one is demanding this, at least not loudly enough for me to have heard about it. [Actually there was an act passed by Congress to sort of allows for budget posting on the web, but I don't think it has been very effective] I am sure there are many politicians who don't want this. Perhaps they fear that certain projects would never get funded if the public knew how much they cost, or perhaps the right wing yahoos are right and they are doing illicit things with our money.

Bernie Madoff made off with all your money!

2009-01-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised I haven't read that headline or heard that said more often, perhaps it is not too politically correct.

I cannot believe the Feds can't put Bernard Madoff behind bars while he awaits arraignment and a trial. He's only under house arrest, you know he's going to escape prosecution. He'll be skiing the Swiss Alps before you know it. He'll probably have drinks in the ski lodge with former Enron CEO Ken Lay (you know he's not really dead, don't you).

You can see there are two types of justice in the world. One for the haves, and one for the have-nots.

There are a bunch of other less extreme Ponzi scam artists that have been arrested as the result of the Madoff scam coming to light. There was one guy from Indiana, Marcus Schrenker who tried to fake is own death by crashing an airplane near a populated area. He of course parachuted out at the last minute. Thank God there were no actual casualties from the plane crash. I'm surprised this did not get more media coverage.

This is all really scary, and I'll bet there will be a lot more scam artists revealed before the end of 2009.

No place for middle class people to save their money.

2009-01-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

With the stock market on a downward spiral, and interest rates very low there really is no safe place for working class people to save their money and get a decent return. Even the bond market is not that safe. When Wall Street had a meltdown back in September I had several bond funds that also took a big plunge. There was such a panic that people were selling off their bond funds, even when everyone knows that bond funds are usually safe havens in troubled times. It was very scary. Luckily the bond market recovered and the funds climbed up to normal levels, but it’s impossible to find a safe investment with a return over .05 percent.

A lot of the books that help you plan your retirement ask that you put away a substantial sum of money and are expecting you to have a rate of return of 5% or higher that’s just not possible without taking risks these days.

Well there is always real estate to invest in. My parents home is worth about 20 times what they originally paid for it forty years ago, but the even real estate market is not stable, and with all of the jobs disappearing, I doubt there will be many people looking for homes anytime soon.

Federal Reserve must go for broke and gradually raise interest rates to a more reasonable level. The interest rate was lowered to keep the stock market going, but that’s just one aspect of the economy. We need to adopt a new interest rate philosophy that includes the middle class American that needs to save for his or her retirement.

Population control: The ultimate way to go green!

2009-01-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

From Al Gore to your local school children the pressure to conserve resources, recycle, and preserve life on this planet is coming at us from many directions. I think Mother Earth is shouting at us herself with the depleted ozone layer and the melting ice caps; scary stuff.

What no one ever calls for anymore is population control. This seemed to be a concern in the late sixties and early seventies, but it has vanished completely from the media and pop culture. Does anyone remember the movie "Soylent Green"? This seems to be a taboo topic, perhaps because it goes against God's command in the bible, to be fruitful and multiply. The Catholoic Church and Right-to-Life conservative Christians are not really helping things either these days.

And while some countries like Japan and Italy are reporting population shirnkage, coutries like the good old USA are picking up their slack.

I realize that it is moraly wrong to take away peoples' reproductive rights (but don' t tell that to the mainland Chinese with their great "one child" policy). But you can give them incentives not to have children. For example let's take away the income tax deduction we give to people with children. Let's stop giving welfare moms more money with each child they have.

I would go as far as giving school tax refund and other government sanctioned incentives to people who are voluntarily steralized and have no children. It's a radical idea that will surely be faced with great oposition, but not really for the reasons that you might think.

You see the upper class, the wealthy people of the world, understand the basic laws of supply and demand, if the supply of laborers goes down then the cost of employing them will go up. This will then cause inflation to go up which means that rich people will have to pay more for their yatchs, mansions, and luxury cars among other things.

However it is a much greater cost if the earth is destroyed and man, more than any other force on this Earth, has proven to be its great destroyer. We must listen to Al Gore and other green proponents, but we must also consider the fact that the best way to preseve this world's resources is to use less of them, and the best way to do this is to have fewer people.

Death: The great equalizer

2009-01-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Death and the Miser by Hieronymus Bosch

Benjamin Franklin said "Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."

Well, we all know conservative rich people all hate taxes and they will do their darnedest not pay them. But try as they might, and no matter how much money they have, the truth is that they are going to die, just like you and me. They might live longer or more fulfilling lives than you or me, but there is no guarantee of that.

The thing that rich people don't want you to realize is that in reality because of death, in the end, when it comes right down to it, they are no better than you, and no one is really better than anyone else. Perhaps there will be rewards in an afterlife if you lived a good life and you did God's will, but I don't think many rich people believe that. Some religions and cultures don't even believe in an afterlife.

And I don't think many wealthy conservative Christians really believe in an afterlife. If they did they would be much more in to sharing their wealth for the common good. I believe they are just going through the motions. They probably see Christianity as a tool to control other people, so they can make sure their lives stay under control.

In John Dean's book "Conservatives without Conscience" he tells of sociopaths called "Double High Authoritarians" who hold everyone to a high standards of behavior, while they themselves often misbehave and consider themselves to be a above the law. Tele-Evangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker were two examples of this.

Well, now you now why rich people are so selfish, and why government must force them to share through taxes.

Obama may not increase taxes on the rich.

2009-01-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

President-Elect Obama's administration is already planning an economic stimulus package that will give the middle class additional tax cuts and leave the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans alone through 2010.

Why do people still think that trickle-down economics theory works? If you let wealthy people hang on to their money that's exactly what they will do. They hoard it, that's what they love to do. They won't spend it, and it definitely won't trickle down to the poor and middle class.

I think the government should start taxing wealthy individuals' net worth, that's all the assets that you have after you factor in your liabilities. And how much money do you think you need to live comfortably? I think the government should start adding on taxes on individuals with a net worth of over 5 million dollars. Income tax just taxes what we make each year
While we're at it, let's make it illegal for Americans to keep money offshore. This is how rich people avoid paying taxes on interest.

Also there is controversy over raising corporate taxes in such bad economic times. I think corporations have to be given breaks only when they show that they are creating jobs for Americans and not cutting them. There should also be tax penalties for companies that have CEOs and other high-ranking employees that make an inappropriately large salary as compared to other employees of their company. Let's force corporate America to spread the wealth around within their own ranks.

Oil's price is whatever the market will sustain!

2009-01-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere, I'm not sure it was a reliable source, so I will not try to find it, that the supply of oil is really so abundant that gasoline prices could be a lot cheaper, like ten-cents-a-gallon cheap. I'm sure you can find out more on your local conspiracy website. With the big dip in oil prices recently, I'm starting to believe this.

I also believe that whatever "green" sources of alternate energy make it to the mass market (if they every do) oil will manage to drop its prices to undersell it and undermine any fledgling new energy business.

And, I think high prices that we have been paying for the past few years are in no way connected to higher demand from China and other countries with growing industries, but they are connected to our involvement to Afghanistan and Iraq. This current dip in prices could be a reward for electing President Obama who will hopefully establish better diplomatic relationships with the Middle East.
Just a theory.

Free-trade's mission: Destroy the middle class!

2009-01-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

Free trade is yet another tool that is being used to wipe-out the middle class. It is very simple with out any tariffs or restrictions on trade, multinational corporations will simply move production plants, factories and services from one country to another, wherever they can get efficient labor at the cheapest price. Right now China is the manufacturing hot spot, but when the Chinese start to develop a middle class, and start walking around like they are entitled to middle class perks like eating three meals a day with ample snacking in between, the multinationals will pull out of China and find a cheaper place to set up shop, let's say India or Argentina for argument's sake.

Free-trade proponents have made the term "protectionism" into a dirty word. By protectionism, I mean protecting your domestic businesses through tarrifs and balanced trade polices.
In his book "Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism "Cambridge ecomonist, Ha-Joon Chang makes a strong argument for protectionism by illustrating how historicaly the United States and the United Kingdom both became wealthy nations through protectionist policies. And he goes on to show how his home country of South Korea has used protectionist policies within the last forty years to greatly improve its economic condition, making it a powerhouse producer in the world market.

Free-trade will make a world of poor people with a few temporary middle-class citizens wherever the main manufacturing is going on.

The United States has had the rug pulled from under it, and we will be expected to buy Chinese products until we can no longer afford to do so. When we are reduced to a poor nation like China or India once were, then at some point manufacturing and services will move back here, and then the whole cycle starts over again.

Why are the upper class so dead against social medicine? Answer: They want you to die.

2009-01-01T14:32:00.000-08:00

Mr. Middle Class: Do you expect us to pay exorbitant fees for health care?
Upper Class: No Mr. Middle Class, I expect you to die!

Well perhaps this isn't the best paraphrasing of the famous lines from the James Bond movie, Goldfinger, but why would the upper class be against social medicine? Because they want to make sure that the masses don't live very long. After we serve our purpose, they want us to die. They do not want us to enjoy a happy retirement and use the Social Security System that is already on very shaky ground thanks to the past polices of Ronald Reagan.

Social medicine would only ensure that middle class and poor people would live longer, and we can't have that. They'll keep expecting to get Social Security, and then eventually the rich would have to pick up the bill, and they of course never want to do that.

What kills me is that the only Social medicine proposal in recent history was the Clintons' 1993 plan which was quickly shot down, and no has come back to propose some type of middle ground.

I think we could at least have a program where regular check-ups and preventive medicine are paid for through a social program, and all other procedures have to be paid for through insurance either provided for by an employer or paid for out of pocket by the individual.
Another step to take would be to socialize medical schools to make sure that there are enough doctors, nurses and health care workers to go around. The increased supply of medical professionals will insure that medical costs remain under control. You see it all comes back to supply and demand.

Keeping hospitals and health insurers non-profit would also be a big help. The trend has been the opposite making hospitals and health insurers for profit, because the rich realize that most people will pay for their lives, and pay for them dearly.

Another move in the right direction would be make a law that says if it's called health insurance and you're a licensed medical professional you must accept it. If you don't you loose your license. No excuses! No more of this finding doctors that accept your insurance plan. This would be a big help to millions of Americans that already have insurance. I'm sure there is a physicians lobby that works against ideas like these. Of course health insurance plans should be ordered to pay bills quickly and within a certain percentage of the amount billed.

I'm not sure why politicians are so out of touch with reality that they cannot even take little steps in the right direction like the ones I mentioned above. There must be a very powerful physicians lobby as well as the pharmaceutical lobby. The only thing we can do is write our elected representatives, and hope they have enough of a heart to help out the working families of this country.

Give us you poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to work for below minimum wage...

2009-01-01T14:27:00.000-08:00

I realize that immigration has helped the United States become a great nation. And aside from the Native Americans we are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants. My ancestors immigrated here at the turn of the century. Three sets of my great-grandparents and one grandparent came to the United States for opportunities that where not available in their own country.

But today, as more and more manufacturing jobs are sent overseas, and many service jobs are being off-shored opportunities for potential new Americans are drying up. Today the main goal of immigration ( and perhaps it was always its main goal ) is to keep labor costs down.
It all boils down to simple supply and demand. As long as there is an excess labor supply, employers can keep labor costs down because there will always be many people competing for the same position. As soon as competition drops and the demand for labor increases, employers will keep having to pay higher and higher wages. This will take more money out of the pocket of the few wealthy employers and spread it around to the many downtrodden workers.

This is why they cannot close the Mexican border. If the border is closed they will have to find Americans to do the jobs nobody wants to and ::gasp:: pay them at least minimum wage, maybe even higher where this is a real shortage of workers for less desirable jobs.

This is also why in the North American Free Trade Agreement Bill (NAFTA) there is a provision for special work VISAs, TN VISAs, for many professional jobs for people from Canada and Mexico. Professions included in this provision include just about all medical professions, scientists, university professors, architects, accountants and librarians. By making it easy for professionals from other countries to immigrate here this provision has also been helping to keep supply high and labor costs down. [Authors note: Actually for the medical profession it is beneficial to the middle class if we can import as many professionals as possible, since we seem to have not chance at getting social medicine anytime soon, and health insurance costs increase much more quickly than other living expenses. Many more doctors would mean more competition and this should drive medical costs down. Doctors won't let this happen because they count themselves among the elite upper class and it is probably why medical costs increase so quickly because they want to keep up with the wealthy Joneses.]

I have seen many articles in the past describing Japan's great concern over their shrinking and aging population. I would think that this would be regarded as a blessing to a nation that has traditionally been overpopulated. So overpopulated that in World War II they started to try to forcably aquire land from mainland China, as well as other locations in the Pacific, remember Pearl Harbor?

What the articles fail to report is that one of the main reasons they are afraid of the shrinking population is that the demand for workers will far out weigh the supply which will drive labor costs sky high, and might even require them to open their borders to foreigners.
The bottom line is immigration's main purpose appears to be to keep labor costs down, and until Americans understand this is not always a good thing, our borders will always remain opened.